The men sat on the ground with their plates of food and she occupied the rocker. A bloody sunset showed off in the west and the temperature began to fall.
“Leave the grave until tomorrow. We didn’t get it filled, but we’ll be back and complete it for you.”
“Thanks, you’ve been most kind.”
“Do you have any relatives you can go live with when this is over?”
She shook her head.
“Your brother-in-law?”
“I don’t get along with his wife, or she would not get along with me.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t know her then.”
“No, I never knew him until he came and asked for my help,” Chet said.
“I’m amazed she let him do that.”
“He came and asked me to help you.”
“When the law would not budge, I had no one to ask anymore. So I wrote him.”
“Well, I am trying to think where we could take you and you’d be safe. Obviously, this location is for some tough brush popper to run cattle. This bunch won’t be the last bullies to come here.”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t stay here alone.”
“That sums it up.”
“But I have no money to leave.”
“I’ll think of someone who needs you or needs a house kept.”
“Thank you. And thank you for the deer and the firewood.”
“We aren’t done yet.”
She smiled for the first time ever. “I know, but you have helped me so much.”
“Set your alarm clock, Jesus. We’re going to try our hand at routing them out of bed in the morning. Better get us up at four.”
Cole pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s six o’clock now.”
Later that evening, Chet had a hard time going to sleep. Leaving Liz behind was on his mind. He’d asked her to come up to Preskitt and then rode off on her. Well, maybe she would understand and not leave him. Hispanic women could have a mad side—especially a rich one like her.
Strange, in all the foot-washing business and talks they had, she never mentioned her family. Her brother-in-law became the ranch manager and Liz sounded definite about that. There was too much he didn’t know to make real good sense out of things. She came there to be with him, and to be his wife. And here he laid in a thick bedroll, two hundred miles away from her, listening to coyotes whine. It was not fair.
They woke in the starlight. Easter made coffee and oatmeal with bugs from Jesus’s panniers. The deer ribs and frijoles were still cooking. In the lamplight, the three men saddled their horses and hitched them, then climbed back uphill to eat breakfast. She had hot water for them to wash their hands and a towel.
“I plan to be back here tonight and have this business settled.”
She nodded. He noted that she’d brushed her hair and tied it back with a ribbon. Even wore a much nicer dress. Good, her esteem had risen. They finished their meal, thanked her, downed the last of their coffee, and rode out.
The second road north from hers led to the Burris place. It was several miles northeast, and there was an old broken-down wagon at their turnoff. With Easter’s directions, it was easy to find under the stars. They rode up on the flat, hobbled their horses, and set out on foot. Each man carried a Winchester and plenty of brass 44/40 cartridges. They came up on a squaw shade beyond the corrals.
Cole took the assignment to sneak around behind and cover the back side, in case they decided to run for it. Chet and Jesus planned to sit and watch things from the corral. It afforded some protection and there was a slit in the fence where they could belly down and shoot through. The sun began to creep over Four Peaks. No one had stirred. The number of horses in the corral told him most of them would be there. Daylight began to creep up.
He fired two rounds in the air and yelled, “I have a posse surrounding the house. Hands high, or die. Any woman with a gun in her hand can expect to be shot. Now, get out here now or die.”
The cussing and grumbling went on.
A woman screamed. “I have a baby. No gun!”
“Get out here and move to the left in plain sight.”
“Who in the hell’re you?”
“U.S. Marshal Chet Byrnes and my posse. Get out here.”
“We’re coming. You got the wrong place. Who you looking fur?”
“The Burris Gang.”
Women in nightshirts led the way, herding crying kids. Then, bearded men in long-handles followed, hands high.
A rifle shot came from the back.
“I told you I had a posse. Any more in there want to die?” Chet shouted, angry at their disobeying him.
“No!”
“Cole?” Chet called out.
“Yah, Chet. I got one of them. He came out with a pistol in his hand.”
“Get him around here.”
“Can’t, Chet. He’s stopped breathing.”
One of the younger women fell to the ground in a faint. As he came out of the corral, Chet saw her fall.
“That’s his wife,” the gray-headed man said.
Chet shook his head. “We warned you. Now who shot Argus Talburt?”
“He attacked us, butchering our own calf. The law in Rye will tell you so.”
“I have a dying man’s different version. He said you killed him. Besides, why would you butcher your own calf on the open range? Give me one good reason.”
“We ain’t talking.”
“I can call for a cattlemen’s trial today in Rye. If I read his letter in the middle of town, the three of you won’t stand a chance of being acquitted. Or you can sign a confession that you shot him and stole his calf. That might get you five years on a plea deal in court in Globe.”
“I’m getting a lawyer.”
“You won’t need a lawyer in Rye.”
Chet looked up and saw Cole coming out of the house. “They have four hides with other brands on them in there. One has his brand.”
“Well, Burris? That will be the convicting evidence in the court at Rye.”
The man didn’t answer him.
“With four stolen cattle, one of them Mr. Talburt’s, and his statement, your necks will be stretched under a cottonwood tree west of town.”
“Five years?”
