The Brothers O'Brien

by J. A. Johnstone

  He saw Shawn glare at him, and said, “I can’t abide a cold ass. It wears on a man.”

  “Cold ass, warm heart, isn’t that how the saying goes?” Jacob said.

  “Something like that,” Patrick said.

  The door opened, and a woman glided into the room.

  Shawn decided right there and then that he’d found the love of his life.

  “I am the Donna Aracela,” she said, her voice like rustling silk. “My father will be with you presently. He is still in mourning for my brother, but affairs of his high estate delay him.” She smiled and her teeth were very white. “I’m sure you gentlemen understand such things.”

  Shawn quickly crossed the floor, spurs chiming to the beat of his heels on wood. He bowed elegantly and kissed her hand.

  When he straightened, he said, “I am Shawn O’Brien, Donna Aracela.” He waved a careless hand. “These are my brothers and our ranch foreman.”

  “I am pleased to meet all of you.” The woman blushed prettily and for a moment her lashes lay on her high cheekbones like black fans. When she looked up, she said, “You have come about the bandit named Joel Whitney.”

  Ironside reluctantly left the fireplace and stepped closer to Aracela. “Ma’am, we don’t want your pa’s sheep to move north. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Don Manuel does not own the sheep. He levies a tax on the herders for the use of his land, but it is a pittance compared to his other revenues.”

  Shawn looked around at his brothers, smiling. “Well, don’t that beat all, boys. He doesn’t own the sheep. But I hope that will not keep you and me from becoming good friends, Donna Aracela.”

  “If you wish, you may ask my father if you may walk out with me, Mr. O’Brien.”

  “I sure will, but please call me Shawn.”

  “I may, once we get to know each other better.”

  Aracela was tall and slender, dressed in unrelieved Castilian black. Her lace dress was cut low, revealing the upper mounds of her swelling breasts, a simple gold cross on a thin chain hanging between them. Her straight black hair fell over her shoulders like a midnight waterfall. She turned her attention away from Shawn and stared at Jacob. Her eyes were piercing blue, and far from innocent.

  “You are the foreman Mr. O’Brien mentioned,” she said.

  “No,” Jacob said, “I’m a brother.” He nodded in Ironside’s direction. “He’s the foreman . . . and my father’s friend.”

  “And your name is?”

  “Jacob.”

  “You have a gift, Jacob.”

  Aracela’s use of his brother’s first name burned Shawn and he scowled, making sure Jacob saw it.

  “I’ve been told that I have,” Jacob said.

  “Yes, for the piano. And for Chopin in particular.”

  “I guess that’s so.”

  “Will you play for me some time?”

  “Of course. I’d be honored.”

  Donna Aracela smiled. “You have the soul of an artist, yet of the men in this room—no, of the men in this house—you are the most dangerous.” Her shiver was almost orgasmic. “It is an exquisite thing to be in your company.”

  Embarrassed, Jacob was spared the necessity of responding. The door opened and Don Manuel Antonio Ortero stepped inside. Like his daughter, he was dressed in mourning black, his clothing expensive and cut in the tight, severe Spanish style.

  He was a gray-haired man of medium height, about the same age as Ironside, but unlike his, Ortero’s features revealed little character or intelligence and were relieved from sullenness only by a trace of humor in his faded eyes.

  “I am sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen, but my business was pressing.” He smiled. “I have shares in a diamond mine in South Africa, you see, and it seems that the meddling British stopped production after a dozen native miners were killed in a rock fall. Now every day of their investigation is costing me money.” He waved a hand. “But it’s all very tiresome and I won’t bore you with it. Please, be seated.”

  Don Manuel stepped to the side of the fireplace and yanked on a cord to summon a servant. When the woman appeared, he said, “Brandy. From the kitchen, not the wine cellar.”

  The man settled in a chair and steepled his fingers. “Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?”

  Not liking this man, Jacob said, “I think you know why we’re here.”

  “Ah, you wish to talk about that devil Joel Whitney, the one who murdered my son.”

  “Yes,” Jacob said. “And we want your promise that you’ll do all you can to keep your sheep in the Estancia.”

