The Sons of Grady Rourke (30 page)

“To General Hancock.”

“To General Pickett,” Sean smiled, lifting his new glass to return the toast. Both men threw their heads back and drank to the fifteenth anniversary of Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. They put their glasses down when Jesse pulled a chair to their table. Two of his Boys lingered at the smoky hallway.

“Sheriff Peppin is sending some men down to San Patricio. Wants to remind McSween and Chisum that we're still here, I guess.” Jesse took a glass out of Manuel's hand. “Since you still ain't seen your brothers, I thought you would want to ride down with us. Ain't going to be no trouble. Make a little noise, is all.”

Sean looked at Cyrus. This Wednesday marked the sergeant's fifth day away from the ranch and he was itching to do something other than sit around the Boys' table at the Wortley.

“John Kinney going?” Cyrus looked closely at Jesse's eyes. The captain might be a rustler and gunfighter, but he was not a liar.

“No. Peppin is keeping the Rio Grande bunch here. The sheriff don't want things to get out of hand. That's why he's only sending a dozen deputies south. John Long will be in charge. It's really just to feel them out; see how many Regulators is there.”

“All right,” Sean said. “Cyrus?”

“Me, too.”

Jesse Evans stood and raised his glass. Then he led Sean, Cyrus and two of the Boys into the tranquil sunshine.

D
EPUTY
L
ONG AND
twelve men rode slowly south for two hours toward the blemish on the stage road called San Patricio. Late June had been dry and a little cloud of dust followed them.

“There's some dust,” a farmboy called over his shoulder.

“Dust devil?”

“Don't think so. Sky ain't right for it. Best tell Chisum.”

The second gritty man on the hilltop stumbled at a full run toward the Regulators' headquarters. Alex McSween stood outside the hovel.

“Dust on the road, Mr. McSween.”

“From what direction?”

“Coming south. Could be trouble.”

The lawyer's face had taken on a tan after nearly three months on the lam. His hair had grown over his ears and his mustache drooped toward his chin. Lawyers are pink and soft, with hands like women. McSween's time at San Patricio in the loud company of hard men had toughened him, at least the parts which showed. Sweat had nearly dissolved his black waistcoat so he wore only his dusty, black vest over the whitest shirt he owned. Every two weeks, Susan brought him clean shirts and fresh woollies. Although John Chisum never packed a handiron in his life—“A six-shooter will get you into more trouble than it'll get you out of” was his creed—McSween had taken to wearing an old Remington low on his hip like a real man. On days when Susan was not expected, he put a plug of chew in his cheek.

“Best round up the boys.” Alexander McSween, Attorney at Law, spit manfully. A ribbon of brown juice trickled onto his yellowed shirt.

“Sure enough, Mr. McSween.”

McSween wiped his chin on his cuff and went inside to get Chisum who refused to strap on a pistol.

The dust cloud against blue sky continued to grow from the north. A dozen Regulators crouched atop squat hills on both sides of the main road which ran east and west on the north bank of the Rio Hondo. The Regulators waded across from San Patricio on the south bank. A month without rain had reduced the Hondo to a knee-deep creek. Patrick and Liam Rourke took up picket positions between the road and their camp behind the hills.

John Long rode beside Jesse who could suffer no one to ride ahead of him. Sean and Cyrus rode side-by-side behind them. Half a dozen townsmen followed in a bunch. Less than a mile from San Patricio, the stage road south from Lincoln meets the main road heading east to Roswell and west down to Blazer's Mill. The posse turned right toward the Regulators' camp.

Half a mile from San Patricio, the Regulators on the hills waited nervously. All had laid their handirons on the crest of a hill where their bodies lay flat on the rocky ground. Two or three on each hill looked over the sights of rifles. The long steel barrels had long since been blackened over campfires to keep them from glinting in the sun.

As the posse became larger in the Regulators' gunsights, Cyrus Buchanan's black face in the center of eleven white men made a fine target as they approached from the east and the fork in the dirt road.

A Regulator on the southern ridge with the Rio Hondo at his back wiped sweat from his squinting eyes. He earred back the hammer on his lever-action Winchester 1873 rifle. He had already chambered a .44 caliber cartridge before he crossed the river. But he had lowered the hammer to keep from blowing his face off if he slipped in the fast-moving water. He drew a bead on the large black face down the slope and three hundred yards up the trail. He held his breath and raised the barrel a full foot. He aimed at nothing but purple mountain sky. Then, waiting carefully for the instant between heart beats, he gently squeezed the trigger at the sky.

