Rancher's Law

by Dusty Richards

  “Who?” Charboneau asked with a frown as he paused to light his fresh cigar.

  “Outfit from the valley, called the Flat Iron Cattle Company.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Ain’t no sign they won’t bunch up a couple thousand cow brutes and send them to us.”

  “They ain’t got a crew or nothing?” Crain asked in disbelief.

  “Boys, you can hire cowboys like ants. There’re hundreds laying around drunk, or digging ditches between here and Fort Worth. One loud call and you’d have an army of them hired.”

  “You certain about this?” Charboneau asked.

  “Certain enough that I called you here.”

  “What can we do?” Reed Porter asked, looking around.

  “I’m going down to Phoenix and try to find out what they plan to do.”

  “Good. Hope to hell it’s all rumors.” Charboneau sat back and drew on his cigar.

  “Me, too,” Matt said and took a seat.

  “Those damn deputies are still nosing around,” Porter said, and all eyes turned to him. “I mean those two asked lots of questions of everyone.”

  “They stopped me this morning,” Matt said. “They’re pretty sharp. Like to ask questions to backtrack you over what you said. I told them I helped cut them down. They wanted to insinuate I was there when they swung.”

  “I asked them why they wasn’t counting cows.” Charboneau laughed and coughed on his cigar smoke. “I figure they’ll get tired and leave.”

  “Sooner the better,” Crain said, sounding upset. “They’re like smoke. Show up and don’t take the front gate in either.”

  “Asked me if I had any proven cases of rustling against any of them,” Matt said. “Why didn’t they go ahead and ask if I hung them?”

  “Yeah, and if you’d showed them those bastards’ handiwork, they’d charge you with their hanging,” Charboneau said.

  “Keep mum. They’ll go back to Preskitt in a few days.”

  “Can’t happen too soon for me.” Porter’s shoulders shuddered under his coat.

  “Don’t tell them anything,” Matt warned, edgy about the man’s resistance under pressure.

  “I won’t,” Porter mumbled.

  “Whiskey or cards?” Matt asked, cutting the seal off the new bottle with his jackknife.

  “I ain’t in no mood for cards,” Crain said. Porter agreed with him. Charboneau shrugged.

  “Then let’s have some whiskey,” Matt said, trying to raise the room’s spirits.

  They broke up early, in no mood to do anything but go home and sulk until the worrisome deputies left the basin. Matt waited till all had left but the downcast Porter.

  “You better do your drinking from now on up at one of your line shacks,” he said, sharp enough so that Porter batted his eyes at his command.

  “I—”

  “You’ve been drinking a lot. Worrying the others. Do it up there for all our sakes.”

  Porter agreed with a dejected nod.

  “I’m not picking on you. But you don’t need to get loose-tongued with them deputies around.”

  “I’ll go up under the rim to do my drinking,” Porter said obediently. “You know where the shack is if you need me.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’ll be for the best. This thing will pass. Don’t worry so.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “Good.”

  They parted and he watched Porter ride out of town. If only his fatherly advice worked. If not, he’d have to do something about him. Still concerned, Matt went to the livery for his buggy.

  Finding a few showers en route home, he drove his rig back to the ranch to arrive in mid-afternoon. Henry took the horse when he pulled up.

  “How’s the horse breakers coming along?” he asked, looking in the direction of the pen where his son and Lefty were saddling a bald-faced colt.

  “They got two of them saddle-broke. That proud cut Baldy, the one they’ve got now is a real fox, though.” Henry shook his head warily.

  Matt knew the man talked about the colt with the wide strip of white on his face. The colt’s one glass eye made him watch-eyed in cowboy lingo, certain to be a spook in most westerners’ minds. It was the main reason the gelding didn’t get picked when he sold the best ones from the crop for forty apiece. That buyer from New Mexico didn’t want him.

  Headed for the house with the developments of more cattle coming in the basin still eating at his mind, he stopped at the base of the porch. He looked in time to see his son bail in the saddle and Lefty jerked off the blinds. Baldy bolted ahead in long leaps with Randy sawing on the bosal ropes. The colt piled up short of the corral fence, sucked back, turned inside out, and Randy never lost a stirrup. Soon he began to whip Baldy with the lines forcing him to lope around the pen.

