Chapter 12

The first day was uneventful, we had made decent time considering that we were heading up into mountains, but we remained in a high state of alert. In the late morning of the second day, as I rode ahead of the rest, I noticed, in a wide spot in the trail, some tracks of shod horses or mules. I mentally kicked my own butt for not paying attention to tracks yesterday; luckily we had no problems because of my carelessness. I suspected that the motley group of miners we had a run in with previously was now ahead of us and that they had something unpleasant in mind. When the rest of the party caught up to me, I discussed my concerns with them.

“Well Jim, what do you think we should do about this,” said Rory, indicating the tracks.

“Hold up here while I scout ahead on foot,” I responded. “ If, as I suspect, they are waiting to ambush us up the trail someplace, they will be expecting us on horseback and in the wagons. One thing experience has taught me is to avoid doing the expected in enemy territory, and we had best consider this entire trip to be in enemy territory.”

That got a lot of nods, yehs, and yups from everyone. So that’s what we did, the animals were set to grazing on the sparse vegetation, and the people settled into protected, shady spots. I grabbed my Winchester and a canteen and set out to see what I could see.

I went to the ridge that the trail went around, and staying below the ridge line so that I would not be silhouetted against the sky, I followed it for about two miles. Every few hundred feet, I would take off my hat and peek over the ridge to observe the other side. About two miles along the ridge, my suspicions were confirmed. At a point where the trail took a hard right, with a sheer drop off to the left, the miners had set up an ambush. We would have been sitting ducks. In my professional opinion, the miners had made only one mistake, but it was a big one. They had found a great spot for themselves, a depression that they could lay in that gave them both protection and a good view of the trail below. It was such a good spot that they all wanted to use it, so all of them crowded into that one position, as I said, a big mistake. Now these boys were all dumb as rocks, but I didn’t think that they necessarily should have to die over it. So I came up with a plan.

I worked my way back to my party and told everyone what I had seen and what I had planned. The response was interesting, all the men started laughing and loved the idea, but all the women had a very different response. I think that Tara summed up the women’s opinion.

“We should just kill all the bastards, that’s what they plan on doing to us,” she exclaimed vehemently.

Her statement was greeted enthusiastically by the rest of the women. I was reminded of the old western warning to avoid being captured and handed over to the women.

We decided that Cal, Tye, and I would handle the ambushers, so we each picked up an empty feed sack, picked up sticks, spread out, and started to turn over rocks. Once we had what we wanted, I led them to the site of the planned ambush. We silently moved in, took up a position overlooking the miners, and got our bags ready. At my nod, we emptied the bags, and five really pissed off rattlesnakes were dumped on the eight miners. The result was hilarious; weapons were dropped as the screaming and yelling commenced, and the eight wanted nothing more than to get out of the depression that they had previously been so happy with. Once the snakes had slithered off, and the miners were calmed down, we stood up with rifles pointed at them.

“Well boys,” I said, “that plan didn’t work out very well for you did it? This was your second try at harming us; you will not live through a third. As a matter of fact, if our womenfolk had their way, your bodies would be starting to rot right where you stand. So you best avoid us in future. We all know what each of you looks like, and the next time we see any of you we will start shooting, no questions asked. Now you boys take off your boots and your pants and start down the trail. You should reach the junction in about three days on foot. Now get!

“But our feet will be raw by the time we get there,” one of them complained.

“It just plain sucks to be you,” I responded, “would you rather make the trip with a .45 slug in your ass?”

With that, they started down the trail.