Texas Blood Feud (18 page)

“I swear to Gawd he’s in New Mexico.”

“Get his horse,” Chet said to Sammy.

“You hanging me?” Mitch asked.

“No, you ain’t getting off that easy. I want you to have a trial for murder of a woman.”
Of the woman I loved
.

Hours later, he and Sammy, with their slump-shouldered prisoner, rode up to Sheriff Trent’s clapboard-sided home in Mason. In the twilight, Chet dismounted heavily and let his sea legs get under him by clinging to the saddle horn.

Trent came to the lighted doorway. “That you, Byrnes?”

“Yes, Sammy and I have Mitch Reynolds. Besides murdering Marla Porter, he’s been rustling, and broke into Kathren Hines’ house after terrorizing her.”

The sheriff made a pained look. “You know that I’ve been trying hard to catch him and his brother.”

“I know that, Sheriff. You’ve tried hard, but that bunch of his hid ’em out. Kathren came to my house this morning telling me he’d been rustling her stock and trailing her around. No doubt for the same reason he did it all to Marla—”

Gawdamn it, he was crying
.

The next morning, Sheriff Trent rode a few feet ahead of him on a good sorrel horse. A strong stink of pigs filled Chet’s nose as they came out in the open and he could see the adobe jacales, the cross-bars that Drake butchered on, and the nearly naked brown children who blinked in disbelief at the sight of them. He could hear the sound of hogs fighting coming from where they were kept in a large pole pen to the right.

Unshaven and putting up an overall suspender, Dover Drake came outside and wiped his whiskered mouth on the back of his hand. Then he spit in the dust.

“Dover Drake?”

“You must be the sheriff.”

“I am. My name’s Trent. This is Mr. Byrnes.”

“I knowed him.” Drake folded his arms over his chest.

Trent rested his hand on the saddle horn. “A friend of yours, Mitch Reynolds, said he sold you rustled cattle.”

“Friend—why, that son of a bitch ain’t no friend of mine. I don’t buy no rustled cattle. No sirree. All the cattle I buy have the owner’s brand on them. I know Texas law. If this so-called friend sold me cattle, they must have had his brand on them.”

“We want to see your hides.”

“I ain’t got many. I sold some to a hide dealer came through here a while ago.”

“That’s fine. I can check his hides later.” Trent nodded like that satisfied him, and he dismounted. “I want to see the hides you have.”

Drake looked at the dirt and stirred it some with his shoe. “That son of a bitch Reynolds sent you, huh?”

“He sent me.”

“Well, the damn hides you want are in that building.” He pointed at a nearby structure. “I should have known he hadn’t bought those cattle like he told me he did. Worthless outfit.”

The woman in the doorway, who looked quite pregnant, spoke to Drake in Spanish, and he said in her lingo,
“They are going to take me to jail.”

She dropped on her knees and began to pray and cross herself. Her wailing was soon joined by the children’s caterwauling.

“I’ll go find the hides,” Chet said, anxious to escape the woman and her offsprings’ emotional pleading.

Trent nodded, and put the handcuffs on Drake.

In the stinking dark shed, piled with hides, Chet went through the hides and picked out the ones with Kathren’s 9Y brand on them. It became necessary to hold them up to the door’s light to see the mark. The others he piled aside to find hers, and the stench assailed his nostrils and made his stomach upset. He was grateful for each time he got to step outside in the sunshine with a hide of hers and catch a breath of air. Soon, all sixteen were stacked on the ground and he blew his nose hard to try and clear the sourness out.

Meanwhile, Trent found a burro and slapped a packsaddle on him. They rolled up and lashed the stinking hides on the cross-buck tree for evidence. Then, with the handcuffed Drake riding another donkey, they headed out, leaving Drake’s wife or mistress, whatever, still wailing and screaming Spanish cuss words after them.

“Tough job being a lawman,” Chet said when they were no longer hearing her.

“At times, it’s damn tough. But I didn’t ask him to buy rustled cattle either.”

Chet agreed. He could go back to the ranch and tell Kathren she could safely go home. The law had the rustlers and her antagonist as well. Mitch wouldn’t bother her again. His brother Kenny, according to the information that he got out of Mitch, was in New Mexico.

He hoped he stayed there.

At the crossroads, Sheriff Trent stopped. He was headed for Mason. Chet shook his hand, thanked him, and then went west for home. It was near dark when he rode in and dismounted. He scrubbed his whiskered cheek. Would have been nice to have cleaned up first before she saw him. But he’d been in the saddle two days and there’d been no time for that.

Susie and Kathren appeared in the lighted doorway.

