The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch (11 page)

Arm attacked the two who’d been at our ranch,
getting between them and then slamming their
heads together. The sound was like that of a
melon being dropped to a hard floor from about
six feet up.

Tiny picked up the big man like he were a sack
of grain and pitched him into the crowd of his
cohorts. I was using a leg from the chair I busted,
swinging it like a club. I connected real solidly
with one fella’s chin and he went right on down.
Arm threw himself at an opponent, carried him
to the floor, sat on his chest, and purely whacked
hell outta the guy’s face. The big man was struggling
to his feet. Tiny walloped him again with a
roundhouse right to the chin and that boy was
out
of the fight. Arm left the one on the floor unconscious
and traded blows with another. He also
kicked the new opponent squarely in the balls,
dropping him clutching his groin, his scream
more feminine than masculine. The couple that
were left standing backed off in a hurry. The
three of us went to a table and sat. I’d kind of
wondered why no guns were pulled until I saw
the tender sweeping a sawed-off twelve gauge at
the melee. “You boys want your regular set up?”
he called to us. I nodded and told him to make
everything double.

Dansworth’s men were dragging their wounded
to the rear of the bar. I drew my .45 and put it on
the table and Arm did the same.

“No need for the iron, boys,” the bartender told
us. “Any one of those assholes grabs a pistol and
him an’ anybody near him goes down with a
bellyful of double-ought shot.”

We relaxed with our beers and whiskeys after
the tender brought his tray over. “Them saddlebums
been lookin’ for trouble all day,” he said. “I
guess they found some. Ain’t my job to sort out
my customers, an’ as long as they were payin’, I
was pourin’. But when I see you boys walk in, I
knew there was gonna be some grab-ass. They
been talkin’ a awful lot ’bout a buckskin mare
you got from Tiny that Dansworth wants pretty
bad.”

“I guess they don’ know what ‘no for sale’
means.”

“I’ll tell you this,” the tender said. “Don’t think
Dansworth doesn’t have some real tough boys—
gunfighters—on his payroll. These turds you
punched
around are his scrub-work losers. You
watch yourselves an’ your horse.”

I nodded an’ said, “Thanks—we’ll keep our
eyes open.”

He started back to the bar, stopped, and looked
at me. “You owe me for a perfectly good chair,
Jake.”

I put a bill on the table.

We spent another hour in the saloon and then
went back to Tiny’s shop. He fit a halter—a nice
one, leather, not rope—over the Appy’s snout.
That little colt followed us like a boy’s puppy follows
him to school.

When we got back to the ranch our mare was
gone.

Arm and I stood at the open stall door as if in
shock.

“Won’ be hard to track weeth the snow. We
take some jerky an’ set out, no?”

“Yeah. But how could someone be stupid
enough to steal a horse when a blind man could
track up? I think we’re bein’ set up for an
ambush—an’ once we’re dead, Dansworth will
have the mare without having to worry about us
taking her back or even goin’ to the law.”

“These rustlers, they would no go toward
town. We know that much. We leave now, ride at
night, catch up, fight rustlers, get our mare back,
no?”

“Looks like that’s the only choice we have,
Arm.”

We put the colt in a stall with hay, grain, and
water, filled our saddlebags with jerky, and a
bottle of half coffee, half whiskey, and moved out.
The
trip from Hulberton to the ranch was a slow
one because of the colt, so our horses weren’t
fatigued—they were as ready as we were.

The tracks told us there were four men and
that one of them, riding a bit to the side, was leading
the mare. Nothing indicated that there were
outriders with a plan to somehow catch us in
the middle from cover and shoot hell outta us.

Darkness fell quickly but there was a three-quarter
moon and no cloud cover. The prairie
was easily light enough to follow the tracks. We
kept our speed down but we covered ground
well.

After a couple of hours of riding we reined in
and loosened our saddles to let our horses blow.

“This ees too easy,” Arm said, after a long
drink from our bottle. “It don’ make no sense.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” I said.
“We gotta split up, Arm. Come at these men from
two sides ’stead of riding square into an ambush.”
Arm scuffed at a hoofprint in the snow. “We
are getting closer to them,” he said. “Look, see
how clean these track is? It ain’t a hour old—
maybe a lot less.”

