Ralph Compton Bullet For a Bad Man

by Ralph Compton

  After the Ranson affair, the mood changed. Ned Scott was somber and surly. He never visited the bunkhouse, as he did in the old days, never talked to the punchers except to give orders, never joked and laughed with them as he used to do. He let his foreman, old Dan Morgan, pretty much run things. Morgan respected the men and had their respect in return, but he was troubled, deeply troubled, and grew more so as time went on.

  Epp Scott, to the considerable surprise of many, was the cheeriest person on the spread. He smiled more than he used to. He laughed more. He was in such good spirits that two months after he came back from Ranson alone, Dan Morgan approached him one evening over near the stable and cleared his throat. With Dan the throat clearing was always a sign he had something to say.

  ‘‘What is on your mind?’’ Epp asked.

  ‘‘You.’’

  ‘‘Me?’’

  ‘‘It might not be my place to say, but you have been acting damned peculiar.’’ Dan Morgan had hair that was almost white, a square jaw and hands as calloused as hands could be from decades of honest work.

  Epp had been about to light his pipe, but he lowered it and studied the old man. ‘‘You will have to explain. I do not own one of those crystal balls.’’

  ‘‘Your brother has become a killer and disappeared. Your ma is close to losing her mind. And your pa is not half the man he used to be.’’

  ‘‘Thank you for reminding me of all that. What do you do on parade day? Pray for rain?’’

  Dan snorted. ‘‘That there was a perfect example.’’

  ‘‘Of what?’’

  ‘‘Of you joking and acting as if you do not have a care in the world when your world is falling apart around you.’’

  ‘‘I see,’’ Epp said, nodding. ‘‘You want me to fall apart like my ma or to lose all interest in life like my pa. Would that make you feel better?’’

  ‘‘Damn it, Eppley, that is not what I said,’’ Dan angrily replied. ‘‘All I am saying is that your happy face is out of place. And I am not the only one to think so. Some of the punchers have remarked as much.’’

  ‘‘Some of the punchers are biddies who love to gossip.’’ Epp sighed and gazed toward the house. ‘‘Listen, Dan. I could let it get to me. I could go to pieces and not give a hoot about anything or turn to drink or you name it. But what good would that do anyone?’’

  Dan Morgan fidgeted.

  ‘‘Would it help my ma to recover? Would it help my pa to remember how much the Circle V means to him? No, it would not. All it would do is make matters worse. Is that what you want?’’

  Dan fidgeted again.

  ‘‘Of course you don’t. No one does. I am trying in my small way to shed some of the gloom. To show that, yes, what my brother did was terrible, but we must run this ranch as it should be run and not crawl into shells like my ma and pa have done.’’

  ‘‘So all your smiles are for our benefit?’’

  ‘‘Why else? For my parents most of all. I want them to get over their loss and be as they were.’’

  ‘‘That is asking a lot,’’ Dan said. ‘‘They love that brother of yours. What he did has crushed them. I will never savvy why he didn’t come back with you and own up to his mistake. That boy always struck me as levelheaded.’’

  Epp shrugged. ‘‘Who can say why people do what they do? Who can say what made Boone snap?’’

  ‘‘Talk is that a girl was to blame. That he was sweet on her, and for some reason she was shot, and that set him off.’’

  ‘‘I doubt we will ever put all the pieces together,’’ Epp remarked. ‘‘The important thing is for us to get on with our lives.’’

  ‘‘I am sorry I brought it up.’’

  ‘‘Don’t be. You have the hands to think of. Spread the word. Tell them I do not want to see long faces. Make them understand we can’t mope around forever.’’

  The old man promised that he would and headed for the bunkhouse. Epp stared after him, then chuckled and bent his own steps toward the house. He climbed to the porch and gazed to the west. The sun was about to disappear over the rim of the world, and the sky was splashed with brilliant streaks of orange, red and yellow. ‘‘Do you like the sunset?’’

  Lillian did not look up from her rocking. Her jaw muscles twitched, but she did not answer.

  Epp went over and squatted next to the rocking chair. ‘‘You can’t keep this up, Ma.’’

  ‘‘Go away.’’

