Chapter 2

Jim's mind was in turmoil at the moment, but his belly still needed some food. He knew he'd lost considerable weight during the pursuit of the last two weeks and right now his stomach must be thinking his throat had been cut. He reflected that a steady diet of tortillas and beans, eaten on the run, would probably lean down most anyone.

Jim remembered there was a small cafe just down the street and he was making a beeline for it when his attention was drawn to angry shouts coming from the sidewalk ahead. He recognized the man coming toward him on foot as Mayor Dixon. The mayor was a middle-aged man who Jim had usually seen impeccably dressed in a nice store bought suit. At the moment though, he had his nightgown half stuffed into his pants and his suspenders were flopping around his legs.

"My mare's gone; I've been robbed!" Mayor Dixon yelled to him.

Jim winced; he'd obviously been recognized. "Let's go check on Sheriff Tilley." Jim reluctantly told the Mayor. Mayor Dixon fell right in behind Jim as he headed for the Sheriff's office. Jim quickly tied his horse to the rail out front and stormed through the front door of the office. He already had a pretty good idea of what they were likely to find there. He called out, "Sheriff, Sheriff Tilley! Are you here?"

"Back here!" A hoarse voice urgently answered him. Jim went back into the prisoner area and he saw the Sheriff and his Deputy locked up together in a cell. "That damned injun had the drop on Roscoe when I got back here last night! We've been yelling our fool heads off ever since."

"There's a spare key on top of that gun rack out there in the office." The Deputy told Jim. Jim went and quickly found the key and returned to unlock the cell.

Jim was concentrating on keeping a tight rein on his sense of humor, but the Mayor was anything but amused; he was fuming! "So this is where our fearless law officers were while my own horse was being stolen!"

The Sheriff's embarrassed look changed to one of fury. "That had to be that danged Injun Joe who stole your horse." Sheriff Tilley complained. "He's the one who locked us up."

Mayor Dixon turned on Jim; he put both of his hands on his hips and spoke belligerently. "I thought your Captain assured me you were the one man in Texas who could catch Injun Joe!"

"He was dead right, Your Honor. It took me two weeks of rough riding to bring him in, and I delivered him right here to this office in chains last night. I woke up your Deputy and turned the injun over to him and got a receipt. Ask Sheriff Tilley yourself, he was over visiting Miss Vickie in her rooms at the saloon when I found him and told him all about it." Jim thought those innocent little clues about the Sheriff and Deputy ought to be plenty of bait to lure the Mayor off of his own trail.

The Sheriff evidently thought so too, he desperately started trying to brush over his own tracks as the Mayor turned quickly back to him. "It's all Roscoe's fault, Mayor. He's the one who let that blasted redskin get the drop on him!"

"And just who in the devil was it who insisted I hire Roscoe?" Mayor Dixon fumed. "If my mare isn't back in my barn tonight, I'll be looking to hire me another sheriff and deputy! Ranger Horn, you caught that horse thief once, where do you reckon they should begin hunting for him this time?"

They had moved back into the office as they talked. Jim looked over at the big Texas map hanging on the wall behind the Sheriff's desk. He walked over and stood in front of it as he thought out loud.

"Mayor, if I had to put my finger on Injun Joe and your good spotted mare right now I'd figure they've been movin' fast since almost two hours before midnight last night." He stabbed a finger at a point on the map. "I'd say that injun and your spotted mare are enjoying a big bait of breakfast somewhere just this side of Austin right now!"

"What?" The Mayor shouted scornfully. "That's impossible!" Jim would later describe Mayor Dixon's expression as being blown up like a drowned horned toad.

"Alright, Sir." Jim returned a little stiffly. "You asked me where I reckoned he was and I told you. As far as I've heard no other lawman has ever even come close to catching him. Last night I asked him personal' to get out of Texas when he escaped and I think he took it to heart and he's high tailin' it up north." Jim walked toward the front door.

"Where do you think you're going, Horn?" The Mayor asked.

"I'm going to hunt me up some breakfast. Unlike you city folks, it's been weeks since I've had a decent meal. I aim to keep a real close eye on that spotted stud, too, just in case I'm wrong about where that injun is."

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard, Horn." The Mayor blustered. "Even that crazy injun wouldn't steal a Texas Ranger's horse in broad daylight on the main street of San Antonio!"

