Ain't No Law in California

by Christopher Davis

  Young Franklin Curtis could now write the first of the many names that he would write in the fabled book of souls.

  Chapter Twenty

  “That sounds like some ride you fellows had,” Mitchell said smiling.

  Bardwell nodded.

  “Like I said,” Curtis mentioned offhandedly. “It was a setup, planned that way to draw us out there for extermination.”

  “What happened to the old rancher?” Mitchell asked.

  Curtis chuckled. “We hauled him back into town cuffed and bitching.” The young lawman paused, thinking back, “Rode all night leading the old rancher and a string of horses. It must have been about high median before we slammed those iron bars of justice on that fellow?”

  Mitchell chuckled. “I reckon that I’ll just stick to working my saloon if you fellows don’t mind?”

  “Oh,” Bardwell said. “The story doesn’t end there, friend. The both of us played hell in getting home afterward.”

  “Some of them fellas come riding after you?” Mitchell asked.

  “If it were only that easy, Sir,” Curtis said, sipping from his glass.

  “No, Bose,” Bardwell said. “We’d put old Dick Walker away for a spell and had no worries about the rancher or his hired hands. We’d killed most of ‘em and didn’t reckon any others would give chase. Those horses just weren’t worth that much to them anymore.”

  “I don’t reckon they were?” Mitchell asked. “So what happened then, in you two getting back home?”

  The lawman leaned against the bar. Curtis was sounding a little tired from telling the last bit of the story.

  “We were up north, Bose,” Bardwell said. “Crossing the Merced River on our way home with close to two dozen horses in tow. There wasn’t much water in it and we’d planned on taking rest in a little town there. They had a place big enough to accommodate the animals and the boy and I could get a hot bath and something good to eat.”

  Mitchell filled all three empty glasses. Bardwell nodded his thanks.

  “Did you gentlemen have trouble crossing at the river?” the barkeep asked.

  “No,” Bardwell said. “We made it into town unscathed. Got the horses cared for and fed. We even made it to the boarding house to take a room.”

  “All day,” Curtis added. “We’d been trailed by the dust from a dozen or so riders. They kept their distance, so we didn’t get a good look at ‘em.”

  “They were looking at all of those horses, weren’t they?” Mitchell asked.

  “Yes, Sir,” Bardwell said. “Mexicans, just raising hell up north here and looking for something to fuck or something to steal?” he said continuing. “They finally come riding into town an hour or so before sundown, yelling and shooting into a sky threatening rain at any moment.”

  “Did you fellas arrest them?” Mitchell asked.

  “Other than an unlawful discharge of a firearm,” the lawman said. “There wasn’t any reason. If we would have tried, there would have been needless bloodshed and the charges wouldn’t have stuck anyway.”

  Curtis nodded his agreement.

  “So what’d you do?”

  “We just let them be,” Curtis said. “For the moment anyway, we knew they’d be getting out of hand before too long.”

  “Give any man enough rope,” Mitchell said. “And he’ll find a way to hang himself?”

  “That’s always been my motto, Sir,” Curtis said laughing.

  “The boy and I let them come on into town for the night,” Bardwell said. “There wasn’t any reason to stop them and they didn’t know we were the law.”

  “So this big son of a bitch,” Curtis said. “He comes walking in like he owns the place. He looks the place over with a half dozen of his men backing him. Some of the others are still out in the street raising hell.”

  A noticeable shiver went through Mitchell. Curtis saw it.

  “You know the kind that we’re describing, Mister?” the young lawman asked.

  “I do,” Mitchell replied.

  “This big bastard,” Bardwell said. “He walks in behind the bar a takes a bottle of their best whiskey and a handful of glasses doesn’t say a thing. The barkeep gives that man a dirty look and the Mexican shoots one back.”

  “Yeah,” Curtis added. “They start kicking folks out, taking their chairs and grabbing the cards, taking the money.”

  “And no one stands up to them?” Mitchell asked.

  “No,” Curtis said. “Most folks were afraid to.”

