by Duane Boehm
Chapter 14
Ethan and Sarah had been debating whether to buy Mr. Holden’s ranch since he had made his visit and offered it to them. Ethan was all for it and Sarah was leery of all that would be involved in taking on additional land and cattle. The previous night, they had even tried to enlist Gideon in the conversation after he returned from his trip to town. He had politely excused himself and went to the barn to sip from his whiskey bottle, drinking more than usual in hope the discussion would be over by the time he returned to the cabin. Much to his chagrin, they were still arguing when he entered their home. They both gave him dirty looks when he walked in, and Ethan made a snide comment about him smelling like a saloon.
Nobody was talking much at breakfast and the usual banter and teasing was nonexistent. Gideon and Benjamin exchanged knowing glances and decided the best course was to remain silent as Ethan and Sarah looked tired and in ill moods. Both of them were clearly weary of discussing the land purchase. Benjamin even excused himself to go do chores and head to school without any prompting. As soon as the meal was finished, Sarah started cleaning off the table, prompting the debate to begin again.
“After looking at the numbers last night, do you feel any better about us buying it?” Ethan asked.
“Ethan, those numbers are based on your assumptions. What happens if beef prices go down? And you will have to hire a ranch hand and start paying them a wage. It is a lot to take on,” Sarah said.
Gideon interrupted, saying, “I’m going to ride out and check on your herd. Hang a white flag out front if one of you surrenders. Otherwise, I’m going back to where you found me and shoot myself.”
“Please leave that Colt Frontier to me if you do,” Ethan shot back.
Gideon strapped on the gun, grabbed his hat, and as he walked out, he said, “Nah, I’m going to leave it to your son. You never were much of a shot with a pistol anyway.”
Ethan turned his attention back to Sarah. “Honey, all your points are valid, but I really could use some help around here now and I for sure will in a year or two. I want to build a ranch big enough that Benjamin can be part of it if he wants to and not be like we were with two families trying to live off the one homestead that my pa owned. And we have done just fine with the other land that we purchased. If we do well, maybe we will be able to build a real house and get out of this cabin.”
“Do you ever wish that we could have had more children?” Sarah asked.
Ethan looked at her, trying to figure out how the question had anything to do with their conversation. He realized that her random musings were one of those quirky things about his wife that made him love her. “You know I do, but I thank God every day that after three miscarriages that he gave us Benjamin. He made it all worth it.”
Sarah sat lost in thought before grabbing the dishtowel and waving it. “I guess I better go hang this out so that you can ride to town and see Mr. Druthers at the bank. I’m tired of talking about it and you aren’t ever going to shut up until you win. You had better be right because I’ve seen enough calves castrated to know how to do it.”
Ethan grinned at her mischievously. “I really think it is a good purchase and fair value. But even if I am wrong, I am not worried about you. You couldn’t live without it if you castrated me.”
Sarah burst out giggling and threw the dishtowel at him. “All men think that their penis is a gift to the world.”
∞
The trip to town was Hank Sligo’s first since Gideon had waylaid him with his pistol. He had been laid up in the bunkhouse for two days trying to get his senses back. The whole time it seemed as if his mind was in a fog and his head throbbed unmercifully. By the evening of the second day, he was so stir crazy that he decided to head to Last Stand, headache or not. The beer he drank at the Last Chance seemed to work like a poultice on his head, helping him to feel better. Within an hour of buying his first, he had learned of Ethan’s visit to the bank and the impending purchase of the Holden place.
With Last Stand only having two saloons, it only took drinking a beer at each place to know almost every rumor or piece of gossip in town. and Hank liked being the ears of the operation. No bit of news was too trivial for him not to listen to, giving him power to parse out what information he wanted Frank to know. Ethan’s impeding purchase was certainly worthy of repeating to the boss.
∞
The next morning, Hank rousted the ranch hands up early and started ragging Walter to hurry up with cooking breakfast. A lollygagging cook was not going to keep him in the bunkhouse and prevent him from being stationed on Frank’s porch when his boss stepped out of the house. Once the food was cooked, Hank scarfed down his eggs and bacon, smacking loudly and slurping coffee. The others watched warily, afraid to ask the surly Sligo what the hurry was.
Hank rushed to the house and stood so close to the door that when Frank opened it, he jumped back, startled at finding the huge man filling the doorway.
“What in the hell are you doing standing there? That’s a good way to get knocked up the side of the head again. You could have sat on the bench like a normal person,” Frank said tersely.
“I heard some big news last night. I think we need to go inside and discuss it,” Hank said, ignoring Frank’s irritation.
Frank studied Hank, wondering if the man sometimes thought he was part owner in the operation. Hank was exasperating and too familiar in his actions towards his employer to suit Frank, and would have surely been fired a long time ago if he were not so essential to running the place.
Frank walked back to his study with Hank following closely at his heels. After sitting down behind his desk, Frank pulled a cigar out of the humidor without offering one to Hank. He clipped it carefully and then used two matches to light it while he slowly puffed on it, sending large plumes of smoke into the air. Smoking the expensive cigars in front of Hank made him feel as if he established his superiority over his employee.
