My Foot's in the Stirrup . . . My Pony Won't Stand (Code of the West) (22 page)

“Lorenzo,” Tap hollered again.

“I’m goin’ to kill him, Tap,” a voice filtered down from the rocks.

“We’re goin’ to get the herd back first.”

“Then we’re goin’ to kill him?” Odessa shouted, still in concealment.

“We’ll make sure he gets what he deserves.”

“Okay. I’m coming down.” Out of the top of the butte, Lorenzo Odessa scampered across the rocks toward the blue roan.

“Who does he want to kill anyway?” Guzman asked.

“Banner.”

“Which one’s he?”

“Wears a white shirt and dark tie, a short man, weak-shouldered.”

“I don’t remember seein’ anyone like that.”

“He wouldn’t be out in the lead. He’s in the background makin’ decisions.”

Odessa pulled up into the saddle. The blue roan bucked for a dozen jumps before he settled down.

Guzman roared, “You two always ride un-broke horses?”

“Any fool kid can ride a broke horse. What’s the fun in that?” Tap countered.

Odessa finally got the horse under control. “Where we headed?”

“If you were a bunch of rustlers and bushwhackers drivin’ cattle north, where would you want to cross the North Platte?” Tap pro
dded.

Odessa cinched up his stampede string and wiped the dust from the creases around his eyes. “Somewhere sha
llow, easy to cross, not too close to Ft. Laramie. And knowin’ that bunch, probably near a good supply of belly-churnin’ whiskey.”

“Sounds like Shaver’s Crossing.”

“You figure they’ll ride right back to that saloon?”

“That’s what I surmise. Only we’ll get there first and set a trap.”

“Twenty men and 1,700 bovines. It’s got to be a really big trap.”

“It will be. Trust me.” Tap spurred Roundhouse and led the band north.

Four hours late the next day, the gunmen pushed the cattle across the North Platte. From Tap’s vantage point in the brush on the north side of the river, he calculated that they lost half a dozen head and at least one horse in the water.

They aren’t cowboys. That river’s runnin’ low.

He glanced back at Odessa and the others.

Now if ever’one will wait, and if ever’one remembers, and if no pilgrims come wanderin’ through, and if Odessa doesn’t go crazy .
 . . Lord, that’s a lot of ifs.

They didn’t talk, move, or smoke. They just waited until it got dark. Then they waited some more.

The evening was warm and sultry with high, fast-moving clouds blocking the starlight.

It’s easier to do at night, but a whole lot tougher to see if ever’thing is goin’ right.

After hearing four gunmen load up on the ferry and head back across the river, Tap gathered the Texas cowboy crew.

“How many are left with the herd?” he asked Sal.

“Only four.”

“Are they ridin’ circle?”

“Yep. They seem to be the only four cowhands among the bunch.” Guzman took off his sombrero and ran his fingers through his thick, gray-flecked hair.

Tap hunkered closer to the trail boss. “Can you ‘Annie Laurie’ ’em?”

“We’ll take ’em.”

“Without firin’ a shot?”

“Yep.”

“How many men do you need?” Tap asked.

“Me and four others.”

“Okay, you take your crew and go for it. The rest of us will guard the crossin’ in case you aren’t as quiet as you think. We’ll stop an
yone who comes at the river.”

“It was nice of them to ferry the wagons across,” Odessa added.

“I suspect after two days they figured that no one was chasing them. Besides, if anyone came after them, they would expect it to be from the south. That way they’ve got ever’thing across the river but their escape horses.”

Tap spread Odessa and the other three Texans along the ferry landing and then positioned himself at the dock. Staring across the dark river, he watched the light beaming out the front doorway of the saloon. Banner and Cabe had not bot
hered replacing the door.

An occasional shout or laugh filtered over the slow-moving water of the North Platte. Behind him Tap could barely hear Guzman and the others begin their ploy.

“‘Maxwellton braes are bonnie, where early falls the dew,

And it’s there that Annie Laurie, gave me her promise true.’”

Somewhere on the circumference of the herd, a startled rustler who listened to Salvador Guzman’s melodic voice was greeted with the barrel of a carbine against his forehead.

“‘Gave me her promise true, which ne’er forgot will be;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me down and die.’”

The lines were repeated over and over.

“‘Her brow is like the snowdrift, her neck is like the swan;

Her face it is the fairest that e’er the sun shone on.’”

Tap tried to imagine the shocked look on the night guards’ faces as it dawned on them that the familiar words were part of a trap.

“‘That e’er the sun shone on, and dark blue is her eye,

And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me down and die.’”

An hour later, Guzman walked his horse to the ferry dock. He r
eported in little more than a whisper, “We’ve got the herd back.”

“The night herders?”

“Tied and tossed by the river. They’ll have some grand headaches tomorrow.”

“As soon as your partners bring the horses across, get the herd up and start movin’ them north. After that, Sal, you’re on your own.”

“
Gracias
, Andrews. It was real important for us not to lose the herd.”

“I know. I’d have done the same thing if I were you. I’ll send a telegraph to Sundance Mountain to give you instru
ctions on the herd. We’ll contact Texas and get this figured out. They might want you to sell the whole lot.”

“Do you think they’ll follow?” Guzman looked across the river.

“Not if we can pirate their horses. We’ll cut that ferry loose and let it drift. They’ll have to swim the river and pursue on foot. I reckon they’d want no part of that.”

“Andrews, you’ll do to ride the river with.”

“And you as well, Sal.”

