Ben said, “Whatever in the hell that means.”
I said, “I’ll think it over.” I ragged Norris a good deal and got him angry at every good opportunity, but I generally listened when he was talking about money.
After that Ben and I talked about getting some fresh blood in the horse herd. The hard work was done for the year but some of our mounts were getting on and we’d been crossbreeding within the herd too long. I told Ben I thought he ought to think about getting a few good Morgan studs and breeding them in with some of our younger quarter horse mares. For staying power there was nothing like a Morgan. And if you crossed that with the quick speed of a quarter horse you had something that would stay with you all day under just about any kind of conditions.
After that we talked about this and that, until I finally dragged the note out of my pocket. I said, not wanting to make it seem too important, “Got a little love letter this noon. Wondered what ya’ll thought about it.” I got out of my chair and walked over and handed it to Ben. He read it and then brought all four legs of his chair to the floor with a thump and read it again. He looked over at me. “What the hell! You figure this to be the genuine article?”
I shrugged and went back to my chair. “I don’t know,” I said. “I wanted to get ya’ll’s opinion.”
Ben got up and handed the note to Norris. He read it and then raised his eyebrows. “How’d you get this?”
“That messenger boy from the telegraph office, Joshua, brought it out to me. Said some man had given him a dollar to bring it out.”
“Did you ask him what the man looked like?”
I said drily, “Yes, Norris, I asked him what the man looked like but he said he didn’t know. Said all he saw was the dollar.”
Norris said, “Well, if it’s somebody’s idea of a joke it’s a damn poor one.” He reached back and handed the letter to Howard.
Dad was a little time in reading the note since Norris had to go and fetch his spectacles out of his bedroom. When he’d got them adjusted he read it over several times and then looked at me. “Son, I don’t believe this is something you can laugh off. You and this ranch have made considerable enemies through the years. The kind of enemies who don’t care if they were right or wrong and the kind of enemies who carry a grudge forever.”
“Then why warn me?”
Norris said, “To get more satisfaction out of it. To scare you.”
I looked at Dad. He shook his head. “If they know Justa well enough to want to kill him they’ll also know he don’t scare. No, there’s another reason. They must know Justa ain’t all that easy to kill. About like trying to corner a cat in a railroad roundhouse. But if you put a man on his guard and keep him on his guard, it’s got to eventually take off some of the edge. Wear him down to where he ain’t really himself. The same way you buck down a bronc. Let him do all the work against himself.”
I said, “So you take it serious, Howard?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I damn well do. This ain’t no prank.”
“What shall I do?”
Norris said, “Maybe we ought to run over in our minds the people you’ve had trouble with in the past who’ve lived to bear a grudge.”
I said, “That’s a lot of folks.”
Ben said, “Well, there was that little war we had with that Preston family over control of the island.”
Howard said, “Yes, but that was one ranch against another.”
Norris said, “Yes, but they well knew that Justa was running matters. As does everyone who knows this ranch. So any grudge directed at the ranch is going to be directed right at Justa.”
I said, with just a hint of bitterness, “Was that supposed to go with the job, Howard? You didn’t explain that part to me.”
Ben said, “What about the man in the buggy? He sounds like a likely suspect for such a turn.”
Norris said, “But he was crippled.”
Ben gave him a sour look. “He’s from the border, Norris. You reckon he couldn’t hire some gun help?”
Howard said, “Was that the hombre that tried to drive that herd of cattle with tick fever through our range? Those Mexican cattle that hadn’t been quarantined?”
Norris said, “Yes, Dad. And Justa made that little man, whatever his name was, drive up here and pay damages.”
Ben said, “And he swore right then and there that he’d make Justa pay damages.”
I said, “For my money it’s got something to do with that maniac up in Bandera County that kept me locked up in a root cellar for nearly a week and then tried to have me hung for a crime I didn’t even know about.”
“But you killed him. And damn near every gun hand he had.”
