Blood Bond 3

by William W. Johnstone

  He led them into the house and the men could see this was a home that was lived in. It had many nice furnishings for the frontier, but the chairs and couches were to sit on, not for show.

  “Girls!” he hollered. “Got two mighty handsome young men in here. Come look ’em over!”

  Matt and Sam exchanged glances, unaccustomed to being viewed like sides of beef. They both wished they’d shaved that morning when the girls came into the room.

  “Lisa and Lia,” Jeff said, obviously enjoying himself. “Matt and Sam.”

  The girls smiled at the boys and the boys blushed.

  Lisa was a redhead and Lia was a strawberry blonde. Both of them were shapely and very, very comely. They were wearing something that neither Matt nor Sam had ever seen before. Split skirts. They weren’t britches and they weren’t skirts. The brothers didn’t know what the hell they were.

  “You boys had coffee?” Jeff asked.

  “No, sir,” Sam said.

  “Hell’s fire!” he hollered. “That ain’t decent. Girls, go fetch the pot and some cups and tell your mama to come in and meet our guests. Tell Conchita to start rattlin’ them pots and pans. She’s got some hungry men salivating out here.” He pointed to the couch. “Sit.”

  Matt and Sam sat. Before they could get comfortable, the girls were back with coffeepot and cups. Before they could take the first sip, a very handsome lady entered the room. No split skirt for this one. A full dress and a nice one at that.

  “My wife, boys. Nancy.”

  Matt and Sam were already on their feet. “Pleasure, ma’am,” they said.

  “Sit and drink your coffee, gentlemen,” Nancy said, taking a seat. “Dodge told us you had trouble with John Lee. Why should we believe you?”

  “Mother . . .” Jeff said, putting out a hand.

  “No, let me finish,” she persisted. “We know that John has been hiring gunfighters. These young men are gunfighters. They have the stamp upon them. How do we know John didn’t send them here to kill us in our own home?”

  Matt’s gaze cut to Dodge standing off to the side of the room, his hand on the butt of his pistol. Another man was on Sam’s right, also ready for action.

  “Yes,” Nancy said. “You can have a good meal, then if you’re here to cause trouble, you can be buried with a full stomach.”

  Matt grinned. “You have a right to be suspicious, but I can assure you all that we don’t work for John Lee.”

  “Those are good questions, ma’am,” Sam said. “And you’re right on one count: we have used a gun a time or two. But we don’t hire them out—ever!”

  “Never seen that brand before,” Dodge said.

  “We’re from up Wyoming, Montana. Both of us own ranches up there—paying ranches. Both of us were scouting for the Army when Custer was killed at Little Bighorn. Sam’s father was killed there, too. He rode in, unarmed except for a coup stick. He did not want war.”

  “My mother left me an inheritance,” Sam said. “While I am not wealthy, I am comfortable. So is my blood brother.” He smiled. “Matt Bodine.”

  “Hell’s fire!” Jeff shouted. “Matt Bodine!” He dropped his coffee cup.

  Chapter 3

  After the family settled down, Matt told them all that he and Sam had heard from the gunfighters while in the loft of the stable, then told them what had taken place at their campsite on the Pecos.

  “John Lee’s boys ride roughshod over everybody,” Jeff said. “Except for me and mine,” he added. “His spread is three times the size of mine, and still he wants more. He’s either run out or killed the smaller ranchers in the area. Only a few farmers left. And why he’s doing it is something none of us understand.”

  “Gold, silver?” Sam asked.

  “No,” the rancher shook his head. “Nothing like that around here. Water is the most precious thing in this part of the country, and both of us have about an equal supply of that. He’s power hungry, I reckon.”

  “Has he always been like this?” Matt asked.

  “Pretty much so. We come into this area at about the same time. Back in ’55. We fought Indians and outlaws and comancheros while we built our spreads. I got along with my neighbors, he didn’t. John thrived on other folks’ misfortune. Drought would come and he wouldn’t share his water or graze when he had it to spare. Bought people out for a nickel or dime on the dollar. Burned a few out, too; although that couldn’t never be proved up in a court of law.”

