Chapter 5

We were within two hundred yards of the cabin when someone yelled, “Help!” Just ahead of us, I saw Rocky lying under a dark bush. He had pulled the brush limbs away from him when he heard us so we could spot him.

I jumped down from the horse and ran up beside him. “Kid, I’ve been shot in the leg and crawled in here from this side of the cabin. I thought you wouldn’t be home until tomorrow, but I was hoping. Who’s in the buggy?”

“Mable and Atea.” I motioned for them to help. I gently pulled Rocky out from under the bush. He had a three-inch furrow in the meaty part of his left leg in front, six inches above his knee.

“I’m weak. I lost a lot of blood before I could rip the sleeves off my shirt and bind it up. That was about three hours ago. One hellion came looking, but stopped before he came this far. Kid, am I glad to see you.”

“Who shot you?”

“One of the Owl-hoots I knew years ago. The outlaw knew I had a ranch and came looking for it. He isn’t looking anymore. I managed to get lead into him, and I hope he’s dead. At least it wasn’t him who was searching for me.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Six left. All the bastards are out there rustling and cutting our herd. Three men are on this end, and three more are on the other side. They are just taking last year’s heifers. I think the rest will take off if you can whittle them down. They will need at least five hands to handle the critters. We better make some plans before you move me.”

“Where are Jack and Karen?”

“In the cabin, I think, they are hiding in that hole we rigged up for them once, that’s if trouble ever came down on us. We made it big enough for Atea, but I don’t guess everyone would fit in now; everyone is bigger.”

“If Atea can get inside the bunk room, she knows how to protect herself and anyone else.”

“You mean the shotgun?”

I nodded, “Rocky, I’m armed too. I never expected to need to use it, but I’m ready.”

“Let me think a minute so everyone sit still.” It didn’t take long to know what I planned to do. “Rocky, I will carry you through the woods to the other side of the cabin. If I sit you up, can you still shoot?”

“I can handle my handgun, and I think I can handle the rifle. Luckily, you are armed with both.”

“Good. Mable, when I leave Rocky, I’ll scout to see where everyone is. I’ll look and then get you and Atea. I’ll try to clear the way for you to make it inside the cabin before they see you.”

I scooped up Rocky and worried I was making him hurt more than needed.

“Keep going, it ain’t that bad.”

I found a good place where Rocky was able, if need be, to shoot from. “Go, Kid, we have to make sure the women aren’t harmed.” There were three men close by. Two were mounted, and one was standing near the yard.

I returned and got Mable and Atea, telling them their exact moves to get inside the cabin. I hitched the team and my horse so it wouldn’t run away.

I had Rocky set in a place where he could do me some good if I needed him to back me up with his handgun. The two men on horses were keeping a small gathering of yearlings from heading across the range to where the main herd remained. Close to the yard watching them, one man occasionally shouted an order. He stood with his back to me. I eased out from the corner about thirty feet from where he stood.

Atea, leading Mable at a run, came around in front of the building and headed for the cabin door. Maybe the noise in the yard or hearing their feet set him whirling around, seeing the women. He stared for a few seconds and then turned and shouted at the two on mounts, “Get them women, and save one of them for me, and to hell with the cattle!”

Mable and Atea went through the door, slamming it. The two mounted men spurred their horses into a run and slid them to a stop, dropping from their mounts and hitting the door with their bodies. They broke through it.

Now, I had this man in the yard practically facing me full on. I took my attention off the cabin and drew my gun. His gun was coming into line as well. The gun practice Rocky taught paid off. Two seconds, maybe, and I was facing a dead man. It was close, though, for his shot dug dirt in the ground two inches from one foot.

Rocky and I could hear the men in the cabin shouting at the women in the bedroom to open the door. Not for long, though. The shotgun went off, and then a moment later, another gun fired. I ran in after shouting, I was coming in. Mable and Atea stood at the bedroom door, looking bewildered. I looked down, and there was one man whose middle was a shattered mess. I realized I had tracked through some of him splattered all over the cabin.

