by Mike Kearby
Pure pinched his lower lip between his forefinger and thumb. “Suppose we better,” he said and with a slight lift of the rein started his horse down the gorge.
Paint clicked his tongue and jogged his pony forward, staying even with Pure. His Peacemaker filled his right hand.
Pure glanced over at the gun and said, “You won’t be needing the Colt.”
Paint frowned. “How can you be sure?”
Pure dropped his eyes back on his horse’s neck and lifted the rein chest-high. “Because what’s done is done.”
Paint shrugged, holstered the pistol, and then swung his attention back at Isa and July. “Put ’em away, boys,” he called out. “Pure says, what’s done is done.”
Journal Entry - Pure’s pa, Charlie Albert Reston, or C.A. as the boys called him, had brought his family to this country in ’60. Soon after, the Millers and the Gunns arrived. All had come from Clay County, Kentucky, for one reason and one reason only, the abundance of feral Longhorns. There was good money to be made with beeves after the Big War, but it took a man with a lot of hard-bark to do so, as wildness and gunplay always rode alongside that good money on the range. Miss Sally Anne, C.A.’s wife died in ’63 and before his death in ’77, C.A. had built the Reston brand into one of the largest cattle operations in the area. C.A. raised his three boys and me on the -R, and he worked all of us like any other hand on the ranch. And that’s why, even though a continual cycle of that Clay County misfortune and violence dogged us the rest of our natural lives, I rode into Cañón Cerrado that morning with the boys, for all three were as close to me as any brother I would ever have in this life.
Five
April 1878 - Cañón Cerrado, Texas - Inside Cañón Cerrado
Isa Reston turned away from the branding fire carnage and placed both palms on his knees, his upper body wracked with convulsive dry-heaves.
Paint and July stood in stunned, morbid silence.
A building rage boiled Pure’s face. “La muerte de vaca,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
“Hell-fire,” Isa muttered.
Pure made a gesture with his head toward the fire. “The Spanish call it the death of the skins,” he said solemnly.
Paint pulled the rolled hide from the fire. Wrapped inside was the kid’s body. He exhaled in disgust and glanced over at Pure. “They wrapped them in -R branded hides.”
The men had been enfolded inside the green hides while still alive. A heavy binding of leather strapping imprisoned both victims within the animal skin. Over a day’s time as the hides gradually shrunk under the sun’s heat, the life was slowly squeezed from each man. It was a painful, agonizing death.
July removed his hat and lowered his head. “Smothered alive,” he said and shook his head slowly. “That ain’t a proper way for any cowpuncher to go out.”
Pale, Isa moaned and turned back to the ghastly scene. “They suffocated them with rustled -R cattle?” he panted.
Pure remained unflinching, his face ashen and lined. “Let’s get them out of those hides,” he muttered, softly. “And get them buried proper-like.”
“Here?” Isa asked. “Bury them in the canyon?”
Pure nodded at his younger brother. “Can’t think of a better spot for Buckshot,” he said and glanced skyward. “He’ll have a wide open view of the sky every morn.”
“He would like that, Isa,” July murmured, tight jawed.
Isa’s eyes darted across the sky. “Yeah,” he uttered. “Maybe he would.”
Paint ignored the conversation and pulled a six-inch blade from a leather sheath on the back of his belt. Kneeling, he cut the rope binding Billy Green’s body and asked weakly, “Are we a hundred miles to water, Pure?”
Pure stood silent. His Adam’s apple bobbed uncontrollably. A sad, bitter expression hung on his face. His gaze was fixed on Buckshot’s body. He pushed his lips tight against one another and pushed his hat down over his eyes. He was blank, spent, and ireful.
Paint looked over to his older brother and awaited a response to his question.
After a moment, Pure leaned over and cut the ropes binding his friend, then slowly unrolled the -R rannie’s body. He studied the old cowpuncher’s features with a doleful exhale.
“I said, are we a hundred miles to water, Pure?” Paint asked again, impatient.
Pure ignored his brother and continued to study his friend’s body. Lowering his head in respect, his eyes drifted to the dead cowboy’s boots. He studied Wallace’s boots carefully. Then a befuddled frown quickly darkened his expression. He unleashed a barely audible moan followed rapidly by a string of swearing.
