The Taylor County War (16 page)

“Jake!” he bellowed. “Jake, over
here!”

Jake Andrews veered his force
slightly. Sparkman signaled with another wave of his hat for the
newcomers to carry the fight to the hired gunmen around the
T-Bar-B. Andrews galloped past with the other men right behind him.
Even though it was hard to see in the dust that followed in their
wake and washed over Satterlee and the others, the sheriff
recognized several cowboys who rode for John Hartman’s Lazy H
spread.

Andrews and the Crown W riders must
have run into Hartman’s men on the way here and recruited them to
come along. That was another stroke of luck, Satterlee told
himself. And now the odds had definitely changed.

The newcomers swept up to the
ranch, flame spouting from their guns. Several of the hired killers
were forced out of the places where they had taken cover, and as
they emerged into the open the deadly fire shredded them. Others
stayed where they were and fought stubbornly, but they were overrun
by the riders.

Satterlee surged to his feet. His
horse had run off earlier when he and his companions had
dismounted, and he didn’t have time to round it up now. Instead he
hurried toward the ranch on foot. The others came with him,
reloading while they were on the move.

Dust and gun smoke clogged the air.
Men yelled curses and screamed in pain. Guns roared again and
again, the reports crowding in on each other so closely that it was
like one continuous peal of thunder. This was the chaos of war,
though writ on a smaller scale.

Satterlee skirted the battle and
headed for the ranch house to see how many of the defenders were
still alive. Sam Gardner and Marcus Sublette came with him, while
Billy Below and Ward Sparkman, true to their combative natures,
plunged into the thick of the melee.

As Satterlee neared the house,
Tobias Breedlove stepped out onto the porch with a rifle in his
hands. The old man’s shirt was blood-stained in several places, but
he didn’t appear to be hurt badly. He snapped a shot and knocked a
fleeing gunman off his feet.

As Breedlove stepped out into the
yard, a man Satterlee hadn’t seen before emerged from the doorway
behind him, gun in hand. For a second, Satterlee assumed the man
was a T-Bar-B hand he didn’t know.

Then he realized that the stranger
was drawing a bead on Tobias Breedlove’s back and intended to gun
down the old rancher in cold blood.

Satterlee did the only thing he
could. He brought the Winchester to his shoulder and fired, aiming
mostly by instinct. The bullet sizzled past Breedlove’s head, close
enough to make him jump, and thudded into the gunman’s chest. The
man got off a shot anyway, but it went harmlessly into the air as
Satterlee’s slug drove him backward.

Not knowing exactly what was going
on and thinking he was being shot at, Breedlove jerked his rifle
toward Satterlee. Sam Gardner shouted, “Tobias, no! Hold your
fire!”

Breedlove hesitated, realized he
was aiming his gun at the Taylor County sheriff, and lowered the
weapon with a confused frown. Satterlee nodded toward the house.
Breedlove looked over his shoulder and saw the body sprawled in the
doorway. Understanding was on his rugged face as he turned back
toward Satterlee.

“I’m reckon I’m obliged to you,
Sheriff,” he called.

Satterlee strode up to the old
rancher, nodded again toward the man he’d just shot, and said,
“That wouldn’t happen to be Benton Kingsberry, would it?”

“Yeah, that’s who the skunk is, all
right,” Breedlove said. “I thought he was tied up, but he must’ve
got loose somehow and got his hands on a gun. He was about to cut
down on me, wasn’t he?”

Satterlee nodded, then grimaced as
he realized he had shot the man he’d hoped to use as a witness
against Andrew Rogers. Maybe Kingsberry was still alive, he
thought.

No such luck, he saw as he went
over to the man. Another man with long hair and a goatee stood over
Kingsberry’s body with a strangely conflicted expression on his
face. Wesley Quaid, the gunman who sometimes worked for Ira
Breedlove, Satterlee recalled.

“He’s done for,” Quaid said. “That
was a good shot, Sheriff.”

“You sound a mite disappointed that
he’s dead, Quaid,” Satterlee commented.

Quaid shrugged. “I thought
Kingsberry and I might have a chance to test our speed against each
other. Guess it wasn’t meant to be.” Quaid holstered the revolver
he’d been holding.

