Chapter 33
Close to the head of the Camp Verde Road, they met most of his ranch hands and stopped in the road. They removed the cover as they rode up close and looked in at the boy's small body. Many a tough hand had tears in his eyes.
Tom dismounted, holding his hat. “Word was out early today that you'd gone after some holdup men. We were coming to back you. We'll make him a casket. Guess you'll want to bury him on the ranch. We hope that suits you.”
“Thanks. That will be just fine. Let's go homeâ” Chet swallowed hard and nodded for her to start on. As he looked off the dizzy heights at the vast valley beneath them, he wondered how his family would like his choice. Maybe this incident would draw them all together, closer. He simply dreaded to tell them about this loss. He closed his eyes as Marge fought the team to hold them back on the grade.
When they reached the next flat spot, he made her stop and give him the reins.
“I can drive alright,” she protested.
“That isn't the problem, Marge. I can see on your face how strained you were driving. Let me do this. I'm going to have to go on living and face this loss like I have others. This is much easier than seeing my parents wilt away from life day by day, and them still alive.”
She hugged his shoulder and buried her face on his sleeve. “When did you eat last?”
“I'm not certain.”
“One of you boys have a canteen? He needs a drink.”
Wiley rode in and handed her his. Leaning over his saddle horn, he asked. “You making it, boss man?”
“Yes, Wiley, I'll be fine.” He reared back to slow the team. “Easy boys, easy.”
Marge removed the cork and held it up to his mouth. Some sloshed down his dirty shirt and vest. But his dry mouth absorbed most of it. He swallowed and thanked her.
It was the longest trip off the mountain he could ever recall. Like looking down on ants to him, there was the small village, the army camp, and the cottonwoods along the Verde. Again, he leaned back on the reins to slow their pace. Tossed from side to side on the seat with her, he wondered if they'd ever reach the bottom. But eventually they did, and the wheels whirled up dust again, headed for the river road to the ranch.
There was plenty to do when they got there. Hoot had a fat yearling steer in the pens for the men to slaughter. Several ranch families were already camped there and helping the old man get things arranged and cooked.
With some help to get Heck out of the rig, Chet carried the limp body to the house. The anxious face of Marge's friend Kay met them at the door, and she led Chet to a bedroom set up to lay Heck down on some raw boards over sawhorses.
The corpse there, Kay told Marge to take him out of the room. She and some of the others would prepare the deceased for the funeral. Like a spent person, he let Marge take him out of the room.
More rigs began to arrive. Jenny rushed into the house to hug him. “Oh, Chet, I'm so sorryâ” Then she burst into tears and they huddled in the middle of the room, holding each other up.
“Take him to the table,” Marge whispered. “Hoot made him some chicken soup. He hasn't eaten in two days.”
Chet caught the concerned look on Jenny's face, who led him over to sit down at the long table. “My gosh, why haven't you eaten?”
Warily, he shook his head at her. “I haven't had time.” He looked over the growing crowd in his house. “I need to welcome all these folks that have comeâ”
The two women shook their heads at him.
“You need to eat,” Marge insisted and Jenny backed her.
What could he do? His head was in a whirl. He was lost. Better obey them.
He slurped soup off a spoon they used to feed him. Somewhere this scene had happened beforeâsome time in his life. Then he knew the time. It was when the two rangers brought his father Rocky home in a buckboard. They'd found him miles to the west, face-down with no horse or water. Chet's fifteenth birthday had just passed.
But the boy was dead this time. Chet would have to recover despite his dizziness. The salty soup slid over his tongue and he blinked his eyes to clear the vision. With rest, that would clear up, too. He hoped. Between spoons of soup, he sipped on coffee. His world was beginning to emerge.
“Why don't you take a nap,” Marge whispered and Jenny agreed with her.
Chet didn't argue. Everyone in the room was looking at him like he was naked. He could feel their eyes on his gritty skin.
