On the wagon seat, with a fine rain in his face, Sam took a last look at the door. Etta Faye must have sent someone to close it to prevent any more water from being blown inside. Sam undid the reins around the brake handle and wet his lips. Sure not too warm a reception from her. He wondered about silent Sloan and if school would help him adapt more to life. The boy always looked so heartbreakingly alone to Sam, even when he walked across the yard.
Sam released the brake and clucked to the team, then headed home for the dry barn and some horse-shoeing he needed to catch up on.
Billy and Tom had built a fire in the forge. When Sam reined the team inside the alleyway, the other two men looked up from rasping away at hooves. Sam nodded to them and began to unharness the horses.
Concerned how things had gone, Kathy hurried out from the house under a shawl. “How did it go?”
“Good enough. Rowann spoke up for Sloan and Hiram told Etta Faye that Sloan wasn’t a bump on a log.”
“Oh, that boy and his smart mouth.”
“Don’t be hard on him. He meant what he said.”
“Darby was embarrassed. I really thought he might run away last night. He’s seen less school than any of them.”
“There’s a bigger boy than him there today. Maybe they can strike up a friendship and be buddies.”
Kathy clutched the shawl. “I’m grateful for all your help. I guess I should have gone, but I don’t have very much education and felt insecure even to enroll them.”
Sam nodded. “Maybe you can learn, too.”
“How much education do you have?”
“I went to school six years.”
“That’s something.”
She looked at Tom, who nodded at her.
“It didn’t make me a whiz.” Sam gathered up the harness from the off horse and put it on the rack.
“He was Mr. Patrick’s pet,” Tom said. “That was our teacher the last three years.”
“How’s that?” she asked, acting interested in learning about their past.
“You don’t even want to hear,” Sam warned her. The horses unhitched, he led them through the gate into the pen under the shed roof and turned them loose.
“Someday you can tell me, Tom.” She ducked when the thunder rolled over head.
“Rain will really come now,” Billy said from working on the hind hoof of a dun horse.
“I’ll bet it does. I’ll call you all for lunch,” she said and put up her shawl, then ran for the house.
“I’m going to let you take my steer with yours to Nebraska,” Tom said while beating on a red-hot shoe to form it. His blows on the anvil rang like a church bell.
“I can do that. What about the cow stock?”
“I’ll need to drive them up there to my new place when I get one. Do it this winter before they drop calves or I’ll lose them on the trail.”
“Good idea. You’ve got a buyer for the place?”
“Mr. Mott says he’ll buy it for his daughter and son-in-law. I’m supposed to meet him at the bank tomorrow. You know his son-in-law?”
“Yes, I do. And the less I have to do with Glen Martin, the happier I’ll be, but you sell to whoever and I’ll get along. He’s a bag of wind.”
Tom nodded. Then he went to try the fit of the shoe on the bay. He came back to heat the shoe and pound on it some more when the steel became cherry red.
“I’ve got some corn in the field over there. Reckon I could sell it?”
“Sure,” Sam said.
“Good. I don’t want to haul it clear up there.”
“I’ll check in town for buyers, next trip,” Sam said, straining on the handles of the nipper to pry the shoe off Sorely’s right hind hoof. The shoe gave at last. It was too worn to put back on the horse, so Sam discarded it. At once, he was filled with dread over all the work he must accomplish before the drive.
He looked up from holding the hoof when Tom said, “I’m going to go see Karen tomorrow after I close the deal.”
“Fine. Billy and I can handle things.”
“Then I’ll go and see about a place.”
“Sure.”
Tom was leaving the country faster than Sam liked. But Sam could not blame his brother. Tom had a lovely wife and two smart kids who would be up on the hill attending school if they weren’t in Fort Worth.
In a short while, Sam would be the only Ketchem in the county—if some Wagner didn’t backshoot him. Sam had never thought he and his brothers would separate. Their paw brought the family there from Washington County, Arkansas, way before the war. His Southern roots were threatened by the antislave talk around him. Though he had never owned a slave himself, he respected other folks’ rights and their property.
