by Mike Kearby
Pure’s eyes darted toward the open air wagon. A sense of dread moved like a wave across his chest. He clicked his tongue and moved his piebald alongside the wagon. His eyes peered down. Inside was a length of wrapped canvas. “What is this?” Pure asked, both shocked and apprehensive.
The -R cowboys shuffled in place, uncomfortable and unable to make contact with Pure’s glaring eyes.
Pure felt his chest tightened. He bit down hard on his lower lip and uttered, “Is this?”
The -R cowboys moved away from the wagon, still unwilling to answer or even look at their ranch boss.
Pure slumped in his saddle. The grief crawled over him slow and painful. “How?” he wailed and glanced back at the cowboys.
Pitiable shoulders shrugged.
The only reply was an unknown, sad whisper from one of the men. “We found him in the yardage pens, Pure. We found him the morning after Shanks took possession of the herd. Whoever killed him also took his wallet with all of the herd money inside it.”
Pure moaned. An intense sadness trembled through him. His body suddenly felt tired and old. He dropped out of the saddle and waved a hand faintly at the cowboys. “Leave me be,” he said in a thin voice and then crawled into the wagon next to his dead brother.
Nineteen
September 1878 - On the South Canadian River, Indian Territory
At sun rise the next morning, Pure sat atop the driver’s seat of the grub wagon. The mule team’s reins rested easily in both hands. His piebald was tied with twenty-foot of lead rope to the back of the wagon.
“I’d feel better if you’d let me ride with you.”
Pure fingered the reins tighter and tossed a brief, dark frown at July. The Snapping and Stretching gum bounced around in the back corner of his mouth. He shook his head and then looked away, muttering, “You know C.A. always thought that his life…our lives…all rose and fell on the price of a damned longhorn cow.”
July wet his lips and stared down the cattle trail. “Yep.”
“That when God created this world, he somehow decided that a feral cow with six-foot of horn would dictate a man’s worth.”
“It was the way back then, Pure.”
Pure tilted his head sideway, thinking, and then uttered. “But what always happens with men, July, is they gotta make their way the way of every other man.”
“I reckon there are those that think like that.”
“Well, he was wrong, July. I’m saying it right now to you and those seven cowpunchers waiting at the trail.”
“Now, Pure.”
“No, C.A. was wrong. And because of it, I’ve been wrong too.”
“The grief is tugging at you hard right now, Pure.”
“It ain’t the grief talking.”
“A cowboy shouldn’t try and make sense of God or man when kin is taken and deprived him through killing.”
Pure shook his head emphatically. “No, it ain’t the sorrow poison that’s got me spouting. It’s Isa buried behind us, and Paint lying cold in this wagon.”
“Those boys loved you, Pure. You needn’t feel guilty about their dying.”
“Maybe both of them would still be alive if I hadn’t been so hell-fired set on protecting thirty long-legged, scrawny-assed cows.”
“Weren’t your fault.”
“I told you that day in Cañón Cerrado that Buckshot’s life was worth more than thirty beeves.”
“Pure . . .”
“I should’ve listened to my own wisdom.”
July tightened his jaw and glanced down at the canvas covered body in the wagon’s belly. “You best get on down the trail, Pure. This poison can’t be flushed from your system until Paint is resting next to Isa.”
Pure nodded and reflected, “It seems lately that there are many things in my life that I wish I could do over.”
July grimaced.
“You warned me of this.”
July shook his head. “What’s done is done, Pure.”
“No, I should have listened,” he sobbed, and then in a barely audible voice said, “I should have—.”
RJuly turned his piebald for the seven hands waiting down the trail. “Bury your brother.”
“They’d be alive if I hadn’t been so set on upholding the code.”
“You’ll come to know in the days ahead that it wouldn’t have mattered. Be it mules or chickens, E.B. Gunn has had a branding iron in his belly about your daddy and the Reston clan since they arrived in McMullen County. He carried that hate all the way from Kentucky.”
