A Good Day To Kill (14 page)

“You are very wise, Mr. Byrnes, to use this method of payment. So many ranchers insist on packing cash around, not trusting banks, and they get robbed.”

“I know all about that. Nice to meet you. We'll be here at ten a.m. on Friday to complete this purchase.”

“If we can ever be any service to you, sir, please let us know.”

“In the near future, Mr. Holmes, I'll be choosing a bank down here. I'll offer your firm an opportunity to bid on it.”

“We would certainly like to discuss your needs at any time.”

“Not today.” He was anxious to get back south to their camp that evening. There was a late afternoon stage for Nogales, and the driver would let him off at the ranch gate that night, sometime after midnight. After taking a meal with a street vendor for ten cents, he headed for the stage office. The afternoon heat was stifling hot, so he settled on a bench on the porch of the stage office.

The situation with the new ranch occupied his thoughts. When other passengers arrived, he absentmindedly offered his seat to a younger woman and she thanked him. The coach's arrival with fresh horses jarred him out of his own world. He had to get his senses back. He was too far away from reality to solve any emergency.

Maybe he did need Jesus and Cole with him. He'd remember that. Damn, he missed his wife and baby Adam. Big ranch plans still had him occupied as the stage rocked away, until the female passenger interrupted his thoughts.

“My name is Stephanie Combs.”

“Chet Byrnes.”

“Oh, aren't you the man from Preskitt who heads the Force?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you after more criminals tonight?”

“No, just going back to my camp. How do you know me?”

“I've read about you being shot. The article said you owned several ranches in the north and you led the Force that is bringing in all these criminals.”

“I didn't read that article.”

“No, you were healing, I bet.”

“You're going to Nogales?”

“I live there with my parents. My father is superintendent of the U.S. border there. His name is Ralph Combs. I know he would like to meet you some time.”

“I'll make it a point to look him up.”

“Yes, I am sure you two would have much to talk about.”

They discussed various subjects, and he found the single young girl in her twenties to be a smart young woman. But his interest in her was more like what he'd have toward a daughter. When the driver stopped at the ranch gate, he told a sleepy Miss Combs good-bye. Out of the coach and the door closed, he shouted thanks to the driver.

Under the stars and the cooler night air, he walked the distance to their camp.

“You back in one piece, señor?”

“What are you doing up, Jesus?”

“Worrying about you.”

“I won't leave without you again,
mi amigo
. You better get some rest. Nothing bad wrong?”

“No. Glad you are alright.”

Chet turned in and slept troubled. It being a short night only made it worse.

At Maria's breakfast the next morning, he faced a lot of questions.

“Did you settle with Buster Weeks?” JD asked.

“Did he tell you where that bastard, Masters, could be found?”

“When is it your ranch?”

He held up his hands to stop them.

“Friday, we settle with Weeks. I'm buying his cattle then and the ranch will be ours. JD, you better take Bronc and Cole over there and be sure they don't strip the place when they leave. You can hire any of them you want; the rest I'll give you money to pay them off, if Weeks hasn't done that. Then start making a tally of the cattle. Inventory your immediate needs. Examine the water sources they're using. I better stay here, in case Ortega and Roamer need me. Shawn and Jesus can look after me.”

“You men better eat this food. It will be cold and
no bueno
,” Maria said in a motherly way.

“Maria, we're ready to eat. By the way, I didn't tell you I got word that Adam is cutting his first tooth. These men are going to take their first good look at the family's newest holdings—the ranch in hell.”

She shook her head. “And I am going to have to live there.”

“Maria, I'm counting on you to help Bonnie some,” JD said. “Lands, I told her all about you.”

“Just eat, JD. Way I see it, you'll get tired of my face.” Then she laughed and shook her head. She said something in Spanish none of them understood and left them to fend for themselves.

“What did she say, Jesus?” JD asked.

“In her words, she say, only the devil could save the whole lot of us. Didn't you hear her laughing, going to her
casa
? She's one of us.”

JD nodded. “I savvy.” He went to eating his plate of food.

Chet shook his head. The devil might, but they may be too far gone. Her food was good, as usual, and he savored it. It wasn't like Monica's at the home ranch's style, not his wife's way, or his sister Susie's way—it was Maria's way. He knew what his man Ortega saw in her—wisdom much beyond her age. Lots of caring and a big heart, but smart, too.

Roamer came back midmorning. “The stage robbers are hiding out in a canyon over by the Chir-cuhuas. Dodge and Ortega are making sure they don't come out.”

“How many are up there?”

“Maybe six.”

“Riding hard, it'll take two days to get over there,” Chet said.

“They're waiting till you all can get there. Another Clanton is with them.”

