by Will DuRey
Frustrated by her inability to work the knot loose, Lottie asked someone to cut the rope.
‘We don’t know why he’s here,’ Dick Garde protested.
‘I don’t work for Gus Remarque,’ Ben snapped. ‘I didn’t know you were holding a meeting here. I came to find out what’s happened during the days I’ve been away and the extent of Drew’s injuries.’
Jonas Petterfield, whose acquaintance with Ben in the past had, like that of the Skivver family, been amicable, stepped forward and sliced through the rope. It was only when he was released from his bindings that Ben realized that he was still suffering from the blow to his head. The dizziness caused him to stumble but he didn’t fall. Raising his hand to his brow, he discovered the sticky line of blood.
‘Come up to the house,’ Lottie said, ‘and I’ll bathe that wound.’
Unable to investigate the disturbance in the yard, Drew Skivver anxiously awaited the return of his neighbours. In addition to the multitude of bruises and cuts he’d suffered during the attack on him in Pecos, his right arm had been broken and at least one rib had been fractured, too. His wife, who sat at his side, had packed pillows and blankets around him, both for comfort and to prop him up so that he was able to participate in the meeting that had been arranged hastily. Because he hadn’t been fit enough to travel, his home had been chosen as a meeting place to discuss the settlers’ response to the violence that had been unleashed against them. For no reason he could explain, finding the face of Ben Joyner amidst those of his neighbours gave rise to optimism, that the trials they were currently suffering would be resolved without further trouble.
A seat was placed close to Drew Skivver and Ben put into it. Lottie tended to his injuries while he exchanged details of the previous few days. Although an element of suspicion with regard to his purpose for being in the vicinity still lingered in the minds of Dick Garde and Frank Faulds, his character was vouched for by Drew Skivver and Jonas Petterfield and the other men were swayed to believe that he had no evil intent.
‘Five men turned up at Frank’s place a week ago,’ Jonas told Ben, stretching out an arm to make it clear that he was talking about Frank Faulds. ‘Told him to get out of the territory. Burned a barn, killed three pigs, broke down fences and spoiled a garden of vegetables.’
‘Frightened my wife and the boys,’ Frank supplied. ‘Pointed their guns at me like they were going to shoot me down and next time they probably will. Meg, my wife, wants to pack up and leave. I don’t.’
‘Then there was a fight in Dubbin’s saloon a couple of days ago. That was the first time any of us had seen Col Brodie. He picked a fight with Joe Shelby like he did with Arnie Arentoft today. Joe wouldn’t draw his gun.’
‘I wasn’t carrying a gun,’ interrupted Joe Shelby.
‘So he fired at his feet, chased him down the street with the whole town watching.’
‘And you, Drew,’ Ben asked, ‘was it Brodie who did that to you?’
It hadn’t been. Col Brodie hadn’t been in Pecos when Drew had encountered Davey Pursur and some of the Long-R crew. Heated words had been exchanged, which had led to a fight that he couldn’t win.
‘Don’t suppose I would have got out of town alive if Brodie had been involved.’
‘What about Sheriff Vasey? What is he doing about the situation?’
‘He’s Remarque’s man,’ Dick Garde said. ‘He’s not going to change.’
‘It was Vasey who put an end to the attack on me,’ said Drew.
‘And we’re thankful for that,’ said his wife.
Lottie, having quelled the flow of blood from her patient’s face, inspected it for any minor cuts or scrapes that required attention. Her eyes met Ben’s and for a brief moment the expression of concern that had dominated her feelings since first coming across him tied to the fencepost, relaxed and she smiled at him. ‘You’ll survive,’ she said.
Dick Garde’s rough voice put an end to their amiability. ‘He did nothing to prevent the killing of the Dutchman,’ he said, referring to Sheriff Vasey’s absence from the street when shooting had occurred outside Dubbin’s saloon.
‘What are your plans now?’ Ben wanted to know.
‘We’re staying,’ declared Dick Garde. ‘We’ll defend our properties. No one is chasing me away.’
