The Sons of Grady Rourke (20 page)

Cyrus waited for Patrick to pour his coffee and set his chair close to the fireplace.

“I seen Sean in Lincoln this morning.”

Patrick nodded and sipped his coffee. His dirty face was tense and haggard.

“Did he say anything?”

“He said you and Liam should go with him to one of the lawyers to take care of business.”

“Yes. Sean's right. I can ride to town tomorrow to tell Billy. When he goes back to South Spring, he can fetch Liam.”

“I can go back.” Cyrus tried to stifle his grin.

“I'll go with the buckboard. We need pantry stores anyway.”

“All right. I wonder if Bill Morton's men will come in by then.”

Patrick raised his cup, which concealed most of his face.

“Maybe.”

S
EAN
R
OURKE STOOD
ankle-deep in mud at the center of the hotel paddock. The air was warm enough for him to work without a coat as he brushed his horse with a curry comb. The animal enjoyed the attention. He closed his eyes and stretched his neck while his companions looked on from a distance.

Patrick rode past the Wortley and did not see his brother in the corral. Two adobe buildings further east, the middle brother pulled up rein on his buckboard at Tunstall's store. He expected to see Brady's men guarding the place. But they were gone.

Instead of Billy Bonney behind the counter, Patrick saw a broad-boned woman with plain and rather unpleasant features.

“May I help you?”

“I'm Patrick Rourke. I come for supplies and to see Mr. Shield.”

“Yes. You're a friend of Mr. Chisum.”

“Not exactly. He runs his herd on our pa's land. I'm glad you're open for business.”

“Sheriff Brady doesn't stand up to me. I sent his thugs home and the sheriff let them go. I'm Sue McSween. Alex is my husband.”

“I saw him at South Spring.”

“That's what Billy said. Thank you for standing with him.” When her angular face opened with a pleasant smile, the thirty-three-year-old woman did not look as hard as her first impression.

“Billy said your brother, Liam, is down at South Spring River and your other brother is with the House.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“How's that?”

“Mr. Shield didn't say?”

“He doesn't break his clients' confidences, Mr. Rourke.”

“Oh. Well, our pa cut Sean out. So he moved into town. Took a room down the street.”

“I see. Did David show you your father's will?”

“No. But he read it to us.”

“You haven't read it yourself?”

Patrick hesitated. He remembered to remove his hat. Sue McSween looked at him closely.

“Can you read, Mr. Rourker?”

Patrick shrugged.

“You ride with the Regulators, Mr. Rourke?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You didn't find Deputy Morton last week?”

“No.”

“The Regulators are disbanded, you know.”

“Disbanded?”

“Yes. Governor Axtell threw Justice Wilson out of office and revoked his arrest warrants for Mr. Tunstall's killers.”

“I didn't know that.”

“If the Regulators ride again, they're vigilantes. Judge Bristol will hang them.”

Patrick's perspiring face looked troubled. He reached into his duster's deep pocket.

'This here's the list of supplies we need.”

“Is the soldier still at the ranch?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. McSween studied the long list of groceries printed in large letters.

“How much corn whiskey?”

“Whatever the list says.”

“It doesn't say how much.” She pushed the list toward him on the counter. The writing was upside down for Patrick. He glanced at it with a blank expression.

“Oh, just make it a gallon jug. I'll return the jug.”

“That will be fine.” She looked at the young man's kind but dirty face. “Mr. Rourke, I could teach you to read.”

The rancher looked down at the counter top.

“I'm afraid I ain't got time, ma'am. I have a ranch to run. I just come in for flour, sugar, and some bacon. And whatever else Sergeant Buchanan wrote there.”

“I'll keep the offer open, Mr. Rourke. While I'm getting your things, Mr. Shield is in the back. He's not with anyone, if you want to go in.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

David Shield looked up when Patrick knocked on the door frame of his open door.

“Mr. Rourke? How can I help you?”

The lawyer stood and shook Patrick's hand.

“I just come in for supplies. My brother Liam is back from the Army. He's down a South Spring. When can the three of us sign whatever we need to settle up the ranch?”

