The Show-Down
IN the early days of Tombstone when miners and merchants and cow-men and faro-dealers and outlaws were drifting into Cochise County from all over the West, a young fellow by the name of William C. Breckenbridge came down from Colorado to the new camp. He was, so the old-timers say, one of those smallish men who can wear a flannel shirt and broad-brimmed hat so jauntily that, although their breeches be tucked into their boot-tops, they still look marvelously neat; but while he could come through a hard day's ride still suggesting a bandbox, there was nothing of the dandy about him.
His people had staked him to go out West and at their suggestion he had hunted up an older brother in Colorado. But two years in the wide reaches of the Platte country, where the monotony of teaming was varied by occasional brushes with the Indians, failed to satisfy his spirit. And so he came riding down into the flaring valleys of the Southwestern border along with the first influx of adventurers.
He was still in his early twenties and the world looked good to him; one of those quiet youths who preface most remarks with a smile because, all other things being equal, they like their fellow-men.
He knocked about the camp, trying this thing and that, and was starting in at mining engineering with an old marine compass as his only instrument when Johnny Behan, who was newly appointed sheriff by the governor, gave him a job as a deputy. Then straightaway the eyes of men were turned upon him, and the query arose:
“How's he going to stack up when it comes to a show-down?”
Those were the days, you understand, when—to indulge in a Scriptural figure—he who took up the sword must be prepared to perish by the sword. If you buckled on a gun you must be ready to draw it, and once you started to draw it, heaven help you if you did not reckon on going through with the play.
A man could get by, as the saying has it, if he played the part of a neutral; but if, on the one hand, you started in at stealing cattle or if, on the other hand, you pinned on a star—why then, sooner or later, the big issue was going to come to a head; you were going to find yourself faced by a foe or foes, armed like yourself, and like yourself prepared to shoot it out. Then when the show-down came you would comport yourself according to the stuff that you were made of—the material which was hidden away deep down under your skin—and according to your conduct the world would judge you.
So naturally enough in those days men asked this question and waited for events to bring its answer. And those among them who were not gifted with the faculty of reading character but needed to see a man for themselves when the guns were blazing—those individuals had to wait a long time.
As for the others, what they said to themselves as one adventure followed another now in the career of Billy Breckenbridge you who read these words can judge, if you be blessed with ordinary perspicacity. For many things took place and many months went by before he reached down along his lean right thigh toward the butt of his forty-five single-action revolver.
It is quite likely that Johnny Behan was among those who wanted the new deputy to give a demonstration of the stuff he was made of. Perhaps that was the reason the sheriff sent young Breckenbridge over into the eastern end of the county to collect the taxes before the latter had worn his star long enough to get used to it.
In those days the sheriff's office levied assessments and did the collecting on personal property at the same time. Payments were made in cash; bank-checks were virtually unknown in Cochise County. And thus far the country east of the Dragoon Mountains had yielded no revenues for the simple reason that it looked as if nothing short of a troop of cavalry could go forth into that region and return again with the money.
Beyond those rocky peaks which frowned across the mesquite flat at Tombstone lay other ragged mountain ranges; the Chiracahuas, the Dos Cabezas, the Swiss-helms, and the Grahams. Between their towering walls the valleys of the Sulphur Springs and the San Simon stretched away and away southward across the Mexican border great tawny plains pulsating under the hot sun.
Upon their level floors the heat-devils danced all the long days like armies of phantom dervishes gone mad with their interminable leapings and whirlings. And strange grotesque mirages climbed up into the glaring heavens. A savage land wherein savage men rode, as packs of gray wolves range in the wintertime when meat is scarce, searching the distant sky-line for some sign of life on which to prey.
For this was no-man's-land. Bands of renegade Apaches lurked among its empurpled peaks. Companies of Mexican smugglers came northward through its steep-walled border cañons driving their laden burros to lonely rendezvous where hard-eyed traders awaited them with pack-mules loaded down with dobie dollars. A few lonely ranch-houses where there was water in the lowlands; in the mountains a sawmill or two and some far-flung mines; here the habitations were like arsenals. Honest men must go armed to work and sleep with arms by their bedsides, and even then it was advisable for them to ask no questions of those who rode up to their cabins.
