by C. J. Petit
“Yes, Eli. I think I can handle it.”
She slid the plate covered with four eggs and bacon in front of Gus. He was already munching on one of her biscuits. “Thank you, Rachel. They look really good.”
Gus took his time eating for a change. He tried following what he called “Rachel rules.”
Rachel sat down with her eggs and took a biscuit.
“When will you be leaving for Kinnick, Gus?” she asked.
“In a little while. Is there anything you need me to pick up while I’m in town?”
“No, you filled our larder quite well.”
He finished breakfast, left the kitchen, and headed to the barn. He hitched up the wagon and headed for town.
____
Lou had spent the night in his bedroll and didn’t like it. He was crabby as he continued heading south. He had strapped his Colt on in case he needed it. He wished he had a rifle. Maybe he’d pick one up at his next stop.
As he rode south, his horse was leaving its signature slotted hoofprints to mark its passage. Lou never noticed. Why would he look at his own tracks?
Ten miles behind, a small posse of four men from Altus, led by the sheriff, was following those tracks. They didn’t intend to bring him back to jail, either.
____
Gus walked into the mercantile and waved at John Hanratty.
“Morning, John.”
“Howdy, Gus.”
Gus walked over to the soaps and took two bars of pumice and two lye. Then he went to the food area and picked up a large bag of apples, some cinnamon, and nutmeg. He brought them up front and left them on the counter.
“That all today, Gus?”
“John, let me have four boxes of forty-four cartridges.”
John turned and began stacking the cartridges on the shelf as well. He made a look of curiosity about the quantity.
“Need to do some practicing. I’ve been too lax lately.”
John nodded. “That it, Gus?”
“Let me have one of those twelve gauges and a couple of boxes of number four buckshot.”
John didn’t say anything as he totaled the order.
Gus paid the bill. He’d already taken fifty dollars out of his saddle bank. He knew he’d have to slow down his spending, but he thought the shotgun was a good idea.
Gus grabbed his order and carried it out to the wagon.
He turned the horses back toward the ranch.
Gus reached the house and drove the wagon to the barn. He unhitched the geldings and put them in their stalls and brushed them down. He returned to the house via the kitchen. Once inside, Gus stood the shotgun against the wall and unloaded the bag of apples, leaving the rest to be explained later.
Rachel was there and noted the apples.
“Apples, Gus? Is that a hint?”
Then Gus pulled out the two tins of spice.
“Well, I see you remembered everything I might need to make an apple pie.”
Gus grinned at her. “I was kinda hopin’ you wouldn’t mind. My mama used to make a great apple pie. I just got a hankerin’.”
“I think I can do that. What else is in the bag?”
“I’ll want to explain that to you and Eli together. It involves that shotgun I bought,” he said, pointing at the scatter-gun.
“Okay.”
Gus and Rachel walked down the hallway to the main room. Eli was sitting in a chair reading.
Gus sat on the couch, and Rachel took the chair next to Eli.
Gus laid the shotgun on the floor and began stacking the boxes of ammunition on the table.
“Lot of ammo, Gus,” commented Eli.
“Need to practice. The shotgun is for use as a persuader. After that little discussion with Miles, I think this is a good idea. He wasn’t very pleasant, and I don’t think I can change his ways as easily as a bank teller. I meant to ask. Are these threats all from one person, or are they written in a different hand?”
“No. They’re all the same. They tend to be a bit flowery for just threats. They add things like ‘the fires of wrath will descend on you.’”
“You didn’t save any, did you?”
“No, we burned them as we got them. But it’s been more than a month. Maybe they’ve stopped.”
“I don’t think so. Hate doesn’t go away. I think that the good Reverend Quincy is behind those notes, or at the very least, he’s having somebody else do it.”
“You think he’d do that?” asked Rachel. “He’s supposed to be a man of God.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. In his way of thinking, he’s probably doing God’s work. When I was in the store right after I started working for you, he was standing nearby when John Hanratty asked where I was working. When I told him the Star A, the reverend got real nasty. Told me the town didn’t cotton to folks who worked for Jesus killers. Didn’t sound very Christian-like to me.”
“I know that the Jews were behind his death, but it was the Romans who actually killed him,” Rachel said.
“That’s what I said to him. I even reminded him that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were all Jews. He got flustered and left.”
“People do tend to forget that, don’t they?” she said softly.
“Let me ask you about a silly idea I had. Nothing whatsoever to do with threats or bad things.”
“Go ahead.” Eli smiled.
“Chickens. I was thinking of making a chicken coop on the other side of the barn and getting a couple of dozen hens and a rooster. Eggs when you want them and chicken dinner when you want it.”
