A Good Day To Kill Read online

  Hampt and Tom continued to talk to him about their operations. Hampt had planted forty new acres of alfalfa with barley for a nurse crop.

  The big guy talked about the seeding process like it was his baby. For a tough cowboy, he talked about the field like it was the child in his wife, May’s, belly. “I’ve been watching it emerge, like hatching chickens coming out of the shell.”

  “Well, we’re with you,” Chet said, to be as serious as his man. “A good stand would sure be great.”

  Hampt agreed. “Tom plants things and they all come up. But me and the boys sure want this to work, too. The hay ground fencing is about done. Tom can start fencing down there. John and them boys at our blacksmith shop have become experts at making our own barbwire.”

  “They sure have,” Tom said. “Hampt said he hasn’t had a head of stock get in his hay field.”

  “It sure must work,” Chet agreed.

  His foreman, Tom, had bought twenty Hereford bulls at Hayden Ferry and they were going to be delivered in thirty days. They decided to ship them by freight wagons to Preskitt. He didn’t want them gimpy on their feet when they got up there.

  “Reg will sure need some bulls up on the Rim,” he reminded the two of them.

  Tom nodded. “They’re tough to find and expensive. We’d sure need to freight them up there, too. But I have feelers out all over.”

  “I don’t want Reg to think he’s our stepchild.” He looked at them with concern.

  Both men nodded.

  “I guess finding enough draft horses and bulls is my toughest job,” Tom said with a small smile.

  “We have the horses, right?”

  “Not too many, but we’re almost there. I wouldn’t pass up buying a few more teams, if they were good.”

  “Is Rose bringing more from California?”

  “He says when he gets enough together he’ll be back.” Rose was the dealer who brought them horses from California to Arizona. A dependable source, but even he had problems gathering enough to make a drive that long worthwhile.

  Chet understood. In the years ahead, upgrading his cowherds would be an uphill fight. He might need to save some selected half-breed bulls to supplement his program until they could get more Herefords. His plan was to talk it over with all three of his ranch managers before he tried that.

  They finally excused him and Marge to go to bed. He thanked them all and climbed the steps. It had been a long trip, and they fell asleep in each other arms. In the middle of the night, the cry of a baby woke him. He bolted upright in bed and tried to clear his mind.

  “What’s wrong?” Marge asked, waking up herself.

  “Oh, I must have been dreaming. I kept hearing a baby crying.”

  “Not here yet.” She laughed, amused. “Ours is still under cover.”

  He shook his head. “Good.”

  They went back to sleep.

  A boy delivered a telegram the next day.

  JESUS IS RETURNING TO PRESKITT TO BE WITH YOU. WE ALL VOTED FOR THIS TO BE SURE YOU HAD AT LEAST ONE OF US WITH YOU. ROAMER.

  “What is it?” his wife asked.

  “My men voted to send Jesus up here to be with me.”

  “We talked about that before we left. You told us and them that you’d be house bound for a while.” She snickered. “Those men of yours didn’t believe that, did they?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Your men care about you. Having Jesus here will be a good thing.”

  “I suppose.” He peered out a nearby window. “Looks like rain. That should make Momma Hampt happy.”

  “He’s mothering that new alfalfa, isn’t he?”

  “He’s set on it making a stand.”

  “I can’t imagine, in the length of time we’ve been home, how no one has come by needing your help.”

  “I guess they don’t know I’m home.”

  “Probably—that’s saved you.” She kissed the side of his face. “I wasn’t egging them on, either.”

  Later on, his Preskitt Valley Ranch foreman, Raphael, stopped by for a visit. The Preskitt Valley Ranch was his wife’s home place that her father recently signed over to them. Raphael was an older Mexican and his hands were all vaqueros and top men. Some were married, but he’d seen them in action when a hired gun tried to assassinate him at the house. They spread out from the ranch and treed the gang within twelve hours.

