The Devil's Rope

Book 2: Rocking R Ranch Western

by Tim Washburn

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The Ridgeway family faces their greatest challenge when a devastating drought threatens to spark an open range war, forcing them to fight for their ranch, their dream—and their lives.

DEATH BY THE DEVIL’S ROPE

It’s the summer of 1883. A severe drought threatens to bankrupt the Ridgeway’s Rocking R Ranch and every rancher in northwest Texas. The cattle are thirsty and hungry. The ranchers are getting desperate. And a simple new invention called barbed wire—the devil’s rope—is their only defense against illegal herders grazing on their land. Percy Ridgeway and his brother Eli are working overtime to stake a fence around their sixty thousand acres. But someone keeps cutting the wires. The Ridgeways keep fixing them. And soon Percy is tangled in a high-stakes showdown with a thieving cattleman named Northcutt and his cutthroat henchmen. Let the battle begin …

History would call it the Fence Wars of 1883. The Ridgeways would call it the summer they fought back—come hell or dry water.

Release date: December 29, 2020

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

Under the light of a full moon, Percy Ridgeway repositioned his gun belt as he leaned against the trunk of a large oak tree, waiting. Using the deeper shadows created by the tree’s enormous canopy to conceal his presence, it was now a little past midnight and he assumed they’d show up at some point after having done so the four previous nights. And Percy was determined to put a stop to the nefarious activity before things erupted into an all-out range war, something he didn’t want but was preparing for anyway.

The spring and summer of 1883 had been as dry as the marriage chances for a seventy-year-old spinster, and water in sufficient quantities was scarce. That and a recent invention now spreading across the West had tempers flaring, turning longtime friends into bitter enemies. So, Percy was waiting, the time ticking down in his head and the sweat trickling down his back.

Along with the drought, the recent problems stemmed from the convergence of two things—one an act of Congress and the other the aforementioned invention. Passed by Congress on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act granted any adult citizen who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government the right to claim 160 acres of surveyed public land with the only stipulations that the owner file an application, make improvements, and occupy the land for five years. And now that the hostile Indians had been forced onto reservations, a great swath of land in the center of the country was up for grabs and homesteaders were crowding onto the open range, staking claims for their own pieces of paradise.

The second spark that threatened to ignite a range war was an unheralded invention that had been patented in December 1874 by a man named Joe Glidden on his farm a mile west of DeKalb, Illinois. And it wasn’t just happening in Texas. Glidden’s brainchild was now having major ramifications for ranchers all across the West. Using a short piece of wire and the guts from an old coffee grinder to create a small, sharp barb, Glidden had revolutionized the barbed wire fence. During the first year of production, Glidden’s company produced 32 miles of wire. By the time 1880 rolled around, the factory in DeKalb was cranking out 236,000 miles of wire a year, enough to encircle the earth ten times over. Seeing the end of the open range rapidly approaching, Percy and the rest of the crew at the Rocking R Ranch were early adopters. And they weren’t the only ones. Barbed wire fences were now going up all across Texas and some of the more unscrupulous ranchers had a bad tendency of throwing wire around land they didn’t own. Roads had been fenced off and public buildings had been fenced in and it appeared that anywhere a man could string a strand of wire was fair game.

Hearing a twig snap, Percy stiffened as he was brought back to the present. He turned his head to see two shadowy figures approaching a section of fence that had already been repaired five times. When they were close enough to touch it, Percy lifted his Colt Single Action Army and cocked it, the four distinctive clicks loud in the stillness of the night. “Touch that wire and the next thing you’ll feel is a bullet punching a hole in your forehead.”

The two figures froze in place and Percy walked over for a close-up look at them. “You the same two that cut my fence the last four nights?”

“No sir,” one of them said, a slight tremor in his voice. “We got stock that need water.”

“Not my problem,” Percy said, eyeing the two. They were a couple of pimple-faced boys who looked to be no older than thirteen or fourteen. He lifted his eyes and looked beyond them. “Boys, the moon is bright enough to read by and I ain’t seeing any cattle or horses. They some special breed that makes them invisible?” Percy asked.

