The Floating Outfit 17 Read online

  Appendix Two

  Raven Head, only daughter of Chief Long Walker, war leader of the Pehnane—Wasp, Quick Stinger, Raider—Comanches’ Dog Soldier lodge and his French Creole pairaivo, 70 married an Irish Kentuckian adventurer, Sam Ysabel, but died giving birth to their first child. Baptized ‘Loncey Dalton’, the boy was raised after the fashion of the Nemenuh. 71 With his father away upon the family’s combined business of mustanging—catching, breaking wild horses 72 and smuggling, his education was left largely in the hands of his maternal grandfather. 73 From Long Walker, he learned all those things a Comanche warrior must know: how to ride the wildest freshly caught mustang, or make a trained animal subservient to his will when ‘raiding’—a polite name for the favorite pastime of the male Nemenuh, stealing horses—to follow the faintest tracks and just as effectively conceal signs of his own passing; to locate hidden enemies, or to keep out of sight himself should the need arise; to know the ways of wild animals and, in some cases, imitate their calls so even others of their own kind might be fooled. 74

  The boy proved himself an excellent pupil in each subject. He had inherited his father’s Kentuckian skill at rifle shooting and, while not real fast on the draw—taking slightly over a second to bring out and fire his weapon, whereas a top hand could practically halve that time—he performed passably with his Colt Second Model Dragoon revolver. He had won his Pehnane man-name, Cuchilo—Spanish for ‘Knife’—by his exceptional skill at wielding one. It was claimed by those who were best qualified to know that he would equal the alleged designer in performing with the massive, clip pointed type of blade which bore Colonel James Bowie’s name. 75

  Joining his father on smuggling expeditions along the Rio Grande, the boy had become known to the Mexicans of the border country as Cabrito; a name which, although meaning a young goat, had arisen out of hearing white men refer to him as the Ysabel Kid and was spoken very respectfully in such a context. The roughest and the toughest of the bloody border’s brood had soon come to acknowledge it did not pay to rile up Sam Ysabel’s son. The education and upbringing of the Kid had not been calculated to develop any over-inflated sense of the sanctity of human life. When crossed, he dealt with the situation like a Pehnane Dog Soldier—to which war lodge of savage and most efficient warriors he had earned initiation—swiftly and in an effectively deadly manner.

  During the War Between the States, the Kid and his father had first ridden as scouts for Colonel John Singleton ‘the Gray Ghost’ Mosby. Later, their specialized knowledge and talents were diverted to having them collect and deliver to the Confederate States’ authorities in Texas supplies which had been run through the blockade imposed by the United States’ Navy into Matamoros, or which had been purchased in other parts in Mexico. It was hard and dangerous work, but never more so than on the two occasions they had become involved in missions with Belle ‘the Rebel Spy’ Boyd, 76 q.v.

  Soon after the War ended, Sam Ysabel was murdered. While hunting the killers, the Kid had met Dusty Fog and Mark Counter. 77 When the assignment upon which they were engaged came to its successful conclusion, learning the Kid no longer wished to continue smuggling or mustanging, Dusty had offered him employment at the OD Connected ranch. It had been in the capacity of scout rather than cowhand and his talents were frequently of great use as a member of the floating outfit. His acceptance had been of great benefit all round. The ranch had obtained the services of an extremely capable man. Dusty acquired a loyal friend who would stick by him through any danger. 78 For his part, the Kid was turned from a life of petty crime—with the ever present possibility of having his activities develop into serious law breaking—and became a useful member of society. Peace officers and honest citizens might have found cause to feel thankful for that. 79 His Pehnane education would have made him a terrible and murderous outlaw if he had been driven to a life of crime.

  Obtaining his first repeating rifle—a Winchester Model of 1866, nicknamed the ‘Old Yellowboy’ because of its brass frame, although at first it was known as the ‘New Improved Henry’—while in Mexico with Dusty and Mark, the Kid had soon become a master in its use. At the first Cochise County Fair, he had won first prize in the rifle shooting competition against stiff opposition. 80 It was one of the legendary Winchester Model of 1873’s which qualified for the name, ‘One of a Thousand’. 81

  In part, it was through the efforts of the Kid that the majority of the Comanche bands had agreed to go on to the reservation, following the attempts to ruin the treaty signing ceremony at Fort Sorrel being circumvented. 82 Nor could Dusty have cleaned out the outlaw town called ‘Hell’ without him. 83 He had also accompanied Miss Martha ‘Calamity Jane’ Canary when she went to claim a ranch she had inherited. 84

  Appendix Three

  During the years we have been writing, we have frequently received letters asking for various Western terms, or incidents to which we refer, to be explained in greater detail. While we do not have the slightest objection to receiving such mail, we have found it saves much time-consuming repetition to include those most often requested in each volume. Our ‘old hands’ have seen them before, but there are always ‘new chums’ coming along who have not.

