Ralph Compton Brother's Keeper

by Ralph Compton

  “Bloodthirsty bunch,” Ned said.

  Thal leaned on his elbows and wearily bowed his head. They had been in the saddle all day and he was bone-tired. To say nothing of being hungry enough to eat a buffalo. He was imagining a thick slab of steak, dripping with fat juice, when he heard Ned address someone.

  “What do you two want?”

  Thal looked up.

  A pair of hard cases had come around the bar. They were dirty and unkempt, and heeled. Their beards were matted from neglect; their hair was greasy.

  The foremost had the build of a bulldog. Pugnaciously thrusting out his jaw, he pointed at Thal. “I’m here to talk to him.”

  “Me?” Thal said in surprise, straightening.

  “We hear you’re rude.”

  “Me?”

  Sagebrush Sally stepped from behind the pair, her hands on her wide hips. “Yes, you.”

  Thal’s temper flared. “The hell I was.”

  “Don’t be talkin’ to her like that,” the bulldog said. “Our friend Sal says you turned her down, and that was rude.”

  The other man nodded. “You owe her five dollars.”

  Thal should have known. The dove wanted her money, one way or the other. “I’m not payin’ her a cent.”

  “You’re not listenin’, mister,” the bulldog said. “You don’t have a choice. Pay Sal the money you owe or we’ll take it out of your hide.”

  “There are three of us,” Ned said, “and only two of you.”

  “Two is enough,” the bulldog said, and hitched at his belt.

  Chapter 22

  Mrs. Peal was in her parlor, knitting, when Ursula returned to the boardinghouse. Ursula greeted her and went to walk on by.

  “Troubles, dearie?” the older woman said.

  Ursula hesitated. Her landlady had shown a kindly nature, and she could use an ear to bend. “Mind if join you?”

  “Not at all,” Mrs. Peal said, her needles clacking. “I usually turn in earlier, but I couldn’t sleep tonight.”

  “I doubt I will much either,” Ursula said, claiming a chair close to the settee.

  “Is it your gentleman friend?” Mrs. Peal asked, and smiled. “I’ve seen how you look at him when he comes calling. You wear your heart on your sleeve, if you don’t mind my saying. But he’s a handsome one, I’ll give you that.”

  “Oh,” was all Ursula could think of to say.

  “I was your age once,” Mrs. Peal said. “I know how we are when we’re head over heels. At one time, my Claude was all I could think about. He’s gone now, and I miss him terribly. Between you and me, I can’t wait to join him. But the Good Lord is taking his sweet time about calling me to my reward.”

  “Did Claude and you ever spat?” Ursula made bold to ask.

  “Did we ever!” Mrs. Peal said with a grin. “In our younger days we were at each other’s throats now and again. Oh, he never struck me or anything like that. Claude was decent as the year is long. But we did argue. About finances. About where we should live. Those sorts of things.”

  “You ever argue about killing?”

  Mrs. Peal’s needles froze in her hands. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Jesse Lee—that’s his name—shot a man tonight. Only wounded him, but he might have done more if I hadn’t asked him not to.” Ursula gnawed her lower lip. “He didn’t like that. Said I was tying his wrists.”

  Setting her knitting in her lap, Mrs. Peal clasped her hands. “What did the man do that your Jesse Lee shot him?”

  “He and a friend were trying to impose themselves on me, and Jesse stopped them.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Peal said slowly. “There’s a lot of that goes on. Men imposing on women, I mean. You were fortunate to have someone to defend you.”

  “I’m thankful for that,” Ursula agreed. She was loath to think what might have happened had Jesse not been there.

  “This Jesse Lee of yours. I couldn’t help noticing his sidearm. Ivory handles say a lot about a man.”

  “He’s awful quick on the shoot,” Ursula said. “He didn’t like me butting in, though. He thinks it’s an obstacle to us getting along.”

  “Your butting in?”

