Chapter 08

Santa Barbara

We wake up to the sound of a church bell ringing, and realise it must be a Sunday: you tend to forget days of the week while travelling. We get up to organise breakfast and ourselves for the day. In an odd quirk of fate the majority of the wagon train people make independent decisions to attend the mid-morning mass at the Catholic Church which is the first large building we come to in town when we walk in a little later.

When we walk in as a group we get a few stares, that’s when we realise this is the Mexican church and there must be another one further in for the gringos to attend. Despite this oddity of gringos in church the regular congregation makes us welcome and they wait for us to be seated before starting the service. When the plate is passed around and reaches us I drop in two ten dollar gold coins for my family because we take up a couple of rows by ourselves with all of my ladies and slaves.

After the service I stop to talk to the priest for a while, and I find he has a wicked sense of humour. He speaks English very well and he makes some good puns about my clothing and poor Spanish. During our conversation I find out the American priest at the Catholic Church in the middle of town refuses to allow slaves into his church, so this priest is used to seeing the odd slave attending his services, but this is the first time he’s seen their owners attend with them or treating them so well. I also learn there are real strong tensions in the town because of some troubles between the gringos and the Mexicans that started down in Doña Anna, but he’s very reluctant to talk about what the trouble is or the cause of it. He’s surprised when the verger tells him the take from this service’s plate as it seems I wasn’t the only one of my group to make a big donation. He comments on how the extra will be useful with feeding the poor and needy. In response to a few questions I find out they have a lot of poor and needy but they don’t have the pricing problem they had in Socorro. It’s just that everyone has too little cash and the store prices are a bit high since the main town bank collapsed some months back and it put a lot of financial pressure on everyone in the area.

Smiling, I ask, “Father, how many poor and needy do you have and do you have a wagon I can borrow?”

He says, “I’ve about fifty families out of work in the town because several businesses closed when the bank closed and they lost their money plus about another twenty families on farms outside of town are having short term difficulties until their next crops can be harvested. And, yes, I have a wagon, why?”

I turn to look at Pelle who’s standing nearby, and before I can speak he says, “Si, Patrón. I think a barrel of salt, ten sacks of flour, four bolts of cloth, with needles and thread, two bundles of blankets, a dozen or so pots, a keg of gunpowder, and a box of balls for hunting.”

I smile, “Pelle, you’re getting very good as a mind reader, but add another five sacks of flour, the half barrel of salt, two more bolts of cloth, another three pots, and double the gunpowder and balls, game seemed good around here on the way in. And add a case of rifles for them to hunt with.” I turn to the priest, “Father, if you’ll organise your wagon Pelle will see those supplies are loaded for you to distribute as you see fit, and this is if you need anything else to help them.” He stands there looking very stunned when I hand over twenty ten dollar gold coins.

Shaking his head he smiles while saying, “Thank you, thank you very much,” before dashing off to organise the wagon.

By the time I’ve finished helping Donna back to our wagon the rest have lunch ready. Donna isn’t happy with me because I insist she uses the leg a bit while I walk beside her taking most of her weight so she doesn’t strain the injured leg by putting too much weight on it. I just want her to keep the muscle working to keep her muscle tone and encourage healing with a good blood flow while her leg heals. I won’t say we took a long time walking back to camp, but Pelle is putting the last of the supplies on the wagon when I settle Donna down at our campfire.

The Hangmen

After a good lunch I head into town on horseback with Tom, Steve, Ramón, and Rafael to keep an eye on me. On our approach we can see the town has two clear divisions at this end of the town. Off to one side is a largish Mexican community with a small spur across the road so it curves around the end of the gringo community that makes up most of what’s on the main street of town. When we enter I can see where an older main street goes off to the side into the main Mexican community but the newer road goes to the side to curve down through the American community that’s grown up beside the Mexican one.

We’re almost through the hundred or so yards of Mexican flow over the road when we move around the curve and see a couple of dozen men with a two blacks on the back of a wagon while some men are throwing ropes over the limb of a tree, it’s a lynching.