“Any time, Mr. Rourke. There are documents of administration to sign. Nothing complicated. We will admit the ranch to probate. Whenever Judge Bristol comes to town, he'll review the paperwork and sign the estate deed conveying the land to you and Liam as common tenants. Each of you will then own what the civil law calls an undivided one-half interest in the land and outbuildings.”

“Do we have to all be here together?”

“That would be best.”

“All right. I'll get my brothers. Liam is nearly sixty miles away. When do you want to see us here?”

“Oh, let's see.” Shield looked at the calendar on the wall. “How about April 1st, in three weeks? The judge should be up on the 2nd or 3rd since the local Grand Jury meets on the 1st. Say two o'clock?”

“That's fine with me. I'll talk to Sean on my way out. We'll get word to Liam. Maybe Billy can give Liam the message when he goes out there.”

“That's a good idea. I'll mention it to Billy.”

“I didn't see him outside.”

“No. He rode down to San Patricio. That's about ten miles south of here. He'll be back in a day or two. Quite a few of the Regulators are camped down there. You might wish to keep that in mind if it gets too close in town.”

“Thank you.”

“Deputy Morton hasn't come back yet, you know.”

“I know. Thank you, Mr. Shield.”

“Any time, Mr. Rourke.”

Back at the counter, Patrick put twenty dollars gold in Susan McSween's hand in exchange for several sacks of supplies. He had to make two trips to his wagon.

After securing the stores in the buckboard, Patrick left the wagon and walked two hundred yards down the street to the Wortley. The Mexican at the desk told Patrick that Sean was not in. With a trace of a smile, the little man told Patrick the directions to Melissa's home. He returned to the almost-spring sunshine for the short walk east.

Abigail opened the door when Patrick knocked. Hearing his voice, Sean pushed back from the table and went to the door. Instead of inviting his brother inside, Sean stepped outside and closed the door.

“I been to the lawyer.” Patrick saw no room for idle conversation on Sean's face.

“And?”

“He says the three of us should come over April 1st to sign some papers.”

“I'll be there.”

“Mr. Shield will send word to Liam.”

Sean nodded. Patrick looked uncomfortable standing with his hat in his hands.

“Do you live here?”

“My new family lives here.”

“Oh.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Deputy Morton ain't come back yet. Did the Regulators find him?”

“I don't know.”

“Didn't you ride out with them Chisum vigilantes?”

“Yes. I did. But the bunch I was with didn't see no deputies from Brady's posse. Didn't see Jimmy Dolan neither. Dolan came out to Tunstall's spread the day the Englishman was killed.”

“Jimmy wouldn't be out with Morton now. He broke his leg on the 13th here in town. He'll be laid up in Santa Fe for months. I hope Bill Morton gets off so light, if Chisum and McSween's men find him.”

Sean squinted into Patrick's eyes. The middle-brother blinked first.

“I see,” Sean said softly. Any words on their way up and out were stopped short when he remembered John Tunstall lying dead in the snow. The older brother sighed and looked up at the violet and unseasonably warm sky. “Maybe Morton and his men will turn up now that the thaw has set in.”

“I suppose.” Patrick put on his hat. “I best move on before I lose the daylight.”

“Yes.”

“I'll see you, Sean.”

“April first.”

Sean watched his brother walk slowly down the muddy street. He saw Patrick shake his head as he walked away.

A
LTHOUGH
C
YRUS
B
UCHANAN
was good company, Patrick spent two weeks thinking about his brothers: Sean who had Tunstall's blood on his hands and Liam who rode fence lines at South Spring.

Every second or third night, Cyrus rode alone into Lincoln to take comfort from Bonita Ramos. If he encountered Sean in town, he never mentioned his name to Patrick.

The early spring thaw lingered and cold, dry air was replaced by gray and soggy skies. The Rourke ranch floated in a sea of mud. Its suction on his boots forced Patrick to stop and rest when he walked from the barn to the house.

When Cyrus stayed gone for two nights in a row, Patrick could stand the oppressive silence of his father's empty house no longer. His horse was already saddled Thursday morning, March 28th, when Cyrus drove a buckboard down the lane. Bonita rode at his side.

