Chapter 6 - Ambushed
Jack rode his horse past the long parade of cattle moving south. They'd made good time so far the last two days and despite the clouds forming to the west, he figured their luck would continue to hold at least until they got into Kansas. But one worry had nothing to do with the weather. Try as he might he couldn't get his mind to forget about it.
At the rear of the herd several men on horseback kept the slower cattle from getting too far behind. Jack turned his ride to come alongside one of those men.
"How you holding up?"
Hank Evans gave a smug grin. "The dust and smells are so enjoyable."
"Not much I can do about that," Jack said. "You notice anyone following the drive?"
Hank smiled and shook his head. "So I'm not just back here because I'm a new man."
Jack chuckled. "These boys can hardly keep track of the cattle let alone anyone who might be following." He looked at Hank. "That comes naturally to you."
Hank nodded. "So far, I haven't seen anyone."
Jack lost himself in thought.
"So you're taking this ambush thing seriously?" Hank asked.
"I'm not one to turn my back on good fortune. I get so little of it to begin with."
"I think you get far more than you realize, Jack."
Jack's eyes brightened a little. "I suppose someday I'll admit to that."
"Probably too late for it to do you any damn good," Hank replied with a snort.
They rode along, keeping up with the herd. The other drag riders tried to appear busy in front of the man who paid their wages.
"You said you worked for this Prange fellow for a while?"
"About a year."
"Did he help you start your ranch?"
"No," Jack chuckled. "John's a lot of things, but he's not generally a fool. The last thing he needed was another cattleman in the area." He waved at a couple of the other riders passing by. "I'd saved up a good sum working for John and when I set out on my own a man named Abel Pierce staked me for two hundred head of cattle. He'd lost a lot of money due to disease spreading through herds in Texas and he wanted something to fall back on in case it ever turned real bad."
"So he owns your ranch?" Hank asked.
"No, I own it outright," Jack stated. "Abel gets five percent off every head I sell until I've paid him back with interest."
"Sounds like a nice arrangement." Hank looked over at Jack and grinned.
"What?"
"For a man who had trouble figuring out the economy on Antenora you've done quite well here."
"I find I become extremely motivated when my belly's empty."
"You really like it here, don't you?"
Jack couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face. "The past five years have been the best of my life, Hank. I've built something to be proud of here."
"I can understand how you wouldn't want to give it up."
"Would you?"
"I gave up something similar once, and I've regretted it ever since."
"I hope you and Mei find a way to get back."
Hank laughed. "Oh, I think I could adjust if we stayed, but Mei, she's a different story."
"She's changed, Hank," Jack said. His thoughts drifted off for a moment. "I can't place my finger on it, but there's something about her that's very different from before."
"Hard choices will do that to a person," Hank said, with a touch of sorrow in his voice. "The right choices most of all."
A distant clap of thunder caught Jack's attention. "I better go find Jedediah before those clouds get nearer."
"Trouble?"
Jack smiled. "Actually, it may give me the breathing space I've been looking for." He gave the reins in his hand a quick snap and his horse took off.
***
Two hours later, the cattle drive had set up camp near a ridge of grassy hills to the southeast. The distant storm clouds had moved upon them and delivered a steady rainfall upon man and beast.
Jack and Hank stood under a hastily erected tent which did its best to keep them dry as they ate servings of pork and beans.
"Here comes your man and he doesn't look happy."
"I didn't expect he would be," Jack said as he swallowed the morsel in his mouth.
"You are going to drive me to madness or an early grave, Jack McCall!" Jedediah said, wearing a too big raincoat. "This will pass in another two hours!"
"I thought it best to stop for the day," Jack told him.
"Damn it, Jack!" he shouted, pulling his hat off and shaking the rain from it as he came under the tent. "You hired me to be your range boss. Why not let me do my job?!"
"I am."
"You damn well know we could get another three hours out of the day once this rain has stopped!"
Mei-Wan walked up with a covered tray in her arms. She removed the cover and offered a plate of steaming food to Jedediah.
"Thank you ma'am," he said, his mood lightening.
"You're welcome," Mei-Wan told him.
Jack grinned at her, wondering why she had agreed to continue helping out with the cooking on the drive. He had told her it wasn't necessary, but she had insisted.
Jack took another forkful off his own plate. "I have it on good authority that Chester Prange is going to try and ambush us."
"That snot-nosed, little snake doesn't have the guts to try something like that," Jedediah said between chews.
