Chapter 10

New Mexico Territory, April, 1894

I had a very pleasant couple of weeks in Santa Fe, but I got a rude shock when I stopped by to get my horse. She had been stolen! Now, that pissed me off. I had really liked that horse; she was actually smart enough to come in out of a shower of shit. I insisted that the livery stable supply me with a replacement horse, since they had been the responsible party when it was stolen. I did have to get the marshal to help management see reason, but things were finally settled. I told them that I would return their horse when I found mine.

I asked around town and got a description of the probable thief and which direction he had taken when he left town, so I packed my stuff on the new horse and started the search. I really did not have much to go on, so I feared that this would be a long search. Since my horse had some unusual markings, and most people rode geldings instead of mares, I thought that the horse would be easy to spot even if the thief was not. That meant that I should ask people if they had seen the horse, rather than the rider.

When I got to the next town, I asked everybody I could find if they had seen my horse. A couple of people remembered the unusually marked mare and pointed out the direction taken when the rider left town. I followed this routine at every town I came to, but I never seemed to get any closer to the thief.

This went on for nearly three weeks, and then I got lucky. The thief had spent several days in this town playing poker at a saloon; he had got onto a winning streak and wanted to play it out. After winning over $200, he rode out of town that morning. I got directions and jumped on my horse.

I rode at a fast trot, thinking to catch up pretty soon. I was searching with my binoculars when I saw a horse and rider in the distance. I sped up a little more and began to close on the other rider. He happened to see me and urged his mount into a run. I knew I could never catch up in a stern chase, since his horse was better rested than mine. I had to spend more of my brainpower and less of my mount's horsepower. I slowed down and my quarry was quickly out of sight.

Now I had to be careful for fear of an ambush. I figured that the other man must think that I was a sore looser from the poker game and out to recover my loses. Therefore, he was bound to take a shot at me as soon as he thought he could score a kill. We were moving into rougher country, so I had to be on a continual lookout.

Suddenly a shot rang out and a bullet whizzed past me only inches from my head! The smart bastard had doubled back on me as soon as I had lost sight of him. I dropped from my horse as if I had been shot. I was careful to land in a position where I could quickly draw my pistol if the opportunity arose to get in a good shot. I was also able to wind up so that I could not easily be seen from the direction I assumed the shot had come from.

There was silence of about fifteen minutes and then I heard hoof beats slowly coming toward me from the direction of the shooter. This was the information I needed! I slipped my rifle from its scabbard and crept into the nearby rocks. The bastard had seen me move and snapped off a shot. He missed, but he confirmed that I had to kill him.

I moved into the rocks in a position so that I would have a shot at him if he tried to ride away, even though I couldn't see him at the moment. He seemed to have pretty much the same idea, because another shot ricocheted off the rock near my head. I was probably lucky that the wind was a bit gusty and causing him to miss.

I looked around to try to find the source of the shot. I had a pretty good idea, since there was a limited field of fire at my head. I decided to hunker down in place and hope to get a shot at him. There! I saw his shadow for a moment. Now I knew his location closely enough to try a trick. I figured that I would never get a clear shot at him as long as we stayed in these rocks, so I would try a bank shot. I picked what I thought would be the probable ricochet path and fired three shots as fast as I could lever them into the chamber. There was a scream from the other man, so I guessed that one or more bouncing bullets had hit him. When a bullet bounced off a rock, it got badly distorted and would make a very ragged hole in any flesh it struck. Furthermore, it would have lost a lot of energy, so it would stay in the flesh and not pass through. Over all, it would be a very painful wound.

I waited for a half-hour, but nothing happened. I stuck my hat up to try to draw a shot?nothing. I stuck my head up, hoping to see him before he could shoot me?nothing. I stood up?nothing. He could be playing possum, but I kind of doubted it. I carefully walked over to his position and found him lying in a pool of blood. One shot had hit him in the back and another had hit him in the thigh. The latter shot had resulted in the most blood, so I figured that had cut the main artery in his leg and he had bled to death. I left him there to bleed out while I took care of some details.

I went to my mare to see if she had been abused. She appeared to be in good condition. Only an idiot would mistreat his horse out here in the desert, but there are idiots every where. The thief's possessions were in good repair, so why had he stolen my horse? I probably would never know the answer to that. I checked to see what he was carrying; it was the usual extra grub, extra ammunition, and little else. I guess I needed to go check his body.

