by Bill Dugan
“That’s not what I meant, and you damn well know it. I was afraid maybe you bit off a mite too much to swallow. A meal like that has a way of turnin’ on a feller, can bite him back if he don’t look out.”
“You’re right about that. Conlee would chew me up and spit me out, if I give him the chance.”
“How you intend to avoid it?”
“I don’t know. I wish to hell I …”
A screen door banged, and he turned toward the house without finishing his thought. Millie O’Hara stood on the porch, drying her hands on her apron. She saw him and waved. He waved back, and she stepped off the porch. “You want some breakfast?” she called.
Ted shook his head. “No thanks, ma’am.”
She walked toward the wagon, and Ted watched her closely. She was really quite pretty, but did nothing to flaunt it. She dressed simply and took no pains to color her face. A thin white ribbon holding her hair in place was the only concession to vanity.
When she was close enough, she stuck out a hand, and Ted grasped it. Her grip was firm, the hand strong without being aggressive. Then he realized it was how the woman herself had to be, in order to survive out here.
“You look like you had a long night,” she said. Her smile was warm, but muted. He nodded, trying to return it, but what he’d been through stole it from his lips before it had fully formed.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse,” Ted said. He thought about asking Millie if she knew the farm Conlee had razed, but that inevitably would lead her to ask questions, questions he didn’t want to answer, especially not for a woman.
“Margaret was asking for you.”
“How is she?”
“Still terrified. She’s talked a little, but not much. She hasn’t really told me what happened, but I can guess. The poor child, it must have been hell for her.”
“Yeah, well …” He stopped because he didn’t really know what to say. He looked at her a long moment, then turned to look at the sun. Without turning back to her, he asked, “Is Kevin up?”
“Just finishing breakfast. You can come in for coffee, if you like.”
“No thanks. I guess I’ll just try some of Cookie’s java. It’s an acquired taste, but it kind of ruins you for anything else.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
She smiled, and Ted shook his head. “I’d be lyin’ if I agreed with that, Mrs. O’Hara.”
“Well, if you change your mind …”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll just get a little sleep.”
“You’re welcome to use the guest room. Margaret’s up, and she’ll be helping me put up some preserves this morning.”
“That’s alright. I been on the trail long enough, a nice rock is about all the comfort I need. Long as it’s the right size.”
“You’re really not the ruffian you pretend, Mr. Cotton. Don’t think I don’t know that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned to walk back to the house, and Ted watched her quietly.
“That’s a married woman, there, Teddy. Don’t you be lookin’ at her that way. I’ll have to tell Ellie Quitman about it.”
“Cookie, you old sonofabitch, just pour me some of that coffee, will you. After I get a nap, we have to have a long talk.”
“What about, son?”
Ted didn’t answer. There was no need.
22
KEVIN O’HARA POUNDED the table with a huge fist. “Jesus Christ, man,” he exploded, “what in the sweet name of Jesus were you thinkin’?”
“I didn’t have time to think, Kevin. I did what I had to do. There was no other way.”
“You bloomin’ idjit. You know what you’ve done, don’t you?”
“Why don’t you tell me,” Ted said. “I’d love to hear how you would have handled it, too, while you’re at it.”
“Handled it? Is that what you did? You handled it? Oh, it’s a fine mess you’ve caused us all, Cotton. A fine mess.”
Ted watched the big farmer pace back and forth behind the table. He wanted to explain to O’Hara how badly he misunderstood Ralph Conlee, but he knew O’Hara wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t listen because he didn’t want to hear. He was too damned scared. He knew he was scared, and he’d been scared so damned long he didn’t know how not to be.
Finally, O’Hara sighed and sat back down. “You don’t know what a hole you’ve dug, Cotton. Deep enough to bury us all, it is. And that’s a plain fact.”
Millie O’Hara sat silently through it all. She watched each man in turn during the exchange. Ted was conscious of her gaze and sensed that she wanted to speak. But there was no opening for her, none long enough for her to overcome her hesitancy.
