Texas Blood Feud (4 page)

Reg held the paint while Chet stood on the saddle and tied the nooses on the limb. The three loops were at last in place so the condemned rustlers’ feet could not touch the ground when they dropped down. One by one, Chet and Reg placed the rustlers on their horses, which J.D. held by the bridles. The nooses were drawn up on their throats and the knots set beside their left ears for what Chet hoped would be a quick death by snapping their necks.

“You got anything to say?” he asked.

“I don’t want to die,” Reynolds wailed.

“Cut the crap and get it over,” Stevens said.

“I’ll see you in hell,” Hines said.

“May God save your souls,” Chet said, and waved J.D. away from the front of their horses.

“I’ll take these two. You bust that one,” he said to Reg. “Eeha!”

The three horses bolted away from under their riders. The ropes creaked. Two of their necks snapped like shots—Stevens gagged—dancing on his noose. His struggle was short-lived, but not before his bowels released and he fouled his pants.

“What now?” Reg asked, looking sick.

“Make camp—” Chet clapped the downcast J.D. on the shoulders. “It’s a tough world. Tough solution, but they’d only’ve laughed at us for letting them off. You going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, you’ll never be the same. But in time you’ll understand it better.”

Reg gave a hard sigh. “I kept thinking. Kept waiting. Hines, he never mentioned his wife Kathren or their daughter Cady.”

Chet agreed. “They must not have mattered to him.”

“Yeah, I guess they didn’t. What about their horses?”

“Horses’ll go home. Let them go.” Chet said, and started them back for their own mounts. “Daylight comes, we better gather our bunch and get back.”

“Yes, sir,” they said.

They’d never said that to him before. In disbelief, he blinked after them. Turning in the saddle, he looked back, and could see the three dark silhouettes swinging in the wind. Damn, what a day.

Four days of horse driving later, the weather had warmed. Chet was grateful. They were fast approaching the home place deep in the live-oak-and-cedar-clad hills. When they broke camp that morning, Chet told the boys that the less that they said about the ordeal, the better it would be for all of them. Word would filter down soon enough. The rustlers’ saddle horses would wander back.

Along the way, they’d even found Sam Bass and he was sound again. Chet considered himself lucky—he had recovered every horse that had been stolen. When the last one went through the gate into the north pasture, they
wahooed
and fired their pistols in the air. Then, on the fly, they headed for the headquarters.

“I want a hot bath,” J.D. said, running side by side with Chet. “What do you want?”

“A good drink or two of whiskey.” Then Chet laughed.

“What about you?” J.D. asked Reg on the other side, ducking his head so he didn’t lose his hat.

Tall in the saddle, Reg grinned and shouted, “Some of Susie’s cooking.”

“He thinks our cooking’s bad,” Chet said to J.D.

“Aw, hell, he’s too hard to please.”

Chet nodded, filled with excitement, drew his Colt, and fired two more shots.

“What’s that for?” Reg asked as they pounded across the bottom between the rail fences and green oat field.

“To let them know we’re coming in.”

“You bet,” Reg shouted, and went to whipping his horse for the final leg of the journey. It was a horse race, and Reg let go of the black’s lead rope so he could concentrate on the last burst. Shoulder to shoulder, the three charged for the ranch gate, urging their mounts on. Roan began to gain on them. When they sped through the wide opening, he won by a nose. Sliding their mounts up to the hitch rack on their hindquarters in a cloud of dust, they faced a porch full of anxious onlookers.

“Well. You must’ve got them back,” Susie said, standing with her arms folded on the porch.

“Every damn one of them,” J.D. said, and went to brushing himself off.

“Better watch your language, Ma’s here,” Reg said under his breath.

“Oh.” He slapped his hand over his mouth.

Chet saw her first. His Aunt Louise, the boys’ mother, came storming out of the house. “Chet Byrnes, have you lost your mind taking my boys after those rustlers?”

He slipped out of the saddle and turned to Reg. “You two go get the black and unload him.”

Louise stood with her buttoned-up shoes planted underneath the many layered lace petticoats. Her feet were set apart on the rock-floored porch. Her face was black in anger, her dark hair pulled back so tight her eyes looked like slits. Hands on her slender hips, his late uncle’s wife looked mad enough to bite the head off a diamondback. Mark Byrnes had never come back from the war. Died or killed in Mississippi near the end. She never forgave him for not coming home either.

“You may run this ranch, but you are not ever again to haul my boys off on a vigilante ride. I suppose you hung them?”

He looked at her mildly. “Yes, Louise, we hung them.”

