by Gene Curry
He straightened up and said, “I used to be a farmer, mister. You trying to say all farmers are stupid? You tell me yes and I’ll bash you good.”
I might have settled him down with a joke if he had left out the threat, and if he hadn’t bunched up his fists and taken a step toward me. I couldn’t let him get away with that, or pretty soon I’d be waltzing with the whole bunch.
“For you, son, the answer is yes. You’d be stupid if you were a dry goods clerk.”
My fist came up like a hammer and knocked him on his backside in the dirt. Then I went in close where I could cripple him with kicks if he decided to go on with it. He decided not to. All he did was rub his jaw, and he didn’t push my hand away when I reached down to help him up.
“Look, men,” I said to him and the rest of them, “We’re in a fight, and the only way to win a fight is to be ready for it. If you don’t want to fight, then get out—and no hard feelings. I’d say John Wingate treats you pretty good. Now he’s in trouble and it’s up to you to help him. But you can’t do that if you don’t know how. What do you think?”
Well, sir, that ended that, and I even shook hands with the young cowboy I’d knocked down.
Grinning, he said, “You hit pretty good, Saddler.”
“You probably hit pretty good yourself,” I said. “Look, men, I want to tell you this. This isn’t my ranch and I don’t work on it. That’s your job. Now it’s not like in the old days when fighting came with the job. In fact, back then you fought and punched cows about half and half. But don’t think you have to do that now. There will be no hard feelings if any of you decide to leave. Think about it for a minute.”
Several minutes passed and nobody said a word.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “I was just asking. Now it’s one thing to have the fighting spirit and another thing to know how to fight. Sure you all own six-guns and rifles, but these have been quiet times in Dade County until recently. What we have to do is start working on your shooting eye. Your guns have to be cleaned and oiled and kept free of dust. If some of your weapons aren’t in good condition they will be replaced with new ones. No cost to you.”
Everybody laughed.
“Do we get to keep the new guns when this is over?” the young cowboy asked.
“I would say yes since Mr. Wingate isn’t here. I talked to him about putting you on what they call ‘fighting pay’ in Texas, and he said all right.”
Everybody liked that.
“Don’t worry, you’ll earn it,” I said. “Now let’s have a look at your guns. Lay them out there on that wagon bed.”
It was just as I knew it would be: the pistols and rifles were in good, fair and bad condition. I put the guns in bad condition to one side and told the men who owned them that I would take their names after we got through.
On any ranch you find a strange assortment of weapons, and I found myself looking at Bisley Colts, Smith & Wessons, Colt single-action .45’s, Schofields, even an old Starr. Some of the old models were in better shape than the new ones.
I asked them about ammunition. “You may think you have enough for everyday shooting, but you’ll use it up fast in a war. Bring out all the ammunition you have and we’ll look it over. Some of it may have gone bad and you’ll hate yourself like hell if you drop the hammer on a cartridge that doesn’t fire, especially if somebody is pointing a gun at you. But even if your old ammunition is good we may have to get you Colts. Old ammunition won’t be easy to come by in Dade City.”
They fetched their cartridges and some of it was bad. “Don’t leave it around, get rid of it,” I told the men who owned it. “Some dark night you may forget it’s no good and load it into your gun. Put it in the trash pile.” We worked on the guns and ammunition. I said, “You can’t just clean a gun and think that’ll hold it for six months. Even if it’s well oiled that isn’t enough. Sometimes if it’s too well oiled it will clog up with grit. You have to look after you weapons like you do your horse. Regular cleaning is what’s needed. I would say at least once a month. Just remember a gun can’t be too well looked after.”
“Hey, Saddler,” the young cowboy said. “You’ve been jawing on and on. How’s about joining us for some son-of-a-bitch stew in the bunkhouse? Unless you’d prefer the fancy truck they serve in the house?”
“Lead me to it,” I said.
