Devil's Brand

by Len Levinson

  He crashed into the ground and lay still, his face buried in the dirt at the bottom of the trail. Tomahawk looked down at him with bitter disappointment, but this wasn’t the first time it had happened. All Tomahawk’s owners had been cowboys, and it was all he knew.

  He looked at the empty prairie, and there were wild herds of horses he could join, and live free, but he’d never lived free in his life, he’d been born and raised on a ranch, fed by cowboys and then broken by them at an early age. He’d grown up feeling a strange sense of brotherhood with cowboys, and besides, how’d he get the saddle off?

  Tomahawk sniffed Stone, and wrinkled his nostrils at the alcohol fumes. They were in the middle of the trail, and somebody might come along. Tomahawk inserted his snout underneath Stone and rolled him onto his back. Then he grabbed Stone’s gunbelt in his teeth and dragged him off the trail into a hollow behind a hill, where they couldn’t be seen from the trail.

  Tomahawk dropped his head and munched grass as Stone snored and wheezed beneath the big full moon in the endless western sky.

  Chapter Five

  Cassandra rolled out of bed at dawn, careful not to awaken her husband. She dressed in the darkness, then went to the kitchen to issue her daily instructions to the staff.

  Then she sat at her desk, beneath the framed portrait of Stonewall Jackson, and looked at the figures again, but ten thousand dollars still were gone. She felt a mild stab of panic in her breast.

  Breakfast was served, and she returned to the dining room, where she sipped coffee, but was unable to eat anything. When she was on her second cup, her husband entered the dining room, kissed her cheek, and sat opposite her, then lay his napkin onto his lap.

  “I’m bored,” Whiteside complained. “Maybe I’ll go to town.”

  “I’ve got to do some banking,” she said. “Perhaps we can go in together?”

  “If you like.”

  He didn’t sound enthusiastic about going to town with her, but she understood sometimes a man needed to be alone. No one person could hope to satisfy all of another person’s needs, she told herself.

  “We’re having a little financial problem,” she told him. “Ten thousand dollars is missing from our accounts.”

  He held his hand in the air and smiled indulgently. “You take care of the clerical work, please—I have more important things to worry about.”

  The maid brought a platter of eggs, potatoes, grits and ham, placing it before Whiteside, and he dug into it with his knife and fork, ignoring Cassandra. She decided to go to San Antone tomorrow, and have one of the cowboys drive the buckboard. She’d speak with Mr. Dohenney at the bank, and maybe he could locate the ten thousand dollars.

  That much money just doesn’t disappear, Cassandra thought. Where is it?

  The sun seared Stone’s eyeballs as he awakened, lying on his back. He moved and felt a sharp pain in his left kidney, and his face ached as if flesh had been ripped away.

  He groaned, and Tomahawk munched a mouthful of greens, gazing solemnly at him. Stone raised himself to his knees and rolled a cigarette, then got to his feet and looked around. He didn’t remember coming to this hill, and was pleased to realize he’d had the good sense to get off the trail, even though he was drunk and evidently had blacked out. A man’s inner common sense will always take care of him, even if he’s drunk, Stone thought.

  Stone walked toward Tomahawk, uncinched the saddle, and pulled it away. “Sorry you had to keep that on all night,” Stone said apologetically. “Won’t happen again.”

  The hell it won’t, Tomahawk thought, able to breathe more easily now, and he returned to his breakfast of nutritious grass. Stone sat with his saddlebags and looked inside. He found a few moldy biscuits, a rotten chunk of bacon, and a can of beans. He threw the biscuits and bacon away, opened the can of beans, and ate them with a spoon. They were cold and slimy, with the flavor of coal oil.

  He had a headache, and something serious appeared wrong with his nose. He touched it with his finger, and it jiggled. He realized his nose had been broken by Ephraim.

  He tossed the empty can of beans over his shoulder and searched within the cavernous depths of his saddlebags for coffee beans, finding a dirty pair of socks, his poncho, and then the beans wrapped in oilcloth inside the used lard tin he used for a coffeepot.

