It was all an accident. I’d seen Breed shoot, and the last thing he was likely to hit was what he was aiming at. He was lucky his first bullet hit that man in the ankle and knocked him down. He wasn’t so lucky with his second bullet, because it hit Cindy the instant she ran between the two of them. She fell fast, and I knew she was dead the instant she hit the porch.
Papa and Clayton were both shouting something, and Cindy’s mama was shrieking inside the store. A cluster of horses went by me at a run. It was one of our hands leading a pair of saddled horses for Gunn and Breed.
I must have passed out, for I don’t remember anything after that. The family thinks I didn’t even see any of it and that I went unconscious before it all happened. I don’t tell them any different, but I saw it all. Wish I hadn’t, because some things are hard to take.
They buried Cindy and Prince Lowe in the town cemetery two days later. I heard that Wells’s wife and three children came down in a wagon all the way from Kansas and took him home. Breed’s bullet had busted his ankle so bad that they said he was never going to walk right again.
I was in no shape to attend Cindy’s funeral, even if Clayton Lowe would have let me.
Gunn and Breed went on the scout, with the county sheriff and Lucius Pike and a company of Rangers looking for them. There was a rumor that Clayton put a five-hundred-dollar bounty on Gunn’s head on the sly, dead not alive. Hamish offered to defend Gunn in court, but none of us knew where Gunn was. Some said he went to Old Mexico and some said he went to Arizona. I never heard from him, but none of us were much for writing letters.
A week after that, I packed my bedroll, saddled my favorite horse, and drove the rest of my horses out of the trap and down the road until I passed them through the gate. Last I saw of them, they were running as loose and free as a herd of mustangs. I like to think they’re still running.
I could have gone in any direction, but it didn’t matter, so I let my horse take me where he would. It was a big world, and even a horse knows when it’s time to run. Things can follow you, but running for the sake of running is sometimes good for the soul. I needed to find balance again.
PART III
ARGYLE
Chapter Forty-one
1894
Porches are something I never thought I would like, but you can see a long ways from a porch with a good view—things that are and things that only were, years from now or years before. The brandy helps.
There was a time I could never quit moving. I spent most of my life chasing one thing or another, but I found myself sitting more and more. I’d blame it on my aching joints, but I simply got lazy. There was no excuse for it. No man ever made anything of himself sitting. If I had to pick between smarts and ambition, I’ll take the man with some drive every time. Living in the past isn’t living. Moving is the only way to keep ahead, because life doesn’t wait on anyone.
Drought, drought, and more drought, the worst I had ever seen. Two years’ worth, and there was no end in sight. The country was so dry and burnt that I had almost forgotten the feel of rain. Heat lightning played across the evening sky to the west, only teasing me, but I hoped for a storm anyway. Call me a bullheaded old fool. I’ve been called that before.
I set my empty glass aside while I watched Paco moving a set of yearling heifers into the corrals. I wished there was somebody to help him besides his ten-year-old son, but I couldn’t afford the help. Paco came up from the village from time to time when I needed him for a little day work.
It was hard to admit that I could barely afford to pay one old man every now and then, even to myself, but I despise sugarcoating things. No whining, no excuses, no saying you’re sorry. Good enough to live by.
At least those Hereford heifers would bring me good money. Even the boys laughed at me when I started buying them, but I was right. A man intending to make money needs to think ahead, and a blind man could have seen the longhorn’s day was going to come to an end. Those Herefords made money and would again. Half the ranches in West Texas owed their herds to the seed stock I sold them.
Gunn’s parole had finally come through and they were letting him out of the Huntsville prison. Seven years was a long time for a man to be locked up. Them sending him there in the first place was the damnedest tragedy of justice in the history of Clay County. I don’t care if Gunn went on the run and didn’t turn himself in for two years. It wasn’t right. He didn’t kill that girl. Breed Collins did, and they hung him for it. Things should have been squared.
I did everything I could. Dragged that case out for two years and kept Gunn out of prison that much longer. It cost me five thousand dollars to hire good lawyers to defend him, but Clayton Lowe had that jury in his pocket. Half of them owed him money—damned cotton farmers and hayseeds, most of them. I should have never listened to Hamish and brought in those Dallas lawyers. Should have bought that jury myself instead.
I told Gunn not to go after those Lowes, but he wouldn’t listen. Never would. But I don’t blame him. God hates a coward, and a man doesn’t let someone beat a family member half to death without doing something about it. The law wouldn’t have done anything to Prince, just like they let Moon off with a pat on the wrist for what he did to Joseph.
My boys.
Joseph was always a strange one. He was the best hand with a horse I ever saw and knew range cattle in a way few men did, but that didn’t mean I could ever figure him out. Did the best I could for him, but he never would take ahold of life. Then he quit me. Did my best for all of them. Juanita thinks that the Lowe girl getting killed broke Joseph up more than he could take, and that could be. He was always skittish and worried, and no fire in his belly. Too soft, and this country won’t abide a soft man, no matter how good he was.
