by Abe Dancer
‘We ain’t stayin’,’ he said to Handy. ‘I got business in town, an’ I want you with me.’
At the wood yard in Lemmon, Wilshaw Broome ordered two coffins to be made and sent out to the Standing K. Then with Handy, he went on to George Daggert’s office. As he half expected, the lawyer had Brent Perser with him.
‘Glad to find you here,’ Broome said, the moment Handy had closed the door behind them. ‘You can burn that goddamn paper, now.’
‘Why would I do that, nothin’s changed?’ the town clerk asked, with an apparent lack of concern.
Broome smiled icily. ‘Except those concerned are dead. McGovren’s house got burned last night. Duff here was ridin’ up that way. Tell ’em what you saw, Duff,’ he egged his man.
Handy nodded halfheartedly. ‘There was a heap o’ bodies there,’ he started reluctantly. ‘I’d say five, but they was burned up real bad. There was nothin’ anybody could’ve done.’
‘An’ we couldn’t expect you to carry out a post-mortem, could we?’ Broome said, and continued with his own storyline. ‘Felix and Carter Krate didn’t come in last night, so Duff rode out again an’ found ’em in the brush where they’d been shot dead. That would’ve been late yesterday, an’ you don’t need to ask who’d be responsible for it. Maybe what happened was heads-up reckonin’. It’s too bad about the women, even if they was sodbusters. But Felix is my son.’
‘Who are the women?’ Daggert asked, after a moment’s thought.
‘McGovren’s wife an’ their daughter, Megan.’
‘Are you sure o’ that?’ Perser asked directly.
‘Of course it’s them. We know who must’ve been holed up there.’
Perser shared a puzzled glance with Daggert. ‘I saw Aileen McGovren here in town, less than an hour ago,’ he said.
‘The hell you did,’ Broome snorted.
Perser raised his chin sharply. ‘Well, it certainly weren’t no dressmaker’s dummy standin’ out there on the boardwalk,’ he replied with dismissive smirk. ‘So, I’ll just keep them papers until you work up a better story, or produce the evidence.’
‘The only goddamn evidence I can produce is a cartload o’ meat cinders. You just been told,’ Broome seethed.
‘Yeah, an’ I just told you, I’ll get rid o’ the papers when there’s no one can serve ’em,’ Perser retorted. ‘Now leave us, we got other business.’
‘You’ll have no business after the next election,’ Broome threatened. ‘Let’s get out o’ here,’ he said to Handy and threw George Daggert’s office door wide, flung the lawyer an irate glare before stomping into the street.
‘What do you reckon made Perser say he’d seen the McGovren woman, boss?’ Handy asked Broome, five minutes later.
‘I been wonderin’ that,’ Broome said, and jerked roughly on his reins. ‘Either he’s runnin’ scared, or he wants me to pay him somethin’ extra to get rid o’ what Kettle’s got filed. Goddamnit, him an’ Daggert’s been succourin’ off me for years.’
‘Well, it gives me the creeps. Last time I saw her, she weren’t gettin’ ready to go to town, no sir.’
‘Forget it,’ Broome rasped. ‘You ain’t goin’ to see her or any o’ them gun toters again.’
The two riders spurred on in the direction of the ranch. Every now and again, Duff Handy took a nervous glance back over his shoulder.
‘What the hell, do you suppose made him patch up a story like that?’ Perser asked the lawyer, when Handy and Broome were gone. ‘You know he lied.’
‘Yeah, I know it,’ Daggert said. ‘When Wilshaw Broome lies, it’s sort o’ comfortin’. As comfortin’ as fact. His good lie was findin’ his boy an’ Krate.’
‘I wondered why you weren’t too grief-stricken. So, you don’t think it was them?’ Perser asked.
Daggert shook his head. ‘Not where they said, it weren’t. They more’n likely went to burn down the McGovren house, but got gunned down for their pains. An’ that’s where Handy might have found ’em. He weren’t lying about the place bein’ burned, an’ I’m satisfied as to who gave the orders. I thought they’d both come apart when you said you’d seen the McGovren woman.’
‘I had seen her.’
‘McGovren’s wife? You sayin’ she is here in town?’
‘Yeah, with not so much as a burned finger.’
