Ain't No Law in California

by Christopher Davis

  Franklin Curtis…well, Franklin Curtis was a whole ‘nother story. The boy had outfitted himself for a journey of a thousand rods or better? Besides the overstuffed, new leather saddlebags, the young officer carried a canvas rucksack with several changes of clothing and enough bedding for three men.

  “What you got packed away in there, Son?” Bardwell asked as the sun rose higher in the painted, purple morning sky. With the coming light, it was the first chance for a good look at what the boy carried behind.

  “A change of clothes for three days, a coat in the case that it rains,” he said. “I got a field mess kit and food for the week, whiskey.” He continued, “A man’s got to have whiskey and cigars.”

  The senior lawman smiled but said nothing in response. Both lawmen rode side-by-side in the flat, gray morning light.

  “What do you have, Sir?” the boy asked.

  Bardwell continued to ride, deep in thought about the journey ahead. He paid no mind to the boy who talked a little too much. Nerves Bardwell reckoned.

  Curtis cleared his throat. “What have you packed, Sir?” he asked again.

  “Hardtack, coffee, and bullets,” the lawman said, matter-of-fact. It was true what he said. Other than the tobacco that he carried, there was nothing more but a long canvas slicker rolled in an old blanket behind the saddle.

  There was no chance of rain this time of year, but if the desert night got too cold, a man could wrap up in the slicker before crawling under his blanket. It had worked for the lawman since before time it seemed and he wasn’t about to go changing things no matter how many of these new recruits they sent with him out in the field. In time, the boy would learn the ways of a Sacramento tin star lawman.

  “How far are we riding out, Sir?” the boy asked.

  The lawman thought hard for a spell. “I reckon that we can use the settlement at Tulare as a base and ride out each morning looking for these rascals?” he said, looking out into the distance. The writings of the elders had told of a vast agricultural valley that stretched off to the south a hundred miles or better. Now there was nothing but a poor grassland and swamps for as far as the eye could see. Bardwell often tried to imagine what the place had once looked like as he rode the tired trails and dusty miles.

  “Tulare is good,” Curtis said, thinking over what the lawman had said.

  “Have you ever been that far south, Son?” Bardwell asked.

  “No, Sir,” Curtis said. “I ain’t ever been any further than Sweetwater down that way.”

  “You’ll like it there,” Bardwell said.

  “Is it nice down that far south?” Curtis asked. “I hear that it’s hot down there on the border?”

  “You’ve heard right,” Bardwell said.

  “You don’t talk much do you, Sir?” Curtis asked.

  Bardwell laughed. “There ain’t no use, Son,” he said. “In talking that is. I usually don’t have anyone out here to talk with in my line of work.”

  “They told me that about you,” Curtis said. “That you like to work alone. Why is that,” the boy went on to ask. “You can’t enjoy riding all of these miles by yourself, can you?”

  “You get used to it,” Bardwell said. “It kind of grows on you over time?”

  The lawmen covered close to a rod in silence. Prairie songbirds chatted about as they rode. The day had turned off warm. Bardwell bit off a plug of tobacco. Curtis struck a sulfur match and put the flame to a cigar clenched in his teeth. The boy gave up a hoarse cough with the first drag.

  “So you ever have a partner, Sir?” the boy asked, finally breaking the silence.

  Bardwell pursed his lips in thought. He nodded. “I did at one time. Deadeye Bob James,” the lawman said, getting about as close to affectionate as he could. “He was an old hand, from a time long forgotten.”

  “Was he a good lawman?” Curtis asked.

  “Might have been the best?” Bardwell answered.

  “That good, huh?” the boy asked, thinking the question over some. “In town, they tell us young fellows that you might be the best, Sir. Did you learn from Bob James?”

  “Yes, Sir,” the lawman said. “I was just a young buck like you when I started riding with the old man.”

  “Was he that old?” Curtis asked.

  Bardwell laughed. “It sure seemed that way back then?” he said. “I don’t reckon that old Deadeye Bob was really any older than I am now, but it sure did seem that he was as old as the hills then.”

