J. Edson - Ranch War

Instead of trying to retreat, which Otón expected her to do, Calamity moved to meet him. With her upper arms pinioned, she could draw neither Colt nor whip. Unfortunately for the Mexican, her legs were still free. A point which she proceeded to take rapid and devastating advantage of. Going in as close as she could, Calamity drove up her right leg. Powered by a set of shapely, but well-developed muscles, her knee drove between Otón’s legs. It caught him right where it would do the most good, for Calamity, if not for him. If she had been able to get in closer and put more force behind the attack, she would have tumbled her victim in numb, helpless agony to the ground. Instead, her knee arrived hard enough to make him gasp a gush of garlic-scented breath into her face as he released the jacket and fell back a pace.

Having taken two of her attackers out of the game, if only briefly, Calamity’s luck ran out. Slower on his feet than Otón, Job proved sufficiently fast for the girl’s undoing. Elbowing the Mexican aside and ignoring the loafer who stood glaring wildly at the blood that splashed from his nostrils on to his upturned palms, Job launched a punch in the girl’s direction. She saw the blow coming just a moment too late. Even as she tried to duck under it, the burly man’s knotted fist crashed against the side of her jaw. Instantly Calamity’s world seemed to explode into brilliant flashes of light. She seemed to be falling through space, then her shoulder collided with something hard and unyielding. After that, everything went black for her.

Watching Calamity pitch sideways, ram her shoulder into the wall of the building and collapse, Job followed her. Bending down, he took hold of her jacket and started to raise her.

“Let’s get her into the alley afore——” the big man began.

Leaning against the hitching rail and rubbing at the place where Calamity’s knee had struck him, Otón shook his head.

“She’ll have the papers we want on her. Get them now, just in case somebody’s seen us. We may have to run for it before we’ve done the rest of our work.”

“Be best,” grunted Job and reached under Calamity’s jacket. Producing the envelope, he lifted the flap and looked at the contents. “These’re ’em. Now let’s——”

“Leave her to me!” the lanky man screeched, drawing his revolver with a blood-smeared hand. “I’ll kill her now and save you doing it!”

Chapter 4 WAS THE LETTER IMPORTANT?

THE TEXAS COWHAND STRIDING ALONG LEICESTER Street looked exceptionally young and naïve. Especially in view of the weapons about his person. A Winchester Model of 1866 rifle dangled almost negligently from his right hand. Walnut handle pointing forward, an old Colt Dragoon hung in a low “cavalry twist-hand” open-topped holster at the right side of his belt, and an ivory-hilted James Black bowie knife graced the sheath at the left.

Six foot in height, slender yet conveying an impression of strength and untiring energy, he had raven-black hair. In fact, black might have been his leitmotif. All his clothing, low-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson, tight-rolled bandana, shirt, calfskin vest, trousers, boots, gunbelt even, was of that somber hue. His deeply tanned face had almost babyishly innocent features that were belied by the reckless glint in his red-hazel eyes. Those eyes would have warned a stranger that this was no bald-faced boy trying to impress people. None of the town’s original inhabitants, or many folk who knew the lands west of the Mississippi River would have even started to think it. He walked with a long, free stride, seeming to glide rather than step. His whole being told that there was here a young man, born and brought to maturity in the range country. In his time, he had seen much of life and something of sudden, violent death.

That tall, baby-faced Texan had seen his first light of day in the village of the Pehnane —by translation, Wasp, Quick-Stinger—Comanche Indians. Born to a wild Irish-Kentuckian and the only daughter of Chief Long Walker’s French-Creole pairaivo, favorite wife, he had been given the name of Loncey Dalton Ysabel by the band’s medicine man. His mother had died in childbirth and, in the traditional Comanche way—his father being away much of time on the family’s business of mustanging or smuggling—he was raised by his maternal grandfather. A noted war leader in the Dog Soldier lodge, Long Walker had taught the boy all those things a Pehnane warrior must know.* Skill of riding came early and he reached considerable proficiency, for the Comanche were horse-Indians second to none. Equally important and well-learned had been the ability to handle weapons; which every Nemenuh † brave-heart needed to know if he was to be worthy of the name.

By the time he had reached his fifteenth birthday, the Ysabel Kid—as he was known among such Texans as he came into contact with—could handle a rifle and show the deadly sighting skill of a Kentucky hill man. His skill in the use of another weapon had already brought him the man-name Cuchilo among the Pehnane; the word was Spanish for Knife. While not fast, in the accepted Western sense of the word, he considered himself adequate in the use of his old Dragoon Colt. He could follow tracks and read the message they told as if it had been printed as a story in a book. With greater ease, in fact, for his white man’s schooling had been fragmentary. Few men of either the white or red race could equal him at silent movement, hiding undetected or locating concealed enemies. All three subjects had formed a part of his Pehnane higher education.

The War between the States had come in time to prevent the Kid from having to choose whether to support the white or Comanche sides of his bloodline. Accompanying his father, he had joined Mosby’s Raiders and won the Grey Ghost’s commendation by his skill as a scout. Then the Confederate States’ Government had found a better use for the Ysabel family’s talents. Sam Ysabel and his son had been returned to Texas, where they had collected cargoes, run through the U.S. Navy’s blockade into neutral Matamoros and delivered them to the authorities north of the Rio Grande. During that period, the Kid had increased the fame he had been building along the bloody border before the War.

Bushwhack lead had cut down Sam Ysabel shortly after peace came. While on a vengeance hunt for his father’s killers, the Kid had met up with Dusty Fog and Mark Counter.* In addition to achieving his revenge, he had helped the Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog, to complete successfully a mission on which the possible peace of the United States depended.†

At a loose end, with smuggling no longer holding any interest for him, the Kid had accepted Dusty’s offer of employment with the OD Connected ranch. Not merely as a working cowhand but to be one of the floating outfit. Usually a floating outfit consisted of half a dozen top-hands who roamed their spread’s far ranges as a kind of mobile ranch crew. Things did not work out that way in the OD Connected’s case. The hand-picked elite of a crew noted as first-class cattle-workers and fighters, the floating outfit had frequently been sent to help friends of their boss, Ole Devil Hardin, who found themselves in trouble. Less of a cowhand than his companions, the Kid had found his niche by putting to good use his Pehnane education.

On the whole, though, the citizens of the Lone Star State might have counted themselves fortunate that such a potentially dangerous young man had accepted honest employment instead of, as might easily have happened, taking to riding the owlhoot trails.

Sent ahead of the OD Connected trail herd on urgent business for his boss, the Kid had reached Mulrooney that morning. He had taken advantage of a long-standing offer by leaving his white stallion and three-horse relay in Freddie Woods’ stable. Carrying a large sum of money strapped about his middle, he toted along his rifle as a precaution against theft. Looking diagonally across Leicester Street, he located the shingle which hung outside Counselor Talbot’s office. There was a fair number of people walking along the other side, so he did not cross over. The stock-pens commenced beyond the side-street that he approached. Wanting to find the extent of competition for his spread’s herd, he intended to stroll along the side of the pens until opposite the lawyer’s office.