Paint the Hills Red

by Ron Schwab

  Megan placed a cold compress on Dan’s head again and as they worked to bring him back to consciousness, Megan said, “Did you notice these things on the ground?”

  “I ain’t blind, gal. Yep, I saw them. Never saw anything like ‘em though.”

  “Do you know what they are?”

  “I ain’t much for games.”

  “They’re an artist’s things. An easel, a canvas. Over there in the dirt, they call that a palette. He mixes his paint on it. And this stool. He was painting.”

  “Painting? You mean like a picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t see no picture.”

  “He must have just been getting ready to work. He must be an artist.”

  “Hell, gal, you’re crazy. A man like that? Look at him. Does he look like a fellar that’d spend his time drawing pictures?” Sol spat out the words contemptuously.

  Megan had to agree. She had seen a painter once in Ogallala and had watched him work with fascination, but he had been a pale, spindly little man with tiny, almost feminine hands. This man’s hands were large and powerful looking, but the evidence suggested that he did, indeed, paint. It somehow disappointed her and made her like him even less.

  3

  MEGAN HEADED THE pinto at a gallop for the west end of the valley. She would just make it back to the Bar G before sundown. She had wanted to stay at Ike Hanson’s. It would always be Ike Hanson’s place to her, never Dan McClure’s.

  When McClure had awakened again, she wanted to interrogate him further, but he had not been up to talking much. It had been a struggle for them to get him into the house, for even conscious, in his weakened state he had not been much help. But half-pushing, half-shoving, they had gotten him through the door where they helped him to the straw mattress on the cot. Sol got a fire going in the fireplace, and she had found some dried beef and prepared a pot of skimpy broth before she left. McClure had passed out on the cot, and unless he woke up soon, the beef broth wasn’t going to do him much good. Sol said to let him sleep, that sleep was the best medicine now. And Sol was, no doubt, right, she admitted grudgingly. But the man could use something to eat, too. No wonder he looked half-starved; there was hardly a thing to eat in the place. If they were going to have to nursemaid Mr. McClure, she had better haul over some supplies in the morning. She didn’t care about Dan McClure, she told herself, but she didn’t want Sol starving to death while he was holed up there.

  One thing she had established while in the house: McClure was indeed an artist. The house was scantily furnished, and it was obvious that the man did not indulge himself in luxuries. But the three rooms were crammed with paintings. Paintings resting on easels; paintings hanging on walls; paintings leaning against the walls. She had been awestruck and flabbergasted at what she had taken in with only a cursory survey of the rooms, but what she had seen fascinated and captivated her, and she wanted to see them again. She tried to recall now the paintings she had observed there, but everything was a blur in her memory except for two that were imprinted so indelibly in her mind that she could not forget them even if she tried. Both were portraits: one of a young, golden-haired woman holding an equally golden-haired little girl. Two of the most strikingly beautiful persons she had ever seen. Of course, she was seeing what the artist saw.

  The other at first disgusted her and then strangely excited her. It was a portrait of a very naked, very voluptuous young woman poised suggestively on a satin-covered bed.

  4

  DAN MCCLURE’S EYES opened and then shut again as they were blinded momentarily by the glare of the mid-morning sun that sifted through the dust-coated windows of the house. He tried to shift positions on the bed, but surrendered, weak and exhausted, to the knife-like pain that ripped through his back and chest.

  “Just hold up a minute, young fellar,” came a deep, raspy voice. “I’ll give you a hand there.”

  Dan looked up at the weather-beaten face that hovered over him. The old man looked familiar. Where had he seen him before? What was he doing here? Then gradually it came back. He had been shot by some unknown assailant. This man and someone else, a young woman, had found him. He looked around the room trying to clear his head while the old man gently and expertly worked a folded blanket under his neck and shoulders, elevating his head and inching him out of the path of the sun’s rays.

  “How’s that, son?” Solomon Pyle asked.

  “Much better. Thanks, Mr. . . . I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

  “Pyle. My handle’s Solomon Pyle. I generally answer quickest to Sol.”

  “I guess I’m in your debt, Sol. I must have been in pretty bad shape when you found me.”

