Mystery Herd

by Paul Lederer

  ‘Aren’t you going in?’ Trinity asked as Russell remained fixed where he stood.

  ‘We have a chore to do first – if you’ll help me. My father’s grave has yet to be dug.’ Russell frowned deeply. ‘I want to get him beneath the ground so that he can’t see any of what is about to happen.’

  FIVE

  An hour later, both men dirty and sweaty were washing up in the kitchen as a frowning Alicia watched them. Tonio had helped them maneuver the body of Lew Bates down the stairs from his bedroom and out of the house to be put down in the cold earth beneath the cottonwoods behind the house. No one else had appeared to ask them a question – maybe no one wanted to admit what was happening.

  The inner door to the kitchen slammed open as Trinity stood rolling his sleeves down. Russell was still drying his hands.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Vincent Battles demanded from the doorway. ‘I’ve buried six men in half the time you took.’

  Russell Bates was thinking that it was probably true. The cold-eyed cattle man waited impatiently for them to finish up as Alicia tried to protect the food she was preparing for dinner from contamination.

  ‘That lawyer has been standing around in the front room for hours. You, at least, Russell, should want to hear what he has to tell us.’ Trinity wondered at Vincent Battles’s own eagerness. The wolfish man seemed to feel that there was something in it for him. Was that perhaps the reason he had been catering to Holly? Wanting to have a part of her share, whatever that might prove to be.

  Following Battles out, they crossed the front room to what Trinity guessed had been Lew Bates’s office when he was alive. Around the room, the others waited. The lawyer, Hugh McAfee, tall and narrow and wearing spectacles, stood behind a massive carved oaken desk. Holly and Millicent occupied the two thickly padded black leather chairs facing him. Standing against the wall near a glass-fronted book case stood a broad-shouldered, pale-haired man. This had to be Earl Bates. He resembled none of the others. Square head, hair trimmed to within a half inch of his scalp, thick in the chest, he resembled nothing more than a Dutch teamster. He had sharp blue eyes which flickered to Trinity, revealing displeasure.

  ‘Who are you? This meeting is for family only. That means you may leave, Battles.’ His eyes returned to Trinity. ‘I asked who you are.’

  ‘This is my friend, Trinity,’ Russell said.

  ‘Family only,’ Earl Bates said again.

  ‘Whose rule is that?’ Russell wanted to know. You’re not running these proceedings, Earl.’ Earl Bates frowned and said, ‘I see that time in the army has given you a little backbone, Russ, but I want him out of here.’ He pointed toward the door where Vincent Battles had exited.

  The man behind the desk spoke for the first time. ‘If it will save any time,’ Hugh McAfee suggested, ‘why don’t the four of you just put it to a vote. I myself have no objections to this man remaining.’

  ‘I want Trinity here as well,’ Holly said. Earl’s eyebrows drew together in surprise.

  ‘All right,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You know how I feel about it. What do you say, Millicent?’

  ‘I’m sure it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,’ Millicent replied, lifting one shoulder in a ladylike shrug which was barely visible beneath the fabric of the black dress she wore on this day.

  ‘Then stay – and keep quiet,’ Earl said. This was a man obviously used to having his own way in everything. ‘Let’s get this over with, McAfee.’

  Hugh McAfee seated himself behind the broad desk and drew a sheaf of papers from his black leather portmanteau. ‘If I may begin.…’

  He droned on for quite awhile, using ‘whereas’ and ‘in respect to’ frequently as the others fidgeted. McAfee had a way of speaking without seeming to move his lips. The lawyer’s words hissed out between his teeth, making understanding him even more difficult. Trinity had not really been listening, but he could see by the flush on his face that Earl Bates was growing angry. Holly only nodded her understanding. Millicent seemed to be in another world. Russell craned his neck forward as if trying to comprehend the legal text being read to them.

  ‘Do you want to boil all of that down for us, McAfee?’ Earl Bates asked when the lawyer had finished.

  ‘Weren’t you listening?’ McAfee seemed to feel put upon.

  ‘I was listening; I just didn’t like what I thought I heard,’ Earl said in a gravelly tone.

