Chapter 8

Oh, Man, did we have a good summer! The Injuns had backed off and wasn't causin' us no trouble. The weather was reasonable, and we had plenty of grass and water fer the cattle. I should of knowed we was headed fer trouble!

A couple of the ranch hands was out on the far reaches of the ranch checking on a small herd we had kinda off by themselves. Anyways, they was two days late comin' back from that little inspection trip. That was just too long fer them to be gone and us not hearin' nothin' from them. It just wasn't likely fer two experienced hands to be gone that long, soz Jake sent out two more hands to check on them missin' ones.

The last two came back the next day leadin' two horses with two bodies tied across the saddles. They had both been shot in the chest by large caliber bullets, like you see from a buffalo gun. On top of that, the whole herd they was supposed to check on was missin'! Shit! It looked like we had been hit by rustlers!

The Flyin' W had got on right well without no rustlin' fer nearly three years. Oh, a cow or a steer would be taken by somebody what was real hungry, but we didn't begrudge it when a family was down on its luck and needed a meal. We didn't even take it too hard when the wolves took a steer or two. But, to lose a whole herd at one time was a different story. That had to be a gang tryin' to make money offen our hard work.

Now, that was sumpthin' we didn't take kindly to. One of the hands, Old Hank, was a right sharp tracker who could track almost anythin' almost anywhere. Jake organized a bunch of the hands to go with Old Hank and him to try to track down the rustlers. Well, I kinda thought that I was gittin' kinda soft sittin' around on my dignity, soz I decided to go with them. I saddled up old Jack and went along fer the fun of it.

Jake had this trip planned right—he had a couple of pack mules and a cook goin' along to make sure we ate well. Now, that's what I call goin' in style! There was a passel of folks on this here junket: me, Jake, Old Hank, six hands, and the cook. That was 10 guns, soz we ought to be pretty well prepared ifen we found them rustlers.

We moved out right smartly afore daylight and got to the pasture where the cows should of been afore noon. The cook fixed us a meal while Old Hank looked around to see what he could find. Well, he found plenty. Old Hank said that there was 11 rustlers, and they had driven the whole herd southwest, probably with the idea of sellin' our cattle to the Injun Agent on one of the Reservations. Even at half the normal goin' price for cattle, the rustlers could make a nice purse from our cattle. The agent wasn't gonna ask too many questions, since he was gonna expense the cattle at the regular price and make a passel of money, hisself.

By this time, the rustlers had a five to eight day start on us, but the cattle weren't gonna make more than about 10-12 miles a day through the rough country they was headin' into, soz we should catch up to them in four of five days, even ifen we didn't push it, none.

Old Hank reported that, from the trail signs, the herd was three times the size it ought to be ifen them was just our cattle. Fer sure, they had cattle from other ranches besides ours, and that fit with the 22 riders and chuck wagon Old Hank said he could see from the tracks. Damn, this was a big operation, and our 10 guns didn't sound so grand as it had.

Well, Jake and I talked about it and decided not to back down. Them galoots had our cattle, and we wanted them back. Jake sent a hand out with Old Hank to bring us word when the rustlers was found, and we just rode along waitin' to hear from Old Hank that he had spotted the herd. Things went along kinda normal-like fer two more days, then the messenger came ridin' back with news that Old Hank had found them.

We hurried to catch up to Old Hank and to see what he had found. There they was, strung out fer a couple of miles, the herd was so big. Privately, I wondered ifen we had enough hands to drive that many cattle home when we got them back from the rustlers. The custom was, when a rustled herd was recovered, the cattle wasn't sorted 'til they was home. Then word would be sent to the affected ranches that their cattle had been recovered, and they should come pick them up. Most often, the people would leave a few steers behind to pay a body fer his trouble in recoverin' the cattle.

With them strung out like this, it wouldn't be no trouble to kill a few isolated rustlers and recover a few cattle, but we wanted to kill them all and and get all the cattle back, soz we were gonna have to be a bit smarter than the average rustler. We needed to catch them all together soz we wouldn't have to chase them all over creation. The best time to do that was when they met fer supper. We could wait fer them to start eatin', and then we could ride right through camp, shootin' as we rode.

We all knew that shootin' from a runnin' horse was not likely to be very accurate, but we could git most of them ifen we sprayed enough bullets around. This was the perfect job fer the shotgun, and four of the men had brought their shotguns with them. I talked to Jake, and we decided that those of us with shotguns would lead the charge and everybody else would come behind us with pistols blazin'. Ifen we was lucky, we could wipe out most of the rustlers on the first pass. We figured that the rustlers would be so confused by our charge that we would be able to make a second run afore they could git organized.