As they approached the main entrance to the ranch, Charley was pleasantly surprised that there had been no new Keep Out signs posted. As far as he could see, there had been no new tampering with the front gate at all. Even so, he made sure his Walker Colt was within reach, plus he advised Roscoe to be on the ready, just in case.
When they reached the ranch yard, Henry Ellis woke up. As he sat up behind his grandfather and Roscoe, wiping his eyes, he could sense the tension they were both feeling inside.
“Is everything all right, Grampa?” he asked Charley.
“Everything is just fine, son,” was Charley’s answer. He turned to Roscoe, just as the clouds opened up and the rain began to fall again. “Roscoe,” he said. “Henry Ellis and me are going to get out here by the house. You take the horses and surrey to the barn and make sure the trotters get some feed.”
He reined in the trotters, handing the lines to Roscoe. Then he worked his way out of the surrey, squeezing his way through a small gap in the isinglass. He helped Henry Ellis out of the backseat and signaled Roscoe to go ahead.
Charley drew his Walker, then put the other arm around the boy to shield him from the rain, then both of them ran for the back steps and up to the small landing before entering through the screen door.
Once they were inside, Charley put his gun back into his boot, turned on the porch light for Roscoe, then shook the water from his hat and coat. The boy did the same.
“Were you afraid those men might have come back, Grampa?” asked Henry Ellis.
“For a minute or two, yes . . . maybe,” Charley answered. “But it looks like the Campbells have called ’em off.”
By then, the two were moving into the kitchen. Charley managed to turn on the light before he sat in one of the chairs by the table.
Henry Ellis moved around, sitting opposite.
“You still think there’s a connection between those men and Ben and Eleanor Campbell, don’t you, Grampa?” said the boy.
“Yes I do, son,” said Charley. “Yes I do.”
He leaned closer to the boy.
“Listen to me, Henry Ellis,” he said. “I know those two are your friends, but I still have my suspicions. It ain’t a coincidence that they showed up in Juanita claiming they just inherited my ranch, while at the same time, a bunch of gunnies start terrorizing us on the property itself.”
“I know it looks strange, Grampa,” said the boy, “but they just seemed like such nice people to me.”
“Well, what about that Dundee fella, their lawyer? It’s pretty fishy that he’s the same one that got shot on the train you were riding. And why did your friend, Ben Campbell, have to shoot the other fella when he’d already been shot by that lawyer fella?”
“I know, Grampa,” said the boy. “It doesn’t look good for the Campbells all the way around, but—”
Roscoe came in through the kitchen door, closing it behind him. He was soaked through to the bone.
“I get the feelin’ this storm ain’t gonna let up fer a while yet,” he said. “When it does, I’ll go finish puttin’ the new rig away. Will anyone drink any coffee and hot chocolate if I make some?” he added.
“Me,” said Henry Ellis. “Make mine hot chocolate. I don’t think I’m quite ready for any more coffee.”
“And I’ll have some coffee, Roscoe,” said Charley. “What’s for supper?”
Roscoe was already stoking the stove with some torn newspaper, wood scraps, and chips.
“Soup,” he said. “Tomato soup. Nothin’ better’n soup on a cold, rainy night.”
“You got any meat to go along with that, Roscoe? I always like meat with my meal.”
“I can fry up some of that leftover chicken I got in the icebox, Charley, if that’ll make ya happy.”
“That’s fine, Roscoe,” said Charley. “That’ll do.”
“It’ll be ready in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“I’ll go wash up,” said Henry Ellis.
“Me too,” said Charley.
They both walked down the hallway to the water closet, another new addition Charley had added on, using his new wealth to pay for it.
The two of them crowded into the room, with Charley getting to the sink first. He turned in the water faucet for a second, wet his hands, then turned it off. He soaped up his hands and washed then, turning on the water again for the rinse. Henry Ellis did the same.
“Make sure to turn off the water while you soap up,” said Charley. “Even though it comes from one of my wells, they still charge me for using it.”