Guzman tipped his sombrero, then mounted his horse, and rode back to the herd. Tap gathered the other three Texas drovers and Odessa. While the Texicans rode, Tap and Lorenzo walked their ponies out into the middle of the river and then mounted. As they expected, neither horse bucked.

With the three drovers standing watch at the saloon, which was a couple hundred yards from the ferry landing, Tap and Odessa sawed through the tie ropes on the big raft ferry and shoved it away from the dock. It began a slow drift into Nebraska.

“So far we’re drawin’ a good hand,” Odessa whispered. “But r
emember, if Banner shows up outside that building, I’m going to kill him.”

“You mean, if he shows up shootin’ at us,” Tap corrected.

Odessa frowned.

Tap signaled the drovers to circle to the back of the buil
ding near the corrals. All the horses were corralled, and all were still saddled. He and Lorenzo tied their own horses in the thick brush by the river and crept up to the log in front of the saloon where they had been only a few days before.

“There’s no door to shoot off this time.”

“Maybe they’ll be able to take the horses without stirrin’ up those inside.”

“Do you believe that?” Lorenzo questioned.

“Nope.”

The drovers opened the corral gates and pushed the first horses out on the prairie. Suddenly someone ran out the front doorway shouting.

The 200-grain bullet from Tap’s ’73 shattered the porch post. The man dove back inside. A barrage of gunfire flew from the building. Tap and Lorenzo hunkered low behind the two-and-a-half-foot fallen log, not bothering to return fire until there was a lull. Odessa raised up, fired two quick shots through the open doorway, and then ducked down. Another stream of bullets bounced around them. Tap crawled on his stomach to the end of the log and watched through the dark night as the three drovers pushed the frightened saddle horses into the river. Several men on foot began to give chase, but a couple of shots from Tap’s rifle sent them scrambling back to the safety of the building.

“They got the horses across,” Tap announced.

“They’re comin’ into the yard now,” Odessa noted. “They’ll get us surrounded pretty soon. Are we goin’ to charge ’em?”

“Give Sal time to get the herd moving. They have to chase those saddle horses into the hills before abandoning them. Let’s crawl up there.” He motioned to the clump of co
ttonwood tree stumps in the middle of the dirt yard. Keeping low, they scurried through the dark to the shelter of the four-foot-high stumps.

“Do you see Cabe or Banner?” Odessa prodded.

“No, but I wouldn’t expect them to take any chances. Don’t shoot into the building. Let’s see what this bunch does.”

“Don’t you .
 . .” Tap put his finger to his lips to signal for silence. He and Odessa kept their guns pointed toward the saloon as they listened.

“How many are out there?”

“A dozen or more.”

“They stole the horses. Did you get a look at them? Was it them drovers?”

“Them drovers is too scared to trail us. This here was Sioux or Cheyenne.”

They think we’re Indians? Maybe that will keep them i
nside. This is even better than my plan.

“How do we know they ain’t surrounded the place?”

“They just wanted them horses.”

“Banner told you to set a guard on the horses.”

“Banner ain’t here, and I was thirsty.”

Odessa started to say something, but Tap waved him off.

“You think they’ll attack the herd?”

“I ain’t heard no shootin’ over there. I reckon they chased the horses off to Nebrasky.”

“Someone’s got to go after Banner and Cabe and tell them what happened.”

They’re both gone?

“We ain’t got no horses. It’s pitch-black. We’re probably surrounded by bloodthirsty Injuns. I ain’t going out there until daylight. Maybe one of you wants to ferry across in the dark and drive back the rest of the remuda.”

“Banner will kill us if we lose that herd.”

“Banner can go to hades. I ain’t steppin’ out there. He’s crazy. Both of them are crazy. They beat her up, and now they’re goin’ after her just to get even? I don’t mind shootin’ a man in the back, but I don’t like the way they go after women.”

Going after women?

A fist-sized knot seized Tap’s stomach. He glanced over at Odessa. He didn’t look back.

“They can ride into Pine Bluffs and take hostages if they want, but I’m about ready to pull my picket pin and go to Mo
ntana.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“But we ain’t got no picket pins, and we ain’t got no horses.”

“In that case, we might as well drink.”

Tap and Odessa crawled back into the brush and untied their horses. They led them around to the west of the saloon and far out into the prairie.

“They went after Selena?” Odessa spat out as he tigh
tened the cinch.

“And Pepper. Cabe knows who she is and where we live.”

“Why go after the women?”

“To flush us out in the open, I reckon. They want to force a showdown.”

“They’re goin’ to get it.”

“Yep.”

Tap and Odessa bucked their way south into the dark prairie night.

1
0

P
epper slept until after 8:00 the next morning. She remembered Angelita crawling out of bed about daylight, but after that she recalled nothing.

The coffee was boiling, and a plate piled high with huge cinnamon rolls waited on the table when she finally waddled into the living room in her robe, com
bing her long blonde hair.

“I slept in.”

“It’s okay. You were tired," Angelita said. "That marshal came by this morning.”

“Already?”

“I told him we didn’t know where Mr. Andrews is or when he is returning. He said he’d wait 'cause a man who has a baby coming any day would surely be home soon.”

“Any day now? It’s ten weeks before my time.”

“I told him that.”

“Where’s Selena?”

“She’s still asleep in my bed. I think she was even more tired than you. I guess she’s been in stormy weather for the last two days.”

“More like most of her life.” Pe
pper examined the rolls. “Where did these come from?” The room, normally filled with the stale smell of summer, now reeked of cinnamon.

“I picked them up at the bakery this morning.”

“What do you mean, picked them up? You bought them?”