Somebody in a buggy was wheeling up the road. My eyes were still as good as ever, and I could tell it was Hamish before he even made it to the corrals. At least he didn’t have Tiffany with him. That girl was a quite a gem, but he usually only brought her along so he could avoid the hard talk between us, counting on me to be the polite old man in her presence. It was about time we had a real talk. He had been hinting around of late about things I didn’t like.
“Don’t be stubborn, or you’ll run him off again.” Juanita brushed against me in passing. Men used to sneak glances at her when they thought I wasn’t looking. She was once the prettiest woman in three counties, and if it weren’t for Tiffany, she still would have been. Sarah was pretty like that. A man like me was lucky to have found two such beauties in one lifetime.
I didn’t think of Sarah much, except sometimes when I can’t sleep. I know the boys still blame me for that, but we all have to move on. Some say that time heals all wounds, but I don’t know that it’s true. I think such wounds never really heal, but some are tough enough to suffer them.
“I’ll say whatever needs said.”
“I’ve heard you tell your sons more than once not to give advice until someone asks for it.”
“I’m his father. I don’t need his leave to give my opinion.”
“You know what he’s come for.”
“I’ve already given him my answer. That boy’s a stubborn fool if he asks a second time.”
“That boy is a forty-something-year-old man. People think highly of him. They say he could run for senator and probably win.”
“I’ve always listened to him, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with him.”
“All he wants is for you to see how good he has done. Don’t you see he wants to show you that he can do things?”
Juanita went back inside before I could say anything else.
The hat Hamish was wearing was the silliest thing I ever saw. Town hat. The brim on it wouldn’t shade enough sun to matter. It was a hat for a man that was rarely outdoors.
That’s a Harvard man for you. He spent a fortune at that college to unlearn every smart thing I taught him, and spent all of his time and efforts politicking down in Fort Worth and trying to figure out what k
ind of business would make him money in the city when he should have stuck to cattle and land like I tried to teach him.
“Hello, Papa.” Hamish took a little cast-iron weight with a rope on it from the floorboard of the buggy. He snapped the rope to the bit ring on the near horse and dropped the weight on the ground.
“That team acts green broke and spooky. I wouldn’t trust them to stand tied to that little thing.”
“I believe they’ll stand fine.”
“Suit yourself, but I’ve seen the time when a man was careful he didn’t end up afoot.”
Hamish took a seat on the edge of the porch far enough from me that he could twist around occasionally and look my way. “It sure is dry. I’ve never seen it like this.”
“It’s been bad before. You were gone a long time.”
“When was it worse?”
“It will rain again. Always does.”
“You don’t have any more time. I talked to the bank. The foreclosure papers are going through.”
“Gunn will be home this week, or maybe the week after. I’ve got Paco putting together a fancy set of heifers. Man up at Fort Hays, Kansas, said he would take two hundred of them for a good price.”
“The price of two hundred heifers isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to what you need. The ranch is broke. You’re always so damned proud of your business sense, so why can’t you admit that?”
“I didn’t say it would solve everything. Just a start. I don’t need you to tell me the predicament I’m in.”
“You’re broke and that’s all there is to it.”
“There’s always something in your way if you want to amount to anything. First it was Indians and tornadoes and prairie fire, and now it’s bankers and trainloads of farmers dumb enough to think they can make a living off a quarter section of free ground where it never rains.
“I started this ranch with nothing but what we could put in two wagons. Brought you out here when nobody in their right mind would set a foot in this country. Don’t tell me about hard times. I’ve got the scars, boy.”
“I was there, too.” Hamish sighed.
I hated when he did that. My generation would never sigh at our elders. It was a sign of disrespect, and it was a sign of patronizing an old man.
“You owe almost a quarter of a million dollars to the bank, and you couldn’t even make the interest payment this year. Everything you own is mortgaged,” Hamish said. “That’s the story I’m here to talk about.”
“Those bankers were more than glad to take my money when I was making it hand over fist. Damn lot of crooks is what they are.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining every time you needed more money than you had and were wanting a loan.”
“Is that what you came up here for, to tell me how nice my bankers are?”
“No, I came here to advise you. That’s what you pay me for.”
“I pay you because it grates on me to pay any lawyer, but it’s some easier when it’s my son.”
“The Brits’ offer is still on the table.”
“I won’t sell. I’ve already told them that. If I wanted to sell out I would have done it ten years ago. They aren’t the first foreigners to try and buy me out.”
“If I’m right, the bank is going to sell it to them anyway when the foreclosure is final. They don’t even know that the syndicate is making this offer to you. The bank thinks they’ll foreclose on you and make a little profit above your loans. The Brits think they can buy it cheaper off you than they can the bank.”
I knocked my chair over getting up and stepped off the porch.
“There’s a chance the bank might break up the ranch and sell it off piecemeal,” Hamish added.
“It will be a cold day in hell when I see this place broken up and plowed into farms.”
