Bleeding Texas

by William W. Johnstone

  “We are talking,” the banker replied. His eyes narrowed. “Or did you mean something more serious?”

  “I won’t take up much of your time,” Bo promised.

  “I didn’t come here tonight to talk business,” Ambrose said, frowning. “But I suppose we could have a word. If, as you say, it won’t take much time.”

  “No, sir.”

  Ambrose nodded to Buchanan and Perkins and said, “If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen . . .”

  The judge waved a pudgy hand to signify that it was fine.

  Bo and Ambrose drew off to one side, near the coat closet, and Ambrose said, “Now, what’s all this about?”

  “Hank mentioned that my pa had to take out a mortgage on the ranch a while back.”

  “I can’t really discuss your father’s business dealings,” Ambrose said stiffly. “If you want to know anything about that, you should ask him.”

  Bo reined in the impatience he felt at the banker’s attitude and said, “Hank handles the ranch’s business these days, Mr. Ambrose, you know that, and he’s the one who told me.”

  “That makes no difference. The ranch is in your father’s name, so any discussion of the particulars of his arrangements must go through him.”

  “All right,” Bo said, stifling a sigh of exasperation. “It doesn’t matter. What I really wanted to do was let you know that you don’t have to worry about the Star C. The spread is going to be just fine.”

  Ambrose’s frown deepened as he said, “There are rumors that your family has lost a great deal of stock to rustlers.”

  “Every ranch has trouble with rustlers from time to time.”

  “But the Star C has lost more than its share, I’m told.”

  “I don’t know that that’s true,” Bo said. “And even if it is, we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  Ambrose just grunted skeptically. He asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you, Bo?”

  “I reckon not,” Bo said. He had made an effort to keep his promise to Hank. He had talked to Ambrose like he’d said he would.

  But as far as he could tell, he hadn’t accomplished a blasted thing, and he knew it.

  The Star C was still at the mercy of this soft-handed banker.

  “One thing you have to remember,” Ambrose said. “John Creel and I have known each other for a long, long time. We’ve done business for almost that long. I’m not anxious to do anything to hurt someone like that.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, Mr. Ambrose.”

  “Of course, there comes a time . . . No, never mind. Just remember that friendship only goes so far, too.” Ambrose looked across the room as the musicians began tuning up their fiddles. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m sure my wife will have her heart set on dancing the first dance.”

  Bo nodded and said, “Sure. Thanks, Mr. Ambrose.”

  He watched glumly as the banker started toward a gaggle of middle-aged ladies on the other side of the room, among them Mrs. Ambrose.

  Hank sidled up to him and said quietly, “I saw you talking to Mr. Ambrose, Bo. Did you do any good?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t much think so. He makes noises like he’s not eager to call in the note, but you’re right, he’s worried about all the stock the ranch is losing.”

  “We’ve got to put a stop to that somehow.”

  “You’ve tried, haven’t you?”

  “Of course we have,” Hank said. “Riley and Cooper have spent days trying to track those wideloopers. But they never steal very many head at one time. It’d be easier to trail them if they made off with a big bunch. But it’s not that hard to cover up the tracks of a little jag of cattle. There’s no telling where they get off to.”

  “Bleeding the ranch to death a little bit at a time,” Bo muttered.

  “That’s exactly what they’re doing. And that’s why I think there’s a good chance Fontaine is behind it. The objective isn’t to make a lot of money off stolen stock. It’s to hurt the Star C until the damage is finally too much to recover from.”

  What Hank said made a lot of sense, Bo thought. But knowing there was a good chance a theory was true and proving it were two different things.

  He looked around the crowded room and commented, “I figured the Fontaines would be here tonight.”

  “So did I,” Hank said. “Maybe they don’t like the rule that nobody can bring any guns in here.”

  That was a firm rule, too, and had been for as far back as Bo could remember. No guns at the town socials. Currently, Marshal Haltom enforced it, and he did a stringent job of it.

