When the West Was Young Part 16

"I heard some parties were jumping your claim, Jim," said he, "and, being near, I thought I'd come over and look out for you."

"Thanky," said n.i.g.g.e.r Jim, but made no offer to take the extended hand; nor did he turn his back upon the bad man, who evidently did not think the claim worth the hazards of an honest gun-fight, for he left soon afterward.

In Tombstone n.i.g.g.e.r Jim kept silent regarding the incident, but the news leaked out within a week or two when Buckskin Frank tried to slay the black man from behind and was prevented by a woman who threw her arms over him and held him until the prospective victim turned his head and took in the situation. With the spread of the story Frank saw that Tombstone was no place for him at present and he left the camp.

Whereby it happened that he was over in the San Simon on that hot day when John Ringo came across the Dragoon Mountains. And on the morning when the body was discovered he was riding through the pa.s.s on some dubious errand or other.

News traveled slowly in those days. Frequently it came to its destination sadly garbled. On this occasion young Billy Breckenbridge was the only man who brought the facts back to Tombstone; and he arrived there long after Buckskin Frank.

For the two-gun man had seen his opportunity to make men forget that incident wherein he had figured so poorly against n.i.g.g.e.r Jim, and had spurred his pony all the way to the county seat, where he told his story--how he had seen the desperado sitting under the dwarf live-oaks, had stalked him as a man stalks big game, and shot him through the head. And just to give his tale versimilitude he said he had done the killing from behind.

The times were brisk; one shooting came so fast on the heels of its predecessor that every affair in its turn swiftly pa.s.sed from public attention. By the time that Deputy Sheriff Breckenbridge arrived with the facts people were turning their minds to the big Benson stage hold-up. And so Buckskin Frank's story lived, and to this day in speaking of that bad man the old-timers give him grudging credit for having slain the big "He Wolf."

JOHN SLAUGHTER'S WAY

It was springtime in southwestern Texas and John Slaughter was gathering a great herd near the mouth of Devil's River for the long drive northward over the Pecos trail. Thousands of cattle were moving slowly in a great ma.s.s, obliterating miles of the landscape, trampling out clouds of dust which rose into the blue sky; the constant bellowing came down the wind as a deep, pulsating moan which was audible for miles.

The Man from Bitter Creek reined in his horse and turned in the saddle to look back upon that scene. He was a small man with hard, quick eyes; they grew harder as they rested on that wealth of beeves.

In the wild country farther up the Pecos the Man from Bitter Creek was known by the name of Gallagher. Among the riders who roved over that Land Beyond the Law, taking their toll from the north-going herds as gray wolves take it under cover of the night, he pa.s.sed as the big "He Wolf," the leader of the pack. Wyoming's sage-brush hills gave sepulture to eleven of his dead, and since he had fled hither he had added two graves to the boot-hill cemeteries of the Southwest.

Now as he gazed over John Slaughter's cattle, he promised himself that when they came on into the region where he maintained his supremacy, he would seize them and, at the same time, increase his grim list of victims to fourteen.

It was an era in some respects very much like the feudal days of Europe, a time of champions and challenges and deeds of arms, a period when strong men took definite stands for right or wrong and were ready at all times to defend those positions with their lives. The Man from Bitter Creek had received John Slaughter's gage within the hour. He had dismounted from his pony at the cattle-buyer's camp, attracted by the spectacle of that enormous herd destined to pa.s.s through the country where he and his companions held sway, and he had hung about the place to see what he could see.

He noted with satisfaction that the cattle were sleek and fat for this time of the year; and the satisfaction grew as he peered through the dust-clouds at the riders who were handling them, for every one of the wiry ponies that pa.s.sed him carried a swarthy vaquero--and half a dozen of those Mexicans would not be a match for one of the hard-eyed rustlers who were waiting along the upper Pecos in that spring of 1876. Just as he was congratulating himself on such easy pickings the cattle-buyer noticed him.

John Slaughter was in his early thirties but his lips had settled into an unrelaxing line, and his eyes had grown narrow from the habit of the long sun-smitten trails. He was black-bearded, barely of middle stature, a parsimonious man when it came to using words. When he was a boy fighting under the banner of the Lost Cause he sickened, and his colonel sent him home, where he did his recuperating as a lieutenant of the Texas rangers fighting Comanche Indians and border outlaws.

Then he drove cattle into Kansas over the Chisholm and Western trails and got further seasoning in warfare against marauders, both red and white. To maintain his rights and hold his property against armed a.s.sault had become part of his every-day life; guardedness was a habit like those narrowed eyes. And when he recognized the Man from Bitter Creek, whose reputation he well knew, he lost no time in confronting him.