“That’s a great idea, Gus,” agreed an enthusiastic Rachel.
“It wouldn’t cost much, either. I could build the coop for less than three dollars, and the chickens would cost ten dollars. The chicken feed would cost two dollars, and then we’re off. I want to wait until the other jobs are done, but I think it’ll be a good thing to add to the ranch.”
They talked chickens for a little while longer before Rachel started cooking lunch.
_____
At the Slash M, Joe Miles was talking to Ernie Blanchard, his foreman. He wasn’t happy about two things. Gus had found that track through his ranch following the path that Joe had told the guys to use. He was equally unhappy with the confrontation with Gus. He didn’t like being shown up.
“So, who’s this new hand they have working for them?”
“I haven’t got a clue. He knows cattle. Probably been a top hand somewhere. I don’t know why he’d be working for them.”
“Maybe he’s a Jew, too.”
“Don’t think so. Not with the language he was using. I think that Jew word he used was just to get our goat.”
“What do you think they’re paying him?”
“Can’t be much.”
“I wonder if he’d take a job offer if I offered him fifty dollars and found.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe if someone else made the offer.”
“Who?”
“Libby. This is why I keep her around, other than because she can cook. She can be useful to get some guy to do something he normally wouldn’t.”
Ernie seethed inside. He always thought of Libby as his property. Joe had told him to lay off until this problem with the Jews was resolved, and then he could do what he wanted with her. Now he was going to offer her to this new bastard.
Libby Miles was technically Joe’s wife. She had been a widow running a boardinghouse in Kinnick when Joe’s wife died. He didn’t want to marry again, but he wanted a cook and, more important, someone to control his sixteen-year-old daughter, Mary. So, he had offered her a contractual marriage. She had sold her house, and she was allowed to keep the money. She had moved in, but lived in a different end of the house from Joe. She cooked and was to control Mary. For this she was given a salary of thirty dollars per month. The marriage was solely to give her some measure of authority over Mary. Libby wasn’t even in Joe’s will. Everything went to Mary. Libby was only thirty-two and still a fine-looking
woman. Joe knew that she was lonely, and he was going to try to use that to his advantage to make Aronson more vulnerable.
Joe sent for Libby.
____
Lou had ridden all the way to the Red River. He thought about heading back to Texas. It would be the smart thing to do. For reasons of regional pride, Oklahoma lawmen didn’t communicate with their Texas counterparts, and vice versa. Lou didn’t know that. But he crossed into Texas anyway.
The posse had only been four miles behind Lou when he went into the water. When they found where he had entered the Red River, they knew he had gone into Texas, and their search was over.
____
Libby was sitting in her room. Joe had said he wanted her to use her obvious female charm to lure a man away from his current job to work for Joe. She wondered what he was like. She had to decide on wardrobe. She didn’t want to be too obvious. Something more dignified that still set off her best features. And there were plenty of those. She was irritated that he would use her like this. If she wanted to attract attention for herself, that was her business. But to be treated like a whore was something totally different.
But she had to do it. At least she could do it with dignity, despite Joe’s suggestion that she wear a revealing costume. She’d talk to the cowboy and fulfill her obligation. After that, it was Joe’s problem.
____
Gus had taken a box of .44 cartridges and his Winchester and walked out to the fields. He walked past the pond and found a good spot. He walked to the edge of the property and put an old board against the fence. He then walked back fifty feet. He set his Winchester down and unhooked the hammer loop from his Colt. He wasn’t a quick draw. He wasn’t even a great shot. He had to improve.
He took a breath and drew carefully, pulled the hammer back, and fired. He hit the target, but barely. He reholstered the Colt and tried again. Better, but marginally so. He wound up going through twelve rounds before hitting the target squarely. Not very good. After he took a short break, his next six weren’t much better. He wanted one more set. He loaded the Colt. He tried to smooth out any hitches and started concentrating on the target, not the pistol. He was stunned when all six hit the target. He wasn’t sure why, so he reloaded. He remembered to concentrate on the target and almost ignore the sight on the pistol. He drew and fired. All six shots hit the crumbling target. That’s what he’d been doing wrong all those years. He was sighting down the pistol and not focusing on the target. He was almost giddy with the discovery. He only had the rounds in the Winchester left, so he picked up the rifle and walked back until he was two hundred feet away.
He knew that the rifle would be different. He’d have to concentrate on the sights more. But he decided to change focus quickly from the sight to the target, and then if it was good, squeeze the trigger. He tried it. It seemed to work, so he sped up the process. He fired all fifteen rounds. The board had collapsed before he finished. There was a huge cloud of smoke over the shooting position. He turned and returned to the house, more pleased with his performance than he had expected to be.
