Incident in San Francisco

CHAPTER 25.

The pasture where Monty’s horse, Buck, stayed was next to the barn. With the curiosity common to domestic animals, Buck had come to the gate when he heard the commotion around the truck and trailer. He had his head over the gate, watching as the truck started, lurched ahead, stopped, and finally started up and drove out of the yard. He was starting to lose interest and had turned to go back to grazing, when Monty ran from the barn, a hackamore in his hand.

Monty unlatched the gate, slipped the braided rawhide nosepiece over Buck’s nose and the earpiece over his ears, then ran back to the barn, pulling his horse along by the reins. Buck came willingly, but he couldn’t understand why he was being taken from his pasture in the middle of the night. He was even more surprised when Monty tossed a Navajo-pattern saddle blanket on his back.

Normally, Monty was very careful about every step in saddling his horse. The saddle blanket would be smoothed down so that it had no wrinkles, then slid an inch toward the tail in the direction in which the hair lay on the horse’s back. Any roughness under the 50-pound Western saddle and 180-pound cowboy could cause a saddle sore that would keep Buck out of commission until it healed. But tonight was an emergency, and Monty did this initial step faster than he ever had in his life. Grabbing up the saddle from the sawhorse where it rested, left hand on the saddle horn and right hand on the cantle, he swung it onto Buck’s back and immediately reached under the horse’s belly to grab the latigo strap attached to the cinch.

Monty had been saddling horses since he was a young boy, and the actions were automatic. Pass the latigo up through the heavy metal D-ring on the saddle, feeding it from the back. Then down through the ring on the cinch, back up behind the first loop of leather strap and again through the saddle D-ring. Pull on it to take out any slack, and make it tight enough to ensure that the saddle wouldn’t slip on a hard ride. Then make a smooth half-knot in the strap to secure it, flat so the rider’s leg wouldn’t chafe on the knot.

That was the procedure Monty had followed for years. But never had he done it with such speed and urgency as now. Normally, this could be done in a leisurely fashion, with more attention paid to accuracy than speed. No cowboy wanted to endure an accident, or embarrassment, due to a flaw in his rigging.

The fastest saddling he’d ever done completed, Monty grabbed his rifle from the corner of he barn where he’d left it when he headed for San Francisco. He tossed the reins over Buck’s head, holding those and the saddle horn in his left hand. With his left foot in the stirrup, he swung into the saddle, the rifle in his right hand. He clapped his heels on Buck’s side, and the pressure of the reins on Buck’s neck told him to head out the main gate and across the road.

Cattle naturally ate the grass down on the flatland first, but as soon as the choicest feed was gone, they started ambling up the slopes. The range of low hills started just on the other side of the ranch road, and it was toward these that the horse and rider headed. When the cattle came back down to the river to drink, they always took the path of least resistance. As they grazed higher and higher on the hills, they used the same easy path to go down to drink or rest, and then to return to graze. Over the years, hundreds of hooves had trod this same path, so that it was now a smooth and wide route up through the hills. Guided to the bottom of this trail, Buck now understood that that was where he was to go, although he still had no idea why. Nor did he understand why his master was urging him to run as fast as he could.

Work on horse back around the ranch was normally done at a walk or trot, when checking fences or the condition of feed. When the work was over, if Buck didn’t seem tired, Monty enjoyed having him canter back to the barn for his oats. It was only when gathering cattle that Buck would break into a gallop, if he was trying to run down and turn a stray determined to leave the herd. But tonight, the only pace was a flat-out gallop as Buck sensed that his rider had some very urgent reason to be charging up the path through the hills.

The hills were dotted with the softly rounded shapes of oak trees, and some were close enough to the trail to cast black shadows onto the path. This wasn’t the first time the horse and rider had been up this trail, and Buck didn’t slow his charge for anything. They crested the ridge through a saddle between two hills, and continued the rush down the other side. At the base of the hill, the trail petered out and the pair headed across a flatter plain at a breakneck speed. In the moonlight, Monty could see in the distance the barbed-wire fence marking the perimeter of his property.

