The Valerons--Retribution!

by Terrell L Bowers

  ‘I’m speaking of beef,’ Locke specified. ‘You know, the kind that is served up on a plate when you order a steak at a café or restaurant.’

  The man laughed. ‘I reckon I know what you’re talking about, mister. And I’ll be the first to admit that me and T L don’t know a whole lot about tending cattle. But we’re both honest as the day is long and hard workers. We learn real fast too.’

  Locke skewed his expression and glared at his daughter. Wendy didn’t flinch, but continued to show a keen interest in the inept stage-stopper. He knew full well if he didn’t give these two clowns a chance Wendy would hound him mercilessly. It didn’t help to have Jared also enjoying the situation.

  ‘Reckon they must have someone left at the ranch who can show them the ropes,’ Shane offered up another positive opinion. ‘Could be several weeks before Dodge is back in the saddle, so they are sure to be short-handed.’

  Locke threw his hands in the air. ‘Fine!’ he surrendered. Then looking at the man outside the coach, ‘If you two would like to try your hand at punching cattle, I’ll give you a chance. Wage is thirty dollars a month and chuck for a green beginner.’

  ‘You got yourself two eager new hires!’ the man said excitedly. Then he turned to his friend and shouted. ‘T L! You ride up next to Buck. It looks fairly crowded in the coach.’

  ‘Where we going?’ T L wanted to know.

  ‘We just been offered jobs. Get aboard.’

  ‘You got it, July!’ his pal shouted gleefully. ‘Mayhaps we won’t starve after all!’

  Chapter Two

  Singeon Pegg had the family’s Dearborn parked and waiting when the train arrived. He hurried forward along the platform to greet his parents and collect their luggage. It took but a few minutes before his mother was seated in the back seat, bundled up for the morning chill. His father, Bingham, sat alongside him in the front seat.

  Few words were spoken between the three of them until Singeon had the stout mare moving at a steady pace outside of town. Finally, he looked at his father. The haggard features reminded him of a sculpture he had seen once. If ever a person didn’t show emotion, it was the man who had raised him. Stolid and dependable, Bingham was a man of few words and sound convictions.

  ‘The doctor says it isn’t tuberculosis,’ Bingham finally spoke. ‘You and I don’t have to fear contracting a disease or anything from Mother.’ He always referred to his wife as Mother, due to the rearing of their children.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ Singeon said. ‘Not that I was concerned about you and me catching it – more that it isn’t a death sentence for Ma. Did they find out what it is?’

  ‘He said it was linked to the change-of-life stage women go through.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘The doctor said the medical term is menopause.’

  ‘Never heard anything about it, Pa. What’s it mean?’

  ‘Most women go through it in their later years, forty to fifty years of age. Your mother thought she had been through this some time back, but the doctor says its effects can trouble some women for several years.’

  ‘Then it’s a natural thing,’ Singeon deduced, not hiding his relief. ‘She will get through it all right. The night sweats, the aches and pains, the trouble sleeping, the way she gets anxious or feeling low.’

  ‘Doctor said it was normal for a small percentage of women her age. He gave her a bottle of laudanum and suggested she take a few drops at night to help her sleep, or whenever the pain or discomfort is more than she can manage.’

  ‘How come the doctors here in Denver couldn’t determine her complaints?’

  ‘There are concerns about other fancy-named ailments that only a few major hospitals can test for. Plus, there are a limited number of doctors in the country who study problems of the aged, specially females. We had to talk to one of them there specialists, because we wanted to play this safe.’

  ‘Darn right!’ Singeon exclaimed. ‘No amount of money is worth risking Mother’s life.’

  Bingham cast a curious look at his son. ‘I’m still at a loss as to how you managed to cover this expense. In the five years I ran the slaughterhouse, I barely made enough to keep the operation going. You paid for the train tickets, the doctors, every expense.’ He displayed a worried mien. ‘You didn’t take a loan against the business?’

  Singeon gave a callous wave of his hand. ‘Not to worry, Pa. I still live at home. I haven’t found a woman who can stand the smell of blood, and I limit my gambling and fun in town.’

