The Reckoning (11 page)

Phyllis reminded him of a newly opened rose, while Vanessa was a shrine to Old Dixie. Vanessa was better educated, and worlds above him in manners, but Phyllis Thornton was a frontier kid like he, and they understood each other. Unfortunately, her father hadn't been very friendly.

Duane shoveled dinner onto a tin plate and carried it to the table. Someone knocked on the door, and he thought it might be John the Baptist. “Come on in.”

Phyllis Thornton stood in the entry, backlit by the sky. “I apologize for my father,” she said, as if reciting a lecture in school. “He didn't mean anything personal. My mother and I had a talk with him, and he's agreed to let me continue shooting lessons.”

“I'm free for the rest of the day,” Duane replied. “I'm willing to take the chance, if you are.”

He wolfed down his food, while she stood in the doorway, becoming aware of the incredible filth of the bunkhouse. It exuded a powerful reek, clothing was strewn everywhere, not one bed was made, and cigarette butts littered the floor, along with a variety of stains, not to mention bones of unnameable creatures.

She turned to the cowboy eating ravenously at the table and observed his aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and long black sideburns. He's a prince living in a junkpile, she ruminated. “I'll be back in about an hour.”

The door closed as he slathered a slice of bread with butter. Phyllis possessed a wonderfully rounded caboose, and the mere thought of touching
her anatomy caused a delightful sensation. Vanessa Fontaine was a frail, fairy princess, whereas Phyllis was sturdy, steady, and ready. He wanted to take her back to his bunk, but instead had to give her shooting lessons.

He washed the tin plates in the basin behind the bunkhouse, and realized that rats could no longer be heard gnawing. He filled buckets with water and poured them into the tub atop the stove. Then he tossed in his dirty clothes and soap shavings.

He stirred the clothes with a wooden paddle, and thought of Phyllis changing clothes at the main house. Whatever I do, I mustn't step over the line. If her father ever caught us, he'd kill me—no doubt about it.

Phyllis paced the floor of her bedroom, her brow creased with concern. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and chewed her thumbnail. She felt an unfamiliar and indescribable disturbance, and couldn't quite fathom what it meant.

She couldn't sit still, so she arose and resumed strolling across the floor. There was something about Duane with his long body and big shoulders that she couldn't put out of her mind. He'd eaten heartily, and she found that stimulating, the movements of his sinuous lips.

I think I'm falling in
love
with him, she realized with dismay. The sensations were peculiar, for it had never happened before. I wonder what he thinks of me? A frown came over her bright youthful
features. He's nice to me because I'm the boss's daughter, that's all. If he met me under other circumstances, he wouldn't even look twice. But I don't want a man to marry me because he's in love with my father's ranch. I would never use my father's wealth to get what I want, or would I?

She undressed in front of the mirror, trying to appraise herself objectively, noticing blemishes and deficiencies that existed only in her imagination. A boy like Duane could get any girl he wants, and wouldn't waste his time with the likes of me, if I weren't the boss's daughter. She changed into her cowboy clothes, arguing with herself. At least I'll get some shooting lessons out of the deal.

Duane strapped on his Colt and positioned it low for a fast easy draw. Then he tied the leather thong to his leg, gunfighter style. He put on his hat and slanted it low over his eyes, the silver conchos flashing sunlight through the windows. Outside, Sparky stood ten feet in front of the door, and it appeared that he'd gained considerable weight since Duane had seen him last.

Duane patted him on the belly. “You don't have to eat them all,” he counseled. “Just
kill
them all.”

Sparky barked, and Duane had the uncanny impression that the dog understood every word he said. The faithful animal followed Duane to the shooting gallery behind the bunkhouse, lay in the shade of a cottonwood tree, and observed him
carefully.

Duane lined up tin cans and bottles on the board, then sat on the ground beside Sparky and placed his hand on the animal's back. Duane didn't want to waste ammunition, because he couldn't buy more for a week. He twirled the chamber, holstered the gun, and waited for Phyllis to arrive. The sun shone upon him, and his future appeared full of glittering possibilities. Vanessa still danced in his heart, but now he had somebody new to occupy his thoughts.

After an interval, she came into view, wearing her cowboy outfit, a big ten-gallon hat shading her features, and she carried four boxes of cartridges. “Daddy gave us these,” she said cheerily, “so that you won't have to use your own.”

He made no clever remark about getting shot, and maintained his respectful distance. “Practice is the most important part of shooting, so just stand where you are and shoot at the targets. If I see you doing anything wrong, I'll tell you. When your aim improves sufficiently, I'll show you some tricks.”

He drew his gun, tossed it into the air, caught it behind his back, dropped to one knee, and fired. A bottle exploded atop the board, and the plains echoed with the sound.

She couldn't help smiling. “How'd you do that?”

