Paint the Hills Red

by Ron Schwab

  “I’ll try to be worthy of it.”

  “Very well, I have some papers for both of you to sign, and then I will proceed with filing the will for probate. The two of you will have to appear at a hearing in about a month, but it will be quite routine, and I think there is nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Fine,” Dan said, “we’ll keep in touch, and if I have any questions, I’ll stop in.”

  But why in God’s name had Sol Pyle left him a half interest in the ranch land? They had become friends, yes, but they had only known each other a few months. He didn’t need the land. He didn’t want it. And still, Sol squeezed out his promise that he would see that the terms of the will would be carried out. His interest in the land was one of the terms. It just didn’t make any sense, especially in light of Sol’s confession of paternity.

  And what did Megan think about it? Looking at her now, there was no way to tell. Was she angry? Did she resent it? He had come to the Pine Ridge for peace and solitude. Day by day, this life was becoming more turbulent and complex. But he still was not leaving the Pine Ridge.

  Dan assisted Megan into the carriage that the ranch hands had dusted off and pulled out of the barn for the journey to Medicine Hill. “You’re a real dude, McClure, when you’re all gussied up,” came a grating voice from across the dusty trail that was Medicine Hill’s main street.

  Stiles Keaton stepped off the boardwalk and swaggered across the street toward the carriage. “High class transportation,” the sheriff said mockingly, nodding at the carriage. He stopped not far from Dan, and his dark eyes fastened on Megan. “High class lady, too.”

  Megan sat unmoving, seemingly unhearing like a statue in the carriage.

  “I was planning to pay you a visit before I left town,” Dan said.

  The sheriff arched his dark eyebrows and turned to Dan. “Oh?”

  “I assume you’ve heard about the killings out at the Hannah Baker place.”

  “Rumors, that’s all I’ve heard. Nothing official.”

  “Then I’ll make it official. Hannah Baker and Solomon Pyle were murdered there, in cold blood.”

  “Is that right? I’d better look into it. And when did these alleged murders take place?”

  “Sunday morning.”

  “And it’s Tuesday afternoon. Why didn’t you report them earlier?”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “It might have. The trail’s cold by now. I’ll ride out, but I probably won’t find much.”

  “You probably won’t,” Dan said.

  “I don’t like your tone, mister.”

  “And I don’t like your law, Sheriff. You don’t seem to get very excited about killings in your county.”

  “Nobody’s proved there was a murder. Folks get killed for a lot of reasons. Self-defense, for instance. The law even says there’s justifiable killings. A whore like the widow Baker might give somebody good cause, and a cowboy sticking his pecker in a briar patch can get it taken off accidental like. A man with horse sense thinks twice about who he keeps company with. There’s a lesson there for you, McClure, and I won’t charge you a dollar for it.”

  “What are you suggesting, Sheriff?”

  “Don’t play the innocent lamb with me, McClure. Liz Dunkirk, that’s what I’m suggesting. There’s talk about you keeping company with her. You might as well jump in bed with a den of rattlesnakes. You’re playing a mighty dangerous game, McClure, and I’ll tell you something else . . . you’re bound to lose.”

  “I see,” Dan said, turning away from the sheriff and climbing into the buggy.

  “Yes,” the sheriff said, “we’ll see . . . and soon, unless I miss my guess.” He grinned like a Cheshire cat and pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket.

  Dan took the reins and released the carriage brake, and without casting Sheriff Keaton so much as a glance, he snapped the reins and drove the buggy away.

  The carriage rolled and bounced its way up the rocky rutted road that twisted into the foothills north of Medicine Hill. The ride back to the Bar G would take the better part of two hours, and Dan decided to concede Megan the silence she was maintaining. It might be wiser to say nothing than the wrong thing. Leave her with her thoughts. Give her time to sort things out. That’s what he would have wanted himself at a time like this. Experience told him to keep his lips tight.

