Rebellion in the Valley

by Robyn Leatherman

  Excusing themselves to catch Tobias back up to speed, Doc Amerley waved them along.

  “I have this situation under control. There's enough able-bodied men right here to take care of what needs to be done,” he assured them as the wheelbarrow containing the still-limp body of Duffy made tracks in the dirt as a couple of men pushed it through the barn entrance and into the sunlight.

  “Howard J. Duffman is no longer a threat to the Red Bone; the man has finally come to the end of his proverbial rope. So to speak,” Joe announced with a sense of relief in his voice as he joined the others heading off toward Duffy's bunker.

  Chapter 29

  With eyes questioning his very sanity, Howard J. Duffman stood frozen in the kitchen doorway; his left hand still gripped the frame of the screen door and all the color drained from his face in one swift movement. All he'd planned to do was barge into the kitchen and raise Cain about who and what had clobbered him out in the barn a few hours prior, but those plans died out the second he hit that door.

  “Good morning, Darlin'” Hailee mocked with a huge smile on her face.

  “Howdy!” called Tobias as he lifted a hand.

  Bruce hiked his thumb toward the stove where Richard stood with both hands on his hips and a dirty mean look scribbled across a clean-shaven face.

  “Have a cup of coffee, Duffy. You’re gonna need it,” Bruce almost ordered.

  Duffy looked like he wanted to vomit.

  “I...I...uh...good to see...you,” he was barely able to choke out of his throat as a trembling hand raked across his sweating forehead and through his hair in a nervous attempt to cover the fact that he had been caught completely off guard.

  The kitchen fell into silence for a solid three minutes as the trio at the table stared at him while they drank their morning coffee and Richard continued flipping the flap jacks.

  Duffy shifted his feet and looked as if he wondered if he should stay or leave, but opted to stick it out just in case.

  When Richard dropped a dish rag in the sudsy bucket by the door, he gave a poke into Duffy’s shoulder and told him to grab a plate of food.

  “After all,” he said in a dry growl, “it’ll be the last meal you ever eat on the Red Bone Ranch.”

  With a forced look of surprise, Duffy began to protest. He was cut short when Bruce reached under his chair and produced the lead lines that had once been attached to and were part of Tobias' equipment weeks earlier.

  “Well, whaddaya have there, Boss? Just exactly what is that?” Tobias questioned. He pooched his bottom lip out and opened his eyes wide as his head turned toward Duffy. “You see what we have here, Duff Man?”

  His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed.

  “Where in the...” he started.

  Hailee raised a hand to her lips and flung her eyebrows high.

  “Why, Duffy! You wouldn’t swear in front of your sweet little girl, now would you?” She cocked her head to one side and continued with, “I mean, my poor heart would be crushed if you’ve changed your mind about me!”

  Bruce held out a hand, inviting him to shake it.

  “Well, well, well! Are you saying we might have a wedding right here on the Red Bone? Why didn’t you tell me you were pining after my daughter, Howard? It’s no wonder you got so fired up on the cat hunt, what with planning a secret wedding on your mind and all,” he forced a chuckle.

  Full of disgust, Duffy stomped a booted foot on the floor.

  “I don’t know what any of you are trying to pull here, but I ain’t goin’ for it!”

  Richard walked straight up to him and stared him in the eyes.

  “I think you need to simmer down,” he instructed.

  In full compliance, Duffy took a step back and shoved both hands into the front pockets of his dungarees. His eyes never left Richard’s.

  “Funny thing, what I found laying down in Puma Canyon on the rocks. I believe these may be yours.” Tobias told him with a reach into his saddle bag.

  Pulling out Duffy’s pouch of smaller meat saws, he slid them to the edge of the table and allowed them to sit there in the silence of the room, only making Duffy more uncomfortable.

  Adding to Duffy’s irritability, every other person in the room appeared to be quite at ease and comfortable as they sat with their morning coffee.

  He swallowed hard.

