by Jory Sherman
He was dead.
“You got him, Cord,” Earl said as he walked over to stand next to his brother, over Horace’s body.
Cord blew away the tendril of smoke rising from the barrel of his pistol. Then he hammered it back to half cock and slid it into his holster.
“I got him,” Cord said, “but his evil deeds have left a big stain on a lot of lives.”
“We got all of ’em,” Earl said.
“We’ll never get all of them,” Cord said and turned away.
The death of Horace left him little satisfaction. There were more such men still walking the earth. Greedy men without consciences. Murderers, thieves, rapists.
Earl stared down at Horace, then back at the man he had killed, Abner.
“Well, we got all of these bastards,” he murmured and felt a swelling of triumph in his chest. “Every damned one of ’em.”
The house erupted in a fiery cloud of flame, and cartridges began to explode and shoot lead pellets in all directions. The barn collapsed in a heap of fire and ash. The bunkhouse crackled and buckled under the weight of the roaring fire.
Sparks flew into the air like a host of fireflies, dancing and dying by the dozens. They rose in the air as if they were trying to reach the sparkling stars beyond the darkness of space.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Abigail watched from the window as the dawn broke and spread a multicolored glow across the prairie. She held a cup of steaming coffee in her hand.
On the distant horizon, she saw the tiny silhouettes of two riders. Riders emerging from the dark into the dawn. That dawn with its soft glow of light that smoothed the prairie with gentle colors and streaming shadows.
Her heart quickened. She felt the beat of it in her chest and the thrum of it in her neck, just below her left ear.
She turned as she heard the tap-tap of booted feet on the floor behind her.
“Lelia,” she said, “you’re up already.”
“I heard you rustling around, Ma, and I woke up. I could smell the coffee.”
Abigail laughed. “Want some?” she said.
Lelia shook her head and stepped beside her mother. She, too, saw the riders approaching.
“Cord and Earl?” she queried.
Abigail nodded. “Back from the 2Bar2,” she said.
“I wonder what happened there,” Lelia said, a dreamy tone to her voice.
“I wonder, too.” And there was her heart again, speeding up its thrum. The excitement of anticipation surged through her body like static electricity, made her flesh tingle from head to toe.
“I see you got dressed, too, Lelia,” Abigail said. “Eager to see Cord?”
There was a tinge of jealousy in Abigail’s voice that Lelia detected. Much to her surprise. It had not been that long since her father had been killed and her mother had hated Cord, and yet she seemed to be looking for another man.
“Not Cord anymore,” Lelia said. “But his brother, Earl. I think he’s sweet.”
Abigail whirled around to stare at her daughter in wonderment.
“Earl? Why, he’s just a boy, daughter.”
“Who will grow up to be a man. An eligible man. And there are so few of them around, I can’t help but be interested.”
“Well, yes, I suppose you’re right. Earl is a fine boy. And not much younger than you are. Of course, Jesse was older than I was when we got married, but I can see that it could be the other way around.”
Lelia uttered a little laugh. “I don’t see our ages entering into it, Ma. Earl is nothing like his big brother. He’s polite and shy and . . .”
“I can see that you’re smitten by this young man, Lelia. Just be careful, that’s all I ask.”
“Careful about what?”
“About how far and how fast you go with young Earl. It could just be puppy love.”
Lelia snorted. “I left such things behind me long ago,” she said.
“You’re still too young to be thinking about all this,” Abigail said.
“Maybe,” Lelia said, and turned away from her mother to look out the window. “They’re getting closer.”
Abigail looked at the two riders, who were approaching slowly, as if out for a Sunday ride.
“That’s Cord,” she said. “I recognize Windmill.”
The two riders lit up with splashes of sunlight. Their horses seemed to be made of burnished steel as the sun’s rays rippled over their dark hides.
Abigail felt her heart quicken again. Lelia let out a sigh as she gazed at the approaching men. She clenched both fists as she silently urged them to hurry.
The horses tossed their heads as they neared the corrals with the other horses. Their tails switched as they danced their slow dance across the prairie, constrained from breaking into a run by the bits in their mouths, the firm grip on the reins by their masters.
Finally, the two men rode up to the hitch rail and dismounted.
Ernesto walked up to them, a grin on his face. He looked over at the two women standing at the window. Cord saw them, too, and waved a hand in greeting. Earl just stared, his face darkened by soot, dark shadows under his eyes.
“Morning, Ernesto,” Cord said.
“You have good news, no?” Ernesto said.
“News,” Cord said. “Don’t know whether it’s good or bad. Come on into the house with us and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I cannot wait,” Ernesto said as Cord and Earl wrapped their reins around the horizontal rail between two sturdy posts.
The three of them walked toward the house. Abigail disappeared from the window as she walked over to the door to open it.
“Good morning, boys,” she said as she flung open her front door. “You’re just in time for breakfast. I hope you’re all hungry. You, too, Ernesto.”