‘They’ve proved they’re prepared to kill to get what they want. Are you sure you’re prepared to risk the lives of your wives and children?’ Ben saw the darkness of anger pass across Dick Garde’s features and knew he was thinking that his first intuition had been correct: Ben had come to spread consternation among the settlers at the behest of Gus Remarque. Ben raised his hand in supplication. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said, ‘I’m not trying to interfere with your decision; just want to be sure that you understand the situation. Col Brodie is a hired gun. He’ll be itching to earn his pay and gather any bonuses he’s been promised.’
The room fell quiet; they all understood that the bonus payments would be in lieu of bodies and destroyed homesteads.
Dick Garde said, ‘We’ll face whatever Gus Remarque throws at us. If we stand together we can overcome one gunslinger.’
Those words were greeted with brave murmurs of approval and Ben knew that his response would again make Dick Garde suspicious of whose side he was on. ‘I don’t think Col Brodie is the only gunman that Gus Remarque has brought to Pecos. I ran into two men who were heading this way in a scrubland town four days ago. They tried to steal my horse. One of them is a tall, slim fellow and the other is more squat and hefty. I put a bullet in one of the pair.’
Frank Faulds shuffled his feet. ‘I’ve seen them,’ he said. ‘They were in Dubbin’s saloon when Arnie and I went in for a drink.’
‘Which one did I hit?’ Ben asked.
‘The shorter one. The one called Gatt Stone. His right arm’s in a sling.’ Secretly, Ben would have preferred it if he’d put the other man out of commission; he suspected that the tall man was the more dangerous gunman. ‘The other man’s called Jarvis Wilson. Are you looking for them?’
Ben shook his head. ‘If they stay away from me and my horse then I’ll stay clear of them.’
‘What brought you back here?’ Drew Skivver asked.
‘It’s a long story,’ he said, ‘but scaring off that pair sort of obligated me to act as a guide to a woman who wanted to come here.’
Lottie Skivver tried not to show interest in the fact that Ben had returned to Pecos in the company of another woman but Dick Garde had no such qualms. It was information that concurred with what Ben had told them earlier and even if the cowboy’s reception by every member of the Skivver family hadn’t been so cordial, the truth of a woman companion was enough to put an end to any lingering belief that their earlier meeting had been part of a plan to ambush and kill Drew Skivver.
‘Her name’s Elsa Tippett,’ Ben announced. ‘She’s trying to find her son and her brother. She was told they were heading in this direction but hasn’t heard anything from them for two years.’
‘That’s about the time we all came out here,’ said Jonas Petterfield. ‘Tippett,’ he muttered, playing with the name as though somewhere in the deep reaches of his mind there was a memory that was linked to it.
‘Henry Tippett!’ It was Lottie who spoke the name.
‘The Ohio Kid,’ her father said, managing a smile for his daughter, sharing a memory with her.
‘Yeah, and his Uncle Carl,’ Jonas Petterfield added, recollection of their names affording him some pleasure. ‘They left Fort Worth a couple of weeks before the rest of us. We expected to meet up with them here but we never saw them again. Perhaps they changed their destination after leaving Fort Worth, or perhaps some disaster befell them, but they weren’t here when we staked out our claims. We asked around but no one had any knowledge of them.’
Although it wasn’t good news, it was something to pass on to Mrs Tippett. He figured she would want to speak to anyone who had known her son and brother. His suggestion that
they make themselves known to her when they were next in Pecos was met with an uncomfortable silence.
‘We mean to form a group to undertake any future visits to Pecos and they will be for essential supplies only,’ Dick Garde told him. ‘No one will be hanging around that town longer than is necessary. We ought to be able to avoid trouble if we get there early morning while the Long-R riders are still on the range.’
The nods that accompanied Dick Garde’s words proved to Ben that this was one of the strategies that had been agreed prior to his arrival. If these men were scared by the violence that had been meted they weren’t showing it, nor could he detect any reluctance to defend the land on which they’d built their homes. No one raised an objection to him bringing Mrs Tippett out to their homes, so he collected his hat and prepared to leave. He sensed that they would prefer to reconvene their meeting without him in attendance.
Lottie walked outside with Ben when he went to collect his horse. ‘Perhaps you and your parents should stay with another family for a while,’ he said.