“Why is that?” Henry Ellis wanted to know.
“Something about where the water comes from under the ground. The county claims they own it.”
“No, Grampa,” said the boy. “That’s not right. Unless you don’t own the mineral rights to this property.”
“I own everything about this property, son. Makes no difference whether it’s above or below the ground.”
“And that’s all on paper?”
“I got the original deed out in my desk drawer,” he said. “I’ll show it to you, if you want to see it.”
“I will want to see it, Grampa. If you don’t mind.”
They finished drying their hands, then moved down the hall toward the kitchen.
“How many water wells do you have on the ranch, Grampa?” asked Henry Ellis.
“I reckon about five,” said Charley. “One for the house. One for the corral yard and barn, and three out in the pastures, for the grazing livestock. Except . . . Except we only use two for the livestock. There’s one that don’t put out clear water at all. That happens around here sometimes, you know . . . you spend a fortune on digging a water well, and you don’t strike any water that’s potable.”
“One bad water well outta five being nonproductive isn’t that bad,” said Henry Ellis.
“A man has to live with the cards he’s dealt in life,” Charley added.
By then, they were back in the kitchen.
“Whoeee, does that smell good,” said Charley, changing the subject as he sniffed the soup that had just begun to boil. “You got any bread, close to fresh, Roscoe, that we can use for dipping?”
“Almost a full loaf in the bread box,” said Roscoe. “Feather musta brung it when he was here watchin’ the place and milkin’ the cow. It ain’t that fresh, but it’ll do fer dippin’.”
It wasn’t but fifteen minutes later, and the three of them were gathered at the table. They all held hands as Charley said his usual suppertime prayer.
“O Lord, when hunger pinches sore,
Do thou stand us in stead,
And send us, from thy bounteous store,
A tup or wether head!
Amen.”
Charley was the first to pick up his spoon and begin sipping some soup. This was the signal for the others to follow.
For approximately five minutes the threesome broke bread, then dipped it into their soup dishes, devouring what had been set before them in record time.
When they were finished, Roscoe got up and brought the pot to the table, ladling up more for everyone.
Roscoe sat down again. Nothing had been said throughout.
Finally, Henry Ellis couldn’t stand the silence.
“Is that how you two and Feather used to eat, when you were out on the range chasing outlaws?” he asked.
“That’s right,” said Charley. “Plus, we had to keep our ears open during a meal, in case someone decided to sneak up on us.”
“We were really lucky that ya found Feather when ya did, Charley,” said Roscoe. “He’s added a lot to our team over the years.”
“That does remind me of a story,” said Charley. “Did you know, Henry Ellis, that me and Roscoe were a two-man team for a few years before Feather came along? Did you know that?”
“No, sir,” he said. “You never told me.”
“Me and Roscoe were following some Mexican cattle thieves who were headed for the border. We’d stopped in Alpine to grub up
and decided Roscoe had better stay behind, just in case those rustlers got around behind me and headed back north. I went on alone.”
Charley got to Terlingua in the late afternoon two days after he’d left Alpine. He was leading the blood-soaked bodies of two Mexican rustlers lashed to both of their horses, much in the same way local hunters tied down the deer they had killed to their own pack animals. Those that had them.
The unlucky rustlers’ trappings—sombreros, boots, weapons, and concho-studded holsters—were hanging on the saddles beside the bodies. No one made much of anything about dead Mexicans in Terlingua, except maybe the Mexican mine workers. The few who had gathered—quickly and in silence—between the adobe buildings peered off toward the stiffening corpses, both draped unceremoniously across their own hand-carved saddles, hopeful that the dead men, with fingers and boots almost dangling in the dirt, were not relatives or friends of theirs from across the river.
