by John Shirley
“Most of the ford’ll be a wade. It’ll be some deep in the middle, but cattle will swim if the water’s not too fierce.”
“May I ask, sir, if the men find my fare to be palatable?”
“Your cooking, you mean? Haven’t you seen how they clean their plates?”
“They’re hungry enough, they’d probably eat sautéed rawhide, sir. But all I get are queer looks and raised eyebrows for my efforts.”
Mase chuckled. “Some of that is your talk, which puzzles them some. They’ll get used to it. Now, the food’s some different, too—though your fried steak is more or less Texan chuck. That yellow stuff you put in the stew . . .”
“The curry?”
“It’s not usual, but I like it. I find it puts a spring in my step. And I distinctly heard Ray say, ‘Good chuck!’ last night.”
“Is ‘good chuck’ an accolade?”
“A what? Well, anyhow, it’s a compliment, and for a cowpuncher it’s nigh to enthusiasm.” Mase turned to look at the herd. It was straggled out more than he liked. Of course, once at the ford they’d need it a mite bottlenecked to keep order.
“How are we for”—Dollager looked around nervously—“Indian trouble?”
“Indians? Here?” Mase looked at him in surprise. “Why, the few Indians hereabouts are peaceable as lambs at the suck. But once we cross the Red River, we’ll have to go careful. Don’t be quick to shoot at a redskin, Mick. That’s asking for trouble, and it could be a powerful injustice.”
“Quite, Mr. Durst. Where do we camp, come nightfall?”
“There’s a tributary of the Brazos out northeast—we’ll cross it and make camp. It’s still a day’s drive from here. Keep the king and queen there moving. We’ll have a rest once we’re across the river, and then we move on. . . .”
Dollager touched his hat, and Mase rode back to check on the remuda. They’d been moving since dawn, and he wanted to change out his mount. . . .
He thought of Katie and Jim—they were never far from his thoughts—and he wondered if indeed there’d be trouble with Tom Harning.
Let the man howl in the courtroom if he wanted. He would accomplish nothing. Mase had the deeds and all the proofs he needed. The bank was solidly behind Durst Ranch.
What could that fool Harning do against him?
* * *
* * *
Gertrude Harning looked at the grandfather clock across the dining room and sighed. It was nine. She decided to give up on waiting for her husband to eat breakfast with her.
She took the cover off the chili’d eggs and spooned herself up a couple. Despite her lack of appetite, she made herself eat them, for her mother had been quite firm that it was sinful to waste food, and when Gertie turned her nose up at a meal, it was as if her late mother were there at her elbow, shaking her head in dark disapproval.
The big clock ticked with loud deliberation as she ate eggs and bacon and sipped her tea. Tom’s plate was set out, and she’d hoped to discuss the matter of the buggy repair with him, and ask, once more, if he would come to mass with her this Sunday. Tom had more and more refused to go to church, saying it was a waste of his valuable time, and he acted as if her household concerns, too, were frivolous. She wanted to ask him for a new churchgoing dress for their daughter, Mary—for at ten she was growing out of her old dresses; and Len needed a tutor. He was thirteen but read like a much younger boy. Those permissions she might still have from Tom Harning if she bearded him in his office. He did at least have some concern for his children.
She dabbed at her lips with the napkin and got up, moving the heavy chair back alone. If she’d called Francisco, their cook, he’d have happily helped her from the chair—for she was a small, rather frail woman—but she was embarrassed for him to see that her husband spurned even a meal with her.
Gertie straightened her ankle-length black skirt and went to the oval dining room mirror to make sure of herself before she should enter Tom’s office. He criticized her appearance with so little provocation. Her brown hair was properly layered up in a double bun; her white blouse was smooth enough. Everything seemed in order. She remembered him snapping at her, after the last time they’d gone to church, about the expression on her face. When you get that hang-dog expression, that big nose and small chin of yours make you look like a hound! Try to smile, woman, if you’re out with me.
