Chapter 3

Sean and Ezra rode toward Benevides with determination written all over their faces. If there was anything a Texan hated, it was horse thieves and they were headed to pick up three of them for trial. It was an open and shut case, the three men had been caught with the stolen horses in their possession and no ready excuse for having them. Both Rangers wished that the posse had just hanged the thieves right then, instead of taking them back to jail; now, they had the aggravation of hauling them in for trial.

As they rode into Firlas, they heard gunfire coming from the middle of town. There was a mixture of pistol, rifle, and shotgun firing as indicated by the sound. Being Rangers, they didn't hesitate; they pulled their carbines from the boots as they hurried toward the noise.

They saw three bodies lying in the street and one more in the doorway of the bank. Townspeople appeared to be squared off against a gang of bank robbers; the robbers were uniformly dressed in white linen dusters and the gray hats favored by the Confederate cavalry. The robbers were armed with pistols, but most of the townspeople were using rifles and shotguns. The range was too short to give any advantage to the rifles, but was optimum for the shotguns; unfortunately for the townspeople, their shotguns appeared to be shooting bird shot, which was too small to do much damage to the bandits.

Just as the rangers reached the scene, four men dressed in the bandit uniform came charging down the street, firing their pistols at the townspeople. This was enough to confuse the townspeople and allow those still unwounded bandits to reach their horses, mount up, and ride out of town, right past Sean and Ezra. The Rangers fired at the bandits as they rode by, but none were hit by the Rangers in the chaos.

A man ran up, "I'm the marshal in Firlas, who're y'all?"

"We're Rangers. Git up a posse an' follow us. We're goin' after the bandits."

"Right. We'll be right behind y'all"

Sean and Ezra rode in pursuit of the bandits and the marshal ran back to gather his posse. The bandits had a good lead on their pursuers, but the dust cloud made it apparent where they were. The Rangers dropped their carbines back into their boots and concentrated on the pursuit; they wanted to be sure that they didn't do something stupid which caused them to lose the chase.

The chase was long and tiring for both horses and men; but the quality of the Rangers' horses began to tell. They were slowly gaining on the bandits, but they didn't know how much longer they would have to keep up the chase. Occasionally, off in the distance behind them, the Rangers could catch a glimpse of the dust cloud raised by the marshal's posse; they knew that, eventually, they would have some backup.

About half an hour into the chase, the bandits' dust cloud suddenly disappeared! The Rangers soon saw why: they had come to a ford over a wide river. The river was lined on both sides with a grove of trees and there was some brush as well. The bandits appeared to have decided that they had to rest their horses, anyway, so this would be a good place to make a stand.

The bandits had stationed themselves on the far side of the river and spaced out to each side of the ford, four to a side. Their horses were picketed safely to one side where they were not likely to be hit by a stray bullet; obviously, these bandits had some military training and were not easily rattled. This river was one of the famous "mile wide and inch deep" affairs that could be found near the Rio Grand; it was actually about 40 feet wide and about 6 inches deep. The bandits were counting on their pursuers being smart enough not to try to charge their horses across the river—there was too much chance that a horse would slip and break a leg.

Sean and Ezra were met by a fusillade as they neared the river; they pulled their horses around and hurried back out of effective range. They armed themselves with their carbines and all of their extra ammunition; this looked like a long fight ahead. They picketed their horses near the road where the posse couldn't help seeing them; that way they wouldn't blunder into killing range without some warning.

The Rangers crouched low so that they were concealed by the brush and moved up to the tree line on their side of the river. At this point in the battle, they were more interested in seeing how the bandits had distributed themselves and arranged their firing positions than in trying to get in a lucky shot. Besides, it would be near suicide to shoot at the bandits and have them concentrate fire from 8 rifles on one man. The Rangers spent some time studying their opponents and then crept back to wait for the posse to show up.

They didn't have long to wait. The marshal and 14 posse members rode up and were signaled to dismount before the bandits could get a good look at them. They picketed their horses, drew their rifles, and gathered around the Rangers and the marshal.

Ezra described how the bandits had arranged themselves on the far side of the river and suggested a plan of attack. He wanted the marshal to arrange the posse along the river opposite the bandits. Once they were in position, he wanted them to start shooting at the bandits rapidly enough to force them to keep their heads down, but not so rapidly that they quickly ran out of ammunition. While they were doing that, Sean and Ezra would cross the river farther downstream where they wouldn't be noticed, and they would attack the bandits from the rear.

Everybody agreed that this plan sounded workable, so they would give it a try. Sean and Ezra mounted their horses and left, headed downstream, while the posse made their way to the river and prepared to do their part. By the time the Rangers had crossed the river, they heard shooting and knew that the battle had started in earnest.

Ezra and Sean rode to within about 100 yards of the battle and picketed their horses. Taking their carbines, they began making their way toward the battle about 25 yards from the river. Their hope was that they could shoot at the bandits without being noticed, at first, because of the noise and confusion from the other shooting.

They had to keep under some cover to keep from being hit by friendly fire, so their approach was complicated by this requirement. Still, they had no trouble identifying the first bandit in line. He had no idea that there was a hostile force behind him and was making no effort to check on his rear. The two Rangers wanted to mask their fire as much as possible, so they arranged to space out their shots. Ezra would shoot at the first bandit, and Sean would shoot only if Ezra failed to put his man out out action with his first shot.

Ezra fired and only wounded his target, but the man reflexively raised himself enough to be hit by a shot from across the river, so Sean never had to fire. One down and seven to go.

The next setup was going to be a bit more difficult. Two men were together on opposite sides of the same tree. It was decided that the only course of action was for Ezra to take the man on the left and Sean to take the man on the right. They would fire as nearly together as they could and hope for the best. They would just keep shooting until they had eliminated the two bandits.

The Rangers took a prone position and rested their carbine barrels against thick brush trunks to help steady the shot. When they were both ready, Sean said, "Now!" and they both fired. By the greatest luck, they both killed their man with the first shot. They breathed sighs of relief and moved on to the next man.

Here they had another stroke of luck: this man was already dead. He had been shot by a posse member before the Rangers got to him. Four down and four to go.

Ezra and Sean drew back away from the river to discuss their attack on the other side of the road. They decided to swing around to the end of the skirmish line and work their way back toward the road, since this had worked so well on the first part of their attack.

They pulled back another 150 feet and moved through the brush to the end of the firing line. The found the first man in line and used the same technique as before. Ezra's shot caused a wound which would be eventually fatal, but did not kill immediately. Sean was forced to shoot, but he missed. Ezra fired again and killed his man, this time. Three to go.

They moved on to the next man, but he happened to look around before the Rangers were ready. He yelled out a warning to his compatriots and turned to run; he made the mistake of standing and was hit by two bullets from the posse almost before he could move. However, the last two bandits saw what happened and started running away. They ran away from their horses toward another stand of trees about 50 yards away. Along with everybody in the posse, Ezra and Sean shot at them, but they all missed; the bandits made it to the next group of trees.

Sean yelled for the posse to join them, reporting that the rest of the bandits were dead. Twelve men crossed the river; the marshal sent four men to recover the bandits' horses. The marshal reported to Sean and Ezra that one of his posse had been killed and two wounded. They waited until the men returned with the bandits' horses and the marshal reported that all of the bank loot appeared to be in the saddlebags on two of the horses.