“All right, what is your big news?” Frank asked.
Hank put his hands on the desk and leaned over it, coming too close for Frank’s liking.
“Ethan Oakes is buying the Holden place. He went to talk to that banker, Druthers, yesterday and got the go ahead on a loan. I’ll tell you what, people think highly of Ethan. Just like this deal, Holden offers it to him without even putting it on the market. One of these days, we may all be working for Ethan,” Hank said.
“For Jesus Christ, Ethan doesn’t have a single hired hand. I have five times the cattle that he does. He hardly qualifies as a land baron. That being said, he is the only one around here with enough brains and gumption to interfere with my plans,” Frank said.
“What we need to do is start us a little range war. Kill two or three of them off and a bunch more will hightail it away from here. It might cause quite the fire sale on some land,” Hank said.
“Sit down. I don’t need to smell your God–awful breath. I’ve got a little story about range wars for you. My Uncle Joe, up in Wyoming, decided he would start him one, but he misjudged how determined his adversaries were. He only killed off one rancher, and then the rest of them, they snuck up one night and strung him up out in his own front yard. Those wars are hard things to predict and I’m sure as hell not going to start one with Gideon still around here,” Frank said.
“You let me worry about Gideon. My bullet won’t wound him. He will be dead before he hits the ground,” Hank boasted.
“Yeah, I heard about how you handled him in the saloon and I saw with my own eyes how he handled you at his mother’s grave. If I cowed down as easily as you did, I don’t think I would talk so big if I was you,” Frank said.
Learning that Frank was aware of the saloon incident agitated Hank. He nervously wiped his nose with the back of his hand and then onto his trousers. “Well, I think we ought to do something. There is less land to go around all the time and more people on the way, especially now since the Indians are about whipped.”
“We will wait and see what Gideon does.
I expect he will be leaving soon. Doc told me that he was chasing rustlers and they ambushed him. He had no plans to come back here. Once he is gone, I got an idea on what we can do. You go run the ranch and leave me to do the thinking,” Frank said and then took a big draw on his cigar and blew it towards Hank.
Chapter 15
Mary woke up at her usual mid–morning time. Sleeping in was one of the few benefits of the profession. When she had first started working at the saloon, she had had a hard time adjusting to the late nights and late mornings, but now she thrived on it. Going to bed early and rising with the chickens were about the only two things that she didn’t miss about homesteading.
The homestead had been such an adventure for her and Eugene. It was as if the two of them were up against the world. They had moved to Last Stand not knowing anybody and with just enough money to get started. The couple had managed to do most of the homesteading on their own. To their surprise, the neighbors, without asking, banded together to help them get the cabin built. It had been a wonderful gesture by the community. She even knew Ethan and Sarah back in those days.
Eugene had grown up on a farm in Indiana so he had an eye for land and he picked a spot with good grass and water. His plan was to put crops on most of it and build a herd as they prospered. He used the oxen that had brought their wagon out west to plow the land up and plant their crop. The first year had gone well and they made money, but even then, they heard rumors that people were upset that they had plowed under the grass.
During the first year in the cabin, she discovered that she liked sex. Up to that point, they had lived with Eugene’s parents in Indiana and it had only happened when opportunity presented itself and as quickly as possible at that. She got little enjoyment out of it. After they moved into the cabin and had the privacy to discover each other, she found that not only did she like it, but also that she was good at it. At least Eugene sure seemed to think so. They went at it like a couple of bunnies that year.
She had been raised in an orphanage, never receiving an accounting of how she ended up there. It was the only place that she could ever remember from her childhood so she assumed that she came there quite young. It certainly was not a place for nurturing, as the people there were much more likely to give out beatings than hugs. The one good thing that they did emphasize was education. Out of shear fear, the orphans learned reading, writing, and math. She had been a natural at arithmetic, much to the chagrin of the boys that were led to believe that the subject was male dominated. It was at the orphanage that she had her first sexual encounter, rape really, when one of the teachers shoved her into a broom closet and had his way with her. She had put the days of the orphanage so far in the back of her mind that she could recall very little detail about it even when she tried. The one thing besides an education that the place had given her was a refusal to let its cruelty be her nature, but instead chose empathy.
The second spring when Eugene started plowing the land again is when the trouble started. At first, they found warnings nailed to trees, telling them that they needed to leave, and then one night after the crops had just started to come up, somebody ran a herd of cattle across their fields. After that incident, she lost her nerve and tried to convince Eugene that they should move away. The homestead was not worth dying for she had told him, but Eugene was undaunted and replanted. Then Hank Sligo showed up at the cabin. He sat on his horse, big and menacing, and called Eugene out. They both walked out on the porch, Eugene with his shotgun. She could see her husband shaking trying to hold the gun steady in his hands. Hank had laughed at him and told him he was a dead man if they did not move off their homestead.
