Ralph Compton - Death Rides a Chestnut Mare

For at least an hour, Danielle lifted her voice in singing the old songs she had learned as a child. Long-forgotten memories came alive, and she closed her eyes, relishing the images. The words of the old songs, like long-forgotten friends, came rushing back to her. After the last song had been sung, Danielle slipped out the door during the closing prayer. She considered visiting the Alamo Saloon, but suddenly it seemed like a tawdry place, filled with boastful, cursing men. She returned to her hotel room and, with the joyful chorus still ringing in her head, was soon asleep.

San Antonio, Texas. December 25, 1870.

Many of the cafes were closed, so Danielle had breakfast in the hotel dining room. She wasn’t surprised to find her three ranger friends already there. Danielle pulled out a chair and sat down.

“We forgot to mention breakfast this morning,” said Captain Jennings, “and I thought you might want to sleep late.”

“I can’t hide out forever,” Danielle said. “Sooner or later, the varmint that’s out to get me will have to show himself. When he does, I’ll be ready.”

“If he doesn’t shoot you from behind,” said Williams. “That’s one thing you can count on. A coward never changes.”

After breakfast, lacking anything better to do, Danielle returned to her room, unaware that hostile eyes had been watching her. Leroy Lomax sat in the hotel lobby, an unfolded newspaper shielding his face. He watched to see how far down the hall Danielle was going, and then he went to the hotel desk.

“I want a room for the night,” said Lomax. “Bot tom floor.”

Given a key, he was gratified to learn that his room was almost directly across the hall from that of the little gunman he hated. The kid had to eat, and Lomax would try again at dinner or supper. Lomax lay across the bed, waiting. The kid seemed to have a habit of eating with Texas Rangers, and Lomax didn’t want to make his play as long as any of the famed lawmen were in the hotel. He would go after Daniel Strange after he had left the dining room and was on his way down the hall.

Danielle reached the dining room just a few minutes after eleven. Jennings, Elmore, and Williams were already there.

“Feeling better?” Jennings asked.

“Considerably,” said Danielle. “I feel like I could eat a whole turkey, goose, or double portions of whatever’s being served.”

The meal was an occasion to remember. Prodded by Danielle, the three rangers spoke of trails they had ridden, outlaws they had captured, and violent brushes with death. Only then did Captain Jennings take from under his belt a Colt, laying it on the table before Danielle.

“It’s a .31 caliber Colt pocket pistol, from the three of us to you,” said Jennings. “It will fit neatly under your belt or under your coat. It’s a short barrel, but no less a Colt. It’ll stop a man dead in his tracks.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Danielle said.

“There’s nothing to say, except Merry Christmas,” said Jennings.

“But I have nothing for any of you,” Danielle protested.

“You gave us our Christmas early,” said Williams, “when you salted down that ranger killer, Snakehead Kalpana.”

“I’m obliged,” Danielle said, slipping the short barreled Colt beneath the waistband of her Levi’s. When dinner was over, Danielle left her friends and started down the hall to her room. Softly, a door opened behind her, and a cold voice spoke.

“Unbuckle them belts and let ’em fall.” Danielle paused and felt the muzzle of a gun poking her in the back. Slowly she loosed her gun belts, allowing her Colts to slide to the floor.

“Now go on to your room, where you was headed,” said the voice.

Danielle had her key in her left hand, and while fumbling for the key hole, she eased her right hand to the butt of the pocket pistol. Suddenly the door opened, and Danielle seemed to fall forward into the room. Rolling over on her side, she fired twice, slamming Lomax into a door on the other side of the hall. He fired twice, but his arm had begun to sag, and the lead plowed into the carpet at his feet. Men came running down the hall, three of them the rangers who had not yet left the building. Danielle’s Colts lay on the floor in the hall, but in her hand she held the Colt pocket pistol.

“That’s Leroy Lomax,” Danielle said. “I had trouble with him in Indian Territory.”

She stepped out in the hall, retrieved her gun belts, and buckled them on. She then slid the Colt pocket pistol under her waistband and, facing the three rangers, spoke.

“You gave me the best Christmas gift of all. My life.”

“You still aim to stay a few days, don’t you?” Captain Jennings asked.

“Yes,” said Danielle, “but then I’ll be riding on. There’s six more killers I must find before my pa can rest easy. I want the varmints to know they’re living under the shadow of a noose.”

(Continue riding the vengeance trail with Danielle in the forthcoming book, The Shadow of a Noose. )

1

A binder was a band of cloth women used to flatten their breasts.

2

In traditional hoedowns, sometimes the only instrument would be a fiddle. The “straws” were often porcupine quills. A man “beating the straws” stood beside the fiddler, tapping the “straws” against the body of the instrument. It created a drumlike effect, providing the fiddler some rhythm.

3

Near present-day town of Lawton, Oklahoma.

4

The first Pretty Girl Saloon was in New Orleans. They caught on rapidly in the west.

5

Clay Allison was a dangerous man with a gun. Discharged from the Confederacy for insanity, he moved to New Mexico. There, he killed a sheriff who came to arrest him for another killing. He then left New Mexico, starting a horse ranch in southern Colorado.

6

“Rim-rocking” consisted of driving a herd of sheep off a cliff.

7

“Lucifers” were the first matches, invented by an Englishman in 1827. In blocks, they could be separated, one or more, as needed.

8

Called the most dangerous gunman of his time, Hardin killed thirty-one men.

9

King Fisher and Ben Thompson (born in Knottingley, England, November 11, 1842) were dangerous men. Both were confirmed killers noted for their swiftness with a gun. They were notorious gamblers, and they each walked on both sides of the law, wearing the star until some drunken brawl or random killing got them dismissed. Both men were ambushed in a theater in San Antonio, in 1884. The killers were never caught.

10

Every Texas Ranger carried a personal Bible. In addition, he kept a record of outlaws wanted by the rangers, and this notebook was referred to as “Bible Two.”

11

The Kansas-Pacific rails didn’t reach Dodge until 1872.

12

Hardtack was an early version of today’s soda crackers.

13

King Fisher’s ranch was the Pendencia. He was a cowboy, a rustler, and a killer—he was fifteen when he killed his first man.

14

Despite his assurances to the contrary, King Fisher had been known to rustle. He was only fifteen when he stole his first horse.

SIGNET

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