Ten Mile Valley

by Wayne D. Overholser

  “You’re welcome,” he said, “and thanks for the coffee.”

  He went out, looking back once when he reached the door and lifting a hand to her. She waved to him, calling: “Come back and I’ll give you a free meal!”

  He thought about her as he rode home, and then about Bronco, and he was a little surprised that he didn’t hate Bronco. Broken promises. Smashed dreams. Empty pockets. But, no, they weren’t enough. Not to make him hate Bronco. He owed Bronco too much. Besides, this was Christmas.

  That night after he and Ruth had gone to bed, she told him she was pregnant. She slipped a hand under his head and pulled him to her and held him hard, whispering: “It’s what I want. I don’t have much of a Christmas present for you. That’s why I wanted to tell you. I hoped you’d think it was the best present I could give you.”

  For just a moment he was stunned. This was something he had not thought about very much. They hadn’t even talked about it. His first thought was for her, and he said: “You can’t have a baby. There’s no doctor here.”

  She laughed. “I’m afraid I can. Honey, don’t worry about me. Women have babies without doctors all the time. Missus Bolton will come out and stay with me. She’s helped several of the women at the fort. I’ll be all right.”

  He took a long breath. “It’s something I’ve got to get used to. But I like the idea, if you’re sure you’ll be all right.” He hesitated, then added: “You’re sure you will be all right?”

  “Of course, silly.” She kissed him, and added softly: “I’m glad you’re glad, Mark.”

  He drew back so that he was free of her arm, and then drew her to him. “You sleep on my arm,” he said, “and I’ll lie here and think about it. If it’s a girl, can I name it?”

  “It?” she scoffed. “It’ll be a her, not an it.”

  “Well, can I?”

  “Of course you can,” she said drowsily.

  She went to sleep, his arm around her as was their habit, her head on his shoulder, and he thought about the time Herb had said that neither he nor Ruth had made the crossing to manhood and womanhood. They had now, he knew. This would, indeed, be a Merry Christmas.

  Chapter Twenty

  Herb Jackson’s prophecy that too much good weather in the early part of the winter meant extra bad weather later on turned out exactly right. Snow began falling on the last day in January and kept on intermittently until it was three feet deep on the valley floor and deeper in the hill country to the north.

  In February the weather turned warm, then bitterly cold, and the snow crusted with ice. From then on until the thaw came Mark and Herb Jackson fought a daily battle to keep the small Circle J herd alive.

  For weeks there was no communication between the Circle J and Scott City, or with the neighboring ranches. For a time the snow was too deep. Then, after it went off, every ravine and creekbed was filled with rushing torrents that pounded down from the mountains north of the Circle J and spread out over the valley so that for a time it had the appearance of an enormous lake. The earth, waterlogged, could absorb no more.

  Even after the water had receded, the valley floor was a great bog for weeks, making travel so difficult that no one left his ranch except for an emergency, and it was sheer emergency that brought men to the Circle J, begging for hay.

  “They’re crazy,” Herb told Mark. “They ought to know we don’t have any to spare. Besides, how would they haul it? All the roads in the valley would mire a snipe.”

  But crazy or not, they kept coming, all of them telling incredible stories of their winter loss. They had been almost wiped out, and they would be if they didn’t get hay. The tales they carried about Dave Nolan and Matt Ardell were even worse. Neither Rocking Chair nor Bearpaw had brought enough cattle through the winter to furnish beef for the crews next summer.

  No one seemed to know anything about Bronco Curtis and the Cross Seven or John Runyan and his Triangle R, and no one cared. At a time like this men thought only of themselves and their own futures. When Herb told them he couldn’t spare a forkful of hay and that he’d be lucky to pull his own cattle through the spring until the grass was up, they cursed him and said, if it was the other way around, they’d divide the hay they had.

  “It’s a sad side of human nature that comes out under these conditions,” Herb told Mark and Ruth one evening at supper. “I’ve always put up more hay than anyone else in the country. I’ve carried a good deal over from one year to the next, and more than one man has laughed at me for it. Now I’m a miser and a son-of-a-bitch because I won’t share what we’ve got.”