  1. Although Americans in general used the word, ‘cinch’, from the Spanish, ‘cincha’, for the short band made from coarsely woven horsehair, canvas, or cordage, and terminated at each end with a metal ring which—together with the latigo—is used to fasten the saddle on the back of a horse, because of its Mexican connotations, Texans employ the term, ‘girth’, generally pronouncing it ‘girt’. As cowhands of the Lone Star State fastened the end of the lariat to the saddlehorn when roping the half wild longhorn cattle, or range horses, instead of using a ‘dally’ which could be slipped free hurriedly in an emergency, their rigs had two girths for added security.

  2. ‘Light a shuck’: cowhands’ expression for leaving hurriedly. It derives from the habit in the night camps of trail drives or roundups on the open range of supplying ‘shucks’—dried corn cobs—to be lit and used as illumination by anybody who had to leave the campfire and walk in the darkness. As the ‘shuck’ burned away very quickly, a person had to move fast if wanting to benefit from its light.

  3. ‘Make wolf bait’: one term meaning to kill. It derived from the practice in the Old West, when a range was infested by predators—not necessarily just wolves—of slaughtering an animal and, poisoning the carcass, leaving it to be devoured.

  4. We strongly suspect the trend in film and television Westerns made since the early 1960s to portray all cowhands as long haired, heavily bearded and filthy stems less from the desire of the production companies to create ‘realism’ than because there were so few actors—particularly to play supporting roles—who were short haired and clean shaven and because the ‘liberal’ elements who began to gain control of the entertainment media appear to have an obsession for showing dirty habits, conditions and appearances. In our extensive reference library, we cannot find a dozen photographs of actual cowhands—as opposed to Army Scouts, mountain men, or old time gold prospectors—with long hair and bushy beards. In fact, our reading on the subject has led us to assume the term ‘long hair’ was one of opprobrium in the cattle country of the Old West and Prohibition eras as it still is today.

  5. The sharp toes and high heels of the boots worn by cowhands were purely functional. The former could enter, or be slipped free from a stirrup iron very quickly in an emergency. Not only did the latter offer a firmer grip in the stirrups, they could be spiked into the ground to supply extra holding power when roping on foot.

  6. ‘Gone to Texas’: at odds with the law, usually in the United States of America at the time the saying came into being. Many fugitives from justice entered Texas during the colonization period—which commenced in the early 1820s due to the Government of Mexico offering land to ‘Anglos’ so they could act as a ‘buffer state’ against the marauding Comanche Indians—and continued until annexation as a State of the Union on February 16,
1846. Until the latter became a fact, such miscreants had known there was little danger of being arrested and extradited by the local authorities. In fact, like Kenya from the 1920s until the outbreak of World War 11, in spite of the great number of honest, law-abiding and hard working folks who genuinely wished to make their home there, Texas in the days before independence was attained from Mexican domination, gained a reputation for being a ‘place in the sun for shady people’.

  7. ‘Give it up to the Green River’: another term meaning to kill, generally with some form of edged weapon. First produced on the Green River, at Green Field, Massachusetts in 1834, a very popular knife had the following inscription on the blade just below the hilt, ‘J. Russell & Co. Green River Works’. Any weapon thrust into an enemy ‘up to the Green River’ would almost certainly inflict a fatal wound whether it bore the inscription or not.

  8. ‘Mason-Dixon’ line, also erroneously called the ‘Mason-Dixie line’: the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, as surveyed in 1763-67 by the Englishmen, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, which came to be regarded as the dividing line separating the Southern ‘Slave’ from the Northern ‘Free’ States.

  9. ‘New England’: the North-East section of the United States of America, including Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island, which was first settled primarily by people from the British Isles.

  10. In the Old West, the jurisdiction of various types of law enforcement agencies was restricted as follows: town marshal, confined to the town or city which hired him; sheriff, to his own county; Texas or Arizona Rangers could go anywhere in their respective State, although the former were technically required to await invitation by the local authorities before participating in an investigation; United States marshal could go anywhere in the country, but was only intended to become involved in ‘Federal’ crimes.

  THE FLOATING OUTFIT 17

  WHITE INDIANS

  By J. T. Edson

  First published by Corgi Books in 1982

  Copyright © 1982, 2017 by J. T. Edson

  First Smashwords Edition: November 2017

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.

  About the Author

  J.T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.