  He built a fire, ground the beans between two rocks, and dumped them into the lard tin along with water from his canteen. Soon the water was boiling, and the fragrance of hot coffee filled the prairie air. Stone let it boil for a while, because he liked his coffee thick as axle grease and unadulterated by milk or sugar.

  He sipped the coffee while watching a family of prairie rats nibbling the bacon and biscuits he’d thrown away, and realized other men were doctors and lawyers, bankers and ranchers, and he was just another prairie rat.

  I’ve got to sober up and learn the ranching business. If I work hard, and keep regular hours, I’ll be healthy again, and then I’ll be able to do anything I want. The only person I have to worry about is Ephraim, but I’ll just stay away from him. I’ve got better things to do.

  Stone wanted to feel strong again. If he had to fight, he wanted to be in first-rate condition, so he wouldn’t have to take the punishment he’d taken from Ephraim, and if he had to use his guns, he wanted his aim to be accurate, unlike the shameless performance he’d given last night at the Last Chance Saloon. If Haliday had been sober, Stone would’ve been killed. No question about it. I can’t let that happen again.

  Stone glanced at the sun, and it was nearing high noon. He tossed the old lard tin into his saddlebags, kicked dirt over the fire, then walked toward Tomahawk, to begin his journey to the Triangle Spur.

  Count Von Falkenheim and Veronika enjoyed a late breakfast in her suite at the Barlowe House. They looked out the windows at wagons and riders on the wide avenue, and occasionally they heard a shout, or a peal of laughter, or a gunshot, as an enthusiastic cowboy put on an impromptu display of marksmanship.

  Von Falkenheim didn’t dress like a cowboy, because he considered cowboys workmen, and he was no workman. He was a Prussian gentleman, a former captain in the imperial guards, and still dressed like a military man, with riding jodhpurs, knee-length highly polished black boots, and a high-necked beige shirt with billowing sleeves.

  “By the vay,” he said to Veronika, “some fellow vas here last night looking for you. Voke me up. Do you know anything about it?”

  She wore a red silk dressing gown, and no cosmetics. Her straight black hair was smoothly combed, and she already had taken her morning bath, with him.

  “Probably another drunken cowboy,” she said casually. “They are all in love vith the woman who dances vithout many clothes.”

  “Vhat presumption,” Von Falkenheim said. “This fellow appeared so drunk he could barely stand, undt he had veeds in his hand. He nearly fainted vhen I opened the door. Vonder how he found out your room number?”

  “It is no secret.”

  He gazed at her, and twirled the end of his mustache. “I am sure you understand that if I ever found you vith another fellow, I vould haf to kill him.”

  She placed her palm on his forearm. “You need not worry, my dear Volfgang. If ve vere back in Munich, then perhaps you might haf reason for concern, but I assure you, I am not interested in any of these drunken cowboy fools. Vhat do you think I am?”

  “A woman who loves to make love.”

  “But only with you, Volfie dear.”

  “I hope you mean that, my little vixen, because I never haf shrunk from spilling blood in matters of honor, undt that is vhat this is, you understand.”

  “It is too early to argue, Volfie. Perhaps later in the day you can tie me up undt beat me, but not now, all right?”

  He smiled as he sliced into his breakfast steak. “Actually, I am sure it was a mistake. I cannot imagine you hafing anything to do with such a man. He vas filthy, obviously little more than a tramp. You may leave me someday, my little minx, but not for an ign
orant cowboy. I am confident that your taste has become more elevated than that in the years since you haf known me.”

  “My taste has alvays been more elevated than that, my dear count. You need never worry about that.”

  She sliced into her breakfast steak, aware she’d had a close call last night. The count had come to town unexpectedly, and it was a good thing Stone hadn’t been there. She now realized she’d been flirting with danger, and danger called her bluff. It was all so silly, now that she thought of it, but the cowboy had been appealing for a moment, with his run-down boozy charm, and that smile that would melt an iceberg in the dark.

  A man’s smile always had been important to Veronika, and Wolfgang scored highly in that department also. Wolfgang was the very model of a Prussian officer, with all the dash and glamour, ready to fight at a moment’s notice, but always a gentleman, with impeccable manners and an air of superiority so thick nothing could penetrate it.

  He drained his coffee cup and placed it on the saucer. “I am afraid I must be going. Lots to do at the ranch. You understand.”