  “I reckon that I can’t blame them though,” Mitchell said. “So now, at least you had a reason to arrest them?”

  “Bose,” Bardwell said. “You don’t arrest fellows like them. You either shoot them or wait for them to decide to leave on their own.”

  Curtis struck a sulfur match to light his cigar. He nodded his agreement, veiled in the blue smoke drifting upward on unseen currents of air inside of the saloon.

  “Like I said, Bose,” the lawman continued. “They didn’t know we were the law and we weren’t about to tell them. Franklin here and I continued to sit at the bar sipping our whiskey and keeping an eye on these gentlemen.”

  “I take it things didn’t go so well for these fellas?” Mitchell asked.

  “No,” Bardwell said, remembering that night all those years ago.

  ***

  The Mexicans became more belligerent by the hour as they drank their fill—on the house of course—as not a one of them had offered to pay for the whiskey they lifted from behind the bar.

  Although it was frowned upon here in the state of Sacramento, there were folks that smoked the long grass and the smoke hung thick close to the ceiling. Smoked-filmed oil lamps hung on the wall and gave a dirty, yellow light about the place.

  Bardwell blew the steam from a tin cup of coffee. The boy sipped water. Things would go downhill tonight in the saloon—there was no doubt—the lawmen wanted to keep their senses about them. It wouldn’t do any good to go shooting wild and killing innocent folk in here tonight.

  Only the bravest of the sporting gals operated among the crowd. There was trouble in the next room where the card tables were placed about the dirty floor. Bardwell spit in the overflowing can at his feet. Curtis touched a match to the stub of his cigar.

  Some of the town folk ran for the door. The lawmen stood turning to see what the matter was. An old cowboy was the only thing standing between good and bad, a peaceful evening, and the Mexicans running the town.

  “Let him walk out,” Bardwell yelled to the Mexicans with their pistolas drawn and pointed at the lone man standing against them in the side room.

  “What the fuck is it to you, Mister?” one of the dark riders with a firm grasp of English asked.

  “I’m the law,” Bardwell said, not giving any ground

  Curtis had known this about his boss for the longest time. When Dan Bardwell got his gander up, he wouldn’t back down from the Devil himself.

  “Policia?” Some of the bandits asked among themselves.

  “Si, si, mi Amigos,” Bardwell said, nodding for the lone cowboy to skedaddle before the guns went to blazing.

  The cowboy left the immediate vicinity but didn’t leave the saloon altogether. He remained by the batwing door to see if his hand was needed.

  Steel flashed in the smoky, yellow light. The Mexicans went for their guns. The lawmen did also. Lead was exchanged on the killing floor of the dirty watering hole. Three of the uninvited guests dropped to the dirty boards like a needed rain as hammers were thumbed back for another go.

  One of the town folk—a gentleman playing cards—shot a Mexican in the ass with his Derringer pistol. One of the sporting gals did the same. She chose to place her muzzle right against the gentleman’s temple before she pulled the trigger spraying his brain on his pards nearby.

  The Mexicans fired a ragged volley that sounded like corn popping in a fire. Their missed shots splintered the bar and tore at the wall behind the lawmen. Glass shattered in the melee and women screamed. />
  Bardwell alternated his shots between his right and left hand. Curtis—the young lawman—did the same. That lone cowboy standing near the door and the barkeep joined in, the cowboy with an Army pistol and the barkeep with a scattergun.

  Acrid black powder smoke mixed with that from the lamps and the long grass. The Mexicans were down. The lawmen paused just long enough to reload before they hit the door. Some of those uninvited guests were mounted and raising hell in the street outside. One of the dark riders carried a torch that he tossed through a bubbled glass window.

  Curtis drew a bead on the mounted man. A second shot from the boy’s gun snatched the life from the rider before he hit the ground. That cowboy stood alongside working those single-action Army revolvers. The cowboy gave hell just about as good as he took it from the raised boards.

  Some of the riders coalesced around another of the dark gentlemen. They turned for the edge of town.

  “Let them go,” the cowboy said, watching as they began to depart under a starry night sky.