“What is it?” July asked.
Pure pushed his lips closed. He moved closer to Wallace’s feet. His fists clenched tightly as he stared at the old cowpuncher’s boots.
“Damn it, Pure, are we a hundred miles to water?” Paint shuddered, his tone, a notch higher now.
Pure inhaled mournfully and knelt beside Wallace’s body.
I bought ’em in San Antonio from an old vaquero, called Alavez.
He imagined Buckshot’s last thoughts and formed in his mind the ghastly picture of his friend, lonely, scared, but defiant as the last breath was squeezed from his chest.
Damned Gunns!
Pure clenched his teeth, saddened that as boss, he had no one to share his pain with. Toughen up, he cautioned himself, aware that his brothers and July were waiting and watching. He reached down and crossed Wallace’s arms across his chest. “Thanks, old friend,” he whispered. “I got the message. Sleep well.”
July crowded close to Pure and cast his eyes over the ranch boss’s shoulder.
Pure lifted one of Wallace’s boots by the heel. His hand trembled slightly. He clenched his jaw and glanced back at July. “See?”
“What?” July asked, puzzled. “What is it?”
Pure turned the boot toe-down. A vicious snarl deformed his mouth. “Look closer!” he said. His voice was more forceful and laced with growing impatience.
July, vexed, pushed his eyebrows together and squinted at the dead-man’s boots.
Pure shook his head in a growing rage. “Hell, July! Gunn is what it means,” he snapped and gently lowered Wallace’s boot to the ground.
July wiped his mouth and swallowed hard. “How can you know that for certain, Pure?”
Frustrated that his ranch foreman didn’t comprehend, Pure poked a finger at Wallace’s boot heel and uttered, “He’s slick-heeled, July.”
The black cowboy’s eyes widened in understanding. Pure’s words hit him like a kick in the belly. “Buckshot would never be found without his spurs,” he muttered.
“Are we a hundred miles to water, Pure?” Paint screamed out.
Pure turned his head and bore a hard gaze straight through his brother, far out to the west. After a moment, he reached down, grabbed a fistful of sand, and muttered, “The Gunns have drawn from the Reston well one time too many.”
July offered Pure an outstretched hand. “Rankles a man mightily enough this thievery,” he said, “But the killing—how can you be sure it’s Gunns that did it?”
Pure pitched the sand toward the open end of the canyon. He grasped July’s extended hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Who else would have need for such provocation?” A dangerous tone sounded in his voice. “It’s them for sure, and there will be a payment extracted, this time, July,” he vowed.
“Hell-fire, Pure!” Paint bellowed. “Are we a hundred miles to water?”
Pure jerked in anger and locked stares with his middle brother, offering only a cold, violent look in reply. His eyes dulled like the earth. “I’ll bet my life that one of the Gunns is wearing Buckshot’s spurs,” he hissed and then nodded back at Wallace’s lifeless form. “Don’t y’all see that?”
July’s face relaxed in understanding. “Even a Gunn wouldn’t stoop so low as to take a dead cowboy’s spurs.”
Pure bit down on his lower lip and uttered, “Finally.”
July exhal
ed. “Unless they were given willingly.”
Pure nodded and muttered, “Buckshot gave those spurs to his killer.”
“But why?” July asked. “He so loved those spurs.”
“So we’d know who it was done him in.”
July clenched his jaw. The muscle visibly protruded below his cheekbone. “Whoever is wearing those spurs is his killer,” he muttered.
Paint lowered his head at Pure’s revelation and in a meek whisper of a voice, gasped, “A hundred miles to water, Pure?”
Pure dug his fingers into his palms until his knuckles whitened and nodded at his middle brother. “Yeah, Paint,” he uttered through clenched teeth, “I reckon we’re a hundred miles to water.”
Six
April 1878 - Cañón Cerrado, Texas
Pure grabbed a handful of his piebald’s mane and swung up into his saddle, his gaze, steely and cold, never left the two fresh graves mounded at the back of Cañón Cerrado.