  ‘Simply,’ Hugh McAfee told them, looking from one face to the other. ‘You all have an equal share in the Owl Ranch. As far as cash reserves – there seem to be few.’

  ‘Until the cattle are delivered to Fort Bridger,’ Holly said.

  ‘Well, by God!’ Earl exploded. ‘I rode all this way for nothing? I need cash to keep my own ranch going, to pay my men. Look, McAfee, can I sell my share of the property?’

  ‘No,’ McAfee said, snapping his leather case shut. He pushed his spectacles up on his nose with his thumb. ‘Everyone would have to agree to such a sale. No one has a specific section of land apportioned to him. It’s a common asset. You own one quarter of the ranch and future profits.’

  ‘Future profits don’t do me much good right now – I’ve got cattle dying off because of loss of water, men quitting because I can’t make their pay.’

  Apparently, Trinity was thinking, Earl Bates had overextended himself buying too much land and bringing in so many cattle that the land could not support them. It was not an uncommon occurrence down on the west Texas lands where rain was always unpredictable.

  Earl swallowed hard as if he had a mouthful of ball bearings and walked from the room, his troubles weighing heavily on him. As he passed through the door, Trinity caught sight of Vincent Battles, leaning against the fireplace waiting hopefully.

  The reading of the will, then, had affected none of their lives. Holly and Millicent would continue to live on the Owl; Earl Bates, disappointed, would probably return to his Texas spread to wait for his share of the profits from the trail herd. Russell was still in trouble as deep as before without an idea what his father had wanted from him.

  Trinity turned and started out toward the back door. He could hear Earl Bates and Vincent Battles going at it.

  ‘I’m using my men on that drive,’ Earl was saying in a bullying voice. ‘They need their pay, and I mean to be at Fort Bridger when that herd is delivered. I mean to make sure I collect my share of the sale.’

  ‘Holly has already hired me and my crew to do that job, Bates,’ Battles answered with firmness. ‘Why don’t you just hit leather and line out for the Texas country. No one needs you around here.’

  It seemed that the argument was likely to continue for a long while. Trinity continued toward the kitchen door. Vincent Battles caught his movement from the corner of his eye and called out to him.

  ‘You! Trinity! You can’t go on just lazing around here. Tomorrow you put on your spurs and get to work like the rest of us.’

  This was one order Earl Bates didn’t feel like objecting to. He stood silently by, his eyes no less fierce than those of Battles.

  ‘I’ll be ready,’ Trinity said. After all, it was only fair that he earn his bread. Of course the idea could be to get him out on the range alone, but he couldn’t simply dismiss the Owl Ranch’s foreman, shaky as Vincent Battles’s own position might be. Holly had emerged from the conference room and she stopped Trinity. Taking his arm, she said just loudly enough for Bates and Vincent Battles to hear:

  ‘Don’t forget, Trinity, you’re staying in the house from now on.’

  Trinity nodded and kept going. He needed not so much as to be by himself as to be away from the arguments and endless bickering going on within the house. Holly would try to talk to the two men who both insisted they be in charge, but it was unlikely she would get anywhere with them. Trinity had to admit that each had a point – Battles had been sent for to manage the drive and hired on as ranch foreman. Earl was part-owner of the ranch. Leave it up to them! Trinity opened the kitchen door and wa
lked out to where a cool wind was blowing.

  He walked a little way out into the cottonwood grove. The barren branches criss-crossed the earth with shadows. Damp spongy leaves were underfoot. He paused for a minute at Lew Bates’s freshly-dug grave, pondering his own mortality, then walked toward the barn where his horse was stabled. He did not want to go riding, but the horses on this day would make more pleasant company than the humans.

  He was careful to give the bunkhouse wide berth, but it did him no good. As he reached the barn, Willie Meese, leading his buckskin horse and another man were coming out. Trinity nodded, but said nothing. Meese tried to screw his face up into a vengeful mask, but the sticking plaster he wore across the bridge of his nose ruined whatever effect he was trying for.

  ‘I know that man,’ Trinity heard Meese’s companion say as he entered the barn. When Trinity glanced back, he saw the new man watching him with a fixed gaze.

