Pray for the Dead

by Dusty Richards

  Covington frowned, considering. “Would you maybe buy two hundred steers for your Navajo drives from me next year if I set you up on my place?”

  “They need to be at least three years old and fleshy,” Chet replied, sensing a kindred spirit. “Since you’re here and those will be unfamiliar cattle with ours, you’ll need to provide four hands to help us get them to Gallup.”

  “No problem.” He leaned back in the saddle. “Come to my house and camp there. I’ll build the corrals, drill a well to water them, and build a house to hold them.”

  “You know my terms for the cattle sales?”

  “Hell, yes. No problem at all. You just ensured me that I could keep on ranching. I’ll put the stop two miles east of him on the road. Is that close enough?”

  “Oh, yes. I may have plans coming for the house.”

  “Hell, I don’t know how you made that Navajo beef deal work. I am amazed. But, Chet Byrnes, I’m about to cry over our cattle deal. Come on to the house, I need to tell my wife. Thank God you came by and saw me.”

  He rode ahead to get supper set up for them. Jesus spoke first as the dust settled. “How much will he get for his cattle?”

  “Sixteen hundred dollars.”

  “He was about to cry,” Spud said. “Why?”

  “He has no market for that many steers around here. His sale is a fortune to him. It’ll cover his expenses for several years.”

  “Chet, after you guys told me about that old goat in the sinkhole,” Jesus said, “I thought we’d never find a place for a stop out here. I hope they appreciate you back at the headquarters of this outfit. No one else could have made that deal but you.”

  “Hey, we may be halfway done tomorrow,” Spud added.

  “Good thing, too,” Chet said, seeing the high clouds in the north fixing to sweep down on them. “More winter’s coming.”

  Spud took his hat off and slapped his horse with it. “Damn it! I was just thawing out.”

  They laughed. Chet was proud of his choice of the young man to ride with them. It wasn’t like having Cole riding alongside, but Spud would make a real hand in time.

  It snowed that night. Clyde’s wife, Iris, baked some raisin-dry apple pies and fussed a lot over the three of them continually. Chet found her to be a straight-backed woman with a good sense of humor. She and her husband had come to this land from Texas and established a ranch with a few Navajo boys as their ranch hands. They had lost two children over the past three years since the move. While he knew many people lost their offspring short of three years of age, the idea bothered him now more than ever before. Maybe because he had two boys of his own now growing that way.

  “What’s your wife doing while you’re up here?” Iris asked.

  “Elizabeth’s probably playing with my boys.”

  “They aren’t hers?”

  “No, they’re from my past. My first wife was lost in a horse accident shortly after we had a son. Another woman I intended to marry had to stay in Texas to care for her family, had a child after I left, and never told me. She died of pneumonia not long ago, and her grown daughter informed me about the boy.”

  Iris smiled. “Tell me about your current wife. I would love to meet her.”

  “She was a widow, owned a large hacienda in Mexico. She wanted to buy a special horse from me and so we met down on the border. I feared I would never see her again, but we corresponded and she came back to marry me.”

  “Oh, that sounds so romantic to me. You have plans for a family?”

  “We do. But no results yet.”

  She nodded. “I understand that. We have the same problems.”

  “Maybe some day.”

  “I pray a lot.”

  “So do we. When she’s with me next time, we’ll stop by and you can meet her.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  They both looked up when the men came in floured with snow from caring for the stock and storing their pack items.

  Covington shook his head. “Looks like you need to sleep in here tonight where it’s warm.”

  “Thanks, Clyde. I meant to ask if you know anyone forty miles east of here who would serve as a station.”

  “Your best man is Simon. He owns the trading post ’round those parts. He likes money and has the facilities to handle the job.”

  “You know him?”

  “Met him. He drives hard deals, but in the end I imagine you and him can come to an understanding.”

  “I had no idea what this trip would bring; things are going well. I’ve got another team working out west. I plan to set up our main station where the military road goes south below the San Francisco Peaks. There’s a small settlement there now.”

