Thunder Valley

by David Robbins

  “Still,” Moses said.

  “White or red, the important thing is we protect our own. We’ll sleep with the window open for the next week or two, to be safe.”

  The sun was setting and bright hues of red, orange and yellow painted the sky above the Tetons. Normally the sight stirred Moses to his soul but not this evening. “I might go into town tomorrow and see if anyone has any pups they’re giving away.”

  “Could be you could go in with Tom Kline,” Tilda said. “Irene told me he’s anxious to buy new hogs.”

  “I’ll ride over to their place as soon as I’m done milking the cows.”

  Tilda nodded.

  “Want me to ask Irene if she’ll come and stay with you?”

  “What for? I’m a grown woman. I don’t need a nursemaid, thank you very much.”

  “Just thought you might like her company,” Moses said.

  “No. I have too much work to do around the house. Tomorrow is laundry day, remember?”

  Moses did indeed. On Mondays she cleaned the house from top to bottom. On Tuesdays she sewed and worked on her quilts. Wednesday was laundry day. Thursday she worked in the vegetable garden and on Fridays it was general chores. She was much more organized than he was, he had to give her that. He looked at the comma of hair that fell over her forehead and at her lips as she sipped, and he cleared his throat. “You sure look pretty this evening.”

  Tilda sipped and cradled the cup in her lap. “You know better, dear. It’s not Saturday, is it?”

  Moses almost sighed.

  9

  Rondo James woke up and was instantly alert. He nearly always did that. He’d trained himself to years ago, during the war. Groggy on a battlefield could get a man killed, and Rondo was fond of breathing. He’d proven how fond by not only surviving the bloodiest conflict on U.S. soil but the fourteen shooting affrays he’d been in since.

  Fifteen, Rondo realized, counting the affair at Savage.

  He hadn’t wanted to kill those cowhands but that was the way it always was. He’d be minding his own business and someone would try to blow out his wick. Or stab him in the back, like that time in Newton.

  Rondo sat up. The first thing he did was place his hands on his Colt Navies. It was the first thing he always did, to reassure himself they were there. He always slept wearing them.

  When on the trail, he propped his back on his saddle. When in a bed, he propped pillows behind him and sat with his back to the headboard or the wall. He hadn’t slept on his side since the war. It was another thing he had trained himself to do.

  Rondo cast off his blanket and stood. The barn was quiet and dark. He went to the double doors and opened one wide enough for him to step out.

  Thunder Valley lay peaceful under a vault of stars that would soon fade. To the east a golden glow heralded the impending dawn.

  Over in the chicken coop the rooster gave voice to his first crow of the morning.

  The air was cool, and Rondo felt his skin break out in goose bumps.

  A light was on in the Sether farmhouse, toward the back, where the kitchen would be. The mother, Rondo figured, preparing breakfast.

  Rondo went to the pump. He cranked the handle and when water spouted, he cupped his hands and splashed some on his face and drank a handful. He was turning when he sensed a presence to his left and he whirled, his hands on the Navies and the Navies starting to rise when he saw who it was. “What are you doin’ out here, boy?”

  Matthew Sether timidly approached and gazed up at him. “I wanted a look-see.”

  “At me?” Rondo said.

  The boy nodded.

  “Do your folks know you’re out here?”

  “Ma is cooking and I heard Pa up and about in their room,” Matt said.

  “So the answer is no, they don’t know,” Rondo said. He’d noticed the boy staring at him a lot. “Why are you so interested in me?” As if he couldn’t guess.

  “Andy says you’re a shooter.”

  “Don’t you mean shootist?” Rondo knew the term was used a lot in the newspapers.

  “No, Andy said shooter,” Matt said. He stared at the pearl handles at Rondo’s waist. “He says you shoot people.”

  “I’ve shot a few.”

  “My pa hasn’t ever shot anybody.”

  “Good for him.” Rondo turned and hadn’t taken two steps when the boy was at his side.

  “Why is that good?”

  “A shooter is another name for a killer and in this day and age killers aren’t popular.”

