Blood Valley (14 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: Blood Valley
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“Well, sure,” I said. “That'd be real be nice.”
In the barn, I could hear Pronto kickin' the slats out of his stall. The cowboy come out of the barn at a dead run, cussin' and hollerin'.
Rolf looked at me. “Pronto sets his own rules, Cotton.”
“Yes, sir. I sorta already figured that out.”
 
 
My stomach drawed up some when Pepper said she was gonna do the supper cookin'. I thought at first that was the reason her brother, Jeff, was out with a gatherin' and brandin' crew. But Martha said he'd be back in time for supper.
I didn't have much time to ruminate on it much. Big Mike Romain come ridin' up just about that time.
His face darkened with anger when he spotted me sittin' in the porch swing, Pepper close beside me . . . real close beside me. When she sat down beside me, the temperature on that porch went up about ten degrees. And it wasn't just her neither.
I had been told by Rolf that A.J. had done the same as Matt . . . givin' Mike ten percent of his spread for his loyalty; so both men had more than a passin' interest in what happened in the valley.
I greeted Big Mike cheerful-like, and by doin' that, forced him to be civil to me. He done so, but man, he looked like he'd rather bite the head off of a live rattler than speak polite to the likes of me.
In a way, I could understand how come it was he hated me. He'd been courtin' Pepper for no tellin' how long, and gettin' nowheres, and here I come in, and we was cozy in no time.
“What brings you out this way,
Mister
Romain?” Pepper asked, stickin' the needle to him. Hell, she knew perfectly well why he was here.
I'll give Mike credit for courage. He looked at Rolf and said, “I would like to speak to you, Mister Baker.”
“Now?”
“Yes, sir. And in private.”
“Is something wrong, Mike?”
“No, sir. I would like to speak to you on matters concerning affairs of the heart.”
Pepper, she hissed like a snake when he said that. Lookin' at her, her eyes narrowed down and her face turned pale. I could feel the tension buildin' deep inside her, pushin' aside the steam that had already built up.
Rolf stood up. “Very well, Mike. If you think it's necessary.”
“I certainly don't think it is!” Pepper said, considerable heat in her voice.
“Now, Pepper,” Big Mike tried to soorthe her. “You know you need a strong hand to steady you at times.”
“I sure as hell don't need yours!”
“Pepper!” Her mother said. “Please remember that you're a lady.”
“She's got her a strong hand,” I said. “And it belongs to me.”
“Oh, Cotton!” Pepper put her arms around my neck.
Rolf looked amused at the whole thing.
Mike was just plain mad.
“Now, you see here!” Mike raised his voice at me.
Me? Hell, I just opened my mouth and jumped right in. “And furthermore, Miss Pepper is spoke for—by me! I come out here to ask for her hand in marriage.”
“Yes!” Pepper hollered, and I spilled coffee all down my britches-leg.
Damn stuff burned, too.
“Well, bless Pat!” Rolf said.
Martha pulled out a little hanky from somewheres and started blubberin'.
Mike, he glared at me. And I knew at that instant I had made me a powerful, hateful, and deadly enemy. Mike cut his eyes to Pepper. She was practically up in my lap and I was gettin' plumb flustered about the whole thing.
When Mike spoke his voice was charged with emotion. “I thought, Pepper, that you and I had reached an understanding.”
“I never thought that at all,” Pepper told him. “I have told you that while we might be friends, that was as far as it was going . . . ever!”
Mike's face was mottled with anger and hate. “I see. Well, it looks as though I have been laboring under a false impression. Quite a long ride for nothing, I suppose.”
“Not for nothing, Mike,” Martha had stopped blubbering. “Everyone now knows where the other stands, right?”
“Yes.” Mike struggled to contain his anger. “Yes, of course. And that is always good . . . I suppose.”
“Why don't you stay for dinner, Mike?” Rolf asked, the gentleman in him coming to the fore.
“Well . . . ?” Mike tried a smile.
“Yes,” Pepper said sweetly ....very sweetly, and I braced myself for whatever. “I'm preparing supper . . . fried chicken.”
Mike lost his smile. From the look on his face, he'd attempted to gnaw on her bird before, and love or lust or whatever on his part, damned if he was gonna try any more of it. “Oh, well, in that case . . .” Then he caught himself. “I'd better get started back if I'm to make the ranch before dark.”
“Yes,” Pepper agreed, “I think perhaps that would be best.”
“You be careful, Mike,” I told him. “My horse was shot out from under me a couple hours ago. There's a back-shooter out there.”
He gave me a sharp look. “I suppose a man in your position would tend to make a lot of enemies, Sheriff.”
“That might be true. Oh, something else. I had me a nice long talk with Matt Mills this mornin'. He sure is a nice feller—we reached an understandin' about things.”
