Free Ambush Valley by Dusty Richards Page A

“Marge, should I bring my sister and the others or will you invite them?”
    â€œOh, I’ll invite them.”
    â€œThere is my sister Susie, my sister-in-law May, and my Aunt Louise. May probably won’t come; she has a baby daughter about a year and half. Oh, and Millie, my foreman’s wife.”
    â€œCome inside. Wait there a minute, I think Raphael is coming to check on your horse.”
    She stepped out to the edge of the porch. “Yes, put his horse up, he’s staying for supper.”
    â€œHe don’t need to be unsaddled, partner.”
    â€œYes he does,” she said. “Never mind him.”
    The man waved and led the horse away. Chet shook his head. “Will he be your next foreman?”
    She frowned at him. “That is my father’s decision.”
    â€œCome on Marge. Will he make him foreman?”
    â€œAre you on his side too?”
    â€œHe’s a good guy. He’d get the job done.”
    â€œI guess if anyone else is hired, I’ll lose you and Monica both.” Then she laughed and drove him inside.
    Once in the living room, she put him on the couch and then went over to a fresh stack of newspapers beside a Morris chair and soon came back with a paper. “I had them stacked for him to read when he gets back from California.”
    â€œGet ready for a shock then. He showed that to me when I got to his office.”
    â€œThe one about the Phantom?” she asked, and reading away, she dropped on the couch holding the paper in her hands.
    â€œThat’s the one.”
    â€œOh my gosh, Chet. You never told me this.”
    â€œI’ve never told you anything but the truth. I know that is grim but we live in a grim time. Those four men ambushed two of your people. They raped a poor rancher’s wife. A dear person who lived all alone, her husband works away at a mine. They obviously took turns on her.”
    â€œRaphael told me about the woman he thought would have shot you.” She went on reading. “He never mentioned what they did to her.”
    â€œNo one wanted to talk about it. She probably only told me and him. Then they beat up the next rancher with two of his small children watching them and his wife too.”
    â€œMy two men were already dead, weren’t they?”
    â€œYes. Those two would have escaped on that rancher’s horses if I hadn’t tracked them down. I expected Roamer to show up. All the way over to Rye. The sheriff never sent him. He sent some desk men and anyone knows those kind of posses are good for less than two days. They went back.”
    She put down the paper to look at him. “This is why Raphael was so upset when he got back. He said, the deputy would not let him ride to help you. I never understood why? He didn’t either, and about cried over it when he got back. Said he knew you needed him.”
    â€œWe may never know.”
    â€œNo. The deputy told him that you were a fool and were no doubt dead too by that time.”
    She folded the paper and replaced it. “Oh, Chet, I am so sorry. You had no one to help you?”
    â€œThere are some things that simply fall in your lap and they must be handled. I could not personally let those two killers and rapists ride on for what they’d do again.”
    She sat on the sofa and held his head. Her wet eyes made him sad. But she knew what he had to do. Knew what her foreman felt when the deputy told him, “That man’s dead.”
    â€œDid you meet the writer?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. There were many people at a distance on the bank of that dry wash. I wanted to scream for them to go away. I would have had to shoot at them to get them to leave. So I ignored them. None came over or even offered a hand. It was a grueling time for me.”
    â€œWhat did you think?”
    â€œI can’t recall I thought of anything but getting it over. That kid was eighteen. He knew better. No telling the