Ralph Compton Nowhere, TX

by Compton, Ralph

  “Then you have to be strong. You have to treat Seth Jackson like you would anyone else you caught stealing. Show the world that the Circle C protects its interests. At the end of a rope if need be.”

  Lin interjected his opinion. “I agree with your missus, Mr. Storm. A ranch is like a man. Any sign of weakness and the buzzards will take that as a personal invite.”

  Chick had grown sullen. “I don’t want his blood on my hands.”

  “It’s not like it’s the first time,” Dixie said, “and it probably won’t be the last either.

  So you get up and you get dressed and you send riders to bring in every hand who can be spared and then you go do what needs to be done.” She stroked her husband’s cheek. “Make me proud.”

  Chick went to fetch his shirt. Lin turned to leave but Dixie put a hand on his arm.

  “What I said when you paid Jackson a visit last time goes double now. Don’t let anything happen to my man.”

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

  “All my friends call me Dixie.”

  By noon the next day twenty-two riders were set to follow Chick Storm into the fiery pits of hell if need be. Another eleven were due to show up before the day was done but Chick refused to wait. “They can catch up,” he told Lin Cooley. “Randy will stay and bring them to that clearing you found. They can follow our trail from there.”

  “The more guns we have, the better,” Lin said.

  “If twenty-two of us can’t whip a bunch of brand blotters, we deserve to come back with our tails between our legs.” Chick addressed the others. “All of you know about the rustling. All of you know what’s at stake. But no one is to shoot unless I give the say-so. Is that understood?

  At their collective nods and yells of assent, Chick smiled at Dixie and touched his hat brim, then brought his bay to a trot.

  Lin wasn’t fond of the idea of leaving before the rest of the Circle C punchers showed up but he was foreman and he was paid to back his employer. That night he saw to it that the horses were picketed and sentries were posted. When he returned to the camp-fire, Chick was nursing coffee and gazing morosely into the crackling flames.

  “I hate this. Hate it more than I can say.”

  “We have it to do,” Lin said.

  “I know, I know.” Chick sighed. “You would think I should be happy we found out before they stole me blind. But I liked Seth Jackson once. Hell, I still do, even after how he treated me.”

  “What made you so suspicious that you wanted a new tally?” Lin inquired. “Those tracks we found that time on the Bar J?”

  “That, and how Seth behaved. Plus, it’s pretty well known that Black Jack is a rope-and-ring man.”

  “You’re one savvy hombre, Mr. Storm.”

  “I wish I could claim all the credit but Mrs. Storm had a lot to do with it,” Chick said. “Nothing gets past that woman. Ever.”

  Lin filled a tin cup with steaming black coffee. “Mr. Jackson and the outlaws in cahoots. Who would have thought it? Why did he do such a thing?”

  Chick added a branch to the fire. “Some men make a wrong decision here, a wrong decision there, and before they realize it, they’ve gone too far to turn back.”

  “When the time comes, you’re welcome to leave it to me,” Lin offered. “No one should have to hang a friend.”

  “You’re a good man, Lin Cooley, but some things we do ourselves or we can’t look in the mirror ever again.”

  For three days they pushed on. Twice the rustlers had tried to erase the tracks by brushing them with broken branches but the brush marks were as plain as the tracks.

  On the fourth morning Chick sent Lin on ahead with Moses Sikes—“so we can fight shy of nasty surprises. We’ll drag our heels until we hear from you.”

  Lin had been through that region a few times but not enough to know it as well as he did the Circle C. He rode with caution, his eyes on the highlines. The land was broken by bluffs and cut by gullies, ideal for hiding a large number of cattle.

  Moses was doing the same. “I should ask in case we’re not as clever as we think and they know we’re comin’. Do we shoot to kill if we have to?”

  “We do, although Mr. Storm is partial to a hemp social.”

  Moses shuddered. “I never could stand the sight of a strangulation jig, myself. All that kickin’ and gurglin’ and soilin’ themselves.”