"I trust the source of the information." Jack gave a quick nod to Mei-Wan. "His best opportunity would be Halston's Gap."
Jedediah ruminated for several seconds. "That sure would be the place to try I suppose."
"If we started up again, we'd be at the Gap just before sunset, leaving the sun in our eyes and giving Chester the advantage."
Jedediah smiled and glanced over at Hank. "He's not near as stupid as he looks, is he?" he asked, pointing to Jack.
Hank chuckled. "Jack's always had this knack for surprising people."
"Okay," Jedediah said, finally understanding what his boss was up to. "So what's the plan? You want me to take some men out there in the middle of the night and take care of Chester?"
"No, we'll ride through in the morning. They'll just figure the rain slowed us down. We'll have the sun at our backs and Chester will want to get as low as he can to keep it out of his eyes."
The range boss nodded. "Forcing him down to near ground level and close by."
"You'll ride out ahead with say ten men and come down the hill at him."
"Boxing the little bastard in!" Jedediah set his plate down. "We should go before dawn."
"I'll leave the details to you."
Jedediah put his hat on and walked back out into the rain.
"Why not just take another path?" Mei-Wan asked. "You could avoid this altogether."
"Chester'd eventually find us," Jack answered. "This way, we can turn the tables and maybe keep a lot of men from getting killed."
"I hope you know what you're doing, Jack."
"I do too," he said with a smile.
***
The next morning the herd moved out and began making its way south through a narrow gap in the surrounding hillside. All of the hands had been told to expect trouble, but to act as normal as they could.
Mei-Wan sat next to Crawfish Jake at the front of the chuckwagon. She found it difficult not to look for the danger she knew was coming from the surrounding countryside.
"Don't you be to worrying none, Mrs. McCall," Jake said as he kept a gentle hold on the reins. "I've seen Jack and Jedediah pull out of plenty of bad spots."
She smiled and turned to the man she had spent much of the last four days with. She'd enjoyed learning about cooking from him. It kept her mind from obsessing about her time dilemmas.
"Jack can be pretty resourceful," she said. "I just hope he doesn't get himself hurt."
Up ahead, Mei-Wan noticed Jack riding with several other men, Hank Evans among them.
Jack looked up at the surrounding hills as they rode past. On their left, the hills were rocky and steep, but on the right, they rose slowly and were covered with grass. That was where he expected the attack to come from. He just hoped Jedediah had gotten himself and his men into position. The pass through the gap was too narrow for them to turn around. They were going forward or not at all.
A shot rang out.
One of the men riding with Jack fell off his horse.
Everyone scrambled to find what little cover there was.
Several more shots came down from the nearby hill. Jack crawled over to a patch of brush and pulled out his Colt. He peered through the dry grasses, seeking a target.
He'd expected Jedediah to have made his move by this time. Something had obviously gone wrong.
Jack turned as Hank crawled to his position. "You okay?"
"I think I may have twisted my ankle getting off the horse," Hank replied, his own gun at the ready. "I thought this was supposed to go differently."
"Me too," Jack said as a round struck the ground less than ten feet away from them.
"McCall!" a voice called out. "Come on out and fight like a man you no account son of a bitch!"
Jack recognized the voice as belonging to Chester Prange. "You've got a lot of room to talk, Chester!" Jack shouted. "You call an ambush a manly way to fight?"
"No better than you deserve after what you done to my brother!"
Hank pointed toward their left.
Jack gave him a quick nod. Chester's need to insult Jack had worked against him.
Jack and Hank jumped up and fired in the general direction of Chester's voice. They each got off four rounds before they hit the ground again behind a large outcropping of rock; one which got them twenty feet closer to their target.
"Damn you, McCall!" Chester howled.
Silence filled the air for nearly a minute as Jack and Hank tried to come up with their next move.
"All you other men!" Chester yelled. "You can just walk away and no harm will come to you. I only want McCall!"
Jack turned to see all of his men remaining in their positions. He smiled and motioned to a group of five men behind one of the wagons. They nodded in return to Jack.
"This is your last chance to surrender, Chester!" Jack shouted.
"My last chance?! You've lost your mind, McCall!"
Jack stood up enough to aim. He fired at Chester's position. The men behind the wagon took the opportunity to run to Jack's location, firing as they went.
Jack ducked back down behind the rock and reloaded his revolver.
"What do you want us to do, Jack?" one of the new arrivals asked.
"I'd say he's got about fifteen men up there," Jack said.
"That sounds about right."
"I say we..."
Jack was cut off by the sound of intense gunfire from higher up the hill. Jedediah had evidently arrived.