Examination of the corpse was a little more useful. I found a money belt with $472; I would keep that to pay me for my trouble in chasing him down. He had some loose change in his pockets and a letter, which I read. Also, he turned out to be on my wanted list; he was worth $100 to the court system.

The letter was interesting: it was an invitation to join a "job" scheduled for June in Alamogordo. He was supposed to meet some other men at a particular saloon on a particular date. I thought I might look into that. In any case, I had a body to deliver to a courthouse and a horse to deliver to a livery stable. I took care of both over the next two weeks.

June is a good time to be in Alamogordo: the weather is clear, no monsoon yet, and the temperature is pleasant most of the day. I rode into town without a specific plan; I thought that I would just see what developed. I knew that I could not pass for the dead horse thief, but maybe I could bluff my way into finding out what was going on. It might be profitable if I played my cards right. On the proper day I walked into the proper saloon and looked around for "Shorty" Johnston, the one who had signed the letter. There was only one man in the place at that time who looked like he fit the name; he was about 5'-2" tall. I'd bet he was sensitive about his lack of height so I planned to walk carefully around his name. I walked up to him and asked, "Are you Shorty Johnston?"

He said, "Maybe. Who wants to know and why?"

I said, "May I sit down. I'll explain." He waved me to a chair. I then said, "I'm Bill Seward. I ran into Jes Willard, an old friend, a few weeks ago. We were sitting in a saloon, talking, and he showed me the letter you wrote to him. He said that he was committed to something else he couldn't get out of, so he wondered if I was interested in checking out this 'job' you spoke of. He said that you were a good man who could be depended on, and I could expect good things if you accepted me."

Shorty looked pleased at the praise and looked like he would be inclined to offer me the job. We talked for a while, but he never told me the nature of the job. One of his cohorts, "Beanpole" Ferguson, came up and sat at the table. I offered to get us all a beer, and the other two acquiesced. I had hardly reseated myself when another man, Jim Simpson, walked up and said, "Shorty, why are you sitting with Mat Sullivan, the bounty hunter?"

At this, Shorty, Beanpole, and Jim all drew their guns, but I was faster. I drew my cross-draw and shot all three before they could get their guns pointed my way. I never did find out, for sure, what the mysterious "job" was to be, but I suspected a political assassination since there was a big meeting scheduled for Alamogordo in three days.

Everybody in the saloon started shouting and diving for cover when the shots rang out, but the bartender kept his head and sent the swamper to fetch the sheriff or the marshal. The sheriff showed up first, so I told him who I was and why I was in town. I told him that I recognized Shorty and Beanpole as wanted men and planned to claim the reward. I wanted a receipt from him that I could take around to the courthouse and collect my money. He gave me the receipt I needed and told me it was OK to leave, since all the witnesses agreed that the shooting was in self defense.

This was a very good trip. The reward totaled $750, so I had plenty to deposit in Saul Jakobs' bank in Santa Fe. I went directly to his associated bank and forwarded $1400 that I had accumulated over the last six weeks.

It was getting harder and harder to stay away from Sue, Ann, and Bobby. Those kids kept pulling me back. I was beginning to long for some place to call home. Sure, I liked to wander around the wilds of NMT, but I felt the need to anchor someplace. I just couldn't put it off any longer, I had to pay them a visit.

I rode into Goshen with the thought of getting them some sort of transportation to and from town. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I felt that a mule and a small wagon would serve them best. In my experience, a mule was much smarter than a horse, much hardier and better able to withstand weather extremes, and stronger for its size.

They needed a wagon, rather than a buckboard, because a wagon would better withstand the rough travel over the section without a road. By the same token, the wagon needed to be small so that it could squeeze through some of the narrow passages between their home and Goshen.

I was afraid of the consequences if there was an obvious road to their home. It would be too easy to attract trouble. There were too many selfish, uncaring riffraff wandering around to suit me. I believed that the best way to avoid them is to keep them from knowing you were around.

I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible as I shopped around for a mule and wagon. I finally found what I wanted and started toward the kid's home, driving the wagon with my horse tied behind. It was quite by accident that I discovered that I was being followed. The person following me was about as disreputable as you could imagine. He had clothes that were mostly rags and he looked like he had not bathed in weeks, or longer. I didn't like the looks of this, so I pulled in to a copse and waited for him to catch up to me. I was standing beside the wagon when he came up and I asked him why he was following me. He insisted that he was not following me and started to ride past. Just as he was even with me, he jumped at me from his horse, wielding a large knife. I jumped to one side and pulled my cross-draw pistol. I shot him three times before he stopped moving.