He had just returned from the dinner table, coming out to change into a clean shirt, planning to then go back inside for a few rounds of drinks with Tory, Pete and Py. They were all planning to make the most out of their last night together.
The voice was unmistakable. It was Pico's man on the scene – the guy responsible for making sure that Jake held up his end of the deal. He stepped forward a little from the shadows, so that Jake could see that he was holding a gun.
"It was nobody," Jake said. "A farmer, interested in Pete's bull." "A shame about that animal," the man said.
"Yeah – a real shame," Jake said angrily.
"So are you ready for tomorrow night? You're not thinking about doing anything stupid, are you?"
"No, nothing stupid," Jake said.
"You got a lot of people counting on you. And think, Jakey – you're only twenty-four hours from having your accounts all paid up. You can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. All you got to do is play it right."
"Can you guarantee that?" Jake said.
"That your account will be settled? Sure I can guarantee that," the stranger said. "How about that you won't be pullin' a trigger on me, once everything is done?"
"You have my word on that, too," the stranger said. Jake couldn't make out his features, but he could vaguely see the whiteness of his teeth, which told him he was smiling. "All you got to do is follow through with the plan. You do the job, deliver the goods, and you're on easy street."
"That's my plan," Jake said tersely.
"Good," the stranger said. "That's a good plan. I'll be here at ten-thirty tomorrow night to pick you up, and we'll go and get it done. Now, just back away from that door and I'll be on my way." Jake did as he was instructed, giving the shadowy figure a wide berth to the door. "One other thing. I'll be watching you every minute, between now and tomorrow night, just to be sure," the stranger said, as he walked cautiously past Jake, his revolver still pointed at him.
"It won't be necessary," Jake said.
"I hope not," the stranger said, as he reached the open door. Jake could see his outline in the light of the moon, bluish rays glinting off the black metal of his gun. "The thing I've learned about you, Jake, is you don't always do the things you're expected to. Shooting that bull, for instance." The stranger chuckled. "Pico didn't find much humor in that."
"What do you mean?" Jake said.
"He could see what you were up to, trying to get too hot to handle. You raised suspicions, all right, but only about yourself," the stranger said.
"What are you talking about?" Jake said. "I didn't shoot that animal, and you know it! You did it to scare me into goin' through with Pico's plan."
"Is that what you think?" the stranger asked, sounding incredulous. "Well, I guess if it worked, then fine. Just for your information, though, I didn't shoot no bull. I like animals. I couldn't do a thing like that."
Jake squinted with disbelief. "Are you telling me the truth? You didn't shoot the bull?"
"I didn't shoot no fuckin' bull," the stranger said. Then he chuckled again. "Christ, Jake – your problems are even bigger than I thought they were." Then he disappeared from the doorway and out of sight.
Jake rushed from the bunkhouse to see where he went, assuming he had headed into the cover of the windbreak. He rushed around the side of the little hut, hoping to catch him to find out what he was saying about Pete's bull, but he was nowhere to be found. Jake ran through the trees, looking left and right, racing to catch up with him. Then suddenly he reached the far side of the break, and stood at the edge of an open field.
The stranger seemed to have disappeared. He was out there somewhere, but in the dark of night Jake could only imagine where.
* * * * *
Jake charged back into the house, wearing the clean shirt he had donned out in his bunk.
"There you are," Pete said happily. He was at the dining room table, dealing playing cards to himself, Tory and Py, tossing a fourth pile before an empty seat, which was meant for Jake. "Just settin' up to play a little gin. Tory's got a drink waitin' there for ya."
Jake?"
Tory looked up at Jake and she could tell something was wrong. "What is it?
"I've got something I've got to do," he said. "Pete – I need to borrow your pickup."
"Can't it wait until tomorrow?" Pete said. "We're all ready to play, here." "No – it can't wait," Jake said urgently. "I'll be back in a while."
"Jake – what is it?" Tory said, getting up from her chair, moving toward him.
He warned her off. "I can't tell you right now. It's something I've got to do.
You sit back down and go on with what you're doing." He looked at Py. "I could use a little help with the pasture gate."
"Sure, Jake," Py said, jumping up to help.