  Laughing, Epp clapped her on the shoulder. ‘‘That is the spirit. Treat me like cow droppings. I am not the one who gunned those men down. I am not the one who rode off and left you and Pa.’’

  Lillian’s head snapped up and her eyes blazed with a fire they had not had in many weeks. ‘‘You should have looked after him. You’re the oldest. He was your responsibility.’’

  ‘‘He’s sixteen, Ma,’’ Epp said. ‘‘Practically a full-grown man. What was I to do? Hold his hand the entire time we were in Ranson?’’

  Lillian’s fingers gripped the arms of the rocking chair until her knuckles were white. ‘‘What was he doing there anyhow? He never went there before. You are the one who likes that den of iniquity.’’

  ‘‘Don’t blame me. He wanted to see it for himself. I tried to talk him out of it. I told him you would not approve. But he said he would do as he pleased.’’

  Lillian’s eyes narrowed. ‘‘That does not sound like Boone. That does not sound like him at all.’’

  Epp rose and placed his hands on his hips. ‘‘What are you suggesting, Ma? Say it plain.’’

  Lillian looked down.

  ‘‘You always did like him more than me. You always have treated him special.’’

  ‘‘That is not true.’’

  ‘‘The hell it isn’t. When we were little, I got ten spankings for every one of his.’’

  ‘‘You misbehaved ten times as much,’’ Lillian said, defending her punishments. ‘‘You sassed me. You threw fits of temper.’’ She smiled wistfully. ‘‘Boone never did any of that. He always did his chores and listened to what I told him.’’

  ‘‘The perfect angel,’’ Epp said bitterly. ‘‘But that is all right. I don’t hold it against you. Every parent has a favorite, I am told. It is my luck that you and Pa both picked Boone.’’

  ‘‘We never—’’ Lillian began, and fell silent.

  Epp patted her wrist. ‘‘Sit out here awhile yet. I will have Maria call you when supper is ready.’’ He went inside and closed the door behind him, then leaned against it and grinned. ‘‘It is so easy,’’ he said to the air. Squaring his shoulders, he walked down the hall to the kitchen. ‘‘How soon until we eat? I’m starving.’’

  Maria was slicing potatoes she had already skinned. ‘‘It will be the usual time, Senor Scott.’’

  ‘‘Bring my ma in when you set the table so she can wash up.’’ Epp turned to go but looked back. ‘‘Any sign of my pa?’’

  ‘‘No, senor,’’ Maria said dutifully. ‘‘Not since breakfast. He went out on the range to count the cows.’’

  Epp blinked. ‘‘He did what?’’

  ‘‘That is what he told me he was doing, senor.’’

  ‘‘But we did a tally at roundup. Why would he want to count the cattle again?’’

  ‘‘He did not say, senor, and I did not ask.’’ Maria dropped potato slices into a pot. ‘‘The counting of cows is not something that interests me.’’

  ‘‘Remember to get my ma.’’ Epp hurried down the hall to the front door. His hand was on the latch when he changed his mind and retraced his steps to the parlor. The window was open to admit air, as it often was on a summer’s eve, and he slipped out without anyone noticing. Instead of going to the front of the house he went to the rear and on past the house and around his mother’s lilac bushes. They screened him from the porch long enough for him to reach a gully that presently brought him to within a pebble’s toss of the stable.

  Epp hunkered and waited. He was not worried about the hands
spotting him. Those not out working the range were in the bunkhouse waiting for the triangle to peal so they could hustle to supper. Maria’s brother did the cooking for the punchers; his specialty was Mexican food but they didn’t mind. As one hand mentioned once, ‘‘Food is food and his is damn good.’’

  The sky gradually darkened to gray. Epp consulted his pocket watch and slid it back into his vest pocket. The drum of hooves made him stiffen. He climbed to where he could see over the top of the gully and spied a lone rider trotting toward the corral. The man’s face was hid by shadow, but his clothes were familiar, as was his bay with its white stockings.

  Epp did not show himself until the man had dismounted and was leading the bay. Careful not to be seen, he came up on the corral from the side. ‘‘How was your day, Pa?’’

  ‘‘You,’’ Ned Scott said. ‘‘What do you want?’’

  ‘‘I asked you how your day went.’’

