Die with the Outlaws Read online

  “Do I understand you correctly that you want to buy the mortgage the bank holds on the Spur and Latigo Ranch?” Bob Foley asked.

  “Yes,” Garrett Kennedy said. He and Sean O’Neil, partners on the Straight Arrow Ranch, sat across from the bank president.

  “You do understand that in order to do that, you will have to pay the principal and all interest due. You will also have to honor the bank’s obligation to the owner. In other words, if Mr. Conway makes the payment on time, he will retain ownership and all rights.”

  “There’s a payment due now, isn’t there?” Kennedy asked.

  “Not for another month, then it’ll be six more months before the next payment is due.”

  “We understand,” O’Neil said. “If Conway is able to make his payment, we will have the satisfaction of knowing that we have helped a neighbor. If he isn’t able to make the payment, this will be a good business investment for us.”

  “Yes, as it was for the other three properties you have done this for, and subsequently taken possession of, I believe, when the notes could not be met.”

  “Why would that be your worry?” O’Neil asked. “The bank didn’t lose any money.”

  Foley sighed and drummed his fingers on the desk. “I am inclined not to do this, but the board of directors has strongly suggested that I accept your offer.”

  “The board knows that it is a way of protecting the bank’s loan,” Kennedy said.

  “You would know, since the two of you make up two-fifths of the membership. I suspect you brought a little pressure on the other three.”

  “I wouldn’t call it pressure,” O’Neil said. “I would call it good business sense.”

  “Very well. Pay the principal, plus interest, and the mortgage is yours.”

  “Bob, we would like to hire you to manage this investment for us,” Kennedy said.

  “Manage it?”

  “Yes. We will pay you a management fee. That way, Conway need never know that we, and not the bank, hold the paper on his ranch.”

  “How much of a management fee are you willing to pay?” Foley asked.

  “Fifteen percent.”

  “Fifteen percent?” Foley replied in surprise. “Why man, interest on the loan itself is only six percent.”

  Kennedy smiled. “Then you are getting a good deal, aren’t you?”

  As Foley considered the money he would make from the arrangement, any concern over the ethics of the deal faded, and he returned Kennedy’s smile. “Gentlemen, I accept your proposal.”

  * * *

  The next day Hugh Conway was standing outside the mercantile leaning against the post that supported the awning and smoking a cigarette while he waited for Lisa to finish with her shopping. They had come into town by buckboard earlier, not only to get some necessary shopping done, but also for Hugh to visit with Robert Foley, president of the Bank of Rongis.

  Like many of his neighbors, Hugh had little regard for railroads or banks. Railroads had made long drives unnecessary, but they charged too much, whereas banks had a tendency to foreclose too quickly without regard to whatever difficulty the rancher was going through, be it weather or rustlers.

  Hugh took a deep puff of his cigarette, then squinted through the exhaled blue cloud of smoke as he thought about the meeting that he had just concluded with Foley.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Conway, but I’m going to have to turn you down,” Foley told him. “I’m afraid my board would consider the extension of your loan too risky.”

  “Where is the risk?” Hugh asked. “I have more equity in the ranch than the amount of the loan. And once I get the horses to market I’ll have more than enough money, not only to make the loan payment, but to completely retire the mortgage.”

  “I’m sorry,” Foley said. “Your note is due one month from now, and we will expect prompt payment.”

  It had not escaped Hugh’s attention that Foley had addressed him as Mr. Conway rather than Hugh. At one time it had been Hugh and Bob, because the two men moved in the same social circles. But now that Hugh was facing some financial difficulty, it was Mr. Conway and Mr. Foley.

  Being turned down for the loan was disappointing, but not devastating. A horse broker in Cheyenne was paying $130 per head. Hugh had a few over two hundred head remaining. The difficult part of that operation would be in getting the horses to market. To do that he would have to drive the herd one hundred miles through a pass in the Sweetwater Mountains and across the Red Desert to get to Bitter Creek.