  Impressed, Matt raised his eyebrows. Not half bad. He exchanged a nod of approval with Henry, who had seen the ride, too. That boy might make a hand. It reinforced his notion about his idea to have Randy work out the string. Teach him responsibility and how to ride a damn sight better. Soon, there wouldn’t be any more buck offs for him at roundup.

  “You’re home early,” Taneal said, coming out on the wide porch as he reached the foot of the stairs.

  “Need to go to Phoenix tomorrow.”

  “You better get a real night’s sleep,” she said, arms folded over her chest. “Rain on you today?”

  “Between here and Fortune.” He looked back over the country for the nearest clouds. A bank formed in the south where the moisture gathered from far off in the Gulf of California and worked inland, to rain on the cooler mountaintops.

  “We could sure use some soaking moisture. Been raining everywhere but on us.”

  “Yeah, I better have Jakes recheck our major springs this week.”

  “How old is he?” she asked.

  “Sixties?”

  “Closer to his seventies. You ever watch him get on a horse in the morning?” she asked.

  “Not lately.”

  “He’s in such pain when he gets up there.”

  “Still the best riata man—”

  “I think he needs to be retired. Have him do less.”

  “You want to shoot him?”

  “No, I want some sympathy for him.”

  “It would kill him. Taneal, he rode with my daddy in Mississippi during the war.”

  “I ain’t saying you don’t owe him. I say he’s showing his age.”

  Matt shook his head. She’d never really understand a man. It was why the two of them fought so about everything and she slept alone. In the coolness of the house, he felt the breeze sweep through the open doors and windows.

  Whew. It would be hot down in the Salt River Valley. Still, he needed to check on this Flat Iron business. He drew a gourd of water from the hanging ollah. The sweetness flowed down his throat.

  He searched around for Lana. Probably taking a siesta. Nothing he could do about that. What was wrong now? He turned on his heel and listened to Taneal’s screaming.

  “It’s Randy! Randy’s hurt!” she shouted from the doorway, and fled in the direction of the corral on the heels of Lefty.

  Hatless, Matt raced to catch up with them. He could see the corral gate was open, and Henry was standing above a form on the ground. Then he spotted the bald-faced colt, dragging his bosal ropes. Oh, the boy was probably only shook up.

  The dusted face of Randall showed no response, where he lay sprawled on his back. On one side of him, Taneal clasped her hands, while Matt leaned down over him with his ear and could hear that Randy still breathed through his nose.

  “Broke his leg,” Lefty said, and Matt looked to see Randy’s lower right leg wasn’t straight.

  “He alive?” she demanded

  “Yes. Knocked out is all. Lefty, help me get that boot off. We better before it swells up.”

  “Swells up? Oh, God, don’t take him. Please, God, let my boy live.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Matt said. Damn that
hysterical woman; nothing wrong a sawbones couldn’t set.

  “Easy,” he said, holding the leg while the cowboy fought off the boot.

  “Coming hard. There. His leg broke?”

  “Looks like it. Go get some sticks to make splints out of, and have someone hook up the wagon.” Boot finally off, Matt eased the boy’s leg to the ground. Obviously, it was broken below the knee, but he didn’t know enough about exactly where or how bad.

  His eyes half open, Randy mumbled something.

  “Oh, Randy, don’t talk. Don’t talk,” she pleaded. “Save your strength. You’ll need all your strength. Lie still, son.”

  Out of breath, Lefty came stumbling back with an armload of sticks and boards. He dumped them beside Matt.

  “Go get an old sheet that we can rip up,” Matt said to the concerned Mexican girl who had hurried from the house. “Go hitch that team,” he told Lefty. The rest of the crew was gone. He met his wife’s worried look.

  “Go and get a feather bed. Have Lefty help you load it. It will ease his ride.”

  “You sure this is the thing to do?” Taneal started to rise but waited for his reply.

