Bleeding Texas (7 page)

A week had passed since the dance in town. The knife wound in Bo's side was still tender, but it was healing nicely. Idabelle Fisher, who'd had experience herself at patching up an assortment of gun and knife wounds, changed the dressing on it every day and assured Bo he was going to be fine except for a scar.

“It's not like that's the only one of those I've got,” he told her with a smile.

Idabelle snorted at that comment.

“You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Bo Creel! You men make a habit of getting yourself shot up and cut up. You're all so eager to fight, I don't see how civilization has a chance.”

“Some say civilization is overrated,” Bo pointed out. “Sooner or later the barbarians are going to come out on top no matter what we do.”

“Well, we can at least try to postpone that day for a while.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Bo agreed.

One day during that week, a Star C puncher rode in to report that a couple dozen cattle were missing from one of the pastures. Bo rode out there with his father to have a look, along with Riley and Cooper and Scratch, who happened to be there at the time.

“You're probably the best tracker among us, Scratch,” John Creel said when they reached the pasture. “See if you can follow the sign, if you don't mind.”

“That's just what I was plannin' to do, Mr. Creel,” Scratch said. He roamed back and forth around the countryside for a quarter of an hour before he found the tracks the stolen cows had made as they were being driven off.

The trail led west, toward a region of thickly wooded knobs and gullies. Bo knew it was going to be difficult to follow the rustlers, and sure enough, they had gone only a few miles before Scratch reined in and said, “Looks like they split up. There were enough of the varmints that each man took two or three cows apiece. Reckon they've got it set up to rendezvous somewhere later.”

“Can't you follow any of the trails?” Riley asked.

“All we need to do is track one of the rustlers,” Cooper added. “He'll lead us to the others.”

Scratch shrugged and said, “We can give it a try, but I got a hunch these fellas know what they're doin'. They've been gettin' away with it for a while, after all.”

The search proved to be futile. The group from the Star C took one trail, then another and another, only to have them all peter out. As Scratch had indicated, the rustlers were skillful.

Finally, late in the day, the men headed back to the ranch with an air of discouragement hanging over them. Two dozen cattle wouldn't make or break the Star C . . . but losing that many every few weeks over time added up to considerable shrinking of the herd.

John Creel cussed the Fontaines all the way back. It was true that the stolen cattle had been driven west, in the opposite direction from the Rafter F, but that didn't mean anything. The rustlers could still be working for Ned Fontaine.

Fontaine didn't want to blot the brands and add the cows to his own herd, Bo thought. He just wanted to hurt the Star C.

It was a couple of days later that Gilbert Ambrose arrived at the ranch driving a buggy. A fine black horse pulled the vehicle, which had brass trim. Had to expect the town banker to travel in style, Bo thought from where he was sitting on the porch, playing dominoes with Scratch.

“Gentlemen,” Ambrose greeted them with a nod. He climbed down from the buggy and tied the horse's reins to the hitching post in front of the porch. “Are your father and brothers here, Bo?”

“Pa and Hank are,” Bo said as he stood up. “Riley and Cooper are out on the range somewhere. You need to talk to them, too?”

Ambrose shook his head.

“No, that's all right. John and Hank handle all the business for the ranch. I just need to speak with them.”

Ambrose paused at the bottom of the steps, as if asking permission to come any farther.

“Come on and have a seat,” Bo told him. “I'll tell Idabelle to fetch some lemonade while I go get Pa and Hank.”

“I can do that,” Scratch offered. “Why don't you keep Mr. Ambrose company, Bo?”

“All right.”

Bo thought Ambrose looked uncomfortable. When the banker reached the porch, he took out a bandanna and mopped his forehead. The day was warm, but not hot enough to make Ambrose sweat like that.

Bo waved Ambrose into one of the rockers, then said, “Unless you'd rather go inside and talk in the office . . . ?”

“No, this is fine,” Ambrose replied with a shake of his head as he put away the bandanna and sat down. “I . . . I like the fresh air.”

“So do I.”

John Creel pushed the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. Hank was close behind him.

“Hello, Gil,” John said. “What brings you out here?”

Bo figured he already knew the answer to his father's question—and none of them were going to like it.

Ambrose hesitated before saying, “I need to talk a little business, John.”

“I understand Idabelle is bringing some lemonade. Let's wait for that. Always easier to talk business when you don't have a dry throat.”

“I, uh, I suppose so.”