“They’re going to bust this whole country in half one of these day with a big chopping ax, and when the smoke clears, I want to be south of that line,” Paw said. That was also the day he sold the Arkansas farm and hired an auctioneer to cry the sale. His keen blue eyes never stopped looking toward the Texas hill country again until he found the home place that Sam owned.
After shoeing Sorely’s hind feet, Sam went to stand in the doorway to see the rain clouds rushing in. Maybe it was time for him to search for a new country. He could do lots of looking on the trail.
Then he saw Kathy in the horse’s doorway, waving for them to come. He waved back. “Lunch, guys. If we hurry, we can beat the next shower coming up the valley.”
They broke and ran for the house, laughing as the rain drops began to strike them.
“Sure won’t hurt the oats,” Billy said.
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Ever think about planting rice, Sam?”
“No, but I once knew a Chinese cook couldn’t cook nothing that didn’t have rice in it,” Sam said.
“You been thinking about a cook for the drive?” Billy asked, putting his hat on the rack by the back door.
“Yes, but I haven’t made a decision yet.”
“Drive to where?” Kathy asked.
“Ogallala,” Tom said, drying his hands.
“Where’s that?” she asked, putting bowls of potatoes covered in gravy on the table. Then she headed back for the fried pork and biscuits.
“Umpteen miles northwest of here,” Sam said, taking his place at the head of the table.
“Two thousand miles?” Tom asked, ready to bow his head.
“More or less. Let’s say grace.” Sam waited for Kathy to be seated. Then the four clasped hands.
“Lord, bless this food. Thanks for the rain and be with all our loved ones. Amen.” Sam raised up and nodded to Kathy. “A long ways up there and even longer coming back.”
“I’d like that job,” she said, “cooking for them.”
Sam blinked at her in disbelief. “You serious?”
“Why, there’s Injuns, rustlers, and filthy, sweaty cowboys who can’t find enough water to bathe in. And there are river crossings that would scare a saint.” Tom frowned at Kathy and shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Well, I sure would.”
“I don’t know how a crew would take to a woman cook,” Sam said.
“You three eat my grub.”
Sam laid down his fork and grinned. If Etta Faye hated him for hiring Kathy for a housekeeper, she’d sure enough be pissed over him picking the other woman for the drive. “I’m taking that under advisement.”
When Tom gave Sam a questioning glare, Sam asked, “You’re eating her grub, bro. Had any like it on the trail lately?”
Tom snickered and shook his head.
“I ain’t said she was hired either. It’s only under advisement. All of you hear me?”
“Yes” came the mixed chorus.
“Good. Billy, you go fetch the kids from school this afternoon. I’m going to ride to town with Tom. He’s leaving us tomorrow. We’ll spend the night in Frio and he can leave from there.”
“We will miss you, Tom,” Kathy said.
“When you have these two guys fat enough to butcher, send
me word,” Tom said.
She blushed. “It’s fun to feed hungry men who like my cooking.”
“Nice meeting you. Best this place has looked since our maw was alive.” Tom motioned around the house.
“You should see where I lived before in town. The only jacal that anyone lived in in that block behind the wool warehouse. So bad even the Mexicans had moved out of them.”
“You did good here. Take care of these two.” Tom excused himself to go pack.
“You’ll miss him, won’t you, Sam?” Kathy asked when Tom left.
“I won’t miss all the work he’s left for us to do,” Sam said. He and Billy laughed.
Gathering up the dishes, Kathy scowled in disapproval at both of them.
That evening after boarding their horses at the livery and reserving a bunk in the back room, Sam and Tom headed up the boardwalk to the Silver Moon Café in the twilight. Frio looked and sounded quiet at midweek, with a few horses standing hip shot in front of the two saloons. The lights were still on inside the restaurant when Sam pushed the door open. Pearl was gathering dirty dishes.
“Well, if it ain’t the Ketchem brothers,” she said and grinned big. “Be with you two in a minute, ’less you know what you want?” She hurried for the kitchen door at the rear with a load of plates. Some said Pearl had come from a house of ill repute in Dallas, but the lanky woman in her late thirties had become a fixture as the waitress and Donny’s common-law wife.