And it was best for them to make no protests at what such guests did unto their own or the property of others. For since the days when the first semblances of law had come to Tombstone this region had been the sanctuary of the bad men.
When you crossed the summits of the Dragoon Mountains you were beyond the pale. Hither the stage-robber came, riding hard when the list of his crimes had grown too long. The murderer, the rustler, and the outlaw spurred their ponies on eastward when the valley of the San Pedro was too hot for them and took refuge here among their kind. On occasion the bolder ones among them ventured back to show themselves on Tombstone's streets or swagger into Charleston's dance-halls; but never for long and never unless they were traveling in formidable groups.
And then sooner or later they would slip away again to the wild passes and the long and lonely valley flats where there was no law excepting that which a man carried in his pistol-holster. One after another those who were “short” in other places had drifted before the winds of public opinion to gather in this eastern end of Cochise County where two whose qualities of deadliness surpassed those of all the rest were recognized, because of that superior ability at killing, as the big “He Wolves.” These two were Curly Bill and John Ringo.
When they were not leading their followers in some raid against the herds of border cattlemen, or lying in wait to ambush one of the armed bands of smugglers, or standing up the stage, these two were usually to be found in Galeyville. You will not see Galeyville named nowadays on the map of Arizona and if you look ever so long through the San Simon country, combing down the banks of Turkey Creek ever so closely, you will not discover so much as a fragment of crumbling adobe wall to show that the town ever existed.
But it did exist during the early eighties and its life was noisy enough for any man. There came a day when the neighboring mines shut down and the little smelter which furnished a livelihood for the honest members of the population went out of business; later the Apaches erased everything that was combustible from the landscape and the elements finished the business.
But when John Ringo and Curly Bill held forth in Galeyville there was a cattle-buyer in the place who did a brisk business because he asked no embarrassing questions concerning brands. Which brought many a hard-eyed rustler thither and sent many a dollar spinning over the battered bars.
Such were the eastern end of Cochise County and its metropolis when Johnny Behan told young Billy Breckenbridge to cross the Dragoons and collect taxes throughout that section. If he expected a protest he was mistaken, for Breckenbridge took the bidding with his usual good-natured smile. And if the sheriff looked for a request for a posse he was disappointed. The new deputy saddled up his horse one morning and rode forth alone, trim and neat as usual and, for all that any one could see, without a care on his mind.
He rode up the wide main street which bisects Tombstone from end to end, descended the hill and started his horse across the flatlands toward the ragged pinnacles of Cochise's stronghold.
Eastward he rode through tall mesquite thickets, over rolling hills where clumps of bear-grass grew among spiked yuccas and needle-pointed tufts of Spanish bayonet, and climbed the pass beyond. From its summit he looked down upon the wide reaches of the Sulphur Springs valley, level as a floor, as tawny as a lion's skin.
Then he descended from the sky-lined pinnacles of granite to the plain. Under the blazing heavens pony and rider showed upon that glowing surface as a tiny dot; a dot that moved slowly on and on until the yellow-brown carpet of the bunch-grass came to an end and was replaced by a gleaming sheet of alkali. Before that crawling dot the mirage wavered and undulated like a weirdly painted back-drop stirring in the wind.
The dot crept on, took strange new shapes that changed phantasmally, then vanished behind the curtain of which for a passing moment it had been a part. Thus young Breckenbridge rode beyond the dominion of the written law and was swallowed up by no-man's-land.
When he had started forth from Tombstone he merely knew his errand; he owned no plan. Now as the splendid star-lit nights followed the long, blazing days he began, to see a course of action and this led him on, until one day he came down into the San Simon country and rode into the town of Galeyville.
The enterprising citizen whose cattle-buying business helped to keep dollars spinning across the bars of this outlaw metropolis was mildly curious when young Breckenbridge introduced himself that afternoon. The presence of a sheriff's deputy was enough to set any one to thinking in those days.
His curiosity gave way to unspoken wonder as the caller unfolded his mission and stated the name of the man whom he wanted to see. Anyhow, this meeting promised to be worth while witnessing; the cattle-buyer said as much.
“Reckon we'll find him up the street right now,” he added, and led the way to a near-by saloon.
