No Man's Land

by William W. Johnstone

  “Well, he tore the blankets off him and shot the snake in half. Once he realized it was already dead and we were all laughing our fool heads off, he grabbed up a branding iron and lit out after the poor German kid. I believe he would have beat him to death if he could have caught him.” Frank shook his head and dried the tears of laughter out of his eyes with his bandanna.

  Dixie looked on dumbfounded. “That’s the worst story I ever heard. It’s just awful.”

  “Awful funny, ma’am,” Jasper said, tipping his hat. “It was a pure pleasure to meet you, Mr. Morgan. We’ll tell the boss you’re here and he’ll be along directly.”

  “You do that.” Frank patted the boy’s horse on the rump. “I’d love to see that old fart.”

  The boys turned their horses and galloped off toward a growing cloud of dust that approached from the south.

  The herd was getting close.

  “You ladies are in for a real treat.” Frank put his arm around Dixie’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

  “Is George going to go swimming again?” There was a twinkle in her green eyes.

  “You’re a scamp. Your know that? No, he’s not. But a huge cattle herd is certainly something to see. We need to put the wagons next to the trees. Then we can watch the crossing from that little knoll up there. We’re upwind, so the dust shouldn’t be too bad.” He squeezed her shoulder again. “It’ll be a sight to behold.”

  She pulled away and looked up into his eyes. “You, sir, are the sight to behold, Frank Morgan.” She nodded once as if to put emphasis on her point. “I just thought you should know I feel that way.” She turned back and repositioned his arm around her again. “Now, let’s go watch those cattle.”

  * * *

  Dixie sat between Frank and her girls as the huge herd rumbled across the river. The two bumbling cowboys had chosen well, picking a wide spot past the swimming hole where the channel spread out and the water slowed and shallowed.

  Her insides felt in as much upheaval as the roiling herd. From the day she’d met Frank Morgan, she’d been at odds within herself about her feelings for the man. First because Virgil was still alive, then because he was so recently dead. As time wore on and she watched the gunfighter move and interact with the others in the train, she felt herself falling in love with him. Then she’d watched him shoot the man on the street—watched him deal so much death. There had to be an end to all the killing.

  After she’d heard about the fight with Nick Gamble, she’d decided that there was no way she could be happy with a man surrounded by so much pain. Content with her decision, she’d watched him work so hard to fix the wagon, shoe the mule, and then cheer everyone up with the suggestion of a swim. She watched the way he joked with George, the way the young cowboys revered him. This was such a different side of him—a side she had not seen—a playful side that loved life and the good and simple things that went along with it. He was so excited about running into his friend Luke, he looked as if he might burst.

  As the last of the bawling cows splashed and heaved their way up on the far bank, Dixie changed her mind again. She could make him happy. Frank Morgan needed saving. No matter how good he was, how quick he was, the life he lived made it certain he would meet an untimely death.

  Dixie nodded to herself and smiled at him without speaking. She would help him settle down, build something permanent with his life. He had saved them. It was only right and proper that she should save him.

  * * *

  Less than two full days’ ride to the south, Ephraim Swan leaned against a scrubby piñon pine and cleaned the dirt out of his fingernails with a tiny silver-handled knife.

  The news of the Circle V cowboys’ debacle had been enough to make him slap Carmen so badly he knocked out two of her teeth. It really didn’t matter. He was getting tired of the sleepy-eyed tramp anyway. He’d already decided to kill her and dump her with that slimy bastard Eduardo the next time they met.

  That time had come.

  “Why don’t you get down off your horse and have some brandy, my old friend,” Swan said, folding up his small knife and wiping his hands on the front of his trousers.

  The tall Mexican beamed at the thought of good brandy and shrugged.

  “Do you have the redheads and the others?”

  “You know I don’t, Eduardo, so why do you ask?” It was difficult for Swan to hide his contempt for the other man. “Come, let us drink and we can discuss the new terms.”

  The Mexican shrugged. “Bueno. I am happy to see you understand. I was afraid you might take this . . . how would you say it . . . a little more to your heart.” He climbed down from his saddle and rubbed his bony hands together in front of him. “I would truly enjoy some of your fine brandy.”

