Ride the High Range Page 4

  Johnny tossed his drink down before replying to the grinning bully, “No, I’m just fine right where I am, but I expect you’re gonna have to get on your knees to kiss my ass. Why don’t you get to it?”

  The foolish grin disappeared immediately from Mustache’s face. “Why, you sawed-off little bastard,” he roared, and grabbed Johnny by the back of his collar. The saloon suddenly became dead silent, alerted to the possibility of a fight, most of them unconcerned about the discrepancy in size. Caught with no weapons but his fists, Johnny took a swing at his antagonist, but because of the length of his arms, was woefully short. This served to spark the laughter from the onlookers again. “Now I’m gonna teach you a lesson, Stumpy,” the bully said, and drew back his fist.

  “I wouldn’t.” The words were accompanied by the unmistakable click of a rifle being cocked. All eyes turned to discover the lanky young man standing in the doorway, a bandanna supporting one arm, and a Sharps carbine pointed at Mustache.

  None could mistake the cold resolve in the boy’s eyes, but Mustache attempted to bluff anyway. With his hand still clutching Johnny’s collar, he blustered, “You crazy? Put that damn gun down or I’ll make you eat it.”

  He jumped, startled, when Jim pulled the trigger and the rifle slug breezed by his face, ripping a hole in the canvas wall of the saloon. “Let him go,” Jim demanded as he quickly cranked another cartridge into the chamber and brought the rifle around to point more directly at the man’s chest.

  “Whoa!” the bully yelled. “Wait a minute!” He quickly released Johnny’s collar and backed away, convinced that it was no time to bluff. One of his two companions let his hand drop slowly toward the revolver in his belt. A slight shift of Jim’s eyes brought his baleful gaze to focus on the man, enough to convince him it was not worth the gamble.

  “I expect we can go now, Johnny,” Jim said, his eyes still promising lightning at the first hint of movement from any of the patrons.

  “Right,” Johnny replied, then stepped quickly up before his antagonist, staring him in the face for a moment before bringing his foot up sharply between the man’s legs. With Mustache bent over in pain, the two new partners backed cautiously out the door. They wasted no time jumping in the saddle and galloping away toward the trading post. “That went well,” Johnny said when he caught up to Jim’s buckskin. “With all the fuss, the bartender forgot to charge me for the whiskey.”

  This would be the day Johnny would remember as the first indication that he had a partner who would always watch his back. After buying some supplies, they wasted no more time in North Platte, striking out for Fort Laramie, which Johnny figured was a good six days’ ride with the weather that had set in. Following the North Platte River along the trail countless immigrants had traveled on their way to Oregon, they were in the saddle three days when the weather cleared and the sun reappeared. Pushing on, they came upon a great swath trampled across their trail. “Buffalo,” Johnny pronounced, “and they crossed here not long ago.” Knowing they would not likely have a better opportunity for meat and hides, they immediately went in pursuit of the animals.

  Jim was fascinated. He had never seen buffalo, and he was anxious to join the hunt. They followed the wide black swath in the snow for almost half a day before coming upon the rear animals in the herd. They had gathered in a low basin near the South Platte, and were milling about, snorting and pawing the snow for grass. Jim had been told before about the magnitude of the buffalo herds, but all he had heard was not sufficient to prepare him for the sight he was now seeing with his own eyes. All the way to the banks of the river, there was a wide sea of dark massive bodies, bobbing and pawing, like a black flood flowing toward the river.

  Following Johnny’s lead, he guided the buckskin along a ridge that formed one side of the basin until they reached a point parallel with the middle of the herd. There they left the horses and prepared to descend the ridge on foot to get a little closer to their quarry. “Here,” Johnny instructed, and handed Jim a deerskin from his packhorse. “Put this over your shoulders. You’re gonna have to get a helluva lot closer to do any good with that carbine.”

  “Won’t that spook ’em?” Jim asked.

