The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch (19 page)
“Yeah. We will. Far’s I know, ivory grips never
won a gunfight.”
We brought Teresa an’ Blanca down to the barn
about dusk. They weren’t happy about it, but they
didn’t complain too much. Each of them clutched
their rosaries. We set them up in the grain room
with a lantern—there were no windows an’ the
only access to them was from the inside.
It was a decent night—some cloud cover, a half
moon that shed some light, an’ a tiny breeze that
kind of poked around every so often.
Musta been close to midnight when we heard
them coming.
“Madre mia!”
Arm said. “Sounds like a stampede.
Lotsa men, Jake.”
Our men positioned themselves at windows
an’ up in the hayloft, sacks of .45 rounds and
cases of 30.30 cartridges at their sides.
It
was
like a stampede—looked to be eighty or
more men riding hard, spraying lead toward the
house an’ the barn. The first couple of torches
smashed through windows of the house. The
men who threw them were blown off their horses
by our rifle fire.
The house caught fire good. I hated to see it go,
but it was only minutes before long, hungry
flames were reaching toward the sky and the interior
was an orangish yellow inferno. The smoke
was as thick as axle grease an’ riders coming out
of it looked like ghosts riding out of some battle
that’d happened a long time ago.
If it hadn’t been for the ear-shattering racket,
the whole thing mighta been pretty—like Fourth
of July fireworks with muzzle flashes all over the
place. But the roar of shotguns, the blasts of rifles,
and the comparatively picayune reports of pistol
fire destroyed any beauty there mighta been. The
screams of the wounded an’ dying, the pathetic
squeals of wounded horses, an’ that hideous rebel
yell of the men who’d deserted the Confederacy,
were like listening in on hell.
They came at the barn from both sides at first,
but then shifted a cluster of men to the back.
There was less smoke back there and our boys
picked them off with almost ridiculous ease.
Dansworth gathered his troops on the far side of
the burning house.
“They’re gonna try a rush to the front,” one of
our guys said. “They got a lotta men, even if the
sonsabitches can’t shoot.”
“Drop horses an’ pick the bastids off onna
ground,” a voice from the hayloft called out. “We
don’t want that herd gettin’ real close.”
Arm an’ I were at a window in front of the
barn. Arm nudged me with his elbow. “Now?” I
didn’t need to answer. I stood an’ the two of us
hustled over to the cart, one on each side, and
hauled back the tarp.
The Gatling gun stood there looking like a piece
of some kinda farm machinery, ’cept for the barrel
out in front. I shoved a couple of cases of cartridges
outta the way an’ half crouched behind
the crank. All the barrels were loaded an’ ready.
The enemy swept toward us like an insane
wave of gunfire, bellows an’ screams, an’ smoke
from our house. I truned the crank and fired
maybe eight or ten rounds. It turned stiffly but
smoothly and the blaze of fire from the barrel
was almost blinding. I swung the whole thing to
the left an’ then began yanking on that crank.
The clatter of the Gatling gun sucked in an’ swallowed
all the other sounds in the fight. Horses an’
men went down like stalks of wheat cut by a
sharp scythe. Arm kept loading and I kept firing.
It was a massacre, is what it was. But we hadn’t
gone to them—they’d come at us to take what
was ours, to burn our house, to kill us all.
Some of them spun their horses to run but I
kept on cranking. My right arm was cramping
from
pulling that handle, but I didn’t give a
damn. When I realized there was no return fire, I
stopped. My face was burning from blowback an’
both eyes were tearing to clear themselves. I ran
my sleeve across my eyes and was able to see a bit
better.
The ground between the house an’ the barn
was littered with dead men and dead horses.
“Jesús,”
Arm breathed.
“We okay?” I shouted out, my voice a rasp in
my throat.
We hadn’t lost a man. I sat on a case of cartridges
for a bit an’ then pushed myself to my
feet. My balance was a little screwed up an’ my
right arm felt like it’d been whacked with a bat.
“Lookit that,” I said quietly to Armando.
“Ees too many dead, no? But the horses—they
are ours, no?”
“They are ours—but…yeah, they’re ours.
We’re entitled to keep what’s ours.”
“Sí.”
A few of our men moved out onto the battlefield
and put bullets into the heads of those who
weren’t quite dead yet. I turned away. It was a
mercy, of course—what the hell could we do for
them? But putting a .45 into the skull of a man on
the ground twisted my gut.
“Ees no other way.”
“No,” I agreed.
A voice echoed from next to our burning house.
“You and me—now. I shoulda blown your
brains out the first time I saw you. I’m talking
one-on-one—in front of the house. You got the
balls to face me, Walters?”
I didn’t bother to shout out an answer. Instead I
walked past the Gatling gun and half the distance
to the house. This, ’course, was dumb. Dansworth
or any of his boys left alive could have put
an end to me real easy. But, I’d thought about
Dansworth an’ I didn’t think that’d happen. He
was an arrogant l’il pissant—but he was good
with that fancy .45 of his. I had a bit of a rep an’
Dansworth wanted it. He walked out from next
to the flaming house.
He had a cigar in his mouth, off to the side, an’
he strolled as if he were going to a church meeting
an’ had plenty of time to get there. He looked
real fancy; it was obvious that he gave the orders
but wasn’t involved in the battle.
“How many of those scum you had hiding her
you lose?” Dansworth called.
“Not a one. An’ you? How many of them losers
you ride with can still walk?”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s lots of them looking
for work.”
“Coward work,” I said. We were walking closer
together.
Dansworth took a long draw on his cigar an’
then tossed it aside. It bounced a couple of times
and then lay there, smoldering.
“I hear you’re pretty good,” Dansworth said.
I didn’t answer.
“I’m better. I’m going to kill you right here.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get to it, then. I gotta care
to my mare an’ colt.”
Dansworth pulled an’ then stopped, coughing.
He spit a bit of blood at first, an’ then it gushed
out like water from a good pump. My round destroyed
a
bunch of his teeth an’ kept on travelin’.
Tell the truth, I don’t remember drawin’—not exactly.
I seen his fingers move an’ I pulled an’ fired,
kinda crouched down, if he was faster’n me.
He wasn’t.
The spigot of blood from Dansworth’s mouth
stopped after a couple seconds. So did everything
else ’bout him. Arm came up next to me.
“Maybe now the Busted Thumb is okay? We
can do the business we like, no?”
“Pard,” I said, “let’s go check our horses. All
the gunfire mighta riled ’em some.”
“Sí,”
Arm said.
A LEISURE BOOK®
January 2010
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Copyright © 2010 by Paul Bagdon
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