Pray for the Dead

by Dusty Richards

  “Rita, you don’t have to get up for us,” Liz said.

  “Oh, señora, they are having much fun.”

  “We can see that.” Liz reached down and picked up Adam.

  He talked real quick about his playmates in his jibber. “Oh, yes, Adam. You have lots of friends.”

  Put down, he returned to his playmates. They went to the kitchen to talk to Monica, who was getting the noon meal ready.

  “No one has come for your help in four days,” she said, stirring a boiling pot of stew.

  Chet, amused, shook his head. “This makes five?”

  “Exactly. Sit down. We have beef stew and corn bread.”

  “Sounds good.” He put the chair under his wife at the table.

  “Things are going very smoothly,” Liz said. “As usual.”

  “The ranch people could please a president setting up a party.” Chet chuckled.

  Raphael knocked at the back door. “Chet, a boy is here with a wire for you.”

  Monica shook her head with a hard stare. “Day five just went to Hades.”

  Liz laughed.

  Chet waved the boy to come in and took the telegram.

  DEPUTY US MARSHAL CHET BYRNES

  A GANG OF OUTLAWS ARE APPARENTLY

  ROBBING AND MURDERING TRAVELERS

  COMING OUT OF UTAH HEADED FOR THE

  LEE’S FERRY. REPORTS FROM U.S. DEPUTY

  MARSHAL KENT HAYES SAY AT LEAST

  SEVEN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN REPORTED

  MISSING TRAVELING THIS REGION GOING

  FROM ST GEORGE TO THE FERRY NEVER

  ARRIVING THERE. NOR IS THERE ANY

  SIGN OF THEM ON THE ROAD. SOME

  PROPERTY OF THESE PEOPLE HAS BEEN

  OFFERED FOR SALE TO PASSERSBY. IF

  YOU CAN HELP SETTLE THIS I WOULD

  APPRECIATE YOUR GIVING ATTENTION TO

  THIS MATTER.MORE INFORMATION WITH

  NAMES AND WHATEVER ELSE I HAVE

  WILL FOLLOW IN A LETTER.

  ACTING US MARSHAL HOWARD JESSUP.

  “What is it?” Liz asked.

  “Trouble on the north rim of the Grand Canyon.”

  “Serious?”

  “Sounds so. Several people have disappeared in the region and they think they were murdered and robbed.”

  “Who will go with you?”

  “Cole and Jesus. I doubt we can be back in time for the wedding. You better handle that. I have a letter coming from Marshal Jessup. When it arrives, we’ll go see what we can do.”

  “Monica wasn’t far from wrong.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” He turned to the youth. “Sit down and eat. I’ll write an answer to this message.”

  “I am—”

  “You are perfectly fine. Take off your hat and coat, wash your hands, and sit right here. I have plenty of stew.” Monica took his coat and hat to hang on pegs and he went to wash his hands.

  “No one goes hungry around here,” Raphael said, and waved good-bye to leave. “I better go back and check on things.”

  Liz made a face at Chet. “That is some journey you have to make, isn’t it?”

  “I’m just glad it won’t be as cold as the last trip we made up there to get Leroy Sipes free. It was bad.”

  “Better take some jackets. It is getting to be fall already.”

  “We will. I hate to tell the guys, but they’re always ready to go.”

  “When will you leave?”

  “Probably next Tuesday. I want to wait for his letter with the names of the missing people and anything else he has. There are not many people on that side of the Grand Canyon, but that sliver of land belongs to Arizona but should have been a part of Utah.”

  “The surveyors got lost?” Monica asked.

  “No, it was intentional, probably to show federal authority to the Mormons. But not the best move for people who live up there.” Chet shook his head. “Nor lawmen, neither.”

  Liz made a face at him. “What do you call this, then?”

  “There were people in the government who, at the time, disliked Utah. They wanted the line not in respect to where it had to be, but where it should be not to give the Mormons an inch more.”