Mable said, “Atea shot the one that is messed up. He didn’t even have his gun out. I shot that man with his gun in hand, crawling on the floor. I don’t know what he intended when he started crawling to the door, trying to reach his feet, but I stopped him. Most likely, he intended to kill you if you were still alive.”

“Walk around the end of the cabin. Rocky will see you come out.” I paused to tell Karen to bring Jack and head for the tepee with Atea.

Surprisingly, this action hadn’t taken very long. Rocky shouted, “Heads up, Kid, we have more trouble coming. Where is the rifle?”

I rushed out. The two horses were standing not far from the door. One had a rifle in a sheath. I grabbed that and headed around to the end of the cabin. I grabbed my rifle, which leaned against the cabin, and ran to where I had cached Rocky.

“Riders are headed this way, three of them in a bunch. You work from the left, and I’ll take them from the right.” When the riders were close enough, I fired, and Rocky’s rifle did at the same time. I knew I had winged the one on the left, and Rocky did the same to his target. We both fired at the one in the middle.

Just before we fired, the middle rider yanked his horse to a stop. It reared up, shielding the rider, taking both bullets. The horse went down, and the rider came over its head, hitting the ground headfirst. He lost his gun from his holster and slowly got to his feet. The two wounded now stopped and waited for us to kill them.

“Throw your guns away and walk toward us. We ain’t going to kill you.”

“Christ, we weren’t shooting at you; our guns are still in our holsters. What happened to the others?”

“They didn’t make out as well. Rocky killed your boss before I got here. I killed one, and the other two who went after our women, and both are dead.”

“Are you going to let us go? We were hired to work cattle, and that’s all.”

“Nope, can’t do that, you were with them.”

“Well, tie up our wounds before we bleed to death. What kind of people are you?”

“Hey, the guy Rocky shot is a known outlaw. He pulled a gun on him, but Rocky was faster. The outlaw got lead into him, though, before we came and found him. Didn’t you hear any shooting?”

“Nope, we were sent to the herd in the far end. We were told to go past where there were some old Indian tepee poles and then head east up the mountain, and we’d find the cattle. When we heard the shooting, we stopped gathering cattle and headed where we saw the buildings. Then you bastards started shooting. You could have killed us.”

“Guess we read it wrong, sorry about that. Sit and we’ll fix you up.”

Mable, Atea, and Karen brought water and cloth. Karen was carrying some salve to smear on the wound. She was the one to begin patching Rocky. Atea and Mable each took a wounded man to work on. Rocky was the worst wounded and had lost the most blood.”

“Hey, I’ll take another bullet to have such a pretty nurse care of me.”

“Don’t laugh, and I’m glad you aren’t hurt that bad. Men, I’ve got a chore for you when you are able.”

“What?”

“Kid, take them inside the cabin and drag out those two dead men who were after our women. They won’t think their nurses are so sweet when they see what they are capable of.”

“Good God, Rocky, it’s a slaughterhouse in there.” I turned back to the mess inside. “There is blood all over. I will roll them up in the cowhides on the floor and bring them out that way. I’ll collect the two you and I shot and put them together. I wonder if we can find a sheriff or someone to report this. We can’t just bury them, can we?”

“I don’t suppose. I’ll ask Mable what they have for law in her town. Maybe find a doctor to check our wounds. I’m not hurting too bad. Those others aren’t either.”

“I’ll ask what they think. Tell you what, I’ll have Mable write it up in a note, and I’ll head down the mountain and pay the first person I meet to ride in and contact him.”

“Okay, by me, Kid. What about the ones that were rustling our cattle?”

“We could let them skip. They aren’t much older than me.”

“Kid, my thoughts are the same. We could say they are our hands and keep them out of what those other bastards did here. Report them, and they might end up with a rope necktie. It will be a good lesson for them to check out who they go to work for before taking the job.”

“Rocky, we could use some help. Even though we shot two, do you think they would work for us?”

“They might. I’ll talk to them. I’ll figure out how to blame the two that Mable and Atea killed for wounding them. They would have to trust us as much as we trust them, which might work.”

