The Sons of Grady Rourke (19 page)

A
LL DAY
W
EDNESDAY
, Liam watched the road where snow was finally melting into stinking brown puddles of mud and manure. He looked for Patrick with the same pursed brow that Patrick had worn when he stood on Grady Rourke's porch waiting for Liam to ride home from Chief Joseph's surrender. That morning, the spirit post behind the bunk house had toppled over with a warm breeze blowing from the south. Locals enjoyed what they called false spring.

Liam slept fitfully Wednesday night, but Spirit Keeper did not come with the encouraging warm spell.

By midday Thursday, March 7th, Chisum's vast herd of steers had turned from brown to coal black as they wallowed like pigs in the newly soft earth. The split-eared animals did not look up when two dozen weary men on horseback rode slowly down the muddy hillside toward the ranch. Dick Brewer rode in the lead beside three men whom Liam had never before seen.

The three men were the only riders without iron bulges under their long dusters. Their hands were bound with coarse hemp to their saddle horns.

The Regulators dismounted under the watchful eyes of Alex McSween and John Chisum. Six possemen, two at a time, helped the three prisoners from their saddles. All of the riders were caked with sweat and mud.

“Welcome to South Spring,” Chisum said coldly in the comfortable air. Deputies William Morton, Frank Baker, and William McCloskey did not return the cattleman's contrived civility when they were pushed stumbling onto the low porch. A Regulator behind each prisoner pulled off each captive's muddy hat as if they were in the presence of royalty.

“Inside,” McSween ordered. Sheriff Brady's men were led into the house. Their weary faces had the gray pallor of condemned men.

“Take the ropes off them,” Chisum said. Dick Brewer obliged, one at a time. When Patrick walked in, Liam stepped close to his brother who smelled of horse sweat and man sweat.

“Four of them got away,” Patrick said softly. “We chased them for five miles before we run them to ground. Sean weren't with them.” Liam looked relieved, although his eyes were sunken into black wells on his lightly bearded face. Patrick was surprised by Liam's gaunt face. “You all right?”

“Just tired. I ain't up to ranching yet.”

Patrick pulled a chair from under the long table. He looked to Chisum who nodded. Patrick slumped down hard.

“You, too,” Chisum said to Morton and his two men. “You'll be guests here till Deputy Brewer escorts you back to Lincoln to stand trial for murdering John Tunstall.”

“In cold blood,” the lawyer interrupted before Chisum had finished his greeting.

The prisoners sat down close to Patrick. Liam took two steps backward to give Chisum speeching room.

“Tunstall drew on us, Mr. Chisum. That's a fact.” William Morton spoke respectfully but firmly. “You weren't in town for the inquest. Tunstall fired three rounds at us on the road to Lincoln. His iron had three spent cases in it. Tell him, Mr. McSween.”

Morton's voice was tired but confident. Facts were facts.

“Tunstall wouldn't draw on an armed mob in the middle of nowhere. He was a businessman, not a shooter.” McSween spoke with emotion. He owed his livelihood to the dead Englishman after the House had fired him as their attorney. And he had grown to like the soft-spoken foreigner who loved Americans.

“That ain't so, Mr. Chisum.” Morton addressed the man in charge. “Tunstall drawed and fired. We was trying to serve lawful process attaching Mr. McSween's property by writ of attachment. We fired in self-defense. Pure and simple.”

Morton was not pleading. His voice was calm and clear. Only the two prisoners beside him appeared to tremble and their ashen faces twitched in the company of twenty armed men.

“Judge Bristol will decide, gentlemen.” Chisum was coldly formal. “A jury of twelve good men and true will decide if Mr. Tunstall was murdered.”

A poisonous murmur went through the Regulators surrounding the sitting prisoners. Chisum looked over to Dick Brewer. At his side, Robert Widenmann played with his revolver.

“When can you take these men to Lincoln?” Chisum knew it could be a two-day ride through rugged country if the weather turned.

“We rode hard after Roswell, Mr. Chisum. The horses could use a day or two of decent forage. Two days for sure. Saturday, I'd say.”

