The snow swirled around the riders, and Shamus, fearing they’d soon be lost to sight, called out after them, “Return alive to Dromore, all of you.”
Shawn raised a gloved hand, acknowledging that he’d heard.
The brothers O’Brien rode in silence for a while, then Jacob said, “Hell, I forgot Eve.”
“She’s in the barn,” Patrick said.
“Why did you put her there?” Jacob said.
“She has to learn to be a cat. The other cats will teach her.”
Jacob considered that, then said, “She’s real little.”
“Cats grow fast,” Shawn said.
Jacob’s eyes above his woolen scarf looked worried. “I hope a rat doesn’t get her.”
“It would take a brave rat to tackle your cat,” Shawn said. “Pick her up and suddenly she’s all claws and fangs.”
“She doesn’t do that to me,” Jacob said.
Shawn laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Jacob, that’s because you’re her daddy.”
“Damn right,” Jacob said, after thinking about it for a moment.
The O’Briens had planned to reach the settlement of Estancia, which had first appeared on the map in 1779 and had given its name to the valley, but the night closed in on them and they made camp a mile north of McGillivray Draw.
Standing rocks and a few juniper provided shelter from the worst of the snow and razor-sharp wind. Jacob, who had a whole range of woodsman’s skills, soon had a fire going. He also took on the cooking chores, and prepared a meal of thick salt pork and sourdough bread sandwiches, followed by wedges of apple pie that were half-frozen but tasty.
The brothers were drinking coffee, Jacob smoking a cigarette, as was his habit, when a voice hailed them from the darkness.
“Hello the camp!”
Jacob stood, moved out of the firelight, his Colt up and ready. “Come in real slow and smilin’, like you are visiting kinfolk.”
“Hell, is that you, Jacob? I guess I didn’t paddle your butt enough when you was a younker, or teach you how to be sociable.” Luther Ironside, muffled in sheepskin, a wool scarf over his hat and ears, rode into the pale orange glow of the fire. There was frost on his eyebrows and mustache.
Shawn rose to his feet. “Luther, what are you doing here?”
“I’m joining you,” Ironside said. “Ain’t that kinda obvious?”
“But Pa ordered you to stay home,” Shawn said.
“Yeah, I know he did. The Colonel’s a fine man, but sometimes his orders don’t make a lick o’ sense.”
Breaking the speechless silence that followed, Ironside said, “Are you going to keep a man sitting his horse all night, or are you gonna invite me to light and set?”
“Step down, Luther,” Jacob said, grinning. “There’s coffee and grub if you need it.”
“Right now hot coffee would be welcome. Damned wind’s as cold as a stepmother’s breath.”
Perez took Ironside’s horse as the man sat stiffly by the fire. Jacob handed him a cup of steaming coffee, and Shawn said, “The colonel will skin us alive if we don’t send you back, Luther.”
“Well, you have a problem, because I ain’t a-goin’ back.” Ironside fished inside his canvas coat, found a cigar, and lit it with a brand from the fire. “I’m not going to stand by and let you young hellers ride into what’s shaping up to be an all-out range war. Hell, without me you’d all end up dead, seeing as how there’s not a lick o’ sense atween you, except what little I drilled into you. Well, me and your ma, God rest her soul.”
Shawn smiled. “Luther, you’re what? Near sixty years old, I reckon. Pa already told you that you’re too old for gun work.”
For a moment Ironside’s face was hidden behind a cloud of cigar smoke. When the smoke cleared, he was scowling. “Listen, Shawn, the day I can’t out-shoot, out-ride, and out-drink the three of you is the day I hang it up for good.”
His expression despairing, Shawn looked at his brother. “Jacob, what are we going to do with him?”
Jacob smiled. “Well, I’m not going to tackle him, are you?”
“Hell, no.”
Ironside nodded. “That’s the first smart thing you boys have said all night. I’m riding with you, and there’s an end to it.” He slapped his hands together. “Now, Jacob, rustle me up some of that grub you was talking about.”