In screaming fury, she came off the porch and tried to pound him with her fists. He caught her wrists. “Listen to me. Those men stole our horses. They stole our horses that will drive our cattle to Kansas. Stand still or I’ll break your arms. Listen to me.” He forced her down to her knees. “Those horses were yours, mine, your boys’ and this whole family’s livelihood. We hung those rustlers. They were people that lived around here. No one needs to know what we did—do you understand me? No one—”

She broke into sobs. “They’re only boys. Only boys.”

“No one on this ranch is to ever speak about it ever again, Louise. Do you understand?” He looked hard-eyed at the rest for their nods. Then he released her.

“I—I understand, but Chet, for God’s sake, they’re only boys.”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. They’re men.”

With Louise on her knees, crying in her hands, he went on inside the house. Susie scowled at him. “You know how she is. Why do that to her?”

“Because this may be the most serious thing ever happened to all of us. I don’t need her whining around about it all over. They’ll find out soon enough.”

“I was right about that paint horse then?” Susie’s hands flew to cover her mouth.

“Hell, yes. He wasn’t the only one in on it either.”

“Who else?”

“It doesn’t matter—no one is to talk about it ever again.” He threw his hat across the living room. “They stole our damn horses. That makes them no better than anyone else that steals horses.” He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. They had to understand him. This got out, it might be the worst thing that ever happened to the Byrnes clan. Rustlers or not, those thieves’ families might take up the sword of revenge.

Distraught, her face wet with tears, Louise ran by him sobbing. “They were just boys. Why did they have to do it?”

He started to reach for her, then at the last moment, dropped his hand and let her go on. “Susie, go tell her so she understands. They aren’t boys anymore. We all have to grow up in this harsh world. And how important her silence is.”

Without a word, Susie nodded and ran after her aunt, who’d disappeared back in the dining room. He shook his head and fetched his hat. He had to think for too many people. Hat on his head, he stormed out the front door and headed for the barn. He wasn’t ready to hear his demented father’s repeated lectures or his poor mother’s ranting.

He took a quick shower in the bathhouse. The water was icy cold, but it woke him some from the dullness that had invaded his brain. He put on clean underwear, a clean shirt, and canvas pants. He wished he could shave, but there was no heated water down there. The temperature had warmed the past few days, but he put on a jumper to cut the oncoming night’s cold.

In a short while, he saddled a fresh horse and rode out the front gate to escape. It was Wednesday night—her husband’d be in town playing cards. Close to sundown, he sat the bay gelding called Jack on the cedar-clad hillside and looked over the corrals and small rock house. The buckboard was gone. Good. Chet booted Jack out of the brush and down the hill.

Marla Porter came to the door and holding the facing, she rested her forehead on the hewed wood not looking at him. She was tall, willowy, in a wash-worn blue dress that flared over layers of slips. On the top of her head the prematurely gray-streaked dark hair was braided and put up. Her lips at last broke into a knowing grin as if she was pleased he’d come by. He could see the glint in her blue eyes from the late afternoon light, and then she turned away to stare at the facing again.

“I thought maybe you were mad at me,” she said, not looking at him.

He dismounted and hitched Jack at the rack. “I had some business to tend to.”

She looked mildly at him and shrugged. “Who am I to ask? I’m Jake Porter’s wife, huh?”

“I sure can’t help that.” He stopped at the stoop.

“Yes, you can,” she said, and rushed out to hug and kiss him. In her fury, she knocked off his hat and her hungry lips and tongue consumed his. He squeezed her hard against his chest and savored her mouth.

“Come inside,” she said, sweeping up his Stetson. She checked around warily and then steered him into the house.

“We better hurry,” she said, unbuttoning her dress.

“He due home?”

“I never can tell. Undress,” she said, impatient for him to move.

Twilight was long set and night had settled over the hill country when he checked the girth on his saddle and prepared to mount Jack and leave. She stood with her back against his horse and fussed with the silk kerchief tied around his neck. “Why do you come see me?”

“I guess ’cause we’re both lonely.”

“You could have a wife. Why, I know a dozen women would jump up if you asked them to marry you.”

He rubbed his palms on the front of his canvas pants. “No. I’ve got a ranch and family to run. Why don’t you leave Porter?”

“And do what? Become a dove? A thirty-year-old shady lady don’t make the big money. They work on hog ranches.”

“You could find another man and marry him.”

She slapped him hard on the butt. “And then I wouldn’t have you—part of the time.”

He swung his leg over the horse and checked Jack. “You need anything?”

She put her hand on his leg and walked beside the horse. “For you to come back to visit me.”

“I will.”

“Don’t stay away so long.”

He nodded in the growing darkness and rode off into the night. He made a wide circle using the stars and his knowledge of the land to guide him. He wanted to be sure that everyone was asleep when he got home. There’d be lots to do in the morning—finish the branding. Check fence, check cattle, and turn back strays that wandered on the ranch, break some two-year-olds—his list was as long as his arm.

