Authors: Bill Dugan
“Look, O’Hara, I’m not here to make the world safe for nobody. I’m here for one reason, and one reason only. Ralph Conlee killed my brother. I think he ought to pay for it. If I can do anything to make that happen, then I’ll do it. I don’t care how, either, as long as it happens.”
“You might as well figure on working alone. If your boys help out, you still got a chance, but not much of one. I reckon some or most of you boys were in the war. But Conlee’s got hisself a unit. That’s the difference. They’re used to workin’ together; they know they can depend on one another. That gives them a big edge, mighty big. You want to buck them odds, you go right ahead. But don’t look to nobody around here for help. Like I said, I wish it could be different, but it ain’t. And it won’t never change, as long as Conlee is around. Maybe, if he had come after we were already here, it might’ve been different. But the fact is, he was already
tearin’ hell out of the countryside before most of us got here. We either didn’t know about him or didn’t care. Either way, it’s his countryside, not ours.”
“You seem to think he’s not human, like he can’t be hurt, can’t be beat.”
O’Hara shook his head. “You got that right. You ever seen some of the things he done, you’d think the same. I seen three men, brothers, their heads on a row of stakes, like goddamn pumpkins. I saw a woman slit from chin to belly, laid open like a trout. And that was only after they were done with her. You can imagine the rest of it. He’s killed more’n a half-dozen children I know of. You ride out of here fifty miles in any direction, you see a burnt-out wreck of a farmhouse, a barn turned to cinders, you can bet it was Ralph Conlee lit the match. If he wants somethin’, he takes it. If he don’t want it, he makes sure it ain’t no use to nobody else. Butt heads with him, you get yours broke. And your neck to boot.”
Ted was quiet for a long time. When he finally broke the silence, he whispered, “I still got to do it. I can’t let him get away with it.”
“It’s your funeral, I’m tellin’ you, Cotton. It’s your funeral.”
“Maybe so, but I’d rather die tryin’ than walk away knowin’ I didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t live like that. Not for long, anyhow.”
“Folks do what they got to.”
“Not always, O’Hara, not always.”
“Mr. Cotton’s right, Kevin.”
O’Hara whirled. “Damn it, Millie, how long you been sneakin’ around out there?”
“Long enough.”
“IT’S OVER THE
next hill,” O’Hara said. “Or should be, anyhow.”
He looked uncomfortable, sitting his horse as if it were a wagon. Ted felt sorry for him, but was angry at the same time. How could a man with so much to lose be so damned cautious, he wondered. Couldn’t he see what he was doing?
It was none of his business, but it made him mad anyway. And he knew that what lay ahead of him would be a little easier if he could have convinced O’Hara, and the others like him, to throw their weight to his cause. They had the same cause, after all, but as long as O’Hara refused to see that, Ted knew he might as well be hollering down a rain barrel, for all the good it would do.
As they broke up the slope, Ted nudged his horse a little ahead. He could hear O’Hara trying to convince
his horse to keep up, but the big Irishman was no cowboy, and no horseman either.
Ted broke over the ridge, expecting to see the herd placidly munching at the rich Kansas grass. What he saw instead almost made his heart stop. Instead of three thousand beeves, he saw three, maybe four hundred.
The chuck wagon sat to one side of a broad meadow, a plume of smoke spiraling up from a rather tentative-looking campfire. He spotted a couple of the hands on horseback, keeping the meager herd under control, but they were under-worked. It wouldn’t have taken three kids on hobby horses to ride herd on what was left.
He almost came to a dead halt, stunned into granitelike immobility. He waited for O’Hara, turning in the saddle to watch the farmer cover the last two hundred yards. When the Irishman was abreast of him, he reined in. The look on his face was somewhere between sheepish and sorrowful.
“What in hell happened to my herd?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” O’Hara said. “Figured it would be better if you saw for yourself.”
“You mean to tell me Conlee made off with nearly twenty-five hundred head of cattle?”
O’Hara nodded. “That’s right.”
“Thanks for your help,” Ted said. “I’ll take care of it from here.”
“You sure you don’t want me to wait around?”
“For what?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” O’Hara struggled to get his horse to turn back down the hill. “You know where I am, if there’s anything I can do.”
