Ain't No Law in California

by Christopher Davis

  “How are we going to do this?” Curtis asked, stepping down himself. “You do have a plan, right?”

  Bardwell smiled leading his mount forward. Curtis followed in the gathering darkness under the trees. Around a bend in the trail, the bandit’s camp opened up before them in a small valley between the ridges of the mountain. Animal hides and tattered canvas made up the shanty camp with many small fires scattered about. Men lay on the ground drinking tequila and playing cards.

  “Hola, mi amigos,” A rough voice said in Spanish, from further back in the camp.

  Bardwell stopped. “Buena noches,” he said standing next to his mount.

  “Come, my friends,” the voice said drawing closer. “Join us for a drink.”

  Curtis reckoned the man doing the talking was Bautista. Bardwell stepped closer. With the unexpected company, none of the gentlemen in the camp were seated any longer. Most had a weapon in their hand.

  “What can I say is the reason for your visit, friends?” Bautista asked, in a thick accent that sounded kind, a voice that perhaps you would use to greet a dear friend.

  “You know the reason for our visit, Juan Bautista,” Bardwell said, speaking directly to the portly gentleman standing opposite the trail.

  “Are you hungry, mi amigo?” Bautista asked. “How about your Negro? Is he hungry too?”

  Most of the dark gentlemen laughed along with Bautista.

  “We’ll keep,” Bardwell said, smiling.

  “Come closer, mi amigos,” Bautista said. “So I can see you. My eyes are not as good as they once were.”

  Curtis really looked at the man for the first time. He was older than he should have been for the trouble that he had caused.

  Bardwell dropped the rein stepping closer to the gentleman on the trail. One of Bautista’s men cocked his hammer back. Curtis watched. Bardwell didn’t flinch.

  “It is okay, Manuel,” Bautista said, holding up a hand for the gentlemen to put the gun away. “Señor Bardwell and I go back a lot of years and this is no way to treat our guests. Where are your manners?”

  “So what brings you out this late in the day, Señor?” Bautista asked. He played the part of a simple old man welcoming old friends to his shanty camp in the woods. “This place can be very dangerous for a man like you after the sun goes down. You know this, don’t you?”

  “And for you also,” Bardwell said, not giving any ground.

  Bautista and his men laughed. Most of the camp had gathered nearby now. Curtis reckoned that there were twenty men or more standing in opposition. Juan Bautista may be going on to the mission at Paso Robles come morning, but his bloated body would be tied over a horse. There was no way the two lawmen could simply arrest the portly Mexican and lead him away. Bardwell had a way with these people out here on the fringes of civilization, but Curtis understood well that these men would not allow such to happen.

  “Juan Bautista,” Bardwell announced, having had enough of the niceties. “We are here to place you under arrest in the name of the state of Sacramento for the crimes that you have committed against humanity.”

  Bautista bellowed laughter. “You and what army, Señor?” he asked. In the gathering darkness, Curtis noticed the Mexican’s belly shaking in the firelight.

  “Just us,” Bardwell said. “You can do this nice or we can do this ugly, your choice?”

  “I am very sorry, mi amigos,” Bautista said, in a more serious tone now. “But I am afraid that it is here in these mountains that you will die.”

  One of his neighbors was already going for one of the pistolas the Mexicans were known to use. Bardwell was reaching for one of his. Curtis tossed a stick of dynamite into the fire to shake things up and set things off right.

  The blast scattered the fire and shook the camp as dust and leaves filtered down from the trees.

  “Let’s get this motherfucker started,” Curtis said, with the stub of his cigar clenched in his teeth.

  Lead was traded from both sides in the fading light and shadows cast from the fires. Those gathered further back in the shanty camp came on the run pulling their weapons as they closed in. Curtis gave them another stick of dynamite causing several to go down momentarily, and others to stand off with their ears ringing something fierce.

  “Kill them, Amigos,” Bautista yelled. There was little organization among the Mexicans here under the trees.

