CHAPTER 20
The ranch schoolhouse bell clapping awoke him in the middle of the night.
“What’s wrong?” Liz clutched his arm before he stood up.
“They don’t ring it like that unless we have trouble. Stay here. I’ll go see about it.” His pants pulled on and the Colt in his hand, Chet took the stairs under the many questions shot at him from the women above.
“All of you stay down and in the house. I am going to see what’s wrong.”
He stopped at the back door of the kitchen and saw armed ranchmen running about.
He shouted for his foreman, Raphael.
“Señor, some armed men approached the house from the road. My men are saddling horses to chase them.”
Chet shouted, “Bring me a horse. I want to go along.”
“They can handle it.”
“I know that, but I want information from those men. I’ll go get dressed.”
“Of course, señor.”
Chet knew damn good and well if those vaqueros ever caught those raiders they’d hang or shoot them. They’d eliminated invaders who tried to raid the ranch before, and they did that with them. This time he needed all the information he could learn from them. He almost ran into Liz going back in the kitchen.
“What happened?”
“Just a few minutes ago armed raiders rode in the gate. The night guard rang the bell to roust the crew. They’ve fled. Now the men are going after them.”
“What will you do?”
“Dress and join them.”
“What if you get shot? All of us depend on you.”
“Liz, they can’t run over me. I need that stopped and with my men along as well—we will stop them. I’m going upstairs to dress—”
“Chet,” Jesus shouted, running into them in the dark room. “Spud and I have your horse and a rifle in the scabbard. Sorry, ma’am.”
“Go dress,” she said to him. Turning to Jesus, she touched his arm. “And you men must bring him back alive.”
“We will, ma’am.”
She shook her head like she could not believe this was happening. “I am going to get dressed and go burn some candles for all of you at the church.”
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes, Chet.”
“Take an armed guard along so we don’t worry about you.”
“I will consider that.”
“No. For your husband’s sake, take an armed man with you to town.”
“I will do that. Thank you.”
Chet, coming back down, heard Spud come in the back door. “Anything wrong?”
Jesus answered him. “No, he is dressing upstairs. Is Spencer up?”
“He’s out there on horseback waiting.”
“Let’s go mount up; he will be right out.”
Chet, ready, squeezed his wife’s face in his hands and kissed her hard. “I love you.”
“The same.”
He realized, out in the starlight, they had saddled the big gray horse for him. His boot in the stirrup, he swung in the saddle and sat down, expecting the war to begin. The horse waited for him to give him rein and then started out in a quick walk.
God bless Ty. He has made a better hand with a horse than his deceased father ever could have done. That boy’d sure tamed the big horse down to the using variety. Past the gate bar he and the others short-looped to catch up with the vaqueros ahead of them in the cool moonlit night.
They raced past the dark houses and through the business streets of Mayer, and the vaqueros felt certain they were on their trail. Chet had talked to Ramón, one of the top hands, who told him that they would catch them by daylight.
The sun had not pinked the eastern horizon of mountains yet. They must be headed for Bloody Basin, a region he knew well from years before chasing the horse thieves who stole Margaret’s horses and who, later, killed the two top men who managed the ranch for her and her father.
It would be a long chase until they closed in on them. There were plenty of places to ambush his posse where they headed. But that all depended on the outlaws’ leadership and who guided them. By daylight they’d be far enough south and at a lower elevation where the saguaros flourished, but with tougher and steeper mountains to climb.
Chet tried to recall the place where they shot the foreman and his second man. It was on a steep mountain-face trail dotted with the tall cactus all around them. He’d caught up with Raphael there back that first time. He was standing above both bodies in tears.
He told Raphael that a posse was coming. When the posse got there he told Raphael to come and join him in the hunt, but the dumb posse leader would not let him ride after Chet, and his man never forgot that.
Chet couldn’t either because he hanged the two remaining outlaws at Rye. And later someone wrote an account of the lynching without his name mentioned in a Globe paper. Nothing ever came of the article, but later Cole told him that was how he heard about Chet Byrnes and why he came to work for him—a tough man who by himself found and hanged those two killers and rapists.
When the sun came up they were deep in a canyon surrounded by volcanic rocks. When Chet looked to his left he recognized the steep mountain face covered in tall-armed cactus. Ahead was the cow-face-sided trail that wound up to the next high-above plateau.
“Men, be ready to dismount. They may try to ambush us. This is the place where another bunch killed two good men.”
“Raphael told us to watch for this place.” Then the leader took his horse in great cat hops up the mountain. In the line, a man’s horse scrambled, lost his footing, but his rider was able to shake loose before his mount spilled over backward. There was lots of confusion. Horses were barely reined enough aside to miss being in the tumbling horse’s fall. The animal screamed in pain from the force hurling him downward as he rolled over and over again. Meanwhile the others hurried to the top, where they gathered.
Ramón gave the order, “You, Tomás, stay with Santos. And take your time going home. Be quiet when you shoot that horse. They don’t need to know where we are. Take care of yourself, mi amigos.” The lead man crossed himself and others followed.
“You did the right thing,” Chet told him, and they pushed across the grassy flat mesa. “That is one of the worst trails around here.”
“It was too steep, but we had to gain it.”
“Right. We should catch them now that is behind us.”
“Thank you, señor. I can tell by the droppings we are getting close to them.”
Chet nodded and he felt proud that the gray never slipped a hoof.
Two hours later at a spring site developed into a tank, they watered their sweaty horses, filled canteens, and ate some jerky. They were in the tall juniper country. They would reach a ranch that he knew of in about an hour. He wondered about the woman whose husband worked in the Horse Thief Mines, way to the west, and had been raped by those last outlaws he had chased through there.
