Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass (6 page)

Her brother stared at her uncomprehendingly,
then his cheeks suffused with color. "All right? Tell me how, Elly?
We’re finished, can’t you see that?" His voice rose in volume,
simultaneous with an expression of increasing consternation on his
face. "We’re finished! Might as well – "

He suddenly smashed the glass on the arm of
his wheelchair and raised it above his head, as if to stab the
paralyzed legs that he obviously hated so much.

"No!" cried Elly.

Jake was out of his chair in a flash as
Yucatan called out and took a step forward in similar fashion. Jake
dashed a hand out and grasped Saul’s fast descending wrist.

"Nothing to be gained by goring your legs,
my friend," Jake said calmly, as he removed the broken glass from
Saul’s hand.

Saul Horrocks stared at him like a man
confused. "What – what can we do then?" he asked helplessly.

"We can get our herd back!" replied Elly.
"And that is exactly what I am going to do"

Saul stared at his sister in disbelief.
"What do you mean, Elly? How? You know yourself that Matt Brooks
said he can’t do anything."

Jake Scudder sniffed sarcastically. "He said
he won’t do anything, you mean. He said it was out of his
jurisdiction."

"What did you mean, Elly?" Saul persisted.
"I am useless and there is nothing that a girl like you could –
"

The torrent that greeted
him took all of the men in the room by surprise. Elly Horrocks had
shot to her feet in an instant, her arms akimbo and her jaw set.
"There is a great deal that
this
girl can and will do, brother dear! There is
Horrocks blood flowing through these veins of mine, just as there
is through yours. Our family have never been quitters. None of us!
And I am not quitting on you now!"

Saul shook his head, tears visibly forming
in his eyes. "Elly, I swear, I never meant anything – offensive. I
never meant that you were less than a man. You have your legs and
that’s more than I have. I just meant that – "

"You meant that a girl couldn’t possibly do
a man’s job," Elly returned, her voice calm, yet challenging.

Jake Scudder had been watching the scene
with ever-increasing admiration for Elly Horrocks. Spirit was a
word that didn’t come close, in his opinion, to describing the
courage and resolve that she was displaying.

Yucatan seemed to have been forming the same
opinion. He stepped forward. "Miss Elly must not even think of
going after these men. They are bad, vicious killers. I will go
after them."

Elly shook her head, her cheeks quite
flushed now. "Oh no you won’t, Yucatan. You must stay here to look
after Saul – and Johnnie. He needs all the help he can get to
recover. And we all know how skillfully you nursed Saul back to
health after he was wounded in the back."

Saul was recovering himself. "Then we should
send out to Jeb Jackson’s Double J ranch, and ask him to send us a
few men to help." He gave his sister a wan smile. "Jeb would be
only too happy to assist us, Elly."

This suggestion was treated with disdain by
Saul’s sister. "That is the last thing that is going to happen. I
am surprised that you could even suggest such a thing, Saul – after
everything that happened on that day. I will never ask for that
man’s help!"

Saul hung his head. "That’s it then. We have
no option; we’ll have to meet with the bank. Throw ourselves on
their mercy." His head shot up again, concern on his face. "But one
thing is definite, Elly. You can’t go. I won’t hear of it. I will –
"

Jake Scudder suddenly laughed and clapped
his hands. "I have to say, Miss Horrocks, that you have as much
spirit as any ten men. I salute your intention, but have you any
idea of what is involved here? Have you any idea where they’ve
taken your herd? How are you going to get your property back? Just
ask them nicely?"

Elly looked at him and flushed. "Why, I
thought – "

"Have you ever shot at a rattlesnake? At a
man?"

"No, of course I haven’t."

"Then you are going to need back-up. By
rights that should be the law, but for some reason your local
lawman doesn’t see it that way."

Saul Horrocks stared at Jake in disbelief.
"Are you saying you’ll help, Mr. Scudder? Why should you do that?
This isn’t your problem."

Jake shrugged. "Let’s just say that I hate
cold-blooded murder. And one of those jaspers shot at me. I reckon
I have good reason to go along with your sister – if she’ll let me
tag along, that is."

