The Sons of Grady Rourke (10 page)

Patrick's face softened, strangely relieved by Billy's careful answer.

“Sean ain't been with a woman he ain't rented since Shiloh, that I know of. Sixteen years.”

Billy shrugged and sniffed the coffee. “Her mouth is broke and his face is broke.” The clerk smiled, full of the power of his own reasoning.

T
HE GUNFIGHTER TWIRLED HIS SIX-SHOOTER IN HIS RIGHT
hand. He watched it intently with squinting eyes as if the blue iron were some kind of ballet. Two revolutions forward; two revolutions backward. Then a blue blur and the gentlest rubbing sound of warm metal against hard leather. The hand hovered motionless, poised just beyond the grip of the 1872 Remington, single-action Belt Revolver. The gunman had paid an extra ten dollars for the pearl grips which glowed the amber color of old ivory where the afternoon sun landed warmly. Like a bullfrog tongue taking a fly, the hand hardly twitched and 2 1/2 pounds of steel spun again first forward, then backward, then swished back into the oiled holster low on the killer's right hip.

“You ain't going to be happy till you shoot your balls off, Rob.” Billy Bonney spoke cheerfully through his buck-toothed smile.

“It's not loaded, Billy,” Robert Widenmann said with a slightly nasal, Michigan accent. The brilliant sunshine coming through the windows of the Tunstall store made the mid-westerner's white, starched sleeves glow. A dime, pocket novel of the Wild West protruded from the back of his baggy trousers and rode up the thick gunbelt's row of .44 caliber cartridges. The twenty-four-year-old immigrant from Ann Arbor to New Mexico Territory saw the winter-scape of Lincoln County's high plains against far blue mountains through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy. John Tunstall had hired Widenmann to do clerking and handy-man chores for the store a year earlier. The clerk practiced his quick draw in front of the mirror in his room.

“All the same, Rob, it still makes me nervous when you play with that thing.”

Before the clerk gunman could respond, the boots thumping on the front porch sounded like a full squad of cavalry from Fort Stanton. In an instant, Billy realized that the heavy lock-step jingled with spur, heel chains.

“Sheriff Brady's boys,” Billy said gravely. Rob Widenmann unbuckled his gunbelt and tossed it under the counter with the speed trained into his shooting hand.

Four armed men and an icy wind entered the general store on Friday, February 8th.

“Where's Mr. Tunstall?” William Brady asked softly. His eyes quickly took the measure of the large room. At midday, there were no women shopping for fabric or flour. They were all home preparing noontime supper for their men and children.

“He's at the ranch,” Billy answered with strained courtesy. The other clerk backed quietly into the shadows between two barrels of molasses.

“I got this here writ,” the sheriff said. “It's a Writ of Attachment. We're here to seize by lawful process ten thousand dollars worth of goods to secure Alexander McSween's debt to the Emil Fritz estate.”

Two deputies stood at Brady's left elbow and a third stood in front of the closed, front door. Their trail coats were pulled back to reveal their sidearms.

“This ain't McSween's store, Sheriff. It's Mr. Tunstall's.” Billy kept his hands flat on the counter. “I ain't packing, Sheriff.”

“Then you come around here, Billy. You too, Rob.”

Widenmann took one little step out of the shadows when Billy walked to the front of the counter. Brady studied both young men.

“Billy, we need to inventory the store. McSween was arraigned six days ago down in Mesilla for embezzling money from old Emil's estate. McSween is Tunstall's partner, so what's Tunstall's is McSween's until the judge says otherwise. Now you just give me the keys to the stock rooms.”

Bonney looked at the deputies. Even with their eyes nearly hidden under the brims of their hats, he recognized them as employees of Jimmy Dolan.

“I ain't got the keys,” Billy said firmly. “Besides, I ain't seen nothing in the weekly about Mr. McSween being before the judge.”

“It won't be in the papers,” the sheriff said calmly. “McSween was arraigned secretly in Judge Bristol's home.”

“That legal?”

“It was for the judge. Now—the keys, Billy.”

“Ain't on me, Sheriff. I'm telling you.”

Rob Widenmann exhaled loudly as if he had overfilled his lungs when he was summoned from the protection of the syrup barrels.

William Brady took four steps away from his deputies and stood in front of the lanky man from Michigan. Brady held out his hand—palm up—without a word. When Widenmann held the keys above the sheriff's gloved hand, they jingled as Widenmann's hand shook.