That shook Mike. He took a step forward, putting one boot up on the steps. “That's . . . very interesting, Sheriff. What did you two find to talk about?”
“Official business,” I said mysteriously, and wouldn't say no more.
He stared at me. Hell with him. Let him stew awhile. Do him good. If I could work up a little suspicion between the Rockinghorse and the Circle L, that'd be fine with me.
“Ladies, Rolf, I'll take my leave now.” He spoke around his hate and anger.
Him not speakin' to me didn't hurt my feelin's none a bit. But I wanted to needle him just a tad more.
“Oh, Mike!” The big man turned around. “Do me a favor, huh?”
“What is it?”
“Tell Haufman the next time I see him, I'm gonna run him out of the valley, or kill him. The choice is his to make. I thank you in advance.”
“Why would I see Haufman? He doesn't ride for us. We picked names out of a hat and he . . .”
He shut his mouth, realizin' too late that he'd let the cat out of the bag.
With a low oath, he whirled around, mounted up, and galloped out of the yard. I felt sorry for Mike's horse, 'cause until he calmed down, Mike was gonna take his anger out on the animal.
Pepper grabbed both my hands and held on. Good thing I'd put the coffee cup on the porch floor. “Oh, Cotton! I'm so happy for the both of us. Aren't you?”
It was only then that I really realized that I was engaged to be married! Lord, have mercy! I swallered hard and mumbled something. I disremember exactly what.
Pepper give me a wet kiss right on the mouth and I got all flushed-up.
Damn, but I was warm. It was gettin' kinda late in the season for longhandles. I was gonna have to get me some of them regular drawers.
Rolf, he pried me a-loose from Pepper and shook my hand. Martha, she give me a little peck on the cheek.
A puncher come runnin' up. “What's all the hollerin' about, boss?”
“Pepper just got engaged, Buck!”
“You don't say!” Then he had to come up on the porch and pump my arm like he was fillin' up a bucket. “We'll have us a regular shivaree here pretty quick then, Sheriff. I'm happy for you.”
Then he ran off to the bunkhouse to tell ever'body he could find.
“Oh, Pepper!” Martha took my place in the swing. “We have so much to talk about. Just the two of us.”
“Yes, mother.”
“We'll plan the wedding for the fall. It'll be so lovely that time of year.”
“Fall, hell!” Pepper hollered. “Damned if I'm waitin' until fall.”
“Now, you listen to me, young lady!” Martha raised her voice. “This wedding is going to be done in a proper manner. Just like it would be back in New Hampshire.”
“Damn New Hampshire!” Pepper met her mother's tone. “This is Wyoming Territory.”
Me and Rolf beat a hasty retreat off that porch, leavin' mother and daughter a clear battleground. The feathers and the hair was about to start flyin'. Pepper, she wanted to make it legal as quick as possible. Inside, she was hotter than a pot of Mexican chili.
And don't ask me now I know that. It wouldn't be gentlemanlike for me to reply.
Chapter 11
Jeff Baker rode in during the late afternoon and had time for a bath and a change of clothes 'fore supper—dinner, they called it—was spread out on the long and fancy table in the dining room. First time I ever et under a chandelier. With that many candles, I kept frettin' about the drippin's fallin' into the soup. Course, I didn't say that out loud. I'm dumb, but I ain't stupid.
And my, I never seen so much food in my life.
I picked at my food until I could get me several good looks at how the others was handlin' all the knives and forks and spoons. I never knowed how the gentry eat before. Looked kinda awkward to me, but I following right along and tried to pick up the hang of it.
There was a fork for this plate and a spoon for that bowl and two or three more instruments for something else. I never knowed eatin' could involve so much work.
Finally, I give it up and looked at Rolf. “Y'all just gonna have to excuse my ignorance, folks. I just don't know which thing to use with what.”
“Don't let it worry you, Sheriff,” Jeff said. “Personally, I never saw that it made much difference.” He smiled at his mother. “But mother was and is a stickler for table manners. She grew up in New Hampshire.”
I suppose that New Hampshire bit was supposed to be impressive to me. It wasn't.
“It's easy, Cotton,” Pepper said. “You just start from the outside and work in with each course of food that's served.”
“Oh! Well, I'll just be da . . . durned. So that's how it's done, huh.”
Made me feel kinda dumb 'cause I hadn't figured it out myself.
“What's this we're eatin'?” I asked Rolf.
Rolf looked at me and smiled. “Lamb. Rather tasty, isn't it?”
It sure was. I'd never et no sheep before. I complimented Pepper on a good supper. Dinner. To Rolf, “I bet you'd get some dark looks from A.J. and Matt if they knowed you served up sheep for a meal, hey?”