  “This day and age? Does that mean now?”

  “It does,” Rondo said. “There have been other days, other ages. Ever hear of the Greeks?”

  “No, sir.”

  “They lived a long time ago. They didn’t have guns so they fought with swords and such. Some were good at it and they killed a lot of other men and folks looked up to them and called them heroes.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “My grandpa used to read to me when I was your age. From a book that tells all about it. Can you read, boy?”

  Matt nodded. “I’m fair at it. My ma taught me. Pa helped some but it’s mostly Ma who does our schooling.”

  “Good for her,” Rondo said. “Learn all you can and you’ll be better off for it.” He stopped at the door and pulled it wider.

  “How’s your horse?” Matt asked.

  “General Lee has an abscess in his hoof. Do you know what that is?”

  “I heard Ma and Pa talking about it.”

  “I have to treat it before I can ride him again,” Rondo said. “Could take a few days.” Or more, he reflected, and frowned.

  “Ma and Pa say you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  “I know,” Rondo said. “And I’m grateful.” He was also worried but he kept that to himself. “Shouldn’t you be goin’ in now? Your ma will have breakfast ready.”

  “She’ll clang the bell when it’s time.”

  “Bell?” Rondo said.

  “A cowbell. She keeps it on a shelf in the kitchen. When she wants Andy and Sally and me to come, she clangs it.”

  “Most folks call that ringin’ a bell.”

  “Sounds like a clang to me,” Matt said.

  Rondo smiled. He went to the stall General Lee was in and patted the Palomino’s neck. “Mornin’, big fella. I hope you’re feelin’ better today.”

  “That’s a fine horse, mister.”

  “He’s more than that. He’s the only friend I have in this world.”

  “How come? Pa makes friends all the time. He says it’s good to have them.”

  “You listen to your pa, boy.” Rondo wanted to examine the afflicted hoof but it wasn’t light enough in the barn yet. “He’s a good man.”

  “He said the same about you.”

  Rondo glanced down sharply. “No one has called me good in so long, I can’t remember when. You sure that’s what your pa said?”

  “I heard him and Ma talking,” Matt replied. “They were talking about the men you’ve shot. Pa said he didn’t care what people say about you, he can tell how a man is, and he thinks you’re a good man.”

  “Well, now,” Rondo James said.

  “Well what?”

  “Nothin’.” Rondo entered the stall and hunkered and lifted the right foreleg to look at the hoof. He had been soaking it in warm water with Epsom salts, courtesy of Mrs. Sether, and then thoroughly drying it and applying a poultice. He always kept black ointment in his saddlebags, just in case.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Matt said.

  “Isn’t that what you have been doin’?”

  “How else do you find things out if you don’t ask?” the boy returned.

  Rondo grinned. “You’ve got me there. What’s your question?”

  “Can I see you shoot sometime?”

  “No.” Lightly probing with his fingertips, Rondo gauged that it would be a day or two yet before the abscess blew out.

  “Why not? I asked nice.
”

  “I’m not a monkey on a rope,” Rondo said. He chuckled at the boy’s confused expression. “I saw one once, down to New Orleans. An old man had a small monkey on a rope. The monkey did tricks, and people would drop coins in a cup.”

  “If I give you a penny will you shoot?”

  “That’s not the point,” Rondo said. “Other folks might think of me as a spectacle but I’m not.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Matt said. “But Andy told me you can probably shoot the wings off a fly. I just wanted to see you do it.”

  “That would be some shootin’.” Rondo sighed. “Next thing you know, they’ll have me shootin’ the fleas off a dog.”

  “I’d like to see that too, only we don’t have a dog. Ours died a while back from old age.”

  “I have my druthers,” Rondo said, “I’d like to die from the same affliction.”

  “So you really won’t shoot for me?”

  “I won’t shoot for anyone.”

  The boy might have pestered Rondo more but his sister came down the aisle.

  “Here you are,” Sally said. “Ma sent me to look for you. Why aren’t you washing up for breakfast like you’re supposed to be doing?”