  Horses picketed and hobbled nearby reared and stampeded through the camp providing more confusion to the loosely organized opposition. Bardwell continued to fire as targets presented themselves. Curtis cycled the lever of his Winchester with a deadly accuracy that even Bardwell could not duplicate.

  “Señor,” Bautista said, looking around. “You have already killed so many of my men. For this, you will pay.”

  The lawmen smiled. There were now six standing against two. Both liked these odds a hell of a lot better than twenty against two. Bardwell holstered his Colt’s and went for the saddle guns. The boy dropped the Winchester and drew his long barreled Peacemakers not before tossing out that last red stick in his trousers.

  Another of the Mexicans went to the dirt gasping for breath. It was now five to two. Curtis placed one of his soft lead forty-four caliber bullets squarely between the eyes of another. Bardwell alternated his shots between right and left hand.

  Watching as his men were mowed down in the onslaught, Bautista went for his weapon. Bardwell noticed, placing a round in the fat man’s gut. The Mexican swung his barrel up to fire. Both of the lawmen got to the trigger first. Juan Batista was now dead. He and the bodies of his men lay scattered about the shanty camp under the trees where they had lived.

  Bardwell holstered his weapons and began to empty those of the outlaws lying about. The bullets he tossed into the forest. The pistolas into the fire where they would no longer cause harm to anyone.

  Curtis did the same stoking the flames by adding sticks and branches gathered nearby. Bardwell cut the unsaddled Mexican mounts loose. They were free to go about their way. One of the haltered animals was retained to haul the dead body of Juan Bautista back to Sacramento where the authorities there could do with the bandit what they wished.

  For now, it was over. The lawmen would lead their mounts up the trail a piece, to keep from sleeping near the dead. Come the morrow, they would mount up and start back for the capital city with the man they had come after. DEAD OR ALIVE, the paperwork read. The lawmen would follow their instruction to the letter.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “So you fellas got your man?” Mitchell asked.

  Bardwell nodded looking back on all of those years. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Franklin and I led our horses up the trail past the little shanty camp a quarter mile or so and built us up a little fire to boil our coffee.”

  “Just couldn’t camp that close to the dead, huh?” Mitchell asked.

  “They say it’s bad to sleep near the dead, Mister,” Curtis said, getting in on the conversation. “We didn’t have to worry none about the big cats that make their home there in those mountains, not with all of the shooting that we had done. Rode back the next morning to retrieve the body of Juan Bautista and started for home.”

  “You two bother to bury them fellas up there in the hills?” Mitchell asked.

  “Not our job,” Bardwell answered matter-of-fact. “Sacramento will put a cleanup group out two or three days after we’ve been dispatched, that usually gives the two of us enough time to get our man.”

  “Cleanup?” Mitchell asked, rubbing three days growth on his chin.

  “Yeah,” Curtis said. “We do what it is that we do and start for home. By then these gentlemen come along behind and make things right, you know.”

  “Now, Bose,” Bardwell said. “You know that there are a lot of bad men in this world today and we just don’t have the time to stick around and bury them all.”

  Mitchell shook his head in agreement.

  “We don’t get paid for digging holes,” Curtis said with a grin
. “That’s a job better left for the undertaker and his posse.”

  “Covering as much territory as you do,” Mitchell asked. “How in the hell do they find you?”

  “Oh,” Bardwell said, pouring two fingers of the whiskey now that the coffee was finished. “They usually have some idea of where we’re going and most times we’ll cross paths on the return trip.”

  “It’s the buzzards circling overhead that marks the location of where we’ve been working recently,” Curtis said, laughing.

  “I can imagine,” Mitchell said, pouring a spot of whiskey.

  “So you got your man anyway,” Mitchell said. “You made it home for a little rest, I take it?”

  “No,” Bardwell said, looking distant in the yellow light from the smoky oil lamps that burned late into the night. “No, we didn’t, Bose. Dispatch rider met us that first morning out. He had papers directing us to a place south along the borderland.”

  “What about that fellow that you had set out after?” Mitchell asked. “That Bautista fellow, right…?”