“This is your house, Rob!” Billy said coldly. His blue-gray eyes narrowed on his boyish face. Tunstall allowed Rob to board in the back in exchange for his odd jobs.

Slowly, Widenmann put the keys back into his pocket.

“I'm sorry, Sheriff. I can't give you no keys till Mr. Tunstall comes up from his ranch. I'm real sorry.” The voice was pleading although neither the sheriff nor his grim deputies had made a single threatening gesture.

“Me, too, Rob. You're interfering with the execution of lawful process.” Brady's voice was gentle. Sweat ran off Widenmann's nose. “I'll have to take you in till Tunstall comes into town. I'm sorry.”

The sudden prisoner swallowed hard. He shuffled without a word toward his coat which hung on the wall.

“William Henry,” Brady said toward Billy Bonney, “you go fetch Tunstall. Tell him I have a writ to seize McSween's half of this partnership. My two deputies will guard the store and keep it closed down until he comes back to town.”

“But, Sheriff, we do a hefty business on Saturdays. We can't close tomorrow.”

Brady stepped over to the teenager and blew his whiskey breath into the boy's face.

“You can ride down to Rio Felix, or you can keep Rob company in a nice, cozy cell until Tunstall comes up in his own good time. You decide, Billy.”

Bonney's thin lips opened around his crooked front teeth.

“I'll fetch Mr. Tunstall. I'll head out just as quick as I can get some supplies and a pack animal. It's thirty miles in this here cold.”

Brady nodded and sighed alcohol vapors into Billy's eyes.

“Good boy.”

N
IGHT WIND FILLED
the curtains nailed to Patrick Rourke's front window. Only the crackling fire in the hearth broke the terrible Sunday silence that clanged through Patrick's mind like an off-key tune. At least the house smelled warmly of pine resin popping in the logs in the fireplace. The repaired fence around the house kept the cattle far enough away that their tons of green manure froze before the stench could reach the shattered window. Patrick had weaved ropes between sections of broken fence where surviving posts were too far apart for their rails to connect.

From outside, the wonderful scent of the fire was the only sign of life within. The two oil lamps in the main room cast no light through the curtains across the window. A brilliant half moon in a hard, clear sky illuminated the dirty snow. Under bright stars and the moon, hundreds of Chisum cattle stood in tight clusters to insulate themselves from the nighttime cold. When the beef moved slowly, they looked like the shadow of Capitan Mountain moving across the snow as if the mountain were stealing away in the dark. A quarter mile down the lane, Dick Brewer thought that the black shapes looked like a ghost herd of buffalo slipping silently away from the arrows of long-dead Apaches.

“Yo there, in the house!”

Patrick was startled by the shout outside. He looked up from the little table in the single large room. He had been concentrating hard on sewing buttons to his salty shirts. His hands were so stiff and sore from field work that he could hardly steer his mother's old needle. He looked over his shoulder toward the billowing curtains and the closed door. Silently, he cursed the voices which he imagined hearing even in his sleep.

“In the house!” the voice shouted again.

For an instant, Patrick felt relieved. Then he forced his tight right hand around the walnut grip of his Peacemaker revolver. He stood, looked quickly at the weapon's cylinder, and then eased over to the wall. He stood with his back pressed flat against the wood between the door and the open window. Patrick leaned toward the curtain.

“Come on up slow,” the voice inside the house called into the night.

“I'm coming up dismounted. It's Dick Brewer, Mr. Rourke.”

“Tunstall's man?”

“Yes, sir. Billy said he told you about me.”

Dick Brewer was Tunstall's ranch foreman.

“You come up.”

When Patrick heard boots on the front porch, he opened the door a crack with his left hand. He kept the Peacemaker raised behind the door. In the red light of the blazing hearth, Patrick saw a snowman in trail duster. Ice crystals were white around the stranger's mouth and hung like tiny icicles from his eyebrows.

“Let me lay my gunbelt down.”

The visitor dropped his belt to the porch floor. It landed at an unnatural angle where it rested on a fist-size brick of steer manure. With the door open wide to the bitter wind, Patrick could see that the cowboy-style saddle had no rifle in its scabbard.

“I'm Dick Brewer.”

Patrick studied the red face of a young man in his early twenties. The rancher lowered his handiron that had caught Brewer's gaze. He watched Patrick ear down the hammer, which had been cocked.