  An hour out of Medicine Hill, Dan turned the horses off the road so they could get a drink at a clear spring-fed creek that raced down the slope alongside the roadbed. He had just stepped down from the carriage to water the horses when Megan spoke.

  “This is Antelope Creek, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know the name. I’m a greenhorn in these parts, remember?”

  “It’s so cool here. We’re in the shade. The trees are birch, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” he said, surprise showing in his voice.

  “I know the place. Sol always stopped here, too. That’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a natural watering place.”

  “There should be a huge granite stone along the edge of the creek with kind of a round, flat top. I always called it Pancake Rock. It almost looked like someone carved it that way. Do you see it?”

  Dan scanned the creek bank. It was amazing she knew where they were. “Yes, I see it. You couldn’t mistake it.”

  Her lips parted in a smile that made him think of Emily on the Christmas before she died when she found a little rag doll under the Christmas tree.

  “When we stopped here, I always used to get down and yank off my boots and sit on old Pancake Rock and soak my feet. The water’s ice cold even in the heat of July. The creek’s spring-fed. Sol would nag at me to hurry up, but I never paid any attention. I’d just sit there in the shade, listen to the meadowlarks, and watch the minnows in the creek.”

  Dan had a sudden inspiration. “Would you like to get down and soak your feet right now?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, my stockings . . . I’d have to take my stockings off.”

  “Then take them off,” Dan said.

  “But . . . you wouldn’t look?”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “No, I won’t look.”

  “But how will I know?”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  She was silent a moment and her brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “Yes . . . yes, I do.” Then her face flushed a bit. “Besides, you wouldn’t see a thing you haven’t already seen, would you?”

  Recalling the night of Megan’s injury, Dan replied, “That’s true, but I’ll behave honorably. I promise.” He hurried around to her side of the carriage and took her hand. “I’ll help you over to the rock, then you can take off those awful high-button shoes and your stockings while I water the horses.”

  After the horses had drunk their fill, Dan led them into the shade, braked the carriage, and secured the reins. When he joined Megan, she was positioned on the rock, her face serene and tilted skyward. Her skirt and petticoat were hiked up mid-thigh; her feet dangled lazily in the water where the current splashed around her shapely calves and ankles. She turned her head when she heard him step up behind her.

  “Would you rather be alone?” he asked. “I would understand.”

  “No, I think we should talk.”

  He let himself down on the ground next to the rock and then sat there waiting for her to speak.

  “We’ll have to arrive at some arrangement for Sol’s land,” she said, “now that you own half of it. Bar G cattle are grazing on it. Sol didn’t have more than a few head of his own. I would hope to buy out your interest in the land someday, but I can’t now. I’d like to keep leasing, if we can come to terms. Of course, I know you have a right to force a sale if you want.”

  He looked up at her. She had a determined look on her face, but he knew she was concerned. “It won’t be sold,” he said, “unless I sell it to you. I’ll lease my interest to the Bar G on the same basi
s Sol did.”

  “It wasn’t business with Sol,” she said. “He took enough of the calf crop every year to pay the taxes. That was about it.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “No, we have to handle this in a businesslike way. You’re a very poor businessman, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. You’ve told me that before. Why don’t you handle this part of my business for me? I’ll go along with whatever you think is right.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.”

  “Can’t I trust you?” he asked.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then it’s settled. You’re my business manager.”

  “But you’re Sol’s executor.”

  “And as executor, I can delegate my responsibilities.”

  “Oh.”

  “Megan, all of Sol’s land should have been yours. I had no idea he was going to do this. I don’t understand why. We’d known each other such a short time.”

  “Sol thought very highly of you. I know that. He had his reasons. He always had a reason for everything he did, and he was almost always right . . . but I never told him that. I never told him a lot of things.”

  “Then you’re not upset because he left part of the land to me?”