"Don't worry about anything," Jake said to the others. "I won't be gone long." "What do you suppose he's up to?" Tory looked at her father and asked.
"I don't know," he said, "but if he's goin' through the pasture it must have somethin' to do with Frank Walker."
Both Pete and Tory rushed to the front porch. They looked out into the equipment yard to see Jake start the pickup, turn on its lights, and drive out south of the barn, where Py was folding back the fence gate that allowed him to enter the pasture.
Jake drove quickly through the aperture and on into the black of night, while Py struggled to close the fence gate back up behind him.
"I don't like the looks of this," Tory said. "I don't either," agreed Pete.
CHAPTER 42 – Confession
It took Jake less than fifteen minutes to reach Walker Ranch. He drove into the yard to find Frank and all his boys out in the barn, two of them wearing boxing gloves and exchanging shots. When they heard Jake's truck come rumbling into the yard, they stopped what they were doing and rushed out to see what was happening.
Jake saw Frank, opened the door to the pickup, and jumped out before bringing the vehicle to a complete stop. It rolled ahead, coming to rest against a big truck, fitted with wheat panels.
"What the hell are you doing?" Frank Walker said, charging in Jake's direction. "You son-of-a-bitch!" Jake said. "You shot Pete's bull!" Then he fired a punch that Frank never saw coming and that landed him on the seat of his pants. Jake jumped on top of the fallen rancher and hit him three or four more times in the face, before several of Walker's cowboys grabbed him by the arms and pulled him free. "I should've known it was you!" Jake said, spitting mad. "I should've known it'd take a bastard like you to do somethin' like that!"
Frank, still lying on the ground, propped himself up on one elbow, wiping his bloody mouth with his other hand. He was dazed from the attack. "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, Jobbs."
"Liar!" yelled Jake. "You fuckin' liar! You did it, didn't you? You saw old Pete had somethin' you couldn't have, so you killed it!"
"I did no such thing," Frank said, slowly getting up off the ground. The other cowboys stood around him, a little afraid to lean in and lend him a hand, knowing that Frank would find the assistance humiliating.
Jake seemed to calm down for a moment, just as Frank got to his feet, and the cowboys that were holding him made the mistake of relaxing their grip. Jake suddenly tore himself loose and again smashed Frank in the face, knocking him back down into the dirt. He jumped back onto him and launched a vicious assault, striking him repeatedly, half-a-dozen hard shots landing on Frank's head and shoulders before suddenly Wayne Morrison, Frank's oldest hand, came out of the crowd and kicked Jake in the face, laying him out in the dirt, beside his boss.
"Stop it, damn it! Stop it!" Morrison yelled. "He didn't shoot that animal! I did!
I shot him!"
Both Frank and Jake looked up at Morrison, standing above them, face red as a beet. "What did you say?" Frank said, his lips split and swelling, blood oozing from several wounds around his mouth and eyes.
"I did it, boss," Morrison said.
Jake looked at him through eyes
that he could hardly focus, groggy from the boot he had taken.
"Damn it, somebody had to do it!" Morrison said. He looked around at the other cowboys, who looked at him with disbelief, and he focused in on Jarvis Lang, who was as shocked as anyone. "Jarvis should have done it. Everybody could see what was happening. Pete Parker was finished, until he got that damned bull. Walker Ranch needs that land! He had to be stopped. It was just going to drag things out."
"That's not your decision," Frank said, back up on one elbow.
"It should've been," Morrison said, repeating, "It should've been. It shouldn't have been left to some boy, here." He glanced at Jarvis, who looked down at Frank with astonishment. "Foreman is serious business, Frank. I got twenty- five years with you, workin ' this spread. I've given you everything I ever had to give. My sweat and blood – my youth went into building this ranch! It ain't right that you give the job to him. He doesn't know anything about any of it!" He suddenly walked over to Jarvis and stood chin to chin with him. "You weren't man enough to shoot the goddamned bull!" he shouted.
"Back off, Wayne!" Frank yelled, suddenly finding the energy to get to his feet. Morrison swiveled around to face his boss, and Jarvis just stood looking shell-shocked. "I don't know where it comes from, the way you’re thinkin', but I'm tellin' you you've got it all wrong," Frank said.