When they reached the boundary, Monty turned Buck to run parallel to the fence .Shortly, he reached the point he was looking for and reined Buck in to a sliding stop. He leapt off the horse and stood his rifle against a fence post. His objective was a simple ranch fence gate, put here in case either owner need to go onto the other’s property to return strays. The gate matched the fence, with 3 strands of barbed wire attached to one post. The other ends of the wire were attached to a short pole. It was held in place with its top and bottom ends each snugged into a loop of wire attached to the next fence post.

Monty grabbed the pole at the top and shoved it towards the fixed post, loosening it enough to slip the top loop off. He then yanked the bottom free and tossed the gate to the side. He snatched up the rifle and swung into the saddle again. Buck was almost in a crouch with his hind legs under him, quivering with excitement. The moment Monty had his feet in the stirrups, Buck sprang through the opening and hit a full gallop. Monty didn’t give a thought to the fact that he’d just broken the cardinal rule of country living: you leave a gate the way you found it. If it’s open, you leave it open. If it’s closed, after you pass through, you close it again. But he knew that in an emergency like this, neighbors would be more than happy to saddle up and help round up and separate cattle, if any went through the gap and mixed with the other herd.

There was a note of desperation in Monty’s voice now as he urged Buck on, heading him toward the far corner of this pasture. Over the pounding of hooves on the hard ground, and over the pounding of blood in his head, Monty could hear a familiar sound. It was the deep rumble of his truck’s exhaust, the sound carrying through the still night air even though the truck was on the other side of the ridge. The sound rose and fell as Ranny picked his way along the narrow, unfamiliar road, curves to the left followed by curves to the right, but the sound was getting nearer.

When Monty finally reached the corner of the field, where the ranch road butted up against the wider county highway, he again brought Buck to a sliding stop and leapt out of the saddle. He dropped the reins over Buck’s head: trained to ground-tie, the horse would stay there until his master picked up the reins again. The fence was too high to step over, even with Monty’s long legs, so he passed the rifle through between the top 2 strands of wire. Bending at the waist, he followed that arm with his leg, and slid his body through. He heard a ripping noise and felt a stab of pain as the sharp end of a barb dug into his back, but he had no time to worry about a torn shirt or a scratched back. He got through the fence and raced across the road to the other side.

The road here had been cut though a small hill, and the embankment was about 8 feet high. The heels on his cowboy boots helped give him traction in the loose dirt as he scrambled up the bank. On top, there were clumps of chaparral, and Monty threw himself down behind one a little to the left side of the ranch road facing him. He slid the rifle though long grass, parting the grass enough to see clearly through the rifle’s scope. He was frantic in his movements now, because he saw trees along the ranch road illuminated now by the headlights of the pickup truck – it had finished the winding section and was now turning onto the straight stretch leading to the county highway.

Monty hastily turned the knurled ring on the back of the scope to set the magnification at 9X, the highest setting. Then he made the adjustment on the other end of the scope to set the range at it lowest distance setting. Quickly, he swung the gun to the left to center it on the back of the stop sign on the other side of the highway. Used to sighting through the scope at distances more like 200 yards than 50 feet, he was startled to see that the sign filled the scope and looked to be right in front of his face. He could see clearly every thread on the bolts holding the sign to its post. Then he swung the gun toward the oncoming truck, thankful that his elevated position kept the headlights from shining in his eyes.

The moon had dropped low in the western sky now, so that it shone more directly into the cab of the truck and lit up its two passengers from the neck down . Through the powerful scope, Monty could see Laura pressed against the passenger’s door, staying as far away from the driver as possible. When he shifted the gun to the right, the scope was centered on Laura’s kidnapper. Monty had shot dozens of wild pigs by moonlight, and had shot other varmints when he felt they needed to be weeded out. But he had never shot a human being, nor had he ever considered that he might one day be considering whether or not to do so. Then he remembered how roughly the man had been handling Laura, and how he was planning to take her to Mexico.

