“Yes, brother, and I want one of them I seen in last spring’s copy wearing a corset.” Then Reg dropped his head in wary disgust. “Hell, brother, they don’t sell brides.”
“They sell everything else.”
“I think this has been arranged,” Chet said. “She’s eighteen and if she doesn’t suit him at the train station, he has to buy her a train ticket back home.”
“Guess the bride market out here ain’t holding up too good,” Reg said as his brother took the letter to read. “Maybe we should bake her a cake before we leave.”
“How about an apple-raisin pie?” Chet asked above the noisy storm. “For our use of this cabin.”
“Way it’s raging out there, I’m grateful enough to do about anything.”
“We don’t have any lard to make crust,” J.D. said.
“We’ve got some, but all I had in mind was an apple-raisin crisp. Coffee’s about done,” Chet said, and rubbed his palms together to warm them. The temperature must have dropped forty degrees outside. The cookstove was heating them some and felt good.
“She’s sure going to be disappointed.” J.D. put the letter down after reading it. “This sure ain’t no large fine farm. It’s a patch of grass and mesquite in north Texas with some pear thrown in.”
“Heavens, she’ll think that’s fruit,” Reg said. “Prickly pear cactus beds.”
“I wish I could be here.” J.D. spread his arms out. “And she comes over the rise to the east in that buckboard and for the first time feasts her eyes on this dump. ‘Otto, Otto.’ She elbows him. ‘Give me de train fare to go home.’”
Chet blew on his coffee and chuckled. Those two were more than funny at times. He could recall laughing in his own house growing up—but since he’d turned seventeen, there had not been much fun coming from that place. He’d be thirty-one in May. Had it been almost fourteen years already?
He scrubbed his bristled mouth on his palm. Time sure flew.
“You ever plan to marry?” J.D. asked.
“Oh, if I can find the right woman.”
“You going to serenade her, too?”
“If it suits the occasion and I can find a drunk Mexican fiddler.” They all three laughed.
The storm passed in the night, but the clear sky before dawn was cold as an iceberg. Everyone put on their second shirt over the first for warmth and wore a slicker to break the wind. The sweet-smelling apple-raisin crisp was cooked and cooling in the oven for the newlyweds, along with a note wishing them the best and a thanks for the shelter in the storm.
Late afternoon, they located the cavy spread out grazing across a wide basin. Sitting abreast on their horses atop a rise, Chet looked for campfire smoke, but the strong gusts they faced wouldn’t let any traces stay long.
“Think they’ve abandoned them?” J.D. asked.
“Naw,” Chet said, still searching around. “This cold’s disheartened them is all. They’re hunkered down somewhere near here, I’d bet, keeping warm.”
“Disheartened me and I ain’t stole nothing,” Reg said.
“Freezing their asses off is the right thing.” J.D. huddled in his raincoat.
“We better split up. Try to not let them see you if you do locate them. We’ll all meet back here in the next hour.” He checked the sun. That would leave them some daylight if they found the rustlers.
Reg went north, Chet rode west, and J.D. took the south side of the basin. Finding nothing but a few of the horses, Chet rode back in the long shadows and sun rays that glowed red over the tops of the mesquite and grass heads. He spotted Reg’s horse standing hipshot and the boy squatted down out of the wind.
When he rode up to him, Reg shook his head. “Nothing. Sure wish J.D.’d get back.”
Chet dismounted, and saw J.D. coming in a long trot standing in the stirrups. He could tell by the look on his face that the boy’d found something.
“They’ve got a dugout about mile or so up a side draw.” J.D. pointed behind him. “I seen the paint hobbled up there. They’re in that dugout sure enough.”
“We waiting till morning?” Reg asked.
“I try not to put off the things I dread doing,” Chet said with a grim set to his jaw. The next thirty minutes would be tough. Two boys would become men.
They mounted up, drew out their rifles, and loaded the breeches. Not a word was said. They rode close together. Hats pulled down. The sharp wind had stopped being a factor—capturing the rustlers was all Chet had on his mind.
