Texas Blood Feud (7 page)

The dust churned by the buckboard the next afternoon signaled his crew’s return from Mason. He relaxed when he saw both women on the seat and another in the back. Good. Susie must have found some help. Reg and J.C. were loping ahead of them.

The boys dropped off their horses at the corral.

“Well,” Reg said. “They’re bringing their bodies back. We seen them in Mason with three pine boxes. Funeral’s tomorrow. We going to go?”

“I guess we should pay our respects to the dead,” Chet said.

“Hell, have we got to wear ties and coats?”

Chet nodded. “Won’t kill us.”

“One of you boys go help Susie unload,” Dale Allen said to them.

Reg started to say something, then handed his reins to his brother and set out for the house. Why did Dale Allen order those boys around like that? It made Chet about half mad, too. Everyone pitched in and helped, but that surly way Dale Allen had of speaking to them got under Chet’s hide, too.

“I guess we all could go help her,” Chet said, and started that way as J.D. began to unsaddle.

“I got these, Chet,” said J.D.

“Good.”

“How was Mason?”’ Chet asked Reg as they walked across the yard.

“Fine, but I saw something there.” He looked around and then lowered his voice. “Jake Porter was up there. I seen his team in a lot. You’d recognize them a mile away.”

“What was he doing?”

Reg shrugged and then grinned big. “He was staying there at some widow woman’s house. It’s a big fancy place. They called it Colonel Bridges House. Two-story and brick. He never came out while we were there.”

“Hmmm,” Chet said. “That’s kind of open, isn’t it?”

“I guess he had his reasons.”

“Yeah,” Reg said. “Like that fella up north has with that Mexican woman.”

Dale Allen frowned at what they meant, but the rest laughed.

“Susie get someone to help?” Chet asked.

Reg nodded. “Her name’s Astria.”

“Good.”

“Susie, how did it go?” Chet said as she came out and pushed a wave of brown hair back from her face with a smile.

“I found material, some items I couldn’t get in Mayfield, and I hired Astria Valdez.”

The men swept off their hats for the girl in her teens on the porch who looked very self-conscious biting her lip and nodding at them. Slender and maybe fourteen, she looked taken aback by all the people that Susie introduced. Then everyone took something inside.

Chet spoke to her in Spanish. “We are glad to have you here, Astria.”

“I am grateful that the
señorita
hired me. This is a large hacienda and a pretty place to live.
Gracias
.”

“You will be a family member here.”

“I will try,
señor
.”

“No, Susie is very fair. You will like her.”

“Oh, I do already.”

He nodded and took a load of purchases inside. He still did not understand what Jake Porter was doing in Mason at some widow’s house when he’d told Marla he was going to San Antonio. Would that knowledge change Marla’s mind about leaving him? Chet better not tell her. Telling gossip wasn’t his game. She’d find out. Someone would slip and Chet would be there. The notion made him feel stronger about reaching some permanent arrangement with her.

On the living room rocker, May was nursing six-month-old Donna. She smiled at Chet as she hoisted the baby up for a better position.

“Well, your help’s back,” he said to her.

“Yes. I missed them.” She shook her head like she was tired of being chief cook and bottle washer. Besides nursing her own, she had eighteen-month-old Rachel crawling around, getting into everything. “I’m glad Susie brought us some help.”

The poor girl had come from being a pampered banker’s daughter to becoming a mother of two—one was Rachel, whose birth cost Nancy her life, and the second one arrived nine months after the wedding. May still carried some baby fat. Not as pretty as Nancy, she still tried hard in Chet’s book, and did not receive a lot of help or attention from his brother—her husband.

“Louise and I are making new shirts for the men,” Susie announced, showing him the bolt of blue denim. “We have material for dresses for the spring and even for Mother.”

Louise stood back silent and helped unpack staples like coffee and baking powder from the wooden crates. She’d not said one word to Chet since the schoolyard, and he could see behind her darting brown eyes that she wanted to rake him over the coals again.

“There’s a new doctor in Mason,” said Susie.