We ride up and I ask one of the men standing to the side, “What’s going on?”

He says, “Hanging a couple of runaway slaves.”

One of the slaves yells out, “We’s no runaways, we’s freedmen.”

I wave at my crew, and they spread out a bit while I move Wind through the crowd up to the wagon as I say, “Is anyone here the owner of these slaves?” No answer from anyone. “What evidence do you have they’re runaways?” I don’t like this crowd because I can see four of The Cause people in it and all are smirking with a glint in their eyes.

One man yells, “This,” and he hands me a handbill about two wanted runaway slaves. I give it a thorough look over and laugh, because it’s not a good description, not good at all.

I look at them, and say, “Except for the skin colour the descriptions cover nearly every man here, this is no evidence. Hell, I got two slaves that fit these description better than these two. Let them go.” The man about to put the nooses around the slaves’ heads glares at me. I draw a Dragoon and point it at him, “I said let them go. The handbill says they’re wanted alive so you have no right to hang them. Plus there’s no evidence these are the men in the handbill.” He’s very reluctant when he unties them while I keep him covered with my pistol. I look at the black man who yelled out earlier, “Got any evidence of being a freedman?” He nods yes while he pulls a paper out of his pouch to hand to me. I study it, and say, “Did you know, under the current laws of this territory I can make any unowned black man my slave just be telling him he’s now my slave?” He looks at me with wide eyes while he shakes his head no and a lot of the men in the crowd look surprised too. “I now claim you two men as my slaves.” Both black men look surprised and gulp while they give slow nods. “Rafael, please take my two new slaves back to the camp to see they’re fed and cleaned up, Mary will see to them.”

He says, “Si, Patrón,” while he gets off his horse and waves toward the camp, ready to walk back with the two men.

One of The Cause men says, “Hell, I saw them first, they’re mine.”

I smile at him, “Sorry, I made the declaration first so they’re mine. Anyway, Carter, I’ve got a federal warrant for your arrest on charges of kidnapping and murder, so you won’t need any slaves.”

As I hoped he’d do he goes for his gun, so do the other three Cause men. The fools have forgotten I already have my pistol out in my left hand while they’ve been watching my right when I read the papers and wave them about while speaking. Long ago I noticed how most right-handed people only worry about what you have in your right hand. I reach for another pistol with my right hand while I bring my left hand up to place a neat hole in the centre of Carter’s throat. I move my left hand a bit right to shoot Danvers while his gun comes up just as my right-hand gun clears leather. I’m turning to the left to aim at Fuller and North when North fires and I feel something hit my back on the right side followed by Tom yelling, “Shit, that hurts.” It seems my turn and moving Wind caused the shot to skim my back and hit Tom. I waste no time on Tom, yet, while I shoot both Fuller and North in the upper chest where I can see skin. They both drop with guns in their hands. I look around the crowd, but no one else seems to want to buy into this.

I move over to where Tom is doubled over on his horse, “Tom, how bad is it?”

He looks up, “What do you care? It bloody hurts, but didn’t penetrate because it lost a lot of power when it bounced off you.”

“OK, back to camp with you to have Mary look at it right now. Stay there until I get back.” He nods yes and turns toward the camp as he moves off at a slow walk.

I turn back to the wagon to find the crowd has left. Steve and Ramón are lifting the dead into the back of the wagon after stripping them of valuables. A large man who’d been leaning against a building nearby is still there and I can now see he’s the Town Marshal.

Getting down I go over to ask, “You’re the Town Marshal, why didn’t you try to stop the lynching?”

He spits then says, “The area of my jurisdiction ends at the street just behind me and this ain’t part of my town, so I can’t do a thing.”