"Wrong?" Morrison asked. "Years could go by, Frank? I know as well as you do that there's oil in that ground. There's money to be made off it and – God damn it! – I deserve some part of it. It's just an animal, Frank! It's the only reason Pete Parker wouldn't sell!"
Frank looked at his old hand and shook his head. "You got until tomorrow morning to gather up your things," he said soberly. "I'll have a check for you. It'll include a little severance to help you get started with another crew."
"You're firing me?" Morrison asked in disbelief. "I'm afraid so, Wayne," Frank said.
"You’re lettin' me go?" Morrison asked, a little louder. "Twenty-five years, Frank!"
"Good years," Frank said. He looked into Morrison's eyes, almost pleading. "Don't mess up the last of it," he said.
Morrison's expression sagged instantly, pausing a few times between desperation and shame. A few of the other cowboys moved toward him, to help him understand that the only thing he could do was go to the bunk and pack his things. It was going to take him all night. He had been a boy of twenty-two when he hooked on with Frank. His area of the bunkhouse had been most of whatever he had ever known as "home," and he had cluttered it up pretty good with artifacts of life. He turned to walk through the other hands and ran directly into Jarvis, who had recaptured his composure. If there was going to be a problem in getting Wayne Morrison to leave, dealing with it would've fallen on the foreman's shoulders. The two men seemed to think about that for a moment, as they stared at one another, then the older man pushed his way past and walked on back to the bunkhouse.
As the cowboys started to disperse, Frank Walker reached down and grabbed Jake's hand, helping him to his feet. "You satisfied with what you heard?" Frank asked.
Jake spit blood from a cut on the inside of his mouth. "I'm satisfied," he then said.
"Twenty-five years is a long time," Frank said wistfully, looking toward the bunkhouse, where most of the cowboys were now headed, walking in pairs and trios. There was little doubt what each of them was talking about, but they were too far distant to hear. "You lose a prize bull, I lose a top hand and a loyal friend. I'd say that just about balances out."
Jake was bent over at the waist, too dizzy to want to chance standing straight up. "I'd say you got a way of balancin' things out that always leaves you with the money," he said, wincing from the pain of moving his jaw. Jake looked up, squinting to see Frank's face. "That is, unless what Morrison said about oil is true. Is there oil on Pete's land?"
"Nobody knows," Frank said. "There was a geological survey team out here a few years ago that did some testing. They drew a map of a guess, and their guess was that there's an oil field around us here, a lot of which may be on Pete's land. He knows all about it."
"What?" Jake asked. "Pete knows he's got oil on his land?"
"He knows about the survey," Frank said. "Nobody knows nothin' about where the oil's at, if there is any. You'd have to spend money to sink some wells. Pete ain't got the money to do that."
"You do," Jake said. "Yeah, I suppose."
"So what's stoppin' ya?" Jake asked.
Frank looked annoyed at him. "I'm a cattleman, and I'm making a pretty good living at it. It's what I like to do." He sounded bothered at the thought of doing anything else. "If there's oil down there, it ain't goin' nowhere. Cattle ranchin' is goin' somewhere. It's goin' away, at least in the way I've always known it. I want to do it while I still can."
"What about Pete's property?"
"I'd like to have it," Frank said. "I've made him twenty good offers. It's the best pasture land in the county."
"But not for the oil?" Jake said, confirming his understanding. "Fuck the oil," Frank said. "I like cows."
* * * * *
"My God, what's happened now?"
That was Tory's response when Jake returned to the ranch, after having rushed over to confront Frank Walker with the new information he had about Cooksin's shooting. The right side of his face was bruised purple from the boot he had taken from
Wayne Morrison, and it had swollen dramatically by the time he returned home. "It don't matter," he told her. "I found out who shot your bull, Pete," he said, as Tory pressed an ice cube against his cheek.
"Who?" Py asked, before Pete could get to the word.
"Wayne Morrison," Jake said.
"Wayne Morrison," Pete said in disbelief. "Why?"