So they faced each other, two veteran paladins who had been riding under hostile banners ever since they first bore arms; and John Slaughter delivered his ultimatum in three syllables.

"Hit the trail," he said, and clamped his lips into a tight line as if he begrudged wasting that many words.

His eyes had become two dark slits.

It was a case of leave or fight and the Man from Bitter Creek had never allowed such a challenge to go unanswered by his gun. But during the moment while he and John Slaughter stood looking into each other's eyes he reflected swiftly, and it occurred to him that it would be wise to postpone this killing until the cattle-buyer had brought the herd on into the upper country where, without their employer, the Mexican vaqueros would be of no more consequence than so many sheep.

That was an inspiration: thousands of cattle for his own, where he had hoped to steal a few hundred at the very outside. He felt that he could well afford to mount his pony and ride away in silence. Now as he settled himself in his saddle after that last look backward, his heart was light with the thought of the wealth which was to come to him within the next two months. He urged the pony forward at a gallop toward the Land Beyond the Law.

The days went by, and late springtime found the Man from Bitter Creek in the upper river country which lies just west of the great Llano Estacado. Among those lonely hills the badness of the whole frontier had crystallized that year. Outlaw and murderer, renegade, rustler, and common horse-thief--all for whom the eastern trails had been growing too hot--had ridden into this haven beyond the range of the boldest sheriff until even the vigilance committee could not function here for the simple reason that there were too many to adorn the ropes and too few to pull them.

The ranchers of Lincoln County were starting in business, and the temptation to increase one's herds by means of rope and running-iron--a temptation which was always strong on the frontier--was augmented among some by a wholesome regard for their own lives and property: better to give shelter to outlaws and buy stolen cows for a dollar or two a head, than to defend your own stock against an overwhelming force of dead shots. There were others--and these included several of the bigger cow-men--who held that this was their territory and, deeming all outsiders interlopers, levied such toll of plunder on them as the old feudal barons levied on travelers by the Rhine in medieval times.

That was the way they reasoned; and the rustlers had easy pickings, stampeding range cattle across the bedding-grounds of the trail herds, gathering unto themselves the strays, disposing of their loot right on the spot. They were taking full advantage of the opportunity, and the Man from Bitter Creek was getting his share of the spoils.

But all of this struck Gallagher as petty business now; he was waiting impatiently for John Slaughter's herd. At Chisum's ranch, where he and a number of his companions had enforced their presence as unbidden guests since the pa.s.sing of the spring, he proclaimed his plan openly after the manner of his breed; and he even went so far as to exhibit a forged power of attorney by virtue of which he intended selling the beeves in the Northern market, after he had killed their owner and driven off the Mexicans.

"I'll lay for him up Fort Sumner way," he told his fellow-wolves, nor did he take the trouble to lower his voice because he saw several cow-boys from neighboring outfits among his auditors. It was a tradition among those who lived by the forty-five thus to brag and then--make good. And it was a firmly established habit in Lincoln County to mind your own business; so the project, while it became generally known, created no excitement.

The Man from Bitter Creek went up the river to the neighborhood of Fort Sumner when John Slaughter's herd drew near the Chisum ranch. He made his camp and bided the arrival of the cattle; but that arrival did not materialize. He was beginning to wonder what could have delayed them, for the fords were good and this particular section was one where no drover cared to linger. And while he was wondering a rider came to him with tidings that brought oaths of astonishment to his lips. John Slaughter had taken his herd off the trail and made camp at the Chisum ranch.

Now every one in the country knew that the Man from Bitter Creek was holding down the Chisum place that season, and the action was nothing more nor less than a direct challenge. It did not matter whether sublime ignorance or sublime daring prompted it; it was defiance in either case. There was only one thing for Gallagher to do--get the killing over in quick time. Moreover he must attend to the affair by himself--for just as surely as he took others to help, his prestige was going to be lowered. So he saddled up at once and rode back to Chisum's with a double-barreled shotgun across his lap and two single-action forty-five revolvers at his hips.

He was an old hand at ambush and so he took no chances when he drew near the ranch but reconnoitered a bit from a convenient eminence. The house stood on the summit of a knoll; the land sloped away before it to the river, bare of shrubs or trees. Those of the Mexicans who were not riding herd were down among the cottonwoods by the stream, busy over some was.h.i.+ng. In the middle of the open slope, two hundred yards or so from the ranch buildings and a good quarter of a mile from the nearest vaqueros, a solitary figure showed. It was the cattleman. No chance for ambush here. The Man from Bitter Creek spurred his pony to a dead run and came on blithely to shoot his way to wealth.