  “Married?”

  “Was. His wife died and he raised the boy himself. Mean kid. Same age as our boy Gene. But that’s where the resemblance ends. Nick is worse than his dad, if that’s possible. Quick with a short gun and likes to use it. He used to try courtin’ Lisa here. She wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with him. I finally run him off ’bout two years ago and he swore he’d kill me someday.”

  “Where is your son?” Sam asked.

  “Gone down to the settlement on the Pecos ’bout thirty miles south of here for supplies. Little place is called Pecos, but it isn’t a real town yet. I can’t buy nothin’ at the Crossing. John Lee owns it all. Lock, stock, and horse troughs. He’s run off or killed most of my hands. I’m down to five punchers, not countin’ Dodge. Hell, you boys know you can’t run a spread this size with five hands. It’s impossible.”

  “The law?” Matt asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

  “There ain’t no law west of the Pecos, boys. It’s gun law out here. Survival of the fittest . . . or the meanest.”

  “What are you planning on doing?” Sam asked. “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” Jeff said. “I don’t see that I got a choice. I’m not a poor man, and I can afford to hire guns. I don’t hold with that. But . . .” He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of “what else can I do?”

  “Who has more money?” Matt asked. “You or John Lee?”

  “Oh, John does. After his wife died he come into a wad of money; she was from a wealthy family in Louisiana. French. Just the nicest person a body would ever want to meet. I don’t know how in the hell she ever got tied up with John.”

  “She fell in love,” Nancy said simply.

  “Then she must have had a taste for horse crap,” Jeff summed up.

  The girls giggled.

  Matt and Sam exchanged glances. Sam shrugged. “Show us the boundaries of your spread,” Matt said. “It’s time me and Sam did some honest labor for a change.”

  “What do you mean?” Jeff asked, a puzzled look on his face.

  “Why, you just hired yourself a couple of new hands, Mr. Sparks.”

  Matt and Sam met the other Circle S hands that evening over supper. From now on, unless invited to do so, they would take their meals in the bunkhouse with the crew—it was all prepared by Conchita anyway and the hands took turns going to the big house and bringing it back.

  All the remaining hands, except one, were men in their forties. Solid hard-working cowboys. Not fast gunhands, but men who had handled guns all their life and usually hit what they were shooting at with the first shot. They met Lomax, Tate, Bell, Red, and Jimmy. Jimmy was maybe nineteen, and that was iffy. If he was nineteen, he was a young nineteen.

  “His pa was one John Lee’s men kilt,” Tate told them. “His ma died shortly after that—heart attack. Bein’ a only child, Jimmy was pampered as much as that can be out here. He wears a gun, but he ain’t much good with it. Crack shot with a rifle though, and he’ll do what you tell him to do.”

  “Jimmy’s a good boy,” Lomax said. “But he’s swore to kill John Lee. We can’t keep nursemaidin’ him, Matt. He’s a man growed. You know well as me—probably better—how it is out here.”

  “Oughtta let him go on and kill the dirty son,” Red said. “John Lee crossed the line a long time ago. He’s no good.”

  “Maybe that’s what the boss hired these two to do?” Bell spoke for the first time. He had not been overly friendly with Matt or Sam.

  “You got something stuck in your throat, Bel
l,” Matt told him, “spit it out.”

  “I don’t like gunfighters. Never seen one yet who was able to do an honest day’s work.”

  “Neither me nor Sam asked for the name of gunfighter, Bell. And as far as work goes, both of us own ranches up north. Working ranches, paying ranches. I can ride anything with hair on it, rope just as good as the next man, and just to set the record straight, I’d rather take a beatin’ than have to string wire.”

  Bell looked at him for a moment, then a slow grin creased his lips. “I reckon you’ll do, Bodine. I’ve just heard some bad things about you is all.”

  “What things?”

  “That you like usin’ them guns of yours.”

  “I can’t say that I haven’t enjoyed killing a few men. Child rapers and torturers. Back-shooting cold-blooded murderers. That type.”

  Bell slowly nodded his head. “I hope you gut-shot ’em,” he said and put the issue to rest.