  “Nah,” Johnny drawled. “With that hide on your shoulders, they won’t think nothin’ about it. They’re used to havin’ wolves sniffin’ around the herd, lookin’ for a calf or a lame cow. With that weapon you’re usin’, you’re gonna need to shoot ’em right behind their front legs. Try to get a lung shot—might take two or three shots to bring one of ’em down.” Satisfied that Jim was all set, he then untied another deer hide from his packhorse and unrolled it to reveal his special buffalo rifle, a Remington Rolling Block .50/70, leaving his Henry in the saddle sling. “This boy’ll knock ’em down,” he said with a grin. “I’ve shot more’n a few with this here rifle.”

  As Johnny had advised, Jim threw the deerskin over his shoulders, and hunched over as much as possible, he moved in closer to the edge of the herd. The beasts began moving away from him, so he wasted no time in selecting his targets. Picking two young cows closest to him, he quickly pumped two shots into each of them, behind the front leg as Johnny had instructed. Matching him, Johnny dropped two also, spending only one shot on each animal. “That’ll do,” Johnny crowed. “That’s as much meat and hides as we’ll be able to handle without no more packhorses. In fact, I ain’t sure but what we’ll have to waste some of it.”

  Jim got to his feet and watched the buffalo closest to him break into a trot until moving a few dozen yards from the carcasses. Then they slowed to a walk again. “They don’t even know they’re bein’ hunted, do they?” he commented.

  “It takes more’n three or four dropping before the rest of ’em break into a run,” Johnny said. He turned and started back up the ridge to get the horses. “Let’s get to work skinnin’ and butcherin’. Ain’t no tellin’ who mighta heard them shots and we’re pretty much out in the open.”

  Jim immediately caught the urgency in his voice and hurried up the slope after him. About halfway up, Johnny turned to say, “That wasn’t bad shootin’ back there.”

  “This carbine shoots a mite high,” Jim responded. “I didn’t have a chance to shoot it before, so I ain’t got used to it yet.” Johnny didn’t comment further, but he was thinking that if the two shots in each cow were any closer together, there would be but one hole.

  Jim got a valuable lesson on the quickest and most efficient method of skinning a buffalo. The butchering was somewhat different than portioning a deer or an antelope, which Jim had done on many occasions, because of the size of the animal. But left alone, he would have butchered the animal the same way Johnny favored. After the hides were harvested and the best cuts of meat and the liver were packed, they left the rest to a pack of wolves that had already discovered their kill. “Everybody gets to eat,” Johnny proclaimed, satisfied that there would be no waste. “Now let’s get away from here. We’re gonna have to find us a good place to camp for a couple days so we can cut up this meat and smoke-cure it, and then we’ll have food for a good while.”

  They headed back toward their original trail on the North Platte, where they selected a campsite by a creek where it flowed into the river forming a small island. There was ample coverage in the willows that ringed the island to conceal them from the view of any passersby. The successful hunt was celebrated by a feast of roasted meat while they cut most of their kill into strips to be cured over the fire as the sun dried the hides staked out on the ground. It was a good time for Jim. They ended up staying at the camp for almost a week.

  “We need to get you a packhorse,” Johnny announced one afternoon when Jim returned from a short trip upriver to try his hand at fishing.

  “How we gonna do that?” Jim wondered. “I don’t have any money to buy a horse.”

  “The same way an Injun gets one. We’ll steal it.” This captured Jim’s attention, and Johnny continued. “There’s a couple of different bands of Injuns between here and Fort Lara
mie, mostly Crow, but Arapaho, too, last time I rode through. I’d prefer we steal it from Arapahos. I’m kinda partial to the Crows, since I married one a few years back.”

  “You married one?” Jim responded, surprised. He tried to picture the little gnomelike man with an Indian woman. It was a picture that was hard to conjure. “What happened to her?” Jim asked.

  “Oh, she’s still with her people, I reckon. I ain’t seen her in more’n a year—lives in Two Bulls’ village. I figured on visitin’ her after we get to Fort Laramie. Two Bulls usually camps between the North Platte and the Laramie River in the winter—at least he has for the last three years.” He paused and grinned. “Morning Flower, you’ll get to meet her if Two Bulls is campin’ where he usually does.” Jim made no comment, but he found the prospect of meeting Mrs. Hawk extremely interesting.

