He said nothing more, but handed Thomas the bloodied, bullet-riddled deed. Then he mounted his horse as if he were a hundred years old. We watched him ride slowly out of sight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
We spent the next couple of days burying the dead, assembling what personal effects as we could find off their bodies and among their traps. This we saved for the law. While we waited, we tidied and repaired broken doors and windows as best we could.
After three days, two lawmen from Walla Walla showed up and did their best to sort through the mess of a story we told them. They left, more confused than when they arrived.
We were relieved that they seemed convinced of our innocence. But we know we are guilty of so much in this messy episode. It will be long days of quiet pondering before I sort out what I did and what I should have done better. If I am a harsh taskmaster, Maple Jack is a brutal dictator when judging himself. He may never forgive himself for his part in this. I am not certain how Thomas will fare. He remained tight-mouthed, working alongside us as I’d never seen him.
The lawmen backtracked to Scribley’s place, and I later found out no one there was on the hook for breaking any laws. I suspect it was set down in the logbooks as a sad mess all around.
We’d also told the lawmen of Scribley’s daughter, of the location of her grave, and of the grave of the man who’d killed her. Scribley’s men said they’d check with Neufeld to make certain he brought her body back. I didn’t think he needed reminding. His sad face still comes to mind at times.
I wonder if he loved the girl, wonder if he thought of her every day when she was gone. If he hoped she would one day return to the ranch, to him. I wondered of his secret dreams for them both. What does he dream of now?
Four days after the final shots had been fired, the three of us sat alone at this skeletal ranch. We warmed ourselves outside, around a morning campfire, no one voicing the idea, the fear that the house itself was a place we did not wish to spend time yet. If ever.
Jack rubbed cold and stiffness from his knees and hands, beginning to look rested, though his beard and buckskins had a long way to go before they resembled their former selves. He caught my eye and looked away. Odd, as he is usually chatty in the morning. Hell, he’s usually chatty all the time.
I poured another cup of coffee and looked around at the long, low land, grassed in this special valley. It sits ringed with ample stands of timber that, if treated with respect, would serve to supply Thomas, as the rightful deed holder, with income aplenty. Then there were the water rights from the Snake River, flowing as it did nearly through the center of the ranch proper.
Yes sir, I had to admit the spread was not a bad spot at all, and came with as much potential as any such place could offer. It would need the right foreman, that would be the key to Thomas’s success. He was incapable, at least at present, of running anything but his mouth.
But he was a bright young man and I held out hope he would learn all the place required of him. And in turn he would be repaid a hundredfold. The great question mark at the end of the sentence, of course, remained: Would he have the ambition to stick with it?
I sipped and warmed the back of one hand before the fire. Then it came to me, Jack was feeling the urge to light out. I can’t say as I blamed him. He could, after all, be trapped there, winter in the mountains being a fickle but certain presence.
As for myself, I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I wasn’t even certain I wanted to leave. Over the night, a spark of an idea had settled in my mind and refused to wink out. I decided to blow on it to see if it caught flame.
“Thomas,” I cleared my throat. “Now that you have this place secured, well, there’s a whole lot of potential here, you know. The timber alone, plus the water rights, all this open land.” I leaned forward, warming to the topic. “This little valley looks to be particularly fertile, I’d wager that’s been so even in drier years than this one has been. I know you don’t have much experience in ranching, but with the right foreman . . .” I let the thought trail, and sort of smiled at that point. I know I turned a little red. I can’t help it, I always do that whenever I’m tooting my own horn.
“Well, what I’m getting at is, I’d be willing to settle in for a spell, say, through the winter, maybe into spring, help you get the place up and working. I can’t say I know all there is to know about ranching, but I’ve done my bit of riding for a brand. I’d be glad to share what I know.”
I leaned forward further, trying to ignore the stone-still silence rolling in waves from Maple Jack. At that moment I didn’t much care what Jack thought. This idea of mine was suddenly taking shape. The more I spoke, the more it seemed attainable, full of promise. It felt right, somehow.
Jack grunted to his feet, tossed the last of his coffee to the ground, and set his tin cup on the stump he’d been occupying. He ambled his way slowly down to the barn. I figured he was checking on the animals. It didn’t matter much at the time, as I was preoccupied with great plans, perhaps the best I’d ever come up with. And I was eager to discuss them with Thomas, my little brother. Heck, if it all worked out, I might one day share that bit of family history with him.
“Why, I’ll bet we could find a decent crew this fall, hire them on with the promise of future earnings. Of course, you’d have to give them a warm bed and three meals a day. There will be plenty of work for them come winter and spring. Beeves to run, timber to harvest.” I gestured broadly at the open meadow before us.
I admit I laid it on thick, like fresh butter on a slab of steaming-hot bread. But I had other reasons, too, for dogging this line of thought. I’d begun to like having Thomas around, despite his irritating ways. I liked having a long-lost little brother around.
“I figure you can get a loan on the value of the land, and if you’re careful with your spending, you can build up quite a herd here. This valley is promising. Why, look what Scribley did with his place.” It was risky to say, given how the man had ended up, all he had done to people, but I have a way of saying things, then wishing I’d kept my yap closed. Always too late.
“Well, what do you say, Thomas? I’m willing to stick around if you are, help you settle in, get the spread righted, hire a crew, see what’s what.”
Thomas grew quiet, looked down at his feet, then looked up at me again, shaking his head and smiling. There was that tone, that cock to his head. “What grandiose visions! What, really, are you talking about? You don’t honestly think I’m going to stay out here do you? I’m going to sell this prime piece of real estate to the highest bidder.” The boy looked at me as if I were a tenant farmer on his estate, worrying my hat brim in my calloused hands, afraid to meet his eye.
