“Sure thing. How many will there be?” Jesus asked.
“As many as fifteen. We need to work the cattle and move them up there before it snows.”
Cole smiled. “That could be any day.”
“That’s why I’m putting so much emphasis on getting it done. Oh, get some tents, too. We may need them.”
“I had that in mind,” Jesus said with a grin.
“Anything else?”
“We’ll make a list, get everything today, and be ready in the morning to drive over there.” Jesus glanced at Cole.
“Right, boss man. We should be there in time to cook lunch,” said Cole.
Cole and Jesus soon left for town and Chet watched Marge making some jumps on her big bay. Then, seeing how happy she was riding again, he went on to make a list of things he’d need to do. Get the state brand inspector over there while they branded, or get his approval. Learn what they must do for holding corrals, and the buildings’ condition.
How many cattle needed to be culled? He knew they had some crossbred bulls. Tight as the purebreds were to get, he’d maybe have to put up with them for one more breeding season.
Roamer must have things well in hand down south. No wires, but they might come anytime in the law business. In the house, he took off the heavy coat he’d worn and went to his desk in the office to work.
Monica offered him some fresh coffee that he readily agreed to, and the young nanny, Rhea, brought baby Adam by for him to hold and rock.
“He is such a good baby, señor.”
“Thanks, you do a good job with him. Rhea, you talk it over with Marge, but I want him to be bilingual when he grows up.”
“Oh, yes, I will. And, thank you, I love this job and working here so much.”
“We love having you. Here’s the boss man. Thanks for coming by.”
“Gracias.” She curtsied and took Adam back, talking softly to the smiling boy in the blankets.
He went back to dipping his straight pen in the ink and writing out things to be done. Back home in Texas, before he moved them all out there to Arizona, he’d never thought about eventually having so many irons in the fire. But they all worked smoothly. And he’d damn near never thought he’d eventually have a son and heir to run the place when he couldn’t.
He wrote a letter to Marshal Blevins and told him Roamer could handle the Force down there and he’d join him when he could, but he had cattle to disburse. Then he wrote Roamer to tell him that it would be several weeks before he could return and relieve him. Next, he penned a letter to Reg and Lucie to be carried by Spud, telling Reg about the plans and about the cows that were coming to him.
“How is it going?” Marge asked from the office door, pulling off her riding gloves and coming over to kiss his cheek.
“Fine. It’s getting lined up.” The swivel chair creaked when he spun around. “Jumping going well?”
“Oh, yes, we’re doing fine.”
“You know, I learned something back years ago taking cattle to Missouri. Those folks used wooden rail fences to keep the free-range livestock out of their crops. But only the rebel forces and Quantrill’s Raiders could jump those fences. The Union Army had to take them down to get through, so for the southern efforts, it was easy to escape.”
“I knew that. My first husband cussed that fact. He could ride a jumper, but they had none trained to do that.”
He hugged her around the waist. “I can’t tell you much you don’t already know, can I?”
“Chet Byrnes, I never meant it that way.”
“I didn’t take it that way. I’m glad you know so much, so I don’t have to explain.”
“Good. Wash up. Monica has your fresh coffee and our lunch.”
“Alright, jumping Yankee.” They both laughed.
He left before daylight with three vaqueros and Raphael for Hampt’s place, where he and two of his men joined them, and they rode straight for the Ralston place. Hampt told him a new foreman had been recently hired at Ralston’s. When they arrived, the new foreman, Cy Mullins, came out of the lighted cook shack into the frosty morning with a steaming cup of coffee.
“What brings you and your posse out here so gawdamn early. We ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“Tell all the men to come out here. This won’t take long.”
“What for?”
“Just tell them to come out here. I have a message for all of you.”
“What the hell for?”
“I said—”
“Hey, guys come out, the big man is here. He says he needs to talk to all of us.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem. You know I run this place?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“So why talk to them?”
“It concerns all of them.”
The crew came wandering outside, half asleep.
“They all here?”
“Yeah, ’cept the cook. Norris, get the hell out here. He wants all of us to hear his speech, I guess.”
The string bean in a stained apron took his place in the rosy cold morning light.
“They’re all here.”
“Thanks. My name is Chet Byrnes. This ranch will today become a part of the Quarter Circle Z. I’m sorry, but I have no jobs for you or your men. You’ll be paid off as directed by the estate, and you must leave this ranch today.”
“Ah, shit. We were promised a year’s wages if they sold out,” one of the men grumbled.
Chet shook his head. “I will pay what they say they owed you, is all I can do. You can hire a lawyer and sue them for any breach of contract. But they’re a big law firm over in California, if you need their address.”
The grumbling and complaining grew throughout the ranks of the group.
Hampt cleared his throat and dismounted. “Anyone wants to buck this deal, come see me.”
They all shook their heads.
“Go eat, or finish. I’ll be back to pay you. Gather your things up after that. Some of you have horses here of your own. Those who don’t have animals, I can loan one to ride into town on, and you can leave them at Frey’s Livery.”
One man spat tobacco aside. “That’s damn neighborly of you, mister.”