There were a number of men in the place when the pair entered; a quintet playing cards, and as many others scattered about a quiet pool-game. And one burly fellow was lying on a poker-table, curled up for all the world like a sleeping dog. Now and then one of the gamblers would lift his head to take a look at the new-comers, and for a brief instant young Breckenbridge would find himself gazing into a pair of hard, steady eyes. Then the eyes would be lowered and the player would go on with the game.
It was during this uncomfortable interval of general sizing-up that the proprietor entered, a red-faced man and short of stature. He had been out to get a bucket of water; he set the pail down by the end of the bar and filled a tin cup from it.
“Here's how, boys,” he said with loud facetiousness, and lifted the cup.
The burly man, who had apparently been awakened by the words, uncoiled himself, came to crouch with one arm supporting his body on the table-top and—all in the same lithe movement—drew his big-caliber revolver from the holster.
“Don't drink that stuff. It's pizen,” he shouted, and with the last word his weapon flamed.
The tin cup flew from the saloon man's hand. A shout of laughter rose from the crowd at the two games; then the pool-balls clicked again and—
“Raise you ten,” a poker-player said.
Breckenbridge's guide beckoned to the man who had done the shooting. He came across the room, shoving his gun back into the holster, a rather thickly built man but well-knit and there was a soft spring in his slowest movements which suggested snake-like quickness. He was dark-eyed, and his hair was a mat of close black curls. The cattle-buyer nodded, to indicate the introduced one.
“This,” he said, “is Mr. Breckenbridge, one of Johnny Behan's deputies.”
And—
“This is Curly Bill.”
Young Breckenbridge smiled as usual and stretched forth his right hand. But the eyes of Curly Bill were narrow and his hand came out slowly. There was that in his whole manner which said he was on guard, watching every movement of the deputy.
And for this there was good reason. It was not long since Curly Bill had stood in very much the same attitude on Tombstone's street facing Town Marshal White, the only difference being that his right hand on that occasion had been proffering his pistol, butt foremost, to the officer. And in the passing of the instant while Marshal White had touched the weapon with his fingertips the forty-five had swiftly reversed ends, to spit forth one leaden slug.
The officer had dropped in the dust of the roadway and Curly Bill had ridden out of town with a thousand dollars on his head. A thousand dollars was a thousand dollars and there was no telling what a man who wore a nickel-plated star might have up his sleeve.
“Mr. Breckenbridge,” the cattle-buyer said as the two palms met, “is here on civil business.”
The eyes of Curly Bill resumed their normal shape. His fingers tightened over the deputy's.
“Howdy,” he said. “What yo' going to have?”
While the sting of the cow-town whisky was still rankling in their throats a man entered the front door.
“Oh, Bill,” he called across the room, “your hoss is daid.”
Deserting the bar to delve into this mystery, they found the outlaw's pony stretched out beside the hitching-rack near the rear of the building. The owner cast one glance at the dead animal; then his eyes went to a shattered window.
“'Twas when I shot that cup from Shorty's hand.”
He shrugged his big shoulders and, with a grin—
“Plenty more good ponies in the valley—and the nights are moonlight now.”
When they were back facing the battered bar young Breckenbridge explained, his business in no-man's-land.
“And this end of the county,” he wound up, “is sort of rough. If I'd ride around alone, packing that money, somebody's liable to get the best of me when I'm not looking for it. I've got to have a good man along to help take care of that roll. And I'd admire to have you make the trip with me.”
Curly Bill was a great deal slower at thinking than he was at drawing his gun and there was much food for thought in that bold proposition. He gazed at young Breckenbridge for some moments in silence. Gradually his lips relaxed. Smiling, he turned and addressed the occupants of the room.
“Boys,” he cried, “line up.”
And when the line was formed before the bar he waved his hand.
“This here's the deputy sheriff, come to collect the taxes in our end of the county; and I aim to help him do the job up right.”
By what means Curly Bill supplied himself with a new pony this chronicler does not know. But it is a fact that the outlaw rode forth from Galeyville the next day along with Johnny Behan's deputy, to guide the latter through the Sulphur Springs valley and the San Simon—and to guard the county's funds.