"Let's go!" Jack told the others.
They all rose up and began firing at the hill above. Jack saw Jedediah and his men coming down the rise, firing as they went.
A group of nine men raised their hands and threw down their guns. They'd decided they had lost their advantage.
Three horses came galloping down the hill, heading toward the position Jack and his group held. The riders soared past Jack and his men and turned about, taking aim.
Jack spun about and fired at the lead rider, downing him in one shot. The other two were felled by the men next to Jack.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Mei-Wan leaping off one of the wagons and running his way.
"Jack!" she cried out.
He turned and fired, more out of instinct than anything else. But later, he'd realize the training he'd received at an Academy some five hundred years in the future had paid off.
As the smoke cleared, Jack saw Chester Prange only ten feet away, his gun drawn, aimed at Jack. But Prange stood like an inanimate puppet. A moment later, he fell to the ground as if his strings had been cut. Jack's round had found its target.
Some five feet behind his brother, Horace Prange stared in horror. The last of his siblings lay motionless on the ground, blood draining from a wound to the chest.
Jack noticed the youngest of the Prange boys' gaze shift from his dead brother onto to the man who'd killed him, Jack McCall.
"Don't do anything stupid, Horace."
The young man, no more than a boy really, pulled out his own gun and aimed it directly at Jack. "You killed him! Just like Luther!"
"There's no need for you to join them," Jack said with a steady voice.
Fifteen men took aim on young Prange.
"Just lower the gun," Jack said.
Horace looked around at the men with their guns pointed his way. He began to tremble and lowered his own.
In a flash, Jedediah came up behind the young man and struck him with the butt of his rifle, sending the boy to the ground. "Damn fool!"
Jack walked with a sure stride toward the reeling form of Horace Prange. Jack made a check of his gun to see that it was still loaded.
"Kill him, Jack. Be done with this," Jedediah said, stepping back from the young man at his feet. "There isn't a man here who will blame you for doing what has to be done. If you don't kill him now he'll just come back to get you another day."
Mei-Wan came within five paces of her husband. "Jack, this boy might be the one who changes everything. Let him live. End this now."
Jack watched young Horace Prange lift his horror filled eyes Jack's direction. "Well, Hank? You have anything to say?" Jack asked as he took aim.
Hank Evans glanced from Jack to his target. "I..." he stammered. "I don't know."
"You what?" Jack asked, surprised.
"I'm sorry, Jack. You're going to have to make this choice on your own. I have nothing to give you."
Mei-Wan took one more step toward Jack. "This cycle of revenge solves nothing. You know that."
"This isn't about revenge, Mei." He looked at the gun in his hand. The slightest pressure on the trigger would end the life of a boy he'd once cared about. "Jedediah's right. For the rest of my life, I'll have to worry about him shooting me."
"And if you kill him, then what? John Prange will avenge his death. He'll come after you and all you care about." Mei-Wan stood next to Jack. "Either way, it never ends. The only difference is, you will have killed this boy. You can't make their choices for them. You can only decide how you're going to live." She smiled. "I know you, Jack. You're far better than this. You always have been."
Jack ran all the possibilities through his mind and one he hadn't wanted to consider jumped up and struck him like a rattlesnake. Of all his options, he hated this one the most, but it was the one he couldn't avoid.
He slid his gun back into its holster. "Get up, Horace."
Young Prange stood to his feet, a smile of relief on his fresh face. "Thank you, Jack!"
"Tell your father this ends here. I'm giving him his son back and he can give me my life back."
Horace looked over at his dead brother. "And what about Chester?"
"Chester didn't have to come out here gunning for me," Jack told him. "Just like I didn't have to kill you."
Horace turned and walked back up the hill.
"Jedediah," Jack turned to the old range boss. "Make sure Horace and the others find their horses and have provisions to make it back home."
Jedediah appeared as if he might explode, but he kept quiet and only nodded.
Mei-Wan put her hand on Jack's shoulder. "You've made the right choice, Jack."
He stared at her with a scowl on his face. "Wrong. I made the only choice I could."
Mei-Wan stood, confused by his anger as he walked away.
***
After the cattle drive had cleared the hills surrounding Halston's Gap, they set up camp and had an all around celebration. Jack's mood had lightened and even Jedediah enjoyed himself.
They'd lost no one in the altercation with the Pranges and only four men had been wounded, none severely. Jack considered that entirely too lucky, but decided not to argue it with the Universe.
