Chapter 8

We decided that Cal would start to take out the riders on the left, Tye would do the same on the right, and I would work the middle. After a few seconds of rifle fire, four men were down and the others rode off to the north. We had fired a lot more than four rounds, but men riding all out are a harder target than you might expect if you get your ideas about shootouts from cowboy movies.

With the action over, we collected our horses and rode down to the cart. The people came out from under the cart and dusted themselves off. We found that we had rescued a Mexican family, made up of Diego and Isabella Diaz along with their daughters, Ana who was 17 and Mia who was16. Diego’s hired man, who had been leading the mule, had been shot dead along side of his charge. After the introductions and enthusiastic thanks were concluded, I asked Diego, in Spanish, what the hell all the shooting was about.

“As you can see,” responded Diego in English, “we are, or after this, I guess I should say, were shepherds. We made our living on the open range, moving the sheep around for water and grass. A man named Gill claims all the land around here and has been driving off everyone else. He has a special hate for Mexicans and sheep so he set his men on us. You can see the result. My man Nano is dead, and any sheep not dead, soon will be. To make matters worse, when the men you drove off report to Mr. Gill, he will return to finish off us and you. That’s the kind of man he is. The word around is that he and some of his men rode with Quantrill during the war. He can’t accept defeat; it would put backbone in the others in the area that he is trying to drive off. I’m sure that tomorrow he will be back with all of his men.”

“Well then we’ll just have to be sure to prepare a good welcome for him when he shows up,” I replied.

After we got the Diaz family and their cart, which contained everything they owned, back to our camp, we started planning for our reception, if Mr. Gill decided to pay us a visit.

First we skinned and gutted as many of the sheep as we could handle. We made a big pot of lamb stew, the dogs ate like gluttons on leg of lamb, we started to turn as much as we could into jerky, and we set up a canvas tepee to smoke as much as we could over a smoldering mesquite fire. Even with that, a lot of meat was going to feed the wildlife.

As all this work was going on, I noticed that some pairing off was taking place. Cal and Ana were mostly working together, as were Tye and Mia. I looked around and noticed that I was not the only one to catch on to the pairing off. Isabella, Tara, and Dove, would all nudge each other and smile as they nodded towards the young couples. I soon had the feeling that my young hands were roped, tied, and soon to be branded by those two pretty young senoritas.

After looking over the terrain and factoring in the fact that Gill had wartime experience, I came up with a plan. I knew that Gill would not be foolish enough to attack a fortified position, like I intended to turn our wagons into, head on. He would want the advantages of surprise and a flanking attack. I expected him to hit us at dawn, pin us down with rifle fire from the front, and then send men into the riverbed to hit us from both sides, that’s how I would have done it. The real fighting would be taking place in the riverbed. If he succeeded, end of game. I was going to make sure that he failed, and if possible, that he died. Without him at its head, his whole operation in Arizona would collapse. The kind of men he had working for him were opportunist, with loyalty only to themselves. When he died they’d grab what they could and head for greener pastures. I called my troops together to go over my plan. I explained to them what I expected Gill to do, and then I told them how we were going to defeat him.

“Ok, this is what we’ll do, first, Pat, Isabella, and the girls will tend the animals in the riverbed, next, the wagons are already in a bow formation, so we’ll pile rocks around them, and Diego, along with Rory and Dove will keep the frontal attackers busy. Fire enough to keep them occupied, but don’t expose yourselves. It doesn’t matter if you hit anyone or not, just keep them occupied. Next, Cal and Tye will take up the prone positions I showed them downstream, when the men coming from that direction start to yell and scream, you boys open up on them with your Henry’s.”