The O'Malleys of Texas Read online

  “Thanks. Welcome to New Ranch and your casa.”

  “It looks a damn sight better than the last ranchero we were on.”

  “It has running water in the house.”

  “And I hear a creaking windmill, too.” She gave him a smile. “As long as I do not have to carry water and the roof does not leak I will be pleased.”

  “When is the baby due?”

  She turned up her small palms. “Someday I guess—soon I hope.”

  “Come along. Katy is up at that big tent helping my cook.”

  “That is your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at him affronted. “Why does she work? You are a patron.”

  “When you meet her you will understand.”

  Bonita shrugged and matched his steps. Kate must have seen her and ran to hug her.

  “This is my wife, Katy. She is Bonita. Take care of her. I’m going to join Hoot and Long.”

  “I will.” She waved him away busy talking to the girl.

  He hurried to catch the other two headed toward the house.

  Hoot had stopped for him. “Thanks for introducing her. Long says wedding bells are coming Christmas.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “You met her in Arkansas?”

  “Yes, coming home.”

  “She expecting?”

  “Not yet.”

  Hoot gave him a big wide smile. “Get busy.”

  “I am.” They laughed.

  “When we get time I want the whole story about that trip. I knew that Captain Greg was not crazy, but when they said you two were in charge on that drive, it blew my mind. Then I said hell, no. Hiram O’Malley raised them boys for that job, and I went to placing bets you two could do it.”

  “I wouldn’t have bet on it until after they slid the last car shut.”

  “You had to worry about it until then, but not me. By damn, boys, you’ve got a spread here.”

  “We even branded three hundred and forty more head over at the corrals last Saturday for you.”

  “That makes over five hundred head?”

  “More than that, Hoot. There are a hundred and eighty pairs plus yearlings here now.”

  He took off his hat and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “I’ve got a helluva big job ain’t I?”

  “These cattle, here, have a B Slash F brand. We own it but in time we want the H Bar H on them all. No rush.”

  “Say, this is a nice house. You are going to spoil her for me. She’s used to sprinkling down dirt floors every day to keep the dust down.”

  Harp nodded. “I’ve seen women do it. Part of their ritual.”

  “How do you find all these pretty women?” Long asked Hoot.

  “Aw, they’re out there. I found this one down on the border. Her man, before I got her, sold her body for beer money. It was not hard to get her away from him. She lost two babies while his wife. She said he poisoned them.”

  “Tell him about Kate,” Long said.

  “Sold at fourteen as a wife to a grubby drunk that beat her. A guy rescued her and treated her better. Then he shot a bootlegger over some bad liquor and they were fixing to hang him.”

  Hoot nodded. “See, Long, you aren’t looking hard enough.”

  They both laughed at his expense.

  “Now what are your plans for the coming year?” Hoot asked.

  “Take two herds of two thousand steers to a railhead. Right now we are considering Abilene, Kansas.”

  “I’ve seen McCoy’s ads. I bet it would be better than Missouri.”

  Harp nodded. “Anything would be better than that route.”

  “Boys, you have a bull by the tail and you are sure swinging him ’round and ’round. How old are you?”

  “I’ll be nineteen in February and Long twenty next May.”

  “Wow. Did Greg know how old you were when he hired you?”

  “We never lied to him. We took charge. We fired his cook first, then he fired his drunk foreman and we demanded better horses and a lead steer.”

  “Old Blue, huh? Boys, there aren’t any boys your age that could have done that job. Grown men would have failed. God cut you two out of a stamp of a big man, Hiram O’Malley, to do that for Greg. I would have turned him down. Figured I’d get my head blown by some damn Yankee cannon for simply going up there.”

  “Thanks,” Long said. “But we don’t need any glory. We did a job and we have another to do. Build us a big ranch while this cattle business goes for broke.”

  “No. I see it continuing. Who wants to eat stringy chickens and fat pork when they can have beef? They will get addicted to it while they grow more chickens and hogs.”

  “I never thought about it that deeply,” Harp said.

  “They damn sure will.”

  Long laughed. “The O’Malley brothers of Texas want to feed it to them.”

  Hoot saw Bonita and another gal headed their way.

  “Ah, this must be your lovely wife—Kathy, Kate?” He swung off his hat and crossed the room to kiss her forehead. “You are an angel to put up with that boy.”

  “Kate. You must be Hoot. Nice to meet you. And don’t underestimate those men, they are the most envied men in Texas today.”

  “They cut the real track didn’t they?”

  “Hoot, Texas has not seen it all yet.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Bonita, now you have a house. What do you say?”

  She sniffed and began crying. “I love it.”

  Katy said, “You men. Out. I am going to heat water. Bonita wants a bath before her baby comes.”

  “Coming today?”

  “I think so.”

  Before leaving, the men fired up the kitchen range and brought in three pails of water. Then they left. When the dinner triangle rang, Katy came out. “She is soaking and fine. Harp, send us two plates of food on trays. We will eat here.”

  “I can do that.”

  Hand on her hips she said, “Have a boy do it. You’re the boss now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The long wait for Bonita’s delivery had begun. After supper, the men set up Hoot and Bonita’s new double bed that they had brought in the living room.

