Journey of the Mountain Man (9 page)

“We sell some cows to the Army. And wait.”

 

 

The buyer for the Army had already looked over the cattle and agreed to a price. When he returned, a couple of days after Smoke's misunderstanding with the sniper, he brought drovers with him. Smoke and the buyer settled up the paperwork and the bank draft was handed over to Fae. The two men leaned up against a corral railing and talked.

“You know about the battle looking at us in the face, don't you?” Smoke asked.

“Uh-huh. And from all indications it's gonna be a real cutter.”

“What would it take to get the Army involved?”

“Not a chance, Jensen. The Army's done looked this situation over and, unofficially, and I didn't say this, they decided to stay out of it. It'd take a presidential order to get them to move in here.”

It was as Smoke had guessed. All over the fast-settling West little wars were flaring up; too many for the authorities or the Army to put down, so they were letting them burn themselves out. Here, they would be on their own, whichever way it went.

The buyer and his men moved the cattle out and the range was silent.

Smoke wondered for how long?

“You tellin' me you're not gonna work cattle?” Cord faced the gunslick.

“I'm paid to fight, not herd cattle,” Jason Bright told him.

“You re not being paid to do either one after this moment. Pack your kit and clear out. Pick up your money at the house.”

Jason's eyes became cloudy with hate. “And if I don't go?”

“Then one of us is going to be on the ground.”

Jason laughed. “Are you challengin' me, old man?”

Cord was far from being an old man. At forty-five he was bull-strong and leather-tough. And while he was no fast gun, there was one thing he was good at. He showed Jason a hard right fist to the jaw.

Flat on his back, his mouth leaking blood, Jason grabbed for his gun, forgetting that the hammer thong was still on it. Cord stomped the gunfighter in the belly, reached down while Jason was gasping for breath, and jerked the gun out of leather, tossing it to one side. He backed up, his big hands balled into fists.

“Catch your breath and then get up, you yellow-bellied pup. Let's see how good you are without your gun.”

A dozen gunhawks ran from the bunkhouse, stopping abruptly as Cord's sons, his daughter, his wife, and four regular hands appeared from both sides of the house and on the porch, rifles and sawed-off shotguns in their hands.

“It's going to be a fair fight, boys,” Alice McCorkle said, her voice strong and calm. She held a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. “Between two men; and my husband is giving Mr. Bright a good ten or fifteen years in age difference. Boys, I was nineteen when I killed my first Indian. With this very shotgun. I've killed half a dozen Indians and two outlaws in my day, and anytime any of you want to try me, just reach for a gun or try to break up this fight—whichever way it's going—and I'll spread your guts all over this yard. Then I'll make your gunslinging buddies clean up the mess.”

She lifted the shotgun, pointing the twin muzzles straight at Pooch Matthews.

“Lord, lady!” Pooch hollered. “I ain't gonna interfere.”

“And you'll stop anyone who does, right, Mr. Matthews?”

“Oh, yes, ma'am!”

Jason was on his feet, his eyes shiny with hate as he faced Cord.

“Clean his plow, honey,” Alice told her husband.

Cord stepped in and knocked Jason spinning, the gunfighter's mouth suddenly a bloody smear. Like so many men who lived by the gun and depended on a six-shooter to get them out of any problem, Jason had never learned how to use his fists.

Cord gave him a very short and very brutal lesson in fistfighting.

Cord gave him two short hard straight rights to the stomach then followed through with a crashing left hook that knocked the gunfighter to the ground. Normally, Cord would have kicked the man in the face and ended it. No truly tough man, who fights only when hard-pushed, does not consider that “dirty” or unfair fighting, but merely a way to get the fight over with and get back to work. In reality, there is no such thing as a “fair fight.” There is a winner and a loser. Period.

But in this case, Cord just wanted the fight to last a while. He was enjoying himself. And really, rather enjoying showing off for his wife a little bit.

Cord dropped his guard while so pleased with himself and Jason busted him in the mouth.

Shaking his head to clear away the sparkling confusion, for Jason was no little man, Cord settled down to a good ol'-fashioned rough-and-tumble, kick-and-gouge brawl.

The two men stood boot to boot for a moment, hammering away at each other until finally Jason had to give ground and back up from Cord's bull strength. Jason was younger and in good shape, but he had not spent a lifetime doing brutally hard work, twelve months a year, wrestling steers and digging postholes and roping and branding and breaking horses.

Jason tried to kick Cord. Cord grabbed the boot and dumped the gunhawk on the ground, on his butt. That brought several laughs from Jason's friends, all standing and watching and being very careful not to let their hands get too close to the butts of their guns.