J.D. pointed to the draw. Chet nodded and turned Roan that way. He could see the crude log end of the dugout and the board door—probably cut from some old wagon flooring. They dismounted, and the boys stuck their Winchesters in their scabbards and drew their six-guns. His Colt in his fist, he nodded in approval. This would be the test—he didn’t want to think about what or who they’d find inside—he steeled himself, leading the way.
No sign of anyone, but he could smell the sharp smoke from the rusty stovepipe. It reminded him of being warm again. He put a finger to his lips for the boys to be quiet. Both nodded, but he could see the tension in their eyes. They stole closer.
He reached the side of the door and eased the drawstring. He felt it lift the bar. Then he jerked it open on wobbling leather hinges and stuck the cocked revolver in first. “Hands up or die!”
“Huh?”
“What the hell?”
“Don’t go for a thing,” he said, looking down the barrel at the shocked face of the Reynolds boy in the candlelight. He couldn’t see much more than silhouettes of the other two. This was the moment when things could become a mess. “Come out on your hands and knees and fast or I’m going to start shooting.”
“We’re coming,” Hines growled.
When they went past him coming outside in the twilight, Chet saw Hines’s hate-filled glare. He also recognized the third man, a drifter, Dab Stevens.
“How—how did you find us?” Roy Reynolds asked, holding his hands high, standing on his knees in the dirt.
“Your tracks, stupid,” Reg said in disgust.
Soon, the rustlers were outside on their knees in the dying light, holding up their hands as the two boys disarmed them. Then the two brothers shoved them down one at a time and tied their hands behind their backs. Colt ready, Chet covered them until the tying process was over.
“Now, on your feet. There’s some cottonwoods about a quarter mile north on that creek. J.D., you and Reg saddle their horses and bring them. Get that hemp rope, too.”
“You ain’t going to hang us?” Reynolds asked in a high-pitch voice.
“Hell, yes, they are,” Hines said, scowling in disgust at the boy’s whining.
“Aw, hell, I just came along—”
“Well, you gawdamn sure came along with the wrong ones,” Reg said, and started with his brother for their horses.
“Can we cut a deal?” Hines asked over his shoulder as Chet marched them north in the fading light.
“Better make one with your Maker. I ain’t cutting none.”
“You and I’ve been crossways before, Byrnes.”
“I can’t recall it. Besides, this ain’t about nothing from the past. See those horses scattered all over out there? Those are my horses—you boys stole them.”
“Yeah, but we—” Reynolds sounded ready to cry.
“Aw, shit, buck up, kid. The sumbitch’s got his mind made up. Talking and crying ain’t going to change it,” Stevens said.
“Yeah, but I ain’t ready to—”
“Just shut up!”
Chet made them sit on the ground under the rustling cottonwoods while he waited for the horses. The wind hadn’t cut down much, and the temperature was dropping in the twilight without the sun’s warmth. When the two boys arrived with the mounts, he took the hemp rope from Reg and began to build a noose. J.D. guarded the prisoners. Reg watched how Chet built the noose and then he made one. Then in the faded light, Chet tied the last noose. His fingers were cold and close to trembling. The knot
in his throat was hard to swallow.
Reg held the paint while Chet stood on the saddle and tied the nooses on the limb. The three loops were at last in place so the condemned rustlers’ feet could not touch the ground when they dropped down. One by one, Chet and Reg placed the rustlers on their horses, which J.D. held by the bridles. The nooses were drawn up on their throats and the knots set beside their left ears for what Chet hoped would be a quick death by snapping their necks.
“You got anything to say?” he asked.
“I don’t want to die,” Reynolds wailed.
“Cut the crap and get it over,” Stevens said.
“I’ll see you in hell,” Hines said.
“May God save your souls,” Chet said, and waved J.D. away from the front of their horses.
“I’ll take these two. You bust that one,” he said to Reg. “Eeha!”
The three horses bolted away from under their riders. The ropes creaked. Two of their necks snapped like shots—Stevens gagged—dancing on his noose. His struggle was short-lived, but not before his bowels released and he fouled his pants.
