Between Hell and Texas (36 page)

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Authors: Dusty Richards

BOOK: Between Hell and Texas
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Chet found a seat in the dense cedar and live oak and waited. His man might not even come this night. It all depended on things at Burl's place. The death of his son-in-law might postpone him coming to see her for days. But when he did, Chet would be there waiting on him. He slowly masticated a dry biscuit. And he washed it down with spring water that tasted metallic.
Day two, Chet came back in the morning, resuming his post. And he watched her look, a little concerned, to the south where Burl would ride up from. He watched her undress and take a sponge bath through the lacey live-oak leaves. The sunlight splashed on her brown skin and flecked like glitter on her gray-streaked hair. Lupe was quite fastidious about herself, and brushed her hair with a hundred strokes a day. She picked things from her garden and when it was real hot, she hoed bare-breasted. He wasn't there to spy on her—he waited for Burl.
The third day Chet was there, she butchered a young milk-fat goat and cooled his carcass under a wet canvas which used evaporation to take the heat from his pink-white body. The small skin she saved, and she also shut up a hen with her fluffy black-and-yellow-feathered new chicks in a small A-frame coop so a coyote would not feast on them.
Late that afternoon, Chet could hear a horse coming. His hooves were clacking on the loose gravel of the trail as he climbed up from the creek below the house.
She ran from the house with colored ribbons in her hair. “My darling! My darling! I have missed you so.”
Burl swung to get down, and Chet could see his bandaged right foot when he dismounted. He probably had hurt it in the fall from his horse. He hobbled to her. “Darling, I have been so busy. They killed my son-in-law, those bastards. I cannot say the misery they have caused me. They shot him in the back.”
She hugged him and they kissed furiously. “Oh my darling, why do they do this to you?” she asked.
It was time for him to move in. They thought they were all alone. With his double barrel in his sweaty hands, Chet crept closer to the house. When he swung around the corner of the jacal, he could hear them plainer. Burl held her on his lap. She was singing some ballad about a wild horse, and her sleepy dark eyes flew open in shock at the sight of him and his shotgun.
“Don't move or you will both die.” One-handed, Chet leveled the shotgun at the two of them. “No need to scream, Lupe.”
He swung a empty crate around and took a seat on it with the sun behind him.
“Don't consider going for that gun in your holster,” he said quietly. “Reach slowly with two fingers, then remove the Colt and drop it.”
“I will—”
“You won't do anything. Today I am determined to do some trading. If you try to kill or kill any more members of my family you will be the first one to die. You won't know when I will strike, but I will strike and you will die a slow harsh death. I will use rattlesnakes to strike you many times. Then you will be naked, staked on an ant hill with honey poured on your crotch, and after you have screamed for a day, then I will hang you over a fire ring upside down and boil your brains.”
Burl hugged her and looked shocked. “I—I can't control everyone—what if—”
“If even one person in my family is so much as bruised,” he said softly. “Your life is over. I will find you like I did right here, and your last hours on this earth will be screaming until you are too hoarse to even whisper.”
No reply.
“I don't think you understand me.”
“I savvy. I savvy.” Burl held out his hands. “What will you do to us?”
“That is why I came here. You have not answered my questions. What will you do? Die screaming or hold your peace?”
“Hold my peace, of course.”
Chet sat back, set the shotgun over his lap, and folded his arms. “What will you give me to prove that you are saying the truth?”
“What—what do you want from me?”
Lupe looked ready to cry. “For God's sake, Burl, tell him what he wants.”
“Alright, I promise to do nothing to you or your family and I will tell everyone the same.”
“Tell me what I said will happen to you.”
“That you or someone will ant-hill me, have snakes bite me, and then boil my brains in my skull.”
“You have the picture. Now get down on your bellies. I am going to tie you both up.”
“What will you do to us then?” Burl asked, looking wide-eyed.
“Get on the ground.”
“Do it. Do it,” Lupe said, looking worried at him.
