“No,” Glory said.
“You haven’t seen him before with Elston?”
“No. I’d tell you if I had.”
Luke dropped the match in the dirt just before the flame reached his fingers. The dead man was a stranger to him, as well. He thought back to Elston’s visit to the MacCrae ranch a few hours earlier and tried to remember the faces of the gunmen Elston had brought with him. Luke was pretty sure this man hadn’t been one of them.
That was unfortunate. But maybe some of the other raiders had been left behind, and their corpses could serve as evidence against Elston.
“Mrs. MacCrae! Mrs. MacCrae!” Gabe Pendleton called as he ran toward them with a Colt in his hand. His boots were off, and he wore his trousers over a pair of long red underwear. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Gabe,” she told him. “Are any of the men hurt?”
“A couple of them,” Pendleton said, “but they were just winged. They’ll be all right.”
“We’ll take them to the doctor in Painted Post. Or you can send a rider to bring him back out here, if you think they’re hurt too badly to travel.”
The foreman shook his head and said, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Kaintuck ought to be able to patch them up. But if he says they need a real sawbones, we’ll sure tend to it.”
“All right,” Glory said with a nod. “I’ll leave that to your judgment.”
Pendleton looked at Luke and said, “You appear to be all right, Jensen.”
“A couple of close calls, but no damage done,” Luke said.
Pendleton nodded toward the dead man lying almost at their feet.
“Brought one of the bas—I mean, varmints down, I see.”
“Actually, Mrs. MacCrae deserves the credit for that,” Luke said, smiling slightly. “She drilled him as neat as you please and saved my life.”
Several other members of the crew had followed Pendleton over to the main house, including the two young wranglers Ernie and Vince. At Luke’s words, Ernie let out an admiring whistle and said, “That’s some shootin’, ma’am!”
Pendleton turned to the men and said, “Spread out and make sure those skunks didn’t do any more damage. Somebody needs to mount up and check on the herds and the men riding nighthawk, too. This raid could’ve been just a distraction to cover up some wide-looping on a larger scale.”
That possibility had just occurred to Luke as well. Pendleton was already taking care of it, though, so he didn’t have to make the suggestion himself.
“Bullets shattered some of the windows,” Glory said. “They’ll need to be boarded up until we can get them repaired.”
Pendleton sighed and said, “Mr. MacCrae had those windows brought out here from San Antonio on the train and then we hauled ’em in the wagon to the ranch. He set great store by them.”
“I know,” Glory said quietly. “We’ll put them back as good as new. But right now I need to go make sure Teresa is all right.”
Luke followed her into the house. They found the little Mexican woman sweeping up broken glass. She was unharmed but angry.
“The men should saddle and ride and unleash hell on Señor Elston,” she proclaimed as she waved her broom in the air for emphasis.
“I’d agree,” Glory said, “except that we have no proof.”
“Proof!” Teresa snorted in disgust. “When you see a rattlesnake, you do not ask for proof that he is a venomous serpent. You just cut his head off!”
Nobody could argue much with that sentiment, Luke thought as he smiled to himself.
The violent raid brought the pleasant evening to an unexpected, unwanted end. Luke knew there was no point in trying to recapture what had been going on between him and Glory. It had been mostly a lie anyway, at least on his part, as he tried to figure out his next move.
He couldn’t have said what she was feeling. He had a hunch Glory MacCrae was good at keeping her true thoughts and emotions to herself.
He pitched in to help board up the broken windows and then said good night. As they stood in front of the main house’s doorway, Glory put a hand on his arm and said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You’re the one who saved my life, remember?” Luke reminded her. “As far as I can tell, the only thing I’ve accomplished is to make things worse between you and Harry Elston by killing that rustler.”
“I promise you, this trouble was coming whether you were here or not, Luke. It’s been inevitable since someone killed Sam and Elston decided he could force me out of Sabado Valley.” Glory smiled sadly. “If you’re as intelligent as you seem to be, you’ll get on your horse in the morning and head for El Paso as fast as you can get there. Forget about everything that’s going on here.”