The four men sat on the porch making small talk while they waited. Nobody had asked Bo to leave, so he stayed. As the minutes dragged past, Ambrose looked more and more uncomfortable.

Idabelle emerged from the house carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and four glasses on it. She set it on the domino table, gave the visitor a slightly chilly, “Hello, Mr. Ambrose,” and went back inside after filling the glasses.

John Creel took a long drink of the cool liquid, then licked his lips and said, “All right, Gil, what's this all about?”

“I . . . I think you know, John,” Ambrose said.

“The money I owe the bank.” John nodded. “I've got some set aside to pay on it.”

“The, uh, note is due in full soon. I don't suppose you have enough to . . . pay all of it?”

The old rancher's voice was flat and hard as he said, “You know I don't, Gil. The Star C has had more than its share of trouble lately. But you know I'm good for it. You know that in the long run the bank'll get every penny I owe, and every bit of the interest, too.”

“Perhaps, but you've been granted several extensions already. I have responsibilities, John—”

“To who?” Creel interrupted. “You own the bank. You don't have any stockholders you have to worry about.”

“No, but I do have other customers, and they're all counting on the bank remaining solvent,” Ambrose said. “If it were to go under, it would hurt a lot of people in town. Nearly everyone, in one way or another, I'd venture to say.”

Hank said, “Mr. Ambrose, you don't expect us to believe that the money we owe is enough to threaten the bank. I know it's quite a bit, but you can grant us another extension. We'll pay a little on the principal—”

Ambrose shook his head and said, “I'm sorry, Hank. I just can't.” He looked at John Creel and added, “I really am sorry, John. It's just business, that's all.”

“A pretty sorry business, if you ask me,” John growled. “We been friends for how long?”

“Long enough that this makes me sick to my stomach,” Ambrose said, and Bo actually believed that. The banker looked like he was genuinely in pain. “But that doesn't make any difference. I'm calling in the note in full on its due date, and if you can't pay it off, I have no choice but to declare the loan in default and start foreclosure proceedings on the Star C.”

“By God, you can't do that!”

Bo would have expected such an angry response from his father, but it was mild-mannered Hank who was on his feet, hands clenched into fists as he glared at Gilbert Ambrose.

“You won't get your hands on this ranch!” Hank went on.

John Creel lifted a hand to motion his son back.

“Sit down, Hank,” John said. “Gil's an old friend. We're not gonna lose our tempers with him.”

Ambrose mopped his face with the bandanna again and said, “I appreciate you remembering that, John.”

“I'm makin' an effort to, anyway,” John said. “Six weeks.”

“Until the note is due? Yes, that's right.”

“And if I pay it off, we're square.”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, I'll see you in your office in six weeks with the money,” John said. “Until then, this is still my land, and I'll thank you to get off it.”

Ambrose winced as the sharp words lashed at him.

“I wish you could understand just how much I regret this,” he said as he stood up.

“Oh, I understand. I just don't care.”

With a hangdog look on his face, Ambrose climbed wearily into his buggy and drove off. Once the banker was gone, Hank said, “Pa, you know we can't pay off that note.”

John Creel sighed and said, “We've got some figurin' to do, all right. Ride out and find your brothers, Hank. Bring 'em back here. Maybe if we put our heads together, we can think of something. If we can't come up with the money, we'll have to stall Ambrose somehow.”

Bo said, “He didn't have the look of a man who's going to be stalled, Pa.” Bo paused. “In fact, he looked like a man who'd been backed into a corner.”

“Maybe so, but that don't change anything.”

“Why don't you let Scratch and me bring in Riley and Cooper?” Bo suggested. “That way you and Hank can go ahead and get started going over the books.”

Scratch had stepped out onto the porch, and he nodded in agreement with that idea.

“All right,” John Creel said with a wave of his gnarled hand. “I appreciate the help, Bo. This ain't really your problem.”

“The hell it's not. I may not have been around here as much as I should have been over the years, but I'm still a Creel.”

A few minutes later, he and Scratch had saddled their horses and headed out to find Bo's other two brothers. As they rode, Bo said to his old friend, “I reckon you heard what Ambrose had to say.”

“Sure,” Scratch replied. “I didn't want to butt in on your family's business, but I was eavesdroppin' inside the door.”

Bo chuckled and said, “I figured as much.”

“You think there's any way your pa can come up with the money he needs?”

“Actually, that's why I suggested the two of us go look for Riley and Cooper,” Bo said. “I wanted a chance to talk to you. I've got an idea that might let us do just that.”