  “I wanted to talk to Mr. James,” Matt said sulkily.

  “Get yourself inside. I, for one, am hungry, and we can’t eat until we’re all at the table to say grace.” Sally motioned, and Matt reluctantly moved past her.

  “I’m obliged, princess,” Rondo said.

  Sally blushed. “No one has ever called me that before.” She took a step. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I don’t want to impose.”

  “Ma said I was to bring you. She said she’s asked you to join us for each meal but you always refuse and I’m not to take no for an answer.”

  “Your ma is a gracious lady.”

  Sally nodded. “Pa feels the same. He said it’s not right, you eating jerky out here in the barn while the rest of us have home cooking.” She held out her hand.

  Unfurling, Rondo let her lead him out and across the yard and around to the rear.

  “After you.”

  “That’s not how it works.” Rondo held the door for her.

  Sally dipped in a curtsy. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  The moment he stepped inside, Rondo was assaulted with memories. Their kitchen was smaller and the walls were yellow and not white but the smells were the same and the warm comfortable feeling was the same and the family at the table might just as well have been the James family before all they had went up in the smoke of war.

  “Don’t be shy, Mr. James,” Martha said. “We have plenty to share.”

  “It’s not that, ma’am.” Rondo removed his hat. A chair on the other side had been left empty and he pulled it out and sat. “This is awful kind of you.”

  “We’ll talk more after grace,” Martha said. “Roy, would you do the honors?”

  Rondo bowed his head and clasped his hands. He remembered the plantation, the magnolias, the mint juleps his mother liked, the cigars his father smoked. He remembered it all, and he hurt so much inside, it was all he could do not to get up and leave.

  “And we thank you, Lord, for our bounty,” Roy concluded. “Amen.”

  All of them said the same, and Martha smiled. “Dig in, everyone.”

  Rondo looked at her and saw instead his mother with her golden curls and gay dresses, always smiling and laughing and happy until that terrible day.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “No, ma’am,” Rondo said. To cover his embarrassment he ladled eggs onto his plate.

  “Before I forget,” Roy said as he buttered a slice of toast, “I’m going into town this morning with a couple of neighbors. You’re welcome to come along.”

  “I shouldn’t,” Rondo told him.

  “If someone was after you they’d have shown up by now.” Roy took a bite of toast. “No one in Teton knows you, so you should be perfectly safe.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Martha was selecting a strip of bacon. “You really should get away for a little. You’ve been cooped up in that barn for too long.”

  Rondo heard himself say, “There are a few things I need to buy.” Ammunition was one.

  “Good,” Roy said. “We’ll have a good time. And don’t you worry. Everything will be fine.”

  “I hope so,” Rondo James said.

  10

  Axel owned the spyglass. He was the cautious one, the one who thought things out, the one whose judgment the others relied on although Brule acted like their leader most of the time.

  From a rise on the south side of Thunder Valley, Axel fixed his spyglass on a buckboard. “Four men. Two in the seat, two in the bed. The two in the seat are farmers. Can’t tell much about the two in the bed. One has his head down on his chest and his hat pulled low but he’s wearin’ a slicker and farmers don’t usually wear slickers.”

  “Headin’ for Teton, by God,” One Eye said, and cackled. “How nice of ’em.”

  “It would help to know which farms they’re from,” Brule said. “We’ll have to spy on all of them and keep track of who’s who.”

  “Spy hell,” Ritlin said. “We pick one and ride up to it.” He indicated a farmhouse and barn half a mile away. “That one will do.”

  “In broad daylight?” Brule said.

  “Why not?”

  “You know damn well why. You heard Charlton Rank. We’re to do this quiet.”

  “They’ll see us in broad daylight,” Axel said, folding his spyglass.

  “I don’t give a damn,” Ritlin said.

  “Me either,” One Eye echoed.

  “I don’t know what has gotten into you lately,” Brule said to Ritlin. “The work we do, we can’t afford mistakes.”