  Ned started to strip the saddle, saying, ‘‘It went like all the rest have gone since your brother left.’’

  Epp leaned against the corral and folded his arms. ‘‘This is tiresome, Pa. Will Ma and you ever get over it?’’

  ‘‘When you have a son of your own ask me that.’’ Ned laid hold of the saddle and lifted. ‘‘That boy meant the world to me.’’

  ‘‘And I don’t?’’

  Ned shot his older son a look of reproach. ‘‘I love both of you. I have never favored one over the other. But you have always been more willful than Boone.’’

  ‘‘First Ma, now you,’’ Epp said.

  ‘‘It is true and you know it. I tried and tried to talk you out of going to Ranson but you wouldn’t listen. You like cards and whiskey and the other thing too much.’’

  ‘‘The other thing?’’

  ‘‘Don’t start with me.’’ Ned placed the saddle over the top rail and reached for the saddle blanket. ‘‘I have had a long day and I am not in the mood for your shenanigans.’’

  ‘‘Fine. I will talk about something else. What is this I hear about you were out counting cattle?’’

  ‘‘They are my cows. I can count them if I feel like it.’’ Ned led the bay into the corral, removed the bridle and came back out.

  ‘‘Isn’t that what we have a foreman for? Morgan has never miscounted at the roundup, has he?’’

  ‘‘Dan Morgan is as fine a cowman as ever drew breath,’’ Ned said. ‘‘What he doesn’t know about cows is not worth knowing.’’

  ‘‘Then why count them again?’’

  Ned gripped the saddle and threw it over his shoulder. Carrying the saddle blanket in his other hand, he made for the stable.

  Epp went after him, saying, ‘‘You haven’t answered me.’’

  ‘‘I am counting them because of a letter I received,’’ Ned revealed. ‘‘A letter from Cramden.’’

  ‘‘The cattle buyer for the army? Why would he write to you?’’

  Ned stopped and faced the spreading darkness to the east. ‘‘It seems a man by the name of Hanks offered to sell the army some cattle. Two hundred head. Cramden had this Hanks bring them to be inspected, and at first he thought he was buying a cow-pen herd.

  He paid and Hanks rode off. Only later did Cramden take a closer look at the brands.’’ Ned resumed walking. ‘‘They had been blotted.’’

  ‘‘But what does any of that have to do with us?’’

  ‘‘The brand artist was good, but Cramden was able to make out some of the original brands. By his reckoning, about a hundred of them were Circle V.’’

  ‘‘Some of our cattle have been rustled?’’

  ‘‘And now you know why I was out counting today and why I will be out counting tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and for as long as it takes to find out how many the rope and ring man has helped himself to.’’ Ned came to the stable door, and stopped. ‘‘If you would like to help, you are welcome.’’

  ‘‘You really want me to?’’

  ‘‘What kind of fool question is that? You are my son. When I am gone, the Circle V will be yours. You have as much stake in the ranch as I do.’’

  ‘‘I will be happy to help, Pa. It means a lot to me, you asking. Sometimes I get the notion that you don’t think as highly of me as I think of you.’’

  ‘‘Damn, boy. How many times must I tell you? You mean everything to me. The same as Boone.’’

  ‘‘It was wrong of him to run off the way he did. He was ashamed of what he had done, I guess.’’

  ‘‘I always credited him with more sense. It goes to show that you just never know about people, not even those closest to you.’’ Ned managed a smile and entered the stable.

  Epp wheeled and headed for the house. ‘‘Damn you, Blin Hanks,’’ he snarled in a whisper. ‘‘Now I have to do it that much sooner.’’

  Sidewinders

  It was as hot and dry as a desert, but the ground was rock, not sand.

  In the middle of the vast bleakness squatted a structure that the rider mistook for a mirage. It was as brown as the ground and had an unreal aspect, shimmering there in the heat haze as if it had no more substance than the lake he had seen earlier.

  The rider shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. His backside was chafed and sore and he yearned to stop and rest, but the compulsion that had driven him to keep on the go was as strong as ever. The sun had burned him so brown that were it not for the color of his hair and eyes, he might be mistaken for an Indian.