  “Dang it,” he scolded himself as he drew his lower lip in a smidgen and shook his head. “So? The meat saws are mine and you know I lost ‘em. I already told you that much,” he added for an instant alibi.

  Tobias shrugged.

  “You sure did. Lost ‘em on the way home, ain’t that right?”

  Tobias placed one finger on the pouch, tapped it.

  “Know what else I found, Duff Man?”

  Growing more and more irritated each time Tobias referred to him as him Duff Man, the upper left-hand corner of his mouth began twitching. Who did this kid think he was, anyhow? Other than the uncontrollable twitch, Duffy did not move. His eyes seemed to be glued to that weathered pouch on the table and prayed that it didn’t contain any condemning evidence.

  One by one, Tobias pulled the meat saws from the pouch, laying them side by side on the table. At the fifth and final saw, he grinned and held it up to the sunlight.

  “Huh. Well, lookie there, Hailee,” he mentioned as he pointed to the blade. “What would you say that is?”

  She feigned a look of genuine curiosity and leaned forward to inspect the blade closer.

  “Duffy, what in the world have you been using these for? Daddy, didn’t you buy these to cut meat with?” Hailee asked with her attention turning toward her father.

  Bruce rubbed his chin as he turned his attention to the ceiling, as if in reflective thought about when he made the purchase.

  “Yes, I believe that was the reason I bought them, now that you mention it. Why do you ask?”

  Batting her eyelashes, she answered, “It's probably nothing, but I just noticed some leather scrapings on the blade, that’s all. I wonder how they might have gotten there.”

  Duffy squirmed, looked around the room as if he were hoping an escape door might appear out of nowhere.

  Raising a hand to swipe the beading sheet of perspiration from his forehead, he brought his eyebrows together and growled out a “So what? Ain’t no crime to use a meat saw to cut through leather strappins! I ain’t never had nobody tell me how to use my tools, and ain’t nobody gonna start doin’ it now!”

  He poked a finger at Tobias and pulled his eyes in real tight.

  “You double-crossin’ snake!”

  “Me?” Tobias chuckled in his face. “You suspected I had my heart set on Hailee, and then when you had it all figured it out, you just had to jump in yourself, didn’t you? You’re the double crossin’ snake, Howard! All along, there was only one thing on that rotten heart of yours-this ranch.” he stated in a calm tone.

  He leaned back in the chair and added, “And we both know the trouble you’d go to in order to get it.”

  Duffy's cheeks burned a furious shade, puffing his chest out in self-defense.

  “I ain’t got any idea what you’re talkin’ about!”

  The blatant lie caused Tobias to throw away all willpower in remaining calm; before he found the strength to control the rush of immediate adrenaline, the ranch hand cleared the table and found himself on his feet and in the face of his only enemy.

  “Murder, Duffman. I’m talkin’ about cold blooded, calculated murder.”

  If it wasn’t for the fact that Tobias sure didn’t want to share a cell with that disgusting man for any amount of time at all, he would have killed Howard J. Duffman right on the spot.

  He wanted to; Tobias made that very clear as he stood toe-to-toe with the piece of filth he called “a waste of space”. Teeth grinding to hold his tongue in check, Tobias felt his fingertips pushing into his own sweaty palms.

  “I hate you, Howard, and I want you to know I have never felt that way about any other hu
man being in my entire life.” In clear, deliberate tone of voice, he added, ”In time, I’m pretty sure that hatred will fade and we’ll all forget about you, forget we ever knew you. We’ll be here on the ranch eating fried chicken and playing with our kids – kids who will never even hear the mention of your name. And you, Howard? You’ll be in jail. Eating stale bread and mushy old apples without so much as a breeze coming in through your cell window. I sure hope it’s going to be worth what you’re getting in return for all the work you’ve invested in this whole plot of yours.”

  Richard walked over to the back door and laid out a tray of some breakfast leftovers for the dogs, shutting and locking the door behind himself. He stood with his back up against the door once he’d locked it.

  Bruce cleared his throat and took a long, slow drink out of his favorite coffee tin.

