The Sons of Grady Rourke (12 page)

McSween put out his cold hand which the lawman shook warmly.

“Couldn't let you get hurt without a ruling from the judge,” the lawman smiled.

“I'm grateful,” McSween said earnestly. “I wouldn't have lasted long in Brady's jail.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. All the same, you just make certain that I can find you if Judge Bristol wants to see you again. Or I'll be going to jail instead of you. I was ordered to take you to Lincoln, you know.”

The lawyer's tired eyes were locked on the deputy's face.

“You won't have to hunt me.”

Deputy Barrier only harrumphed as he put his boot in the stirrup and heaved his heavily furclad body into the saddle. He adjusted the long duster to fall on the top of his boots.

“Good luck in Lincoln, Mr. McSween.” Barrier touched the corner of his floppy hat. “Mr. Chisum.” Tapping his spurs on his cold mount's sides, the animal moved out at a brisk trot to keep warm.

Chisum and McSween watched until the deputy disappeared over a small hill with the Rio Hondo on the backside. He had a long, lonesome ride northward.

“Good man, that one,” Chisum said gravely.

“Could use his kind in Lincoln County,” McSween nodded inside a cloud of steam.

“Not likely,” the cattleman said dryly. “Let's go inside before we catch our death out here.”

The two men entered the sprawling, single-story house. From here, Chisum had built his herd of eighty thousand cattle. After selling out to a beef syndicate, he and his brother Pitzer Chisum stayed on to manage the spread and its jingle-bobbed steers.

McSween and the cattleman took chairs near a massive fireplace.

“How long do you think Sue will stay east?”

“I told my wife to avoid Lincoln's troubles as long as she could stay with her family in St. Louis. I don't know when she'll lose patience with that and come back.”

“She's a strong-willed woman,” Chisum said.

“Have to be to put up with me.”

John Chisum nodded thoughtfully.

“How's the rustling been in the six weeks I've been away?” McSween had spent a month in Mesilla.

“Same. Pitzer found a mass-grave of ears down at Beck-with's ranch a while back.”

“Ears?”

“Yeah. It's the only way to hide my brand on stolen cattle. The ranchers down around Seven Rivers make a handsome living off my spread. Jesse Evans and his Boys do most of the field work, I'm told.”

“What about the town?”

“Still even up, as best I can tell. Two new guns came to town while you were away: two of Grady's boys.”

“Oh? Which two?”

“John says the older two, Sean and Patrick.”

“They probably found my partner who has their father's will. Have they taken sides already?”

“I guess the older one—got his face shot up or burned in the war—has hired on with the House. John hired Patrick to watch my herd grazing on Grady's land. The boy moved into Grady's spread alone and needed the money till Grady's affairs are settled. I told John it was fine. At least we got one of them and the House got one. Better than Dolan getting both of them.”

“There's a third brother,” the lawyer remembered.

“Still north with the cavalry, last I heard.”

“Well, David and I will have to wait for him before we can close Grady's estate. Maybe things will quiet down by then.”

“I don't know, Alex.”

“Something else?”

Chisum sat calmly and looked into the fire.

“John's man Brewer told me that Brady sent a small posse three days ago to Rio Felix to seize some horses to secure your bond or the like. Something about you and John being partners in the store. That damned Fritz estate business could get ugly.”

The lawyer stood and paced in front of the hearth. The fire and his anger brought color to his soft face.

“Dolan really put the hot iron to me. Trumped up the whole thing. I never took a dollar from Emil's insurance policy. His sister who swore out the embezzlement complaint can't even speak English hardly. Dolan put her up to it. Had to. And Brady goes along with him.”

“Sheriff Brady don't have much choice,” Chisum shrugged. “Sometimes I think he really does mean well. But the House owns the town and Brady is stuck in the middle. I can't believe Brady would spend half his life in the Army just to come out here to become one of Dolan's Irish lackeys. It don't make sense to me.”

McSween stopped pacing and turned to look down at his host who was keeping him out of William Brady's jail.

“If Brady can send a posse made up of Jesse Evans' gang out to steal my horses from John's ranch, Brady is in the House camp up to his ears. Governor Axtel should get off his pompous ass and come out here to clean up this outhouse of a town.”