  ‘Even so, you’ve paid workmen to add two rooms to our house, you’ve built the additions on at the slaughterhouse, and you have at least four men working for you full time, plus a night watchman. I had to cut every corner to afford the two or three people I hired.’

  ‘City is growing,’ Singeon said dismissively. ‘We’ve got nearby mines in operation, and with the Indian wars over, there’s farmers and ranchers starting up all the way to the Kansas prairie. The train has also added a great many travelers and bought in many new businesses. And now with the invention of cold-storage rail cars, I can send beef to other towns down the line.’

  ‘Even so, I could barely compete with all of the smaller butcher shops in town. I’m amazed at the amount of business you are doing.’

  ‘Timing is all it has been, Father. I took over about the time the boom started.’

  ‘I have to admit, I thought you would call on me to help. You know, it would have saved you hiring one of those men. I can still cut and package meat.’

  ‘Not with your bum shoulder,’ Singeon told him. ‘I don’t want you suffering from the pain of trying to work with that.’

  ‘I could manage a couple days a week. It’s not . . .’

  ‘No, Pa. Ma needs you with her.’ Singeon shook his head. ‘You’ve done your duty as my father. It’s time for me to do my duty as your son. It’s my turn to take care of you both.’

  ‘Well, if you get in a bind, I can still do a solid day’s work. Once your mother is feeling good again, I’ll be pitching in and lending a hand.’

  ‘Always glad to have you – anytime at all.’

  Bingham fell silent and it appeared as if Lajetta had taken a little of her potion . . . she was fast asleep, curled up on the seat cushion with a pillow and blanket.

  Never having enjoyed his first name, Singeon went by his last – Pegg. Of course, he hadn’t been able to do that until his father turned over the business to him. Minding the trail ahead for ruts, he knew the road was well worn and fairly smooth to the turnoff that led to their house. He didn’t push the pace of the mare, preferring not to jar his mother any more than necessary.

  As he contemplated the situation, he suffered a measure of guilt. Bingham Pegg was an honest, God-fearing man. His two favorite sons had died when a Cheyenne war party had hit their home. Bingham and Lajetta had been in Denver at the time, bailing their other son – namely him – out of jail. With the older boys to do all of the work, Singeon had been wild and carefree. He had been nothing but trouble. He vividly remembered returning home to find Marshal and Huggington’s stripped and mutilated bodies. Twelve years had passed and the vision of his brothers still haunted his dreams.

  He had changed after the attack, guilt-ridden over causing the two boys to be home alone. It prompted him to go to work with his father and learn the trade. The difference was, Singeon wasn’t satisfied to scratch out a meager living. He wanted to get rich, to rebuild the house and the business, to have a pile of money in the bank, to be successful and make his parents proud. Once he assumed the slaughterhouse, he conspired to gain control of the beef sales. He dealt with whomever he had to, hired unscrupulous men to do his bidding, and was now one of the wealthier people in the valley. It had come at a cost, but he didn’t care. Singeon Pegg was somebody; he was important; and he would not relinquish the thriving business he had built.

  The stage-stopper had dusted himself off before climbing into the coach. The only open spot to sit was across from Wendy. He took a seat,
visibly as self-conscious as a habitual drunk at a temperance rally. It was difficult to discern his looks, being unshaven for some time, with shaggy, unkempt dark brown hair sticking out from under his hat. He was average in size and build, but his eyes were hazel-colored and . . . quite interesting. The stage was back under way, along a stretch of hard-pan, where the ground was firm and raised much less dust. They had the window coverings pulled aside so the breeze could pass through the interior of the coach, making it almost pleasant.

  ‘So, July,’ Wendy opened the conversation, while retrieving pencil and paper from her handbag. ‘As I’ll be the temporary bookkeeper at the Barrett ranch – that’s the Double B ranch – I’ll need your background information.’

  ‘Anything you want to know, ma’am.’

  ‘It isn’t ma’am – it’s Miss Valeron,’ she curtly corrected him.

  July’s mouth fell open at hearing the name. ‘Valeron?’