  At Bitter Creek it would cost him ten dollars a head to ship the horses to Cheyenne. But even after shipping costs, he would have enough money to completely retire the mortgage, as well as operating expenses to get him through until he could build up his herd again.

  The question was, could he and Ed Sanders get the horses delivered without help? The long drive and number of horses would be quite a challenge for only two men to handle.

  Kennedy and O’Neil had offered him fifty dollars a head. That would be enough to make the payment, but not enough to retire the debt. And he wouldn’t have enough operating funds left to rebuild his herd. It was not an offer he took seriously.

  * * *

  “Hello, Mrs. Conway,” said a young woman, also a customer in the mercantile.

  “Hello, Colleen,” Lisa replied. “Will I be seeing you at the Rongis Betterment Social next week?”

  “I would like to attend, but I’m not sure I would be welcome.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Colleen. Nobody holds against you that your father is . . . let us just say an aggressive businessman. You surely have nothing to do with any of that.”

  “No ma’am, I don’t, but my last name is O’Neil. And I’m branded by that name as surely as are all the cows on the Straight Arrow ranch.”

  “Here are your purchases, Mrs. Conway,” Ernest Dunnigan, owner of the mercantile, said. “I’ll have Tommy carry them out for you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Dunnigan. Colleen,” she said to the other customer, “do try and come to the social next week.”

  “I’ll try,” Colleen replied. “And thank you for the personal invitation.”

  * * *

  “You can put them in the back of the buckboard,” Lisa said, her voice interrupting Hugh’s thoughts.

  He turned to see that Lisa was emerging from the store and giving the directions to young Tommy Matthews.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What did Bob Foley say?” Lisa asked as she settled on the seat beside her husband.

  “He said no.”

  Lisa put her hand on Hugh’s arm. “Oh, Hugh.”

  “Don’t worry about it, my dear.” He snapped the reins to get the team started. “All we have to do is get our horses to Bitter Creek. From there it’ll be an easy thing to ship them on to Cheyenne.”

  “But can you and Mr. Sanders drive the horses there by yourselves? And do we have enough money to pay the rail freight?”

  “We’ll figure out a way,” Hugh replied.

  “By the way, I saw Colleen O’Neil in the store. Such a sweet girl. I feel so sorry for her.”

  “What’s there to feel sorry about? Her father is one of the two wealthiest men in the entire county. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool son of a bitch, but he is wealthy.”

  “Now, Hugh, we can’t hold Colleen accountable for the sins of her father.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  * * *

  That night as Lisa lay in bed with her husband sleeping beside her, she thought of their situation. Perhaps they should just sell out to Kennedy and O’Neil. She had once suggested to Hugh that they might consider selling out and moving away, but Hugh had been adamantly against it.

  “We wouldn’t even get half of what the ranch is worth,” he’d said. “We wouldn’t get as much as we can get from the horses once we get them to market.”

  “Yes, but can we get them to market?”

  “We will, somehow,” Hugh had assured her.

  But Lisa wasn’t
so sure.

  Never, while she was growing up, did she think she would wind up on a horse ranch. But being married to Hugh Conway was every bit as unlikely as being a rancher. Sometimes she asked herself if she really loved him.

  Lisa had tremendous respect for Hugh, for his intelligence as well as his character. Was their relationship the kind of fair young maiden/knight in shining armor partnership of the romance stories? No. But was there really such a thing?

  He was honest, he treated everyone fairly, and from the very beginning of their relationship, he had been nothing but kind and considerate of her. She reached over to lay her hand on his.

  Yes, she decided. She did love him. And she was going to do something to help, but she would have to do it without consulting him. Above all else, Hugh was a man of great personal pride. And he would disapprove of what she had in mind.

  She was going to do it, anyway. She would write the letter tomorrow.

  Chapter Three

  The Conways’ closest neighbors, Jim Andrews and Mary Ella Wilson, had houses separated by about one hundred yards, but that was for appearances only. Hugh and Lisa knew that they actually lived together and were business partners in the Circle Dot Ranch. It was small, with a herd of no more than five hundred head of cattle.