“Good. Always can use one to them,” Chet said, making room to set his load on the table. “I understand the funeral is tomorrow. I think we should go and pay our respects.”

“Isn’t that hypocritical?” Louise asked.

“You don’t have to go if you feel that way,” Chet said.

“You’re right, Chet Byrnes. I don’t have to do one thing that you tell me to do. I have wired an attorney in Shreveport and asked him what my rights were.”

“Does that mean you are leaving, Louise?”

“I want my sons to grow up in a more civilized place than this outpost in hell.”

“You sure they want to leave here?”

“They are both under eighteen and they will do as I say.”

“Fine, when you get that letter from that lawyer, show it to me. You have not seen Shreveport in a number of years. May I suggest you go there on a visit and see it first? I understand that much of the South is still so torn up from the war, it hardly is the same.”

“You want rid of me, is that it?”

“No, ma’am, but you don’t know what the South is like today. We may live in hell, but there are worse places.”

“How would I get the means?”

“We can pay for it.” He waited for her answer.

She turned on her heel to leave, would not look back at him, and tossed her words at him while leaving. “I will consider it.”

Reg dried his palms on the front of his pants. “I damn sure ain’t going along with her.”

Chet shook his head to quiet him. A trip to Shreveport might settle her for a while. At least she would not be around to harass him; let her go see the slave-free South. All those once-rich people doing their own wash on boards in tubs. She might think the ranch wasn’t so bad after all.

The taste and quality of the food picked up with Susie back, and so did everyone’s appetite at the supper table. After the meal, he excused himself, slipped off, saddled a horse, and rode out in the twilight. The short days wouldn’t be getting longer for months.

He rode up on the ridge under the stars, listened to the coyotes. Huddled in his jumper shell, he wished he’d worn more clothing. A new cold front had moved in and no rain. His thirsty ranch needed all the rain he could get for it.

This mess with the Reynolds clan might hurt his spring cattle drive. People might be challenged not to use his services. Those extra thousand head paid the expenses for the drive. There was still money going north with a herd of his own, but the extra insured a profit. Time would tell.

At the end of the ridge, he looked off across the pearl-lighted country. Better forget about seeing Marla for the night and head home. He short-loped the good horse for the house.

When the roan was put up, he realized that that late smoke was coming from the fireplace and a light was on in the living room. The notion of warming up at the hearth made him head for the main house’s front door. He opened it quietly and in the rosy glow from the hearth, May was rocking the older girl in her lap.

“Baby sick?” he asked quietly. Pulling off his thin gloves, he held his hands out to the radiant heat.

“I am afraid Rachel’s not the healthiest baby. I try. I make sure she gets food, but it upsets her stomach a lot and she must have had a bad dream tonight.” May made the rocker go faster and hugged the child closer. “Do you think she will go?”

He turned and frowned at her.

“Louise—you said she could go on a visit to Louisiana. You’d pay her way.”

He shrugged. Why did that sound so important to May? “Yes.”

“Maybe when she’s gone away, my husband will share our bed again.”

Shocked, he stopped warming himself. Was she telling the truth? Why wouldn’t she? Slowly, he nodded, “I’m sorry, May. You have a large cross to bear.”

“I just want to be his wife.”

He saw the tears in her eyes. Two days doing Susie’s job and all the rest had worn her out—but his brother’s spurning her had hurt her the worst.

“I will press her to go on that visit.”

“Thank you,” she said, and rocked harder.

All the way to the bunkhouse, he wondered what he should do next. Damn Dale Allen’s worthless soul.

The men rode horses. The rest were in the farm wagon that Reg drove behind the big black mares to the schoolhouse for the funeral. Louise, in the end, had decided to go along. May and Astria stayed home to watch the babies and old folks. The boys were dressed in suits and looked stiff-necked wearing ties. Chet wore his six-gun under his brown suit coat.

A crowd was gathered when they arrived, and lots of hard looks from the Reynolds clan came at Chet. He didn’t expect anything less, but he felt the schoolhouse was public-held land and he had as much right as anyone to be there.