I’m an old west Texan, born and raised on a small ranch, and even now there’s nothing that tastes as good to me as son-of-a-bitch stew. Polite folks call it son-of-a-gun, but no difference—it’s about as good as grub can be. A lot of things go into it—cubed tongue, liver, melt, and sweetbreads. All this is rolled in meal, fried slightly, then boiled with onions, thickened with flour, and sometimes fortified with a chunk of tender lean meat.
Son-of-a-bitch beats Irish any time.
The cookie had the plates all set out and the big stew pot ready. It was like being back home to smell that stew again. I tell you it brought back memories. We all sat at the long table at the end of the bunkhouse and started to fill our bellies. Pinto beans and sourdough and strong black coffee went with the stew.
“How do you like it, Saddler?” some cowboy asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” I said. “You got yourself a good cookie here.”
“And a good boss,” another man added. “I’d like to see Vince Pardee in hell for what he’s doing to Mr. Wingate.”
I didn’t know that Vince Pardee was doing anything to John Wingate, but I wasn’t about to discourage the cowboy’s fighting spirit. In a war the right doesn’t matter; you go into a war to win, fair means or foul.
“That goddamned sneaking Johnny Reb,” somebody else said, almost yelling. “They tell me Pardee served with Mosby and his irregulars. Irregulars hell! Renegades and town burners is all they were. The lot of them should’ve been hung after the war.”
A leather-faced cowhand of about fifty said quietly, “I was with Hood and we never burned towns.”
I held up my fork. “The Civil War’s over, men. Pardee is who we have to think about.”
“He doesn’t have a chance against us,” the Reb-hater said confidently. “We’ll take Pardee the way Grant took Richmond.”
I helped myself to more stew. It might be a while before I got another chance to eat real home cooking.
“We will if we have to,” I said. “Don’t think it’s going to be all that easy. Right now I’ll bet Pardee is teaching his men everything he ever learned in the War.”
We were on second or third cups of coffee when the door of the bunkhouse banged open and Jessie came in, her gunbelt pushed up high around her waist. She wore the same shirt and tight striped pants. You should have seen the way the men gaped when she walked down to the table, cool as you like, and said, “Is the son-of-a-bitch all gone?”
The cookie, an old man, was the only one who didn’t give a hoot about her tight pants. He stuck his head out of the cook shack, built onto the bunkhouse, and said in his high-pitched voice, “Not yet, missy. You want me to fix you up with a plate?”
Without waiting to be told, he brought in a heaped-high plate of stew. “Ain’t you boys got no manners? Make room so the lady can sit.”
The men scattered as if somebody had tossed a diamondback on the table. The bench went over with a crash and had to be righted before Jessie took her place. Lifting her fork, she sampled the stew while everybody watched her. From the anxious look on their faces you would have thought she was going to decide the fate of the nation.
From the cook shack cookie called in, “Well, come on, missy, how is it?”
“Fine,” Jessie said while two men nearly scalded themselves trying to grab the same coffee pot, to pour her a cup. I could have killed her, in a manner of speaking. I had warned her to leave the men alone, and here she was doing the opposite.
“Hello, Saddler,” she said to me, as if she had seen me for the first time.
I gave her a nod. “Having a good time, are you?”
She said
, “I always have a good time.”
The men muttered their approval of that, and suddenly I knew I was wrong about Jessie and the bunkhouse. They liked her and her sassy ways. Lonely men can be like that, taking a fancy to a stray dog or a young woman on her own. They probably thought she was helpless in spite of her gun. I knew better.
Some of the boys were rubbing their stubbly faces and fingering the collars of their dirty shirts. The poor fellers were ashamed of how grubby the looked in front of the purty lady. Soon there would be a rash of shaving and clothes washing. I didn’t want to disappoint them, so I didn’t tell them that this would be Jessie’s first and last appearance in the bunkhouse. Positively.
But she was there and I let those fools make the most of it, and they did. One of them, a young cowboy with more freckles than face, said bashfully, “A shame we ain’t got something fancier to offer you, Miss. T’ain’t likely you’re used to dining on son-of-a … gun.”
He was nothing if not a polite manure shoveler.