  “They ever hang one of those nicknames on you?” Curtis asked. A small herd of mutant antelope scurried off through the tall grass in the distance scaring up a great cloud of blackbirds.

  “Nope,” Bardwell said.

  “How long did you ride with him, Sir,” Curtis asked. “Before…well?”

  “Before he went and got himself shot by them Mexicans?” Bardwell asked, finishing the boy’s sentence for him. “It had to have been ten years I figure,” he said. “Ten long years that stole away my youth, but I wouldn’t trade them for all of the silver in the world, Son. It was that good riding with the old man.”

  The day wore itself out as the two lawmen talked and the dusty miles continued to pass.

  Bardwell shot a rabbit that dared make a run for it. The varmint was roasted over a small fire next to a can of coffee as the boy worked to get his official mess kit together. The coffee pot refused to perk and the bagged meal was rancid when the boy tore it open.

  The lawman got up to stretch his legs. A single shot was fired which brought the boy on the run with a pistol in hand. “What the hell are you shooting at, Sir?” Curtis asked, scanning the environment for threats.

  Bardwell bent to retrieve another of the varmints by the ears. He tossed it to the boy. “Your supper,” he said, walking back to the fire with an armload of broken sticks.

  Curtis stood looking the animal over for a time, but he soon figured it out. A roasted rabbit would beat the hell out of the rancid stew in the foil packaging that he’d had brought along from the city.

  After supper finished, Bardwell had a chew of his tobacco as the boy smoked at one of his cigars coughing and spitting in the fire. The lawman shook out his duster and the tattered wool blanket. He stretched out next to the dying fire and closed his eyes.

  Curtis fumbled for another hour with a bag that had been issued for this first of his assignments. He liked the old lawman well enough, but the old man was stuffy, to say the least. Bardwell liked to keep to himself. Curtis was advised of this before volunteering to ride with the elder.

  The boy finally gave up, choosing to lie on top of the bag instead. The night was cold and long. Curtis was up most of the night stoking the little fire for warmth. As soon as he got back into town, he would trade the modern sleeping bag for a simple blanket of wool like his more experienced partner.

  Long before the daystar thought of clawing its way into the nuclear morning sky, Bardwell was up stoking the fire and boiling the first can of coffee. The lawman had a look at the fancy store-bought percolator the boy had been issued and set it back where it had been left the night previous.

  Curtis lay half on top of his sleeping arrangement. Bardwell shook out his blanket over the boy. It wouldn’t do any good to have the boy come up sick on this trip. If they could make Tulare and he did, the lawman could find a doctor to leave him with. He figured that might not be a bad idea come to think of it.

  What were those in charge thinking, he wondered spitting tobacco juice in the fire, sending a candy-assed young fellow like this out to do a man’s job?

  Curtis began to stir an hour later and began to fumble with the government issued kit he had packed.

  ***

  That second day out proved to be just about as bad as the first. The boy had a million more questions and Bardwell explained himself hoarse in trying to answer them all, but it did help to pass the time. The lawmen pushed hard in trying to make the southern border settlement before the daystar dropped out of the sky. It wouldn’t be, not this tr
ip or any other. There were just too many miles to cover in getting there.

  Ash and smoke in the air cast the evening in an off flat light as the sun set for the night, Coyotes yipped and howled on the dark prairie nearby.

  The horses had been hobbled and grazed close to where the lawmen lay around the little fire for the night.

  “So how are we going to handle this, Sir,” Curtis asked after supper. “I mean these horse thieves when we corner them tomorrow?”

  Bardwell smiled. “Well, Son,” he said. “There ain’t no guarantee that we’ll corner them tomorrow or the next day, but we will eventually. They’ll have to poke their heads out and we’ll be there when they do.”

  “So what’s the plan, Sir,” the boy asked. “Is there a plan?”