  “No, of course not. As Mr. Battie explained before we left, if Sol hadn’t made out a will, the land would have gone to the state, and I’m sure Dunkirk would have found a way to get hold of it then. I didn’t have a right to inherit anything. Besides, an inheritance isn’t a God-given right. It’s one of the extras that some of us are fortunate enough to receive.” She paused. “But I’d much rather have my father and Sol back than to have the inheritances I got from them. I know this, I’m not going to waste away what they left me. That would be an insult to their memories. I’m going to build on what they gave me.”

  Megan Grant was a damn tough lady.

  “Dan, there’s something else. How do we stop the killing? How do we deal with Dunkirk? I can run a ranch; I know that; I’m a good businesswoman. But I don’t know how to fight a war.”

  “I was a soldier,” Dan said. “I didn’t like it, but I can soldier again if I have to. You handle the ranching business; I’ll handle the war.”

  “But you won’t have the law on your side. Sheriff Keaton works for Dunkirk. You can’t doubt that, can you?”

  “No, but I’ve written to the Attorney General’s office. I’m hoping that eventually they’ll send someone out here to look into things. Of course, there aren’t many votes in Bobcat County, so I won’t count on it. We’d better work out a strategy of our own.”

  “Keaton’s a dangerous man, and he hates you, Dan. I hear things in people’s voices that I didn’t hear before and that other people don’t hear. He plans to kill you.”

  “Not if Clay Sutherly has anything to say about it. He wants that privilege.”

  She bit her lower lip as if trying to hold back something she wanted to say. “I didn’t know you’d met Elizabeth Dunkirk,” she said.

  “Uh, yes, we’ve met.”

  “It’s none of my concern, of course, but the sheriff seemed to think you were more than casual acquaintances.”

  “She’s dropped by the ranch a few times,” Dan said, “to look at my paintings.” It wasn’t a total lie. She had seen the paintings on each of her half dozen visits to his place over the past month. She had to walk past some of his better works on the way to the bed.

  “She’s interested in your work then?”

  “Yes, I guess you could say that.” Dan had to get away from this subject fast. He did not owe Megan Grant an explanation about any relationship he had with Elizabeth Dunkirk, but somehow when he was with Megan he felt like he owed her one. She made him feel guilty as hell. It would probably last until Elizabeth showed up and he looked into her lustful, seductive eyes again. No, there were times for choosing. He was coming to such a time soon.

  “Elizabeth Dunkirk’s a very beautiful woman,” Megan said.

  “Yes, I suppose she is in some ways. Megan, we’d probably better be on our way if we want to get back to the Bar G before sundown.” He stood up. “We should talk about tomorrow’s meeting on the way back.”

  “Yes, I suppose. There’s not much more to talk about since you don’t want to talk about Elizabeth Dunkirk and her interest . . . in your art, of course.”

  18

  MEGAN SAT AT the head of the oak dining table that her father had hauled to the Pine Ridge all the way from Texas. She was not as uncomfortable as she had thought she might be. Their conversation had been subdued during dinner, and the ranchers had treated her deferentially as they displayed their cowboy appetites on the rare roast beef, hot biscuits and fresh gooseberry pies that had been placed on the table. Now they were washing it down with hot coffee.

  If she could only see them. There was still too much hidden from her ears and that other indefinable sense that had been growing with each new day. If her eyesight ever returned, she would view the countryside and the creatures and the people around her with new reverence and appreciation, she vowed.

  Besides Dan, who sat at Megan’s right, there were five ranchers of varying ages, circumstances, and temperaments in the room. Caleb Salway, pot-bellied, but bronzed and vigorous, well past 60, was both the oldest and best fixed of the small ranchers. He was also soft-spoken and level-headed, one who'd say little, but whose words would come down heavy.

  Tom Powell, in his mid-20’s, not much older than herself, owned only a section and leased another two. He was always stretched for cash and was the bullheaded sort. He was not as tall as Dan, but thicker boned. Sol had always said that young Tom had a herd bull’s neck and shoulders, and once she had heard Sol remark to a hand, when he had not been aware she was listening, that young Tom had a herd bull’s balls to boot. He was married and kept his young wife perpetually with child.

