Stampede at Rattlesnake Pass (4 page)

The stallion tossed its head and snickered,
as if it well understood both his words and his sense of humor. And
a few moments later, they were picking their way towards the fast
retreating stampede and its accompanying dust cloud.

* * *

One thing that Rubal Cage prided himself
upon was his knowledge of critters. He somehow understood the way
they thought, both as individual ornery beasts and when they were
moving together as a herd. He had worked with them for all of his
adult life – on both sides of the law – as a regular puncher and
ramrod, and as a brand-buster, in between spells as a road agent or
hired gun. And he knew just how to work them either way. Yet the
thing that he was proudest of was his knowledge of the way a herd
worked when it was stampeding, when it was running flat out without
direction. He knew, probably better than most, on account of the
fact that he had orchestrated stampedes on numerous occasions in
the past.

And nowhere offered a better place to
stampede and control a herd than Rattlesnake Pass in the Pintos.
The natural lie of the land and the way the pass turned about on
itself in a natural U-shape meant that the cattle naturally slowed
down as they navigated the bend.

"And that’s just where you’ll be waiting for
them," he had told Hog Fleming and Cole Lancing before they had set
off at the beginning of the venture. "Hog, I reckon that you’ll
have to deal with the cook first, because they’re bound to send him
through the Pass first to get chow ready for when they bed the herd
down. Then the two of you find a place up in the rocks and be ready
for when we stampede the herd. They’ll be coming around that U-bend
as though Old Nick is chasing their tails, and that’s when I want
you to shoot the lead steers on the far side. That’ll start the
herd to turn and once they get into that part of the pass that
opens out they’ll begin to circle on themselves. There is just
enough room for them to begin that circle, and if you take down a
few more, they’ll soon slow up and then they’ll stop."

And indeed, that was exactly what happened
as the stampede hurtled around the bend. Fleming and Lancing were
waiting up on the canyon wall and they took down about ten lead
steers and a few more as the herd started to circle on itself. The
dust cloud was as thick as smoke, but it eventually settled on the
gasping herd and the rustlers.

"Goddamn it!" Rubal Cage exclaimed joyfully
as he rode up with the other rustlers to meet Hog Fleming and Cole
Lancing. "That was the slickest job I ever did see." He noticed the
blood soaked bandana wrapped around Hog Fleming’s ear. "What the
hell happened to you? Did that cook give you some trouble?"

Fleming scowled. "No! Him I dealt with
easily. And that blasted ramrod, Coburn." He spat contemptuously on
the ground. "As Coburn was dying his gun went off and a stray shot
– "

Rubal Cage guffawed. "A stray shot creased
your ear? An inch inwards and it would have creased your brain, and
then you would have been herding cattle in a hotter hell-hole than
here."

Lancing, a coarse featured young man with a
lazy eye sneered at his companion’s discomfiture. "But what about
the bodies, Rubal? Are we just going to leave them there on the
trail?"

Cage shook his head. "You know that gully we
passed as you went a ways into Rattlesnake Pass? I reckon that
would make a good place to bury the witnesses. We’ll just leave the
beef carcasses where they are, though. The buzzards will soon strip
them clean."

* * *

The stallion was a powerful beast and would
have galloped all the way, if Jake Scudder had allowed it. But he
was all too aware that the black’s strength would be needed, as
likely as not, once they reached the final resting place of the
herd – once it had run out of pace and the front critters either
collapsed from exhaustion or were themselves run down. And all of
that could add miles to the journey. So he held the stallion in
check a mite, content to simply catch up as best they could, so
that they could be of some use at the end of the chase.

Glancing upwards, the appearance from
nowhere of a brace of buzzards was not unexpected. "You devils
always seem to know when there is a good dinner of fresh flesh,
don’t you," he said jocularly. "There’s bound to be a few dead
critters and a few that are too crippled to walk."

He cringed at the idea of all the creatures
that would play their part in stripping the flesh from the bones;
from the buzzards and coyotes, to the maggots that would finish the
job to leave bare bones for the sun and sand to bleach. Then the
skeletons would decorate the desert with more ornaments of
death.