Jason jumped to his boots, one eye closing and his nose a bloody mess, and swung at Cord. Cord grabbed the wrist and threw Jason over his hip, slamming him to the ground. This time Jason was not as swift getting to his feet.

Cord was circling, grinning at Jason, but giving the man time to clear his head and stand and fight.

But this time Jason came up with a knife he'd pulled out of his boot.

“No way, Jason!” Lodi yelled from the knot of gunslingers. “And I don't give a damn how many guns is on me. Drop that knife or I'll shoot you personal.”

With a look of disgust on his face, Jason threw the knife to the ground.

Cord stepped in and smashed the man a blow to the jaw and followed that with a wicked slash to Jason's belly, doubling him over. Then he hit him twice in the face, a left and right to both sides of the man's jaw.

Jason hit the ground and did not move.

Cord walked to a water barrel by the side of the house and washed his face and soaked his aching hands for a moment. He turned and faced the gunslicks.

“I want Jason out of here within the hour. No man disobeys an order of mine. Any of you who want to stay, that's fine with me. But you'll take orders and you'll work the spread, doing whatever Del tells you to do. Make up your mind.”

“Hell, Mister McCorkle . . .” a gunhawk said. He looked at the ladies. “I mean, heck. We come here to fight, not work cattle. No disrespect meant.”

“None taken. But the war is over as far as I'm concerned. Any of you who want to ride out, there'll be no hard feelings and I'll have your money ready for you at the house.”

All of them elected to ride.

“See me on the porch for your pay,” Cord told them.

When the last gunslick had packed his warbag, collected his pay, and ridden out, Del sat down beside Cord on the front porch.

“Feels better around the place, Boss. But if them gunnies hire on with Hanks, we're gonna be hard up agin it.”

“I know that, Del. Tell the men that from this day on, they'll be receiving fighting wages.” He held up a warning finger. “We start nothing, Del. Nothing. We defend home range and no more. I won t ask that the men stay out of Gibson; only that they don't go in there looking for trouble. Send Willie riding over to the Box T and tell Smoke what I've done. He needs to know.”

 

 

“Sure got the crap pounded out of you,” Lanny said, looking at the swollen and bruised face of Jason Bright.

Jason lay on a bed in the bunkhouse of the D-H spread. “It ain't over,” he mush-mouthed the words past swollen lips. “Not by no long shot, it ain't.”

Dooley Hanks had eagerly hired the gunslicks. He was already envisioning himself as king. And he wanted to kill Cord McCorkle personally. In his maddened mind, he blamed Cord for everything. He'd worked just as hard as Cord, but had never gained the respect that most people felt toward McCorkle. And this just wasn t right. King Hanks. He sure liked the way that sounded.

“It's just going to make matters worse,” Hanks's wife was telling their daughter.

Rita looked up from her packing. “Papa's crazy, Mother. He's crazy as a lizard. Haven't you seen the way he slobbers on himself? The way he sits on the porch mumbling to himself? Now he's gone and hired all those other gunfighters. Worse? For who? I'll tell you who: everybody. Everything from the Hound to the Sixteenmile is going to explode.”

“And you think you'll be safer over at the Box T?”

“I won't be surrounded by crazy people. I won't be under guard all the time. I'll be able to walk out of the house without being watched. Are you gong to tell on me, Mother?”

She shook her head. “No. You're a grown woman, Rita. Your father has no right to keep you a prisoner here. But I don't know how you're going to pull this off.”

Rita smiled. “I'll make it, Mother.” She kissed her mother's cheek and hugged her. “This can't last forever. And I won't be that far away.'

“Have you considered that your father might try to bring you back by force?”

“He might if I was going to Sandi's. I don't think he'll try with Smoke Jensen.”

The mother pressed some money into the daughter's hand. “You'll need this.”

“Thank you, Mother. I'll pretend I'm going to bed early. Right after supper. Then I'll be gone.”

After the mother had left the room, Rita laid out her clothes. Men's jeans, boots, a man's shirt. She had one of her brother's old hats and a work jacket to wear against the cold night. She picked up the scissors. Right after supper she would whack her hair short.

She believed it would work. It had to work. If she stayed around this place, she would soon be as nutty as her father and her crazy brothers.

 

 

“Peaceful,” Cord said to Alice. “Like it used to be.”

They sat on the front porch, enjoying the welcome coolness of early evening after the warm day.

“If it will only last, Cord.”