  “I was there once. It should work. Your ranch isn’t there? Isn’t it on the east leg of the road going down to Preskitt?”

  “You mean the Windmill? Where we gather the cattle to drive to Gallup?”

  “Yes.”

  “I decided we needed a point east to start from. So we gather them up there, settle them down, then drive them to the Navajo. The grass is good and the cattle stay fat. We put up lots of prairie hay when we can and so we have a supply in case of drought or snow.”

  “You figured out a lot since you came here.”

  “I feel I came here at the right time. The Indian troubles were holding many folks out. Cole and I were attacked on the first cattle drive to Gallup. I wondered if we could survive, but we did.”

  “I met the man runs that for you, Sarge. He’s a real military man.”

  “Sarge is a strong boss, but he keeps help. They know what he wants and they do it.”

  “He told me he had no say about where they buy cattle.”

  “He didn’t lie to you. The plan was made to sell our cattle first. That’s what makes my operation work. We do buy cattle outside, of course, and Tom, my Verde Ranch foreman, heads that. It isn’t we don’t buy cattle, what we need is quality cattle to fill our contract. We take that very serious. Ranchers supplying cattle know we will turn down anything less than top-quality beef. We try to keep at least a month’s supply on hand to meet our needs at the Windmill.”

  “I saw that. Mine will be what you need next year.”

  “Fine. I’ll tell Tom what to expect.”

  “Iris and I are looking forward to being a small portion of your supply chain.”

  At that point, she served some of her piping hot apple pie. “I don’t have any champagne to serve you. This will just have to do.”

  “This suits us better anyhow,” Jesus said.

  “Yeah, you can always get something to drink,” Spud said. “Great pies is lots harder to find.”

  Later that night, Chet and Clyde signed the agreement to set up the stopover.

  The cold stayed, but the snow only gave them a dusting. They rode east the next day, blasted by a cold north wind every step of the way. That evening they reached the trading post Covington had talked about, and Chet met Simon. He was a tall man, in his forties, with an untrimmed beard sprinkled with gray. He stayed solemn and thoughtful while Chet explained his proposition.

  “Fifty dollars is all you pay each month?”

  “That’s my deal. As a stage station we will, of course, increase our payment. For the buckboard portion—which will last perhaps nine months—that fifty dollars is our payment.”

  “How many horse changes will we have to do?”

  “I suspect one per day,” Chet told him. “Maybe less.”

  “Feed drivers?”

  “About the same.”

  “I don’t think you’re being fair to the station owner.” He poured himself some whiskey in a tin cup that he had offered Chet and he had declined.

  “We’ll buy the hay from you or supply it.”

  “Yes, but I have to worry about them arriving, feeding them, and even put them up to sleep.”

  “Well it’s fifty dollars more than you make now.”

  Simon sipped on his liquor
and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What will I have to do to have a stage stop?”

  “We have several plans. We build it. You build it. We will have a standard plan for it.”

  “I don’t think I am interested.”

  “I will have a stopover in this area.” Chet sighed. “I came to you first as the leader in business here.”

  “Where will you put it? This is tribal land. You can’t get any permit to build on it.”

  “You don’t understand, this project supercedes that authority in order to get the mail through.”

  He shook his head at Chet. “That will take years to get through the red tape.”

  “You have a federal permit to have this store here. What if they don’t renew it?”

  “You threatening me?” Simon demanded.

  “Oh, no. Just asking a question?”

  “I want two hundred fifty a month for messing with you.”

  “I’ll be here for a few days. Consider it?”

  Simon shook his head and tossed down more whiskey. “I won’t even think about it.”

  Chet left the man, disgusted with even wasting his time on talking to him. There had to be someone else to talk to. He went off and slept full-dressed under a pile of blankets.

  “I wished we’d stayed back at Clyde’s,” Spud grumbled, moving about to get ready to make breakfast.