  Bardwell looked right across the fire into the boy’s eyes to see that he understood what he was saying. “Put that new badge that you’re wearing in your pocket,” he said. “I don’t reckon any of these fellas will know who we are when we ride in? We should be able to get the drop on ‘em?”

  “But Sir,” Curtis said. “We’re the law from Sacramento. We can’t simply take our badges off and put them away.”

  “Listen, Son,” Bardwell answered, in a firm voice. “We’ll be south of the border after the morrow. Most of these folk are good people and will welcome our kind, but there are others that won’t give a damn about these tin stars that we wear. Not one God damned thing, you got that?”

  Curtis shook his head understanding.

  “If we can cut them out of the herd,” Bardwell said. “All the better, but I don’t reckon that we’re going to get so lucky.”

  “Will we kill them if we have to?” Curtis asked.

  “You betcha,” Bardwell said, with an evil grin. “It’s our job to bring these rascals back to town one way or the other.”

  “So if we shoot them,” Curtis asked, blowing the smoke from his cigar back over his shoulder. “How will we get them back home to Sacramento?”

  Bardwell smiled. “They stole a string of horses didn’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we tie ‘em over the backs of the horses they took and lead them back home dead,” Bardwell said. “Dead or alive is the way I understand this paperwork you handed me?”

  The young lawman agreed and stretched out across the overstuffed green bag that he had carried tied behind his saddle. It had proven a long ride and the lawmen had covered a lot of miles. Both laid back to rest their eyes.

  ***

  By ten o’clock the following morning, Bardwell figured that they were no longer within the state of Sacramento. They were operating south of the border now and would be on their own as far as any reinforcement would go.

  The border settlement of Tulare was just over their shoulder to the west and north. If shit got too thick, they could always make a run for that place if they had to.

  Bardwell had first met the boy in the dry little river town of Sweetwater—where the water was anything but—Franklin Curtis had helped make a stand against five dark riders the lawman was trailing. He knew the boy had it in him if the last year of schooling up in Sacramento hadn’t taken it out.

  “I reckon that we’ll continue south for another hour or so,” Bardwell said. “And turn west if we don’t see a herd of cattle out this way?”

  All day they rode and saw nothing of Walker or his cattle or Jacobson and Moss. For three nights, the lawmen took a room at the boarding house in town and still no sign of the outlaws they were trailing.

  A break came as they sat drinking whiskey in the only saloon the southern settlement had to offer. The barkeep was in a talkative mood that evening.

  “Walker will send his cattle up into the hills this time of the year,” he said. “Stay to the highway south and you shouldn’t have any trouble in finding them out there somewhere?”

  The next morning found the lawmen in the saddle well before sunup and riding the macadam south like the barkeep had instructed.

  With an hour left before the daystar descended into the western sky, the lawmen made their move. The cattle were right where they were told to look grazing along both sides of the ancient mountain pass.

  “There ain’t no one out here looking after them, Sir,” the boy said as they closed in from a nearby hill.

  Bardwell was quiet taking in all there was to see at once. The young lawman was correct. There was no sign of even a lost soul out here in the wilds of the borderland looking after the herd.

  “They’re camped here somewhere,” he said dismounting. Bardwell wanted to get a closer look and the horses might give them away.

  A small fire burned itself out in a nearby clearing. Coffee boiled and bedrolls were thrown about waiting for the sun to go down.

  “Where are they, Sir?” Curtis asked, looking over the hastily made cowboy camp.

  “It’s a setup,” Bardwell said, looking in the shadows for anything moving. The boy’s hand went down to find the Winchester trigger.

  Both turned in the direction they had come. The horses were just over the hill. They’d keep an eye on things and pay the cowboys a visit come morning.

  Things never seem to work out as planned in a cruel world. The sound of a hammer locking into place was heard soon to be followed by another and another.

  “Marshal,” a dark voice asked, from the darker shadows behind. “What business is it that you have up here this evening?”

  Bardwell spit in the dust where he stood. “We’re here to arrest Lonnie Jacobson and Silas Moss for stealing horses up in Sacramento three weeks ago,” the lawman said.

