Chapter 8

The rustlers had grabbed their rifles as they dismounted and found cover, so these guys were going to be more than just a trivial problem. There were now 6 effective fighters against our 2, so they had an overpowering advantage, if they just knew how to use it. If any of these rustlers had any infantry training, we could be in for a deep shit of trouble.

Thank God, I've never seen anybody who could shoot better with a rifle than Sam. After this was over, I was going to ask for lessons! Sam was keeping more than his share of the rustlers pinned down with his quick and accurate fire. He reloaded at every opportunity, so he never ran out of ammunition in his magazine; I just hoped that he had brought enough bullets; if he hadn't, I was going to give him my rifle to use—he was that good!

We had two choices, as long as we could keep the initiative. We could stay on the defensive and hope for rescue from the ranch, or we could go on the offense. I already knew what I wanted to do, but I asked Sam's opinion. He agreed with me, so we went on the offense.

I left my rifle and spare ammunition with Sam and ran to get my shotgun. He kept up a steady harassing fire at the rustlers while I ran down the arroyo about 50 feet to where there was some brush growing near to the arroyo's bank. I slithered up the bank and into the bushes, being careful to stay hidden.

I was only about 40 yards from the nearest rustler, so I was able to creep up even closer while remaining hidden in the brush. Once I was close enough, I was able to draw a bead on the man with my shotgun and blow him into the next world!

The report caused one of the other rustlers to look up to try to locate the source of the blast. This was all Sam needed to reduce the count against us to 4.

By using smokeless powder, I was able to keep my exact location hidden from our foes, so they had only a general idea where I was, based entirely on the noise of the shotgun blast. That didn't mean that I had a free ride, it just gave me a little edge I hoped to take advantage of. Several bullets came flying in my general direction, one of them uncomfortably close, but I knew that I still hadn't actually been seen.

I moved to my left when Sam resumed his harassing fire. The sound was a little different, so I assumed that he had shifted to my rifle. That could mean that his shooting was a little less accurate, but, since it was Sam shooting, I wasn't worried. Suddenly, there was a shift in sound back to the sound of Sam's own rifle, followed by a scream of pain. Aha, now I had it! Sam was using my rifle for his harassing fire, but switched back to his own rifle for greater accuracy when he actually had a good target. A stroke of true genius! Only a very good and a very experienced shooter could manage that sort of shifting of weapons back and forth.

We were now down to 3 enemies, and the situation was looking brighter. In fact, I had better get my ass in gear or Sam would score all of the kills. I mover farther left in an effort to flank the rustlers, or even get behind them if the brush cover held up. Hey, there's another one, and he's within shotgun range. He was a bit fidgety, so all I had to do was wait patiently for him to expose enough of his body to make a shot worthwhile. BANG! I had him and we were now down to 2 against 2.

His scream was apparently enough to spook the last two rustlers. They both jumped up to run to their horses. Sam and I shot at the same time, and we must have been aiming at the same man, because he seemed to turn into a rag doll and collapse immediately. The last man nearly reached his horse when Sam fired again. That was it! We had wiped out the whole gang of 8 rustlers. I knew that I wanted Sam to always be on my side!

I yelled at Sam before I stood up; I didn't want to get shot because I surprised him. I reloaded my shotgun and walked back to the arroyo. We congratulated each other and I commented on Sam's fantastic shooting. He told me that he had once been an exhibition shooter and that was where he had honed his skills. He only quit and went into gunsmithing because he got tired of the traveling and Mary wanted a settled home for Jane. He said that he would be pleased to teach me what he knew.

I retrieved my rifle and we went to see what we could find out about the herd of cattle the rustlers had been moving when we stumbled upon them. They were Bar B Bar cattle, the next ranch to our west. It looked like rustling was branching out to encompass more that just our Circle JB. I'd have to tell Harold Bronson about this when we returned his cattle.

It was near enough to 5:00 o'clock that Sam and I decided to wait for help to arrive from the ranch compound before we did anything about the dead rustlers. Juan and 6 ranch hands showed up about 5:30, expecting all kinds of trouble. We related what had happened, and they were all impressed with the tale of Sam's shooting. They helped me examine the bodies of the rustlers. We didn't find anything to tell us who they were; we removed heir few valuables and dumped the corpses into a convenient hole.

Juan and his men returned the cattle to the Bar B Bar range while Sam and I rode to the Bronson's house to tell them what had happened. Harold and I spent a few minutes discussing the ramifications of increased rustling activity before Sam and I returned home for our supper.

Conversation was lively around the supper table that night while I raved over Sam's shooting. Sam was embarrassed by all of the praise, but I didn't let that stop me. Jane grinned and asked me if we could afford to spend the money on enough ammunition when I announced that I wanted to learn to shoot a rifle as well as Sam. I grinned back and said, "Shore we kin, I'll jus' sell some of yer jewelry!" That brought a general laugh, and Jane changed the subject. That night, after supper, Sam changed my rifle sights to a peep sight; he claimed that I could get more accuracy with it.

Sam started teaching me the next day. He showed me how to get the best "sight picture" and how to breathe just right in time with squeezing the trigger. My shooting improved noticeably on that first day. He said that, now, it was mostly just a matter of practice. The more I practiced, the faster that I would be able to line up the sights. Sam claimed, "That's all there is to it." I doubted that was ALL there was to fine shooting, but I had to admit that was the way I had learned my pistol shooting. I resolved to practice until I was as good a shot as Sam.

Meanwhile, over the next few weeks, there were more reports of rustling and the no-account sheriff was sitting in his office tsk-tsking over the problem. We ranchers had enough! We formed an association and organized our own "police force" to go after these rustlers. We set up a series of fire beacons across our properties to use to call for help during a rustling incident. As soon as a beacon was spotted to be burning, a watcher was to light two fires, one to call for help and the other to point toward the previous beacon. The source of the call would have only one fire. Of course it wasn't perfect, but it was the best alarm system we could come up with on short notice.

The alarm system was put into use only three nights after we had it in place. The Rocking R Bar, north of us, was hit, and we set off to assist as soon as we saw the alarm. It wasn't long before an army of 43 men arrived to assist in catching the rustlers. We thundered off in pursuit of the rustled cattle and had no trouble in catching up to them before they had made 5 miles in their getaway attempt.

It was easy for the over 40 men to overpower 9 rustlers. Most of the posse wanted to hang the rustlers on the spot, but I asked them to hold off for a trial. I thought that the publicity of a trial would help prevent more rustling attempts. The rest agreed to give it a try, so some of the men returned the cattle to the Rocking R Bar while the rest of us took the prisoners into Hixville, the nearest jail. Sol promised to set up a trial with the circuit judge and let us know when to show up for it.

This effort at capturing rustlers had worked so well that we decided to stay with the system for a while longer. The next rustling attempt was a daytime raid. This time the signals were columns of smoke from wet leaves and grass. There was so little wind during that part of the day that the columns of smoke were easy to spot, and we were able to respond quickly, this time with over 50 men.

The situation was really laughable: there were only 3 rustlers and they had gotten away with less than 20 scrub cattle. The rancher would probably have given the sorry cattle to the rustlers if they had asked politely. We took the rustlers to the Johnson jail and Ed accommodated us by locking them up and notifying the circuit judge's office.