  “Good comes with the bad in this deal,” Jesus told him. “It’s cold here but it was colder in Utah a few years ago.” His breath was steaming out of his mouth.

  “Glad I wasn’t there. Hey, here comes an Injun woman to see us.”

  Chet went out the flap. “Good morning, can I help you?”

  The thin young woman wrapped in a blanket turned her face from the wind. “He says you come eat breakfast. He wants to talk some more.”

  Both of his men stared at him, waiting for his reply.

  Chet almost chuckled out loud. “Tell him we accept and are coming.”

  “Amen,” Spud said under his breath.

  She nodded, satisfied, and lifted her hood back up from the blanket. Then she went back for the post.

  They followed. Chet was not sure if his veiled threat about the federal permit had changed Simon’s mind, or the fear of more competition in the area. They settled the deal by noon. He offered them a warm room to stay in, and Chet accepted it.

  The weather settled down and he wrote Hannagen a long letter detailing the deals he’d made for all the needed eastern stops, and that Cole was working the western side. He finished by saying before they headed home they needed one more place forty miles east of him.

  “Johnny White Feather is a full blood been to school for Injuns in Pennsylvania. He maybe a mile or two differences, but he’ll work with you. He’s the money-makingest guy I ever met.”

  Two days later they signed up the six-foot-tall Indian with his four wives. Chet liked the friendly, tall Navajo and he acted excited about becoming a stage stop owner. The man had three Navajo wives and one from a different tribe. But Chet considered her as more educated and maybe the boss; her name was Rose.

  “You know she’s a Comanche?” Spud said, riding beside him.

  “Rose?” Chet turned in the saddle.

  Spud nodded. “He met her at school back east.”

  “How did he get her? Did you learn how he did that?”

  “Yeah. She wrote him to come get her and she would help him manage his business.”

  “Where was she?”

  “In the Oklahoma Territory, Fort Sill.”

  “We heard them talking about her,” Jesus said.

  “Well I hope Cole’s done this well. We swept this deal in my opinion.”

  Chet felt confident they would make their end work, but the fourth wife being an outsider was sure different. He went to making plans.

  They would need a team to cut poles for the corrals and then deliver them to Rothschild. He hoped the plans for the buildings at the stage stops were already drawn. Lots to do and he didn’t have a clue how well Cole was doing. When they’d first parted, he told Cole and the men to come back to the Preskitt Valley house. They’d meet them there—whenever.

  They stopped at the Windmill Ranch, taking a shortcut home. Susie greeted them. That evening he explained his plans with her and Sarge.

  “I know that trader Simon. He’s an old grump,” Sarge said. “I avoid him.”

  “I would, too, but I needed a stop there and he has the facilities. He wanted lots more money than I wanted to spend at first. But when I told him his federal trader license might be in jeopardy, he must have taken notice.”

  “Could you have done that?” Sarge asked with a small smile.

  “Maybe. We’ll never know, though. He signed on the dotted line.”

  “Oh, Chet, it sure gets complicated, doesn’t it?” Susie asked.

  “Susie, it has for years.”

  “I guess so. Lucy wrote me and said she was fine, by the way.”

  “That’s good. I haven’t shaken that. It stabs at me a lot.”

  “Oh, it was so sad. I wish we had an answer why he did that.”

  “Something provoked him is all I can say.”

  She shook her head. “You have lots on your mind.”

  “Part of my job. We as a family continue, which is as I want it to be.” Chet sighed, and changed the subject. “We made very good progress with the stage deal and I hope that Cole is doing likewise out west.”

  “He’s a serious part of your team,” Susie said. “And Valerie is tickled to death to have that boy.”

  Chet agreed. They turned in early to ride on to the Verde Ranch the next day. They made it there by late afternoon and Rhea was excited when they rode in.

  “You weren’t gone long.”

  “We work fast.” Chet hugged her. “How are you guys doing?”

