Dead Aim Page 6
“You’ve been busy.”
“Right. Now I can go hire me some gunnies and wipe that bunch out.”
“Not so fast. They can put you in jail for doing that.”
She made a sour face at him and shook her head. “You’re so straitlaced. I figured that you’d want to do it the right way.”
“I don’t want to be put in jail, either. Let’s see if they come back for you. We can defend your house and that is not a crime. If I can hold off Cheyenne and Sioux war parties, we can do the same with the Cates.”
She smiled. “I’m game. But before we get to be too serious I need to warn you about my failings. Him and I have been married three years and I have not been pregnant once. So I am not much of a prize for a wife. Now I’ve warned you.”
“If we come to that river, we will cross it.”
“Another thing . . . you are pretty flat honest about things. I like that.”
“Amen.”
“How many women have broke your heart?”
“A few.”
She made a face at him. “That ain’t a number.”
“Two. One was a widow with children. One was an Indian princess.”
“The widow?”
“She had children and decided she didn’t want to remarry. The princess was killed in a wagon attack a few weeks back.”
“I am sorry. That is so sad.”
“Well let’s unsaddle and see what happens.”
She came over and hugged him, then kissed his cheek. “Thanks for staying to help me. I sure hope your plan works.”
He stood still for a long moment, then nodded. He about lost it and kissed the fire out of her. But instead he kept it all inside. There would be time for that—later. He hoped.
They took turns sitting up on guard shifts that night in her house and no one came. He carried a rifle and cartridges anywhere he went doing chores. The next night they had a heavy rain at sundown and still no one came.
The day after that a neighbor woman came by in a buggy, asked how she was and said she was going to town and did she need anything. He remained out of sight until she left.
When she was gone, hands on her hips, Janet said, “That woman has affairs going on with them boys of his. Only reason she came by was to report I was here alone.”
“Good. Maybe they will try something.”
“I bet they do now.”
“How old are those boys?”
“Twenty on down. All of them. One of them younger ones was drunk and told Rory, in the saloon, that he should try that woman’s body. He said he told them he wasn’t interested. He was faithful. I believed in him.”
That night, awake, sitting on the dark living room floor on guard duty, Long heard a harsh whisper. “Shut up. I get her first.”
They were coming on foot from the west. He moved across the dark room to quietly open the window. Two were sneaking up in the ghostly starlight from, as Long figured, the west side. He took aim out the open window, shot both of them, and they crumpled to the ground. Quickly he ran for the front door and saw two more running madly north toward the road in the night’s inky light. He took another down with a quick shot, and his effort put spurs on the last one who managed to escape.
“Long? Long? Are you all right?” she cried, rushing outside with a pistol in her hand.
He caught and held her back from going to the downed raiders. “I am fine. Three are down. One got away.”
“What can we do now?”
“Sun comes up we will ride to town. Have the sheriff and justice of the peace come out here and decide.”
She hugged him in her nightgown. He lightly kissed her. When they stepped apart she nodded. “Anyone ever tell you that you are the meanest man in Texas?”
“No.”
“Well you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“When we get all through with all this I am going to prove to you I am the meanest woman in Texas—bar none.”
“And?”
She slapped him. “You know da—good and well what I mean.”
Working hard to control his amusement he said, “We will have to see about that.”
CHAPTER 5
Mid-morning, the two of them brought everyone back to her ranch. Justice of the Peace Adam Walker, Sheriff Alton Baker, two deputies, two undertakers, and about two dozen curious men and women on horseback and in buggies as witnesses accompanied them.
When they got back to her house she pointed out Orem Cates, seated on his stud horse, in the front yard. The two living brothers had drug their kinfolks’ bodies up to the yard gate.
Cates swung his horse around. “Sheriff, arrest that bitch and her lover for killing my boys.”
“I can’t do that, Orem. Those three were obviously trespassing on her ranch. I am sorry, but I may have to arrest you for aiding and abetting them on this raid. Orem, you can’t exceed the law. It is up to the JP to make sure it is kept. Men, arrest them.”
Orem went for his gun but Long beat him to the draw, and the old man’s last bullet struck at the feet of the JP’s horse. That spooked his horse backward, unseated Justice Walker, and, in the confusion, Cates’s other two boys went for their guns. But by then the deputies were armed and shot each of them twice and they fell out of their saddles.
The JP scrambled around after his hat, the wind scooting his out of reach. Someone caught his spooked horse for him.
His Honor brushed the dust off his suit coat, restored his hat, and said, “My decision is this was all in self-defense. Undertaker, take them all to town.”
“Why did Orem do this?” The sheriff had his hat off and looked shaken that his friend could do something like this.
“You just can’t tell, Sheriff.” Long shook his head at the man. “Cates was here telling her she should cast aside her husband, and be with him, and that’s what got her husband killed. Then they came here and tried to drug and kidnap her. I came here to protect her and did just that.”
“Who really in the hell are you anyway?”