  “The morning I fell to my assumed death, I kinda wondered in the back of my head why you were all of a sudden reverting back into the old buddy I had known as a young man. You’d been so fired up for so many days, but now I understand full well why you were so kind as to saddle up the horses,” he stated.

  Reaching across the table, he placed one of the meat saws into his open hand.

  “This leather perfectly matches up with the leather strappins off your horse‘s saddle and leads, wouldn‘t you say, Tobias?”

  Bruce hung his head and added in his most sorrowful tone, “My poor, dead horse,”.

  Tobias was milking this for all it was worth.

  “Well, Boss, let me take a look there.

  He rolled the blade over in his hands and inspected it carefully, holding it up higher than necessary so the sunlight would hit it, then handed the evidence back to Bruce.

  “I think so, but maybe we oughtta have Sheriff Anderson be the judge on this one, don’t ya think so?”

  Duffy’s face flushed and he began to tremble again.

  “Ain’t no reason to be callin’ the sheriff out here all this way. You want me gone, let me go get my things rounded up and you’ll never see the likes of me again. I know when I ain’t wanted!” he tried to accuse.

  Bruce just smiled.

  “Oh, I don’t have to fetch the sheriff, Howard. He’s already here, waiting in the parlor right now.”

  As if on cue, Sheriff Anderson showed himself in the doorway.

  “Howard J. Duffman, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Tobias Logan and Bruce Johnson.”

  Tobias swallowed hard, but he kept his eyes locked on Duffy’s as the sheriff took a step forward.

  “It’s time, Howard. Let’s get this done without a fuss, it’s best that way.”

  Wrapping a measure of braided leather roping around the man’s wrists, the man made his reluctance to cooperate clear, but the sheriff demonstrated he had expected no less and gave him a shove in the direction of the door.

  Richard turned and unlocked the door; with it still in his hand, his eyes met Duffy’s. The man’s face had drawn into a sad frown with a single tear near to dripping from his left eye. Richard shook his head; he had nothing left to say to his former friend.

  One hand on Duffy’s back and the other gripped around his cuffed wrists, the sheriff continued the escort to the man’s final steps out of the Johnson home.

  Bruce cleared his throat, causing Duffy to stop. He did not turn around but instead focused his eyes on the wooden frame around the doorway and waited for his former friend to speak his mind before taking those last steps out of his home and his life.

  “I didn’t want to believe any of this, Howard; I tried making excuses for you at first. How you could have changed this much and how you could have ever had one single notion to hurt me or my daughter runs beyond any nightmare I could have ever had. You betrayed me.”

  “He tried to kill you, is what he did,” Tobias spit out.

  “You don't know who you're messing with,” Duffy yelled over his shoulder. “I happen to be in ownership of stocks in the Pocahontas Mine, that's who you're messing with! One day I'm gonna be one of the richest men in this valley, and then you'll see what's what!”

  With trails tracing their ways down Hailee’s cheeks, the young woman closed her eyes and allowed herself to sob openly; how could this man compare his material assets with the literal lives of people?

  The sheriff glanced over to the Johnson family, asking if they'd finished venting their warranted disgust on the man.

  Bruce nodded and without another word, Howard J. Duffman took his last steps out of that kitchen and within minutes he found himself vacating the Red Bone Ranch for the rest of his life, being paraded out the door and off the property right in front of all the other ranch hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught two of them giving one another the elbow-to-the-ribcage move and grinning.

  Several moments passed before anyone could even move; the emotional weight of events had been heavier than anything the Red Bone had ever experienced before.

  One by one, heads began popping in through the kitchen door, and one by one, relieved faces gave way to slaps on the backs and shouts of welcome for the man they’d all heard was long dead and buried.

  “Well, I will be dag-nabbed,” one man exclaimed with wide eyes. ”Boss, you are the healthiest dead man I’ve ever seen,” the ranch hand joked.

  Several men asked almost at once where he’d been and why he’d been laying low for this whole time, so Bruce motioned for everyone to come join him at the dining room table, where they would all be able to sit together and hear the whole story.