  “Maybe we’ll be lucky and they’ll try to shoot it out,” Lin hoped.

  Half an hour later the lowing of cows reached their ears. Leaving their horses concealed, the two cowboys shucked their rifles and crept up a bluff. At the flat summit they dropped onto their bellies and snaked to the brink.

  “I thought you said five hundred?” Moses whipered.

  The number of cows was in the thousands, spread along interconnecting canyons that radiated outward from a central gorge like the spokes on a wagon wheel radiated outward from the hub. A stream and ample grass ensured they wouldn’t want for forage or water.

  “Where are the rustlers?” Moses asked.

  Lin was wondering that same thing. The cattle appeared to be unattended but there had to be someone keeping watch. Tendrils of smoke gave him a clue. He pointed, and Moses grunted.

  “Sloppy operation. They’re too sure of themselves.”

  “Or so lazy they’d rather sit on their backsides than ride herd,” was Lin’s guess.

  Chick Storm listened with keen interest when they returned, then picked half the men and announced, “When we reach their hideout, you’ll go with Lin. The rest will stay with me. Walk, don’t ride, and keep your horses quiet. Get as close as you can and wait for me to make our play.”

  Lin was tempted to ask that Moses Sikes or Amos Finch be given charge of the other half so he could stick close to Chick but Chick might want to know why.

  The rustlers were camped on a grassy strip of bank overspread by leafy boughs. Five men lounged in the grass, but appearances were deceiving. Their horses were saddled and within quick reach, and their rifles were at their sides. Two Lin recognized. The Twins, everyone called them—Jeb and Jed Ellsworth, Southern boys as deadly as sidewinders.

  Fifty yards out, Lin had his men leave their mounts in the care of Kip Langtree, whose muttered curses showed what he thought of being left out.

  Lin spied some Circle C punchers sneaking in from the other side, and he hoped the rustlers weren’t as sharp-eyed. Then one of the twins sprang erect and cried out, and in the blink of an eye, both the Ellsworths had leaped to their horses and were in the saddle.

  “Halt!” Chick Storm shouted, stepping from behind a tree. “We have you covered! You can’t possibly get away.”

  The other rustlers froze but Jeb and Jed applied their spurs. In a twinkling they were down the bank and splashing across the stream.

  “Drop them!” Chick commanded.

  A ragged volley crashed but amazingly neither twin was hit. Lin was covering the others in case they tried to gun Chick, a wise precaution as it turned out, because the next instant a heavyset rustler stabbed for a pistol. Lin shot him through the shoulder and the man was spun around like a child’s top.

  More shots boomed but by now the Twins were in among the cows and had swung onto the sides of their horses, Comanche-like, to make themselves harder to hit.

  “After them!” Chick shouted, and pointed at half a dozen punchers. “Bring them back on their saddles or over them!”

  Moses Sikes was first to his horse and first across the stream. The Circle C hands behind him whooped and hollered.

  Lin strode into the open, his rifle fixed on the heavyset rustler. “The next one will be through your brainpan.”

  At Chick’s say-so, several punchers disarmed the rustlers. Once that was accomplished, Chick walked over to the one Lin had shot and without any forewarning whatsoever, he punched the man in the mouth. The rustler flopped about like a stricken chicken, blood pouring from his crushed lips.

  “Damn your hide, mister! You busted some of m
y teeth!”

  Chick bent and gripped the man’s shirt and hauled him off the ground. “That will soon be the least of your worries, friend. Or haven’t you heard how your kind are treated in these parts?”

  Some of the rustler’s bluster evaporated. “I don’t know what in hell you’re talkin’ about. My pards and me were hired to tend herd.”

  “You’re a liar,” Chick said, and punched him again.

  Amos Finch stepped forward, drawing a boot knife. “Let me at him, boss. I’ll have him squealin’ like a stuck pig.”

  The rustler was on his back, spitting more tooth fragments. The other two had gone pale but so far were being brave about their fate.