Jake Scudder was ever a humorous man, yet
the buzzards' appearance unsettled him more than he would have
expected.

"I have a bad feeling about them, old
horse," he confided to the black as they approached the Pintos and
he saw the entrance to a pass opening before them. The ground was
all churned up from the stampeding herd.

"I reckon this must be the famous
Rattlesnake Pass we heard about back in Tucksville when we passed
through. I guess any rattlers that lived here would have skedaddled
out of the way once they felt the vibration of that coming
stampede." He chuckled. "But let’s you and me just step careful in
case any come out to look after the procession that just passed
through. They might be a touch angry." And at the thought he
winced, for snakes were not Jake Scudder’s favorite creatures.

Entering Rattlesnake Pass was an eye-opener
for Scudder. It was huge; great sheer red rock walls with
occasional patches of green as various cacti and shrubbery had
seeded themselves in cracks and crevices to gain a precarious yet
sustainable foothold on life. The air was stuffy, thick with
settling dust and sand, so he slowed down to take a drink from his
canteen to wash the dust from his throat. He had just put the
stopper back in the canteen and pulled up his bandana over his nose
when he heard the unmistakable reports of gunfire, each shot
followed by a cacophony of echoes from all around Rattlesnake
Pass.

"Sounds as if there’s a puncher at work,
putting a few crippled or dying critters out of their misery," he
said conversationally to the back of the black’s head.

The horse flared its nostrils and stamped a
forefoot, a gesture that he recognized as an indication that the
horse was displeased with something.

"You don’t like that idea, do you, old
feller?" Jake asked, shaking his head. "And neither do I, but I
also hate to see any creature suffering. Come on; let’s see if we
can help whoever is up ahead. It sounds as if he’s somewhere around
that bend ahead."

And as he let the black trot its way along
the pass he heard several more shots followed by another series of
echoes bouncing off the canyon walls. Turning the great U-bend of
the pass, in the distance he saw the source of the gunfire. A lone
rider was sitting astride a palomino aiming a rifle down into a
hollow.

"Some of the poor critters must have gone
dashing down a ravine or gully," he mused to the black. He raised
his hand to his mouth, positioning his thumb and forefinger against
his tongue to produce a loud high-pitched whistle, such as those
who were practiced in the ways of cow-punching were usually adept.
It rang out along the pass, producing its own rippling echo
effect.

The effect on the shooter was instantaneous
– and unexpected!

He turned in his saddle, spied Jake, and
immediately trained his rifle at him, letting off a couple of quick
shots. Both were too close for comfort, one actually lifting his
hat from his head and depositing it on the ground behind him.

"Hey!" Jake cried, but a third shot
ricocheted off the canyon wall and he felt a shower of grit from
the point of impact on the rock. Further remonstration or question
was clearly futile. What was demanded was cover and a little return
fire.

Jake’s mind raced as he considered his
options. Turning to retreat was not viable, since he would expose
his back as a target to someone who just about had his range.
Similarly, a headlong charge would expose him to greater risk as he
closed the gap, and a stationary shooter had an infinitely greater
chance of success than a galloping rider trying to shoot. He was
only left with a half-way approach.

So he spurred the black forward, leaning low
in the saddle and drawing his own Winchester from its boot. Two
more bullets zinged overhead and he raised his rifle and let off
two quick shots himself, albeit with little hope of accuracy. Yet
the other’s reaction told him that one of his shots had an effect.
The man clamped a hand to his ear as some red rag or something fell
from the side of his head. Then, as if stung into rage he lifted
his rifle again. Scudder, seeing the man taking longer to aim
whispered to the black: "You are on your own for a while, old
feller. I’m gonna leave you now."