  “No matter. You need to go examine the problem and solve it.”

  This drew a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Can I ask Raphael to give the bride away?”

  “I think he should do that, since her father can’t be found.”

  “We tried very hard to find him. He hasn’t lived with her mother in years. But I really wanted you to give her away.”

  “Raphael will be a great one. He’s my major here to handle things. The stew was good, as usual, Monica, but now I need to write that young man a message to take back. Excuse me.”

  His wire to the marshal explained when he and his men would leave for the north rim, and to please inform his Utah counterpart he would be in St. George in a week or so. Chet signed on the bottom of the page.

  When he gave the young man the message, he also paid him a half dollar that made him smile. “Thank you.”

  “Ride careful. It will be dark soon.”

  “I will, sir. And, ma’am, thank you. I really liked your stew and corn bread.”

  “God bless you,” Monica said, and the messenger left for town.

  “Folks are arriving already.”

  “Liz and I are going down to meet them, right?”

  Bo helped Shelly get down, and a vaquero took the reins to park his buggy.

  “Well, darling, this is Liz,” Bo said. “And you’ve met ol’ Chet.”

  “I was at the wedding. I met you then, too.” They shook hands and Liz told her they should go to the house until more arrived. She agreed and they were off, leaving the men to talk privately.

  “You have plans?” Bo asked.

  “I have to leave for Utah and the north rim country. There’ve been some crimes on travelers unsolved up there.”

  “If Arizona has a rectum, that north rim is it.”

  “Oh, it isn’t that bad.”

  “Yes, it is. They can never build a railroad in there. No river you can reach. It’s down in the canyon, and it will always be the back woods of this territory.”

  “I’m not buying any land up there.”

  “Good.”

  “Talking of buying land, is it too early to know if that owner will sell his ranch over east where the rustlers were denned up at?”

  “Yes, but I am certain whoever is in charge will sell it.”

  “Good.”

  “You ever thought any more about buying the railroad sections on opposite sides of the track?”

  “Is the price down any?”

  “Not really.”

  “Bo, they are still crossing Kansas. That leaves New Mexico to cross before they get close.”

  Bo laughed. “I’m not selling you any of that.”

  “Not here anyway.”

  “Oh, I tried.”

  “Bo, you have done wonderful buying me homesteads and ranches.”

  “And I am sober.”

  “That is better than anything,” Chet agreed.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Our business holds and we should be fine come the end of the year. The Verde Ranch is going to contribute a large herd of market-ready steers that we have not had before.”

  “What will you raise on this new ranch?” Bo wanted to know.

  “Cattle, if we get it.”

  “No horse ranch?”

  “These Arizona ranchers don’t have enough money to buy good horses,” Chet replied. “You couldn’t sell a horse in Texas until those ranchers sold cattle in Kansas and had money in their pockets.”

  “These folks depend on our Navajo business and small sales to butchers to make a living. It’s a tough job. You have lots figured out about this ranching business.”

  “I’ve been running a ranch since I was fifteen. And I’ve still not learned it all. My nephew is running a bunch of Mexican steers. They have little
to eat down there below the border on most ranges except for the big haciendas. At three years old, they are full frame and I think I can get them fat on our gamma grass.”

  “How could you move them up here?”

  “Water wagons and wooden troughs to fill in. You can water them from Tucson out to the Gila River. We can find irrigation water after that to get by Hayden’s Ferry and the Salt River, and then we’d have to water them up Black Canyon. Hassayampa has water in it most of the time. It would take some organization and some hardworking hands, but I could gather those men from my ranches and we could get them up here.”

  “You’ve made that trip so many times. I bet you have the saguaros beside the road named by now.”

  “I’ve been down there a lot,” Chet said.

  “How many would you drive up here?” Bo asked.

  “Two thousand.”

  The broker whistled.

