Rondo ate with relish. He was about halfway done when a cowboy came in and joined the two at the other corner table.
The pair hadn’t shown any interest in him and he hadn’t paid much attention to them. But as the newcomer sat, he glanced over and seemed to give the slightest of starts. Rondo looked at him, but the man had turned away.
Jabbing his fork into the elk meat, Rondo sliced off another juicy piece. From under his hat brim he watched the three men to see if the cowboy said something to the other two but all three ignored him. They left well before he was done and he put them from his mind.
Rondo didn’t usually have dessert but he treated himself to a slice of pie. He took his time, and by the clock on the wall it was past nine when he stepped out into the night air. He was feeling lethargic from the food, and he decided to take a stroll. He passed a saloon lively with music and a millinery, which was closed for the day. He came to an alley and glanced down it but didn’t see anyone. He walked clear to the end of the street and turned back and he was passing the same alley when a voice whispered from its depths.
“Mr. James?”
Rondo went on walking. He took four more strides and stopped and placed his back to the window of a closed butcher shop. Sliding his hands under his slicker to his Colts, he waited. No one appeared.
Rondo moved on, his head twisted so he always had one eye behind him. The whisper had been a question. The whisperer wasn’t sure it was him. Had he stopped, he might well have been blasted into eternity.
None of the people in the hotel lobby showed any interest in him as he crossed to the stairs. Once he was in his room with the door bolted, he let himself relax. He sat in the chair at the window.
Someone was out to get him. That was the only explanation he could think of. It disappointed him a little. He’d taken good care not to be recognized.
Rondo could see the alley. No one came out of it. No one was loitering near the hotel. With the patience of an Apache, he sat in the chair for more than two hours. Then, rising, he took it and wedged it against the door as an extra barrier, and turned in.
For a long time Rondo lay on his back, staring at the dark ceiling. Back at the Sether farm he’d fallen asleep easily. He liked that. Now he was in the real world again, and he was his old self, and for the first time ever, he didn’t like that.
He’d briefly forgotten how it was to always be on his guard, to always live on the raw edge.
“Damn,” Rondo said to the ceiling.
As so often happened when he couldn’t sleep, memories washed over his mind—of his boyhood roaming the woods and the hollows; of his mother, teaching him to read and write; of his father, teaching him to be a man, to have pride in being a Virginian, to be a gentleman. They hadn’t been rich but they weren’t poor, either. He’d worn good clothes and had his own horse and some of the local girls were showing an interest when the war broke out. When the Yankees invaded Virginia, he’d been incensed. He enlisted to fight the invaders and never saw his father or his mother again.
When he was discharged and came home, it wasn’t there. The house had burned to the ground. Their fields were weeds and their animals were gone.
Rondo had drifted, no purpose to his life, not feeling alive even though he was breathing. Then came the saloon and the four troopers who thought they could prod because of his uniform. Year by year the tally climbed, and now here he was, a notorious pistoleer.
Rondo closed his eyes. Life sure was peculiar. If anyone had told him when he was a boy how his would turn out, he’d have laughed and said they were loco.
He didn’t realize he had drifted off until he awoke. The street outside was quiet. The window was gray and not black, which told him dawn was near. He stayed in bed. He felt no urge to get up, which was unusual.
The gray turned to a rosy hue and the rose to gold.
Rondo sat up. He didn’t like the turn his thoughts were taking. It suggested he’d grown tired of the life he was living, and he could have no other. Not as well-known as he was.
He thought of Roy and Martha and their kids, and frowned.
Rondo had slept fully dressed except for his hat and his boots. He put them on and clomped down the stairs and was halfway to the entrance when the clerk called out.
“Excuse me. Mr. Stonewall?”
Rondo stopped.
“You have a letter, sir. I thought you might like to know.”
“Me?” Rondo said.
“Yes, sir.” The clerk turned and took a small envelope from the room slot. “Here it is. The night clerk told me about it when I came on.”