“I fancy I’ll do all right, too,” he said, flexing his nostrils and stretching his back. “It’s a nicely sited place, from what you’ve told me. And from what I can gather, it has the all-important good water rights. That apparently means a lot out here. No, sir, I’ll be selling up. I figure I’ll get the best price by actually being here. Of course I’ll need your help in righting the place around. So yes, in so far as your presence is required here, you may stay on, Scorfano. For the time being.”
The smug little whelp used that foul name again, and wrapped it in that equally foul air of class distinction. Doing his utmost to put me in my place. Or the place he wanted me, at any rate.
I sat still for a moment. I was too busy clearing the dewy cobwebs from my mind. I had done it once more. I had fallen for his charms, the bald innocence of his using ways. My own gullibility pelted my head like a sudden hailstorm. My foolishness at times knows no bounds.
I stood and tossed the coffee grounds out of my pot, along the edge of the fire. I gathered my belongings, taking my time. It would not have mattered to Thomas, anyway. He was lost in his own rich-boy world, and talking as fast as he was able about how wonderfully cultured the people are back East.
“Just think, Scorfano, I’ll finally be able once again to hold my head up. Oh, perhaps not in Wa
shington yet, but maybe in Richmond. I hear it’s quite a festive place once more.”
Something snapped him from his daydream. He saw me putting my gear together. “Hey, what are you doing, Scorfano?” Thomas grinned. “Or should I say . . . foreman?”
I didn’t answer.
“I said, what are you doing?” Thomas crossed his arms, stretched his legs out toward the fire, a slight smile playing at his mouth.
I stopped buckling the saddlebag and looked at him. “I’m leaving.”
“You can’t do that.” His grin slipped a little. “I haven’t officially hired you yet. Let alone given you permission to leave.”
“The hell I can’t.”
That is when the truth began to dawn on him. He stood, his hands wringing together like two hairless pink rats wrestling. “Why would you leave?”
“Because, Sir High-and-Mighty, there isn’t room enough on this range, despite your vast acreage, for me and you . . . and your ego.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Thomas did not understand me.
I shouldered my gear and headed to the barn.
“Where will you go?” he said, trailing after me. His voice sounded small, unsure, and weak once more.
“Anywhere.” I thought to myself that Oregon might be worth exploring, head on over to the Pacific. It had been a while. Or maybe I would drift on down to Old Mexico. That, too, had been a while. Not like it mattered. Eventually some fool would think I was some other fool and the whole thing would happen again.
That’s the one solid notion about most people, they’re predictable. They never let you down. It’s the ones that aren’t that you have to watch out for. They’re the best and worst kind. They keep you guessing, because they catch you unaware and then let you have it. I know Thomas sure did.
By that time, Jack had gathered his small amount of gear and had it cinched atop his packhorse. Oddly enough, my saddle and tack were piled on a rack outside Tiny’s stall. I didn’t look over at Jack as I saddled my horse and mounted up. He climbed aboard Ol’ Mossy and wound his way out of the open barn door.
“But Scorfano, what will I do? Where will I go?”
“I expect you’ll be busy enough readying this spread for sale.”
“Which way is town? Where is the outhouse?”
I rode out of the barn and up the lane, soon keeping pace to Jack’s right. To his great credit, Jack didn’t crack a smile nor make a sound. He had known what would happen between me and Thomas back there at the campfire. And there he’d been in the barn, all but expecting me.
As we rode, our animals’ hooves swished through brittle, late-season grasses, sounding light and free like birds’ wings.
“Scorfano! Roamer! I’ll starve! Help me, Roamer! Help!”
He wouldn’t starve. That much I was sure of. I left him a half pound of coffee beans. Hell, that’s all a man needs, anyway. Good cup of coffee of a morning, a solid horse under him, a good book or three, a skinning knife, maybe a long gun, and an urge to not care where he’s going. Else he might miss something along the way. I’d learned much of that from Maple Jack.
I looked over at my mentor. The old man’s stout profile was straight and sure in the saddle, a pleased, relaxed expression on his whiskered face. It was the first sure sign of happiness I’d seen there in a long time. I reckoned I still had a lot to learn.
And so we rode on out, Tiny Boy full of himself and clipping a solid pace, Ol’ Mossback matching him, stride for stride, in his silent, steadfast way.
The last sound we heard was the fearful, angry voice of Thomas, my own flesh, and the one person in the world I was most closely related to, by blood anyway.
“I will never forgive you!” shouted Thomas. “I wish . . . I wish I had the strength to shoot you!”
“So do I,” I said to myself, as Maple Jack and I rode north. “So do I.”
The end.
Roamer and Maple Jack will return. . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew P. Mayo is an award-winning author of more than twenty-five books and dozens of short stories. His novel, Tucker’s Reckoning, won the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award for Best Western Novel, and his short stories have been Spur Award and Peacemaker Award finalists. His many novels include Winters’ War;Wrong Town; Hot Lead, Cold Heart; The Hunted; Shotgun Charlie; and others.
Matthew’s numerous nonfiction books include the bestselling Cowboys, Mountain Men & Grizzly Bears; Haunted OldWest; Jerks in New England History; and Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen. He has been an on-screen expert for a popular BBC-TV series about lost treasure in the American West, and has had three books optioned for film.
Matthew and his wife, photographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, run Gritty Press (www.GrittyPress.com) and rove the byways of North America in search of hot coffee, tasty whiskey, and high adventure. For more information, drop by Matthew’s Web site at www.MatthewMayo.com.
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