Grace be a Lady (Love & War in Johnson County Book 1) (20 page)

A
string of horses, a half-dozen or so, tied in front of the Number Nine, drew
Thad to a stop. An uneasy feeling wiggling in his stomach, he nudged Bo forward,
and casually surveyed the brands on the animals. The
Circle T, the 2U, the HK, and the Lazy H. All big outfits. At least two
of the horses belonged to ranch foremen, specifically Mike Shonsey and Trampas,
two men not very fond of each other.

The
door to the Number Nine burst open, and Shonsey, a slender, blond-haired fella
stumbled out. Laughing and waving his hat as if he’d just heard the most
hilarious joke, he lurched over to the hitching post where the group of horses
was tied. He saw Thad as he reached to unwind his reins, and his mood sobered
considerable. “What are you lookin’ at, Walker?”

Thad
pushed his hat back and cocked his head to the right. “Exactly.”

Shonsey
didn’t seem to know what to do with that answer. He frowned and gathered up his
reins. Behind him, Trampas, followed by hands Frank Canton, Fred Coates, Joe
Elliott, and Billy Lykins, stumbled out.

Trampas’
gaze bounced back-and-forth between Shonsey and Thad. His face clouded and he
steadied his gait. “There a problem here, Shonsey?” he asked, shooting Thad an
unfriendly look.

“No.”
Shonsey didn’t sound convinced, but then shook his head. “Nope.” He swung up in
the saddle and addressed Thad. “Is there?”

“No,”
Thad waved away their concerns, “just thought it was funny to see all you boys
riding together. Don’t any of you have work to do for your bosses?”

“Who
says we’re not workin’?” Trampas spit a chaw of tobacco at Bo’s feet and swung
into the saddle. He backed away from the hitching post and pulled up beside
Thad. Grinning, and showing teeth swimming in tobacco juice, he chuckled. “We
got ranch business over close to Buffalo. Reckon somebody like you wouldn’t
have the stomach for it.”

“Headin’
off to shoot somebody in the back or maybe lynch a woman?”

The
smile melted off Trampas’ face like ice cream on a July afternoon. “Why don’t
you ask your pa about my orders?”

Something
snapped in Thad. The ropes holding his patience and good sense—which had been
under too much strain lately—broke. Thad launched from his horse, like he was strapped
to a rocket, and slammed into Trampas. The two men hit the cold, hard ground
with a bone-jarring thud, and Thad went to swinging. A frightening fury erupted
in his soul . . . and his fists. He hammered Trampas’ face
several times before the man managed his first punch. Trampas delivered a solid
strike to Thad’s kidney and the pain doubled him over for an instant. The
foreman scrambled away as Thad staggered to his feet.

The
stab of pain only stoked the fire. Thad was angry, feeling more than a little
betrayed, and desperately wanted to share his fine mood. Trampas was the lucky
recipient. Thad charged at the foreman, and the two went down again. Dirt and
dust wafted up.

Now
men had gathered on the walk in front of the saloon. Thad could hear them
cheering and jeering as he and his foreman wrestled like snakes and exchanged
blows.

“We
ain’t got time for this, Trampas,” Shonsey yelled as the two men rolled beneath
his horse, spooking it. The animal pranced and spun, and Shonsey cursed as he
fought to rein it in. “I mean it; knock it off!”

Thad
and Trampas, clutching each other, punching ribs, kidneys, stomachs, worked
their way to their feet. Thad managed to push the other man off, and took
another blow to the kidney for the effort. He grunted, but the white-hot pain sharpened
his anger to a more fierce point. He pulled back a bloody hand and swung at
Trampas, nailing him in the jaw with a good, solid blow. Trampas’ head snapped
back. He staggered, shook his head, and wiped at the blood seeping from his
mouth.

Thad
took an instant to survey the crowd. He caught Shonsey nodding at someone—

What
felt like a hammer blow into his right side stunned Thad. Almost simultaneously,
a kick buckled his knees, and he went down hard. Blows rained on his head and
ribs. Thad couldn’t tell who or how many had jumped into the fray. The punches
came from every direction. Pain, black and deep, erupted all over his body. The
back of his head, his mouth, his ribs burned.

Getting
pummeled, he tried for his feet but a blow knocked him on his face. Writhing in
the cold dirt, he could make out legs and boots. The crowd grew quiet as the
punches turned to kicks. The agony in his ribs stole his breath.

“That’s
enough.”

Shonsey
.

Thad
pawed the ground and managed to get on all fours. He wished he could find
Trampas, but more kicks dropped him back to the earth.

“That’s
enough, I said! We ain’t got time for this.”

The
kicks stopped. Thad lay there, face-down in the dirt, blind and breathless with
misery. His whole body screamed with raw pain. He barely heard the soft thud of
boots and the squeak of leather as the cowboys mounted, then the pounding of
hooves as they rode away. A wave of nausea rolled over him and he groaned.

He
had to get to his feet.

Thad
shook his head and made one more attempt to stand. A hand slipped beneath his
arm and lifted him. He recognized the smell of Sheriff Phillips’ putrid
liniment and, for a moment, thought the stink would cause him to vomit. He stanched
the urge and tried to focus, but his vision was fuzzy.