  He put on his black leather coat, his cowboy hat, and lit a thin cigar imported from Holland. Then he stopped and regarded himself in her full-length mirror, admiring the cut and tailoring of his clothing, and his handsome mustached visage.

  He returned to her, kissed her lips, and then spun and walked to the door, opening it and pausing at the edge of the oriental rug.

  “Remember vhat I told you, schatzchen. If you are ever unfaithful to me, I vill kill your lover, no matter vhat it costs, or how long it takes. And I vill rub your face in his blood. Clear?”

  “Very,” she replied.

  He stepped into the hallway, closed the door, and was gone.

  The cowboys were seated at the long table in the bunkhouse, eating stew and biscuits, when Stone arrived. He saw Duvall and Blakemore among them, the segundo at the head of the table, and beside him, standing on the table, was the dog, growling softly and staring at the segundo’s food. All at once the segundo raised his arm and batted the dog off the table, and it yelped as it hit the floor. The segundo laughed as he reached for another biscuit.

  Stone’s eyes fell on Ephraim, sitting beside the stove. Ephraim appeared as if he’d fallen face first into a sausage grinder, with huge welts and cuts all over his face, and portions of his skin had turned purple, while other portions were an iridescent green. His left eye was puffed into a bubble and completely closed.

  Stone walked past him without a word and filled a bowl with stew, then sat opposite Blakemore and Duvall.

  “What happened to you?” Blakemore asked, examining Stone’s battered visage. “You look like you’ve been in a hatchet fight, and you was the only one without a hatchet.”

  “Fell down a flight of stairs,” Stone said.

  “Some people can’t walk straight after they gets a few drinks in ’em, looks like.”

  “I’ll never drink again,” Stone muttered.

  “That’s what she said when the bed broke.”

  Ben Thorpe, the young cowboy with freckles on his nose, had finished eating and was walking past a window, on the way toward his bunk, when he happened to glance outside. “Holy bejesus!”

  He gazed through the window and saw, advancing toward the bunkhouse, a bony old man with a long gray beard and a beat-up hat whose brim had a chunk torn out of it.

  “They’re hirin’ the dregs as it is,” Thorpe said, “but this one looks like somethin’ that ought to be under six feet of dirt.”

  With a groan, Thorpe lay on his bunk and covered his eyes with his hands. Everybody stared at the door as footsteps approached outside. Then suddenly the door was flung open and the old man stepped inside the bunkhouse.

  “Where’s the grub!” he demanded, standing on skinny bowed legs.

  Stone stared at him in amazement, because their paths had crossed before. It was Ray Slipchuck, the old demented alcoholic stagecoach driver.

  Slipchuck’s vision was poor under the best of circumstances, but it was dark in the bunkhouse, and he narrowed his eyes as he tried to focus on the food.

  “Over here,” said Ephraim. “Help yourself, cowboy.”

  Slipchuck swaggered toward the pot of stew and filled a bowl to the brim, his eyes glittering with hunger. Then he carried the bowl to the table and filled his mouth, chewing with the few teeth he had left, and gumming the rest.

  Stone said, “I thought buzzards die when they get old, but I guess they just become cowpokes in Texas.”

  Slipchuck looked in the direction of the voice, and his lips turned up in a smile. “Well I’ll be a horn-swaggled son of a bitch!”

  Both men arose, walked around the table, and shook hands heartily.

  “Johnny my boy!” Slipchuck hollered. “You’re a sight for these poor old eyes! Never thought I’d see you again! Heard outlaws killed you in Clarksdale, or what the hell ever was the name of that town we was in?”

  “You were so drunk, Slipchuck, you didn’t even know who you were.”

  “Still don’t,” Slipchuck replied. “Been a lost child ever since that stage line I worked for went belly up.” Slipchuck shook his head as he returned to his stew. “It ain’t easy for an older man to git a job these days. When I was a young man, drivin’ stagecoaches all over God’s creation, people respected me wherever I went. I could get a job anywheres just like that”— he snapped his finger—“but now they don’t want an old feller workin’ for ’em, although I’m still as good as ever, and maybe better. You know that, Johnny. We made a run together.”