The few buildings that made up the town of Estancia huddled together as though trying to keep warm in the morning cold. Feathers of smoke rose from a dozen scattered cabins that looked as though they’d decided to wander off into the prairie but had lost their way. Surrounded by rolling flats, only the crooked spine of the Manzano Mountains to the west offered relief to the eye of the traveler.
“Ain’t much, is it?” Ironside’s gaze wandered over the town’s business district, a two-story hotel and a short row of stores. Presiding over the stores like a dowager queen was a false-fronted saloon with a porch in front and a small barn out back, painted rusty red. “I don’t see much sign of a range war.”
Jacob turned in the saddle and looked at him. “I don’t, either, but I feel it, like the town is holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.”
Shawn smiled. “Nothing ever happens in this town, it seems to me.” He looked around him. “And not a pretty gal in sight.”
But Patrick’s face was solemn, his mouth a tight line under his mustache. “There’s danger here, all right. Hell, my back is crawling.”
Ironside kneed his horse into motion and said over his shoulder, “We’ll check into the hotel before you boys start spooking yourselves all the way back to Dromore.”
The snow had stopped, but now and then flurries drove through the morning, pushed by a gusting wind. A brown sky loomed over the valley like a brooding, mad monk, and the smell of wood smoke and burning kerosene hung heavy in the air.
They tied their horses at the hotel hitching rail and stepped into the close heat of the lobby. A clerk with slicked-down hair parted in the middle and a pencil-thin mustache adorning his upper lip smiled and picked up his pen, as though poised to do business.
“Welcome to the Prince Regent Hotel, gentlemen,” he said. “Do we require rooms?”
“We do,” Ironside said.
“And how many do we need?”
“Hell, make it five,” Ironside said. “I don’t want to sleep with a ranny who snores.”
After they’d signed in, Shawn said, “I smell coffee.”
“Ah yes, in the dining room. There’s always a fresh pot on the stove. Help yourself. Should you require food, let me know and I’ll inform Mrs. Hazel, the cook and owner of this establishment.”
The combination dining room and parlor, decorated and furnished in the Victorian style of the day, would have done credit to a better hotel in a better place. It looked as though it had been built for diners who’d never arrived.
The O’Briens, Ironside, and Perez poured coffee into china cups and sat at a table covered with a clean white cloth. Salt and pepper shakers were located so squarely in the center, Ironside reckoned somebody using a ruler had placed them there.
Patrick laid his cup on the saucer, and then looked around the table. “Well, we’re here. Now what?”
“We wait,” Jacob said, lighting a cigarette.
“For what?”
“For something to happen.”
“Jacob, we have to make it happen,” Shawn said.
“I say we speak to both parties, stop a war, and the woolies stay right where they are.”
“You make it sound easy,” Jacob said.
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy. But the way I see it, talking is a sight better than shooting.”
“I never come across a range war yet that was settled by talkin’,” Ironside said.
“There’s always a first time,” Perez said. “Isn’t that right, Patrick?”
But Patrick said nothing. His eyes were on the door and the two men who’d just stepped inside. The taller of the
two wore a black overcoat that reached his ankles and a bowler hat of the same color. The fringes of the scarf wrapped around his neck fell to his knees. His eyes roamed around the room, seeing everything. Beside him, the younger man wore a canvas coat—the wool collar pulled up around his ears—shotgun chaps, and expensive, Texas-made boots. His spurs, as large as teacups, chimed when he walked. He had a wild, reckless look that boded ill.
Jacob rose to his feet, his hand away from his gun. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning, either.
“Hell, Jacob, I thought that was you.” The man in the overcoat grinned, revealing good teeth.
“Howdy, Clay,” Jacob said. “It’s been a while.”
The man named Clay stepped closer to the table. “When was it? Down on the Brazos, right? The day you killed Big Bill Anderson.”
“He was notified.”
“He sure was, but he drew down on you anyhow.” Clay smiled. “Bill was fast and I didn’t think you could take him. You surprised the hell out of me that day.”
