Miles fixed him a plate of food and sat at the table in the kitchen and ate. Listening to Terri comfort Lars was enough to make a buzzard puke. He finished and walked back into the den.
Lars’s sister had certainly done her part to spoil the boy rotten. She needled and poked fun at him, but loved him one hundred percent nonetheless.
“Daddy,” Terri said.
“Yes, darlin’ girl?”
“How come we don’t just ride up into ol’ man Bailey’s yard tomorrow and just shoot all them people right down dead when they aren’t expectin’ it? That way, don’t you see, we could just have done it.”
Miles cleared his throat. Sighed. There was no doubt that Terri was as pretty as any sunset that God had ever graced the earth with. Unfortunately, while He blessed Terri with uncommon good looks, He shorted her on smarts. Terri could sometimes be as dumb as a post without even trying.
“Well, darlin’, you see, there’s gonna be six or eight rifles on us the whole time we’re at John’s spread. We try anything funny, and we’re dead, baby.”
“Oh,” Terri said. “Well ... I guess John doesn’t trust any of us very much, does he?”
“Uh ... no, darlin’, he don’t.”
“Well, that explains that, I guess.”
Miles suddenly decided he needed another drink, and headed for the study. He really loved his only daughter, but he also wished some nice young man would come along and marry her and take her away. Sometimes Terri near’bouts drove him slap nuts!
* * *
“Brought a pup for you, boy,” Miles told Jimmy.
“He says it,” Falcon said, looking at Lars. “Let him say it.”
“Here’s your dog, boy,” Lars mumbled. The young man’s lips were still swollen from the beating Falcon had given him. He spoke in low tones.
“Thanks, mister,” Jimmy said, taking the squirming puppy and running off to play.
“Miles,” John greeted the man.
“John. It’s been a while.”
And that was the extent of their conversation.
Lars wasn’t looking at anyone. He sat his saddle and kept his eyes downcast. But Terri was staring at Falcon, as was the lone hand with them. A young man with silver dollars on his hat, vest, and gunbelt.
“I’ve heard of you, Falcon MacCallister,” the kid said. “I reckon you’ve heard of me.”
“Can’t say as I have, boy.”
The kid flushed at the slight. “I been around quite a bit, you know.”
“I didn’t know it, but I’m sure glad to hear it. A young man ought to get around and see the country. It helps to broaden his horizons.”
Big Bob Marsh and the other mountain men were out of sight, in the barn, bunkhouse, and house, all armed with rifles and ready to bang in case of trouble.
And their absence did not escape the eyes of Miles Gilman.
Miles made another stab at conversation. “John, sell out to me and move away. You know I’ll give you a fair price.”
John Bailey shook his head. “Miles, do you know how many years we’ve been out here?”
“A long time, John, that’s for sure.”
“Twenty-six years, Miles. At least, that’s my count. This is home. I’ve buried both kin and hands over yonder on the hill, and that’s where I plan to be buried when it comes my time. I’m not sellin’ out, to you or anybody else.”
Miles shook his head slowly. “Then I guess we got nothin’ else to talk about, John.”
“I reckon not, Miles.”
Gilman cut his eyes to Falcon. “The name MacCallister don’t mean a whole lot up here, mister.”
“Then I’ll have to see to it that I leave some sort of lasting impression on the good people of this part of the country,” Falcon replied evenly. Then he smiled. “Won’t I?”
Terri was still staring at Falcon, thinking: Lordy, what a handsome man. ’Bout the handsomest man I ever did see. And worth millions of dollars, too. My, my. She batted her eyes at him. Falcon ignored her.
“What’s the puppy’s name?” John asked. “The dog’s got to have a name.”
“We didn’t name it, John,” Miles told him. “Thought we’d leave that up to the boy.”
John nodded his head in agreement.
The Silver Dollar Kid continued to stare at Falcon, as did Terri.
“Well, uh, how’s Martha, John?” Miles asked.