John Slaughter watched him approaching and waited until he was within easy range. Whereat he picked up a forty-four caliber rifle and shot his horse from under him.

Pony and rider crashed down together in a thick cloud of dust. The Man from Bitter Creek sprang to his feet and the flame of his revolver made a bright orange streak in the gray-white haze. He left his shotgun where it had fallen; the distance was too great for it.

As a matter of fact it was over-long range for a Colt forty-five; and now, as he came on seeking to close in, it occurred to Gallagher that his prospective victim had used excellent judgment in selecting a weapon with reference to this battleground. Evidently he was engaged with one who knew some things about the deadly game himself.

He took good care to keep weaving about from side to side during his advance, in order that the bead of that Winchester might find no resting-place with his body outlined before it. And he kept his revolvers busy throwing lead. One bullet was all it needed to do the work and he was trying hard to put one into the proper place, using all the skill he had attained in long practice under fire, when a shot from John Slaughter's rifle broke his arm. The Texan was firing slowly, lining his sights carefully every time before he pressed the trigger. The Man from Bitter Creek was darting to and fro; his revolver bullets were raising little clouds of dust about the cattleman. He was nearing the area wherein the forty-five revolver was more deadly than the clumsier rifle, when John Slaughter shot him through the body.

But he was made of tough fiber and the extreme shock that would leave some men stunned and prostrate only made him stagger a little. His revolver was spitting an intermittent stream of fire and it continued this after a second slug through his lungs had forced him to his knees. He sank down fighting and got his third fatal wound before the cow-boys carried him up to the ranch-house to die. There, after the manner of many another wicked son of the border, he talked the matter over dispa.s.sionately with his slayer and in the final moment when death was creeping over him he alluded lightly to his own misdeeds.

"Anyhow I needed killing twenty years ago," he said.

No one mourned the pa.s.sing of the Man from Bitter Creek; the members of the pack who hunt the closest to the big he wolf are always the gladdest to see him fall. Nor was there any sorrowing when John Slaughter departed for the north. On the contrary both outlaws and cow-men watched the dust of his herds melting into the sky with a feeling of relief.

The outlaws continued as the weeks went by to speak his name with the hard-eyed respect due one whose death would bring great glory on his slayer; the cow-men cherished his memory more gratefully because hundreds of cattle bearing his road-brand were grazing on their ranges. All hands were more than willing to regard the incident as closed--all save John Slaughter.

That was not his way. And in the season of the autumn round-up when the ranchmen of Lincoln County were driving their cattle down out of the breaks into the valley, when their herds were making great crawling patches of brown against the gray of the surrounding landscape, the black-bearded Texan came riding back out of the north.

He visited every outfit and greeted the owner or the foreman with the same words in every case.

"I've come to cut your herd for my brand."

That was the law of the cattle-trails; every man had the right to seek out his strays in the country through which he had pa.s.sed. But it was not the custom along the Pecos. In that Land Beyond the Law the rule of might transcended any rule of action printed in the statute-books.

And the new possessors did not fancy giving up the beeves which had been fattening on their ranges during all these weeks. In those lonely hills John Slaughter made a lonely figure, standing on his rights.

But those who gathered around him when he made the declaration always noticed that he had his right hand resting on his pistol-b.u.t.t and the memory of what had taken place at Chisum's ranch was still fresh in every mind. So they allowed his vaqueros to ride into their herds and in silence they watched them drive out the animals which bore his brand. Sometimes the affair came to an issue at this point.

Chisum, who was an old-timer in the country and had fought Comanches all along the river before others had dared to drive up the trail, produced a bill of sale for sixty rebranded cattle which the Texan's vaqueros had cut out. John Slaughter allowed his tight lips to relax in a grim smile.

"You bought 'em all right--but too cheap," he said, and ordered his foreman to take them away.

Chisum stormed a bit, but that was as far as it went. And John Slaughter rode off behind his vaqueros without so much as looking back.

At Underwood's there was trouble. The cattle-buyer had recovered 110 steers from a bunch of 160, and when Underwood heard about it that evening he stated, in plain and profane terms, that he would kill John Slaughter unless those beeves were turned back to him. He had a reputation as a dead shot and he took two friends, who were known as good gunmen, along with him. They set forth for the Texan's camp. All three were armed with rifles beside their six-shooters.

But John Slaughter saw them coming, for he was keeping his eyes open for visitors these days, and dismounted on the opposite side of his pony. He received them with his Winchester leveled across his saddle and he answered their hail without lifting his eyes from the sights.

"Where's Underwood?" he demanded.

The cow-man announced his ident.i.ty; it took more than the muzzle of a rifle to silence him.