Apparently she had told Lelia to start preparing breakfast. As Cord stepped through the doorway, he saw Lelia hurrying down the hall toward the kitchen. He smelled the coffee and his stomach churned with hunger.
The three men entered the front room as Abigail closed the door behind them. They all sat down as Abigail rushed past them toward the kitchen.
“I’ll fetch you all some coffee,” she said. “I made a big pot this morning.” Her voice trailed off.
“Boy, it feels good to sit on a soft chair,” Earl said. “And that coffee sure smells good.”
“You killed Horace, no?” Ernesto said with the excitement of a schoolboy at his own birthday party glowing on his leather-brown face.
“Horace is dead,” Earl said. “Cord shot him right between the eyes.”
“Oh, good, good,” Ernesto said.
“His brother, too,” Earl said.
Cord sat there in silence. He did not want to think about the killings. He smelled the lingering perfume of the two women, the wood ashes in the fireplace, the cushions and leather in the room. The acrid stench of fire and blood was still in his nostrils, in the soot that clung to his face like three-day beard stubble. His eyes were rimmed in black, like Earl’s, and there was a gauntness to his face that was partly from weariness and partly from his experience at the 2Bar2, with all its horror and death.
Abigail returned with a tray bearing four cups of coffee. She passed it around to each of the men and took the last one for herself. She sat down with a huge sigh and held her cup close to her mouth and blew on it.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Cord,” she said. “I worried about you. Did you do what you wanted to do?”
Cord heard the banging of a pan out in the kitchen, the clang of a spoon against metal.
“You don’t have to worry about Horace and his men anymore,” he said to Abigail.
“He—he’s dead, then?”
“He’s dead.”
“And all his men, too,” Earl said. “And we burned down his house and his
barn, the bunkhouse.”
“You did?” Abigail exclaimed.
Earl nodded.
Cord reached inside his jacket and pulled out a couple of bulging envelopes. He dug into his shirt and pulled out an even fatter envelope. He set them on the table between the sofa and Abigail.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” Abigail asked.
“One envelope has the deed to your house in it,” he said. “I’ll take it into town and file it with the land office in your name. No more mortgage on the JB.”
Abigail smiled and draped the back of her right hand across her forehead. She looked as if she was about to faint.
“Oh, Cord, you don’t know what this means to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“We poured water over the strongbox,” Earl said. “Drug it plumb out of the ashes of that big old house. I mean, it was still hot as hell when Cord spotted it.”
Cord handed an envelope to Abigail. She opened it and drew out the papers, scanned them with widening eyes.
“Oh yes,” she said. “It’s here. This is it and it’s still in Jesse’s and my name.”
Abigail laid the envelope with the deed on the small table near her.
“Which will make it easier for you to refile it for me,” Abigail said.
“Exactly.”
“What’s in the other envelopes? That big fat one?”
Cord picked up another envelope, but left the fat one there. He handed the thinner envelope to Abigail.
“What’s in here?” she asked.
“Open it,” Cord said.
She opened the envelope and took out a sheaf of papers.
“Why, this is the deed to the 2Bar2,” she said. “Made out to Horace Weatherall. And a bill of sale that shows he paid cash for his land.”
“That ranch is yours, too, if you want it,” Cord said. “There was no will, so all I have to do is file it in your name.”
He turned to Ernesto.
“More ranch for you to wrastle with, Ernesto,” he said. “And while I take care of those matters, you’d better get some of your hands to help you round up horses and bring them back here.”
“Thirty of those horses are mine,” Earl said. “And Cord’s.”
“They’re your horses, Earl,” Cord said. “You raised them, you chased after them when they were stolen.”
“I will get the horses and bring them here,” Ernesto said.
“I’ll go with you, Ernesto,” Earl said.
“I will need all the hands I can get,” Ernesto said.
Abigail smiled. She continued to stare at the thick envelope, which was still lying on the small table.
Cord reached down and covered the envelope with the flat of his hand. He looked over at Abigail.
There was just a curl of a smile on Cord’s lips. An enigmatic smile, Abigail thought.
Whatever was in that envelope? Abigail’s curiosity bounded through her mind like a herd of gamboling antelope.
Earl cleared his throat.
Ernesto’s face bore a puzzled look.
Abigail opened her mouth to speak.
There was a clatter of pewter plates down the hall.
“Breakfast’s ready,” Lelia called from the dining room.
Her call seemed to break the tension.
Cord picked up the envelope and stuck it inside his jacket pocket.
“I’ll give you this after breakfast, Abigail,” he said.
“What is it?” she asked as she rose from her chair, coffee cup in hand.
“A surprise,” Cord said as he, too, arose from the sofa.
The food smell wafted down the hall as all of them headed for the dining room.
Lelia seated everyone, then sat down next to Earl.
He looked at her and smiled.
Abigail and Cord both smiled, too.
Ernesto sat next to Abigail, who was at the head of the table. Cord sat across from him on one side.
“Let us pray,” Abigail said.
Everyone at the table bowed their heads.
“Ernesto,” Abigail whispered.