“Alright.”
On their stomachs, they put their hands behind their backs. They watched for him to step over and tie them with some rope he brought with him. He made sure they were tied securely. Then he put a small glass in front of Burl's face. The top was sealed with a piece of paper tied by string on the side to keep the contents inside.
“See those red ants?”
“Yes.”
“You know what they'll do to you?”
Burl nodded.
“Lupe, you want to keep him for a lover, every time he comes here you tell him what those ants will do to him.”
“
Sí. Sí,
I will.”
“You have enough. Don't forget what I or my relatives will do to you. Burl, you will be the first one treated like that.”
There were no more words, but Lupe was crying, sobbing in the dirt when he left them. Chet took his time climbing the hill, and caught his hobbled horse to free his legs. He removed the black slicker he'd used to hide with. Then he mounted Angel and headed for the ranch.
Would his plans work? The Lord only knew, but he had showed the family king what he'd do to him at a place Burl considered his private kingdom. Only time would tell. All he needed was time enough to sell the ranch properties and move to the Arizona territory. He booted Angel into a trot.
He ate a late dinner with Susie accompanying him in the kitchen.
“You look more rested tonight. Did you get something settled?”
“Tomorrow, I'm going to speak to some land sales offices about the value of this ranch and see if they would try to sell it for us.”
“That sounds so sad.” Susie looked downhearted.
“Not as sad as burying a family member.”
“Oh, you are right, but this is the only place I've ever lived. I thought I'd have a family here and someday be buried here.”
“Things change.”
She agreed.
Chapter 37
On the square in San Antonio, across from the tired-looking adobe former mission of Texas fame that warmed in the summer afternoon heat, Chet sat at a café table in the lacy shade of some mesquite trees. The man in the white suit across from him was Carl Rankin. He worked for the Stockman's Bank, and they waited for a prospective buyer who wished to discuss the ranch property Chet had for sale.
Albert Fine, in an expensive suit, and his son-in-law, Tony Doone, dressed in cowboy clothing, arrived by coach. Fine was a expansive-acting man who looked upset that there might be bird shit on the table. Both Chet and Rankin rose and shook their hands then invited the pair to have a seat.
A waiter came over and took their orders for drinks. Fine ordered some special scotch to drink, and his son-in-law said he'd have the same. Chet said he didn't need anything, and Rankin said he couldn't drink while representing the bank.
The matter settled, Rankin gave them the size of the ranch as 1800-plus acres.
“I want that surveyed and a proven deed, if we decide to buy it, sir.” Fine said, using his index finger like a stirring stick.
“That can be handled,” Rankin said. “There are three hundred mother cows with a normal calf-crop percentage, replacement heifers, and yearlings. All these cows are outcrosses with either Shorthorn or Hereford bulls. That is very important. The native longhorn cattle not showing British crosses are being discounted in Kansas.
“The owner will guarantee a remuda of eighty working horses. These are not mustangs, but well-bred horses.”
“What colors?” Doone asked.
“Sorrels, bays, and some roans,” Chet said.
“I'd like some claybanks.”
Chet nodded. “I have two of those colts from a young Mexican stallion. But they're not a portion of the ranch sale.”
Doone sprung forward in his wicker chair and gripped his knees. “How much apiece for them?”
“Five hundred a head.”
“Kinda high, aren't you?”
“They are out of a closed line of horses. I own one of the only stallions outside of the Barbarousa Hacienda down there.”
“Is he on the place? The stud?”
“He's not for sale.”
“I'd like to see him.”
“Come to the ranch.”
Fine frowned at his son-in-law. “We can see them when we go out there to look at his operation.”
“Oh, yes.” Doone sat up straight and restored his composure.
Chet decided Fine didn't want Doone to act overexcited about the ranch or the horses. It was all part of his role—much better in the rest posture.
“What is the price?”