  “They want you to share their misery,” Ruth said.

  “Or bring you down to their level,” Mark added. “If half the yarns they tell are true, you’re the richest man in the valley.”

  “We are the richest men, you mean,” Herb corrected him, and sighed. “It can’t be as bad as they say. Some of them claim you can walk from Nolan’s house clean across the valley to Ardell’s by stepping on carcasses and not put your foot on the ground.”

  “That must be true,” Ruth said, “judging from the smell when the wind’s right.”

  Mark nodded, knowing the stench would get worse when the warm weather came. He couldn’t keep from wondering how Bronco had fared, but he didn’t mention it to Herb or Ruth, and Bronco was one man who had not showed up, begging for hay.

  “It must be hell,” Mark said, “to be in Nolan’s and Ardell’s shoes.”

  “The higher you go,” Jackson observed, “the farther you’ve got to fall.”

  That was true, Mark thought, an observation that was typical of Herb Jackson, who wanted only enough wealth to provide him with a living. There would be great opportunities here before the summer was over, buying neighboring ranches for practically nothing, the kind of opportunities that would drive Bronco crazy trying to take advantage of them if he were in Herb’s place. But that kind of greed wasn’t in Herb Jackson. He contended that in the long run a man was better off to depend only on himself, to stay out of debt and be clear of bankers and storekeepers like Robert Cameron in Scott City.

  Mark talked about it at night when he and Ruth were in bed and didn’t have to worry about Herb hearing them. “It’s not just us,” Mark said. “I mean you and me. We’ve got our children to think of. This is the chance of a lifetime. If we don’t grab, someone else will. Bronco, if he’s still in business. Or Jacob Smith.”

  “What can Dad do?” Ruth asked. “You know he doesn’t have much money.”

  “Borrow,” Mark said. “He can get money in Cañon City. By fall we could have the whole north end of the valley. We won’t have another winter like this for fifty years. In a little while we’d be as big as Rocking Chair or Bearpaw was last summer.”

  Ruth sighed. “It would be nice to be rich, but you know how Dad is. He’s never been in debt in his life. He won’t start now.”

  “I’m supposed to be his partner,” Mark said doggedly.

  “But he’s the senior partner, and he has the last word,” Ruth said. “In anything like this, he’ll do what he believes in. I think in anything else, he’d let you do what you wanted to. The truth is, he doesn’t want to be rich. He says it’s bad for a person.”

  So Mark said nothing to Herb, for he knew it would only lead to an argument. In his own way, Herb Jackson was just as stubborn as Bronco Curtis. The right attitude was somewhere between, Mark thought, but he had made his choice when he came here. He had known how Herb felt; he had known that Herb would never change.

  In time he would have to break with Herb just as he had broken with Bronco. He would have to be his own man; he had to have the right to make his own decisions, but for the time being he was helpless, and he made up his mind to accept that fact.

  Another thing that worried Mark was the restlessness that took hold of Herb with the coming of warm weather. The job of looking after the cattle was still a chore. The grass was just beginning to show. Cows that were calving needed attention, and the hay, almost
gone now, had to be carefully parceled out against the day when the grass would be up. But apparently Herb thought Mark could do the work by himself. Without giving any explanation, Herb would saddle up two or three times a week and ride into the hills and be gone until dark.

  “He’s out hunting Orry Andrews’s body again,” Mark told Ruth angrily. “He’s like a man haunted by a ghost.”

  “Maybe he is haunted,” Ruth said.

  “But it’s dangerous. He’s been warned enough to stay off Cross Seven range. You’ve got to stop him.”

  “You think I can stop him?” Ruth shook her head. “Mark, you know I can’t.”

  “But it’s not right. When he’s gone, I’ve got to do his work too.”

  “There was a time when you did it for Bronco Curtis,” Ruth reminded him. “Do you regret coming back here?”

  He took her into his arms and kissed her. “Not for a minute. You know that. But someday …”

  “I know, darling,” Ruth interrupted. “Someday we’ll have our own ranch because we’ll reach the place where this partnership won’t work. I’ve known that all the time, and I think Dad has, too, but that someday hasn’t come.”