I said, “Yeah, but there’s always that daughter of his. And there was a son.”
Ben gave me a slight smile. He said, “I thought ya’ll was close. I mean real close. You and the daughter.”
I said, “What we done didn’t have anything to do with anything. And I think she was about as crazy as her father. And Ben, if you ever mention that woman around Nora, I’m liable to send you one of those notes.”
Norris said, “But that’s been almost three years ago.”
I shook my head. “Time ain’t nothing to a woman. They got the patience of an Indian. She’d wait this long just figuring it’d take that much time to forget her.”
Norris said skeptically, “That note doesn’t look made by a woman’s hand.”
I said, “It’s block lettering, Norris. That doesn’t tell you a damn thing. Besides, maybe she hired a gun hand who could write.”
Ben said, “I never heard of one.”
I looked over at him. “Ray Hays can write and he was a gun hand.”
Ben give me a look. “Aw, Ray was never no shooter. Hell, he was just an out-of-work cowhand that went to work for the wrong man. Besides, Ray can’t write all that well.”
Ray Hays was a sort of special case on the ranch. When I’d been nearly killed by this rich maniac up in Bandera, Ray had changed sides and more or less saved my life. Since that time he’d come to work on the Half-Moon ranch and helped Ben with the remuda. He was Ben’s best friend and thought he was one of the family. But when it came to any sort of trouble, outside of Ben and a man named Lew Vara, I’d as soon of had Ray Hays by my side as anybody.
I said to Ben. “Well, you’d think Hays was in the gun trade, judging from the amount of work he does around here.”
Ben flared up at that. “Hays works for me and as long as he suits me that’s all that counts. You keep your opinions off my hired hands.”
“Hays don’t know he’s a hired hand.”
Just as I said that Ray Hays himself came walking into the room.
“Speaking of the devil,” I said.
He give me one of them hurt looks of his that he ought to have taken out a patent on and said, “Aw, boss, you ought not to be calling me no devil. Ain’t Christian.”
“Aw, yeah,” I said. “I know they keep the church open just in case it might come over you to preach at some odd hour.”
I joshed Hays a pretty good amount but there wasn’t any sport in it. He was too easy. As often as I’d pulled his leg I was surprised one wasn’t longer than the other.
He stood there in the middle of the room eyeing the whiskey bottle. Finally Ben caught his drift, and took up a spare glass, poured him out a good measure, and handed it to him. Ray was about the same size as Ben except slimmer, and he had sandy hair and a light complexion. He took the whiskey, and found himself a chair by Howard, and sat down to make himself at home.
Howard said, waving the note, “Son, what are you going to do about this?”
I shrugged. “Well, Dad, I don’t see where there’s anything for me to do right now. I can’t shoot a message and until somebody either gets in front of me or behind me or somewheres, I don’t see what I can do except keep a sharp lookout.”
Howard said, “It’ll wear you down.”
“You want me to go around with my ey
es closed?”
Ben said, “Look, big brother, ain’t much to be done with the remuda this time of year. Why don’t you let Ray hang about and watch your back?”
Hays looked up. “What?” he said.
I shook my head. “Right now I don’t know if this is a prank or not. I plan to treat it serious, but if somebody is a mind to kill me all the back-watching in the world won’t help. This message says on sight. I don’t know if that means facing me or picking me off at long distance with a rifle. If they plan to do that last I ain’t got a hell of a lot of choice or chance.”
Ben said, “Not much cover around here. Country is flat as hell.”
Which was true enough. There might be a little hump or a little wallow here and there but our rangeland, all up and down the coast, was nearly as flat as a desk top. Of course the grass was still plenty high and a man could lay up in that and be in concealment. But he might have to wait there a hell of a long time unless he knew where I’d be going.
Hays said, “Say, boss, what the hell is going on? Why should you need your back watched?”