“We’ll just be on our way, mister,” the same boy said.

“Not just yet,” Percy said. “What’re your names?”

When neither of the boys offered their names, Percy said, “Either of you ever seen what a .45 caliber slug does to a man? I’ll tell you it ain’t real pretty. Now, answer my question.”

The same boy said, “You ain’t gonna shoot us, are ya?”

“Your name?” Percy said.

“I’m . . . Jimmy . . . Jimmy Martin and he’s—”

“Shut up, Jimmy,” the other boy said.

“Go ahead, Jimmy,” Percy said.

“His name’s Henry.”

“Henry got a last name?” Percy asked.

When neither boy answered, Percy turned his pistol on Henry. “Well, Jimmy, I reckon you might get a chance to see what that big bullet’ll do after all.”

“Henry Parker,” Jimmy blurted out.

“Henry Parker,” Percy said. “Any kin to Ira Parker?”

“That’s his pa,” Jimmy said. “Please, mister, don’t shoot ’im.”

Percy slowly lowered his weapon. “Henry, did your father send you out here to cut my fence?”

“Look, mister—”

Percy held up a hand, cutting Jimmy off. “Henry’s mouth was workin’ just fine a minute ago.” He turned to Henry. “You got lockjaw, Henry?”

“No,” Henry said. “We’s workin’ for someone else.”

“Who?” Percy asked.

Henry bristled at the question. “It don’t matter. We ain’t cuttin’ your fences, are we?”

“No, but I reckon that has more to do with my pistol and not a sudden change of heart,” Percy said. “Now, who are you working for?”

“Cal Northcutt,” Henry said. “Can we go?”

Percy holstered his pistol and said, “If I ever see you within ten feet of one of my fences again, I’ll shoot you on sight. Understand?”

The two young men nodded.

“One more thing,” Percy said. “Tell Northcutt I’m comin’. Now git.”

Jimmy and Henry turned and took off like a pack of wolves were nipping at their heels. Northcutt, like a half a dozen other men in the area, hadn’t invested in fencing and hadn’t toiled to string wire around their property because they had none. Him and others like him were open-range ranchers and now that fences were going up, they were being squeezed out. It used to be a man could put together a herd, brand it, and turn it out on the open range along with all the other cattle then cull them out at the next roundup. But that was all changing now, and water for the remaining open-range cattle was as scarce as a virgin in a whorehouse. As far as Percy was concerned, if they wanted access to water, they ought to fork over the money to buy some land just as he and his family had done. Walking down the fence line, he untied his horse, mounted, and rode for home.

It wasn’t just the fence cutting and the drought that were weighing heavy on Percy’s mind. Cattle rustling was a constant problem and, unfortunately, it was directly related to the Rocking R Ranch’s location. Situated hard against the Red River in northwest Texas, a majority of the headaches were caused by the riffraff who hid out in the lawless lands of Indian Territory, just across the river. A den of sin and a refuge for killers, the Territory was home to outlaws of all stripes, most of whom had no legal claim to a single blade of grass in an area that stretched across seventy thousand square miles. Those lands were under the control of the United States government and occupied by another headache-inducing group of people—the Indians. And there were thousands of them, all hailing from dozens of tribes who had spent an eternity stalking and killing one another. The only common trait they all shared was their hatred of the white man, and the ranch was only a stone’s throw from some of the meanest, cruelest, and deadliest Indians to ever walk the planet—the Comanches and the Kiowas. They were only a few years removed from raping and killing whites all across Texas, and Percy had his own run-in with them after they kidnapped his niece Emma Turner and held her for over a year. It was just plain old bad luck, Percy thought, that they would all spend the rest of their days in such close proximity.

When he reached the barn, Percy quieted the noise in his head and climbed down from his horse. After unsaddling the mare and slipping off the bridle, he turned her loose in the corral and exited the barn. Exhausted, he knew he would be in for another long day tomorrow. Every day was a long day when you ran ten thousand head of cattle on a ranch that sprawled across sixty thousand acres. And, on top of that, he would need to carve out some time to have a chat with that asshole Cal Northcutt. Climbing the steps to the back porch of his house, Percy pushed off his boots and slipped inside.