“All we can do is try, honey. That's all a mule can do, is try.”

“Tell me about this Smoke Jensen. I've met him, but never to talk with at length.”

“He's a good man, I believe. A fair man. Not at all like I thought he d be. He's one of those rare men that you look at and instantly know that this one won't push. I found that out very quickly.” His last comment was dry, remembering that first day he'd yelled at Smoke, in Gibson, and the man had looked at him like he was a bug.

“It sounds like you have a lot of respect for the man.”

“I do. I'd damn sure hate to have him for an enemy.”

From inside the house, they heard the sounds of Sandi's giggling. She was entertaining her young man this evening, as she did almost every evening. The Moab Kid was fast becoming a fixture around the place.

Cord and Alice sat quietly, smiling as they both recalled their own courting days.

 

 

Smoke leaned against a corral railing and thought about Sally and the babies. He missed them terribly. One part of him wanted this little war to come to a head so he could go home. But another part of him knew that when it did start, there would be a lot of people who would never go home... except for six feet of earth. And he might well be one of them.

Charlie Starr walked up and the men stood in silence for a moment, enjoying the peaceful evening. Charlie was the first to break the silence.

“I'd like to have seen that fight 'tween Cord and Jason.”

Smoke smiled, then the smile faded. “Jason won't ever forget it, though. The next time he sees Cord, Cord better have a gun in his hand.”

“True.”

They stood in silence for another few moments. Both men rolled an after-supper cigarette and lit up.

“You were in deep thought when I walked up, Smoke. What's on your mind?”

“Oh, I had a half dozen thoughts going, Charlie. I was thinking about my wife and our babies; how much I miss them. And, I was thinking just what it's going to take to blow the lid off this situation here.”

“What don't concern me as much as when.”

“Tonight.”

Charlie looked at him. “What are you, one of them fortunetellers?”

“I feel it in my guts, Charlie. And don't tell me you never jumped out of a saddle or spun and drew on a hunch.”

“Plenty o' times. Saved my bacon on more than one occasion, too. That's what you're feelin'?”

“That's it.” Smoke dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “It's always something you least expect, too.”

“I grant you that for a fact. Like that time down inTaos this here woman crawled up in bed with me. Like to have scared the longhandles right off of me. Wanted me to save her from her husband. Didn't have a stitch on. I tell you what, that shook me plum down to my toenails.”

“Did you save her?”

Charlie chuckled softly. “Yeah. 'Bout two hours later. I've topped off horses that wasn't as wild as she was.”

Rita had cropped her hair short, hating to do it, but she had always been a tomboy and, besides, it would grow back. She had turned off the lamp and now she listened at her bedroom door for a moment, hearing the low murmur of her mother talking to her father. The front door squeaked open and soon the sound of the porch swing reached her. She picked up her valise and swung out the window, dropping the few feet to the ground. She remained still for a long moment, checking all around her. She knew from watching and planning this that her guards were not on duty after nine o'clock at night. It had never occurred to her father that his daughter would attempt to run away.

Sorry, Pa, Rita thought. But I won't be treated like a prisoner.

Rita slipped away from the house and past the corral and barn. She almost ran right into a cowboy returning from the outhouse but saw him in time to duck into the shadows. He walked past her, his galluses hanging down past his knees. The door to the bunkhouse opened, flooding a small area with lamplight.

“Shut the damn door, Harry!” a man called.

The door closed, the area once more darkened. But something primeval touched Rita with an invisible warning. She remained where she was, squatting down in her jeans.

“It's clear,” a man's voice said.

Rita recognized it as belonging to the shifty-eyed gunslinger called Park. And the men were only a few yards away.

Rita remembered something else, too: she had heard that voice before. The sudden memory was as hot and violent as the act that afternoon. While she was being raped.

Fury and cold hate filled the young woman. Her father's own men had done that to her. She thought about returning to the house and telling her father. She immediately rejected that. She had no proof. And her father would take one look at her close-cropped hair and lock her up tight, with twenty-four-hour guards.

She touched the short-barreled .44 tucked behind her belt. She was good with it, and wanted very badly to haul it out and start banging.

She fought back that feeling and waited, listening.

“When?” the other man asked.

“Keep your britches on,” Park said. “Lanny gives the orders around here. But it'll be soon, he tole me so hisself.”

“I'd like to take my britches off with Rita agin,” the mystery man said with a rough chuckle.

And I'd like to stick this pistol . . . Rita mentally brushed away the very ugly thought. But it was a satisfying thought.

“You reckon Hanks is so stupid he don't realize what his boys is up to?”

