The Sons of Grady Rourke

by Douglas Savage

  One day later, Patrick and Liam rode down the same lane. When the braggart who killed Cyrus boasted about it over a San Patricio campfire, Liam heard the story for the first time. The blood left his face and he lit out hard for the ranch. Patrick could not catch him for half an hour.

  JOHN CHISUM, CATTLE baron, had seen enough of San Patricio’s privy. One day after reaching South Spring River, he packed his carpetbag, hitched his best team to his best buckboard, and rode east as far as the first rail spur for the train to St. Louis.

  Wearing the same shirt he had worn for a week in the saddle, Alexander McSween mounted his horse and rode west with Billy Bonney at his side. The last of Chisum’s hired hands followed them back to San Patricio.

  Ten miles up the trail to the north, Sean Rourke got drunk in Manuel’s cantina and stayed drunk for ten days. At first light every day before the town awoke, he staggered to Tunstall’s store and stumbled behind the empty corral. With the sun barely creeping over the eastern mountains, he stood each morning in silence and burped through tears at the fresh mound of soggy earth next to John Tunstall’s grave.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE LAWYER LOVED IT. RIDING IN THE DARK WITH SIXTY gunmen behind him like an army, Alexander McSween rode with his right hand resting on the handle of his revolver. With Chisum gone, command of the Regulators had fallen upon him. Billy Bonney rode at his side like a loyal lap dog. McSween spit a ribbon of chaw over his knee into the darkness. Leaving behind the squinty-eyed drudgery of his law books, he felt like a gunfighter and it seemed to make his very bones harder.

  The night breeze of Sunday, July 14, blew through the corners of McSween’s drooping, black mustache. The whiskers tickled the corners of his mouth like invisible fairy fingers. A bright crescent Moon reflected from McSween’s grin and happy eyes.

  “You all right. Mr. McSween?”

  The leader of the Regulators tightened his hand on his holster and turned to the rider at his side.

  “Just fine, Billy. Never fitter.”

  The army of Chisum men rode beside a dozen local Hispanics who felt abused for years by the usurious interest rates charged by the House during its administrations of Lawrence Murphy and then Jimmy Dolan. Near midnight Sunday, they rode into Lincoln from the west in column of threes. Sheriff Peppin and most of his forty deputies were gone from town, out in the wilderness searching for the Regulators. Only Jack Long and five House men held the town from their makeshift fortress inside the old Indian, stone tower, the torréon, which Alex McSween owned. Twenty feet tall and twenty feet wide, it commanded a view of the entire village.

  The Regulators tied up at the Ellis store on Lincoln’s far east end, adjacent to the home of José Montaño and his store. Across the street and two hundred yards to the south, the House eyeballs in the stone tower watched nervously as the Regulators deployed.

  During the first minutes of Monday, the Regulators split into three squadrons of armed men: twenty Mexicans stayed at Montaño’s under the command of Martín Chavez; another two dozen boarded in the Isaac Ellis home to cover the eastern end of the street; and fourteen men followed Billy Bonney and McSween to the lawyer’s home.

  There was hardly room to move in the McSween house. Though spacious, the single-story adobe structure was not designed to accommodate sixteen men. Sue McSween, and David Shield and his wife made eighteen adults in the light of oil lamps. The five Shield children slept on the floor with babies bundled in bureau drawers.

  “We got lucky tonight, Mr. McSween.”

  “How’s that, Billy?”

  “The sheriff and them Rio Grande Posse boys being out looking for us.”

  “Let’s hope they think we’ve all gone to Texas.”

  LINCOLN WAS QUIET Monday morning. Sixty horses in paddocks and at hitching posts represented an army of occupation. John Long’s men in the stone tower slept on their weapons. Unless the Regulators chose to starve them to death, they were safe inside.

  Sean Rourke stepped into the overcast day. He looked up the street toward the end controlled by Regulators. Beyond the Wortley’s paddock, Deputy Long’s position stood against the gray sky. Sean rubbed his forehead. He had stopped drinking yesterday and awoke with the worst headache since a Confederate artillery shell had detonated prematurely on a caisson in front of his face sixteen years earlier. His eyes could not tolerate even the misty daylight so he went back into the boarding house for coffee and biscuits.