  ‘From where?’ Meese asked the man whose name was Plimford and had just arrived from Texas with Earl Bates’s crew.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Plimford said, scratching at his narrow chin. ‘But I seen him before somewhere – he’s bad news, I think, Willie.’

  The two then moved away from the barn, speaking in low voices. Trinity cursed under his breath. He knew Dave Plimford as well. The beanstalk of a man had been involved in some shady dealings down near Ruidoso. It wouldn’t have mattered, but Trinity did not wish to be discovered just yet. He had hardly begun with his work.

  Roger, the stableman was not there. From what Tonio had said of him, and from what Trinity himself had observed, it was likely that Roger was sleeping off his whisky load somewhere. Tonio, Trinity saw as his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, was in one of the back stalls, tending to a leggy blue roan.

  ‘Hello, Tonio,’ Trinity said, walking that way past the curious eyes of the horses.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Are you riding out?’

  ‘Not again today, I don’t think.’ He watched the boy run a grooming brush over the blue roan. The animal’s hide quivered under the brush. Obviously the horse was enjoying the attention. ‘Whose horse is that?’ Trinity asked.

  ‘This one belongs to Earl Bates,’ the kid said. ‘I am taking special care of him in case Mr Bates inherits the Owl and he might make me permanent stable boy.’

  Trinity did not tell the boy that Earl Bates would not be inheriting the ranch, not now. ‘Your mother doesn’t need you today?’

  ‘Not now – she will call me if she does. Usually she don’t need me again until just before supper.’

  ‘Those two men who just left…?’ Trinity began. Tonio laughed.

  ‘Willie and the new man? Willie was telling the new man how you jumped him and broke his nose.’

  ‘Was he?’ Trinity said. ‘I just noticed that they took their horses out and it seems kind of late in the day to start work. I wondered if you might have an idea where they were headed.’

  Tonio lowered his brush. ‘Sure,’ he answered. ‘I know where they’re going. They were talking about it as if I wasn’t here. They’re going out to look at the other herd.’

  The other herd? Trinity wasn’t really that surprised. He had expected that he might find something like that, but it seemed such a bold risk. He asked Tonio:

  ‘Do you have any idea where this other herd might be?’

  ‘Naw, they didn’t say nothing about that, and I don’t spend much time on the range. I’m happier around here, Trinity.’

  ‘I know.’ Trinity watched thoughtfully for a while longer as Tonio finished his grooming of the blue roan. ‘Tell me, Tonio, where is the smith’s shack?’

  ‘You need something fixed? No one is over there now. Our old smith left to live in town, over in Sage. He said he was too old for the job. That was last year sometime.’

  ‘I just wanted to look around,’ Trinity told the boy.

  ‘What you do is go behind the bunkhouse toward the pigpen. There’s two buildings out that way. The first is the smoke house. A few hundred feet farther along, you’ll find the smith’s shack.’

  Thanking Tonio, Trinity set off in the direction indicated. Finding the pigpen took no effort at all. The hogs could be smelled fifty yards away. The wind was growing more chilly. One pig, fresh from the wallow followed Trinity along through the fence, grunting and twitching its nose. Trinity smiled – maybe he smelled as bad to the pigs as they did to him.

  The smoke house was low, squat, and windowless of course. Beside it, running from corner to corner was a planting box which held green onions, garlic and a small shrub with tiny blue flowers which a grass widow woman over in Abilene had once explained to Trinity was rosemary. With sage as abundant as grass, there were enough herbs here to season about anything.

  Trinity paused to take a peek inside the smokehouse. From the dark ceiling he could see two dozen hams hanging, and coils of sausage draped along the walls – the purpose behind the herbs he had seen outside – along with sides of bacon and paddle wide strips of beef jerky. It all reminded Trinity that he was very hungry – he had had only those biscuits for breakfast and he had given Holly one of them.

  Holly had invited him to sleep in the house, but said nothing about supper. Maybe with Tonio’s influence, Trinity could convince Alicia to make him a sandwich.

  His head came around at the sound of approaching horses.