It took a while for Bo and Scratch to find Bo's brothers, since they were checking the stock on different parts of the ranch. But they were back at the Star C headquarters with Riley and Cooper well before nightfall.

Both men wanted to know what was going on, but Bo didn't go into the details of Gilbert Ambrose's visit.

“It'll be better if you wait so we can hash it all out together,” he told them.

“It can't be anything good,” Riley said with a gloomy look.

“Yeah, a banker doesn't come to see you unless he's got something bad to tell you,” Cooper added.

They picked up several other riders on their way in: Lee, Davy, and Jason Creel, all equally curious about why they were gathering at the home ranch. Bo knew his nephews were all solid young men, but the discussion that was coming would be between him, his brothers, and their father.

Earlier, he had sketched out his plan to Scratch, who had agreed that it might work.

“One thing you can count on,” the silver-haired Texan had said. “I'm comin' along.”

“I don't want you feeling like you have to,” Bo had said. “This is a family problem—”

“And if you don't think the two of us are the same as family after all these years, then you ain't been payin' attention, Bo Creel,” Scratch had declared in a voice that allowed no argument. “Besides . . . I got another reason I figure it might be a good idea for me to get outta Bear Creek for a spell.”

That statement had put a grin on Bo's face as he said, “That reason wouldn't be a certain brown-haired widow, would it?”

Scratch had winced at the question.

“Emmaline's nice as she can be, and she sure ain't hard to look at, but her mind is workin' in ways that've got me plumb spooked.”

“Marrying ways?”

“You remember how I walked her home, the night of the social?”

“Sure, I remember.”

“Well, turns out that when I got her back to her house, she expected me to come in and, uh, keep her company for a while. I got away with just a good-night kiss on the front porch—that time—but you know how a good-lookin' woman has always been able to wrap me around her little finger, Bo.”

“That's true,” Bo had said with a solemn nod.

“Anyway, I've spent some time with Emmaline since then and she seems to think we're courtin' or somethin', and she's one o' them women who figures that courtin' leads straight as a string to marryin', and you know I ain't never been the marryin' type. So if there's a good reason for the two of us to get outta these parts for a while, I ain't exactly gonna argue. If I can lend a hand to you and your family, even better.”

“We'll see,” Bo had said. “Chances are, we're going to need all the help we can get.”

Now, as the group reached the main ranch house, Scratch lifted a hand in farewell and said, “I'll see you later, Bo. Let me know what you fellas decide to do.”

Riley snorted and said to Bo, “You can tell your old pard what's going on, but you keep your own brothers in the dark?”

“You won't be in the dark much longer,” Bo said. “Come on.”

The brothers dismounted and went in the house while the younger men took care of putting up the horses. Idabelle met them inside and said, “Your father's in the study with Hank. And he's in as dark a mood as I've seen from him in a long time, so be careful.”

They found John Creel sitting behind the desk, his rugged features even more lined than usual by the strain of the dilemma facing him. Hank waved his brothers into chairs and said, “I suppose Bo's told you what happened earlier this afternoon.”

“We know Gilbert Ambrose was here,” Riley said. “Bo wouldn't explain any more than that.”

Cooper said, “I reckon we can make a pretty good guess, though. He's callin' in the note, isn't he? The whole thing?”

Hank nodded.

“Pa and I have been going over the books, seeing just how much money we can come up with—”

“It won't be enough,” Riley said flatly. “We all know that, Hank. You don't have to go into the details.”

“Actually, he does,” Bo said. “How much money would it take to pay off the note, Hank?”

“Well . . .” The youngest Creel brother scratched at his beard. “I figure twelve thousand dollars would do it.”

“Twelve thousand—” Riley seemed to choke on the amount. When he could speak again, he went on, “Might as well be a million. We'd have just as much chance of comin' up with it.”

Bo leaned forward in his chair and said, “That's not strictly true. How many head of cattle are out there on Star C range?”

“Somewhere between fifteen hundred and two thousand, I'd say,” Riley replied. “And I know what you're thinking, Bo. It's the wrong time of year to start a drive. Anyway, it'd take months to get a herd to the railhead and get back with the money to pay off that note.”

“I wasn't talking about going to the railhead,” Bo said. “They still ship cattle out of Rockport, don't they?”

John Creel leaned forward and brought a fist crashing down on the desk.