“I’m not sure I can do that,” Luke said.
Glory’s face grew solemn as she said, “I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to you.”
“You won’t be. I make my own decisions.” He paused. “And right about now I’m not feeling any too kindly toward Mr. Harry Elston.”
That was true, he reflected as he walked out to the bunkhouse. He didn’t like range hogs who hired vicious killers. He didn’t like men who tried to take advantage of women. And he sure as hell didn’t like being shot at and nearly trampled. He might have come here on business, but now he had a personal score to settle, too.
It didn’t look like Glory planned to go anywhere anytime soon. He didn’t have to get in a hurry about taking her in. There was no reason he couldn’t afford to hang around for a while and see what happened with this brewing range war.
With that decision made, he went into the bunkhouse, stretched out on an empty bunk that Ernie Frazier pointed out to him, and fell into his usual light but restful sleep.
As was always the case on a ranch, the men were awakened well before dawn the next morning. A tall, skinny old-timer with a black patch over his left eye stalked into the bunkhouse when the eastern sky was barely touched with gray and held a lantern high over his head in his right hand. In his left hand he carried a cowbell that he started clanging in a raucous racket.
“Get your butts outta them bunks ’fore I come around and kick ’em out!” the old man threatened in a leather-lunged bellow. “On your feet or I’ll flang a hydrophobia skunk in here and let him roust you good-for-nothin’ cow nurses!”
One of the men groaned and pulled his thin pillow over his head.
“Shut up that caterwaulin’, you old pelican!” he yelled from under the pillow.
“Old pelican, is it!” The man with the eye patch strode over to the bunk where the complaining cowboy huddled and started lambasting him with the bell, which made its strident clamor even louder. “Get outta there, or I’ll beat you within an inch o’ your worthless life!”
Gabe Pendleton came out of the tiny private room that was his by right of being the foreman and said, “Take it easy, Kaintuck. If you kill him that’s one less waddy I’ve got to do the work today.”
Kaintuck snorted disgustedly, but he stopped whaling away at the cowboy. He said, “I’m sick and tired of these varmints carryin’ on like it’s early. Ain’t I already been up for a couple o’ hours boilin’ coffee and cookin’ bacon and biscuits?”
“If you can call that stuff coffee,” came a voice from a corner of the bunkhouse. “It’s thick as axle grease and tastes about as good.”
Another man said, “If you been up cookin’ that bacon for a couple hours, Kaintuck, shouldn’t it be, you know, actually cooked and not half raw?”
“Not to mention those biscuits’d do for proppin’ up a wagon, they’re so danged hard!” somebody else jibed.
Kaintuck glared around and snapped, “Keep it up, you smart-mouthed golliwogs! See if you like your own cookin’! I quit!”
He stalked out of the bunkhouse, muttering curses as he disappeared into the predawn darkness.
Luke had watched the byplay with a smile on his face as he sat up in his bunk. The camaraderie among these men was obvi
ous. He had seen the same thing with his brother Smoke’s crew on the Sugarloaf Ranch in Colorado. Pearlie, Cal, and the rest of Smoke’s men were cut from the same cloth as these Texas cowboys. They were, in a very real sense, family.
That was something Luke had missed out on for the most part. Looking back on his life, he could see that he had spent most of it in solitude, alone even when he was in a crowded saloon or café. Even most of his relations with women had been impersonal.
From time to time, he gave some thought to trying to change, but after all this time he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He wasn’t sure he even knew how.
Gabe Pendleton came over to his bunk. The foreman was already fully dressed and looked like he was ready to begin the day’s work.
“Well, now you’ve met our cook, Kaintuck,” Pendleton said.
“We haven’t been formally introduced,” Luke said, “but I doubt if I’ll forget him anytime soon. Of course, since he quit I don’t suppose it really matters.”
Pendleton chuckled and shook his head.
