Bloody Sunday (6 page)

One of the blazing brands suddenly pinwheeled through the night air, and he knew one of his bullets had struck it and ripped it out of the raider's hand. He hoped he had winged the man, too.

The other night rider threw his torch, but Luke's bullets whipping around his head made him hurry too much. The torch struck the wall next to the window and bounced off to land in the garden and lie guttering on the ground.

As if suddenly realizing their danger, the raiders tried to wheel their mounts and flee. Luke triggered two more shots and saw one of the men jerk in the saddle.

Beside Luke, Glory's carbine cracked as she crowded up to the window and joined in the fight. The stench of the scorched rug competed with the tang of gunsmoke, but when he glanced over his shoulder he saw that the fire was out.

“You're not in the habit of doing what people tell you to do, are you?” he said.

“Not so that you'd notice,” she replied without looking at him as she worked the Winchester's lever and jacked another round into the chamber.

“I've got to go out there,” he said. “There are too many windows. They could be trying to throw torches through some of them. I need to be able to see better . . . but I need you to stay in here, too.”

He might still be able to collect the bounty if a stray slug cut her down, but he didn't want to run that risk.

“Be careful!” she told him, but he noticed that she didn't promise to do as he asked.

He paused long enough to reload both Remingtons. The revolvers, originally percussion weapons, had been converted for metallic cartridges by a top-notch gunsmith Luke knew, which certainly came in handy at moments like this when time was important.

With the cylinders of both guns full, Luke holstered the left-hand weapon and used that hand to open the door. He went through it in a low dive that landed him on the flagstone walk. He rolled over and came up on a knee as he drew the second gun again.

Some of the night riders were still concentrating their gunfire on the bunkhouse. The long, low structure had only small windows, and throwing torches through one of them would be almost impossible, especially with a gun-toting cowboy at each opening to discourage any of the raiders from getting too close.

No, the would-be arsonists were targeting the main house instead, and from the corner of his eye Luke saw flames again as two more torch-wielding riders raced toward the house. They were trying for windows at the end of the building this time.

Still on one knee, Luke twisted toward the raiders and triggered the Remingtons. One man dropped his torch, bent double, and grabbed at the saddlehorn to keep from toppling off his horse. The other raider kept coming, though, and drew back his torch to sling it.

The boom of a shotgun filled the night. The man went backwards, blown right out of the saddle by the load of buckshot that slammed into him. As far as Luke knew, the only other person in the house was Teresa. He wouldn't have thought the little gray-haired Mexican woman could handle a scattergun, but evidently he would have been wrong.

At that instant, hoofbeats pounded the ground close behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw another of the night riders closing in on him. This man didn't have a torch, but he had a Colt in his hand and had already drawn a bead on Luke at almost point-blank range.

And in that shaved second of time, Luke knew that if he tried to turn and fire before the man's gun erupted in deadly flame, he would be too late.

A rifle cracked suddenly, and the raider pitched sideways from his saddle before he could pull the trigger. Luke still had to dive out of the way to avoid being trampled by the charging horse. The slashing hooves barely missed him.

As he rolled over and came up on a knee, he saw Glory standing in the doorway with the carbine at her shoulder. She worked the lever and swung the barrel to the right, tracking another of the raiders. She fired again but evidently missed, because the man she was aiming at kept going without showing any signs of being hit.

It didn't matter, thought Luke. The shot just before that had been accurate.

And it had saved his life.

He came to his feet as the night riders began to break off their attack. They peeled away from the buildings and galloped into the darkness. Luke threw a couple of shots after them, as did Glory, but it would be pure luck if they hit any of the raiders and Luke knew it.

As she lowered her Winchester, Glory asked, “Are you all right, Luke?”

“Thanks to you I am,” he said. “That was a nice shot.”

“I had to hurry. I was afraid I was going to miss.”

“You didn't.” Luke holstered his left-hand gun and quickly reloaded the other Remington. Keeping the revolver leveled and ready, he cautiously approached the man Glory had shot out of the saddle.

The man had rolled over a couple of times when he landed and now lay sprawled on his back. He wasn't moving. Luke used a booted foot to prod his shoulder roughly enough to make the man's head loll back and forth. The limp motion convinced Luke the raider was dead.

The light wasn't good out here. He fished a lucifer from his pocket and snapped it to life with his thumbnail. By the little flame's glare, he saw that Glory's bullet had caught the man in the left side, bored all the way through his body, and come out on the right just above the ribs. It had gotten both lungs and possibly the heart.

Good shooting indeed, especially under pressure. She hadn't been lying when she said she knew how to handle a rifle.

Unfortunately, that was just one more indication that she could have bushwhacked her husband.

Luke held the match closer to the dead man's face and asked, “Do you know him?”