  Usually it wasn’t too difficult. Nobody in his right mind wanted any gunplay in a place where so many innocent folks were around, including a lot of women and children.

  Scratch drifted up and extended a freshly filled cup of punch to Bo.

  “You fellas look mighty solemn,” he said. “You’re supposed to forget about your troubles tonight.”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Bo said.

  They walked over to a corner of the room that had been taken over by the Creel family. John sat there on one of the benches that had been pushed up against the wall, with Idabelle Fisher beside him. All the Creel sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren made for a formidable brood. Everybody seemed to be having a good time drinking punch and visiting with friends who came by.

  Everybody except for his nephew Lee, Bo noted. Cooper’s oldest boy stood rather tensely as he watched the door with an expectant look on his face. He was waiting for somebody, Bo thought. A girl, more than likely. Lee was in his early twenties, the prime age for a young hombre to start looking for a wife.

  Two things happened then, at just about the same time. The fiddlers and guitars broke into a sprightly tune, resulting in a flood of dancers into the center of the room.

  And several newcomers came through the schoolhouse’s open doors, causing an angry stirring among the Creels.

  The Fontaines had arrived.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ned Fontaine entered first, as befitted the patriarch of the clan. He stepped in, paused and looked around the big room with a hawk-like gaze, then extended a hand back through the open double doors.

  A very attractive, dark-haired young woman took Fontaine’s hand and allowed him to lead her into the school. That was Samantha Fontaine, the old man’s daughter, Bo knew. She had been pointed out to him a few times here in town.

  Close behind Samantha came her two brothers, Nick and Danny. The older, more solemn brother, Nick, looked uncomfortable in a gray suit, as if he didn’t like being dressed up or having this many people around him.

  Danny, on the other hand, was in his element. A blond, sharp-featured young man, he wore a flashy brown tweed suit and had a cocky grin on his narrow face. Danny was always looking to start a fight or steal a kiss from a pretty girl. He had been in plenty of trouble in the past but had always skated out of it due to his father’s money and influence.

  Right behind the Fontaine brothers were several men who rode for the Rafter F, including Trace Holland. The gunman’s right arm wasn’t in a sling, but he held it a little stiffly, Bo noted. That bullet crease had to still be bothering him some.

  Scratch watched the newcomers just as intently as Bo did. He said quietly, “You reckon they got any hide-out guns on ’em?”

  “I doubt it,” Bo said. “Marshal Haltom has deputies posted outside the door to pat down all the men who come in. Anyway, I don’t reckon Ned Fontaine would allow it. He knows that folks here in town have tried to stay neutral when it comes to the trouble between him and Pa. If Fontaine or his men were to try to stir up a ruckus at one of these socials, though, the people would turn on him.”

  Scratch grunted and said, “Reckon you’re right. That don’t mean I trust the varmint.”

  “No,” Bo allowed, “me, neither.”

  The Fontaines’ entrance into the school had had a ripple effect. The fiddle players had slowed their sawing with their bows and then st
opped. The guitar players quit picking. The Creels and their men who had come into town with them bristled like a pack of dogs that has just spotted a rival pack. The Fontaine riders did likewise. The crowd parted slowly and opened a lane between the two factions.

  Likely no one really believed powdersmoke was about to roll, but just on the off chance that it was, nobody wanted to be in the line of fire.

  John Creel stood up from the bench where he’d been sitting and stepped forward so that he was at the front of his group. Bo could tell that his father and Ned Fontaine were looking directly at each other. Each man had his face set in a hard, expressionless mask.

  Then, as if some unfathomable signal had passed between them, both men nodded. Each moved his head only a fraction of an inch, but it was enough.

  The truce was declared.

  With a screech of strings, one of the fiddlers started to play again. The rest of the musicians followed suit, and a spritely tune soon filled the schoolhouse. The couples on the floor began to dance again.

  “Looks like war’s been averted,” Scratch said. “For now.”

  “Yeah,” Bo agreed. “I hope it lasts.”

