Chapter 6

As expected, there was a major attack on the Boyd ranch three days after the attack on the Circle R. This was more than just a raid, since there were 37 cowboys from the Circle R, the Rocking J, the Bar B Bar, and the Lazy M, plus the owners of each of the four ranches.

The fight started with the attackers riding as close to the main house as they could get and firing their pistols. The barb wire fence was effective in keeping them far enough away that the pistols bullets were either falling short or otherwise a total waste of ammunition. Finally, Henry Richards of the Circle R got smart and ordered one of his men to cut the wire and another to throw a rope over a fence post and pull the fence out of the way. That ripped out three posts and about 30 feet of fence. The attackers used this hole to advance on the house.

Jason had expected this and was not worried, since the fence had been intended to stop a night-raid, not a full scale daylight attack. In any case, it would only take an hour or so to repair the fence after the battle was over, so it was not a big deal. However, the cowboys did seem to think that they had accomplished something, because they sent up a raucous cheer when that much of the fence was pulled out.

Jason immediately recognized that he had made a tactical blunder when he had decided to stay inside the house. Had he been on the roof with his Henry rifle, he might well had been able to shoot one or more of the ranch owners. Oh, well, live and learn.

You would have thought that the attacking cowboys were a bunch of Comanches the way they charged at the house at full speed on their horses, shooting their pistols the whole time. At least, they had been smart enough to reload while they were waiting for someone to deal with the fence.

As it turned out, this didn't do them a whole lot of good. Bolivar, one of the shepherds, turned out to have one hell of a throwing arm, and he was accurate too. A century later, he could have made a lot of money playing center field for a Major League Baseball team. Arturo had spotted his potential and assigned him the job of throwing the hand grenades.

The cowboys had bunched up in the process of going through the hole in the fence, and Bolivar lobbed a hand grenade among them. He had done a very good job of timing his throw so that the grenade went off about 30 feet in the air. This was nearly perfect for the effect Jason had been looking for. The explosion scared the hell out of the horses and most of the men. Furthermore, the rocks thrown by the grenade as shrapnel injured nine of the cowboys, five so much that they were put out of the fight. Seven of the horses were also hit by the rocks, but none of their wounds were serious enough to incapacitate them, though they were of little use as they jumped and ran around in a panic.

The bunching was broken up by the time Bolivar threw a second hand grenade, so not as much damage was done with that one. This time, only two cowboys were seriously injured by the grenade, but the nerves of the horses were completely shot. Arturo stopped the hurling of grenades at this point because there was no good target left. He figured that Bolivar could heave some more grenades if the situation warranted them.

A lot of the horses were running around in front of the house, and most of these horses were completely out of control. This made it virtually impossible for the cowboys to stay mounted and to fire accurate shots at the same time, so there was little danger to any of the defenders. However, the defenders did not let the opportunity escape them as they proceeded to fire their shotguns at the cowboys who were close enough to be within range.

It was really no contest. The shotguns were quite effective in hitting men and horses. There was so much powder smoke raised by the discharging of the shotguns that the cowboys were practically invisible, and, toward the end of the battle, the defenders were simply firing at shadows in the smoke.

The whole battle lasted less than 15 minutes from the time the fence was torn down until Jason called for a halt to the shooting. Fortunately, Jason'd had the foresight to rig up a signaling device, a bell, so that he could send orders to the men on the roof. The roar of the shotguns was so loud that no shouts would have carried the necessary orders, but this bell worked well enough.

When the shooting died down, Jason shouted to the attackers, "STOP SHOOTING, AND WE WILL LET YOU PICK UP YOUR DEAD AND WOUNDED!" It took a minute or two, but the cowboys stopped shooting eventually, and they were allowed to pick up their casualties. Jason never knew just how many of the cowboys were hit, because of all of the confusion and chaos within the powder smoke from both sides, but it looked to him like at least half of the attacking force had been eliminated during the battle. None of his people had been hurt because of the incompetence of the "generals" on the other side.

There was no more shooting on that day, but Jason knew that this was not the end of the war.

As it turned out, Arturo had no problem getting his sister to join him at the ranch. She currently lived in Mexico and was sick of the poverty a peon had to live in. She grabbed at the chance to move when Arturo told her what her duties would be and how much she would be paid. Just getting to live in the patrón's house was a powerful incentive, and she would have a bedroom of her own. Such luxury was what dreams were made of!

Juanita was not afraid of the range war when Arturo told her of all of the preparations that had been made to defend the house. She was willing to believe almost anything when it was coupled with the luxury she anticipated. It took less than a day to convince her to return with him, so Arturo was gone only seven days.

Janet and Juanita hit it off immediately, and were destined to become very good friends, so this was just another plus for Juanita. Juanita settled in quickly and was helping Janet prepare supper on that first day. Now that she had some help with the preparation, Janet decided to introduce Jason to Mexican cuisine. She started with tortillas and a mild chili to go with the conventional Texas beef and beans. The hired men were disappointed at how bland the chili was, but still appreciated the effort by the women. Jason said that he, too, liked the chili and thought that he could stand it with more spices. Jason was fed spicier and spicier chili over the next few weeks until he as able to eat what the other men thought was a tasty dish.

Juanita got up early every morning to feed the men breakfast, and they were happy to give up their meager efforts at breakfast preparation. Janet and Jason got up after the men had eaten, and Janet fixed their breakfast. Juanita was anxious to learn how to fix an Anglo breakfast, so Janet taught her the "secrets" of making a good batch of grits. Anybody can fry eggs and ham and bake biscuits, but it takes real talent to do justice to grits!

Janet was just starting to show if you knew to look for the signs, so she was not currently inconvenienced at all by her pregnancy. She actually enjoyed cooking, but she knew that she would be out of action for a while at the latter portion of her pregnancy, so it was a big help to have another woman to fill in for her in the kitchen. Janet made a point of teaching Juanita how to fix all of Jason's favorite foods so that he would not be deprived while she was confined to the bed.

The two women started gathering all of the things that they would need to ease the baby's entry into the world, but Janet worried about how Jason was going to cope with her pain. Janet's mother had warned her that childbirth was painful, but the woman rarely suffered as much as her husband did if he really loved her. Janet was confident of Jason's love, so she was concerned about getting him through the delivery. Juanita calmed her fears by saying that she would talk to Arturo about what to do for Jason, and that should be enough for him to manage. Juanita insisted that she had dealt with enough expectant fathers to know just how to handle them. She had not lost one yet, though she did admit that it had been a close call on a couple of occasions.

Jason was oblivious to all the preparations the women were making because he was still concerned about the range war he was into up to his neck. There had been no more attacks in the five weeks since the abortive attack on their house. Jason had been into town a few times since that attack, and he had let it be known in the saloon that he now knew who his enemies were. He planned to be ruthless in striking back if there were any more attacks on his people or his property. Jason couldn't help being concerned about more attacks, since that seemed to be in the nature of the people he was fighting.