Monty was sure of his shooting ability, but he was wondering whether or not the truck’s driver, used to city driving, would automatically stop at the stop sign, or at least, do a rolling stop. Or since he seemed unused to a stick shift, perhaps he would come to a stop to gear down before he turned onto the main road. While waiting to see what might happen, Monty centered the scope’s crosshairs on the right shoulder of the truck’s driver and held it there.

Laura had been in a state of shock ever since the truck had been driven out of the ranch yard. She knew Monty had not had time to get to his gun at the barn, and she hadn’t seen or heard him since he disappeared up into the attic. Now her kidnapper, who had already killed 3 people, was about to drive onto the main highway and head south to Mexico, taking her with him.

Suddenly, a loud explosion tore the night air. She thought she saw a flash of fire from the top of the embankment straight ahead, and the windshield shattered into a thousand cracked pieces, a hole appearing on the driver’s side. The driver screamed as his right shoulder was driven back into the seat, and his foot slipped off the clutch he’d pushed in to downshift as his other foot in a reflex action pushed down the gas pedal. The truck shot across the highway and stalled with its crumpled grill embedded in the embankment. Blood started running down Ranny’s shoulder which had been stuck by a heavy bullet more normally used to knock down a 400-pound wild boar.

Before Laura could begin to sort out what had just happened, she saw Monty leap from the embankment onto the hood of his truck, then down to the ground beside the driver’s door. He ripped the door open and grabbed the M-16 from between Ranny’s legs, throwing it in the ditch back behind himself. Then he grabbed Ranny by the left arm and hauled him out of the seat, slamming him roughly against the truck. He held the moaning man there with one hand while he fished the handguns out of the pockets of Ranny’s long black duster. He stuck his own .357 magnum in his belt and slid the .38 across the seat to Laura.

“Laura, can you come around here and give me a hand?” he asked.

Laura was barely able to keep her voice steady as she answered, “Sure, Monty, but you’ll have to untie my hands first”.

She unlocked the truck, opened the door, and got out carefully, worried that with her hands tied she might not be able to catch herself if she fell getting down from the high truck seat. But she made it, and by the time she got around to Monty her legs had stopped shaking. Monty quickly united her hands, then pulled off Ranny’s coat. He used the same rope to tie Ranny’s left arm to his side. His right arm hung down uselessly from his torn-up shoulder. Monty then lowered the wounded man down onto the grass at the shoulder of the road, and said “I guess we’d better try to stop the bleeding. Not that I’d care if he bled to death, but we’d probably be in trouble if we let that happen”. He used his strength, and his anger at the situation this man had put them in, to rip one of the sleeves off the coat to use as a tourniquet.

“Laura, can you check the coat pockets and see if you can find the cell phone he took from you? There might be a signal out here, and you could call 911” Monty requested.

With an expression of distaste at handling anything belonging to that man, Laura dug through the many pockets and found her small cell phone. Showing the initiative Monty had admired before, she scrambled up the embankment to be on higher ground, and tried the call. The signal was very faint but at least it was present, and to her relief someone answered her call. She reported that there had been a shooting and someone was hurt, and they needed police and an ambulance. She turned and called down to Monty, “Monty, where are we located here? They want to know”.

“Just tell them we’re where Peachtree Valley Road meets the main highway – they’ll know where that is”, replied Monty.

Laura finished her call and slid down the bank to join Monty where he was doing a crude bandaging job on the man he’d shot.

“They said they should be here in about 20 minutes. Now, tell me – how in the world did you get here to save me?”, Laura exclaimed to Monty.

CHAPTER 26.

Monty had finished the temporary doctoring of Ranny’s wound. “There’s your answer to how I got here, right over there” he laughed, pointing to Buck standing patiently in the corner of the pasture, across the road behind the fence. At the noise of the shooting and the crash of the truck when it hit the embankment, Buck had snorted and thrown his head, but he was standing right where Monty had left him.

Laura looked through the hazy moonlight at the big buckskin horse standing where Monty pointed, and she understood. “But how did you get ahead of us? We never saw you anywhere”.

