Chapter 2

The two dejected Rangers slumped as they walked to their horses. "Now, what?" asked Sean.

"I don't know. Let's cross the river an' head back to the marshal's office in Eagle Pass. Maybe we kin think of sumpthin' on the way," answered Ezra.

They were less than a mile south of Eagle Pass when they heard gunfire. "What the hell? Let's check it out," exclaimed Sean as he urged his horse toward the noise.

They rounded a bend in the road and came upon a young woman standing beside a dead horse. She was holding a pistol in her hand and crying as if she had just lost her best friend. "Kin we help you, ma'am?" asked Ezra as they rode up to her.

"My hoss stepped in a hole an' broke his leg an' I had to shoot him," she sobbed.

"What kin we do to he'p, ma'am?" Sean noted that Ezra's accent was getting thicker as he talked to the woman.

"I live about 2 miles that way," she answered. "Could one of you go for some help?"

It was obvious that Ezra was smitten with the woman, so Sean volunteered to go for help while he left Ezra to "keep an eye on things." Before he left, Sean introduced himself and Ezra and found out the woman's name was Rosemary Phillips. As Sean was leaving, Ezra got off his horse to "comfort" the woman, who was still crying.

Before long, Sean returned with an older man driving a buckboard. They found Rosemary and Ezra sitting beside the road, holding hands; Ezra had a silly grin smeared over half his face.

As they rode up, Ezra glanced at the driver of the buckboard and his expression changed immediately to that of the hard-bitten Texas Ranger doing his duty. "I KNOW YOU! YOU ARE QUINTON SAVAGE! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR MURDER AND BANK ROBBERY!" he shouted as he reached for his gun. The woman beside Ezra grabbed his right arm as he tried to draw his pistol; while the man in the buckboard reached for a shotgun. Fortunately, Sean reacted faster than the buckboard driver and shot him in the chest before he could bring his shotgun to bear on Ezra. A .44-40 bullet didn't make a very big hole going in, but at close range, it sure made a big hole coming out. Quinton Savage was functionally dead before he slumped in his seat.

The woman screamed, "YOU SHOT MY DADDY, YOU BASTARD!" and tried to draw her gun on Sean.

Ezra finally woke up to the danger from the woman and sapped her head so hard with his bare hand that he knocked her to the ground in a daze. He picked up her gun before she could get to it and stuck it in his belt.

Sean said in as calm a voice as he could manage, "Ezra, ya go fetch the marshal. I'll watch Miss Rosemary."

Ezra nodded, in a kind of daze, himself, and rode toward Eagle Pass.

A little over an hour later, Ezra rode up with the marshal. "Howdy, Miss Rosemary. I'm afeared y'll have to come with me back to Eagle Pass. I'll send a deputy over to see to yer stock," said the marshal.

"No need fer that, marshal," she answered. "That there mule's the only stock we got."

The two Rangers stripped the tack from the dead horse and pulled it well off to the side of the road. The loose stuff was loaded into the buckboard, the marshal's horse was tied behind, and they all returned to Eagle Pass.

Once the paperwork was taken care of, the woman was sent home; what else could they do with her? She was just trying to protect her father.

Sean asked Ezra, "How'd ya know Quentin Savage? I never heard of him."

"Ya remember, about three months ago, I was in Freer lookin' to some hoss thieves?" At Sean's nod, Ezra continued, "I was in the marshal's office when a shout went up about the bank bein' robbed. We jus' got out the door, when Savage and another feller came outa the bank with a hostage. Savage was holdin' a pistol to the man's head and ordered us to stand off. Savage climbed on his hoss with the hostage in front of him. They rode to the edge of town and, jus' before they got outa sight, Savage put a bullet through the hostage's head. He didn't have to do that; it was jus meanness! I swore I'd catch up to Savage one day; it looks like I did."