Rondo went over. Someone had written in neat cursive, For the gentleman in the gray slicker. At your earliest convenience. “I’m obliged,” he said.
“Just doing my job, sir.”
“Did the night clerk say who dropped it off, or when?”
“No, sir, not the who, anyway. He did mention it was late last night but not how late.”
Rondo went to a chair. He used his thumbnail to slit the envelope and unfolded the paper.
Mr. James,
I wouldn’t have shot. I had something to tell you. There are men out to kill you. Remember Mother’s? And the two men who sat across from you? A tall man in black and a man with a gut? They are the ones. If you are smart you will kill them before they kill you.
A fellow Confederate
Rondo gazed about the empty lobby, and read it again. He was convinced of two things. No one from the South wrote it. The language wasn’t right. And that whisper, brief as it was, had a Yankee tinge. The other thing was that whoever wrote it was educated. There wasn’t a single misspelling, and the handwriting was almost elegant.
There was a third thing. If those two men were out to kill him, why hadn’t they tried at the restaurant? They’d hardly looked at him the whole time. He doubted they knew who he was.
So the letter writer was a Yankee and a liar, and for some reason was using him to his own ends.
Rondo didn’t like being used. He would find out what this was about. “Mister,” he said to the paper, “whoever you are, there will be hell to pay.”
24
“One Eye wouldn’t just up and leave,” Brule declared when they brought their horses to a halt in a belt of cottonwoods. “Not when there’s money to be made. And not without tellin’ us.”
“It’s strange he didn’t meet us at the stable like he was supposed to,” Axel said.
Ritlin pushed his black hat back on his head. “I don’t care where he got to. I’ve never much liked him.”
“We need him,” Brule said.
“For what? Complainin’? It’s all he knows how to do.” Ritlin smothered a yawn. “We can do the job Rank hired us for without him if we have to.”
“An extra gun is always nice,” Axel said.
Brule said, “I’ve got a bad feelin’ about it. It could mean someone is onto us.”
“Who?” Ritlin said. “And how?”
“I don’t know. I’m only sayin’ it could be.”
“You worry worse than my mother used to,” Ritlin said. “When we get back we’ll turn the town upside down looking for him. Will that make you feel better?”
“You have no sympathy, Winifred,” Brule said.
“Call me that again.”
Axel smiled and held up a hand. “This bickerin’ gets old. Let’s get the job done, like Ritlin says.”
“I’m obliged,” Ritlin said.
Brule frowned and raised his reins. “All right. No more about One Eye. Let’s go.” He tapped his spurs to his mount.
They’d left Teton well before daylight in order that no one would see them leave. They’d swung to the south to fight shy of the farms, and for several hours they had been riding hard.
The land became more open, more flat, more grassy. It was prime cattle land, which was why the Olander and Buchanan ranches were at the east end of Thunder Valley.
It wasn’t five minutes more that Brule pointed and said, �
�There.”
Up ahead, twenty to thirty head were grazing peaceably. In the distance were more.
“How many punchers does he have working for him?” Ritlin asked.
“Ten to twelve, the word is,” Brule said.
“Easy as pie.”
“Don’t get cocky, Winifred.”
“Just one more goddamn time,” Ritlin said.
They continued due east and hadn’t gone half a mile when four riders galloped out of the morning haze. Their hats, their clothes, their boots marked them for what they were as clearly as if they wore signs on their chest.
“Some of the hands,” Axel said. “Let me do the talkin’. They’ll think I’m a puncher.”
Brule said, with a pointed glance at Ritlin, “And no gunplay, you hear?”
“That’ll depend on them,” Ritlin said.
The quartet spread out and each man placed a hand on his six-shooter.
“Friendly bastards,” Ritlin said.
“Not yet,” Brule warned.
Axel kneed his mount past the two of them and raised a hand in greeting. “Howdy, gents.”
The four cowhands drew rein. One had a well-worn white hat and a red bandanna and he did the talking. “This here is the Olander spread.”