“Well enough. Put these men in the bunk house and post a guard. Don't tie them up, just watch them. And let them stop at the privy on the way.” The rancher faced Morton. “I'll send hot food down to you shortly.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chisum.” Morton sounded reassured by Chisum's measured tone. He had expected to be left dead on the trail just as he had left John Tunstall almost three weeks earlier. “Thank you.”

“We'll see, boys .... Take them out, Mr. Brewer.”

The assembly separated to let Dick Brewer lead the three men from the house. Then they fell in behind with their hands resting on their revolvers at their hips where their trail dusters were pulled back.

Rob Widenmann twirled his piece toward his holster. He missed on the first pass and hoped that no one noticed.

F
RIDAY
M
ORNING, THE
8th of March, Cyrus Buchanan met Sean Rourke on the side porch of the Wortley. Both men had come out early to tend to their horses. Sean had returned to the hotel by first light; Cyrus had left Bonita's small room for breakfast of sourdough hot cakes and bitter coffee in the cantina. The two men leaned on the fence rail of the Wortley's paddock. The air was cool but comfortable. Most of the snow was gone, having been trampled into the softening ground by a dozen horses.

“I heard Justice Wilson's posse went out after that Englishman's killers.”

“That's what Bonita said.” Cyrus looked at Sean's mangled face. It was nothing new to his soldiers' eyes.

“Did Patrick ride out with them? Dolan said he joined McSween's men the other day.”

“I don't know. I ain't been back to the ranch in four days.”

Sean smiled and squinted into bright sunshine. He could hardly fault the big man for enjoying some female comfort. Sean had not spent a night in the hotel in weeks. He faced the former cavalryman who still wore his blue blouse and stripes.

“I rode with Deputy Morton's posse when Tunstall was shot.”

Cyrus looked strangely saddened. Liam Rourke's friends were his friends, and Liam's brothers were nearly his kin from the bonds formed by men at war, even a pathetic, ill-matched contest like chasing the Nez Perce band of survivors. A flash of memory washed over the black man as he listened to what amounted to Sean's confession to a virtual stranger.

The cavalry veteran thought of September 30, 1877. He road in file beside Liam when Colonel Nelson Miles attacked one thousand seven hundred Nez Perce led by chiefs Looking Glass and Joseph. Beside Snake Creek in the Bear Paw Mountains, thirty miles south of the Canadian border, one hundred twenty-five troopers of the 7th Cavalry fought hand-to-hand in Chief Joseph's final stand. Sixty soldiers were killed or wounded. Liam's blood and Sergeant Buchanan's blood was on the sand. Joseph laid down his weapons forever on October 5th. A stray bullet killed looking Glass the same day.

“It ain't my business, Sean. I just rode along with Liam ‘cause I ain't got no better place to be. When the passes open in the mountains, I'll head west. California, maybe. Liam and me, we looked out for each other for going on two years. lain't coming between his brothers. And I ain't riding in no man's posse. I done my share.”

The soldier could not help but focus on Sean's battle-scarred face. It looked to Cyrus as if the white man had already seen one fight too many. Sean had replaced his winter furs with an ankle-length, canvas duster.

Sean felt the tall's man's gaze and he turned toward the peaceful livestock. “Just thought I would mention it, Sergeant. Patrick and I have taken up opposite sides in this bad business. Maybe young Liam won't have to make the choice.”

“Liam rode down to Chisum's spread with the lawyer, McSween, last weekend.”

Sean lowered his face until the shadow of his hat hid the grief welling in his eyes.

“So.”

“I'll be riding back to your pa's as soon as I saddle up. I can tell Patrick anything you want me to.”

“Tell him it's time we went to see the lawyer to settle Pa's business. If McSween ain't here, his partner is.”

*         *         *

F
RIDAY AFTERNOON, THE
looks on the faces of Dick Brewer's Regulators were too much for Deputy William Morton. During the two days of his captivity, he never complained and he never whimpered. John Chisum admired that in a man. So when Morton asked to see one of New Mexico Territory's wealthiest men, Chisum walked alone to the well guarded bunkhouse.

“I don't mean no trouble, Mr. Chisum.”

“You and your two men ain't trouble, Deputy.”

“I would like some writing paper and an inkwell. Brewer says we're leaving for Lincoln tomorrow.” The lawman blinked quickly toward the low ceiling. “I would like to take care of some business before we leave.”