  “Quicker we can get him there, the quicker we can get it set.”

  With a nod, she rose and gave the boy a last worried look. “I’ll be right back, Randy.” Then with her skirt in hand she raced for the house.

  “Take it easy, son. You’re going to be okay,” he said to comfort him, laying out the sticks.

  “I about had him rode, Dad.”

  “Yeah, you’ve done real good.” Matt looked around for something to splint the leg with.

  “Only got him and that blue roan left to get the kinks out of.”

  “Yeah, you’ve done well with them.”

  Those words settled him; Randy lay back and his face showed the pain had begun. Matt thought about the laudanum in the cabinet. Before very long, Randy would need some. Broken bones hurt deep. The sticks Lefty brought him would work.

  Where was Taneal? He glanced back toward the house and saw Lana running toward them with a wad of sheets.

  Squatting on his boot heels, he shifted his weight to his other leg and drew out his jackknife. She held the cloth up and he made cuts on the side so it could be ripped into ribbons. In seconds she tore loose the first one and handed it to him.

  “I must go help the señora,” she said, huffing for her breath.

  “Lefty can do that for her. You keep tearing them. Randy, grit your teeth. I have to lift that leg. It ain’t going to feel good.”

  “Yeah.”

  The sticks lined up, Matt raised the leg to thread the bandage under for the wraps to hold them in place. On his knees, he worked as fast as he could. He heard the jingle of harness.

  “Tell Lefty to go to the house and help her load that feather bed in the back,” he said to Lana, not even looking up from his wrapping. Crude splint, but it should work. “Tell him to bring some laudanum, too.”

  Their eyes met for a long moment. Lana was opposite him on her knees, helping him bind the leg in the sticks. A stone formed in his guts and the contents of his stomach sloshed around it. Her beautiful creamy olive skin. The dark eyes that haunted him. The cleavage between her firm breasts. He was forced to breathe deep up his nose or lose his breath.

  “He will be bueno?” she asked with deep concern for Randy in her eyes.

  “Yes, yes. Muy bueno,” he managed to say then. To escape his captivation with her, he went back to tying the ribbons to hold the splints in place. No doubt his son would survive this. It was only a broken leg. She hurried away, skirt in hand, to help them load the bed.

  “That sure is pretty,” Randy said about the splint, sitting up with his arms behind him for support.

  “Better lie down.”

  “Naw, I ain’t a sissy. Little light-headed is all.”

  The concerned look in the girl’s brown eyes before she left them had not escaped Matt. His wife was on the way back with laundum in her hand. They already had the feather bed loaded. Wasn’t heavy, just bulky.

  “Here,” Taneal said, dropping to her knees with the big spoon ready. She filled it with the pain killer from the brown bottle.

  “I don’t need—”

  “Randy, take this!”

  “Aw, hell—”

  She forced him to open his mouth and she administered it. He made a bad face.

  “That will help ease the pain,” she assured him.

  In a few minutes, they’d loaded Randy in the back of the wagon. Taneal wanted to ride there to comfort him. Matt climbed on the seat and took the lines.

  “Lefty, tell the others where we are and we’ll be back.”

  “Sure, boss. Wish I could have saved him.”

  “He’ll be fine.” He nodded to Lana. She replied with a like sign. Still the worry written in her brown eyes bothered Matt. Was his son also having an affair with her? Funny, he never thought before about Randy ever being any competition to him. Randall was supposed to still be a boy, not a man. The notion was sobering when he looked back and told the two of them that he was ready.

  “Drive careful,” Taneal said.

  “I will.” He clucked to the team of horses and headed them for the road. It would be a long dusty drive to Fortune.

  Hours later, looking tired, Doc Harrigan, a balding man in his fifties, washed his hands in a bowl. He dried them deliberately on a cloth towel, then turned to speak to both Matt and Taneal.

  “He stays off of it. Don’t try to ride any more broncs for six weeks, should be good as new.”

  “You’re sure?” Taneal asked, seated on the edge of a parlor chair.