“So we were told,” Axel said, smiling. He rested his hands on his saddle horn.
“I’m Carver,” the cowboy said. “We’re under orders to keep our eyes skinned for strangers.”
“That would be you,” another said threateningly.
“There have been killin’s,” Carver explained. “A man and his wife, and hogs.”
“Hogs?” Axel said.
“And other critters. Done by four men.”
“As you can see,” Axel said, with a sweep of an arm at Brule and Ritlin, “there’s only three of us. We’ve drifted up this way from the Green River country and we’re hopin’ to find work.”
“You’re cowhands?” The second cowboy sounded suspicious.
Axel patted his rope. “Don’t I look like one?”
“You do,” Carver said. He bobbed his chin at Brule. “And him, maybe.” He bobbed his chin at Ritlin. “But if that hombre in black is a cow nurse, I’m a schoolmarm.”
“He’s new to the trade,” Axel said. “But he’s a hard worker.”
“Our boss don’t need more hands,” a third cowboy spoke up.
“Shouldn’t that be for him to decide?” Axel asked pleasantly, his smile a fixture.
“We could take you to him, I reckon,” Carver said. “But you’ll have to hand over your hardware.”
“No one takes my six-shooter,” Ritlin said.
The second cowboy straightened. “Then you don’t get to see Mr. Olander. You can turn around and go back to the Green River country, for all we care.”
“That’s no way to be, Vern,” Carver said.
“I don’t like his looks,” Vern said.
Axel twisted in the saddle. “What can it hurt?” he said to Ritlin. “It’ll only be until we’ve talked to their big sugar. Either he hires us or he doesn’t, and if he doesn’t, we get our guns back and we go. That’s fair.”
“I like you,” Carver said.
“Do as they want,” Brule said to Ritlin. “Or we’ll go without you.”
“I don’t like being naked,” Ritlin said. But he palmed his Colt and held it out. “Take good care of it, or else.”
“Tough hombre,” Vern said. He brought his horse up and took the ivory-handled Colt. “Awful fancy six-gun for a cowpoke.”
“I like fancy,” Ritlin said.
“I can tell.” Vern wedged the Colt under his belt and patted it. “Don’t you worry, fancy-pants. I’ll treat it like it was my own.”
Axel drew his Merwin Hulbert and reversed his grip so he held it by the barrel. “Here you go, Carver.”
Brule extended his Smith & Wesson. “Try not to breathe on it if you can help it,” he joked, and laughed.
The four punchers moved around behind them and Carver said, “Keep on the way you are. Half an hour and we’ll be there.”
“This a good outfit to work for?” Axel asked.
“As good as any,” Carver answered. “Mr. Olander is from the East but he’s cow-savvy and he treats those who ride for his brand decent. The bunkhouse is clean and free of lice, and he hired a bean-master who makes the best grub this side of anywhere.”
“That he does,” another puncher agreed.
“We hear tell there’s another layout up this way somewhere,” Axel said. “Run by a Texan.”
“That would be Sam Buchanan,” Carver said. “He owns all the range on the north side of the valley. Mr. Olander has the range on the south.”
“They get along? I don’t want no part of a gun crowd.”
“I don’t blame you,” Carver said. “A cow prod should work with his rope, not his smoke wagon. Mr. Olander and Buchanan are right friendly. Not a hard word between them, ever.”
“That’s good to hear,” Axel said. “I like outfits where everyone gets along.”
“You won’t find friendlier if the boss takes you on,” Carver said.
They rode amid hundreds of cows, and now and then came on more cowhands. All Carver had to do was holler and wave and they were allowed to pass.
The ranch buildings were typical: a house, a barn, the bunkhouse and the cookhouse and sheds, an outhouse and a chicken coop. A few hands were busy at various tasks. The rest were out on the range.
“Mighty fine spread,” Axel said.
“It still has that new look,” Carver said. “Give it ten years and it’ll look like any other.”