  “I own the land, not the sheep, señor.”

  Shawn said, “Don Manuel, I think what my brother is trying to say is that we will side with you against Whitney if we have your guarantee that the sheep will not move north beyond Lobo Hill.”

  “As to the sheep,” the Mexican said, “I have already told you that they are not mine. Where they go, or do not go, is hardly my concern. But I am honor-bound to avenge my son’s death, and I will kill Whitney with my own hand. To this end, I have a score of vaqueros armed and ready, but, of course, any assistance you can give will be welcome and most appreciated.”

  Frustration gnawing at his guts, Shawn said, “Don Manuel, many of your own people will die. Those folks outside—”

  “Mr. O’Brien, people are born and they die. It is a fact of nature. But the land endures forever. I do not wish to sound harsh, but the death of ten peons, or ten thousand, is of little concern to me. I will fight to keep my land, for the land is all that matters. It is eternal, unchanging, and the measure of a man.”

  Shawn and Jacob exchanged glances, each reading defeat in the other’s eyes.

  Jacob stood. “Don Manuel, there’s a shooting war coming down, and you can die like any other man. What good will the Estancia be to you then?”

  The Mexican smiled. “Tell him, Aracela.”

  The woman had been sitting in a chair with her head bowed. Now, like Jacob, she stood. “I will wed, and I will have sons. They will take the name Ortero and inherit the land.” She stared at Jacob. “You have perhaps heard that the peons cross themselves and run from me because they say I am blood eater. It is true that I am blessed with an inner eye that gives me the gift of second sight and much else besides. As you say, there will be war, and much blood. But as to who will live and who will die, that, for the present at least, is veiled to me.”

  In the next moment, she surprised the hell out of everybody, except her father, whose face didn’t change, as though he’d known it was coming. “Jacob, you will give me sons. I can think of no finer sire than a warrior poet.”

  Taken aback, Jacob said the first thing that entered his mind. “I’m not a poet.”

  Aracela smiled. “Ah, but you are. The poetry of music runs deep in you.”

  Shawn rose so suddenly his chair slammed against the wall. “Before we start discussing the wedding arrangements, let me say one thing to you, Don Manuel. We will not allow sheep north of Lobo Hill. If that means fighting both you and Whitney, then that’s just how the deck cuts.”

  The Mexican looked toward the door. “Ah, good, the brandy is here.”

  Ironside said, rising, “We’ll drink no brandy in this house until we know who our enemies are. Now, my talking is done.”

  “I am not your enemy,” Don Manuel said.

  “That remains to be seen.” Ironside made for the door and the others followed.

  But Aracela intercepted Jacob. She looked up at him, a smile on her lush lips. “You will be my husband, depend on it. I knew that as soon as I set eyes on you.”

  “Lady,” Jacob said, “I’ll be no woman’s husband. Depend on that.”

  Ironside and the O’Briens stood outside in a light snowfall, waiting for the hacienda grooms to bring their horses. The black and somber sky scowled from horizon to horizon, and every breath of thin air they took was like drinking ice water. The wind had dropped, and the smoke from the peon shacks rose straigh
t as string.

  Donna Aracela followed the men outside, a shawl around her slim shoulders. She stood in the tiled archway of the main door to the house, her unwavering gaze on Jacob, her sharp blue eyes isolating him from the backdrop of the stone-gray day.

  The Dromore riders watched as Andre Perez hesitantly approached the woman. The man bowed his head and said, “Lady, may I say this in English so my patrons may hear?”

  “You are called?”

  “Andre Perez, Lady. Just a poor vaquero from the north.”

  “Then speak on, Andre.”

  “Lady, when you hunt with the blood moon, please, I beg of you, spare my children.”

  Aracela’s face did not change. “And why should I grant you this thing?”

  “Lady, I am but a lowly vaquero, but perhaps one day I can repay the favor.”

  “Go,” Aracela said. “I grant you this wish and I will remember what you owe.”

  As Perez bowed again and walked away, Patrick grinned at Shawn. “Do you still plan on walking out with her?”

  Shawn shook his head. “Hell, no. I think I’ll leave that to Jacob, seeing as how he and Donna Aracela are engaged.”