Then they filed back inside.
“We almost have that settled,” Hampt said.
Chet chuckled. “Hell, you knew none of them wanted to fight with you.”
“By damn, I gave them a chance.”
“You sure did. Raphael, would you check the corrals and look over their horses for me? I’m going to get set up inside to pay them.”
Under his breath, Hampt said, “That’s a good job for him. He’s a stickler for having things right.”
Raphael and his men rode off to see to the horses.
Chet brought in his heavy saddlebags and set them on an empty table in the cook shack. It was a dusty, cobwebbed hideout and he knew Jesus would have to clean it before he served food in it. His foremen’s evaluation of this bunch was right—they were not ranch employees like they hired.
He called them in one at a time. He asked if they had their own horse—though the information was on the estate lawyer’s telegram. Everyone was honest and promised to leave the borrowed horse at Frey’s Livery. He owed most of them fifty dollars for two month’s pay. When he got down to the foreman, Mullins, the paper said to pay him for two months plus six, as they promised.
Mullins stood there and scratched his ear with his index finger. “My agreement is payment of my wages for one year, plus two months at fifty bucks. I knew they’d sell out one day, and I wasn’t taking this job unless I got that guarantee.”
“My page says pay you for two months, plus six months, as per contract. Now, if they wire me that was wrong, I’ll pay you the rest of the money. But that’s not what the telegraph said I should pay you.”
“They got it down wrong.”
“Here, read the telegram.”
He took the page from Chet and used his ear-scratching finger to go down the
list to his name. “Gawdamn it, that ain’t right.”
Hampt stepped in behind him. “What Mister Byrnes is telling you is right. You want to start a fight over it, we can go outside. Now, you telegraph that lawyer and complain to him when you get to Preskitt. I’ve done heard all the BS I want coming out of your mouth.”
Mullins whirled on his boot heels to face Hampt. “Well, I aim to fight them in court over this.”
“I don’t give a damn what you do besides get the hell off this ranch, or go feet first.”
“They owe me two horses to ride off here. That was part of the deal, too.”
“They’ve got a short memory. It says nothing in there about two horses,” Chet said, then folded his arms and sat back in the ladder-back chair.
“The no-good bastards—”
“Take the money and leave right now. Chet offered you a horse to ride to town. You can pack one, too, but leave them at Frey’s or face horse theft charges. And, I can tell you, we will run your ass down. Them vaqueros Raphael has won’t bring you back to court, either.”
Mullins’s face paled. “Alright, I’ll take the money and see them in court.”
Hampt nodded, still grim-faced, and waited for him to leave. He nodded when Mullins went out the door. “Life’s getting slow. No one wants to fight me anymore.”
Chet laughed and paid the string bean cook his eighty dollars. He went out the door muttering under his breath. That settled, Chet knew Raphael had the description and brand on every horse and who took it in his logbook.
The shorter Mexican man came inside and wrinkled his nose. “This place is a pigpen.”
“Have one of your men ride back to the ranch and hire some of the vaqueros’ wives to come over here and clean up this mess. Have them bring the paint left over from the McCully house and fix this up. I’ll pay them and when the cow deal is over, we’ll have a fiesta to celebrate.”
“I will do that now.” Raphael went outside and sent a man back to the ranch for help.
“I thought for a while, Hampt, he was going to fight one of us.”
“Hell, he ain’t no big problem to whup.”
“Let’s see about the corrals and what we have to work with.”
Most of the hands had ridden off by then. Raphael showed Chet and Hampt the bad gates that needed to be repaired. The squeeze chute also needed some fixing. They planned to haul a wagonload of live oak wood over from the ranch to use for the branding iron fire, plus several irons. There was little firewood around the buildings. No pens were large enough. They’d have to hold that many head of cattle outside in a herd. There was only so much horse hay—they’d need more than that. The graze around the home place had been eaten to the ground. And the ranch horses, on the whole, weren’t worth much, either—he’d sell them for whatever he could get. They’d also have to feed the cows. This was going to be expensive before he got it handled.
“I can bring some hay over. That’s not any trouble, but we better send my boys over and bring it back today,” Hampt said.
“Do that,” Chet agreed.
Cole and Jesus arrived with the chuckwagon to be.
“Raphael is sending a man back to get some women to clean and paint the quarters and cookhouse. Until they get that done, use a tent. It’s a pigpen,” Chet told them.
“You have any troubles with them?” Jesus asked, climbing down off the seat.
“No, Hampt was my man to complain to.”
“They cussed us out on the road.”
Chet shook his head. “Even Mullins didn’t want to fight him.”
Hampt sent a man to get a wagonload of hay from his place, and Raphael sent a man to get the women.
Chet went to check the house. He and his crew found it draped in more cobwebs and dust. At one time, the clapboard house had been a nice dwelling. The leather furniture was cracked and pack rats had opened more of its stuffing. Even the books on the shelves were buried in dust.
“My bunch will have this nice in two days,” said Raphael.
Chet agreed with him. “Hampt has his house like he wants it. I’ll need to find someone in the bunch to live here. An empty house falls down quickly.”