  “Yep, that you was. When I first saw you laying there, I thought you was dead as a can of corned beef. Guess you don’t kill so easy, though.” He straightened up and hobbled over to the fireplace. “We got to get something down your gullet and get your strength back. You ain’t through this yet, but I figured you’d be a hell of a lot worse than this by now. Them wounds ain’t festerin’ up near as much as I looked for.”

  Dan let Sol Pyle do the talking while the venerable cowboy spooned the hot beef broth into his mouth. The warm liquid brightened him measurably and he felt a surge of strength, although his arms and legs still felt like they were weighted with lead.

  “We’ll get you on your feet for a little after a bit,” Sol said. “You’ll be stoved up for a month yet, and you’re goin’ to have to walk real careful like or you’ll jostle things loose again. But you’ll get better quicker on your feet than on your ass.”

  “Can you get a doctor out to look at me?”

  “Hell, a sawbones couldn’t do you no good. Besides, the nearest doc’s up at Fort Robinson, and that’s two days’ ride by buckboard. You ain’t torn up all that bad. We’ll keep you doctored up, and you’ll heal just fine. I’ll stay with you nights for a spell yet. Meggie can look after you days.”

  “Meggie? Oh, the young woman who was with you.”

  “More wildcat than woman. She’ll see that you don’t get too rambunctious.”

  Dan swallowed the last spoonful of broth. “What I want to know,” he said, “is who shot me and why?”

  “You mean you don’t know who it was?”

  “No, I didn’t see anybody, and I wouldn’t have known who it was if I had seen him. Don’t forget, I’m a newcomer here.”

  “You don’t have any enemies on your trail?” Sol asked.

  “No, I can’t imagine who it could be.”

  “Damn, I feared you’d say that.”

  “I take that to mean you’ve got some ideas,” Dan said.

  “Wouldn’t want to say,” Sol drawled.

  “Look, Mr. Pyle—”

  “Sol. Nobody calls me mister, leastways not friends.”

  “All right, Sol. And I’m Dan. But put yourself in my shoes. If somebody put a bullet in your back and somebody else had an idea who it was, wouldn’t you be pushing damned hard for some answers?”

  The old man set the spoon and bowl aside. “Just don’t want you goin’ off half-cocked. Brought you back this far; hate to lose you now.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m not an impulsive man.”

  Sol fished a stick of twisted chewing tobacco out of his hip pocket and took a chaw, ruminating like a cow with her cud for some moments before he spoke. “You for sure bought this land off Ike Hanson?”

  “Yes. That’s the name he gave me. He signed it ‘Isaac’ on the deed.” Dan caught a glimpse of suspicion in Solomon Pyle’s moss green eyes. “He was an old-timer. White hair, kind of a scrawny man, not more than five and a half feet tall. He had a gimpy leg. A rather cantankerous sort.”

  “Sounds like Ike all right. He pulled up stakes and went to Omaha to live with his daughter,” Sol said.

  “I know. That’s where I met him. I was an agent with a land development company there. Hanson walked in a few months back and said he wanted to sell his ranch. Our compa
ny bought land all over Nebraska and resold it to investors, businessmen and ranchers. Something like a land clearing house, you might say. Anyway, when Hanson said his place was in the Pine Ridge country, my ears perked up. I knew the area. I was a cavalry officer with the Sioux expedition in the winter of ‘74, and I was stationed at Camp Red Cloud Agency before they changed the name to Camp Robinson. I knew Lieutenant Robinson, by the way, the one they named the fort for. We shared a bottle of whiskey together just a few days before he was killed at Little Cottonwood Creek. I always vowed I’d come back to this country someday. Somehow it got in my blood and couldn’t get it out of my system. I always knew sooner or later I’d end up here. I wanted to paint the Pine Ridge and Black Hills and the Rockies. Not just the scenery, but the people and their way of life. I have a feeling that we’re living in a time and era that won’t last long. A hundred years from now, people are going to look back and say those were a special breed of people that lived in the West then. That’s what I want to capture on canvas. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Nope, but you sure as hell can talk a scab off a blister when you get started. Near as I can tell you still ain’t told me how you came to buy this ranch.”