While Percy lurched tiredly toward his bed, his older son, Chauncy, was having difficulty just finding the room he had rented at a run-down boardinghouse in Fort Worth. After an evening of overindulgence, Chauncy was pinwheeling off the walls and jiggling door handles, not really sure if he was even in the right building. Then he remembered his cousin was staying with him for a few days, so he stopped, sagged against a wall, and began shouting his cousin’s name.

A door down the hall cracked open and Seth Ferguson stepped out. “Hush, Chauncy,” he said in an angry whisper. Seth walked down, took Chauncy by the elbow, and led him back to the room.

Although Fort Worth wasn’t all that different from the other cow towns that had sprouted up across the frontier, there was one section of the growing city that was uniquely Texan. Residents of the city had several names for it but only one really hinted at the types of people who might inhabit that area—Hell’s Half Acre. And the boardinghouse where Chauncy and Seth were staying was smack in the middle of it all.

The Acre, as most folks called it, was situated on the south side of town and had been the perfect resting stop for tired cowboys who were pushing cattle up the Chisholm Trail to the railheads in Kansas. But that eventually petered out and that portion of the cattle trail was replaced by a train depot for the Texas and Pacific Railway, funneling even more people into the rowdy red-light district. Home to a dense cluster of boardinghouses, hotels, bordellos, gambling parlors, saloons, and dope dens, the Acre also offered refuge to murderers, swindlers, crooks, outlaw gangs, and a slew of other unredeemable souls. And the “Half Acre” was a misnomer because the den of debauchery and deviant behavior now sprawled across two and a half acres. And with doors that never closed, the district operated like a well-oiled machine, where corrupt local lawmen would turn a blind eye after lining their pockets with bribes.

Once Seth had Chauncy safely inside their room, Seth climbed back in the single bed and left Chauncy to fend for himself. This wasn’t the first time his cousin had returned to the room in a drunken stupor and Seth was getting tired of it. Chauncy floundered around and finally got his boots off before back-flipping onto the bed, crushing Seth.

“You’re layin’ on top of me,” Seth hissed, trying to push Chauncy over to his side.

“Funny,” Chauncy slurred, “I heard somethin’ just like that not more’n a few minutes ago.” Chauncy let loose with a loud laugh that rattled the headboard.

“Shh,” Seth said, clamping a hand on Chauncy’s mouth. “You’re gonna get us kicked out of here.” Although angry at his cousin, Seth was curious. He rolled up onto his side and said, “Who was it?”

Chauncy pulled Seth’s hand away from his face. “Marcie Malone.”

“Again?” Seth asked. Marcie was a parlor house girl, the cream of the crop when it came to sporting girls in the Acre.

“Yep.”

“What did that cost you?”

“On the house.”

“It was not.”

“Was. Payback for runnin’ off that guy who was pesterin’ her this mornin’.”

“I was there. Do I get a free one?”

“I reckon you’ll have to ask her, if you got the moxie.”

Chauncy had hit a nerve with that statement. Seth had been in town a few days and hadn’t yet worked up enough courage to enter any of the sporting houses. “You ask, or did she offer?”

“Offered,” Chauncy said.

Seth rolled onto his back. “Figures.”

Tall at six-two, Chauncy was rangy and strong like his father and, with his long, dark hair and an obsessively groomed mustache, the women fell all over themselves to get at him. It was more than looks, though. Chauncy exuded confidence and he had an edginess to him that Seth found hard to explain. The best comparison Seth could come up with was that Chauncy was like a coiled rattlesnake—fine if left alone but deadly if disturbed. Whatever it was, the women lapped it up like a litter of puppies.

Unable to go back to sleep, Seth’s mind wandered. A head shorter and thirty pounds lighter than Chauncy, women weren’t tripping over themselves to earn his favor. Although well educated after recently graduating from Washington and Lee University, Seth was finding that book learning wasn’t a high priority among the female species along the frontier. Still young at twenty-two, he wasn’t overly concerned about finding a mate and he was focusing most of his energy on launching his legal career after spending three years apprenticing with a large firm back East.