Pure’s eyes darkened in realization of July’s words.
“And you know as well as me that the thing with Street is what led us down this road.”
Pure exhaled and looked up at his ranch foreman. “You think we could end this thing right here, right now?”
“Won’t ever happen, Pure.”
“I’m talking about just stopping it all together, peaceable-like.”
“Not hardly.”
Pure winced and looked down at his boots. “Well fact is…I’ve been doing some thinking…and I don’t think I have the stomach for it anymore,” he revealed. His eyes were slack and blank.
A hard, icy glare fell across July’s face. “You remember what I told you in the Exchange about switching horses mid-stream?”
Pure rambled on and refused to listen to his foreman. “I don’t think my conscience will hold seeing you or any of those cowpunchers killed by my doing.”
July narrowed his eyes. “I said I won’t spend the rest of my life chasing this thing.”
“July, I know now that once vendetta killings start, they blacken a man’s heart and cause the violence to spread like the pox.”
July rose up in his saddle and stretched all six-foot-four of his massive frame. His shoulders blocked out the sun. “I asked, Pure. I asked if you were sure this is the road you wanted to ride.”
“I’m tired of the killing,” Pure said. “Sick of the back-and-forth of it.”
July scratched the nape of his neck and blinked his eyes several times before answering, “There’s a lot of bad things in this world, Pure.”
Pure wiped at wetness building in the corners of his eyes and stared back at Paint. A soft moan, deep inside his throat escaped. “Seems so.”
“And we’ve seen our share of it.”
Pure nodded grimly. “Participated in our share of it, too.”
“True enough, but always on the right side of it.”
Pure shook his head and snuffled. “The right side of it, huh?”
“I think so.”
“How come it don’t feel so?”
“Because of the grieving, Pure. The grieving takes a fair amount of sand out of a man.”
“It ain’t the grieving that’s got me all balled-up, July.”
“What then?”
“It’s the dabbling in gore that I’ve done.”
“But on the right side of it, Pure. You have to stop thinking any other way.”
“I feel like one of them bad eggs right now.”
“There’s a lot of bad men in this world, Pure.”
Pure drew a shallow breath and nodded.
“Men who seem to have it in their own way of thinking that they should decide who deserves what in this world.”
Pure twisted his head toward July. His expression was one of a man who had just been punched violently.
“Unbending, unyielding men who only know how to settle things with copper and lead.”
Pure clenched his jaw. “Sounds like us.”
July let a thin, tight smile break the hardness of his expression. “Nope, that’s not us. We’re the ones who rid the land of those men before civilization arrives.”
Pure eyes contracted. Unthinking, he began to pound the Snapping and Stretching gum between his front teeth.
“So don’t be giving any thought to what might happen to me or those boys over there because we’re all only working with the hand, God dealt us and not a one of us could
change that now…no matter how hard we try.”
Pure’s hands gripped the reins tighter. A faint flush of red crossed his neck. His knuckles whitened.
“And none of us is going to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders for E.B. Gunn or any man like him.”
Pure’s head rocked back and forth in understanding.
“And remember, Pure, you’ve killed three of theirs. That mother panther has got a bad itch for killing now and won’t stop because you’ve had enough.”
Pure wet his lips and lowered the reins. He took an easy breath before scooting to the far left of the wagon seat. “Tie up your pony and get in,” he said, warmly. “I think I might need company on the ride back to Brushy Creek.”
July locked eyes with Pure. “Much obliged,” he said and swung his far leg over the back of his saddle.
Pure watched July glide gracefully out of the saddle and then led his piebald to the back of the grub wagon. “Holler at those cowpunchers too. I think Isa and Paint would enjoy hearing their friends speak words over them.”
July tied up his cow pony and then crossed under the horse’s head. He exhaled a great breath as he strode toward Pure. “I think those cowboys would like that, Pure.”
“July,” Pure called out as a question, “in your way of thinking, its E.B.’s perceived wrong that won’t let him end this thing?”