“She’s well, Miles. We were speaking of you just the other day. The times we had, uh, before the troubles.”
Miles nodded his head. Then he frowned and said, “Before the troubles, John? Well, we been fightin’ Injuns, outlaws, bad weather, low prices, squatters . . . seems like trouble’s all we’ve known. But . . . I reckon I know what you mean.”
“I figured you would, Miles,” John said softly.
“Them days is gone, John. They ain’t never gonna come again. It don’t do no good to think about them.”
John shrugged his shoulders. “If that’s the way you feel about it, I reckon not.”
Lars raised his battered face to Falcon. In a low, calm, and very deadly voice, he said, “I’m gonna kill you, MacCallister. I’m tellin’ you that right now.”
Falcon smiled at him. “You going to do it facing me, boy, or back-shoot me?”
“There ain’t no Gilman ever back-shot no man!” the father hotly protested.
“Just asking,” Falcon replied evenly.
“I’ll call you out, MacCallister,” the son said, in that same low, deadly voice. “Count on it.”
“If you feel it has to be that way,” Falcon told him.
Jimmy ran past the men standing by the corral, talking with the visitors on horseback. The little puppy was barking happily and the boy was laughing. Neither of them realized they were running past life and death being discussed so lightly on this sunny summer morning.
“No man does to me what you done and gets away with it,” Lars said, his voice never changing from that low, deadly tone.
“You could have walked away from it,” Falcon reminded him.
“You know better,” Miles stepped in. “That ain’t the way it’s done out here. But I ain’t my son, MacCallister. If me and you ever tie up, the outcome will be different.”
“I doubt it,” Falcon told the rancher. “But no one needs to tie up with anybody. There’s land aplenty here for all. You and John Bailey came in here with a few head each of cattle and built a home, helped settle this land—probably did settle this part of the territory all by yourselves. You were friends for years while all that was going on. Then one of you got greedy and wanted what the other had, and good close friends became enemies. It can stop right here and now and . . .”
“No, by God, it can’t!” Miles almost shouted the words. “It’s gone too far for that. And John knows it. I’ve got to have grass and water for my cattle, and for my partner’s cattle, and by God I’m going to get it.”
“No matter who gets hurt in the process?” Falcon asked.
Miles Gilman refused to reply to that. He sat his saddle and glared at Falcon.
Martha and Angie stepped out of the house and began walking toward the gathering by the corral. Both of them carried rifles.
“Oh, Martha!” Miles blurted, embarrassment coloring his face. Faced with the situation, the rancher could not help himself. “Since when do you need a rifle to face me?”
“Since your riders began paying us visits at night, Miles,” the woman said, walking up to stand by her husband. “And your son there leading them.”
Miles’s mouth clamped shut. He could not deny the charge with any conviction. But he had not authorized the raid, and had almost hit Lars when he’d heard of it. But now, sitting his saddle, he recalled his words of only a few days back, to start the killing of Rockingchair hands and either drive the rancher and his wife and family off their ranch or bury them. He shook his head and sighed in remembrance and experienced a few seconds of regret . . . but the contrition quickly passed.
“Did your daddy really fight at the Alamo?” Terri asked Falcon, lightening the moment without realizing she had done so.
Falcon could not help but smile at the young woman’s words. He understood right then that he was not dealing with the brightest female in the territory. “Yes, he did.”
“My, my,” Terri said. She shifted her gaze to Angie. “I haven’t seen you in a long time, Angie. I believe you were wearing that same dress last time I saw you.”
Falcon immediately backed up, putting some distance between himself and the two young women. Both John and Martha had told him there had never been any love lost between Terri and Angie, beginning when they were little girls.
“Oh, I probably was,” Angie replied very sweetly. But her eyes were flashing warning signs. “This is a ranch where everybody works, Terri. I don’t sit around on my butt and stuff my face with imported chocolates the way some do.”