  Drawing rein, the rider wiped a sleeve across his sweaty brow. He licked his dry, cracked lips and reached for his canteen but stopped himself. ‘‘No,’’ he croaked out loud. ‘‘I mustn’t.’’

  He had taken to talking to himself a lot. He never felt so alone; it helped to hear his own voice. There had been just him and his horse for so many days that the rest of the people in the world might as well be as dead as his past.

  The rider touched his spurs to the buttermilk and the weary palomino plodded on, head low.

  ‘‘I am sorry to put you through this,’’ Boone Scott said.

  The building did not dissolve into thin air as Boone approached. Made of planks, it looked like something built by a drunk with a broken hammer and not enough nails. An overhang provided shade for three horses and a mule. None of the animals showed the least interest as the palomino came near. It was too hot to move.

  The water trough just out of their reach caught Boone’s eye. He eagerly brought the buttermilk over and scowled when he saw that the trough was dry. Tiredly climbing down, he worked the pump lever and was elated when water trickled out. He worked the lever harder and faster and the trickle became as thick as his finger. Cupping some, he gratefully sipped.

  ‘‘That will be two bits, boy.’’

  Boone turned.

  The speaker was a butterball with a face as round as a plate. He had no hair to speak of save for fringe above his ears. His clothes were in as shabby a shape as the building. But there was nothing shabby about the double-barreled shotgun he held. The twin muzzles were pointed at the ground, but his thick thumb rested on one of the hammers.

  ‘‘Cat got your tongue, boy?’’

  ‘‘Don’t call me that.’’

  The man shrugged. ‘‘I am easy to get along with. It is why I have lasted as long as I have. But that will still be fifty cents.’’

  ‘‘You charge people to drink?’’

  ‘‘It is my water. I found the spring and I built this place and I will by God do what I want with it.’’

  Boone fished in a pocket and flipped the man the money. He tugged on the reins to bring the buttermilk to the trough.

  ‘‘That will be another two bits for your animal.’’

  Boone looked at him.

  ‘‘Think what you will of me,’’ the butterball said defensively. ‘‘I have to live, the same as everyone else. And not a lot of paying customers come by, as you can imagine.’’

  ‘‘Customers?’’

  The man indicated a sign near the door. The
letters were faded but Boone could make them out. PORTER’S SALOON AND STORE, the sign read.

  Boone gazed out over the bleak landscape and then at the man with the shotgun.

  ‘‘I know what you are thinking. I must be crazy, living out here. But this suits me better than a town. I do not like people all that much. I am Ira Porter, by the way.’’

  The buttermilk dipped its head into the trough.

  ‘‘Fifty cents, remember?’’ Porter’s shotgun started to rise. ‘‘The money in advance or your animal can go dry.’’

  Boone’s right hand flicked.

  ‘‘Jesus!’’ Porter froze, his shotgun not nearly high enough. ‘‘Don’t shoot me! Please!’’

  ‘‘Take your thumb off that hammer.’’

  ‘‘I will do better than that.’’ Porter slowly lowered the shotgun to his side so the stock was on the ground and he was gripping it by the barrel. ‘‘There. I can do you no harm.’’

  Boone twirled his ivory-handled Colt into his holster. ‘‘You will get your money, but my horse will drink first.’’

  ‘‘Whatever you want. I am not about to buck a man who can draw as fast as you can.’’

  Boone resumed pumping, but he did not take his eyes off the butterball. ‘‘How long have you lived in this godforsaken spot?’’

  ‘‘Going on twenty years. I was one of the first in these parts.’’

  ‘‘The Apaches don’t mind?’’

  ‘‘They could have killed me a hundred times over. Six of them showed up shortly after I built the place. I had left the door open and was pouring myself a drink, and suddenly there they were, in the doorway. I about wet myself.’’

  ‘‘Yet they didn’t kill you.’’

  ‘‘I suspect they had been watching awhile, and they were curious. I held out the bottle and one of them came over and took it. Then I did the smartest thing I ever did in my whole life.’’ Porter smiled at the memory. ‘‘I had a rifle lying on the counter and I got that Apache to understand it was his if he wanted it. Hell, he could have taken it anyway. I gave him the rifle and I gave him ammunition, and from that day until now, they have let me be. Every now and then a few of them show up and I always give them things so they go away happy.’’