Chapter 6

The next morning, Jane and Ed considered ways to extract the rustler with the broken leg from his hiding place among the rocks. He wouldn't be easy to reach, and he probably wouldn't be in any hurry to surrender, either. All he had to look forward to was a neck-tie party if he was captured, so he had no incentive to give up without a fight. However, he was already thirsty, and he was bound to get more so as the heat of the day started to affect him.

He was well sheltered from what little breeze there was, so he wouldn't get any cooling benefit from that. The rocks were cool now, but they would heat up pretty quickly as soon as the sun fully rose and they were no longer in shadow. With his canteen of water still with his horse, he was not going to get any water to replace what sweated out of him as the day wore on. Ed had taken the time to examine the rustler's horse, so he knew that the man was suffering from lack of water, already, and the situation would only get worse.

Ed talked to the rustler loud enough so that he was sure that the man could hear. "Ya know that ya can't escape with the both of us sittin' out here. We know that ya don't have a water canteen with ya, soz ya're gonna git mighty thirsty afore the day is over. Ya ain't got much choice, ya kin surrender ta us an' git hanged when we take ya back ta the ranch, or ya kin stay where ya are and die of thirst. The only way ya're gonna git any water is ta surrender ta us, soz ya jus' make up yer mind. We know that ya're gonna surrender, eventually, so why suffer while we're waitin'? Think about it an' let us know yer decision."

There was nothing but silence from the trapped rustler for the next 3 hours, and Ed and Jane were getting tired of waiting. They were exposed to the direct sun light, so they felt like they were beginning to cook to a medium-well state, themselves. Their only consolation was that they had plenty of water, both their own canteens and those of the 3 rustlers.

At the end of the 3 hours, the trapped rustler groaned, "OK, dammit. I'll surrender. Jus' don't shoot when I crawl out of here, an' I'll need a drink as soon as I'm clear of this damned hole."

Ed said, "OK. Leave yer guns behind and yer gun belt, too. Once yer out, one of us will bring ya some water."

The rustler crawled out of the hole, and Jane kept him covered while Ed took him some water. When he got close enough to the rustler to see his face clearly, Ed exclaimed, "Shit, Jim! This here is Walter Scott. He's on one of our posters. The county will pay $500 for him ifen he's delivered alive, but only $200 ifen he's delivered dead. I think that the trouble of keepin' him alive is worth $300 ta me. What do ya think?"

"Hell, yes! Let's splint his leg an' haul him ta the county seat. Give 'im all of the water he wants, but don't let 'im drown!"

They moved to some shade and set and splinted the rustler's broken leg. One of the dead rustlers turned out to be worth $25, so they tied him to one of the saddles to take with them. Walter Scott was tied to the other saddle with some consideration for the pain in his broken leg, but not enough to give him room to escape. The third rustler was left to the scavengers.

The ranch where the chase had started was on the way, so they stopped by to relate the fate of the 3 rustlers. Some of the cowboys wanted to hang the last rustler right then, but the foreman cooled them down before Ed or Jane had to shoot one of them. The foreman was satisfied as long as all of the rustlers had been accounted for, and he realized that bounty hunters had to earn a living, too.

Ed and Jane left on reasonably friendly terms and headed to the county seat. They didn't arrive until the next day, and the nerves of all 3 were pretty frazzled. Ed went into the jail to talk to the sheriff, and was well pissed when he found that the man had taken the day off to visit his brother in the next town. However, a deputy was tending the jail, so they left the 2 rustlers, one dead and one alive, with the deputy while they went to the hotel to register.

They both were hot and sweaty and tired, so they ordered up a bath. A tub and buckets of hot water were delivered to their room, and they tipped the swamper a quarter for the good service. The tub was big enough for them both to get in at the same time, so they had fun washing each other, and they finished before the water got too cold. They had some more fun after they dried off, and they didn't get dressed until they had to go out for supper.

After supper, they made the rounds of some of the saloons before bed time, but they didn't get any leads on more possible jobs. The sheriff showed up at the jail the next morning, and they were able to get their receipts. The county clerk was unhappy at doling out $525, but he paid up when Ed and Jane looked fiercely at him. As they left, Ed said, "Ya'd think that there fool clerk was payin' out his own money, the way he acted."

"Yeah, do ya 'spose he wuz tappin' the till, hisself?"

After lunch, they visited the saloons they hadn't gotten to the night before. Still no leads, so they returned to the trail. A few days later, they were eating lunch in a saloon in a nameless "wide place in the road" when a man ran in and shouted, "THE STAGE'S BEEN HELD UP. JOE'S WOUNDED AN' BILL'S DEAD."

Along with everybody else, they rushed out to see for themselves what all of the excitement was about. The driver managed to gasp, "The bastards kidnapped a woman passenger. Try ta save her afore...", and he died. A number of people, Ed and Jane included, jumped on their horses and rode off to the site of the robbery.

When they arrived, they found a badly wounded man lying in the road. He was barely able to beg them to rescue his daughter. He offered $1,000 for her safe return; this got everybody's attention, and they set off in the direction pointed out by the wounded man. Jane agreed to stay with him while Ed joined the "rescue" party. She did everything she could to make the man comfortable and rendered such first aid as her limited medical knowledge would allow. The man was wounded in the leg and probably would recover if he stayed off the leg until it healed. The bullet had gone completely through some muscle, but had missed anything vital, so Jane's cleaning of the wound with some whiskey the man had in a hip flask was all of the medical attention he really needed. She bandaged the wound with the sleeve from the man's shirt and had him resting in the shade when a man passed by with a buckboard. Jane sent the wounded man to the saloon where she and Ed had eaten lunch to wait for a report from the "posse."

She started out after the "posse," who had about an hour's lead. They had been following a public trail which was obvious in the way it cut through the brush, and, from the appearance of the tracks, the posse had been tearing along this trail, hoping to catch the bandits before they cut off on a trail of their own. Jane noticed that there was a point where there were some tracks which turned away from the main trail. These tracks were recent and they were made by horses that were moving fast. It looked like one horse had cut away from the main body of the posse to follow these tracks. Jane suspected that the tracks were made by Ed, who must have had the same idea that she did: the bandits had turned away from the common trail, but most of the people in the posse had not noticed. Jane decided that, whatever the other people did, she was going to follow these diverging tracks.

The tracks wound through the brush and back into the hills. The bandits' horses were obviously getting tired by the time they had gotten this far, because they had started to slow down. Before long, Jane came to a place where the bandits had stopped for a while, probably to rest their horses. They had resumed their trip after a short rest, but Jane had no idea where they might be heading. After a few more miles, she came to a grove of trees beside a stream which looked like it lasted the year round. A cabin was built close to the stream and nestled among the trees. Beside the cabin, there was a rope corral holding 7 horses, implying that there were 7 people inside the cabin.