I motioned and Howard passed the message across to Hays. I could see him moving his lips as he read. Like the others he read it twice. Then he looked up at me and said, “Wa’l, I’ll be dogs! Boss, I don’t like the looks of this.”
I said drily, “Funny thing, Hays, neither do I. Ain’t that strange?”
He said, “Awww.”
Howard said, “Son, why don’t you sleep up here of nights until this kind of blows over. Yes, and take your meals here.”
I shook my head. “I’ll be damned if I’ll be run out of my own house by a piece of paper. You talked about somebody wearing me down. Well, I start that sort of stuff and it would wear me down.”
I got up and poured myself out another drink and then went and sat back down.
Norris said, “Well, one thing you could do, you could put the bottle down while this is going on. That liquor don’t make you any more alert, you know.”
I stared at him in some amazement. “You going to sit there with a half a tumbler of whiskey in your hand and talk about me taking a drink?”
“Hasn’t anyone sent me a threatening message. Besides, I have noticed that you’ve been hitting it pretty hard since Nora has been gone.”
That got me more than just a little hot under the collar. “Why, you sonofabitch, don’t you come wading around here giving me advice. I’ll give you some right now for the rest of your life. Don’t ever give me no advice about my personal life. You understand?”
But Ben said, “Justa, bad as I hate to say it, Norris is right. You’ve been putting it away any time of day or night. And it don’t make you sharper.”
I said stiffly, “Well, you can go to hell also.” Then I looked over at Ray Hays. “You want to stick your oar in?”
He gave his head a quick shake. “Nooo, sir, boss. I ain’t got word one to say. No, sir!”
Howard said, “Now let’s just all calm down now. If there’s trouble on the outside we don’t need trouble on the inside. Norris, you and Ben have the good sense to keep your mouths out of Justa’s personal business. Justa knows how much he can and can’t drink. He’s been running this family for a good many years and he ain’t taken many wrong turns.”
I was grateful, but I didn’t say anything. I was just glad to see Howard having one of his better days. He was a white-haired, withered old man now with only one lung and a heart that could quit on him at any time, but he could still make his voice heard. Of course I still saw him in my mind’s eye as I had when I was a youngster, as big as I was now with a long stride and a big laugh and the vitality to work or fight or whatever was necessary until the job was done.
Norris said, “I apologize, Justa. I meant it for the best, but I see now I didn’t have any right.”
“Forget it,” I said. “I know you were just trying to help.” I drained my glass and got up and poured myself out another.
As I was heading back for my chair Ray said, “You ain’t worried, be you, boss?”
Ben said, “Oh, Ray, don’t always talk the fool. I swear, sometimes you beat anything I ever heard. What would you be if somebody sent you a message like that? Especially if you’d outdone as many folks as Justa has?”
Ray put his head down. “I reckon I’d be considerable disturbed.”
“Then why do you want to go to asking fool questions like that?”
I said, “I think I’ll ride into Blessing tomorrow and see Lew Vara, see if there’s been any likely strangers around town.”
Lew Vara was the sheriff, a sheriff that Williams ranch money had helped more than a little to elect. But more than that, and outside of my brothers, he was my best friend. Not that we’d started out like that. When we were both about twenty he and I had had the worst fistfight I’d ever been in. I’d won it unfairly by cracking him over the head with a beer mug just as he was about to finish me off. He would take a special interest in the threatening note because he’d once sent me word from the hospital that he intended to kill me as soon as his head healed up from where I’d cracked it. But then he’d gone up into the Oklahoma Territory, fallen in with bad company, and almost taken the owlhoot trail. But he’d pulled up short just in time, and had come back to Blessing about four years past. The next time I’d seen him he’d come walking up to my table in Crook’s Cafe and Saloon with his hand out wishing to let bygones be bygones—a situation I was only too ready to accept. Lew Vara was not a man you tangled with without giving serious thought to your health.
But Ben said, “Justa, you think that’s smart? Going riding in to town? Out in the open like that?”