Terri had to think about that for a few seconds. Then it finally dawned on her that she’d been insulted. There really wasn’t anything wrong with Terri’s mind: She just hadn’t used it very much. It was soft from lack of exercise, like much of the rest of Terri.
But not Angie. Angie had been milking cows and chopping wood and working the fields since she was knee-high to her mother. Angie was tanned of face and strong of arm.
“Are you talkin’ about me, Angie?” Terri demanded.
“I’m sure standing right here talking to you, aren’t I?”
“You still got a smart mouth, don’t you?”
Terri was off her horse in a flash and marching up to Angie.
“Now, girls!” Miles said.
“Now, girls!” John said.
The Silver Dollar Kid was sitting his saddle, his mouth hanging open.
Falcon backed still further away, sensing there was going to be one hell of a fight here any second.
Martha shook her head and backed up.
“You take back what you just said about me!” Terri demanded.
“Go jump in the creek!” Angie told her.
Terri rared back and took a wild punch at Angie and the fight was on.
Seventeen
Terri missed her wildly thrown punch and fell off balance. Angie seized that opportunity to slap her across the face. Terri screamed and the horses went into a panic. The Silver Dollar Kid’s horse reared up and the Kid hit the ground, dumping him right in the middle of a huge pile of fresh horse crap . . . and that horse must have been suffering from a slight bowel problem: The pile was very large and wet.
“Oh, God!” the Kid hollered, as his hands went wrist-deep into the pile and his butt splattered into the mess. “Oh, phew!”
Terri grabbed Angie and tried to throw her to the ground but Angie was too strong. She broke free and popped Terri on the side of the face with a small hard right fist.
Terri screamed and Miles’s horse began bucking and pitching and snorting. “Whoa, damnit!” the rancher hollered.
Miles grabbed for the saddlehorn, missed, and went sailing off the hurricane deck, landing on his butt on the ground.
Terri managed to land one punch on Angie’s cheek, but it was a glancing blow and did little except further enrage the woman. Angie hollered and swung a fist, connecting solidly with Terri’s jaw and knocking her to the ground. Angie straddled Terri and began pounding her face.
“By God!” Miles yelled. “I’ll not tolerate that.” He jumped to his boots and ran to his daughter’s assistance.
Lars had sat his saddle for a moment, just looking at the melee. Then he slowly turned his horse and rode off without a change of expression. He had one thought on his mind, and this was not the time to act on it.
Miles grabbed Angie’s shoulders and tried to pull her away from his daughter. Martha yelled out her concern and John put a hard hand on Miles’s shoulder and spun him around, giving him a solid shot to the jaw with a work-hardened fist that knocked Miles to the ground.
“All right, by God!” Miles hollered, crawling to his hands and knees. “I should have done this a long time ago.”
“Get up and do it, you son of a bitch!” John yelled.
John was about ten years older than Miles, but unlike Miles, John had never stopped doing hard brutal work every day of his life. He was in excellent physical shape, while Miles had grown soft.
Falcon had stepped away from the fighting, keeping an eye on the Kid. But the Kid was busy at a watering trough, concerned only with getting the horseshit off of him. Right now, he was doing a dandy job of spreading it all over himself.
“Yuck!” the Kid hollered, as the crap seemed to grow on his hands and forearms.
Angie and Terri were both cussing and duking it out, as were their fathers.
The mountain men left their hiding places to stand and stare in disbelief at the goings-on.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Martha yelled at her husband and daughter.
Miles was huffing and puffing while John appeared to be enjoying himself. He was certainly getting the better of the younger man, landing lefts and rights on Miles’s face.
Lars had completely disappeared from sight, riding slowly back to the road that would either take him to town or to the Snake ranch. He had not looked around once during his slow departure.
“By God, I’ll teach you a lesson with my bare hands,” Miles puffed, swinging at John and missing.
“Well, you’re doin’ a piss-poor job of it,” John told him, just a split second before smacking his once best friend and longtime neighbor in the mouth and busting his lip.