They found her place boarded up but someone had kicked in the door. Only some dusty furniture remained and whoever had not stayed there long, so Chet and the posse pushed on. He calculated they were four hours from the next ranch, and when they finally reached a spot near the place, Chet surveyed it with his field glasses. There were a half dozen spent horses hitched in the yard near the house. It had to be the outlaws and they were still there.
“Remember, John Hart and his wife Mary plus two children are in that house. We need to surround the place and on signal take them before they can hurt the hostages. If they have any guards on rooftops, shoot them first and then we will cover the house. Be very quiet and try to not be exposed. The closer we can get the better we can bring them down. If they have weapons in their hands, shoot to kill. It will be them or us who wins this war.
“If one of them breaks and you can’t hit the rider, shoot the horse. We need them stopped.”
His posse had enough men to contain the outlaws. His purpose was that and that this was to be the last stand those raiders ever make. The men spread out to surround the place.
The afternoon temperature had heated up more than it would have at his house. Advancing with Jesus and Spud through the junipers, they came to a barbwire fence and crossed over it. Sweat trickled down Chet’s ribs. Soon they were close enough and waited for the signal from Spencer that the others were in place.
Chet, with his rifle in his hands, stood less than fifty feet from the front porch behind a bushy juniper. The outlaws’ hitched horses stomped at biting flies and snorted a lot in the dust—a sign they were tired.
A shot rang out. He heard someone shout and then tumble off the roof on the opposite side of the house.
“We have you surrounded. Hands high. We are U.S. Marshals. We will shoot any opposition or armed persons.”
Half their horses had broken their reins and looked wild-eyed on how to escape. Chet rushed for the cover of a still tied one where he rested the barrel on the saddle seat. Obviously the pony was gun broke.
He spoke softly to settle the horse and drew a bead on the front door. There was lots of shouting going on inside. A woman screamed—damn, they were going to use Mary for a shield. He hated that. But instead a desperate man came to the front door with his two six-guns blazing.
He crumpled down in the doorway . . . shot by three rifles. Chet’s horse remained and he kept his watch on through the buckhorn sights for another fool.
The next one must have broken out of the back door. The volley of shots left him screaming, then silent. A pistol shot from a front open window, bullets were returned and a man cussed that he was hit.
“Surrender or die!”
A shooter showed himself at the upstairs window, breaking it out with his gun barrel, and they cut him down.
“You had enough?”
“Hell no. You hold your fire. I have the woman and I’ll kill her if you don’t let us get away. Stand back.”
A man emerged holding a cocked gun at her temple. He had a hold of long blond curls that fell to his shoulders. She looked pale, scared, and was shaking her head in disbelief at being dragged toward the remaining horse, the one Chet was standing behind.
Who was that fancy hombre holding her hostage? He was some famous figure and what was he doing in the middle of Bloody Basin running with these killers? Chet had slid the rifle off the seat of the saddle but had not given it up as the golden-haired man brought her out the yard gate.
“Get back from that horse,” he ordered.
Chet didn’t move at first. The other two bad men who came along with him had handguns that they swung around, threatening the posse members in sight.
“Catch me that horse,” the head outlaw ordered.
His man caught the rein and the hostage holder swung his gun away from the woman’s head. As he did so, a great knife struck him in the back and he fell to his knees. The other two wilted to their knees as they were shot down.
Chet quickly handed his rifle to a posse man close by, and caught the woman in his arms before she collapsed.
“Oh, thank you, dear God—and you came to save me again, Chet Byrnes, God bless you.” With wet eyes she rose up and kissed him.
He blushed. “I am sorry they had to come here.”
“No. No. Not your fault that they came here, but you followed and you did the right thing one more time.”
“Her family is all right in the house,” Jesus said.
“Good. You hear that?”
“Yes.” She hugged him again. “I kept thinking, when they arrived, if only Chet Byrnes is chasing them we will somehow survive this day. When I heard your voice, I began thanking the Lord and you ever since.”
John Hart appeared at her side. “Honey, let the poor man go. You are embarrassing him.”
“I don’t care, he saved our lives. Again. Do you men know how great he is?”
“Yes ma’am,” Spud said. “That’s why we ride for his brand.”
She sighed and let go of him, then dropped her shoulders. “I thought the last time would be the last time. You know who that outlaw is, Chet?”
“No.”
“That is Curly Bill Snow, the Texas outlaw who will ride no more.” She gathered her skirts. “It will take me about an hour, but I want to feed all of you before you start back. Thank God John and my kids have survived.”
“Thanks so much. We will pile up the outlaws and see about the wounded ones. Jesus and Spud, you two can help her fix some food.”
They agreed and both smiled. Then, shaking their heads, the two men herded her in the house, talking a mile a minute about the whole deal.
“Empty their pockets,” Chet said. “We will split that money between all of you men, and any wanted reward paid on them will be split equal ways. Are any alive?”
“Not for long,” Spencer said. “Bloodiest deal I ever saw. They had it coming, but it was sure a bad one.”
“They were like some rustlers we tried to arrest up on the rim who fought to the last man rather than linger in prison.”
“All I can say is that they asked for it.”
The lead man for the Preskitt Ranch, Ramón, spoke up. “No one has ever entered our ranch with murder on their mind and lived to talk about it later. My orders from my boss were not to bring them back. I know, Chet, that you wanted them alive. I tried, but I won’t fret over them. The earth is a better place today without that blond-haired son of a bitch.”
Chet watched the head vaquero walk away. He’d said what he believed and that was enough. Amen.