  Lisa had invited the two of them over for dinner.

  Jim was a tall, slender man with close-cut hair and a well-trimmed moustache. He was a man with a rather storied past. Born in Baltimore, he moved easily into the life of a sailor and was an able-bodied seaman for three years sailing to England, France, Italy, and once rounding the horn to sail to China.

  He left ship in Galveston and became a drive contractor bringing up a large herd from Texas to the railhead at Abilene. Getting paid out in Abilene, he decided to come north and homestead some land, settling on his claim in the Sweetwater Valley.

  Mary Ella Wilson was a particularly pretty woman who openly, some would say brazenly, augmented her looks with makeup. Mary Ella had been a schoolteacher in Hays City, Kansas, where her husband Garland worked in a bank. When her husband was caught embezzling money from the depositors, he was tried, convicted, and sent to the state prison in Lansing to serve a penalty of twenty years. Even though Mary Ella had known absolutely nothing about her husband’s scheme, she was fired from her teaching job for fear of being a negative influence on the children.

  Mary Ella left Hays City, but the stigma of her firing came with her so that it was impossible for her to get another job in teaching. As an act of survival, Mara Ella fell into “the life” and became a prostitute. Her looks and easy way with men soon made her one of the most popular of all the girls. As a result, she began making more money in one week than she had made in a month of teaching. Her initial reluctance to enter the profession was replaced with enthusiasm.

  Jim and Mary Ella had met shortly after he arrived in Sweetwater Valley. At the time she was working as a bar girl in the Pair O’ Dice Saloon. After several paid visits, Jim asked Mary Ella if she would consider coming off the line and marrying him.

  She couldn’t marry him, because she was already married, and her husband, a prisoner, refused to give her a divorce. Nevertheless, Mary Ella did agree to live with Jim, even investing the money she had saved into the ranch so that they were truly business partners.

  Although most of the “decent” ladies of Rongis snubbed Mary Ella as being beneath them, Lisa liked her. Mary Ella was well educated, had a good sense of humor, and was quick to offer help when it was needed. As far as Lisa was concerned, Mary Ella was a good neighbor. And of course, Jim was always welcome as well.

  “There’s nothing fair about this maverick law,” Jim said as he spread butter on a slice of freshly baked bread.

  The law Jim was talking about had been passed a year earlier by the Wyoming legislature. Cattlemen who owned large ranches were growing concerned about the increasing number of small ranchers coming into the region and homesteading land that had once been free pasture range for the big herds. In an attempt to limit, or even end, the reach of the small ranchers, the large-ranch owners used their influence to get the law passed. The maverick law made it illegal to brand any cattle, regardless of age, found roaming the open range without a mother and without a brand.

  Jim continued. “There isn’t a cattleman in the country who hasn’t rounded up mavericks to add to their herds. I’m talkin’ about Kennedy ’n O’Neil, too . . . especially Kennedy ’n O’Neil.”

  “There’s only one reason for that law,” Hugh agreed, “And that is to run as many of the smaller ranchers out of business as they can.”

  “You were smart to get into horses instead of cattle,” Jim said. “You don’t have to worry any about any maverick law because there are no maverick horses.”

  “That’s true. But what I do have to worry about is rustling. I’ve been hurt by horse thieves.”

  “Horse thieves? But aren’t the Regulators supposed to be protectin’ us all from rustlers?” Jim’s words were dripping with sarcasm.

  “They are supposed to, yes. But the operative words here are supposed to.”

  Purgatory Pass, Wyoming Territory

  Tyrone DuPont had chosen Purgatory Pass in the Rattlesnake Mountains as the headquarters for the Regulators. Here, the Sweetwater River had carved a narrow cleft in the Sweetwater Rocks that was about 370 feet deep and 1,500 feet long. The cleft was 30 feet wide at the base but nearly 300 feet at its top. He had built a couple of adobe cabins far enough from the nearest settlement to give the Regulators the freedom from observation they required for their various operations.