“Thanks,” Ted said. He tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but didn’t think he succeeded. When the farmer was gone, he charged down the hill, making straight for the mess wagon. He didn’t wait for his horse to stop, jumping off after tugging on the reins. The animal seemed confused to lose its rider so suddenly, and pawed the ground right behind him.
Cookie poked his head around the wagon. He made a quick stab at a smile, but it went nowhere. “Figured you’d be here before too long,” he said.
“Cookie, what in hell happened to the herd?”
“Oh, you mean them cows we nursemaided for near two thousand miles. That the herd you mean?”
“Damn it, you know what I’m talking about.”
“Well, we ain’t got too much left. Hung on to what we could. Hands and beeves, both. But we’re scrapin’ bottom, Teddy.”
“Conlee?”
“ ’Bout right. Sumbitch run ’em off a few hundred at a time. Never could stop him. Never knew when to expect him. He had us outgunned anyhow. And after Johnny … well, that kind of took the tar out of the boys. Lot of ‘em left right afterward. What we got left ain’t much to look at, and
I reckon they’d have run off too, if anybody’d have ‘em. Which I surely doubt.”
“How come you hung around?”
“Thought somebody ought to stay and tell you what happened. Didn’t reckon anybody else would, so …” The old man shrugged.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or tell you what a fool you are.”
“You can do both, I think. Seems like I got both comin’. You want some grub?”
“Nope.”
“What are you fixin’ to do … to get even, I mean.”
“Don’t know.”
“You
are
fixin’ to get even, I hope. Else I hung on fer nothin’.”
Ted didn’t answer him. Instead, he turned to look at the sorry remnants of the herd. Cookie tugged on his sleeve. “I didn’t, did I?” When Ted turned, he continued, “Hang on fer nothin’?”
Until that moment, Ted didn’t know the answer. But there was no way to avoid it now. “No,” he whispered, “you didn’t hang on for nothing.”
“Good. I didn’t think so. You might be a mite slow, but you
are
a Cotton. Seems like you and me are the only ones who didn’t fergit that.”
“Thanks, Cookie.”
The old man reached out to squeeze Ted’s forearm. Then, without asking, he turned to the triangle suspended over the tail of the wagon and
started rapping it with a metal spoon. The bell, ordinarily so welcome, seemed somehow feeble with so few cattle, and so few men to tend them. The hands wandered toward the mess wagon, three on foot and three on horseback.
They gathered around like schoolboys staring at a new teacher, wondering what new tricks they’d have to invent to get by.
The oldest of them was no more than twenty, and probably short of that by a few months.
“I guess you boys must be tired of hanging around,” Ted said.
They looked at one another, but said nothing.
Ted continued, “Anybody wants to collect his wages, you let me know. I brought enough cash to settle up with everybody. Since most of the hands are gone, I guess I can pay a bonus for anyone who wants to leave, and raise the pay of anyone who wants to stay.”
“What’s the use of stayin’,” one of the younger men asked. “We got no damn herd.”
“That’s true. But we can get it back.”
“Not likely,” the kid continued.
“It won’t be easy, I know that. But if you’re game, so am I.”
“Johnny couldn’t hang on to it. How in hell you expect to get it back?”
“Johnny’s dead, Buck.”
“Hell, I know that. Fact is, he was the only thing holdin’ us together. The older guys run off, but I
need the money. That’s the only reason I stayed. I don’t have no desire to get my head blowed off. Not for no damn cows.”
Ted nodded. “Alright. How about the rest of you boys? You all feel the same way?”
“Reckon we do, Mr. Cotton,” another of the kids said. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen. “I get my pay, I guess I’ll head on back to Texas. I don’t like it here.”
“Can’t say I blame you, Peewee. But …”
“No buts, Mr. Cotton,” Buck said “We never even figured you to be here. Figured Rafe would come back with our pay.”
“Why didn’t you think I’d come?”
“Hell, you know why. So’s ever’body else. Ain’t no secret.”
“It is tome …”
Buck looked for support to the other hands, but they were busy looking at the ground, watching their toes scratch blunt lines in the dirt. He hitched up his belt and sucked his teeth for a moment. “I was there in Breakneck. Maybe you forgot about that, but I didn’t. And I know sure as hell Tommy Dawson didn’t. You like to got him killed. Some of us figure you
did
get Johnny killed.”
Ted felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. “You bastard,” he said, taking a step toward me kid. “You lousy bastard.”
