Trace Kerrigan had made a circuit of the room examining the walls and roof and now he again sat on the floor beside Cowley. “Nothing?” the puncher said.
“Nothing. The place is as tight as a drum,” Trace said.
“So all we can do is wait,” Cowley said.
“About the size of it unless we can jump McKenzie when he comes in to feed us.”
“If he feeds us, you mean.”
“Yeah, and I guess it’s a big if.”
Cowley was quiet for a while. He stared at the feeble flame guttering in the oil lamp and then spoke in semidarkness, his voice sounding hollow in the close confines of the cellar. “Can the Mexicans do all those things McKenzie is talking about? Can they destroy the range?”
“I reckon so, Zeke,” Trace said. “If there’s enough of them.”
“The army can drive them off though,” the puncher said.
“It could,” Trace said. “But by that time it will be too late for the KK. What’s taken Kate Kerrigan years to build can be destroyed in a matter of months. The range is as fragile as a beautiful woman. Overgrazing can destroy it and so can a long spell of dry weather or a cold winter. Thousands of people camping on KK grass, forced by famine to kill and eat our cattle, would be its death knell.”
Cowley smiled. “Buffalo Bill is doing that very thing and the grass is dying.”
Trace nodded. “I know, but it’s only ten acres of graze and given time it will recover. But from the New Mexico border to the Rio Grande, imagine a wasteland covered with campsites.” Trace shook his head. “The range would never come back from that. As my ma says, it’s the stuff of nightmares.”
“Damn it, boss, there’s got to be some way we can push them back across the river,” Cowley said.
“Like you said, Zeke, we’d need an army and as of now we don’t have one of those.” Trace was silent for a while, then, his chin set and determined, “However this thing plays out, I’ll make sure Slide McKenzie doesn’t profit. I’ll hunt him down and kill him, no matter how long it takes.”
Cowley nodded. “And I’ll ride with you, boss. Caleb Dowd didn’t stack up to much, but we both rode for the brand. That makes a difference to a man when the time for the reckoning comes.”
“Be glad to have you along, Zeke,” Trace said.
* * *
Trace estimated that three hours had passed since he and Cowley had been thrown into the cellar at gunpoint, when the door opened, allowing a rectangular shaft of daylight to penetrate the gloom. Then Slide McKenzie’s voice. “Kerrigan, send up the puncher.”
Trace’s temper flared. “Damn you, McKenzie, if you want him come and get him.”
The Boswell brothers pushed McKenzie aside and stood on the stairs, Winchesters at the ready. “Send up the drover or we’ll kill both of you,” Bat said.
“I’ll go, boss,” Cowley said. “Them boys mean business.”
Trace hung his head in defeat. Unarmed, he was helpless before the Boswell guns. He sat silently as Cowley mounted the stairs and the door slammed shut behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The letter Kate Kerrigan held in her hands was from her bankers, assuring her that her investment in the British White Star shipping line had paid large dividends and justified the risk she’d taken in helping to fund the upstart company. Also mentioned was the standing invitation from the White Star directors inviting Mrs. Kerrigan, all expenses paid of course, to undertake an Atlantic crossing on their just completed new passenger liner the Oceanic, which set new standards for first-class comfort. The invitation was not without its attractions, and Kate filed it away for future consideration. There followed a long and somewhat boring list of financial returns on other investments, mostly railroads, apartment buildings, mills, several hotels, a Philadelphia bank, and, dear to her heart, a small millinery company in Dublin. An addendum contained a record of monies paid to the various orphanages and poorhouses that Kate supported.
All in all, she was happy with her various business dealings, but the threat from Slide McKenzie hung over her like a dark cloud. If she lost the KK, everything else, all her investments and charities, would go belly up.
Someone tapped on the door. Kate closed her desk and said, “Come in.”
Old Moses Rice, the butler, stepped into the office. “Zeke Cowley is back, Miz Kerrigan. Mr. Trace ain’t with him. Zeke says he’s got a message for you.”
Kate’s heart lurched in her breast as she said, “Send him in, Moses.”