Forty grains of black powder exploded in the Winchester's breech.

In the thin, mile-high air, only horse ears flicked forward.

Sean heard a wet thud beside him, the sound made by a dropped melon. He turned to his left where Cyrus sat bolt-upright in his saddle. His arms went rigid and the sudden tension on his reins made his mount jerk his head. Cyrus turned toward Sean.

Sean's eyes widened when he looked at Cyrus. His rumpled yellow cavalry hat was gone. And his forehead was gone.

Still holding his reins in a death grip, the big man rolled backwards out of his saddle. He pulled his screaming horse down on top of him. When Sean's horse side-stepped to keep from being bowled over by the rolling mount, Sean clearly heard Sergeant Buchanan's pelvis snap and pulverize when eight hundred pounds of horseflesh slammed down on his chest. The horse struggled to its feet but could not pull away from the dead man's iron grip on his leathers. The animal lowered his haunches and pulled back with a wild-horse screech. The reins and three brown fingers came loose. He burst into a full gallop. But by the end of the column of possemen, he stepped into the dangling reins, tripped himself, and went limp with a broken neck.

Two seconds after the soldier's head exploded, the posse scattered into scrub brush along the trail. Men dove from their horses and began firing blindly up the hill. Sean jumped from his saddle and knelt behind a large rock. He blasted upward at an unseen enemy lost in a haze of dust, gunsmoke, and tears.

A rattle of gunfire drifted back toward San Patricio. The mountain air dissipated the gunfire and made it sound miles away instead of eight hundred yards. A few possemen drove the hilltop Regulators from their position and gained a clear shot across the creek toward the encampment and the picket position of Patrick and Liam. The two brothers kept up a slow volley toward the far side of the Rio Hondo.

Lethargic gunfire continued for two hours. A stray round thumped into the top rail of the paddock beside John Chisum's shack. Splinters of dry wood blew into the eyes of one of the skittish horses. In a panic, it jumped the fence and drove headlong toward the creek. The lazy gunplay stopped as hungry men on both sides paused to laugh. The animal ran toward the sheltered hillside where the posse had tied several of their mounts.

When the slackening fire did not stop by evening twilight, Chisum and McSween agreed to make an escape eastward to South Spring River. They left with Billy Bonney and half a dozen Regulators. The rest held their positions since they had no place better to be.

The Regulators stopped firing first. Their ammunition supply had to be conserved. Deputy Long and Jesse Evans waited through half an hour of silence. As the smoke cleared and the guns from the hills stopped, Evans stood on the trail. No fire greeted him and other possemen stood. Behind the hills, the Regulators pulled back across the river.

The road was pock-marked for two hundred yards in both directions. Long shadows of dusk made the trail look like a Moonscape of bullet craters and hoofprints. Sean walked to Cyrus and knelt beside him. He grimaced. The dead man had been riddled by gunfire all afternoon. His cavalry blouse and trousers with the gold stripe were covered with small red punctures. Since his blood stopped flowing and leaking before he hit the ground, only watery juices dribbled from dozens of wounds.

“Hoist him up and tie him down.”

Sean stood when he heard Jesse's voice. Evans stood holding an unfamiliar horse. The runaway from San Patricio wore the bridle and leathers from the sergeant's dead mount. Jesse handed the reins to one of the possemen.

“Give us a hand,” Jesse said wearily.

Three men helped Sean and Jesse heave Cyrus across the bare-back animal. They tied the dead man's hands to his own feet.

“That'll hold him till we get home.” Jesse looked up. Stars were already erupting in the purple sky. “May have to camp up the road anyway.”

The posse gathered their animals and mounted. There were no serious casualties other than Cyrus Buchanan who had never gotten a round off. A few men suffered scrapes and bruises from hitting the ground when the attack began.

Across the Rio Hondo, casualties were also light. The executive leadership of the Regulators made good their flight and were well down the road toward Roswell and South Spring just across the river.

A
T FIRST LIGHT
on the Fourth of July, John Long led his posse back into Lincoln. Saddlesore and hungry, they rode single-file at a slow walk with horses and riders, heads-bowed.