  “I have an offer for you,” Chick informed them. “I’ll only offer it once.” He paused. “Tell me who you work for. Tell me Seth Jackson’s part in this.” He paused again. “Tell me everything and I’ll let you live.”

  “We don’t know Seth Jackson from Adam,” one replied.

  “And I suppose you don’t know this is the Bar J?” Chick countered. “I wasn’t hatched yesterday.”

  The man with the broken teeth sat up. “You’re in for it, mister,” he said, blood bubbling from his mouth. “You made the biggest mistake of your life when you came after us.”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Chick declared. He surveyed the nearest trees and pointed at a stout limb twenty feet off the ground. “Break out the ropes boys. It’s time for a lynching bee.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Billy Braden was in the saloon, working on his third whiskey, when someone touched his arm and he turned to see George Palmer with hat in hand, mad as hell but trying mightily not to show it. “Son of a bitch! I can’t ever recollect you steppin’ foot in this den of iniquity, George.”

  “It’s Mr. Palmer to you.”

  Billy made no attempt to hide his contempt. “I haven’t called anyone mister since I was twelve and I sure ain’t startin’ with you.”

  “You’ve changed, William. You’re not like you were when you started courting my daughter.”

  “Shows how much you know,” Billy said. “What you see is how I am and how I’ve always been. You thought otherwise only because you saw what you wanted to see. You and your whole family.”

  “We treated you decent,” George Palmer said.

  Billy grinned. “So I should be in your debt, is that it? I should treat you as decent as you treated me? Think again. I never asked for you and your wife to welcome me into your house. I never asked for you to be so obligin’ about your little girl.”

  George was a study in scarlet. “I’m not here to squabble. She wants to see you, William. It’s important.”

  “So she sent you to fetch me?” Billy’s hand drifted to the pearl grips on his Colt. “I never go anywhere I don’t want to.”

  “I’m asking you, not telling you,” George said. “All she wants are ten minutes of your time. You owe her that much.”

  “I don’t owe her a damn thing,” Billy disagreed. “All those weeks I was comin’ over, she never once asked me to stop.”

  “Why did you? All of a sudden like that?”

  “You ask too damn many questions.” Billy turned to the bar. “Go back and tell your precious pride and joy she and I are quits.”

  “Please, William,” George pleaded. “She’s been quite distraught. What can it hurt? It won’t take much of your time.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Billy growled.

  George took exception. “A civil tongue and respect for others take a person a lot further in life than a pistol and an attitude.”

  Spinning, Billy jabbed him in the chest. “What the hell do you know? What have you ever done that’s so great?”

  “I own my own business. To you that might not seem like much, but it’s an honest living. And I have a wife and a daughter any man would be proud of. That has to count for something.”

  “Your wife and daughter,” Billy said scornfully. He drained his glass and gazed around at the half-empty saloon. “Hell. What else do I have to do? All right. I’ll go have a talk with her.”

  “You will?” George was elated, and dogged Billy’s footsteps on the way out.

  A couple of Conestogas were parked in the street. They carried newcomers to Nowhere, two of them an elderly couple. Billy stopped dead at sight of them.

  “Is something wrong?” George asked.

  “No.”

  Helen Palmer was waiting on a customer. But when Billy marched in, she clasped her hands to her bosom and dashed over to take one of his hands in hers. “You came! I knew you would. I knew you’re not as vile as everyone claims.”

  “Oh?” Billy lightly ran his forefinger across her palm. “And I knew I could count on you to think the best of me.”

  “I think the best of everyone,” Helen said.

  “That’s why you’re so special.” Billy winked and reached down as if to pat her posterior but instead went down the hall to their living room. “Why are the curtains drawn?”

  “I like it better this way,” Sally Palmer said. She was in the rocking chair, a vague outline against the dark. She made no attempt to rise and greet him.

  Walking over, Billy hunkered and covered one of her hands with one of his but she slid it out from under. “I thought you wanted to see me?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.” Sally’s golden hair had not seen a brush in days, and her dress lay in loose folds over her belly. “I already know what you’ll say. But my parents insisted. My mother in particular. Even after what you did, she thinks the world of you.”