  If Solomon Pyle was one thing, he was blunt. It had been so long since Dan had had human company he guessed he had started running off at the mouth without realizing it.

  “When I talked to Mr. Hanson,” Dan said, “I asked him if he had any neighbors who might be interested in purchasing the ranch. He said he did, but that he didn’t want to sell it to any of them. He was afraid he’d just get everybody upset if he picked one over the other. He said he didn’t want to be responsible for getting anyone killed. I thought he was joking; I didn’t take him seriously. Looks like maybe I should have. Anyway, I took it as kind of an omen that it was time for me to move on. I asked Hanson if he’d sell me the ranch. I’d made some money in land development and had enough to buy the ranch and maybe live for a year or so. That was one time in my life I acted on impulse, I guess. Anyway, I stayed with the company long enough to finish off my work and then I packed up my paintings and headed for my ranch. My ranch that I’d never seen until I got here.”

  “Ike didn’t sell you much of a place, did he? No offense meant, but he couldn’t afford no hands, and he was too old and feeble to look after things proper.”

  “All I wanted was the land to live on, and I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t think there’s a better spot in the whole Pine Ridge. The whole country for that matter. The buildings I can do something about with time and hopefully, someday, a little money. This country’s just the way I remembered it when I left eight years ago. I’ll never leave it. I’ll never leave this ranch. I know what I want now, and I spent too much of my life trying to find out. This time I’m staying put.”

  Sol shook his head doubtfully. “I hope you’re right, friend. Anyhow, seeing as how you think you’re here to stay, I’d better tell you just what kind of trouble you bought along with this here ranch. A heap of it, believe me. I can’t figure Ike not telling you. Of course, he could be a crafty old bird when it came to a dollar. We had talked to Ike about leasing the place, and he said he’d let us know on it. No way he would have sold out to Woody Dunkirk, and the other ranchers hereabouts are already mortgaged to their butts. Meggie wants this place in the worst way, but hell, the Bar G couldn’t come up with a respectable down payment these days, and Ike would have knowed that. Nope, Dunkirk’s got enough money to burn a wet mule. Wasn’t nobody else to bankroll this ranch. I suppose that’s why Ike went and sold the place to a stranger.”

  “Dunkirk,” Dan said. “You don’t sound like you have much affection for the man. Who is he? Does he have some connection with my taking a bullet?”

  “In this man’s opinion, Dunkirk’s crooked as a rattlesnake and twice as dangerous. A rattler gives you warning: Dunkirk don’t.”

  “Are you suggesting he’s the one who ambushed me?”

  “Not as such. Dunkirk don’t dirty his own hands with that sort of thing. He’s got gun hands to do his bushwhacking. But I’d bet a year’s wages that the fellar who shot you is on the Diamond D payroll.”

  “But why would this Dunkirk want to have me killed? I don’t even know the man.”

  “Because you own this ranch.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, Mr. McClure . . . Dan . . . Ike Hanson sold you a passel of trouble. Hell, Dunkirk would have done him in a long time back if the old fool hadn’t been so sickly and worn out that Dunkirk figured he’d waste away on his own soon enough. Old Ike, though, he wouldn’t die. Tough as a patch of buffalo grass.”

  “But this is just two sections . . . 1,280 acres. Nothing compared to what a man like Dunkirk must own.”

  “True enough. At last count, Dunkirk had 40,000 acres of grass and was still adding on. Of course, he’s not greedy. Just wants the land that’s next to his, that’s all.”

  “And the Bar G doesn’t?” Dan asked cynically.

  “You got yourself a point, Dan. I suppose most ranchers have got a little bit of land hog in ‘em, but most won’t kill for a few acres of grass. Dunkirk will.”

  Dan shifted on the cot, working his hip into a depression in the mattress. “You’ve never said why Dunkirk wants this place.”

  “Ride out and take a look at your ranch, Dan. You’re the hooking cow, and as far as Dunkirk’s concerned, you’ve got to be dehorned.”

  “You’re talking in riddles, Sol. What’s a hooking cow?”

