Payback at Morning Peak (6 page)

Waving to the storyteller, he asked if Charley was in. “He’s in, all right, but that’s about it.” He made a weaving movement as if drunk, much to the delight of the hangers-on.

After arranging for Charley to have a look at Frisk, Jubal drifted back down the street toward Davis and the land office. He stopped in front of the gun shop to gaze at the assortment of pistols and rifles while hearing the echo of his father’s advice. “A gun, boy, is a tool, and only as good as the carpenter using it. Keep it in mind. They’re not toys and shouldn’t be thought of as such.”

Having had his fill of weaponry, he moved on, watching the parade of folks, most of them walking on the sunny side of the street. Opposite the land office, his father stood on the sidewalk facing a tall gray-haired man.

“Hold on, there, friend.”

Who was Pa calling “friend”? And why did he say it in that way that sounded like he was trying to be calm?

Jubal’s father took a nonthreatening step toward the man, his palms flattened in front of him in a placating manner.

This eccentric-looking dude with gray hair and youngish face wore a black duster and shiny, pin-sharp boots. The unbuttoned coat showed off his striped mauve vest and heavily decorated gun belt. A gray flat-brimmed hat with long braided leather strings kept his headgear secured tight under his chin. Even at a distance, Jubal could tell his eyes were colorless and mean. A number of his friends were gathered behind him. They
seemed disreputable, all mismatched. A couple of Indians, maybe half-breeds, several Mexicans, and four or five white fellows who had adorned themselves with bandoliers draped over their shoulders.

He turned to survey his hearty band of rebels. One of the most notable, a black-haired desperado with scraggly mustache, kept urging on the leader.

“Kick his farmer’s ass, Tauson.” The man danced about, showing off for his compatriots. Pulling back his long coat, he cocked his hip to reveal a bone-handled pistol. “Hey, Tauson, let me take care of your light work. You can hold my coat while I trounce that vegetable-peddler.”

The gray-haired man took offense at his compatriot’s jeering.

“Shut your hole, Pete, I’m busy.”

Pete’s audacity fascinated Jubal. The man walked halfway across the street backward, arms stretched to his sides as if in mock surrender, pretending to be afraid.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, help me in my hour of need.” He put his hands together in the gesture of prayer. “The boss man has spoken and my ass is a-tightenin’, Jesus. Show me the way to salvation and temperance.”

The rest of the men in the gang enjoyed Pete’s antics. Though Jubal, Sr., took a step back, his son thought a part of him wanted to dive into Tauson and pound his face.

A shot rang out, and the fancy wooden ball on the arched top of the land office sign went whistling through the air. Pete spun his .44 around his trigger finger and slid the weapon back into his holster. “You ever seen such shooting, Tauson? Why don’t you gun the fellow down? Sooner or later you’re gonna have to do it.”

Tauson took a step toward the shooter. “Damn your eyes, Wetherford. Stay out of my business. I’ll deal with the sodbuster when I see fit.” The man turned back to Jubal’s father. “You cheated me, mister, that’s the square of it. It doesn’t matter if it were legal or not.”

Jubal’s father gazed at the sky in apparent disbelief, then walked away.

The man called out. “I’ll have my day, make no mistake about it. Auction or no, you hear?”

Jubal caught his father’s attention, who signaled at him with his eyes in a way that said,
Stay away.
Jubal kept on the far sidewalk as the lanky fellow walked after his father.

“I’ll be paying you a visit, farmer. So mind your night prayers.”

Jubal, Sr., hesitated, looking as if he wanted to turn and belly up to the man, but instead he walked away, half smiling.

The gang continued to argue on the street, Tauson shouting at Pete. “Dammit all to hell. Wetherford, I told you to stay the hell outta my business, you hear?”

Pete reached down with both hands and cradled his crotch. “Or what?”

“What do you mean, ‘or what’?”

“‘Or what’ means what are you big enough to do, Billy? I was just having a giggle with that farmer.” The man yelled toward Jubal and his father. “You want a handful of this, pig-sticker? Say the word and we can do it.”