“Come
on, son, let’s get you cleaned up.” The two men slowly limped along the street.
“I tell ya, Thad, you were whoopin’ the tar outta Trampas, but those other
three hit ya from behind. Mighty unsportin’ of ’em.”

“Yeah,
mighty.” Thad was surprised at the muffled quality of his own voice. He sounded
drunk, or like he’d stuffed cotton in his mouth. Maybe both. His mouth beat
like a drum at a pow-wow.

“You
want to press charges?”

Pain
hummed in every fiber of every muscle. Walking, even slowly, made his ribs feel
like they’d been rubbed with kerosene and lit afire. He spit out some blood
before answering the sheriff. “Gimmee me thum time to think about it.”

“All
right. Doc’s over toward Buffalo today, but he leaves me a key for instances
just like this. Let’s go see how much damage those boys did.”

Thad
wished he could take a bath in the witch hazel. It cooled his ribs right smart,
and made his busted lip feel a whole lot better. He imagined he could feel the
swelling going down.

Sitting
on Doc’s examination table, he was surprised at Phillips’ ability to play doctor,
though the man didn’t exactly have a gentle touch. He dabbed at Thad’s lip one
last time then passed the bottle to him. “Here, I ain’t your nurse. You can
take over now.”

Thad
nodded. He took the bottle and a metal bowl of cotton balls and limped over to
the sink. His reflection in the mirror made him flinch. He resembled the remains
of something trampled by a herd of wild horses. A red swollen eye, puffy purple
lip, and bruised cheeks testified to the fight. A lovely assortment of purple
and blue bruises peppered his ribs. He couldn’t help but wonder what Trampas
looked like.

“I
was about to stop the fight, in case you was wonderin’.”

Thad
moved his head a little so he could see the sheriff in the mirror. The big man
stood at the door, hands hooked on his suspenders, staring through the glass at
the street.

Pa
had a habit of standing that same way and all the lies and turmoil of the last
few months hit Thad again. Busted up as he felt, inside and out, he supposed
the first thing he should do was what he came into Misery for in the first
place.

“Sheriff,
that boy that works for Raney—Greg—he has a sister. Do you know where she’s at?”

“She
better be working at the Golden Lady. Otherwise, the fella that paid me—”
Sheriff Phillips nipped that, but Thad heard the worry.

“Otherwise,
the fella that paid you to find her might not be happy if he finds out you don’t
know where she’s at.”

“Yeah,
well, maybe.” The sheriff kicked at something then came back with a defensive
tone. “Her brother said that’s where she’s a-workin’. Why would he lie about
that, instead of saying she worked in a nice place?”

Why,
indeed? Thad wracked his brain as he wiped away blood and dabbed at bruises,
trying to recall everything Grace and Greg had said about Bull. Nothing helped
him piece the puzzle together. At least one thing was clear: Grace was hiding
from Bull. Thad would do his part to make sure the man never found her. If the
sheriff didn’t know where she was, Bull would have a hard time finding her.

Thad
wiped a cotton ball over his knuckles, and let the witch hazel burn and heal. “How’d
you even get hooked up with somebody like Bull Hendrick?”

“Who?”
The sheriff spun and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Oh, you mean the gal’s
husband? Bull. That his name? Always signs the telegrams B. Hendrick.” He
reached up and scratched his head. “I don’t rightly know. The gal just come
paradin’ into my office one mornin’ and says, all high and mighty like, ‘My
name is Grace Hendrick. Consider me checked in.’ Next thing I know, I get a
telegram from the family, wanting to know where she’s workin’. That took a
little work, but Trampas pointed me to the brother.”

“Trampas,”
Thad whispered through clenched teeth.

“Didn’t
know the kid was working for Raney, though.”

Thad
didn’t really hear that. He fixated on the
consider me checked in
, as if
she’d been ordered here. Sighing, he snatched his shirt off the back of a chair
and slipped into it stiffly. His ribs were still beating war drums he was sure
could be heard over on the Wind River Reservation. “I’d call it a personal
favor, Sheriff, if you give the man as little help as possible when he shows
up.”

“Well,
I don’t know, son . . .” Phillips watched eagerly as Thad fished
in his pants pocket. “He paid me twenty-five—I mean, fifty—fifty dollars to
find her.”

“And
you don’t know where she’s at.” Thad tossed the sheriff two shiny, gold coins. “There’s
a hundred. The Golden Lady is all you need to say.”

“You’ll
be sure to tell your pa I’m helping you out?”

Thad
snorted in disgust as he marched past the sheriff out onto the boardwalk.
Staring down the street to the Number Nine, Trampas’s words came back to him.

Why
don’t you ask your pa about my orders?

“Trampas
and Shonsey were going off to cause trouble, Sheriff. I think you ought to ride
after ’em.”

“That
mean you want to press charges?” The gloom in the sheriff’s voice was almost
comical.

“Yes,
Sheriff, I believe I will.” But even as the words left his mouth, Thad knew he
was going after the tail of the snake . . . not the head.

It
took Grace a few days to recover from the kick to the ribs. She suspected Raney
didn’t want her up and around more because a little feminine company around the
ranch was a welcome change. By the time Grace was ready to get out of the bed, her
boss had a surprise for her.