Brothers in Blood

by Dusty Richards

  “What have they done besides that?”

  “Held up a bank in Tucson, besides shooting three townspeople. They raped a woman west of Four Peaks. Robbed two banks in New Mexico. Lord knows what else.”

  “You and your men have been in some tough places getting here.”

  Chet shook his head wearily. “Don’t even talk about it. That trail crossing over Four Peaks is real bad.”

  The blacksmith rubbed his forehead. “Never been over it, but I can imagine. I do appreciate you men putting your lives on the line for the rest of us.”

  “Any idea where they might try hanging out up there?”

  “Horse Head Crossing, on the Little Colorado. There’s lots of stolen horse business goes on up there and the no accounts hang out there.”

  “I passed through there when I moved my people to the Verde Valley from Texas. No trouble, but we avoid it when we ship cattle to Gallup every month.”

  “Good place to stay away from. But it’s two days’ hard ride from here.”

  “Can we cross the Rim?”

  “There’s a few roads go up on top. They aren’t hard to find or follow.”

  “Thanks. The store here have any fresh meat for sale? We’re tired of beans.”

  “He sure might.”

  “Jesus, go buy us some. We’ll put the horses up.”

  John Orr gestured toward the back. “Put them in my corrals. I’ve got hay and grain. Anybody looking for outlaws is a real sight to see up here.”

  While they unsaddled and unpacked, John brought them a huge armload of cut wood for cooking. “I’ll get you one more load of wood. Grain’s in the shop in my bin. Feed them mine. You and them horses are my guests.”

  Jesus brought some nice beef back from the store. “They found out who we are and wouldn’t take your money. I thanked them.”

  They enjoyed the beef cooked on a grill and savored canned peaches for dessert. This trip was sure dragging out, but they still had the trail of the five. Chet worried they might split up at Horse Head Crossing and go five different directions. They’d need to push harder.

  Had Bailey given up finding him? Hard to tell, but without success posses get the quits in about three days. They might have run them in the ground somewhere.

  Chet and his men topped the Rim two days later. Saddle weary, they rode through the tall grasslands that the Windmill Ranch shared with this country. It went clear back to where the Rio Grande sliced through New Mexico.

  They saw a steady stream of smoke in the sky and stopped on a rise. Chet used his field glasses to focus in on the dots that were horses by a weathered gray wooden building. Two white horses stood among the five hipshot animals at the hitch rack.

  He handed the glasses to Cole, who nodded and passed them to Jesus.

  “Thank God they are there.” Jesus crossed himself and handed the glasses back to Chet.

  “Cole, you take your rifle and ammo and get behind that outhouse and cover the back door. Jesus and I will take the front. We’ll hobble our horses and leave them here. Keep down. Only shoot when shot at.”

  Their horses under control, they each took a Winchester and ammo and with care circled around to the front of the cabin. They were close enough to hear the men raising hell inside.

  One man stuck his head out the front door and Chet and Jesus flattened themselves on the ground. He never saw them, but went back inside and closed the door. A woman’s high-pitched scream made him and Jesus frown at each other. They remained on the ground where they could cover the front door. Guns beside them, they listened. It sounded like there was another female in there as well.

  “I’m going to put two shots in that rusty stovepipe on the roof. You be ready. It should spook their horses out of the way.”

  Jesus nodded he understood.

  Chet took aim, and the first shot made every horse tuck his tail between his legs. The number two shot made them panic and reins were broken. The horses jumped on each other and broke their headstalls. The first white one led them away, bucking like a hellcat was raking his butt. The stovepipe had disappeared, and he heard lots of loud cussing and coughing coming from inside.

  “You got the stovepipe,” Jesus whispered.

  Chet nodded and looked through his sights at the front door.

  Two quick rifle shots and someone shouted, “They’re out back, too.”

  “They’ve found Cole. Or he found them.” Chet smiled.