Jack, Hank, and Jedediah joined several other men under a tent for a rousing game of cards while Mei-Wan and Crawfish Jake worked to cook a special meal for the always hungry men of the McCall cattle drive.
"I still say you should have shot the little bastard, Jack," Jedediah said as he sorted through his cards.
"I disagree."
"You let sentimentality cloud your judgment. You've always been soft on that boy."
"And so what if I have been?" Jack asked as he laid down two cards. "Three years ago, he was a good kid."
"Good kids sometimes grow up to be dangerous men."
Hank looked over at Jack and smiled.
"I still think there'll be hell to pay for it," Jedediah said, still sorting through the hand he held.
"You gonna play those cards or fret over them?" Jack barked.
The others around the game laughed.
Jack saw Mei-Wan standing nearby. "Excuse me for a little while, boys." He stood and walked over to her.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," she told him.
"No problem. I thought you were helping with the cooking?"
"Jake sent me to let you know it was ready."
Jack turned back to the men. "Supper's ready!"
The card game disbanded as everyone made a beeline for the chuckwagon. Everyone but Jack and Mei-Wan.
"I wanted to thank you for today," he said with a wide grin. "I guess it was you who changed history. If you hadn't called out to me, I'd be dead now."
"I was glad I saw him coming," she said. Her face had a sadness Jack hadn't expected. Almost as if Mei-Wan were mourning something.
"What is it?" he asked. "You regret saving my life?"
"No." Mei-Wan forced a smile. "It's just I know the world which won't be now... the people who won't be."
"Every choice eliminates certain possibilities, Mei," he said.
She turned to him. "Someone reminded me of that about a month ago."
"Sounds like a smart guy. Anyone I know?"
"No." She looked up at the sky. "He doesn't exist anymore."
***
Several hours after night had fallen, the camp began to bed down for the night. Jack glided past the wagons and various tents as he did every night, checking to see that everything was in order for his own peace of mind.
Hank walked out of the darkness. "You still up?"
"Old habit."
Hank grinned. "No yacht here though."
Jack laughed. "Don't need one. I've got a whole world."
Hank joined his friend's stroll.
"Look, I know before I disappeared you and I weren't seeing eye to eye very much," Jack said.
"Yeah, I had noticed that."
Jack nodded as they passed a group of cattle. "It seems whenever I've been in real trouble or was lost on some godforsaken hellhole, you've always come looking for me."
"Well, you'll have to admit this hellhole is nice to look at."
Jack smiled and turned to Hank. "It's time I finally thanked you for looking out for me. Not only this time, but all the others too."
Hank's jovial attitude faded and a serious look, almost a sadness came to his eyes. "You're my friend, Jack. From the moment we first met I knew, despite whatever failings you had, that you were a good man and loyal to a fault. That's why you had a crew follow you despite their misgivings." Hank looked out at the camp around them. "And it's why these men follow you."
Hank Evans stared at the ground a moment. "I guess I've always believed you were worth saving even when other people had given up on you."
Jack put his hand on his old friend's shoulder. "That's why I wanted to thank you. It's not often that someone believes in you even when you don't believe in yourself."
The sky above them erupted with a thunder like no one on Earth had ever heard before. Jack and Hank looked up and saw a swirling mass of energy expanding outward.
"I take it things like that don't happen very often around here," Hank said.
"Not ever," Jack said still watching the display in the night sky. He decided it was probably ten to fifteen miles away from their location, but it's size made it appear much closer.
The camp around them began to stir.
"I certainly hope this isn't how the Guardian plans to bring Mei and I back," Hank told him. "It'll be a little hard to explain to the men here."
Jack couldn't take his eyes off the apparition in the sky. "Could be some strange electrical storm I suppose."
Mei-Wan ran up to them. "What is that?" she asked, out of breath.
A moment later, a small metal craft flew out of the convulsing energy. It soared away toward the east.
Jack, Mei-Wan, and Hank stayed focused on it until it stopped with a flash near the distant horizon. Nearly a minute later, a deep, dull rumble filled the air.
"The G'voda ship," Mei-Wan whispered.
"It looked like it crashed in the mountain range about twenty or so miles from here," Jack said.
Mei-Wan gave Hank a serious look. "We need to go."
Jack took hold of her arm. "Go where?"
"Hank and I have to go investigate that ship." She took a moment to calm herself. "Jack, for some reason the Guardian hasn't taken us back yet. I believe it had something to do with the G'voda craft which entered the portal on Folam Six. Now that we know where it is, we have to go."