  “Dispatch rider led him home to the authorities in Sacramento,” Curtis said. “We turned back to the south and the next mission.”

  “What was it that time?” Mitchell asked. “Some fellow rob a bank or shoot up some little town somewhere in the state?”

  “No,” Bardwell said. “It was long grass.”

  “Long grass,” Mitchell asked, almost laughing now. “What in the hell did they have you doing in going after long grass?”

  “There used to be a fellow by the name of Black McDaniel,” Bardwell said. “Had a spread down near Broken Hill where he grew the stuff.”

  Mitchell asked, “I take it that this fella was black?” The barkeep looked to Curtis while asking the question.

  “No,” Curtis said. “Got the name because anyone or thing tied to the man was black, dark, evil.”

  “Evil wasn’t the word for McDaniel,” Bardwell said, agreeing with his partner.

  “Where is this Broken Hill,” Mitchell asked. “I ain’t ever heard of that place?”

  “Ain’t anything there anymore,” Curtis said in a more serious voice. “After the two of us, rode through anyway?”

  “Nothing left,” Mitchell asked. “What in the hell did the two of you do down there?”

  “There used to be a little settlement up against the Desert Mountains,” Bardwell said. “It was just down the old macadam from Desert Spring.”

  “I’ve heard of Desert Spring,” Mitchell said following along.

  “On the maps of the elders,” Bardwell continued. “The place was called Palmdale. So anyway, after the second coming, folks took to farming some, had good water from the hills.”

  “Let me guess,” Mitchell said. “They took to growing long grass?”

  “Yes and no,” Curtis said.

  “For two or three generations,” Bardwell said. “These folk existed peacefully growing the crops that they could and raising a couple of good lines of cattle.”

  “Mutant…?”

  “No,” Bardwell said. “They had good bloodlines down there, raised good cattle in the hills above their settlement, plenty of grass.”

  “Sounds like a nice place,” Mitchell said.

  “It was,” Curtis said, adding his two cents.

  “So what happened to change the way these folks went about?” Mitchell asked, leaning back on his bar.

  “Black McDaniel,” the lawmen said in unison.

  “How did he come into all this?” Mitchell asked.

  “McDaniel made his living robbing the stage line going south out of Sacramento,” Bardwell said. “One day, he rode as far south as Broken Hill and the rest is history.”

  Curtis looked at Mitchell across the polished bar. “It really is, history,” he said laughing now.

  Bardwell shot Curtis a look and continued on with his story. “McDaniel took up residence there and got chummy with some of the folks. It wasn’t long before he convinced a few of them to try growing long grass to supplement their income. Of course, McDaniel was the sole buyer of their product and this he transported north into the states many channels of distribution.”

  “Now most of these people were law-abiding,” Curtis added. “But they couldn’t just sit by and watch their neighbors raking in the silver while their children went hungry the better part of the year.”

  “So they all took to growing long grass?”

  “It didn’t take them long to come around,” Bardwell said. “Most of them quit growing food altogether and their children paid the price. They were hungry before, but they flat-out starved after. Folks went to smoking the stuff themselves after a few more calendars. Most of the younger ones died off the winter before the boy and I rode in. Those that were left behind took on that mindless, soulless look of the zombies. There wasn’t nothing in their eyes, Bose.”

  “Hell, Dan,” Mitchell said. “Growing and smoking a little long grass in itself isn’t really illegal. You know that, don’t you?”

  Bardwell nodded his agreement. “You’re right, Bose,” he said. “The law has a tendancy to turn the other way, but possession of the product is still against the law. Now when I walk into a place like you’ve got here and folks are smoking, I won’t say a thing if everyone keeps their head.”

  “If they don’t,” Curtis said. “There’s hell to pay.”

  “Well, Bose,” Bardwell said. “These folks had given up on farming food crops altogether after ten or so years. McDaniel had originally carried it across the border in his saddlebags. One man riding north, the law never gave him a second look. Hell,” Bardwell said. “We were just glad that he wasn’t robbing banks any longer, didn’t really care if he sold a little product along the way.”