He herded the two women ahead, and had reached the three-step stoop when Earl Reynolds burst through the shocked onlookers and brandished a pistol in the doorway. “Gawdamn you, Byrnes! You hung my boy.”

“Put that pistol away,” Chet ordered. “There’s women and children here.”

“I don’t give a damn. I’m going to kill you.”

Chet was never certain who hit Earl in all the confusion and women screaming, but whoever delivered the blow knocked the gun out of his hand and may have broken his forearm. Earl went to his knees screaming. A bystander swept up the revolver and promptly stripped the caps off the nipples.

Earl, on his knees, held his disabled arm and swore revenge.

“Stand aside,” Chet ordered, and the man reached for him. A swift kick spilled Reynolds on his back and Chet jammed a boot on his chest. “This is a funeral, not a bar fight. Go to your seat and pray for that boy’s delivery to God. They stole those horses and were nearly to the Red River before I caught them. That was no prank, it was thievery. He took on a man’s part of that crime and got the same in punishment.”

“I’ll kill you—I’ll kill you—”

Chet jerked him up by his collar, dragged him outside, and threw him down the steps. “Come back when you’re civil.”

“I’ll get my damn rifle—”

“You people that are kin of his get him under control or you’ll have another funeral.”

Earl’s wife and two daughters ran over to settle him. Chet nodded sharply and went back inside.
The fucking war was on
. A first blow had been struck, and there would be no peace in the future. Earl would never accept the truth. The “law of the range” fit everyone but him and his.

The Byrneses sat in a row of benches, midway to the front, and no one else joined them despite the overflow crowd. On the small stage in the front of the room, three fresh pine boxes rested on top of sawhorses. Was this being shunned, or were folks simply afraid to join them for fear they’d get a taste of Reynolds’s wrath?

Reverend Meeks gave a long soul-saving sermon. He was trying to pry anyone not saved to come to the front, and only a few dared go. Those that did go forward had been saved before. The sobbing of women at times about drowned out his strong voice—but in the end he prevailed and led “The Old Rugged Cross” as a final hymn.

People filed outside talking in low voices and behind their hands to each other. Chet knew he was on trial by the jury of funeral attendees. But they had no right to judge him. The lynching was out of their jurisdiction. His main concern was how far would they carry it to him. They wouldn’t face him. They’d back-shoot at him from cover, and no one branded as a Byrnes from the babies on would be spared.

He’d prayed in there. Prayed hard for his family’s safety. Prayed hard that God would make the Reynolds clan see their errors in how they’d raised Roy to take up with hard cases with no regard to the consequences of his crime. Took a man’s livelihood lightly when they rustled those horses—they weren’t range horses. They were a remuda for his cattle drive.

He was so angry, he could hardly concentrate on anything. From the corner of his eye, he saw the serious face of Marla looking at him. Had he soured their affair? No telling. Jake Porter was due back any time. He’d better keep his wits about him. When Susie was loaded in the buckboard, he turned around to look for Louise. He discovered she was standing aside talking privately to Dale Allen.

“You load her,” Chet said. “We best go home.”

Dale Allen nodded and took Louise to the front wheel to assist her up into the box. Chet wanted his brother to know he knew and disapproved of his affair with Louise. How would he do that? Maybe just tell him. That should make for a good fistfight. It had been years since they’d had one of those. The last one was a dragged-out struggle that left them both out of commission for a couple of weeks.

He mounted Strawberry and rode up to the side wheel of the farm wagon to tell Reg, “Take the ridge road, it’s easier to defend.”

That meant an hour longer ride—he didn’t care. It meant less exposure to potshots.

“J.C., you go ahead of them. See anything suspicious, ride back and warn them. Don’t fight them by yourself.”

The youth nodded.

“What are you going to do?” Susie asked, sitting on the spring seat with a rifle in her lap.

“I’m going to see if there are any war parties on the low road. They’d expect us to take it.”

He heard Louise say to her, “Let him go. He wants to get killed anyway.”

“Dale Allen, stay close to the women.” He jerked the gelding up short to stop his impatient circling.