I thought better when I could pace, and it did me good to be able to kick the dirt once in a while when I was mad. Hamish didn’t know much about the cow business, but he was right. Leave it to him to understand things when it came down to the books and pencil-pushing, tightfisted bankers. The only thing left was to make the best of the bad.
Back in the early ’80s, every rich Englishman and Scotsman with the ability to sell some bonds or put a syndicate together wanted to own a ranch in the United States. Many of the old-time cattlemen, men that had never done much more than keep their heads above water in the cattle business, cashed in and sold out. Some of them made a killing. I turned down almost a half-million dollars for the ranch twice in those years.
But things were booming then and the ranch was growing. Over and over, after every good year, I took everything the ranch made and sunk it back into the business. A man has to think big if he wants to be big. You can’t build anything unless you’re willing to take some risks, and I took plenty.
I’ll be the first to admit I blew through some money I shouldn’t have. I like good brandy and a fine cigar, and those don’t come cheap. I used to entertain the important folks from down at the capital and over to Fort Worth, cattle buyers, tycoon ranchers, bankers, and even a politician or two wanting my vote and my blessing, God forgive me. General Sherman even came to the house once and danced in the parlor with Juanita. Back in those days the ranch’s future looked like a big bowl of gravy.
And then the blizzards came. I was better prepared than most, but I still lost stock. And then the cow market went to hell and the farmers and homesteaders came, crying for the state to open up the lease land. That meant buying more ground. Cows would only make a man so much, and the real estate men waiting at the trains for those farmers drove the cost of ground up so high that it was impossible to make a profit. Money, money, and more money, most of it pouring through my fingers like a sieve.
“Sell out. I got the Brits to make a new offer,” Hamish said. “Same deal as before, except you keep the headquarters and its three sections and your choice of two sections on the river,” Hamish said.
“Easy for you to say. You don’t give a damn about this ranch.”
Hamish held out an envelope. “It gets worse.”
I took the envelope. It had the state seal stamped on it. “What is it?”
“The state ruled in Clayton Lowe’s favor. You’ve got to give him easement through your fence. The law says that you can’t block access to public lands.”
“I lease those school sections for grazing. There’s a damned gate to go through if they ever want to build a school inside the ranch.”
“You didn’t pay the lease, but it doesn’t matter. The state’s putting some of those school sections up for auction.”
“Never thought it would come to this.”
“Sell off everything but here and along the river. The Brits are counting on being able to outbid everyone for the state school sections. They think they can put together one of the biggest ranches in Texas. Selling to them might be the only way to keep Clayton Lowe’s land office from moving farmers on our ground.”
“Our ground?”
“I never said I didn’t care about this place. I put a lot of years into it, right beside you,” Hamish said. “And God knows I don’t have any more use for Clayton Lowe than you do.”
“First time I ever gave up.”
“You always said that you have to fight with your brains and not just your fists. Selling off most of the ranch won’t pay you totally out of debt, but it will buy you some time and give you a chance.”
“Tell them to draw up the papers and I’ll sign them,” I said. “But I keep all of the old headright on the river and the headquarters. And I keep two hundred of my best heifers and ten bulls.”
“They won’t go for that. Place isn’t worth it without access to the river. How about the headquarters and half the headright on the river? Say you keep the three sections immediately north of the headquarters and the same cut of the stock? I think they’ll go for that.”
“How much commission are you charging me for this deal? I know you lawyers don’t work cheap.”
/> “You haven’t paid me your retainer fee in six months.”
“Bill me again. I must have lost my mail.”
“This one’s on the house.”
“Business must be good in Fort Worth.”
“One of my first clients, a stubborn old cowman you might know, made everyone think I knew what I was doing. People did business with me on his say-so.” Hamish went back to his buggy and undid the ground tie.
I wasn’t about to let him have the last word. “You’re lucky those horses didn’t drag that weight off.”
“You’re going to have to ride the train down to Fort Worth to sign the papers. Be there next Monday.”
“I’ll be there. I can still find my way around.”
Hamish climbed in the buggy and wheeled it around in the yard.
“The brand doesn’t come with the place,” I called after him. “They don’t buy the brand. You tell them that.”
I don’t know if Hamish heard me. He raised one hand over his shoulder at me as he drove away, but that didn’t mean anything. He never would listen.
Chapter Forty-two
I couldn’t sleep that night. There was going to be a lot to do. I would have to make a range count of the herd to finalize the sale, and I needed to hire some help for Paco and me. Maybe old Miguel would help, if he could still ride a horse. And I would have to wire that man up in Kansas and tell him that the heifers weren’t for sale anymore, because I was going to need them to start over.
Sixty-six years old and starting over. It could be done, but a man has only so much time. I was thirty-eight when I first came to this country and nothing to my name besides the thought that everything I left back in Alabama was gone. Years I had spent building up that plantation, and then all of it was lost to the war. I had all that indignity to drive me, and what seemed like forever to get it done. But it wasn’t going to be like that again. The indignity was there, but time had finally caught up with me. That made me madder than anything could.
Destiny, Texas Page 22