The Western Justice Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  “How was that?”

  “Well, he’s the best man I have, but his wife didn’t like his work. He was usually gone, and she was afraid he’d get killed, so she gave him his choice. She said, ‘Either quit or I’m quitting you.’ Well, he’s still here alone, so you can imagine what happened.”

  “Judge, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been thinking about God ever since I nearly cashed in my chips out there in the territory.”

  The noise from the street floated in from the open window, and the judge walked over and looked down. “I hate the sight of that gallows.”

  “It bothers you to find men guilty knowing they’re going to hang?”

  “Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, maybe you need to quit, Judge.”

  “No, I’m doin’ what God wants me to do, but it’s hard.”

  Ty motioned at the Bible open on the judge’s desk. “Do you think a man can find out what he ought to do with his life by reading that Bible?”

  “Yes, I do. I think God speaks to us through His Word, but I’d hate to lose you, Ty.”

  “Plenty can do what I’m doin’.”

  “No, that’s not right, but you do what you have to do. I always like to see a man get right with God.”

  “I’ll take another day off, if that’s all right. Read the Bible some more. I admire those fellows that God speaks to directly, like He did to Moses at the burning bush and to Saul on the road to Damascus.”

  “Doesn’t usually happen like that. Usually takes two or three days, or sometimes months.”

  “Maybe another day will do me.” Ty turned and left, and he passed Heck, who was coming up the stairs.

  “You comin’ back to work, Ty?”

  “No, I’m going to take another day off.” He shook his head. “Sure am in a messed-up situation, Heck.”

  Heck watched him go down the stairs, then mounted to the second floor and went in to see the judge. “You let him take some more time off?”

  “Yep.”

  “He’s pretty mixed up, Judge. You know, I got an idea he thinks God wants him to be a preacher.”

  “He tell you that?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me that, but a lot of fellows get confused like that. They want to do something to make God happy, and that seems to be what some of them do.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but he’s going to have to choose. I don’t see how a man can be a marshal in Indian Territory and a preacher at the same time.”

  “Reckon you better tell him that, Judge.”

  “No man can really tell another what to do in a situation like he’s in. Give him a few days. Maybe he’ll find his way.”

  Ty had started over to the café to get a late breakfast when he ran into George Fairfax.

  “Where you headed, Ty?”

  “Going to get some breakfast.”

  “Well, let me buy for you. I’m hungry myself.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The two men made their way to the restaurant and went inside. George said to the waiter, “Just bring us some of the best breakfast you can round up back there.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that. It’ll be good, too.”

  George leaned back, and for a while they talked about unimportant things until the meal came.

  Both men pitched in, and when they had finished their meal and were drinking their third cups of coffee, Ty fastened his gaze on Fairfax. “You look troubled, George.”

  “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “I don’t see how you could have any problems. You’re rich.”

  “That doesn’t solve everything, you know,” George said. He shifted in his chair and made an involuntary nervous gesture, pulling his hand across his face. “You know what? I’ve been having some strong feelings about Raina. In fact, I’ve asked her to marry me.” At the look on Ty’s face, George rushed on. “I should have told you sooner, Ty, but, well, this is sort of personal. Before you say anything, she hasn’t given me an answer yet. You know her better than I do. Do you think she’d have me as a husband?”

  He said simply, “I really don’t know, George. All she can do is say no or yes.”

  “I know you’re right.” He drank the last of his coffee, put the cup down, and then stared at Kincaid. “I thought you and Raina were pretty close at one time.”

  “She pulled me out of a real hard time, and I guess that kind of thing never leaves a man. Maybe a woman neither.” Kincaid turned the coffee cup around in a circular motion and stared down at the circles it left on the table.

  “You have any thoughts about marriage, Ty?”

  “I guess every man’s got some thoughts about that.”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I can’t think about marriage now. To tell the truth, George, I don’t know where I’m going, so I can’t ask a woman to follow me.”

  “Why, you’ll continue to be a marshal, won’t you?”

  “Not sure about that. I had some odd dreams when I was out there dying. One of them I haven’t told anybody about. Maybe I could tell you. I keep thinking of it.”

  “What kind of a dream?”

  “I dreamed I was in some place with a tall table in front of me and I was preaching. That’s all I can remember. I don’t even remember what I said, but I remember there were people there, and I was preaching to them.” He laughed and shook his head. “Nothing further from my mind these last few years than preaching, and I couldn’t ask a woman to go into that.”

  “I want Raina to go back to England with me.”

  “I don’t think Raina would be interested in that. She just found her father and is enjoying being with him right now.”

  “I keep trying to wonder what would happen if I tried to take her back to England. She’d probably be out of place in my world back home.”

  “Maybe you could live here.”

  “No, I’m a misfit.”

  Ty studied George Fairfax and thought with a strong humor, He’s got some problem. Money and everything, and he’s worried about whether he can find a wife or not.

  “I guess I’ll head on down the way. Let me know what Raina answers.”