“I’ll tell the judge that was my agreement. You don’t protest and if you admit doing it in open court, that will be the sentence. You, however, don’t want to go to open court, for the prosecutor will demand you three be hung. Hides and his deathbed confession will get you hung in Globe.”
He looked at the others. “He’s got us by the balls, guys. I don’t want no trial in Rye or Globe. I say sign it.”
They nodded and the huddle of women began to cry. The kids cried, too. Jesus went for paper from his saddlebags, and ink and pen.
“Cole, get them dressed.”
“After that, take the youngest, and have him saddle three horses. You women, feed those children and don’t try anything. One is already dead. We’ll kill the rest of you.”
He wrote out the charges they confessed to and that he was a U.S. Marshal, and they had agreed to a five-year prison sentence with no pardon or parole privileges for the crime. Harold Burris signed his name first, with James Burris signing second. Then Robert Lee Burris signed under them. Chet signed and dated it.
The youngest of the boys might have been sixteen. The dead one was nineteen years old, the women told him, and agreed to bury him. He let the wives feed the prisoners, then they set out for Easter’s place.
He dismounted below her squaw shade and she came down the hill. “You arrested them?” she asked, out of breath and looking warily at the ones seated on their horses in irons. She hugged him.
“They confessed to manslaughter and rustling. They’re going to prison for five years.”
She nodded.
“Best I could do. The fourth one is dead.”
“You did miracles, after that deputy said there was no case.”
“They say they know
nothing about your horses. I’ll send a bill of sale back up here for their three horses, along with someone to bring them back for you to use. Their horses go to the arresting officers. Don’t wait till you’re flat busted. Come to Preskitt, and we’ll find something for you to do.”
“My neighbor came by this morning. The man who tried to save my husband’s life. He asked me to stay and marry him.”
“Good, Easter. Keep your head up. You looked very nice this morning.”
She blushed. “What is your wife-to-be’s name?”
“Elizabeth. Call her Liz Byrnes.”
“I am writing her a letter and thanking her for letting you and those two nice men come do this. God bless both of you.”
The trip to Globe took the rest of the day and a half day more to get there. Court proceedings took up another. The sheriff grumbled about Chet interfering in his job. The judge and prosecutor, however, agreed to his plan, plus thanked him and his crew.
Chet and his posse left for Mesa on horseback, and a day later they rode onto Hayden’s Ferry for the stage. From there, he telegraphed Liz that they would be there at midnight and that Jesus was bringing the horses and would be home two days later. They sent Cole’s wife, Valerie, a wire, too, that he would be there.
The night air was cool after the coach left the ferry and, huddled underneath the blanket in the seat, he knew it would be a lot colder up in the mountains.
“I thought all the time up there he’d want to see that deathbed confession, didn’t you?” Cole asked.
“Well, that was my bluff. He figured I had one and they hold up good. I could have read one to the cattlemen’s jury up at Rye, but I didn’t have to.”
“Would you have had to do that?”
“No. I hoped not. My reputation in Rye isn’t the best anyway. You knew that story?”
“Those two that killed your last wife’s foreman, another ranch hand, raped a rancher’s wife, and you caught them?”
He nodded.
“The person that wrote that letter to the Globe paper about you hanging those two made you famous.”
“That story never had my name in it.”
“Word spread fast. I told a buddy that I wanted to get on with your Verde Ranch crew. He said I’d better watch that guy that owns it, that he hung two outlaws by himself at Rye.”
Cole went on, “Boy, I have never regretted getting this job. That first cattle drive trip we made to New Mexico and those damn Apaches attacked us. I thought I was in for worlds of hell. That buck you caught and left me with drew a knife, and I had to shoot him. Things were tough in those early days. The Force ain’t been a picnic, but with those rewards we’ve split, Valerie and I have a start. I can recall back when you put her on the stage to come up here and help Jenn. Hell, I shook my head that night that there was no way I’d ever catch her. And now she’s my wife—and we rode clear down here, killed a deer, stocked up that woman’s larder, and the next day you had the rustlers confess to a crime the local law let them off on. Damn, Chet Byrnes. I love riding with you.”
Chet nodded his head. “That Easter was who I was proud of—she blossomed.”
“Yeah, she sure did.”
“I have a good team in you two, as well.”
“This has been one of your nicer operations. Hell, I am proud of all the folks we help and save. She did clean up like a new penny. You must be happy we’re going home again. Oh, man, you have a real great wife, like I do. Them get-back-home reunions are damn sure great.”
“Cole Emerson, I’d say you’re a real happy man. You’ve talked more today than you have in a year.”
“Well, I told Valerie how lucky we are. She’s kind of upset the others are having babies and she isn’t. I said one would come for us and it will. If God wants us to have kids, he’ll send us some. You know Bonnie told Valerie she thought she might be with a baby.”
“Hey, I have a son. Marge and I never thought that would happen.”
“Liz never had a child with her last man?” Cole asked.
“No, and she warned me. But Marge did, too, before we got married.”
Cole laughed. “Here came that fancy coach and out came this silver earring–flashing lovely woman, and before supper she was yours.”
