Rebellion in the Valley (17 page)

In his mind, the intention was to bring his
friend back home and see to it that he stayed comfortably in bed
for a few weeks while he mended.

But in his heart, Doc Amerley feared the
worst as he gave a gentle kick into his horse’s side and gave a
stern nod to the sheriff.

Chapter 19

“H
eave-ho! Someone needs to shove a little harder over there,”
Duffy grunted under the weight of the animal.

After drawing sticks for who received the
honor of carting the critter back to the ranch, the hatless man
pulled the longest one.

“Heck yeah! I win, fellas,” he wiggled the
stick in the air for full impact of his reward. His victory-shout
echoed through the trees as he chucked the stick over his head.

That victorious win proved short-lived,
however. After several miles of the horse trotting away over uneven
dirt roads, the weight of the cat shifted at least twenty times,
either pushing the man farther back on his saddle or causing the
cat to droop to one side or the other of the horse, forcing the man
to strain his back in order to yank the critter back up and into a
more sturdy position. Then there was the other issue of the blood;
once Duffy gutted the animal back in the canyon, it left an opening
on her belly gushing with the life-liquid for the better portion of
half an hour. By the time the men hit Hardscrabble Pass, the man’s
dungarees - and his horse – were in the need of a bath from the
blood still sloshing out of the animal.

Running a hand down the length of the cat,
the man sat up a bit taller in the saddle and shoved the animal
farther toward the saddle horn; he twisted himself in a sharp jab
to his left in an apparent attempt to work the kinks out of his
back before nodding his head and breaking the silence by
announcing, “Another hour and a half, and I part ways with this
stinkin’ thing!”

His friend grinned. “Yeah, I figured the
glory would wear off before we made it to the gates; you did real
good with her, though, especially being your first time,” he added
as a bonus for keeping her from slipping off.

“I’m gonna be fillin’ my gut with something
warm tonight, that’s all I know,” Duffy said out loud.

Not too long after making that statement,
they turned down the last curve in the road leading them home.
Riding along in silence, Duffy had skillfully managed to kill the
mood with his angry words and rude looks a long time before they
brought the mountain lion down; as they neared the Red Bone Ranch
without their boss and friend, the full impact of what happened out
there on that trail came bearing down hard on their minds and in
their hearts.

P

Duffy wasted no time in making his way to the
back door of the main house, popping his head into the kitchen. He
knew Richard had both seen and heard the trio of men when they
reached the top of the hill, but he still made his presence
known.

“We got the cat,” he told Richard with a smug
look on his face. “You wanna come out and take a look?”

Richard just looked at him.

“What I’d really like to be looking at right
now is Bruce. Can you tell me how bad the fall was before Hailee
runs down here? That girl hasn’t eaten more than a handful of food
since we heard the news.”

Duffy pulled himself all the way into the
kitchen and shrugged his shoulders. “It wasn’t good, I can tell ya
that much. Toppled right over the edge of the canyon wall, plumb
down to the bottom I suppose. But I wouldn’t spend much time
worryin’ over it,” he almost mumbled. “I imagine the doc’s got it
under control by now, don’t you?”

Taken back by the lack of concern for not
only his boss – but his friend – Richard shook his head as if he
were clearing it.

“Doctor Amerley and the sheriff ought to be
able to handle the situation, yes, but I would have thought that
you could have stayed behind to help Tobias with –“

“Tobias this and Tobias that! A man gets
mighty sick of hearing that name by the end of the day! He took
control and went fetchin’ after Bruce all by himself, didn’t ask
nobody for no help, either. You weren’t there and you don’t know
what happened, so you don’t have no right buttin’ in and accusing
me of things you don’t know nothin’ about!”

Duffy turned, his face reddened with anger,
letting the door slam behind himself.

Just as Richard opened his mouth to say
something to him, he heard Hailee.

“What’s got him so worked up? And why didn’t
he stay to tell me what happened to Daddy? What did he say to
you?”

