Chapter 3

John's condition was getting worse. No matter how you sliced it, John was not going to live much longer. Jane had accepted the fact that her husband was going to die, and there was nothing any of us could do about it. She seemed to be about as depressed as one could expect, though she did seem to brighten up a little whenever I talked to her.

I was down too, and so were all the people who lived on the ranch. Everybody who knew John was sorry to see him failing, even the children were catching the mood from their parents. There was no laughter or happy sounds of any sort around the ranch, even the children's play seemed to be subdued. We all knew that we would survive John's death, but none of us were happy while it was going on.

I figured that the best thing to do was just to keep going as best we could and hope for the best. I knew that those were cliches, but being true was what made them cliches.

I went in to Hixville the next day to order the shotguns. There were two general stores in Hixville that carried guns and no gunsmith, so I had two places to visit. Jane said that she couldn't recommend one store over the other, so I figured to visit both. I wound up giving the order for 6 of the lever-action shotguns in 12-gauge to the store run by the old Jew who was very accommodating, instead of to the one run run by the young guy who was sure he knew more about guns than I did. I was promised the shotguns in 4 weeks; I hoped that was soon enough! In the meantime, we'd get by with the 8 double-barrel guns we had at the ranch.

While I was in town, I stopped by the saloon to talk to Walt Smith about why the Buckley ranch was under such pressure. I caught him at a slack time, so he had time to talk to me without having to take time with customers. After the usual greetings, I told Walt why I was there. "John Buckley was shot in the guts 3 days ago an' he's gonna die on us any time. I been tryin' to puzzle out why his ranch was the target fer so much trouble an' I jus' can't get nowhere."

"I'm really sorry 'bout John, an' I wish I could he'p. But I don't know why anybody would pick on John. He's always been a right nice neighbor ta everybody, and he's he'ped any time he was asked. I have ta agree with Sol that there ain't no gold been spoke about aroun' here, so that ain't likely ta be the cause of John's troubles. I jus' don't know what ta say."

"Well, I hope ya'll tell me ifen ya do hear of sumpthin'. Meanwhile, we're ready to fight whenever the trouble comes. Speakin' of which, I guess I better head back ta the ranch. So long, Walt. I'll keep ya posted on John's condition."

I rode back to the ranch deep in thought. There had to be something else that we weren't thinking about. What the hell could it be? Why would somebody want a particular piece of land out here in the middle of nowhere? Right now, the only thing I could see was water. I was ready to write off gold; this just wasn't gold country. Sure, there was gold south and west of here in New Mexico, but there never was any reported around Hixville or the Circle JB.

But water wasn't all that hard to come by in this part of New Mexico. All you had to do was be prepared to drill deep enough and put in the right kind of pumps. I was certain that what with all the modern advances in drilling equipment, windmills, and pumps, eastern New Mexico would always have all the water it needed. Sure, western New Mexico was a lost cause with the way the desert was taking over, and central New Mexico was starting to have some trouble, but we should be OK.

I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me, so when the bullet creased my chest, I was caught completely by surprise. An inch to the left and I would be dead! Damn, how could I be so stupid! Here I was, thinking about why somebody might want to kill me, but not watching to be sure that nobody did. I must be getting old or something.

Anyway, I slumped over like I was mortally wounded and spurred my horse to make it move faster. There was a clump of trees ahead I hoped to reach before another shot was aimed at me. I guess I was lucky; I must have fooled whoever it was shooting at me, because no more shots were fired in my direction. The bullet crease on my chest hurt like hell, but it sure served to keep me awake!

I reached the trees and jumped down, pulling my custom modified Winchester as I did. I had a real clever gunsmith down in Julesburg rebuild a .44-40 to take the same .45 caliber ammunition that was used in my pistols. I was real partial to those Schofields, so I had to have a rifle chambered for the same round. It cost me a pretty penny, but I never regretted the expense.

I ducked into the trees just as another bullet came my way. My assailant must have finally realized that I had been faking the severity of my wound. This time I was able to mark the location of the shooter from his powder smoke. I had switched over to smokeless powder just about a year ago, and never looked back. That damned powder smoke would give away your location faster than most anything else. To hell with the added expense!

The shooter was hunkered down behind a hillock about 50 yards on the other side of the trail from where I was hiding. He was about 200 yards away, an awful long shot for accuracy with iron sights, but not impossibly far away. Nevertheless, I wanted to get closer before I shot. For one thing, I was hoping to wound the yahoo enough so he wouldn't get away, but I didn't want to kill him until after I had gotten some information; then I would kill him.

There was an arroyo behind me that ran sort of in the direction I wanted to go. Maybe I could use it to get close enough for a clean shot. It was worth a try. I slipped out of the trees and into the arroyo without drawing another shot; I hoped that meant that I hadn't been seen. I bent over and ran as fast as I could toward the shooter. Damn, that bullet crease hurt when I bent over!

I was able to get within 75 yards of the shooter before the arroyo took a sharp bend in the wrong direction, so I was forced to stop. Luckily, there was a clump of brush between me and the shooter, so I was able to crawl out of the arroyo and toward him while being hidden by the brush.

I was now off to one side of the shooter and about 65 yards away—plenty close enough for a good shot. I carefully peeked through the brush and there he was! I lined up on his hip and slowly squeezed the trigger. Wham! Dead on! My bullet must have shattered his hip. He screamed and rolled away in agony, not making any effort to hide.

I pushed another bullet into the magazine and carefully got up to my feet. I looked around for any other possible enemies and couldn't find any, so I walked out of the bushes toward my victim. He was lying on his back and bleeding pretty heavily, but not gushing arterial blood, so I wasn't worried about him dieing on me too soon.

I got up to him and his eyes were closed and he was panting pretty hard. I pushed at his wounded hip with my rifle barrel and he screamed, so I knew he was awake enough to answer a few questions. "OK, ya bastard, who paid ya ta kill me?"

"Go fuck yourself! I ain't telling you nothin'!"

"Maybe not, but I'm gonna keep poking at yer busted hip 'til either ya tell me what I want to know or ya die. So, who paid ya ta kill me." I poked him in the hip.

"I don't know his name an' I wasn't tryin' to kill ya, particularly. I was paid to shoot anybody I saw from the Circle JB an' ya was headed that way."

"Tell me what ya kin 'bout the man who hired ya."

"It was some lawyer type over in Johnson. I never saw him before. He paid me $20 ta kill a Circle JB rider. That's all I know."

"Ya want me to shoot ya in the head right now or leave ya to die on yer own?"

"Shoot me now. There ain't no way I could recover from this busted hip. An' I think the bullet got up into my guts. Ya're real good with that there rifle. Make an end of it, ifen ya please."

"Where's yer horse? I don't want ta have it die out here 'cuz I couldn't find it."

"He's in that draw over ta the north."

"So long. Good luck in Hell." I shot him between the eyes. At this range, his head exploded! I stripped him of his weapons and valuables and fetched his horse. I mounted my horse and rode on to the ranch.

Juanita fixed up my wound after giving me hell about getting dirt in it. I apologized and promised to be more careful next time. Jane was sympathetic, but, rightly, more concerned about John. His fever had risen and there was considerable redness to the skin on his torso. The flesh around the wound was turning puffy, a sure sign of unstoppable gas gangrene. Mentally, I was already making funeral arrangements.