  Ironside laughed, but Jacob scowled and said something under his breath that sounded like a blood-curdler of a cuss.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ironside was leading the others out of the village when his horse shied, almost unseating him, spooked by the Mexican who galloped past, bareback on a mustang pony.

  Ironside caught a glimpse of the rider’s terrified face, and the blood covering the front of his shirt.

  The young Mexican with a mop of coal-black hair slid from the mustang’s back and began to yell at the top of his lungs, running from shack to shack, waving his hands in the air.

  “Andre,” Ironside said as he fought to settle his mount, “what the hell is going on?”

  Perez swung from the saddle and plunged through the crowd that had gathered around the rider. He grabbed the man by his shirt and tried to shake him into some sort of coherence.

  “¿Lo que sucedio?” Perez hollered.

  The man babbled away in Spanish for a good three or four minutes before he stopped for a breath.

  Perez turned and said, “Three herders were killed near Rattlesnake Hill this morning just after dawn. Some of their sheep were gunned, the rest scattered to hell and gone.”

  “Is that man wounded?” Patrick said, urging his horse closer.

  “No, patron.” Perez let the man drop to the ground. “He’s dead.” The vaquero kneeled by the body and tore open the herder’s shirt. “Three bullet wounds in his chest, so close together I could cover them with the palm of my hand.”

  Shawn angled a glance at Jacob. “Texans?”

  “That kind of shooting?” Jacob said, his face troubled. “You can bet your life on it.”

  A couple women were wailing, tearing at their hair and clothes, mourning husbands or sons, Shawn O’Brien didn’t know which. To Perez he said, “Mount up, Andre.” And to his brothers and Ironside, “We’ll head down to Rattlesnake and take a look around.”

  “They’ll be long gone,” Ironside said.

  “I know, but I don’t have a better idea. Do you?”

  As they rode south, Jacob turned and looked behind him.

  Don Manuel, surrounded by vaqueros, was talking to the peons, his body stiff with anger, his face flushed. Donna Aracela silently looked on. She did not make a move to comfort the grieving women. It was as though she’d been chipped from a block of ice.

  He was no doubt vowing revenge, for the peasants and for his dead son.

  Jacob could clearly see the bad times were coming down fast.

  Joel Whitney had opened the ball . . . and now there would be a hundred different kinds of hell to pay.

  The volcanic peak of Rattlesnake Hill rose above a rolling flat covered in brush, blue grama, and buffalo grass. A few cottonwoods stood among the piñon and juniper that grew in abundance. The day had grown colder, and the breaths of the five riders smoked in the icy air.

  They saw vast herds of sheep, but no herders. The Mexicans had either fled when they got the news of the killings, or were sheltering from the cold and a rising wind that stirred the prairie grass and cut to the bone.

  Perez, scouting ahead, appeared at the top of a rise and used his sombrero to wave the others on. Rattlesnake Hill soared behind him. Silhouetted black against the dark sky, its peak was almost lost behind a haze of cloud and the tattered lace curtain of the falling snow.

  When the four riders reached the crest, Perez pointed. “Down there by the creek.”

  “All of them dead?” Shawn asked.

  “Yes, patron, but one of them died harder than the others,” Perez said. “You will see.”

  The slope of the rise led down to a flat, then a hundred yards farther, to a narrow stream only about a yard across. He drew rein and pointed to the naked, crucified man.

  Some time in the past, the cottonwood had been struck by lightning and had fallen. The trunk and branches were bone white and no longer looked like a tree, more like the skeletal spine and ribs of a great animal.

  The herder, a small, thin man with gray in his hair, lay on his back on the trunk, arms over his head. Fencing staples had been hammered into both his palms. Some had hit bone or gristle, and hadn’t gone all the way through to the trunk, so a lot more had been used. It looked as though someone had filled the dead man’s hands with silver coins. His feet were on the ground, but both his knees had been smashed by bullets.

  “My God,” Ironside said, his face ashen under his mahogany tan. “He died a terrible death.”

  Shawn crossed himself. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, give him rest.”