“Can he make it to the shower?” Tom asked them quietly.
Marge shrugged.
“We can bring the water to him outside the back door. You two tell all the womanfolks to turn their backs. We'll shower him down and we've found a knee-length nightshirt in his war bag to dress him in. He's so dirty he'd never rest in those clothes.”
“Guess that's why he hired you as foreman,” Jenny said with a laugh.
“Yes ma'am. We can handle this from here.”
Folks exited the house quietly and Chet held up his hands to ward off Hampt and Tom. “I can walk that farâout the back door, right?”
“Yes.”
Chet stood bare as Adam in the garden, outside the back door on the tile walk, as they began dousing him down with water. All of their sources were not as warm as the others. But he lathered up and then let them rinse him. He felt much better, and dried himself with some help from Tom. Then he put the nightshirt on over his head and he thanked them. Barefooted, he crossed the tile floor.
“It will be cooler upstairs,” Madge said. One woman on each elbow, they delivered him to the room. When he dropped to his butt on the bed, he smiled at the two of them.
“Don't let me sleep forever.”
“We won't. Now get to sleep,” Marge ordered as he lay down.
The last thing he heard were those two talking about him in low voices going out of the room. A soft breeze came in the window, and he slept.
Chapter 34
Lots of things in Chet's body hurt when he awoke. It was dark and he could hear some guitar and fiddle music in the night. At the window, under the stars, he could see lots of parked rigs and small campfires. How many people had come? No telling, but they were there for Heck and him, too.
The small, flickering candle on the dresser showed him his clothes were clean, pressed, and laid on the ladder-back chair. He set into dressing, grateful his latest haircut made him more presentable than he'd been before it. Pulling his suspenders up, he decided that all he needed to do was shave.
He came down the stairs and saw Marge, Jenny, and Kay. All face-down, sleeping with their heads on the table. He quietly went past them. He found hot water on the rangeâhot enough to shave with. Straight-edged razor, hog-bristle brush, and the enamel pan. He took them out on the porch. Then a candle lamp the wind wouldn't blow out. He took the kettle with hot water outside, too. In a few minutes, his face was scraped clean and feeling better; he quietly returned all the items to their places. Then he slipped out on the front porch and sat in a straight-back chair, letting the cooler night wind sweep his face. Things began to come to him. The clockwork in his skull began to work again.
He ran a calloused hand over his mouth and winced at the sharp pain. That was the hand that had almost lost its grip and a branch had torn it up.
“You woke up already?” Marge asked from the lighted doorway, holding her hair off the back of her neck.
“Why don't you girls go use that bed?”
“What do you need?”
“I'm fine. Take them up there and sleep some.”
“You do look and sound better.”
“I'm fine. Now get them and go upstairs.”
“I will. I willâbossy.”
Chet laughed. Fair was fair, they'd been ordering him around for his own good.
Hoot shortly showed up and offered to make him some coffee. He accepted the offer, went inside, and then leaned back on two legs of the wood chair. Cory came next to check on him.
“You alright, boss man?”
“Doing fine. Hoot's making coffee.”
“Glad you're better. I just finished digging his grave. Thanks for letting me do that. I'll really miss him.” And he left before Chet could thank him.
The camp before him began to rattle iron ovens and cough themselves back to life. Fires flared up and hungry babies cried for momma's milk. His biggest red rooster crowed even before the sun purpled the eastern sky. Mules brayed and made him smile.
Chet considered the three women, doing all that work for him. He'd have to repay them and all these people who so sympathetically had came to share his grief. He was in the right place. All he had left to do was bring the family to Arizona.
When the sun came up, Marge came down, brushing her hair, and joined him on the porch. He fetched her a chair.
“How is this going to work?” she asked.
“Eight o'clock we'll take his casket up where Cory dug his grave. He asked to do it himself. I'll ask the boys who rode with him if they have some words to say about him. Then we can sing a hymn that most folks know and I'll deliver him to the Lord.”