“Practice, that's all.” He handed her the gun, grip first. “Don't forget to keep your elbow straight. The more rigid you are, the better.”

She turned toward the row of bottles and
cans, spread her legs, held the gun with both hands, narrowed one eye, and stuck the tip of her tongue out the corner of her mouth. He took a step backward and evaluated her scientifically. This is a woman who was made for bearing children, he comprehended. She wore black jeans and a red and white polka dot cowboy shirt. There was something jaunty and fearless about her, a full-bodied outdoors girl who rode horses and shot guns just like he.

The Colt fired, her hands kicked into the air, but no can was drilled, and no bottle shattered. She frowned. “Missed.”

“Hold the gun steady, line up the sights, and squeeze the trigger. Don't wait so long.”

She raised the gun in both hands, while Duane moved a few steps for the side view. The artery in his throat began to throb as he noticed the rise of her breasts. The cartridge detonated, and a can rocketed backward, a bullet hole through the label.

“Do it again,” he said.

She shifted aim for another shot, and he took a few steps backward, for the long view. She fired, and blew a bottle to smithereens.

“Good shot,” called a voice behind Duane.

Myrtle Thornton wore a long gray dress with a white apron, as she arrived on the scene, eager to see the man who'd captured the heart of her daughter. She found him sensitive looking, with dramatic cheekbones and piercing eyes. “You must be a good teacher,” she said.

He didn't know how to reply, while Phyllis
appeared embarrassed. The mother scrutinized the shifty-eyed young man, and still was certain that a sheriff looking for him somewhere. “Phyllis said that you do gun tricks. Mind showing me one?”

Duane loaded his gun and holstered it easily. Then he scratched his nose thoughtfully, as if he were distracted by a wayward fly, when suddenly his hand darted to his gun, he whirled, and a crescendo of gunfire rocked the solitude of the morning. Four cans and one bottle were demolished nearly simultaneously.

“Who taught you how to shoot like that?” Mrs. Thornton asked.

“Friend of mine.”

Mrs. Thornton could understand why her daughter was so taken with him. She hoped that Phyllis wouldn't commit any foolish indiscretions, but didn't want to be a meddling mother either.

“I've got work to do,” she said. “Duane— thank you for giving Phyllis shooting lessons.”

The boss lady walked away, and Duane breathed a sigh of relief. The woman terrified him, for some bizarre reason.

“I think that my mother likes you,” Phyllis said.

“She thinks I'm an outlaw.”

“Aren't you?”

They looked into each other's eyes, and Duane saw the spotless innocence of her soul. He took three deep breaths, and one step backward. Then he reloaded the gun, and passed it to her.

She took it from his hands and aimed down the
barrel at an empty bottle of Old Crow, as he sized her once more. We'd be perfect together, he realized. She squeezed the trigger, and shards of glass exploded into the sunny morning, glittering like a rainbow.

A
MOS RAYBART LEANED forward on his saddle as he rode up the winding mountain path. The air filled with the fragrance of ponderosa pines, and birds flitted among the branches. It was midafternoon, and he'd been on horseback for most of the past week.

The monastery lay straight ahead, according to what he'd been told in the town below. Soon he'd know the truth about Duane Braddock, better known as the Pecos Kid. Was he a priest, a trigger-happy killer, or just a dumb kid?

The bone that stuck most in Raybart's craw was that Duane had run off with the most beautiful woman in Titusville. The rodentlike cowboy was jealous, for he'd never got anything from women unless he paid cash on the barrelhead.
Why did God make me ugly, and Duane Braddock a lady's man?

He turned a bend in the trail, and a scattering of log buildings could be seen. One was substantially larger than the others, with a tall spire and big cross nailed to the front wall. Raybart realized that he'd finally arrived at the monastery in the clouds.

The ground leveled, and in the distance, through brilliantly clear air, he saw an array of mountain peaks bristling with trees. He felt as though he were in heaven, far above the filth and blood of the cowboy world. Men in brown robes worked a large field, while cows and sheep grazed nearby.

Raybart climbed down from his horse, threw the reins over the rail in front of the church, and pushed the front of his hat back. He looked for a source of information, and his eyes fell on a young man in a brown robe, pushing a wheelbarrow full of boulders. Raybart slunk toward him, trying to smile warmly, but it looked like a cross between a leer and a grimace. “Howdy. I'm a-tryin' to track down a feller who used to live here, name of Duane Braddock. Ever hear of ‘im?”

The young monk let down his wheelbarrow, and his face froze into an expression of suppressed horror. “What's he done?”

“He used to live here?”

The monk looked at the phony badge shining on the front of Raybart's black leather vest. “He kill somebody?”

Raybart cocked an eye. “What makes you say that?”