  “I wouldn’t be cutting in on you, would I, Ty?”

  “No, nothing like that. I wish you well, whatever happens.” Ty did his best to put a lot of sincerity in his words, but he couldn’t help but feel like he had lost something special.

  George watched the tall man walk away and sat for a while staring down at the table.

  Finally the waiter came and said, “Anything else, Mr. Fairfax?”

  “No. Here you go.” He put money on the table, including a large tip, and left the café. All morning he wandered around, not knowing what to do with himself, thinking mostly about what he’d said to Ty Kincaid. Finally he threw up his hands and muttered, “I might as well go find out.”

  He went to the livery stable and had the hostler saddle his buckskin. He mounted up and rode out of town at a fast gait. As he left town and headed toward the sheep camp, he was worried about his way. She probably never thought of me as a man she might marry. Why should she?

  As he rode along, he studied the land and thought about how different it was from England. There he had been used to grass so green it hurt the eyes in the summer, but here it was summer and the grass was still not greened out. The hills were rough, and rocky buttes broke against the morning sky. It was tough, hard-edged territory, and he was well aware that some of the men and the Indians who inhabited this place were as rough as the land itself.

  George finally arrived at the sheep camp early the next morning. He saw Eddie Vernay trimming the wool from a sheep. “Hello, Eddie.”

  “Hello, Mr. Fairfax.”

  “That looks like a lot of work.”

  “It ain’t bad. It’s when you have to do a hundred of them in a day that it gets tough. Everything gets bad when you have to do a lot of it. What can I do for you?”

  “Is Raina here?”

&n
bsp; “No, she’s gone out to look at the sheep.”

  George Fairfax stood uncertainly.

  Finally Vernay said, “You got somethin’ on your mind, Mr. Fairfax?”

  “Well, I do, but I’m not sure I need to say it.”

  “Let it be said. Can’t be too bad.”

  Fairfax hesitated then blurted out, “You know, in my country if a man’s serious about a woman, he goes to her father to ask if he can make an offer to his daughter.”

  Eddie Vernay threw the pile of wool on the ground, then tossed the shears down and let the sheep go. “What kind of an offer?”

  “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t do this the right way by coming to you first, but I asked Raina to marry me some time ago. She hasn’t given me an answer yet.”

  Vernay took off his hat and scratched his head. “Well, I do wish you had come to me first. But I haven’t really been a father to her for long, so I will leave it up to her. However, if you want my two cents’ worth, I’m not sure it’d work.”

  “Why not? You don’t like me?”

  “No, it ain’t that, but you know this ain’t England, Mr. Fairfax.”

  “I know. I thought about that. But if she married me, we could go back to England. I’ve even got a castle there. It’s not the biggest one, but she could have anything she wanted. Anyway, I came to see if I could get an answer from her. I think it’s been long enough.”

  Eddie Vernay stared at the tall Englishman. “You’re welcome to go find her.”

  “Which way do I go?”

  “See them two peaks over there? I’ve got a herd of sheep there. You ride straight for it. When you see sheep, Raina will be close.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Vernay.”

  “Good luck, son.”

  As Fairfax rode away, he felt like a fool. “I could have said that a little bit better. I’m surprised he didn’t run me off.”

  He kept the horse at a fast gait, and finally he saw the sheep. Five minutes later he saw Raina.

  She was talking to one of the herders, and they both turned to see him. When he stopped the horse, she cried out, “Hello, George. Get down.”

  George dismounted, tied his horse to one of the saplings, and said, “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to learn about sheep.”

  “There’s a lot to learn, I suppose.”

  “Yes, there is. There’s different kinds, and you have to know a lot to keep them from running away.” The sheepherder was Mikel.

  “You like sheep, Mikel?”

  “No.”

  His brief answer amused Fairfax. “Well, why do you do it then?”

  “A man has to do somethin’. Beats other things I’ve done.”

  “Come on, George. Let’s go get in the shade. I’ve got some cool water over there, or it was when I left the house.”

  He walked over with her, and for the next thirty minutes they stood in the shade and Raina talked about sheep. As she spoke, George tried to think of some way to say something.

  Finally she asked him, “George, have you decided what you’re going to do?”

  “You mean about where I’m going to live?”

  “Yes. You didn’t seem too sure the last time we talked about it.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about one thing. I guess there are better ways to say this, but I’ve been thinking about you, Raina.” He hesitated then said, “Have you thought any more about me as a man you might marry?”

  She was staring at him strangely and said quietly, “Yes, I have, George.”

  When she said nothing more, George nervously said, “I don’t know how to court an American woman. And I don’t know enough about sheep to talk about that.”

  “Marriage is more than sheep, isn’t it, George?”

  “Well, of course it is, but I don’t know how you feel about me.”

  “I’m interested in you. You’re an interesting fellow.” She did not seem disturbed by his talk of marriage, and he bent to catch a better view of her face. He was not sure what her expression meant, and he had a great dread of making a mistake with this girl.