Marge reached over and squeezed his forearm. “You are revived. Thank goodness. I knew if you ever cleared your head you'd know right what to do.”
“Glad you had the faith.”
“Oh, come on. I have all the faith in you a woman can possibly have for a man.”
“I wasn'tâ”
“You were being Chet Byrnes, is all.” She beat the top of his leg with her brush. “Don't stop being him.”
He closed his eyes. “I'll try not to lose it.”
Then she stood up, bent over, kissed him, and left to do something. He wasn't certain what she was up to.
The casket was shut, the ranch hands carried it up the hill, and the procession followed them. “Now we gather at the river,” they sang clear as they toiled up the hill.
The wooden box so painfully made by some of his men was lowered into the grave.
Chet asked for the men to step up and say what they knew about the lad.
There was lots of throat-clearing, but their voices rang out loud.
“Wasn't a better hand ever rode a bucking horse or threw a lariat at a calf. Why, he shared every box of cookies his aunt made
fur
him with us.” And Bixsby was through.
“That's no boy we're putting away. He earned his spurs with us. God take good care of him.” Then Wiley stepped back.
Sarge moved up next. “A boy, I thought, when I came here to join this bunch. The boss's pet no doubt. But a longhorn bull charged my horse one day and this man who roped it and saved me was Heck Byrnes. I never looked back. He'd earned his manhood for my part.”
About to tears, Hampt shook his head and excused himself.
Chet agreed, and asked them to pray with him. He started the Lord's Prayer and everyone joined him.
He told them about Heck's bravery, riding alone back from Kansas to tell him about the cruel people who had murdered his father. This young man was no coward and didn't deserve what they took away from him. A marriage and children of his own one day, a ranch to ride over, and a good life.
“May God take him in his palm and care for him in heaven. Amen.”
They asked Chet to shovel the first dirt on him. He did, and heard the stones and clods hit the wooden top like someone knocking on a door.
Open it Lord, your man is waiting for your embrace.
He went down the hill hugging both Marge's and Jenny's shoulders, concerned how Kay was coming along behind them. When all things were settled, he wanted to go back and look off that hill where they had lain him. To see that last setting where some day a granite stone would mark his grave.
Â
Â
Chet never sent a wire to Texas. He'd bear the news to them himself. He left Preskit five days later for homeâwell, at least his former-to-be place. The stage rattled down the Black Canyon Route for Phoenix. He sat back and wondered what had happened to the lady he had saved, according to her. Her tale and concern still amused him, and he would have kicked her husband in the seat of his pants for divorcing her if he ever met him.
No problems with robbers this trip, and the oppressive heat of the desert set in on him when they spilled out on the saguaro-clogged floor of the desert. His ride included Tucson, the walled city littered with dead livestock; then to Benson, another small town waiting for a railroad. From the railhead in Lords-burg, Chet took a seat car and rode it to El Paso; then taking the rails on, he soon arrived in San Antonio. The mail buckboard service to Mason let him sit on the spring seat beside their tobacco-spitting man, who drove like a crazy idiot with a whip and a short list of cuss words he called the horses and the road surface.
When word got out in Mason he was back, Sheriff Trent joined him in the cafe.
“You find a place out there?”
“Have a seat, It's a long story.” Warily, Chet considered what all he must tell Trent.
“I have all the time you need. Didn't you take your nephew with you?”
“That's part of the story, too.” Chet nodded.
Trent scooted into the booth across from him and ordered coffee. “What happened?'
“I found a place ...” Then he told him the entire story.
Then they discovered the café folks were past their usual closing time and Chet apologized. They went to Trent's office to finish their conversation.
Trent acted taken aback by it all, and shook his hand when they rose to part at the end.
“You've damn sure been tested. I hope the new place works out for you and your family. I'm sorry I couldn't control folks around here any better.”
“It wasn't your fault.”