“Kaintuck quits three or four times a week. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s back in the cook shack right now, out back of the mess hall.”
“You don’t eat in the main house?”
“That’s Mrs. MacCrae’s house,” Pendleton said, his voice hardening slightly. “She’s got her place, and we’ve got ours. If you were going to be staying around here, Jensen, you’d need to understand that. But I guess since you’re moving on, like you say, it doesn’t matter.”
Luke swung his legs off the bunk and stood up. He said, “I don’t recall telling anybody that I was moving on.”
“And I don’t recall anybody inviting you to stay,” Pendleton shot back. “If you’re thinking about parlaying what happened yesterday into a riding job, you’d better think again. We’re not hiring. Our crew’s full up.”
At one of the nearby bunks, Ernie Frazier pulled a shirt over his head and then said, “I figured we could always use another good hand around here, Mr. Pendleton. Anyway, you haven’t replaced Jimmy Applewhite since he quit and went back down to South Texas. . . .”
The young wrangler’s voice trailed off as Pendleton gave him a hard look.
“I handle the hiring and firing around here, Ernie,” the foreman said. “You’d do well to remember that.”
“Yes, sir,” Ernie mumbled as he looked down at the plank floor.
Pendleton turned back to Luke and went on: “You’re welcome to stay for breakfast, of course. If your horse needs to rest for a day or two, I reckon even that would be all right. But don’t get the idea this is something that it’s not, Jensen.”
Pendleton had him pegged as just another drifting saddle tramp, one step below even a grub line rider. That was all right, Luke thought. The ramrod’s opinion of him didn’t really matter.
It was a lot more important what Glory MacCrae thought.
Luke didn’t respond to Pendleton. After a moment, Pendleton turned and walked away, speaking quietly to several of the other men as he left the bunkhouse. Luke pulled on his boots and buckled his gun belt around his waist, then settled his hat on his head as he joined the others on their way to the mess hall.
True to Pendleton’s prediction, Kaintuck was hustling around the room with its long table flanked by benches. The old cook filled coffee cups and set out platters of bacon—which as far as Luke could see was cooked just fine—biscuits, flapjacks, and fried eggs. There were bowls of gravy and molasses with spoons in them.
Luke sat down at one of the empty places and filled the tin plate in front of him. The food was simple but good. The coffee was better than good. Not as thick as axle grease, as the jocular cowboy had claimed, but plenty potent.
The crew ate without a lot of talking. Breakfast was serious business on a ranch, where hours of hard work awaited before the men would have a chance to eat again. Even then, their lunch was liable to be rather skimpy, maybe some jerky and a biscuit or two they would take with them from breakfast and stash in their saddlebags. So while they had the chance, they packed away the food to keep their strength up.
Luke didn’t have that much work waiting for him today, as far as he knew, but he ate heartily anyway, because it was good and because there had been plenty of times in his life when he’d been hungry. Gut-wrenchingly, soul-crushingly hungry a few times. No one who had ever gone through that passed up the opportunity to enjoy some good food.
The eastern sky was starting to turn gold with the approach of the sun as the men left the mess hall and started drifting toward the barns and corrals to pick out their mounts for the day and get saddled up. The early morning air had a crisp, cool tang to it. Luke wondered if Glory was up yet.
He didn’t have to wonder long. She came out of the house dressed in her riding clothes again and strode straight toward him. Getting right down to business as usual, she greeted him by saying, “Good morning, Luke. I’m on my way to Painted Post, and I’d like for you to come with me.”
CHAPTER 8
Before Luke could respond, Gabe Pendleton said, “I can have one of the boys go into town with you, Mrs. MacCrae.”
Glory shook her head.
“No, I don’t want to take any of the men away from their work,” she said. “Unless, of course, Mr. Jensen doesn’t want to come with me.”
“I’d be glad to accompany you, Mrs. MacCrae,” Luke said. He and Glory had been using their first names with each other the night before, but since she had referred to him as “Mister” this morning he figured she wanted to maintain a certain level of formality in front of the crew. He didn’t mind playing along with that.
