Six Gun Justice (7 page)

“Lower your pistols hombres!” Catano bellowed with mirth. “Esta hombre es mi compadre! He is always welcome here.” His language was a mixture of English and Spanish flavored with a few epithets of swearing.

When he saw the blood on Jake’s shirt and face, his smile faded into a look of concern. “You’ve been shot! Miguel, help the señor from his horse! How did this thing happen?”

“It’s nothing, my good friend. Just a little set to with some of Murdock’s men. I left a few of them along the bank of the river, so I guess they got the worst of it,” he said.

Jake swung from the saddle, and followed his old friend into the house. “The reason I stopped by, other than to say hello to an old friend was to let you know that the lines have been drawn between Murdock, and me. I know there’s no love lost between you two, so watch your back trail amigo.”

“Did this son of a puta do this to you my friend? I will take my vaqueros to his ranch and drive him from the mesa!” he said, spitting on the ground at his feet.

“No, just bide your time Jose. He is so greedy; he will trip himself up sooner or later. He lost seven men today, and two more last night, and I sent two more home across their saddles the first day I was back. He should be feeling those losses pretty heavy, and his men should be losing confidence as well.”

“How many times can you face such ambushes señor? You are not a cat that has nine lives,” Jose said softly.

“I’ll be a lot more careful from here on out. Instead of becoming the hunted, I intend to become the hunter.”

“You will stay for dinner señor Jake? We have much time to catch up.”

“Can’t do it old friend. Sarah is expecting me home for dinner. She would skin me alive, if I was late,” he chuckled.

“I understand amigo. You bring the pretty wife over to visit. I have only had news from señor Stamper, that she left the rancho about a year past. Since then, he only tells me she is working in Payson, and he knows no more. I am glad to hear she is back with you on the rancho.”

Catano had his maid bandage his cheek, and side, before they shook hands again, bidding each other goodbye. As Jake swung into the saddle, he noticed the vaquero Catano had called Miguel, standing near the gate of the courtyard, and another near the side gate. They both looked as thought they could take care of any trouble that might come their way, and he knew the men Catano hired would be the most loyal and of the highest quality to be found in Mexico, when it came to using either a rifle or a pistol, or as a rider.

He touched the brim of his hat, wheeled toward the front gate, and rode out. It was late afternoon, so he would have to ride straight for home to get there in time for supper. His eyes roamed around him, looking for dangers at every turn in the trail, picking out anything that might be unusual, or out of place. He would not be caught with his pants down again. From now on, he would take the fight to the men of the circle M, and finally to Murdock himself. The time of warnings was over. Now it was time for him to act.

He could see the dim light coming from the window as he rode to the corral near the house, and smell the odor of fresh baked biscuits, and fried steak. He was just in time. A half hour later and Sarah would be all over him about coming late for dinner. He quickly put his mare away, hung the saddle on the fence under the lean-to, and hung the bridle across the saddle horn, and stomped the dirt from his boots on the front steps, before entering the front door.

The sight of his wife and the smell of her good cooking brought warmth to his belly. He hung his gun belt over the peg beside the door, and crossed the room, placing his arms around Sarah. She was warm and smelled lightly of lemon. It was an odor Jake had gotten used to many years before, and he was happy to be back.

“You’d better get washed up for dinner,” Sarah said, turning in his arms. It was then that she saw the bandage on his cheek. “What happened to your face?”

“I had a run in with some of Murdock’s boys, down near the East Verde. They tried to ambush me. It didn’t take.”

“I sometimes wonder if all this trouble is worth the land. When will it ever stop? She asked, real concern tingeing her voice, a small quiver running through her now taught body.

“Soon honey,” he said. “Soon.”

She did not respond, but pushed herself from his arms, and gathering up plates and silver to set on the table. Jake went out back, poured water from the pitcher sitting on the washstand, and began washing up. The light was fading fast, and the soft breeze that blew across the mesa, carried the scent of the pines, giving the night a perfume of freshness. He toweled his face, on the cloth that hung from a nail beneath the covered wash area, then turned to watch the last of the light fade from the sky, and the stars appear one by one. There was a hunter’s moon in the sky, so tonight would be a night for the hunter to be abroad, he grinned mirthlessly. 

That night, he saddled his horse, and rode west. Grimly he thought, it was time to take things into his hands, and end this war quickly. He had hoped Murdock would come to his senses, but it seemed he was bound to try and run Jake and his family from the mesa. When he reached the fence line, he cut the three strands of barbed wire, and rode purposefully onward. An hour later, he was sitting on a knoll, just above the circle M, looking through the telescope from his saddlebags.

Sarah had been apprised of his plans, and though she did not want him to go, she knew he would have to carry the battle to their antagonist, or he would possibly die in the next ambush. She took down the extra rifle, he had brought from the war, placing the loads for it on the kitchen table beside it, and stood the shotgun near the front door.

Jake had left a Colt Paterson on the table, still in its holster, one which he had taken from one of the dead men at the river. Along with the rifle and shotgun, she would have plenty of firepower, should Murdock’s men come calling again. He had smiled at her, giving her a strong hug, doffed his hat, and went out the door. She was a tough frontier woman, so he had no doubts that she would hold her own in the face of adversity. She was a fighter, but only for her own causes, the causes that meant home, and family, and holding them together.

He spotted men moving around in the bunkhouse, their silhouettes moving across the two windows with their checkered curtains. Shifting his gaze to the house, he saw no movement through the lighted widow in the front. Murdock was either sitting in a chair, or he might be in the bunkhouse talking to his men, but he definitely wasn’t moving about in the house.