  “No, that I didn’t want him to kill.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Peal said, and sat back. “The butting in I can understand. My mother used to say that the worst thing a wife can do is make a nuisance of herself by nagging her man about everything under the sun. Some women go so far as to insist everything be done their way, and if the man doesn’t, they nitpick him to death.”

  “That’s not me,” Ursula said.

  “Good for you. It’s a terrible habit. I had to work hard at keeping in mind that Claude had his own way of doing some things, and that didn’t make him wrong.”

  “Did Claude ever kill?”

  “I should say not.”

  “Jesse Lee has. Seven times.”

  “That many?” Mrs. Peal said, and coughed. “It’s a wonder he’s not behind bars.”

  “He’s not a bad man,” Ursula explained. “He doesn’t ever start his fights, but he sure finishes them.”

  “I see. What are his intentions regarding you?”

  “I was hoping they were to court me,” Ursula confessed. “But tonight he got mad at me. He said maybe he and me weren’t meant to be.”

  “What do you think?”

  Ursula had been wrestling with her feelings since the incident outside the Gem. She was of two minds. Part of her was appalled at the notion of a man who resorted to a six-shooter to settle a scrape. But that was her head talking. Her heart yearned for Jesse Lee to fold her in his arms. “I’m confused.”

  “About how you feel about him?”

  “No. I like him, Mrs. Peal. A lot. When I’m with him I get all warm inside. He makes me happy in a way no one ever has. I don’t quite know how to explain it.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” Mrs. Peal said. “It’s called love.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Ursula said. To her, love implied wanting him to get down on bended knee. But then again, she hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  “Perhaps not,” Mrs. Peal said with another grin. “But you might want to consider that often we don’t see what’s right in front of our face. Be that as it may, you’ve admitted you’re smitten. You want to spend more time with him. Get to know him better. Maybe work out if he’s the one for you.”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “Then you need to have a talk with yourself about whether to accept him as he is or bend him to your will.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “On the contrary, young lady, that’s the issue you face. Will he or will he not unbuckle his gun belt and never strap it on again if you asked him?”

  “I couldn’t ask that.”

  “But would he if you did? In your best estimation?”

  Ursula thought about it. Jesse Lee had told her his heroes were men like Wild Bill Hickok. Did his heroes count for more than she did? she wondered. Which was silly of her, she reckoned, since neither of them had made a commitment yet. “I honestly can’t say. We’ve only just begun to become acquainted. Although I doubt it.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Peal said. “Then let’s say you keep on getting acquainted, and down the road a piece, when you’ve been together awhile and matrimony is in the air, what then? Would he, you think?”

  “You ask hard questions.”

  “A woman has to if she wants to stand on her own two feet and not work in a saloon or a sporting house. I learned that from my mother too. Pick the right man and you’ll have a good life. Pick the wrong one and you’ll be miserable most of your days.”

  “How do you know if a man is right or not?”

  “That’s easy. Will he stand by you? Does he ask your opinion and not decide everything for h
imself? Does he only think you’re good for cleaning and cooking or does he regard you as a person?”

  “I wouldn’t know any of that about Jesse Lee.”

  “It’s worth finding out,” Mrs. Peal said. “Especially if you aim to spend your whole life with him. Take it slow, is my advice. Find out what makes him tick. And if you like what you find, throw your loop, as the cowboys say.”

  Ursula laughed.

  “As for the other, that’s on your shoulders. You said yourself that your Jesse Lee isn’t a bad man. Then he must be a good man who stands up for his principles. Men like that won’t be abused. They won’t be put upon, or insulted. And they’ll back it up with their six-guns if they have to.”

  “That’s not wrong, you don’t think? The six-gun part?”

  “Without men of principle, where would we be? Men who stand up for themselves and for others are the backbone of society. They become lawmen, or soldiers. They’re willing to lay down their lives for what they believe, and not everybody can say that.”

  “I don’t know what Jesse Lee aims to become.”