“He’s got the cat out there …”

“I don’t care about that stupid cat – that
cat is what got my father into this mess in the first place! Would
somebody just please tell me what is going on here?” Hailee raised
both hands to her face, bringing her fingers across her nose and
over her eyes in one liquid motion; she shut her eyes and allowed
her fingertips to find their way over her eyelids.

Richard shook his head.

“I know just as much as you do at this point,
Hailee; Duffy didn’t tell me anything, either, just seemed
irritated that I didn’t care to make my way out there to take a
look at the cat. Didn’t mention what happened to your father, not
really.”

They stood in the quiet kitchen for a few
moments, each with looks on their faces as if they were trying to
makes sense of the events, when out of nowhere, they both heard
loud voices coming from the direction of the barn.

“Daddy?”

Richard wiped his hands on a dish cloth,
taking it along as they scurried out the door.

What they saw stopped them both cold.

Duffy and some others had the mountain lion
pulled off the horse and had her torso pulled out straight on the
ground, full length from her ears to end of her tail; Richard
whistled at the sight of it.

Hailee gasped audibly. “I had no idea she was
so big!”

“It’s been quite a few years since the last
time I came this close to one of these,” Richard reflected. “Good
work, everyone.”

Duffy snorted in disgust, much to the
surprise of everyone gathered around the animal.

“Yeah, well, she’s pretty and all, but she
ain’t gonna skin herself. Someone needs to get my block and tackle
ready,” he added to nobody in particular.

Hailee yanked her skirt up a couple of
inches. “I don’t mind getting up there,” she announced before
anyone else could say anything. “It’ll give me something to do
while I wait for Daddy to get home.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d made her way
up the ladder Bruce built; as a father raising a child without her
mother, Bruce soon discovered the need for a way to keep the
toddler occupied and out of trouble; he spent almost every minute
of his day outside tending to things around the ranch and his
daughter enjoyed being with him instead of being cooped up in the
house, so her favorite childhood toy had been born out of the need
for a babysitter - a swing built right in the dead center of the
barn entrance.

Right after he built he swing, his daughter
sat on it just about every day, whether it was for play or just a
place to read a book. But as the years wore on and Hailee grew from
being a toddler to a little girl entering school and then into a
stunning young lady, she spent less and less time sitting there in
her swing, opting instead to either read in the parlor or the
privacy of her own bedroom.

As the years passed and Bruce acquired a few
more hundred acres, hired more and more hands, Richard also
acquired more mouths to feed and Duffy had more and more meat to
keep up with. The old swing converted into the block and tackle
Hailee had become so familiar with.

“Okay, here she comes,” she warned right
before lifting the hook keeping the large wooden apparatus secured
above the barn’s entryway. It swung downward, making a swooshing
sound on the way, clanking as the chain and hook strained
mid-air.

A couple of men stopped the hook from swaying
and pushed it to the side in order to move it and fetch the burlap
sacks which were to be laid underneath the cat as the pelt was
peeled away from the animal.

Hailee always opted out of that ranch
activity; she’d heard the men-folk talking about what happened, and
the hearing about it was plenty enough for her. She was thankful
her father trained his help to always lay the sacks down before
they began the pelting; if she were to step in a big puddle the
next day…the thought sent a chill down her spine.

“You yank the tail over in that direction and
hold some decent tension while I start peeling the flesh away,” he
barked at the youngest man as the trio exchanged looks.
“Ready?”

Duffy knew the young man had never in his
entire life skinned a wild cat before; somehow he managed to give
the impression that it almost gave him a thrill to watch the young
ranch hand squirm as he split the cat’s flesh open at the
breastbone. With the initial piercing of its flesh complete, he
continued right down the center of the animal, slicing through to
the end of the tail. The young man held the length of fur in place
for Duffy until he had finished the task, but averted his eyes as
much as possible.

Slicing and peeling the flesh back a few
inches at a time gave Duffy a rush that the others saw as chilling,
almost, but they said nothing to him about it. Instead, they gave
one another looks and shook their heads whenever he would chuckle
at hitting another vein.