“Shawn, saddle us two horses. Jesus, you go with JD, Cole, and Bronc. Shawn, Roamer, and I will go settle with these robbers. Take enough supplies. If I need to make that bank meeting, I can take a stage from Tombstone. Shawn can come along with me to Tucson Thursday night, and I can make the sale closing on Friday.”

“We can do that, señor,” Jesus said. “But for land's sake, be careful.” He was looking real serious at him. “You be very careful.”

“I'll watch. I figure you can make more sense out of that ranch than any of them.”

Roamer, Shawn, and Chet left within the hour and made Tombstone by sundown. They slept in the hay at the livery for a few hours, found some fresh cinnamon rolls in a hole-in-the-wall café, and then left before sunup. Roamer explained the other factor in this case as they rode—the gang had another family member—Thomas Clanton.

Chet recalled the last newspaper report and shook his head. Lawbreakers were lawbreakers. If he held up stages, he needed to be arrested and tried by the law.

If they pushed hard, they would be at the base of the mountain and the canyon by midday. He and his men trotted their mounts until they could see details on the mountain and the junipers that made the mountain's skirts. Roamer led them up the narrow trail and Ortega stepped out from the dense junipers with his rifle.

“You sure got back here in a big hurry.”

“What's the situation up there?”

“One of them stage robbers is Israel's younger brother, Thomas. They've been up there drinking and raising hell for two days. I worried they might want out, but so far they've been content. It's been a long three days, señor.”

“It must have been.” Chet stepped down and turned to Roamer. “I don't know a thing to do but to take them. If they don't surrender, they'll be shot. Is Dodge here?”

Ortega gave him a frown. “He wasn't much help. I sent him back to town. I knew you were coming.”

Chet shook his head. “Get some rest. In the morning, before daylight, we'll take them. Anyone offers resistance, we shoot them. Don't take a chance.”

“Shawn, you take the first watch. Wake us if anyone tries to come out. No fires they can smell.”

“I am damn sure glad to see you,” Ortega said.

“Yeah, I have to be in Tucson on Friday to sign papers for the ranch.”

“But—”

“Don't worry, it only happens when you're a boss. Don't ever take that job.”

Ortega yawned. “Sleep, yes.”

The crickets kept up a chorus and a few coyotes howled. That left an owl to hoot, then Chet fell asleep. Around two in the morning, Roamer woke him. “We voted to go cover the shack about four o'clock.”

“Good time.” He took over guard duty in the coolness of the high desert. Be damn cold up there on the mountain's spine. He'd be glad to have this over with. His eyes felt dry as an alkali flat.

When he shook them, the others got up. Shawn rolled up his bedroll. “I don't want to stay in this hotel tonight. Too many rocks.”

They all chuckled. They woke their sleeping horses and made sure they were hitched out of sight, so some escaping outlaw couldn't find them. Then, with rifles and ammo, they started up the steep trail in the darkness.

They soon reached their goal, squatted, and looked at the darkened log cabin. The outlaws' horses were in the corral, backed by a tall cliff wall behind it.

“Must have a spring up here,” Chet whispered to Roamer.

He nodded. “Have to be a good one to water them and their horses.”

“I will cover the back way,” Ortega offered. “Give me some time to get around there.”

“Good idea. We'll camp here.”

Chet, Cole, and Shawn squatted down with their rifles across their laps. He could hear the horses grunting in their sleep. Once in a while, one would stomp his hoof or they'd have a kicking match to settle something private.

When he figured Ortega was in place, they moved in closer. The soft light of sunup was gradually making it plainer to see details. Using a woodpile for cover, he sent Shawn over to take a place by the corral corner. Roamer was to his left.

He fired a pistol shot in the air. “Come out hands high, or die. This is the U.S. Marshal talking. We'll shoot anyone that comes out armed. Gun in your hand means instant death. Now, get out here before I burn that trap down around you.”

“We're coming. We're coming.”

What happened next was what Chet expected. They came out with six-guns blazing at all or anything. In seconds, the air was full of acrid gun smoke fogging the area. The posse's rifles cut the armed occupants down in the doorway, and a few steps from the entrance, four men sprawled facedown. There was no wind. Not a breath. Only the sounds of the panicked horses in the pens scrambling around and whinnying—heads high over the top bars and trying to escape the hell they were caught in.

“Hold your fire. We can't see anything.” Two individuals, coughing their heads off, soon appeared unarmed and in their underwear. Chet, pistol in hand, waved them to comb over the bodies to make sure they were unarmed.

“Any more in there?”

“No. Just us.”

“Shawn, watch those horses and try to settle them down. We've got them.”

Roamer and Ortega cautiously dragged each of the dead or wounded off the porch by their arms and out on the bare ground. Shawn calmed the animals in the pen so they didn't break out, then came over to join them.

“What do we do next?” Shawn asked.