Ernesto gave a prayer of gratitude for the food. He spoke in both English and Spanish.
Both prayers seemed fitting to Cord.
He was grateful not only to be alive, but to be sitting at table with people he cared about and who meant something to him.
“Amen,” he chorused with the others.
So be it.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Cord waited until after breakfast to speak to Abigail.
“After Ernesto and Earl leave, I’ll show you and Lelia what I have in this envelope,” he said.
“I’m dying of curiosity, Cord.”
Lelia was clearing up the breakfast dishes. Cord and Abigail sat in the front room, both sipping their last cup of coffee as beams of morning sun streamed through a pair of windows.
Cord sat on the sofa and pulled the envelope from his pocket.
“About that deed I gave you,” he said. “Horace bought it from the bank, but he didn’t have the JB Ranch transferred to his name. I’ll see to it that you own the ranch free and clear. I’m also going to talk to the banker and tell him how much he let you down by selling your property to Horace. You and Jesse trusted him and he sold you out.”
“He did. That left a bad taste in my mouth.” Abigail’s body shook at the thought. “That’s very kind of you to do all this for Lelia and me. Stick up for us. I feel betrayed by Mr. Jeremy Conway at the bank. Jesse and I trusted him when we took out our loan. He seemed so nice.”
“Turns out he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Cord said.
Lelia skipped into the front room, a smile on her face. “Dishes all done, food put away,” she said. “And I’m happy that Earl will come to work for us.”
“Sit down, Lelia. Cord’s going to show us what he has in that envelope.”
“Oh, goody. I’ve been wondering what it is since you mentioned it at breakfast.“ She sat down in a straight-backed chair, that same happy glow on her face.
Cord knew then that she had her eye on his brother. And he could not think of a better match. Both were about the same age, and she was a nice, wholesome girl.
“There was more than just property papers in that strongbox,” Cord said. “I think that you’re entitled to what’s in this envelope. Kind of a payback for the loss of your husband, Abigail, and your father, Lelia.”
He opened the envelope and took out a stack of paper money.
“There’s twenty-five thousand dollars here. Probably ill-gotten gains, but it’s all yours now. This will keep you going for some time. And along with Horace’s horses, you ought to do well.”
Abigail gasped as Cord handed her the money. Lelia’s eyes widened and her face drained of color in surprise and disbelief.
“Why, I don’t know what to say,” Abigail said as she took the money in both hands. “Except thank you.”
“I counted it, Abigail. It’s real money and it’s all yours.”
Abigail put the money in her lap and wiped a strand of hair from her forehead. Then she sighed, long and deep.
“Cord,” she said, “I’m grateful for this money. It will help us a lot as we try to carry on without Jesse. But I can’t accept all of it.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“I think some of this money should be yours. For all that you’ve done for us. A reward, so to speak.”
Cord waved his hands at her in protest.
“No, I’m serious,” she said. “I think five thousand of this should be yours, Cord. And I won’t listen to a word you have to say about it.”
She picked up bills and started counting them.
“Not that much,” Cord said. “I’ll accept some of it, but five thousand is too much.”
Abigail stopped counting and looked over at Cord.
“How much, then?” she asked.
“I’ll take one thousand. My fee for ridding the world of Horace and his thieving hands.”
Abigail sighed again.
She counted out one thousand dollars and handed the bills to Cord.
“Thank you again,” she said.
Cord took the money, folded the bills, and put them into his pants pocket.
“Oh, Ma,” Lelia said, “that’s so much money. Can I buy a new dress?”
Abigail laughed. Cord smiled.
“Why, darling, I’m sure we can afford a new dress for you. But I’m going to put this money in the bank. And it won’t go into the one that Jeremy Conway runs. I wouldn’t trust that man as far as I could throw a cast-iron stove.”
Cord and Lelia both laughed.
Lelia got up and hugged her mother. Then she hugged Cord and pecked him on the cheek.
“You’re my hero, Cord,” she said.
Cord’s face took on a rosy hue as he blushed. Then he stood up. He took the papers from Abigail, put them back in their envelopes.
“I may not see you for a while,” he said. “I’m going into Cheyenne to see Conway and file your deed with the land office.”
“Then what will you do?” Abigail asked.
“I’ll go home and do some serious thinking,” he said.
“About what?” Abigail asked.
“My life,” he said. “About life itself. There’s blood on my hands and I’m going to try and wash it off.”
Neither Abigail nor Lelia said anything. They knew what he meant and respected him for it.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Abigail said and rose from her chair. She put her arm in his and they walked to the door, where she hugged him.
“Good-bye, Abigail,” he said. “If you need me for anything except . . .”
“I know,” she said. “I think we’ll be all right from now on.”
“I’m sure you will,” he said. He squeezed her hand and stepped outside.
He felt a pang of regret that he probably would not see her and Lelia again. At least not for a long time. He would arrange for a messenger to take the deeds and the filing papers back to her as proof of ownership for her ranch and Horace’s. After that, he would fish and hunt, and assess his life now and for the future.