A coyote called to the stars. Another answered as he crossed the ford on Bowles Creek. Jack stamped his hooves to splash the water; Chet stopped him mid-stream and let him take a drink. He should do something about Marla, but what? She never acted like she’d really leave Porter for him—it was more like their illicit affair was the excitement in her life and she wanted to leave it like that. Jack finished slurping, raised his head, and water drizzled from his muzzle. Chet booted him on.

It was that time. He needed to start lining up the ranchers who wanted their cattle driven north with his herd. Nothing ever ended in his life; it just led to more complications. Times he felt trapped in his own small world like an animal dumped in a deep pit.

When he rode in, the home place was dark, save for a light in the kitchen. His boots hit the ground and his sea legs bent at the knees. Gradually, he regained his strength and undid the latigos, stripping off the saddle and pads that released the sour smell of horse sweat. Saddle on the rack, he led Jack into the corral and pulled off the bridle. The big horse went ten feet and dropped on his knees to roll.

Chet stopped and watched him wallow on his itching back in the dust. Grunting, Jack rose and shook dirt like water in all directions.

“Louise understands,” Susie said in a soft voice.

He turned from holding the top rail and saw his sister’s silhouette in starlight. “You still up?”

“Yes.”

“Hell, girl, you ought to be in bed.”

“I couldn’t sleep. You know,” she said, taking a place beside him and looking at the dark forms of the horses roused from their slumber by Jack’s return to the pen. “All Louise really has are those two boys. I think she’s afraid they’ll grow up too fast and leave her.”

“Maybe I was wrong taking them, but they’ve got to know the truth. Life ain’t easy.”

She nodded. “They’re your men all right.”

“At times this job about drowns me and I want to go off and be someone’s drag rider.”

She shook her head in despair. “I agree. Mom and Dad are no better. You know how that drags on me. May tries to help, but she’s overwhelmed by the baby and little Rachel. And Louise lives in her own world.”

“I’ll hire you some help.”

“Can we afford it?”

He nodded. “You have anyone in mind?”

“Maybe a couple Mexican girls.”

“Hire them.”

“Louise will be upset.”

He looked over and blinked at her. “Why?”

“She said we don’t need any
putas
around here corrupting our men.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.”

“It’s been seven years, I know, she should be over mourning him. She’s not.”

He slapped the top rail with his palm. “It’s a crutch she beats us all over the head with. You hire them or I will.”

“I will. Thanks, Chet.”

“Get back up there to bed.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll sleep a few hours.”

“Good night.” Susie departed, holding her skirts, and left him in the starlight.

He went to his own room in the bunkhouse, thinking about Marla and wishing they were off somewhere in the Rocky Mountains by themselves. In bed, he imagined he could smell the pungent pines and feel her silky skin. The morning bell ringing rolled him out of the blankets. He splashed water on his face, brushed down his hair while looking in a fading mirror. Then he headed for the house in the cool air, knifing in his shirttail with his flat hand.

“Chet?” Reg caught up with him on the porch. “How long before they find out what happened?”

“A few days or a week. They may know already. We just don’t need to talk about it.”

“I savvy that. I wanted to go see Molly Ash this Saturday at the schoolhouse dance.”

“Should be no problem. Go with someone you trust and pack a gun even if it’s in your saddlebags.”

“I understand.”

The crew was coming into the kitchen after they washed up. Chet could smell ham cooking and fresh-baked sourdough bread. He went inside and nodded to his brother, already seated. Reg, J.D., and Heck piled in; then their father made his way in with a cane. The younger boys took their place and Susie asked Chet to give the prayer.

“Dear Lord, thank you for our many blessings and safe return. Thank you for this wonderful food. Guide and protect us, Lord. In your name, amen.”

May poured coffee all around and Susie served the platters of eggs and ham. Bowls of butter and plum jelly were out. A small crock of “lick” was on the table for sweetening and the hot bread.

Chet ate light—an egg and then a small piece of ham. He excused himself, then took his coffee and went back in the kitchen where Susie, May, and Louise were eating at a preparation table.

“You out of coffee?” May asked, ready to jump up.

He held out his hand to stop her, and went over to the large pot and refilled his own tin cup. Then he came back, put a boot on a chair, and blew on the steaming contents while looking at the three.

“We’re hiring two girls to help you ladies.”

“What for?” Louise demanded.

“We have two babies to look after.” He glanced around to insure privacy. “The folks are a handful enough for one person. We need two girls to help straighten the house, make meals—”

“You have some Mexican darling to move in on us?”

“Louise, you aren’t the only one here. I won’t pick them. I told Susie to. You can be civil to them. They won’t be slaves like you are used to. Now that’s settled.”