CHAPTER FIVE

Although he admired Elly’s pluck, Jake
Scudder felt uneasy on several counts as they followed the trail
that the herd had taken. For one thing he was conscious that as
they approached Rattlesnake Pass they could easily be picked off by
a rifleman hiding up in the Pintos. For another thing there were
just the two of them, a man and an attractive woman. He wondered if
that in itself was enough to unsettle her. If so, he wondered how
he could best reassure her that she was safe with him. Although he
had lived among some of the roughest hombres alive, yet Jake still
maintained a strong sense of propriety. He realized all too well
that sharing a camp with her was bound to compromise either her
sense of privacy, which he respected, or his ability to guarantee
her safety. And it was the latter that really troubled him, for he
had given her brother his solemn oath that he would look after
her.

"You needn’t worry, Mr. Scudder, I will not
try to seduce you by moonlight," said Elly suddenly, as if she had
been reading his thoughts as they approached the entrance to
Rattlesnake Pass.

Jake stared at her in amazement. "Why,
ma’am, how did you know what I was thinking?"

Elly chuckled. "From everything that Johnnie
told me and from what I have seen of you myself, as well as the way
you talk," she replied. "I could see that you were looking worried,
Mr. Scudder." She patted Trixie, her cowpony, then laughed when the
pony neighed at her. Jake smiled at her laugh, for it was a musical
laugh that showed him that beneath the strain she was clearly
under, she was a young woman capable of humor. "I even think that
Trixie here has been having similar thoughts about your
stallion."

Scudder grinned, his cheeks coloring
slightly as the stallion suddenly shook its great head.

"See, I was right, wasn’t I?" Elly asked.
"But you don't need to worry. I'm spoken for. Johnnie and I are
going to get married once we sort all this out – despite what my
brother Saul thinks. So you are quite safe!" And at a touch of her
knees and a click of her tongue the little cowpony trotted off
ahead.

The big stallion swiftly caught up. "I sure
am glad that we've cleared all that up, ma’am," said Scudder. He
grinned down at her. "But how about it if we dropped the formality
a mite. I'm never very comfortable when I'm tagged with the
‘mister’ label."

"Okay, Jake – and I'm Elly, remember."

As they rode together Jake pointed to a
series of fresh wheel tracks and hoofprints in the sand. "It looks
as if a wagon came one way with a couple of riders, then went back
again with a heavy load."

Elly stammered, "Y-you mean - ?"

Jake nodded at her unfinished question. "I
reckon that Marshal Brooks sent the local undertaker and a couple
of men out to Rattlesnake Pass ahead of us. It looks as if they’ve
already recovered the bodies and taken them back to
Tucksville."

And indeed, when they eventually approached
the hollow in Rattlesnake Pass, Elly insisted upon seeing for
herself where the Rocking H crew had met their end; the hellhole
from which Jake had saved Johnnie Parker.

Jake saw Elly quaver in her saddle and he
reached across, fearful that she might suddenly faint and topple
from her saddle. But she was made of tougher stuff than that. She
reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a small silver whiskey
flask.

"Johnnie gave me this," she explained,
taking a sip and offering the flask to Jake.

Jake took the flask and raised it in the
direction of the hollow, as if to toast the spirits of the dead
cowboys. "Here's hoping that we can make sure that you didn’t all
die in vain."

* * *

Silver City was a typical railhead town,
complete with stock pens, cattle market, rail station and all the
trappings that involved: water tower, coal dump, log warehouse,
sidings, turning circle and repair houses. The ‘city’ designation
had come when ‘decent’ folks arrived and the town quickly divided
itself into a working end and a society end. The society end meant
it was the part of the town where the respectable families lived;
the grocers, printers, lawyers, doctors and other bastions of
respectability. The real ‘social’ scene, however, where one could
find the saloons, cat-houses, and drug dens, occupied a sort of
unnamed and unspoken about (by the respectable women) hinterland to
the east of the city. The defining name of the city – silver –
rightly referred to the richness of the pickings in the city –
which naturally pertained to all parts of the city.

