“I’m sending for a dozen men I can deputize. I’m afraid this thing will boil over into a an open war.”
Chet agreed. The Reynolds clan would be madder than ever. His life wasn’t getting any easier. Sheriff Trent excused himself and went with Doc upstairs to talk to Scotty. The boy was staying up there after Doc dug the bullet out of him.
In a short while, Trent joined Chet in the Red Horse Saloon. Chet was standing at the bar, sipping on his first beer and still in shock over the first killing of the day.
The lawman gave him a grim nod. “That boy told me the same thing I guess he told you about the killing. Then I asked him why in the hell he tried to ambush you.”
“What did he say?”
“Earl and Kenny told him to.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“I’m bringing Scotty before the justice of the peace tomorrow and charge him with assault and Marla Porter’s murder, then take him up to Mason to sit in jail till the circuit judge gets here.”
“You better have lots of backup to take him out of here.”
“I will. I’ve sent for a dozen men.”
“I hope it’s enough.”
“It will be.” Trent wiped his mustache with a handkerchief after he sampled his beer.
“I’ve never been in a feud before with white folks,” Chet said. “I fought the Comanche from age eleven on. But I think these people are insane.”
Trent gave a nod.
“I better go find Susie and get back to the ranch. I’ll be here for the hearing.” Chet finished his beer and set the mug down. “When’s your help coming?”
“Couple of hours.”
“You want me to stay until then?”
Trent shook his head. “I’ll be all right.”
Chet wasn’t certain about that, but he left the lawman and walked back to Grosman’s. He needed to hire some men. But who wanted to be in the cross fire between them and the Reynolds people? It wouldn’t be an ordinary job punching cows; he’d have to pay hazard wages, too. Damned if life didn’t take some hard twists. He should by this time be married to a good woman and raising a family, building a ranch big enough for his own heirs—if he ever had any.
In the store, he found Susie, and loaded up her things in the buckboard. A young man put the salt blocks in the rig. They drove in the warming morning with the meadowlarks and scurrying roadrunners accompanying them back to the ranch.
“Any trouble?” Dale Allen asked, coming out of the house and picking his teeth over lunch.
“Sycamore Campbell went for his rifle and I shot him.”
Dale Allen frowned hard at him. “That old man ran the sawmill?”
Chet nodded. “He’s dead. They are having an inquest tomorrow morning on his death and charging Scotty with Marla’s murder then too.”
“You’re thinning them out.”
“Oh, brother, I’m so damn tired of all this.”
Heck was on the seat ready to drive the horses to the corrals. “I’ll unload the salt.”
“Good enough.” Chet waved him on, seeing Susie’s things were out of the rig.
“There’s no end in sight, brother,” Dale Allen said, looking weary. “Louise wanted to leave in the morning. I’ll tell her to put it off a day.”
“That would be a good idea. I may go up to San Antonio myself next week and hire some hands.”
“And turn this place into an armed camp?”
“It is now.” He went on by his brother and washed his hands in the basin. Dale Allen went off toward the shop in his typical fashion to bury his head in the sand. Armed camp. They’d been living in one since the horse theft. And it wouldn’t get any better. When those three boys were tried for her murder, things would only get worse—Reynolds and their kin would blame him.
His hands dried on the stiff flour-sack towel, he went inside, and the heat from the hearth felt good.
“Señor,” Astria called to him from the kitchen with a heaping plate in her hands. “Do you wish to eat in there?”
He shook his head and moved toward her. “I’ll eat in the dining room. Enchiladas?”
She nodded as if pleased.
“Muy bueno, gracias.” He nodded to the girl. “How is the job going?”
“Well, I like it here. The boys tease me but in fun, and I love your sister.”
He straddled a chair and set the plate on the table, then put his weathered hat down on another chair. “Perhaps you have a relative needs work.”
“My cousin, Maria, who lives in San Lupe would like to have work.”
“How can we send her word?” He used the side of his fork to cut the rich-looking food layers oozing cheese and red sauce.
“I could send a letter along with you telling how nice you are to work for.”
“When I get things straight, I will go and get her. Write the letter.”
The girl looked excited. “Si, I would love to have her here with me.”
“I bet. These boys and I talk crude Spanish.”
“Oh, señor, they aren’t so bad.”
“I’ll put her on my list.” Louise would be gone in two days. When she got back, she couldn’t bitch about hiring more help since she did little anymore. Another girl might ease some of the load on Susie, too.
He’d need to go back to town in the morning. They’d need to check on their own cattle and be sure they hadn’t wandered too far. Besides gathering his own, he wanted to shift all the grazers that they could cut out off the place and drive them beyond the boundaries. This feud wasn’t leaving much time for anything that needed doing. Besides, he couldn’t send the boys out in different directions under the threat that they’d be attacked. They’d have to sectionalize their jobs and work as a team.
Maybe take the three boys, a packhorse, and work one area. It had been pretty cold at night for camping of late. Those boys didn’t give a hoot, but for himself, he sure wasn’t all that fired up about sleeping on the cold ground.