“Kevin, I know what you think, but I’m telling you, that woman was as good as dead unless I shot that bastard. How would you have handled it? Would you have turned and ridden away? Do you really think that’s an answer?”
“It’s not an answer, no. But there doesn’t have to be one. There’s no damned question. We know what Conlee is like. We don’t have to consider possibilities. There are none.”
“You can’t turn your back on something like that, Kevin. I know I can’t anyway.”
“That’s because it’s personal for you. You have a score to settle, man. Good God, can’t you see that? It makes a difference. It makes all the difference in the world.”
“And you don’t have a score to settle, is that it? That woman’s husband doesn’t matter to you. He was a neighbor, so what? Is that it? Are neighbors no more important than goddamned trees? Do you plant a new one every time one is cut down?”
“There is no other way.”
“Yes, Kevin, there is.” Millie spoke quietly, but her voice was razor sharp.
“This is none of your affair, Millie. Hush up.”
“None of my affair, is it. And I suppose it’s your legs they’ll be pullin’ apart when they decide to pay us a visit. You won’t mind it, either, will you. You think Rachel Higgins shouldn’t have minded. Is that what you’re trying to tell us?”
“Don’t be talkin’ about such things in front of a stranger. It’s not proper. And I’m not talkin’ to you, anyway. I’m talking to Cotton.”
“But I hear you, Kevin. I hear what you’re saying and I can’t believe my ears. We always knew it would come to this. We used to talk about it, but you didn’t want to face it. So we stopped talking about it. We pretended it didn’t happen. And when it did happen, we pretended it didn’t affect us. It was someone we didn’t like. It was someone who was too weak to survive out here. We had a thousand reasons. And now we have a thousand corpses and not one of them deserved to die.”
She stood up and walked toward the window. Sweeping the curtain aside, she pointed to the fields beyond the barn. “That’s our land, Kevin. Yours and mine. Do you understand that? Ours! And we act like it isn’t. We act like we don’t give a damn.”
“What can we do?”
“I’ll tell you what we can’t do. We can’t bring a child into this kind of world. That’s one thing we can’t do. And I won’t do it, either.”
“Who said anything about a child.”
“Nobody. Yet.”
He looked at her in confusion. The light seemed to break over him in slow motion. “You’re not tellin’ me …”
“I’m not tellin’ you anything, Kevin O’Hara. I’m just saying that I will not bring a child into this world as long as we are here and Ralph Conlee is allowed to roam around like he owns the place. I won’t and that’s all there is to it.”
“Look,” Ted cut in, “let’s not get away from the main problem, here.”
“And what is that?” O’Hara snapped “Why don’t you explain to us, since you seem to have caused it all in the first place.”
“Mr. Cotton caused nothing, Kevin. You caused it. You and all the other men who stood by and let it hap
pen, instead of doing something about it.”
“Alright, alright. Let the man speak. Go ahead, Cotton.”
Ted took a deep breath. “We can’t change what happened. I’m not saying we can. But I know that a man like Ralph Conlee will want revenge. It’s as natural to him as breathing. I’m sorry for that, but it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do.”
“So you tell us.”
Ted ignored the sarcasm. “Look, what’s important is not what already happened. It’s what’s going to happen you have to worry about.”
“It’s out of our hands. You’ve let the tiger out of his cage.”
“No. There never was a cage. That’s what you don’t seem to understand. The only thing keeping Conlee away from you was chance. Nothing more than that. And until you understand that, there is nothing you can do. As long as you keep lying to yourself, telling yourself that he’ll leave you alone as long as you don’t provoke him, you won’t be able to act. But you’re wrong. One day he’ll come riding up the lane out there, and that’ll be that. It’ll be good-bye Kevin and good-bye Millie. The house and barn will be gone to ashes and you two along with them. Is that what you want? Do you want to just sit here and wait for that to happen, or do you want to try and do something about it?”