  “A hundred head isn’t worth anything.” He shrugged. “I also have an advantage I could get them up here early and hay them until the grass comes.”

  “When you going to do that?”

  “I want to do it next spring. If we get that ranch on the rim. I may use it for that.”

  “Who will run it?”

  Chet thought for a moment before answering. “I’m thinking hard on Cole. But I don’t know if his wife would like the wilderness.”

  “Cole’s pretty solid?”

  “Oh, he is every bit solid. But we don’t have that ranch yet.”

  “I’ll work harder,” Bo promised. “You never stop figuring how to make money, do you?”

  “That’s what they have me for. I don’t do much manual work.”

  His partner laughed. “I can’t get it, I will find another.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “I see Hampt coming. I better go greet him.”

  “They have lemonade up there,” Chet told him.

  “I’m not drinking. She’d kill me.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Chet, you know through it all that you saved my life, as bad as it was.”

  “I knew you were worth saving.” Chet clapped him on the shoulder and went to kiss May and shake the big man’s hand.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked his onetime sister-in-law.

  “Big,” she said simply.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “Oh, I don’t know or care. He will love it regardless. That’s all that matters anyway.”

  “Hampt told me about your sister and I already wrote a lawyer I know in San Antonio,” Chet told her. “I told him to represent you. He’ll get it straight.”

  “But what does he cost?”

  “The ranch can pay it. This is your place, too.”

  “Oh, Chet, I don’t want to be a burden.”

  “May, you’ve never been a burden to me.”

  She hugged him and smiled. “Thanks.”

  “You’re going to sing, aren’t you?”

  She bobbed her head. “You know I’d do anything for you, Chet Byrnes. You’re my family.”

  “Part of it. The store man Ben and his wife Kathrin are here.”

  May nodded and smiled a little. “I’m not the only one here with a child to be am I?”

  “No.”

  “She never had any children when you found her, did she?”

  “No. I think that was why her ex-husband married two sisters and she left him over it.”

  “I recall that story. Then she only could find an outlaw for a mate.”

  “That’s right.” He nodded.

  “But she and Ben are happy.”

  “I’m sure they are. Ben’s first wife left him to go back east.”

  “I bet she regretted that.”

  “No, May, she was not generous. She was very self-centered and had no passion for anyone else. Or she’d never left Ben.”

  May nodded. “I always am amazed how you can see people and draw a picture about them.”

  “Liz is coming. She’s jealous of your condition, but she means well.”

  “I know she does. Maybe someday, huh?”

  Chet smiled. “We try.”

  May shook her head with a smile, then she lifted her skirt in hand and went to join his wife.

  Hampt came from the corral area and joined him. “Jesus said you’re going to Utah.”

  “I got a wire this morning from the Chief Marshal in Tucson. He asked me to go check on some disappearances of folks on that Mormon Honeymoon Trail.”

  “They call that road that?”

  “Brigham Young sent many young couples to places like Mesa, Lehigh, and Saint David to farm. They took that route on their honeymoon. Still do.”

  “I never knew that. Jesus calls it the Frozen Road.”

  “You remember when we went up there and got those killers and the outlaws?”

  “And rescued the orchard man Leroy Sipes? That was the best one you ever found, Chet. Man, he brought all of us apples a week ago. He is a hand at the place.”

  “And his wife Betty, too.”

  “Oh, yes. She came to Marge and asked for your help getting him released from those kidnappers?”

  “They did lots up there at their place. What’s new at yours?”

  “We fixed a little fence some damn rogue longhorn bull tore up.”

  “Whose bull was he?”

  “I never looked. We turned him into jerky. I damn sure didn’t want a calf out of him.”

  Chet could hardly keep from laughing. “Sounds like ranching got real western.”

  “Just an everyday deal.” Hampt shrugged. “You ever thought about who might be the outlaws up there causing that ruckus?”

  “I don’t know a soul except the folks at Joseph Lake who have the store there. But we’ll find them.”