Laying the telescope beside him, he picked up the spencer, opened the breach, placed one of the large cartridges in the bore and closed the breach, thumbing back the dogear hammer. Settling into the big rifle, he sighted on the window, took a deep breath, let out a bit and held the sight on the window until a shadow crossed in front of it. At that very instant, he squeezed the trigger, the recoil slamming back against his shoulder, and the bullet smashing the glass of the widow below him, as the figure seemed to wilt behind the glass.

He ejected the spent casing from the rifle quickly, and injected another into the open breach as he blew the smoke from the barrel, and drew another bead on the now open window. The top of a man’s head lifted briefly above the sill, silhouetted by the lamp someplace behind him. He fired again, and watched as the bullet took the top of the man’s head apart. He repeated the action, with the big bore rifle once more, keeping his eye on the window, but no one showed again.

Suddenly the door of the bunkhouse flew open and two men made a dash for the darkness outside, running for the tree line. He quickly drew a bead on one of the black shapes, and fired. The shadow stumbled, a scream reaching Jake’s ears from the valley floor, as he pitched forward to blend with the ground far below. He quickly reloaded, taking aim at the open door, waiting for another man to exit the door, but they were hesitant after one of their comrades had been shot in his attempted escape. Then, just as he was about to give up, another man dashed toward freedom, and he cut him down before he could make two steps. This time there was no scream.

The message he had sent would give the men working for Murdock a thought of how safe it was to work for him. Some of the real hard cases would stick it out, wanting to reap the harvest of the extra money they would demand from the him, but most of the weaker ones, the regular ranch hands would think twice about it. These would pack up their bedrolls, draw their time, and move on. They would figure—and rightly so—that their wasn’t much future in working on a ranch that could be their last day alive.

Nodding to himself with satisfaction, he ejected the last spent shell, placed the rifle in its saddle holster, carefully placed the telescope in the saddlebag, and swung into the saddle. He would pay them another visit tomorrow, when they were about their daily chores. He would teach them the folly of underestimating their enemy, and give them a taste of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of an ambush. He rode back the way he had come, turning off just before he reached the break in his fence, heading for the rim, near where Drago and Marvin had drygulched him.

He made a dry camp near the rim, rolling into his sugan, thinking over his next move. He knew they would find where he had been shooting from, and would track him to where he was now, but he had a couple of surprises for them. He smiled as he drifted into a light sleep, his ears tuned to the sounds around him.

First light found him up, brushing the tracks from the area to the edge of the cliff, where he had fallen earlier. Here the ledge was of rock, impossible to track across. This would be his final push to break the men working for Murdock. He would have to put the fear of God into the hard cases, make them nervous, and scared, so they would be off their guard.

He led his mount along the ledge, checking to be sure he left no telltale sign behind them. He had traveled for about a mile before he turned away from the rim, circling around to come within a quarter mile of his fence line. Here, he found a small cedar brake and set up a position behind one of the more bushy evergreen, placing six cartridges for the Spencer on his neckerchief, close at hand. He adjusted the sights of the big rifle to the distance he would be shooting and sat down to wait.

He didn’t think of hunger, only the adrenaline kept his hunger at bay, along with the anticipation of the ensuing battle that would either turn the tide or turn into a fiasco. He watched the fence line intently, taking care to listen to the birds, and watch the small animals nearby. They would give warning of the approach of riders, even before they were in sight. Two chipmunks scampered about in a small clearing near the fence, with two jays scolded one another from the pines above them, while a woodpecker worked on one of the fence posts, and a cardinal sought its morning meal nearby.

All was peaceful for about an hour, and then things quieted. The jays stopped squabbling, the chipmunks sat at attention, and the cardinal flitted to the tops of the pines. Only the woodpecker kept up his hammering for a few minutes, seemingly undisturbed by its surroundings. The suddenly it too stopped its drilling for a heartbeat, its head cocked to one side, as though listening for some sound that was inaudible to the human ear, then suddenly flew away. The two chipmunks scampered away in haste, their tiny ears having detected the same disturbance along the rim, as had the woodpecker.

Jake raised himself on his elbows, listening with extreme concentration, and then he heard it. The click of horses hooves, and the jingle of spurs, combined shortly with the creaking of saddle leather. Riders were coming, and they were moving at a slow methodical pace. Then one was in view, followed by three other riders. The one in front was peering at the ground, as though searching for something. The something for which he searched was his tracks, and he was following them to the very spot where he had made his night camp.

Upon reaching the camp sight, the rider circled out from it in ever widening circles, trying to read the direction in which the camper had ridden. He finally drew rein, took off his hat, scratched his head in confusion. This was when Jake squeezed off his first shot, his sights lined up on the tracker. By the time the bullet knocked the man from the saddle, and the sound from the big rifle boomed across the mesa, he had reloaded. His second shot took another man from the saddle as he was still sitting there in confusion, trying to figure what was happening.

The third shot hit the third man as he turned his horse in the direction of the firing, riding hard for the ambusher, his companion hot on his heels. He had unleathered his rifle and was firing blindly in the general direction from which the puffs of smoke from Jake’s rifle rose, but he was too far away for the bullets from the Winchester to carry. Jake saw the bullet tear a hole into the man’s chest that was as big as his fist, throwing the body over the cantle of his saddle. The fourth man turned to his left, trying to get some distance between him and the shooter, whipping his horse unmercifully in his haste.

Jake did not fire again. He sat watching the man ride off, hell bent for leather in the direction from which the riders had come. He wanted the man to report the killings to his boss. He wanted the man escape to tell the story to his compatriots, and in the telling, the story would grow in his mind. He would relate it in larger than reality words, thereby putting a scare into the rest of the hard cases, that would make them nervous enough to take the fight out of them, and just possibly make them pull stakes, and leave. Or in a lesser scenario, make them nervous enough to cause mistakes.