Chapter 24

Just when we were thinking that we could get on with our lives, all hell broke loose.

We rose to the smell of burning wood, a very upset Thumper raising hell in the stable, and a large pillar of smoke rising from the direction of my brothers old camp. There were no local people, white or Indian, who would burn the camp, that meant the agents. We figured that we had about four to five hours before the agents appeared on the trail up to the plain.

Opal Anne and Betty Mae set about placing weapons and ammunition at the predetermined spots, and I moved the gate to flood the old riverbed. Opal Anne led three saddled horses, closing the new large gate behind her, down the trail to the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. She walked up the steps from what would serve as our final escape route. If all else failed, we would take off down the old waterfall steps to the pool.

We figured that we had everything ready to go. We met in our hogan and fed the babies and ourselves. Then we put the girls in cradles in the hogan closest to the stairs to the pool and our horses. It was during that meal that our fight began.

“I’m going to be the one to meet them at the gate!” Betty Mae said firmly.

“No! I’ll do that. I’m the last of the O’Dell brothers and I’ll meet them at the gate.”

“No husband, Betty Mae is correct,” Opal Anne said with surety. “Because you are the last O’Dell male, you can’t do that. The chances that they’ll just shoot you are very high. The odds that they’d shoot Betty Mae is smaller.”

“Besides they killed my husband. If anyone should be the first to shoot it should be me. If I can take out the leader, maybe it will cause a panic.”

“Betty Mae, if these men are professional hires, they won’t care who they shoot, just like with Raylene.”

“They might think twice if I have Rory’s shotgun pointed at them. Maybe I can get them to wait there while their leader comes over the gate and talks to you, Paul.”

“I don’t like it, Betty Mae. Mick would kill me.”

“Mick’s dead, Paul. And these are the men who killed him. This is now my home and I’m going to defend it, and Mick’s daughter, with everything I have.”

Betty Mae’s firm confidence sealed the deal. We talked about what she should say and planned to have her stand away from the side of the gate that would cause charging riders to head into our traps. The plan was that if they charged the gate, she could take a shot at the leader and then hide behind one of the many timber snow and wind breaks.

We noted the sounds of men approaching and I said a small prayer that my family and I would come out of this OK. Opal Anne and I took our places and Betty Mae walked towards the gate and stood firm with Rory’s standard Confederate issue 8-gauge shotgun at the ready. A group of fifteen riders came to the gate and stopped. They paused, looking at the armed woman with the brown hair standing before them.

“We’re looking for the O’Dells,” the apparent leader said.

“This is the home of the O’Dell clan. May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“My name is Rogers. Brian Rogers of the Pueblo Cattle Management Company. And you are?”

“I am Betty Mae O’Dell, the wife of the man twelve of your people attacked and killed.”

“It seems that we have a different point of view about that. From what I’ve heard, the O’Dell gang ambushed my men.”

“Really? Then why was my husband the only O’Dell killed while you lost eleven men?”

“Eleven?”

“Yes. My husband killed eleven of your men, the last one with his knife after he’d run out of ammunition. One man, Lucky was his name, stole my husband’s horse and ran away. When he came back, he found my brothers in law and my sister in law. He rode up on Mick’s horse and Paul O’Dell shot him. My sister in law shot another man and my brother in law, Rory O’Dell, shot the third, both of which had drawn their guns.”

“The fourth man, Farmer, told us about your outfit. Our lawyer, Mr. Dewey C. Howe, has contacted the State of Colorado and your outfit. If you didn’t know, the O’Dell clan holds a legal land grant from the King of Spain for most of eastern Colorado, including Pueblo. Any actions you take here could have a negative impact on the negotiations to turn over portions of the grant to the State.”

“I don’t know anything about any of that. I’m here to arrest the entire O’Dell clan for the murder of sixteen men.”

“Sixteen? What about the six other men who raided the O’Dell’s gold claim, killing Raylene O’Dell and her infant son, Roddy? That would be the camp that you and your men just burned down. At this point, we are prone to believe that you and your outfit have declared war on the O’Dell clan and have invaded their legally granted land. I advise you to turn around, return to Pueblo, and get the facts of the situation before you do something you will not survive.”

“You expect me and my men to be afraid of a single woman with a shotgun?”