‘We’re not leaving here.’ Her tone was adamant. ‘If we abandon this place for any length of time, Gus Remarque’s men will burn it to the ground. You know that. I’m surprised you would even make such a suggestion.’
‘If you come under attack, how will you defend yourselves?’
‘My father is strong enough.’
‘Not at the moment. He’s an invalid and no matter how determined he is to protect you and your mother, he can’t do it against killers when his arm is broken.’ In the gathering gloom he cast a look around the homestead. ‘Some of your fences need to be repaired,’ he said, ‘and other points around the perimeter need to be strengthened. Your father isn’t capable of doing that.’
Following his glances with studied looks of her own, she allowed only a moment of silence before answering. ‘I’ll do it.’
Ben knew that any defence lines that the settlers were able to put around their homes would probably be insufficient to deter or repel any determined attack. It was apparent that Gus Remarque was prepared to do whatever was necessary to achieve his aim of clearing out the settlers. Ben knew that he couldn’t abandon the Skivver family while they faced the threat of an attack by armed and unscrupulous men. ‘If you’ll let me, I’ll come back tomorrow to help.’
‘Do you mean to stay in Pecos?’
Ben didn’t know what his plans were. ‘At least long enough to mend your fences,’ he told her.
CHAPTER SIX
The last of the crew were attending to their equipment while listening to Davey Pursur, who was issuing their orders for the day. When horse harnesses had been checked and chaps had been secured, they mounted up and rode off to tend to their allotted tasks. Before they were through the gate, the foreman turned his attention to the ranch house that stood fifty yards inside the compound. Minutes earlier, he’d seen and been surprised by the figure standing on the veranda. He couldn’t remember the last time the boss had been outdoors before the sun had fully cleared the horizon. Davey Pursur surmised that Gus Remarque was perked by yesterday’s events, cheered by those incidents that would surely guarantee victory over the settlers and deter all opposition to the cattleman’s rights. Even though the current homesteaders had staked their claims along the river on the far side of Pecos, they couldn’t be allowed to settle. If they became established in the area, others would follow and spread onto the best land for feeding the Long-R herds. He crossed the compound, calling a hearty greeting to the ranch owner.
Gus Remarque sniffed the fresh morning air as he stood on the ranch house veranda. It had become his usual practice after breakfast to attend to correspondence and office matters, but this morning he’d risen from the table, come outdoors and revelled in the sounds of men and horses preparing for the working day. It brought home to him the achievements of his life, the battles he’d fought and won to claim this land, and the risks he’d run and successes he’d had that had placed him at the pinnacle of power in this region. The limitations of this land for grazing beef, even the hardy longhorns, were obvious for all to see. Across the river, where the beginning of the Chihuahua Desert was only a stone’s throw away, it was impossible for cattle to survive. Only by good management had he been able to maintain and increase his herd, forever moving them around the eastern scrubland for whatever nourishment it could provide, but needing the more lush grass along the river’s fertile strips to fatten them for market. He couldn’t afford to lose an acre of pastureland and, no matter what papers were written in Fort Worth, he had no intention of doing so.
Although his views were shared by the other cattlemen in the region, he was aware that they were more cautious in their handling of the problem. So Gus had decided that it was his lot to lead the way, knowing that every interloper he successfully chased away from the river valley would encourage the other ranchers to follow his example. Between them they would keep the grassland open for their grazing herds.
‘Where’s Brodie?’
‘He stayed in Pecos with the new men you hired.’
‘I want to see him. Get someone to bring him here.’
‘He said he was coming to see you. Wanting his bonus for killing the Dutchman, I guess.’
Gus Remarque fixed his steely grey eyes on his foreman. It was none of his business what arrangements had been made with the pistoleros and he was about to tell him so, but Davey Pursur was the first to speak.
‘Don’t know why you didn’t leave the job to me and the boys. We’ve always handled trouble in the past.’
‘There hasn’t been trouble like this in the past,’ Gus Remarque told him. ‘This is bigger than anything I’ve had to deal with and I need men to do it that, when the chips are down, aren’t going to decide that shooting and being shot isn’t what they signed up for.’
Davey Pursur defended the men. ‘You’ve got a good crew here, Mr Remarque. They won’t let you down.’