Said Jessie, “Son-of-a-bitch is fine with me. They don’t serve anything half as tasty in the main house. Anybody know why they call it son-of-a-bitch? Is it because it’s so son of a bitching good?”
They liked Jessie’s tough talk, but they were still embarrassed by the menu. The young cowboy was. “Next time you come a-calling, Miss, we’ll twist Cookie’s arm and make him come up with something better. Ain’t that right boys?”
There was a chorus of agreement. Yes, sir, they all vowed to set a better table for Jessie’s sake. “Of course, you’ll have to give us a little advance notice,” a toothless old-timer mumbled. “Cookie don’t like to have his routine upset.”
Jessie smiled at me. “You hear that, Saddler? The boys have invited me back.”
She was defying me, daring me to do something about it, but I didn’t rise to the bait. The boys were having a good time, and soon some of them could very well be dead. They were a good enough bunch, and I didn’t like the way Jessie was using them to get back at me.
“It’s their bunkhouse,” I said.
Looking away from me, Jessie said, “We’re going to teach Pardee a lesson, aren’t we, men?”
For those fools gathered around the table, Jessie’s words were like a call to battle. I wondered why they didn’t promote her to lieutenant general and have done with it. If grizzled old Vince Pardee had walked in the door at that moment, they would have lynched him.
“You never said a truer word,” the freckled cowhand said. “And it’s a pleasure to meet a lady that knows what’s on her mind and comes right out and says it.”
“You hear that, Saddler?” Jessie was trying to use the sandpaper on me again.
This time I ignored her. “Boys,” I said, “far be it from me to spoil your fun, but I’d say this meal is about over.”
You should have seen the sour faces when I said that. I went on with, “Since you’re all spoiling for a fight, suppose we get back to preparing for it. You won’t beat Pardee by throwing cow flops at him. That, boys, means the school bell has rung. I’m sure the lady will excuse us.”
Young and old, they trooped out like a bunch of brats who would rather be on their way to the swimming hole.
I was still giving them pointers when one of the fence riders came tearing up on a sweated horse. He jumped down and said there was trouble, big trouble. County Sheriff Brimmer and a bunch of deputies were at the wire asking to come in.
John came out of the house and when he heard the news he damned Brimmer to the hottest part of hell.
“And beyond,” he said. “I knew all along Brimmer would side with Pardee when it came to the crunch. What did I tell you, Saddler! A man’s got enemies every direction he looks. I’ll be hanged if I let that man come on my property.”
John jerked a thumb at the line rider. “Young feller, you go back and tell Sheriff Brimmer he can go to blazes. If he doesn’t like that let him come by force. Let him try! We’ll give him a warm reception, I can tell you that.”
“No, John,” I said. “That’s not the way.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“He’s the law.”
“I know he’s the law, Saddler, and I still don’t want him coming on my property. Not to this ranch. Not to where my beloved Martha lies buried.”
I couldn’t see where Martha figured in. John had been a much happier man since his beloved wife choked on a chunk of beefsteak. The Indian ladies took up residence about that time.
“Why not hear what he has to say?” I said.
The young line rider chimed in with, “The sheriff’s got all kind of papers, warrants and …”
John said no. Absolutely no. The answer was no. If the sheriff put one foot on his property he’d be buried where he fell.
I heard him out, and then I repeated my argument. Finally, after he got through heaping fire and brimstone on the sheriff, I managed to wheel him around to my way of thinking. Wheel is the right word. It was like pulling a wagon loaded with rocks.
“And I still don’t like it,” he roared, going back to the house to get his gun.
I nodded and the fence rider raised dust getting back to the sheriff.
Jessie had been shooting cans in the hollow in back of the house. Now she had her shapely rump resting against the side of the porch. I tell you, trouble attracted that woman like nothing else in life. The .38 was in its holster, and there was a mean look on her face. Both thumbs were hitched in her belt, and when I looked at her I wasn’t sure that she wasn’t Jesse James’s daughter after all.
