“What?”
He brandished the revolver at them to punctuate his orders. “You heard me.” He collected the good Winchesters—brand-new, out of the box. “Now shed your pants, vest, and shirts.”
They made faces of disbelief at his orders, but obeyed.
“Now the underwear.”
“It’s cold out here,” one of the Campbells said, stripping off his long underwear.
“Not near as cold as you’ll be.”
“We ain’t done nothing to you—”
“No, you just were going to shoot me in the back a few minutes ago.”
“No, no, not me—”
“You boys get in the middle of the creek and start running south. You try to get out on the bank, I’m going shoot you.”
“Hell, it’s like ice!”
Chet nodded. “This is a lesson. I want you to remember it well. You try to ambush me again or hurt my family, you’ll be dead instead of wading cold water.”
He herded them in the water. They were already screaming in high-pitched voices in the knee-deep water. “Now run like hell right down this creek.”
He fired a shot in the ground close to the oldest Campbell, who jumped back and fell in the water. Getting in, Reynolds went facedown and popped up shivering. The third one got his at the next falls, stumbling over a boulder and his feet shooting out from beneath him. Chet had switched to a rifle, shooting to the right and left of them to keep them in the creek. They soon were out of sight, yelling and screaming and cussing.
He gathered the rifles, clothes, and went back to the horses. Leading them westward, when he was satisfied the naked ambushers couldn’t find them, he cut each cinch and let the saddles and pads fall on the ground. He took off their bridles and threw them on the saddles. Mounted on Strawberry with his three new rifles tied in a bundle, he drove the loose ponies south until he knew they’d find their way home long before the boys crawled in. Then he headed for home.
Reg was rumbling the wagon up the valley with his two outriders. Those big mares could cover ground and had lots of wind. They’d made good time.
“Any bushwhackers?” Reg asked, reining up.
“Three.”
“What did you do to them?”
“I took their horses and sent them home naked.”
Reg shook his head in amusement. “That should be a big lesson.”
“Oh, they had to swim down the creek below the ford, too.”
“It ain’t that deep.”
“No, but you couldn’t stand up either and run it with a fella shooting at your heels.”
“Whew, that would be cold,” J.D. said. “Who were they?”
“Kenny and two of the Campbells.”
“I guess they’ve got the whole clan after us?” Reg asked, propping a boot on the dash.
“Sounds like it.” J.D shook his head as if it was too hard for him to fathom.
“If this celebration is over, take us to the house. I don’t know who is the most childish, you or my boys,” Louise said.
“Yes, ma’am.” Reg kicked off the brake and clucked to the mares.
Ah, the spoiler had spoken. She couldn’t leave for Louisiana fast enough for Chet’s part. But if it was his idea, she’d never go—
He dismounted from Strawberry at the house, and he swept up Ty and Ray and put them in the saddle. They beamed as they rocked back and forth in their seat to the horse’s swinging walk.
At the corral gate, he took them down. “Short ride this time.”
He hooked the bridle on the horn, wrapped up the reins, and turned the horse into the pen. He might need him. Keeping him saddled wouldn’t hurt him. He crossed to the Bugger horse, untied him, and led him to water. Then he took him over to the side door of the tack room. Ray had a measure of oats ready in a feedbag, and opened the door with his other hand.
“Thanks, I better hang it on him.” Chet took it, and the horse bowed his head, knowing where his rewards came from, and let him put it over his once-tender ears.
“He’s getting smarter, Uncle Chet.”
“Yes, he is. Next week, I’ll saddle him. Can you boys keep a big secret?”
Ray nodded and Ty joined him. “You can’t tell anyone until after whoever goes to Kansas comes back. But we’re going to find you boys a couple of small horses or ponies.” He put his finger to his mouth. “That is our big secret.”
“I hope they aren’t wild as Bugger,” Ty said, looking concerned.
“If they are, then we’ll break them.”
Susie met them on the back porch. “Go inside, boys, after you wash up. There’s some cookies in there on the table for you and some milk.” When they were in the kitchen, out of hearing, she spoke to Chet. “It was a bad day today. We’re back like the days when the Comanche made raids on us.”
“I know and it’ll get tougher.” He hugged her. “Louise say any more about going home for a visit?”
“Not a word. I think she was simply threatening you.”
“It might ease a situation around here if she went.”
Susie stopped and blinked at him.
“Sis, you are my confidante. I tell you things that I don’t tell anyone else.” He sighed. “May says that Dale Allen is having an affair with her.”
“No.”
“May’s been upset, tired, and worn out with those two little kids and the bigger ones. As well as what she tried to do to help you. But she didn’t make that up. I saw it today between them. I just wasn’t looking for it before.”
“Oh, my God, Chet. What can you do?”
“Send her on a long trip back home and send him to Kansas with the herd.”
“Have you talked to him about it at all?”
“I can’t—he wouldn’t listen. He counters my orders. Talks to those big boys like they were his slaves. Really piss—I mean, it makes them mad.” He dried his hands. “And she’s using him against me.”
“You know I bite my tongue when she starts in to me about you. How if Mark was still here, this place would be run so much better.”
