The sun was setting over the rugged, arid landscape of far west Texas when young Texas Ranger Pete Natowich pulled his horse to a halt, not quite sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.
“Trooper, unless I’m seein’ things, that’s a lake just ahead, off to the left. Who’d have thought we’d find this much water around here? We’ll spend the night here, boy. Can’t make Rankin until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest anyway.”
Pete put his big bay gelding, with the half-crescent star and strip on his face, into a trot. Sensing water and rest ahead, Trooper responded eagerly. Both man and horse were tired, having been on the trail from Austin for several long, hard days. Pete had been a Ranger for little more than a year. He was barely over eighteen years old, lean, blue-eyed and blonde-haired. This was his first solo assignment, an assignment which would have been
handed to one of the more experienced Rangers, if any had been available. The long ride had taken its toll.
A half-hour later, the Ranger reined in at the edge of a large, deep pond.
“Sure enough Troop, it is a lake. Well, a good-sized pond, anyway,” Pete stated. “I’m gonna take a nice, cool bath tonight, and so are you, horse. It’s time we get some of this dust off our hides.”
Pete swung from the saddle, then stripped it and the blanket from his horse’s back. Once that was done, he pulled off his boots and socks, then peeled off his sweat-sticky shirt. He placed that on the ground, and next removed his Stetson and bandanna, laying them alongside the shirt. Finally, he unbuckled his gunbelt, leaving it on top of the saddle. He leapt onto Trooper’s bare back and urged the Morgan-Quarter cross into the water.
For half-an-hour, Pete swam the muscular bay back and forth, letting the gelding dip his muzzle into the water and snort, allowing him to paw and splash the cool, refreshing liquid. Once he was satisfied the horse had fully cooled off, he rode out of the pond, then took his lariat and picketed Trooper in a patch of lush grass bordering the waterhole.
“You just take it easy and graze a spell, Trooper,” Pete told the horse, “I’m gonna take my bath, then swim a bit more.” While his horse fell to cropping the grass,
the young Ranger dug a bar of yellow soap from his saddlebags and started back to the water. He intended to scrub off ten days’ worth of trail grime and sweat.
Pete had begun to unhitch his belt and remove his jeans when a slight sound warned him of danger. Trooper had stopped grazing and lifted his head, ears pricked sharply forward. Pete started to turn, but a sharp voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t move, mister!”
Pete froze.
“Get your hands up, and turn around real slow,” the voice ordered.
Pete complied. He raised his hands shoulder high, then turned and stared into the dark, malevolent eyes of a heavy-set, bearded man about five years older than himself. He held a Smith and Wesson .44 pointed straight at Pete’s belly.
“I don’t have much worth takin’, if you’re intendin’ to rob me,” Pete said.
“That fine bay horse alone makes killin’ you worth it,” the gunman retorted. He thumbed back the hammer of his pistol.
Pete’s stomach muscles tightened. His own Colt was out of reach, in the gunbelt lying across his saddle. The Ranger was helpless as he faced the man who clearly
intended to kill him. He braced himself for the impact of hot lead tearing through his guts.
The hammer clicked in place, and the gunman tightened his finger on the trigger. Just as he fired, Pete, in desperation, threw himself backwards into the water. The bullet pierced the air where his chest had just been. Pete dove under the pond’s surface while the gunman fired wildly, his bullets searching out his victim.
Pete stuck his head above water to gasp a quick breath. A bullet whined past his left ear, a second slug just missing when he plunged under the water again.
The young Ranger swam underwater for several yards, until his bursting lungs forced him to surface once more. Instantly, a bullet burned the top of his left shoulder. When the gunman pulled the trigger again, the hammer of his sixgun clicked on an empty chamber.
Sensing his chance, Pete lunged from the pond, leaping at his assailant in a headlong tackle. His head smashed into the gunman’s belly, knocking him back, grunting as air was forced from his lungs. The outlaw’s gun dropped from his hand. Pete’s momentum carried both men to the ground. They rolled several times before scrambling to their feet.
The gunman slammed his right fist to the point of Pete’s chin, at the same time driving his left low into the Ranger’s gut, catching Pete between his bellybutton and belt buckle. Simultaneously, Pete smashed one fist to the
gunman’s jaw, the other to the side of the man’s head. Both men staggered from the impacts.
The gunman recovered first. He again drove his fist into Pete’s stomach, jackknifing the Ranger, then straightening him with a blow to the mouth. He doubled Pete again with another punch in the belly, sinking his fist wrist-deep in the youngster’s gut. Pete toppled to the dirt, gasping for breath.