“No,” Glory said.

“You haven't seen him before with Elston?”

“No. I'd tell you if I had.”

Luke dropped the match in the dirt just before the flame reached his fingers. The dead man was a stranger to him, as well. He thought back to Elston's visit to the MacCrae ranch a few hours earlier and tried to remember the faces of the gunmen Elston had brought with him. Luke was pretty sure this man hadn't been one of them.

That was unfortunate. But maybe some of the other raiders had been left behind, and their corpses could serve as evidence against Elston.

“Mrs. MacCrae! Mrs. MacCrae!” Gabe Pendleton called as he ran toward them with a Colt in his hand. His boots were off, and he wore his trousers over a pair of long red underwear. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Gabe,” she told him. “Are any of the men hurt?”

“A couple of them,” Pendleton said, “but they were just winged. They'll be all right.”

“We'll take them to the doctor in Painted Post. Or you can send a rider to bring him back out here, if you think they're hurt too badly to travel.”

The foreman shook his head and said, “I don't think that'll be necessary. Kaintuck ought to be able to patch them up. But if he says they need a real sawbones, we'll sure tend to it.”

“All right,” Glory said with a nod. “I'll leave that to your judgment.”

Pendleton looked at Luke and said, “You appear to be all right, Jensen.”

“A couple of close calls, but no damage done,” Luke said.

Pendleton nodded toward the dead man lying almost at their feet.

“Brought one of the bas—I mean, varmints down, I see.”

“Actually, Mrs. MacCrae deserves the credit for that,” Luke said, smiling slightly. “She drilled him as neat as you please and saved my life.”

Several other members of the crew had followed Pendleton over to the main house, including the two young wranglers Ernie and Vince. At Luke's words, Ernie let out an admiring whistle and said, “That's some shootin', ma'am!”

Pendleton turned to the men and said, “Spread out and make sure those skunks didn't do any more damage. Somebody needs to mount up and check on the herds and the men riding nighthawk, too. This raid could've been just a distraction to cover up some wide-looping on a larger scale.”

That possibility had just occurred to Luke as well. Pendleton was already taking care of it, though, so he didn't have to make the suggestion himself.

“Bullets shattered some of the windows,” Glory said. “They'll need to be boarded up until we can get them repaired.”

Pendleton sighed and said, “Mr. MacCrae had those windows brought out here from San Antonio on the train and then we hauled 'em in the wagon to the ranch. He set great store by them.”

“I know,” Glory said quietly. “We'll put them back as good as new. But right now I need to go make sure Teresa is all right.”

Luke followed her into the house. They found the little Mexican woman sweeping up broken glass. She was unharmed but angry.

“The men should saddle and ride and unleash hell on Señor Elston,” she proclaimed as she waved her broom in the air for emphasis.

“I'd agree,” Glory said, “except that we have no proof.”

“Proof!” Teresa snorted in disgust. “When you see a rattlesnake, you do not ask for proof that he is a venomous serpent. You just cut his head off!”

Nobody could argue much with that sentiment, Luke thought as he smiled to himself.

 

 

The violent raid brought the pleasant evening to an unexpected, unwanted end. Luke knew there was no point in trying to recapture what had been going on between him and Glory. It had been mostly a lie anyway, at least on his part, as he tried to figure out his next move.

He couldn't have said what she was feeling. He had a hunch Glory MacCrae was good at keeping her true thoughts and emotions to herself.

He pitched in to help board up the broken windows and then said good night. As they stood in front of the main house's doorway, Glory put a hand on his arm and said, “Thank you for everything you've done.”

“You're the one who saved my life, remember?” Luke reminded her. “As far as I can tell, the only thing I've accomplished is to make things worse between you and Harry Elston by killing that rustler.”

“I promise you, this trouble was coming whether you were here or not, Luke. It's been inevitable since someone killed Sam and Elston decided he could force me out of Sabado Valley.” Glory smiled sadly. “If you're as intelligent as you seem to be, you'll get on your horse in the morning and head for El Paso as fast as you can get there. Forget about everything that's going on here.”

“I'm not sure I can do that,” Luke said.

Glory's face grew solemn as she said, “I don't want to be responsible for anything happening to you.”

“You won't be. I make my own decisions.” He paused. “And right about now I'm not feeling any too kindly toward Mr. Harry Elston.”

That was true, he reflected as he walked out to the bunkhouse. He didn't like range hogs who hired vicious killers. He didn't like men who tried to take advantage of women. And he sure as hell didn't like being shot at and nearly trampled. He might have come here on business, but now he had a personal score to settle, too.

It didn't look like Glory planned to go anywhere anytime soon. He didn't have to get in a hurry about taking her in. There was no reason he couldn't afford to hang around for a while and see what happened with this brewing range war.

