Authors: Dusty Richards
“Where are my mules?” he shouted at Thames.
“Mules—”
Chet holstered his Colt, grabbed the shorter man by the shirt, and drove his fist in Thames’s gut. “My mules that you stole.”
“Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me. We sold them.”
“To who?”
Thames swallowed hard. “El Paso Freighting.”
“They got a place around here?” He kept Thames’s shirt in his fist and held him so close to his face, he could smell the man’s perfume.
“They’ve got a wagon yard at Coyote Springs.”
“Where’s that, Matt?”
“South of here.”
“I lost ten mules worth a hundred dollars apiece. That’s one thousand dollars. You can pay me that or I’m going to hang you.”
“A thousand dollars—”
“You get to thinking. I’m hanging you and them three, too. Alive or dead. If I don’t get my money out of them mules.”
“Gilmore has some money—”
“Get it and count it, Matt.”
Chet shoved Thames toward the door. “Now you get me all the money you got in there. I’m getting my money or satisfaction.”
Like a whimpering pup, Thames went to a large safe and dropped to his knees. His fingers trembled as he twisted the knob. When he raised up to unlatch the door, Chet jerked him back, fearing a holdout gun inside.
Satisfied, he nodded for the man to go ahead.
“I found about two hundred on Gilmore,” Matt said from the door.
“Check them other two.”
Thames handed Chet a sack of coins and then a stack of loose bills.
“There a thousand here?” Chet demanded, holding the canvas bag in his face. “There ain’t that much, you and your friends will hang in two minutes.”
“Wait, wait. I’ve got some bonds—I can sign them over to you.”
His head drawn back, Chet considered taking paper. It could be worthless. They needed to count what they had. Matt had his take on a table, stacking it.
“Fix us some food,” Chet said to the cowering women. “Make it good it. This may be his last meal.”
Doe-eyed, they slipped away, nodding that they’d do so.
Matt jumped up and ran outside. Chet wondered, then heard his horse bucking and snorting—two shots, and Matt stuck his head back in. “Vargas got well enough to get on Strawberry. He went to bucking and I shot Vargas off him.”
“Good. Let’s count this money. Thames ain’t got long to live either.”
“Don’t say that! I’ll find the money—I swear to God I will.”
They finally counted out 863 dollars. The bonds were valued at five hundred dollars.
“Find forty more dollars,” said Chet.
Thames swallowed. “I swear to God I don’t have any more. Those Grand Bank of London bonds are worth near a thousand.”
“Maybe there, but in Texas they may be toilet paper, too.”
“Wait. Wait.” Thames rushed over and went under the bar, then set a jar of money on top. “Here is all the money I have.”
“Is it forty dollars?” Chet asked, hefting the jar full of coins.
“Want me to count it?” Matt asked.
“No. Sack it all up and we’ll call us even.”
Thames collapsed on the floor with a sigh.
Chet stood over him and drew out his pistol. “See this gun muzzle?”
“Yes.” Thames swallowed hard.
“You ever steal as much as a fence post from me again, I’ll shoot your damn head off with this gun. Am I clear?”
Thames nodded hard.
Chet went and sat down at the table. He had the money for new mules anyway. At least he could go buy some more—what worthless trash these men were. That freight company wouldn’t still have his mules at their outpost. They’d deny buying them anyway. He’d have to prove it.
Him and Matt had done well.
The women brought the food and it tasted delicious. Thames was still shaking, and refused their offer to eat with them. In the late afternoon, they left. Gilmore was dead. Toledo looked close to death, and the remittance man still acted shaken.
They took all four horses and saddles with them.
“I’m ready to camp somewhere and sleep for a couple of days,” Matt said.
“I was thinking if we slept a short while,” Chet said, “with that money I paid Nina, she’s probably bought some corn and sugar and has a new batch of pulque ran off, and we need to get back there and share it.”
“Hell, yes. Two-three hours, I’ll be ready to ride.”
Chet nodded. “You’re a great hand, Matt. I’d ride to hell and cross any river with you.”
“Thanks. But I’d never dreamed you’d get your money back or anything but some mule apples they’d left behind. Amazing, but it worked.”
“Yeah, mule buyer, now you need to find the replacements.”
They both laughed as they rode on. What was the name of that pretty girl at Nina’s?
