any stock come spring. I won’t be able to ride for more than a week. I just don’t see how we are going to be able to get the cattle down here where we can watch them close enough.”
“I can ride, I can herd, and I can shoot.” Kate looked at me. I tell you when that gal looked at me with them blue eyes I would have taken a run at hell to protect her, and here I was laid up. Nevertheless, Kate, and Rafe took out next morning to begin driving the cattle back down. My mule came walking in about noon, and I hobbled down to the corral, got the saddle off him, and left the gate open so he could get water, and graze. He was some tough mule, that one.
It was getting nigh on to four o’clock when I heard bawling cattle. I looked up to the herd coming down the valley, and I knew right off that Kate was the expert rider she said she was. She rode back and fourth cutting the wild stock back to the herd, I tell you it was something to see. Rafe and I, we didn’t know much about herding cattle, and we could learn a thing or two from her.
I reckon getting the cattle down where we could keep an eye on them for the winter put a wrench in those outlaws spokes, but when the first snow flew, they attacked the ranch in full force. I was still limping some, but out of the leg splints. I was down at the lower corral retying a lower rail a bull had busted when I heard the sharp crack of a rifle. I looked toward the bunk house and saw Rafe leap back inside the door when a bullet cut some splinters off by his head. I reached for my rifle, and laid it over the railing, aiming it at the direction the shot came from. They were firing from the trees. I made it out to be three of them.
“Stay inside Rafe!” I yelled. I shouldn’t have called out because a bullet splintered the rail I had been working on. We were sure enough pinned down. “We could sure enough use some of that providence about now Lord.” I breathed the prayer out loud.
There were several more shots from the trees. We could hold out, but if they got behind the cabins, and set fire to them, we would be in a peck of trouble. I was going to chance working my way toward the bunk house when I herd yells in the trees, and more rifles firing. “What is tarnation is going on over there?”
The shots began to let up then all I heard was silence from the trees. I lay behind the fence with my rifle trying to find something to shoot at when I heard Walking Bear call from the trees, “Jason Allen!”
“That you Walking Bear?”
“It me, we come out now, you not shoot, ok? We shoot badmen!”
“Hey! Up to the house! Its Walking Bear, don’t shoot!”
“Ok Jason, I heard you!” Rafe called back.
“You can come on down Walking Bear, we won’t shoot!”
Friendly fire had killed many a man, but not this time. Walking Bear, and six other Indians came walking out of them woods, and I was some happy to lay eyes on them.
“Them men all finished Walking Bear?” I asked as he came up to the corral.
“All dead, not shoot very good. I see you getting around.”
“Yep, leg pains me some, but I’ll heal, thanks to you.”
“No trouble, but my people may need couple of beef in the winter. Game is scarce, now that white men come.”
Rafe and Kate walked down to the corral where we were jawing, “How are you Walking Bear?”
The others were silent as they stood with their rifles cradled in their arms, “I good, I see you grow up.”
“Can you stay? I’ll fix something to eat.”
“No, not stay, we go.”
He wheeled around and began walking back toward the upper valley, and the rest followed. They were a formidable looking group of people as I had ever laid eyes on.
“It’s a good thing your father befriended them Kate, we would have been in a peck of trouble if not for them.”
“My father was always kind to them; he let them cut a few steers to eat for the last two winters. Game is getting scarce because men from Cheyenne come out here to hunt. I feel sorry for them.”
“Lets get on over and check those men, you don’t need to come Kate.”
“I’ll come Jason, I might be able to identify them.”
We crossed the creek and into the trees. We found the bodies about six feet apart, “That’s Pete Jones, I don’t know the other two. I’ve seen Pete several times in Cheyenne; he even came to a church social I attended with my father.”
“Wonder why a man goes bad like that Jason?” Rafe asked as he stared at the body.
“I just don’t know.” I sighed. “Well, lets get the burying done, we got three holes to dig. Kate, could you fix us a bite to eat? I don’t want you digging graves.”
“Oh, just like that? You don’t want me digging Mr. Allen sir?” She had a smirky grin on her face as she looked up at me.
I bent down and kissed her on the lips, “Nope.”
Rafe laughed, “Knew it!”
The end
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends