Blood Valley Read online

  Well, there was Martha Jane Canary—better known as Calamity Jane. She rode astride and packed iron. But even Belle Starr, the ugly she-devil, she rode sidesaddle . . . most of the time.

  “Well . . . well . . .” Joe stuttered. “Lady, you cain’t talk to me like that!”

  Dick Avedon grinned. “Shore ’pears to me like she done it, though.” Dick, he got a big laugh out of that.

  “Well, you wrong, lady!” Joe said. “We caught this bunch fair and square with the stole cows and we hung ’em high. All ’cept for that one.” He pointed to the kid with half his head blowed off. “He jerked iron and we shot him.”

  Dick, he was lookin’ at me, smilin’ kinda funny-like. He knew that I knew they had set these men up and shot them and hanged them just as cold as a rattler strikes.

  “Yes, you sure did shoot him,” Miss Jean said drily. “About twenty-five times from the looks of him. You big brave gunhands must have been powerful afraid of that young man.”

  Dick, he stopped smilin’. That remark pissed off all them hardcases.

  I decided it had gone on long enough, so I stepped between the Arrow and the Rockinghorse. “That’s it! It’s over. You Rockinghorse boys ride on back to the ranch. Shove them cows with you. Miss Jean, Miss Maggie, take your hands and go on back to work.”

  I thought for a minute she was gonna blow up on me. But finally she smiled, real slow-like, and nodded her head. “All right, Sheriff. Looks like you do have things under control. See you around. Come on, boys—let’s ride!”

  We watched until both brands was clear out of sight, and then strung a lead-rope on the dead-carryin’ horses. We rode slow-like back towards Doubtful.

  De Graff, he was oddly silent. I looked over at him, wonderin’ what was the matter with him. Finally, I asked.

  “I ain’t got no problem, Sheriff. But you sure as hell do.”

  “Me!”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “Miss Maggie likes you, and I think Miss Jean does, too. And boy if that ain’t touble on a cyclone level, why . . . I’ll kiss your horse!”

  Critter, he’d had just about enough of people who wanted to kiss on him . . . either end. He swung his head and bared his teeth at De Graff.

  “Just kiddin’, horse!” De Graff said, then looked at me. “Damned if I don’t think he’s got as much sense as I have.”

  “More.”

  It was noon when we rode into town. Folks started comin’ out of the houses and the stores to stand on the boardwalk and look at us as we rode past slow.

  We stopped in front of Doc Harrison’s place and he come out to see what all the commotion was about. He looked quick at the bodies and then at me. I told him what had gone down, the Rockinghorse side of it.

  “That’s ridiculous!” he snapped. “Farris was no thief. He ran a completely honest operation and everybody knows it.”

  “Yes, sir. I ’spect he was an honest man, and his boys, too. But them Rockinghorse riders say they caught ’em with the stole cattle, and Farris and his boys can’t rise up and talk to tell no different story, now can they?”

  The Doc, he looked hard at me. “What do you intend doing about this . . . outrage, Sheriff?”

  “Nothin’ I can do, Doc. You know as well as me that hangin’ a rustler or a cow thief is still as yet legal out here.”

  Doc Harrison mumbled something about livin’ in the dark ages where law and order was concerned. Then he strung together a line of cusswords that would do any drunk puncher up proud. I never even knowed doctors and such knew them words.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth closed, and just let the Doc run hisself out of cusswords.

  “I’ll take these bodies on down to Truby’s, Doc. Then I reckon it’s up to me to break the news to the Widder Farris. He was married still, wasn’t he?”

  “Unfortunately, yes, he was. But I should imagine Jean or Miss Maggie is already with the bereaved.”

  I knew what that word meant. Least he hadn’t flung nothin’ at me like that dis-concerted thing.

  Just to be on the safe side, I rode over to the Quartermoon spread and asked Miss Pepper if she’d like to ride over to the Widder, Farris’s with me. I wanted them astride-ridin’ females to know I was about halfways taken.

  Mister Rolf, he shook his head at my tellin’ of the news. “I worry about you, Sheriff. This valley is going to run red with blood before long, and you’re going to be caught up right in the middle of it all.”

  “That’s part of my job, Mister Baker. And I ain’t never backed away from a job yet.”

  “Yes,” he smiled grudgingly. “You do have a bulldog tenacity about you. It’s a very admirable trait, to be sure.”

  I mumbled something. Hell, I don’t know what it was he’d just said!

  “But,” Mister Rolf said, “my daughter is quite smitten with you. And I’m rather fond of you myself, and so is Martha. We would not like to see you hurt . . . or killed,” he added grimly.

  I didn’t wanna appear like I was bein’ smartalecky, but gettin’ killed wouldn’t thrill me all that much, neither.

  ’Bout that time Pepper come out and we pulled out. I’d left Critter at the spread and drove a buggy, with Pepper sittin’ close beside me. Sittin’ that close, I was proud I’d taken me a good bath the night before over to the Chinaman’s place.

  We’d been gettin’ chummier and chummier as the days drifted by, and both of us knowed something was gonna happen between us . . . so we had taken to bein’ real proper with each other.

  Last time we’d embraced and kissed, both of us had started a-grabbin’ hold of things that was best not grabbed a-hold of by two people who wasn’t hitched proper. Unless the female was a soiled dove, that is. Then it didn’t make no difference what a feller grabbed a-hold of. Or got grabbed.

  But Miss Pepper wasn’t no soiled dove, and I was bound and determined to treat her like a lady . . . whether she wanted to be treated thataway, or not.

  Lots of men think that a woman don’t have no awakenin’ feelin’s like a man. I always figured that for bulldooky. They got feelin’s that are sometimes stronger than a man’s Not that I was no expert hand when it come to women, I wasn’t. But ever since Mary Lou Robinson took me in her pa’s barn one Sunday afternoon and commenced to show me the difference between boys and girls, I been plumb amazed at how inventive womenfolks can get at times.

  And damned demandin’, too!

  I recollect one time down in . . . Miss Pepper, she picked that time to look at me.

  “Why, Cotton! You’re actually blushing!”

  “Am not!” I knowed I was, but damned if I was gonna admit it.

  “You are too.”

  “It’s the sun, that’s all.”

  “Crap!” she said daringly. I give her a dark look—a woman could get too bold. “Cotton, if you got any darker, you’d pass for an Indian. Come on!” She tickled me in the ribs and I about dropped the reins. “You can tell me.”

  “Pepper, now, you better quit that stuff. You remember where it got us last time.”

  “I rather enjoyed it. Didn’t you?” she teased, leanin’ closer and blowin’ in my ear.

  I tell y’all, sometimes it’s hard to remain a gentleman.

  “I bet you were thinking of another girl, now, weren’t you?”

  Reckon how she knew that? “As a matter of fact, I was thinkin’ of a girl I knowed back in grade school.”

  “Oh. Well. I see. Were you enthralled with her, Cotton?”

  “I was plumb amazed at some of her.”

  “What an odd statement.”

  “I guess so. Pepper, is there some land for sale around here? Maybe an established spread that somebody wants to unload for a fair price?”

  “Yes.” She smiled at me, her blues twinkling. “Are you planning on staying, Cotton?”

  “I been thinkin’ about it.”

  She touched my arm. “I hope you never leave.”

  There come the goo again.

  Sure eno
ugh, Miss Jean and Miss Maggie was already at the little Farris spread.

  The cowboy who was told by Miss Jean that she could stomp her own snakes was standin’ outside by the corral when we pulled up.

  “That’s the foreman at Arrow,” Pepper told me, “Jesse Bates. He was a cavalryman during the recent . . . unpleasantness between the States. He rode for the Gray. An officer, I believe.”

  The unpleasantness? One hell of a war, if you’s to ask me. But I figured he’d been in the Army; that would account for the way he sat his saddle.

  She said, “He’s a good man and a good person. And quick with a pistol, too.”

  And that was good to know, too. “All them Arrow hands I seen shaped up in my mind to be some pretty salty ol’ boys.”

  “They’ll fight,” Pepper agreed. “Just as will the men who ride for my father and brother. They’re not paid gunhands, but to a man, they’re loyal to the brand. Most of Father’s hands have been with him a long time. He only hires others when they have to make a drive, and sometimes during branding.”

  Pepper introduced me to the tall foreman and we howdied and shook. He sized me up while I was doin’ the same to him. I got the feelin’ that this Jesse Bates would be rough as a cob if a man was to push him. And I could detect just a hint of suspicion or wariness in his eyes as he give me the once-over. But I didn’t take no offense at it, it was a natural thing to do.

  When damn near every man you seen was packin’ iron, it’s a good thing to know how the other man carries hisself. And hell, he didn’t know, really, what side I was on. But without his sayin’ it out loud, I could tell he’d heard of me down the line.

  He might have even taken a trip or two down the hoot-owl trail before settlin’ down. Lots of men have.

  “The missus is takin’ it pretty hard,” Jesse said. “And the regular hands Farris has workin’ for him is talkin’ up trouble. They’re over to the bunkhouse. You’d better talk to them. Sheriff, see if you can settle them down. They’re all good cowhands, but up against the Rockinghorse gunslicks, they won’t have a chance.”

  That made sense to me. I liked a man who knowed when to fight and when to back off and ruminate on the matter facin’ him. Although I sometimes jumped right in without thinkin’. I knew how Farris’s men was feelin’. I’d been there a time or two.

  Pepper with me, I spoke to the widder woman. There was a whole passel of females in the house with her. As soon as I tipped my hat and stayed a respectable time, I got the hell out of there. I just wasn’t no good when it come to consolin’ folks after a death. Pepper stayed with the women and me and Jesse strolled over to the bunkhouse.

  Sure enough, them hands was cleanin’ guns and fillin’ up belt loops with .44 rounds.

  To a man, they give me some fairly bleak looks.

  “You boys plannin’ on startin’ a war all by yourselves?” I asked.

  “Law won’t do nuttin’,” one hand said sourly. “So I guess that leaves it up to us, right, Sheriff?”

  “The law cain’t do nothin’,” I told him, holdin’ my temper in check. Not something I’m real good at doin’. But this hand was speakin’ out of anger and frustration, and I knowed it. Wasn’t no personal slight agin’ me. “You boys know how it is out here, just as good as me. Sure, it was a setup, I know that. And if I thought it’d do any good, I’d arrest all them that done the deed. But Judge Barbeau would just cut them loose. There ain’t no evidence to prove the Rockinghorse bunch done wrong. Think about it from the law’s side.”

  They had stopped war-preparation and was lookin’ at me, listenin’. And I knew I’d better say whatever it was I was gonna say right. “It’s spring, boys. The Widder Farris needs you here. There’s cattle to be brung in, shifted to the high country. Cuttin’ and brandin’ to be done. She can’t do that by herself.”

  I could see that they agreed with me, but they was men with men’s feelin’s. They’d been struck at, and now they wanted to strike back. But I knew they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of comin’ out of it alive.

  “Now, look boys . . . it’s gonna come down to a war. You know it, and I know it. But now ain’t the time for that. What you all have to do is get organized, get together. Little ranchers, farmers, sheepmen . . . you all got to start pullin’ in double harness. You got to get strong. You got to be able to back up your beliefs with more than mouth. And more than that, you got to start bein’ real careful not to let none of these high-paid gunslicks pull you into tryin’ to match ’em on the draw. I figure that’s comin’ next. You boys followin’ me?”

  “Makes some sense,” an older hand said. I figured him for the foreman. “Keep talkin’, Sheriff.”

  Jesse Bates was leanin’ up agin’ the bunkhouse wall, lookin’ at me. But this time, there was a different light in his eyes. All the earlier suspicion was gone from his face.

  “Maybe you boys can’t match the Circle L and the Rockinghorse with gun-speed—damn few men can—but if all of you got together, all thinkin’ alike, you’d have them outnumbered.” I waved a hand. “Four men here, two there, six over yonder—it starts to add up then.”

  “I got to agree with you,” a puncher said. “But I dearly hate that gawddamn barbed wire them nesters is stringin’ around the valley.”

  There was a low mumble of agreement with that. The day when farmer and rancher was goin’ to get along real nice was still some years away. But maybe it could start right here in this valley. It was worth a try.