“If you want to find out about Duane Braddock, sir, talk to the abbot. He probably knew Duane better than anybody. You'll find him in that building over there.”

“Could you get some water for my horse?”

The young monk dutifully lead the horse toward the stable, and Raybart soon found himself in a moderate-size room with a middle-aged monk writing in a ledger. “May I help you, sir?”

“I'd like to speak with the abbot.”

“He's in there.”

Raybart opened the door and was struck with the stark image of an aged man in a black skullcap reading a book at his desk. Raybart approached on his tiptoes, so as not to disturb him. The abbot was extremely thin, with a salt and pepper beard. The bogus lawman waited patiently for the holy man to acknowledge his presence.

But the abbot seemed completely absorbed in his reading, and Raybart wondered what it was. Raybart wasn't a churchgoing man, and tried not to think about God, because he'd committed numerous sins throughout his life. He wanted to believe that when you die, that's it. No God or Judgment Day. But other times he believed every word in the Bible, and figured he'd spend eternity in the devil's frying pan.

Slowly the abbot raised his head and looked into his eyes. “God forgives all sins,” he said. “Have a seat.”

Raybart was taken aback, and he had an impulse to run out of the abbot's office, jump onto
his horse, and ride away, but then caught himself, and sat. “I'm a lawman,” he began. “I'm a-lookin' fer Duane Braddock.”

“What's he done?” asked the abbot.

“What makes you think he's done anything?”

“Has he killed someone?”

Their eyes were fastened upon each other, and it was flint on steel. “More than one, I'm afraid,” Raybart confessed.

The abbot appeared to deflate as he leaned backward in his chair. “My God,” he muttered, clasping his hands together. Then he shook his head sadly from side to side. “How'd it happen?”

“It's hard to know the truth. Some folks say he used to be a priest. Is that so?”

“Duane was never ordained, but he spent most of his life here, studying and praying with the rest of us. He was a pious boy, but he had a terrible temper. He nearly killed one of the other boys, and that's when we had to send him away. He's very sensitive, perhaps because of his parents.”

“Who were they?”

The abbot sighed, and it didn't occur to him that the man before him might be wearing a tin badge that he'd bought for a few pennies. “Well, his father evidently was an outlaw, and his mother . . . she was one of those ladies who works in saloons.”

“A whore?” Raybart offered.

The abbot nodded knowingly. “Some of the boys found out, and one of them began to ridicule Duane, calling him a ... bastard ... in front of the others. That's the one Duane nearly killed. What's
he done now?”

“He's shot five people, but some people say it was self-defense, while others think he's a hired gun called the Pecos Kid.”

The abbot fingered the wooden cross that hung from his neck. “Duane had the makings of a good priest, with deep feelings for God. But he hurts inside, and it makes him angry. Are you going to arrest him?”

“He ain't wanted fer nothin',” Raybart blurted.

“Then why are you looking for him?”

Raybart realized that he'd given himself away, but smiled with the confidence of an ex-outlaw. “Official investigation.”

“You're welcome to stay overnight as our guest. You might want to stop off at the church. Duane spent a lot of time there.”

Raybart swaggered out of the monastery office with his precious information, but it was growing dark, and he didn't dare go down the mountain when he couldn't see the trail. His eyes fell on the church where Duane had spent so much time. It seemed incredible, but Duane Braddock actually had been raised in the monastery, and then shot five men. The Pecos Kid may've been the partial invention of a drunken reporter, but that didn't make Braddock less deadly.

Raybart passed from bright sunlight to the darkness of the church interior, and his vision was drawn to a carved wooden statue of the Virgin bathed in candlelight. Raybart moved toward it in strange fascination. He wasn't a Roman Catholic, and preferred whiskey-toting Bible-bashing preachers who
ranted against the workings of the devil.

The closer he came to the statue, the more crude it appeared, painted in bright garish colors. It seemed odd that someone would worship such a thing, but he liked the serenity of the church, and it sounded as if choirs sang softly in the rafters. He sat in a pew and looked at the rough-hewn altar facing a crucifix of Jesus twisting on the cross, drops of red blood on his breast.

Raybart had attended many prayer meetings in his life and knew what Christianity demanded. You repented, washed yourself in the blood, and were saved. But Raybart had never stepped forward, because he didn't believe
that
much, and besides, preachers were in it mainly for the money, weren't they? He figured religion was just another crooked business.

He looked around the church curiously and tried to imagine Duane Braddock praying. The gun-happy cowboy and Bible-toting acolyte didn't fit together somehow. Where'd he get his fast hand? Raybart wondered. He felt an urge to get down on his knees, and lowered himself to the floor. “My God,” he whispered, clasping his hands together. “I guess I'm a no-good son of a bitch.” He thought of the things he'd stolen, the people he'd punched, the lies he'd told, and the times he'd dealt from the bottom of the deck. A terrible remorse came over him, because he knew that his soul had been besmirched by a lifetime of dirty deeds.