  She reached out and took his hand and placed it against her swollen abdomen to let him feel the life that was stirring there. He grinned at her, embarrassed, for he knew she was right. He said: “Sometimes you’re so smart you scare me. It’s not that I’m sore about doing some of his work. I just don’t want to see him killed. I like him.”

  “And he likes you, but, Mark, I don’t think he can help himself. About hunting for Orry Andrews’s body, I mean.” She looked at him, a worry in her eyes that bothered him. Finally she said: “I love you so much it kind of hurts. Don’t ever do the kind of crazy thing he’s doing. You owe it to me and to our baby to stay alive.”

  “Why, honey,” he said, “I aim to stay alive a long time. Until the day we celebrate our golden wedding anniversary.”

  But in spite of his light answer, her words made him uneasy. He thought about it a great deal after that, not certain that he knew exactly what she meant. He wondered if she was talking about Bronco. If Bronco killed Herb, Mark would have to go after Bronco. He would have to kill him if he could, regardless of what had once been between them. Any man who was a man would do the same. Ruth should know that, but he was afraid she didn’t.

  Maybe it was the kind of thing a woman never understood. If that day came, he would hurt her as he had never hurt her before, because it was something he could not keep from doing. When he recognized that, he understood the compulsion that drove Herb to go on looking for Orry Andrews’s body. Ruth was right. Herb couldn’t help himself. Maybe, Mark thought, if Ruth understood her father, she would understand him.

  Mark put off going to town as long as he could, but there came a day when the salt and sugar were gone, and flour was down to half a sack. The roads were a loblolly of mud, so Mark took a pack horse. Herb had already left on one of his trips into the hills. When Mark was ready to go, Ruth kissed him, holding him hard as if not wanting to let him leave her.

  Worried, he said: “Maybe I ought to stop by the fort and ask Missus Bolton to come and stay with you until the baby comes.”

  “For two months?” Ruth laughed. “You’re being silly again.”

  He was, he thought as he rode away, but Ruth was pleased by his concern. It was only right and proper, he told himself, that a man should be concerned about his wife when she had her first baby. Maybe it was something a man never got over whether it was the first or the tenth.

  By the time he reached Scott City, the stench was worse than it was on the Circle J. There weren’t enough coyotes to clean the rotting flesh from the bones, and Mark wondered how the people who lived in the valley could stand it. He asked Cameron when he went into the store.

  Cameron stared at Mark sourly. He had aged ten years in the few months since the last time Mark had seen him. Finally he said: “You can stand anything when you have to. What’ll you have?”

  Mark gave him the order. As he filled it, Cameron said: “Heard the news?” Mark shook his head, not knowing what news the store man referred to. Cameron went on: “Me ’n’ Sharon got married a month ago. She wanted you to come to the wedding, but there wasn’t any way to get word to you, traveling being like it’s been. She always speaks well of you. Not like she does Curtis. God, how she hates that bastard.”

  Cameron cocked his head at Mark. “She claims Curtis got mad at her on account of her cooking and fired her, but I can’t figure that out. She’s a good cook. What’s your notion about it?”

  “I wasn’t there when it happened,” Mark said. “Looks like you’ll have to take her story.”

  “Sure, sure,” Cameron said quickly. “Only, I keep wondering what makes her hate Curtis like she does. Ain’t natural, seems like, for her to hate a man so much just ’cause he fired her.”

  Something was eating on Cameron. Maybe he suspected the truth. But whether he did or not, he had married her and he’d better make the most of it. Mark said more sharply than he intended: “Sharon’s a good woman, Cameron, a damned good woman. You’re lucky to have her for a wife.”

  “I know it. Hell, I haven’t had much to do since I got married, nobody moving around, the roads being like they are, so I’ve been laying in bed late and not opening the store till ten o’clock. She’s a damned good woman for a fact.” Then his face turned dark with suspicion, and he asked: “How’d you know?”

  “I didn’t mean it the way you’re talking,” Mark said. “She was good to me. That’s all. Looked after me when I moved back to Cross Seven after being wounded at the fort. Bronco didn’t treat her right, and I figure she’s got reason to be sore at him.”