  “It’s a cow with long, sharp horns, generally a sneaky old bitch. She’ll stand out on the range chomping on the grass, biding her time real peaceful like when the cowboy rides by, payin’ her no account ‘cause she’s such a nice old cow. Then, first thing you know, she comes up from behind and takes his horse, maybe gores herself a cowhand as an afterthought. I’m thinking Dunkirk sees this place as the hooking cow.”

  “Why?”

  “Water. If there’s one thing in these parts worth more than good grass, it’s good water. You’ve got Dunkirk land touching you on all sides excepting one, on the west where Meggie’s place joins. Dunkirk’s trying to crowd out dozens of small ranchers. There was twice as many a few years back. But Ike Hanson’s place and the Bar G, they always really stuck in Dunkirk’s craw because, between them, they could shut off the only dependable water supply for better than 10,000 acres of Dunkirk’s best grazing land. No water, no cattle.”

  “You mean he’s afraid we might dam up the creeks and cut off his water supply?”

  “Yep, you especially. Take yourself a look at the county plat map and you’ll see that you and the five thousand acres held by the Bar G look sort of like a key hole with square corners, pretty much surrounded on all sides by the Diamond D. Well, you happen to be sitting on a pocket of underground springs that break through the ground and feed the creeks with all the water they can handle, winter and summer, rain or drought. Your little spread’s right at the end of that key hole. The creeks join up and go on to Dunkirk's land through a little bottleneck canyon that breaks through the hills from your land. Wouldn’t take five men more than a couple of days to shut that water off and make yourself a big lake so’s you could let Dunkirk have water only when you wanted to. Sell it to him, maybe. He’s got water of his own to get him through wet years, but you get a dry year or two, and you could have ol’ Dunkirk by the balls.”

  “But I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t shut off his water supply. I was trained as an engineer at West Point. I know there’s not much law on these things out here yet, but I think there are limits on how much you can impede the natural flow of water.”

  “There ain’t much law of any kind around here. What we do have is owned by Dunkirk. Besides, Dunkirk don’t know you wouldn’t try to cut off the water. It ain’t everybody that looks at things the way he does. If he was in your boots, he’d shut off that creek faster than chained lightning with a link snapped. Then he’d squeeze the rancher who need
ed the water till he could buy him out.”

  Dan was dubious. Solomon Pyle sounded like a man with a personal grudge that went beyond a dispute over water rights. “I don’t know, Sol. It’s still pretty hard to swallow that a man would kill over something like that. It’s 1882. Nebraska’s had statehood for close to twenty years. We’re getting civilized out here.”

  “That’s probably what Custer said when he was killed just a ways north and west of here not five years back,” the old man growled. “Ask Megan about it. Ask her who blowed her daddy’s guts all over their front porch with a shotgun a year back. Ask a half dozen other small ranchers who’ve lost somebody to a bushwhacker in the past two years.”

  “If you’re so sure it’s Dunkirk, why don’t you go to the law? There’s a sheriff at the county seat in Medicine Hill. I saw his office. It was next to the land office.”

  “We can’t prove nothin’ and even if we could, it wouldn’t do no good. I told you, Dunkirk owns the law.”

  “I don’t believe that. Nobody owns the law. One man, maybe, but if the sheriff won’t do his job you can go to the Attorney General or the Governor for help.”

  “Like hell. Not with the spindly vote we got out here in the Panhandle.”

  “I’ll tell you this much,” Dan said, “when I’m up and around, I’m going to make a call on the sheriff.”

  “It’s a waste of time.”

  “We’ll see. And I’ll have a talk with Dunkirk, too. I just want to be left alone so I can get back to work.”

  “You’re just askin’ to get your fool head blowed off. If you go see Dunkirk, you just as well offer to sell the place. He’ll give you four or five times what you paid. You can move on with some jingle in your pocket. Find you a place where you ain’t so likely to pick up another case of lead poisoning.”

  “I already told you I’m staying here. I’ve made my last move.”

  “From the way you’re going on, you won’t be movin’, that’s for sure. You’ll be eatin’ worms out by one of them ponderosa before the summer’s out.”