“He's nuts. He don't realize them crazy boys of his'n would kill him right now if they thought they could get away with it.”

Rita crouched in the darkness and wanted to cry. Not for herself or for her father—he had made the boys what they were today, simply by being himself—but for her mother. She deserved so much better.

“It better be soon, ‘cause the boys is gettin' restless.”

“It'll be soon. But we gotta do it all at once. All three ranches. There can't be no survivors to tell about it. They got to be kilt and buried all in one night. We can torture the widows till they sign over the spreads to us.”

“We gonna keep the young wimmen alive for a time, ain't we? 'Specially that Fae Jensen. I want her. I want to show her a thing or two.”

“I don't know. Chancy. Maybe too chancy. It's all up to Jason and Lanny.”

“Them young wimmen would bring a pretty penny south of the border.”

“Transport them females a thousand miles! You're nuts, Hartley.”

“It was jist a thought.”

“A bad one. Man, just think of it: the whole area controlled by us. Thousands and thousands of acres, thousands of cattle. We could be respectable, and you want to mess it all up because of some swishy skirts. Sometimes I wonder about you, Hartley.”

“I'm sorry. I won't bring it up no more.”

“Fine.”

The men walked off, splitting up before entering the bunkhouse.

Rita felt sick to her stomach; wanted to upchuck. Fought it back. Now more than ever, she had to make it to the Box T. She waited and looked around her, carefully inspecting each dark pocket around the ranch, the barn and the bunkhouse. She stood up and moved out, silently praying she wouldn't be spotted.

Once clear of the ranch complex, Rita began to breathe a little easier. She slung her valise by a strap and could move easier with it over her shoulder. She headed southwest, toward the Box T.

 

 

The restlessness of the horses awakened Smoke. He looked at his pocket watch. Four o'clock. Time to get up anyway. But the actions of the horses bothered him. Dressed and armed, he stepped out of the ranch house just as the bunkhouse door opened and Lujan stepped out, followed by the other men. Smoke met them in the yard. They all carried rifles.

“Spread out,” Smoke told them. “Let's find out what's spooking the horses.”

“Hello the ranch!” the voice came out of the darkness. A female voice.

“Come on in,” Smoke returned the call. “Sing out!”

“Rita Hanks. I slipped away from the house about eight o‘clock last night. You might not recognize me, 'cause I cut off my hair to try to fool anyone who might see me.”

“Come on in, Rita,” Smoke told her, then turned to Beans. “Wake up those in the house; if they're not already awake. Get some coffee going. As soon as Hanks finds out his girl is gone, we're going to have problems.”

She was limping from her long walk, and she was tired, but still could not conceal her happiness at finally being free of her father. Over coffee and bacon and eggs, she told her story while Fae and Parnell and all the others gathered around in the big house and listened.

When she was finished, she slumped in her chair, exhausted.

“I wondered why the gunnies were holding back,” Hardrock said. “This tells it all.”

“Yes,” Lujan said. “But I don't think they came in here with that in mind. No one ever approached me with any such scheme. And both sides offered me fighting wages.”

“I think this plan was just recently hatched, after several others failed. Rita's attack did not produce the desired effect; Hanks didn't attack Cord. Blackie failed to kill me. So they came up with this plan.”

Smoke looked at Rita. The young woman was asleep, her head on the table.

“I'll get her to bed,” Fae said. “You boys start chowing down. I think it's going to be a very long day.”

“Yeah,” Beans agreed. “‘Cause come daylight, Hanks and his boys are gonna be on the prowl. If this day don't produce some shootin', my name ain't Bainbridge.”

Silver Jim looked at him and blinked. “Bainbridge! No wonder they call you Beans. Bainbridge!”

 

 

Hanks knocked his wife sprawling, backhanding her. “You knew, damn you!” he yelled at her. “You heped her, didn't you? Don't lie to me, woman. You and Rita snuck around behind my back and planned all this.”

Liz slowly got to her feet. A thin trickle of blood leaked from one corner of her mouth. She defiantly stood her ground. “I knew she was planning to leave, yes. But I didn't know when or how. You've changed, Dooley. Changed into some sort of a madman.”

That got her another blow. She fell back against the wall and managed to grab the back of a chair and steady herself. She stared at her husband as she wiped her bloody mouth with the back of her hand.

“Where'd she go?” Hanks yelled the question. “Naw!” Dooley waved it off. “You don't have to tell me. I know. She went over to Cord's place, didn't she?”