  “When do I make any?” Ritlin said, and with that, he tapped his spurs to his sorrel and made for the farm.

  One Eye chuckled and followed.

  Axel looked at Brule. “This isn’t good.”

  “He’s got a burr in his backside,” Brule said. “Been that way since we heard about Rondo James.”

  “That’s childish,” Axel said.

  “I agree. But he’s my pard. What else can I do?” And Brule gigged his mount.

  Axel frowned, and clucked to his. He shifted to stare after the receding buckboard and didn’t stop watching until it was out of sight.

  A farmer was chopping wood. Although it was spring, families needed wood for cooking and the occasional chill mornings. He paused to mop sweat from his brow with his sleeve, and when his plow horse in the corral whinnied, he looked up and saw them.

  The farmer wasn’t alarmed. He was used to people passing by now and then. He smiled and waited with the ax handle across his shoulder as they came around the corral and drew rein. “Morning, gents.”

  “Mister,” Brule said.

  “Nice day if’n it don’t rain,” One Eye said, and tittered.

  “I hope it doesn’t,” the farmer said. “It’s planting time and the seeds get washed away if it rains too hard.” He placed the ax head on the ground and leaned on the handle. “I’m Frank Jackson, by the way.”

  Ritlin stared at the farmer until Jackson nervously shifted. From inside came the sound of a woman, humming. “That your missus?”

  “Sure is,” Jackson said, and boasted, “The sweetest gal around.”

  “Any sprouts?” Ritlin asked.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Jackson said. “We’ve wanted some but it hasn’t worked out.”

  “Try a lot, do you?” One Eye asked.

  “That’s none of your business,” Jackson said, coloring.

  Brule turned to Ritlin. “If we’re goin’ to do it, you’d better get to it. We shouldn’t sit around in the open like this.”

  “Do what?” Jackson asked. He was growing uneasy. He didn’t like how the tall one in black stared at him nor how the runt with one eye kept grinning and chortling.

  Ritlin swung down. “We’
d be obliged for a drink of water.”

  “The pump is yonder,” Jackson said, nodding. “Help yourselves.”

  His spurs jingling, Ritlin walked over. He took off his black bandanna, worked the lever, and got the bandanna soaking wet. Then he wrung it out, wiped his face and his neck, and retied it. The whole time, he stared at the house. When he was done he returned to his horse.

  “You said you wanted a drink,” Jackson mentioned. It struck him as peculiar that the man hadn’t.

  “Have any cows for sale?” Brule asked.

  Jackson had his attention on the man in black. “What? Oh, no. I don’t ever sell one unless it won’t give milk and all my cows are giving milk just fine.”

  “Ain’t you lucky?” One Eye said, and laughed.

  “I don’t know what luck has to do with it,” Jackson said. “Cows are cows.”

  “Are all your critters off in the pasture?” Brule asked.

  “No,” Jackson answered. He was stumped by this sudden interest in his cows. “I keep my best milkers in the barn.”

  Brule dismounted, his saddle creaking. “Show me.”

  “You want to see my cows? I just told you I don’t have any for sale.”

  “If you’d be so kind,” Brule said with a friendly smile.

  Jackson would rather not but he figured he’d be shed of these men sooner if he humored them. He held on to his ax. It lent him a sense that they wouldn’t try anything, even though an ax against pistols was little use. When he reached the barn he saw that it wasn’t just the wide one who had tagged along. The man in black and the runt with the patch had trailed after him. The one who dressed like a cowboy was still on his horse. “Here they are.”

  Brule regarded the stalls and the cows. “Holsteins, aren’t they?”

  “You know your cows,” Jackson said. “They give more milk than any other breed.”

  “Do they give more blood?”

  “How’s that again?” Frank Jackson wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

  “Do cows bleed out as fast as hogs?”

  Jackson had heard about poor Tom Kline. A chill washed through him as he realized these might be the men responsible. He took a step back, or tried to, and was gouged in the spine by something hard. He glanced over his shoulder. The runt had a six-shooter pressed against him. “What’s the meaning of this?”