  Swan gave a tiny nod of his head, and two outlaws sprang on the startled Mexican and pinned both his arms to the sides of his white suit.

  “Que es eso? What is the meaning of this?” he cried, but he didn’t attempt to struggle.

  Swan stepped up and took the man’s nickel-plated pistol from the holster under his coat.

  “You greasers always do go for the flashy stuff, don’t you?” The outlaw twirled the shiny pistol around, watching the way the sun glinted off the gleaming barrel.

  “Why do you do this, Ephraim? I can make you a very rich man.”

  “You already have, Eddy.”

  The tall man glowered back at him, incensed at such rough treatment. “You should not forget, mi companiero, I know many very powerful men.”

  Swan spit in the man’s face. “And you should not forget, I am one of those powerful men.” He swung the nickel revolver sideways, catching the surprised Mexican in the temple with a loud whack.

  Eduardo’s eyes rolled back in his head and his knees buckled. The outlaws on either side of him struggled to keep the swaying man on his feet. He shook his head to clear it, and spit out a mouth full of blood.

  “I still have clients who will pay a high price for the blondes and redheads.” His voice was a whine now. “I told you that.”

  Swan nodded. “I know you did, Eddy. You told me that.” He leaned in so he was nose-to-nose with the Mexican. “But you know what? I don’t care anymore. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your clients or their prices. You think you’re the only damned slaver in the world who wants to buy young freckled kids and fresh women? You can’t be that stupid.”

  “Come now, Ephraim.” Eduardo rolled his jaw back and forth, still smarting from the blow from his own pistol. “We can still talk about this. I can assure you it will be mutually beneficial for each of us.”

  Swan stood and stared at the captive man. His breathing quickened and his nostrils flared. He shook his head back and forth and screamed. Eduardo flinched, but the outlaws holding him stood rock solid.

  “All my work, Eddy!” Spittle flew from Swan’s mouth as he railed. “All my hard work and you can’t wait another day? What the hell’s wrong with you and your people? This is gone far beyond selling any women and redheaded orphans. This is personal now. You know what I’m gonna do to those women when I see ’em? I’m gonna skin every one of ’em alive and hack the rest into pieces so none of your stinkin’ clients will ever get to enjoy ’em.”

  Swan stood panting, glaring at the victim of his tirade. “In another week you and I could have been richer than we are already, but you just couldn’t wait. Now in another week Morgan and all the women will be dead.”

  His voice grew suddenly quiet and he raised the sliver pistol. “And you don’t even have a week.”

  The shot cut short Eduardo’s scream for mercy, and the two outlaws let his body slump to the ground.

  Swan pitched the gleaming pistol on top of the dead man, and wiped a bit of blood from under his own eye. That always seemed to happen when he shot people at such close range.

  Carmen had stuck her lolling head out the tent flap during all the screaming and commotion. Her dirty-blond hair stuck out in every which direction, and her eyelids hung half-clo
sed against the bright sun.

  Swan motioned her out with a flick of his wrist.

  She tried to blink her eyes open wider. “But, darling, all I got is this sheet wrapped around me. I ain’t decent.”

  “Carmen,” he barked, “you haven’t been decent since you turned thirteen. Now get out here like I tell you.”

  The dazed blond woman stuck a timid foot out the tent flap, and then made her way over to where Swan stood beside the dead Mexican slave trader.

  She clutched his arm until he shrugged her off. Then she swayed, blinking up at him with her foggy eyes. “What’s wrong, sugar? What do you want me out here for?” A pale shoulder peeked out from the sheet.

  The other men began to gather around. Some grinned, others chuckled openly. Some tied their horses to the scrubby pine trees, to free up their hands. They all knew what was about to happen.

  “What I really want is to be shed of you,” Swan spit. “Now get out of my sight.”

