Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass (3 page)

"It was that man Jeb Jackson. He had the
audacity to come calling on us – on Saul to ask him to put in a
good word with me." Johnnie grinned as he recalled her pretty face
flush with pique. "He . . . he’s so old! Oh, Johnnie, we need to
get away together!" she exclaimed.

"Soon, Elly," he mused to the horse’s head
in front of him, as he pulled his bandana up even further to
protect his face. "Soon I’ll be back and we can start making
plans."

Bill Coburn was worried; a natural enough
state of mind for any trail boss. After all, he had a heavy burden
of responsibility on his shoulders. If the Rocking H ranch was to
survive he had to get the best price he could at Silver City and
get back to the ranch pronto. And until they got there he had the
responsibility for two thousand head of beeves and eight men, all
of which necessitated that he be here, there and everywhere.

"Good man, that Skeeter," he mused to
himself once they had successfully turned the herd in the direction
of Rattlesnake Pass.

He signaled to Skeeter over the heads of the
herd using the pre-arranged set of hand signals that they had
agreed upon to indicate that he was going to ride on ahead to meet
up with Cookie. But before he actually did so he wheeled his big
stallion around and repeated the hand signals to Curlie Shanks, the
swing rider on the same side of the herd, so that he could ride up
the string to cover Bill’s point position.

"Hope the old fool hasn’t gone too far," he
said to himself as he set off at a gentle trot so as not to spook
any potentially nervous critters at the front.

Once he had put some distance between
himself and the head of the herd he let the stallion have its head
as he made his way through the pass that threaded its way through
the Pintos. It was a sheer walled, U-shaped canyon renowned,
possibly more in legend than in fact, for its regular population of
rattlesnakes. Countless trails led off it into a maze of
canyons.

At the thought of the name Bill guffawed.
"The whole blamed territory has its god-given share of rattlers,
right enough – but a man could live his life here without seeing
any, on account of them liking human company less than we like them
and their tell-tale noise."

The ruts of the chuck-wagon showed clearly
in the semi-desert floor of the canyon, confirming that Cookie had
passed through all right.

"Which just goes to show that a hot
chuck-wagon driven by a whiskey-sodden cook makes a whole lot
better time than a parcel of critters driven by eight sober men,"
he joked to himself.

Then as he negotiated the U-bend of the pass
he saw the chuck-wagon some distance ahead, already unhitched on a
slight rise.

"Cookie, you sensible old buzzard," he said
aloud. "There isn’t any sense in pitching camp on ground where the
herd is going to bed down. Looks like you haven’t had too much
rot-gut yet, anyhow."

And he noticed the ribbon of smoke rising
from the fire that Cookie had already started in preparation for
the evening meal. He prodded his horse’s flanks with his heels and
rode to within about fifty yards before he slowed down to a
trot.

As he approached he noticed the extra horse
beyond the chuck-wagon, then he saw that the old cook was not
alone. A muscle twitched in his back and he tensed involuntarily as
he recognized the gruff tone that belonged to a puncher who had
worked for the Rocking H until Ben Horrocks had fired him the
previous year, on his recommendation.

"Well, lookie here – it’s the boss man, Bill
Coburn," came the voice. "Come for some of your coffee, I expect,
Cookie."

"What are you doing here, Fleming?" Bill
queried suspiciously.

Hog Fleming was a fat-cheeked man with a
slightly porcine air about him. He smiled obsequiously as he
swirled coffee in a tin cup. "Hey, what’s up, Bill? You don’t sound
too friendly to a former Rocking H man." Then the smile faded
completely. "But then you never were very friendly, were you. Got
me fired for no good reason, didn’t you."

"I asked what you're doing here?" Bill
repeated. "I didn’t like you being around the Rocking H and I sure
don’t like seeing you here on my trail drive."

"Free country, Bill. I just happened to meet
up with my old friend Cookie here and he offered me a coffee."

"No coffee for you, Fleming. This may be a
free country but as far as you're concerned this chuck-wagon is
Rocking H property and you are not welcome. Now git!"

Hog Fleming looked down at the tin coffee
cup in his hand. "Now that is plum bad mannered, Coburn. I can’t
abide bad manners."