Off his right side stood July, Paint, and a sullen Isa.
“You sure this is way you want to do this?” Paint asked.
Pure remained silent.
“Alone and all?”
Pure glanced down at his brother and shook his head.
“Because we’re more than up to the task ahead.”
Pure rolled the Snapping and Stretching gum to his front teeth and thought about his brother’s words. He started to answer but was interrupted as Isa stepped forward and said in a cracking voice, “I’m coming along whether you like it or not.”
Pure studied his youngest brother. A tormented expression of pain and anger hung on Isa’s face. Pure’s expression weakened. He had always allowed Isa a little more slack than Paint or July. He understood Isa’s anger, or thought he did anyway. Growing up without a mother was tough in this country, and Pure had determined early on in Isa’s life to be both mother and big brother to him. “Not this time, Isa,” he drawled.
Isa turned and motioned at the two graves. “I just buried two friends, big brother.”
“I’m aware.”
“Two cowboys who rode for us.”
“Don’t push it.”
“What about your damned code?”
“Don’t lecture me, Isa.”
“The code you’re always preaching to us?”
“Not today, I said.”
“Two cowboys—two -R cowboys!”
Pure looked away.
“Look at me!” Isa shouted. “Damn you and your code!”
Pure remained unmoved. He stared down the canyon.
“Two of our own, Pure!”
Pure inhaled a long breath and looked down at his brother. “You’re too emotional right now.”
“Buckshot and the kid, killed by Gunns,” Isa growled.
“Emotional can get a man killed.”
“The hell with you, Pure!”
“Emotional can get the rest of us killed too.”
“Two of ours, Pure!”
Pure looked away. “You’ve said that.”
Isa’s expression turned to scorn. He twisted his lips tightly. “And you know what? I can’t make myself cry or pray for either of them.”
Pure blinked once and lifted the rein. A swallow of grief hung in his throat. He turned the piebald’s head west.
Isa grabbed the horse’s cabresto and stopped his older brother from leaving. “All I can think of is making those responsible pay for Wallace and the boy’s murders.”
Paint shoved both hands into his pockets. His eyes flicked toward Pure.
Isa stepped in close. “You understand what I’m saying, Pure?”
The muscles in Pure’s jaw corded tighter than a half-hitch knot. “I understand,” he pronounced, solemnly. Then in a deliberate, cold voice answered, “But this ain’t your fight, yet—and don’t get any notions that it is.”
Isa glared bitterly at his older brother’s cold demeanor. “It’s blood that’s been dishonored!”
“Hold your tongue,” Pure warned carefully.
“It is my fight!”
A flush of heat rose up Pure’s neck. His face glowed red. Isa and Paint were not hardened from the same forge as he was. Paint was brash and hot-headed, and Isa was young and impulsive. He was determined to keep the pair out of the Gunn fight for as long as he could. “It’s not your fight until I say so,” he snapped. “This thing falls to me as the oldest son.”
Isa showed his teeth, seething. He stared into Pure’s determined, contemptuous eyes, and with visible disdain dropped his hand from the cabresto.
Finished with Isa, Pure directed his attention to July and Paint and pointed east, “Seven cowhands are waiting for you boys at headquarters. A lot of livelihoods depend on you getting them beeves to the Kansas railhead on time.”
July stiffly chewed on his lip and nodded his understanding.
Pure carried his gaze over to his middle brother. “Paint?”
Paint inhaled and held his breath for several seconds then nodded with a great exhalation.
A noticeable tension descended over the canyon floor.
July inhaled a deep breath and then grinned large, lessening the unspoken hostility. “How do you aim to find them, Pure?” he asked.
Pure recognized July’s gambit and returned a thin smile. “The finding will be straightforward; this bunch has no choice in their trail.”
July looked west. “To the river,” he muttered.
Pure nodded. “The land is always the dealer in this card game,” he said. “They’ll head first for Cita Creek and then down to the Nueces.”
July tightened his lips against one another and mumbled, “A beeve herd moves from water hole to water hole.”
Pure laughed softly, “That’s what C.A. always told us boys.”