I look at the obvious marks where the crowd had dragged the two black men down the last four hundred yards of street from his town. Nodding at it I say, “You could’ve broken it up while it was in your town.” He smiles. “I don’t like you, Marshal, I don’t like the way you only enforce the laws you want to enforce. I’m a businessman, a wagon train leader, and a bounty hunter. I’ve bounties to collect in this town and I’ll collect them. My people are law abiding people. If you give any of my people any trouble I’ll have no trouble killing you too. That’s not a threat, Marshal, that’s a promise. You make sure you and your deputies leave my people alone or I’ll assume you’re with the gang of murderers I’ve come here to clean out and I’ll kill you as an accomplice.”

He stands up straight from the wall while saying, “No one threatens me in my own town.”

I smile back, “According to you we’re not in your town yet, but I soon will be and that promise stands. I’ve killed better men than you just because they pushed themselves between me and my target.”

Steve calls out, “Big Ed, we’re ready to take this lot up to get a note for the bounties.” I notice the Marshal flinch at the name, so I’m beginning to think a reputation can be useful at times.

Ramón ties his horse to the back of the wagon while Steve and I remount and we head into town. Leaving the Marshal to walk back. By the time he arrives at his office we’ve dumped the bodies and handed over the handbills to one of his deputies and he’s writing out the note for the courthouse to pay us. The Marshal goes by the desk and he starts unlocking the gun rack where he keeps his rifles. Smiling at him I take the note and we leave.

After a few enquiries at the nearest store I find out the four dead men are who used to run the bank until it collapsed because it was short thirty-thousand dollars. They lived together in a house in the best part of town. We head over to the house. We’ve plenty of keys to try and are soon inside. There’s a large office with four desks in what most people use as the sitting room. I start searching the office while Steve goes upstairs to search the bedrooms and Ramón checks the barn out the back.

Soon after we get started a middle aged woman arrives and asks what we’re doing. I tell her about this morning’s events and she bursts into tears. It takes a while for me to settle her down and in a chair.

After she stops crying she tells me she’s a widow working as the cook / housekeeper here as it was the only job she could get. Now she has no job and no way to pay her rent. I ask her about a good lawyer in town. She names one so I ask her to go get him and to bring him back. She’d walked to work and asks to borrow the buggy in the barn, so I tell her to ask Ramón to harness the team for her. She leaves to get the lawyer.

By the time she’s back Ramón has found nothing of interest in the barn. He even checks the whole floor is actually dirt and not hiding any hidden cellars by moving all of the hay to check under there as there wasn’t that much. He also hitches the two other horses to the wagon and loads most of the hay onto the wagon. Steve’s finishes checking upstairs, finding nothing of interest at all. I finish checking the desks and they’ve no secret drawers or compartments. The two cabinets in the room have nothing of interest apart from notes about the Cause’s activities which I pile in a box for later review.

When the housekeeper returns with the lawyer I’m standing there looking at the room while wondering what about the room doesn’t look quite right, apart from the lack of a safe. I explain the morning’s events and ask him to draw up a deed to give the house to the housekeeper since she’s the closest thing to an heir the men have. She almost faints with shock, and Ramón helps her to a chair. Then I spot what worries me: there’s no ash or logs in the fireplace. So I go over to give it a very close scrutiny. Steve comes over and we talk about what we see of the fireplace, and we realise it’s a real lot fancier than most fireplaces. We soon tell it’s supposed to swing out after a catch is released, but we can’t find the catch. So we decide to resort to breaking it by brute force, and Steve leaves to get something to use as a lever. He returns with a long steel bar and we try to lever one side of the fireplace out.

After a few minutes we shift to the other side, and soon there’s the sound of snapping of metal followed by the whole fireplace swinging out on a pivot near the other side. Under the fireplace is a large safe door. I try the various safe keys we have, and we soon have the safe open.

Inside the safe are papers about a company the men set up, deeds to a dozen properties in the area, all toward the gold and silver deposits, and forty thousand dollars in gold coin. I remove everything from the safe before shutting it again. We leave after paying the lawyer, handing the woman a hundred dollars in gold, and signing the deed over to her.

The next stop is the bank to examine the records there. We find the bank closed because a company, the same one we found papers for in the safe, was unable to repay a loan of thirty-five thousand dollars. The buggers had swindled the local community. Taking the books we exit the bank and head for our camp.