Cowley came in with his hat in his hands and a crestfallen look on his homely young face. Before the puncher could speak Kate said, “Is my son all right?”
“He was when I left him, ma’am,” Cowley said.
Kate rose to her feet, her dress rustling. “What has happened, Zeke? Tell me.”
Stumbling through what he had to say, the puncher recounted how he and Trace had tracked Slide McKenzie only to be captured by the man and his two henchmen. “They shot Caleb Dowd, ma’am,” Cowley said. “Blew him out of the saddle with a Greener scattergun.”
“Caleb Dowd is dead?” Kate said, too shocked to believe the evidence of her own ears.
“I’m afraid so, ma’am,” Cowley said. “And now Mr. Trace is being held prisoner.” The young cowboy turned his hat in nervous fingers and said, “That McKenzie feller told me I was to give you a message, ma’am. He said he’d hold Mr. Trace prisoner until he gets his money. If he don’t get it, the money that is, or if anybody attempts a rescue, he’ll personally scatter Mr. Trace’s brains with a shotgun. That’s what he said, Mrs. Kerrigan.”
The threat was vicious and cut like a knife, but Kate kept her composure, unwilling to let the hired help see her agitation. “Thank you, Zeke,” she said. “Young man, you look all used up. When you go downstairs ask Mr. Rice to take you into the kitchen for coffee and brandy. Tell him I said it was all right.” She forced herself to smile. “Don’t worry, everything will turn out just fine.”
Cowley didn’t share her optimism. “I sure hope so, Mrs. Kerrigan,” he said.
* * *
“Are you sure, Zeke?” Frank Cobb said. “I mean are you dead certain?”
“You can bet the farm on it, Mr. Cobb. They’re brothers, and afore I rode out they told me they were Bat and Sky Boswell.”
“Tall fellers, well set up, usually wear canvas slickers?” Frank said.
“That about pegs them,” Cowley said.
Frank shook his head. “What the hell are the Boswells doing in West Texas? They never leave the New Mexico Territory. Right now they got all the business they need up in Lincoln County.”
“They look like hired guns to me,” Cowley said.
“They’re bounty hunters,” Frank said. “If the Boswells are carrying a dodger with your name on it, you might as well buy a coffin and wait for them in the graveyard because it’s all over for you.”
“It was the one called Sky who done for Caleb,” Zeke said. “I seen his face, and by and by I heard his name to go with it.”
“That’s the Boswells all right,” Frank said. “They’re partial to Parker or Greener scatterguns for close work.”
“Mr. Cobb, you reckon Slide McKenzie would really kill Trace Kerrigan?”
“Yeah, he would. And if he didn’t want to do the job himself the Boswell brothers would be happy to oblige. Those boys ain’t too fussy about who they kill.”
Frank drained his coffee cup and stood. At the other end of the kitchen Jazmin Salas and the assistant cook were busy preparing supper, chicken and dumplings by the smell of it. “Go easy on the brandy, Zeke,” he said. “It can sneak up on a man if he’s not used to it.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Cobb,” Zeke said. “I’ll be careful.”
Frank wasn’t sure but he thought he detected the young puncher slurring his words. After he spoke with Kate he’d return and chase the kid back to the bunkhouse. As he stepped to the kitchen door Zeke Cowley’s voice stopped him. “I forgot something, Mr. Cobb. It probabl
y ain’t important.”
“Let me hear it anyway,” Frank said.
“One of them Boswell boys, the one they call Bat, asked me if I’d heard of a ranny by the name of Josiah Mosely in these parts. I said I sure did and I said that he was stopping over at the KK ranch. I asked him why he wanted to know about Josiah Mosely, and he said I was to mind my own damned business or he’d shut my trap permanent. Well, I shut my trap all right until now. Wait a minute . . . if Mosely knows the Boswells could he be in cahoots with them and McKenzie?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “But, by God, I aim to find out.”
* * *
“Should we attempt a rescue?” Kate Kerrigan said.
