Chapter 3

New Mexico Territory, May, 1893

It took two weeks for my ribs to heal enough for me to ride. During that waiting time, I really got sick of sitting in saloons. Not only that, I had read my copy of Homer's "Oddesy" so many times (in the original Greek) that I nearly had it memorized. I was going to have to find something else to read! There were not any working women in either of the saloons and the town did not even have a bordello! I felt like I was stuck at the backside of nowhere, so I was very glad to ride out of this town. Calling it two-bit was overpricing it.

I had so much good luck with the Kid Chrisp affair that I thought to try to do that again. The problem was finding a suitable target. I carefully read every paper I could find, but nothing looked promising. Maybe I needed to move to the west side of NMT; I might as well give it a try. I decided to swing toward Mexico before turning west.

As usual, I was not in any hurry, so I kept to my practice of spending a little time in every large saloon I came to, fishing for information. This is where I heard the warnings about Mexican bandit raids. I didn't pay much attention since Mexican bandits would not be on a wanted poster. I did hear about some horse thieves who were wanted locally, though; the ranchers' association had put up their own $100 reward.

I decided that $100 was $100 and, since I had nothing better to look for, I would see what I could do here. I stopped into the local marshal's office to find out what he knew. He gave me a list of the ranches hit and the dates. He also gave me a sketch map of their locations. I thanked him and went for a hotel room. I spent the rest of the afternoon studying the data I had and decided on the most likely area to be hit next. I visited those ranches, and explained who I was and why I was there. Everyone was very helpful and I had some nice meals as an added bonus.

I hung around in the area for nearly a week before anything happened. Then I got word of a raid. I immediately dashed out to the affected ranch and trailed the rustlers. There were a lot of horses involved so they were easy to follow, but I couldn't tell how many rustlers there were. I hoped there weren't many, because I wasn't sure how many I could handle. I did think that they were probably not Indians, since the horses were all shod. Besides, I thought if Indians were doing the raiding, it would be for a lark, and there were just too many raids to fit that motive. Then it dawned on me: the Mexican bandits!

Now, that was something to get my attention! There could be too many for me to handle. However, I could trail them without exposing myself and gather what information I could. I caught up to them the next day. It looked like nine or ten active bandits and a couple who stayed around the camp to mind the horses. If I was lucky, I could pick them off one at a time and not get myself into too much trouble. The problem was that they tended to stay in camp, except when on a raid, so I had to come up with something clever to make my capture.

Ah-ha, I had it. I went back into town and picked up some dynamite. I only needed a small quantity, since all I wanted to do was make a lot of noise. I was back at the bandits' camp in a couple hours of hard riding. No, I didn't want help, since I wanted the whole reward for myself. $100 isn't much if you have to split it up.

My plan was to stampede the horses in all directions and let the rustlers split up to chase them. I would wait for them to return to camp with the recovered horses and shoot them as they came back singly or in pairs.

I took both my rifles to a good location for the ambush and waited for dawn. Just as the sun appeared, I lit the fuse on a dynamite stick and threw it in the direction of the horses. As soon as it went off the horses ran right through the rope corral and I threw another stick of dynamite in front of the lead horse. This caused a lot of confusion among the horses and they scattered.

The active bandits grabbed their hobbled horses, threw on their saddles, and rode off after the escaping horses. Meanwhile, the two stay-at-homes started hunting me. After the camp had cleared, I started hunting back. I had a distinct advantage, since I could see them as soon as they started to hunt me, and they could not see me. I ambushed and killed them both within a few minutes. I dragged them back to camp and covered them with a couple of tarps. Then I went back to my hiding place and waited for a bandit to return.

About an hour later, the first of the rustlers appeared driving four horses. As soon as he got within a comfortable range, I shot him. I then ran down from my hiding place and pulled him over with the other corpses and tossed a ground sheet over him. I hid his horse and waited for the next rustler to appear. I was lucky enough to be able to repeat this for every one of the rustlers and to recover most of the rustled horses.