“Yep,” July muttered quickly without doubt and then added with some uneasiness, “leastways, not until he’s sent you and me straight to hell.”
Twenty
October 1878 - Cap Millett’s Ranch, Texas
Cap Millett sat on his porch looking squarely into the eyes of Nate Gunn. A tin of coffee cooled on the cedar-planked table a hand’s reach away. He knew why Nate and his brother Foss were on his land. For an instant, he thought about simply ordering the six hands lingering around the porch to kill the both of them. After hearing the story of the gunfight at the Exchange, he figured these two were walking dead anyway. He choked back a smile and narrowed his eyes at the thought. What did a few weeks matter? Instead, he rose and stretched his back, then asked, “You boys looking for work?”
Foss grinned and rolled his eyes toward Nate. “Work? That’s a laugh, Cap.”
Nate tightened his jaw. He counted the guns around him and then pursed his lips, calculating.
Cap eyed Nate intently and wondered why the older Gunn hadn’t spoken. “You’re carrying an odd look on your face, Nate.”
Nate remained silent but slowly eased his mount away from Foss.
Millett understood the movement. He intertwined his hands and tapped his thumbs against one another all the while staring into Nate’s eyes. “We ain’t fixing to have trouble are we, Nate?” he asked calmly.
“Depends.”
Millett shrugged. “Seems a waste for E.B. to lose so many sons in one outing.”
“Hey!” Foss snapped at Millett.
Nate issued a dismissing wave of his hand to Foss and then smiled. He tilted his hat back and glanced around at Millett’s cowboys. A conflicted look troubled his face. “You know E.B., Cap. I figure it might be better to fight here then go home and tell him that two of his sons were killed after selling a hundred beeves to you.”
Millett turned red-cheeked. After a long pause, the outlaw rancher pulled a willow chair from under the table and placed his right boot on the seat. His composure regained, he ran a hand along the top seam of the boot sweeping off a fine powder of dust. “What are you trying to say, Nate?” he asked with a smile.
Nate leaned forward in the saddle and brushed his pony’s mane. Without looking up, he said with considerable irritation, “I’m just wondering how come the deputy sheriff in The Flat told me straight out that the undertaker didn’t find a single coin on either Charlie’s or Ben’s bodies?”
Millett quit smiling. “Well you ought to know the answer to that, Nate.”
Nate slowly raised his eyes and snorted, “Well, why don’t you go ahead and tell me anyway, Cap?”
Millett lowered his boot from the chair with a testy exhale. His smile returned. He poked both hands into the front band of his trousers and drawled, “Hell, Nate, anyone who spent five minutes worth of time with Charlie recognized that brother of yours was a bad gambler.”
Foss looked over at his brother and winced.
Nate clenched his left hand into a tight fist. After a moment, he nodded to himself, and stepped down from his horse. “Was his failing, that’s a fact.”
Millett didn’t retreat from his goading. “I’d think E.B. is going to want to ask his oldest, why he sent Charlie to sell beeves in a known sinful place like The Flat?”
Nate stepped up on Millett’s porch.
“A sinful place filled with whiskey and card games.”
Nate ignored Millett’s spurring. “So why don’t you tell us what exactly happened to our brothers,” he asked flatly and then after a short paused added, “and your number one gun hand?”
Millett grabbed the willow chair and settled it under him. He looked up at Nate and crossed his right leg over his left thigh. “Short of it is this, I paid your brothers six hundred in coin for the beeves.”
“Of which none was found on his body,” Foss interrupted.
Millett glanced over at Foss with dark eyes and paused briefly. “After the deal was completed, Charlie wanted a card game.”
“And you let him play?” Nate snarled.
Millett uncrossed his leg and leaned forward, never relaxing his gaze at Nate. “He was a grown man. It wasn’t my place to be his daddy or his big brother.”
Nate’s body tensed.