Susan McSween was already in the store. With the cavalry troopers gone, she opened Tunstall's mercantile at dawn so she could stand in the doorway in case House men came in to make trouble.

The posse walked the length of town toward the courthouse. Sheriff Peppin heard the jingling of spurs and nickering of horses. He opened the jailhouse door as the posse passed Tunstall's store midway up the street.

Susan McSween watched them pass. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Cyrus Buchanan's stiffening corpse flung across the one saddleless mount. The woman screamed and ran into the street. The caravan stopped beside the crazed woman.

She grabbed the cadaver by the scruff of the neck and tried to lift its head. But fifteen hours of death and bloating had turned the neck bones into stone. She had to kneel in the muddy road to get a good look at the dead face. The eyes were swollen shut and the mouth was locked wide open. The whole top of his skull was missing. Flies feasted on the exposed, gray brain tissue. She shuddered at the ghastly remains.

The lawyer's wife dragged her mud-soaked skirt to the head of the posse.

“What have you vile pigs done to my husband?” She was screaming like a wild woman.

“We ain't seen your husband,” Deputy Long said weakly. “Never seen him once.”

“But that's Mac's horse! What have you done with my husband?”

Susan began pummelling Long's leg with her clenched fists. She was shouting in blind fury at six-thirty in the quiet morning.

Sheriff Peppin and four men stepped behind the woman and jerked her back from John Long. They bodily wrestled her to the mud from an all-night drizzle. Black ooze laced with rotted manure quickly wadded into her hair. Her face turned bright red.

“Be quiet woman! Now listen to me. You get hold of yourself.”

George Peppin was on his knees with muck and mud up to his elbows. As the woman stopped struggling to catch her breath, two dirty boots stopped near Peppin's shoulder. The lawman looked up into John Kinney's glazed eyes.

“I can fix that for you, Sheriff.”

Just the sound of his voice made Susan McSween stop squirming. Her eyes became wide, white holes on her mud-caked face.

“None of that talk, Kinney! You go on to Manuel's now and leave us be.”

The Ranger laughed loudly and looked down at the filthy, stinking woman.

“Just trying to be a good citizen, Sheriff.” He touched the corner of his floppy hat. “Ma'am.”

Peppin hauled Susan McSween out of the mud. Her weight doubled with the street she brought up with her.

“John?”

“Sheriff, Mrs. McSween, this here horse ran out of the Regulators' camp. We kept it. That's all there is. The soldier here is the only dead body we seen in two days. I'm sure your worm-stinking husband is all right.” Deputy Long smiled as he kicked his animal's flanks and continued up the street. Susan McSween stood with her fists clenched as the lawmen continued on. The look she flashed up at Sean made him flinch and turn away.

Sean led the pack horse carrying Cyrus. The body was rigid when it went past Susan McSween. She stepped forward and spit square into cavity of the dead man's head.

J
UST AS SHE
had promised, Bonita Ramos watched the lane every day for eight days. She watched the approaching rider grow larger Saturday morning. The new sun was low enough to shine brightly even under the single horseman's broad-brimmed hat. When she could see that half of the distant, bearded face was white and the other half red as raw meat, she lowered her face and went inside.

One day later, Patrick and Liam rode down the same lane. When the braggart who killed Cyrus boasted about it over a San Patricio campfire, Liam heard the story for the first time. The blood left his face and he lit out hard for the ranch. Patrick could not catch him for half an hour.

J
OHN
C
HISUM, CATTLE
baron, had seen enough of San Patricio's privy. One day after reaching South Spring River, he packed his carpetbag, hitched his best team to his best buckboard, and rode east as far as the first rail spur for the train to St. Louis.

Wearing the same shirt he had worn for a week in the saddle, Alexander McSween mounted his horse and rode west with Billy Bonney at his side. The last of Chisum's hired hands followed them back to San Patricio.

Ten miles up the trail to the north, Sean Rourke got drunk in Manuel's cantina and stayed drunk for ten days. At first light every day before the town awoke, he staggered to Tunstall's store and stumbled behind the empty corral. With the sun barely creeping over the eastern mountains, he stood each morning in silence and burped through tears at the fresh mound of soggy earth next to John Tunstall's grave.