His brother frowned at him. “You know, you’re a damn fool. They want you worse than anything.”

“They ain’t getting me. Take care of ’em.” He tore out on Strawberry.

In a short distance, he busted him off a steep hillside, sliding him on his heels off the face of the slope. It was a dangerous route he’d chosen, but the big horse was surefooted, and a smaller, weaker animal under his weight and the saddle might have gone end over end. Strawberry hit the flats on a hard run. They were on the Hammerhead Creek’s lower reaches, and he felt if they tried to ambush the family, it would be at the ford a few miles north.

When he drew closer, he let the horse walk so as not to let them know of his presence. The water ran over enough small rapids to muffle the sound of his approach. A quarter mile from him, he could see a horse standing hipshot in some cedars. How many more were there?

He left Strawberry hitched in a small grove, and moved like an Indian down the bottoms against the cliff side, staying in the brush. In no rush, for they wouldn’t expect the wagon to arrive for at least another forty-five minutes, he moved with his redwood grips in his right fist. When he reached their horses, there were three of them in all.

Good. Three he might handle with an element of surprise in his favor. He crept closer, hearing their guarded talking. Outbursts of cuss words and what they planned to do to him and the others filled the air. He eased in behind where they lounged behind some large boulders. Their rifles were set aside and they smoked roll-your-owns. The tobacco smell came on the wind to him. None of them could get to a rifle if he got the drop on them. He only knew one. Kenny, a couple years older than Roy. The others might be Campbells.

“I want first shot at that damn Chet. I’ll blow his ass out of the saddle and send him to hell,” Kenny said.

“Stand tall and hands high!” Chet ordered, filled with a new fury over those words.

“Huh?”

“Make a move and you’ll join Roy. Now, one-handed, drop those gun belts. My finger’s itching to cause another funeral so be quick.” They obeyed, looking at each other and wondering how bad off their situation might be at his hands. “Now sit on the ground and take off your boots.”

“What?”

He brandished the revolver at them to punctuate his orders. “You heard me.” He collected the good Winchesters—brand-new, out of the box. “Now shed your pants, vest, and shirts.”

They made faces of disbelief at his orders, but obeyed.

“Now the underwear.”

“It’s cold out here,” one of the Campbells said, stripping off his long underwear.

“Not near as cold as you’ll be.”

“We ain’t done nothing to you—”

“No, you just were going to shoot me in the back a few minutes ago.”

“No, no, not me—”

“You boys get in the middle of the creek and start running south. You try to get out on the bank, I’m going shoot you.”

“Hell, it’s like ice!”

Chet nodded. “This is a lesson. I want you to remember it well. You try to ambush me again or hurt my family, you’ll be dead instead of wading cold water.”

He herded them in the water. They were already screaming in high-pitched voices in the knee-deep water. “Now run like hell right down this creek.”

He fired a shot in the ground close to the oldest Campbell, who jumped back and fell in the water. Getting in, Reynolds went facedown and popped up shivering. The third one got his at the next falls, stumbling over a boulder and his feet shooting out from beneath him. Chet had switched to a rifle, shooting to the right and left of them to keep them in the creek. They soon were out of sight, yelling and screaming and cussing.

He gathered the rifles, clothes, and went back to the horses. Leading them westward, when he was satisfied the naked ambushers couldn’t find them, he cut each cinch and let the saddles and pads fall on the ground. He took off their bridles and threw them on the saddles. Mounted on Strawberry with his three new rifles tied in a bundle, he drove the loose ponies south until he knew they’d find their way home long before the boys crawled in. Then he headed for home.

Reg was rumbling the wagon up the valley with his two outriders. Those big mares could cover ground and had lots of wind. They’d made good time.

“Any bushwhackers?” Reg asked, reining up.

“Three.”

“What did you do to them?”

“I took their horses and sent them home naked.”

Reg shook his head in amusement. “That should be a big lesson.”

“Oh, they had to swim down the creek below the ford, too.”

“It ain’t that deep.”