“What now?” Reg asked, looking sick.
“Make camp—” Chet clapped the downcast J.D. on the shoulders. “It’s a tough world. Tough solution, but they’d only’ve laughed at us for letting them off. You going to be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No, you’ll never be the same. But in time you’ll understand it better.”
Reg gave a hard sigh. “I kept thinking. Kept waiting. Hines, he never mentioned his wife Kathren or their daughter Cady.”
Chet agreed. “They must not have mattered to him.”
“Yeah, I guess they didn’t. What about their horses?”
“Horses’ll go home. Let them go.” Chet said, and started them back for their own mounts. “Daylight comes, we better gather our bunch and get back.”
“Yes, sir,” they said.
They’d never said that to him before. In disbelief, he blinked after them. Turning in the saddle, he looked back, and could see the three dark silhouettes swinging in the wind. Damn, what a day.
Chapter 4
Four days of horse driving later, the weather had warmed. Chet was grateful. They were fast approaching the home place deep in the live-oak-and-cedar-clad hills. When they broke camp that morning, Chet told the boys that the less that they said about the ordeal, the better it would be for all of them. Word would filter down soon enough. The rustlers’ saddle horses would wander back.
Along the way, they’d even found Sam Bass and he was sound again. Chet considered himself lucky—he had recovered every horse that had been stolen. When the last one went through the gate into the north pasture, they wahooed and fired their pistols in the air. Then, on the fly, they headed for the headquarters.
“I want a hot bath,” J.D. said, running side by side with Chet. “What do you want?”
“A good drink or two of whiskey.” Then Chet laughed.
“What about you?” J.D. asked Reg on the other side, ducking his head so he didn’t lose his hat.
Tall in the saddle, Reg grinned and shouted, “Some of Susie’s cooking.”
“He thinks our cooking’s bad,” Chet said to J.D.
“Aw, hell, he’s too hard to please.”
Chet nodded, filled with excitement, drew his Colt, and fired two more shots.
“What’s that for?” Reg asked as they pounded across the bottom between the rail fences and green oat field.
“To let them know we’re coming in.”
“You bet,” Reg shouted, and went to whipping his horse for the final leg of the journey. It was a horse race, and Reg let go of the black’s lead rope so he could concentrate on the last burst. Shoulder to shoulder, the three charged for the ranch gate, urging their mounts on. Roan began to gain on them. When they sped through the wide opening, he won by a nose. Sliding their mounts up to the hitch rack on their hindquarters in a cloud of dust, they faced a porch full of anxious onlookers.
“Well. You must’ve got them back,” Susie said, standing with her arms folded on the porch.
“Every damn one of them,” J.D. said, and went to brushing himself off.
“Better watch your language, Ma’s here,” Reg said under his breath.
“Oh.” He slapped his hand over his mouth.
Chet saw her first. His Aunt Louise, the boys’ mother, came storming out of the house. “Chet Byrnes, have you lost your mind taking my boys after those rustlers?”
He slipped out of the saddle and turned to Reg. “You two go get the black and unload him.”
Louise stood with her buttoned-up shoes planted underneath the many layered lace petticoats. Her feet were set apart on the rock-floored porch. Her face was black in anger, her dark hair pulled back so tight her eyes looked like slits. Hands on her slender hips, his late uncle’s wife looked mad enough to bite the head off a diamondback. Mark Byrnes had never come back from the war. Died or killed in Mississippi near the end. She never forgave him for not coming home either.
“You may run this ranch, but you are not ever again to haul my boys off on a vigilante ride. I suppose you hung them?”
He looked at her mildly. “Yes, Louise, we hung them.”
In screaming fury, she came off the porch and tried to pound him with her fists. He caught her wrists. “Listen to me. Those men stole our horses. They stole our horses that will drive our cattle to Kansas. Stand still or I’ll break your arms. Listen to me.” He forced her down to her knees. “Those horses were yours, mine, your boys’ and this whole family’s livelihood. We hung those rustlers. They were people that lived around here. No one needs to know what we did—do you understand me? No one—”
She broke into sobs. “They’re only boys. Only boys.”