  “Finest stagecoach driver I ever saw,” Stone said. “Played that team of horses as if it were a violin.”

  Slipchuck beamed as he stuffed stew into his mouth.

  The segundo leaned toward him and grimaced. “You know anything about cows?”

  “Young feller,” Slipchuck replied, “I was herdin’ cattle when you was just an itch in yer daddy’s jeans.”

  “We’re goin’ all the way to Kansas, Pops. Think you can make it that far?”

  “If you can make it, I can make it.”

  “We’ll see about that. There’s many a cowboy buried on them plains, and quite a few have been drowned in them rivers, so keep yer eyes open and yer powder dry.”

  “I’ll pull my weight,” Slipchuck told him. “Always have and always will.”

  The door to the bunkhouse opened, and Truscott entered, wearing his slouched cowboy hat, a rawhide vest, and wide floppy leggins. Leather work gloves were on his hands, and he smoked a bent cigarette.

  He announced the work assignments for tomorrow. Most of the men would continue forming the herd, a few would stay back at the ranch for chores and general farm work, and then he looked at Stone.

  “You’ll take the boss lady into town. Have the buckboard in front of the main house at eight o’clock in the morning.”

  “Can’t somebody else take care of that, Ramrod?” Stone replied. “I’d rather work with the herd, get some experience with cattle.”

  “I just told you yer job, Stone. You don’t like it, you can light a shuck on out of here.” Truscott looked at Stone coldly, then advanced toward him, stopping on the other side of the table. “Let’s you and me understand each other, Stone. I don’t know what you were in the war, and don’t much give a damn. But while you’re ridin’ for this brand, you’ll foller my orders, and I don’t want no back talk, questions, arguments, or bullshit. Understand?”

  “Anything you say.”

  Truscott walked out of the bunkhouse, and everyone breathed easier. Stone wondered why he’d been picked to escort Cassandra Whiteside to San Antone. That was the last place he wanted to go, and she was the last person he wanted to be with.

  The segundo looked at him, a leer in his eyes. “I think she’s lookin’ fer a good hot screw about now, and maybe you’ll be the lucky cowboy.”

  Stone decided not to respond, and maybe the segundo would let go, but he didn’t.

  “You and me can switch
,” the segundo said. “She’ll know what a real man is when I’m finished with her, ’stead of that one-armed old windbag she’s married to.”

  Stone didn’t like to hear a lady spoken about that way, but decided he’d had enough fighting last night to keep him satisfied for at least a year. He sipped coffee and leaned back in his chair, determined to avoid any provocation.

  “You ain’t gonna try to slip it to the boss lady, are you, Stone?”

  Stone gazed into his cup of coffee.

  “Asked you a question, Stone.”

  “Don’t think I will,” Stone replied, “but if I do, you’ll be the first to know, segundo”

  “Don’t leave out no details, like what her pants smell like and such.”

  Stone arose from the table and rinsed his coffee cup in the bucket. No matter where he went, people wouldn’t leave him alone. All he wanted was a little peace and quiet, and the opportunity to learn the cattle business. It didn’t seem like so much to ask.

  He walked to his bunk, unbuttoned his shirt, and took the picture of Marie out of the pocket. She’d been the most important part of his life, and he’d never see her again. “So long, kid,” he said, affecting a flippancy he didn’t feel. “It’s been good to know you.”

  He tossed her picture into his saddlebags, along with his dirty clothes and his emergency can of beans. Then he took off his shirt and went outside to wash.

  It was late afternoon, and the sun sank toward the horizon. A faint breeze carried the sweet vegetative fragrance of prairie past his nostrils. He poured a pitcher of water into the basin, and washed his upper torso. Then he reached for the towel.

  The door to the privy opened, and Ephraim came out, buttoning his pants. He and Stone looked at each other, and their faces bore mute testimony to their fierce battle. Stone recalled what Ephraim had said about his father, and felt the rage return with all its high-power electricity.

  Stone stood in Ephraim’s path, and Ephraim came straight at him. Stone wasn’t about to get out of Ephraim’s way, and it looked as though Ephraim wouldn’t step to the side either. Here we go again, Stone thought.