‘One man quit before anything developed,’ he replied. ‘I don’t want others doing the same. Their job is to herd cattle. Besides, when this is over and Brodie and the other men I’ve brought in have finished their job, the rest of us still have to live around here, still have to visit Pecos. It’ll be easier for them if they’ve played no part in the conflict.’
‘Bit late for that, Mr Remarque. Our men have already raided the homesteads and destroyed barns and crops.’
‘That phase is at an end. I’ve got professional men on the payroll now whose job it will be to clear the settlers from their homes.’
‘Don’t know how effective they’ll be,’ said the foreman.
‘What’s that remark supposed to mean?’ snapped his boss.
‘One of the pair who arrived in Pecos yesterday has his gun arm in a sling. The doctor had to dig a slug out of his shoulder when he got to town.’
Gus Remarque glowered. He’d decided to put an end to the threat that settlements along the river posed to his herd and he’d offered top dollar to the men he’d hired to push the job through to its conclusion. He wasn’t pleased by the information imparted by his foreman. Wilson and Stone had agreed to his terms so had no business becoming involved in any affray that jeopardized the success of the job he’d hired them to do. He had no intention of paying doctor’s bills or expenses for inactivity while they nursed wounds they’d suffered pursuing their own arguments. ‘If he’s not up to the job I’ll get someone else who can do it,’ he said, adding, ‘I’m not paying good money for failure.’
His boss’s words had begun to rile the foreman. ‘Hope you won’t forget that it was me and the boys who attended to Drew Skivver yesterday. He’s the one the other settlers listen to. They’ll follow his example. If he goes they’ll go with him, and if he goes because of the beating he took yesterday then any bonus is due to me and the boys, not Brodie.’
‘Speak to me like that again and you won’t even be drawing pay,’ Gus Remarque snapped at him. ‘I decide who gets what. Nobody else.’ He turned to go back into
the house. ‘Send Brodie to me the moment he gets here,’ he said over his shoulder.
It was almost an hour since Ben Joyner had eaten and he was sitting in the foyer of the Alamo reading a five-day-old San Antonio newspaper when Elsa Tippett descended the broad stairway. He allowed her time to order breakfast before following her into the hotel’s dining room. She received the news that he had found people who had known her son in Fort Worth with less eagerness than he had expected, but he imagined that that was due to the weariness of the journey they’d recently completed. The information he was capable of imparting was slight but she agreed to ride out to the Skivver farm to speak with Lottie and anyone else that had knowledge to share. First, though, she needed time to eat breakfast.
Ben had left the chestnut in the stable attached to the hotel but instead of saddling the animal he hired a buggy that was available and had the groom harness one of the hotel’s horses to it. It was late morning, later than had been his intention, when he reached the farm with Elsa Tippett beside him. Lottie was in the yard, her face red with effort and smudged with grime, testimony to the fact that she’d been busy tackling the repairs and reinforcements that Ben had promised he’d attend to the previous night.
‘I thought you’d decided not to hang around,’ she said as she opened the gate for him to drive the buggy through.
Ben couldn’t blame Lottie for the fact that her greeting was less than warm. If circumstances had been different, if Drew Skivver hadn’t been incapacitated as a result of the attack on him by the Long-R crew and if Arnie Arentoft hadn’t been shot dead outside Shay Dubbin’s saloon, he would already be far from Pecos, trying to resume the journey he’d begun before crossing trails with Elsa Tippett. But he hadn’t gone, even though the reason for hanging around Pecos wasn’t clear in his mind. Two weeks earlier, when there had been little more than a threat of trouble between cowmen and settlers, he’d had no qualms about riding away, but now, with the spillage of blood, turning his back on the situation carried a taint of cowardice. Almost involuntarily, and despite the hired guns that had been brought in by his former employer, Ben found himself favouring the cause of the region’s newcomers. Although he’d fought in the war, he knew he wasn’t a match for the professional quick draw pistoleros and had no reason to believe that his presence would add any real firepower to their cause, but he couldn’t desert them, especially the Skivvers, who were virtually defenceless. Their neighbours might be keen to help them but their hands were already full protecting their own properties.