“I don't know about that, Alex. The Sante Fe crooks probably sleep with the House crooks and Axtel eats out of the Santa Fe gang's hand.”

The lawyer sighed.

“You're right. I hate to drag you into all this.”

The cattleman laughed.

“Alex, I was ‘into all this' before you and Sue rode into town three years ago. The House has been rustling my cattle since before you ever heard of Lincoln. That's one of the reasons I sold out. Let someone else worry about my beef winding up at the Indian Agency through the back door.” Chisum chuckled. “The House owns the town and Tunstall and I own the only bank there. It's still an even match. You're welcome to stay here as long as you like. It's safer for you. And I'm also being a little selfish: When Sue comes back, I'll get some of her cooking, too.”

Alex McSween, fugitive, smiled and sat down. He was safe in the center of John Chisum's vast empire, well guarded by armed cowboys.

“Real food. That would be nice, John.”

Chisum smiled broadly but did not look sideways at his guest.

“Yes. And you ain't had that other thing for two months neither.”

The lawyer nodded without a word.

“M
AMA WANTS TO
know why you ain't going out with Mr. Evans?”

Abigail Bryant was given her mother's maiden name since Melissa had never had any other one. The little girl was proud of knowing her letters taught in Lincoln's only, one-room schoolhouse. She handed the long-hand note back to her mother. Melissa stood beside the small table that she had just wiped dry. Early morning sun splashed the cantina tabletop with a shiny, skewed square in the shape of a window.

“Just ain't,” Sean Rourke said, looking up at Melissa instead of Abigail. He sat in front of an empty plate and half-empty coffee cup. Melissa pushed the rag into the belt securing her dirty skirt. She reached for a large clay pot. Sean placed the palm of his hand on the cup.

“No thanks. I've had enough.”

Melissa pulled back from the pot. She sat down at Sean's table. Abigail stepped backwards until she felt her mother's knees. Then she eased back into Melissa's lap. The mother gently wrapped her arm around her daughter's narrow waist. The black-eyed child who looked like her Apache father rested her elbows on the table and her olive-skinned chin in her palms.

Sean had to smile at the child's friendly round face. Her eyes seemed to sparkle when Sean was near and he could feel her affection. Abigail never seemed to notice the wretched damage to the man's face. He could almost forget about it until he felt the narrow-eyed stare of some other cantina patron watching him from across the little room. Melissa's beautiful but weary face did not match Abigail's cheer. The silent woman shrugged as if to repeat her scribbled written question.

The part-time deputy looked down at his clean, breakfast plate.

“My brother rides with Tunstall now. There ain't nothing between us anymore. But if Jimmy Dolan wants the sheriff to make some kind of case downriver, I ain't about to draw down on my own kin. I done that in the war.” Without looking up, Sean realized that he had not mentioned that grotesque time for over a week. He wished that it had been longer. He suddenly felt the dead side of his face become warm.

He caught himself waiting for Melissa to respond. When he looked up, she reached out and laid her calloused, washerwoman hand atop his. He nodded. Abigail scrunched up her shoulders and wrinkled her dark nose with a smile.

They looked up toward the sound of spurs jingling on the wooden floor. Jacob Mathews took long steps to Sean's table.

“Morning, Sean. Abbey; ma'am.”

“Billy.”

“Sheriff says that if you ain't going down to Tunstall's, it'll be all right with him. Sheriff says he'd be all alone in town otherwise. Says you be his chief deputy around Lincoln till the posse comes back in two or three days. Might be longer, driving them ponies twenty-five miles in the snow.”

“All right, Billy. Sheriff Brady can count on me.”

The hard look in Deputy Mathews' eyes said “If he could count on you, you'd be outside cinching up your saddle.”

“Sheriff'll be pleased to hear that, Sean. I'll tell him 'fore we ride.”

“Billy? Do you know if my brother is at Pa's?”

“Don't know.” Jacob's face softened behind the sweat and stable grit sticking to his stubbled cheeks. “But Billy Bonney ain't opened Tunstall's store today and I seen Dick Brewer ride hellbent for leather out of town before first light two hours ago. And Tunstall hisself lit out before dark last night. Going down home, most likely.”