Seth startled when a series of gunshots erupted outside. He thought about getting up for a look, but this was the fourth night in a row he’d heard gunfire and he was ready to hightail it out of there. The only reason he had come was to talk to Chauncy about returning to the ranch or, if that failed, to convince him to leave this hellhole and go somewhere else—a place where a man didn’t put his life in jeopardy every time he stepped outside.

Waking from another nightmare, Emma Turner lay still as she listened for any subtle changes in the inner workings of her small three-room home, hoping the horror show had been in her head and not a premonition of things to come. Everything appeared normal inside, so she turned her attention to the open window above her bed. She was listening for any noises—a squeak of leather, a stamping horse, the whisper of footsteps on brittle grass—that might signal an enemy in their midst. After listening for several moments, she didn’t hear anything unusual and she released the breath she had been holding. Of course, that didn’t relieve all of her anxiety because she hadn’t heard the Indians the last time, either. And that remembrance killed any hope of going back to sleep. She tossed back the sheet and climbed out of bed. After stripping off her sweat-soaked nightgown, she pulled on an old dress and wandered into the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and sat.

The nightmares weren’t anything new and she had hoped they would have faded with time. But here it was a decade later and the nightmares were as realistic and vivid as the day they were imprinted into her memory. Held for over a year by the Comanches, she had seen things that no human should ever have to see and had endured hardships that no human should ever be forced to endure. But damn it, she wondered again for the hundredth time, was she going to be a captive to those things for the rest of her life? She knew it was an unanswerable question and she also knew the passage of time was the only variable that might eventually provide an answer.

Thirteen then and twenty-three today, any hope for a normal life had faded as quickly as the ranch buildings in the distance after the four savages had captured her one evening while she was picking blackberries along the river. The Indians had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and the heartache of watching her home growing smaller and smaller until it had finally disappeared was still palpable all these years later.

She tried to wall it off in her mind as she stood and walked over to the stove to grab a match. Striking it on the table, she lit the coal oil lamp that hung over the table and then walked over to light the lantern by the stove before dropping the match into the washtub. As the lanterns sputtered to life, she studied the stove for a moment and thought about starting a fire for coffee then decided against it, her fresh dress already damp with sweat. Instead, she grabbed a hand towel and stepped out the back door. The moon was still up, providing plenty of illumination as she walked over to the recently drilled water well the family shared. She engaged the pump on the windmill and waited for the cool, clear water to appear before dipping her head and taking a long drink. She wet the towel, squeezed out the excess, and wiped her face and arms. After rinsing the towel, she draped the cool cloth around her neck and made her way around to the front porch and took a seat in one of the rocking chairs.

Leaning back, Emma looked up at the full moon and remembered the times when its appearance had struck fear in the hearts of Texans all across the frontier. Called a Comanche moon, the Indians had used the moon’s light to raid, rape, and kill all across the state. But no more, Emma thought. The army had seen to that and the last of the hostile savages had been herded back onto the reservation years ago. Still, given her history and the two-legged vermin that roamed the lawless lands across the river, Emma never strayed more than a few steps from the house without cinching on her gun belt. And, as she thought about it now, she felt naked without a gun. Standing, she cracked the front door and reached up to grab the rifle that hung there. She eased the door closed and returned to her chair, propping the rifle against the side of the house. There was no need to check to see if the rifle was loaded—it stayed that way at all times.

Emma’s home was the last in a line and the closest to the river, which left her feeling exposed at times. But of the six family homes, hers was the last to be built and it was either put it there by the river or on the other side, near the busy barn and the always-bustling bunkhouse. Lined out in a horseshoe pattern, the homes were originally configured that way to better ward off an Indian attack and now that that threat had been diminished, they constructed new homes using the old layout simply out of habit. Emma could have built elsewhere on the ranch, but she enjoyed sharing the large backyard with the rest of the family. Or that was the excuse she had used at the time, but her overriding concern had always been safety, not just for herself but mostly for her nine-year-old son, Simon, who was asleep inside.