  After a lot of coughing, two half-naked women ran out with their hands high and screaming, “Don’t shoot.”

  “Watch behind them.” He nudged Jesus.

  A man came out next, with his hands in the air and threw away his pistol.

  “Get on the ground. Face down and spread eagle. You jump up, you’re dead. You hear me?” Chet demanded.

  “I won’t move.” He sank to the ground and followed orders.

  “You girls get way north of here. We’ll shoot you if you do anything wrong.”

  They waded through the tall grass. “Is this good enough?”

  Chet rose to his knees. “Far enough. Put your hands down.”

  At the sound of more shots from out back, he whirled around. Someone must have gone out the back door firing his handgun. There were two loud reports from Cole’s rifle, then quiet save for the coughing men still in the smoke-filled building. One man tried to crawl out the front door on his hands and knees aiming his gun. Jesus shot him and he went face down.

  Chet heard someone inside say, “Go ahead. We can get them.”

  He whispered to Jesus, “You get number one. I’ll get number two.”

  The first one burst into sight his six-gun blazing, but slumped face down from Jesus’s two quick shots. The big man came next. He fired too high and was slammed into the wall by Chet’s bullets in his chest. He slid down the wall and the gun spilled out of his hand.

  In the following quiet, a meadowlark sang and the wind in the grass sang a hymn. The two women huddled together. They cried more from being scared than any losses, Chet figured. He looked the downed outlaws over, then checked on the one-eyed outlaw who ran out and gave up. He still lay face down.

  “Handcuff the one-eyed one,” he told Jesus.

  “The two out back are dead,” Cole said from the side of the shack.

  “These two here are, too, or will be shortly. Jessie Combs is the only one we have to take back. You boys better round up your horses that you’ll have to sell. We’ll need the bank money, too. They usually pay twenty percent as a reward for its return.”

  “How much are they worth?” Cole asked, indicating the dead men.

  “Five hundred apiece,” Chet said. “You guys are doing all right.”

  “What about us?” one of the doves asked, still seated on their butts in the grass.

  “You get a chance to go find a new place to entertain your company. Get your things and get to hiking.”

  “But it’s a long ways—”

  “You got here. You can get back where you came from.”

  “You damn sure ain’t nice to ladies.” They stomped off down the wagon tracks headed north.

  “It’s the company you keep,” he said after them.

  He and the crew got what was left of the stovepipe back up and drew the smoke out. After that, they gathered up their horses. Then, with a rope, and on horseback, they dragged the four corpses around and lay them in a row for Bailey to see if he ever came. Chet wanted to spare chopping off their heads to take back as evidence they’d gotten the wanted men. He covered them with an old blanket to keep the buzzards away.

  Jesus fixed supper. Chet and Cole rounded up all the money that was in the outlaws’ saddlebags and a valise. It was too much money to count. If those outlaws had ever reached civilization, they’d have had a wild party. They had a pretty good start on one and were probably drunk when the gunfight broke out. Those two women must have had a supply of whiskey on hand. After a brief search, Cole discovered some full bottles in a wooden crate.

>   The sun was about to set when Chet heard horses coming. Led by a hatless Indian, he had no doubt these men in suits and high-crowned hats were Bailey and his posse. Plate in hand, he stood in the doorway and waved as they dismounted.

  “Boys, welcome to the Horse Head Crossing Brothel. Come on in. Jesus has plenty of beans.”

  “Thanks. I’m Bailey, and you must be Byrnes. You’re a hard man to catch. What in the hell happened here?”

  “We rode up about midday, saw two white horses at the hitch rack, and surrounded the house. When we ordered them to come out hands high, one man and two whores came out. The others decided to fight their way out. If you check under that blanket, there’s your gang, except Combs who’s cuffed and resting. I think his head still hurts from the moonshine he drank.”

  All the men with Bailey looked like businessmen or large ranchers. When they looked under the blankets at the four bodies, they all reacted, shaking their heads or looking away.