  When he told Raphael that Tom had found five purebred Hereford bulls to replace some of the older ones, he was very pleased. The man was also proud to be the foreman on the home ranch and took his job seriously.

  “I wish I’d been there when he shot you,” Raphael said.

  “It all happened so fast. I was shot and he was, too. He never got away.”

  “I just hated it when I heard.”

  “Just a small incident in my life. If I buy a ranch in southern Arizona, I may need you to move some women and children off of it. They were abandoned down there by their men. If we didn’t feed them, they’d starve. Jesus thinks they’re backwards Indians.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t have control of it yet,” said Chet.

  “You ever need me, you send word and I will be glad to come help you.”

  “I’ll do that. I’ll send you word how to find me.”

  “I am so glad you are getting over that wound. We all prayed for you. We are all one family here.”

  “Amen. Tell everyone I will be up and running in a short while.”

  “Don’t rush it.” Raphael rose and shook his hand. He replaced his wide-brimmed sombrero and adjusted the chin string. “Vaya con Dios, mi amigo.”

  When Chet walked him out on the porch, he studied the blue sky and moving clouds, grateful he’d come back to the mountains and the cooler environment. His brain had cleared more and more. There were things that happened from the shooting incident that he’d never recover from, but he didn’t need them, either.

  A boy brought him a telegram later on. It was from his lawyer in Tucson.

  THERE WILL BE A GRAND JURY CALLED TO LOOK AT THE LAND CLAIMED BY BUSTER AND WHO IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THAT FILED THE FICTITIOUS LAND PAPERS IN THE PIMA COUNTY BOOKS. WE CAN’T PROVE HE WAS THE PARTY INVOLVED UNLESS THE GRAND JURY FINDS SOMETHING. BUT I AM SURE THE JUDGE WILL ORDER HIM AND HIS OPERATION OFF YOUR RANCH. THIS WOULD EXPOSE HIM TO CIVIL ACTION THAT CAN BE TAKEN BY YOU. I WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED. RUSSELL CRAFT, ATTORNEY AT LAW

  “What did you get?” Marge asked.

  “My lawyer says they’re forming a grand jury to find out who filed that original deed. It was a false one.”

  “He suspected they would do that, didn’t he, when we were there?” she asked.

  “Yes. Now authorities are trying to trace it.”

  “Did this Buster figure, since the landowner was in California, that he could get by with doing that?”

  “I think so. But proving who did it will be much harder.”

  He kissed her and then looked down at her belly. “We any closer?”

  “Hey, this in numero one for me. I’m ready for it to get here.”

  He hugged her, large belly and all.

  “I have no idea how this will work. Aside from May, none of us has any experience at this. She’s been delightful to explain things to me. I think I’ll be the first to give birth and she has a midwife who can deliver it. Besides that, she will also be here to get me through the whole thing. Doc Norman said it looked positioned well to him. He said if there was any problems, he’d come out.”

  “I need to go see Tanner tomorrow. I’ll have Raphael send two vaqueros along. Or should I wait till Jesus arrives?”

  “Either way will work. You decide.”

  “I’ll do that. Have you needed to dip into any of that government cattle money we’ve been getting to use for payroll?”

  “Not yet. I told Susie and Tom that one day we’d need to transfer some of it to the real ranch account. So far, we haven’t used any from the Navajo operation.”
<
br />   “What were they making money on? What’s paying us?”

  “The mill lumber haul has really been busy this year. Tom sold some cull cows down at Fort McDonald and they cashed that contract in thirty days. We did combine that with the ranch funds.”

  “Fine. Maybe I need him to collect up at Gallup.”

  She shook her head. “They were on a different pay cycle. I’ll tell Raphael to have two men ride with you in the morning.”

  “Fine.”

  In a short while, they went to bed. He fell into an easy sleep, then woke up sharply. What was wrong? He slid his Colt out of the holster and it filled his fist. Then, barefooted, with the silver starlight shining through the window, he carefully walked across the smooth polished hardwood floors to check on what had awoken him. Sounded to him like someone running across the porch.