With his hands still cupped around his privates, he started walking to Jubal, Sr., ignoring Tauson, much to the delight of his friends. The more they cheered him on, the more animated his walk became.

“Step away, son,” Jubal’s father whispered. “This bastard is out of control.”

A loud command from Tauson slowed the monkey walk. “Wetherford, stop the foolishness and come on back. Now.”

Pete turned to face his friends and boss. He giggled and spoke in a child’s voice. “But, Da-da, I want to go pee-pee on the farmer man.”

Tauson walked away in disgust while Pete turned back to Jubal, Sr. “Do farmer man and his”—he winked at Jubal—“daughter want to play paddy cake with Petey boy?” He was even closer now. Dropping his hands from his crotch, he raised them into fists, chest-high.

“Why don’t you leave us alone?” Jubal had never seen anyone act so blatantly foolish. “None of this is any of your business, mister.”

Jubal’s father reached across to secure his son’s arm. “Easy, this fellow’s just drunk. He’ll be moving along directly.” He nodded toward the man. “Won’t you?”

Pete hesitated and reached toward his pistol, but his long coat had worked its way from behind the holster and now smothered the six-shooter. Jubal’s father lunged forward, grabbing Pete’s right hand, driving his shoulder into the man’s chest.

They both went down as Jubal scrambled along the ground next to them, grabbing Pete’s .44 from under his coat. He held the gun by its barrel, ready to crack the man’s head if needed. “Got his gun, Pa.”

“Watch out for the rest of them, son.” Jubal’s father secured Pete with his arm tucked up under his shoulder blade. Jubal watched as Pete’s friends started moving down the street toward the fight, the gun hanging limp in Jubal’s hand.

A group of townspeople crowded around the two men wrestling on the ground. Shop owners and customers deserted their pursuits to be entertained by the rowdy display in the center of the busy street, cheering on the combatants as if this were a paid circus.

Pete kicked back hard against Jubal, Sr.’s leg and spun around, but his exit was blocked by a knee driven into his groin.

“That should give you something special to hold on to, mister.” Jubal, Sr., took the pistol from his son and broke open the breech, emptying the bullets into his hand and tossing them into a nearby water trough.

Pete writhed on the ground, his hands firmly holding his crotch.

Jubal, Sr., bent over him. “Have some respect for others. This land business with your
jefe
Tauson is never your mind, you hear?” He dropped the pistol in the dirt.

The gathered townspeople cheered, swelling Jubal’s chest with pride. As they walked to the blacksmith’s shop to retrieve the wagon, his father said, “That was a brave thing you did, Jube. Taking that gun when we were scuffling around on the ground. What would you have done if he’d gotten the better of me?”

“I don’t know, Pa.” Jubal paused. “It didn’t occur to me that I would have to do anything as long as I had the gun.”

“Maybe you’ve got a point.” He smiled. “He who has the gun, rules. Unfortunate, but true. Mind you, recognize that things can change very quickly. As I’ve said before, a gun can be a useful tool, but in the wrong hands, dangerous to a fault.”

Pru and his mother were already in the wagon. “Jube, dear, you look a mess,” she said to her husband. “What happened to your clothes?”

“I was larking around with some jaybird and tripped and fell.” He swung easily up to the wagon seat. “Jube here was a big help. He stepped in and… saved the day. Guess I’m getting old, tripping over my big feet.” He smiled at his wife and clicked his tongue to the horses.

Jubal wondered what his pa would have done to the guy Pete if he hadn’t been there. He suspected it would have ended very differently.

As they made their way back to Young’s Valley that evening, Jubal asked his father what had happened.

“Jube, it’s a case of a man making a number of poor decisions. Billy Tauson is a scoundrel and he runs with a pack of equally rotten ne’er-do-wells.”

Nearly an hour later, Jubal asked his pa if he would mind stopping for a few minutes.

“Sure enough, son. I’m sure your ma and sis would appreciate a rest also.”