Charley, with disobedient tufts of hair poking out from under his sweat-stained Stetson, slowed his own horse in front of the Terlingua Mining Company’s main structure: a large stone building with a corrugated steel roof and a long, covered porch attached. He stopped his horse and climbed off, glancing over to the lifeless bodies he had been leading for the last fifteen miles in the hot desert sun. Both bodies were now beginning to stiffen and bloat and had begun to draw flies. Charley wrinkled his brow, then spit some tobacco juice before he climbed the twelve steps to the porch, moving through the heavy, double wooden doors and on into the coolness of the building’s interior.
“Ranger Sunday, you old bastard,” echoed a voice from the rear of the deeply shadowed room. “I haven’t seen you since I moved the family down here from Spofford. What are you doin’ all the way down here? I thought you was stationed up near Marathon these days.”
W.P. Martin, a stocky, large-bellied man in his late sixties sporting an almost white handlebar mustache, twisted with wax into near-perfect points on both ends, stepped into the slant of a late afternoon sunbeam that slid from a side window, carving into the room’s soft darkness like a sparkling butter knife. He had his hand outstretched.
“Put ’er there, Charley,” he chortled.
The two men shook. “Now, tell me for serious, will ya? What’re you doin’ all the way down here in the Bend?”
“Oh,” Charley began. “I reckon you might say I’m working.” He moved slowly past Martin, stopping at a wooden table piled high with papers that served the other man as a combination desk and napping area.
“Mind if I write out a telegram for my partner back in Alpine? You can send it tomorrow, if you’d like.”
“Go right ahead, Charley. Want me to send the bill to Ranger Headquarters?”
Charley grinned. “The Rangers’ll return whatever the telegram costs you, W.P. . . . just so I remember when I’m doing the proper paperwork later on, that’s all.”
He found a stub of a pencil on the desk, along with a piece of paper. He looked up. “Would you mind leaving me alone for a minute or so, W.P.? This here’s supposed to be confidential.”
Martin chuckled. “I’m going to be sending that confidential message on the telegraph, ain’t I? What difference does it make whether I see it now or later?”
Charley nodded back. “I s’pose you’re right.”
“I was on my way to see a man about a horse, anyway,” said Martin. “I won’t be long.”
Charley waited until the older man had left the room, then he started writing:
Dear Roscoe,
I just got to Terlingua, and I wanted to report in and tell you I had me a run-in with a couple of those border rustlers on my way down here. There were two of them waiting for me, all right, part of the cattle-rustling gang we’re after. I got both of them first. I’ll have the bodies sent on up to Alpine with the next mineral shipment in a day or two. They’re gonna stink some by then, I’ll wager, but not enough to sicken no one seriously.
As he wrote, he spotted a jar of cigarillos on a countertop near the wall down from the desk, where Martin had placed a bunch of trinkets for sale. He stretched to reach the counter, moving as far as he could until the chair in which he sat restrained him. Then, stretching even farther, he managed to snatch one of the cheroots from the glass jar that contained the slim cigars. He put it between his lips and continued writing.
As soon as I can hire me a pack mule, get me some more grub and a blanket or two, then I’ll be crossing on over.
The preoccupied Ranger reached over again to the jar, extracting a few more cigars and sliding them into his shirt pocket.
I’ll be eating chili peppers and cactus balls for the next few weeks, I suspect. And I’ll do my best to let you know where I am, any way I can, along the way.
Charley found a box of matches on the desk—the kind made with yellow phosphorous and sulfur, commonly called Lucifers. He put a handful in his front pocket, beside the cigars he had pilfered. He struck the match he had selected on the rough underside of the desk. The Lucifer ignited with a series of small explosions and pops, scattering bits of fire onto the floor around him. Charley slapped out the glowing embers that had landed on his lap, before putting the flame to the cigarillo’s tip. He puffed clouds of blue smoke, savoring the flavor, wincing at the foul smell the burning match had left in the air around him.
“You can c’mon back in here now, W.P.,” he said loudly. “And why in the hell don’t they invent a safer match than these old Lucifers, I’ll never know,” he added. “I damn near set your building afire.”