Pendleton didn’t look happy about the decision, but he didn’t argue. Glory asked him, “Did you find out if anyone bothered the herds last night?”
“It was quiet out on the range,” Pendleton reported. “No run-ins with rustlers.”
“So the raid was just a blatant attack on us after all, not a distraction.”
Pendleton shrugged and said, “That’s the way it looks.”
“Did you find the bodies of any other night riders?”
“No, ma’am. Either we didn’t kill any more of them, or they took the rest of their dead with them.”
Luke said, “Some of them were hit. I’m certain of that.”
“Yeah, so am I,” Pendleton said. “We didn’t knock anybody out of the saddle, though, so I don’t see what good it does us.”
“You might keep your eyes and ears open in case there’s any news of Elston’s men suffering gunshot wounds.”
Pendleton grunted.
“Elston’s not gonna let word of that get out,” he declared. “He’ll make sure he’s covered in the eyes of the law.”
“We’ll see about that,” Glory said. “Where’s the body of the man I killed?”
Pendleton jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, “We put him in the barn. He’s wrapped up in a horse blanket.”
“Put him in the back of the wagon. I’m going to deliver him to Sheriff Whittaker’s office myself.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, ma’am?” Pendleton asked with a frown.
“Mr. Jensen is going with me,” Glory replied as she nodded toward Luke. “I’m sure that between us we can handle any trouble we run into.”
Again Pendleton looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t. He just nodded and said, “I’ll take care of it.” He turned and started off toward the barn.
Luke told Glory, “I’ll go get my horse saddled.”
“You don’t want to ride on the wagon with me?” she asked.
“If you can handle the team—and to be honest, you seem so capable I’ll be surprised if you can’t—I’d rather be mounted so I can move around better in case of trouble.”
“So you can run out on me if any shooting starts?”
Luke felt a flash of anger. He said, “I won’t dignify that with a response.”
“I didn’t think you would,” she said. “But I wanted to be certain.”
“I wouldn’t run out on any woman who was in trouble.”
And sure as hell not one who’s worth five grand, he added silently to himself.
“If we’re going to be spending the day together, let’s not get off on the wrong foot,” Glory said. “I see now I shouldn’t have asked you that. I didn’t mean anything by it, honestly. It’s just that in my experience, men often promise one thing . . . and deliver another.”
Luke didn’t know what she meant by that, but he nodded and said, “It’s all right. I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”
He had been pushing the dun fairly hard in recent days, and he wanted to give the horse more time to rest if he could. When he went into the barn he found Vince there and said, “I’m riding into Painted Post with Mrs. MacCrae. I was wondering if I could use one of the ranch’s saddle string and let my horse take it easy today.”
“Sure,” the solemn-faced youth said.
“Well . . . you know the horses a lot better than I do. Maybe you can recommend one.”
Vince shrugged. He seemed to be a young man of few words. He and Luke went out to the corral and Vince pointed to one of the horses.
“Nobody’s using that roan gelding today. Want me to put your saddle on him?”
The offer took Luke a little by surprise. He said, “That would be fine. Thanks, Vince.”
The wrangler just shrugged again, wordlessly.
A few minutes later, he led the roan out of the barn and handed the reins to Luke, who had been watching a couple of the hands hitching up a team to the wagon. A grim, blanket-shrouded shape was already in the back of the vehicle. Rope had been tied around the corpse to hold the blanket in place.
Luke checked the cinches on the saddle before he mounted. He noticed Vince watching him and saw the frown creasing the young man’s forehead.
“I always check my saddle when I don’t do it myself,” he explained. “It’s just a matter of habit. Nothing against you, son.”
Vince turned away without saying anything.
“Don’t mind him,” Ernie said quietly as he sidled up next to Luke. “He’s that way with everybody. His folks died when he was young, and he got shuffled around from relation to relation. That’s a hard way to grow up.”
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