Travel was slow in those days; accommodations were few and far between. Outlaw and deputy jogged down the long, glaring flats enshrouded in the dust-fog which rose from their ponies' hoofs; mile after mile of weary riding under a scorching sun. They climbed by winding trails through narrow cañons where the heat-waves jigged endlessly among the naked rocks. They camped by lonely water-holes and shared each other's blankets under the big yellow stars.
By day they watched the sky-line seeking the slightest sign of moving forms; by night they kept their weapons within easy reach and slept lightly, awakening to the smallest sound. They scanned the earth for tracks and, when they found them, read them with the suspicion born of knowledge of the country's savagery.
And sometimes other riders came toward them out of the desert to pass on and to vanish in the hazy distance; men who spoke but few words and watched the right hands of the two riders as they talked. But none attacked them or made a show toward hostility. Now and again the pair stopped at a ranch-house or a mine where Breckenbridge added to the county's money in his saddle-bags.
And as the days wore on, each with its own share of mutual hardship to bring these two to closer companionship, they began, as men will under such circumstances, to unfold their separate natures. Under the long trail's stern necessity they bared to each other those traits which would have remained hidden during years of acquaintance among a city's tight-walled streets.
A carelessly spoken word dropped at hot noontide when the water in the canteens had given out; a sincere oath, uttered by the fire at supper-time; a long, drowsy conversation as they lay in their blankets with the tang of the night breeze in their nostrils, gazing up at the splendor of the flaming stars; until they knew each other man to man—and Curly Bill began to feel something like devotion to his purposeful young companion. Thenceforth he talked freely of his deeds and misdeeds.
“Only one man that ever got the drop on me,” the outlaw said one evening when they were lying on their blankets, enjoying the long inhalations from their after-supper cigarettes, “and that was ol' Jim Burnett over in Charleston, two years ago.”
He paused a moment to roll another smoke. A coyote clamored shrilly beyond the next rise; a horse blew luxuriously feeding in the bunch-grass. Curly Bill launched into his tale.
“He was justice of the peace and used to hold co't in those days whenever he'd run on to a man he wanted. Always packed a double-barrel shotgun and he'd usually managed to throw it down on a fellow while he tried the case and named the fine.
“Well, me and some of the boys was in town this time and things was slack. Come a Sunday evenin' and I heard how some married folks had started up a church. I hadn't been inside of one since I could remember and we all made up our minds to go and see what it was like.
“Things had opened up when we come into the door and we took our seats as quiet as we could. But the jingle of our spurs made some people in the congregation—the' wasn't more'n a dozen of 'em—look around. And of co'se they knew us right away. So, pretty quick one or two gets up and leaves, and soon afterward some more, until first thing we knew our bunch was all the' was stickin' it out.
“Along about that time the preacher decided he'd quit too, and he was edging off to head for the back door when I got up and told him to stop. Folks said afterwards that I throwed down my fo'ty-five on him but that wasn't so. Wasn't any need of a gun-play. I only said that we'd come to see this deal out and we meant to have it to the turning of the last card and if he'd go ahead everything would be all right.
“So he did, and give out a hymn and the boys stood up and sang; and he preached a sermon, taking advantage of the chanc't to light into us pretty rough. Then it come time for passin' round the hat and I'll bet the reg'lar congregation never done half so well by the collection as we did.
“Well, sir, next mo'nin' I was sittin' in front of the hotel in the shade of those big cottonwoods, sort of dozing, having been up kind of late after the church-going; and the first thing I knew somebody was saying—
“'Hanzup.'
“I opened my eyes and here was ol' Jim Burnett with that double-barrel shotgun throwed down on me, I knew there was no use tryin' to get the play away from him, either; only a day or two before that he'd stuck up Johnny Harker and fined him a bunch of three-year-old steers for shootin' up the town. So I obeyed orders and—
“'Curly Bill,' says he, 'yo' 're tried herewith and found guilty of disturbin' the peace at the Baptis' Church last evenin'; and the sentence of this co't is twenty-five dollars' fine.'
“I shelled out then and there and glad to do it, too. Them two muzzles was lookin' me right between the eyes all the while.”
