Ride for Rule Cordell (22 page)

“Yes, ma’am. I am.” Checker sat down next to Fiss.

Quickly, she brought iron utensils and cloth napkins that had once been bright blue. Rule moved close to the table and touched the silver cross and medicine pouch around his neck.

“How do you want to play this, John?” he asked.

Checker watched Morgan set the white ironstone bowls in front of both men and asked if they wanted more coffee. They did and she left to get the pot.

“Not sure, Rule. Except they’ll come,” the tall Ranger said. “Most likely tonight. I think they’ll head here first, move on to the Carlson Ranch, then to Emmett’s. Their objective will be to destroy us. All of us. Time isn’t on their side. The state of Texas isn’t going to let Jaudon stay a Ranger captain.”

After watching Morgan in the kitchen, Checker looked at Rule. “There are some big ranchers who’ll scream about no Ranger help along the Rio Grande. That’ll end Jaudon’s time as a Ranger captain.” He licked his lower lip. “It’ll come too late to help us, though.”

“I don’t like waiting for trouble,” Rule said.

Checker put a spoonful into his mouth, savored it and swallowed. “Me, neither. What say you and I ride to town.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I like that idea.” Rule put both hands on the back of the end chair.

Returning with the coffeepot, Morgan raised her free hand to signal a halt. “Wait just a minute. This is my fight. Mine and Emmett’s. Not yours.” She poured fresh coffee, took the pot back to the stove and returned, standing in the kitchen doorway. Her arms were at her sides, her legs spread in defiance.

Checker thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and wanted to tell her so. Her earlier kiss lay on his lips—and mind—like a butterfly on a flower.

“I ride with Mrs. Peale,” Fiss said, not daring to bend his wounded arm. He shoved another spoonful of stew into his mouth to emphasize his commitment.

Checker reminded them Jaudon would be bringing a force of nearly forty men, all experienced fighters. Among them would be Tapan Moore and Luke Dimitry—and maybe Eleven Meade. Tapan, in particular, would be hard to handle. The tall Ranger shook his head, pushing away the weakness in his body that wanted control. Not now. There was no time for giving in to the ache from the wound.

Only Rule and Morgan noticed. She wanted to hug him; Rule wanted to tell him it was all right to feel the bullets that had tried to kill him.

“I don’t like the idea of taking on forty,” Checker said,
“when we’re really just after three.” He stared at the stew, then took another spoonful.

Rule rubbed his chin. “Holt. Jaudon. Citale.”

“Right.” Checker washed a third spoonful down with coffee. The movement brought a pain to his wounded side that he tried to ignore. He added Jaudon would likely lead the Holt gang if they attacked, then asked Fiss what Lady Holt was doing in town. Fiss responded that she was in the newspaper office when he left; Jaudon had been there, too, firing at him from the doorway.

“Hard to miss that big boy, but I did.” He forced a grin and continued eating.

“That means Henry Seitmeyer is in trouble. Or worse,” Checker said. “He was going to bring out an edition telling about the hearings.”

“Didn’t see him. But I heard a couple of businessmen talking about the story.” He turned his head to the side. “Probably should have gotten a copy.”

“Mrs. Loren was all right when you left?” Morgan asked, leaning forward in her chair.

All of them complimented Margaret Loren for her courage. He retold what had happened, expanding it to include the resignation of the blacksmith as temporary sheriff.

Checker thought he had shown both courage and judgment. “Not much wisdom in going up against forty guns—by yourself.”

Hoofbeats signaled Rikor’s return. The young man entered the house with a question. “What’s goin’ on?”

Checker summarized the situation while Morgan rose and went to the kitchen again, returning with a filled coffee cup, tableware and a napkin.

“Sure did like those donuts, ma’am,” Rikor exclaimed.

“You have some stew and I’ll see if we have any left.” Morgan set a bowl filled with stew in front of him.

“Oh my, that looks mighty good. You sure can cook, ma’am. Bet your husband liked coming home.” He stopped, realizing the insensitivity of his statement, and apologized.

She smiled and told him an apology wasn’t necessary and quickly asked if the others wanted more coffee. None did.

Checker stared at his empty cup for a moment before looking up. “Let’s go to town—and arrest her. Citizens’ arrest.”

Rule’s face brightened. “Well, we can’t protect the ranches. Trying to do that puts all the advantage on their side. And puts us…dead.” He turned to Morgan. “Are you ready for this? They’re going to burn this fine home. Run off your cattle.”

“I can rebuild a house. I can round up cattle.” Her response matched the fierceness in her eyes.

“All right, let’s do it,” Rule said. “Got a thought, John.”

“Of course.”

“We need to ride like the guerrilla fighters did. During the war. Carry lots of weapons. Bullets. Food. Water. With us. Stay on the move. Until this thing’s over.”