“We cut across the hills and fields. Almost in a straight line, while you were driving that twisty road along on the far side of the hills. But it’s all due to Buck”, Monty praised. “He’s never in his life had to run that fast, that far, and he really came through when it counted. I’m so glad we got here in time”.

“You’re so glad?” Laura exclaimed. “I thought I’d die when he called you to look at a map, and you’d disappeared into the attic. I knew you didn’t have time to make it to the barn when he took me to the truck, and I didn’t know how you could help except by calling the police. I thought I was on the way to Mexico with him”.

“I just made it to the big oak tree when you came out on the porch, and I had to hide behind it. You passed within about 15 feet of me, but with his gun at your head, I couldn’t do anything, which just killed me,” Monty explained, “and my delaying tactic with the trailer hitch didn’t help any, either. But the moment he moved the truck so the lights weren’t on me, I got to the barn, saddled Buck, and he got me here on time, thank god”.

“Well, I owe both you and Buck a tremendous deal of thanks for that heroic ride, and what you did here. When that shot shattered the windshield, my first thought was that his gun had gone off inside the truck, but I saw the flame from your gun and saw him knocked back, so I knew he’d been shot”, Laura said. “I couldn’t imagine who had shot him, and when you jumped down and pulled him out of the truck, I could hardly believe my eyes. I had no idea you could possibly get here so fast – I thought you’d still be back at the ranch, phoning the police”.

“I’m sure glad your cell phone worked here, otherwise I’d have had to ride Buck back to the ranch to call this in”, Monty said. “And it sounds like they got your message, because if you listen carefully, you can hear the sirens already. They have quite a piece to come, but this kind of excitement happens so rarely out here that I’m sure they’ll be driving as fast as they can on these roads. If you want to hold a gun on this guy, I’ll go up the road a little way to flag them down since the truck is blocking the road and they may be really flying”.

“He doesn’t look like he’s up to doing much” Laura said, looking at the pale face of the man on the ground,, shivering from shock. “But I’ve never handled a gun, Monty, so it’s better if you keep an eye on him and I’ll go flag them down.”

“Okay, just stand well clear of the roadway so they don’t run you down”, Monty advised. “I know some of those boys, and they’re wild drivers when they have an excuse”.

So Laura went down the road about 40 yards, on the side towards town, and before too long the sirens grew louder and louder, and she could see the reflection of red and blue flashing lights in the night sky. Then they appeared, two sheriffs’ cruisers first, then an ambulance, and Laura waved her arms frantically to slow them down before they reached the intersection. When they had passed, braking to a stop, she trotted back too to be where the action was.

“Hi, Monty. Your truck looks like it was in an accident, but the woman who called said there’d been a shooting. So what have we got here?” asked the sheriff, who had been driving the first car.

“What you’ve got is the man responsible for the shooting at the Cow Palace earlier tonight, if you’ve heard about that” replied Monty, shaking the sheriff’s hand.

“Heard about it?” exclaimed the sheriff. “There’s been nothing else on the radio all night. There’s a huge manhunt on right now all over the state, because they think they’ve identified the man who did it. And you say this is that man?”

“I guess we’re supposed to say “allegedly” this is the man, but we were right in the building at the Cow Palace when he rushed out and forced us to take him out in the front compartment of my stock trailer, and he held a gun on us until we brought him here” Monty explained.

“So how come he’s shot?” the sheriff questioned.

“Well, that’s a long story” Monty said. “First, let me make the introductions. Sheriff, this is Laura, out here from Montreal on a business trip and getting more excitement than she’d planned on. Laura, meet Sheriff Williams, the man who keeps things lawful out here in the country”.

“Pleased to meet you, Laura” said the sheriff, shaking her hand and tipping his Stetson. “This must be a pretty good story. Why don’t you give me the highlights?”

Laura laughed. “It’s a pretty amazing story. Like Monty said, he held a gun on us all the way down here, then locked us in a room in the house. Monty got out through the attic to get his rifle from the barn, but this guy found he’d gone so he took me as hostage in the truck. I thought I was on my way to Mexico when we reached the highway here, but Monty showed up ahead of us on his horse, and shot this murderer to stop him.” She paused. “But is Monty going to be in trouble for shooting him?” Laura asked anxiously.