  “Whiskey, Señor Rourke?” Manuel asked. He knew Sean’s breakfast choice since the San Patricio ambush.

  Sean looked at the pleasant Mexican. He thought of the Regulators camped in and around McSween’s house.

  “I think coffee today.”

  Every hour, Sean walked outside to survey the uneasy quiet. Not a single citizen walked the dirt street. Tunstall’s store was closed tightly, but it was not empty. Taylor Ealy, the physician, his wife, and their two tiny daughters had moved into the backroom quarters where Mr. and Mrs. Shield had boarded.

  When Sean went out at one o’clock, the thin air carried a certain buzz of voices from the concealed Regulators. He looked to his right just as George Peppin and his posse rode slowly into town. Sean estimated that Peppin’s brigade had grown to at least sixty men, including Jesse Evans and all of the Boys, John Kinney’s red-eyed Rangers, and a dozen Seven Rivers Warriors. Sean had to smile as he watched the group dismount and unsaddle in the Wortley’s paddock. The force of Law in Lincoln looked more like a hall of fame for cattle rustlers, bushwhackers, and rapists.

  Manuel kept the hot coffee coming for an hour until everyone was wetted.

  “They’re coming!” one of the Seven Rivers rustlers shouted from the cantina window.

  Sixty men ran over each other to take positions at the Wortley’s outside corners, behind the paddock water troughs, and around the base of the Indian tower. Up the road, a dozen Mexicans were jogging in single file from the Montaño store on the south side of the street toward McSween’s headquarters on the north side.

  The Rio Grande Posse opened fire, throwing large clods of mud into the air around the running Mexicans. The Regulators slunk back toward the store and barricaded themselves inside. They fired from the windows at the stone tower. The boarding house was too far away. No one in McSween’s house could fire west toward the hotel since the Watson house was in the way, and they could not fire east at the stone torréon since Tunstall’s store blocked that field of fire. So everyone just popped in the general direction of the enemy without doing serious damage to anyone. Gunfire rattled for half an hour—the first thirty minutes of the Lincoln County War.

  When darkness settled over a brittle stillness, Billy Bonney slipped out of McSween’s home and took horse along the Rio Bonito riverbank. He walked his horse by hand until he was beyond the back side of the Wortley. Then he rode hell-bent toward the Rourke ranch. He arrived at nine o’clock to find Liam sitting on the front porch beside Melissa Bryant who held her daughter asleep in her lap. Patrick sat opposite them and did not get up to fetch his iron at the sound of hoofbeats approaching at the gallop.

  “Evening, Billy.”

  The boy dismounted out-of-breath.

  “Patrick; Liam. Ma’am. It’s started, Patrick. We’re all down in town now: all us Regulators and all of the sheriff’s boys. You have to come. We need your guns: you and Liam.”

  “You ain’t got no shortage of killers, William Bonney.” Bonita answered on words like ice from the doorway. “Now you just git. We’re done with all that. You took my Cyrus already. Ain’t that enough?”

  Bonita was not weeping. Her voice trembled with rage. Had she come out with one of the sergeant’s Winchesters, Billy would have been dead by now.

  “I have a ranch to run, Billy. Liam and I ain’t leaving. You’re welcome to sit and rest for a while. You’re welcome to the jug, too. Then you go on.”

  “Now you know I promised my Ma before she died that I wouldn’t do no hard liquor.”

  Billy sat down o
n the porch floor. He kept a careful watch on Bonita’s white eye.

  “Where’s Sean?” Patrick looked down at the teenager. His light hair was flecked with mud in the lamp light.

  “Holed up with Peppin’s bunch at the Wortley.”

  Patrick nodded.

  “I ain’t drawing down on my brother no more. I’m staying here.”

  Billy finally caught his breath as he played with his sweat-stained hat. He spoke to the ground.

  “Sean’s took up with Jesse and Kinney’s Rangers. You know what them Rio Grande Posse boys is after, don’t you, Patrick? Sean owes Jesse. I ain’t certain for what. But he can’t give up if Jesse’s there.”