“You’re right. What ever happened to that packhorse with food and bullets I brought to your place, Rikor?” Checker asked.

The young man grinned and looked more like a wolf than a man for a moment. “Ah, sir, we brought it along. What we ain’t done et anyway. Packhoss is in the corral. With our other hosses.”

Smiling, Morgan set out a plate of donuts.

“Oh, ma’am, are those fer me?”

“Enjoy. There’s more stew in the kitchen. That’s all of the donuts, though. Would you like some more coffee?”

“Yes’m.” He grabbed a donut.

“Got another suggestion,” Rule said, looking at Checker. “Let’s hide out up the trail a mile or so—some place where
we can sting them when they come. Tonight. Then leave for town.” The gunfighter ran his forefinger along the table. “Might make them think twice about coming for the ranches. Especially if we make them think there are more of us.”

Checker looked at him. “I can’t shoot men who can’t defend themselves. Even Jaudon’s bunch.”

The return gaze from Rule was an understanding one. “I can’t, either. But maybe we could scare the hell out of them. Make them think other Rangers had joined us. Might make them make a mistake. Give us time anyway.”

“Hot damn! That’s what Pa were a-talkin’ about,” Rikor said with a mouthful of donut. “Doin’ the masquerade thing all over.”

Nodding at the young man, Checker said, “It’s risky. What if they don’t bite—and stay to fight, instead?”

“We’ll set ourselves up to get out of there. Quick. Leave them wondering.” Rule drew a circle with his finger on the table, then moved it swiftly away.

Checker was silent a moment; his eyes sought Morgan’s, then returned to Rule. “I’m ready, if the rest of you are.”

The location of the ambush was Morgan’s suggestion. A short valley on the eastern edge of her grazing land, and not far from town. The main road from Caisson went right through there. There were plenty of boulders and ridges to hide behind. They would be able to hide their horses close by, fire down at Holt’s men and ride away before they could reorganize.

“Wal, I reckon that thar’s a good ’nuff plan,” Rikor said as he raised a spoonful of stew to his mouth. “Whar do we head after?”

“Lady Holt.”

“Ya mean her ranch?” Rikor drawled.

Checker cocked his head. “No. I mean her. Wherever she is. We’re going to take her to Clark Springs. For trial.”

“That’ll be somethin’.”

“Yeah. Maybe so,” Checker said, and drew the handgun he carried in his back waistband to check its loads.

After repacking the packhorse, filling canteens with well water and gathering every weapon they could find, the small party left the Morgan Peale Ranch and headed toward town. It was important to stay out of sight until they got to the valley where Morgan thought they should wait for Holt’s men.

Fiss and Rikor took the point, knowing the land better than the others. Narrow ravines, an occasional stand of trees, a string of ridges and even a herd of grazing cattle provided the screening they desired en route. They didn’t intend to go far, at least not now. Just far enough.

Nightfall found five of them hidden in separate shooting positions along the road from town, settled on both sides of the shallow valley. Two on the south side, three on the north. The positions were selected by Checker and Rule. Each was picked for its concealment from the road—and its easy escape to their horses. Each shooter was to come to the horses as soon as possible after firing on the Lady Holt gang. Shooting was to be over their heads unless the gang started firing back.

Located fifty yards behind the shooting positions, their saddled horses were tied to branches among a grove of pecan, mesquite and cottonwood trees. A shallow pond was the reason for their growth. Fiss was put in charge of the horses. He didn’t like the job, but accepted it when Checker quietly explained they needed someone savvy there in case of trouble. Both Checker and Rule knew the man was hurting and unable to use his arm. This would be a good place for him.

Checker expected the Holt riders to come through this part of the road riding easily and unsuspecting. It was a good location for an ambush. The hardest for him was to leave Morgan in a firing site above him and Rule. The gunfighter told him that he had to do it—and to treat her like a man. She would insist on it.

Her shooting location was within a rock cradle above and to the left of where Checker and Rule intended to wait. In her hands was a rifle. A Colt rested in her belt. “Morgan, I…I’m not comfortable with you…being here,” Checker said, feeling awkward. His long black hair rustled along his shoulders.

“You don’t think I’m good enough, brave enough…what?” Her mouth twisted into a half smile. “Or do you want me beside you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. Don’t worry about me. This is my ranch. I don’t intend to let that awful Englishwoman have it.” Her face changed into a frown.

He made her promise that she would fire quickly and crawl away. Immediately. Then he suggested she cock the rifle now and ease the hammer back into place until needed. That would keep her gun from making a noise being cocked as the gang rode through.

“My daddy would’ve called this the rattlesnake code. Warn ’em first, he’d say, and then let ’em have it if’n they don’t leave.” She cocked her head.

“That’s about it. Only we’re the ones who are going to leave. Remember that,” Checker said. “If they don’t turn and run, we need to.”