“Steak, taters and bread,” Tom said and Sam agreed, as they sat at a table in back of the empty room.
“You heard them, Donny. Better get to cooking. They look hungry enough to eat a bear,” she said, fussing with her hair. “We had a big run at supper and I got behind. Coffee suit you two?”
“Fine. Any good gossip?”
“Yeah,” she said, “you’re selling out.” With the coffeepot grasped with a pot holder, she poured Tom’s cup and set apart the other one to fill Sam’s. “And you’re living with a widow woman who has four kids and you are going to drive a herd north come spring.”
Tom looked pained. “Sam ain’t living with no one but Billy and me in the bunkhouse.”
“She’s out there, ain’t she?”
“Yes,” Sam said, “she’s cooking and taking care of the house.”
Standing above them, holding the granite pot, Pearl nodded. “You two always were gentlemen. I’ll buy that story. But it sure put a burr under Miss Ralston’s backside.”
“Some folks can only think the worst,” Tom said, spooning sugar in his cup of coffee.
Sam blew the vapors off the top of his cup. He wondered how Etta Faye was getting along with those kids.
Wearing an apron with the evidence of his labors on the front, Donny James greeted the men. “They tell me you’re leaving,” he said to Tom.
“Yeah, going to try some new country.”
Donny dropped to a chair and rested his elbows on his legs. “Damn shame. I knew your paw. He came here with my dad and worked damn hard. No-accounts like them Wagners should have all been drowned when they was born.”
“Tom’s got to do what’s best for his family,” Sam said.
Donny closed his left eye and critically rolled a cigarette, then lit it with a kitchen match. He puffed on the flat cylinder in the corner of his near-white lips until smoke escaped from the corner. “If we had any real law here, you wouldn’t have to move.”
“Law can’t prevent much in a county the size of this,” Sam said.
“Aw, hell, that pretty boy we’ve got for a deputy sheriff couldn’t prevent nothing. He shot at stray dogs with his pistol for thirty minutes yesterday, and never hit a blessed one. Ended up hiring the Sims boys to do it and buying the shells.” A grin exposed the spot where Donny was missing two teeth. “They shot the asses off them curs and cleaned up the damn place. Must have got a dozen of them worthless whelps.”
“Business doing good?” Sam asked.
“Aw, we get by.”
“Getting by, he says. Why, I would, too, if I had the help he has.” Pearl winked at the brothers as she slid in front of them plates heaped high with pan-fried potatoes, large steaks and golden biscuits. “That ought to fill you.”
“It will,” Tom said and Sam agreed.
“Hate to see you leave here.” Donny rose with some stiffness. “I’d better go help her do the dishes or she’ll gripe all day tomorrow about it. Good to see you. Good luck, Tom.”
“Thanks. Shame we can’t go swimming in the Frio like we did years ago.”
“Catch catfish long as my arm.” Donny nodded, standing in the kitchen doorway. “Man, there used to be lots of fun. Now it’s all work, no play.”
“You get back here and play with these dishes,” Pearl said from the kitchen. “I don’t want to spend much longer in this joint.”
“All right, all right.”
“Burr under her butt,” Tom mused aloud. “You and Etta Faye. Sam, one day you’ll need to find another woman. That stiff-backed sister won’t ever marry you.”
“Hell, I never asked her to.” Sam busied himself eating. Why in the hell was everyone so worried about him and Etta Faye?
The brothers left the Silver Moon full and satisfied. Pearl even gave Tom a kiss on the cheek. They were walking two abreast in the shadowy light on the empty boardwalk, heading for the Tiger Hole, heels clunking and spurs ringing, when a figure bolted out from beside the harness shop, holding a gun.
“You sonsabitches—”
Sam grasped the barrel of the pistol. He ripped it from the assailant’s hand, then used the butt for a club and sent the man to his knees. Using the gun, Sam repeatedly battered the man until he was facedown on the boardwalk. Then Sam realized Tom had ahold of his arm and was trying to make him stop.