  Hoot said, “She won’t know how to sleep in it. She’s always slept on a pallet on the floor. I bought that bed and mattress special for her in town.”

  Everyone laughed. They only made one Hoot Crane. The baby’s cries didn’t come until dawn the next day. Salvador Crane was that boy’s name. Harp went off to bed once he saw him and slept till supper when Kate awoke him.

  He had that same experience to look forward to.

  Someday.

  CHAPTER 16

  They would have two weeks before his wedding to build corrals and get things ready. Harp felt there was no way they’d get it all done in time for roundup, but he didn’t know how many helpers Long hired. The smell of fresh-cut cedar posts and rails filled his nose, and he never saw the fervor in men building the huge pen just west of the New Ranch headquarters.

  Post contractors had hauled in a thousand posts and the slit rails. Then they went to work digging, blasting in places that needed the three-foot depth down into the rocks. The chutes arrived and were being assembled on site. The loading chute behind the squeeze was built in a V shape to allow the longhorns entrance down into it. Harp saw they built it stoutly.

  Two men from the blacksmith shop came and did some cutting and fitting. When they finished, the new chutes worked well and Harp thanked them. With a bill for three hundred dollars in his hand, someone elbowed him.

  “I think trouble just rode in.”

  Six hardcase-looking riders came in the gate opening. Coming across the pen, the tough look on their faces showed they came with a purpose to their visit.

  Suddenly, every worker on Harp’s payroll vanished.

  “Howdy. Can I help you? My name is Harper O’Malley.”

  “We know who you are. We’re here on business, kid.”

  “First, I
am not a kid. I own this land and you are on it. There are several children and women here, including my wife, so clean up your language or leave. Now what do you want?”

  “I want this corral burned down and your ass out of here by sundown. We know what you did over at the other corral, and you aren’t doing it over here.”

  “You six boys came here to tell me to leave my own property?” Harp asked.

  “Go now or go feet first.”

  “Rest of you agree with him?”

  Straight-backed in the saddle, hands on their gun butts, they nodded.

  “What was your name? I never heard it?”

  “Jack Mills.”

  “You, the tall one. What’s your name?”

  “Jasper Graham.”

  Harp pulled out his tally book and scribbled down the names.

  “Red?”

  “Rufus Lemons.”

  “Next guy?”

  “Navel Thomas.”

  “Cody Brandon.”

  “Next?”

  “Screw you.”

  Harp frowned at the man. “Your mother call you that?”

  “Those names won’t do you no good when you are on your ass full of bullet holes.”

  “Jack Mills. How many parties like this you had?”

  “A dozen. Maybe more.”

  “Well.” Harp paused. “This may be thirteen then?”

  “Listen—”

  “No, Mills, you listen to me. You and your men, with two fingers drop your guns in the dust or this will be the most unluckiest party you have ever attended.”

  As Harp said it, a dozen Winchester actions clacked.

  The six went for their guns and twelve rifles cracked. Harp had to jump away or get run over by some of their spooked horses. Short screams as the invaders went down like cut stalks. Through the gun smoke five horses raced around the large pen, rider-less. Then there was silence.

  One wounded horse had to be destroyed. Three mortally wounded raiders were put out of their misery by bullets. Harp saw Kate coming, holstered his gun, and ran to cut her off.

  Short of the corral he caught her. “They are dead. It’s all over.”

  She clung to him and cried. “You are all right? Thank God. Who hired them?”

  “They never said. Told me I had to burn the corral and leave or die. Word will get out.”

  “The bodies?”

  “Like the Comanche. We will burn them.”

  “Will it ever stop?”

  “Yes. Eventually they will learn not to mess with us.”

  “Did you know any of them?”

  “No. But money buys their kind.”

  “Katy?” Long was there. “I am so sorry, but those men would have killed us. We had no choice.”

  Squeezing her wet eyes, she pulled Long down and kissed his cheek. “I will thank God that both of you are safe.”

  The hired guns were stripped to their underwear, their spoils divided and carried off. Saddles taken to the tack room and the horses were driven away to wander home or join a wild band. Some land was cleared, and cedar boughs had been piled into a mountain and the bodies tossed atop them and burned.

  Supper was a silent meal. Even in bed later, Harper could not sleep for a long time. He heard the new baby cry over at the New Ranch house, and a coyote answered him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Christmas moved closer. The corral was done. Harp gave the men their pay and a week off. Mexican people really celebrated the holiday. Half the oats sowed and harrowed in and another quarter of the land plowed. Hiram, the farmer, drove over and approved it. He told Harp to have them plow the other field to plant corn in March before he left for Kansas. He agreed to do it.

  “Brother. You’re going on your honeymoon, and while you are gone I am going to break your record on working cattle,” Long said.

  “You have two new chutes,” said Harp.

  “That will make it easier to break it.”

  Amused by Long’s challenge, Harp threw in, “Just so you keep an eye out for Comanche. They may try you again.”

  With Hoot in charge of the ranch, and a few hands to back him, they rode for Camp Verde and the big party planned. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve two boys arrived with the buckskins and shiny buckboard. They went to the door of the house and one stepped forward and asked for Kathy O’Malley.