While the ladies wandered off, Jubal spoke to his father. “Pa, if you look over my right shoulder, back about a hundred yards just inside the tree line, you’ll see a horse and rider from town, an Injun. I’m pretty sure he was with the others you were having that set-to with.”

Without looking, Jubal, Sr., answered, “My oldest and onliest son has developed a keen sense. Very good, Jube. Yep, he’s been following us for near to an hour, and as for him being with that group, you’re right again. You’d think if he were a proper scout he would at least not wear such a bright yellow string to hold on his hat. Believe his name is Crook Arm.
Peculiar, in a way. They know where we live, why bother to track us? That jackass Tauson—”

“That’s the tall, gray-haired man?”

“Yes, he used to own our plot of land. I expect they’re just trying to pester us. One thing’s for sure, they can’t eat us—that’s against the law.”

The weathered road came to a fork, one way leading north to Colorado, the other west to Cerro Vista. Jubal was tempted to push on north, but he knew he had to tell his story to the authorities, even though he couldn’t truthfully explain the death of his father without getting himself in trouble. His impulse was to ride away from all the carnage.

But he had to do what was right. He veered west toward Cerro Vista.

As he approached the fork, a slight movement off to his left at the edge of the woods startled Jubal. A dappled gray mare grazed along the fringe of the tree line, looking skittish, with her reins looped over the saddle horn. Oddly, her rider had left the horse with the reins untied. Jubal walked slowly to the animal.

“What you doing out here all alone, huh?”

The horse backed away and whinnied loudly.

“She needs water, Mr. Rifleman,” came a voice from behind. “Fact of the matter, so do I.”

As Jubal turned, he saw a young man who seemed close to his own age lying half propped against a ponderosa. A .44-caliber pistol with dirt caked into the barrel and side rested limply in one hand. The front of his flannel shirt was streaked with dried blood.

“Don’t you concern your mind about this here hogleg, boy. It’s dirty, but it’ll still bust you up to a fare-thee-well, so just hustle back to your buckboard and get me water before I put a round in your chest like you did me.”

Jubal recognized the young man as part of the group of renegades back at the farm. The gunshot wound in his upper torso was from Jubal’s rifle.

“Get me some water, dammit. Go on, git.”

The wounded cowboy seemed weak, and Jubal doubted if he could even pull the trigger, but there was something about his helplessness. Jubal’s rifle lay under the seat of the buckboard, his water canteen hung in plain view on the side of the wagon. He hesitated, then retrieved the water and stepped carefully toward the slumped young man.

“Just set it down careful-like, boy. Don’t try anything brave, or I’ll open
you
up. My name is Ty and I’m a shootist.” Trying to muster some bravura, he fell short of a sneer. He held the gun in one hand and struggled with the stopper on the canteen. In exasperation, he threw it at Jubal’s feet. “Open it, damn it. Go on.”

Jubal opened the canteen and started pouring the contents onto the ground at the renegade’s feet. “Set that pistol down or I’ll pour all this water out.”

The gunman attempted to cock the pistol, trying to show he was still in the game.

As he did so, Jubal swung the canteen by its strap, easily slapping the .44 to the ground. He calmly retrieved the weapon, stuffing it into his belt while Ty slumped in defeat.

Jubal handed the canteen to his enemy. “I ought to let you die of thirst, you bastard.”

The wounded man whimpered behind him. “They did me dirt, the scoundrels. Left me for dead,” he wailed, full of self-pity. “I rode with those men near on two years, and this is how they treat me. Billy Tauson’s my cousin, for gosh sakes. Said he’d come back for me once they caught and skinned you alive, but he lied. I waited a couple hours, then struggled up on Ned here and made it this far before I slipped off.”

Jubal turned away.

“Don’t leave me. I’ll pay you whatever you need. Don’t leave. I need some fixin’.”

He couldn’t leave this person out here to die. Jubal walked to the slumping form, pulled him away from the tree, and wrapped both arms around him to drag him to the buckboard.