“He’s down. Stop!”
“Which one is he?” Sam asked, out of breath and trying to recover his composure while Tom turned him over to see his identity.
“It’s Tillman Wagner. He’s still alive.”
Sam looked off down the dark street at the outline of the false-front buildings against the inky sky. “What a damn shame.”
“Where’s Stuart?” Tom asked as he rose. “Guess we can drag Tillman over to the jail.”
“How in the hell should I know where Stuart’s at? Let Tillman lay there for the buzzards.”
“Get his arm. We can deliver him,” Tom said.
“I hate to waste my time on such garbage.”
“Come on now.”
They lugged Tillman’s skinny figure over to the jail. Then they locked the moaning outlaw in an empty cell. Sam saw the face of the Wagner he’d brought in pressed to the bars, looking hard at their activities.
“What happened to Tillman?” Delmore asked.
“He ran into a brick wall,” Sam said. Then the brothers wrote Stuart a note and placed Tillman’s pistol on top of the paper.
Make out a warrant for attempted murder by Tillman Wagner. Sam Ketchem.
“Let’s go get a beer,” Tom said.
“Or two,” Sam added.
Chapter 16
Sam reflected on the circumstances that had forced his brother to sell his place and move away. He used his tongue to test the edge of a molar. He couldn’t decide whether he should ride out to the ranch or spend another night in the livery bunkroom. Somehow Tom’s leaving Sam was even tougher on Sam than Earl’s funeral had been. Sam shoved his empty beer glass at Marty O’Brien and rose from the stool.
“The last two times I’ve been in town—no, make it three—I’ve had trouble with those damn Wagners,” Sam said.
“Aye, laddie, them worthless devils will soon get tired of you beating them up,” O’Brien said.
“Whatever I do only makes them meaner.”
O’Brien served Sam a fresh glass of beer. “Doc Sharp said Tillman was beat senseless. Hell, he never had any sense to start with. What will Stuart do to him?”
“Turn him loose I guess. I swore out the damn warrant. I ain’t
got no sympathy for him. He tried to kill me and Tom and would have if I hadn’t jerked the damn gun away from him.”
“You were mad, too?”
“Yeah.” He raised the mug to sip on the foam. “Damn mad. They killed Earl and Tillman tried to kill the two of us.”
“Damn shame they’re that stupid.”
“It is.”
Sam left the saloon an hour later and went to bed in the bunkhouse. Some freighters who were up early rummaging around woke him. He was in the Silver Moon before sunup eating breakfast.
“What about Tom’s things?” Pearl asked him.
“Hack Smith’s going to haul the furniture up to Buffalo Gap when Tom finds a place. Tom’s got possession of his old place until January. I’m going to move his stock up there before Christmas.”
“Guess he left you some work.”
“I can handle it. I just hate him having to move off.”
Pearl refilled Sam’s coffee cup. “Bad business. You be careful. Did you move that woman in to make Etta Faye jealous?”
“I never had her in mind when I did it. Billy and I needed a cook, period.”
Pearl shook her head in disbelief. “You could have fooled me.” Then she laughed out loud and winked at him.
The rain was over when Sam rode home, and the country sparkled in the clear weather. It was a pleasant time of year, not too hot or cool. Sam would need a bunch of boys to gather Tom’s cows. He’d better go find some.
First, he would collect Tom’s horses and see how many more they’d need for the drive, besides his own, to come up with five horses to the man. That way they could rotate the animals and not have to haul grain for them. Sam would need a wagon anyway and someone to cook. It was off season, so he should be able to find help for the drive, including a swamper and a nighthawk for the horses. The trip would take three weeks up and a week to come home.
Sam arrived at the ranch and found Billy busy fixing a pen. “What’s that for?”
“You have pigs coming, right?”
“Right.”
“This is for them.”
“Good. Start thinking of boys we can get to make the drive up to Buffalo Gap.” He dismounted heavily and began to undo the girth.
The Ogallala Trail Page 11