Chapter 23

New Mexico Territory, August, 1897

Pleasant as it was staying with the kids, I decided that three weeks was long enough this time. I didn't want them to depend on me being around. Besides, I expected to be back for Christmas and that was only 4 months away.

I left for Goshen and went into the first saloon I came to. I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer. My beer had hardly arrived when the marshal came up and asked for a few minutes of my time. I told him that I always had time to talk to him, so we went to an empty table. Each of us sipped on our beer, and I waited for the marshal to speak.

He asked, "Do you know Martin Ormsby?"

I admitted that I didn't.

The marshal said, "Ormsby is the largest land owner in this area and he has disappeared. I have looked for him and I can't find hide nor hair. Could you help me out by taking a look? He's my best friend and I'm worried about him."

"For you, I'll look. How long has he been gone?"

"He disappeared a week ago. His hands said that he took a horse and headed into the hills south of the ranch house. They didn't know why he went there, maybe hunting. He had a shotgun with him."

"OK. Tell me how to find his ranch house and I'll take a look this afternoon."

I got some more information when I got to the ranch. The foreman said that Ormsby had ridden off like he hadn't a care in the world. I talked to Mrs. Ormsby and their son Tommy. Both thought that Ormsby was the sweetest man in the world. Mrs. Ormsby was the one who had notified the marshal of her husband's disappearance.

I headed south looking for some indication of Ormsby's whereabouts. I was riding into a region known to be full of caves and sinkholes. Most of southeastern NMT had the possibility of catching the unwary in a sinkhole cave-in. You had to be aware of where you were and what you were doing. I figured that my best chance of catching some sign of Ormsby was by heading off to one side of his probable route and then cutting at a right angle to cross where he might have been. I was going to try that until some better idea came along.

I rode southwest for about two miles, then cut due east. I thought this would give me the best chance of finding footprints. This put the sun behind me and I hoped to catch a break with the shadows. I rode for about an hour and them came across some tracks of a horse moving in a gentle lope. The tracks were not fresh, but not old enough to be hard to see. Maybe this was Ormsby.

I followed the tracks for nearly two miles until the tracks disappeared in a big hole in the ground. Aha, a sinkhole cave-in! It looked to me like somebody had been riding along here and there was suddenly a cave-in right under his horse's feet. I immediately turned my horse around and walked it slowly back the way we had come. I didn't want a cave-in right under us. I knew I needed to look in that hole.

There were no trees near us so I ground hitched my horse and took my rope and tied it securely to my saddle horn. I looped the rope around my waist and under my crotch so that if I fell into the hole, I would be caught in an upright position by my rope (I did make sure that my balls were out of the way of the rope).

I kept tension on the rope as I slowly walked toward the cave-in. I payed out the rope as I walked kind of sideways so that I could look at my horse and look at where I was going. I wanted my horse to stay where she was and not follow me and I also wanted to know how close I was to the edge of the hole.

I worked my way to the edge of the hole and looked down. Fortunately, the hole was no more than about 25 feet deep. At the bottom of the hole, I could see a dead horse and near by was the body of a man. I called out, "Mr. Ormsby, is that you? Are you still alive?"

There was a groan from the body and then a weak voice said, "Thank God, you've found me."

I said, "I know you are hungry and thirsty, but are you injured?"

"I have a broken leg and a broken arm."

That explained why he was still there. The sides of the hole were not very steep. I said to him, "Give me a minute to get back to my horse and I'll be down with some water and some food."

I saw that there was no danger of more cave-ins, so I hurried back to my horse and got my canteen and a little bread and cheese. I then double-checked the knot holding my rope to my saddle and made sure that the girth was tight. I didn't think that I would have any further need for the wrap around my waist and crotch, so I stepped out of that before returning to the edge of the hole.

I called out, "I'm back. I'll be there as soon as I make sure that we can get back out of this hole."

I tied some simple knots along the length of my rope to make convenient hand holds and tossed the rope down into the hole. With my canteen slung over my shoulder and the small package of food tied to my waist, I sat down and slid into the hole. I quickly made my way to Ormsby to see what I could do for him. I helped him drink a little of the water; fortunately, he knew not to try to drink too much at first. I fed him some bread and cheese and some more water. I then checked his injuries.

I found that he had simple breaks of his lower left arm and his left leg below the knee. He said that he landed on his left side against some rocks when he fell. His horse had obviously broken two legs in the fall, so Ormsby shot it right away. Even with his injuries, he had been able to reach his canteen; that had lasted until early the day before. He had not been able to crawl out of the hole because of his injuries.

I told Ormsby that I had nothing with me to treat his injuries and I certainly couldn't get him home without help, so I was going to have to leave him for about two hours while I brought help. He said he understood, so I left him and used my rope to climb out of the hole. I simply untied my rope from my saddle and raced for Ormsby's ranch house.

As soon as I got there, I called for help. Tommy came running out and I told him, "I've found your pa. Get your ma to come out here right now."

While he was doing that, I found the foreman and told him the situation. I said that we would need a wagon, some rope, and something to use for a sledge to pull Ormsby out of a sink hole.

When Mrs. Ormsby came out, I told her of her husband's broken bones and that we needed splints and some cloth to tie them in place. She ran off to get those things, and I commandeered four ranch hands to saddle up and come with us.

We loaded Mrs. Ormsby and Tommy into the wagon along with some bedding and the other things and we all took off for the sink hole. The foreman drove the wagon.

When we got to the hole, Tommy had to be restrained. He wanted to run to his father, but we were afraid that he would fall and break something. So I stationed him at the edge of the hole to "warn" us if any dirt began to fall in. This kept him busy and out of our way.

We tied my already-knotted rope to the wagon and descended into the hole, taking the splints with us. When we reached Ormsby, he was naturally very glad to see us. He was a mess, with shit and piss all in his pants. We decided to put up with the smell while we took care of his arm, since we would cause a lot of pain in it if we didn't get a splint on it quickly.

Mrs. Ormsby cut away his sleeve, which she saved in case we needed it. I sat down beside Ormsby and took off my right boot. I put my foot into his armpit and pulled on his wrist to set the bones. It wasn't too difficult to get the bone ends back in place; easier than I expected, actually. Mrs. Ormsby and the foreman attached the splint while I held the arm out straight.

Now came the hard and messy part! We carefully cut away Ormsby pants and wiped up the smeared shit. Once he was clean enough, we prepared to set his broken leg. Two of the ranch hands held Ormsby's shoulders while I pulled on his ankle. When I had the bone in place, Mrs. Ormsby and the foreman tied on the splint.

I put on my boot and sent two hands to get from the wagon the shed door we had brought to use for a sledge and stretcher. They also brought all the extra rope. We gently and carefully moved Ormsby to the door which we had covered with the bedding to pad it as much as we could. Then, as a safety measure, we tied him to the door; we didn't want him to fall off and get hurt any more.