I said, “Hell, Ben, I can’t hide in the house all day. What’s the difference between working around here on the range or riding to town?”
Ben was going to say something, but about then we could hear somebody trying to imitate someone singing. The sound was coming from the kitchen and passing through the dining room. It was Buttercup, whom Dad called our cook. He was about as strange a case as Ray Hays. For thirty years he’d worked for Dad, breaking in the rough string and cowboying for him. They’d been through some mighty rough times together and Dad was more than just a little loyal to him. When he’d finally got so stove up he couldn’t sit on a horse Dad had kept him on as a cook, but he couldn’t cook for sour apples. At first he’d tried to cook for the crew, but if there is one thing a cowhand insists on it is good grub. We lost about a half a dozen good men before Dad brought in a couple of Mexican women to cook for the dozen or so full-time hands that we kept. That should have been the end of Buttercup in the kitchen. Dad should have just let him piddle around with odds and ends here and there, but Buttercup wouldn’t have it. He insisted on earning his keep by cooking for the family. The only relief we got was when we could find some excuse to eat with the crew or Buttercup got so drunk he couldn’t get out of his bunk. But curiously enough, even as old and beat up as he was, he was still one of the best long-distance rifle shots I’d ever seen. He had an old Sharps buffalo rifle that sounded like a cannon and kicked like one. He could take that old rifle and make shots at up to five hundred yards that would have been a credit to a marksman half his age. Though how his scrawny old frame took that kick without it knocking his shoulder off I never could figure out.
Now he came sailing into the room, drunker than old Billy Hell. He looked around for a minute, swaying a bit, and said, “What ’n hell’s a-goin’ on in here?”
I looked at Norris and jerked my thumb at Buttercup. “Now there, Norris, is a proper subject for one of your temperance lectures.”
But Ben said, “God, don’t slow him down. With any luck he’ll be too hungover to fix breakfast.”
I said, looking as Hays, “By the way—I don’t want this getting talked around. I don’t want whoever sent that threat to think I took the slightest notice.”
Hays gave me a horrified look. “You ain’t meanin’ me, boss. They’s a knot in my tongue a sailor couldn’t unti
e. I don’t even tell people I know you.”
“Hmmm,” was all I could say.
CHAPTER 2
I was about two miles from ranch headquarters, riding my three-year-old bay gelding down the little wagon track that led to Blessing, when I heard the whine of a bullet passing just over my head, closely followed by the crack of a distant rifle. I never hesitated; I just fell off my horse to the side away from the sound of the rifle. I landed on all fours in the roadbed, and then crawled as quick as I could toward the sound and into the high grass. My horse had run off a little ways, surprised at my unusual dismount. He turned his head to look at me, wondering, I expected, what the hell was going on.
But I was too busy burrowing into that high grass as slow as I could so as not to cause it to ripple or sway or give away my position in any other way to worry about my horse. I took off my hat on account of its high crown, and then I eased my revolver out of its holster, cocking it as I did. I was carrying a. 42/.40 Navy Colt, which is a .40-caliber cartridge chamber on a .42-caliber frame. The .42-caliber frame gave it a good weight in the hand with less barrel deviation, and the .40-caliber bullets it fired would stop anything you hit in the right place. But it still wasn’t any match for a rifle at long range, even with the six-inch barrel. My enemy, whoever he was, could just sit there patiently and fire at the slightest movement, and he had to eventually get me because I couldn’t lay out there all day. It was only ten of the morning, but already the sun was way up and plenty hot. I could feel a little trickle of sweat running down my nose, but I didn’t move to wipe it away for fear even that slight movement could be seen. And I couldn’t chance raising my head enough to see for that too would expose my position. All I could do was lay there, staring down at the earth, and wait, knowing that, at any second, my bushwhacker could be making his way silently in my direction. He’d have to know, given the terrain, the general location of where I was hiding.
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