Satterlee became aware that the
firing was a lot more sporadic now. Some of the dust and
powdersmoke had dispersed. When he looked around, he saw that the
Crown W and Lazy H punchers were mopping up. As Satterlee watched,
the last of Rogers’ men who had survived the battle threw down
their guns and surrendered.

He didn’t see Andrew Rogers among
them. He didn’t think there was much of a chance that Rogers had
been killed in the fighting, either. Rogers wasn’t the sort of man
to get into the thick of things himself, especially when it would
be dangerous. He would send men to do his dirty work for him.

But that might be enough to break
him and put him behind bars anyway.

“Let’s finish this, Sheriff,”
Tobias Breedlove said savagely. “Let’s ride on over to the Rollin’
R and wipe it off the face of the earth. We’ve got enough men to do
it!”

“And if we did, we wouldn’t be any
better than Rogers,” Satterlee snapped. “I know how you feel,
Tobias. I’m old enough to remember when I would have felt the same
way. But like it or not, we have law in the county now.” He waved a
hand at the dead gunmen littering the ranch yard. “This was
self-defense. You ride in shooting over at Rogers’ place and it’d
be murder.”

Breedlove glared fiercely at him.
Satterlee knew the old-timer wanted to argue. But after a long
moment Breedlove finally nodded.

“All right,” he said. “But this is
just one fight that’s over. The war ain’t finished yet.”

Satterlee figured the old rancher
was right about that.

***

“I don’t care what anybody says.”
Andrew Rogers stood on the porch of his ranch house and stared
coldly at the men on horseback in front of him. “I didn’t order an
attack on the T-Bar-B. And you won’t find anyone who can say that I
did.”

“So you gave your orders through
somebody else!” Tobias Breedlove raged. “You’re still responsible,
damn it!”

“Prove it,” Rogers said with a thin
smile.

“I heard you tell Kingsberry you
were going to have your hired guns raid the Breedlove place,”
Wesley Quaid shot back.

“And where is Kingsberry now?”

“On his way to Gravely’s
undertaking parlor,” Satterlee said. “As you damned well know.”

“And Quaid works for Breedlove’s
son Ira, which means he’s hardly an unbiased witness. You can try
to charge me based on that if you want to, Sheriff, but I hardly
think the word of a professional gunman and outlaw who works for a
notorious saloonkeeper and whoremonger will convince very many
people in court.”

Quaid was seething. Satterlee gave
him a hard look and muttered, “Don’t even think about going for
your gun, Quaid. That’s just what he wants.”

Quaid drew in a deep breath through
his nose. “You’re probably right,” he admitted.

“So,” Rogers said, “I believe we’re
finished here. My men acted without my knowledge or consent when
they attacked the T-Bar-B because they were fed up with all the
rustling that Breedlove’s been doing. That’s my official statement
on this matter. Oh, and you’re all lucky that I’m not pressing
charges against you.” His icy gaze swept over Tobias Breedlove,
Ward Sparkman, and John Hartman. “I’m putting you all on notice
right now. I won’t allow anyone to run roughshod over me, and if
you attempt to do so, you’ll regret it.”

Satterlee could see by the
expressions on the faces of the ranchers that all hell was about to
break loose again, and he had smelled the stench of brimstone
enough for one day. “Come on,” he said harshly to them. “Let’s get
out of here.”

“But Sheriff,” John Hartman said,
“this man is responsible for –”

“We’ll deal with it another day,”
Satterlee snapped. “Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, the ranchers turned
their horses and started to ride away. Quaid and Billy Below rode
with them.

Satterlee, Sam Gardner, and Marcus
Sublette followed behind the others. The teacher said quietly, “Mr.
Hartman is right. His son’s injury and several deaths can be laid
directly at the feet of Rogers.”

“That’s true,” Satterlee said. “We
all know that. But proving it is another thing.”

“Maybe following the law isn’t
always such a good idea,” Gardner said. “I know a man who wears a
badge shouldn’t say such a thing –”

“But we all feel that way
sometimes,” Satterlee said. “We just have to stop and remind
ourselves what we’ve sworn to do.”

After they had ridden for several
minutes in silence, Sublette nodded toward the ranchers and said,
“You know, those men up there remind me of the dinosaurs whose
bones have been uncovered in this area.”

Satterlee looked over at him with a
frown. “How in the world do you figure that?”

“They’ve ruled their kingdom for a
long time, undisputed masters of the world they’ve made. But sooner
or later something comes along that threatens to change all
that.”