The pulque was flowing. Cherie strummed her guitar and sang a song about the wild vaquero from the ranchero. Oh, Chet was dancing, his boots shuffling dirt as he and Deloris danced apart in the firelight, twisting and turning as the song went on. Her hips and skirt like a weeping willow in a strong wind. Then, with her skirt and many petticoats in her hands, she raised them to free her brown knees and her shapely legs to kick to the music.
Oh, what a wonderful night.
Deloris shook his shoulder the next morning to wake him. He half rose, looked around out of bleary eyes, and told her he wanted to sleep all day. That was it. She let him.
At sundown, he got up, washed his face in a water bucket, and wished he’d not drunk a single drop of the pulque the night before. But shortly, Deloris came for him, dragging him to the large fire cooking where a fat young pig roasted on a spit.
“That is your three-dollar pig you ordered last night.”
He poked his chest. “I ordered?”
“
Si
, you said, ‘Cook me a fat weaning pig tomorrow,’ and gave me the money last night.”
“Hell.” He reached over and drew her tight to him, then kissed her hard. At last, they stopped to catch their breath. “I must have. He’ll be
muy bueno
anyway.”
“Sí,”
she said, and they kissed again like it would be for the last time in their lives.
They danced and drank and partied most of that night.
Damn shame that she was married. He woke up before she did in the predawn, and he covered her good when he climbed out of her pallet—so she didn’t freeze—her being naked and all. He found Matt drinking coffee, seated on the ground by the growing fire. Nina poured Chet some.
“Today we better get home, Matt. No telling what they’ve got into at the ranch.”
“We better,” Matt agreed. “It’s been fun and thanks to these ladies here, we were able to locate those thieves and you recovered enough money to buy new mules.”
Chet agreed with an open-mouth yawn. “Get our asses home.”
“Food will be cooked in a short while,” Nina said. “You two better stay and eat.”
“We will. We’ll go saddle our horses if we even have any.”
“They are fine,” Nina assured him with a laugh. “We have watered and fed them well.”
“Them mule thieves won’t ever bother you again,” Chet said. “And I bet that remittance man don’t either.”
She nodded in approval. “Matt told me what happened.”
“They got what they deserved.”
Their ride home was long and torturous. A dozen times, Chet considered getting off his horse, laying down someplace out of the wind and the sun, and sleeping a couple of hours. He didn’t, and late afternoon in a blustery wind, they rode through the gates and were met by a hard-eyed Susie.
“Rachel died.” She hugged him. Sobbing, she looked up, swallowing hard. “May did all she could for her.”
Chet felt a great knot in his chest. “Sorry I wasn’t here.”
“You couldn’t have saved her. I just count on you.” She looked around. “You didn’t find the mules?”
“No, but Matt and I damn sure got the money for ’em.”
He could see by the bewilderment written on his sister’s face that she didn’t understand. “I’ll explain. Did you have the funeral?”
“We were waiting a day longer for you to get back, but it’s tomorrow.”
Chet nodded. “How is Dale Allen?”
“Stone-faced. He keeps it inside.”
“We haven’t ate since before sunup.”
Susie turned to Matt. “Matt, I’m glad you’re back. Come on, I’ll find you both some food.”
“Music to an old cook’s ear.” Matt laughed aloud, and then sobered. “I’m sure sorry about the little girl.”
Susie nodded and holding her dress hem out of the dust, led them inside the warm house.
“Oh, yes, your new stud horse arrived, too, while you were gone,” Susie said to Chet, and some excitement danced in her blue eyes “He is light as feather on his feet.”
“Good.” Chet nodded to Matt in approval, and then they followed her into the living room.
“You get them mules?” Chet’s father asked, rocking in his chair by the hearth.
“As good as. I got paid for them.”
“Who paid you?”
“One of the fellas who stole them.”
“Who were they?” Rock asked his voice cracking.
“Some old outlaws.”
“Them no-account sons a bitches,” the old man swore, and retreated into his own world.
The next day, Rachel June Byrnes, two years old, was laid to rest at the Warner School House Cemetery beside her mother. Lots of food was brought in and set up inside by the neighbors, as was the tradition in the land. Folks from all over came. It threatened to rain, but only misted for a little before the graveside service. After Reverend Meeks’s last amen, folks gathered quietly in the schoolhouse for the meal.
Reg and Sammy stayed home to watch the ranch. The rest all came. Dale Allen hadn’t said much to Chet since he came home with the mule money. That was fine with Chet, but he wanted in some way to comfort his brother over his loss. Nancy had died giving birth to Rachel not that long before. Another knife stuck in Dale Allen’s heart.