“Long John O’Malley, a rancher and cattle drover out of Kerrville.”
“Didn’t I read somewhere about you delivering the first Texas cattle to Sedalia last year?”
“Yes. Me and my brother Harp did that.”
“Why Orem was a damn fool to even think about messing with you.”
Long put his arm around Janet’s shoulder, with her standing beside him like she belonged there, and he laughed. “I thought so, too, but he didn’t know who he was up against.”
“Sorry about Rory, too. Thank you, ma’am, for finding this man.” He and the others rode off. The funeral wagon was loaded and left.
The two of them did not wait until dark. The battle between the meanest woman and man competition went on for the rest of the day and long into the night in her feather bed. Next morning they set out to find a buyer for her ranch. They sold it two days later, all of her branded stock and the ranch for fifty thousand and that, with her bank money, they sent by Wells Fargo to his family banker Jim Yale in Kerrville.
They hired a cowboy to drive the loaded wagon with her things, including her feather bed, to the H Bar H in south Texas. They took three of her good horses, his outfit, Rose’s pony, and headed south.
He sent a wire saying they were coming and that they wanted to be married on Christmas day.
While there he bought himself a good canvas long tailcoat, ’cause his bride-to-be wasn’t about to give up the wool-lined one. Two days later going south it tried to snow on them, then it turned warmer. Along the way he had to tell her all he knew about his family and all the stories of moving from Arkansas to Texas, fighting Comanche, and branding mavericks.
The day before Christmas Eve, about dark, they drove up into his folks’ yard.
The stock dogs barked, someone fired a gun off, and the Injun warning bell rang loudly. Harp, his wife Katy with the baby Lee, Long, Janet, Hiram, and his mom all danced in the yard.
“You two are g
etting married Christmas day?” his mother asked after getting bits and parts of their plans.
“If we can?”
Harper clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, brother, I already have it arranged for that afternoon at three p.m.”
“That’s good. It will be before the baby is born anyway.”
Janet threw her head back and frowned at him. “That’s not so, you big clown.”
“Oh, that’s not right.” He tried to clean it up but everyone was laughing.
“Long, don’t pick on her. She might whip you.”
Jan laughed. “Damn right, Mom. I bet I can, too.”
“If there is any betting, gal, I am on your side.”
“Long, you taking that?” Harp asked.
“After what I have been through I have had it all happen to me.”
Mom herded them for the house. “Well, let’s all go inside and we can settle it in there. Janet, where did you get that lovely coat? It sure looks warm.”
“It really is. He bought it in Kansas from some famous trader named John Chisholm.”
“You met Long up there?”
“No, closer to Waco. It is long story but I kept the coat and him both.”
“Wait until I tell you, bro. We have way over fifty sections of our own ranch land south of here,” Harp said. “In one big wad, too.”
“Is that all?”
“Hell if I’d had some help I’d bought a hundred. What did the Rockies look like?”
“Damn tall hills.” He’d found it was sure good to be back home again.
Later while Janet took a bath, he and his mom talked alone in the kitchen.
“She’s some woman. But you know that don’t you, Long?”
“She is. They shot her husband about two months ago. Then they doped her and were going to take her to be their father’s slave. She got away, barged in my camp, and tried to shoot me for what they did, but she passed out.”
Her mother was chuckling. “Sounds like a war to me.”
“Mom, she cussed so bad when I met her it was a bad distraction.”
She frowned at him. “She’s sure got over it.”
“Oh, yes. She said damn the night we came here, but she was worried about the meeting with you is all.”
“Oh, I see. She’s a real woman. I think you two will make it fine.”
“She sold her ranch up there to come down here with me. She is a very rich woman. We put it all in the bank down here.”
“She spoke about roping cattle?”
“Yes, she can do that, and I believe she could outride me on a bronc.”
She hugged him. “I think she’ll be fine. Getting married Christmas day, huh?”
“Unless she decides to shy out.”
“No. No, she won’t do that. I saw how she fit under your arm, like me and your dad did when he took me to that first dance.”
“And married you, huh?”
“And me as pregnant as a cow.”
“Well, knowing that, I couldn’t resist my comment, last night, about her non-condition.”
“She has a good sense of humor. She doesn’t fly off the handle easy. That is a real attribute in a woman.”
“I agree, Mother Love.”
“Every one of us missed you. Was it worth it? Your side trip?”
“My reward for going was getting my bride Janet.”
“Then, Long O’Malley, you did very well.” She kissed him good night on the forehead.
They both laughed.
The next morning he and Harp talked about the “ranch.”
They went over the Texas bargain deal on the vast amount of ranch land they bought. His brother said he figured the carpetbaggers’ government needed money and discounted the so-called rangeland sales to cover their shortage.
“What else?”
“There are some small ranches inside the area, and I am trying to buy them out. Most, I bet, are thinking about it since the rangeland they use is now ours and not belonging to Texas.”
