Sometimes Ya Gotta Fight

By Doug Ball

What's a man to do? He's survived the Civil War and worked hard to earn everything he has. Finally, he has found the place he wants to settle down and build a ranch. First he is robbed in his sleep, causing him to chase his money afoot. The he buys a ranch. the seller dies, greed rides in and the fight is one. Oh, wait, there's a woman and kids involved which makes the war over the land harder to win. What more could happen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Doug Ball
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463108390

Doug Ball

Born in California and raised in Arizona. Grew to love the west at a young age while growing up in a blue collar home. Never knew we were kinda poor until I was 21 and making more money than my dad. Dad and mom were still raising three of my siblings. It was a shocker. I joined the navy after high school to get out of school and promptly went to over 2 years of technical schools. Rode submarines for 20 years and retired. Went back to school and earned a D. Min. while I pastored a couple of small town churches full of great people. My big dream in life was to be a cowboy and own a ranch. Santa never brought me a horse. At 37 I bought a horse and a ranch and lived my dream. I started writing at 39 and sold a few pieces to Mother Earth News, Countryside, and Arizona Magazine, along with many others. Wrote my first book and quit mailing out that western after 47 rejections. Nobody ever read it. That western is BLOOD ON THE ZUNI which has all five star reviews to date. Got the itch and kept writing. I recommend GENTLE REBELLION. It is the story of the life I wished I could live for years. I wrote it in my head on many a mid-watch at sea. PS. Sea horses are no fun to ride.

Book preview

SOMETIMES

YA GOTTA

FIGHT

BY

DOUG BALL

OTHER BOOKS BY

DOUG

Christian novels

The Walk

Copyright 2020 – Douglas H. Ball

Cover designs by the Author

Cover art by Shutterstock

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance between the characters of this book

And persons living or dead is purely coincidental, with the exception of historical figures. Even then the persona is that of the the author’s imagination.

This book is dedicated to

my grandbabies,

who read them all.

And of course

my beloved

Patti

SOMETIMES

YA GOTTA

FIGHT

1

I’m sure you have heard the statement, sometimes it just doesn’t pay to get outta bed. Not only didn’t it pay, it cost me money. No, it wasn’t a hotel bill or something like that. And, no, it wasn’t a fine to get outta jail. When I woke up that morning everything I had was gone except the blanket I was rolled up in.

My horse and all the rigging.

My coffee pot and frying pan.

My saddlebags with everything that was dear to me and my grub.

All of it was gone.

My boots were on my feet and my .44 was under the blanket on top of my Winchester. I went to bed in a place I had never been before, therefore I was loaded for bear and expecting anything. I thought.

My fire was a stack of coals that came to life when I gently blew on it. I was hot enough I could have restarted that fire with my breathe. Why I bothered to bring it back to life, I couldn’t say, except that it did bring me some comfort and security. I had nothing to cook, absolutely nothing, and it danged sure wasn’t that cold. There was the knot on my head that wasn’t there when I laid me down to sleep late last night as a half a moon sunk below the horizon shutting off my light.

Did I mention that in those saddle bags was a few thousand dollars I got for selling the old farm in Missouri and was gonna use to buy me a ranch in Arizona. Only two people knew I had that money, me and the one I sold the farm to, and he was a thousand miles away. On second thought, the man that knocked me out could know, but then again he might not even know it because maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t dug deep enough in the bag to find it. All that was hiding the cash was my dirty shirt and another pair of sox Ma knitted a couple years back, and they was dirty, that’s for sure.

A suicidal white-tailed deer showed his head and I blew it off with one easy shot from the Winchester. Within minutes there was a steak on the coals. After waiting about three minutes to get it hot enough, I ate hearty.

I had no canteen, but water was a couple dozen paces down the hillside and this was a well watered country. There was a creek in every bottom, and there were more ups and downs made up of rocks about apple sized that would roll under your feet with every step if you weren’t careful. The worst places were the ones where the round rocks turned into flat, then you could slide downhill like the sled runs back east. But, there was lots of water to splash in when you hit the bottom.

With a stomach full of steak, the creek lost a bit of water before I stuck my head underwater, lifting it up to shake like a dog. Looking around, there were my horse’s tracks across the stream bed not ten feet to my right. There were no boot prints or prints from another horse around my campsite that I could see. There was no doubt that someone needed a horse and mine was handy, so he conked me on the noggin and rode away.

I wondered how long it would take him to find the money.

After throwing another steak on the coals, I rolled my blanket long ways and wrapped it around my upper body like men did during the war on them dirty, nasty hikes to the killing grounds. Since I had nothing, there was nothing wrapped in that blanket as I bent the blanket over my shoulder and tied the two ends together at my hip with a strip I cut off the blanket.

I grabbed the second steak, and started walking down the hill, across the stream, and on, following the tracks of my own horse.

I hate nothing more than walking in boots.

I hated it even more after trudging along tracking my own horse cussin’ and mumblin’ about the son of a blankety blank that stole everything I had in this world. All kinds of torture ran through my head. Each was to be inflicted upon his body when I caught him, and the longer I walked, the more twists were added to the line up just to make his pain worse. Every step got worse and worse as the round rocks twisted my ankles and the flat ones sent me to the ground to a landing that inflicted more pain on him.