  “Damn it! He’s bait!” Jacob roared. He dug his spurs into his horse and the startled animal crashed into Ironside and Patrick, who were side by side. Ironside’s mount went down kicking, and Patrick’s horse shied wildly to its right.

  Rifle bullets split the air between Jacob and Shawn. Another bounced off a rock on the bank of the creek. Spaaang! It ricocheted and plowed a furrow across Perez’s forehead. The vaquero fell and didn’t try to rise again.

  Ironside lay flat on his back, winded and clawing for his gun. Patrick fought to control his crow-hopping horse, the terrified animal bucking him away from the creek. Its iron-shod hooves rang across the frozen ground like hammers on an anvil, a sharp counterpoint to the dull roar of guns.

  Jacob had the bushwhackers spotted. “Shawn, follow me.” Without waiting for an answer, he kicked his horse into a gallop, his Colt up and ready. Ahead of him, three men crouched behind a rock pile. One rose to his feet, Winchester to his shoulder, and cut loose. Jacob fired, fired again. The man threw up his hands and fell, his rifle spinning away from him.

  Behind him, Jacob heard the bang of Shawn’s revolver. A man wearing a fur hat and sheepskin coat broke and ran from the rocks. Jacob fired and cut him down. The third bushwhacker rose, making a motion like he was raising his arms in surrender, but Shawn drew rein and shot him. The man grabbed at his left shoulder, spun and fell.

  It was all over. Gray gun smoke drifted across the flat, getting tangled in the falling snow. Behind the rock pile a man groaned, then cursed.

  When Shawn looked at Jacob, his eyes were admiring, but guarded. “I couldn’t have done that.”

  “Done what?” Jacob fed fresh shells into his Colt.

  “Shoot two men while I was on the back of a running horse. Who taught you that, Jacob? Luther Ironside?”

  “Nobody taught me,” Jacob said. “It’s just something a man knows how to do. It can’t be taught to him.”

  “You’re hell on wheels with the Colt,” Shawn said. “I didn’t quite believe it before, but I believe it now.”

  “I know,” Jacob said, without a trace of brag in his voice. “I discovered that I had the skill a long time ago. I don’t know where it comes from.” He holstered his gun, listening to the wounded gunman curse. “Sound
s like the bushwhacker you gunned is still alive, Shawn. Let’s go read to him from the book.”

  The Texan was young, too frightened to act tough, and his wound was devastating. Shawn’s bullet had gone all the way through, shattering his shoulder blade into white shards as it exited.

  Jacob propped the kid’s back against a rock and kneeled beside him so they were at eye level. Ironside, in a thunderous rage, loomed over the gunman. Perez, only slightly wounded, but looking terrible from the blood running down his face, glared at the gunman with a killing light in his eyes.

  “How did you know we’d be here?” Shawn said.

  “I don’t know you,” the Texan said. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I thought you was greasers.”

  “Hell, boy,” Ironside said. “Do I look like a Mexican to you?”

  “It’s snowing,” the kid said. “It was hard to see.”

  “So you shot at us, and didn’t even know who we were?”

  The young Texan had no answer for that. Grimacing, he said, “I need a doctor.”

  “What’s your name, son?” Jacob said, although he and the kid were about the same age.

  “Ted White. Up from Tarrant County, Texas.”

  Jacob pointed with his chin. “And them?”

  “The one in the fur hat is, or was, Deck Rawlins. We called the other one Heap. I never heard his real name.”

  “You killed the herders?” Shawn said.

  “Yeah.”

  “And the man nailed to the tree?”

  “Yeah. We figured he’d draw in more greasers. We stashed our horses in a canyon back there and laid up for them. Then you boys showed up.”

  “Your mistake,” Jacob said.

  “Who are you taking orders from, Ted?” Patrick asked. “Is it Joel Whitney?”

  “Yeah, him and Clay Stanley.”

  Jacob jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the creek. “That’s a hell of a way to kill a man. Whose idea was it? Whitney’s?”

  “No, Deck came up with it, and we went along with him.” The kid looked at the hostile faces surrounding him. “Hell, what are you boys getting so worked up about? He’s only a greaser sheepherder like the rest.”