"I don't know exactly." Jake winced as Tory pressed the ice against his cheek. "I went over there convinced that Frank had done it himself. I knocked him down . . ."
"Oh my God," Tory murmured.
"Morrison stepped in and confessed that it was him," Jake said. "I guess he was tryin' to win favor with Frank, but it didn't work – he fired him."
"Frank fired Wayne Morrison?" Pete said, shaking his head. "My God, what's happening around here? Wayne had to have been the first hand Frank ever hired, they go that far back. I remember when it was just the two of them workin' that spread."
"I guess Morrison thought he should've got foreman, instead of Jarvis Lang," Jake said, information he remembered having heard while lying face down in the dirt, Walker's cowboys standing over him.
Pete shook his head, like he was hearing bad luck. "Well, he should've," he said soberly. "I think Frank's probably tried to make a son out of that Lang kid."
"Morrison had it in his head that he was doin' Frank a favor, shootin' your bull," Jake said. "He thought if the Charolais was dead, you'd go ahead and sell out to him."
Pete raised his eyebrows, as if the logic carried a certain resonance – as if it could still happen.
Jake saw Pete's response and quickly countered – "Walker says there might be oil on your land. Did you know that?"
Tory and Py registered surprise and both looked at Pete for his answer. "Yeah, I know it," he said. He had never mentioned a word about it before, not even to Tory.
"Dad! You never have told me anything about this!" Tory gasped.
"Oh, it ain't nothin’," Pete said. "Every farmer and rancher around here's been told he might be sitting ' on an oil field. Ain't none of 'em drilled any holes – it's too damned expensive! One-in-ten – that's what a geologist told me my chances were of strikin' oil with any one well, and one's more than I can afford to gamble on."
Tory looked at Jake, astonished by what she was hearing, and then back at her father. How could he sit on information like that? Especially when things had seemed so desperate, how could he? It could be the answer to all of their troubles.
Py wasn't interested in oil. He was thinking about the shooting. "What are you gonna do about it, Pete?" he asked. "About Wayne Morrison, I mean."
&nbs
p; Pete just looked sad. "I've known Wayne a long time. We weren't friends, but we never had no trouble with each other. I reckon if Frank's fired him, that's probably all the trouble he can handle."
"What about damages, Pete?" Jake said. "He ought to do what he can to make up your loss."
Pete shook his head. "He’s just a cowboy," he said. "He don't have no money." "What about Frank Walker?" Tory said. "Isn't he responsible in some way?" "I don't want money out of a dead bull, not from anybody," Pete said. "If Wayne's half the man I think he is, I expect he'll come and tell me about what he's done, and make an offer of some kind – probably labor, since that's all he's got to give. I don't want nothin' bad for the guy."
"You're a more understanding man than most would be," Jake said, grimacing at the discomfort of having the compress at his cheek.
Pete grumbled. "I'm just old," he said. "It gets to where a man just gets tired of fightin' over things all the time."
Tory looked down at Jake, who caught her meaning. "I guess I got somethin' to look forward to," he said.
"I told you so," Tory said sarcastically.
CHAPTER 43 – Hadley Barrett
Saturday morning seemed to catch all of Weld County in a state of transition.
Downtown Longmont was buzzing with activity, especially around the armory building, where decorators were putting the finishing touches on for the night's ball. Hadley Barrett, and his twelve piece band, were setting up on the main stage, while a second, smaller stage was being assembled lower to the dance floor for the annual awards ceremonies. Plaques were to be presented to those residents whose families had farmed or ranched in Weld County for twenty-five, fifty or seventy-five years. There were community and citizenship awards, and a slew of ribbons to be presented to winners of cooking and baking competitions. The crowning of Queen of the Cow-Cutter's would be a lower platform event, because tradition called for the band to strike up a waltz, as soon as the queen's white Stetson was placed upon the winner's head, at which point she was to proceed straight to dance floor to take a spin with the year's honored dignitary. This year it was going to be a trick roper named Kelly Colorado, who was to entertain at the day’s rodeo, spinning his magic from atop a huge Palomino stud, named Winder. While the ceremony probably merited the main stage, problems around negotiating the four foot drop to the dance floor made it an implausible choice.
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