She closed her eyes, dismissing the pain of the memory, and went to the door of the little smoking room he called his office. She raised her hand to knock on the paneled door—and froze, hearing an unfamiliar voice from within. A deep male voice, certainly not her husband’s.
“I could do it, Mr. Harning. But that could put the law on me. And I have no wish to hang.”
The remarks startled Gertie. Who was this man talking of the law coming after him—and of hanging? The voice was somewhat muffled by the door, but she could hear it well enough. He was none of her husband’s ranch hands; she was sure of that.
“You’ve got to do it smart,” Tom was saying. “Make it look like a misadventure. An act of God. Or if there’s lead flying anyway—Indians and such—if you’re careful, a bullet of your own will seem to have come from those other guns.”
“I could work it that way, I reckon. Pike said you’d pay me, but didn’t say how much.”
“Two thousand when I have confirmed to my satisfaction that Mason Durst is dead! Once he’s out of the way, I believe Katie Durst will sell out to me right quick.”
Gertie gasped. Her husband was asking this man to kill Mase Durst!
“How do I know you’ll pay me?” the man asked.
“It’ll be safer to pay you than not to, of course. But if you want five hundred dollars more, you’ll scatter that herd so that they’ll never recover it. I have a plan for that. . . .”
“How do I find the drive?”
“He’s signing more men on, up in Denison. You ride up there and wait for the herd. I’ll give you a hundred dollars’ stake money. . . .”
Gertie felt dizzy. She certainly couldn’t face her husband now.
She turned and walked dazedly away and took herself to the parlor. She sank mutely on the settee, wringing her hands, panting softly. What could she do? What would Tom do if she confronted him? He had slapped her for less. If she went to the county sheriff—how would it go? Sheriff Beslow was not unfriendly with Tom. He’d be reluctant to believe such a story. He’d accuse her of having misheard. And she could imagine the lawman pointing out that even if she’d heard rightly, no murder had yet been done. There’d only been talk of one.
But suppose the sheriff did take the matter in hand? Suppose Tom was arrested for plotting a murder?
She would have to testify in court, if it was permitted for her to testify against her husband. And the children—how would they feel? It could end with him being released and taking Len and Mary away from her.
Gertie felt paralyzed with indecision. But—what of Mase Durst? He’d always seemed a good man. His wife came to mass twice monthly, when she could get there—Fuente Verde, the nearest town, was yet a fair distance away—and was always ready for a friendly chat afterward, never remarking on the enmity between their husbands. How could Gertie allow this crime to be carried out upon these good people?
She had to think. There was time surely. It was hard to know what to do. Perhaps she could not act at all. She might have to hope this strange hireling failed in his attempt at murder.
But how could she live with what she had heard?
It came to her then that she had never truly known her husband. She had thought him a cold man. His courtly chivalrousness had vanished soon after their marriage. Just as soon as he had laid hands on her money. He had slapped her on occasion and frequently demeaned her appearance. He thought of her as a kind of nanny to his children, at best.
But murder? She had not thought him capable of
it.
She had never seen how black his heart was till now.
And yet, for the sake of her children, it might be that she must go on as she had always done. She must live with this man.
Covering her eyes, she wept as quietly as she could.
CHAPTER FOUR
Hiram Durst stood at the rail of the balcony overlooking the only street to be found in Leadton, Oklahoma Territory. Freight wagons trundled noisily below; a drifter bellowed at the barkeep who’d ejected him from the Stew Pot, and there was out-of-key piano music jangling from the doorway behind him. The Stew Pot Saloon wasn’t roaring yet, but it was waking up.
Hiram was rolling a cigarette, watching the sunset between the steep hills to the west, and thinking he should leave Leadton. The Kelso brothers hated him—he had knocked Rod Kelso out cold just two weeks before and now there was that business of Phil Kelso’s hat—and when drunk, they were both reckless. In addition, Sheriff Greer didn’t like him because of Queenie; she preferred Hiram’s company to the sheriff’s.