  “They’ll just regroup and try it again,” Curtis said.

  Bardwell was already untying one of the Mexican mounts at the rail. The lawman got a leg over running in the opposite direction of the departing bandits before reining the horse in and turning him in the street.

  A light rain had become steady as the boy stood waiting. That lone cowboy and the others gathered inside weren’t prepared for what they were going to see as Bardwell neared.

  The lawman stood hard in the right stirrup reaching down a hand. Without flinching, the boy took it and pulled himself aboard. As Curtis settled in behind, he removed the pair of long barreled Colt Peacemaker pistols. Bardwell reached out one of his and the race for the edge of town was on.

  Shots were fired over shoulders in the dark as the departing riders made for the outskirts of the settlement. The lawmen returned them round for round. One of the trailing Mexican riders fell to the road in a muddy lump as the chase continued.

  The lawman removed another of his chosen tools and eased back the trigger. Two men, one horse, and four pistols cut a clean path as they rode on through town. From behind, Curtis leveled a barrel and thumbed back a hammer. That hammer dropped and lead flew taking its message straight to the dark rider ahead. Like his partner previous—that rider fell from his saddle without a sound.

  Bardwell raised a blued barrel doing the same alternating shots with the boy as they rode on. Crouching low behind an unused buckboard, one of the uninvited riders looked down the barrel of a long gun. Curtis dropped the hammer to a disheartening empty click. Noticing the absence of a discharge from the boy’s revolver, the lawmen dropped the hammer with his bullet finding its mark right between the eyes of the Mexican.

  Curtis fumbled with cartridges to reload. There were only three of those in opposition standing and they were dismounting in the road ahead for a final confrontation.

  Bardwell reined in the Mexican mount causing the animal to go down in the muddy lane. Curtis slid off the back as the lawman got his leg out from under the horse before it went down.

  The Mexicans fired their long guns wild into the night. The lawmen armed with only their pistols had to make each shot count if they were to walk back into town when all this was over.

  A flash from the shooter’s muzzle gave away his position. Both Bardwell and Curtis fired at the flash. Another of the uninvited guests was down evening the odds finally. Two intruders remained standing, two lawman in opposition.

  The lawman started forward in the darkness seeking those final two of the uninvited guests that had come into town to raise a little hell. Curtis flanked him on his right chambering and firing rounds as the shadows presented themselves.

  By the time the tin star lawmen had covered the ground to where the bandits lay in the mud, the contest was over. A baker’s dozen had paid for their ways here on the valley floor, they’d paid dearly. They paid with their lives.

  ***

  “Got me a few more names to add to the list that evening,” Curtis said matter of fact. The boy showed no emotion—good or bad—as to the doing. Franklin Curtis was a Sacramento lawman of the five-pointed Tin Star. He’d sworn an oath to protect the citizens of the state. If he had to kill a man…so be it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Sounds like you fellas have all the fun?” Mitchell said, laughing. The bartender wasn’t sure if the comment was meant to be humorous or not. He offered to refill Bardwell’s glass.

  The lawman waved it away. “How about some black coffee, Bose,” he said. “If you’ve got it?”

  “I’ll take a cup also, Sir,” Curtis said seated next to the lawman. Oil lamps burned themselves dim in the empty saloon. The sporting gals and piano player had left halfway through the last story.

  Mitchell returned with three cups steaming. The coffee had been boiled hours earlier, but none of the three seemed to mind.

  “I take it that you two made it home from there unscathed?” the barkeep half said, half asked.

  “We did, Bose,” Bardwell said, nodding. “Stayed on for another day or so, then we rode north to deliver the stolen horses in Sacramento.”

  “Do you fellas get time off,” Mitchell asked. “Or did you go right back to it?”

  “I had a few days off,” Bardwell said. “I just sat on my porch watching the daystar rise in the morning and set come evening.”

  “Paperwork for me,” Curtis said. “I had three days of writing reports and seeing about getting those horses to their rightful owner and all.”