Sundown finally rolled around and I could tell I was not far behind the thief. I vowed again the list of things I was going to do to that son when I caught him. Oh, how he was goin’ to suffer.

With nothing else to do, I stopped at a small stream just as the sun went behind the mountains and guzzled a gallon or so of water. I tell you no tales, my stomach was out so rounded I had to loosen my pants belt and my gun belt just so’s I could breathe. No lie, never had I ever drank that much in all my life and travels.

As it got darker, I moved to the ridge line above the creek, where I could see miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles, hoping that a fire would soon show its ugly face. It wasn’t long when, sure enough, there was one that popped up like a beacon just as I was rolling myself in the blanket. I forgot lying down in the blanket and started walking under the light of that moon which I knew would last for a shorter time this night than the night before.

It took me about an hour of twisting and sliding as quietly as possible to get up close and personal with the son that stole my horse and money. The last fifty yards or so was the worst. I had to put weight on my foot slowly and quietly each time I wanted to move toward the fire, knowing that if he heard me there would be trouble. One round rock or slick flat one, could kill me.

The fire was slowly dying as I creeped up on the man like a naked heathen for at least an hour to cover the last bit of ground, and wouldn’t ya know it, just as I was gonna pull my gun that dang busted thief put another handful of sticks on the fire.

I watched as he reached over and pulled my saddlebags to him and commenced to digging through the left bag. The money was in the right-hand bag under my dirty sox and other stuff that was worthless to him. On top of that right bag was my pair of red flannels that I had took off a few days ago when the weather turned warm and I dropped down outta the mountains to the foothills which was where that trail went.

He finished with the left bag and flipped them bags over so’s he could check the right-hand bag.

I pulled my gun, cocked it, and you shoulda seen him jump. Wow, did he jump. You’d a thought he heard a rattler between his feet.

Just sit there and don’t move so much as an eyelash, I said, trying to sound tough like that bully Ace back to Missouri. Too bad about Ace, he picked on the wrong person one day and ruined his reputation by losing the fight and his life to a young man that beat him to tarnation and then, when he tried to pull his hide out gun, I shot him.

Don’t shoot. I just needed me a horse and some grub. Sick of walking this country side looking for something I can eat.

Where’s your gun? Cain’t ya shoot straight.

They took all my ammo. What was I supposed to do, club a deer with my pistol butt?

You clubbed me with it.

Yeah, but you was sleeping so sound, and after all, I cain’t eat you. It just isn’t right to eat another human, is it now?

Well, now, I’m gonna tell ya what is right to do right now. Put your gun behind you as far as you can reach.

He did it.

Now just stand up slow and easy like. Keep your hands out to your sides as you stand up.

He did it.

Start walking.

What? You expect me to just walk away from that fine horse and this grub you got in these here bags?

Yup. I paused for a few seconds, Or you can die.

He turned at me right quick and tossed a tooth pick at me.

Missed.

That danged knife had an eight-inch blade and stuck in the tree I was leaning against not six inches from my nose. Looked like a danged fine Arkansas tooth pick with sharp edges down both sides of the long, straight, shiny blade.

I just naturally shot him.

He fell back away from the fire which put him on top of his six shooter which he grabbed right quick and let fly a round that took the stitching outta the shoulder of my shirt. Danged fool had lied to me.

I shot him dead center and watched him fold up in the dirt which turned red as his heart pumped its final stream of pink bubbles of blood into the dirt next to my saddle bags.

I walked over and nudged the bags outta the way of the expanding pool of blood and kicked his gun ten feet away. You lied to me. Now you’re dying. I really just wanted my horse back, along with the grub. But, no, you gotta go and lie to me and then try to stick me. What in blazes did you expect outta me?

You was pretty easy to take last night. He died after them words.

I doused the fire with water from my canteen, which he had so kindly filled, and then commenced to cover the idiot with all the rocks I could find which gave him a couple layers of protection from critters that will eat humans. Within an hour of my arrival at that campsite I was back in the saddle looking for another campsite for me to kill a night in. Uuu, bad choice of words, kill a night in. All I wanted to do was sleep.

Two days later I was riding into a little burg along the Little Colorado River that didn’t even have a name yet, unless it was WHISKEY AND GRUB, and stepped down onto the green wood planks of a thirty-foot long board walk outside the only building with a sign on it. I was looking for both, along with a man named Ezra Lef. Ezra was the man that owned the ranch that was for sale that I was gonna buy.

There was just one problem I found out not five minutes later. Ezra Lef didn’t own no ranch, and even if he did, he was now dead. Had him a wrestling match with a cougar and lost. Feller behind the counter told me that.

As I turned to go the man said, I do have a ranch and this store. I’ll sell ya either one for the same price old Ezra stated in all his lies.

Where’s the ranch?

"It starts a few hundred feet up this valley and goes three miles up the canyon headed south outta here. It’s about four miles wide or so. There’s two good springs at the south end, a stream through most of it, and a dug well near a nice snug little cabin near the south end. There’s a hundred head of scrub beef, half of which won’t make it through a hard winter. Twenty or so cows dropping calves as we speak. The store does a great business. I sold over a hundred dollars’ worth of goods last month and got a paid-for order coming in on the next set of wagons from the fort over northeast 80 miles or so. There ain’t nobody laying claim to the land around the store nor a place adjoining both on the west side which stretches over a couple dozen