“By damn, make us some coffee. My teeth are about to float out. I haven't had any in days,” Ortega said.

“What's your name?” Chet asked the youngest prisoner standing barefooted in his long-handle underwear. He had his short pencil and pad in his hand.

“Tom Clanton.”

“Age?”

“Sixteen.”

“What's your name?' he asked the other one.

“Billy Moore.”

“Age?”

“Fifteen.”

“You boys got an early start on stage robbing, haven't you?”

“We ain't robbed no stages,” Clanton said.

“A judge will decide that. Shut up. Sit on the ground. We'll have some breakfast, then get you dressed. Shawn, cuff them together.”

That completed, the young man headed back to camp to get their horses.

“We will have some food here shortly,” Ortega said as they built a fire in the ring.

“Shawn! Bring the packhorse, too,” Ortega shouted. “They don't have any good coffee here.”

Shawn waved that he heard him and headed into the junipers and live oak for their camp.

Roamer and Chet laughed, then Chet asked Ortega, “Why don't they have any good coffee here?”

“Cheap outlaws, boss man.”

“Any of them you drug out going to live?” he asked Roamer.

“Not to get to Tombstone, way I figure.”

“Good enough for them. When we get them tied over horses, you two can take your time. Shawn and I are going to head for Tombstone shortly. We'll leave our horses at the O.K. Corral for you two to take back. I'll wire Blevins to send his men to come get these two, and then Shawn and I will catch a stage to Tucson. Tomorrow, I need to buy a ranch for all of us. And we'll take the stage back to Tubac.”

“Busy man.”

“Roamer, one day I'll sit in a rocker on the porch and count cattle.”

“That will only be after you break both legs falling off a windmill.”

They all laughed, except the prisoners.

Shawn soon returned with his saddle horse and the pack animal. Ortega made them coffee and breakfast while the others saddled their horses. They fed the two living outlaws, then loaded the dead or dying belly down over their horses. They found some of the loot. Part of it was gold bars that outlaws hated because they were branded and hard to sell. Most of the money on them and in the dead outlaws' pockets was fresh made.

Chet asked both boys where the rest of the money went.

“Saddles, guns, and the supplies to hole up here until things cooled down.”

So, they had all the loot that was left.

When he said good-bye, everyone wished him luck and thanked him. Then he rode double with Shawn to get to his horse. Before the sun had cleared the mountain range, they were long trotting on the dusty road for Tombstone.

Things went fast in the telegraph office. He sent a wire to Marshal Blevins, telling him to send men to take the pair to Tucson for trial. Then he wired Marge that he was leaving Tombstone to go to Tucson to sign the papers. They caught some quick food from a street vendor, then got the back-facing seats on the five p.m. stage and rocked out of town past Boot Hill for Benson and then on to Tucson in the night.

“Did we forget anything, Shawn?”

“No, sir, but when you move you really move.”

“I want a bath in Tucson, then a clean white shirt and my pants pressed for tomorrow's signing, and some sleep.”

“I hear folks talking about your empire building. I can see, now I've been with you well over six months, that you have some kinda drive in you. You don't hardly sleep and you're up and ready to go. What powers that?”

“Before the War, there was no money in Texas. I mean, pennies were hoarded. Folks were not much richer than their slaves. Slaves were high-priced, but no one could hardly afford to buy them. We never had any slaves, but lots of our neighbors did. They raised their own. Mexican people were even poorer. They came and farmed for us each year. They were good farmers and we had some good land to grow crops. My dad fought in the war to free Texas, and they gave him and my grandfather more land for that. But the war had affected him, and Grandpa was getting on up there, too. One day, when I was fourteen, Gramps told me that I'd soon have to run that ranch and that I better learn all I could, because my dad's mind was slipping away real fast.

“By that time, we'd built a fortress the Comanche couldn't take, and we owned lots of cattle and good horses. But our main income came from the corn the Mexicans raised and we sold. The war ended and we took some cattle to Missouri. Lucky we lived through that drive, but we made real money selling them in Sedalia. The seat of my pants were made of deer hide.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, they've got lots of gravel on the way up there called flint rocks. It really crippled the Texas cattle walking on it. Then their cattle caught Tick Fever from ours and died and they blamed us. I rode up and back home with a half dozen boys still wearing Confederate clothes. That might of saved our lives, them being ex-Confederate veterans. I had fifteen thousand Yankee dollars sewed in my saddle blankets and bedroll. When I got home, that money really stunk like a sweaty horse.”

Shawn was laughing. “Stinking rich. I love that.”

“That was fifteen dollars a head for my cattle. I didn't know the man that bought them probably made three times that when he sold them. I was young and green as grass. But I'd never seen that much money, or even heard of an amount that big being paid for anything. Texas was broke and all the folks in that state were penniless, too.