  “I hate it worser. I got tangled up in it once. But the wire is here to stay, and we’re all gonna be seein’ more of it. You can’t blame a nester for wantin’ to protect what he planted.”

  We talked some more, and I could feel the fight slowly leavin’ out of the hands. I was feelin’ some better when me and Jesse walked back to the corral to wait for the women to come out of the house.

  Miss Jean, Miss Maggie, and Miss Pepper soon joined us.

  Jesse, he jerked a gloved thumb at me. “The sheriff, he pulled the fuse outta the dynamite. The hands is calmed down right smart.” Briefly, he explained to the women what I’d said about bandin’ together for strength as well as protection.

  I was conscious of all them women lookin’ at me real close.

  Pepper looked at me and smiled. “So you can not only use a gun with the best of them, but you’re a peacemaker as well.”

  I grinned. “You reckon that’s why a Colt is called a Peacemaker?”

  Chapter Eight

  The mood of the town, at least the biggest portion of it, was ugly after the double-hangin’ and the shootin’ of the young man. And folks were, for the first time, openly choosin’ up sides.

  Me, I was glad to see that part of it. Now, when it come down to the nut-cuttin’, I’d be able to know who was lined up solid behind who. Helps relieve that itchy feelin’ you get in the small of your back.

  And folks was definitely makin’ their choices known, and they wasn’t makin’ no bones about it, neither.

  It surprised me some, although later thinkin’ on it, it shouldn’t have, but Miss Mary at the Wolf’s Den lined up square behind the Circle L and the Rockinghorse crews. The man who ran the gun shop, he was with them, too, as was the man who owned the livery stable and the lumber mill. It just kinda crisscrossed the street, back and forth. But more was on the side of peace than was on the side of Mills and Lawrence.

  The funeral was a right nice one. But me and the boys skipped the church services. I just couldn’t sit through another of the Reverend Dolittle’s long-winded sermons. I knowed a preacher once who liked to say that more souls was won in the first five minutes and more souls lost in the last five minutes of preachin’. I figure that preacher knowed what he was talkin’ about. He kept them talks of his short and to the point—’specially when there was eatin’ on the grounds. He didn’t like for the fried chicken to get too cold.

  Course, he never ate none of Miss Pepper’s chicken, neither.

  The fellow who run the littl
e weekly two-page paper—The Doubtful Informer—he come out squarely on the side of law and order, runnin’ some pretty hot pieces about men who think they’re better than other folks and who think they’re above the law. Bernard Pritcher was his name. He was a feisty little feller. I went to see Mister Pritcher.

  “Mister Pritcher, I’m right proud you run this here article in the paper, but don’t you think you could have calmed ’er down just a mite? The way I see it, you just about called A.J. and Matt lowdown sons of bitches. I mean, you’re settin’ yourself up to get burned out or shot or something awful.”

  “Young man, the pen is mightier than the sword.”

  “Say what?”

  Pritcher, he adjusted his glasses and took a deep breath. “Hinc quam sic calamus saevior ense, patet, Sheriff.”

  Only thing I understood out of that mess was the word Sheriff. I didn’t know whether to ask him if he was sick or to haul off and slap the piss out of him for cussin’ me. “Did you just swaller a bug or something?”

  He smiled. “No, Sheriff. Let me explain. Cervantes said . . . you are, of course, familiar with Cervantes?”

  “Oh, hell, yeah! Holed up one winter with him up near Fort Peck.”

  Pritcher laughed. “Very funny, Sheriff. You have a wonderful sense of humor.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. One laugh after another.”

  “Cervantes said, ‘Let none presume to tell me that the pen is preferable to the sword.’ But then Robert Burton wrote what I just quoted you. The pen worse than the sword. Then in Richelieu, act two, Bulwer-Lytton wrote the line, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’”

  “Do tell?”

  “Yes. Sheriff Cotton, I am not afraid of hooligans and rowdies. I firmly believe that the truth shall make you free.”

  “Yeah? I’ll tell you something else it’ll do, Mister Pritcher. It’ll get your ass killed sometimes, too.”

  “Poppycock and balderdash, Sheriff!” he hollered. “The people are guaranteed a free press. And I shall ring loudly the bell of freedom and liberty.”