  DuPont stood a little over six feet tall, and was straight as a tent pole. He was originally from St. Louis, where had been a policeman, and after that and he had spent some time as a riverboat gambler. He left the river after he killed a man who was the husband of the woman with whom he had been caught in bed. He was fearless by nature, coolheaded in the face of imminent danger, and quick and deadly with the Colt .44 he carried.

  He had less than three years of formal education, but he was a very smart man and was schooled in life’s experiences. Having had the experience of once being a policeman, DuPont was the one who came up with the idea of assembling a group of quasi lawmen.

  He had approached Kennedy and O’Neil with the idea.

  “Let me get this straight,” O’Neil had said after DuPont told him what he had in mind. “You want to form a group of lawmen, and you want us to pay you?”

  “All I need is just a little money to get started. Once I get organized we’ll not only make enough money to support ourselves, we’ll make enough to cut you in as well. In addition, you will have a private police force at your disposal.”

  “Exactly how would we benefit from a private police force?” Kennedy asked.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on you two. Straight Arrow is a big ranch, and every time one of the smaller ranchers in the valley gives up the idea of ranching, Straight Arrow gets even bigger. If some of the other ranchers find it hard going—say they start losing livestock—they may decide to quit. Once they quit, you’ll be able to take over their ranch and add it to the Straight Arrow. If my men and I happen to find some livestock that’s not bein’ looked over real good, we’d be willing to sell it to you real cheap.”

  Kennedy had nodded. “I think we might be able to do some business together.”

  * * *

  The Rongis Betterment Social was held in the ballroom of the Rongis Hotel. Several of the women had baked pies and cakes, and Pastor E. D. Owen, president of the Betterment Society, had given a short talk on their current project, the improvement of the bridge that spanned the Sweetwater River. He thanked Miss Colleen O’Neil for her contribution of five hundred dollars.

  “If that woman thinks she can buy respectability, she has another think coming,” Emma Rittenhouse said.

  “Oh, Emma, don’t hold her father against her,” Lisa said. “Do you know her? She is actually a very sweet girl.”

&
nbsp; Emma shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I just want to have nothing to do with Kennedy, O’Neil, or his daughter.”

  Later, Lisa saw Colleen standing near the pastries table. She was alone, her isolation self-imposed because she was aware of the unfriendly attitude of most of the other women.

  “Oh, here you are,” Lisa said. “Let me thank you again for your generous donation.”

  “It was actually my father’s donation,” Colleen said.

  “But it was your influence,” Lisa said.

  “Are you sure you want to be seen talking to me? Some might hold it against you for talking with an O’Neil.”

  “Colleen, you are much more than a name,” Lisa said. “You are your own person, and I happen to like the person that you are.”

  Colleen smiled at Lisa. “I wish everyone else was like you.”

  “Choose your partners for the Virginny Reel!” someone shouted.

  “Miss O’Neil?” A young man approached Colleen hesitantly. “Would you dance with me?”

  “Cooter Gregory,” Colleen said with a smile. “Tell me, did Papa send his foreman to keep an eye on me?”

  Cooter returned the smile. “You’re easy to keep an eye on.”

  “All right. If you’re going to be my watchdog anyway, we may as well dance.” Colleen’s response was playful, not one of irritation.

  Sugarloaf Ranch, Colorado

  The horseshoe made a loud clang as it hit the stop, then it spun around and flew off.

  “Ha!” Cal said. “You can’t beat me, Pearlie. I’ve put a haint on that stob.”

  “You’ve done what?”

  “I’ve put me a haint on that stob and it will only let the horseshoes stay on there that I want to stay on there.”

  “It’s your turn, Matt,” Pearlie said.

  Matt Jensen had taken advantage of the closeness of Glenwood Springs to ride up to Sugarloaf Ranch. He had been there for nearly a week, visiting with Smoke and Sally Jensen, as well as Smoke’s top two hands, Pearlie Fontaine and Cal Wood.