“You have plenty of ammo, right?”

“Sí.”

“Me, too. Good. How about you swing out left
and I’ll go out right?”

Arm was quiet for a moment. “Not far ahead—a
few miles, maybe—there’s a bunch of out-croppings,
no? Ees excellent cover. I was ridin’ one
day an’ came upon them.”

“Sounds like where they might try to take us
out,” I said. “Let’s ride out wide an’ then close in.
If
we’re wrong, it won’t take a minute to pick up
the tracks again.”

I went out about three quarters of a mile and
then picked up the direction in which Arm and I
were originally headed. The out-croppings my
partner had spoken of were new to me; I hadn’t
done nearly as much exploring as he had. But,
with the natural light, I didn’t think I’d have too
much trouble finding the spot. Even so, I rode
past the rocks and had to look back over my
shoulder to make certain I was seeing what I was
looking for. The snort of a horse told me I was
past where I’d planned to be—but that offered me
a hell of an advantage.

I ground-tied my horse and eased my rifle out
of the saddle scabbard. I jacked a round into the
chamber and then began walking very slowly
back toward the rocks and boulders.

I figured Arm would be coming in from the
side, and I didn’t care to have him plug me, assuming
I, too, was moving in from the side I’d
taken. I got close enough to where I could hear
conversation and some laughter and fired a shot
into the air. “You’re surrounded!” I bellowed.
“Mount up and ride out and leave the mare right
where she is and you won’t die!”

Arm immediately picked up on the “surrounded”
bit and fired a couple of rounds, one of
which hit a rock and sang its ricochet whine. I
couldn’t see the outlines of the men or the horses
and I was afraid to shoot at where I thought the
rustlers would be; I could easily plug our foundation
mare. My partner didn’t seem to have the
same problem. He fired again and I heard the
unmistakable sound of a bullet striking flesh and
then a long, gurgling moan.

A barrage of lead erupted from the rocks.
Nothing came close to me and each shot gave me
a target: a muzzle flash. I shot, apparently took
down a man from the scream I heard, and then I
rolled like hell to avoid giving the rustlers the
same advantage they’d so kindly given me.

Armando was shooting fast—the reports of his
30.30 were constant. He was on the other side of
the outcropping, so I couldn’t see his muzzle
flashes. A slug hit a foot from me and I cranked
several rounds at the bright light of the rustler’s
rifle. He yelled in pain and then was quiet.

The shooting stopped and the silence seemed
louder than the battle had. “Anybody alive in
there drop your weapon an’ walk out with hands
up!” Arm shouted. Nothing happened. I stood—
still crouched a bit—and began walking toward
the outcropping. It was possible we’d gunned all
four men—but it was also possible one or two
were playing possum on us.

Arm reached them before I did and shouted,
“There’s four down here, Jake. Looks like the
horses are up ahead fifty yards or so. I count five
horses—our mare is okay.”

We both advanced to the cluster of what we
thought were dead or dying rustlers. As it turned
out, we were wrong. One man, splayed on the
ground, jerked around and lowered a pistol at
me. I’d kept a round in the chamber and so had
Arm. We fired together and both hit the man—he
didn’t have a chance. Another of them moaned.
Arm shot him and I saw the fellow’s head jerk up
and
drop back down. A large piece of his skull
skittered off into the prairie.

“Thass it,” Arm said. “Les’ get our mare an’ go
home.”

We took the saddles off the rustlers’ horses and
dumped them right there—they were cheap
Mexican junk. The horses weren’t much better:
all were far underweight and the breathing of a
couple of them sounded like they had gravel in
their lungs. We removed their bits and slapped
them on their rumps. They’d find a bunch of
mustangs to run with before long. Our mare was
standing calmly, eyeing us, a too-tight rope halter
over her head and muzzle. I loosened the halter
and used the outlaw’s lead rope to bring her with
me to where I’d left my horse. She followed me
with no problem. I took a wrap around my saddle
horn with the rope and was mounting when Arm
rode up. He must have left his horse closer than I
did mine. I could see the whiteness of his teeth in
a broad smile as he approached. “We done good,
no?” he called.

I swung into my saddle. “Yeah, Arm, we done
good. You got that bottle of booze an’ coffee?”