  ‘Yes, this is my father, Locke Valeron, my brother Jared, and my cousin Shane.’

  ‘Holy socks!’ July exclaimed. ‘You mean me and T L are going to work for the Valerons?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Wendy replied. Then she explained how Nash Valeron had married Trina Barrett, and Trina had turned the running of the ranch over to Reb and Dodge – two long-time employees and close friends of the Valerons. When finished, she got back to her questions.

  ‘So, what is your date of birth?’

  ‘I ain’t rightly sure,’ July said.

  ‘Do you know how old you are?’

  ‘In the neighborhood of twenty-three or -four.’

  ‘How about your parents?’

  ‘Same answer,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You never knew your parents?’

  July grew sheepish. ‘Not so much. I think my pa went off to fight for the North when the war started. My ma died of fever a few months after that. Being left on my own – I was two or three at the time – I got picked up by a passing gambler and dropped off at an orphan home.’

  ‘And you don’t know your parents’ names?’

  ‘Don’t even know my own name.’ He shrugged. ‘The nun, Sister Thelma, who ran the home called me Number Six to start with – she didn’t have a gift for remembering names. Anyway, best I can remember, a couple years later, she decided I needed a real name and birth date. As I didn’t have any idea, I told her I’d like my birthday to be on the Fourth of July.’ With a bashful grin, ‘You know, ’cause of how everyone always celebrates on that day.’

  ‘So you took our Independence holiday as your birthday.’

  ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘And that’s when she gave me my full name – July Could-be.’

  ‘Could-be?’

  He covered his mouth to hide his mirth. ‘It’s like this,’ he explained softly. ‘She said picking the month of July was fine, so that would be my first name. As for my date of birth, it could be the Fourth of July. And also my last name could be anything at all.’

  Even though his story was a sad one, Wendy laughed with him. Odd, but he had shown an air of self-assurance when talking to her father. Yet with a girl. . . .

  Obviously shy, making her laugh put the man a bit more at ease. ‘Sister Thelma took pity on me and eventually listed my last name as Colby, rather than Could-be,’ July finished the story.

  ‘All right,’ she said jotting the name in the book. ‘July Colby, my given name is Winifred, but I go by Wendy. Winifred is a rather stuffy title for a girl my age, don’t you think?’

  July gulped at being asked such a personal question. ‘I couldn’t really say,’ he managed a reply. ‘Reckon a gal as pretty as you could be called ‘Mud-hen Stonebottom’ and you’d still have a line of suitors from here to New York standing at your front door to court you.’

  Wendy was unable to stifle a mitigated giggle, before she said: ‘You’ve a very charming way of avoiding a direct answer.’

  ‘I’ll say one thing – I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Valeron,’ July said, unable to meet her sparkling gaze.

  She noticed a frown on her father’s face – and a devilish smirk on Jared’s. Shane was looking out the opposite window, but she knew he was smiling too. She cleared her throat and returned to business.

  ‘You said you have milked cows?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Valeron. There was a dairy a short way from the orphan home. I hired out to help pay for my keep, because Sister Thelma didn’t have a lot of money. There were up to eight of us boys – hence the reason she called me Number Six for the first couple years – and two girls. Sister Thelma didn’t have any help, other than for a volunteer or two who stopped by once in a while, to manage us ten kids. She was strict, but never give any of us a whupping unless we deserved it.’

  ‘What about your friend, up topside with the stage driver?’

  ‘He ain’t had much more luck than me. Fact is, that’s what T L stands for – Tough Luck. His last name is Purdy, but he never cottoned to being called Purdy.’ He waved a hand and clarified, ‘Too much teasing with a name like that.’

  ‘What’s his real first name? I’ll need it for the payroll.’

  ‘It’s Oscar. He never had no father, and his ma was downright peeved over being deserted by a man. She named him Oscar, ’cause she didn’t really want him and hated the name.’

  ‘Do you happen to know his age?’

  ‘I’d guess a couple years older than me. Never asked him.’

  ‘Then you haven’t been together very long?’