  But the area ranchers, more especially their wives and daughters, knew him more as a fence jumper who ran helter-skelter through the Pine Ridge. More than once, she had felt Tom Powell stripping her naked with his eyes, and she supposed he was doing it now since she could not look back. She wondered vaguely if she had blushed at the thought of it. But Tom had his following as he had his detractors, and he would command the support of some good fighting men.

  The other men, Cap Morris of the Rocking M, Chris Tyler of the Tumbling T and Lem Stack, were a blend of the two extremes, but would lean to the cooler head of Cal Salway in an argument. It didn’t matter. She had decided to concede them nothing; not her age; not her handicap; not her femaleness. She owned the Bar G, and with the land she leased from Sol’s estate and Dan, she controlled more land than any man in the room. She had as much stake in the Pine Ridge as any of them.

  Reminding herself of this, she spoke, her voice clear and steady. “Gentlemen, I thank you for coming. You were invited here today to discuss a mutual problem. I don’t have to tell you what we’re faced with this summer. Three have died already this year. How many others in the past? As you know, a man tried unsuccessfully to kill me, and Mr. McClure here was shot in the back several months ago. We have no law in this county right now, only Woodson Dunkirk. The Diamond D is the law. And if we don’t do something about it, the Diamond D is going to eat up the county before this is all over. Our family burial plots are going to be overcrowded, and Diamond D cows will be pasturing over the graves of our loved ones. I can’t see anyone in this room; I can’t see the cows grazing in the meadows, but I can see the future. If we don’t make a decision today that this is going to stop and that we’re going to fight back, do you know what I see in the future? I see us being trampled in the Pine Ridge dust by Diamond D riders.” There was a rumble of assent in the room.

  Megan continued, “I’m just reminding you of what you already know. I can’t force you to do anything about them, but I can tell you right now I’m not going to sit on my fanny and wait for Dunkirk to burn out the Bar G. Or to send his gunslingers over to finish the job on me t
hat they botched up before. I’m going to fight back. I think Dan McClure will help me . . . will help all of us . . . if you’ll back him. Let me say this . . . Mr. McClure and I have our differences, and he still needs some educating about some things around here. But he’s got his own stake in this. Most of you know he owns the Hanson place. What you probably don’t know is that he owns half of another three sections that Sol Pyle leased to the Bar G.” The stunned silence told Megan that the ranchers’ curiosity had been whetted. She decided to let it go unsatisfied. “Dan has a military background. He graduated from West Point, and he fought the Sioux. We need a leader who can plan and organize and carry the fight to the enemy.”

  If she could just see their faces. She could not gauge their reaction as to whether they were hostile or friendly to her suggestion.

  “Unlike the rest of us, Dan doesn’t know most of the ranchers around here. At first I thought that might be a problem, but now I don’t think so. He’s in a position to start fresh. He doesn’t have to overcome any old grudges or feuds. He can make hard-nosed decisions without the fear of offending an old friend, not that it would matter to him anyway.”

  “How about getting to the point, Meg? I’ve got work to get back to,” Tom Powell interrupted.

  “Very well. I want you and the rest of the men to join the Bar G and Dan in this fight. If you will, we can whip Dunkirk. If you won’t, he’ll chop us down, one by one.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re taking it upon yourself to appoint a goddamned general,” Powell growled. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but that don’t give you the right to start settin’ terms for the rest of us.”

  “I’m not setting terms. I’m telling you what I intend to do, and I’m inviting you to join me.”

  “But you can see Tom’s point.”

  She recognized Cap Morris’s drawl. Sol always said Cap had a voice like a rusty gate hinge.

  “It’s kind of hard to see why your notions should carry more weight than anyone else’s,” he added.