Anyhow, Hiram had nothing going here but playing the part of official fine and tax collector for the three merchants who called themselves the town council. The job required him to go toe to toe with querulous drummers, cowboys with trifling little herds, surprisingly truculent sheepherders passing through, and the like, to squeeze money out of them for the city coffers. It was distasteful work—and worse, it paid badly. So why not hit the trail? He seemed to have lost touch with his gumption, was why. A peculiar tiredness was forever snapping at his heels.
He lit his cigarette and thought about Mase. He had more and more caught himself wondering about his brother lately. Was Mase making a better living than Hiram was? Mase and his wife had a ranch somewhere south of Fort Worth. Hiram had been through there just once, meeting Katie and a four-year-old boy, little Jimmy Durst, who’d called him “Unca,” and he’d left as soon as he decently could. They’d treated him well but the whole interlude had made him mighty uncomfortable . . . or had it just been envy?
“Here you are,” said Queenie, coming out onto the balcony as he drew in the tobacco smoke. “I thought you’d done rid out on me.” She came to the rail beside him and put out her hand for the cigarette. He handed her the smoke, and she took a puff and handed it back.
“You’re always thinking I’m gonna ride out on you, but I haven’t done it,” said Hiram.
She shrugged. “It’s on your mind to go. I can feel it.”
She was right about that. He glanced at her. Queenie had put on that blue dress he liked, cut low and cut high. She was a head shorter than him, but she looked taller with the dress showing so much of her legs. Her blond hair was swirling over her shoulders and her China blue eyes held a sparkle as she gazed up at him.
“Well, Queenie,” he said, “don’t you ever think of doing something different than running this place for Sanborne?”
“Sure I do. I think how we could go to New Orleans, start our own place. I got some money saved. Or maybe Virginia City. It’s booming there.” After a moment she added, “You hear that? When I said we?”
“I did. Hon, we’ve only known each other since February. I don’t even know your real name.”
“How do you know it’s not Queenie?”
“You going to tell me, or ain’t you?”
She sighed. “It’s Amaryllis.”
“Like the flower? Say, that’s a beautiful name. Why’d you change it?”
“I don’t want every man who pays to spend time with me to know my name.”
He nodded. “Well, since you’ve worked for Murch Sanborne, you haven’t had to . . . to spend that kind of time with anyone. And you don’t charge me.”
“Of course I don’t.” She put her hand on his arm, clasping his elbow the way a wife would with her man when they walked down the street. “Maybe I should.”
“Nope.” He turned to her and lifted her chin and kissed her. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“Durst!” It was Greer’s voice.
Hiram turned to see Sheriff Greer glaring at him from the balcony door. Mike Greer was a barrel of a man in a black sack suit, the only brightness on it his badge. He had a froggish face and a sloping forehead. His eyes pretty much always looked angry, unless he was in the first flush of drinking. He shaved every day but never seemed to get all the bristle off.
“I get back in town, first thing I hear is how you’re shooting at Phil Kelso!”
“I didn’t shoot at him,” Hiram said coolly. “I shot at his hat.”
Queenie put a hand over her mouth to cover a giggle.
“Knocked it off his head without putting a scratch on him,” Hiram went on.
“Now, why the hell did you do that? He rides with Fletcher, and they bring cash into this town!”
“He was drunk and come at me, saying he was going to shoot out my lights. Just how he said it, too. He was trying to pull out his gun, so I shot his hat off to keep from having to kill him. Besides—it made me laugh. I pure needed a laugh. I disarmed him and sent him back to the saloon. That was last night—he still talking about it? I’m surprised he remembers.”
“He remembers. You’re going to pay for the hat and buy him a drink!”
“Oh, hellfire, Greer—”
“Just do it! Right away!” With that, Greer went back into the building, shouting at someone to bring him a drink.
Hiram muttered a few profanities. Then he said, “You know what, Miss Queenie Amaryllis Jones?”
“What?”
“I think I’d like to see New Orleans with you. Never been there.”