Up in the San Simon country they ran short of grub and after going two days on scanty rations—
“The' 's a cañon fifteen miles south of here,” the outlaw said. “I reckon some of the boys might be camping there now.”
They rode hard that afternoon and reached the place some time before sundown. The boys of whom Curly Bill had spoken were there all right, ten of them, and none of the number but was known at the time over in Tombstone either as a rustler or a stage-robber. His guide introduced Breckenbridge with the usual terseness of such ceremonies among his kind.
Whatever of constraint there was at the beginning wore away during the progress of the evening, and on the next morning before they left the gorge the young deputy worked his way into the good graces of his hosts by winning twenty dollars from them shooting at a mark.
By this time they were nearing the end of their tour and it was only a few days later, when they were crossing the Sulphur Springs valley toward the frowning Dragoons, that Curly Bill bestowed a final confidence upon his companion. They were nooning at the time and somehow or other the usual question of revolver-handling had come up.
“I'm goin' to tell yo'-all something,” said Curly Bill, “that mebbe it will come in handy to remember. Now here.”
He drew his forty-five and held it forth butt foremost in his right hand.
“Don't ever go to take a man's gun that-a-way,” he went on, “for when yo' are figuring that yo' have the drop on him and he is makin' the play to give it up— Jest reach out now to get it.”
Breckenbridge reached forth with his right hand. The outlaw smiled. His trigger-finger glided inside the guard; there was a sudden wrist movement and the revolver whirled end for end. Its muzzle was pressing against the deputy's waist-band.
“Did it slow so's you could see,” said Curly Bill. “Now yo' understand.”
And Breckenbridge nodded, knowing now the manner in which Marshal White had met his death on the day when his companion had fled from the law.
In no-man's-land they shook hands at parting.
“So-long,” said Curly Bill. “See you later.”
And the deputy answered with like brevity, then rode on to Tombstone. Those who had banked on the big issue wherein Breckenbridge would smell the other man's powder-smoke were disappointed. And there were some among them who shook their heads when the young fellow's name was mentioned, saying, as they had said in the beginning:
“Wait till the show-down comes; then we'll see how he stacks up.”
But Sheriff Johnny Behan was open in his rejoicings. For the sheriff's enemies were many and some of them were powerful, and his conduct in office was being subjected to a great deal of harsh criticism, oftentimes, it must be admitted, with entire justice. So when the smiling young deputy returned from a region where Cochise County had hitherto been unable to gather any taxes, and deposited a sum wherein every property-owner in that region was properly represented, here was good news with which to counteract accusations of laxity.
And that was not all. As far as law and order went, the country east of the Dragoons was a foreign land; and when Breckenbridge had told the story of his journeyings with Curly Bill, explaining how the outlaw had been zealous in nosing out those citizens whose property was assessable, how he had safeguarded the county's money, then the sheriff saw how he had on his force one whom he could use to good account.
Other officials were unable to carry the law into no-man's-land; but he had, thenceforth, at least an envoy. And he knew that there would be times when diplomatic representation was going to come in very handy.
From that day on, when anything came up in the Sulphur Springs valley or in the San Simon, Billy Breckenbridge was despatched to attend to the matter. Time and again he made the journey until the cow-men in the lowlands came to know his face well; until the sight of a deputy sheriff's star was no longer an unwonted spectacle in Galeyville. And as the months went by he enlarged the list of his acquaintances among the outlaws.
But his errands were for the most part concerned with civil matters. Now and again there was a warrant for stock-rustling, but the rustlers carried on their business in the open at that time and there were few who dared to testify against them. Bail was always arranged by the accommodating cattle-buyer at Galeyville, so that such arrests invariably turned out to be amicable affairs.
Among those who were sitting back and waiting for the big show-down there was a little stir of anticipation when young Breckenbridge rode forth armed with a warrant for John Ringo. For Ringo was a bad man of larger caliber than even Curly Bill. He was the brains of the outlaws, and the warrant charged highway robbery.
But the thrill died away when the deputy came riding back with his man; and there was something like disgust among the waiting ones when it was learned that the prisoner had stayed behind in Galeyville to arrange some of his affairs and had ridden hard to catch up with his captor at the Sulphur Springs ranch.