A couple of weeks later, she was hanging laundry out when she her heard the gunshot. She ran to the field and found Eugene shot in the head. The ambusher could not even kill him with some of his dignity left, but instead destroyed his face for good measure. The sheriff was sympathetic, but said there was no evidence to arrest anybody. She had no claim to the land since they had not lived on it for five years so it reverted back to open range. The only things left to do were bury Eugene, sell what few things they had, and move into the saloon.
She banished the past out of her mind and put her housecoat on to go downstairs to the back room of the saloon to make some breakfast. Mr. Vander, the saloon owner, was sitting at the table drinking coffee and going over his books.
“Good morning, Miss Mary,” Mr. Vander greeted in his heavy German accent.
“Good morning, Mr. Vander.”
“What is wrong with my Mary these last couple of days? You have not been yourself. You fell in love with that cowboy everybody talks about, did you not?”
Mary poured a cup of coffee and sat down across from the saloon owner. “Maybe. I know it’s a hazard of the profession and frowned upon, but he is so different from all the other men around here. He’s a troubled soul, but there is a goodness to him that wants to come out.”
She watched Mr. Vander take a sip of coffee. He looked to be thinking hard for the right thing to say. Even though she worked as a whore for the man, she had come to love him as a father figure. He treated her as if she were one of the ladies of the town. After he discovered her math abilities, he had recruited her to help him with the books, even paying her extra for it. The old German liked to keep track of every penny coming in and going out of the place.
Mr. Vander tried to look out for his girls too. One night a bunch of rowdy cowboys from a cattle drive came into the saloon. One of the men took Mary upstairs, and it was there that she found out that he liked it rough, blacking her eye and busting her lip. After he was finished, he grinned at her and went downstairs to play cards. She had stayed in her room nursing her wounds. Mr. Vander came up to check on her absence. He became enraged when he saw Mary’s injuries and walked her downstairs for all the patrons to see before grabbing his club from behind the bar. The saloonkeeper started to wail away on the cowboy. One of the other cowboys drew his pistol, but before he could fire it, Mr. Vander swung the club, snapping the gunman’s wrist like a twig. The man stood in shock, looking at his dangling limp before Mr. Vander swung the club again, knocking out his teeth. Nobody else dared move as Mr. Vander went back to beating Mary’s assaulter. If some of locals had not pulled the saloon owner away, he would have killed the man.
“What you going to do about it?” Mr. Vander finally asked.
“Nothing. He will be gone soon and I’ll forget about him,” Mary said, flicking a tear away and smiling sadly. “You know, sometimes life doesn’t seem fair. I never set out to be a whore. If they had left us alone, I would be like all the other wives around here, having babies and going to church socials and barn dances.”
“I know, Miss Mary. I know,” Mr. Vander said.
Chapter 16
The full moon would be rising in a few days and Gideon decided that he would leave the next morning in order to use it to his advantage in Silverton. He had not told Ethan of his plans yet, needing to take a ride to think it all out. After saddling Buck, he rode to Ethan’s pond and stood on the bank skipping rocks. He had always liked the spot and had spent countless hours fishing there with Ethan. The day was windless and the only noise was birds singing, making it a peaceful place for him, and good for contemplation.
After all the years of avoiding Last Stand, he was surprised at himself for being conflicted in leaving. A part of him was ready to ride now and the other part was already longing for the place. He took inventory of all the people that had come into his life since his return. The bond with Ethan was still there after all the years, making it hard to leave the only friend he had ever had, and Benjamin and Sarah had become a substitute family. Benjamin had not only saved his life, but also filled a void of the child he would never have. He would miss Mary also. She made him feel better about himself and was certainly not a run of the mill whore that deserved the hand she had been dealt. His need to always make things right pulled at him to rescue her, but he did not have a clue as to what he c
ould do. He did not have the money to solve her problem and saw no other alternatives. Finally, he let his mind turn to the person he was avoiding thinking about – Abigail. She had been buried so far down in his past that he never thought seeing her would illicit any feelings, but there it was – he still loved her as much as he ever had and it made him feel hollow inside and a fool. He wished that he could remember why leaving her to go enlist in the army had seemed like the right thing to do. The idea seemed incomprehensible to him now and such a reckless mistake that had ruined his life. He would gladly trade the rest of his days to have that decision back and to have spent the last eighteen years with her.
Skipping one last rock across the pond, he watched it sink out of sight just as he would soon be doing. He mounted Buck. The decision was made, and in the morning, he would be ready to leave. All the contemplation made his head hurt. He was ready to get back to his old life and bury Last Stand in the past again. There was no way to get the last eighteen years back or fix any of it now. Being around the place just left him stuck somewhere in the middle of what could have been with all the wounds still bleeding.
At breakfast the next morning, everybody was in high spirits. Gideon and Sarah were riding Ethan about becoming a lowdown land baron, and Ethan retorted with threats of finding a younger wife and a higher class of friend.
At a pause in the teasing, Gideon grew serious. “It is time for me to get going. I’m getting out of your hair this morning.”
The family all stopped mid–bite and looked at him as if he had horns growing out of his head. Ending the lull in conversation, Ethan said, “I was hoping that you would stick around and help me get the new place in shape. You could even move into the Holden place when they move to town.”