Chet felt sorrier for May, who’d taken the loss so hard. She’d done her share, and Dale Allen looked like he was no support for her. The day went on.
He learned Scotty Campbell still lingered from his bullet wound in the Mason jail, and the boy that he’d shot at the dance was doing all right. The two older Reynolds boys were still on the loose, but Sheriff Trent had made some surprise raids looking for them.
“You know Earl threatened Jenks?” Morgan asked Chet.
He shook his head, blowing the steam off his fresh cup of coffee. “No, I was down on the border chasing mules rustlers all week.”
“On the road one day this week, Earl told him it wouldn’t be healthy for him to send cattle to Kansas with you.”
“That son of a—did he threaten you?”
“No, but Jenks’ wife is really upset. She’s deathly afraid they’ll ambush him or the boys.”
Chet shook his head in disgust. “Someone is going to permanently shut Earl up someday. And it might be me. I’ll go by and see them. Damn. Thanks, Wade.”
Where was Dale Allen? Chet looked around at the crowd in the building; he hadn’t seen him since the funeral was over. Not inside. He went out, and decided to go up on the rise to see if his brother was still up there. He found him on his hands and knees, crying at the grave.
“Hey, can I do anything?”
Wet-faced, Dale Allen looked up blankly. “It ain’t your fault. First he took Nancy—dear God—I miss her. Maybe I’ll miss her all my life. Now he went and took her image.”
Chet helped him up. The mist on the wind grew stronger. “You’re going to get a death of a cold if we don’t get you under cover or under a slicker.”
Dale Allen looked over at him. “Why, hell, you’re getting all wet, too.”
I don’t count. Not today. You’re the one that counts.
“I’ll read everyone’s Louise’s letter,” Susie announced at breakfast. “It came yesterday and they brought it to me at the schoolhouse. We all got in so late last night, I’ve held it until now.
“‘Dear Family, I arrived in Shreveport in good condition. Train rides are not fun despite the amenities they now have. I found my father ailing and my mother teaches piano lessons to support themselves. They lost the family plantation to taxes and now live in a small apartment.
“‘Chet, you warned me. But I was not willing to accept the fact that this is not the thriving city I knew as a girl growing up. Now I know. It is not anything. I shall return to the bar-C when I am satisfied my parents are to be well enough cared for. I can’t wait to get home to Texas and see all of you. Tell my sons hi. I love and miss you all so much. Signed Louise.’”
“Let me see that,” Chet said, and she handed it to him. With a quick glance, he passed it back. “Yes sirree, it’s her handwriting all right.”
Susie swished him with the letter and shook her head in disapproval at him.
He held out his palms. “I couldn’t believe she wrote that.”
Several chuckled around the long table, but they made sure Susie wasn’t close.
“Matt’s going to San Antonio and look for some mules for us,” said Chet. “Reg, you or J.D. want to go along and add your two cents to this deal?”
Reg shrugged. “Don’t matter. Either one of us can go.”
“J.D., you go this time. You can learn a lot getting in on this.”
“And J.D., if he don’t like the mules we bring back, I’ll say you picked those out.” Matt snickered and everyone else laughed.
“Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.”
“That’s it.” Chet winked at him. “You boys getting other cattle ran off?”
“We’ve been working at it,” Reg said with a wary smirk.
“I think someone is piling them in on us.” Sammy said “I’ve seen the same roan cow with a down-turned horn three times this week. She’s got a YT4 on her hip. She’s no coincidence.”
“She’s way off her range. That’s the Rasmussen brothers’ brand. They’re south of the Llano River.”
“We need to stop the pushers,” Sammy said. “They ain’t drifting on us, they’re being driven.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that. You see any hooves in their prints?”
“We’ve drove them up through Comanche Pass and way down on Bressler’s Creek so many times, it’s hard to tell.”
“Yeah,” Reg said. “They about beat us back.”
“Keep doing it. I catch anyone driving cattle in on us, they can answer to me.”
“Uncle Chet, they must be doing it with dogs and at night.”
“We can stop them. Let me scout some first. Maybe I can get a lead on ’em. We may have to fight fire with fire.”
After breakfast, the three rode off, Heck, Reg, and Sammy, with three of their best stock dogs. A good working dog could replace two or three average hands on horseback. So they had the force. Each carried a rifle and a pistol. Chet was taking no chances.