“And that would be . . . ?”

“A better predator,” Marcus
Sublette said.

Satterlee thought about Andrew
Rogers and sighed in the knowledge that the schoolteacher just
might be right about that.

A better predator, indeed.

EPILOGUE

The Wolf Creek Cemetery was just
outside town, west of the corral and the Mt. Pisgah Methodist
Church. Sam Gardner was glad the Wilkins family was not Methodist;
most preachers annoyed the marshal, but Mt. Pisgah’s Dill Hyder
irritated him more than the average, as he was especially
pretentious and self-righteous. The town’s other preacher, Obadiah
Stone, was much more to Gardner’s liking. He was brash and
overpowering, but at least he seemed honest. Sam knew that his
friend G. W. Satterlee, who stood beside him, felt the same.

Reverend Stone had been speaking
over Obie Wilkins’ grave. Leta Wilkins clung pitifully to the frame
of her husband Abner, as if she might blow away any moment. Abner
seemed to be sober at least temporarily, but the marshal doubted it
would last long, nor did he blame the man this time. They had
chosen not to bury the boy on their own place, because they were
selling out and moving to town. They had not sold to Andrew Rogers,
though, and Gardner doubted many other people would be from now on,
either.

The schoolmaster, Marcus Sublette,
had brought several of the older children to the service. Frank
Miller and Ethan Hartman stood out to Gardner’s eye; they were no
larger than they had been a few days before, but they looked much
older somehow. Older, and quietly defiant. They stood close
together, apart from the other children.

Reverend Stone’s deep voice poured
forth from his thick frame as he lifted his gray-and-red bearded
face to the sky.

“O Heavenly Lord of Hosts,” he
boomed. “Take into Thy arms this gentle lad, and clasp him to Thy
sweet bosom for eternity. And rain down a swift and terrible
vengeance upon the foul excuses for men who perpetrated this
loathsome deed.” He glanced briefly toward the nearby Methodist
church, which Rogers attended. “And bring shame and ignominy to any
who shelter and succor such evil men, O Lord. And if it should be
Thy will to place your sword of righteous fury into the hands of
some who stand among us, to lop off the serpent’s head, then praise
Thy Holy Name. In the name of our mighty Warrior King Jesus Christ
we pray, amen.”

“Amen,” Sam Gardner echoed. That
was a prayer he could get behind.

The funeral attendees gradually
filed away, but Sam and G. W. did not move. Sam caught Marcus
Sublette’s eye as the teacher walked past, and gestured him
over.

“How are your boys handling it?”
Sam asked.

“You mean Frank and Ethan? They’re
sticking together closer than ever. This isn’t the sort of thing
you get over easily at their age, if you ever get over it at
all.”

“They carried themselves like men
through everything,” Sheriff Satterlee said. “Especially young
Frank. I never knew his pa, but folks around town tell me he was a
stand-up man. I reckon he passed it on.”

Marcus nodded, then mumbled a
goodbye and followed after his students. Sam had noticed the
teacher’s behavior when Frank’s mother Josephine was around, and
wondered if mention of her war-hero husband made him uncomfortable.
The marshal did not begrudge Marcus his mooning –she was a
fine-looking woman, and if she were not quite so decent and devout
he’d be tempted to go by her shop and get fitted for a dress
himself.

From the corner of his eye, the
marshal saw his friend, the sheriff, wince. He wondered briefly if
his face had betrayed his lascivious thoughts and shocked G. W.
–Sam could not help himself, though, for some reason funerals made
him feel a stronger desire than usual to be alive. He quickly saw,
however, that the source of G. W.’s anxiety was much worse than any
errant indecent thought.

Edith Pettigrew was marching toward
them with a determined step. Sam sighed. There was no telling what
she was here to complain about, today of all days.

“I see the long arm of the law is
here to keep a close eye on things,” she said, “now that the danger
is over. Shame on you, shame on you both. This is the second child
murdered under your watch. I hope you’re happy with how fast our
graveyard has grown –it’s doubled in size since that horrid
railroad came through! And you call yourselves peacekeepers.”

She stared at them, her eyes
glazed and the pupils barely more than pinpoints. She had
definitely sampled Tsu Chiao’s opium supply before the funeral.
That particular drug usually calmed people down, but she had
apparently built up a pretty good tolerance for it.