Frank Cobb shook his head. “We’d be bucking the odds, and the chances are you’d end up with a dead son.”
That hit Kate like a rock through a glass window. Her confidence shattered, she said, “Please, Frank, tell me that there is a way to get Trace back home alive.”
“If we were dealing only with Slide McKenzie, right now I’d gather the hands and say let’s ride. But the Boswell brothers are killers, violent men to be reckoned with. Kate, I don’t want to scare you any more than you already are, but the first shot the Boswells fire will be the one that kills Trace.”
Kate sat back in her chair, her eyes closed, and not for the first time Frank Cobb thought that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. To watch her like this, frightened and vulnerable, tore at him.
Then, after long, silent moments, Kate said, “When McKenzie comes for his money I’ll have it ready for him.”
Frank reached out and laid his hand on hers. “Kate, I—”
“There’s no argument, Frank. I value my son’s life much more than money,” Kate said. “That’s the bottom line, Frank, end of story, all she wrote.”
“And it will be the end of the Kate Kerrigan ranch.”
Kate nodded. “Yes, the end of everything, and so be it.” She smiled. “Please leave me now, Frank. I’d really like to spend some time alone.”
* * *
Josiah Mosely walked away from Kate’s parlor door on silent feet. He’s been on his way to the kitchen in search of coffee, and it had not been his intention to eavesdrop, but when he’d heard Kate say she wanted her son home alive he’d stopped and listened. He didn’t know Trace very well, but what he knew of the young man he liked. Kate’s conversation with Frank Cobb made it clear that Trace was being held for ransom and that she was willing to sell her ranch to pay for it.
Footsteps on the other side of the door made Mosely move quickly away, but Frank Cobb saw him and said, “Come here, you. I want to talk.”
“About what?” Mosely said.
“About the Boswell brothers. Are they kin of yours?”
“Never heard of them.”
Frank grabbed the young man’s arm and moved away from the parlor door and into the foyer. “Bat and Sky Boswell,” he said. “You sure you don’t know them?”
“With names like that I wouldn’t be likely to forget them, now would I?” Mosely said.
“I don’t know, Mosely. You tell me.”
“And I’ve told you already, I’ve never heard of the gentlemen.”
“Bat and Sky Boswell are not gentlemen, they’re killers. How come they wanted to know if you were this neck of the woods?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“All right, then, I’ll give you a clue—the Boswell brothers are hired guns and bounty hunters. Are you on the scout?”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you running from the law?”
“Not as far as I know,” Mosely said. Then, his irritation obvious, “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”
Frank stared long and hard at Mosely, summing him up, and it was obvious he wasn’t impressed by what he saw. A small, frail-looking young man in a threadbare black ditto suit, wire-rimmed eyeglasses aslant on his round face, he did not cut a heroic figure.
“Come with me to the kitchen, Mosely,” Frank said. “I want a cup of coffee, and by now I bet there’s a drunk puncher on the floor who needs to be carried to the bunkhouse.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Frank Cobb and Josiah Mosely stepped into the kitchen, Zeke Cowley was already gone. “Shorty Hawkins and another puncher carried him out of here,” Jazmin Salas said. “Zeke was feeling no pain. Coffee’s in the pot, and I have some bear sign left from breakfast over there on the counter.”
“Jazmin, if you weren’t already married, I’d wed you myself,” Frank said, hugging the cook. “You make the best bear sign in the West, if not the entire world.”
“If I was single I wouldn’t marry you,” Jazmin said. “Vaqueros make muy mal husbands, and they smell of cow and horse dung all the time.”
“In Mexican muy mal means very bad,” Mosely said. “And smelling of cow and horse dung . . . I guess she’s talking about you, Frank.”
Frank shook his head. “For a man that doesn’t go heeled you sure have a big mouth, Mosely. Now where’s that bear sign?”
By the time Frank had drank three cups of coffee and ate six bear sign, Josiah Mosely knew about Slide McKenzie’s threats and the arrival of the Boswell brothers.
“I’m not involved in any of that,” Mosely said. “And I’ve never met Bat and Sky Boswell and I have no wish to.”