“Mark never did anymore on this ranch than a hired hand would have around here. He left her nagging for the army. I would have gone in his place, but he told me no, he had to get away from her. I doubt he planned to ever come back here after the war. Sometimes, I think he may simply walk or ride in through that front gate like nothing ever happened.”
Susie grew pale. “But it’s been seven years.”
“They said he was buried in that Mississippi mud. But mutilated bodies could be anyone—change identities and go on.”
She shuddered and he hugged her. “I’m sorry, Susie. Mark is probably dead, but I don’t think she believes it. Other men have come around and she avoided them like the pining widow.”
“But why,” she whispered, “Dale Allen?”
“To get to me is all I know. She would like to run this ranch and order everyone around like they did on her family farm.”
“A war with the Reynolds clan and one of our own. You at least knew what a Comanche wanted when he came.”
He agreed. “I think my boys are through. I’m going to split some stove wood and let them bring it up here. They like work. I sure don’t want them to quit liking it.”
At the woodpile, he let the boys work the bowed handsaw to cut short blocks off the post oak logs he put up on the cross-bucks for them. “Be careful.”
With those two busy, he began to bust the shot sticks into easy kindling wood on top of a large block cut out of an ancient oak. The double-bit ax raised high over his head and the kindling flew. The sound of someone pounding iron came on the wind. Dale Allen was working in the blacksmith shop, replacing or repairing some parts on the chuck wagon. He also was making extra single- and doubletrees out of some ash blocks they’d bought at the mill.
His brother was handy at blacksmithing. Never minded working alone, and did good craftsmanship. Suited Chet fine. He busted off some more kindling. Using the big ax gave him time to thin
k, consider what the Reynolds clan would try next, and use his muscles. The pile began to grow, and the boys were cutting them faster than he could make them into kindling.
They began giggling over how far ahead of him they were.
“Oh, my gosh, you boys better take a break.”
They agreed and sat down in the sawdust, hugging their knees to watch him work. At last he sunk the ax in the block. “We better carry some up to the house.”
“We get a pony, I’ll train him to pull a sled and we’ll haul it up there.” Ray said.
“Now that’s thinking,” Chet said, and loaded up his arms with the short wood.
“You boys haul some more up there on the porch after this. I need to go do something.”
At the house, he stuck his head inside and told his sister he was going scouting and would be back later.
The boys agreed to pack more up there, and he paid them a nickel each. He walked to the pen and took the feedbag off Bugger and caught Strawberry. Porter’d come home, but maybe he’d be gone to town to play cards. When the horse was bridled and cinch tight, Chet swung up in the saddle and rode off.
Maybe talking to Marla would help—she could usually cheer him up.
Chapter 9
Twice, he stopped and listened. Was it wind or someone? Maybe he was just getting apprehensive about it all. Their plan to ambush the Byrnes family was worthless. Those boys probably couldn’t hit a barn door. Their rifles he collected had not even ever been fired. What did Grandpa Cooney say? Don’t send a boy when you need a man.
He reined up and sat on Strawberry with his own rifle across his lap in a pungent-smelling cedar thicket. Crows were calling loudly that something or someone had upset them. Nothing showed up out of the ordinary. He scoped the house twice with his field glasses. Maybe his nerves had got jangled by all that had happened. A snort of whiskey would go good at the moment. When had he had his last drink? Years ago, he’d fallen in love with the bottle, but he’d whipped that. No time to start back now.
When he set out again, he felt that someone was looking at him. Who and why, he had no idea. Could be them. But where were they watching him from? He diverted up a side canyon, and came out on top watching his back trail and the valley. Nothing. Still, his intuition had always worked when Comanche hunting.
He broke off the hillside and short-loped across the wide basin. Setting Strawberry down in some more cedars, he used the scope again. Nothing.
Satisfied, he went to her place, slipped in behind the outhouse when he was certain that Jake wasn’t there. With Strawberry hitched, he went through the weighted self-closing gate, crossed the yard, and knocked softly on the back door.
“Coming,” she said. “Well, how did it go after the funeral?”
“No problem.”
“I was afraid he’d shoot you in the building.”
“Bad deal. Earl had a fit, drew a gun to bar us from the schoolhouse, and someone broke his arm. Then three of the boys tried to jump us at the ford when we were going home.”
She went for her coffeepot while indicating a chair at the table. “Tell me more.”
“He’s in town?”
She nodded, then set a tin cup down and poured the dark coffee in Chet’s cup. “Tell me more,” she said.
“I slipped up behind those ambushers and made them undress. Told them they had to run down that creek or I’d shoot them.”
“Undressed?”
“I didn’t want them to forget their foiled ambush.”
“They walked home soaking wet?” She bowed over and kissed him on the mouth. “Porter got back yesterday. But I’d almost swear he has a woman stashed somewhere.”
“Strange. Today, I thought someone might be following me. I doubled back twice and waited for twenty minutes each time for them to show.” He shrugged it off. “Years ago, I was like that, always imagining Comanche were trailing me.”
The coffee tasted all right, and simply being in her company brightened his outlook. He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I guess I’m in a safe haven for now.”
She jumped up and came over to sit on his lap. “Safe as you can get it.”