  The girl blinked and looked at the brush and open ground around her. “But Ephraim, honey, there’s nothing out here but cactus and snakes—and I ain’t got no shoes.” Her chest heaved and she began to cry. “You can’t just leave me out here. I’d die for sure or get killed—or worse. There’s Indians out here.” She was sobbing full-tilt now, her dirty arms wrapped tight around her chest. “All I got’s this damned sheet.”

  “I almost forgot about that,” Swan said. He grabbed the sheet and yanked it off the crying woman.

  She screamed and tried to cover herself with her hands. “Ephraim, what the hell are you doin’?”

  “You don’t have any dignity, Carmen, so stop pretending.” Swan turned his back and carried the sheet back toward his tent. He yelled over his shoulder to the men as he went inside. “I’ll be ready to go in an hour. I’m finished with the girl, boys. Do whatever you want to with her, then dump her with the greaser.”

  Carmen began to scream and spit as the men closed in around her. Swan poked his head back out the tent. “But keep her quiet, will ya? I’m gonna have a little nap.”

  Chapter 20

  Luke Perkins cut a fat steer out of the herd and with the help of Frank and George, butchered it for a reunion barbeque. The women busied themselves making yeast bread and pies, while the men and cowboys not riding herd gathered as much deadfall wood as they could drag up. The soft cottonwood and willow burned fast, so they would need a lot.

  By sunset, the beef sizzled and smoked over a huge bed of coals. The rest of the herd was strung out for nearly a mile, mooing and milling, content to graze on the narrow strip of green that lined the bank. There was hardly a breath of wind and with the sun down, it cooled off just enough to make fire and close companionship feel warm and welcome.

  “I miss a good old mesquite fire for barbeque, don’t you, Frankie?” Perkins leaned back against his upturned saddle, the fleece under-lining forming a backrest, his blanket a padded seat over the rocks—a cowboy easy chair. “Ain’t nothing like a hardwood for barbeque.”

  “I don’t miss the thorns,” Frank said. He licked grease off his fingers. “I’ve had enough mesquite thorns to last a lifetime. The meat is good, though, and that’s a fact.”

  “Yeah, it’s all right. I’ve grown a little particular about my beef,” Luke said, getting up to check the rest of a huge haunch that dangled over the coals. “It’ll do, I reckon.” He was a tall man, completely bald, with a huge mustache that hung over his upper lip, like the cowcatcher on a steam engine.

  The rich aroma of bread, roasting meat, and baking sweets filled the air in the little riverside glade. At the edge of the clearing, three Mexican cowboys, adopted by Luke in their early teens, huddled around a shovel blade over a bed of coals away from the main fire.

  “What are they cooking over there?” Dixie asked. “It smells wonderful.”

  “Tripas,” Frank said, grinning at Perkins.

  “What’s tripas?”

  “Tripe, Mrs. Carpenter,” said Luke. “They’re cooking the guts. Mexicans love the stuff.” Luke looked over at the boys, who crowded around their sizzling delicacy and stirred it with a stick as it fried on the hot shovel blade. “It really ain’t so bad once you work it around in your mouth some and get it chewed up and swallowed.”

  Dixie shuddered. “Personally,” she said, “I’d rather eat the shovel. Eating a gut sounds disgusting.”

  “I know people who eat snakes. Now that’s what I call disgusting.” Luke cast his eyes back and forth on the ground around his saddle to check for the slithering reptiles—just to be on the safe side. “When was the last time you went home to Texas, Frankie?”

  “I drifted through Amarillo a few months ago, but I haven’t been home in a coon’s age. It would just bring trouble to my friends if I went back.”

  “You’re getting old, Frank. Most of the men back home who wanted to kill you are either already dead or gummin’ their food by now.”

  “What about Jim Taggart? He and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye since I killed his brother back before the war.”

  Luke waved that off. “That big bucktoothed Irishman who was sweet on Julie Sweeny killed him last winter.”

  Frank nodded, staring into the fire. Home. It would be something to ride out to the old home place again. Better not to dwell on it, though. No matter what Luke said, his appearance would only rekindle smoldering hatreds and stir up old feuds.

  Frank decided it was best to change the subject. “Looks like you’re doin’ pretty well for yourself, Luke.”