‘Ah well, whether it was her or not, it don’t amount to a hill o’ beans. Not in the overall scheme o’ things.’
‘What are you thinkin’?’ Perser wanted to know.
‘One week ago, the whole matter of a clear title to that land was simply a case of waitin’ thirty days. It’s Thanksgivin’, or thereabouts, until the limitation runs out. But the papers from young Joe Kettle change everythin’.’
‘It ain’t my expertise, so how? What can be done?’ Perser said.
‘Broome ought to have compromised with the Kettle boy. He should’ve taken Judd Kettle’s half of the land under the quit-claim,’ the lawyer explained. ‘You know what they say about a bird in the hand? Because if that case comes up for trial, there’s not a chance that he’ll get more than half under the law, because Judd only owned half. Furthermore, there’ll be one or two questions that if you an’ me answer, we’ll be buyin’ tickets direct to the pen, as you well know.’
‘So why didn’t you tell that to Broome?’
Daggert laughed. ‘Because he ain’t the sort o’ man who’ll listen if you ain’t tellin’ him what he wants to hear. He ain’t reasonable, ain’t known for his debatin’ qualities. As soon as the law of limitation was passed he thought his troubles were over, until McGovren started nosin’ around.’
‘How did you help him?’ Perser asked.
‘I told him to buy McGovren. He said he tried, but got short shrift. Huh, makes you think the old feller’s got more sand than all of us put together. Anyway, I told Broome it was worth payin’ for, but he said he wasn’t givin’ half a lifetime’s earnin’s to a sodbuster. That was about it.’
‘Maybe he’s started to regret it.’
‘Not if he thinks McGovren, Kettle an’ Chaf have been hard baked in that house.’
Daggert looked duly offended at Perser’s crude remark. ‘If that cabin was burned last night, Mrs McGovren must have come to town some time yesterday,’ he suggested. ‘So, she was here last night, been here all day today.’
‘Yeah, so what the hell’s she up to?’
‘Wives generally know what their menfolk are up to, but it don’t always work the other way round,’ Daggert continued.
‘How’d you mean?’
‘If Aileen McGovren’s got an ounce o’ shrewd to her, she’ll hold herself together on the money her old man turned down. An’ she don’t have to go home to hear the news.’
Perser nodded. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he agreed. ‘I heard they’d got well past the love-bird stage.’
‘Well, she’s safe enough as long as she stays near Lemmon, but that can’t make Broome too happy,’ Daggert reasoned.
‘It sure don’t sound like he’s goin’ to have it all his own way,’ Perser said. ‘If only Hoope Kettle had left a will, eh? I don’t know what might or might not have happened at the McGovren place. But I know it couldn’t have been easy to get the better o’ MeGovren an’ Hector Chaf. The heir apparent wasn’t there just to sign his name, either.’
‘Yeah, I agree,’ he said, and sighed deeply. ‘My view is that you an’ me are just about as far into the molasses barrel as we dare get. We’d better start to look as though things are normal, attend to the “other business” you mentioned to Broome. If I was him, I’d lower myself down a very deep well.’
20
Joe Kettle handed out tepid canteen water to the prisoners. None of them said a word, except Red Mayhill.
‘What you aimin’ to do with us?’ he asked.
‘You were goin’ to burn Mr McGovren’s house when we caught you,’ Joe answered. ‘Don’t that tell you snmethin’?’
‘Yeah, tells us we should’
ve got our work orders a mite sooner.’
‘You weren’t workin’, you brainless scum,’ Joe rapped back. ‘You was helpin’ to slaughter innocent folk in their beds.’
‘I ain’t sayin’ any more.’
Hector walked up to Mayhill. ‘Tell us whose orders they were,’ he said. ‘Try lessenin’ your guilt by spreadin’ the blame around.’
‘You won’t do anythin’ to us, ’cause if you do, Broome will string all o’ you across the same tree,’ Mayhill sneered.
‘Now there’s an idea,’ Hector threatened, then indicated that they should bind the prisoners up again. ‘An’ wring the knots an inch,’ he added irritably.
An hour before dusk, the prisoners were forced to mount their horses. Ben McGovren went over to where his daughter still lay quietly on her blankets.