  Some of the Owl riders were returning to the bunkhouse after working all day on the range. They would find Earl Bates’s Texas riders inside, perhaps on their bunks. This was a recipe for disaster and Trinity knew he wanted no part of it. The two factions would surely clash.

  He continued along the path and eventually found the small smith’s shack set by the side of the road. It hadn’t been used for some time but still Trinity’s nostrils caught the scent of slag and iron shavings. He approached the shack and opened the door, finding that it swung easily open on oiled hinges. He frowned slightly at that. According to Tonio, the blacksmith had been gone for some time. Well, he considered, perhaps others used it on occasion.

  Entering, he saw the cold forge, an anvil and some heavy short-handled sledges hanging from pins on the wall. Trinity began poking through the tool barrels there, some of the tools – a split shovel, a broken pickaxe – waiting for repairs that would never come. A row of iron tyres for the wagon wheels leaned against another wall.

  Near the anvil, Trinity found discarded two-inch long arcs of iron. He crouched and examined them, frowning. They exactly resembled the loops of metal the smith had fashioned to represent the eyes of the Owl brand, which was what they were.

  Also on the ground was an intact Owl branding iron which seemed to have been damaged when someone tried to hammer these pieces free. A one-eyed owl watched as Trinity’s frown deepened. Trinity played with the arcs of metal, placing them together in various ways until a bit of nearly-forgotten knowledge rose to illuminate him.

  He knew what they were doing with the other herd.

  Rising, he dusted off his knees and slipped out of the smith’s shack, into the cool of settling dusk. A shout from near the bunkhouse drew his gaze that way. Two men he did not know were going at it with fists and boots. The group of men, gathered to watch, were bunched together in two distinct clusters – Earl’s Texas roughnecks and Vincent Battles’s cowhands. It was too predictable.

  He wondered if Holly had had any luck in negotiating a peace between the two cattlemen. It seemed unlikely – both were obstinate, proud and angry. Trinity started to walk that way. Holly, Russell, or Trinity himself had to do something, and do it soon.

  The Owl was teetering on the brink of total collapse.

  SIX

  Holly was in the kitchen, seated at the table, watching as Alicia worked over the steaming stove. Holly’s golden eyes flashed at him.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded in a tone Trinity didn’t care for.

  ‘Staying out of the way,’ he said, taking a chair out to sit facing her. Alicia cast him a sidelong gl
ance with her suspicious black eyes. ‘There’s nothing I can add to the discussion.’

  ‘Discussion!’ Holly barked. ‘Is that what you call this warfare between Vincent and Earl?’

  ‘I take it they haven’t come to any agreement,’ Trinity answered calmly, and Holly’s temper subsided slightly.

  ‘They don’t want to,’ Holly said miserably. ‘They just want to puff up and pose and make as much noise as possible.’

  ‘I know you can’t fire Vincent Battles,’ Trinity said.

  ‘Not after I practically begged him for his help and he collected those men and rode all the way up here!’ Holly said.

  ‘And no one is going to convince Earl to ride back to Texas – not until he gets his share of the profit from the cattle sale.’

  ‘No, and he has as much right to his share as Russell, Millicent and I do,’ Holly said miserably. This was all getting too much for her, Trinity knew. He stretched out his hand and touched the back of hers gently.

  ‘This won’t last for ever,’ he told her.

  ‘I know,’ she said, turning her eyes down. Her voice was much softer now – the girl needed a lot of soothing attention. ‘To me it’s all about saving the Owl, and I need to sell those cattle to do that. To them,’ she waved a disparaging hand, ‘it all seems to be about the profit to be made.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Trinity agreed, ‘but you’d better tell them to take off their sparring gloves right now, and at least make a temporary truce of some kind – because if they don’t step in and calm down their crews, they’ll have to make a trail drive with men that have broken arms and legs and battered skulls.’

  ‘Has it gotten that bad?’ Holly asked with deep distress.

  ‘Not yet, but it’s already started.’ He told her briefly about the fight he had seen outside the bunkhouse. ‘Once any man pulls a gun, it’s all over.’

  ‘Surely it won’t come to that,’ Holly said.