  “I’ m Katy.”

  “That must be who he meant.” The boy almost stammered. “Your horses and carriage await you.”

  She ran to the door and then held her hands over her heart, staring at the team. “You say those are mine?”

  “You are Mrs. Harper O’Malley?”

  “I am, I am. No one ever bought me anything that fine. Oh, wait until I get my hands on him, I’ll kill him.”

  The boy said, “Oh, ma’am, don’t do that. This is one helluva gift and only a millionaire could afford them.”

  She was running, dress in hand, for the yard gate. “That is why I am going to kill him. I am not worth that much money.”

  Harp jumped up from hiding behind the gate and hugged her. “Let me be the judge of that.”

  So she couldn’t talk him down, he kissed the fire out of her.

  After they were done she jumped into the buckboard and drove the team around, hardly able to keep from crying. Neither ate a thing for supper and she cried herself to sleep. When she woke, Harp flat out asked her if marrying him was that bad they shouldn’t get married.

  Shaking her head, she explained, “You don’t understand. I am pregnant and I am happy now we have conceived.

  He hugged and rocked her. “I am sorry for what you went through till you found me, but all that is over now. When will it be here?”

  “When you are in Kansas, next summer. Your mother said I will stay with them and have him there and so I will be safe, while worrying about you being safe.”

  “You sure it will be a him?”

  “Trust me I know what I am doing.”

  Trust her or not, he knew that no one knew the sex of a baby before it arrived.

  CHAPTER 18

  They spent their honeymoon in downtown San Antonio, seeing the Alamo ruins across from the hotel every day. They went to fiestas and Mexican markets, art shows and fandangos. He found her two nice dresses to grow into. They looked at furniture for the house to be built. She said God knew where that would be, and he was keeping it a secret.

  Harp met two interesting men. One was a northern investor who wanted to promote the O’Malley brothers’ next cattle drive when he learned about their Missouri sojourn the past year. James McVeigh didn’t know anything about bovines except the front end had horns and the back end possessed a tail. Harp decided he must have had lots of money, since he threw two lavish parties in the five days they were in town. McVeigh could not believe that Harper did not drink and he rather openly flirted with Kate.

  She wasn’t, in any way, moved by him, and she told Harper she would bet he never ate peaches with a girl on a creek bank and then seduced her. They both laughed about it.

  The second man he met was Arthur Shea, a land agent. He had a drink or two with him. Actually Harp had tea and the agent had hard Kentucky whiskey. Collins had some large tracts of land in west Texas listed that Harp would’ve loved to have, but they were way too pricey to even consider.

  In their last meeting, Collins asked if he found a buyer, what would be considered a fair price to pay for a big ranch manager job.

  “More than anyone would ever pay me. Fifty thousand a year.”

  “Oh, you would be way too high.”

  “My dad said there were two kinds of oats in the world. Ones before the horse ate, and the ones after he ate them. Those after he ate them are cheaper.”

  “Oh, I never heard that one before, but you struck the nail on the head, me boy, and can I use it?”

  “Of course. I have no claim on it.”

  “You are nearly nineteen years old, and in the coming year you say you will earn that much money in this
pathetic economy?”

  “Maybe more.”

  “My heavens. How much do you charge to show people what you do?”

  “Arthur. You need to be born in a Texas saddle, understand longhorn thinking, and be able to swim across an ice-cold river a half-mile wide. Also stop stampedes of two thousand cattle running wide open in the dark and shoot any sum bitch that gets in your way.”

  “I decline the offer. I am not that tough.”

  They shook hands and parted friends.

  Later his bride laughed at his stories. “You tell full-grown men these stories don’t you?”

  “They couldn’t do those things like drive cattle to market if their life depended on it. That is very unique.”

  “Unique?”

  “Different or a strange way. Also means specialized to someone how they make it work.”

  “You will face the test when we go home. Will people trust you?”

  “Long and I have a track record.”

  “But now the road is to Kansas.”

  “It can’t be that bad. I am talking about holding them together.”

  “You had eight hundred. Now two thousand in each herd?”

  “We will deliver them. Oh, why are we talking anyway?” He wrestled her down on the bed. “We can’t hurt the baby can we?”

  “No, not unless we get violent. Your mom told me to have fun. She did to the last day. She even said you were conceived in less than twenty-four hours of Long’s birth.”

  “And she never had another.”

  “No one can explain that, either. She wanted a daughter.”

  He laughed. “You want a boy.”

  “That is what he is.” She patted her belly.

  How did he get so lucky to find her on the last day she aimed to be around there—him showing up and accepting the peach challenge?

  They drove back in a drizzle. It fell on his oats in good measure.

  CHAPTER 19

  They celebrated the New Year’s coming in at his folk’s house. Long had not been back from the Underground Ranch. He must be really working cattle hard. A state policeman came by earlier and asked if his father knew anything about a Jack Mills who had disappeared in that part of Texas. State Police were the carpetbagger’s answer to the rangers. His father wouldn’t have told them a damn thing if he even knew Jack Mills was dead.