Upon entering Silver City Jake and Elly
naturally passed through the stockyards and the railhead, only to
find that the last train had headed north, laden with cattle, only
the day before. Accordingly, the stock pens were empty, the cattle
having been transferred to the slaughter-yards in the north, while
the workers had scattered to the entertainment part of town. All of
the attached offices were locked up.

"I guess we had better check into a hotel
first and then contact the local law," Jake suggested.

Half an hour later when they found the
sheriff’s office, Elly knocked on the door and immediately entered,
waking a bleary-eyed deputy from a whiskey induced slumber. He had
been slumped over the desk in the office, his head cradled on one
forearm. He snapped himself upright at the sight of a lady, his
expression one of confusion.

"What can I do for you, ma’am’’ he asked as
he rubbed sleep from his eyes then ran a hand over his dark stubbly
jowl.

"I would appreciate a word with your
sheriff," Elly returned. "It is about a robbery – rustling to be
precise – a whole herd stolen." She eyed the deputy sternly, as if
to ensure that he was listening closely. "But worse than that –
eight good men were murdered. My whole crew."

The deputy blinked repeatedly, as if he was
forcing his brain to take in this information. "Murder, did you
say, ma’am? The sheriff will need to hear about this."

"Then where is he?" demanded Jake, stepping
past Elly and planting his palms forcefully on the desk, making all
of the papers scatter and the deputy’s elbows shudder.

"In . . . in the Busted Flush Saloon," the
deputy stammered, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down nervously at
sight of the big puncher eying him belligerently.

"We’ll go and flush him out then," said
Jake, straightening up and tipping his hat. "Appreciate your help,
deputy. Guess we’ll probably meet up again."

Deputy Hank Bott hoped not. But when the
tall cowboy and the pretty lady left, a sly grin spread across his
dark jowls. "And maybe you won’t be seeing many more people
anyways, my friend," he said softly to himself. "Not if you adopt
that attitude around the sheriff." And then his thoughts turned
lasciviously towards the pretty woman accompanying him. "But maybe
you’ll meet a lot of fellers who take a shine to you, ma’am.
Especially if you go into the Busted Flush."

The Busted Flush Saloon was the ‘superior’
saloon in Silver City. It boasted gaming tables, a Faro wheel and
the prettiest chorus line west of the Pintos. And to top it all it
was run by Carmen de Menendez, reckoned by most of the cognoscenti
to be the best looking saloon owner in the southwest. She was said
to be a Mexican lady of good lineage, able to trace her family back
to the caballeros of Old Spain. As for her ‘girls," they were all
chosen for their looks, if not their morals.

The décor of the saloon had a decided
Mexican feel. That was not to say that it was like any of the
cantinas found around the borders, rather that it had an ambience
of gentility and of Hispanic opulence.

The bartenders all had thick, lush
moustaches, wore flamboyant wide sleeved shirts, with multi-colored
bandanas about their necks. The mirrors behind the long bar were of
fine gilt, and dotted about the walls were brightly colored
pictures of dancing senoritas and white toothed vaqueros.

A piano player was tinkling away below the
raised stage, across which the curtains had been drawn, presumably
in a break between chorus line numbers. The square dance area was
similarly free. Apart from that, the saloon was already pretty well
packed and the air was thick with a tobacco haze. Saloon girls
dashed between tables dexterously carrying trays of beer and
whiskey, while others just stood by various gamblers supposedly to
bring them luck. Every now and then some fortunate gambler would
gather in his winnings and leave the game to reward his
luck-bringer in one or another of the upstairs rooms.

Elly took no notice of the curious stares
that she and Scudder received from the customers, the saloon girls,
and the bar staff. She strode purposefully towards the bar where a
swarthy, grinning bartender was polishing glasses.

"We're looking for the sheriff," Jake
said.

The bartender laughed. "An unusual request,
señor. Most people in Silver City prefer not to meet the sheriff."
And then seeing that neither Elly nor Jake saw any humor in his
remark he pointed to the far corner of the saloon where a card game
was going on. "Sheriff Slim Parfitt is right over there playing
poker with the boss, Miss Carmen de Menendez."

Weaving through the crowd they made their
way to the card table where five people were playing. They stood
waiting for an opportunity to interrupt the play.