After thanking Astria for the food, he walked down to the corral. He found Reg riding Bugger and plow-reining him around.
“We figured you wanted him broke,” J.D. said, leaning on the corral.
“That’s fine—he buck much?”
“Naw, but we’ve had his hind foot tied up and been getting on and off him quite a bit before we tried to ride him.”
“Stout, ain’t he?” Chet asked Reg.
“I think he may be the most powerful horse I ever rode aside from our work horses. Easy, Bugger, easy.”
“He looks pretty light on his feet for a big horse.”
“I’m surprised about that, too. How did he spook her out?”
“I think Neddy simply knew he was too much for her and sent him to us.”
Reg patted his neck and made him walk around in the corral. “He ain’t pretty, but he’s a huge horse. I think he’s smart, too.”
“You boys don’t get too much in love with him. I think she wants him back.”
They laughed.
He went to his room and put some water on the small stove to clean his pistol. The new cartridge models were easier to clean than the powder-ball models he grew up with, and he sure liked the new ones better. Much easier to reload on the run.
With the revolver disassembled and spread on the small table, he used a brush to clean the two chambers in the cylinder and the barrel. A good gun was only as good as you kept it. Then he ran a rag through the Sharps rifle. From the soiled look of the rag at the receiver end, it sure needed cleaning. The rifle’s actions were about gritty from not being cleaned in some time, too.
He purged the barrel and the cylinder with boiling water, using a swab until the rag he used came clean. Then he dried them and lightly oiled everything. With the .44 reloaded and on his hip again, he stood up at a knock on the door as he finished oiling the Sharps’ bore.
“Yes?”
May looked both ways, then stepped in the room holding the small one. “I didn’t come to bother you. I think that the doctor should
see Rachel. She doesn’t eat good. I think she’s lost weight. Dale Allen tells me it is my imagination. That I worry too much.”
Chet nodded. “I’ll see Doc tomorrow and have him come by.”
“Don’t tell my husband I said anything.”
“I won’t. Where’s Ray and Ty today?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen them since breakfast.”
“I better go see about them. They didn’t come in for lunch?”
“No, but sometimes they get busy—”
“I know, but it’s getting late. I’ll see Doc tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Chet.”
He took the water off the stove and went to find Reg and J.D. He stuck his head in the door and found them reading Police Gazettes in the large bunk. “Those young boys didn’t come in for lunch. You two know where they went?”
“No, sir.”
“We better get up and find ’em.”
No telling where they’d gone off to. But it made his guts churn. If anything had happened to those two—
Chapter 13
Coyotes were yapping at the moon. Chet pushed the horse up the canyon choked with towering live oak and cedar. With starlight engulfing the landscape and the temperature dropping off fast, the plodding of his mount made the only sounds. His concern had deepened for the two boys. Where and how had they gone? Reg and J.D. couldn’t even recall them leaving that morning. They’d gone to mess with Bugger after breakfast, and hadn’t seen the boys since that meal. Heck had heard them say something about Comanches—he couldn’t recall.
Since Chet’s late afternoon alarm, everyone had set out to find the two. Chet took the rough country west of the ranch headquarters. Without any idea in mind where they might be, he’d ridden up many blind canyons, calling out their names and wondering what they’d had in mind. An eight- and a six-year-old boy who lived in a world of their own without a horse couldn’t go too far in a day.
Or could they? “Ray? Ty?”
His voice sounded lost in the deep night. They lived in a world all their own. Not that Susie, May, and the others didn’t pay them any attention. There was a bonding between the two that he recognized as stronger than blood even.
Where could they be? It was long past supper. There wasn’t much out there in the brush to eat, and they couldn’t have taken much along in the way of food or Astria would have noticed.
She’d shaken her head and turned up her small hands about where they went. “They ate breakfast and were gone.”
Susie and Chet had left for town at that time, too, so in the confusion, the pair had slipped away. Frustrated over his lack of success, Chet turned the horse toward the house. What had he told his brother about those two boys before they went after the horse rustlers? Find some time for those two boys.
He couldn’t believe they’d run off. Just little boys. He closed his eyes and let his horse go home. At the house, he dropped heavily from the saddle and stripped out the latigos.
“No success?” Susie asked him.
“Nothing.”
“No one else found a sign of them either.”
“I need to be at that hearing in the morning.” He lifted the kac off the horse and slung it over the fence for the night.
“We’ll find them tomorrow,” she assured him.
He wasn’t convinced. When he went into the living room, Dale Allen was stomping the floor walking back and forth. “No sign of them?”
“None.”
“I find them, I’ll beat their butts.”
“Dale Allen, listen. That’s not the answer. That’s probably why they left. None of us cared.”
“Cared?”
“Cared. Those boys had no one to really care for them. So they left.”
“Ah, hell, they’re just kids.”
“How the hell would you know? You talked to them lately?”
Dale Allen never answered him.
Susie came in the room and looked close to tears. “What can we do?”
“Look some more in the morning.”
“I have some supper for you,” she said to Chet.
“Thanks,” he said, and followed her into the kitchen.
“Where’s Rock and Mother?”