  “I’m glad to see you. We were fixing to chop their heads off and put them in a sack to bring to show you,” Chet said.

  “Chet Byrnes, you ever shoot a wanted man, your word is good enough for me. You don’t have to bring in any dead heads to prove it. You think they were drunk, huh?”

  “Yeah, the evidence of that is inside. I ran off the shady ladies, but they had a good supply of untaxed lightning. I think they thought they’d stopped everyone from finding them and they might have done it, but we didn’t take no for an answer.”

  “We know that. We’ve been on your trail. Thanks. The money?”

  “More than we can count. We have all we could find on them in their saddlebags and a valise.”

  “That Kelly woman told us you three went over a trail even a goat would resist.”

  “I’ve been over better ones, I can tell you that.”

  One of the posse members chimed in. “Byrnes, we kept asking each other where you’d go next.”

  Bailey smiled. “We heeded your advice and the woman’s, too. We went around.”

  “Just be grateful you did,” Cole said. “You didn’t miss anything but hell.”

  Busy eating their supper, some of the posse members sipped on the liquor. They all agreed it wouldn’t take much of it to get real drunk.

  Afterward, the men took turns using Jesus’s short-handled shovel to dig a common grave, then dumped the four bodies into it and covered them up.

  When Bailey had a chance to talk privately with Chet, he brought up the reward money. “You know that you’re entitled to the rewards for these men and a percentage of the money recovered.”

  “That money goes to my men, Jesus and Cole.”

  “It’ll be a pretty large sum.”

  “Good, they need it. Jesus is getting married this spring to his sweetheart, and Cole is courting a young woman back home. They’ll put it to good use.”

  Bailey shook Chet’s hand. “Without you, we’d never of made it up here. And you’ve put an end to a dangerous gang who’d have gone on robbing and killing until someone finally stopped them.”

  “I’ll write Mrs. Kelly and tell her about their end. People like Grisham and his men raping her bothers me the most. She would have fed them and never said a word, but she was violated by men too cruel to live in anyone’s world.”

  “You’re right.” Bailey nodded. “I guess lots of us in the law business know about that article in the Globe newspaper about the Rye lynchings. When I heard the entire story of their crimes, I understood how you felt that day. This one ended well. When I write the news release on their capture, I’ll mention you and your men’s names, if you don’t mind.”

  Chet shrugged. “We were just doing our duty.”

  “Hell, that ferry problem about shut us down. Who swam the Salt and brought the rope over? They really bragged on him.”

  “Cole did it. If you ever took cattle to Kansas on one of those drives, you had to learn to swim or die. After that first run to Kansas, Cole and I both learned to swim better. I came home and swam all summer until the creeks went dry.”

  “How will you go home?”

  “Ride west. I have a ranch at least one day’s ride west of here.”

  “Then how?”

  “We’ll ride the next day to the Verde ranch, and then up to the Preskitt Valley place. From there, we can ride south to the Hayden’s Ferry.”

  “We’re going back with you,” Bailey said. “How much land do you own?”

  “We have five ranches.”

  “I know folks say you’re busy and I can see why, so I sure appreciate you helping us get these outlaws.”

  Next day, Chet and the entire posse and their prisoner rode to the Windmill Ranch, spent the night, then went on to Camp Verde. Sarge and the main crew were on the move with a herd to Gallup.

  Jesus and Cole brought the horses and gear they received for capturing the gang. Chet suggested when they got home they take them to Frye’s Livery to sell, and they thought that was a good idea.

  Chet knew they’d overheard Marshal Bailey talking about the rewards they’d get and wondered if they’d quit him when they received it.

  They were close to the Verde Ranch when they stopped for a short rest and a chance to empty their bladders. The wind was cold out of the north, and the sky looked like the belly feathers of a goose. Apart from the others, Jesus and Cole approached Chet to talk to him.