And so saying, when he heard the next report
he threw his hands upwards and flung himself from the saddle to
land behind a tangle of scrub-oak. The instant he hit the ground he
rolled over three times in order to change his position lest the
gunman had pinpointed where he had fallen. Gingerly, he slid the
barrel of his Winchester through an opening and squinted through
the gap to see if his ruse had worked. He figured that if he played
possum then the man would either come in for the kill or, less
likely, he would take off.

To Jake’s surprise he did the latter. The
rider spurred the palomino into action and headed off with one hand
clamped to his left ear. Moments later all Jake heard was the fast
retreating cadence of galloping hooves going around the bend of the
pass.

"Now just what the hell was that all about?"
he asked himself as he came to his feet, brushing off the fresh
accumulation of sand and dirt that he had picked up in his
tumble.

He whistled and the big stallion came
trotting over to him. Jake sheathed his Winchester and climbed into
the saddle. "I best see what the bastard didn’t want me to see," he
said aloud, his eye catching sight again of the circling buzzards
high overhead.

The sight that greeted him a few moments
later as he dismounted and stood atop the gulley made him feel sick
to his stomach. There were the bodies of nine men piled on top of
one another, as if they had been casually tossed down into the
gully.

Jake’s stomach spasmed and he tasted bile in
the back of his throat. Every one of the men had several bullet
wounds and they had bled copiously.

"A massacre! What sort of curs would do
something like this?" And seeing that a couple of them were little
more than boys, he felt a surge of fury. Then he shook his head at
the sadness of it all. "The poor devils. And that’s what the
bastard was doing. Making sure that no one survived." Then the fury
was replaced in part by a feeling of guilt. "Maybe if I had been
here faster, I might have been able to save some of them."

The shadows of the circling scavengers
reminded him that he needed to act quickly. After all, it was not
just the buzzards that he had to think about, it was the
possibility that the gunman might return with reinforcements.

"Reckon I had better try and cover you gents
up to protect your bodies from those varmints," he said. "Leastways
until I get help from Tucksville and get you taken care of
properly."

As he gingerly made his way down to see what
he could do, he was surprised to hear a low moan. One of them was
still alive.

Jake worked as quickly as he could. Having
located the young man who seemed to be precariously clinging to
life, and having checked to insure that there were no other
survivors, he extricated him from between two bodies. "These
comrades of yours seem to have saved your life, my friend." Then
hoisting him on one shoulder he carried him up to the top of the
hollow.

Finding a shady spot below a great boulder
he had a good look at the two upper body wounds the man had
sustained. Fortunately, neither bullet had hit a major vessel, and
as far as Jake could tell from listening to the young man’s chest,
neither one had penetrated a lung. One had gouged a groove through
muscle on the side of the chest and the other had seemingly smashed
the collar bone and somehow been deflected upward and outward,
exiting at the top of his shoulder at the back, presumably missing
the top of his lung. Jake washed the wounds and staunched the flow
of blood as best he could by shredding one of his shirts from his
saddlebag and using it as padding and crude bandaging.

"I can’t say that you were lucky, mister,"
he said to the still unconscious young man as he moistened his lips
from the canteen. "The only thing is that you weren’t as unlucky as
your poor friends down there."

With a sigh and a final look up at the
buzzards he made his way down to the bottom of the gulley and laid
the bodies out as respectfully as he could, before covering them
with scrub-oak, rocks and sand. He hoped that it would not be too
long before they would be taken back to Tucksville, or wherever
they were from, and have a proper burial with their families
present. Anything would be better than this ignominious gulley in
Rattlesnake Pass, he concluded.

It was as he was gently lifting the young
man into the saddle that he noticed the bloodstained bandana the
murderer had dropped. He lifted it and examined it, noticing the
bullet hole, presumably from his own bullet. "So somebody had hit
you, too," he said with a feeling of satisfaction. "Well, I reckon
that you’ll have a couple of the Marks of Cain on you – you
murdering dog!"

The going was not easy, trying to avoid too
much jostling to the injured man. Every couple of hours Scudder
stopped to let both the unconscious patient and the stallion rest.
It was during one of these stops beside a small spring that the
patient stirred, his eyes flickering open.