They went to help set up tents and unload. When things were set up, he and Cole rode back to the ranch for the night. Chet told him to come eat breakfast early at the house and they’d go back and start the roundup.
Marge had to know about it all. When he finished telling her, he considered his first day as well spent.
“Who will live in the house?”
“I may talk to Cole, and see if Valerie would like to live out there rather than in town. There was once a garden and there’s water. Save him rent, and she’d have a house of her own. I’ll ask him.”
“Good.”
“Will you go into Preskitt this week?”
“Sure. What do you need me to do?”
“Tell Frey to sell the horses those cowboys left with him. We don’t need them, and they’re junk to me.”
“I can do that.”
“Good. That will handle that for me.”
“Let’s go to bed, big man. Your plans are to get up early.”
He put his arm over her shoulder. “I agree.”
Before the sun even colored the eastern rim of the horizon, the two men were headed east on the frosty wagon tracks. Cool enough to enjoy his wool-lined coat, Chet listened to the night birds and waking quail from out in the pancake cactus beds and the sage with juniper bushes. He’d come to enjoy the smell of sage mixed with the strong aroma of ponderosa pines on the hillsides. It meant he was home.
“Those ranch women are all excited about cleaning up your new ranch. They’ll descend on it today, so don’t get in their way.” Cole chuckled.
“They’re a nice bunch of women. I don’t want you to decide today, but Marge and I talked about whether you and Valerie would like to live out there.”
“I’ll ask her.”
“I just thought after the house is cleaned up, it’ll be nice and spacious, and I believe someone needs to live in a house or it will fall down.”
Cole nodded in the growing daylight. “Thanks. I appreciate being considered, even if we don’t move out here. I really feel a part of your ranch, and it’s nice of you to think of me and her.”
“She may hate ranch living out here.”
“No, but we never talked about it. She’s a real sensitive woman and concerned. She never nags me, but she does lots of thinking. I’m proud of her.”
“She puts up with you being gone, too.”
“She knows we’re building for our future. I’m proud of the savings we’ve made from the rewards on my job.”
Chet agreed and told him not to worry about it. She could decide and there was no rush.
The men were saddling horses. Jesus’s cooking fire smoke filled his nose. He came with two cups of coffee for them when they dismounted.
Raphael was taking three hands with him and going south to find cows. Hampt and his men were going east, and Cole rode off with them. Though he was anxious to get in the saddle and round up cattle himself, Chet decided to stay to meet the cleaning women.
“How’s it going?” he asked Jesus, squatted on his boot heels and sipping his second cup of coffee.
“Good, kind a fun not to have to worry about outlaws and only have to hear complaints about my cooking.”
“Can we make this a ranch?”
“Oh, si. It is a good ranch that had been overgrazed. But it can recover. With Hampt in charge, he’ll make it better or bust.”
They both laughed.
“He’s determined, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You’ve not found a woman?” Chet knew the loss of the woman Jesus loved had ridden his helper hard.
“No.” Jesus laughed. “I have been busy.”
“Tending to my business.”
“Oh, I enjoy every day.”
“I’m glad you’re one of my two right arms.”
&
nbsp; The women arrived in a wagon. They set in to first clean and paint the cook shack, then the bunkhouse. Things were taking shape. Those women were really making things go.
Carlotta, one of the vaqueros’ wives, teased him. “We should make a company to clean up these places. That house will take us much longer. Have you seen it?”
“Oh, yes.”
In midafternoon, Raphael and his crew drove in a herd of about three dozen cows and corralled them. One of his vaqueros lost his horse in an owl hole and had to be destroyed. A man went back to bring ten fresh horses from the ranch herd for them to use.
Chet rode around in the corral with Raphael to cut out six older cows that they considered too old for the drive.
“No way to separate them on the range,” he said to his man. They’d done well and he knew Hampt would try to bring the most in.
November days were short, and the sun was about to set when they arrived with around forty cows. They drove them in the other pens for separation in the morning.
The cook shack had been cleaned from top to bottom and painted white. Coal oil lamps lit the interior and guitar music filled the air as they served Jesus’s food. The men dove into the fire-roasted beef, Dutch oven biscuits, frijoles, and an apple cobbler. The crew and the house cleaners were starved, and they put a lot of it away.
“Thanks to the ladies who cleaned this place today and the bunkhouse,” Chet said, and everyone applauded them.
“Thanks to Jesus and his helpers for the meal. We’re working short days, so we’ll wake you up early, and you can start out in the dark. If you need a fresh horse, they brought a dozen from the Preskitt ranch today. We turned out their horses; they were all too sorry to gather cattle on. Hampt and I will sort out any culls from your bunch and then he can rejoin you. At this rate, we should be on the road in a few days.”
The nods around the room convinced him they were all eager to start. Tom’s men should be there by the next day, then they could wind it up fast. He went to bed thinking about his wife and son, and with his nose full of the smell of fresh paint. Things were going great here, and he hoped so elsewhere.
A Good Day To Kill Page 27