“I took him too high. He got a shot off.”
Clay nodded. “That does happen sometimes.” He smiled again, blunting the barb. “But mostly to amateurs.”
He waved a hand at the young man beside him. “This here is Charlie Packett, sometimes called the Memphis Kid, other times called one mean son of a bitch.”
Packett took no offense, smiled, looked around the table, and touched his hat. His eyes lingered on Ironside for a moment, then a little longer on Shawn, but longest of all on Andre Perez.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to the others, Jacob?” Clay said.
“Sure.” Jacob mentioned everyone at the table by name, and then said, “Meet Clay Stanley out of Fort Worth, Texas.”
“Seems we have a gathering of the O’Brien clan here,” Stanley said, smiling. “What brings you all to this dung heap?”
Ironside said, “Stanley, why don’t you and Packett sit? You’re making me nervous.”
Stanley looked at Packet. “Charlie, get us some coffee, huh?” He sat down across from Ironside and said, “You’ve been through it, old-timer.”
“I’ve been up the trail and back a few times,” Ironside allowed.
Stanley nodded his approval. “Well, what about it, Jacob, what brings you here?”
“I won’t ease in to it, Clay,” Jacob said. “I don’t want sheep moving north onto our range.”
Stanley seemed surprised. “Why would you care?”
“My home range is that way.”
“I didn’t know you had a home range.”
“It’s my father’s range.”
Stanley accepted his cup from Packett, taking his time as he sorted out his thoughts. “Jacob, Joel Whitney wants the greasers off his land. He has a claim to the whole valley.”
“I know. I just don’t want the herders moving north.”
“You’re here to stop that?” Stanley said.
Ironside answered for Jacob. “That’s right, Mr. Stanley. It’s why we’re here.”
“I’ll talk to Whitney, see what I can do. How does that set with you, Jacob?”
“Sets with me just fine, Clay. But if a single wooly steps any farther north than Lobo Hill, we’ll take sides.”
“Whose side, Jacob?”
“That I don’t know yet.”
“Then choose carefully.” Stanley rose to his feet. “Jacob, I like you, always have. But if this goes bad and we end up on opposite sides, I’ll gun you like any other man. Do you understand?”
Jacob O’Brien nodded. “I think you’ve made your position clear.”
“No hard feelings, Jacob. It’s business.”
“I understand that as well, Clay.”
The Texan nodded. “Then I’ll bid you gentlemen good day.”
“Seems to me a man who isn’t carrying a gun shouldn’t be making threats to those who are,” Shawn said after Stanley left.
“Clay had a gun all right,” Jacob said. “He carries two Russians in shoulder holsters. He’s fast, and he hits what he’s shooting at. He’s been a bounty hunter, peace officer, and railroad detective, and he’ll probably be all those things again. Last I heard, he’d killed eight men, all of them in fair fights.”
“What about the other one, the Kid?” Patrick said.
“I don’t know him personally, but he’s a Texas draw fighter and that’s all I need to know.”
“Is that all Whitney has, just those two?” Shawn said.
Jacob smiled. “Those two are a handful all by themselves. But he’ll have more. A businessman like Whitney likes his insurance policies.”
“Jacob, will Stanley talk to Whitney about keeping the woolies off our range?” Ironside said.
“Clay is a killer, but by his own rights, he’s an honorable man,” Jacob said. “When he says he’ll talk to Whitney, he will. But Whitney’s a carpetbagging Yankee and all he wants is the Mexicans out of his valley. He’s doesn’t care where the sheep go, and he sure as hell won’t lose a night’s sleep over Dromore.”
“Then where do we go from here?” Ironside said.
“Well, we’ve talked to one side, now we’ll talk to the other. What’s the Mexican’s name again, Patrick?”
“Don Manuel Antonio Otero.”
“Maybe we can make medicine with him,” Jacob said.
“Don Manuel is a proud man, and Whitney, or one who was with him, killed his son,” Perez said. “He will not back down from a war.”