  The rancher shrugged. “The Double Diamond turns a profit if that’s what you mean, but since Lisa passed on, my heart’s not in it anymore. I’m happier out here on the trail than I am back at the ranch. We all got our ghosts that haunt us.”

  “Amen to that.” Frank raised his coffee cup. “Amen to that.” He took a sip and gestured toward the Mexican boys. “It must be a heavy burden bein’ trail boss, guide, father confessor, and nursemaid to all these adopted children of yours.”

  “Yeah, well, there are benefits to startin’ them young.” Luke dipped his head toward Chance and Jasper. The two boys seemed to do everything as a pair. Together, they now laughed and whispered in hushed tones with the Fossman twins.

  “If I raise ’em, I know I can count ’em in a pinch. I wouldn’t give you a dab of horse crap for the best hand Vic Sutton has. Those boys ride for the money. My boys are family. They ride for the brand. You wouldn’t catch any of my men workin’ for Swan or the likes of him, ten thousand dollars or no. Wouldn’t matter if it was a hundred thousand dollars.” Luke spit over his shoulder, covering his face with the palm of his hand in deference to the ladies. “I’ll not have a man I can’t trust. I find someone like that in the ranks, and he can draw his wages and scoot.”

  “You need to be a daddy,” Frank said as Dixie brought him a refill for his coffee and a hot piece of Salina Chapman’s pie. “You’d make a good one, for a fact.”

  Paula tended to George’s every need, and brought him his pie and coffee. Salina served Otis.

  To everyone’s amazement, Carolyn Brandon, her normally disheveled hair tied back in a green satin bow, brought a huge piece of pie, a linen napkin, and a fresh mug of coffee to Luke.

  He smiled up at her and took the dessert. He patted the saddle pad on the ground next to him. “Take a load off those pretty little feet, darlin’. There’s enough of this here for the both of us.”

  Carolyn knelt down beside him. “I’d like that very much, Mr. Perkins,” she said—the first words she’d spoken in weeks.

  “Well, now, aren’t you just the prettiest thing this side of Texas or heaven. Call me Luke.”

  Frank watched as his friend chatted with the heartsick woman, complimenting her hair and her dress. Luke Perkins had a way with people, particularly the fairer sex.

  * * *

  Everyone ate their fill, and then at Salina’s insistence ate some more. Surrounded by a virtual army of Luke’s cowboys, Frank felt like he could relax a
notch for the first time in recent memory.

  The fire died down to embers, blown to life now and again by each breath of passing breeze along the river bottom. Cowboys began to drift back to the herd to relieve their compadres riding night owl.

  Frank was intensely aware of the warmth of Dixie’s body. She sat right next to him, her hip pressing against his leg, her hand in his, resting on the bend of her knee.

  A whippoorwill cried in the cottonwoods down by the river.

  “That’s odd,” Frank whispered. The night seemed too reverent to warrant loud talking. “You don’t hear those birds too often this far out.”

  Dixie shivered and leaned her head against his shoulder. “It sounds so lonesome. Makes me feel like crying.”

  Frank sighed. Words were unncessary. He was content to sit next to this strong, beautiful woman and say nothing.

  “The girls are already in bed,” Dixie said at length. Her voice was soft, almost liquid. She kept her head where it was.

  Frank gazed into the remnants of fire. He was beginning to feel a little light-headed. He thought it funny how he could stare down the meanest hombre on earth without so much as breaking a sweat, and yet this little woman was making it hard for him to think. He nodded. “I reckon it is time to turn in.”

  Dixie didn’t budge.

  “Frank?”

  “I’m still here, darlin’. You’d fall on your head if I moved.”

  She giggled and sat up to look him full in the eyes. “Frank Morgan, I’m a full-grown woman in case you haven’t noticed. So I’m going to be bold and say this straight out before I change my mind.” She was close enough that he could feel her breathy words on his face. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.” Her chest heaved and she bit her bottom lip. The speech given, a look of panic began to cross her face and she opened her mouth to speak again.

  Frank smiled and put a finger to her lips.