Setting up camp for the third night after leaving the Leaning Y Ranch, Dale spread his blankets over the sandy ground. He threw another piece of mesquite on the fire on his way to his saddle bags, for a tin of beans. As he was bent over his bags he saw, more like felt, movement just outside the light of the fire. He began pulling his rifle to him when he heard “Hello the camp!” in a voice he easily recognized.
“Don’t shoot Boss, I ain’t ready to meet my maker jist yet," came the good natured call. Dale smiled and eased his hand off of his Henry. “Come on in, I could use a good cook about now.”
Willie appeared out of the darkness, walking his painted horse, and smiling as he came into the fire light. “ Howdy Boss, I knew this was yo camp. You always try to find some place that gives you a wall.” “ Never know when your gonna need a place to hide” Dale grinned. “What in blazes are you doing out here?” Dale noticed that Willie had a pistol strapped to his waist. Willie was a rifleman, he hadn’t worn a pistol rig in all the years that Dale had known him.
“Travelin’ some,” Willie answered. He unsaddled his horse, and set his gear near the fire. While he was rubbing down the painted mare he looked back at Dale “ You wonderin’ why I’m heeled up so, Boss?” Dale raised his head from his coffee cup, “I reckoned you’d get around to telling me soon enough. From the looks of that paint of yours, you haven't been wastin daylight any.” “Truth is” Willie said, as he moved to the other side of his multicolored horse, “ I been pushin’ through mighty hard”. “Why are you looking for me? Something happen back at the Y ?” Dale asked. He poured two tins of beans in a pan and set it near the fire. Willie pushed his hat up on his head and put an elbow on his horses back, “I thought I might catch up to you, Boss, but I’m chasin some men…bad men. That’s why I’m here.” "I see... well, I haven't seen any men, bad or good, for three days now. Must be moving west of me." "Yes sir, Willie confirmed,
"they have been."
Dale stirred the beans on the fire. Willie finished with his horse, and then sat down on his blanket and leaned against his saddle. Dale looked at his friend and tried to read his face. Willie was a war veteran, former slave, and a solid ranch hand. He had seen and done things in his forty plus years that most men wouldn’t experience in three lifetimes. Willie Mathus was never given to exaggeration or dramatic expression. The strained look on his face this night came from a depth of feeling. Maybe it was anger, maybe fear,or both... sometimes the two are one and the same. Whatever it was, Dale had never seen him like this before.
The fire popped and cracked. Its light made the shadows jump and dive like ceremonial dancers across the boulders. Near the camp an Great Horned Owl announced his presence to the prey he sought. Dale felt a shiver as the desert chill set in, and raised his collar. He poured a cup of coffee for himself and Willie, then placed the pot back on a stone next to the fire. After a bit, he looked across the fire at his black friend and asked “Who are you following, Willie.. and why?”
Willie took off his hat and ran his hand across his head, then he looked up, “ You remember Mose Dixon and his family, they work for Charlie Sapien at his ranch on the Rio Rico.” “Yeah," answered Dale “they left that wagon train you’d been on at about the time you came to the Y. Nice family. Four or five kids I think.” “That’s right, Boss, Mose is one good horseman”, Willie nodded ,“ two boys and three girls.. .until two days ago.” He reached for the plate of beans Dale held out, then went on as Dale sat back down. “Mose and his boys were in the canyons looking for strays, when these five men come to the house. Annabelle and the girls were in the house fixin dinner fo the men. The gang stormed in, then grabbed Beth and Sissy . They fourteen years old or so, I reckon. Annabelle tried to get the shotgun from the corner, but one of ‘em hit her over the head. When she woke up, Lilly, the youngest little girl, was crying over her. Beth and Sissy were taken. Lilly only escaped cause she run and hid when she see the men riding in.” Willie stopped eating and looked over his plate at Dale. “ They aim to sell them po girls in Old Mexico I ‘magine, Boss. Mose is all stove up from being bucked, and can’t ride much, so… I aim to get them girls back myself, if I can.”
Dale looked out at the darkness for a minute before asking “Five you say?” “ Yep, Annabelle said two Indians, that looked like Chiricahua, two Mexicans and a white man. She said the white man talked different, like French maybe. She was still hurtin , and not thinkin real good though.” Dale thought for a second then looked at Willie, “Chiricahua are a ways from home, these are some real travelin’ Pistoleros.” He got up and poured water from his canteen to wash his plate. “ You know about where they are Willie?” Willie nodded as he swallowed a mouthful of beans and scraped the bottom of the tin plate for another, “They camped out just over a mile from here, in a gorge next to a little creek. I didn’t get too close, but I know the tracks they horses make. It‘s them alright.” Willie washed his plate also, then sat back down and removed his boots.