Miles yelled and bored in, swinging both fists and hitting nothing but air.
John sidestepped Miles’s charge and stuck out a boot, tripping the man and sending him sprawling to the ground. Miles ate a little dirt and came up roaring like an angry grizzly. He charged at John and grabbed the man in a bear hug, each of them going hard to the ground, kicking and cussing and yelling and spitting and trying to hit the other, neither of them succeeding in doing any damage.
Angie and Terri were standing toe-to-toe and slugging it out, cussing each other.
Martha had walked over to stand beside Falcon, a very disgusted look on her face.
Jimmy and his little puppy were down by the creek, playing, unaware that anything except conversation was going on by the corral.
“This is positively disgraceful!” Martha said.
“That’s certainly one word for it,” Falcon agreed.
Angie and Terri both stepped in a puddle of water and lost their balance, both of them hitting the ground. Falcon seized that moment to grab Angie by the neck of her dress and haul her away, physically slinging her in the direction of her mother. Terri crawled to her feet and Falcon pointed a finger at her.
“It’s over,” he warned her. “Settle down.”
Terri’s nose was bleeding, one lip was puffy, and her hair was all a mess. But she was game. She very bluntly told Falcon what he could do—which was impossible—and charged him. She slammed into the man, knocking him to one side. Falcon tripped and went sprawling to the ground. Terri stepped all over him in her wild charge to get to Angie and the two women went at it again.
“Whore!” yelled Terri.
“Slut!” yelled Angie.
“Well, the hell with it!” Falcon said, crawling to his feet.
John and Miles had lost their six-shooters, Angie had propped her rifle up against the corral, and Terri’s pistol was lying in a big pile of horse crap. There was no danger of anyone starting any gunplay.
Dan Carson had followed Lars when he rode off. He returned and told Big Bob Marsh, “Lars is gone. Headin’ into town. We’ll not see him again this day. What’s happenin’ here?”
“Craziness,” Big Bob replied. “I reckon the best thing we can do is just let them fight until they’re plumb wore out.”
Falcon had crawled into the corral, putting the corral bars between him and the combatants.
Martha had walked back to the house and slammed the front door in
disgust.
The four participants in the free-for-all were still at it, but rapidly running out of steam.
The Kid had removed his gunbelt, hanging it on a peg and doing his best to clean all the crap off his hands, arms, and jeans. He had taken off his shirt, which he had managed to smear quite liberally with horseshit.
He wadded up his shirt and turned to stuff it into his saddlebags when he noticed the six mountain men, all armed with rifles, all looking at him. The Kid smiled rather weakly and held out his hands wide, signaling that he wanted no trouble at this time.
Mustang walked over and gathered up the Kid’s guns, stuffing them into his saddlebags and buckling the flap securely.
John took that time to give Miles a solid shot to the jaw and Miles went down in a heap, not quite out, but very close.
Terri and Angie were also running out of steam, but of the two, Terri had fared the worst: One eye was closing, her nose was bleeding, and her mouth was all puffy. Angie gave her one more good pop to the jaw and the woman went down on her butt. This time she stayed there.
“That’s it,” Falcon said, stepping out of the corral and motioning for the others to join in. Together, Falcon and Big Bob and the others managed to get Terri and Miles on their boots and get between the Baileys and the Gilmans and keep them separated.
“Get them on their horses and get them out of here,” Falcon told the others.
“I’ll kill you, you bitch!” Terri squalled.
“You’ve not heard the last from me, John,” Miles warned.
“Anytime you want to really settle this, Miles,” John told him, “just let me know and we’ll stand up and face each other with guns.”
“I just might do that, by God.”
“Anytime,” John told him. “Now get off my property and don’t ever come back. I might just decide to shoot you on sight.”
Miles cursed the man under his breath and managed to get into the saddle. Puma had shucked all the cartridges out of his pistol and stuck it back into Miles’s holster. Stumpy had done the same with Terri’s pistol.
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