The gunman recovered his pistol and quickly began reloading. Fighting the nausea which threatened to overcome him, Pete lunged for his own Colt, grabbing it just as his assailant finished reloading. Pete rolled to his knees and fired twice, both his bullets striking the renegade in his chest. The man crumpled onto his back, shuddered, gave out a long sigh, and lay unmoving.
Gasping, Pete crawled on hands and knees to the gunman, pulling the sixgun from his hand and tossing it aside. Satisfied the man was dead, Pete collapsed onto his belly, guts churning. He rolled onto his back, head spinning. After a few moments, he managed to drag himself to his feet. Pete pressed a hand to his bruised midsection, then, hunched over, stumbled to his saddle. He dug in his saddlebags for the tin of salve he always carried. He used the ointment to coat the bullet burn along his shoulder. The wound was minor, and had already nearly stopped bleeding. His injuries from the fistfight were more serious. His lips were swollen, blood still trickled from his mouth, and a lump was rising
along his jaw. Stabbing pain shot through his belly every time he moved. It would take some time for his battered gut to recover from the vicious blows it had received. He gazed balefully at the body of the outlaw.
“Reckon I’d better check that hombre, to see if I can figure out who he was, and why he was so set on killin’ me,” he muttered.
Pete knelt beside the dead gunman. He went through his shirt and vest pockets, then the pockets of the man’s jeans, finding nothing of interest. He rolled the man onto his stomach, then went through his back pockets, again coming up empty. The entire contents of all the pockets were a few bills, matches, some coins, a sack of tobacco, and a packet of cigarette papers.
“Mebbe there’ll be somethin’ in his saddlebags that’ll help,” Pete speculated. “His horse can’t be all that far off.”
The young Ranger whistled shrilly, and was answered by a whinny from behind a cluster of boulders.
“Least that’s one break, his horse answers a whistle,” Pete murmured. He headed for the rocks. Rounding them, he came upon a fleabitten gray, ground- hitched. The horse jerked up its head and shied at Pete’s approach.
“Easy, boy. It’s all right. Easy now,” Pete soothed the animal. He ran a hand down the gray’s shoulder. His soft voice and gentle touch calmed the anxious mount.
“There. That’s a good boy,” Pete praised. “You just stand still while I check your saddlebags.
The Ranger went through the alforjas, finding the usual assortment of supplies, a spare shirt, socks, and other sundries. A folded letter in one saddlebag caught his attention. Under the light of the rising nearly full moon, he scanned its contents, then tucked it into his hip pocket.
“Reckon you’ll have to carry your rider’s body into town, horse,” Pete told the gray. He lifted the reins and swung onto the gelding’s back, heading it to where Trooper and the outlaw’s body waited.
“Got a friend for you, Trooper,” Pete called to his horse. The big bay looked up and whinnied, then went back to his grazing. Pete dismounted, stripped the gear from the dead man’s gray, and picketed the horse near his own. He took the outlaw’s bedroll with him, dragged the body behind some rocks, and covered it with the blankets. That done, he reloaded his pistol and rebuckled his gunbelt around his waist. After pulling on socks and boots and shrugging back into his shirt, he gathered some downed wood and built a small fire. He hunkered alongside the flames to dry his soaked jeans.
Pete suddenly realized he was ravenously hungry. His only food since breaking camp that morning had been a few strips of jerky and a leftover biscuit. While he intended to resupply in Rankin, he still had enough
bacon and beans left for one more meal. He retrieved those, his Arbuckle’s, frying pan, and coffee pot from his saddlebags. Shortly, the bacon was sizzling in the pan, coffee boiling, and the last of his beans heating.
Pete ate rapidly, lingering only briefly over his coffee. He scrubbed out the tin utensils and plate and doused the fire. He checked both horses, then rolled in his blankets. For some time he gazed up at the stars pinpricking the inky curtain of the sky, their light fading while the moon rose higher.
The young Ranger had trouble falling asleep. Despite the fact he was upwind of a steady breeze, which had kept him from hearing the gunman’s approach, and also masked the sound or scent of his horse from Trooper, Pete was angry with himself for allowing the outlaw to sneak up on him undetected.
“I’m lucky it’s not me lyin’ dead with a chunk of lead in my guts, rather’n that jasper,” he muttered. “I’d bet a hat none of the other Rangers would’ve let him get so close. You’re some Ranger, Natowich. Ranger, huh! You wouldn’t even make a decent town deputy.”
Still berating his carelessness, he finally drifted off to sleep.