  Quincy walked across a low rise about a quarter of a mile from the Smoky Hill River. As he walked, leading his grateful mount, he frequently looked back over his shoulder to make sure no one was following him. “That damn kid,” he muttered to himself, thinking of Jim Moran, never conceding the fact that the gang of raiders would have ridden into an ambush by the soldiers regardless. The soldiers had guessed where they might strike next. Quincy blamed Butcher for that. They had damn near ridden in a straight line from Salina, hitting every farm and ranch they came to. Hell, any damn fool could have seen that, he thought.

  As far as he could tell, only three of the others had gotten away from the ambush, and it was every man for himself. At least I got one of the bastards, he thought, thinking of the soldier he had shot before running. He saw Joe Coons and Ben Roberts, hightailing it off to the west, and one other, maybe Maynard, heading toward the river—he couldn’t be sure, as he was pretty busy saving his ass at the time. After he lost the soldiers chasing him, he had cut back toward the west in hopes he might find Coons and Roberts at the camp they had left on the Smoky Hill. Now as he walked toward the creek, he suddenly stopped when his eye caught some movement in the cottonwoods that lined the river. Not sure if he had been spotted, he hesitated, standing behind his horse in case he was greeted with a rifle shot while he strained to see who or what might be in the trees. Maybe someone else had stumbled upon their old camp. After watching for a few moments more, he spotted a gray horse through an opening in the trees that looked like the one Joe Coons rode. He decided to risk it. There weren’t many horses as downright ugly as Joe’s horse.

  As soon as he hailed the camp, he was met with two rifles aimed at him from the edge of the trees. Still using his horse for cover, he called out, “Joe, is that you? It’s Quincy.”

  “Damn, it’s Quincy,” Coons said to Ben Roberts, relieved. “Come on in, Quincy,” he called, then, and walked out in the open to meet him.

  “That was a fine mess Butcher got us into back there,” Quincy commented as he led his horse into the trees.

  Still visibly shaken, Ben Roberts said, “I don’t think but four of us got away. I saw Maynard headin’ off the other way. I decided to follow after Joe—we figured Maynard might make his way back to this camp, too, but we ain’t seen no sign of him.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re in the clear now,” Joe said. “We ain’t seen no sign of any soldiers for at least a week.” He shook his head and said, “I thought we was all done for back there at that farm, though.”

  “You boys got anythin’ to eat?” Quincy asked. “I’m down to a few coffee beans and a strip of salt pork.” When Ben volunteered that the two of them had a little more than that, but would need to find a new source pretty damn soon, Quincy took the lead in planning the next move. “We’d do well to move on up into Montana, where they’re diggin’ all that gold outta the ground. We’ll find us some grub somewhere—maybe do some huntin’, now that we’re sure the army ain’t just over the next hill.” He hesitated then, thinking their reaction was not especially receptive to his proposal.

  “We’ve been talkin’ over what we’re gonna do,” Joe said. He paused to look at Roberts for support before continuing. “Me and Ben pretty much decided we was gonna go on back down to Texas.”

  “Texas?” Quincy responded, surprised. “Hell, the gold’s in Montana. There ain’t nothin’ in Texas but cows.”

  “Well,” Joe countered, “that’s what me and Ben are good at, rustlin’ cattle.” A discussion on the subject followed and was soon upgraded to an argument. Quincy needed the two of them, but he could not convince them to join him, and it was already obvious to Joe that Quincy was planning on being the boss. The result was a standoff. “Well, I reckon this is where we part company, then,” Joe concluded.

  Plainly irritated, Quincy nevertheless said, “I reckon that’s the way it’s gonna be, then—no hard feelin’s.”

  “Ah, hell no,” Joe said, relieved that Quincy accepted the split-up, so much so that he failed to notice the casual drop of Quincy’s hand to rest on the handle of his six-gun. Caught completely by surprise, both he and Ben were frozen for the fraction of a second that it took Quincy to draw the weapon and pump two rounds into Joe’s chest, then turn and slam Ben with two in the back when he scrambled for his rifle.