“Course he lost it all and then threatened me and the boys. Because I know your daddy, I cooled things off and gave Charlie thirty-dollars to get back home.”
Nate frowned.
Foss looked in disbelief at Millett. “But the sheriff already said Charlie and Ben were broke.”
Millett waited for both brothers to understand, then mused, “I wasn’t there, but the deputy sheriff, Jim Draper, says Charlie lost it all again to Frank Coe right before the gun play.”
Nate turned his head away from Millett and mumbled, “Damn you, Charlie.”
Foss glanced over at Nate. “We should’ve known.”
Nate swung his head to Foss, seething. “Shut-up, Foss,” he muttered in a rough whisper.
Millett exhaled a long breath through his nostrils. “I figure you boys have a lot of things to reconcile before you see your daddy,” he said.
Nate’s face roiled crimson. “Don’t push it, Cap,” he warned.
Millett stood his ground and refused to rile at Nate’s threat. “I’m serious, Nate. What went on inside the Exchange should alter your thinking on these boys you’re going to pursue.”
Nate’s cheeks flushed white through the crimson. “I can damn well handle Pure Reston’s gun play,” he swore.
Millett’s eyes grinned. He allowed a barely noticeable chuckle to rise in his chest. “I’m sure you can, son. But that ain’t the fella you need worry about.”
Nate’s head shot up. Disbelief glowed on his expression. “Are you telling me, I need lose sleep about Pure’s lap-dog colored boy?” he said and suddenly broke out laughing.
Millett waited patient and steady.
Foss joined in the laughter.
Millett smiled along with the pair and then said in a strong, husky voice, “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
The laughter stopped. Nate’s eyes glowed black.
“Because that lap-dog colored boy, as you call him, killed Frank Coe,” Millet declared.
Foss swallowed hard.
Nate rolled his eyes. His shoulder’s drooped, unconcerned.
“Coe had the bulge on that boy,” Millett muttered and shook his head. “Every witness there said so, and yet, Frank Coe, one of the fastest draws ever, died of a single gunshot right between the eyes.”
“No matter,” Nate said dismissively.
“No mat
ter,” echoed Foss.
Millett shrugged.
“Reston and his bunch have Gunn blood on their hands,” Nate declared. His voice was hard and cold.
“Coe was a better at gunplay than either of you, Nate,” Millett said. “You should take a minute and chew on that fact.”
“Don’t matter, Cap,” Nate growled. “Maybe you should take a minute and understand that fact.”
“Yeah,” Foss said. “An eye for an eye, just like the book says.”
Millett inhaled and studied each Gunn brother carefully. “Appears neither of you boys will be happy until you know,” he said.
Nate forced a hard glare on Millett. “Know what, Cap?” he asked.
“Know that the colored is faster than the both of you.”
“You think you can scare us, Cap?” Foss asked.
“No,” Millett said. “I don’t, and that fact alone will more than likely be the reason that the both of you end up just as cold as Ben and Charlie.”
Journal Entry - The ride back to Brushy Creek was at times sad reminisce and at times engaging frankness. And by the time we reached the spot where Isa was buried, Pure seemed to have shaken the feeling of doom gripping his mind. The boys helped some with that, singing hymns and recalling the good and the blockhead things that both Isa and Paint had done in their days. And this time, Pure allowed the whole outfit to dig Paint’s grave. By the time, we finished, sweaty, tired, and dirty, a great deal of the grief had been flushed from us, and all of a sudden the grim job of putting Paint to rest was a welcome responsibility. We all got to have our say over both brothers and after everything was said and done, we all seemed a little less sad and a little less angry.
And the day we arrived back in McMullen County, we all breathed a sigh of relief. The -R ranch was a welcome sight, and the south Texas air, as usual, dripped with a heavy sweetness. Home again, Pure seemed back to his old self and the rest of us were naively enraptured with the delight and happiness of setting our boots on familiar ground. Not understanding that the end of our world was riding hell-bent, straight ahead, and resolute for each and every one of us.