  “Come right out and ask him,” Mrs. Peal advised. “If he’s half the man you think he is, he’ll come clean.”

  “I don’t know,” Ursula said uncertainly. She might find out that Jesse Lee was only interested in acquiring a reputation like Hickok’s. “I might not like what I learn.”

  “There are no guarantees when it comes to love,” Mrs. Peal said.

  That night, Ursula slept fitfully. She had a nightmare in which she chased after Jesse across a terrifying landscape where the trees were red and orange, not green, and bizarre shapes were everywhere. She finally caught up to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, only to have him shrug it off, climb onto a horse, and leave her standing in the dust. Her mother liked to say that dreams were an omen, and if so, this one wasn’t to her liking.

  At breakfast with the other boarders, she hardly said ten words. Afterward, she stepped out into the bright sunshine of the new day, and her heart sank. The past couple of days, Jesse Lee had been on the porch waiting for her. Not this morning.

  Worried, Ursula crossed the street to the empty lot. She was relieved to see his horse. Not that she could imagine him deserting her. She went around a pine and stopped.

  Hunkered by his fire, Jesse Lee was putting his coffeepot on. “Mornin’, ma’am,” he said without looking up.

  “Are you still mad at me?” Ursula asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  Ursula didn’t buy it. Something was wrong. “If not, then what’s the matter? You’re not yourself this morning.”

  “I’m the same gent I’ve been since you met me.” Jesse took the lid off the pot, peered inside, and placed the lid back. Slowly unfurling, he said, “I’d offer you a chair if I had one.”

  “Posh,” Ursula said, and going over, she sat across from him, her legs tucked under her. “We need to clear the air.”

  “It’s clear for me,” Jesse Lee said.

  “I might have given you the wrong impression last night,” Ursula said. “I don’t hold it against you, shooting that man.”

  Squatting, Jesse Lee said, “You didn’t like it, though.”

  “Well, of course not. A man was shot, after all.”

  “And there you go.” Jesse Lee turned his attention to the coffeepot.

  Stung and perplexed, Ursula composed herself before trying her next sally. “I have a hard time following you sometimes. There what goes?”

  “It became obvious last night, Miss Christie,” Jesse Lee said, his Southern drawl more pronounced than usual, “that you don’t cotton to shootists.”

  “I cotton to you,” Ursula said brazenly.

  “But not my pistol. And you can’t have one without the other.”

  Ursula recalled her talk in the parlor with Mrs. Peal. “Let me ask you something, if you would be so kind.”

  “Anything,” Jesse Lee said.

  “Were I to ask you to give up your gun, to set it aside and never strap it on again as long as you lived, what would you say?”

  “Good-bye.”

  “You would choose your pistol over me?”

  “No. You’d do the choosin’. It’s both or none.”

  “How can you be so attached to a gun? Don’t human beings count for more than metal and ivory?”

  “Who could answer that any way but yes? But the thing is, ma’am—”

  “If you don’t call me Ursula, I’ll scream.”

  “The thing is, Ursula, there are a lot of human beings runnin’ around who don’t give a rat’s whisker about other human beings. Hostiles. Killers, you name it. They will do you in if they think they can get away with it.”

  “Ah,” Ursula said. “You’d rather not be done in, so you wear that Colt for protection.”

  Jesse Lee looked at her in shock. “How can you think so poorly of me?”

  “What did I do now?”

  “Only a coward wears a six-gun for that reason. And I ain’t ever been afraid of any man.”

  “I believe you. Then why—”

  He didn’t let her finish. “This Colt,” he said, patting his, “is a tool. It’s only as good, or bad, as the gent who uses it. I wear it because sometimes I run into fools like those two last night. Not because I’m afraid to run into them. But so when I do, I can use my Colt to keep them from buryin’ me, or anyone else.”

  He pondered for a few moments, then said, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

  Mrs. Peal, Ursula reflected, had used the very same word. “You wear a gun because you won’t be imposed on by those who do wrong.”