  Then he heard more fast boot heels running across the porch for the east side.

  “Alto, hombre.” The command came from one of his vaqueros outside.

  Then gunshots, more gunshots, and a few horses ran off in the night.

  “Saddle and ride. I want those bastardos,” A guard’s voice rang out.

  “You alright, Chet?” Marge, wrapped in a housecoat, asked from the top of the stairs.

  “Go back to bed. I’m fine. You, too, Monica. Our night guards stopped them.”

  “Good. Who were they?”

  “I have no idea.” He opened the front door for the concerned foreman.

  “You all are fine?” his man asked.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “I have sent three men to go get those hombres who were here. One of the night guards came; they woke me and said there were some riders here.”

  “Need me?”

  “No, go back to sleep. By daylight, they will no longer breathe.”

  No trouble for him. He understood the man’s Mexican justice. Ahead of him, he herded his women down the hallway.

  “Who hired these men, do you think?” Marge asked.

  “No idea, but I suspect some of the southern powers. We’ll see.” He guided her back inside their bedroom and they tried to sleep some more.

  On his back, staring at the shadowy ceiling, he wondered who wanted his hide this time. Too many enemies, that was all he could think about as he laid uncomfortably on the sheet. He had to recover faster. He’d known that regaining his strength would be a slow process, but he didn’t think it would be this endless.

  Turned over on his side, he finally found some shut-eye, but it didn’t answer his own question—about when he’d be completely himself again.

  CHAPTER 4

  He shaved and went down to breakfast. Monica had coffee made like she expected him. She busied herself at the dry sink, slicing bacon. “You real hungry?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll sure be glad when you get your appetite back.”

  “Maybe when the baby comes, we’ll all be better.”

  “You worried about that?”

  “I don’t need to lose her.”

  “You won’t lose her. Childbirth is natural, maybe some strain and pain, but women do it every day.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Men can’t get involved. Can’t do anything but wring their hands and fret, so get ready.”

  He laughed at her explanation. The coffee cup in both hands, his elbows on the table, he turned when someone came onto the back porch.

  “Raphael,” she said to settle him.

  Sombrero in his hands, he came in the kitchen. “Señor, those men said an hombre named Larry Masters hired them. They were from Sonora and he paid them two-fifty to ride up here to kill you, and the rest he promised to pay them when they could prove you were dead.” Then he solemnly shook his head. “They won’t ride home.”

  “How much money did they have on them?”

  “Close to two hundred.”

  “Split it among your men, sell their horses, guns, and saddles. Do it quietly.”

  “That is generous, señor.”

  “No, that is how I do my men.”

  “Do you know the man who hired them?”

  “He’s a man who manages a ranch that squatted on my new ranch down below.”

  “If you would like him shot . . .” Raphael dropped his hat lower in front of his body, waiting for his answer.

  “Thanks, I would rather confront him myself.”

  “I savvy.”

  Chet thanked the man and walked him to the door. Then he shook his hand. “You and your men are a great part of my Force. I can always sleep when I’m away, because you’re prepared for any trouble.”

  A few days later, the Miner newspaper reported:

  Three unknown men of Mexican origin were found earlier this week hung by the neck east of Prescott Valley. According to County Sheriff Simms, the lynching is under investigation and his office is holding an ongoing investigation of their murders. No notes were left on the scene, so whether these men had appropriated another’s horses is unknown. If you have any information please give it to the sheriff’s office personnel at the Yavapai County Courthouse.

  Chet thumped on the page with his thumb. “If I had Masters’s mailing address, I’d send it to him and tell him he’s next.”

  “Maybe your lawyer could find it?” Marge asked.

  Monica laughed. “I bet if Masters got it, he’d get over being constipated.”

  He agreed with both women.