  Samantha Fontaine danced the first dance with her father, then had a dance with each of her brothers. Lee watched her as she twirled around the floor with them. In the yellow dress that she wore, she had never looked prettier, he thought.

  He tried not to stare. In fact, he danced with several of the girls from town and from some of the smaller ranches in the area. Some of them were mighty nice, too, and sent unmistakable indications of interest in his direction.

  But none of them were Samantha.

  He was careful not to stare. Danny Fontaine was a known hothead. If he saw a Creel staring at his sister, he was liable to lose his temper and start a fight over it.

  Lee didn’t want that. He was determined to dance with Samantha tonight, but he was going to pick his moment. If everyone was going to see the two of them in each other’s arms, everything had to be right.

  Lee hoped he could stand to wait that long. Samantha was so beautiful that the temptation was mighty fierce . . .

  As the evening progressed, a couple of squeezebox players joined the fiddlers and guitar pickers. Given the number of settlers in the area who had German ancestry, it was inevitable that they’d play a few polkas. Lee thought he might be able to switch off with somebody and claim Samantha for a dance during one of those numbers, but it didn’t work out that way.

  But a square dance was coming up. That was even more inevitable than the polkas. And one of the main features of a square dance was that the dancers had to change partners while it was going on.

  Lee was going to make sure he was in the right place in the dance’s intricate pattern.

  He was starting to think the right moment was never going to arrive, but then one of the fiddle players, an old man with a short white beard, began to call out the opening moves of a square dance. Everybody here knew what to do, of course, and moved eagerly into position. Those who weren’t dancing began to clap out the rhythm. All grudges were forgotten in the joy and excitement that gripped the room.

  The caller’s words, like those of an auctioneer, spewed out almost too swiftly to understand. But people knew what to do, and they whirled and twirled around the floor, feet stomping and shuffling, big grins on their faces as they dosey-doed. Breath came fast, and the air in the room heated up some.

  During the evening, some of the men slipped outside to smoke and take nips from flasks and tell bawdy stories. The music of the square dance drew them back in, though, and the schoolroom was packed. There wasn’t much room for a misstep.

  When one came, it was at the worst possible time for Lee. He figured that in another ten seconds or so, they’d be switching partners again, and this time it would be Samantha who wound up in his arms.

  But no, that was when Danny Fontaine had to go and bump into Lee’s older brother, Jason. The impact was hard enough to stagger both men for a second.

  And Danny, being Danny, had to yell, “Hey, watch where you’re goin’, you damned clumsy Creel!”

  That outburst made an apprehensive hush fall over the room. Jason, who sported a thin mustache and a goatee that made him look a little like a Confederate cavalry commander during the Late Unpleasantness, responded into the tense silence, “It was you who bumped into me, Fontaine.”

  “That’s a damned dirty lie!” Danny blazed back at him.

  Jason reacted to that insult the way any man would. He balled his hands into fists and took a step toward Danny.

  Before any punches could be thrown, though, Marshal Haltom got between them. The burly lawman held up both hands and said, “There’s not gonna be any fighting in here, and you boys know it. That’s against the rules.”

  “No man calls me a liar and gets away with it,” Jason said.

  “You got any scores to settle, you do it outside,” Haltom snapped.

  Danny sneered and said, “Fine by me.” He turned and stalked toward the door, stripping off his suit coat as he went. It was an undeniable challenge that couldn’t go unanswered.

  Jason stomped along behind him, yanking his tie and shirt collar loose in preparation for battle.

  Lee was left standing there with Samantha only a few feet away from him, almost within arm’s reach.

  But he wasn’t fated to reach her, because the crowd began to flow between them as an exodus started. If Danny Fontaine and Jason Creel were going to fight, people wanted to get a good look at the combat.

  Samantha’s eyes met Lee’s just before the view between them was blocked. Their gazes held mutual disappointment.

  Then the press of people around them carried them toward the doors, too.

  Bo said to his brothers, “Should we try to stop this?”