She threw her arms around his waist. “When!”
“Oh—I’ll want some money of my own. I have some notions as to that. So let’s say—early June. What do you say?”
“I say go and buy that man a hat, and I’m going to write a letter to my sister in New Orleans!”
* * *
* * *
Fifteen days on the trail. Seven of them north of Fort Worth.
“Lord, but I need my bedroll,” groaned Harry Duff, carrying his tin plate to the washing tub.
“Don’t forget you’ve got night guard in four hours,” Mase reminded him, setting his plate aside.
“Oh, I ain’t forgot, boss!”
Mase smiled, watching Duff stagger off to his bedroll. There weren’t enough of them to take shifts, with all these cattle to drive. That meant they were all working even longer hours than normal—and any drive offered wearisome hours.
Pug was out watching the cattle; Ray Jost, always ready for a chin wag, was smoking a pipe on the other side of the fire and telling Vasquez a much-worn tale of a cattle drive where a lightning bolt had struck three cows at once and cooked them to such perfection that the drovers dined on them for a week just as they were found.
It had begun to drizzle again, and it might go to a full rain in the night. The weakening campfire was smoking, sizzling with the drops of rain. The moon showed through the clouds from time to time, but just as often hid itself away. Dollager was scrubbing the big iron Dutch oven out with pumice and water, there being plenty of water to hand with the overflowing creek but twenty yards off. The herd was a mile off the trail, in case some other early, ambitious herd came up in the night; two herds jostling could lead to a stampede and the confusion of property. The Durst Ranch cattle, however, were branded, each one showing the proper ear notches and the mark of a “D” over the shape of a “Y” turned on its side, representing San Vincente Creek and its tributary, the Little Vince. It was a confluence that took place on Durst property.
Mase got up, put his tin plate in the tub, and strolled over to the remuda. It was a peaceful night, with a weak breeze driving the thin rain. Now and then frogs called from the creek and an owl hooted.
He selected a horse, saddled it himself, removed its hobble, and drew it by the reins
over to the staked rope that served to keep the horses penned. Of course, the remuda horses could trample through the rope if they chose, and might if spooked, but most times their training kept them in place; they were dozing now, heads drooping. Mase pulled up a stake, led the horse over the rope, replaced the stake, and mounted up.
He cantered to the herd, fifty yards off, signaling Pug that he’d take his place. Pug’s dinner was waiting in a covered pan by the fire. Vasquez would soon be coming out to spell Jacob.
The herd was mostly bedded down, Mase saw, though a few bawled edgily, ogling the northern horizon where clouds curdled blackly and flickered. Ray Jost might have a new lightning story to tell after tonight.
Circling the herd, Mase swung the end of a lasso rope at the steers who looked like they were thinking of peeling off. “Ho, cattle, easy now, easy!” he called. Maybe the stock didn’t understand the words, but they were soothed by the tone.
He soon came upon Jacob, riding one of the remuda cow ponies, singing low and easy to soothe the cattle.
“How they look tonight, Jacob?” Mase asked, reining in beside the black cowboy.
“They was most asleep. Now some is waking up, Mr. Durst. It’s that storm coming.”
Mase peered again at the horizon. The black clouds seemed a long way off. “You sure it’s headed here?”
“Oh, yes, sir. We’re not careful, this herd’ll go catawampus quick.”
“Your talk sometimes don’t sound Texas, Jacob. Alabama?”
“North Georgia, sir, born and raised, a slave nigh to thirty years. Worked for a master who raised cattle and horses.”
The wind was picking up from the direction of the storm front. Lightning flickered more brightly that way. Mase watched it as he said, “I’ve heard there’s good ranching up in the north of Georgia. How’d you come to Texas?”
“The Yankees killed the master when he tried to keep them from the stock, and they sure lay waste to his spread. They gave me my walkin’ papers and a yearling mule. I come out here, looking to make my way. I know’d cattle and horses, so there was always work for me.”