Law and Disorder

When we start to head that way I notice the streets in that direction are empty of people when they were very full and busy before. Acting like I just remembered something I turn us back into town to go to one of the better saloons. We buy a few boxes of whisky and an unopened keg of good brandy with the original seals still intact. After placing these on the wagon I send Ramón and Steve off to the side to take the long way back through the main part of the Mexican community while I get ready to deal with whatever may be waiting for us on a once busy street. They have orders not to come back.

Going into a nearby alley I take another set of chain mail from my saddlebags to put it on over my current set after taking my harness and slicker off. I re-don my weapons harness and I adjust it for the extra padding then I put my slicker over the lot. I put all my guns on full cock, pull my rifle from the saddle boot, and take Wind out to the hitching rail. I leave him beside it with his reins on his neck and an order to stay until called. With all ready I start to walk up the street toward the camp.

I see movement up to the left on a roof so I make a fast move right. A gunshot rings out and something hits the ground just behind where I’ve been walking. Ducking behind a post in front of a store I look up to where I saw the movement to see a rifle and a part hat behind a sign.

Aiming where I think the body the hat belongs to is I fire. There’s a scream, the rifle and hat disappear, followed by a slithering sound, another scream, then a man comes sliding off the side of a two story building to land on the ground, hard. I can see his Deputy Marshal badge from here. Now I know the score I can deal with it. I slip the rifle sling over my shoulder while I grab my shotgun with my left hand and a pistol from my right hip.

Taking off in a sprint I head up the street for four paces then cut hard left to cross it. When I cut left two men step out of a doorway on the other side of the street to fire at me, and they both seem surprised to see I left the far side-walk. Bringing the shotgun up I fire and watch both fall with hits in the lower body and upper legs. I doubt they’re fatal but they’re not shooting for the moment because they dropped their rifles. After a few more seconds I reach them. Yep, not fatal and they’re reaching for the pistols on their hips. I finish them off with chest shots from my pistol: two less deputies to worry about.

I race out of this doorway and back the way I came. Taken by surprise two men firing at me shoot up the wall in the direction they expect me to go toward the camp. They’d have been great shots with a perfect lead if I’d gone that way. Both are on the other side, one is straight across and the other up two stores. I stop to bring my pistol up to shoot the one up the street a bit before darting toward the closer one while I line up the shotgun and fire. The man up the street is falling over backwards when the closer man loses his face and I take off like a scared rabbit again. When I pass the dead I see I’ve another deputy and an extra, but no familiar faces yet.

It’s clear these people haven’t had any training in urban combat. They wait to try to shoot me whenever I become visible while I pop up and down as I zig then zag to get them to show themselves so I can shoot them. Over the next few minutes I’ve made two blocks while leaving six deputies and four extras lying dead in the street. I stop to reload.

While I’m squatting down behind a water barrel reloading I hear movement in the street but nothing close to me. Keeping low with the barrel between me and where I think the remaining enemies are I back up to the alley just behind me. Moving into the lengthening shadows I race up the outside stairs to the top floor of this building. I make no noise when I open the door and go inside. I’m quiet while I go down the hall to where I can see the access to the roof. In a moment I’m on the roof and moving to the far edge because this roof slopes a little toward the back from the front business sign. I’m sure everyone expects me to look over the front of any roof sign if I get up here, so I lie near the edge about halfway along the side. I lose sight of a lot of the street, but it’s not easy for anyone to see me before I can see them.

Bringing my rifle into play again I take aim at a man I can see moving up the alley on the opposite side of the street. He stops to look up and say something, so I look up at the roof top too, and see someone kneeling while they speak to him.

After taking aim I shoot the man on the roof first. The man on the ground moves against the wall on his right when the man on the roof sways back with the hit then he topples sideways over the edge. When he hits the ground the man in the alley turns to look at him and I shoot him too. That’s twelve down, and I wonder how many fools the Marshal talked into this. I don’t move, and soon another man enters the alley. He stops to check the fallen men, so I shoot him in the chest. I figure it’s time to move so I take care to go back to the other side of the roof.