“I'm going to start raising sheep, Cotton. It's really a very profitable venture.” When I didn't say nothin', I guess he figured I was agin' that. He was wrong. “Does that offend you?”
“No, sir. I get along right well with sheep and them that raise them . . . providin' it's done right.”
“Oh, I plan to do it correctly. That's the only way sheep and cattle can get along together. I have about thirty thousand acres that will be just perfect for sheep.”
I wondered if he knowed just how much trouble he was gonna stir up by sheep-raisin'. He was settin' himself solid agin' the big cattle spreads.
As if readin' my thoughts, the elder Baker said, “Yes, Cotton, I know.”
I nodded my head, then decided to change the subject. “Any of y'all plannin' on comin' into town tomorrow?”
“Why . . . no,” Rolf replied. “Why do you ask, Cotton?”
“Don't,” my voice was flat. “I'm gonna brace that back-shooter, Haufman tomorrow. If he's in town, that is, and I figure he will be. I'm either gonna run him out of the county or kill him.”
Everybody stopped chowin' down with that statement. “We're going to have to discuss your future, Cotton.” Martha said, in her soft way.
“When all this is over, ma'am, I'm gonna start ranchin'. But for now, it's pretty well lined out for me. I aim to either stop this buildin'-up war in the valley, or stand right in the middle of it shootin'. I took an oath to do that. And I ain't never broke my word in my life. I don't intend to do that now.”
She inspected me with her eyes. “No, I don't imagine you have, Cotton. But you now have Pepper to think of.”
“I do that mite near all the time anyways, ma'am.” I could see that pleased them all, 'specially Pepper. I could practical see the steam comin' out of her ears. Kinda made me woozy in the pit of my stomach. And produced some other sensations in other areas of me, too. I was right glad nobody asked me to stand up just about then.
“Cotton,” Rolf said, “I would like you to give me your thoughts on the upcoming war. No, wait! Cotton, what is your last name? Don't you think we have a right to know, especially now that you're about to become a member of the family?”
I give out a long sigh. I knowed I had it to do. “Well, I reckon so. But please don't laugh. I'm sorta sensitive about it.”
So I told them.
Jeff, he had to leave the table, and I silently thanked him for showin' me that much respect before he busted right out laughin'. I would have hated to have punched out my future brother-in-law.
Rolf, he blinked a couple of times, then covered his mouth with a big table napkin. He took a sip of wine, then shook his head and damned if he didn't swaller the whole glassful.
“I think it's a lovely name,” Martha said, with only a little smile. But her eyes sure was twinklin'.
“I think it's
grand!”
Pepper said. “Just think, I'll be Mrs. Pepper . . .”
“Don't say it aloud!” I blurted. “I'm thinkin' of changin' it, anyways.”
“You'll do no such thing!” Rolf told me, considerable heat in his voice. “A man's last name is very important. To retain it means to perpetuate the lineage forever.”
Now it was my turn to blink. I sure didn't have no idea what it was that Rolf Baker had just told me.
Jeff, he come back in and took his seat at the table. His face was all flushed and he looked like he'd just swallered a ladybug.
Martha cleared her throat. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Cotton?”
“Yes'um. A whole passel of 'em. But I haven't seen none of 'em in years. Not since we was separated after our folks passed. Don't reckon I ever will see none of them. I don't have no idea what happened to any of them.”
“How sad,” Martha sniffed a couple of times. Looked like she was gonna bust out cryin'.
There'd been enough blubberin' for one day. “It ain't nothin' to get all worked up about. The little ones got cared for proper and us older ones made it all right, I reckon. The only one I ever really think about, is my brother, Jack.”
Pepper glanced at me. “Something special about him, Cotton?”
“Oh, yeah, I looked up to Jack. Even though he had him a mean streak a yard wide. But he was always good to me. He pulled out 'fore the folks passed. But even as a boy, he was uncommon fast with a short gun. Why, once I recall seein' him . . .”
Then it hit me. Was it possible? Jack. Jack Crow! Could it be? God, I hoped not. But there was always that chance.
“You have a very pensive look, Cotton,” Martha said.
I thought I knew what that meant, but I wasn't really sure. So I just nodded my head. “Yes, ma'am. I guess so.”
Jack Crow! Was it possible?
The more I thought on it, the more I thought it just might be true. Although part of me desperately wanted it not to be. Then I remembered that pet crow Jack had one time. Somebody had told him that you could make a crow talk; but try as he did, he never could get no more than a squawk out of that bird. But Jack, he give it his best try.