  More on J. T. EDSON

  If you enjoyed the westerns of J. T. EDSON, you may also enjoy the westerns of

  BEN BRIDGES and MIKE STOTTER:

  BEN BRIDGES:

  APACHERIA SERIES:

  Apacheria

  Lockwood’s Law

  ASH COLTER SERIES:

  Gunsmoke Legend

  Ride the High Lines

  Storm in the Saddle

  COMPANY C SERIES:

  Hit ‘em Hard!

  To the Death!

  HELLER SERIES

  Heller

  Heller in the Rockies

  JIM ALLISON SERIES:

  Rattler Creek

  Blood Canyon

  Thunder Gorge

  JUDGE AND DURY SERIES:

  Hang ‘em All

  Riding for Justice

  Law of the Gun

  Trial by Fire

  Barbed Wire Noose

  Judgment Day

  MOVIE TIE-INS:

  Day of the Gun

  Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws

  O’BRIEN SERIES:

  The Silver Trail

  Hard as Nails

  Mexico Breakout

  Hangman’s Noose

  The Deadly Dollars

  Squaw Man

  North of the Border

  Shoot to Kill

  Hell for Leather

  Marked for Death

  Gunsmoke is Gray

  Cold Steel

  Mean as Hell

  Draw Down the Lightning

  Flame and Thunder

  THREE GUNS WEST (Writing with Steve Hayes):

  Three Rode Together

  Three Ride Again

  Hang Shadow Horse!

  WESTERN LEGENDS (Writing with Steve Hayes):

  The Oklahombres

  The Plainsman

  THE WILDE BOYS SERIES:

  The Wilde Boys

  Wilde Fire

  Wilde’s Law

  Aces Wilde

  STAND-ALONE WESTERNS:

  Ride for the Rio!

  Back With a Vengeance

  Blaze of Glory

  Tanner’s Guns

  Coffin Creek

  The Spurlock Gun

  All Guns Blazing

  Cannon for Hire

  Montana Gunsmoke

  Starpacker

  Cougar Valley

  SHORT STORIES:

  Five Shots Left

  MIKE STOTTER

  McKINNEY WESTERNS:

  McKinney’s Revenge

  McKinney’s Law

  BRANDON AND SLATE SERIES:

  Tombstone Showdown

  Tucson Justice

  STAND ALONE WESTERN:

  As Jim A. Nelson:Death in the Canyon

  SHORT STORIES:

  Six Trails West

  Movie Tie-In:

  As Nelson Hunter - Vermijo

  The Floating Outfit Series by J. T. Edson

  The Ysabel Kid

  .44 Caliber Man

  A Horse Called Mogollon

  Goodnight’s Dream

  From Hide and Horn

  Set Texas Back on Her Feet

  The Hide and Tallow Men

  The Hooded Riders

  Quiet Town

  Trail Boss

  Wagons to Backsight

  Troubled Range

  Sidewinder

  Rangeland Hercules

  McGraw’s Inheritance

  The Half-Breed

  White Indians

  ... And more to come every month!

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  Issuing new and classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!

  1 The only genuine wild buffalo in the world are the ‘Indian’ species, Bubalus Bubalis, found in Asia and the Cape and dwarf forest varieties, Cyncerus Caffer and C. C. Nanus, of Africa. Those running wild in Australia are formerly domesticated animals which have escaped and turned feral.

  2 To avoid confusion, we will continue to employ the generally accepted American name for the bison.

  3 Information regarding the negotiation of the peace treaty at Fort Sorrel is given in SIDEWINDER.

  4 Although it was not generally known at that period, a group of fugitives from justice had been allowed to settle and build a town in another part of the Kweharehnuh country, which other wanted outlaws could visit providing certain conditions were met. See HELL IN THE PALO DURO and GO BACK TO HELL.

  5 A description of a party of foreign visitors taking such a trip is given in THE BIG HUNT.

  6 Even before the massive reduction to the
number of buffalo, the brown-headed cowbird, Molothrus Ater, had acquired its name by having transferred its attentions to cattle as a means of providing food.

  7 A description of how a professional ‘skin’ hunter operated when shooting buffalo for their hides and tongues is given in THE BIG HUNT.

  8 Although the .50-170-700 cartridge is listed by some authorities as having been introduced in 1875, there is much evidence to prove the ‘load’ had been devised much earlier. This cartridge was not produced by the Sharps Rifle Company, but many of their so-called ‘buffalo guns’ were re-chambered for it to order.

  9 One of the longest documented hits made by a Sharps .50 caliber rifle occurred during the final stages of the Battle of Adobe Walls on June 27 1874. Billy Dixon, scout and guide, shot an Indian—claimed to have been a senior war chief by some sources—off his horse at a distance which was later measured as being one thousand, five hundred and thirty-eight yards.