Then he sent J.D. and Matt to San Antonio to buy some mules. Matt took a rifle in a scabbard on the buckboard dash. With his crew gone, Chet saddled a big bay horse called Jeepers.
May came down to the corral and stood by the fence. He nodded to her. They had hardly spoken since the funeral. She looked tired.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I know you’ve tried to do your best for me and I wanted to thank you. I guess I must face that my husband doesn’t want me.” She bit her lip and turned away so he couldn’t see her cry. “I know you tried, Chet—but what am I to do?”
He went around and hugged her. “We can only hope he sees the errors of his ways.”
“He has. It’s me.”
“No, May, you’ve done your part. Dale Allen has to find himself.”
“I thought after she left—”
“May, be patient. It is all I can say.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe after the cattle drive, he’ll have some time to think about it and make a good decision. Or he may never come back.”
Chet closed his eyes. “May, you know I’ll do all I can do for you.”
She sniffed. “Chet, you’ve tried so hard. I just don’t know where to turn.”
He agreed and jerked down the stirrup. “Maybe I can find an answer.”
Downcast, he nodded to her and rode off. What else could he do? He felt boxed in between the two, and he didn’t choose either of them. After his wife died, Dale Allen rushed out to get someone to care for Baby Rachel. He didn’t pick a wife—in Chet’s eyes, he married a nanny.
A few hours later, Chet bellied down under some cedars and used his field glasses focused on the Reynolds family headquarters. A few low log buildings, cedar-shingle roofs, pole corrals, and there were several horses standing hipshot at the racks. They’d been there for a while. The fresh piles of horse apples were all around them, like they’d been ridden hard the night before and left hitched.
A few of the men finally staggered outside and stretched like they’d only woken up a few minutes earlier. Tired from the night’s work herding cattle on Byrnes land, no doubt. Even Kenny was there—the sheriff had recently gone by there on a good piece of gossip. Shame he’d missed him.
Maybe Chet needed to hire a bounty hunter? He’d never asked anyone to fight for him before. He wasn’t starting now. Where was Mitch? Probably not far away.
Chet remained out of sight, observing them until they checked their cinches and rode off loudly laughing. Obviously, they were laughing about shifting more stock onto the ranch. Must be easy to gather them; they sure never did anything for their horses. Left them standing saddled all night, didn’t water them, and set out again to work cattle with them. He hated people who didn’t care for their stock.
He let them ride off to the east, and then he slipped back to his own mount. Tightening the cinch, he stepped aboard. Then he rode north in a large swing; he wanted to see for himself this cattle gathering and how they shoved the animals onto his place.
He found the Reynolds bunch an hour later, gathering cattle and driving groups of them north. In a short while, they had several head assembled, and were joined by some of the Campbells that he recognized in the glasses. They also brought cattle into basin from the east. Cattle the boys had more than likely been turning back. Several hundred head of cattle boiled up dust, close to a dozen rope-swinging riders shouting at them to urge them north onto—
C
land.
The short winter day was fast fading, and the Reynolds riders were making good time up the wide-open swale, and the number of stock kept growing as they picked up more. He followed them at a distance. They crossed the south boundary of the ranch, and these cattle were moving hard enough, they’d not stop for quite a ways.
His blood about to boil, he whacked the top of his saddle horn with his palm. That bunch would get their comeuppance. If it was the last thing he did on this earth, they’d damn sure rue the day they pushed those cattle onto his ranch. Still angry, he knew what he’d do. Reynolds had several pigs they were feeding out. Like most hill folks, they ran hogs on the range and when they got big enough, they trapped them and put them in a feedlot for finishing. Raised in the wild, even after feeding them, they were still spooky enough to easily run off if shown an opening.
Pushing Jeepers in a hard lope, he headed right for the Reynolds’ spread. Circling around, he knew he had beaten them home. The strong odor of pig shit assailed his nose. With a quick check to be certain in the twilight there was no one around, he rode out of the brush from the backside, hearing the pigs fighting each other over some scraps in the confines of the rail-walled pen. He tossed his reata around a post and dallied the lariat around the horn. He turned the gelding off, and it set his muscles to pulling on the post. The post broke off at the ground with a snap, and an entire section of the rail fence collapsed.