Anticipation flamed again a little later and it looked as if there was good reason for it. For this time it was a stolen horse and Breckenbridge had set forth to recover the animal. A rustler might be willing to go through the formalities of giving bail at the county court-house, or even to stand trial, but when it came to turning over stolen property—and doing it without a struggle—that was another matter. Moreover, this horse, which had been taken from the Contention Mine, was a thoroughbred, valued high and coveted by many a man. There was good ground for believing that the fellow who had made off with him would put up a fight before letting him go again.
Now when he left Tombstone on this mission Johnny Behan's young diplomatic representative was riding a rented pony, his own mount being fagged out from a previous journey; and this fact has its bearing on the story later on. The wild country is always easier ground in which to trace a fugitive or stolen property than the crowded places for the simple reason that its few inhabitants are likely to notice every one who passes; besides which there are few travelers to obliterate tracks.
And Breckenbridge learned before he had gone very many miles that the badly wanted horse was headed in the direction of the McLowery ranch. The McLowery boys were members of the Clanton gang of rustlers and stage-robbers. It did not need a Sherlock Holmes to figure out the probabilities of where that horse was being pastured now. Breckenbridge pressed on to the McLowery place.
Night had fallen when he arrived and the barking of many dogs heralded his approach to all the surrounding country. Breckenbridge knew the McLowery boys well, as well as he knew the Clantons and a dozen other outlaws, which was well enough to call one another by their first names.
But these were ticklish times. The big Earp-Clanton feud was nearing its climax. The members of the latter faction—several of whom were wanted on Federal warrants which charged them with stage-robbery—were keeping pretty well holed up, as the saying is, and it was not unlikely that if any of them were in the ranch-house at the time, the visitor who was not extremely skilful in announcing himself would be shot first and questioned afterward.
So when Billy Breckenbridge came to the house he did not draw rein but kept right on as if he were riding past. Fortune had favored him by interposing in his path an enormous puddle, almost a pond, the overflow from a broken irrigation ditch. He pulled up at this obstacle and hallooed loudly.
“Any way through here?” he shouted. “This is Breckenbridge.”
A moment's silence, and then a streak of light showed where the front door had been opened a crack.
“Sit quiet on that there hoss,” a gruff voice commanded, “and lemme see if you be Breckenbridge.”
“Hallo, Bill,” the deputy sheriff answered. “Yes, it's me all right.”
And Curly Bill opened the door wider, revealing his burly form.
“Put up yo'r pony in the corral,” he said, “and come in.”
When Breckenbridge had complied with the last part of the invitation he found the bare room filled with men. The McLowery boys were there, two of them, and the Clantons. Half a dozen other outlaws were lounging about, and Curly Bill himself was looking none too pleasant as he nodded to the visitor.
“Cain't tell who might come ridin' in these nights,” he growled by way of explanation for his curt welcome. “Set up and eat a bite now yo' 're here.”
The lateness of the meal and the general dishevelment of the room's occupants made it clear to the guest that every one had been riding hard that day. It was an awkward moment and the constraint endured long after the last man had shoved back his chair and rolled his brown-paper cigarette.
Curly Bill found an opportunity to get young Breckenbridge off to one side during the evening.
“What's on yore mind?” he asked.
The deputy told him.
“The superintendent owns that horse,” he explained, “and he's a good friend of mine. Not only that, but if I get it back it means a whole lot to the office; it'll put Behan solid with those people over at Contention, and that helps me.”
The outlaw nodded but made no remark by way of comment. Some time later he sat up at the oilcloth-covered table talking quietly with Frank McLowery. And Brenckenridge saw McLowery scowling. Then he felt reasonably sure who had stolen that blooded animal and who was going to bring it back to Tombstone in the morning.
Bedding-rolls were being unlashed within the half-hour. McLowery brought Breckenbridge a pair of blankets.
“Reckon you'll have to make down on the floor same as the rest of the boys,” the outlaw growled and then, as if it were an afterthought, “That there hoss yo' 're looking fer is near the ranch.”
And that was all the talk there was on the subject during the evening. But Breckenbridge spread his blankets and lay down among the rustlers serene in mind. Evidently the horse was going to be in his possession the next morning.