The sheriff laughed. “If he’d done this in San Francisco, maybe, but out here, he’ll get a medal instead of getting in trouble. There will have to be a hearing, but I’d bet anything that the judge will be giving him a commendation, not any penalty. If Monty gets in trouble over this, I’ll eat my hat”.

Monty turned to Laura and chuckled, “If you knew how much the sheriff loves that big white Stetson of his, you’d know that’s a solid bet”.

The sheriff turned serious. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go ride herd on my deputies and see that we do everything by the book – we sure don’t want this guy getting off because some defense lawyer claims we screwed up. But I do need you both to come into town to give a complete statement. Looks like your truck is out of commission, Monty, so I can give you two a lift to town when I get things cleaned up here”.

“Well, I need to get my horse back home” Monty said. “I can ride him there, and maybe you can bring Laura over to the place and pick me up when you’re done here”.

“Sounds good”, agreed the sheriff. “It will probably take another half hour to wrap things up here, so that gives you lots of time to ride back to your place. Sorry you had your visit to California spoiled by something like this, Laura, but I’m glad you had Monty on your side –he’s a good man. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back sometime in the next year or so for this murder trial, because you were pretty involved, but I hope that trip won’t be as eventful. Now I’ve really got to go check on things if we’re to get out of here before morning”.

The sheriff left, and the young couple stood together for a few minutes just watching all the activity. Paramedics had strapped Ranny to a stretcher and were loading him into the ambulance. A deputy stood nearby, ready to accompany the prisoner to the hospital. Another deputy had donned plastic gloves and was securing the M-16 and .38. Still another was busy photographing the scene, shooting the truck exterior and interior from different angles. Two black and white California Highway Patrol cars had rolled up, and those officers were directing a tow truck driver to tow Monty’s truck into town, once the photographer was satisfied. The sheriff was checking on everything, seeing that proper procedures were followed and trying to get everything done as quickly as possible so the roadway could be cleared.

Monty turned to Laura. “Well, Laura, the sheriff said it – you really got a lot more out of this trip than you’d bargained for”.

Laura sighed, “Yes, I could never have imagined that my business trip to San Francisco would have turned out this way. But since you made it have a happy ending, although a very stressful and exciting ending, I’m actually finding that I rather enjoyed it, now that it’s over. And don’t feel that you dragged me into it – I just loved the rodeo, and getting to learn so much about a lifestyle I was totally unfamiliar with. You were a great guide, Monty – I couldn’t have asked for better”.

Monty was feeling nervous again, but he was pumped up from the experience of facing such a dangerous situation and pulling off the rescue so successfully. He said hesitantly, “I really, really enjoyed getting to know you too, Laura. You are a wonderful woman, and life is going to seem awfully dull and lonely here when you’re gone. It may be years until you have to come back for the trial, the way the legal system moves here”.

Laura, in her turn, was also nervous with what she was about to say, but the same dangerous experience she’d just gone through also gave her courage. “I don’t know if you feel the same way about this as I do, Monty, but even though we only met about 30 hours ago, with all we’ve been through and all the talking we did, I feel as if I’ve known you for years. I don’t want to wait for such a long time to see you again. I have a couple of weeks vacation coming this year. It will take me a couple of weeks to clear things up at work. Then, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to come back out here and spend more time and see if we still feel the same about each other”.

“Of course it’s all right with me, Laura!” Monty exclaimed his face changing from the somber expression it had worn when he thought about her leaving, to one of unbridled joy. ”I’d just love having you back here and showing you life on the ranch. Based on how you handled moving and loading those bulls last night, you’ll do just fine”.

Then he plunged in. “And I feel like I’ve known you for years, too, Laura. It’s probably too much to hope for, but I’d like to think that if you find you like the ranch life when you come back, just maybe you’ll consider spending the rest of your life here as my wife”.

Laura didn’t bother with words for an answer. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, long and passionately. Monty wrapped his arms around her, and returned the kiss.

It was the second kiss of the evening, and the second since they had met.