‘Megan, we got to ride out, but we won’t be gone long,’ he said. ‘Get your horse saddled up, an’ be ready to move out when we come back. Are you all right?’
‘If I didn’t have a heart or a brain, I might be. Where are you goin’?’
‘I told you, a short ride, an’ that’s all you need to know. Now shake yourself.’
Wilshaw Broome and Duff Handy were riding back to the ranch. It was nearly dusk when they reached the Rio Bonito, half a mile from the house. At that point the trail passed through a grove of live oaks. It was an eerie place in the flat dark, and Handy’s nerves were already taut. He yelled a curse when Broome’s horse suddenly snorted its displeasure and pulled up sharply.
‘Jesus, boss,’ he croaked in alarm. ‘What the hell’s happened here?’
Broome had already gulped in a great draught of air at seeing two figures in front of them. The bodies were hanging, strung across the trail with their feet barely clearing the ground. One of them was his straw boss, Red Mayhill, the other looked like one of the men who’d been paid to ambush Ben McGovren. From where their earlobes had been neatly cut off, blood had trickled to the necks of their stained hickory shirts.
‘Whoever done this, knew I’d be comin’ through here.’ Broome felt the cold run of sweat between his shoulder blades. ‘By the look of ’em, they ain’t been here long,’ he said hoarsely. Then he knew for sure who the perpetrators were, and a sudden dread gripped at his vitals. ‘Let’s get out o’ here,’ he gasped and stared guardedly into the oaks. ‘They’ll be found come mornin’.’
Handy had had enough of dead men for one day, so, with only a grunted response, he spurred his horse away from the oak towards the river.
*
Night settled over the gloomy Standing K ranch. Wilshaw Broome sat in his high, beam-ceilinged den, and Handy sat the other side of the broad hearth. Handy hadn’t been out of Broome’s sight since making his report that morning. Now, as the firelight flickered across Broome’s downcast features, he assumed a nervy companionship. But he knew different. His boss wanted him there because he didn’t want him talking to anyone else.
Broome sat in wretched silence, He knew the rough country as few others knew it, yet he knew there were places he’d never seen, perhaps where his enemies were now hiding. To Felix and a few others, he’d passed the word to bring down Ben McGovren. Instead, Felix was dead, and there were others who still hadn’t showed at the ranch. Maybe they were all somewhere out in the brush, the vultures and coyotes taking turns to tear the bodies apart. He felt almost overpowered by anguish as he summed up his situation. And it couldn’t go on. The overall price was now too high, he had to finish it once and for all. Come morning, when the bodies were found, he’d have one hell of an excuse to hunt down the killers of his men. ‘Why the hell didn’t you stay away?’ he yelled.
Throughout the night, Broome went on with his scheming, his avenging. From time to time he tossed a log to the fire, while an emotionally exhausted Handy took a fitful sleep. He was also mindful of keeping watch with the dead, so he made a few lone visits to the two coffins that were in another room. The troubled man could still go for many nights with little rest, but the irony was that now he couldn’t sleep even if he wanted too, his mind churning with ifs and buts, maybes and certainties.
It was first light when Broome heard a commotion from the ranch-house’s yard. He called for Handy to rouse himself, grabbed a shotgun from a rack and went outside. The line rider who had gone out early to check on the remuda had come storming in. He was sitting his horse making garbled noises in an effort to say something.
‘Christ, feller, you look like you got the hounds o’ hell behind you,’ Broome rasped, although he knew the cause of the rider’s distress, or thought he did.
‘They’re out there somewhere, boss,’ the man said, catching his breath. ‘I went out after the broncs at first light … found ’em on the other side of the creek. They struck the trail an’ run towards the ranch, but when they reached the crossin’, they bolted … turned away from the timber.’
Broome stared hard at his rider. ‘Why? What happened? he said, now convinced of the answer.
‘It was Red an’ the others. If it weren’t for their shirts an’ pants, I wouldn’ta recognized ’em. I think one of ’em was the Mex, Buscar.’ The man looked at Broome horrified. ‘I’m tellin’ you, boss, they was hangin’ there in the oaks like fat catkins, an’ they’d all got one eat half hacked away.’
But what the rider said wasn’t quite what Broome expected, and he held up his hand. ‘Hold it. What do you mean, “the others”? How many of ’em were there?’ he demanded.