  “I take it that his business grew over time, huh?” Mitchell asked.

  “Yes, Sir,” Bardwell said nodding agreement, “The second year McDaniel was spotted leading a string of pack horse’s north about harvest time. The next and he had a string of out of work cowboys riding north for him. Every lawman along the border kept their eyes out for him and his men. It didn’t do any good, as they’d ride through the night and go cross-country keeping well away from any of the little towns down that way.”

  “Business was that good?” Mitchell asked.

  “That ain’t the half of it, Bose,” Bardwell said. “After a few more years, McDaniel took to using every buckboard and wagon that he could get his hands on.”

  “Damn?”

  “The year before they sent for me and Franklin here,” Bardwell added. “He had gotten ahold of one of the flying ships to do his bidding. There wasn’t anything we lawmen could do to stop them by then. They flew that ship just out of gun range. We just watched them fly over our heads in the night.”

  “All of that growing and selling long grass?” Mitchell said, shaking his head in disbelief as the story unfolded in his Silver Dollar saloon.

  “He was dealing in more than long grass by then, Sir,” Curtis said. “There was Opium and other drugs from Mexico and young women who had lost their minds from years of exposure to that sort of lifestyle.”

  “Human trafficking…?”

  “Yeah,” Bardwell said. “It wasn’t just young women that he bought and sold like mutant cattle, but boys also. He started the side business when the children in Broken Hill started to turn up ruined. The folks were willing to sell their children for a handful of copper, which McDaniel, in turn, sold for silver. It was said that first year he had the flying ship all of the starving children were sold off.”

  “Doesn’t sound like those folk were fit to have children in the first place?” Mitchell said.

  “No,” Bardwell said. “They were just like any others until McDaniel came to town.” He paused before continuing, reflecting on the stories that he had heard. “There hadn’t been a child born alive in three years previous to the year me and Franklin here rode into town.”

  “Ah, the good Lord’s punishment,” Mitchell retorted.
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br />   “May have been?” Bardwell said. “McDaniel was controlling all of the Heroin, Opium, and long grass coming into the state by then, not to mention the sex trade in Sacramento and the New Mexico territories.”

  “Damn,” Mitchell said. “He was that big, huh?”

  “He could go anywhere that he wanted with that flying ship of his,” Curtis said. “The law couldn’t touch him.”

  “There’s a big market in the states for dope and young willing children,” Bardwell added.

  “But wouldn’t all of the children have been sold off?” Mitchell asked, thinking over what he had asked. “Wouldn’t the market kind of dry up once everyone, had a kid or two?”

  “Bose,” Bardwell replied. “These kids didn’t have much life expectancy once they were shot up with Heroin. Three to six months is what we were told and the sick fuckers that inhabit Arroyo de las Vegas were hungry for sex slaves.”

  “But where’d he get the kids to fill his orders?” Mitchell asked. It was a good question and needed to be asked.

  “McDaniel bought what he could on the open market in the fortified city of Los Angeles, the old mission there. After that, he just steered that flying ship of his south across the waters to Mexico. Those folk down there stood in line to sell every last kid for a little copper.”

  “So how did the two of you come into all of this,” Mitchell asked. “I mean, it sounds like the law was already onto this Black McDaniel? Why did they seek the two of you out if the state’s law couldn’t corral them?”

  Curtis smiled. “It’s what we do, Sir.”

  “It’s starting to sound like it, gentlemen,” Mitchell said. “I’m starting to think I’ll hang out the closed sign when you two ride in?” The barkeep laughed. The lawmen smiled a little.

  “The boy’s right, Bose,” Bardwell said. “When the job requires a tactical extraction, the word goes out and they call on us.”

  “Tactical extraction,” Curtis said, laughing. “Yeah, if your idea of tactical extraction is shoot everything that moves and then blow shit up? Yeah. Tactical extraction, that’s what we do, tactical extraction.”