Cookie had been standing with a coffee cup
of his own in his hand and his chimney pipe in his mouth. He pulled
the pipe out and tapped Hog Fleming on the shoulder. "Easy there,
Hog. Bill here is the boss and you had better – "

He never finished. There was the explosion
of a gunshot and Cookie staggered backwards. He looked down in
disbelief at the spreading patch of crimson on the front of his
vest.

"Hog, what the - ?" He slowly fell forward
into the dust.

Bill Coburn had watched him fall with a look
of shock and disbelief. Then realization dawned on him as he saw
the smoking gun in Hog Fleming’s hand. A desire for retribution
coupled with sheer self-preservation sent his hand flying towards
his own gun. For a working ranch foreman he had a relatively fast
draw, but desperation made him faster. He cleared leather faster
than he had ever done before – only to realize that even that had
not been fast enough.

He felt a thud in his belly, immediately
followed by a feeling of intense heat, as if he had been skewered
by a red-hot poker. And in that instant he knew that he was a dead
man.

Despite the agony he managed to raise his
gun in the direction of his killer and even managed to draw back
the hammer, intent on taking the bastard with him.

But another bullet smashed into his brain,
killing him instantly and robbing him of the satisfaction of
knowing that as his body convulsed, his hand had squeezed off the
trigger and blown off the lobe of Hog Fleming’s left ear.

* * *

Rubal Cage liked to dress in black, because
he felt it suited his moods and the image that he wanted to
project. Men were wary of black haired hombres in black rig, he
believed. He felt it gave them a sense that he was a man who could
deal out death. Indeed, he was a man full of hate. It wasn’t so
much that life had dealt him a bad hand of cards, more the fact
that he was more sensitive and had a longer memory than most folks.
Any slight against him was stored up and locked away until he saw a
way of getting even. Minor slights merited a beating of some sort
and major ones usually deserved death, in his view.

Having been fired from the Double J ranch
was definitely a major slight in his mind. He was nurturing the
hate he felt towards the rancher, using it even to generate the
emotion he needed to carry out his work.

"Your time will come soon enough, you
bastard!" he cursed as he pictured how the rancher would meet his
maker - before his time. And with murder in his heart he stroked
the butt-plate of his Winchester .73 and signaled to the others to
start closing in on the herd up ahead.

"Yes sir, until then we’ll have a little
practice!" he said to himself, his mouth drawing into a thin cruel
curve.

Emilio Sanchez's mind was not on his job.
Looking after the string of highly strung cow ponies was not his
idea of what a vaquero was all about. To even ride drag would have
suited him, but he was aware that beggars could not be choosers.
And ever since his father had died and Emilio had been forced to
fend for his mother and his nine sisters there had been times when
begging was not far off. Although he was hardly able to ride, he
had been grateful to Ramirez for lying to the gringo ramrod about
him being an experienced vaquero, which was his actual
ambition.

As usual when times were hard Emilio
retreated into the land of make believe. Instead of a humble
wrangler he had a picture of himself as a dangerous desperado
masquerading as a wrangler in order to gain the trust of a wealthy
rancher, so that he could make the lovely daughter fall in love
with him, just like in the dime novels that he so loved to
read.

So distracted was he with his own posturing
as he played the part in his own imagined dime novel that he did
not hear the soft approach of a rider behind him. When he did hear,
he turned in the saddle, his usual friendly smile flashing across
his youthful visage.

It was wiped away the instant that he felt a
thud in his chest and felt the searing agony of the blade, tossed
from a distance of twenty feet, as it punctured his ribcage and
found his heart.

"No, señor!" he gasped, staring at this
nameless killer. "I have a mother! I have sisters. I am – "

His pony trotted after the retreating herd
as Emilio Sanchez slid from the saddle to fall dead in the
sand.

Rubal Cage had chosen his men well. All of
them had killed before, without hesitation and without any lasting
impression on their consciences. Men after his own heart, which of
course made them extra dangerous because they would undoubtedly
betray their own mother – or even worse – betray him, if the price
or the need was right. Yet while they saw the advantage in it they
were all happy to follow his orders to the letter – as they had
done in surreptitiously surrounding the herd and the riders driving
it.