  “Would it be too much to ask your wife to help us invest this reward money?” Cole asked. “Jesus and I talked about not blowing it away. I don’t think we’ll be so rich, but if we invest in the right things it can grow, right?”

  “I bet she’d be flattered to help you.”

  Cole smiled in relief and exchanged a look with his partner. “Thanks.”

  “Yes, thanks,” Jesus repeated.

  “I’m glad you decided that. I thought you two might quit me and go into business for yourself.”

  “Naw, we’re grateful to get to do this with you.”

  Jesus nodded in agreement. “It gets to be work sometimes, but we’ve seen more country working for you than we’d have seen in our lifetime.”

  “I’m not quitting. It gets sure exciting at times,” Cole said.

  “Fine. I’ll tell Marge about what you two want her to do.”

  A tall older man by the name of Kyle Riley, who ranched down on the border, spoke to Chet as they rode west. “How long have you been out here?”

  “Oh, from start till now, about two and a half years. Why?”

  “Just wondering how you put all your holdings together.”

  “Not so much me, but I bought a badly managed large ranch. I hired the men he fired and they’re the ones who put in the real effort to make it work. My family had some money from cattle drives we made to Kansas at the height of the market. I was able to invest that in places here that were in trouble. One man bought several sections of land on a railroad right of way, where the sections go right and left alternate. They weren’t near a river so he got them to trade for land close to the Colorado River. He traded, but didn’t know the river was in the Grand Canyon. They wouldn’t trade back, so it was up for cents on the dollar.”

  “How did you ever learn that?”

  “There’s a land agent in Preskitt that does it for me. He’s a whiz at finding them.”

  Appearing amused by Chet’s story, Riley said, “Sounds like you fell in a pile and came out smelling like a rose.”

  “I have been lucky.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. You convinced that Navajo agency in Gallup to let you supply them beef. I have to sell mine to Old Man Clanton and he has all those federal contracts in southern Arizona sewed up.”

  “Well, up in Gallup the last contractor wasn’t delivering on time and the tribe members traveled long distances to get their commodities. Waiting days for their beef didn’t work for them. Quality was another issue. Hard pressed to get them there, meant the cattle were drawn and tough after the rush.”

  “That’s why yo
u have the Windmill Ranch?”

  “Yes. We assemble the cattle there, where there’s good grass most of the year and makes us closer to the market.”

  “You have hay, too?”

  “We plan to improve on that. A dry fall like we had this year means no feed on the range for the stock. Or a big snow amounts to livestock losses.”

  “Which way are you going, Hereford or Shorthorn?”

  “I have a small purebred herd of Hereford mother cows. So I’m betting on the white face cross.”

  “I have some of both. I thought Shorthorns might be better since they’re from Scotland in the North Country.”

  “I never thought about that. We’re late getting to crosses, since the last foreman charged the owner for them and used longhorn home-raised bulls instead.”

  “That was no help, was it?”

  “No, and it also made the stock less valuable when I bought it.”

  “Your success impresses me. Compared to your work, I feel lazy.”

  Chet, amused, demurred. “Lucky, like I said. Things broke open for me. Kinda like lots of eggs hatching under one hen.”

  “No, Byrnes, you’re a doer. What will you do next?”

  “I’m working on another ranch tied up in an estate. That’s not for public record, since it’s still in the works.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Right beside one I own.”

  Riley chuckled and gigged his horse on down the road.

  They reached the Verde Ranch late that night. Susie quickly dressed and welcomed them. She offered to feed them and set about doing it. Jesus and Cole helped her while the tired men sat in the living room.

  “This is not your home?” one of them asked, gazing around.

  “No, we’ll be there by midmorning. That’s my wife’s home and where we live. Susie, my sister here, will move up to the Windmill Ranch soon where her husband is foreman. So this house needs a family to move into it.”

  One of the posse said, “Don’t tell my wife this nice large house is available. She’d make me move here.”

  They all got a chuckle out of that.