“Been usin’ them ol’ Lucifers for years now,” Martin called out from wherever he had gone. “Ain’t partial to changin’ any time soon.”
When Martin eventually meandered back into the room, Charley was puffing on the thin cigar.
“Where can a man get a good pack mule around here?” Charley asked. “It’s been a long time since I been out huntin’ cattle rustlers; I just hope I ain’t forgot how to shoot.”
“Might try my boy, Melwood,” said W.P. “He’s been running my stable down at Lajitas for a good part of the year now. He’ll be in charge there for the next few months or so, too, Charley. The young fool says he’s enlisting in the United States Army. Says he expects Uncle Sam’ll be in another war soon, and he wants to be ready for it proper-like. He doesn’t mind that it’s the Yankee Army now, since the Confederate Army don’t exist no more. We’re all Yankees, now, he says, though I’ll never think that way. He’ll be glad to see you, I guarantee that, Charley. He’s always talkin’ about you.”
“Is that a fact?” said Charley, taking another puff from the cigar.
The only son of W.P. Martin, and his late wife, Madeline, was Melwood G. Martin, also known as Feather to his friends. At forty-five years of age, Melwood, or Feather, if you like, had been a pleasant-looking, short and skinny, freckle-faced country boy, with deeply tanned skin, plus a shock of greased-down, yellow hair. His ears were as big as buttermilk pancakes, and his feet were even larger than that, when Charley knew him in Spofford. Now, he was starting to gray around the edges, deep wrinkles complemented his still tanned face, and that graying yellow hair was long enough to cover most of his ears. He was still skinny, and if it were possible, Charley thought, he seemed even shorter than before.
Feather was closing the Lajitas Livery Stable’s double doors for the night when Charley Sunday approached on horseback.
Feather squinted into the near dark of the early-evening twilight, trying to figure out just what it was the rider had flopped over the two horses he was leading. When the rider slowed, then turned the animals sideways, Feather almost retched. It was a couple of dead men—Mexican carcasses. The lifeless bodies, one tied on the front horse, the other on the one in back, had stiffened completely. They appeared to Feather as misshapen, abstract statuary, carved by some deranged lunatic.
Charley Sunday stepped down from his horse, placing his boots on the hard ground.
Feather smiled. Then he made his way over to
greet the lawman. Not that much older than Feather, Charley Sunday was a man whom Feather had secretly worshiped as his hero ever since the Ranger had taught him how to track and shoot in the days Charley had worked his first Ranger assignment in the Spofford area, which had also included Juanita, Eagle Pass, and Del Rio. That had been some time ago, before he had been upped in rank and transferred to the Marathon office.
“Hell’s bells,” said Feather as he moved closer, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s good to see ya, Charley. It’s me, Feather Martin. How in the hell are ya?”
“Feather,” said the Ranger as they met between the two hanging lanterns that brightened the front of the barn. They shook hands.
“Good to see you, too,” said Charley.
“What’re ya doin’ way down here, Charley?” Feather went on. “I thought—”
“Oh, I’m on a hunting trip,” said Charley. “Following some Mes’can rustlers, Feather.” He winked. “Already got me two of those bastards.”
He indicated the dead bodies on the extra horses.
“Goin’ huntin’, are you?” asked Feather, winking back. “I can show you a whole bunch a’ good places to find the kinda game you’re lookin’ for around here. Take me along, will ya? I’m a damn good guide. I scouted fer ol’ Jeb Stewart during the recent altercation . . . but you already knew that.”
“I know all about your wartime record, son,” said the Ranger. “But I plan on doing my hunting down Mexico way this trip.”
Feather’s eyes fell again to the bodies tied to the horses. “Looks like you’re expectin’ to add a few more to these trophies, right, Charley?”
Charley laughed. “Yup,” he replied. “Only these two were tracking me.”
“Huntin’ Texians in Texas, were they?” said Feather.
“That’s right,” Charley answered softly. “Hunting Texians . . . in Texas.”
The Comancheros Page 12