“Was left of eet, anyway. I had a snort or
dos.
”
He handed me the bottle. I drank the couple of
inches that remained in it and tossed it toward
the dead rustlers. It smashed against a rock and
the pieces glittered in the moonlight.

We headed for home, the mare following nicely.

We rode side by side, close enough to each
other to talk in a normal tone of voice. Nevertheless,
it was some time before any words were exchanged.

“Them stars up there,” Arm said, “were right
there when we killed the rustlers, no?”

“Sure. Far as I know, stars don’t change no matter
what goes on down here.”

“Thass the thing. When a man’s life, it is ended,
nothing changes—nothing big, anyway.”

“Maybe it depends on the man who dies. The
way I see it, those rustlers needed to be shot an’
killed. But, if you died, well, I’d be awful busted
up about it. See what I mean?”

“No. Could be the rustlers, they had families or
somethin’.”

“Could be,” I agreed. “But the fact remains that
they was stealin’ our horse.”

Armando was quiet for some long moments. I
looked up at the stars again and was doing so
when he asked, “How many men you kill, Jake?”

“I dunno. Maybe ten, twelve—I dunno.”

“I don’ know how many I keel, either. More’n
twelve, I think.” He waited a bit. “It ain’t right,
Jake. Maybe with this Busted Thumb Horse
Ranch we will no longer keel men, no?”

“Maybe not.”

“Be good if we keel no longer.”

“I s’pose it would, Arm. But to tell the truth, I
can’t see it happening that way.”

“
Sí.
Sounds nice, though.”

Arm had picked up a pack of playing cards on his
last trip to the mercantile. Neither of us were big
on gambling, but we decided we could play “21”
for matchsticks. The first time Blanca came
through the kitchen as we sat holding cards, she
swept the deck from the table, jerked the cards
out
of our hands, gathered up the whole mess,
and tossed it in the trash. She hollered at us in
Spanish, which Arm later translated for me.
“Cards,” she said, “are tickets to hell! Satan loves
to see men holding them because then he knows
that those men will roast and scream in the eternal
fire for all eternity. Teresa and me will not
stay in a house where cards are played!”

That ended our pastime quite effectively. If we
had to go back to our own cooking, we’d probably
rather be in hell.

Winter drags on forever in West Texas. The sun
we cursed during the summer rarely showed its
face, and each day was a gray, dreary, and arctically
cold repeat of the one that came before it,
interspersed with storms.

I spent lots of time with the bay stallion. I’d let
him off the rope holding him to the snubbing
post and he danced and bucked and carried on
like a colt at his freedom. He still often skittered
away when I approached him. On good days,
though, he’d follow me a step behind as I carried
out his grain and hay. Nevertheless, any loud,
unexpected noise scared hell out of him. A heap
of snow sliding down from the barn’s roof with a
long
whoooosh
frightened him, so he took off in
his awkward run and damned near slammed
into the corral fence. Then he turned, nostrils
flared, pawing the ground in front of him, challenging
the sound. It took him a full day to come
down from that little episode.

The thing is, there’s always noise around a
working ranch. Arm and I talked it over and decided
that on an irregular schedule, we’d clatter
pots
an’ pans or fire our rifles or pistols, or yell as
loud as we could at least once a day. That was
tough on the stud. His nature told him to either
fight or haul ass when something threatened
him. For a few days he ate his grain and drank
water but left his hay to blow around in the corral.
It took about ten days to bring him to a point
where he’d tighten at a strange sound, but
wouldn’t bolt or rear.

The mare was getting prettier by the day. I
swear if she were a woman, I’d have married her.
The Appy was growing out of coltishness and
beginning to grow into a horse. He put some
muscle on his legs, his chest broadened and filled
out, and his ass went from lean slabs of muscle to
the semirounded rump we were looking for. He
had a hell of a personality, too. Armando was his
obvious favorite since Arm fed and brushed him
daily, but he tolerated me, usually poking his
snout at me for a treat. The packer was getting fat
and we probably should have sold him off since
we didn’t see any future use for him, but we both
liked him, and we could easily afford to feed him,
so we kept him and let him grow fatter. He
seemed to appreciate our generosity.