“Andre, do you think we can convince him to keep the sheep herds off Dromore range?” Ironside said.
“The winter blizzards killed the grass to the south, east and west,” Perez said. “The only lands that escaped were that of Dromore and the Estancia. If the sheep are forced out of the valley they will starve if they do not move north.”
Shawn shook his head. “Damn, it seems like we’re wading through duck crap.”
Ironside’s face was gloomy. “It’ll get worse if we have to take on both Whitney and the Mexican don.”
“We’re building a bridge over a river we may never cross,” Patrick said. “As Jacob said, we should talk to Don Manuel.”
Perez’s sharp intake of breath attracted the others’ attention and they watched as a dark cloud passed over his face. “Don Manuel has a daughter, the Donna Aracela, and she is very beautiful. But she”—Perez hurriedly crossed himself—“es una Civatateo. She is what the Aztecs call ‘blood-eater.’ It is said she bites with her fangs, then drinks the blood of the living.”
Patrick smiled. “Then maybe we can get her to bite Whitney and his Texans.”
Perez shook his head. “Please, señor, do not mock. Only noblewomen who died in childbirth then returned to life become Civatateo. Donna Aracela can summon all the powers of darkness, and to kiss her lips is death, as many men have found to their cost.”
“Well,” Shawn said, “that’s one way to keep her virtue intact.”
“It sounds like an interesting family,” Jacob said. “Let’s mount up and go talk to them. I guess the desk clerk knows the way.”
“Figure you’ll kiss Donna Aracela, Shawn?” Patrick said, grinning.
“I don’t know. I’ll wait and see what she looks like first.”
Andre Perez did not smile. His face was grim and there was fear in his black eyes.
Chapter Twenty-two
The Hacienda Ortero lay a mile to the east of the Rayo Hills, built in the lee of a mesa that reminded Shawn O’Brien of Dromore. Like the peasant farmer casas that surrounded it, the hacienda was constructed of adobe, but there the similarities ended. The peasant shacks were small, had only one room, and had lattice and straw roofs. But the hacienda, with its airy, fountained plazas and arched walkways, was roofed in red Spanish tile and sprawled over a quarter acre.
“I thought Dromore was the biggest house in the world, until I saw this place,” Patrick said.
“It’s impressive, all right,” Shawn said. “But the Colonel would never allow any of his emp
loyees to live like the people around here are living.”
Scrawny chickens pecked around the shacks and a huge pig was doing its best to dig a wallow in the frozen ground. There were children everywhere, thin, ragged urchins with coal-black hair and huge eyes. Their slack-breasted mothers looked up at the O’Brien group as they rode past, revealing only a dull, defeated interest.
The village smelled of smoke, dung heaps, disease, and poverty. The few trees in the area spread skeletal limbs and looked like the bones of ancient slave masters, herding the peasants back into their rightful places.
“It’s medieval, this place,” Patrick said, looking around him. “Like a castle surrounded by Saxon peasant hovels in one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels.”
Andre Perez overheard. “The Mexican peons have lived like this for hundreds of years, even before the Spanish came. The priests tell them this is their lot and they must accept it or there will be no salvation for them in Heaven.”
“Andre, if God has any sense of justice at all, they’ll go to Heaven,” Patrick said. “It seems to me that they’re already living in hell.”
“As you say, Patron,” Perez said. His eyes shuttered, as though he had no desire to witness the poverty around him.
A whispering maid led the O’Briens and Ironside into the don’s study, leaving them there and then departing on silent feet.
Perez, who had no wish to meet Donna Aracela, remained outside with the horses.
The four tall men, made huge by winter coats, spurred high-heeled boots, and leather chaps, stood hat-in-hand in the middle of the oak floor. They were left to admire the honey glow of the don’s polished furniture, ornate wrought iron ornamentation, and the vivid colors of the expensive rugs hanging on the walls.
A massy log burned and crackled in the fireplace. Ironside stood in front of it, lifted the back of his sheepskin, and gratefully warmed his saddle-frozen butt.
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