The Red River Ring

From the top of the rimrock, a man could see twenty miles of the Palo Duro in either direction. In the early years of the Commanche raids he often visited this same high lonely point. This time he only wanted to see the changes to the land since he had left twenty years earlier. He held up his sorrel stud and stepped carefully from his stirrup to the rocky floor. After so many hours in the saddle, he knees were stiff and the soles of his feet numb. He bent over and felt his back as he stretched his rigid muscles. The stud sighed from the relief of his two hundred and thirty pound burden and lowered his head to the ground for a shock of gamma grass. McMurphy let the reins drop free. He knew the well-trained animal would not roam with the reins down.

Normally, that close to noon, the wind was up and a man had to be careful to draw his hat close about his head. It was still and calm with only a cooling breeze to help relieve the heat from the high white sun. The constant pressure of the cattle herds was changing the appearance of the arid canyon land. He noticed that live oaks had spread through the canyon floor and the rank grass of the old days was grubbed close to the red soil.

He thought of the first time he saw the Palo Duro. There were no trees and the belly high gamma waved like wheat through the gentle slopes of the basin. He remembered how he watched a herd of antelope working the south face of the slope and a few elk grazing a line strung along the north where a road now snaked up and over the rim. He took many of the beasts with his old muzzleloading plains rifle during that first season. Without that source of meat his family wouldn't have survived those early years when their closest year-round neighbors were a hundred miles east. He thought of the crude one-room adobe dugout where he and his bride had settled, the Kickapoo he had hired to guard the place so they could sleep at night, and how frightened she was after that first Comanche raid. Later, she mustered her courage and increased her resolve to stay. He had been told that the old dugout was just a tool shed and a fine two-story house of stone had taken its place. She had built the canyon into a solid ranch after he left and their sons had made it greater. He would take one look at the canyon to satisfy his curiosity, perhaps ride by the house, and then try to find her. None of the boys would know. There would be neither displeasure nor harsh words. He just wanted to see the place and know that they were doing well.

A lone horseman made his way at a gallop across the base of the canyon. When the rider turned from the road and started up the bald knob that crested below his position on the rimrock, McMurphy thought little of it. He figured it was probably just a cowboy resting his horse. When the man held up his mount behind the knob, pulled a Winchester from the saddle boot and skulked up the away face of the rock from the road, McMurphy smelled ambush. A buckboard came rattling down the south slope and across the road in front of the knob. As the bushwhacker worked his Winchester into position, McMurphy stepped to his sorrel and pulled a Remington .44/40 revolving carbine from his scabbard. He half-cocked the hammer and spun the cylinder to check his loads before drawing the sights on the bushwhacker. He wanted to shoot but decided it was probably best to sound a warning.

“Hey! Down there! What you doing?”

The bushwhacker jumped like a rabbit caught in a fence, swung his Winchester about and threw off a wild shot.

McMurphy drew down on the sights and dropped the hammer. He heard his bullet hit just before the bushwhacker flung his rifle clear, clutched his chest, and fell back against the rocky dome. McMurphy shifted his attention to the buckboard. It ambled up the canyon road, its team making the same easy gait as before. He doubted the driver had any idea of how close he had been to being shot.

McMurphy mounted and made a way down the rimrock trail to the bald knob. The bushwhacker was a dark, heavily bearded man clutching his chest, curled into a ball on his side against the rocky knob. He made a grab for his holstered revolver when he heard McMurphy's sorrel closing in from the trail above. McMurphy pulled his Remington, drew up his mount and leveled the carbine.

“Unless you want some more ventilation,” McMurphy warned. “Toss that smoke wagon aside.”

The bushwhacker hesitated, nodded, and allowed the Colt revolver to drop.

“You win, hombre. I ain't got no fight left in me.”

McMurphy returned the carbine to the saddle scabbard, drew a Remington revolver from its vest high holster, and swung down from his mount. He walked carefully to the bushwhacker, cocked his revolver and kicked the Colt out of reach.

“You got anything else on you that might cause a bit of mischief?”

“I got me a butcher knife in my boot top.”

“Fetch it out,” McMurphy said.

The knife was drawn free of the boot and weakly chucked into the nearest brush.

McMurphy nodded, let off the hammer to half-cock and holstered his revolver. He knelt beside the bushwhacker and pulled his hand away from the wound.

“How bad are you?”

“You've killed me. I'm dead center shot in the chest.”

McMurphy nodded. “You want a drink or something?”

“Got any whiskey?”

“I got a half-pint of Crow in my saddle bag.”

“Fetch it out,” the bushwhacker said with a weak smile.

McMurphy turned away from the man toward his saddle bag.

“Ain't you taking a hell of a risk? How do you know I ain't got me a hide out gun, just waiting for you to turn your back?”

“You don't have the look about you,” McMurphy said as he pulled the bottle of whiskey from his bag. “You may be a bushwhacker, but I don't see you as a hideout man.”

“Hell, I ain't no bushwhacker, either. This would have been my first. If times weren't so tough, I'd a never accepted the job.”

“But you'd a dropped the hammer just the same, wouldn't you?” McMurphy asked as he pulled the cork and offered the bottle to the bushwhacker.

The man took a long pull on the bottle, wiped his mouth with his grimy thread-bare sleeve and smiled. “Hell, yes. I'd a shot him square in the gizzard if you hadn't come along. I was to get a hundred dollars for shooting one man. I ain't never had a hundred dollars at one time in my life.”