  The cowboys remained in the shadows for now laughing, and from the sound of it, there were plenty of them.

  Curtis recognized the first of the gentlemen stepping out. Others followed forming a circle out here in no man’s land.

  “Lonnie Jacobson,” Bardwell said, in a firm voice. “Silas Moss, my partner here and I are here to place you under arrest for horse thieving.”

  Jacobson laughed. “My ass you are,” he said.

  “You and what army,” Moss asked, laughing along also.

  “Oh,” Jacobson laughed. “The Marshal did bring his nigger with him.”

  Now Jacobson and Moss had not —nor none of the cowboys for that matter—seen the boy in action on the day the lawman and the boy met, that day back in Sweetwater when the pair became friends making a stand behind the chosen tools of survival they carried.

  Bardwell braced himself for the onslaught he knew the boy would unleash here in the forgotten mountain pass.

  Before it could register in the minds of those watching, the Winchester came down off the boy’s shoulder cycling brass rounds with deadly effect. Two of the cowboys went to the dirt without a word.

  Bardwell swung his Colts into action and two more went down lessening the odds.

  “You boys still want to play?” the lawman asked, behind a grin shrouded in evil. Curtis knew that his boss was dialed in and feeling the game.

  “Four casualties don’t win the war, Marshal,” Jacobson said, still laughing, but not as sure of himself as he had been earlier.

  Bardwell spit. Curtis stood his ground with the stub of a cigar burning inches from his face. Darkness was gathering quickly now that the sun was down behind the range. Moss went for his gun.

  The lawman drew one of the little Navy thirty-sixes, placing a round high in the cowboy’s leg. Some of the others followed suit grabbing for their guns. Another ragged volley was exchanged.

  Three more of the cowboys were down along with Moss who clung to his leg.

  “We can do this all night if you boys like,” Bardwell said, sounding more convincing now that six of the cowboys were down, five of them dead.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” a strange voice said, stepping out from the shadows to join in on the fun. “What seems to be the problem here?”

  “Dick,” Bardwell said, keeping an eye on the older man drawing closer. “I didn’t expect to find you up here?” />
  “I’m a cattleman, Dan,” Walker said. “That’s what I do, work cattle with my boys.”

  The lawman nodded agreement but said nothing.

  “Now, Dan,” Walker said. “You can’t just go coming up here and shooting my boys like the two of you are doing.”

  Bardwell remained silent, choosing instead to keep an eye on those involved.

  “You just can’t do that, Marshal,” Walker said continuing. “It ain’t right and you know it. It’s against the law.”

  The lawman smiled as he addressed the old cowboy. “Well, Sir,” Bardwell replied. “If it’s the law you’re worried about, we can start by hanging these two, Jacobson and Moss for stealing horses in Sacramento. We’ll arrest anyone left standing here after the hanging and we’ll be taking you back into town with us for obstruction of justice. How does that sound to you, Dick?”

  Dick Walker, the owner of the 6BAR6 cattle company, stood laughing at the lawman and what he’d said. There were still a half dozen cowboys standing against the two tin star lawmen and no one nearby to witness the killing of said gentlemen.

  “Well then,” Walker said. “I’ll just leave you boys to settle this on your own. Don’t mind me.”

  Walker made the mistake of turning his back to walk away. His cowboys left standing went after their shooting irons. The lawmen did also.

  It couldn’t have taken a full five seconds for Walker to turn back after the shooting had stopped. The old rancher expected to see his boys holstering their weapons and the troublesome lawmen lying dead. Instead, he turned back to find his men—including Jacobson and Moss—dead or mortally wounded.

  “Dick Walker,” Bardwell said, in a tired voice. “We are placing you under arrest for obstruction of justice. You’ll be riding back into town with the two of us.”

  Walker didn’t say a word as the boy gathered up a string of horses tethered nearby. There was no way of knowing which of the unbranded animals belonged in Sacramento, so they would all go north and the authorities there could sort it out.