‘Four. There was four of ’em. Their mounts were line-hobbled back in the thickets.’
Broome had agreed with Handy that they should be surprised and shocked. Suddenly he had no difficulty in showing that. There were two men hanging when he and Handy came to the timber. That meant the hangmen must have been there at the time, in hiding until they’d passed by. Now, with his worst suspicions come true, his excuse for hunting them down, for giving no quarter was that much greater.
Instead of two, six men were buried that day on Standing K land, although some burials were a short distance from close friends and family members. After a terse ceremony, Broome gave his orders for the day. His story was that a gang of violent, determined rustlers had re-emerged, that it was no doubt they who had hanged and killed Felix and the others. It was obvious their intention was to terrorize Rio Bonito country, make a fast sweep of the range and its cattle. It was up to Broome’s remaining men to find and punish them. There’d be no reprieve or stays of execution, just a big dollar bounty for the man or men who destroyed them.
In less than an hour after the last shovelful of earth topped out the graves, a dozen men rode to different stations of the ranch. But Duff Handy wasn’t with them. He was the sole survivor of those who’d been delegated to burn the McGovren house, and. Broome wanted him within range, not adding mud to the already very dangerous waters. Thinking on Brent Perser’s claim about Aileen McGovren being in town, Broome got to wondering just who had burned in the cabin. ‘We know who it wasn’t, eh, McGovren?’ he muttered.
21
When Hector, Ben and Joe returned, Megan was already on her horse. She had a fair idea of what had become of Red Mayhill and his partners, but said nothing. Now they were riding to find cover from Wilshaw Broome and what was left of his gang. Joe took the lead rope of the pack pony from her hand and she fell in behind Ben. Joe followed, and Hector brought up the rear as usual.
They bent around, sometimes through cactus thickets, occasionally splashed across shallow fords of the Rio Bonito. Ben led on through a wilderness of pear, followed every point of the compass in their winding flight. Joe estimated that they were taking two or three miles to gain one in making it to the lone oak they had seen in the early morning.
It was long past midnight when they rode into a pocket of what appeared to be an impenetrable barrier of prickly pear. Ben stopped, spoke for the first time in two hours.
‘Close up,’ he said, ‘it’s easier to make a trail.’ Then he moved on, twitching left and right, scrapin
g his legs through the harsh, unyielding vegetation.
Joe was unhappy at the thought of taking flight before Wilshaw Broome. And he was thinking of the hanged men, the trademark, ear-cropping of Hector Chaf. He didn’t know then that the disfigurement had a peculiar significance to Broome, that it was a personal matter between the two men. Joe was sickened at the feral cruelty, but he understood the country’s ruthless nature and the men who lived by way of it. He also knew that in the end, he could be living or dying by it himself. Through listening to Ben and Hector, he was convinced that if there was but a single man working for Broome who wasn’t a lawbreaker, it was because Broome didn’t know it. Broome’s personnel were the kind of men who’d usurped the loyalties of Hector Chaf and Ben McGovren, and Joe was now certain that the land gifted by his own grandfather was the McGovrens by any reasonable law. After gaining control from Broome, it would be once again, he concluded.
Joe’s mind was still agitated when they rode into a wide clearing. He hauled in his mount, saw the lone oak tree against the lightening sky.
‘You know this place?’ Ben asked Hector.
‘Yeah, I do. But the pear’s bigger and taller than it used to be. Ol’ Cochise himself might have difficulty findin’ us in here.’
‘Good, let’s camp,’ Ben said.
They all dismounted a little way from the tree, quietly unsaddled and line-hobbled their horses to graze. Still without a word, each one of them then rolled themselves into their blankets. Within minutes, and due mainly to the torment of weariness and nervous tension, they were sound asleep.
When Joe woke five hours later, he sat up, kicked away his blankets, rubbed his eyes and cursed. At the other side of the glade, there were five horses quietly snatching at the meagre brome. He blinked, cursed again and was about to shout something, when there was a sharp whistle at the edge of the thicket. He looked around, saw that Megan was watching him from a gap in her blanket. Hector propped himself up on his left elbow, raised his carbine with his right hand. Ben put his fingers to his lips and gave a returning whistle.