“No, she didn't,” Liz's voice had calmed, but her mouth hurt her when she spoke.

“You a damn liar!” Dooley raged. “A damn frog-eyed liar. There ain't no other place she could have gone.”

Outside, just off the porch, Lanny was listening to the ravings.

“This might throw a kink into things,” Park spoke softly.

“Maybe not. This might be a way to get rid of Cord and his boys in a way that even if the law was to come in, they'd call it a fair shootin . Man takes another man's kid in without the father's permission, that's a shootin' offense.”

“I hadn't thought of that. You right.”

“If she did go to the Double Circle C,” Lanny added.

“Where else would she go? Her and that damn uppity Sandi McCorkle is good friends.”

“Rita is no fool. She just might have gone over to the Box T. But we won't mention that. Just let Hanks play it his way.”

“I'm gonna tell you something, woman,” Hanks pointed blunt finger at his wife. “I find out you been lyin' to me, I' gonna give you a hidin' that you'll remember the rest of your life.”

“That would be like you,” she told him. “Whatever don't understand, you destroy.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Dooley screamed at her, slobber leaking out of his mouth, dribbling onto his shirt and vest.

She turned her back to him and started to leave the

“Don't you turn your back to me, woman! I done put with just about all I m gonna take from you.”

She stopped and turned slowly. “What are you going to Dooley? Beat me? Kill me? It doesn't make any difference. Love just didn't die a long time ago. Your hatred killed it. Y hatred, your obsession with power. You allowed our sons to grow up as nothing more than ignorant savages. You . . .”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Dooley screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Lies, all lies, woman. I'm ridin' to get my kid back. And when I get her back here, I'm gonna take a buggy whip to her backside. That's something I shoulda done a time ago. And I just might take it in my head to use the whip on you.”

Liz stared hard at him. “If you ever hit me again, Dooley. I'll kill you.” Dooley recoiled as if struck with those words. “And the same goes for Rita. But you've lost her. She'll never come back here; don't worry about that. I'll tell you where she's gone, Dooley. She's gone to the Box T.”

“Lies! More lies from you. Cord planned with you all on this, and you know it. He's con-spired agin me ever since we come into this area. He'd do anything to get at me. He's jealous of me.”

His wife openly laughed at that.

Dooley's face reddened and he took a step toward his wife, his hand raised. She backed up and picked up a poker from the fireplace.

“You were warned,” she told him. “You try to hit me and I'll bash your head in.”

He stood and cursed her until he ran out of breath. But she would not lower the poker and even in his maddened state he knew better than to push his luck.

“I'll deal with you later,” he said, then turned and stalked out the door.

She leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, listening to him holler for his men to saddle up and get ready to ride. She did not put down the poker as long as he was on the front porch. Only when she heard him mount up and the thunder of hooves pound away did she lower the poker and replace it in the set on the hearth.

She walked outside to stand on the porch, waiting for the dust to settle from the fast-riding men. She noticed Gage and several of the other hands had not ridden with her husband.

The foreman walked over to the porch and looked up at the still attractive woman. There was open disgust in his eyes as he took in the bruises on her face.

“I ain't got no use atall for a man who hits a woman,” Gage said.

“That's not the man I married, Gage.”

“Yeah, it is, Liz. It's the same man I been knowin' for years. You just been deliberately blind over the years, that's all.”

“Maybe so, Gage.” She sighed. She knew, of course, that Gage had been in love with her for a long, long time. And her feelings toward the foreman had been steadily growing stronger with time. She cut her eyes toward him. “You're not riding with him?”

“Me and the boys punch cows, Liz. I made that plain to him the other day. He still has enough sense about him to know that someone has to work the spread.”

“What would you say if I told you I was going to leave him?”

“Then me and you would strike out together, Liz.”

She smiled. “And do what, Gage?”

“Get married. Start us a little spread a long ways from here.”

“I'm a married woman, Gage. It's not proper to talk to a married woman like that.”

“I don't see you turnin' around and walkin' off, Liz.”

She looked hard at him. “Mister Hanks and I will be sharing separate bedrooms from now on, Gage. I would appreciate if you would stay close as much as possible.”

“I would consider that an honor, Liz.”

“Would you like to have some coffee, Gage?”

“I shore would.”

“Make yourself comfortable on the porch, Gage. I'll go freshen up and hotten the coffee. I won t be a minute.”

“Take your time, Liz. I'll be here.”

She smiled. Her hair was graying and there were lines in her face. But to the foreman, she was as beautiful as the first day he'd laid eyes on her. “I'm counting on that, Gage.”