McLowery's sullenness seemed to have been contagious and there were no good-nights said to the guest. He knew every man in the room; some of them he had known ever since that evening when Curly Bill had taken him to the rustler's camp is the San Simon. But the best he got from any of them was an averted look; several were scowling openly. Even Curly Bill had put aside his usual heavy joviality. It was clear that the burly leader had strained a point in going as far as he had. Some men might have felt uneasy in dropping off to sleep under the circumstances, but Breckenbridge understood his hosts well enough to be certain that, so long as he was on the ranch, the sacred rites of hospitality were going to be observed. So he closed his eyes and the last thing he heard was the snoring of outlaws and murderers.
The next morning he awakened to find that several of the company had departed. No one made any comment on that fact and there was no mention of the stolen horse. But when the deputy had downed his last cup of coffee Frank McLowery took him outside and showed him the animal tethered to a hitching-rack.
“Much obliged, Frank,” said Breckenbridge.
The stage-robber gave him a sour grin.
“Bet yo' never fetch him back to Tombstone,” he answered quietly.
The two looked into each other's eyes and smiled. You may have seen a pair of fighters smiling in that same way when the gong has sounded and they have put up their hands at the beginning of a finish contest.
Now under these circumstances and remembering the absence of several of the best horsemen in the bunch from the ranch-house, many a man would have put his saddle on the thoroughbred that morning. But Breckenbridge had managed to assimilate some of the wiles of diplomacy during these last few months and he reasoned that if there were a pursuing-party waiting for him to leave the ranch they would be prepared for that same contingency. Better let them think him unready; then perhaps they would let him get the lead. And once he got it, luck would have to help him carry out his plan. He saddled the hired pony and rode away, leading the recovered animal.
Before he had gone a half-mile beyond the ranch buildings he saw that he had figured rightly. The floor of the Sulphur Springs valley did not hold so much as a bush by way of cover; and here, off to the left, his eyes fell on a group of horsemen. Evidently they had been watching him ever since he left the corrals and knew the poorness of his mount, for they were making no effort to overhaul him as yet.
But he realized that the gang must have graver business on hand than the recovery of the thoroughbred; they were not going to waste any too much time over this affair and he would not be allowed to travel far if they could help it. Just then a wagon outfit climbed out of a dry wash directly ahead of him and he saw how luck had given him his chance.
He rode on, leisurely closing in upon the train. Off there to the left the outlaws were keeping pace with him, but as yet they were making no attempt to lessen the distance between them. He came up with the last wagon, turned off the road beside it, and had the clumsy covered vehicle between him and the rustlers. Then he dismounted.
The wagons kept on moving; now and again the teamsters glanced toward him curiously. He barely heeded them save to see that they made no sign to the now invisible outlaws. It took all the skill that he owned to keep both his horses walking while he unsaddled the one and threw the saddle upon the other. But at last the change was made and he flung himself upon the thoroughbred's back. Shouting to the nearest teamster to lead the abandoned pony back to Tombstone, he put spurs to his fresh mount and came out in the road ahead of the foremost span of leaders on a dead run.
There were six of the outlaws and they were less than half a mile away. Breckenbridge had been out of sight behind the wagons just a little too long to suit them and they were cutting in toward the road now at top speed.
From the beginning it was a stern chase and they had only one hope of winning. Nothing less swift than a bullet could ever catch that thoroughbred. They pulled up at once and began shooting. But although some of the slugs from their rifles came uncomfortably close none found its mark and Breckenbridge was fast drawing away from them. However, they were not the men to give up so long as there was any chance remaining, and they swung back into their saddles to “burn up the road” in his wake.
Now all hands settled down to make a long race of it, and it was not until he was climbing the first slopes toward South Pass in the Dragoon Mountains that Breckenbridge looked back for the last time and saw the shapes of those six horsemen diminishing in the distance as they jogged back toward the McLowery ranch.
So through the good-will of Curly Bill young Breckenbridge recovered the thoroughbred from the man who had stolen it and brought it to Tombstone without being obliged to reach for his own gun. And moreover there were no hard feelings about it when he rode back into no-man's-land the next time. So far as Frank McLowery and the Clanton boys were concerned the incident was closed. The deputy had won out and that was all there was to it.