But there was a way to wash them off, according to the preachers. You say that you're sorry from the depths of your heart, and start anew,
cleansed by forgiveness of Jesus. Raybart felt alien to himself as he clasped his hands together in the pew. Maybe it's time to be a decent Christian fer a change.

A delicious feeling came over him, as if he were being bathed in warm blood. He shuddered in the pew, and tears ran down his cheeks. I've been a no-good weasel fer most of my life, but I don't have to be one no longer. I don't want to burn forever in the fires of Hell. What if there's really a God?

The Bar T cowboys returned to the ranch late Saturday afternoon two weeks later. They headed for the corral, while the ramrod tied his cayuse in front of the main house. He spat out the plug of tobacco and headed for the front door.

It was opened by Phyllis, a concerned expression on her face. “How'd it go?”

“Same as last week. Where's yer dad?”

“His office.”

He made his way down the hall as she rushed to the window, peering sideways from behind the curtain at cowboys disappearing around the corner of the barn. She caught a glimpse of
him
atop his favorite horse, and then he was gone.

“Looking for something?” asked her mother, who'd silently entered the parlor.

Phyllis turned around. “The cowboys are back,” she explained.

“Could there be a special cowboy that you've been worrying about, ruining your appetite, keeping
you up at night?”

Phyllis blushed to the roots of her hair.

“I know everything about you, young lady,” her mother said. “I think it's time you and I had a little talk.”

The ramrod found Big Al seated at his desk, reading a report on the Texas cattle industry. Big Al looked up, and McGrath could see his boss's eyes bleary from paperwork.

“We've got most of the calves branded,” he said. “Another week on the north range should do it.”

“See any injuns?”

“A few in the distance. Reckon they steal a beeve whenever they get hungry.”

“I don't mind a beeve once in a while, as long as nobody gets killed. See the Circle K?”

“No, thank God.”

Big Al leaned back in his chair. “The air has got so poisoned ‘twixt the Circle K and us, the missus and I've decided that we should throw a big shindig, and invite everybody in the territory, so's we can have some fun fer a change. It'll be next Saturday night, and we'll have plenny to eat and drink, with musicians and all. Natcherly we want you and the cowboys to be there, but I don't want no fights, and no trouble, so pass the word along.”

McGrath wrinkled his forehead in disapproval. “You invite the Circle K here, somebody'll git shot. They hate us, and we hate them.”

“I'm going to palaver with old Lew Krenshaw,
to make sure there's no gunplay. We're all on this range together, and we've got to git along, like in the old days.”

“Tell that to Jay Krenshaw.”

“I will, and you tell them cowboys of your'n that they'd better be a-wearin' clean clothes, and take baths, ‘cause I don't tolerate no pigs around my daughter. And if any of them gets the notion to start trouble, he'll have to deal with me. By the way, how's that new feller doin'—Braddock?”

“Hard worker. Keeps to ‘imself. No trouble a'tall.”

Big Al didn't want to ask more questions about Duane, because he didn't want the ramrod to know his interest. “Git cleaned up, and tell the boys what I said.”

McGrath departed, and Big Al scratched his chin thoughtfully as he gazed out the window. The mark of a man could be found in his work, and Duane was acceptable to the ramrod, a harsh taskmaster. At least he's not completely useless, Big Al thought.

He had the unsettling feeling that he was losing his daughter. She'd worshiped him throughout her life, but now he had a rival, and knew that the man who'd changed her diapers would become second-best to a saddle tramp who rode in out of nowhere, with owlhoot written all over him. Big Al scowled as he lit a fresh cigar, filling the air with blue tobacco smoke. People will ask who my daughter married, and I'll tell them
The Pecos

Kid.

***

McGrath stomped into the bunkhouse, reared back his head, and hollered, “The boss is a-givin' a big shindig next Saturday night, and yer all invited!”

The bunkhouse erupted with howls of delight. McGrath waited patiently for them to quiet down, but they jumped about like a circus full of monkeys, and Ross swung from the rafters, kicking his legs in the air.

“Settle down!” McGrath shouted. “I ain't finished. There'll be gals here, and Miss Phyllis, too, so you'd better watch yer manners. And every man will take a bath aforehand, and wear his best duds, because we don't want to look like a bunch of bummers, do we?”

The bunkhouse rocked on its foundations as cowboys shouted and jumped gleefully. “Gals!” one of them shouted. “Goddamn!”

McGrath headed for his shack to prepare for Saturday night at Gibson's General Store, while in the bunkhouse, the men set to work heating water for baths. In the far corner, Duane pulled off his cowboy boots and lay on his bunk.

“Coming to town?” asked Don Jordan, a few bunks away.