“I'm going to ride over to see Liam. The three of us need to be in Shield's office on the first. I ain't heard from Billy that he got word to Liam.”

“It's muddy,” Cyrus said. “Better take a full set of horseshoes with you and extra nails.”

“I have all that. The mud will probably pull the old boy's shoes off before we get ten miles.”

“Probably. ”

Cyrus stood beside the buckboard. His round face looked sheepish when he glanced up at the woman who sat patiently with a blanket over her skirt.

“You can keep the house warm till I get back, if you don't mind.” Patrick held back a smile.

“I could do that,” the sergeant grinned.

P
ATRICK RODE SLOWLY
for two full days. By the time he reached the Rio Hondo, the ice had broken and the river was flowing fast with melt water. His horse limped on sore, bare feet across the river's rocky bottom. Two full sets of horseshoes were buried somewhere in fifty-five miles of tarlike mud.

Liam was in the bunk house when Patrick arrived after dark on Friday. Patrick was stunned by his brother's face. His pale skin seemed to hang loosely around his sunken eyeballs. Liam looked diseased although he protested his fitness for ranch work.

“But you look like hell.”

“I haven't been sleeping. I'm damned glad you're here. There's something I want to show you after the others bed down.”

“What?”

“I can't say. But you'll see it outside before morning.”

Dick Brewer greeted Patrick warmly and invited him to the big house for dinner Saturday evening.

Liam spent the entire night standing close to the window of the hired hands' cabin. Whatever Liam had expected never came. But he waited all night anyway. After two days on horseback, Patrick had to sleep and he left his brother alone at the window.

Saturday, Alexander McSween and half a dozen Regulators sat around John Chisum at the large table. That Governor Axtell had revoked their commission as lawmen did not trouble anyone. Patrick struggled to keep his eyes open when the lawyer stood up to address the assembly.

“Boys, Sheriff Brady and the governor have tried to make all of us into outlaws. Right here and now, I am making a pledge to you. John Chisum is my witness. I'm offering five hundred dollars to the man who kills William Brady.”

Patrick Rourke sat with his mouth open.

P
ATRICK AND
L
IAM SLOSHED UP THE TRAIL AN HOUR AFTER
midnight, Sunday morning. A dozen sleeping cowhands did not stir when the brothers crept out of the bunk house five hours after dinner. Chisum's regular stockmen and the few Regulators among them had talked loudly near the fireplace before finally turning in. Their cheerful banter sounded like small boys laying secret plans to saw the legs from church pews. They spoke merrily of assassination and of spending the five hundred dollars on the desperate needs of lonesome men.

Liam was eager to ride all night. But his brother and Patrick's horse were still sore from their drive to South Spring. Patrick was amazed by Liam's determination to spend the night on horseback. Although his face looked wasted and sickly from fatigue, Liam appeared to Patrick to be a man who did not want to sleep. When Patrick was a small boy, he had worn his boots to bed to keep himself awake all night so his nightmares filled with Grady Rourke's terrible voice would not come in his sleep. Trotting through nighttime hills twenty years later, Liam now wore that same scared-animal look in his hollow eyes. Patrick had long since banished those memories from his mind.

When Patrick's horse began stumbling on rocks under his tender, unshod feet, the two brothers walked their horses by hand, leading them by the reins for an hour of rest. Then they took saddle until Patrick's horse tripped in the dark and skinned his brown knees.

An hour before sunrise, Patrick's horse went down for the last time and refused to rise. The brother cursed the animal, removed his battered saddle, and threw it atop Liam's. The former-cavalryman brother grieved for the old horse whose great heart Patrick had broken. In the cavalry, a man's horse is the one soldier whose courage never falters. Liam kept his mourning to himself. The brothers walked on in silence and led their surviving horse by hand.

At eleven o' clock Sunday morning, they shuffled into Grady Rourke's barn. Liam pulled both saddles from his animal's back. He stood for a long time gently rubbing the patches of bare horse skin where the saddles had abraded the hair away. Patrick sat on an overturned water bucket. He wondered if he would be able to extract his swollen feet from his wet boots.