Paint shuffled his feet and joined in the conversation. “You figure the Gunn boys to be meeting up with a much larger herd?”
Pure hesitated briefly and then frowned. “I hope so. If not, then they killed Buckshot and the kid for only thirty head of Reston beeves.”
July wrinkled his forehead at the thought and then stared at Pure, expressionless. His mouth hung slack at the possibility. “Damn them all,” he cursed under his breath.
Pure nodded and exhaled in disgust. “Seems a man’s life ought to be worth more than thirty beeves.”
The canyon became silent and still.
Pure breathed hoarsely and stared down. A sheet of blackness slowly swallowed the ground in front of him. He lifted his chin and stared at the April sky. A bank of clouds blowing in from Kansas shadowed the sun.
Rain’s coming again.
Pure gathered his rein and gentled his horse forward. His hand brushed lightly against his pistol handle. “Caring for your friends is a man’s greatest responsibility, one I refuse to suffer lightly. I sent them boys out, and I’m the one accountable for righting the slate. I aim to find the man wearing Buckshot’s spurs and bring back our stolen beeves.”
His brothers stood speechless, well aware that an unstoppable storm of vengeance was brewing and blowing west toward the Mexican border.
As he reached the neck of the canyon, Pure flipped the rein across his horse’s neck and gathered the cow pony into a lope. “I’ll meet all of you at Fort Griffin in six weeks,” he shouted out, thankful that his back hid the tears welling in his eyes. “And if I’ve missed you there, I’ll catch up to you at Doan’s Crossing on the Red.”
The three glanced at one another with fearful worry.
“What’s done is done,” Isa uttered mockingly and looked out toward the canyon neck with an insolent glare. “This is the very last time I’ll take an order from him.”
July gathered up the reins to Buckshot’s and the kid’s horses and tied them on a string behind his piebald. He knew nothing or no one could stop the events that were now in motion. He stepped into his stirrup and plopped down on the worn saddle.
Paint and Isa followed suit.
July cast his eyes on the two and smiled in recol
lection. “You know Buckshot taught your brother how to rope,” he lectured respectfully. “Taught him how to be a brush hand and more important, taught him how to be a man.”
Isa glared at July and mumbled, “No matter and it doesn’t give him the right to act like C.A. all the time.”
“It gives him every right, Isa!” July shot back. His voice betrayed a growing impatience with the younger Reston. “Buckshot was just like a daddy to Pure.”
Shocked at July’s outburst, Isa leaned back and glared at the ranch foreman.
Paint took a second to mull over July’s words and soon after grasped the tip of his hat brim and nodded his thanks.
Then they sat, all three, unmoving, stifling the desire to talk, each holding his own thoughts.
After awhile, July broke the somber apprehension. “Well, no matter,” he boomed optimistically, “I’ll bet the both of you that Pure get’s every last one of those Gunn boys.”
Isa clicked his tongue and turned a light spur into his pony. He muttered sarcastically, “Yeah.”
“You’ll see,” July said, encouraged. “He’ll end this thing once and for all.”
Lagging behind the others, Paint raised his brow and gigged his pony toward the canyon neck. “I hope so too, July,” he mumbled, prophetically. “Because if he doesn’t, then there is going be more than just a little bit of hell to pay over this for a long time afterward.”
Journal Entry - There was an old saying back in those days that went: Texas is all right for men and dogs but hell on women and horses. But I’m going to tell you right now that back then Texas was hell on everyone. It seemed as if every living creature or plant in that country had horns, thorns, or fangs. How any of us cowpunchers survived all of those things plus the rustlers and border bandits had to be some kind of miracle. By ’73 any buckaroo with an inclination toward thievery could drive re-branded cattle to the Nueces and sell them to Mexican thieves for four dollars cash. Texas did little to stop the lawlessness, and the Mexicans, still stewed over the loss of their land west of the Nueces, considered the rustling justified. The Mexican bandits called the stolen beeves, Nanita’s cattle or “grandma’s” cattle. They felt the land and everything west of the Nueces still belonged to them and that included the cattle. And looking back, the one thing I always regretted in my life was letting Pure ride into that defiant outlawry all by himself that April morn.