  ‘Five or six years,’ he replied. ‘We worked on the railroad until they hired a bunch of Chinese for lower wages. Then we bounced around at odd jobs for a time.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Even tended pigs one winter. That’s when we decided to go looking for gold. There’s quite a bit hereabouts in Colorado.’

  ‘I’m surprised you knew what to look for. I wouldn’t have a clue.’

  ‘T L knew a little about it from when he was a kid. He’d worked for some old miner dumping slag and helping him out. We got lucky and hit a little color, but we didn’t have any money for special tools to tunnel into the side of the mountain. Wes Breckenridge offered us a stake for one-third ownership, so we joined up as partners. We was doing pretty good until he up and sold the place out from under us.’

  ‘He took everything and left you with nothing?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s about the size of it. I reckon we had a thousand dollars each invested in the mine – considering the tools, track and ore car we used. The fellow that bought it said he paid five thousand for the deed.’ He shook his head, a bitter expression on his face. ‘He offered to let us work for him – a dollar a day for a twelve-hour shift.’

  July’s shoulders drooped. ‘We just couldn’t do it, not when it was our mine. T L and me had stowed away a couple hundred each in gold at the mine shack. What with Breckenridge taking it, along with all of our other possessions, we . . .’ He sighed. ‘Well, it didn’t seem right, sticking around to make some other guy rich.’

  ‘So Breckenridge took your gold too.’

  ‘Us being flat broke gave him a better chance to get away. Call us a couple of saps, Miss Valeron. We were taken in by a professional crook.’

  ‘Trusting people is what honest people do,’ Wendy excused their lack of judgment. ‘If you are willing to work hard, we’ll make cowhands out of you both. Won’t be long before you’re ready to run your own spread.’

  July gave her a serious look. ‘Don’t know what to say, Miss Valeron. I’m sitting here, ’bout as dirty as I ever been in my life. Reckon I smell a little ripe too. Top that off, we stopped the stage like a couple of bandits. Anyone else would have throwed rocks at us.’

  ‘We try not to judge a person without knowing all the facts,’ she said.

  ‘I can see that, I sure can,’ July replied.

  Wendy smiled with her eyes and jocosely warned him, ‘Just make sure you and T L don’t make us regret hiring you.’

  ‘No way, Miss Valeron.’ He displ
ayed a timid, yet very comely grin. ‘You won’t regret hiring us. I promise!’

  Don Larson walked into his four-room house – when counting the attic, since it was spacious enough for their two girls. A second bedroom held the three boys. Granted, bunk beds and a cot to either side of the room didn’t leave much room for playing when the weather was bad, but he was satisfied to be a good provider for his family. Unfortunately, he was not as happy with his present career choice.

  ‘Hi, Donny!’ Gayle greeted him with a bright smile. He was amazed at his wife’s spirit. All day caring for five kids – all under the age of ten – yet she never failed to run to him and hug or kiss him.

  ‘Hey, darlin’,’ Don offered her his best smile.

  It didn’t work this time. She had come to embrace him, but stopped and stared at his face. A glimmer of understanding swept over her expression.

  ‘Again?’ was the only word she said.

  ‘We’ve got a holding pen full of beeves,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t get a look at the brand, but Pegg said to expect some long hours for the next two or three weeks.’

  ‘Stolen cattle!’ Gayle declared angrily. ‘You know that’s what they are!’

  Don’s shoulders sagged under the weight of the truth. ‘It’s no wonder our butcher shop went under. How can anyone compete against a guy like Pegg who buys beef for pennies on the dollar? He’s got Everett to do the killing and skinning, Ingram for the rendering, and I cut and package the meat. We used to buy a half a beef at a time and try to make a living selling chops, steaks and roasts. Even when we got a good price on the beef or pork, we had to charge twice as much as Pegg.’

  ‘And now you work for the man who ran us out of business.’ Gayle sighed her disgust. ‘Sometimes it’s not a very fair world.’

  ‘At least I’m not part of whatever shady dealings he’s involved in. He pays me to cut and fill meat orders – that’s all I do.’

  ‘Plus, he does allow you to bring home stewing meat and steaks or a roast when you work longer hours. That’s a benefit for our family.’