Frank rubbed sugar from his mouth with the back of his hand and then said, “No, I guess I don’t think you are involved. If I did, I’d have shot you by this time.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Mosely said.
“Why in God’s name would two of the West’s most dangerous guns be interested in a puny little runt like you?” Frank said. “That part I just can’t figure.”
“I don’t know,” Mosely said. “It’s a complete mystery to me.”
“I think you do know, but you aren’t telling. Do the Boswells have a sister? Did you knock her up and then make a run for the hills?”
“That didn’t happen,” Mosely said.
“Then what did?”
The young man hesitated and then said, “I don’t know.”
But right then he did know and with terrible certainty.
The Boswells were hunting him because he killed Jessie Tobin, him and three others, Marty Hawley, Dene Brett, and Floris Lusk, the names ringing loud in his memory like the tolling of a bell. One of them, or all of them, was kin to the Boswells, men born to the feud, and only his death would square the account. For a moment Mosely considered telling Frank Cobb what had happened back in the New Mexico Territory, but then came the stark realization that the man would not believe him. He could hear Frank now, “A little runt like you killed four gunmen in a shooting scrape? Boy, you sure know how to spin a windy.”
Mosely remained silent and let Frank do the talking.
“I won’t let Kate pay ransom money to Slide McKenzie and ruin herself,” Frank said. “If it comes down to it, I’ll ride down to the Rio Grande and brace him and the Boswells.”
“How can you do that without Trace getting killed?” Mosely said.
“I can’t say yet. But I’m working on it.”
“Are you as good with a gun as the Boswell brothers?”
“Maybe. I don’t rightly know.”
“It would be one against three,” Mosely said. “I’d say that’s a good way to get yourself killed.”
“I ride for the brand,” Frank said. “I knew the risks when I signed on.”
* * *
Josiah Mosely visited his room and then left the house and walked north, away from the ranch, toward the stand of wild oak and juniper where he’d left the wreckage of his balloon. He carried a small bag of tools and it was his intention to work on repairing the envelope until it became too dark to see. The afternoon chill held the promise of winter, and a few white clouds stood out in stark relief against the pale blue sky. Away from the house and the Cody encampment, Mosely walked in silence, the only sound the steady swish of his f
eet through the dry prairie grass.
The balloon’s basket was wedged between a couple of trees, its burner and hydrogen cylinder hidden in brush. The shredded silk envelope was inside the basket, and most of the tools Mosely carried were for sewing it together again.
He walked into the oaks, stepped to the basket, and then looked inside.
Josiah’s Mosely’s yelp of alarm sent panicked crows flapping out of the oaks and brought Bill Cody galloping to the scene on his white charger.
Bill drew rein and said to the trembling Mosely, “My dear young man, I was riding past when I heard your terrible cry of distress. Never, and I say this without a hint of braggadocio, never let it be said that Bill Cody ever ignored a fellow human being in trouble, especially”—he gave a little bow from the saddle—“Josiah Mosely the famed balloonist and rainmaker.”
“In . . . in . . .” Mosely took a deep breath. “In the basket,” he said, jabbing a trembling forefinger in its direction.
Bill swung out of the saddle, drew his Colt, and walked to the basket with a purposeful stride. He peered inside, reached down, and pulled up Cloud Passing by the scruff of his neck. “So this is where you’ve been hiding, you rascal,” he said.
The Indian said something in Cheyenne that Mosely didn’t understand, but he saw Bill Cody nod. “He says he ran away because he feared he’d be blamed for the death of the cowboy.”
“Did he kill him?” Mosely said. “Did he stab and then scalp Andy Porter? Ask him that.”
Bill spoke in Cheyenne again, and the Indian replied at length, waving his hands around in considerable agitation. When the man stopped Mosely said, “Well?”
“He says he didn’t do it,” Bill said. “And he says he’s hungry and needs grub and a blanket. He also says that you’re his friend and will not betray him to the white men who hunt him.”
Hate Thy Neighbor Page 11