I’m careful when I peek over and I see two men on the stairs while they prepare to enter the building. Making slow moves so as not to alert them I bring my shotgun around to shoot the one near the door while he opens it then I take out the one on the stairs when he looks up at the sound of the shot. I turn and check the alley to see a man run into the alley with a rifle in his hands. I waste no time as I shoot him too. That’s sixteen down. Seeing this doubling back is working well I slide across the roof again to spot two men working down this alley. Two more shotgun blasts makes it eighteen dead enemies.

A quick move back to the stair side. There’s no movement, so I lower myself down to drop onto the stairs. I dart down and under the stairs to squat down in the deep shadow of the building and stairs to reload all of my guns again. I decide to wait here for a while to see what develops. Someone opens the door and comes down the stairs, another two enter the alley, one from each end of it. A man says, “Damned if I know where he went as he’s not on the roof or inside.”

The Marshal replies, “Well, find him, you know it’s a two thousand dollar bounty on his head by The Cause. We don’t know why, but he’s hunting them down and they want him dead.” I smile while I take aim with the shotgun and fire between the steps. The two with the Marshal take the brunt of the blast and are knocked into him. I step out and shoot the Marshal in the face with my pistol. I hear running footsteps so I duck back. Another man runs into the alley, so I greet him with a .44 calibre chest conversion kit. I wait, and a moment later the only sounds I hear are two horses riding away very fast. Twenty-two of them dead in an ambush where I don’t get hurt, that should make some of them think twice about future ambushes and attempts to kill me.

I walk out into the street and look around - there’s no movement at all. I whistle for Wind, when he arrives and I write a note for Ramón to bring the wagon. I put my rifle in the boot and I attach the note to the saddle before telling Wind to go to Alice. He leaves at a fast walk. I reload the shotgun and start to drag the dead out into the street.

I’ve all the dead in the street by the time Ramón arrives with Pelle and José. They just look at the piles of dead and shake their heads while they help me stack the bodies in the wagon and their valuables in the wagon’s front. Once loaded we take them up to a saloon and I pay the barkeeper to identify them and tell me where they keep their horses and their gear. Gulping hard he tells me. After dropping the garbage at the undertakers and asking him to organise a common grave for them we go to collect the horses and gear of the dead. On the way back to camp we find Rafael talking to the owner of the wagon we borrowed earlier, so I give the man a ten dollar coin as hire. Rafael climbs aboard and we head back to camp.

Visitor

The next day I’m sitting eating my breakfast when a man rides up to the camp and asks to speak to me. I wave him to a seat and motion for Ruby to get him a cup of coffee. He thanks her when she hands it over. I wait for him to have a good drink before giving him a questioning look.

He says, “I’m the Doña Anna County Sheriff and I’ve heard about you from my counterparts further north, it’s all good. The Sheriff of Socorro really likes you. I already know about yesterday afternoon and how they ambushed you. I was trying to get evidence of corruption against the Town Marshal here, but now that’s not needed. You acted in self-defence so that’s all clean. However, I’ve a special request. I’m told you get on well with the Mexicans. I’ve got a major problem within the Mexican community in Doña Anna and they won’t talk to me, not at all. I’ve a good relationship with them and they usually do talk to me, but now they don’t. They’re not talking to any Anglos. The Socorro Sheriff says the Mexicans up his way thinks you walk on water so I’m hoping you may be able to help me.” I often nod while he talks and I continue eating.

Looking up I say, “I’ve got a little bit of cleaning up to do here first. But I’m heading your way and I’ll see what I can do when I get there. In the meantime, I need your help on something. The local bank here closed due to a swindle worked by the bank owners. I’ve the evidence of that and the money they took, but I need help to explain it all to the people and to find the people to give them their money back. I don’t have time to do all that so I need the names of trustworthy people to take that over, unless you can do it. Oh, the swindlers are dead.” He smiles and names a couple of people.