  For the next several days, Sam and Matt rode the sprawling range of the Circle S, familiarizing themselves with as much of it as possible. They talked as they rode.

  “There’s got to be more to it than what we’ve been told,” Sam opined.

  “Maybe not,” Matt disagreed. If he didn’t disagree most of the time Sam would have thought him ill.

  Sam waited, then looked at him. “Is that all? ‘Maybe not’ doesn’t tell me much. Of course, that may be all that you have on your mind—considering the usual state of your mind.” He smiled.

  “All you have on your mind is Lisa,” Matt shot back. “And you’d better be careful, brother.” The last was said without a trace of humor.

  “I know,” Sam said. “It is very difficult being part of two worlds. It is a harmless flirtation, nothing more. I will not permit anything more.”

  “You might not have a say in the matter if she begins taking it seriously.”

  “I know. But what am I to do, ignore her?”

  Matt grinned. “No. ’Cause if you do that, you’ll make her mad, and then you’ll really have hell to pay.”

  “After all is said and done, there is no difference between women, red or white.”

  They rode on for another mile or so in silence. Early summer, and it was already hot. After awhile they turned and began moving a herd of cattle—really more than two men could handle—heading them back toward a range closer to the big house. It had been a very dry spring, and the cattle were ranging all over the place looking for graze.

  Sparks and Dodge rode up and pitched in, giving the brothers a hand with the herd.

  “I got to sell some,” Sparks said. “Got too many on the land.”

  “Let’s round them up and drive them to market,” Matt replied.

  Sparks chuckled without humor. “Can’t get hands, Matt. Nobody wants to buck John Lee. He’s put the word out that ridin’ for me is dangerous for your health.”

  “How long can you hold on, Jeff ?”

  “Not long. They cut back on the garrison at Fort Stockton, and Fort Concho buys beeves from ranchers around there. I got to ship them by railroad. That means a long drive. And I’d have to leave men behind to guard the ranch. John would burn me out.”

  “Then that doesn’t leave you but one option, does it, Jeff ?”

  “What do you mean, Matt?”

  “If John Lee won’t let you and the others live in peace, then you’ve got to get together and take out John Lee.”

  “I been tryin’ to convince him of that for months,” Dodge said with a grunt. “Like talkin’ to fence post.”

  “I do know that feeling,” Sam said with a straight face.

  “I won’t start the war, Matt,” the rancher said. “I just can’t do it.”

  “Seems like to me it’s already started.”

  “I told him that, too,” the foreman said. He looked at Sparks. “Jeff, we’ve been through too much to see it all go down like this.”

  “I’ll not hire professional killers.” The rancher held on to his views.

  “What if he makes a hostile move against you?” Sam questioned. “What then?”

  “Then . . .” the rancher hesitated, “we’ll see.” He rode on ahead to take the point.

  “He’s a good, decent, honorable man,” Dodge said. “Very high principled. And those are the very things that’s gonna get him killed.”

  “Has he tried to talk to John Lee?”

  “Many times. Jeff called John out last year. Said they could settle it this way without anybody gettin’ kilt. Took off his gunbelt and called him out in the street in Crossing for a fight. Stand-up, bare-knuckle, kick and gouge. John wouldn’t do it and he lost a lot of face that day. Lots of snickerin’ went on and still goin’ on behind his back.”

  “Is he insane?” Sam asked.

  “No. I don’t think so. I think he’s just a low-down and mean-spirited man. Hell, boys, this ain’t nothin’ new on John Lee’s part. He’s always been thisaway to a degree. He’s just got worser over the years is all.”

  “I notice that no one rides alone,” Matt said.

  “Boss’s orders. Good orders. Couple of hands have been bushwhacked. One was roped and drug, busted him up bad. The whole shebang ain’t but days from comin’ to a head. I ’spect since John’s hired all them gunslicks it’ll pop anytime now.”

  “Is that the reason Jeff sent his son for supplies? For food and ammo?”

  “Yep. The only other rancher standin’ up to John sent his boy with young Gene. Ed Carson owns the Flyin’ V. His property butts agin the Circle S on the east side. He’s down to three hands. They’re good boys, but they ain’t gunhawks. Just damned good punchers.”