“I understand.” She smiled. “Now I need something from you, John.”

“Anything.”

She gently insisted on a parting kiss, which he was happy to offer.

Reluctantly, he climbed down from her position to the main one where Rule waited.

“Wish it was darker, Rule. The darker, the better,” Checker observed as he joined the gunfighter.

Rule assured him a full moon favored them; the old Medicine Man Moon had told him never to fear Mother Moon’s gentle caring. He never did. Even during the war and the guerrilla fighting afterward.

“Still wish it was darker.”

Rule grinned and reassured him the evening would go well.

As she sat down to wait, Morgan Peale’s mind was wrapped around the man she had just kissed.

“He’s good-looking in a hard sort of way, isn’t he?” she said to herself. “I wonder where he got that arrowhead-shaped scar on his cheek. He almost looks like an Indian, doesn’t he?”

She couldn’t forget the longing in his eyes when they were close. It made her warm all over. Way down under his Ranger ways was a caring man, one who would back up a friend, regardless of the odds. The realization of this gentle
core drew her to him as nails were drawn to magnets at the general store.

Her late father—and her late husband—she had understood. And men like them as well. She could almost read their thoughts. They were good men, or tried to be, as they saw goodness. Dependable. Stubborn. Yes, and narrowminded, too. Neither would have understood her hiring London Fiss—or allowed it. The three things they couldn’t stand were liars, cowards and people of a different color. Men like them would fight when pushed hard enough, but only then. From that point, the fight was your own, yours to handle, not asking for, nor expecting, any help. “Stand n’ git ’er dun, boy.” Or die trying. That was her father.

She was glad Checker had insisted on the same kind of warning her father would have done. But the Ranger was different from her father.

Men like John Checker—and Rule Cordell—she didn’t understand. They were a breed of men Texas needed now, or the worst kind of men—and women—would take over. But what kind of life could a woman have with a man like Checker and Rule? She knew the gunfighter was married and had a small family. How had he done it? Why was he here? She already knew the answer, to help his uncle. He was a wild-looking man with his stone earring, long black coat and many handguns. He was what she had expected him to look like. Yet he, too, had a gentle way about him. A caring way.

On her lap lay her rifle, cocked and ready. The hammer had been eased back into place as the Ranger had suggested. She moved her legs to relieve them of stiffness and studied the road below. Her thoughts returned to John Checker. He was a killer of men; a Ranger, but a killer nonetheless. Just like Rule Cordell. She could see Checker’s face with those penetrating eyes.

“We could never have a life together. Never,” she admonished herself.

A man like him was always drawing danger. Such a man could be killed at any time. Eleven Meade had already tried. God knows how many other men with a gun had. The thought of John Checker dying made her wince and shiver. She squeezed her eyes tightly to get that awful picture to go away. Seeing him lying wounded in bed was bad enough. She knew he shouldn’t be up so soon; she knew what the blood on the side of his shirt meant. He had to be weak from losing so much blood. Had to be. That stubbornness was just like her father, she admitted. Just like him.

She could see Checker and Rule below, setting up the barrage of guns below her to add to the appearance of a larger force. It was Rule’s idea. On the other side of the road, lower down, she could make out Emmett and Rikor setting up a similar fake barrage. She wanted to call out to the tall Ranger, to tell him to come and see her again. To hold her and kiss her. That was foolish, she told herself. All of them could be dead when the night was over.

This wasn’t the time; Checker had said that earlier. Still…

A sound behind John Checker! He spun with his cocked rifle in his hands. Standing twenty feet away was a calf. The wobbly animal looked at him and started bawling. From the darkness, the mother cow appeared and nudged her infant away, giving the Ranger a scornful look as she did.

“Well, I think you just got told off.” Rule laughed.

Checker smiled. “You take him on home, mother.”

He returned his attention to the trail. At least they had time to set up Rule’s idea.

He left his Winchester and a box of cartridges on a flattened area where he would return when finished. Rule had already begun work on the fake gun barrage. A lariat, Sharps
carbine, shotgun, four pistols and leather strings lay on the hillside where he worked. In this crook of a broken rock slab angling skyward like a giant arrowhead, Rule had wedged the Sharps snugly into place. It had been A. J. Bartlett’s gun. A separate boulder was pushed against the gun butt to keep it from sliding backward when fired. The gun was aimed at a dark ridge guarding the far edge of the open trail.

About ten feet away, he found another rock holster for one of his backup pistols. Checker joined him in the placement of the guns. A few feet away was another small crevice for a Smith & Wesson revolver that had been Bartlett’s and another long-barreled Colt. The Ranger packed both in place with heavy supporting rocks. Rule inserted a fourth handgun a few feet away. These smaller weapons would be the most likely to pop loose when the triggers were pulled from a distance. Both checked the gun arrangement again, adding more rocks.