“Sammy told us you caught him. Get him delivered?” his sister asked.

“I’ll put him up, Uncle Chester,” Heck said, taking the reins.

He tousled the boy’s hair and smiled. “Thanks. Yes, Mitch is in the Mason jail to await his trial for Marla’s murder. Dover Drake’s going to join him today for buying stolen beef. Oh,” he said, clasping the porch post and looking up into Kathren’s blue eyes. “Best I could learn, he stole sixteen head from you. That’s how many hides Dover had with your brand on them.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “I’m sorry I had to put you through all this.”

“I reckon tomorrow I can take you home. It should be safe.”

A look of being trapped spread over her face. “I can go—”

“I’m certain you can, but I’ll take you home and be sure you and Cady are safe and sound.”

Hell—she looked about to cry, and rushed over to hug him. How many times in his life had he dreamed about that happening? And he was as dirty as a pig. He closed his eyes and returned her embrace. Whew.

With Kathren under his arm, he went inside.

“Oh, Susie, the sheriff said to tell you hello. You must have impressed him in town.” He could have sworn she blushed.

“That was nice.”

The crew gathered in the dining room while he ate his meal and told them everything that Sammy hadn’t. The food tasted good, and he couldn’t recall eating much of anything since he’d left.

“Do you think they’ll finally quit after all this?” Dale Allen asked, standing back and holding May’s shoulder.

Chet looked hard at his brother. “No.”

A hush fell over them.

“I know that’s not great news. But Earl won’t give up on his revenge until they throw him kicking in his grave. They have so much hate in them. Bringing in Mitch won’t help either, but there’s nothing else I could do.” He held up his hand to stop Kathren’s protest. “No need for you to get upset. I’m glad Mitch’s in jail. Let the cards fall as they may.”

The two men nodded in agreement.

“We think they’ve finally stopped driving cattle on us. So you did some good,” Dale Allen said.

“Good. Maybe we can get caught up around here. Any word from Matt and J.D.?”

“No,” Susie said.

He nodded to show that he’d heard her, and went back to eating his food. “They’re big boys. They can find their way home.”

“I hope they do soon.”

“Matt’s fussy about mules. I knew it would take some time for him to find good ones and then swap for them.”

Kathren brought him some pecan pie on a plate. “We saved you a big piece.”

He smiled at her. “That’ll sure be a real treat.”

Reg laughed. “Yeah, she threatened us on our lives if we ate it, too.”

Kathren shook her head and held her chin high on her way after the coffeepot. “You can’t do nothing around here that doesn’t go unnoticed.”

“Part of having a big family.” Chet used his fork to cut a piece out of the pie. The first bite flooded his mouth with saliva. Not bad, not bad at all.

The next morning, frost covered everything. Chet had bathed and shaved the night before. He put on his newest pair of starched and ironed canvas pants and a white shirt, then brushed his suit coat, hoping it would warm up fast when the sun came up. Otherwise, he’d have to wear his waxed canvas drover’s coat. The boys were busy hitching up the buggy team and saddling Kathren’s horse to tie it on behind. He threw his bedroll in the buckboard on his way to breakfast. Might have to be certain that she’d be all right at her place.

“Well,” Susie said, looking him over and acting impressed when he walked in the kitchen. “You sure look nice.”

“Good,” he said as Kathren came in the back door with some jars of fruit from the cellar.

“Good morning,” she said. Her face lit up. He couldn’t recall that ever happening before—her perking up at the sight of him. “Susie thought some peaches might taste good for breakfast.”

“Great idea. We’ll be ready to roll when breakfast is over. They have your buckboard hitched.”

“I can ride home by myself.” She set the jars down for him to unseal.

Straining on the rings, he undid them and she smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “I’d forgotten men can do those things.”

“We aren’t all bad.”

She stopped, bent over to get the jars, and looked him square in the eye. “I’m learning that, too.”

If he’d ever felt that he had an inside track with her, at this moment his hopes surged. There might be a way for them to develop something more permanent from all this mess. Something he’d not even dreamed about while arresting Mitch or riding after the butcher Drake with Sheriff Trent.

The problem for him—how did he keep her feeling this way? He better get off his high horse and get back down to earth. Anyone could have taken Mitch Reynolds—he’d been asleep. So what? Kathren was too big a prize for him to expect to hold on to. Better cushion himself for the fall. She’d go home and be safe and draw back in her shell. He’d be right back to having nothing again.