Those pigs needed no encouragement to flee captivity. They tore out like they were on fire. Whuffing away, they went straight for the darkening cedars, and weren’t hesitating.
Chet shook his reata loose of the post, and grinned at the shouting he heard coming from the house.
“Them gawdamn hawgs jest got out, Maw!”
“Aw. Hell, Paw will be mad as a hornet! How’d they do it?”
He didn’t hear anymore. It was time to leave. He put steel to the big horse. Jeepers cat-hopped up the steep hillside and reached the top. Chet reined up to listen. Those loose hogs were still squealing, “We’re free!”
And going in four directions as hard as they could run. They’d be days trying to get them back, and all the grain fat would be run off by then.
He headed back for the ranch in a short lope. Those damn Reynolds riders had not seen the full force of his ability to fight fire with fire. This old crap they dished out had grown past turn-the-other-cheek for him. Next, he’d ambush those evening cattle drives and send those cattle right through the Reynolds house. When he was through with them, they’d want this damn war over with and done.
Susie came out when he dismounted in the dark at the house, and accompanied him to the corral. “You have any supper?”
“No, but I’m fine.”
She shook her head in disapproval as they walked in the starlight. “I have food in the oven, but you knew that.”
“How did the day go?”
“All right. They came in about four and had sorted out lots of cattle, they said, and pushed them east.”
“They drove in a hundred, maybe two, tonight in the south.” He stripped out the latigos and looked over at her with a head shake.
“What are they doing this for?”
“To make life miserable for us. I did some getting even this evening. I pulled down their hog pen and send maybe forty head of them wild devils loose. They’ll be damn busy for a while gathering those crazy pigs.”
She chuckled. Her fist to her mouth to suppress her hilarity, she finally managed to ask, “How?”
“I roped a fence post and Jeepers here broke it off. Those pigs heard it pop, and they ran out of that pen like the devil was on their heels, and were still running last I heard of them.”
“Some of those hogs they’ll never get rounded up again.”
“Good. Maybe that will teach them something.” Jeepers was in the lot and rolling in the dust. Chet closed the gate. “Let’s go see about that food.”
“I got another letter from Louise today,” Susie said, holding her hem out of the dust and matching his steps.
“What did she say?”
“Not much, except in three weeks she’s coming back.”
“Oh, that’s good news. Poor May is about beside herself about her husband, and now Louise is coming back. I’d hoped she’d stay down there until the herd was headed north.”
“And he’d be gone with it.”
“Yes.” He stopped and washed his hands on the porch. Wetting his face down with handfuls of water, he dried it on the proffered flour-sack towel and thanked her.
The house was quiet. The others were all in bed. Chet and Susie went in the kitchen, and she turned the lamp up on her way to the range. She served him a plate of potatoes and thin-sliced roast beef. A few biscuits, and she brought the butter in a small tub.
“Mother is failing—”
He looked across the table and studied his sister’s serious face. “I guess we all knew it was coming. We just aren’t ready for it to happen now.”
“She’s stopped eating. You know, I fought to make her get out of bed. I guess I didn’t fight her hard enough.”
“Susie, that’s not your fault. Don’t take on those burdens, too. She made those choices. I think a person wants out of this world, we ought to let them go.”
“But what has her life been like over the years?” Susie shook her head, close to tears. “Three children kidnapped and never heard from again. That has eaten her heart out.”
He agreed, and the beef wadded in his mouth. No way he could swallow it, but he did not want to upset her and kept chewing. Somehow, he needed to get this down his constricted throat. The fork set aside, he worked harder on the meat.
“Oh, Chet, I have tried.”
His hand shot across the table and he clasped her wrist. “Don’t you take on the guilt for this. There was no more any of us could do.”
The load behind his teeth began to ease. Her wet lashes blinked and she chewed on her lower lip. “If only—”
“There is none of that. Mother wishes to leave us, then we must make it comfortable as we can for her.”
She nodded. “We shall, brother. We shall.”
“Thanks. I’ve had enough.” He pushed the plate away and gave her a grim nod. “You need anything, ask me.”
“I will, and thank you,” she said behind him as he put on his hat.
Somehow, he was dragged into everything that happened on the ranch. Hell, he had big shoulders. What else did he need?
He waved to her and headed out into the silent night. The frost had silenced the bugs and croakers—be nice when spring came. He closed his eyes for a second. No way he’d escape all this simply with a change of the seasons. No way in the world.