  Shoving her hair back, Hailee made her way to the cupboard and pulled a stack of bowls to serve up the Irish oatmeal she was certain had grown cold already. She grinned as she plopped scoopfuls into bowls; at least the coffee was still plenty hot.

  Just as she topped off the last couple of tins of coffee, Hailee dragged the step ladder out from Richard’s pantry and across the wooden-planked dining room floor, resting it at the end of the table next to the youngest ranch hand; Joe noticed she’d intended to sit down on it, and got up to offer the girl his seat. She shook her head and gave the man a pat on his shoulders.

  “No, you go on ahead and sit down,” she whispered back before stabbing a spoon into her bowl of cold oatmeal.

  “I want to apologize if my disappearance caused any of you problems around here. I understand there is only so much one can take outta this man,” he joked with a poke of his thumb in the general direction of Tobias.

  “Hey!”

  Sporting a more serious look, Bruce continued, “For those of you who went on the cat hunt, you probably saw how ornery Duffy had gotten, right?”

  The men nodded, some even rolling their eyes at the memory.

  “Well, here’s a piece of information Tobias, thank the Lord, figured out after my little mishap up in the canyon. In fact, Tobias, why don’t you explain it yourself?”

  “To cut to the point here, after you fellas made your way back to get the doc,” he nodded to a few of the men, ”I made my way back down to the bottom of the canyon to find the Boss. Thought he was a goner, too, when I first saw him laying down there. His face already blue and green from bruising, you shoulda seen all the cuts and that tree limb clean through his leg,” he reflected, not even thinking about Hailee being right there and listening in on the conversation.

  “Anyways, after I realized he was mighty banged up – but still alive – I bandaged him up as much as I could and built a fire. Which wasn’t easy, cause if you remember, it was pouring down buckets and the hail on top of it made it pretty hard to round up any dry wood. But I managed to pull the boss over by the fire and sat down next to it myself once I’d found a few of his things that scattered on the way down.” He took a long, deliberate drink to choose his words carefully and continued. “I found the saddle and for some reason, just sitting there, I noticed one of the cinch straps missing. And for whatever reason, I looked at it a little more closely. They’d been cut. With a serrated edge, from the looks of it.”


  Tobias raised his eyes to see his audience shaking their heads.

  Joe's lips were pursed and from the look on his face, he understood where this story headed. His head bobbed up and down as he posed the question, “And who was the only one of us who even touched those things?”

  Bruce ran a hand through his hair and explained that at first, he had no logical reason to explain why Duffy would have done such a thing.

  Shooting a look of apology in Hailee’s direction, Tobias apologized for the misery she’d been put through so much agony lately.

  “But at the time, your Pa was lying down there in that canyon, we were both hungry and freezing and wet, and we weren’t probably thinking too clear at the time. We knew, though, that something was brewing in the man’s mind and we also knew the sheriff would be coming soon – and we’d have to have some plan thought up by the time he did.”

  Bruce nodded in agreement. “By the time I came to, we figured I best play possum for a while and let Duffy believe he’d killed me off. We were near to wondering if that was the right decision when Doc Amerley and the sheriff found us, but when we ran our plan by them, we all made a pact to play it out and hope for the best.”

  “So only the four of you knew the secret?” Hailee asked her father.

  When the ranch hands turned their eyes toward her, she held up both hands in front of herself and widened both eyes. ”Hey, don’t look at me! I know as much as you do!”

  “And me,” Richard confessed from the other side of the dining room. “They told me.”

  Hailee looked down at her lap while a pool of tears collected, attempting to hide the hurt she obviously felt welling up inside.

  Richard swallowed hard and shook his head, knowing he’d played a part in her misery.

  “Honey, I had to pretend your daddy was gone so we could get Duffy cornered and find out what he was up to. I hated myself every minute of every day for putting you through it.”

  In the deepest part of her head and in her heart, too, she reasoned that she was not the only person who had been caught in Duffy’s scheming, evil mind.