  Two nights after the incident, Jesus arrived. He sent a wire from Hayden Mills saying when he’d arrive, and Jimenez was there to meet him at the stage depot and brought him out to the ranch. Looking a little tired, but smiling from ear to ear, he joined them for breakfast the next morning.

  “Good to see you, ladies. You, too, boss man. Jimenez told me they tried to kill you a few nights ago.”

  “They raided the place, but didn’t get by Raphael’s guards. His men ran them down, quizzed them, and then hung them, but that last part is secret. I won’t tell my Force down there, but the outlaws said it was Buster’s ranch manager, Masters, that hired them. I don’t want JD or Roamer going over there and wringing his neck.”

  “You met that hombre. I never did. I was feeding the women that trip.”

  “They’re still eating?”

  “Oh, yes. But like you said, they need to go back to Mexico.”

  “The land claim is a false one. So we’ll be getting that ranch.”

  “JD will be happy.”

  “Maybe. Lots to do down there at Diablo, as JD calls it.”

  “I know. How is everything up here?”

  “Good. Hitch a buckboard. I’m going to town.”

  “The poor man just got here,” Marge protested.

  “No, señora. I am so glad to be back riding with him again, I will have no problem.”

  “Finish your breakfast.”

  Marge looked with a frown at her husband.

  After they climbed the tall hill, and the horses went stiff legged down into the main business district and the courthouse, they found Preskitt bustling. Thumb Butte still stuck up in the west and he felt good to be back. The girls at the café hugged him. Jenn came out drying her hands to tell him Dodge had sent her a nice note to say he’d been delayed, and hoped he’d be able to visit them at a later date. Chet made a mental note to tell Marge. She’d be disappointed.

  “What’s the matter with the Tucson paper, writing that slanted story—Israel Clanton, a ranch manager, my backside?” Bonnie, JD’s wife, looked upset. “He was worthless as everything back when the two of us were down there.”

  “Hey, they haven’t got anything better to write is all I can say.” He hugged her. “Blevins warned me the idle rich were mad we didn’t let them in on it, and we have no plans to do that.”

  Cole’s wife, Valerie, added, “That bunch’re always trying to run things. Jenn said you got chewed out by Sheriff Behan for not informing his mother about his death.”

  Chet nodded at her. “You can t
ell who his friends are.”

  They all laughed. After a cup of coffee they went to his land agent Bo’s real estate office.

  Bo had a desk piled high in paper. “See what sobering me up has cost?”

  “No rush, but the lawyer in Tucson says the land filing is phony. As soon as he gets that cleared, I want to buy that ranch.”

  “No problem. And I bought four homesteads that are patented land up near the Windmill. They have houses on them, but you know what they must be. All have water and one has alfalfa acreage. They ranged from five hundred to six hundred fifty dollars apiece. Two more pending deals.”

  “Buy them. Even when the cattle drives are over, we can ranch up there. I want maps for Sarge to go look at them. He and Susie will be excited.”

  “There are some places up by Reg, too, that I can buy.”

  “Buy them. Get me a list and maps. They’ll tell me how good we did.”

  “Your people from Oak Creek Canyon, Leroy and Betty, brought me a flat of ripe strawberries yesterday—not a box, but a flat. Said they loved it up there and I was the reason you bought it. They’re going to take some to Marge today.”

  “They’re good people.”

  “He still can’t get over you and Cole and Jesus rescuing him up there in Utah.”

  “Part of our business. You spent any more of our money?”

  “That’s it for now. But I can’t resist homesteaders with clean deeds wanting to move on from places that are near one of yours.”

  “That’s fine. Jesus and I need to see my banker next.”

  Bo looked him over hard. “I’m damn glad you’re still alive.”

  Chet found Andrew Tanner busy and they took a seat. Someone went and whispered in his banker’s ear and the tall man came to the door. “I’ll be right with you. Good to see you.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

  Tanner nodded and went back to complete his business. Chet sat back down. “You understand banking?” he asked Jesus.

  Jesus shook his head.

  “How well can you read English?”

  “Some.”