  Before Billy drew another breath, Melissa stood and shifted Abigail’s sleeping weight in her arms. She pushed past Bonita and entered the house. When Bonita followed her, she slammed the door.

  “Womenfolk,” Patrick smiled until he glanced over at his brother’s vacuous eyes. “This ain’t our fight no more, Billy.”

  The boy stood and put on his crumbling hat.

  “Then I ain’t responsible if Kinney’s posse comes after them women and the little girl.”

  “No, you ain’t,” Patrick said. His eyes narrowed. “Be careful in the dark.”

  With a wave of his hand, Billy mounted and spurred his horse toward town.

  Patrick looked at Liam. Moonlight glistened in Liam’s eyes which seemed momentarily alive again. When Liam’s lips moved, Patrick leaned forward. Liam could not make his words come at first. His brother waited until he was ready.

  “You done right. It ain’t our fight.”

  “That’s right, Liam. But it ain’t right for Sean to ride with them kind.”

  The light behind Liam’s eyes went out again and he looked down at the floor for several minutes.

  “Yes it is,” Liam mumbled.

  “What?”

  “It’s right for Sean to ride with them kind.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Liam spoke softly toward his dirty boots.

  “Melissa had a field colt.”

  “What?” Patrick worked to keep his voice low.

  “Melissa had a field colt. That doc she done at Roswell got rid of it.”

  “How do you know that.”

  Liam looked up with tormented eyes.

  “I know.”

  “This ain’t more of your spirit-keeper gibberish, is it?”

  Liam lowered his face while Patrick watched him closely.

  “It’s true then?”

  Liam nodded, stood up, and shuffled inside. He closed the door and left his brother sitting alone in the half darkness of a moonlit night. Patrick sat and listened to the braying of Chisum’s cattle all around the house. After fifteen minutes, he went inside.

  Only a single oil lamp illuminated the greatroom. Melissa and Abigail were asleep in the bedroom. Bonita puttered in the kitchen. When Cyrus did not come home, Bonita claimed the cot in the loft. Sometimes Patrick slept by the hearth and sometimes he joined Liam in the barn. He felt that Melissa joined Liam out there from time to time. But he could not be certain. Patrick knew only that her silence was a gulf between them and that he would never swim in it.

  “Liam, I have to go to Sean.”

  “Why?”

  The youngest brother’s voice was cool.

  “I have to. You can stay here and guard the house.”

  Bonita came out from the kitchen and stood close to Patrick.

  “Ain’t Cyrus enough, Patrick Rourke?”

  “Liam will stay here. You take good care of Melissa and Abbey. For me.”

  Bonita read the sadness in his eyes. She knew the way he watched Melissa move. The woman sighed and faced Liam.

  “Then you go with him. You watch out for each other.”

  Liam shrugged and walked outside.

  “He still ain’t up to it, Bonita. Leave him be.”

  Without another word, Patrick put on his gunbelt and long duster. He carried his hat and one of the Winchesters when he went through the doorway.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Liam nodded and put an arm around one of the timbers holding up the porch roof as if to anchor himself forever to the ranch of his father.

  Bonita filled the dimly lighted doorway. The fireplace turned Patrick’s back into a shimmering red shadow until the darkness swallowed him as he walked to the barn.

  “You go with him, Liam.”

  Liam held the timber and did not turn around.

  “So help me, boy, you go with your brother or I’ll go to Lincoln and tell the whole world what you done in the Anny.” Her words were seething through clenched teeth. Liam turned a questioning face toward her.

  “Cyrus told me how you cut and run. You got a spine of jelly.”

  “I went back for Cyrus at the end.”

  “Because he protected you. You went back for Liam Rourke.” She spoke his name as if it tasted bitter on her tongue. When she went inside, Liam walked head-bowed toward his dark garden.

  PATRICK WAITED FOR daylight Tuesday before he rode into town. It was safer that way. Once he was on the trail, he wondered where to go. Because he had ridden with the Regulators, he knew that Sheriff Peppin probably had a warrant for his arrest, too. By the time first light caught the top of the torréon, he knew that he should start where he was welcome. He rode along the riverbank until he came to the back of McSween’s house. Turning his horse out into the paddock, he looked east to the next building: Tunstall’s store. He paused to gaze on the mound of earth where Cyrus Buchanan lay beside John Tunstall.