The kid reached for his gun, but Ted was too fast for him. He stepped in and landed a quick
combination, driving Buck back on his heels. The kid had to bring his hands up to protect his face, but he was just a hair too slow. The right cross nailed him on the jaw and he went down hard. Ted stood over him, breathing through his teeth. “Get up, you sonofabitch. Get the fuck up!”
Ted felt Cookie wrap his arms around him. He struggled to break free, but the old man had powerful hands, and he locked them together like a vise, then dragged Ted back three or four steps. “Settle down, Teddy. Settle down. The kid don’t mean nothin’ others ain’t been whisperin’ behind their hands. Least he had the guts to say it out loud.”
Ted finally broke free. He turned on Cookie, who backed away a step and held up his hands. “Hold on, son, don’t go poppin’ at me.”
“You’re all a bunch of lyin’ bastards,” Ted shouted. He stalked to his horse and dug into his saddlebags. A moment later, he pulled out a thick canvas bag with a drawstring. Untying the knot, he reached in and tugged out a fistful of bills and coins, threw the whole thing in the air, then walked away. Climbing into the saddle, he watched the hands scramble for the money, his tongue between his teeth.
“We’re even. You come up short, talk to somebody who come up long. I don’t ever want to see any of you again.”
“No need to worry about that, Cotton,” Buck
said. “Conlee’ll peel your hide back and make a damn rucksack out of it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Oh, I know it.” Buck laughed. “You know, Cotton, I was your brother, I’da shot you, ‘stead of that Comanche. Done a whole lot more good.”
Ted pulled his Colt and cocked the hammer. Buck backed up a step, but he didn’t look frightened, just disgusted. “I thought you had the guts to use that, I reckon I’d be scared. But …”
Ted fired once, and the bullet tore through the edge of Buck’s left boot. The kid danced on one foot, cursing at Ted and grinning. “Crazy sonofabitch. You ought to have your head blowed off. I reckon Conlee can handle it, though.”
“Sure as hell know you can’t, Buck,” Ted said. “Now get out of here before I drill you a third eye.”
Buck danced away, reluctant to put his full weight on the foot. He wasn’t hurt, but this time he was scared. Ted didn’t blame him, he was frightened of himself, wondering whether he would shoot Buck or if it was all just some crazy bluff. Not knowing was the scary part.
“Teddy,” Cookie said, “I don’t think that was such a good idea.”
“I liked it.”
“You got enough troubles without turnin’ ever’-body agin you. You can’t handle this by yourself. You know it and I know it.”
“No, Cookie. I don’t know it. In fact, I think I have to handle it by myself. I think that’s the only way
to
handle it.”
“I sure hope you know what yer doin’.”
“Me, too, Cookie. But I’ll tell you one thing. If I don’t, it ain’t gonna matter a hell of a lot.”
TED SCOURED THE
countryside for three days, looking for some lead to get him on Conlee’s trail. Cookie stayed on, and he used the old man as a touchstone. They camped beside the mess wagon, after cutting the cattle loose and hauling the wagon about four miles to a nearby creek. Summer was dying quickly, and Ted was only too conscious that the first snow would be due in two months, at the outside.
On his daily forays, he saw the kind of evidence O’Hara had warned him about. Ruined homesteads, burned to the ground, sometimes rock chimneys the only things left standing. Barns turned to ashes. And always, the ashes were cold. He had found plenty of evidence of Ralph Conlee, but not a single clue to his present whereabouts.
He was beginning to feel like he was cursed from
the outset. He lay awake half the night nearly every night, wondering if he’d ever get a chance to make it up to Johnny. It seemed strange to lie there, seeing his brother’s face so clearly, and knowing that he’d never touch him again, never slap him on the shoulder or shake his hand. He wished he’d had a chance to say good-bye, but that wasn’t in the cards. He thought about asking Cookie to take him to the grave, but he wasn’t sure he could stand it.
He needed every ounce of energy to concentrate on the work at hand. If he allowed the past to distract him, he might meet Johnny again a whole lot sooner than he’d care to. And Jacob paid him a visit now and then, looking like some avenging angel, wagging a finger under his nose. The old Quaker’s voice, deep as thunder and wavering like some ghost in a play, terrified him. It was so real, he’d wake up talking to Jacob, asking him what to do, or arguing with the old man, explaining how Johnny wouldn’t rest until Conlee paid for what he’d done.