“Okay. We had better talk to Mable and Atea and get them to agree. Ask Mable to write up what happened here for the Law to read. She’s a good, solid citizen and believable. I’ll get those dead bodies out of the cabin. Also, I’ll see if Karen can start cooking some food; I’m hungry.”

It was well after dark when everything settled what went down today. The three cowpunchers were enthused about Rocky hiring them and keeping them on until their wounds healed. Rocky decided that the puncher, Dugan, who wasn’t wounded, would be the person to ride to report what had happened, carrying Mable’s account.

Mable thought and worried about the three young men and what might happen to them if we didn’t change the story of what actually happened. She was all for Rocky’s decision and was happy to go along with it.

While supper was cooking, Mable and Atea cleaned the room in the cabin of what little blood didn’t go out with the bodies. The three new men and I filled the bunks in the cabin. Rocky, Mable, Atea, Karen, and Jack stayed in the tepee.

The horse that reared up in front of the bullets Rocky saved Dugan, the hand’s name, and I fired; he not wounded, we settled on him to make the trip to find an officer. That is, if he could find one. Mable had told us that the Territorial Marshal often stayed in her town, where a jail was located.

At daylight, we put Dugan on the horse of the outlaw that Rocky killed. The horse was younger and larger than any horse that we owned. No one knew when or if he would return. In her note, Mable said, that if a doctor was available, ask him to come too. Stated in the note was the fact there was an Indian Squaw here working as our housekeeper, and did appear adequate to tending the wounded and would watch each one until a doctor could arrive.

Rocky was up, but Mable wouldn’t let him move around. Rocky resisted until Karen got before him, brandishing a poker, “Sit!” Rocky sat.

I saddled my horse to ride around the cattle. Roland and Whitney, the two wounded, said if I would saddle their mounts, they would like to ride with me. When we reached where the yearling heifers gathered on the far side of the range, we found that they had already interspersed back into the herd, so what these two had done yesterday was for naught.

I asked why they were with the outlaw bunch, and they said they were coming off a drunk, didn’t particularly care for the boss they worked for, sent word by a puncher going back to the ranch, and quit. They sat up at the bar for eye-openers, fed breakfast, and offered jobs by the outlaws. Riding leisurely, they rode up to where they were directed roundabout to get to the back of our herd, and began cutting out the heifers.

They didn’t suspect at all that the men we killed were outlaws. The rustlers did seem to know precisely where this ranch was. “They must have been planning this for a while based on how they talked.” I agreed.

“We thought sometime before you showed, we heard a gunshot. We felt we were mistaken when we didn’t hear any other shot. That has to be when the boss and Rocky tangled. The two other outlaws, who were out in the herd, must have heard the same as we did. They were driving a small bunch toward the cabin, and we didn’t pay any more attention until we heard more gunshots.

“That had to be you, and we could see people rushing around. That’s when we figured we had better find out what was happening. It would have been better if we ignored it all and took off.”

“Kid, you must have been inside to take down the one so messed up that we dragged out?”

“No, those two saw the women go into the cabin and went in after them. You know, I’ve known Atea since she was ten. I was sixteen, and even then, I worried about something terrible happening to her. I taught her how to fire a shotgun. As small as she was, I knew she shouldn’t shoot from the shoulder because the kickback could break it. She remembered my warning and did exactly what I showed her: how to use it.

“The other one, Mable, shot with a two-shot pocket gun. That was a surprise to me. I didn’t even know she was armed. Rocky is sweet to her, and they may marry.”

“What about you and the girl?”

“Nothing definite, yet, but just maybe.”

“Better not let her get mad at you, especially if a shotgun is around.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought of that.”

Roland and Whitney said they guessed they would head back to the cabin because riding was bothering their wounds. “Sure, we’ll ride straight across the range.”

“I want a sandwich. Dugan hadn’t returned, so he must be making the trip distance to town.”

The Marshal would most likely wait until tomorrow if contacted. I looked at the four dead outlaws; it hadn’t warmed much, and it wasn’t fly time yet.

Rocky was running a fever, and his leg was inflamed somewhat. I was worried. Atea said she talked to Karen, and she said this was normal.