"Down Sonora Way" by Louis L'Amour (first published in Five Western Novels Magazine, December 1951; reprinted in L'Amour's collection Bowdrie's Law, 1984; in Texas Rangers, edited by Ed Gorman & Martin H. Greenberg, 2004; and in The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: The Frontier Stories, Volume 2, 2004)
From 1946 through 1952, Louie L'Amour (1908-1988) published 18 short stories about Texas Ranger Chick Bowdrie; a nineteenth story was published posthumously in 1998. The first 18 stories were collected in two books: Bowdrie (1983) and Bowdrie's Law (1984); the final story was published in the collection Monument Rock (1998). Bowdrie could have been an outlaw, but he rode a different trail. Texas-born Chick Bowdrie was raised by Comanches after his parents were killed; there he learned to hunt track, and survive. At age twelve, the Comanches sent him back to live among the white population. He soon went out on his own, working for various cattle ranches and cowboy outfits. When he was twenty-one he was shot three times in a gunfight but managed to ride away and rancher Noah Whipple nursed him back to health and gave him a job. Months later, Whipple was murdered and Bowdrie vowed to find the killer. He read that the Texas Rangers were advertising for men, and Bowdrie felt that he would be better off hunting for the killer if he was on the right side of the law. From that point on, he was a Texas Ranger and was responsible for many outlaws being killed or captured. Over a period of four years (using the internal chronology of the short stories), Bowdrie was wounded ten times and had survived at least thirty-three gunfights. Bowdrie is feared and respected by both outlaws and lawmen alike. The Texas Rangers preferred having him on their side rather than against them.
Tensleep Mooney was "a sure hand with a six-shooter and an excellent rifle shot." When Al Baggs -- one of the notorious feudal Baggs family -- stole Mooney's horse, Mooney went after him; Baggs was killed in the ensuing gunfire and Mooney recovered his horse. That Baggs was killed did not set right with the clan and two of the family members came after Mooney; Mooney took two Baggs bullets and survived; the Baggs boys took three of Mooney's bullets and did not. Other members of the family went after Mooney and lost. Then Gene Baggs, the clan's most feared gunfighter, went after Moony and "died of acute indigestion caused by absorbing too much lead on an empty stomach." When another Baggs member and an itinerant gunslinger well felled, it brought the dead count up to eight. The Texas Rangers figured enough was enough, so they sent Chick Bowdrie to arrest Mooney. Bowdrie trailed Mooney to the Mexican border, then went further into Sonora and Apache country.
Now Mooney had Bowdrie pinned down, out of water, with a bullet having grazed his shoulder, and a dead horse. Mooney felt he would be at a distinct disadvantage if brought back to El Paso, under arrest with no weapon and with countless numbers of the Baggs clan after his hide, so he was determined not to be taken. Mooney held the high ground and Bowdrie could not move without being shot.
Suddenly, in the distance, Mooney saw people approaching from the desert. It was not, as he feared, Apache; rather it was a wounded man, a woman, and two children. Farther in the distance, a cloud of dust, indicating a group of Apache following the foursome. Both Mooney and Bowdrie were well hidden from view and could well wait safely until both groups passed, but they what would eventually happen to the white settlers once the Indians caught up to them. So a bargain was made between the two gunfighters -- they would call a truce and try to help the family; they would renew their hostilities once the crisis was passed, supposing they both survived.
Bowdrie and Mooney had two rifles, their six-shooters, and were down one horse. They could not get a count on the Apache; there are lest ten of them, and perhaps double that. Plus, if things got out of hand, the Apache could sent a man back to get more reinforcements. Things do not look gook good.
And, if they did survive, would Bowdrie be able to bring Mooney in to face justice?
An interesting tale of enemies becoming friends and what might happen afterward, set against a backdrop of overwhelming odds.
L'Amour wrote one additional tale about Tensleep Mooney, which happened to published the same month that "Down Sonora Way" saw print ("Long Ride Home" in Best Western, December 1951; collected in The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: The Frontier Stories, Volume 7, 2009).
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