“What, dammit? What can we do?”
“For one thing, you can get all the farmers together, talk things over. You can set up patrols, you can force the sheriff to use his badge instead of just wearing it.”
“And how do we do that?”
“By demanding it. By showing him how, if he’s not man enough to do it himself. Stand up for yourselves. You came after Johnny and the boys with hayforks, for chrissakes. They had guns, and you went out, half of you, with garden tools. And you know why you did that?”
“To protect our livestock … of course.”
“No, dammit, that’s not why. You did it because you weren’t already beaten. You didn’t go out there believing you’d lost. But when it comes to Conlee, there’s no contest. He doesn’t win. You lose. You lose because you don’t have the will not to. He doesn’t have to do anything. You hand him the prize and you walk away. No contest.”
“Maybe so, but what difference does it make?”
“All the difference in the world. Put yourself in his shoes. Why would you move on, if you knew there was no reason. Other farmers are out there, hundreds, thousands. Conlee doesn’t bother them. And the reason he doesn’t is because he doesn’t have to. Why should he risk his neck to take something from one of them, when you all sit on your hands and give it to him right here, without a fight? He’s not a fool.”
“Neither am I, Cotton.”
“Then stop acting like one, for God’s sake.”
“Listen to Mr. Cotton, Kevin,” Millie said. “He’s right, and it’s our only chance.”
“I don’t know …” O’Hara shook his head.
“At least we can try, Kevin. We can do that much, can’t we?”
For the next three days, they tried. Kevin O’Hara made the rounds. And, one by one, the farmers turned him away. Millie talked to the wives, trying to get them to make their husbands see the light, but three days of rejection convinced her it was pointless. It was too late. They had waited too long, and now no one wanted to risk anything, even if it meant saving his own neck.
On the evening of the third day, Ted sat beside the wagon, talking to Cookie. The old man tried to console him, but it wasn’t working.
“You did your best, Teddy. You can’t help it if they don’t want to listen.”
“But they have to listen.”
“No, they don’t. They don’t have to do a damn thing they don’t want to. And you can’t make ‘em, neither.”
“But…”
“Look, Teddy. Maybe you and me ought to head back to Texas. I’ll bet old Rafe is gettin’ mighty lonely.”
“I can’t, Cookie. Not yet.”
“Son, you ain’t gonna get them sodbusters to do nothin’. And you can’t take Conlee on alone. You know that, don’t you?”
Ted didn’t answer him. Instead, he got up. He was about to walk away when Millie stepped out onto the porch. She carried a lantern turned down low and walked toward the wagon.
“Evenin’, ma’am,” Ted said.
“Good evening, Mr. Cotton.”
“Pretty night, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. Nothing about this place is beautiful. Not anymore.”
“Can’t blame it on the world, Mrs. O’Hara. It’s people make it this way. What’s right is right, and what’s pretty is pretty. And it’s a pretty night.”
Millie shook her head. “You’re right. It is a pretty night.”
“You shouldn’t be so hard on Kevin.”
“Hard on him?”
“I know how he feels. I was that way, once. After the war, I just … I’d had a bellyful of killin’. I …”
“You blame yourself for what happened to your brother, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“It wasn’t your fault, you know. You weren’t even here.”
“Shoulda been.”
“That wouldn’t have changed things. You might both be dead now. Would that be better?”
“Yes, ma’am, it would.”
He walked to his horse. After swinging up into the saddle, he leaned down and patted Millie’s shoulder. “We do what we can, Mrs. O’Hara. Seems like, right now, I got to do somethin’ I shoulda done before this.”
“Where are you going?”
“Same place I go every night.”
“I see, and where is that?”
“Never mind.”
He kicked the pony and moved off in the darkness. She called after him, but he didn’t respond. Still staring into the night, she said, “Where’s he going, Cookie?”
“Conlee’s camp.”