“There are a hundred acres of good land that they grow corn and oat hay on,” Rankin said. Then he shuffled the pages. “The price for the acreage and buildings is seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“This must be the highest-priced place I've ever heard of in that region,” Fine said, standing up as if he was ready to leave.
“Best-watered ranch in the region,” Rankin tried to tell him. “More shallow wells will produce plenty of water with windmills.”
“I'll let you know what we think later. Good day, Mr. Byrnes.”
“Same,” Chet said, considering the big man's poor manners. Fine's son-in-law jumped up and thanked them like he didn't know his father-in-law was halfway to the buggy. They were leaving.
Rankin kept folding his hands and unfolding them. Chet wondered if he was going to explode, he was so worked up. “I hate that sumbitch.”
Chet about laughed. “I can't say he's a very nice person.”
“Oh, he'll buy your ranch and those high-priced horses, but he has to show his superiority.”
Chet frowned and then slumped in the chair. Fine'd do what? Pay that much money for his place. Rankin must be long on money and weak on good sense. Considering the strange meeting, he could hardly believe Rankin's words.
“I have sold him three large ranches in the past year and a half. He does this to me every time.” Rankin gritted his teeth. “Get ready, he'll come back and buy your ranch with some wrangling in a few weeks. Are you packed?”
“No, but I can be. Easily.” That was crazy. He'd have a million things to pack. He couldn't believe the man from the bank. He'd have enough money for another ranch. With all this talk and fretting about all those long days how he'd ever drive his herd out there, if this sale went through it looked like he'd only have a handful of stock to move. No killing newborn calves every day before they started out—he'd need some sort of a letdown from all this whirling-mind business.
“You better go home and pack. I'll send a telegram before he's coming out there to buy it.”
“You can't be serious?”
“Yes, I am dead serious.”
“I'll go home but—I can't believe this. Why, he acted like—”
“Trust me Mr. ah, Chet. I know him.”
Chet shook his head in disbelief.
Two days later, he rode in to the ranch. Chet's arrival back at the ranch caused one of the young boys to ring the bell. He dismounted heavily, and let his sea legs catch up before he released the horn.
“You look like a man who's lost his best friend.” Susie said.
He waited to answer her as the rest around the ranch house came to join them. Then he began to speak. “My banker in San Antonio says we've sold the ranch.”
Several jaws sagged in disbelief. Susie's knees about buckled. “But—but I thought you only went to list it.”
“I did, and they had a ready buyer who came to ask a few questions.”
“How will we ever move all this?” Susie looked bewildered.
“Some things we have to leave or sell at an auction.”
“When is this buyer coming?”
“I expect him in two weeks. Until then, start sorting things to save or leave. We can't take over a half-dozen wagons out there in a cavalcade. I'd be short on drivers with that many. Get back to work. We'll talk some more later.”
May stood in the doorway, biting her lip and rocking baby Donna.
“You hear me?” Chet asked going by her through the door.
“We both did.”
“I know it's scary. But you'll like it.”
“I hope so.”
 
 
The next two weeks dragged by; then a wire finally came from Carl Rankin, delivered by a teenage boy from Mason.
Chet read the contents to the women. “Fine plans to buy the ranch. He made a down payment of $29,000 to hold the deal. Sending Doone out there to look at those special horses to see if he wants to buy them as well. He won't back out and lose that much money. Consider returning to San Antonio with Doone so we can close this sale. Rankin.”
After that, Chet saddled a good horse, and without a word to any of them, he rode for Kathren's place. All the way, he fought a sour knot in his throat that tried to crawl up past his tongue. He considered stopping in Mayfield and getting drunk, but he never halted. He made the cow pony jog, and tried hard as he had since he left the—
to think of what he must tell her.
At her hitch rack, he almost lost it all. He didn't know to deal with the knife of sorrow stabbing his heart. He took off his hat and beat his leg stalking toward her front door.
“It happened like that banker said?” Kathren asked, coming out onto the porch.
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes to cut off the flood coming from behind them, and he did the same as they held each other—for the last time.

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