War Party (Ss) (1982) (7 page)

"Good range," Riley said, "and plenty of water. I'd say you should make out."

When he had gone to the bunkhouse ma started picking up the dishes. "How did you happen to hire him, torn?"

So I told her about the buckskin and what I thought when I saw this man, and she smiled. "I think you learned your lesson well, torn. I think he is a good man." And then she added, "He may have been in prison, but he had good upbringing."

Coming from ma there was not much more she could have said. She set great store by proper upbringing.

Awhile after, I told her about the talk with Ed Shifrin and Sheriff Russell, and when I came to the part about Riley telling Russell to tell Cooper to come see him, I could see that worried her. Cooper had some tough hands working for him and we didn't want them around.

Year after pa was killed, some of them tried to court ma, but she put a stop to that right off.

Come daylight just as I was pulling on a boot I heard an ax, and when I looked from behind the curtain I saw it was Riley at the woodpile. Right off I could see he was a hand with an ax, but what surprised me was him doing it at all, because most cowhands resent any but riding work, even digging postholes.

The way it worked out we rode away from the place an hour earlier than I'd ever been able to with Ed or Johnny, and by noon we had hazed seventy head down on the flat, but we were mighty shy of young stuff. Whatever else he was, I'd hired a hand. He was up on pa's bay gelding and he knew how to sit a cutting horse and handle a rope.

Next three days we worked like all getout. Riley was up early and working late, and I being boss couldn't let him best me, but working with him was like working with pa, for we shared around and helped each other and I never did see a man learn country faster than he did. Time to time he'd top out on high ground and then he'd set a spell and study the country. Sometimes he'd ask questions. Mostly, he just looked.

Third day we had built us a hatful of fire for coffee and shucked the wrappings off the lunches ma fixed. "You said your pa was killed. HowM it happen?"

"Ma and me didn't see it. Pa had been to the Coopers' on business and when he got back to town he picked up some dress goods for ma and a few supplies. He was tying the sack on the saddle when he had a difficulty with a stranger. The stranger shot him."

"Was your pa wearing a gun?"

"ifes, sir. Pa always wore a gun, but not to use on no man. He carried it for varmints or to shoot the horse if he got thrown and his foot caught in the stirrup."

"You hear that stranger's name?"

"Yes, sir. His name was Cad Miller."

That afternoon we ran into Ed Shifrin and Johnny Loftus. First time I'd seen them up thataway except when working for us, but they were coming down the draw just as we put out our fire.

Riley heard them coming before I did, but he looked around at the mountainside like he was expecting somebody else. He looked most careful at the trees and rocks where a man might take cover.

Both of them were armed, but if Riley had a gun I had seen no sign of it. He wore that buckskin jacket that hung even with his belt, but there might have been a gun in his waistband under the jacket. But I didn't think of guns until later.

"You still around?" Shifrin sounded like he was building trouble. "I figured you'd be run out before this."

"I like it here." Riley talked pleasant-like. "Pretty country, nice folks. Not as many cows as a man would expect, but they're fat."

"What d' you mean by that? Not as many cows as you'd expect?"

"Maybe I should have said calves. Not as many calves as a man would expect, but by the time the roundup is over we'll find what happened to the others."

Shifrin looked over at Johnny. "What about the kid?"

Johnny shrugged. "To hell with the kid."

The way they talked back and forth made no sense to me, but it made sense to Riley.

"Was I you," Riley said, "I'd be mighty sure Cooper wants it this way. With the kid, and all."

"What d' you mean by that?"

"Why, it just won't work. There's no way you can make it look right. The kid doesn't carry a gun. You boys don't know your business like you should."

"Maybe you know it better?" Johnny sounded mean.

"Why, I do, at that. Did Sheriff Russell tell Pike what I said?"

"Who's Pike?" Shifrin asked suspiciously.

"Why, Pike Cooper. That's what they used to call him in the old days. He ever tell you how he happened to leave Pike County, Missouri? It's quite a story."

Something about the easy way Riley talked was bothering them. They weren't quite so sure of themselves now.

"And while you're at it," Riley added, "you get him to tell you why he left the Nation."

Neither of them seemed to know what to do next. The fact that Riley seemed to know Cooper bothered them, and Johnny was uneasy. He kept looking at me, and I kept looking right back at him, and that seemed to worry him too.

"You boys tell him that. You also tell him not to send boys to do a man's job."

"What's that mean?" Shift-in was sore and he shaped up like a mighty tough man. At least, he always had. Somehow when they came up against Riley they didn't seem either so big or so tough.

"That means you ride out of here now, and you don't stop riding until you get to Pike Cooper. You tell Pike if he wants a job done he'd better come and do it himself."

Well, they didn't know which way was up. They wanted to be tough and they had tried it, but it didn't seem to faze Riley in the least. They had come expecting trouble and now neither one of them wanted to start it and take a chance on being wrong.

Or maybe it was the very fact that Riley was taking it so easy. Both of them figured he must have the difference.

"He'll do it!" Johnny replied angrily. "Cooper will want to do this himself. You'll see."

They rode out of there and when Riley had watched them down the slope without comment he said, "We'd best get back to the ranch, torn. It's early, but we'd better be in when Cooper comes."

"He won't come. Mr. Cooper never goes anywhere unless he feels like it himself."

"He'll come," Riley said, "although he may send Cad Miller first."

When he said that name I stared right at him. "That was the name of the man who killed my father."

"Riley, what I've seen today, I like. If this comes to a case in court I'd admire to be your lawyer."

"Thank you, but I doubt if it will come to that."