With that decision made, he went into the bunkhouse, stretched out on an empty bunk that Ernie Frazier pointed out to him, and fell into his usual light but restful sleep.

As was always the case on a ranch, the men were awakened well before dawn the next morning. A tall, skinny old-timer with a black patch over his left eye stalked into the bunkhouse when the eastern sky was barely touched with gray and held a lantern high over his head in his right hand. In his left hand he carried a cowbell that he started clanging in a raucous racket.

“Get your butts outta them bunks 'fore I come around and kick 'em out!” the old man threatened in a leather-lunged bellow. “On your feet or I'll flang a hydrophobia skunk in here and let
him
roust you good-for-nothin' cow nurses!”

One of the men groaned and pulled his thin pillow over his head.

“Shut up that caterwaulin', you old pelican!” he yelled from under the pillow.

“Old pelican, is it!” The man with the eye patch strode over to the bunk where the complaining cowboy huddled and started lambasting him with the bell, which made its strident clamor even louder. “Get outta there, or I'll beat you within an inch o' your worthless life!”

Gabe Pendleton came out of the tiny private room that was his by right of being the foreman and said, “Take it easy, Kaintuck. If you kill him that's one less waddy I've got to do the work today.”

Kaintuck snorted disgustedly, but he stopped whaling away at the cowboy. He said, “I'm sick and tired of these varmints carryin' on like it's early. Ain't I already been up for a couple o' hours boilin' coffee and cookin' bacon and biscuits?”

“If you can call that stuff coffee,” came a voice from a corner of the bunkhouse. “It's thick as axle grease and tastes about as good.”

Another man said, “If you been up cookin' that bacon for a couple hours, Kaintuck, shouldn't it be, you know, actually cooked and not half raw?”

“Not to mention those biscuits'd do for proppin' up a wagon, they're so danged hard!” somebody else jibed.

Kaintuck glared around and snapped, “Keep it up, you smart-mouthed golliwogs! See if you like your own cookin'! I quit!”

He stalked out of the bunkhouse, muttering curses as he disappeared into the predawn darkness.

Luke had watched the byplay with a smile on his face as he sat up in his bunk. The camaraderie among these men was obvious. He had seen the same thing with his brother Smoke's crew on the Sugarloaf Ranch in Colorado. Pearlie, Cal, and the rest of Smoke's men were cut from the same cloth as these Texas cowboys. They were, in a very real sense, family.

That was something Luke had missed out on for the most part. Looking back on his life, he could see that he had spent most of it in solitude, alone even when he was in a crowded saloon or café. Even most of his relations with women had been impersonal.

From time to time, he gave some thought to trying to change, but after all this time he wasn't sure he wanted to. He wasn't sure he even knew how.

Gabe Pendleton came over to his bunk. The foreman was already fully dressed and looked like he was ready to begin the day's work.

“Well, now you've met our cook, Kaintuck,” Pendleton said.

“We haven't been formally introduced,” Luke said, “but I doubt if I'll forget him anytime soon. Of course, since he quit I don't suppose it really matters.”

Pendleton chuckled and shook his head.

“Kaintuck quits three or four times a week. It doesn't mean anything. He's back in the cook shack right now, out back of the mess hall.”

“You don't eat in the main house?”

“That's Mrs. MacCrae's house,” Pendleton said, his voice hardening slightly. “She's got her place, and we've got ours. If you were going to be staying around here, Jensen, you'd need to understand that. But I guess since you're moving on, like you say, it doesn't matter.”

Luke swung his legs off the bunk and stood up. He said, “I don't recall telling anybody that I was moving on.”

“And I don't recall anybody inviting you to stay,” Pendleton shot back. “If you're thinking about parlaying what happened yesterday into a riding job, you'd better think again. We're not hiring. Our crew's full up.”

At one of the nearby bunks, Ernie Frazier pulled a shirt over his head and then said, “I figured we could always use another good hand around here, Mr. Pendleton. Anyway, you haven't replaced Jimmy Applewhite since he quit and went back down to South Texas. . . .”

The young wrangler's voice trailed off as Pendleton gave him a hard look.

“I handle the hiring and firing around here, Ernie,” the foreman said. “You'd do well to remember that.”

“Yes, sir,” Ernie mumbled as he looked down at the plank floor.

Pendleton turned back to Luke and went on: “You're welcome to stay for breakfast, of course. If your horse needs to rest for a day or two, I reckon even that would be all right. But don't get the idea this is something that it's not, Jensen.”

Pendleton had him pegged as just another drifting saddle tramp, one step below even a grub line rider. That was all right, Luke thought. The ramrod's opinion of him didn't really matter.