I made sure that the horses were safely in the corral and had plenty of food and water. Then, I rode to the ranch where the latest theft had happened and explained the situation. I asked the foreman to bring several riders and I would lead them to the rustled horses. We decided to leave the corpses where they were; I had already stripped them of valuables. I got a receipt for the rustled horses from the ranch foreman and let the other horses into town where I sold them. I then went the the office of the ranchers' association and claimed the reward. Of course, they weren't going to pay until I threatened to get the marshal to back me up; then I got the money. Overall, this turned out to be a very profitable venture: between the gold I found in the camp (probably from the sale of previously rustled horses), the money on the various bandits, the sale of their effects and horses, and the reward, I got nearly $2800. This was the most I had made at one time in a while; I'll certainly keep this adventure in mind for future reference. Besides, it was good for a lot of free drinks when I told the story at the local saloon!

This meant that I had over $3000 in my money belt, which made me very nervous. Therefore, I headed back to Santa Fe to my bank Fortunately, I made it back without incident. As soon as I got in to Santa Fe, I went to the same hotel I had visited before. Once I was registered and had dropped my effects in my room, I set out to see Mr. Jakobs at the bank. He acted glad to see me and my deposit of $3000. I expressed my concern at having to carry so much cash on my person and asked if there were some way I could telegraph the money to him instead of having to make a personal delivery. He gave me a list of banks I could contact which, for a small (?) fee, would transfer the money to his bank in Santa Fe. That sounded good so I left a happy man. In fact, I was so happy, I went by the bordello previously recommended by Mr. Jakobs, and asked for Doloros.

Doloros was available and acted pleased to see me. After a very pleasant few hours, I returned to my hotel. I was so happy, I decided to take a few days vacation in Santa Fe.

Within four days, it became apparent that I would either have to tap my savings account or go back to work. I decided that going back to work was the better idea. I thought that there would be no better send-off from Santa Fe than one last visit to Doloros.

Doloros seemed to be in a somewhat pensive mood on this visit. As I lay recovering from my first pass with Doloros, I asked her why she seemed distracted.

"Oh, Senor Mat, I am worried about a dear friend. She is one of the girls working here, and her 'boyfriend' is putting a lot of pressure on her to quit and let him be her pimp. He thinks that he will get a lot of money that way. She doesn't want to, but she is very afraid of him. I have heard so many good things about you and how you have caught so many bad people, I wonder if you could help Juanita. I am sure the girls would get together to pay whatever you charge for your services."

I thought about it for a minute and realized that all I really needed to do is visit this so-called "boyfriend" and explain how unhappy I would be if he did not back off. "All right, Doloros, I will see what I can do to help; I'll talk to Juanita tomorrow morning."

At this, Doloros let out a scream of delight and attacked my cock with more vigor than she had ever shown before. She engulfed me with her mouth and got me hard quickly. As soon as I was erect enough, she mounted me and had my now hard cock firmly implanted in her pussy. She began to bounce up and down so hard that I was afraid she would break something. Of course she didn't and we both thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Now I know the difference between personal and professional service! We both had to take some time to recover.

My time with Doloros was up and she had other customers to entertain, so I got dressed and left for my hotel. In appreciation for Doloros' performance I fully intended to do what I could for Juanita.

The next morning I met with Juanita, Doloros, and Madam Helen in the parlor of the bordello. After some quiet general conversation over tea and cookies, we got down to business. Juanita explained that Jesus had brought her up from Ciudad Juarez to be his "house keeper." It wasn't long before he wanted her to start bringing in the money while he spent his time in various cantinas. He asked around and found this particular bordello which was looking for a new employee. He sent Juanita to interview for the job and she was hired. Madam Helen was pleased with her and Juanita was soon on the regular roster. Life was progressing well enough until Jesus got greedy. Now Juanita just wanted to escape from him.

I was given Jesus' address and directions to the house, and I left immediately to catch him before he went on his round of the cantinas. Jesus was just heading out the door as I arrived. I accosted him and explained that he was to leave Juanita alone from now on or face the consequences. He became irate that a mere gringo would try to give him orders and pulled a rather impressive knife, so I shot him, dead. As our discussion had drawn a crowd, there were several witnesses who had not liked Jesus, so the killing was branded self defense. It was quickly arranged for his body to disappear, so there were no further problems.

I returned to the bordello and explained to the three ladies that there would be no further problems from Jesus. I was immediately attacked with kisses and hugs from all three, and I was invited to a delicious lunch in celebration. The women of the bordello had scraped up $100 for my fee. I didn't want to take it, but I realized that the women really felt like they had contributed to rescuing Juanita by raising the money. Therefore, I took the reward as graciously as I could.