After a second review of the terrain, they decided the shotgun would fit nicely in the cradle of a small wiry bush, another four feet from the pistols. Tying the weapon with one of the leather strings ensured a steady placement.

Nervous sweat on the foreheads of both men told of battle anticipation more than of hard work. Rule laid out the rope two feet behind the row of guns and more or less in the middle of the row. Holding the loop itself, he tossed the other end uphill toward a half-burned mesquite tree with three wild-looking branches searching for the sky. Each trigger was now tightly knotted with a separate leather thong; his spittle on the knot would shrink the closure farther. The strings in turn were tied to the loop hole in the rope.

Checker told him to stop, as if hearing something in the distance. No. His imagination.

“Nothing. Just my nerves.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling.”

Across the way, Checker saw Emmett and Rikor creating a similar rig with extra guns collected from the group and from the Peale Ranch. There was a second Sharps, Emmett’s, and a shotgun Fiss carried regularly.

Wrapping the rope around the base of the tree would give them the leverage necessary to fire all of the guns at once when the rope was pulled. Or at least it should.

With the tiedowns in place, they retraced their steps to cock each weapon. They would leave slack in the rope for now to avoid a premature firing. The concept could easily fail, but if it did work, Holt’s men might think there was a small army of men shooting at them from ambush.

Guttural was the sound of the heavy Sharps carbine being readied for firing as Rule cocked it.

Checker moved on to the first pistol; it had belonged to Bartlett. As he stepped back from locking the hammer of the pistol in place, a rock slab under his feet slid down the incline. The Ranger stumbled, fiercely grabbing at the larger boulder to keep from falling. His wounded leg gave way as his momentum took him to the ground, in spite of his attempt to hold himself away from pulling the trigger.

In the tranquil night air, the
click
of a hammer on an empty cylinder was pure music to his ears. Checker lay on the ground for minutes, not moving. Not even attemping to climb up. Instead, he tried to recapture some of the energy and confidence driven from him in the last maddening moment. Only five bullets were in the gun. His late Ranger friend usually kept just five in his handgun as a safety precaution, and Checker was thankful he did. A shot going off now would warn anyone within miles of the valley, as well as confuse his friends waiting for his signal.

Looking down from the gun area, Rule asked, “You all right?”

“Yeah. Just embarrassed. A.J.’s gun. Kept five beans in the
wheel. Said it would keep him from shooting himself. Glad he did,” he said, and finally returned to his task.

“Glad you weren’t hurt. Morgan would never forgive me.” Rule grinned.

Waving off the teasing, Checker added a flat rock underneath the pistol barrel to ensure that it wouldn’t point toward their friends on the other side of the road when the rope was jerked. Hammers were readied on the second pistol and the shotgun.

Like two generals, they discussed the stages of their ambush. The Holt gang would enter the valley through the tree-lined opening and stay on the trail paralleling the creek. They would be too far from the Peale Ranch to be alert. Their first position fifteen feet down from the battery would provide an excellent field of fire. They would announce their attention to the gang from there and open fire over their heads with Winchesters. Three or four shots. Morgan, Emmett and Rikor would also begin shooting.

After an opening salvo from his rifle, Checker would run uphill five or six strides to the end of the rope lying on the ground, pull it and keep on scrambling to a second position. Farther to the right and higher than the battery, behind a man-sized, hawk-nosed boulder. Rule would cover his movement from his site, above and left of the gun placement. Once at his second position, Checker would shoot again with his Winchester while Rule followed; then both would head for the horses, making certain Morgan had already left.

“ ‘Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of Death rode the six hundred. Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns! He said; into the valley of Death rode the six hundred. Forward the Light Brigade! Was there a man…’ ”

Checker stopped. It was all he could remember. “They’re going to pay, A.J.”

“Yes, they are,” Rule added.

Across the road, Emmett and Rikor waved to signal their completion as well. Both returned the wave; then Checker couldn’t resist waving at Morgan. She stood and waved back.

Satisfied, they picked up their rifles and started back down the slope to their planned first firing sites, easing down the steep incline. From a clump of tall grass to their left came a small lark. It flew in front of them, startled from its sleep by their advance.

“Sorry, little brother. We didn’t mean to bother you,” Rule said.

Checker smiled and patted Rule on the back.

“Our Comanche friends would like this place for an ambush,” Rule said.

“Not without a little peyote to see ahead. To see their enemies.” Checker grinned and continued. “My old friend told me they used it as a war medicine. To see ahead.”

“You ever take off that pouch?” Rule said, walking around a struggling chaparral.

Checker touched the pouch under his shirt with his free left hand, holding the Winchester at his side in his right fist.

“No, not really. Figured it gave me luck. Didn’t want to challenge something I didn’t really know,” he answered. “How about you?”