McMurphy nodded and gazed at the buckboard as it made its way up the slope of the rim.

“I know who you are,” the bushwhacker said before taking another swig of the whiskey. “I know you from the old days. You may be gray headed, heavier, and your rig fancy, what with that fancy frock coat, vest, nickel plated pistol and expensive saddle, but your voice and size are that of only one man I've ever known in my life.”

“From the old days, huh?” McMurphy asked. “And just how would you know me from the old days?”

“Hell, I rode for you when we took that first herd to Kansas. If you ain't Pommel McMurphy, then I'm a skunk's butt.”

McMurphy studied the man's face carefully.

“Don't know me though, do ya, Pommel? Been too many years, too many hard trails and too many poor cowboys between then and now for you to remember.”

McMurphy studied the stranger's face for a while longer before conceding with a nod.

“I'm Soap Withers. Now you âmember me, don't ya?”

McMurphy smiled and nodded. “Soap Withers. You was always a good ole' boy. What made you turn bushwhacker?”

“Money. Ain't no work for an old cowhand like me. I was tired of being hungry. So, when the offer was made, I said yes. Hell, I guess I'd shoot about anybody for a hundred dollars the way things are.”

“And now you're dead,” Pommel said.

Soap took another swig of the whiskey and nodded. “Probably just as well. This way I can meet my maker with a clean slate. I'd a just blown the money anyhow. You probably done me a favor.”

The buckboard topped the rim and rolled out of sight. Pommel turned to face Withers. The whiskey was helping with the pain but the color was draining from his face.

“Is there anybody I need to notify? “ Pommel asked.

“I appreciate that. No, there's nobody. I'd like a burying if it ain't too much trouble. I don't much cotton to the idea of being coyote and buzzard bait.”

“I'll put you under proper. Who was that fellow you were planning to plug?”

Soap Withers was quiet for a moment, as if confused by the question. “You mean to say you don't know?” he asked. “Hell, I figured you were riding the rimrock to give him some protection.”

“Why would I? I stumbled on this wreck by accident.”

Withers chuckled softly, coughed uncomfortably and took another swig of whiskey. “Ain't that ironical? I never heard of such a thing. Of all the men to fall into this fray, I would have never guessed.”

“I'm afraid you've got the best of me,” McMurphy said. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“That was Temple, your oldest son. You kept me from plugging your own boy.”

“Temple? Why would anyone want to see him put under?”

“To get the land. They figured with him out of the way that Reese wasn't strong enough to hold it all together and Pac was too worthless.”

“Pac?”

“The youngest. Don't tell me you don't know your own kid's name.”

Pommel turned away toward the rim. There was still a faint rise of dust where the buckboard had just passed. “No, I never learned his name,” he said quietly.

Withers coughed hard. Blood rose to the corner of his mouth. “I'm afraid this whiskey ain't doing much more good. I think my lungs are filling.”

“Who hired you? Who would be willing to pay a hundred dollars to see that boy dead?”

“I wouldn't hardly call him a boy. He's a tough hombre. Some say he's the image of his old man. My orders were to kill him. It didn't matter if I faced him down or bushwhacked him. But, hell, nobody would take on Temple McMurphy in a straight up gun fight.”

“Who?” Pommel McMurphy asked. This time his voice was harder, uttered by a man used to having his orders followed.

“The Red River Ring. They hired me for the job.”

“That don't mean nothing to me. Who by name?”

“Nab Colredge made the offer, but I know he was speaking for his partners.”

“And who are his partners?”

“Black Tom, McPherson and Blake. As far as I know they are the Ring.”

McMurphy knelt beside Withers to better hear. “Black Tom Bent? Is he still in this country?”

“Hell, he's the leader of the Ring. Other than the McMurphy brothers and Fritz Blomberg's holdings, the Ring controls everything of importance in this part of Texas. Where you been?”

“Where would I find Black Tom?”

“Probably in Pampa or on his ranch. Blomberg and your boys control Silverton. As of right now, the Ring doesn't venture south of the Palo Duro except to show fight or try some rustling. That's the way of it and it's been that way for a couple of years.”

“Where's the boys' mother? Is she on the ranch?”

“No. She lives with her husband, John Fellows. He works for Blomberg and manages his bookkeeping and business affairs in Silverton.

McMurphy relaxed. “You feel like something to eat? I could fix a fire and fry up some bacon.”

“Naw. By the time you get your skillet hot, I'll be cold. You can have my rig. The rifle's a good one. The horse ain't worth a damn though and my old Colt misfires. My boots ain't hardly six months old. Everything else is played out, like me. A hundred dollars would have put me right again. A hundred dollars would a....” Soap gasped for air as though he suddenly had a hand close over his mouth and nose. A bubbling throaty rattle came from his mouth.

McMurphy placed his left hand on Withers' back and steadied his arm with his right. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

Withers did not answer. A slow whistling exhale came from his mouth and his eyes went dull.

McMurphy realized that he was providing the only force keeping Soap's body upright. He allowed the old cowboy to go softly back against the rock. He noticed the worn holes in Soap's shirt, the rotten leather of his belt, the embedded grime along his neck and jaw line. Soap had fallen far since those early days of the Sadelia Trail. A hundred dollars probably would have put him right for a spell but his glory days were long behind him. He was over-the-hill and too proud to admit it, even to the point of killing a man for a hundred dollars. McMurphy couldn't help thinking that he probably had done Soap a favor.

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