“Mother’s in bed where she stays anymore. He went to bed a half hour ago.”
“Sorry—I just had not seen them.” Taking a chair, he dropped in place at the table.
“You can’t do it all by yourself, Chet. I hope those boys are all right.”
“So do I, sis,” he said, taking his fork and without much appetite beginning to eat.
The little sleep he had that night was wrought with dreams of Indian massacres. Dawn, still no boys, and he saddled Roan. He’d shaved and taken a sponge bath. Dressed in a starched shirt and his suit—he wanted to make his best impression.
The crew was silent at breakfast, and he left them orders at daylight to look for any tracks they could find. Use the stock dogs, too. The dogs loved the boys—strange the boys left without one. Around the table they talked about nearby places the boys could have gone to. Half sick with worry, he rode for town after the morning meal. There had to be an answer—he considered getting drunk and trying to forget the whole thing. They needed to find those errant boys.
Deputies armed with rifles were posted on the saloon porch when he rode into Mayfield. The town bristled with people, horses, buggies, and rigs. No one was going to miss a thing. Since the Red Horse Saloon was secured for the hearing, Casey’s was doing all the business. He went by Doc’s office first and told him about May’s concerns over Rachel’s health. The physician promised to come by and check on her.
Inside the crowded saloon, he saw Wade Morgan, and the man waved him over to a group of ranchers drinking beer at the end of the bar.
“They’re really hounding you,” Morgan said with a concerned frown.
The others agreed with a nod. “We heard that the Campbell boy admitted they killed Marla Porter,” Morgan said under his breath.
“He told me that he was there when they killed her.”
“Those Reynolds boys have gone beserk. What’s Sheriff Trent going to do?”
“They are having a hearing over the shooting yesterday of Sycamore Campbell.” His answer drew some frowns of disapproval.
“That was self-defense?”
“I hope so.”
“They’re bringing the Campbell boy down and charging him for shooting at you,” one of the others said.
Chet shook his head. “Must be for her murder. I didn’t swear out a warrant for him ambushing me.”
“Trent’s damn sure got enough rifle toters in town.”
“I think he expects trouble. He talked to Earl about a truce and said he got nowhere. That was his idea, to put this feud down, and I appreciated his effort. But nothing’s going to stop ’em.”
“There’ll be four of them counting Kenny in jail or dead when this day is over.”
“Make it five. Yesterday that boy said Mitch was with them at her place, too.”
“Ah, hell. I can’t believe anyone is that damn cruel and mean.”
Chet agreed and refused the offer of a beer. “I better go over there.”
“We’re going with you,” Morgan said.
“Boys, I can fight my own war.”
“No, we want to show them that folks ain’t taking to this bullying business.”
“I appreciate it, but I don’t want a showdown. I thank you all.”
“You sure?”
“Sure as rain.”
Several laughed. “That’s sure.”
He left the saloon and started across the busy street, shaking hands, speaking to folks, and went inside the Red Horse with a sharp nod to the armed men with rifles at the door. He took a seat, and several acknowledged him. It was quiet in the saloon, which was set up with rows of benches and chairs. Folks began filing in, talking in soft voices.
Gunner Barr soon called the session to order by the power invested in him by the grea
t state of Texas. He rapped a few times on the table. “No outburst from the audience. If you wish to testify, see my clerk. But it must to relevant to the case at hand.”
“Chester Byrnes, come forward.” Barr rose. “You want to state your case?”
“I do, Your Honor.”
“Raise your right hand and put your left hand on the Bible. Do you swear to tell the whole truth so help you God?”
“I do.”
“Have a seat.”
“Tell us your side of this unfortunate mishap.”
“I left Groseman’s Store—”
“Time and place?”
“It was about ten in the morning, yesterday. I started from the store to have a beer. My sister Susie was still shopping. Sycamore Campbell had parked a load of lumber out front here. I think he’d just arrived in town. He saw me and shouted something obscene. Then he went for his rifle in the wagon. He levered a shell in it and I drew and shot him.”
“He went for his rifle?”
“Yes. He was not going for it to get down from the wagon. He was going to use it.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No, sir. When I shot him, he dropped the rifle and fell headfirst out of the wagon. He was dead before Doc could get to him.”
“Was there a reason for his anger toward you?”
“Before he died, he said he was mad because the court had charged Kenny with Marla Porter’s murder and it was all my fault.”
“There any more witnesses?” Barr looked around, then announced, “Since both parties were armed, I am saying it was justifiable homicide. Case dismissed.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re excused. Bring that Campbell boy in next.”
A hush fell over the crowd. In a short while, they brought Campbell in on a stretcher and put the corners on some chairs. His condition had gone downhill and he looked pale as a ghost. Barr swore him in and began questioning him.
He gave his name and said who he was. Then he said that he had been shot by Chet Byrnes during an altercation the day before.
“Were you shooting at Mr. Byrnes and his nephew on his own ranch?”
“I was, sir.”
“Were you also at the scene when the parties murdered Marla Porter?”
Long silence. “Speak up.”
Texas Blood Feud Page 11