“You missed the greatest day. The day that Jesus took Anita to town, we went to the Verde Ranch to see the big horse and played with six of his sons and daughters. Liz really got excited. That was why she stopped at Tubac in the first place. She had seen those horses we sent to Mexico for Bonnie, and she wanted to buy some.”
“They are great colts, but you found another princess in her. What is the story about washing her feet? I only heard part of that.”
“We were riding around like a pair of lost geese in a tall hay meadow. She wanted to stop and wade in the river. Hell, anything was fine with me. So she sat down and I took off her boots and socks. Then she went wading in the golden sunlight, with beams coming through the cottonwoods and dancing on the water. I could have watched her all day. She came out and I went after a towel. That move worried her. She thought I was going to leave her. Then, when I dried her feet, she recalled Jesus doing that to his apostles at the Last Supper.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Hell, I simply wanted to touch her.”
They both laughed.
On their arrival at Preskitt, Liz had driven the buckboard to meet him. One of the ranch boys brought Valerie in another one. Valerie and Cole were hugging and kissing. Valerie pulled loose, ran over, and pulled Chet away from Liz. “Let me kiss him for sending Cole home early for me.”
Valerie hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Liz, you’re so damn lucky. He is such a good man to all of us.”
“Oh, I know. I know.”
Chet was back with his bride-to-be, all bundled up in a winter coat, but she wore her earrings under a red woolen shawl tied over her head.
“You can tell me how it went on the way home. You can drive,” she said.
They shouted good-bye to the others and left for the ranch.
He explained how they arrested the rustlers and got them to sign a confession. He also told her how Easter had given up after her husband died.
“I did that, too. Such a bad thing to happen to anyone. But you know that. Oh yes, this week they brought me two of his colts from the Verde. Jimenez and I are working them.”
“So you have your horses that you stopped by for, at last?”
“Oh, they belong to everyone in the family.”
“I am teasing you.”
She hugged him. “Ah, yes, now this Mexican tramp is stealing his horses.”
“Does not being married worry you?”
“No, I just say that to be silly. Hombre, I am very proud to share your life with you.”
“Let’s meet the priest and ask him if he can marry us.”
“He better. I am not moving out of the ranch house to please him.”
“I’m glad. Everywhere I go I smell hay. I can’t believe how you did that to me.”
“I admit I did it. That was where a boy would have taken me that night. See, I knew you were still a boy at heart.”
“I am curious about your childhood. Somewhere, such things must have filtered through.”
“Oh, my parents were very rich. I was raised in a strict Catholic girls’ school. I learned about boys from myclassmates. I never had a chance to stray. Chaperones were always on hand. I learned to dance at arm’s length. At such an event, I might have two dances in an evening.
“When my husband discovered me, I had never even kissed anyone. He swept into my life, kissed me, and we went off and danced in a cantina all night. My parents searched for me, and they even put a price on his head. A priest married us the next day, and by a fast private coach he took us from Mexico City to his Sonora hacienda. They disowned me. I have not contacted them since. That was their choice. My husband was an empire builder like you. There is a big hacienda in Sonora. His brother is not him, but he is capable eno
ugh to run it.
“I never wanted another husband. After his death they came from silly boys to gray-headed old men, even one with a cane. They came like peacocks, and they thought I was some weak sister who needed their skills on how to run a hacienda and to spend my money.”
“You have no contact with your parents?”
She shook her head. “My father is a dictator. I won’t put up with that.”
“What does he do?”
“He is a big lawyer. He has been a federale judge.”
“Your mother?”
“She does what he says.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“None.”
“Your husband treated you well?”
“Oh, we had fun. So much, I never thought it would end. I don’t think he spoiled me. Much like you did, taking me to the Verde Ranch to see the horses. I knew you wanted to be ready to go help that woman, but first you took me to see the stallion and his offspring, and before I could ask you if I could have one of them to train, you told Tom to bring me two.”
Chet nodded grim-like. “I felt bad, fixing to leave you when you gave up so much to join me.”
“You told me something I have thought much about. What is a person’s life worth, compared to anything financial? I could be a rich woman, entertaining myself, or else I could share another person’s life, and it be as exciting as being a wife to him had been. It was not hard, after that long day we shared, for me to see being alone was not how I wanted to live the rest of my life.”
“All those suitors missed the point?”
“Oh, they were embarrassing.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t know me, climbing out of that coach in a black dress and your earrings flashing.”
“I immediately knew that man with his hat in his hand was no clown. You have a real aura about you. You know what I mean? You could hold people off without using your hands. It encircles you. What did your wife do to meet you?”
“We rode together from Tucson on that same stage to Preskitt. At the time, I was obligated to a woman in Texas. I guess Marge thought I was a stranded cowboy and she started paying my bills. I had to gather them and repay her. She simply wanted to be sure I could survive. Headed home south of Preskitt, road agents killed my nephew, Heck. She came to my aid. The lady in Texas had to stay there and care for her family, so I returned and Marge fell in my tracks. I owed her for helping me so much when Heck’s murder shattered me. My entire family was moved here, and I was to go look at the rim country for a ranch—but Susie, my sister, said Marge wouldn’t go on a camping trip with me—she has been to finishing school. But when I asked her, Marge said she’d love to go. I told her no, that I’d marry her first.”
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