A neighbor boy come over one afternoon, and for no good reason that anybody could figure out, he killed Jack's pet crow. Man, I never seen nobody go into such a rage as Jack done that day. A cold, killin' mad. And the boy who killed the bird? Well, that boy was found shot to death about two weeks later, killed with a single bullet wound to the chest.
The law? Hell, what law? There wasn't no law in that part of the country where we was raised up. I was . . . oh, about ten years old when that happened, and that was a long time 'fore any kind of real law and order come to that part of the wilderness.
“You're very deep in thought, Cotton.” Pepper was starin' at me acrost the table. “What in the world are you thinking about?”
I was so deep in thought, her words just barely reached me.
I shook my head and laid knife and fork down on my plate, all my appetite suddenly gone. “I was thinkin' of a gunfighter name of Jack Crow . . . but I don't think that's his real name. He never liked his last name neither.”
“I've heard of him,” Jeff said. “He is reputed to be the fastest gun in the west. Other than Smoke Jensen, that is. But Smoke has hung up his guns, married, and settled down. Over in Idaho, I believe it is.”
“He's married and settled down, but he ain't near'bouts hung up his guns yet.”
“Why is this gunfighter, this Jack Crow, weighing so heavily on your mind, Cotton?” Martha asked.
I give out a long sigh. Everything was beginning to fit like a completed puzzle. Jack always did favor black clothing. Told me back when I was just a little shaver that someday he'd have a name for hisself and then he'd have all the black outfits he wanted.
I was conscious that everyone had stopped eatin' and was just sittin', lookin' straight at me, waiting for some sort of answer.
“Why?” I met their eyes. “'Cause I think he's my brother.”
 
 
I didn't sleep too good that night. Done a lot of tossin' and turnin', with my head filled with boyhood memories about me and Jack and our ma and pa and all the other younguns. I wondered what had become of them. Were they doin' all right? Had they married and settled down? Did they have families and all that went with that?
I'd sleep a while and then wake up and start to thinkin' again. And all my thoughts had Pepper all mixed up in them.
I pulled out before dawn, after Pepper fixed me breakfast—she really could cook—and then give me a promise-of-things-to-come kiss right on the mouth. I rode Pronto into the darkness, headin' for town.
The night past, we'd all gathered up in the fancy sittin' room and I'd told them all about my childhood, and all that I could remember about brother Jack.
“Forgive me for saying this, Cotton,” Rolf said. “But this Jack appears to be the carrier of the bad seed in your family.”
He was sure right. I couldn't deny that.
“Ain't nothin' to forgive when a person is right, Mister Baker. And you're sure right. Now that I'm a man grown, and lookin' back, I an see where a lot of the things Jack done was just lowdown dirty mean.”
All that was on my mind as I rode into the spreading silver dawnin' of the day. But I wasn't dwellin' just on that. A good part of me was on the high alert for any trouble that might be hidin' in the shadows.
But all my attention to danger was for naught, and when I rode into town, the streets and boardwalks of Doubtful was quiet and empty of anything except for a few dogs and cats. I rode slowly to the stable and put up Pronto. I told him to stay calm and don't kick no slats out of his stall.
Pronto, he shoved me back up against the stall and tried to bite me.
The gimp-legged man had just opened his cafe as I walked up the boardwalk. Noddin' my good mornin's, I took me a table by a window and ordered coffee and breakfast.
Pretty soon, Rusty come walkin' up the way, his spurs jinglin'. He spotted me and joined me at the table.
Rusty, he ordered breakfast and coffee, and over coffee, I asked, “Anything interestin' happen while I was gone, Rusty?”
“You might say that.” He sugared and creamed his coffee and stirred. “Buck Hargon, Doc Martin, and that Canadian gunfighter, Sangamon, rode in. They're over to the hotel.”
“Least it's slowed down to a trickle. Hell, Rusty, there can't be that many more gunslingers that's out there out of work.”
“Yeah.” His reply was glum. “And for a fact, Jack Crow is comin' in. He was spotted a few days ago near the Salt River Range.”
“Then he'll be in any day now.”
“Yeah. Sheriff, do you realize they's more than fifty known gunhands now in the valley?”
“I know.”
The cafe man brung us our food and for a time, we concentrated on eatin'. Then, pushin' our plates away, we poured more coffee and I brung Rusty up to date . . . but I didn't say nothin' about my gettin' engaged. That was up to Pepper and her ma to make that announcement.
“Your horse gonna be all right?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You sure it was Haufman?”
“It was his horse for a fact.” I dug in my vest pocket and laid the .44-.40 brass on the table. “And I found this.”
I'd found something odd about that brass, but I didn't say nothin' about it. I'd confront Haufman with it . . . after I beat hell out of them. Or killed him.
“Haufman come in early this mornin', Sheriff. I got up 'bout four and seen him ride in.”

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