Chapter 4

Three weeks from his injury, Jason rode into town to see if the shotguns had arrived. Hector was along to drive the buckboard Jason planned to use to transport his new treasures. They rode up to the gunsmith's shop and went in to see if the shotguns had arrived. The guns were ready to go, and the gunsmith had even taken the time to clean all of the preservative off them so that they were ready to use as soon as Jason paid for them and their ammunition.

Jason paid for eight pin-fire 12-gauge double-barrel shotguns and four cases of ammunition. He had enough ammunition to fight a war, and that's what the shotguns were to be used for. The cattlemen were still against sheep ranching in "cattle country," and they were ready to fight a range war to drive the sheep out. This was enough shotguns to arm everyone at the ranch with them. These breach loading shotguns were state of the art and would enable his people to stand off 20-30 attackers without too much trouble.

Jason and Hector armed themselves with loaded shotguns and filled a belt pouch with shells. They headed back to the ranch, but they expected to meet some opposition before they got home. Jason wondered why they had not been hit on their way to town, but it may have been the result of poor organization on the part of the cattlemen. Anyway, they had a plan for any one of several different possible attacks, so they almost hoped that someone would be stupid enough to contest the road with them.

They had gotten about a mile out of town when it happened. Six men rode toward them at a fast clip, and started shooting while they were still out of decent range for the Navy Colts they were using. This was the kind of attack they were most expecting, so Hector stopped the wagon and ducked under it for protection. Jason rode away as if he were frightened by the charging cowboys. By design, Jason rode so that the charging cowboys were drawn in toward the wagon and Hector's shotgun.

As soon as they were within range, Hector fired. He was experienced with a shotgun, so he did not miss. By the time Hector had fired his two barrels, two men and one horse were down. The cowboys had assumed that Hector had run under the wagon to hide and were not expecting to be shot as they rode by. Hector took only about five seconds to reload and got off two more shots before the cowboys were out of effective range. Two men fell this time, but no horses.

At the first shot, Jason had turned around and ridden back toward the wagon holding his shotgun ready for when he was close enough to the remaining cowboys. At 50 feet, he fired both barrels at once. The two cowboys were foolishly so close together that the buckshot hit them both, along with their horses. Jason hated to harm the horses, but this was no time to quibble. Scratch two men and two horses, though Jason did need to shoot one of the horses with his pistol to put it out of its misery. The horse was going to die, anyway, there was just no point in prolonging its suffering.

Jason picked up another two horses and dispatched those that were not going to live. He and Hector stripped the cowboys of anything useful and left them for the Bar B Bar riders to find when they came looking for their friends. They picked up six Colts, five Navy and one Army. There was a total of eight dollars which Jason told Hector to split with the other men. Hector did take a hat that he fancied, but that was all they bothered with. The knives were junk.

Jason and Hector continued home and arrived in time for the noon meal. When dinner was over, Jason distributed the weapons and held a class to be sure that everyone understood the details of loading a pin-fire cartridge or shell. It had to be lined up so that the little pin projected from the shell in position for the hammer to drive it into the primer located within the shell. There were two problems with these shells: they had to be aligned properly for the hammer to hit the pin, and the pins had a tendency to break off if they were handled too roughly. A shell without a pin was useless, so they had to keep that in mind when handling the shells.

The men were all abashed when Janet turned out to be the best shot among them. She was actually marginally better than Jason, but he was not bothered by that. In fact, he was pleased, since he wanted her to be as protected as possible. Now that they had the guns, Jason had them build what would eventually be called pillboxes to shoot from. The pillboxes were built of wood, because the black powder powered .36 caliber bullets used by the most common Navy Colts would hardly make a dent at 20 yards and the .44 caliber bullets from the Army Colts would not penetrate two inches of hardwood at that range. Each pillbox was stocked with jerky and water in case of a protracted fight, but Jason was sure that nothing like that would ever happen. However, there was no cost to stocking the food and water, so they did it.

Now, the shepherds never went anywhere without their shotguns. They even took them to the privy—there was just no point in taking chances! The shotguns proved themselves very shortly after they had been picked up. Jason and Arturo were out inspecting a section of range they were considering opening for grazing when they were attacked by seven men. Jason and Arturo made a dash for some trees and got there before either was wounded. Neither one had tried to shoot while they were riding for their lives, but the situation changed when they got to the trees.

The two men dismounted and jumped behind trees to be used as shields against the rain of pistol bullets that were peppering down upon them. The cowboys were firing somewhat wildly, and neither Jason nor Arturo had yet been hit, though Jason's horse had sustained a minor wound. Those .36 caliber Navy Colts just did not have the power to do much damage beyond about 50 feet. Nevertheless, a lucky shot could be fatal, so there was no point in taking foolish chances.

As soon as the cowboys closed to within 30 yards, Jason and Arturo began firing. The buckshot was not much more effective at that range than were the Navy Colts when one talked about a single ball, but when so many were coming at you at the same time, you had to take cover. One of the cowboys was wounded and another was killed by the first shots from the two men sheltering among the trees. That caused the cowboys to swerve off and ride out of range.

However, they had no intention of giving up so easily. One of the men even holstered his Colt and pulled out his Henry rifle. Now, if the man was a decent shot, that Henry could be a distinct danger. The man with the rifle was also smart enough to dismount and lie down on the ground to establish as stable a firing position as he could manage. His first shot showed that he was a force to be reckoned with as his bullet struck the tree only an inch from Arturo's nose.

Arturo did not have a rifle with him, but Jason did have his Henry in his scabbard on the horse. The question was whether or not he could reach the rifle before he was shot. A second round from the cowboy's Henry answered that question most emphatically. That guy was just too good a shot to take the chance on retrieving the rifle.

Fortunately, there was an alternative. If Arturo could keep the cowboys' attention long enough, Jason might be able to sneak around behind them and take them from behind at close range, even close enough for his LeMat pistols. Jason related his plan to Arturo in tense whispers, then fired off two quick shots with his shotgun to confuse the situation further. Jason reloaded his shotgun and left it for Arturo to use, along with his ammunition pouch. Arturo planned to move around a bit to give the impression that Jason was still there.

The shotgun was just too awkward for Jason to carry on his undercover attack, so he was forced to count on this pistols. They had served him well during the War, and he had no doubt that they would continue to do so for some time to come. Jason started out by slipping back deeper into the woods before turning to his right to try to flank the cowboys. There was a shallow dry wash that Jason was able to follow in the second part of his journey. It was only about two feet deep, but there was enough brush growing along its edge that Jason was concealed as he ran, crouched over, until he was even with the line of cowboys as they hunkered down behind rocks and bushes.