  Silence settled over the saloon as the three men thought over what had been said. The lawmen were hired gunmen who worked for the state. When the state decided that someone was to be taken out, it would be these two that they would call for.

  “You remember us riding after Bautista?” Curtis asked, blowing steam from the cup, “Now that one was something.”

  Bardwell nodded. How could he forget Bautista and the showdown when they first met in the low hills across the dry valley to the west?

  Juan Bautista was a vicious man who ran roughshod over a loose horde of unruly Mexicans that rode the west side of the valley from the borderlands all the way up to Sacramento causing mischief along the way.

  During a long summer dry spell—as the bodies bloated under a hot summer sun—the authorities put out the call, the lawmen were called for.

  It was two long days in getting to the fork in the hills where the tar rises to the surface. Ancient machinery once used to pump oil from the ground below sat idle and rusting now protected by a host of mutant rattlers. One wrong step, one bite, and a man could expect to be dead before an hour had passed.

  The lawmen picked their way along an old cow path deeper into the hills looking for those ahead.

  “How far you think they’ll travel up here before they stop for the night, Sir?” Curtis asked, keeping his eyes alert, searching in all directions at once. The boy was nervous and he wore his emotions spread out on his shirtsleeves.

  Bardwell leaned to the side to spit. It was nothing out of the ordinary for the veteran lawman to be riding as he was into uncertainty.

  “I reckon they already have,” he said, watching the trail ahead.

  “They’ve got to know that we’ll be coming on in behind, Sir,” Curtis said. “I bet they’re still in the saddle. That’s what I think.”

  Bardwell smiled. There was a lot still ahead of the boy to learn, but he would in time. That is if he didn’t get himself killed before then.

  “No, Son,” Bardwell said. “They’re down for the night. You can bet on it.” He paused thinking. “You are right, Bautista and his boys will know that we’re coming, but they won’t give three fucks for it. They don’t care.”

  “But we’re Sacramento lawmen,” Curtis said. “Why wouldn’t they care?”

  “There are two of us,” Bardwell said. “There’s a dozen or better of them. Whose side would you rather be on?”

  “I see what you mean,” Curtis sa
id, drawing on one of his cigars. “But they don’t know there are only the two of us. For all they know, there could be a hundred mounted men on their trail?”

  “Bautista knows there are only two of us following,” Bardwell continued. “His eyes have been on us since we left the cantina.”

  “His eyes…?” Curtis asked.

  “Sentries watching from the trees,” Bardwell said. “He’s had a man on every hill that we’ve passed for the last three hours.”

  “You’ve got an active imagination,” the younger lawman said. “I haven’t seen anyone in the trees?”

  “Exactly,” Bardwell said. “Whether you choose to believe me or not, they’re up there.”

  “How come we don’t see their horses,” Curtis asked. “I haven’t heard anyone riding off. Have you?”

  “They’ll keep them tied down behind the hill and hide in the trees where we can’t see them,” Bardwell said. “Trust me, Son, they’re up there.”

  A late day sun was all but down now behind the range. The lawmen wouldn’t travel much further before they would have to call a halt here in the canyon of the big cat.

  Steel flashed in the fading light. Curtis pointed to a distant hilltop. “You’re right, Sir,” he said. “I see one.”

  Bardwell glanced up. He smiled. There was a lot ahead of the boy to learn, but someday he would make a fine lawman.

  Smoke from burning manzanita and oak drifted down through the pass. Around the next bend in the trail or the next, the lawmen would find their prey.

  “They’re close,” Curtis said following. “I smell a campfire.”

  Bardwell nodded removing the saddle holster and placing it over his shoulder. Curtis reached down into one of his saddlebags and slipped a pair of long red sticks down into his waistband.

  Curtis would have preferred to camp for the night and get a fresh start come morning.

  It didn’t matter to Bardwell, they had a job to do and it would make no difference whether the confrontation was tonight or tomorrow morning. Bautista would answer for his crimes.

  Bardwell reined in, stepping to the ground. Curtis was busy in looking over his gear before the fight started and didn’t notice his superior dismounting.