“I'll be damned if I sell my cows to a bunch of hide-and-tallow men!” he declared.

Bo shook his head and said, “It's not like that anymore, Pa. I'm not talking about selling the herd to a rendering plant. They ship beef down there on the coast now.”

“And they pay half what the buyers at the railhead pay for animals they can take back to Chicago,” Cooper pointed out.

“That's true,” Bo admitted. “But they pay enough that if we took a good-sized herd to Rockport, that would pay off the note.”

John Creel's frown deepened. He said, “When you consider what we got sunk in those animals, we'd be takin' a loss.”

“So you'd lose a little now to do away with the threat of that note at the bank,” Bo said. “It's a poor trade, sure, but I don't know what else we can do.”

With a look of growing hope, Hank said, “Bo's right. We're cash poor, but we've got the stock. We have to make use of it however we can.”

“You're sayin' we'll strip the range,” Riley argued. “That'll ruin the ranch, too, won't it? What the hell good is a cattle spread without cattle?”

“You'll still have the land. And you won't have to strip the range. We'll leave a few hundred head to start building the herd again.” Bo shrugged. “It's risky, I won't deny that. But it's also the only way I know of to come up with that twelve thousand dollars.”

Cooper rubbed his chin and frowned in thought before saying, “Might work, Pa. Rockport's a little less'n a hundred miles away, and it'd be a fairly easy drive. We'd have to cross the Guadalupe River, Coleto Creek, and the San Antonio River, but those are the only streams of any size. We ought to be able to put a pretty good herd together in a couple of weeks, then it'll take two more weeks to get 'em to the coast and get back here with the money. That gives us some leeway on when the note's due.”

Riley shook his head stubbornly.

“I don't like it,” he declared. “We'll be throwin' away money in the long run. If we can take 'em to the railhead next year—”

“We won't have them to take to the railhead next year,” Hank interrupted. “The bank will take the herd and everything else. We'll be busted if we don't do this.” He paused, then added, “You just don't like the idea because Bo came up with it.”

Riley surged up out of his chair and put his face in Hank's.

“Don't you talk to me like that, little brother,” he said through clenched teeth. “I can still whip you—”

“We need to be working together instead of fighting amongst ourselves,” Bo said.

Riley rounded on him and stuck out his jaw belligerently.

“You think you can come waltzin' back in here after all these years and start tellin' us what to do!” he accused. “Damn it, Bo, you turned your back on this family a long time ago. Don't start acting like you care about it now!”

John Creel growled, “Stop it, the both of you. You can whale the tar outta each other like you did when you were kids if you want, but it won't change a blasted thing.” He sat back and sighed. “I'm mighty sure Ned Fontaine's got somethin' to do with this. Somehow he put pressure on Gil Ambrose to call in that note.”

Bo thought his father was probably right about that, but it didn't change anything. He said, “We'll deal with the Fontaines after we take care of this problem.”

“Well, I vote no on making a drive to Rockport,” Riley said.

“It ain't a votin' matter,” John Creel said in a flinty voice. “Not as long as I'm on this side of the ground it ain't. I don't mind listenin' to what you fellas have to say, but I'm the one who'll make the decision.”

None of the others argued with that.

John looked at Hank and said, “You really think we can raise enough this way to pay off Ambrose?”

“Yes, sir, I do. We can use the money we'd saved up to pay on the principal to outfit a drive. I'd have to know exactly how many cows we're taking down there, and I'm not sure what price the buyers are paying right now, but . . . it ought to be enough.”

“Ought to be,” Riley repeated mockingly.

John ignored him and turned to Bo.

“You reckon we can pull off the drive itself in the time we've got?”

“With a week or two to spare,” Bo said. “Of course, it's good to have that extra time, because things always go wrong unexpectedly.”

Riley said, “What if a hurricane comes in and blows the whole place away, like it did with Indianola a few years ago?”

“I recall a cyclone nearly gettin' our herd a few years ago when we were making a drive up the trail to the north,” Cooper said. “Weather's always a wild card in Texas.”

“That's true,” John muttered.

He looked down at the desk for a long, silent moment before he heaved himself to his feet and gazed around at his sons.

“All right,” he said. “Start the roundup. We're takin' a herd to the coast.”

Riley looked like he wanted to argue some more, but he swallowed whatever he was going to say and nodded.

“You're the boss, Pa,” he said instead.

“Damn right I am. And whatever it takes to save this ranch . . . that's what we're gonna do.”