Long nodded he understood. He also saw how their ownership would cause some friction with landlocked property owners.
“How is the rest working?”
“Good. Of course we have things to settle. Everyone is gathering the mavericks, but we are getting our share of the ones that we can find. The next thing is for us to replace the longhorn bulls with British breeds that fatten easier and make better meat carcasses.”
“I’ve heard that all over.”
“The Indians are all upset up there?”
“Who wouldn’t be? The buffalo numbers are going down fast. Their way of life is being squeezed out. These are nomadic wanderers, and to be put on a reservation does not appeal to them. It is not how they have lived, and settling down and becoming farmers doesn’t suit these horseback-riding warriors.”
“They’ve pushed the Comanche back, but they are still out there and no doubt getting tougher by all the pressure on them. The army surprised a large camp of them and they fled, leaving lots of great horses. I took some men and we rounded up lots of the geldings, so we got most of the cream—the best of the lot.”
“It’s a big shame that in all this fighting they will lose those great strains of horses.”
Harp agreed. “But we’ll have a colorful remuda.”
“I understand you are the supervisor over at the Diamond Ranch, too?”
“With you included, too. That was the deal I made with the sisters. We share the supervision. I made Doug Pharr the foreman over there. Red helped him at first because he was better at Spanish, but Doug now runs the main ranch. I sent Chaw down to the CHX Ranch I bought from old man Erickson in trade for a small nice town house down on the river and a forty-dollar-a-month payment while he lives. Dad’s old friend Hoot runs another new place that we bought.”
The Erickson agreement story shocked Long so much that he made Harp start all over and tell him about the deal from the beginning. “Erickson had lots of land, didn’t he?”
“Ten sections. He wanted a simpler life. His age had really slowed him and the business part started confusing him. He has no family. I promised that we’d look after him the rest of his days.”
“That sounds fair. Then you bought the rest of the new land from the Texas government and that with the rest we own gives us a fifty-section ranch?”
“Yes. Takes in all we had before, but we have some landowners inside that ring. I am planning to try to buy them. Some have no real claim and only squatted on their places. Texas law makes no place for squatters on that land. If they didn’t file, then they can be moved by the law.”
“Who is handling that?”
“You want the job?”
“Hell, no. But if you need me to do that I will.”
Harp turned his palms up. “Some will accept a buyout. Others it may be a life and death situation for them. If they are old settlers let them stay out their life on the place. What can that hurt?”
“I agree. Do we have a list?”
“Yes. The tax collector has those deeded places circled on my map. A deputy clerk saw most of these places and counted livestock for tax purposes in the past year, so we have some names and places. Others we will have to find.”
“Who will help me?”
“Our accountant Reg Hoffman. He’s crippled, but he can do the paperwork for you here at the house. He is at his home now for the Christmas holiday. The real homesteads have a description as well as their location on the map. As I said, the rest we will have to scout out. Some of our ranch hands know where these places are, and they will tell either their foremen, or you, so you know where to find them.”
“That sounds good. I am taking a week or so honeymoon, and I am sure my wife will want to go along on this job. Maybe I can talk her out of it, but I doubt it. And I don’t always have your patience, but I promise to try to control it. We can talk about what value these places have if we must buy them.”
“I will ride with you anywhere you think you need me.”
“Long, thanks. Together we will iron out our problems.”
“Harp, I thought that first cattle drive was the end of our problems. I was wrong. It only started them all. I can say one thing between you and me. I really love her and feel she is the one I needed. At first I merely wanted to help a nice woman who had lost her husband—murdered by some bad men. But I fell in love with her and am very glad I found her.”
“Mom told me she suspected that, too. She is a real pretty woman.”
“A big pretty woman.” Long left it that way and headed for the house. Tomorrow he’d be married to her and they could live their life out as ranchers—he hoped.
Later in their bed upstairs they talked softly snuggled together.
“You sure that you don’t want off this train of ours?” she asked him.
“Yes, I am sure. I look forward to sharing my life with you, Jan.”
“You know I get bossy at times, but I will try to bite my tongue when I get upset.”
“We both need to be respectful of each other.”
She kissed him. “I’m learning lots about you. You talk a lot to me. Your mother said you held things inside. Whatever you do, don’t hold things back from me. I am a big girl and I am in this to support you and our life together.”
“I promise I will. I talked to Harp today. On all this land we bought, there are squatters who have no rights to be there. Others have homesteads and they own the land, but we can shut them off from the range around it, which is our land. We need to buy them out if we can. It will be touch and go.”
“And?”
“Well I told him I would take that job. It needs to be done.”
“You will ride out and talk to these people?”
“Yes.”
“They may shoot you?”
“I hope not. Will you help me?”
“Of course, but it won’t be easy, will it?”
“No. It could be dangerous. The listed land is marked on our map. I plan to do them first. The others are squatters and have no rights, but we intend to resettle them if they let us. Older settlers can live out their lives out there on their land if they wish to.”