  “I see,” Cameron said, the suspicion lingering.

  Angry, Mark said: “You’re a fool, Cameron. If you’re going to accuse every man who comes in here of sleeping with her, you’re headed for trouble, and that’s what you’ll deserve.”

  “All right, all right,” Cameron said, and changed the subject with: “Heard about Nolan and Ardell?”

  “They’re hit hard,” Mark said. “That’s all I know.”

  “They’re more’n hit hard. They’re wiped out. Nolan had some gold buried in his yard, so he’ll get out and re-stock, but I don’t know about Ardell. If he can’t borrow somewhere, he’s a goner. Same with Curtis, only there’s no doubt about him.”

  “Finished?”

  Cameron nodded. “I guess they were lucky to save their horses. The crew’s pulled out already. Gone south to one of Jacob Smith’s Nevada ranches. Curtis is living alone. Nobody seems to know what he’s going to do. Maybe he don’t know himself.”

  “How’d you hear all this?”

  “One of his buckaroos stopped here last week on his way out of the country and told me. This fellow wanted to go with the rest of the crew, but Gene Flagler wouldn’t let him. He was the only man in the outfit who had been hired by Curtis.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Abrams, I think he said. I didn’t know him. Said Curtis owed him three months’ wages, but he’ll never get it. You know, that’s a hell of a note. A lot of money for a cowhand to lose.”

  It was a hell of a note, Mark thought as he rode back to the Circle J. Bronco hadn’t lasted very long. He’d ridden into the country with money in his pockets and a big dream. Now he’d leave with neither. And he would leave. He wasn’t a man to stay and ride for Jacob Smith.

  Mark intended to tell Ruth about Curtis as soon as he got home, but she came out of the house as he rode up. One look at her face told him something was wrong, so wrong that she wasn’t in a mood to listen to gossip.

  He swung down and took her hands. “What happened?”

  “Dad found it,” she said. “Curtis must have buried Orry in the bank of a gully where the dirt was soft. He threw some brush over the grave, but the bank caved in when the snow melted.”

  “What’d Herb find?”

  “Bones. A sku
ll with a bullet hole in it, and a Henry rifle that Dad knows belonged to Orry.”

  “It still doesn’t prove Bronco did it,” Mark said.

  “Oh, Mark, aren’t you ever going to face the truth?”

  “I haven’t tried and convicted Bronco the way Herb has.”

  She sighed. “I know. A man is innocent until he’s proved guilty. Well, maybe he will be. Dad’s gone to Cañon City to tell the sheriff.”

  Mark turned away, wondering what would happen if the sheriff believed Herb’s story and came after Bronco? Or if Herb tried to help the sheriff arrest Bronco? Mark was sure of only one thing. Bronco would never submit to arrest.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  For more than a week neither Mark nor Ruth heard anything from Herb. The weather turned warm, and the grass, urged by the combined magic of a hot sun and a moist earth, came to life so fast that the hills and the valley floor that was above water turned a lush green in a matter of days.

  “We’ll have hay this year,” Mark told Ruth. “If we just had more cattle …”

  He doubted that Ruth heard. She heard very little these days, Mark thought. Her mind had fastened on her father, and Mark could not break through to her. At night she clung to him and cried, and all he could do was to hold her in his arms and tell her Herb would be all right, that it wasn’t good for her or the baby to get worked up this way. But he couldn’t touch her. He stayed awake every night long after Ruth had gone to sleep, and mentally flayed Herb Jackson.

  No wagons had come over the pass from Cañon City this spring, and probably none would for another month. It was doubtful if a man could get through on a horse. Mark guessed that Herb had stopped at a ranch in the timber and borrowed snowshoes. That, Mark thought, was the reason it was taking Herb so long.

  The whole thing was crazy. It had been from the first. Herb Jackson was a man of thought and ideas, a philosopher of sorts, an idealist. Why, then, had he become obsessed with the notion that Orry Andrews’s murderer must be punished? And why, after finding the evidence, had he started for the county seat, knowing it would worry Ruth in her condition and knowing, too, that the sheriff didn’t much care what happened in this distant end of the county?