“Maybe you’re right, McLean. Tonight and every night, until this thing is finished, I’ll be ridin’ watch with you. Now herd them cows together and git on to the house. The cook is holdin’ breakfast for you. After that, git what sleep you can. We got a night’s work ahead of us.”
With that, he wheeled his horse and rode away. Not until he was well beyond hearing did any of his riders speak.
“Hell’s bells on a tomcat,” said Joel Wells. “I looked for him to spout fire and brimstone.”
Oscar McLean laughed. “Maybe the old dragon’s fire went out.”
“I wouldn’t get too cocky too soon,” Nat Horan said. “He’ll keep us circlin’ them cows so long we won’t even have time to dismount and go to the bushes.’
Levan’s Sheep Camp. October 17, 1870.
“I don’t understand it,” said Sam Levan at breakfast. “After we scattered his herd halfway to Mexico, old Adolph should of raised hell. I reckon we’ll give him another dose tonight. There’s got to be a limit to how much of that he’ll take before comin’ after us.”
His riders said nothing. In a gunfight with Markwardt’s outfit, any or all of them could die. It was the price a man might have to pay for having sold his gun. Danielle had begun wearing her father’s Colt in addition to her own. Her own weapon was tied down on her right hip, while her father’s was tied down on her left hip, butt forward for a cross-hand draw. None of this had escaped the others.
“Kid,” said Gus Haddock, “you’re mighty young to be totin’ a matched pair of irons like that. Where’d you get ’em?”
“My pa made four of them,” Danielle said. “He was a gunsmith.”
“They’re fine-lookin’ weapons,” said Sal Wooler, “but they could get you killed. The last damn thing a man on the dodge needs is a brace of pistols with his initial carved into the grips.”
“I’m not on the dodge,” Danielle said.
“You likely will be, before this thing between Sam Levan and Adolph Markwardt’s over and done,” said Jasper Witheres.
Danielle had mixed emotions, not doubting what Wooler had said about the danger of going on the dodge with a pair of fancy pistols. But there was a reason for her toting what appeared to be a matched pair of Colts. With a silver initial inlaid in the grips, they weren’t the kind that a man was likely to forget, once having seen them. Wouldn’t the men who had murdered her father remember the fancy Colt with inlaid silver? It was a calculated risk, but the killers might recognize the weapon as having belonged to Daniel Strange and, suspecting her vow of vengeance, come after her. If she couldn’t find them, then let them begin looking for her.
“I’d bet my saddle old Markwardt give his riders hell for us stampedin’ his herd,” Dud Menges said. “I’m bettin’ they’re just waitin’ for our patience to wear thin, figurin’ we’ll be back, just like Sam Levan aims for us to do tonight.”
Levan’s outfit spent the day riding from one of Levan’s sheep camps to another, seeing nobody except the sheep herders.
Two hours after midnight, Sam Levan and his riders saddled their horses and crossed the Rio Grande. At the time of their last raid, cattle had been strung out for several miles along the river. Tonight they saw no cattle. Levan reined up, his outfit gathered around him.
“They’ve bunched the varmints upriver,” said Levan. “It may be a mite harder for us to get them running. We’ll circle around, comin’ in from the north. Keep your heads down and your pistols blazing.”
They rode a mile east of the river before riding north. Somewhere ahead, a cow bawled. The riders slowed their horses. They were getting close, and in the small hours of the morning, any sound—even the creak of saddle leather—could be heard from a great distance. Again there was no moon, and the meager starlight would be of little or no help to the Markwardt outfit. Sam Levan was the lead rider, and when he saw the dim shadows that made up the dozing cattle herd, he cut loose with a fearful shriek and began firing his revolver. The cattle scrambled to their feet and noticed the six riders closing in on them. They began to mill in confusion, and the muzzle flashes from the guns of Levan’s riders offered excellent targets for the defenders. It was a standoff, for Markwardt and his riders had headed the herd before they could run. Two of Levan’s riders were sagging in their saddles as though hard hit. Shouting a warning, Levan wheeled his horse and galloped upriver, the way he had come. His riders immediately followed. Danielle had not been hit, keeping her head low on the neck of the chestnut mare. They reached the Levan ranch house, and in the light from the window, Danielle could see that it was Gus Haddock and Dud Menges who had been hit. They slid from their saddles and would have fallen, had they not been supported by their comrades.
“Get them into the house,” Levan ordered. “Then a couple of you take their horses to the barn and rub them down.”
Once the wounded men were inside, Danielle, Warnell Prinz, Sal Wooler, and Jasper Witheres left to tend to the horses.
“My God,” said Eppie Levan as she beheld the bloody shirts of the wounded men. “We must get a doctor for them.”
“No,” Sam Levan said. “When there’s shooting involved, the doc will go straight to the law. Old Markwardt couldn’t ask for any better evidence than that. We’ll have to take care of them ourselves.”
With his knife, Levan cut away the shirts of the wounded men, and to his relief, the injuries didn’t look fatal. Both men had shoulder wounds, and the lead had evidently gone on through without striking bone. Eppie brought the medicine chest, and with disinfectant, Levan cleansed the wounds. He then bound them tight, using strips of an old sheet.
“We’ll keep them here in the house for a day or two,” Levan said. “They’re likely to have some fever, and will need whiskey to kill any infection.”
Eppie Levan seldom questioned anything the temperamental Levan did, but with her eyes on the wounded men, she spoke.
“It’s started, Sam. One day you’ll be brought in, tied across your saddle.”
“Maybe,” said Sam, “but I didn’t start it. Markwardt’s bunch rim-rocked a thousand head of our sheep. We only stampeded his cows. Tonight we couldn’t do even that. The varmints was ready for us.”
“And they’ll be ready the next time,” Eppie said. “Can’t we make do with the section of land we own, and let them have the free range?”
“Hell no,” said Levan defiantly. “Just because Markwardt raises cows, that don’t give him divine right to all the free grass. Soon as Haddock and Menges is well enough to ride, we’ll be goin’ after them again.”
Having unsaddled, rubbed down, and put away the horses, the rest of Levan’s riders returned to the house to see how their wounded comrades had fared.
“They’ll make it,” Levan said. “Some of you help me get them into a spare bedroom.”
Levan and Warnell Prinz carried Gus Haddock to the bed, while Sal Wooler and Jasper Witheres carried Dud Menges. Once the injured were in bed, Levan forced each man to take half a bottle of laudanum. They would sleep through much of the aftershock and pain. Prinz, Wooler, and Witheres returned to the parlor where Danielle waited. With two of the outfit wounded, they awaited orders from Sam Levan. They weren’t long in coming.
“I want the rest of you to keep as close a watch on the sheep camps as you can,” said Levan. “It’s high time Markwardt and his outfit was comin’ after us.”
“We’re considerably outgunned,” Sal Wooler said.