“Best put your animal in the barn so he don't freeze.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rourke.” Brewer slowly picked up his gunbelt far from the single holster and handed it through the doorway. “So it don't freeze neither, please.”

Patrick took the weapon, closed the door, and returned to his chair by the fire. He laid the belted holster atop his ladies' work of buttons and thread. The sidearm was an aged Remington, '58 Old Army revolver refitted for cartridges from its Civil War original, cap and ball vintage. It was a poor man's piece, Patrick thought. He was somewhat comforted by the notion.

Brewer knocked on the door, although Patrick heard his spurs on the porch first.

“It's open,” the rancher called from his rocking chair by the fire. “Come in and thaw. Hang your coat by mine there.”

“Thanks.” The cold man pushed his long coat against a wall peg.

Dick Brewer walked on unsure legs, wobbly from a long ride. Wearing his stirrups cavalry long, at least his knees had not frozen in flexed position. He walked toward the fire, turned toward Patrick, and then backed up so close to the hearth that Patrick waited to see smoke rise from the standing man's trousers. Brewer opened his palms wide and held them behind his back.

“Take a seat, Dick.”

“Don't think I can just yet, Mr. Rourke.”

“Please, I'm Patrick.”

“Thanks. Billy called you Mr. Rourke. But he's like that sometimes.”

“You want some coffee? It's hot down there behind you. I'll get a cup.”

“Not yet. Don't think I can bend my fingers around it just yet.”

When his guest smiled, Patrick saw a strong, youthful face, clean-shaven except for a small, frost-covered goatee affair. His hair was thick and curly with ringlets around his forehead where his tall hat had made a deep depression above his clear, gray eyes. He was tall and not heavy, but built solid and wide through the shoulders like a man who works hard labor for his wages.

“Guess my legs'll sit now.” Brewer hobbled toward the straight-backed chair opposite Patrick's rocker.

Patrick stood and found a clean tin cup in the kitchen. He knelt to fill the cup, which he set on the table between them, and refilled his own cup. He sank back into his father's chair.

“Thanks. I'm Mr. Tunstall's foreman down on the Felix. He sent me to ask for your help.”

“Help? My plate's pretty full just getting the fences back up here.”

“I know. Sorry about your Pa. We all liked him. Sheriff Brady shut down the store yesterday. Billy rode down yesterday evening. Rode all Friday afternoon and all night. I started before daylight this morning. The other clerk—the dude, Widenmann—he got himself arrested by Brady for not handing over the keys. Two deputies are living in the store now to keep people from buying there. They come to take half of everything. Said it were to do with Mr. McSween 'bezzling from the Fritz family. The old man died in Germany last year, I guess.”

Patrick put down his cup and looked down at his ragged shirts that had more button holes than buttons.

“Deputies? Was my brother Sean among them?”

“Don't know. Billy didn't say. Does he ride with Brady or the Boys?”

“Evans' gang? I suppose he does now.”

“Oh. Them Boys take what they please from Chisum's herds. Took Mr. McSween's ponies last November, too.” Brewer shrugged toward the breezy curtains that let in the distant rumblings of the cold cattle with their jingle-bobbed, Chisum ears.

“What does Mr. Tunstall expect from me?”

“He wants you to come down to Rio Felix with me tomorrow. He's expecting trouble from Brady. Tunstall ain't gone back to Lincoln yet. He wants some guns to ride with him when he does.”

Patrick looked into the fire.

“I didn't come home to get into no gun fights, Dick. I'm a rancher now. Trying, anyway.”

“Mr. Tunstall don't really expect no gunplay if Brady comes. He just wants us to stand up with him if Brady's men try to take Tunstall horses for this McSween business. He says that Mr. McSween is buying into the store a little at a time, but he don't own any interest in Rio Felix or Tunstall's horses. He just wants us to stand up with him if Brady comes down or to ride with him back into town.”

“But there could be shooting.”

“I don't think so. Brady ain't no killer like the captain or Jimmy Dolan. I have to say that Brady just tries to walk the line between Dolan and our side. He ain't a bad man. Not like Dolan and Evans, anyway. Brady's got a house full of babies. He ain't likely to go spoiling for a killing fight. We just want it to be even, that's all. The Rio Felix spread can be a two-day ride from here in the winter.”