“No one on this ranch is to ever speak about it ever again, Louise. Do you understand?” He looked hard-eyed at the rest for their nods. Then he released her.
“I—I understand, but Chet, for God’s sake, they’re only boys.”
He shook his head. “Not anymore. They’re men.”
With Louise on her knees, crying in her hands, he went on inside the house. Susie scowled at him. “You know how she is. Why do that to her?”
“Because this may be the most serious thing ever happened to all of us. I don’t need her whining around about it all over. They’ll find out soon enough.”
“I was right about that paint horse then?” Susie’s hands flew to cover her mouth.
“Hell, yes. He wasn’t the only one in on it either.”
“Who else?”
“It doesn’t matter—no one is to talk about it ever again.” He threw his hat across the living room. “They stole our damn horses. That makes them no better than anyone else that steals horses.” He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. They had to understand him. This got out, it might be the worst thing that ever happened to the Byrnes clan. Rustlers or not, those thieves’ families might take up the sword of revenge.
Distraught, her face wet with tears, Louise ran by him sobbing. “They were just boys. Why did they have to do it?”
He started to reach for her, then at the last moment, dropped his hand and let her go on. “Susie, go tell her so she understands. They aren’t boys anymore. We all have to grow up in this harsh world. And how important her silence is.”
Without a word, Susie nodded and ran after her aunt, who’d disappeared back in the dining room. He shook his head and fetched his hat. He had to think for too many people. Hat on his head, he stormed out the front door and headed for the barn. He wasn’t ready to hear his demented father’s repeated lectures or his poor mother’s ranting.
He took a quick shower in the bathhouse. The water was icy cold, but it woke him some from the dullness that had invaded his brain. He put on clean underwear, a clean shirt, and canvas pants. He wished he could shave, but there was no heated water down there. The temperature had warmed the past few days, but he put on a jumper to
cut the oncoming night’s cold.
In a short while, he saddled a fresh horse and rode out the front gate to escape. It was Wednesday night—her husband’d be in town playing cards. Close to sundown, he sat the bay gelding called Jack on the cedar-clad hillside and looked over the corrals and small rock house. The buckboard was gone. Good. Chet booted Jack out of the brush and down the hill.
Marla Porter came to the door and holding the facing, she rested her forehead on the hewed wood not looking at him. She was tall, willowy, in a wash-worn blue dress that flared over layers of slips. On the top of her head the prematurely gray-streaked dark hair was braided and put up. Her lips at last broke into a knowing grin as if she was pleased he’d come by. He could see the glint in her blue eyes from the late afternoon light, and then she turned away to stare at the facing again.
“I thought maybe you were mad at me,” she said, not looking at him.
He dismounted and hitched Jack at the rack. “I had some business to tend to.”
She looked mildly at him and shrugged. “Who am I to ask? I’m Jake Porter’s wife, huh?”
“I sure can’t help that.” He stopped at the stoop.
“Yes, you can,” she said, and rushed out to hug and kiss him. In her fury, she knocked off his hat and her hungry lips and tongue consumed his. He squeezed her hard against his chest and savored her mouth.
“Come inside,” she said, sweeping up his Stetson. She checked around warily and then steered him into the house.
“We better hurry,” she said, unbuttoning her dress.
“He due home?”
“I never can tell. Undress,” she said, impatient for him to move.
Twilight was long set and night had settled over the hill country when he checked the girth on his saddle and prepared to mount Jack and leave. She stood with her back against his horse and fussed with the silk kerchief tied around his neck. “Why do you come see me?”
“I guess ’cause we’re both lonely.”
“You could have a wife. Why, I know a dozen women would jump up if you asked them to marry you.”
He rubbed his palms on the front of his canvas pants. “No. I’ve got a ranch and family to run. Why don’t you leave Porter?”
Texas Blood Feud Page 3