We had a quiet supper. We had come in early from the range, so Riley put in the last hour before sundown tightening a sagging gate. He was a man liked to keep busy.

At supper Riley said to ma, "Thank you, ma'am. I am proud to work for you."

Ma blushed.

Next morning ma came to breakfast all prettied up for town. Only thing she said was, "Your father taught you to stand up for what you believe to be right, and to stand by your own people."

There was quite a crowd in town. Word has a way of getting around and folks had a way of being on the street or in the stores when it looked like excitement, and nobody figured to finish their business until it was over.

We left our rig with Old Man Taylor and he leaned over to whisper, "You tell that friend of yours Cad Miller's in town."

Ma heard it and she turned sharp around. "What does he look like, Mr. Taylor?"

Taylor hesitated, shifting his feet nervouslike, not wanting to say, or figuring why ma wanted to know. But ma wasn't a woman you could shake off. "I asked a question, Mr. Taylor. I believe you were a friend of my husband's."

"Well, ma'am, I figured so. I figured to be a friend of yours, too."

"And so you are. Now tell me."

So he told her.

It was a warm, still morning. We went down to the hotel, where I waited, and ma went out to buy some women fibrin's like she won't buy with a man along.

All the chairs were taken in front of the hotel, so I leaned against the corner of the building next to the alley. Moment later I heard Riley speak from behind my right shoulder. He was right around the corner of the building in the alley.

"Don't turn around, boy. Is Cooper on the street?"

"Not yet, but Cad Miller is in town."

"torn," he said, "just so you'll know. I was in prison for killing a man who'd killed my brother. Before that, I was a deputy United States marshal." He hesitated. "I just wanted you to know."

Nobody on the street was talking much. A rig clattered along the street and disappeared.

The dust settled. A yellow hound ambled across the street headed toward shade. Ma went walking up the other side of the street and just when I was wondering what she was doing over there the Coopers turned into the upper end of the street. The boys were riding on his flanks and the old man was driving a shining new buckboard.

Cooper pulled up in front of the hotel and got down. His boys were swaggering it, like always, both of them grinning in appreciation of the fun.

Cooper stepped up on the walk and took a cigar from his vest pocket and bit off the end. His hard old eyes glinted at me. "Boy, where's that hired man of yours? I understand he was asking for me."

"He leaves town today," Andy Cooper said loudly, "or he'll be carried out."

Cooper put the cigar in his teeth. He struck a match and lifted it to light the cigar and I heard a boot grate on the walk beside me and knew Riley was there. Cooper dropped the match without lighting his cigar. He just stood there staring past me at Riley.

"Lark!" Cooper almost choked over the name. "I didn't know it was you."

"You remember what I told you when I ran you out of the Nation?"

Cooper wasn't seeing anybody but Riley, the man he had called Lark. He wasn't even aware of anything else. And I was staring at him, because I had never seen a big man scared before.

"I told you if you ever crossed my trail again I'd kill you."

"Don't do it, Lark. I've got a family-two boys. I've got a ranch. I've done well."

"This boy had a father."

"Lark, don't do it."

"This boy's father has been dead three or four years. I figure you've been stealing his cows at least two years before that. Say five hundred head."

Cooper never took his eyes off him, and the two boys acted as if they couldn't believe what was happening.

"You write out a bill of sale for five hundred head and I'll sign it for the boy's mother. Then you write out a check for seven thousand dollars and we'll cross the street and cash it together."

"All right."

"And you'll testify that Cad Miller was told to kill this boy's pa."

"I can't do that. I won't do it."

"Pike," Riley said patiently, "you might beat a court trial, but you know mighty well you ain't going to beat me. Now my gun's around the corner on my saddle. Don't make me go get it."

Cooper looked like a man who was going to be sick. He looked like a school kid caught cheating. I figured whatever he knew about Riley scared him bad enough so he didn't want any argument. And that talk about a gun on the saddle-why, that might be just talk. A man couldn't see what Riley was packing in his waistband.

"All right," Cooper said. His voice was so low you could scarce hear it.

"Pa!" Andy grabbed his arm. "What are you sayin'?"

"Shut up, you young fool! Shut up, I say!

"Cad Miller's in town," Riley continued; "you get him out here on the street."

"He won't have to." It was ma's voice.

The crowd moved back and Cad Miller came through with ma right behind him, and trust ma to have the difference. She had a double-barreled shotgun, and she wasn't holding that shotgun for fun. One time I'd seen her use it on a mountain lion right in the door yard. She near cut that lion in two.

Sheriff Ben Russell wasn't liking it very much, but there was nothing he could do but take his prisoner. Once Cooper showed yellow, those two boys of his weren't about to make anything of it, and any man who knew our town knew Cooper was through around here after this.

Back at home I said, "Cooper called you Lark."

"My name is Larkin Riley." "And you didn't even have a gun!" "A man has to learn to live without a gun, and against a coward you don't need a gun." He rolled a smoke.

"Cooper knew I meant what I said."

"But you'd been in prison yourself." He sat on the stoop and looked at the backs of his hands. "That was later. Ten or fifteen years ago, what I did would have been the only thing to do. There are laws to handle cases like that, and I had it to learn."

Ma came to the door. "Larkin . . . torn . .. supper's ready."

We got up and Riley said, "torn, I think tomorrow we'll work the south range." "Yes, sir," I said.

*

B
ooty for a Badman
.

When my roan topped out on the ridge, the first thing I saw was that girl. She was far off, but a man riding lonesome country gets so he can pick out anything strange to it, and this girl was standing up straight beside the trail like she was waiting for a stage. Trouble was, nothing but riders or freight wagons used that trail, and seldom.