“Can you read and write?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chisum looked at the prisoner's weary face.

“You'll be safe with Dick. He ain't no hot-head.”

“It ain't Brewer I'm worried about. It's them others. I seen the white eye.”

“Let me get your paper. I won't be but a minute.”

Morton paced the bunk house while his two deputies stared at the hearth.

Chisum returned in five minutes with paper, ink, and pen. William Morton turned a cracker box over near his bunk. He wrote a long letter to his family attorney in Richmond, Virginia He expected to die on the road back to Lincoln, he wrote.

S
ATURDAY
, L
INCOLN BUZZED
with excitement. Governor Samuel Axtell rode into town and set up territorial government in Alexander McSween's empty house. Within three hours, the harried chief executive issued a formal proclamation declaring the commission of Justice of the Peace John Wilson to be null and void, along with his arrest warrants for William Morton and his posse. With a stroke of the pen, the lawfully deputized Regulators became outlaw vigilantes. Sitting in the fugitive McSween's home, Governor Axtell also declared that the only law in Lincoln County was Judge Warren Bristol—who had ordered McSween's arrest at Christmas—and Sheriff William Brady.

The sun was halfway between noon and the western ridges when the Governor climbed into his buckboard, tossed a blanket over his knees, and ordered his driver to whip the team toward Santa Fe.

S
ATURDAY AFTERNOON
, W
ILLIAM
Morton handed his one letter to John Chisum for posting. Then his hands were bound and two Regulators pushed him up into his saddle. His deputies, Frank Baker and Bill McCloskey, were shoved onto their mounts beside him.

“Don't waste daylight,” John Chisum waved toward Dick Brewer who sat his horse beside Billy Bonney. Patrick Rourke sat pensively behind Billy. Liam watched his brother from the ranch-house porch. The younger Rourke and Chisum were the only unarmed men in the company of two dozen Regulators.

“We'll have these birds in Sheriff Brady's cage by sundown,” Brewer smiled as he pulled his rested and well fed horse toward the dirt road. Chisum waved with his hat and watched the Regulators disappear over the muddy hills.

By the time the little army had covered twenty miles, they were strung out along the road for half a mile.

The mounted men rode double-file westward along the still frozen bank of the Rio Hondo. Patrick Rourke rode in the rearguard of fifteen men. Half a dozen Regulators with their three prisoners were out of sight ahead. Billy Bonney and Dick Brewer trotted on either side of the prisoners riding three abreast.

Twenty-five miles from town, the troop rode into Black-water Canyon, a frozen riverbed surrounded by low hills.

Patrick Rourke's heart jumped into his throat when he heard an echoing volley of gunfire rolling over him from the west. He and the Regulators around him spurred their mounts into full gallop toward the shots. Rounding the canyon's sides still covered with light snow, they skidded their animals to a halt near a cluster of mounted men.

Dick Brewer's startled horse still spun in circles. Three horses were riderless.

Patrick kicked the sides of his horse and eased up to the empty saddles. The wind left his chest in one long spasm when he saw Billy standing over three bloodied men. William Morton and his two deputies were dead. Morton had nine holes in his body.

Smiling up at Patrick with a boyish grin, Billy Bonney pushed his warm and empty revolver into his holster. “Leave them,” Billy said sourly. “Like they done Mr. Tunstall.”

B
Y ONES AND
twos, the Regulators trickled into Lincoln on Sunday and Monday.

“Ain't found them,” was their uniform answer to questions on the street and at Ike Stockton's saloon.

Monday, March 11th, a buckboard chugging slowly through thawing mud turned heads on the single street. Sheriff Brady looked across the street from his courthouse window. He hoped to see William Morton climb down for a drink and a shave. Brady sighed when the wagon driver helped his fare step into the mud.

Susan McSween had come home.

P
ATRICK FOUND
C
YRUS
waiting for him when he returned to the ranch. The hearth stones were warm and the coffee was hot. The cavalryman appeared rested, fed, and at ease.

“Did you find Bonita?” Patrick hung his duster on the peg beside the broken window where the curtain strained to keep out the evening wind.

“I did. Did you find Sheriff Brady's men?”

“No.”

“How's Liam?”

“Not much of a rancher. He looked tired.”