“Thank you, Deputy Mathews.”

The lawman saw the sudden pain on Sean's mangled face. He put his hat on his greasy head and glanced down at Melissa.

“Ma'am.” He touched Abigail's nose with his index finger and she giggled. The child regarded all of Lincoln's men as her fathers. Jacob turned and walked quickly from the comfortable cantina.

Melissa read the hurt in Sean's eyes. These were not eyes that shrank from work or confrontation. Until this bright morning.

Sean looked past the woman toward the window sculpted in the two-foot thick adobe wall. White plaster covered the inside walls. He lost himself in the shaft of dazzling light raining in on a peaceful Sunday morning, February 17th.

T
HE HARD FREEZE
along the Rio Felix had broken during Saturday night. Warm air churning up from the south arrived after dark, just as John Tunstall arrived from Lincoln. Sunday would be chilly but bearable. High wisps of cirrus clouds promised a week of clear sky and above-freezing weather.

William Bonney and Patrick Rourke were up early at Tunstall's ranch beside the still frozen river. They had been busy since sunrise dumping clumps of green hay throughout the two paddocks where Tunstall's horses grazed lazily beside the few animals belonging to Alex McSween who boarded sixty miles to the northeast at South Spring River. Patrick had done the same thing for his horses in his father's barn two days earlier, just after Billy Bonney had ridden in at full gallup to beg him to ride again to the Rio Felix. Lincoln had been buzzing that Sheriff Brady was collecting a regiment of a posse for one more raid on McSween and Tunstall livestock. Challenge from another posse did not seem possible to the two young men under Sunday afternoon's perfect, purple sky. The air, the sky, even the livestock, were all too peaceful.

They were so confident of a tranquil Sabbath beside the river that they did not look down the narrow road all day—until they heard the sound of a horse pounding hard over the rock-hard ground. They had to shield their eyes with their gloved hands before they could make out Dick Brewer flying toward them. He had the reins in one hand and his other hand tightly gripped his horse's flowing mane.

Though above freezing, the mile-high air was still cold and thin enough that Brewer could not speak when he executed a flying dismount, allowing his winded horse to jog without him toward the corral. The rider stood ankle-deep in old snow. He hunched over with his hands braced upon his flexed knees. Dry heaves convulsed his chest as he gasped for air. His nonstop, twenty-five-mile gallop had only been broken by stretches of rough trotting to rest the horse.

The ranch foreman's lips were blue and his cheeks were bright red. His ears under his hat brim were menacingly pure white from incipient frostbite.

Billy Bonney put a hand on Brewer's twitching back and one on his chest to keep his from crumbling to the ground. Patrick steadied him with hands on both shoulders.

“Just breathe slow, Dick,” Billy counseled. “You'll freeze your lungs for sure if you keep panting like some old boiler about to blow.”

Brewer could only nod and wheeze hard. The commotion brought John Tunstall to the front doorway.

“Dick? You all right, old man?” Tunstall walked into the brilliant sunshine.

The young foreman looked up. Tears were streaming freely from his burning eyes. “They're coming right behind me, Mr. Tunstall.” Brewer's voice was hoarse, not much beyond a winded whisper. “Brady's men! Near on fifty of them! Like an army. The Boys is with them, too.”

“Evans?”

“The captain and the Boys and another three dozen. Coming for them horses what they says belong to Mr. McSween.”

Tunstall touched Brewer's sagging shoulder and Patrick moved his hand out of the way.

“Now you just get hold of yourself, Dick,” Tunstall smiled and spoke soothingly. “Sheriff Brady won't put up with any trouble.”

Brewer straightened his back and took off his hat. His hair was soaking wet and began to steam in the cool air. He wiped his wet face with his furclad arm.

“Brady ain't leading them. Deputy Morton is in charge with Billy Mathews. Brady stayed behind.”

“When did they leave?”

“Probably this morning,” Brewer stammered. “Could be here after dark or at first light Monday.”

Tunstall's face darkened. Brady ate at his enemy's table. But the Englishman still respected Brady for trying to walk the narrow line between the House and anarchy. Anything would be possible without Brady's influence so far from home.