Dale quietly thought about it all, then stretched out on his bed roll, “We’ll leave before first light then.” Willie threw a blanket over himself. “I appreciate the help, Boss, I know this ain’t yo fight.” Dale shook his head, “Woman stealin’ is every mans fight. We’ll see what we can do to get those girls back to Mose and Annabelle.” “I reckon we got a day ahead of us then,” Willie said, as he covered up and pulled his hat over his eyes. Dale asked after a minute,“ Do you have plenty of ammunition?” but Willie didn’t reply. He had been exhausted, and was now fast asleep.
Dale and Willie rode in the pre-dawn light to within a couple of hundred yards of the outlaws camp. As they approached on foot, they saw the shadow of a man wrapped in a blanket, squatting at the edge of the gorge. “Probably the night watch.” Dale whispered. The man was not looking in their direction, but staring intently down in to the gorge below. A mistake on his part that would soon prove fatal.“ If you can move around to the side of him and make a distraction, I can sneak up on him Boss.” Dale started to protest, but Willie had already pulled his knife from its leather sheath and was moving around the rocks. “Right,” Dale said to himself. He made a wide circle and came quietly to the mans right. He could see that the fellow was still looking into the gorge and, as he moved closer to the rim, Dale heard agitated voices below. He recognized one of the voices as female.
After he felt that Willie was in position, he threw a stick within a few yards of the outlaw. The man stood and turned toward the sound. Just then, Dale saw a hand cover the outlaws mouth and lift his head back. Willie plunged the knife straight in, just above the breast bone and into the hollow of the mans neck. The outlaw made only a slight gurgling noise as he slumped to the ground. Willie released him, wiped his knife on his pants, and motioned to Dale.
Dale worked his way over quietly. A Chiricahua Apache lay at Willies feet in a pool. Looking below, Dale and Willie saw the other men stirring. One man headed off to relieve himself and another was adding wood to the remaining coals of their fire. The two girls were wrapped in blankets and roped to a small tree. One girl seemed to be arguing with a white man standing over her. The man pulled his pistol and pointed it at the girl. The morning stillness was broken by the crack of gunfire. The white man was spun completely around by the impact of the bullet that entered his chest, compliments of Willies rifle.
Before the other men could react, Dale shot the one at the fire. The man who had stepped outside the camp ran for his gun tucked in his saddle. Willie fired and put a bullet in his abdomen. Willie fired again, and knocked another man to the ground with a bullet in his thigh. As the last one ran and mounted his horse, Dale fired and shot the horse from under him. When the outlaw hit the ground Willie shot him in the chest. It was all over in just under a minute. “I didn’t mean to shoot the horse”, Dale said disgusted with himself, “nice shootin Willie”.
“ That’s six men, but I don’t see no mo. We best get down there, Boss,” Willie was already on his feet. Dale stayed where he was, watching with his rifle ready, until Willie made it down, then followed after him. As Willie attended to the girls, Dale surveyed the area. The man with the bullet in his thigh was the only one able to speak .“You’ve killed us all,” he said as he writhed on the ground. “Not all” said Dale as he looked down on the man, “but it’s early yet.”
They helped the girls out of the gorge and away from the carnage, then Willie and Dale gathered up the outlaws gear and horses. Willie went back for the last horse. Dale stood comforting the girls when they heard a shot from down in the gorge. He walked quickly to the rim and looked down to see Willie placing his pistol in his holster and mounting his horse. The man with the gunshot to his thigh lay dead. “Willie?” Dale called.“He cursed me to Hell,” Willie said, as he turned his painted horse around to start the climb up, “ I told him maybe he should go first, and make the place comfortable.”
When he reached the top, Willie rode up next to Dale and said in a voice low and bitter, “ He was the buyer, Boss. Long time ago, two men like these took my sister and then left her for dead, she was never the same after that. Just sit in the house all the time starin'...Then one day she put a rope 'round her neck and jumped from the barn loft." Willie paused for a few seconds and looked away, then said, "These men won’t hurt no mo women folk. No Sir.” Dale looked up at Willie and patted him on the knee “ No… I reckon they won’t.” Willie looked at the still shaken girls, then back at Dale. He took a deep breath, then said more calmly, "Alright then".
They then began to busy themselves preparing for the trip home.
Willie and the girls were on the horses that the dead outlaws provided, with the outlaws other horses tied behind.“ You sure you don’t want to come on back with us, Boss?” Willie asked. Dale looked across the horizon as he checked a rope knot, then back up at Willie, “No, friend… I think I’d better keep headed south.” Willie stuck his hand down and Dale shook it, “ Good days to you Willlie, these girls are in good hands now.” Dale walked over and mounted his horse and started away. “I’ll tell Miss Rebecca you doin fine.”
Dale turned and just nodded, then gave Stonewall a kick and headed across the sandy plain.