Back in Laredo, they went to talk to Captain Johnson. "Cap'n, we know the whole story of the cattle rustlin', but we don't know what to do about it," complained Sean. "A politically connected rancho owner named Garza is in cahoots with the local alcalde. Their ring is rustlin' the cattle in Texas and holdin' them at his rancho in Mexico. Politics means that the Mexican federales won't do anythin' about him, so we'll have to catch him this side of the river; he's plannin' to drive the stolen cattle to Kansas to sell. What do we do?"

Captain Johnson thought for a bit, and then said," They haven't killed anybody on this side of the river, so we can set everythin' straight if we return the cattle. We could impound the cattle for some reason... I know—hoof and mouth disease inspection. They probably won't bother to smear the brands, so the cattle kin be sorted that way. The rustled cattle would be returned and Garza would be our only loose end. Ya two could pay an unofficial visit to Garza and explain the him the error of his ways. What do y'all think?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Fine, cap'n, let's do it."

The next four weeks went by with no more rustling; was the news of two Rangers nosing around enough to scare Garza into backing off? Whatever the reason, Sean and Ezra were told to get to Eagle Pass yesterday, if not before. A big herd had crossed the river from Mexico and they needed to get up there and impound it until the inspectors could get there.

The two rangers nearly killed their horses doing it, but they got to Eagle Pass in two days, picked up the marshal, and headed to the big herd. They found the foreman and told them who they were and that the cattle would have to wait until they could be inspected for hoof and mouth disease. The foreman didn't like it, but he realized that there was nothing he could do but wait. It turned out that the foreman and the drovers were all Anglos who had nothing to do with rustling the cattle; they had just been hired to make the drive to Kansas.

Sean suggested to the foreman that the inspection might go faster if he broke the cattle into groups by the brand. He couldn't see that this would help, but, why not, his men had nothing else to do. The inspectors showed up two days later and began the inspection. The whole story was explained to the foreman at this time, and he agreed to go along with the Rangers; he could keep any cattle that did not have Texas brands. The stolen cattle were returned to their owners and everybody went home happy.

At last, it was time for Ezra and Sean to pay a visit to Senor Garza. They wanted to be discrete, so they decided to make their visit after dark, around midnight or so.

They crossed the river during daylight hours for safety's sake, and made a simple camp while they waited for dark. They didn't want to meet anyone but Senor Garza on this foray, so they planned to sneak in as quietly as possible. To that end, they had left behind in Texas anything that rattled or had a shine to it, unless it was essential to their trip. While they were waiting on the Mexican side of the river, they smeared grease and dirt on their shiny metal accouterments, such as spurs, much as it hurt to do so. It was ingrained into their skin that Rangers did not look sloppy!

They rode up to the hacienda as quietly as they could. They even violated that basic Texan instinct—they dismounted and walked the last 200 yards to the house! Fortunately, their horses were trained to stay where they were ground-hitched.

There was very little cover around the house, did Garza plan that? Several guards walked their posts but without any enthusiasm; after all, who would have the cojones to attack Senor Garza? Sean and Ezra were forced to crawl the last 50 yards—somebody was going to pay for that!

The only light showing from the house was coming from an upstairs window; the two Rangers were betting that was Garza's bedroom. They were in luck: the columns supporting the veranda roof were covered with thick vines, suitable for climbing. They crawled close to the most likely columns and waited until the half-slumbering guard had ambled past. A short, quick sprint to the columns of choice let them reach the veranda roof before the guard made his next pass in their vicinity. Each Ranger had used a different column, thereby shortening the time spent exposed to casual observation.

They had to be very careful about making noise as they walked in their boots over the terra cotta roof tiles; no self respecting Texan would appear in public without his boots. They made their way to the lighted window and looked in.

Garza and his beautiful young mistress were in flagrante delicto in the middle of a very large bed. At the other end of the room was a large metal cage holding an older, naked woman who was hiding her eyes. Garza was enthusiastically pounding the young woman and had appeared not to have finished when the two Rangers broke into the room.