His mouth closed on hers and her arms surrounded his neck. He knew any minute they’d be swept up in a clothes-shedding whirlwind. Damn, that was what in the hell he came for. That and to forget the whole blasted damn day. Oh, God bless you, girl.
Coyotes were serenading the stars when he left her place. Strawberry picked his way in a jog trot up the canyon. He tried to use a different way each time in and out so his tracks weren’t obvious. Some of her other horses stayed around that gate so some fresh piles there wouldn’t be telltale. The home place was near dark when he came in the gate.
“That you, Chet?” Susie asked, coming out on the porch packing a rifle.
“Something wrong, sis?”
“They chased Reg and J.D. in the yard when they were coming back from checking the mares. Three of them pulled up out there and they fired some bullets at the wall. I wouldn’t let the boys shot back at them.”
“Recognize any of them?”
“They were cowboys is all I could tell. Had masks pulled up.”
“Any fancy horses?”
“No, just bays.”
“Next time don’t stop the boys from shooting at them. They think we’re weak, they’ll get bolder.”
“I know, but they probably were only boys.”
“Boys can kill you.”
“All right. I won’t do that again. You see anything?”
“No. I sat waiting for them and they didn’t show.”
“You look better. More relaxed.”
“Good, I must have rode it out. You better get some sleep. I’ll sleep out here on the porch. They can’t slip past the dogs and me.”
She hugged him and went inside. Rifle in his hand, he went to put up Strawberry. Something of Marla still clung to him—her musk, slight perfume. Susie probably didn’t miss it. He’d have to fest up with her about Marla before this was all over.
At morning’s cool predawn, she brought him coffee on the porch. He threw the blanket cover back and sat up.
“No trouble?”
“Nothing.”
“I better ride up and look at those mares today.” He used the porch’s post to lean on. Brazen bastards riding up out there and challenging them. They’d be dead if they ever tried it again. If Susie hadn’t told them to hold their fire, those boys would have counted coup on that bunch.
After breakfast, Reg and Heck joined him for the trip. Rifles loaded in their scabbards, they left out on fresh horses. Two days into this deal and already the Reynolds clan was acting very open in their hostile moves toward them. They short-loped their way up into the north pasture beyond where they kept the remuda horses. Reg bailed off and opened the gate.
Chet searched the open country. Nothing.
“When we shut that gate last night, they busted down here on us from over there.” Reg pointed to a cluster of cedars.
“I wanted to stop and shoot it out with them, but J.D. wanted to go home and get help. I agreed, but when we got home, Susie wouldn’t let us shoot at them.”
“I changed that—next time shoot to kill. That’s self-defense.”
They rode across two sections of hill country to what they called Hornet Springs. There were several big-bellied mares grazing. They raised their heads and studied the invaders. The ditch carried a good supply of water that spilled over the rock-lined pool built back before the war. Then the water source ran into Yellow Hammer Creek.
“What the hell?” Chet shouted, standing up in the stirrups. Two bloated bay mares were floating in the pond. He spurred Sam toward them, and then he reined him in a sliding stop.
“It’s the Ranger mares.” Two of his prize brood animals heavy in foal. He jerked loose his reata, whirled it over his head, and roped a hind foot, then dallied it on the horn and began to pull the mare out. “Reg, get a rope on another leg. It will be lots more pull w
hen we get her over to the dam.”
Soon, they had the two dead mares out on dry land and he dismounted, coiling his rope. Damn them. He bent over and saw where they’d stabbed the first one’s jugular vein in the neck. They’d led the mares into the tank and then murdered them. He took his hat off and sat on the ground. Close to tears with a knot in his throat, he couldn’t swallow. With the side of his fist, he beat the ground. You’ll pay. You’ll pay.
“What do we need to do?” Heck asked, tears streaking his face.
Reg was looking off at the way north and beating his leg with his hat. “I should have shot them coyotes.”
“Nothing we can do here. The rest of the mares appear to be fine. Wait, walk around and look for anything they might have dropped.”
“There’s a brass whorehouse token,” Reg said, bending over to pick it up. “Reckon one of them dropped it?” He tossed it to Chet.
“Marie’s in Fort Worth. Worth five bucks.”
“Got a big cock rooster on the back.”
“Wait,” Heck said. “There’s a fancy knife in this pond. I just saw it.” He sat down, shed his boots and socks, then slid in the pool and bent over to get the knife. “They must have lost it after they killed the mares and couldn’t find it in the night. Says right here, ‘Made for Kenny Reynolds.’”
“That son of a bitch,” said Reg.
“I know we don’t have a case in court,” said Chet. “It would be our word against theirs. We know who lost the knife, but did we see their faces? No. So someone stole his knife and they were the ones killed our good mares.”
“That’s the way the law works?” Heck asked, looking confused.
“That’s why so many rustlers get hung. The law isn’t liable to prosecute very hard. Lawyers mess the witnesses up. Some friend of the accused is on the jury.”
“I thought law was law.”
“Heck, you’ll learn lots before this is over.”
“You mean if I killed your horses and lost my knife beside the dead horses, I could get off scot-free?”
Texas Blood Feud Page 7