  “I set them all the time. He’s young, and young people mend fast. Don’t worry. Leave him here overnight and you two go get you some sleep. Both of you.”

  They looked at each other. Neither made a move.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Matt finally said, and rose to his feet. He offered his arm to Taneal.

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she said as if in a dream. She stood and put her hand in the crook of his elbow. “We’ll be back in the morning to check on you,” she said to Randy.

  “Ah, I’ll be fine.” Pasty-faced, he grinned at both of them with his head on the pillow.

  “Yes, I guess you will,” she said, still sounding numb. “Good night.”

  On the boardwalk at Doc’s front gate. Matt stopped in the darkness. Some of the light from inside shone through the windows; he needed to know her intentions. It might save a public argument between them that he would later regret ever happened.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “No. Not really. Are you?”

  “No. You want one room or two at the hotel?”

  “Why, one, of course,” she said as if it was the only thing to do.

  “Fine.”

  “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things since this happened today.”

  “Oh?” He started them for the Brown Hotel two blocks away.

  “We don’t act like a married couple anymore.”

  No, and they hadn’t for years, but that wasn’t news. He noticed a pair of riders coming up the street. Some cowboys come to town for something. Her hand felt so familiar on his arm, it reminded him of how long it had been since they shared a conjugal bed.

  “You’re certain about this?” He looked over at her in the pearly starlight. Still a handsome woman, he recalled her flat belly and silky long legs. The notion excited him.

  “It can be our second honeymoon,” she said, sounding pleased, and hugged his arm.

  What had he done or not done for this? After years, she’d found him again. Why? Ever since the schoolhouse incident, she had turned so frosty, so foreign and distant. He would never be able to figure out women. Certainly not the one he was married to.

  When they reached the porch of the Longhorn Saloon, someone stumbled out the swinging doors. He tried to straighten his shoulders, then turned unsteadily on his boot heels. Matt recognized his hat. It was Porter—and,
damn, he was drunk again.

  “That you, Reed?” he asked.

  “Huh. Oh, ’cuse me, ma’am,” he slurred, and whipped off his hat at the discovery of Taneal’s presence.

  “You all right?” Matt asked.

  “Fine—just fine. I’ll be okay.” He took three steps sideways and caught the porch post. Then he broke out laughing. “Little in the cups is all.”

  “You going to be able to ride home like that?” Matt asked.

  “Sure, sure, I’ll be fine.” Porter struggled to put his toe in the stirrup.

  “You better unhitch his horse for him,” Taneal whispered.

  With a quick check around, Matt stepped off the boardwalk and undid the reins. He gave the man a boost and Porter almost went over the horse. If Porter didn’t listen to his warning about his drinking in town …

  “Oh, yeah, the most important thing. My reins. Thank you, Matthew.”

  “Don’t fall off,” he said, and studied Porter as he turned the horse and started up the street. Matt stood for a long while, watching him go and wondering, too, of the whereabouts of those tough deputies. In Porter’s shape, they could get lots of information out of him. The fool fast became too large a risk for everyone involved.

  “When did he start drinking like that?” Taneal asked in a whisper, taking his arm and shoving her firm breast against his biceps.

  “Lately,” he said, still looking after the man. Porter and his horse disappeared into the black veil of the night. In the cooling air, Matt wished that somehow Porter could be gone forever.

  9

  A cool north wind swept the dock at the Winslow Depot. The endless crystal blue sky made things too bright when Luther stepped down off the train leading Ben by a rope leash. He thanked the conductor and then squatted down and turned the bulldog loose. Ben hurried off to answer nature’s call. The porter brought his war bag down the steps and set it down.

  Luther paid him ten cents and the man thanked him. He could see his saddle and other things being unloaded from the baggage car on a dock wagon. He searched around, but the town did not look that impressive. A few false-front wood buildings, the rest adobe hovels, and no trees. Some straggly starts, tied and staked to prevent the wind bending them, but to a man who had spent the past four years in the dense hardwood and pine forests of western Arkansas and the Indian Nation, this place looked bald.