Betty Mae stood there in silence. The men seemed to be waiting for her to speak and when she didn’t the leader ordered one of his men forward to open the gate.

“Touch that gate, on penalty of death!” Betty Mae said, as loudly as she could.

The man rode close to the gate, Opal Anne and I trained our rifles on the leader and the man next to him. The rider reached the gate and leaned over in the saddle to unlatch the gate.

“Do not touch that gate, on penalty of death!” Betty Mae said, again as loudly as she could, her shotgun at the ready and aimed at the man reaching for the gate latch.

The man paused and broke out in a big grin as he lifted the latch and Betty Mae loosed a slug from the shotgun into his horse’s front flank. The horse jumped up and then collapsed towards its wounded front left leg and threw the rider. He was pitched forward and came down with his throat on the top timber of the gate, crushing his windpipe. The horse pitched over to its side, dead and the leader yelled.

My first shot went into the center of his chest and flipped him back off of his mount. The man next to him was hit by Opal Anne in the left side of his chest and fell sideways. As soon as Betty Mae had shot the first man, she dove for the cover of the timbers that made up the first wind break. The other men were not daunted and broke through the unlatched gate. Betty Mae rose up from behind the wind break and fired the second barrel at the passing group of men.

We opened fire from our concealed positions and took down two more men. One of the men in the back of the pack saw Betty Mae shooting a passing rider and shot her. She fell forward over the wind break, dead.

“Kill them all!” Opal Anne yelled and we fired in the pattern we’d planned, driving the men towards the traps in the shallow water. Five of the horses immediately stumbled into the gopher holes and went down with broken legs. The thrown riders hit the ground and three of them broke their necks, while the other two broke arms or legs. As soon as they attempted to stand, we shot them.

The remaining eight riders tried to wheel out of the water only to run into the mud field. With the horses bogged down, Opal Anne and I took out another four. With only four more men alive, we calmly shot their horses. Horses are a much bigger target and usually if you drop the horse, it will badly injure the rider. All four men went down. Only one got up and Opal Anne shot him.

The only sound on the plain was that of injured horses. Opal Anne and I came out from our hiding places and were walking around the field of battle. I shot three of the injured horses, while Opal Anne ran to Betty Mae’s body. She got there to find that Betty Mae was, indeed, dead. She reloaded the shotgun and then wrapped herself around the dead body of the woman who, over the years, she’d considered to be a real sister and cried.

Just then another group of men rode at full speed up the trail and in through the open gate. Having heard the sounds of the battle, they had guns drawn and began to shoot at Opal Anne immediately. Opal Anne released her sister and aiming the shotgun, killed one rider and shot a horse, dropping its rider. I was in the midst of reloading my rifle when the group rode in and as soon as I saw them, I knelt and began to shoot.

I hit two horses and Opal Anne hit another after reloading. Unlike Betty Mae, Opal Anne remained behind the break and didn’t expose herself to returning fire. When the group of men passed her, she rose up and shot two more horses in the rump. They stumbled and went down, throwing their riders. When the riders stood, Opal Anne shot them with her pistol.

I was focused on the riders galloping towards the hogans. I kept shooting at the horses until I ran out of ammunition, then I pulled my pistol and gave myself covering fire while I repositioned myself inside the old stable hogan and retrieved the fully loaded rifle and the pouch of ammunition we’d left there. As the remaining group of men rode past, I killed two more of them.

Opal Anne had left the cover of the wind break after the men had passed her and as she ran to the next position, where Betty Mae should have been, she aimed her pistol and shot two of the downed riders in the head. There were now six men remaining on horseback and one running in the water. She shot the man on foot and moved behind one of the other wind breaks to the next position, where she retrieved another rifle.

From that position, we now had the remaining riders in a crossfire and after dropping four of them, the remaining two threw down their guns and raised their hands. Both Opal Anne and I stood from our positions and slowly advanced on the two men.

“Get off your horses. NOW!” I yelled. “Get on your stomachs! NOW!”

The men quickly dismounted and plopped down into the shallow water and mud. Opal Anne advanced on them, shooting two horses as she got close to them.

“If you make any move that looks hostile, I will kill you,” I said loudly. “How many more men are there in your group?”