  Jesse Lee smiled. “You have it at last. I wouldn’t go anywhere without my Colt. I’d feel undressed. So if you want to be in my company, you have to accept both of us.”

  Ursula had a sense that she was about to make one of the most important decisions of her life. “If I say I do, can we go to the theater again tonight?”

  “If I have to shoot somebody, it won’t upset you?”

  “So long as you are in the right, no, not ever.”

  Jesse Lee smiled. “What is it folks say? You must be a glutton for punishment.”

  Ursula looked him in the eye, and that warm feeling came over her. “I’m a glutton for something,” she said.

  Chapter 23

  Thal had never drawn his revolver on anyone in his life. He’d never wanted to. He wasn’t Jesse Lee. When confronted, he preferred to find a peaceable solution. It was just his nature. Now, as the angry bulldog glaring at him stood ready to draw on him, he braced himself.

  Ned took half a step and thrust a finger at Sagebrush Sally’s belligerent friend. “Leave my pard be. We’re not payin’ that gal a penny. She didn’t do anything to deserve it.”

  “She offered to, but you threw it in her face,” the bulldog snarled. “A lady should be treated with more respect.”

  Ned didn’t help matters by laughing and saying, “A lady? Mister, have you looked at her lately? Wearin’ a dress doesn’t make a woman a lady. It’s what’s inside the dress, and inside that dress is nothin’ but a whore.”

  “Did he just insult her?” Sally’s other defender said.

  “I believe he did,” the bulldog declared.

  “I never did like cowboys,” the other man said.

  “Me neither,” bulldog said.

  “Hurt them for me, Zant,” Sagebrush Sally said, placing her hand on the bulldog’s arm. “Hurt them bad.” She grinned with glee at the prospect.

  “I believe I will,” Zant said, and held his hand with his fingers spread wide close to his six-shooter.

  Crawford had edged closer to Thal and Ned. “If he goes for his, all three of us jerk our Colts at the same time,” he advised. “He can’t get all three of us.”

  “The two of us can,” th
e other man said.

  “You ready, Simpson?” Zant said.

  “Born ready,” the other man said.

  Thal couldn’t quite believe it was happening. He’d known that American City was wide-open, but he hadn’t really expected to be braced by any of its wilder element.

  “Any last words before you meet your Maker?” Zant taunted. He was enjoying this, like a bulldog worrying a bone.

  From behind them someone said, “I have a few.”

  Only then did Thal realize the saloon had fallen completely quiet. He figured it was because of the gun affray about to take place, but he was wrong.

  Bull had returned, and he wasn’t alone.

  The newcomer looked a lot like Thal, only his hair was darker and he was considerably thinner. His eyes were a piercing blue, his chin a spear-point. He wore a tailored suit and polished boots and a flat-crowned black hat with a short brim. A slight bulge under his left arm betrayed a shoulder holster. But it was the object he held in his right hand that drew the most attention: a double-barreled, English-made shotgun with a walnut stock. The barrels had been filed off so that they were barely a dozen inches long, while the stock had been sawed and rounded so it fit the man’s hand like the handles of a pistol. Both hammers were cocked.

  “Shotgun!” Zant blurted, and straightened.

  Simpson took a step to one side, as taken aback as his partner. “We weren’t doin’ nothin’,” he said.

  “Looked like it to me,” the man they’d called Shotgun said. “Looked to me like you were about to shoot him.” He flicked a finger at Thal.

  “The cowpoke and his friends insulted Sally,” Gant said. “We were only standin’ up for her.”

  “It’s nothin’ for you to be bothered over,” Simpson said.

  The thin man’s smile was pure ice. “I shouldn’t be bothered that you two were about to shoot my brother?”

  “Bro . . . ?” Zant said, and was too shocked to finish.

  “The hell you say,” Simpson said, more than a touch of fear in his voice. He took another step to the side.

  The thin man looked at Thal, and the ice was replaced by genuine warmth. “Thalis,” he said.