After the meal, he drove her to Maysville to pick up some supplies on the way. She wore a man’s felt hat and a long black wool coat over her riding skirt and blouse. He knew that the two of them being together must have turned some heads as he helped her off the buckboard. Chet Byrnes and Kathren Hines, a recent widow, came to town together today would be on all the gossiping lips before dark—why, it might be on a page in the next day’s edition of the
San Antonio Telegraph
.

“I won’t be long,” she promised.

“I’ll go over to Casey’s and talk to the loafers and check on you in thirty minutes.”

She looked concerned. “I won’t take that long.”

“You can today.”

“But—but you have things to do.”

“Kathren, I’ll get them all done by spring. Take your time.”

“All right. I wanted to pick out some material.”

He stepped on the rig and undid the reins. “Good. Thirty minutes.”

He halted in front of the harness/saddle shop, tied up the team, and then walked through the batwing doors and inside Casey’s Saloon. When he saw the big Irishman’s face behind the bar, he knew something was wrong.

A masked man bearing a sawed-off shotgun reared up from under the counter and pointed it at Chet. His heart stopped. An ambush. Two men grabbed him by the arms and someone else drove an ax handle into his left kidney. A sharp pain from the blow blinded him. They were using him for a punching bag when the shotgun went off. Its percussion put out the lights and filled the barroom with acrid blue smoke. Chet was on his knees not feeling any shot in his body, but the battering blows with the ax handles changed to kicks. Then he collapsed face-first in the sawdust, too numb to know anything.

He awoke with his head in Kathren’s lap and her brushing sawdust and dirt off his face.

“Who in the hell was in that welcoming party?” he managed to ask.

“They all wore masks,” Casey said, squatted beside her. “Never said nothing. I think one of them was Shelby Reynolds. I busted that one had my shotgun over the head. You owe me three bucks for the whiskey bottle. It was near full. Then I wrestled the gun away from him and that’s when it went off in the ceiling.” Casey shrugged. “They ran out of here about then.”

“Lie still,” Kathren said to him. “Doc’s coming.”

“Let me sit up.”

“Oh, all right. But you may jar something else loose.”

“I’ll be fine. Anyone else know who they were?”

“They all had masks.”

“Recognize anything about them?”

The familiar faces around him came and went from his fuzzy vision as all shook their heads. He knew where the masked men came from—but they must have expected him to go to town. How? Lucky? Maybe, maybe not. Word had had a chance by then to get back to them about Mitch being in jail—why chance a daylight attack in a saloon? He put a hand on his side. They’d really worked him over.

“How long were they in here before I came in?”

Casey shook his head. “Minutes is all.”

That meant they’d followed him and Kathren into town and knew he’d probably go to Casey’s for a beer as he usually did. “Who’s Shelby Reynolds?”

“Earl’s younger brother from Fort Worth.”

“He been around here long?”

Casey shook his head. “They said Earl sent him money to bring some shooters with him.”

Chet dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know what kind of shooters they are, but they ain’t half bad at roughing a fella up.”

Kathren made him look at her, and she used a white kerchief to brush more sawdust off his face near his tear ducts. “You sit still awhile. No telling what they’ve busted.”

He forced a smile for her. “Did you get that material you wanted?”

“Yes, but—”

“I fed them chickens good before I left there, and turned the milk cow and her calf out together. But I bet they need some care. Help me up.”

“Oh, Chester, you really should let the doctor look at you.”

He made a face at her. “Help me up.”

Shaking her head in disgust, she dropped down and gave him a hand. Pain wrenched though him. but he smiled when she had him on his feet. Forcing a grin for her, he caught the bar with his hand. “Go get your material. I’ll drive over there.”

For a moment, she hesitated. Then, with a peeved look, she turned on her heel and left him. He closed his eyes when she went out the batwing doors. “Casey, couple of you fellas get me on that seat.”

“By damn, you’re tough enough. Think you can stay on it?”

“Get me on it and—and then load her things in it over at the store ’cause I won’t be able to get down and do that.” He clenched his teeth and his breath caught.

“Here, drink this whiskey,” Casey said, giving him a double shot.

He downed it. Then the big Irishman and a customer hauled him out and loaded him on the spring seat. Casey wouldn’t let him drive, and stepped up to take charge. Chet was grateful. He knew, even with his elbows hugging his sides, he hurt and hurt bad.

“I had Carl stick two bottle of whiskey in your bedroll. You’re damn sure going to need ’em,” said Casey,

At the store, they loaded everything and Casey helped Kathren, who looked disapproving, onto the seat beside him.

“You sure you want to do this?” she asked Chet.

“Sure as I can be.”

She dismissed him with a shake of her head and pulled down her felt hat brim. Then she took up the reins, clucked to the team, and they took off in a trot.