  “Be careful. There’s lots of desperate men up there. That’s about the last holdout for wanted men in the West now.”

  “I’ll heed your advice.”

  As they started over to greet others coming in, Hampt said to him, “You know that’s the outlaw trail that comes clear down there from Montana. You recall that lady I checked on a few years ago out west of the ranch?”

  “Yes.”

  “She told me they came by her place and they used that road and the ferry. But they never stopped if they thought a man was there.”

  “Hampt, I remember that. Let’s talk more later. My banker is here.” They walked over to greet him. “Hey, glad you could make it.”

  “Why, Chet, good to be here. I love your parties. There are always laughs, music, and great food. How is your lovely wife?”

  “Fine, Tanner. She’ll be glad to see you. She and May are around here.”

  “And everything alright in your ranching business?”

  “Fine, thanks. You know Hampt, my east ranch foreman?”

  “Yes, I do. He and his wife have an account with me. Good to see you, Hampt.” They shook hands. “How is May?”

  “Big. But she’s fine and will be glad to see you.”

  “Yes, you better see May since she could soon be a bigger depositor. They’re trying to settle her parents’ estate back in Texas,” Chet told him.

  “Oh, I will. All your banking is going fine?”

  “Liz says we’re good.”

  “I always like to check. You have an amazing amount of business.”

  “And a large payroll.”

  “But I appreciate you buying cattle from the small ranchers. That’s helped me immensely in my business. And them as well.”

  Chet nodded, and left to meet another couple driving up.

  The evening was soon in full swing as he was talking to old Frey, who owned the livery in town.

  “The time is about up on those horses I’m holding. What should I do?”

  “I will ask my men, but I’d say sell them, deduct the bill, and split the money between Cole and Jesus.”

  “Let me know what they want. There are several good horses in that lot.”

  Ch
et agreed. “If I was stealing horses, I’d damn sure steal good ones.”

  Cole and his wife arrived. She ran over and kissed his cheek. “Those two women are hard workers, Chet. Jenn said she couldn’t come in because her legs are bothering her, but to thank you. Cole already heard you were heading out Tuesday.”

  “Tell her it wasn’t important that she came for this if she felt bad.”

  “No, no. Anything you do is important to her, and to me, too. We’re your biggest fans. Our new workers are so good. Thanks from both of us.”

  There were lots of guests, and the music flowed. His vaqueros and their wives took great pride in these events, serving and dancing. They made polite hosts and hostesses. At last, Chet joined his wife. She was very excited—much more than normal for her.

  “Good thing I am staying home,” she said with a sly grin. “I may be carrying your baby.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded very quickly and blushed. “But—”

  “If it doesn’t work out, Liz, we still have each other,” he told her quietly. “We’ll always have each other.”

  She squeezed his leg under the table. “I have you and I know that. I’ll be brave with what ever happens. But good things do happen.”

  “Yes, they do. Use your faith, too.”

  “I will. I could not have found a better man to share my life with. I didn’t know what to expect from you as my husband when I decided to join you. But you showed traits like patience with me that made you so dear. I will be here no matter what.”

  “Great. I’ll go to Utah to settle that trouble and then ride home to my lovely wife.”

  “Oh, Chet, I’ll be here,” Liz said with quiet passion.

  “I am counting on you.”

  The evening swept on, and at last those going home called for their conveyance and the vaqueros delivered them under the lamps hung to light the way. Chet shook many hands and wished them all a safe ride home. Hugging Liz’s shoulder, they sent the company leaving, home. Hampt and his bunch, along with Tom and Millie, spent the night.

  The ranch was quiet at last and the two sat on the porch swing to discuss the event. Temperatures were growing cooler as fall advanced. Liz wore a shawl on her shoulders.

  “I plan to stop riding until we know something.”

  He agreed. “It might not be a bad idea. But I don’t want to restrict you from being yourself.”