He returned to the bunkhouse and cleaned both guns. Then he reloaded. He set the Winchester down in the corner and walked to the house. He entered the kitchen. Rachel was baking, and it was something really good.
“Rachel, that smells amazing. Is it what I think it is?”
“If you thought it was the apple pie you asked for, then you’d be right.”
“I can’t wait.”
“How did the shooting go?”
“Rachel, all these years I’ve been shooting wrong. My shots were all over the place at first like they usually are. But when I focused on the target instead of the gun, I began hitting it every time. I feel better about it now.”
“Do you think you’ll need to use your guns?”
“I hope not, but I think I’ll be a lot better prepared now.”
Eli walked in. “I heard all the gunfire earlier. Practicing?”
“Yep. Did a lot better, too. Don’t want to do too much, though. Wears down the rifling in the barrels. Then the gun gets inaccurate.”
“Haven’t fired a gun in a long time. Don’t think I’ll be doing it anytime soon, either.” He laughed.
“I reckon pulling a trigger might be a problem.”
“You fight in the war, Gus?”
“Two years with the Twenty-Seventh Cavalry. Got taken in as soon as they got really short of men and dropped the conscription age to sixteen. The ranch was already pretty much stripped when I went off. They made me take our only horse, too. Saw a few battles. Nothing to talk about, really. They were all the same. A lot of noise from cannon and gunfire and men screaming. Some were yelling battle cries, others were screaming for their mamas. Then there was the smell. It would hang over the battlefield for days after. A mix of blood, gunpowder, smoke, and death. By the end, I’d already gone through four horses. Three were shot from under me. Our ranch horse didn’t last a month. Came home for a little while. Wasn’t much use, though.”
“You get wounded?”
“Got shot once, but that wasn’t too bad. They patched me up and sent me back out. The bad one was when I took a saber slash in the leg. They wanted to cut off my leg. I told them to let me die. I couldn’t rope a cow with one leg. They granted my request, but it didn’t fester like they expected. Took me out of action for nearly a month, though. You know, I felt guilty about that. Like I was letting my friends down. Stupid way of thinking.”
Rachel walked over to the cookstove and removed the pie. Its aroma filled the entire house. She set it on a flat cooling rock and began to cook dinner. It made her feel good to hear Eli and Gus talk together. She knew that her husband had missed the company of men.
“Well, that’s all in the past,” Gus said quietly. He tended to push those memories aside.
“Gus, why don’t you move into the house? We have two empty bedrooms,” said Eli.
“No, Eli. I think it’s better if I just stay out in the bunkhouse.”
“Why? There isn’t even a heat stove out there, and it’s beginning to get chilly.”
“It’s not too cold, Eli.”
“Well, Gus, the offer’s always there. If the frost starts getting too thick, you can come in anytime.”
“That reminds me. I’ve got to finish off that woodpile for the fireplace.”
“We’ve got another month before it gets that cold.”
“I’ll tell you what, Eli. I’ll put it off a week.”
“That has to be hard on you.” He laughed.
Rachel had supper ready, and they had a cordial dinner followed by apple pie.
Chapter 4
Early the next morning, Gus began building a small stockade to hold the heifers for branding. It might take all day. He saw movement to his right and turned. A lone rider was trotting down the access road. Gus was wearing his Colt, so he just stepped out of the barn and walked toward the rider.
The rider approached the house and turned away from it, toward Gus.
“You Gus Matthews?”
“Yep. Who are you?”
“Name’s Hank Anderson. I work over at the Slash M. Boss wants to talk to you. Said he wants to smooth things over.”
Hank seemed like an honest hand and not some hired thug, so Gus gave what he said some credence.
“Cowhand to cowhand, Hank. What do you make of it?”
Hank answered, “To be honest? I ain’t got a clue. Joe Miles ain’t a bad sort. All right to work for. Has his bad points and some good ones. This is one thing I don’t have a single idea what it’s about.”
“He set a time when he’d like to see me?”
“Nope. Said come over when you can.”
“Okay, Hank. I’ll stop by shortly.”
“Thanks, Gus. Have a good one.”
“You too, Hank.”
Hank touched his Stetson and wheeled his horse expertly around and headed back the access road.
Good man, thought Gus.
He turned b
ack to the house and saw Rachel watching.
“What was that all about, Gus?” she asked.
“I’ll come in and talk about it.”
She nodded and returned to the house. He stepped up onto the porch and entered the house.
Eli was sitting in the most comfortable chair in the house. He needed it. Rachel sat in a chair next to him.