As a matter of fact only a month or so later a horse-thief from Lincoln County, New Mexico, came to grief at Galeyville because he did not understand Breckenbridge's status in the rustlers' metropolis. This bad man from the Pecos had a pretty sorrel pony and the deputy, who was in the place on civil business, happened to notice the animal at the hitching-rack in front of the hotel.
“Say,” he said to its possessor, who was standing near by, “that's a nice horse; where'd you get him?”
The remark was a careless one in a country where ponies often changed owners overnight, and the man from the Pecos was sensitive enough on the subject to resent the question from one who wore a star. He answered it by drawing his gun.
Breckenbridge, who was as dexterous with his left hand as with his right, reached down as the weapon came forth from its holster and gripped the stranger's wrist. He gave a sharp wrench and the revolver clattered down on the sidewalk. And then Curly Bill, who had witnessed the incident, stepped forward and ordered the visitor out of Galeyville.
“Yo'-all don't need to think,” the desperado added, “that you can come here and make a gun-play on our deputy. We get along all right with him and I reckon we ain't going to stand for any cow-thieves from Lincoln County gettin' brash with him.”
Something like two years had passed now since young Billy Breckenbridge first rode across the Dragoon Mountains into no-man's-land and, as the old-timers who had been watching him all this time well knew, things could not go on in this way forever. The show-down was bound to come. It came one day at the Chandler ranch and the old-timers got the answer to their question.
There were two young fellows by the name of Zwing Hunt and Billy Grounds who had been working at Philip Morse's sawmill over in the Chiracahua Mountains.
Somehow or other they had got mixed up with the stock-rustlers and the temptation to make easy money proved too strong for them. One evening they went over to the Contention mill and held up the place, killing the man in charge.
Johnny Behan was out of town at the time with several deputies after the Earps who had departed from Tombstone. The under-sheriff detailed Breckenbridge on the case and drafted a posse of three men to help him.
“No, sir,” the former said when the young deputy remonstrated against the presence of these aides. “This ain't a case of talking John Ringo into coming over and putting up a bond. This here's murder and those lads are going to show fight.”
Orders were orders; there was no use arguing further. The erstwhile diplomat made the best of a bad matter and rode away with his three companions. It was evening when they left Tombstone and the Chandler ranch lay several hours distant. Those who saw them leave the camp spread the news. And now the old-timers settled down, certain that when Billy Breckenbridge returned they were going to know just what he was made of.
He came back the next evening, riding alongside a lumber-wagon. In those days the mining companies maintained a hospital at the edge of the town. The vehicle made one stop at this institution and unloaded three of its occupants. It made a second stop before the establishment of a local undertaker, where two bodies were removed. And then young Breckenbridge rode on alone to the court-house. Two outlaws and four men in the deputy sheriff's party makes six altogether. Out of the six he was the only one left on his feet.
“And the hull thing didn't last five minutes,” said “Bull” Lewis, the driver of the wagon. “I was asleep in the ranch-house along with these two outlaws when some one knocked on the door. Right away I heard a shot in the next room and I busted out with my hands up and yelling that I was a nootral. Before I'd gone twenty yards Hunt and Grounds had killed two of the posse and by the time I was over that rise behind the house they'd laid out the other. And then I watched this little deputy get the two of them.
“He was out in the open and they were inside, and both of 'em were sure burnin' powder mighty fast. But he waited his chance and tore the top of Grounds's head off with a charge of buckshot when he stepped to the door to get a better shot. And a second or two later Zwing Hunt came out of the cabin, firing as he ran. The little fellow dropped him with a bullet from his forty-five before he'd come more 'n a half a dozen jumps.”
But Breckenbridge was a long way from being jubilant when Johnny Behan and the under-sheriff congratulated him on his behavior.
“If you hadn't wished those three fellows on me I'd have brought both these boys back without firing a shot,” he told the under-sheriff. “The blamed posse made such a noise coming up to the cabin that the two of 'em thought 't was a lynching-party and opened fire on us. Yes, sir. I could have talked them into coming—if I'd only been alone.”
And so when it did finally come to the show-down all hands learned of just what material young Breckenbridge was made.