He himself had taken out the wrangler kid
while they had scattered to easily outflank the herd and cowboys by
using the stacks and natural cover provided by saguaro and
scrub-oak thickets to conceal their advance. Thus far it had all
gone according to plan, the aim being to get into position before
the herd turned into Rattlesnake Pass.

Rubal Cage recognized the drag rider by the
way he sat his horse as well as by the clothes he wore. He
recognized him because he was already aware that he had a special
relationship with the Horrocks girl, who he himself had designs on.
It was for that reason that he didn’t simply backshoot the kid, but
rode to within hailing distance above the noise of the advancing
herd.

"Put your hands up and turn around real
slow, cowboy!" he barked out.

Johnnie Parker stiffened in the saddle when
he heard the words. Shrewd enough to realize that death was
possible if he acted otherwise, he turned his head slowly, his
hands raised above his head.

"That you, Cage?" he queried, squinting over
the bandana that was still above his nose. "What the hell are you
doing here – with a gun?"

"Come visiting, what you think," replied
Rubal Cage. "Wanted to pass on my respects to the dead."

Johnnie screwed his eyes even more. "The
dead? Who’s dead?"

"You!" snapped Rubal Cage. "I just wanted
you to know that your girl will be taken care of."

Johnnie’s eyes blazed and he went for his
gun. But just as Bill Coburn had failed to draw fast enough, so
Johnnie was no match for a man with his gun already drawn and
aimed. Rubal Cage’s gun spat two bullets in rapid succession, each
scoring a hit on Johnnie’s chest, so powerful that he was thrown
backwards to fall over the horse’s rump into the sand.

"I’ll take care of her real well," said Cage
as he holstered his sidearm and rode past the sprawled body. "I
promise."

In the distance he fancied that he heard a
succession of shots from different locations about the herd.

Then there was a deafening cacophony of
bellowing and moaning from the herd. Rubal Cage pulled out his
Winchester .73 from its scabbard and let off several shots above
the heads of the rear critters. He grinned as an undulating motion
began from the rear, gaining momentum until the whole herd was
racing forward. Two thousand head of cattle rushed headlong towards
Rattlesnake Pass.

CHAPTER THREE

The sudden noise of thunder, totally
unexpected in the heat of a late afternoon beneath a cloudless,
cobalt blue sky roused Jake Scudder from the daydream he had been
indulging in as he ambled across the semi-desert towards the
Pintos. Then about five or six miles ahead he saw the slow rise of
a long low dust cloud. Instantly he realized that he was watching
the start of a cattle stampede.

He frowned when along with the thunderous
clamor he heard distant cracking noises. He reckoned that some of
the riders were probably trying to bring down the leaders to halt
the stampeding herd’s progress. He well knew that running alongside
a stampeding herd was no place that a sane man would want to be,
yet it was just part of the job that a puncher signed up for.

As he watched the progress of the dust cloud
and listened with cocked ears to the accompanying thunder he
realized that the herd was heading towards the Pintos Mountains.
That meant that the cattle trail presumably followed in the
direction of some pass that he could not discern from his distance
and the angle that he was approaching from.

Scudder sighed and mentally tossed up in his
mind whether or not he should investigate. He pulled off his
Stetson and ran his fingers through his thick black hair, freeing a
goodly cloud of trail dust as he did so. He was a tall, handsome
fellow with a three day growth of stubble, which mirrored the
fatigue he felt after his long ride from Sonora via Tucksville. His
clothes were covered in a patina of southwestern dessert sand and
dirt, his throat was parched and the back of his neck burned from
an overdose of Arizona sun on his exposed skin.

"Not really any of my business, is it, old
horse?" he remarked to his big black stallion. Then after a moment
he guffawed as he finally gave in to his conscience. He couldn’t in
his heart ignore the plight that some riders might find themselves
in over there. A stampede almost always resulted in casualties,
both to critters and to humans. "Guess we’d better pay a visit and
see if we can be of any service. They might need me, my rope and
you, you big heap of horseflesh."