Although Simon was conceived without Emma’s consent and born on the last day of her captivity, there was still a good part of her in him and leaving him for the savages to raise had never entered her mind. She did have some concerns about Simon’s paternity that still lingered all these years later. It could have been any of a half a dozen men who had repeatedly violated her and that included the evilest of her abductors, the one she’d named Scar, who had violently assaulted her on multiple occasions. She couldn’t bear the thought that her sweet boy was the byproduct of one of those brutal encounters and it nagged her on occasion. She had tried to piece together what had happened and when, but she had lost all track of time, days, and dates during captivity. And to further complicate matters, the Indians had no concept of time and there were too many missing fragments to construct the exact sequence of events.

At the time of Simon’s birth and her release, most of the male Indians had been away from camp for many months and she had no idea if any of her tormentors knew she had been pregnant much less that she had delivered a healthy baby boy. Despite that, she lived with the constant worry that the Indians might one day discover Simon’s Comanche heritage. She knew kinship was strong among the Indians and she had no doubt they would try to lure Simon into their clutches if they were ever made aware of his existence.

Hearing the sound of approaching horses, Emma reached for the rifle, pulled it onto her lap, and cocked the hammer. A few seconds later a couple of riders rode by and she could tell from their silhouettes that it was a couple of ranch hands who were on their way to the bunkhouse. Emma eased the hammer down and leaned back in her chair.

Sometimes she felt as if she were cursed. Finally, after years of shying away from the touch of another man, she had found one who would have accepted her for who she was—a damaged and scarred Indian captive trying to find her way in the world. She had thought her life had taken a turn for the better when she ever so slowly warmed to a cowboy who had refused to take no for an answer. Joe Anglin, who had ridden for the Waggoner’s Triple-D, had started a slow, gentle, months-long courtship with Emma, which finally led to her dropping her guard just enough to let him get close to her, to touch her, to kiss her. As they began to contemplate a future together, Emma’s bad luck intervened again, and Joe had died after being thrown from his horse. Instead of planning a future, Emma found herself planning a funeral and, after that, turned her attention from men to horses in hopes of improving the ranch’s equine bloodlines.

Tired of thinking and suddenly craving a cup of coffee, Emma stood and walked out far enough to get a glimpse of her grandmother’s house and saw a lit lantern through the kitchen window. She walked back to grab her rifle and headed for her grandmother’s.

Emma crossed the back porch and tapped lightly on the door before pushing it open. Her grandmother was sitting at the kitchen table while her cook, which she’d refused forever, puttered around in the kitchen. Her grandmother looked up and smiled when Emma entered. “Still totin’ a gun, I see,” Frances said as she pulled out a chair for Emma.

Emma propped her rifle against the wall and sat as the cook, a thin-framed, middle-aged Mexican woman named Maria Garcia, placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. “Gracias, Maria,” Emma said.

Maria rubbed Emma on the shoulder and said, “ De nada,” before returning to the stove.

Frances took a sip from her cup, swallowed, and said, “You look pale. Another nightmare?”

Emma lifted her cup and blew on it to cool it then took a tiny sip. “Yes. Will they ever stop?”

“They will when you die. Don’t know much about between then and now, though. Have they tapered off over the years?”

“Some. I can go long spells without one, but then something’ll trigger them to start up again.”

“What’s usually the trigger?” Frances asked. “Does just seein’ an Indian bring it all back?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Well, answer me this, then. Do you see the same images, say, faces, in your nightmares or is everything blurry?”

“Some of both, but definitely a face or two. The meanest one I called Scar, for sure, and the chief, of course.”

“Have you thought about reporting their abuses to the Indian agent?”

“No,” Emma said. “I’m not sure it would do any good after all this time. Besides, it’d just be my word against theirs.”

Frances wanted to say there was living proof back at Emma’s house, but she didn’t. It wasn’t Simon’s fault that Emma had been abused, and everyone in the family loved the boy dearly. “I don’t know. There’re all types of people filing claims for Indian depredations back in the day. Seems like you ought to be able to report a crime and have the government do something about it.”