“No, but you couldn’t stand up either and run it with a fella shooting at your heels.”

“Whew, that would be cold,” J.D. said. “Who were they?”

“Kenny and two of the Campbells.”

“I guess they’ve got the whole clan after us?” Reg asked, propping a boot on the dash.

“Sounds like it.” J.D shook his head as if it was too hard for him to fathom.

“If this celebration is over, take us to the house. I don’t know who is the most childish, you or my boys,” Louise said.

“Yes, ma’am.” Reg kicked off the brake and clucked to the mares.

Ah, the spoiler had spoken. She couldn’t leave for Louisiana fast enough for Chet’s part. But if it was his idea, she’d never go—

He dismounted from Strawberry at the house, and he swept up Ty and Ray and put them in the saddle. They beamed as they rocked back and forth in their seat to the horse’s swinging walk.

At the corral gate, he took them down. “Short ride this time.”

He hooked the bridle on the horn, wrapped up the reins, and turned the horse into the pen. He might need him. Keeping him saddled wouldn’t hurt him. He crossed to the Bugger horse, untied him, and led him to water. Then he took him over to the side door of the tack room. Ray had a measure of oats ready in a feedbag, and opened the door with his other hand.

“Thanks, I better hang it on him.” Chet took it, and the horse bowed his head, knowing where his rewards came from, and let him put it over his once-tender ears.

“He’s getting smarter, Uncle Chet.”

“Yes, he is. Next week, I’ll saddle him. Can you boys keep a big secret?”

Ray nodded and Ty joined him. “You can’t tell anyone until after whoever goes to Kansas comes back. But we’re going to find you boys a couple of small horses or ponies.” He put his finger to his mouth. “That is our big secret.”

“I hope they aren’t wild as Bugger,” Ty said, looking concerned.

“If they are, then we’ll break them.”

Susie met them on the back porch. “Go inside, boys, after you wash up. There’s some cookies in there on the table for you and some milk.” When they were in the kitchen, out of hearing, she spoke to Chet. “It was a bad day today. We’re back like the days when the Comanche made raids on us.”

“I know and it’ll get tougher.” He hugged her. “Louise say any more about going home for a visit?”

“Not a word. I think she was simply threatening you.”

“It might ease a situation around here if she went.”

Susie stopped and blinked at him.

“Sis, you are my confidante. I tell you things that I don’t tell anyone else.” He sighed. “May says that Dale Allen is having an affair with her.”

“No.”

“May’s been upset, tired, and worn out with those two little kids and the bigger ones. As well as what she tried to do to help you. But she didn’t make that up. I saw it today between them. I just wasn’t looking for it before.”

“Oh, my God, Chet. What can you do?”

“Send her on a long trip back home and send him to Kansas with the herd.”

“Have you talked to him about it at all?”

“I can’t—he wouldn’t listen. He counters my orders. Talks to those big boys like they were his slaves. Really piss—I mean, it makes them mad.” He dried his hands. “And she’s using him against me.”

“You know I bite my tongue when she starts in to me about you. How if Mark was still here, this place would be run so much better.”

“Mark never did anymore on this ranch than a hired hand would have around here. He left her nagging for the army. I would have gone in his place, but he told me no, he had to get away from her. I doubt he planned to ever come back here after the war. Sometimes, I think he may simply walk or ride in through that front gate like nothing ever happened.”

Susie grew pale. “But it’s been seven years.”

“They said he was buried in that Mississippi mud. But mutilated bodies could be anyone—change identities and go on.”

She shuddered and he hugged her. “I’m sorry, Susie. Mark is probably dead, but I don’t think she believes it. Other men have come around and she avoided them like the pining widow.”

“But why,” she whispered, “Dale Allen?”

“To get to me is all I know. She would like to run this ranch and order everyone around like they did on her family farm.”

“A war with the Reynolds clan and one of our own. You at least knew what a Comanche wanted when he came.”

He agreed. “I think my boys are through. I’m going to split some stove wood and let them bring it up here. They like work. I sure don’t want them to quit liking it.”