  For a moment he watched her; he saw no anger, and without saying anything else, he reached out and pulled her to him. He saw that she was smiling, and he kissed her. When he lifted his lips, he found that the kiss had disturbed him more than her. She had combed her hair so that it lay soft and neat against her head and there were lights dancing in her eyes.

  He said, “I don’t know what to think of you. You’re not like any woman I ever met.”

  “I’m just a woman, George.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “No, I haven’t, but I can tell you this. It’s going to take a little bit more courting than you’ve shown me so far. You’ve hardly been around since you asked me. I know you’ve been giving me time to decide, but I need to see you a bit more to really decide a thing as important as this.”

  “Can’t you tell me what you think of me?”

  “Well, George, I can tell you one thing,” Raina said. “I don’t feel about you like I would a man I want to spend the rest of my life with. At least not yet.”

  George was disappointed, but he determined to see this thing through, believing she could come to love him. “Well, tell me how to go about this.”

  “That’s for you to find out. I’m not even sure I want to get married now to anybody, so you’ve got to change my mind about that.”

  “All right. I’ll come courting. I guess that’s what you mean.”

  “Yes. Can you play a guitar? I’ll have you bring a guitar and sing love songs outside my window.”

  “I’m sorry about that. I’ve got no musical talent at all, but I can quote some poetry for you.”

  “Well, we can make do with that. Come along. I’ll show you some more sheep.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Ever since George had spoken to her again about getting married, Raina had been disturbed. She knew many women would jump at the chance to marry a man with his qualities. Not only was he wealthy and entertaining, but she could tell he was a good man, which was to her a most important factor.

  The next morning, she got up, helped make breakfast for the herders, and then cleaned up the kitchen. Finally she went out on the porch of the small house and sat down on a chair that her father had built.

  The sun was well up, and she could hear the plaintive cries of the sheep, a sound that had almost become second nature to the land where she now lived. She had come to the sheep ranch with prejudice about the woolly animals, but during the months she had been here, she had become aware of their helplessness and how they needed the almost constant watch care of the shepherds. They were foolish in a way, but somehow she found this made them more endearing.

  From far off she heard the sound of a coyote, always a lonesome, plaintive cry to her. They were nocturnal creatures, and one was rarely seen or heard during the daylight hours. They also could be destructive, and the shepherds always had to be on constant guard so they would not lose their sheep to a pack of them.

  She turned her eyes down toward the corral, where she watched one of the herders, Benat, a huge man, and by far the strongest of the shepherds, break in a horse. He was a good rider, and his heavy weight prevented the small mustang from throwing him off. She watched as the big man pulled himself into the saddle and the horse bucked, but Benat simply sat there until the animal quieted. He stepped off and led the animal away.

  Raina got up and walked across the yard, noting that since she had come she had insisted on cleaning it up. The men had been careless with tin cans and papers and other trash that littered the place. Now it was clean, and one of the men was assigned each day to make sure it stayed that way. They had objected at first, but they had become accustomed to it.

  She went inside, poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot that sat on the wood-burning stove, and then walked outside again. She could not understand her restlessness, but she knew it had something to do with trying to make up
her mind about her future life. She was aware that there was some relationship between her and Ty, but then George had proposed marriage to her, and she found herself unable to think very clearly about it.

  For a while she sipped the coffee, and as she was draining the cup, she saw a rider coming. When he came closer, she recognized Ty.

  He rode in, dismounted, tied his horse up, and came over to the porch.

  “Good morning, Ty. How about some coffee?”

  “That sounds good.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Just a little.”

  “I’ve got some biscuits left and some preserves. I can fry you up some bacon.”

  “Oh, don’t bother. Just coffee will be fine.”

  Raina went inside and quickly returned with a steaming cup of coffee. She put the cup down on the table beside the chair Ty had sat in. As she took the chair beside his, she said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’ve been hurt worse. I came pretty close to cashing in, but now I’m getting better every day.”

  “Have you gone back to your job yet?”

  “I’m actually on the job now. Judge Parker sent me out here to check on things. I think he just wanted to give me an easy assignment as I get back to work.” He hesitated. “I guess he sees something in me that I can’t hide.”

  Raina was curious. “What would that be, Ty?”

  “I’m just restless. I don’t know what to do with myself. And all those dreams I had when I was dying out on the plains, they keep coming back to me.” He paused then said, “One of them I haven’t told you about.”

  “What was it?”

  Ty hesitated then shook his head. “It sounds meaningless to me. Most of my dreams are, but in this dream I found myself speaking to a group of people. It was like I was a preacher. They were listening and I was speaking. I don’t remember a word I said, but that’s what it was.”

  Raina leaned closer to him. “You think God might be leading you to become a preacher?”

  “I don’t know, Raina. That would have been the last thought in my mind, but now it keeps coming back, and I can even see the faces of the people I was speaking to.”