  “Stop it, hell,” Cooper said. “My boy’s not gonna stand for what that little Fontaine coyote said to him. If he did, I’d kick his behind myself.”

  “Could be this is a trick of some sort?”

  “No, it’s not,” Riley said. “You saw it with your own eyes, Bo. This is just Danny Fontaine being the hotheaded fool he always is.”

  Riley was probably right about that, Bo thought.

  The Creel brothers, along with Scratch, emerged from the schoolhouse. A large group of men surrounded an open area under the trees where the kids played during their recess. The women all stayed inside, since it wouldn’t be fitting and proper for them to witness a fight like this . . . but that didn’t stop them from peeking avidly out the windows.

  Several men had found lanterns and lit them, and the light from them washed over the area where Danny Fontaine and Jason Creel faced each other.

  Both young men were in shirtsleeves now. Danny rolled his sleeves up, and Jason followed suit. Danny lifted his fists in a boxer’s stance and moved them back and forth slightly in front of his face.

  Somewhat awkwardly, Jason did the same thing. As soon as his arms came up, though, Danny dropped his and charged, ducking under Jason’s arms to tackle him around the waist.

  The unexpected collision knocked Jason off his feet. He crashed down on his back with Danny on top of him. Danny began hammering punches at Jason’s head, while at the same time trying to dig his knees into Jason’s groin and belly.

  Jason grabbed Danny by the head. He was a little bigger and stronger than his opponent. He flung Danny off of him and rolled away. Jason tried to get to his feet first, but Danny was too quick for him. He swung his legs up and kicked like a mule. The heels of Danny’s boots thudded into Jason’s chest and knocked him sprawling again.

  This time Danny sprang up and tried kicking and stomping the other man. He landed a couple of kicks to Jason’s ribs that must have been painful, but when he tried to bring his heel down in the middle of Jason’s face, Jason was able to grab Danny’s foot and wrench it savagely. Danny yelped in pain and toppled as Jason twisted his leg.

  The onlookers shouted encouragement to the two brawlers as
the fight continued. In the garish lantern light, the blood that began to well from Danny’s nose after Jason landed a wild punch looked even redder than it really was. Danny gouged at Jason’s eyes and missed, but his fingernails left ragged scratches down Jason’s cheeks that oozed crimson.

  Bo looked around and saw his father and Ned Fontaine standing on opposite sides of the circle around the fighters. They were glaring at each other as much or more than they were watching the clash.

  It was almost like they were the ones who were really battling here tonight, Bo thought. The two younger men were just surrogates, stand-ins for this festering conflict between two old-timers.

  Eventually, Jason’s superior size and strength began to prevail, although not until he and Danny had battered each other bloody and nearly senseless. Danny must have sensed that he was on the verge of losing, because he threw everything he had into one final, reckless rush.

  Jason met him with a solid, well-thrown punch that landed cleanly on Danny’s jaw and stretched him out on the ground. Danny tried to push himself up again, then groaned and fell back. All the fight went out of him. He lay there gasping for breath as his chest heaved. He seemed to be only semiconscious.

  Men thronged around Jason to slap him on the back and congratulate him. Bodies bumped and pushed all around Bo. He had gotten separated from Scratch in the crowd, as well as from his brothers.

  He was looking around for them when something struck him from behind. He felt as much as heard cloth rip, and then he felt the unmistakable touch of cold steel as it slid along his ribs.

  CHAPTER 9

  The icy touch of the blade turned hot as it sliced into Bo’s skin.

  But he was already twisting away from the knife and throwing an elbow up and around behind him. Bone struck bone, and he knew he had caught his opponent in the head.

  By the time he got turned around, though, someone grabbed his arm and demanded, “Whoa there, Bo! What are you doin’?”

  He saw the familiar round face of Orin Moody, one of Bear Creek’s storekeepers. Moody wouldn’t have tried to knife him. Bo was certain of that. His assailant must have ducked behind the merchant when he realized that his thrust had failed to kill his intended victim.