“I don’t know that I want to relive all of that.”

Frances turned and looked her granddaughter in the eye. “Why not? You’re relivin’ it just about every night as it is.”

Frances remained seated as she watched her granddaughter depart a while later, a wave of sadness and remorse washing over her. Emma, a beautiful, red-haired young woman in the prime of her life, had suffered enough grief and sadness to fill a half a dozen lifetimes. And it saddened Frances that Emma didn’t have what other women her age had—a brood of babies and an adoring husband. Joe’s death, after the many struggles Emma had endured to fit back into a normal life, had snuffed any remaining light in her granddaughter’s eyes.

Back in those days the return of an Indian captive had been big news and Emma’s return, especially with a child, had been splashed across the front pages of newspapers all across the country, despite the family’s best attempts to shelter her. Because of that, Frances had tried to steer Emma and Simon away from the ranch many times, but to no avail. Her thinking had been that life would have been much easier for both of them if they could have escaped to somewhere their pasts couldn’t follow—a place far removed from the constant reminder of the Comanches’ continued existence just across the river. But Emma had refused all of Frances’s offers of financial support and had planted her roots deeper into the sandy soil of the Rocking R, much to her grandmother’s chagrin.

Frances sighed, pushed back her chair, and stood. After stepping over to the stove to top off her coffee, she asked Maria how long until breakfast then shuffled out to the front porch and sagged into one of the rocking chairs. The eastern sky was awash with the light of the coming dawn, painting the underside of the clouds a pink-purplish hue. At seventy-four, Frances didn’t know how many sunrises were left in her future nor did she spend much time contemplating such things. A practical woman, she had always taken life as it came and her only regret was that her husband of forty years, Cyrus, wasn’t there to greet a new day with her. Gone ten years now, Cyrus had died far from home during the long, fruitless search for the savages who had taken Emma. It was just one more reason she wanted to see the Comanches punished for what they’d done.

Her oldest son, Percy, now ran all the ranch operations, relegating Frances to the role of interested observer. Which was fine with her. Although still relatively healthy, she didn’t want to be bothered by the day-to-day operation of a busy ranch that now stretched over ninety square miles. Percy had added to the ranch over the years until the homesteaders had crowded in all around them, severing any hope for expanding the ranch any further. The world was changing so quickly, Frances was having a hard time keeping up.

A train ride to the world was now as close as Wichita Falls, eight miles away. The Pony Express had come and gone as had the stage lines that had once ferried people across great swaths of the country on trips that had taken weeks to complete. Now there was no stopping to trade out tired horses, only to take on water or coal to keep the trains chugging along day and night. Frances had read somewhere that she could get on a train in New York City and step off in San Francisco only a few days later. That same trip, which would have taken most of a year only fifteen years ago, was now possible within a single week. It seemed unfathomable to Frances and, being a curious person, she wondered what else was coming down the pike. Not that she’d be there to see these things, and that depressed her some because there had more changes in the last ten years than at any point in her life. Frances drank her coffee and watched the sun rise for a few minutes before heading back inside to eat some breakfast.

Maria was at the table and already eating when Frances entered. She refreshed her coffee and grabbed a plate. Not particularly hungry, she opted for a single biscuit, two pieces of bacon, and a spoonful of scrambled eggs before taking a seat at the table. “Maria, you done much train travelin’?”

“Some,” Maria said. “We took train to El Paso then another into Mexico to see mi madre y padre.”

“How was it?”

“Is good.”

“Much quicker than a horse or wagon, huh?”

“Sí. Mucho.”

“How were the accommodations?”

Maria cocked her head to the side and said, “¿ Qué?”

“Were you comfortable during your travels?”

Maria nodded. “Sí. You take train?”

Frances broke off a chunk of biscuit, put it in her mouth, and started chewing as she pondered that question. After a couple of moments, she swallowed and said, “Maybe.” Why not go? Take Emma and Simo. . .