  Quincy moved casually over Ben as the mortally wounded man tried to crawl the last few feet to his rifle. One more shot in the back of the head finished the job. Then he went back to stand before Joe Coons while the dying man agonized through his last few seconds on earth. “Like I said,” Quincy told him, “no hard feelin’s, Joe. It’s just business. I need your guns and your horses. I reckon I’ll just have to find me a couple men up Montana way.” He watched Joe for a few moments more to see how long it was going to take him to die. He could have helped him along, but he’d already spent an extra cartridge on Ben. Then he decided to end it with his knife. He was not concerned for his former partner′s suffering as much as the remote possibility that he might live. He was saved the trouble, for as he drew his knife from its sheath, Joe accommodated him by expiring. “It’da been a whole lot easier if they’da just come on with me,” he commented.

  Chapter 3

  With their horses tied in the brush below the riverbank, Jim and Johnny edged up to the top of the bluffs, where they could see the village and the horse herd beyond. After a few minutes, Johnny said, “Arapaho. Good. We can wait till dark before we go around the village and pick up a horse on the other side.” Jim nodded his agreement. “Course, the best ponies are the ones tied up by the tipis,” Johnny continued. “A warrior usually keeps his best war pony by his tipi.” He shrugged then. “We’re only lookin’ for a packhorse, so we’ll just take the best one we can find in their herd.” He got no argument from Jim because he doubted he could find one he liked as well as the buckskin he was riding.

  They returned to their horses just as a light dusting of snow began to powder the riverbank. Using the buffalo hides for shelter, they sat up close against the bank and waited for darkness, unconcerned about being spotted since the village was obviously starting to settle in for the night. It was a while, however, before hard darkness set in, so they chewed on strips of smoked buffalo and did without the hot coffee that Johnny was so fond of. It was unlikely it would have been noticed, but they were a little too close to the Arapaho village to build a fire. Watching his young companion testing his healing shoulder repeatedly as he sat shivering slightly in the cold winter evening, Johnny said, “When we get to Laramie, we’ll find Two Bulls’ camp, and Morning Flower can make you a warm coat outta one of them buffalo hides. It’ll sure beat the hell outta that wool coat you got on.” Jim looked at him and nodded, causing Johnny to comment. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

  “Ain’t been no need to,” Jim replied.

  Johnny chuckled. “I reckon you’re right. I can take care of the talkin’ all by myself.” He sat back and gave his partner a long, hard look. “Rider,” he pronounced. “Maybe we oughta name you somethin’ else—like gloomy or somethin’. You don’t smile very much—got a kinda dark look in your eyes like you’re ’bout to gi
ve a person some bad news. Ain’t nothin’ good ever happened in your life?”

  The little man’s assessment took Jim by surprise. He wasn’t aware that he exhibited a brooding countenance. He had never really thought about it—he was what he was and figured that was good enough for him. Considering Johnny’s question, he took a few seconds to think back over his young life, and in truth could not actually recall any part of it that he could call happy times. He was about to confess as much when Johnny abruptly changed the subject with a sharp release of flatulence, no doubt a consequence of the beans he had eaten that morning. “Jaybird,” he announced, a contented look upon his face. Jim made no comment. Johnny always seemed to announce these occurrences with the one word, Jaybird, as if the sound itself was not sufficient. Jim never asked about the relevance of the term. It was just one of many characteristics of the odd little man. At any rate, he was happy to avoid the subject of the lack of happiness in his life.

  The confiscation of a single horse from the Arapaho herd was not a difficult task for the two thieves, even though some of the young boys from the village had come out to move the ponies in closer to the village for the night. Johnny led their horses along the riverbank on the opposite side until past the tipis while Jim made his way on foot into the herd. His walking among the ponies caused a mild disturbance as he tried to approach a likely looking prospect, an occurrence that was repeated several times until he was finally able to slip his rope on a gray mare much like the gelding Johnny rode. With still no sounds of alarm from the peaceful village, he led his stolen horse away from the herd and back to the bank where Johnny was waiting. “Looks pretty good,” Johnny commented when joined by his partner. “Looks a helluva lot like mine. When we get far enough away from here, I’ll show you how to make an Injun packsaddle and we can shift some of this load. I know my sorrel will be damn glad to share it with her.”