I wondered what the sheriff would have to say, though I had a fair idea. I just hoped Sheriff Brimmer was a godly man who believed that a soft answer turneth away wrath.
If not …
“No shooting unless I give the signal,” I told the men.
Nothing was said after that. In a little while we could hear the thunder of hoofs.
Chapter Seven
John came out of the house thumbing shells into a long-barreled Colt .45. He closed the loading gate and stuck the pistol in the waistband of his pants. I noticed that Jessie had drifted up close to him.
“We’ll try it your way,” he said to me.
I warned the men; “John talks and I talk, nobody else.”
That was for Jessie’s benefit too.
Brimmer and his men rode in solid but cautious, and nobody had to tell me who Brimmer was. It would have been hard not to spot him—a bulky, thick-waisted man with a tufted beard and a pistol worn butt forward in cavalry fashion. He had five men with him. He was about sixty, still tough but not wanting to prove it any more.
When he got close he reined in his horse and started forward at a walk. The five deputies edged in behind him.
“That’s close enough,” I said. If it came to shooting I didn’t want to get killed by my own men.
Brimmer took a quick look around. It was very quiet, the only sound coming from a swing gate that hadn’t been closed.
Brimmer wanted to know who I was.
I said, “Jim Saddler,” adding, “You’d be Sheriff Brimmer and I’m glad you’re here.”
“What about, Saddler? Maybe you won’t be when you hear what I have to say.”
“I have the greatest respect for the law, Sheriff. You being here is saving me a long ride to town. I want to make a complaint if you have the time to listen to it.”
Brimmer regarded me with tired eyes. “I’m listening.”
“A few days ago I was riding along minding my own business when these two men I never saw before cut down on me, tried to kill me. Not a word was said. They just threw down on me like I was their worst enemy. I had to kill both of them, and that’s gospel.”
“So you say. That’s not the way I heard it.”
Folded papers stuck out of Brimmer’s shirt pocket; he raised his left hand and tapped them. “These are warrants, Saddler.”
I tried my special, reasonable smile, the one I saved for lawmen, on the sheriff. “There�
�s more,” I said. “After I had to kill the first two, in self-defense of course, another bunch started chasing me. There was nothing to do but run. They chased me into a gully and I had to kill a few. I’d be dead for sure, if Mr. Wingate here and his men hadn’t saved my life. That’s gospel too.”
“Everything with you is gospel,” Brimmer said.
I was hoping that Jessie would stay out of it, but she didn’t. Moving away from John, she said, “I was there too. I was the other one they must have told you about.”
Brimmer had been chewing a soggy match. He spat it out. “But you’re a woman, a girl, and I have a warrant for a boy.” He stuck another match in his teeth. “But you do fit the description.”
John had been silent, but now he uncorked his temper. “Say what you came for, Brimmer. What you think you came for. We’d like to hear it.”
Brimmer nodded. “Saddler here is under arrest for murder, so is the girl. You too, John, for inciting to murder. It’s all legal, signed by the judge.”
John studied the sheriff for a while, as if he had never seen him before. “How much is Pardee paying you?” he asked. “He’s got you roped in tight, hasn’t he. What part of my ranch do you figure to get when this is all over? Many’s the good supper you ate in that house, Brimmer. When you broke your leg three years ago, who stuck up for you when they wanted to bring in a younger man?”
“Please, John,” I said. “There’s no need.”
“Like hell there isn’t. Who asked this son-of-a-bitch to come out here with his stinking warrants.”
Brimmer said, “You got no call to talk to me like that, John. I’m just here doing my job.”
“Go do it someplace else,” John roared. He turned to me. “I told you it wouldn’t do a bit of good.”
Brimmer didn’t like any of it. My guess was that the sheriff would have liked to climb down and wipe the sweat off his face while somebody fetched him a drink of cold water.
“You better come with me, John,” he said. “If you don’t, it’ll go hard against you. I’ve never know you to go against the law before. I guarantee you a fair trial, and that’s as much as any man can expect.”