  “You told her?”

  “No. She would tell my father and he would come after you and you would kill him, and I love my father too much for that.”

  “How sweet.” Billy reached up to give her cheek a playful pinch but she pulled back. “What’s gotten into you? You’re actin’ like I’m one of those old prospectors who never take a bath.”

  “I can’t stand to have you touch me,” Sally said. “It makes me sick to my stomach. I would just as soon shoot you.”

  “I came over here to be insulted?”

  “All that trouble you went to crossing the street, huh?” Sally’s sneer was laced with hate. “You’re here because my parents want me to appeal to your better nature. What they don’t know is that you don’t have one. There isn’t a shred of goodness in your depraved soul.”

  Billy rose. “I’ve killed people for less.”

  “Go ahead.” Sally thrust her chin at him. “Hit me. Beat me. Batter me so I can’t stand. Kick me when I’m down so I bleed inside.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a few bales shy of a wagon load?” Billy gave a little wave.

  “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Adios.”

  Sally rose half out of her chair, then said, “Before you run off, there’s something you should know. You’re going to be a father.”

  Billy slammed into an invisible wall. “What?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Slowly turning, Billy stared at her stomach. “You don’t say.” He broke into a grin. “How do I know it’s mine?”

  Even in the dark, the tears that filled Sally’s eyes glistened wetly. “You’re the most despicable man who ever lived.”

  “Oh, please,” Billy scoffed.

  “You’re the only one I’ve ever been with. The only man who ever—” Sally choked up and lowered her head but then raised it again, anger transforming her from soft and vulnerable to hard and spiteful. “You’re the one who raped me.”

  Billy was at the chair in a twinkling, his hand clamped to her chin. “What did I warn you about that?” he hissed. “You’re never to mention it. Not here. Nor anywhere. Not even to yourself when you’re alone.”

  “Or what? You’ll kill me?” Sally spat. “Go ahead! I dare you! You would be doing me a favor.”

  “How so?”

  Sally placed a hand on her belly. “Do you think I want this baby? Do you think I want your seed taking ro
ot inside me? If I could, I’d cut it out and bury it so no one would ever find out.”

  “Do your folks know? It doesn’t look like you’ve swelled that much.”

  “It’s early yet. Another couple of months and I’ll be a melon. I suspect my mother knows. I’ve been sick most mornings of late and that’s a sure sign.”

  “What about your father?”

  “He thinks I’ve been pining after you.” Sally’s laugh was as brittle as thin glass. “Little does he know I’d love to stake you out and have ants eat you alive.”

  “I don’t want any part of this,” Billy said.

  Sally suddenly snatched his hand and pressed it to her. “Feel the new life in there? Life you helped create. If you were half the man you think you are, you would do the right thing.”

  Billy stepped back. “So that’s what this is about. You expect me to marry you now that I know about the kid?”

  “My mother is hoping you’ll accept responsibility,” Sally said, “but I know better. I finally figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “That you never loved me. Not for a minute. All you ever wanted was to get up my dress. All those nice things you said, all the compliments about how pretty I was and how you couldn’t stand to be apart from me and how I was the most wonderful woman you ever met, was all a pack of lies.”

  Billy grinned at his cleverness. “You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”

  “And once you caught this fly, you didn’t want anything more to do with it.” Sally’s bitterness oozed from every pore.

  “I’ve had better gals. All you did was lie there like a log.”

  Sally gripped the arms of the chair until her knuckles were white. “I hate you. I hate you so much, I want to scream. But as much as that is, there’s someone I hate more. Someone I hate with every particle of my being.”

  “Who would that be?” Billy asked.

  “The reflection that stares back at me from the mirror. The fool who trusted you. The wretch who believed she was special in your eyes, and who let you entice her into compromising herself. Into committing the worse deed a single woman can commit.”

  “Where’s my bandanna when I need it?” Billy taunted, dabbing at his eyes with his sleeve. “Don’t blame me for your mistakes. You’re a grown woman.”