"You may be right." Jim said as he grinned broadly. "Then again, Mayor Dixon, I know where my horse is and you don't!" Jim left the Mayor spluttering; for once Jim had seen the man speechless.

Jim was feeling right proud of himself for setting the Mayor straight as he led his horse on over to the cafe. He entered the place and looked around; ranchers and townsmen already sat at several of the tables. Jim instinctively took a seat at a small table where his back would be against a solid wall.

The half-starved Ranger stared hungrily at the slate board on the wall that had the bill of fare written on it in chalk. The good smells of home cooking coming from the kitchen stove made his empty stomach rumble.

An attractive young red headed woman in a yellow sundress and white apron came over to his table. "Might I take your order, sir?" She smiled and asked pleasantly, Jim was a little surprised she spoke English flavored with a strong Irish brogue.

"Please, ma'am. I've eaten nothing but beans and tortillas for the past three weeks, washed down with muddy water. If you please, ma'am, rope a steer and drag it up on top of that hot stove of yours for a minute and then slice me off a big steak. Put four eggs sunny side up on top of that, and I aim to wash that down with two pots of strong black coffee."

"I'll fetch you those two pots of coffee one cup at a time if it's all the same to you, Ranger." The girl surprised him a little by coming right back at him with her humor. But, with all of the rowdy cowboys that come in her cafe, Jim thought, she probably hears some real dillies.

Jim watched the girl closely as she returned to the stove. She walked the way a woman walks who knows an admiring man is watching her. She had full hips, a slender waist and more than ample breasts. Jim decided he would most definitely like to get to know her better! This little red head was an honest working woman and the way Vickie was acting the last time he'd seen her, he wasn't much likely to get any more lovin' from her anytime soon.

The young lady brought him a big hot mug of fresh brewed coffee and a glass jar full of trimmed green onion sprigs and pickled peppers, then she went back to the stove and started banging iron skillets around. In a pleasantly short time she brought him a big platter with a sizzling rare steak draped over every side of it. The center of the steak was covered with four big, orange-yoked yard eggs and several fluffy biscuits.

Jim glanced hungrily at the vision on the platter before him then he looked soulfully up into the girl's big blue eyes. "Do you believe in love at first sight, Ma'am? I reckon I've died and gone home to Jubilee in Heaven, but just in case I ain't, I aim to marry you and carry you off somewhere and keep you all to myself!"

The girl only smiled prettily at Jim in reply, but she did swish her skirts a little extra as she moved on to the next table. She answered back to him from across the room. "Love at first bite is more like it, Ranger. I ought to know all about you hungry men, that's my third proposal today, and breakfast not even over yet!"

Jim fell to cutting on his steak, he'd work on marrying the girl some more after his belly was full. He allowed as how he ought to have her perty much seeing things his way along about time for his lunch.

The pretty girl kept his coffee mug full and hot and the lean beefsteak was plenty tender for a desperately starving man. Like many a good woman, the red head seemed to genuinely enjoy watching a hungry man eat and Jim had his mind set on putting on one hell of a grand show.

He was sopping up some runny egg yolk and savory grease from the empty platter with the last bite of a biscuit when he noticed the front door slowly swinging open. In through the wide hole the open door left in the wall walked Silas Hawkins; he was so damned big and broad the hair on his greasy buffalo hide coat brushed the door trim on each side!

Jim's feeling of well being vanished in an instant. Of all the people in the world Jim knew, Silas Hawkins was the very last one he wanted to see at that precise moment. Hawkins was wanted for everything from barn burning and bank robbery to murder and rape!

He was big and he was bad, he weighed about the same as a yearling buffalo and he even smelled like one. His curly, greasy beard covered half of his big chest. Jim saw all of this and more, but he was already in action, he shoved his chair back away from the table and he was coming up with his both of his Colts when Silas looked his way. Silas' piggish eyes widened in recognition.

The girl had picked exactly the wrong time to warm up the man's coffee at the table next to the door. Silas snatched her up in front of him and he was coming out with his own gun as Jim drew his Colts! "I'll kill her, Horn!"

Silas yelled. He had the girl clutched to his chest like he was a big ugly child with a pretty, fragile doll. She had started screaming desperately and she'd dropped the coffeepot when Silas' arm had encircled her and he'd yanked her to him.

"I know you will." Jim yelled back as the sights of his Colts cleared the red head of hair in front of Hawkin's chest and he pulled both the triggers.