  “Liz was here a few days ago; we had a good visit. I love my big house and being married. And I will get a big supper ready for you three.”

  “Sounds good. I sent Jesus to find Tom. What’s Victor doing today?”

  “He and his men are fencing land up at the Hereford unit for a hay meadow.”

  “You know how they’re coming along?”

  “You know Victor.” She laughed. “He said they’d complete it by Friday.”

  “Well, that’s married life, huh?”

  “Oh, I am a happy woman and Adam keeps growing and talking. I’m going to get the boy for you and then I’ll work on supper.”

  Jesus returned. “Tom is coming. He was doing bookwork and will be here shortly. He couldn’t believe we did all that already.”

  “He didn’t send kids to do it,” Spud said. “Well he did send one—me.”

  They laughed.

  CHAPTER 24

  The next morning, Chet and his men rode on to the Preskitt Valley house. Tom was going to assemble some wagons and teams for the pole crew, and put together a list of the tools they’d need. They discussed a leader for the team but made no decision on the man to do it.

  It was noontime when they rode up to the upper ranch. When Chet dismounted he heard his wife shout, “You’re home!”

  She raced out to hug and kiss him. Out of breath, she held him tight. “I worried you might have frozen.”

  “No way. We found all four places and came back to make them happen.”

  “Were you frostbit?”

  “We were fine. It was cold and snowed up there, but no problems. We have the four stop sites east of the peaks. We’ll see what Cole’s done when he gets back.”

  “Good. Have you had lunch? Of course not. You guys come, too. Monica and I will feed you.”

  “Thanks, ma’am,” Jesus said.

  “Anything wrong here?” Chet asked, putting away his hat.

  “Not a thing. You have some letters I didn’t open. Hannagen sent a telegram for you. It was real short, just said, ‘Thanks. Job well done.’”

  “Good. There’s lots of work to do and until Cole returns,
we won’t know about the other half. Good to be home, though. I was glad you weren’t out in that deep cold.”

  “Oh, I behaved and stayed home. I visited both boys. They’re healthy and growing. Monica and I played cards. She won.”

  “The stagecoach men have returned and aren’t in bandages.”

  “Monica, we are careful men.”

  She looked hard at the ceiling for help and then shook her head. “I’m glad you are home safe.”

  “And I’m glad to be home.” Chet went into the living room to read his mail.

  Shawn wrote again to tell him they were watching the two parties from the stagecoach robbery, and that there was no sign of the Black Widow or Brad Crawford. In other words, Chet thought, they hadn’t learned a single thing more.

  A second letter postmarked St. David interested him more.

  Dear Mr. Burns,

  My name is Norma Shields. I am a widow in St. David. I understand that you are looking for the outlaw Brad Crawford. If I could have the reward, I would be pleased since my assets are small. He and a woman named Ruth are living on a ranch next to mine. My small ranch is a mile east of the St. David Mormon Ward.

  I can point out the ranch from mine. They openly ride around the ranch, but never come to town.

  Norma

  Chet slapped his palm down on the table in excitement. He would write Norma immediately and thank her for the information, then wire Shawn as to where they might be at. That was a bonus.

  Feeling better, he went back to the kitchen. “I think we just got word where Crawford is hiding with Ruth Carlson.”

  Jesus looked up. “Where’s that?”

  “A ranch east of Saint David.” Chet waved the letter from Norma Shields. “We just got a tip.”

  “We going down there to arrest them?” the younger man asked.

  “Shawn and Roamer can do that. Where’s Anita?”

  “She’s babysitting Rocky so Val can help Jenn for the day at the café,” Liz explained. “She didn’t know you guys were coming back today.”

  “I simply wondered.”

  Monica served them her quickly prepared lunch.

  Chet weighed whether he should ride out to help round up Crawford. He’d wait a day before he sent the wire to Shawn. Maybe he’d decide one way or the other by then. That cruel killer should be behind bars or hung from the neck. He must be pretty damn sure of himself to be riding openly around that ranch.