  Billy Bonney waited for him at the doorway. Before they could exchange greetings, the morning crackled with gunfire. Patrick sprinted toward the house where he found shoulder-to-shoulder gunfighters, two women, and five little children.

  Men at McSween’s windows tried to locate the firing.

  “From them hills, looks like,” someone called. Alex McSween put hardly more face than an eyeball around the sill of the hole in the adobe wall. Tiny puffs of smoke appeared atop a hill south of town behind Jimmy Dolan’s deserted house. The Regulators could see muzzle flashes almost two seconds before each rifle report. Looking eastward up the street, they saw white flecks of adobe dust bursting along the upper edge of the south wall on José Montaño’s house where half a dozen sharpshooters lay on the roof. Before anyone could get hurt, the men on the roof inched on their bellies to the front and shimmied down to the ground. Then they ran inside to safety.

  “Welcome to Lincoln,” the lawyer said, offering his hand to Patrick.

  “I come to fetch my brother.”

  “Not much of a day to walk down the main street,” McSween chuckled over the sound of sniper fire outside. “Besides, you’re a wanted man down at the Wortley just like the rest of us.” The house filled with mean-spirited laughter. “At least until we take our town back.”

  Patrick stood not quite at ease. He studied McSween’s face. He remembered it as flaccid and rather youthful. Now it was wind-burned and tanned with white lines creasing at the corners of the eyes. Gunplay and life on the run seemed to agree with the lawyer.

  “Guess so,” Patrick said softly.

  “Good. Billy, pour the man a drink to wash the trail down.”

  “Soldiers coming!” a lookout called down from the roof before Billy could answer.

  “How many?” McSween shouted.

  “Just one. One of them darkies from the fort.”

  A private approached on horseback from the west, past George Peppin’s house on the north side of the street, and on toward the Wortley a few hundred yards further east.

  “Put one at his feet,” McSween called to the ceiling.

  The soldier was bringing a written dispatch to Sheriff Peppin from Lt. Colonel Dudley. The colonel was serving notice that he had declined to grant Peppin’s request for troops to quell the running battle on the streets of Lincoln.

  When a fist-size clod of earth jumped out of the gr
ound five feet in front of the cavalry horse, the soldier skidded his mount to a halt. The single report of a rifle followed half a second later. While the anxious animal spun under his blue-shirted rider, a second round thudded into the earth. The black trooper right-wheeled and galloped out of town.

  “He’s riding out,” the voice on McSween’s roof called down.

  “Not hurt, was he?”

  “No, Mr. McSween. You said not to.”

  “Good man.” The lawyer turned to Patrick and Billy. “Good day so far, boys.”

  Desultory gunfire rattled windows for the rest of the day. Only nerves were stung by the sporadic and aimless missiles.

  PRIVATE BERRY ROBINSON rode hard back to Fort Stanton. Colonel Dudley was outraged that the anarchists in Lincoln would fire on a blue uniform from the 9th United States Cavalry. Slightly slurring his speech, Dudley ordered three white officers to ride to Lincoln on Wednesday to meet with Sheriff Peppin and to confirm which side popped off at Private Robinson.

  The reluctant officers rode slowly toward Lincoln from the west at ten o’clock in the morning. They ordered Liam Rourke to dismount with his hands raised when they approached him suddenly from the rear.

  “I rode with Nelson Miles after the Nez Perces,” Liam said so softly that the officers demanded him to repeat himself.

  “You’re one of the brothers? The one who rode with the nigger sergeant?”

  Liam nodded.

  The officers returned their sidearms to leather.

  “We heard he was a hero up north in the Nez Perce war.”

  Liam thought for several seconds.

  “And before that, Lieutenant. Long before.”

  “Too bad about the sergeant getting killed two weeks ago. Imagine making it through the Cheyenne and Sioux wars just to get bushwhacked out here.” The young soldier seemed truly saddened by the loss of one of his own kind.