the Man from the Broken Hills (1975) Read Free Page B

hundred yards off and in the saddle when she pulled down on that moving rider, and she'd cut his spine in two. They only had their six-shooters and there was Ma with her Spencer, and Barnabas an' me with our Winchesters.
    Where they stood, there wasn't shelter for a newborn calf, whilst we were partly covered by the roll of the hill and some brush. They decided to take a chance on the law, so they dropped their guns.
    We brought them out and hustled them to the nearest jail and then went to the judge. We were a hundred miles from home then, and nobody knew any of us.
    "Cow thieves, eh?" The judge looked from Ma to me. "What you think we should do with 'em?"
    "Hang 'em," Ma said.
    He stared at her, shocked. "Ma'am, there's been no trial."
    "That's your business," Ma said quietly. "You try them. They were caught in the act with five hundred of my cattle."
    "The law must take its course, ma'am," the judge said. "We will hold them for the next session of court. You will have to appear as a witness."
    Ma stood up, and she towered above the judge, although he stood as tall as he was able. "I won't have time to ride back here to testify against a couple of cow thieves," she told him. "And the worst one is still runnin'."
    She walked right down to the jail and to the marshal. "I want my prisoners."
    "Your prisoners? Well, now, ma'am, you--"
    "I brought them in, I'll take them back." She took up the keys from his desk and opened the cell doors while the marshal, having no experience to guide him, stood there jawing at her.
    She rousted them out of their bunks and, when one started to pull on his boots, she said, "You won't need those," and she shoved him through the door.
    "Now, ma'am! You can't do this!" The marshal was protesting. "The judge won't--"
    "I'll handle this my own way. I'm the one who made the complaint. I am withdrawing it. I'm going to turn these men loose."
    "Turn them loose? But you said yourself they were cow thieves!"
    "They are just that, but I haven't the time to go traipsing across the country as a witness, riding a hundred miles back home, then a hundred miles up here and maybe three or four such trips while you bother about points of law. These are my prisoners and I can turn 'em loose if I want."
    She herded them down to the horse corral in their long Johns, where she picked out two rawboned nags with every bone showing. "How much for them?"
    "Ma'am," the dealer shook his head, "I'd not lie to a lady. Those horses got no teeth to speak of, an' both of them are ready for the bone yard."
    "I'll give you ten dollars apiece for them, just as they stand."
    "Taken," he said quickly, "but I warned you, ma'am."
    "You surely did," Ma agreed. Then she turned to the cow thieves, shivering in the chill air. "You boys git up on those horses .. .git !"
    They caught mane-holts and climbed aboard. The backbones on those old crow-baits stood up like the tops of a rail fence.
    She escorted them out of town to the edge of the Red Desert. We rode a mite further and then she pulled up. "You boys steal other folks' cows, but we ain't a going to hang you ... not this time. What we're goin' to do is give you a runnin' start.
    "Now my boys an' me, we got rifles. We ain't goin' to start shootin' until you're three hundred yards off. So my advice is to dust out of here."
    "Ma'am," the short one with the red face pleaded, "these horses ain't fit to ride! Let us have our pants, anyway! Or a saddle! Those backbones would cut a man in two, an'--"
    "Two hundred and fifty yards, boys. And if he talks any more, one hundred yards!"
    They taken out.
    Ma let them go a good four hundred yards before she fired a shot, and she aimed high. That old Spencer bellowed, and those two gents rode off into the Red Desert barefooted and in their underwear on those raw-backed horses, and I didn't envy them none a-tall.
    That was Ma, all right. She was kindly, but firm.

    Chapter 3
    We drove our cattle home, but Ma never forgave or forgot the man we knew as