When one of the men would reach for an old
rag to wipe himself clean, Duffy would reprimand him, saying that
it took a real man to skin a cat.

“Don’t any of you even look like you know
what’s going on here. Why don’t you just step back and let me
handle this,” he growled.

After the better part of a couple of hours
had crawled its way down the length of the dead animal and the
group stood over a lump of golden fur, Duffy barked out yet another
strand of commands.

“Someone pull up on the hide over here – come
on!” his lips twisted.

When none of the men moved, Duffy stopped his
work and plunged his knife into the ground before looking up.

Before he could even think of an insult to
whirl in their direction, one of the men took a step closer to
Duffy and spoke up for the group as a whole.

“Now you look here, Duffman. You are not our
boss and you do not own this ranch,” he lashed out with a wave of
his hand. “You are as much a hired hand as the rest of us and we
don’t know what’s gotten into you over the last few months, but we
ain’t gonna take it anymore.”

The others chimed in with a chorus of
agreement, setting Duffy on guard.

He spat on the dirt floor of the barn and
looked around before grinning.

“I’ve put in more time on this ranch than any
of you. I’ve paid my dues.”

The group of men gave one another questioning
glances; what could he possibly mean by that statement?

“You’re all gonna find out what’s what soon
enough,” he mumbled.

“All I know is, we’re done here. Skin the
rest of this cat by yourself, Duffman. You seem to be good at doing
things all by yourself anyhow. And you be sure to take full credit
of this kill when the boss gets back home, will ya?”

The group of men disappeared through the barn
door, heading toward to back entrance of the kitchen. So they could
all sit with Richard and whine about the fate of the ranch, he
supposed.

Duffy grinned as he reached over for the
knife and looked at the pelt again.

“Yes sir. This will look darn good on the
parlor room wall,” he mentioned out loud.

Chapter 20

R
ichard dipped the last of the skillets into his bucket of
rinse water and laid them out on a clean dish towel to air dry,
paying close attention to every single word the men muttered in
complaint against Duffy as they all sat huddled up around the
table.

Towel in hand, the cook made his way over to
the end of the butcher block counter and left the half-damp cloth
folded in half over a glass jar. Shaking his head of gray hair, he
admitted to the group of men, “I hate to say it, but you’re right.
He has changed over the past few months–I thought at first, maybe
he was going through something personal, so I left it alone. But
he’s gotten downright ornery.”

“Like he thinks he’s better than the rest of
us,” someone added.

Without Bruce there to bounce any ideas
against, the ranch hands and cook found themselves in the position
of having to put up with everything Duffy shoveled their way, and
the problem with that was, the man was very well aware of that
fact.

Richard rolled the heavy flour barrel over to
the edge of the table, sat down and leaned over toward the men,
plopping his elbows down to rest his chin on the backs of his old
hands while they talked.

“Soon as Bruce gets back home, he oughtta
have a long sit-down meeting with that man; this business of
feeling like we’re in Duffy’s way doesn’t sit very well with any of
us. We’ve got chores to get done, and how do ya expect us to go
about the day when he’s gawking at every move we make and trying to
make more out of what we say than there is to it?”

The man at the end of the table pulled his
coffee tin from his lips and nodded. “Yeah, me and Tobias were
talking about something the other day and he comes up behind us,
only heard half of what we said and lost his temper. Saying we were
all against him. Never saw anything like it.”

Richard nodded. “At least I only have to deal
with him when he comes inside for meals; I bet it’s double hard on
all of you. And it’s only been a day of having to put up with him
without Bruce on the place, so the sooner he gets home, the better
we’ll all –“

The cook wasn’t able to finish what he was
saying, as the subject of those words stood at the kitchen door.
He’d overheard the men talking about him, but made no attempt to
come inside, made no attempt at defending himself. Instead, he
stood his ground and let out a chuckle before turning around and
walking off.