Â
Â
Chet slept in a rooming house that night, and in the morning he rented a horse to ride out to the ranch. It was noontime before he came up the bottoms. Someone had spotted him and came riding hard to meet him.
J.D. rode in, beaming, and slid his horse to a sharp stop. “How are you? Hey, where's Heck?”
“Better brace yourself, I'll have to tell the others next. Heck is dead. I'm sorry, and it is part of a long story.”
“Oh, my God.” J.D. sunk in the saddle. “I can't hardly believe it. How?”
“I'm saving it to tell everyone. It isn't a pretty one and it goes back to Texas even, but I'll tell everyone how it happened.”
“Oh, Chet, I'm sorry, but what about you?”
“I'm over a big part of it. Won't get over it all. But we do have a wonderful ranch up in the Verde River. Good rangeland and room for lots more cattle. How are the rest of you?”
“Fine. Well, mostly fine.”
“There anything wrong here?”
“We've had some more run-ins with them, of course. I'm just glad you're back.”
“All the hands still here?”
“Sure. You have a crew out there in Arizona?” They turned their horses for the house. Chet could see everyone was in the yard waiting on them.
“Yes, some good ones too. Tom Flowers is the foreman in charge. He's level-headed and a good man. You'll like him.”
“Why, you may not need Reg and me.”
“Don't you go to getting cold feet on me. I'm planning to buy another place when we get out there for you two to run in the high country.”
“How high?”
“I'm not sure of the elevation, but it's at the foot of the snowy peaks.”
He reined up and dismounted to hug Susie.
“Oh my gosh, Chet Byrnes, we thought you'd never come back,” she said in his ear.
He straightened and told everyone to have a seat. He wanted to talk to them.
When they had seats on the edge of the porch or the chairs on it, they buzzed about what he was going to tell them. He'd shaken hands or hugged them all.
“Now I know this is going to hurt. Heck's not coming home. He's with God.” Chet paused and then began, piece by piece, to tell them about his demise and about the place he'd bought. Wet eyes and crying, they listened. When he got down to his last words, they nodded.
“We're tough people. The Byrneses fought in Scotland and they fought in Ireland when we were sent there. Our people been fighting something or someone for ages. Now I say it is time to take our flag staff to Arizona.”
They nodded in silence.
Susie, red-eyed, told them to go in and eat.
Chet excused himself and told her he'd be back. That he had one more person to tell. She hugged him and then agreed. “Go, but wait a minute and take a sandwich with you.”
At that she ran inside, and soon came back with two slices of sourdough bread full of sliced beef. He thanked her and rode off eating on it. He needed to tell Kathren before she heard it all from someone else.
The sun was far in the west when he came off the hill to her place. She came out at the stock dogs barking and shaded her eyes with her hands. Then she called out his name and he waved his hat at her.
Dress hem in her hand, she ran toward him. He put the horse in a lope and they met on the hillside. He dismounted on the fly and caught her by the waist. Two hungry mouths fed on each otherâseeking the deepest honey.
He swung her up in his arms and started for the house, with her protesting for him to put her down. With a shake of his head, he dismissed her concern that she'd break his back. He set her down on the porch and she squeezed his face and kissed him.
“Gods, Chet, I've missed you so much.”
“Where's Cady?” He looked around for her. Then he saw her leading a short buckskin horse under a saddle toward them.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She shook her head and looked at the sky for help. “To Grandma's. You two don't need me here.”
“Cady.”
Chet put down her mother's arm and said, “Tell your grandma I said thanks.”
“Oh, you two are in cahoots,” Kathren said after her.
“How old is she?”
“Not that old.” She herded him inside the house, and once behind the door they went back to kissing.
An hour later, he told her about Arizona. Laying on the bed, squeezing her hand from time to time, as he told her all about his long journey. He studied the cedar shingles sliced off one at a time from a block of cedar.
She cried about the death of the boy. And then she sat up and looked down on him. “Damn, you've been through hell.”