“He can’t do that, they’ll kill him.”
“Oh, he ain’t going in the camp. Just to watch. One of these nights, Conlee’s bound to make a mistake.”
“But still…”
“He don’t want to die, Mrs. O’Hara, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. But he sure enough wants to kill Ralph Conlee. And he will, too, unless I miss my guess.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Knowed him a long time. He was confused for a while, but he’s alright now. Just like his daddy. And his daddy’s daddy, I suppose. See, he’s a Cotton, and he knows what that means.”
“What does it mean, Cookie?”
“Don’t know ma’am. I ain’t a Cotton.”
23
TED GAVE UP after another fruitless night of watching. Once, he thought he might have hit pay dirt, when a small knot of horsemen left the camp in a hurry. He followed them for five miles before he got a good enough look to know that Conlee wasn’t one of them. He thought about following them anyway, taking them on and cutting the odds a little, but if he got killed, it would be a waste.
He didn’t mind dying as long as Conlee died first. Anything else was a bad bargain. So he returned to his post and spent half the night, convinced that his day would come. When it was clear Conlee wasn’t going anywhere, he mounted up and headed back to the O’Hara farm. Every night the ride got longer. This night was the longest so far, and it seemed like nothing would ever change. The rising sun reminded him of that permanence.
Ted’s heart sank when he saw the smoke rising beyond the hill. There was only one farm he knew of in that direction, and the smoke was too voluminous to be the stove or the chimney. Pushing his pony up the next hill, he never broke stride as he crested the ridge and plunged down the far side.
From the next hill, he could see for sure, but there was no doubt in his mind what he’d see. He lashed at the pony, appalled at his own fury, and the pony tried to outrun the sting of the reins, its feet barely touching long enough to complete a stride and start the next.
Careening up the hill, the pony missed a step and stumbled. Ted hun
g on, but it was too late. The pony fell and Ted flew from the saddle, tumbling forward over its head and landing heavily on his back. Only the thick cushion of grass saved him from serious injury, but it did nothing for the pony. The animal squealed in pain as it tried to rise. Favoring its right front leg, it kept losing its balance and falling back to the ground.
Ted knew, without having to look, that its leg was broken. The animal lay on its side, pawing at the earth with its one good front leg, and Ted climbed to his feet, wiping the dead grass from his clothes. His left shoulder hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken. He walked slowly toward the injured horse and knelt by the quivering head. The pony looked at him, its flat, expressionless eyes following his every movement.
Ted didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t leave the horse to die, and he couldn’t risk a gunshot. He still didn’t know what was happening in the next valley, but if it came anywhere close to what he feared, a gunshot now might be his own death knell. He patted the animal on the shoulder and rubbed its muzzle. The horse nickered, bucking its head against his palm. He scratched between its ears, trying to decide what to do.
He didn’t really have any choice, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. He left the animal behind and started up the slope. He wanted to know for sure what lay ahead of him. Then, if he was convinced that he had no alternative, he’d come back and do what he had to do.
The smoke grew thicker as he climbed, and Ted steeled himself for what he knew was coming. Just below the line of the hill, he dropped to his knees and crept forward like some bizarre medieval penitent. His mouth was dry, and his shoulder was beginning to throb. It wasn’t possible to put any weight on his left arm, and every twist of his upper body seared him with a wave of fire.
Then he could see over the hill, and the pain washed away. What he saw was even worse. The chuck wagon, parked a few yards from O’Hara’s corral, was a mass of flames. Half a dozen strange horses milled around alongside the corral, some hitched and some dragging their reins. The yard was empty. He saw not a soul.
Ted slammed his fist into the unyielding earth, and the tremor ripped up through his arm and exploded in his left shoulder. He cursed once, so softly he wasn’t even sure he’d done it, then crept back away from the hilltop and got to his feet. He sprinted downhill, heedless of the uneven terrain, even half hoping he would break his own leg and someone would put him out of his misery.