  They pushed the cattle onto new graze and left them, then rode for the ranch, reaching home just as the shadows began to lengthen in purple hues.

  “You boys come to supper at the house tonight,” Jeff told the brothers. “Gene’s back and I want you to meet him and Ed Carson and family. It’s a once a month doin’ for the ladies. Life’s hard on the women out here. See you shortly.”

  Both Matt and Sam took good-natured kidding from the other hands about the Sparks girls batting their eyes at them and swishing their skirts around. If there was any animosity about Sam’s being half Cheyenne, the brothers had not felt it. And that was probably because Sam did not look like an Indian.

  Sam’s eyes were black, but without the cold obsidian look of a full blood. He had the high cheekbones of an Indian, but they were softened by some of his mother’s features. Sam was just a handsome man by anybody’s standards.

  The brothers bathed and shaved and slicked up well by frontier standards. They blackened their boots and dabbed some sweet-smelling cologne on their faces.

  “You boys cast your peepers on Cindy Carson,” Red told them. “We’ll tell you now that she’s sweet on Nick Lee. And we think she’s feedin’ him information about her daddy’s spread and to Circle S. Don’t say nothin’ to her that you don’t want repeated.”

  “Does her father know this?” Sam asked.

  “No,” Dodge told him. “She’s the apple of her daddy’s eye, that girl is. She can do nothin’ wrong. And Jeff don’t believe it, neither. We’ve all seen where she meets that little punk; tracks don’t lie. She’s got herself a paint pony that can damn near fly. She holds the reins in her right hand; she’s left-handed. You’re a tracker, Matt, you know that causes the pony to throw its gait peculiar. We’ve all trailed her to their meetin’ place over near a grove of cottonwoods by a crick. And they don’t hold hands and look tenderlike into each other’s eyes, neither. They get right down to business like married folks with the lamp out. Disgustin’.”

  “She’s a no-count whoor is what she is,” Tate said. “Sellin’ her daddy out. She ought to have a buggy whip taken to her backside.”

  As the brothers walked toward the big house, Sam said, “This Cindy throws a kink into matters.”

  “Sure does. Business plans are sure to come up at the table, and if the boys are right in their thinking
, she’s sure to report what is said to Nick.”

  “Want to see if we can’t cut her trail in the morning?”

  “You’re reading my mind, brother.”

  Ed and Nettie Carson were good people trying to live decently in the face of hard times. Their son, Noah, was a good-natured young man with a fast grin and a sense of humor. He and Gene Sparks shared a lot in common. Cindy was quite another story. She was a pretty but pouty thing with too much rouge on her cheeks and a smart-aleck mouth. Neither Matt nor Sam trusted her any farther than line of sight.

  “I never sat down at the table with no Injun before,” Cindy said, glaring at Sam.

  “I shall endeavor to master the complicated art of eating with knife and fork, miss,” Sam said. “However, don’t be alarmed if my savage heritage soon overcomes genteel manners and I begin to eat with my fingers.”

  Gene and Noah busted out laughing.

  Cindy glared hatred at Sam.

  No points gained there, Matt thought.

  “So you’re the famous gunfighter,” Cindy said, directing her venom toward Matt. “You’d better watch your step around these parts. There are men around here who’ll take those guns away from you and feed them to you.”

  “Cindy!” her mother said, giving her a look that should have shut the brat’s mouth immediately.

  It didn’t. But before she could spew any more poison, Matt said, “There are men who have tried that,” as he spooned mashed potatoes on his plate and covered them with chicken gravy. “I’m still here and they’re cold in the ground. Now why don’t we move the subject to something more appropriate for the dinner table?”

  “I agree,” Nettie said, looking at her daughter. “Cindy, tuck your napkin in your bodice and fill your mouth with food!”

  Noah grinned and winked at Matt.

  “What’s the word down at Pecos?” Jeff asked the boys.

  “Saw half a dozen hardcases head out, riding this way,” Noah told the man. “Saloon man said one of them was Hart, that Oklahoma gunslinger.”