“Can we have our guns back now?” Ritlin asked.
“Not until the boss says,” Vern told him.
A man came out of the house and waited on the porch, his hands shoved in his pockets. “What do we have here?”
Carver came around and dismounted. “They say they’re lookin’ for work, Mr. Olander. The one in the cow riggin’ talks like he knows cows but I’m not so sure about the other two.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Brule said.
Olander chuckled. “You can’t blame us for being cautious. In case they didn’t tell you, we have killers on the loose. We can’t be too careful.”
“Who would be dumb enough to try to kill you,” Axel said, “with all the hands you have?”
“I tell you, mister,” Olander said, “when it comes to stupid, I’ve learned to never take it for granted that other people have a brain. Which is why I gave the order to stop all strangers and bring them to me.”
“And here we are,” Brule said.
Olander studied them while rocking slowly on his boot heels. “Tell you what. Make yourselves comfortable over to the bunkhouse. You can eat with us this evening. By then I’ll have talked to my foreman and made up my mind.”
“Is he off on the range somewhere?” Axel asked.
Olander grinned. “No. He’s standing about three feet from you.” He pointed at Carver.
“We’re obliged, sir,” Axel said. He reined around and rode to the bunkhouse and climbed down. Putting a hand to the small of his back, he arched and said, “It would help if you two smiled more.”
“I’ve smiled,” Brule said.
Ritlin dismounted and glared at the ranch house. “I hate havin’ my pistol took.”
“Damn it,” Brule said. “Play along a while yet and it will be over.”
Axel nodded. “That’s exactly what this is. Playactin’. We pretend until they think we can be trusted and then we show them we can’t be.”
“This is our boldest yet,” Brule said. “We should have hit them at night like I wanted. But no. Someone had to do it in broad daylight.” He glanced at Ritlin.
“I shoot better when I can see what I’m shooting at,” Ritlin said.
“For once I agree with him but not for the same reason,” Axel said. “At night all the hands are in their bunks. They’d rush out with guns blazin’.”
Ri
tlin shrugged. “So?”
“So we do this smart. I want this job over with.”
“You’re gettin’ worse than Ritlin,” Brule said. “What’s your hurry, anyhow?”
“I have plans,” Axel replied.
“Hush, you lunkheads,” Ritlin said. “Here comes one of the cow nurses.”
The cowboy called Vern jingled up. “Mr. Olander says I’m to show you around. A tour, he called it.”
“We don’t need no—” Ritlin began, and stopped when Brule held up a hand.
“Don’t listen to him, sonny. He’s a grump by nature. We’d be happy to take a tour.”
Vern sneered at Ritlin and beckoned. “Follow me. We’ll start at the stable and make the rounds.”
Axel followed him.
Brule shook his head at Ritlin and went to do the same but Ritlin put a hand on his arm.
“I tell you,” the man in black said, “I can’t wait to start killing.”
25
It was unusual but not unheard of for Roy to take his rifle out into the fields. He did it whenever Indians were reported to be in the area. He did it that time a mountain lion took to killing livestock in Thunder Valley; eventually, one of Buchanan’s punchers put lead in the big cat’s head. He did it that time a black bear came out of the mountains at night to prowl around.
As he finished plowing the last section, Roy glanced at his Winchester, propped against a stump at the far end of the field.
He could reach it quickly if he had to. He was a pretty good runner.
Samson moved with ponderous might, his huge body bent.
As tireless as the year was long, he could work day after day and not show strain.
Of all Roy’s animals, his ox was the most indispensable. They could get by without eggs for a while if disease should wipe out the chickens. They didn’t eat that much ham and could live without the pigs. They liked the milk the cows gave, but he didn’t raise them to sell, and if something happened to them, it wouldn’t devastate him. His horses were for getting around, which they could do on foot if need be. But Samson—without the ox they couldn’t till the soil, and if they couldn’t till they couldn’t plant and couldn’t harvest the crops that were their lifeblood.
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