“It sounds like you have a lot of respect for the man.”
“I do. I’d damn sure hate to have him for an enemy.”
From inside the house, they heard the sounds of Sandi’s giggling. She was entertaining her young man this evening, as
she did almost every evening. The Moab Kid was fast becoming
a fixture around the place.
Cord and Alice sat quietly, smiling as they both recalled their own courting days.
Smoke leaned against a corral railing and thought about Sally and the babies. He missed them terribly. One part of him wanted this little war to come to a head so he could go home. But another part of him knew that when it did start, there would be a lot of people who would never go home ... except for six feet of earth. And he might well be one of them.
Charlie Starr walked up and the men stood in silence for a moment, enjoying the peaceful evening. Charlie was the first to break the silence.
“I’d like to have seen that fight ’tween Cord and Jason.”
Smoke smiled, then the smile faded. “Jason won’t ever forget it, though. The next time he sees Cord, Cord better have a gun in his hand.”
“True.”
They stood in silence for another few moments. Both men rolled an after-supper cigarette and lit up.
“You were in deep thought when I walked up, Smoke. What’s on your mind?”
“Oh, I had a half dozen thoughts going, Charlie. I was thinking about my wife and our babies; how much I miss them. And, I was thinking just what it’s going to take to blow the lid off this situation here.”
“What don’t concern me as much as when.”
“Tonight.”
Charlie looked at him. “What are you, one of them fortune-tellers?”
“I feel it in my guts, Charlie. And don’t tell me you never jumped out of a saddle or spun and drew on a hunch.”
“Plenty o’ times. Saved my bacon on more than one occasion, too. That’s what you’re feelin’?”
“That’s it.” Smoke dropped his cigarette butt and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “It’s always something you least expect, too.”
“I grant you that for a fact. Like that time down inTaos this here woman crawled up in bed with me. Like to have scared the longhandles right off of me. Wanted me to save her from her husband. Didn’t have a stitch on. I tell you what, that shook me plum down to my toenails.”
“Did you save her?”
Charlie chuckled softly. “Yeah. ’Bout two hours later. I’ve topped off horses that wasn’t as wild as she was.”
Thirteen
Rita had cropped her hair short, hating to do it, but she had always been a tomboy and, besides, it would grow back. She had turned off the lamp and now she listened at her bedroom door for a moment, hearing the low murmur of her mother talking to her father. The front door squeaked open and soon the sound of the porch swing reached her. She picked up her valise and swung out the window, dropping the few feet to the ground. She remained still for a long moment, checking all around her. She knew from watching and planning this that her guards were not on duty after nine o’clock at night. It had never occurred to her father that his daughter would attempt to run away.
Sorry, Pa, Rita thought. But I won’t be treated like a prisoner.
Rita slipped away from the house and past the corral and barn. She almost ran right into a cowboy returning from the outhouse but saw him in time to duck into the shadows. He walked past her, his galluses hanging down past his knees. The door to the bunkhouse opened, flooding a small area with lamplight.
“Shut the damn door, Harry!” a man called.
The door closed, the area once more darkened. But something primeval touched Rita with an invisible warning. She remained where she was, squatting down in her jeans.
“It’s clear,” a man’s voice said.
Rita recognized it as belonging to the shifty-eyed gunslinger called Park. And the men were only a few yards away.
Rita remembered something else, too: she had heard that voice before. The sudden memory was as hot and violent as the act that afternoon. While she was being raped.
Fury and cold hate filled the young woman. Her father’s own men had done that to her. She thought about returning to the house and telling her father. She immediately rejected that. She had no proof. And her father would take one look at her close-cropped hair and lock her up tight, with twenty-four-hour guards.
She touched the short-barreled .44 tucked behind her belt. She was good with it, and wanted very badly to haul it out and start banging.
She fought back that feeling and waited, listening.
“When? ” the other man asked.
“Keep your britches on,” Park said. “Lanny gives the orders around here. But it’ll be soon, he tole me so hisself.”
“I’d like to take my britches off with Rita agin,” the mystery man said with a rough chuckle.
And I’d like to stick this pistol ... Rita mentally brushed away the very ugly thought. But it was a satisfying thought.
“You reckon Hanks is so stupid he don’t realize what his boys is up to?”
“He’s nuts. He don’t realize them crazy boys of his’n would kill him right now if they thought they could get away with it.”
Rita crouched in the darkness and wanted to cry. Not for herself or for her father—he had made the boys what they were today, simply by being himself—but for her mother. She deserved so much better.
“It better be soon, ’cause the boys is gettin’ restless.”
“It’ll be soon. But we gotta do it all at once. All three ranches. There can’t be no survivors to tell about it. They got to be kilt and buried all in one night. We can torture the widows till they sign over the spreads to us.”
“We gonna keep the young wimmen alive for a time, ain’t we? ’Specially that Fae Jensen. I want her. I want to show her a thing or two.”
“I don’t know. Chancy. Maybe too chancy. It’s all up to Jason and Lanny.”
“Them young wimmen would bring a pretty penny south of the border.”
“Transport them females a thousand miles! You’re nuts, Hartley.”
“It was jist a thought.”
“A bad one. Man, just think of it: the whole area controlled by us. Thousands and thousands of acres, thousands of cattle. We could be respectable, and you want to mess it all up because of some swishy skirts. Sometimes I wonder about you, Hartley.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up no more.”
“Fine.”
The men walked off, splitting up before entering the bunkhouse.
Rita felt sick to her stomach; wanted to upchuck. Fought it back. Now more than ever, she had to make it to the Box T. She waited and looked around her, carefully inspecting each dark pocket around the ranch, the barn and the bunkhouse. She stood up and moved out, silently praying she wouldn’t be spotted.
Once clear of the ranch complex, Rita began to breathe a little easier. She slung her valise by a strap and could move easier with it over her shoulder. She headed southwest, toward the Box T.
The restlessness of the horses awakened Smoke. He looked at his pocket watch. Four o’clock. Time to get up anyway. But the actions of the horses bothered him. Dressed and armed, he stepped out of the ranch house just as the bunkhouse door opened and Lujan stepped out, followed by the other men. Smoke met them in the yard. They all carried rifles.
“Spread out,” Smoke told them. “Let’s find out what’s spooking the horses.”
“Hello the ranch!” the voice came out of the darkness. A female voice.
“Come on in,” Smoke returned the call. “Sing out!”
“Rita Hanks. I slipped away from the house about eight o‘clock last night. You might not recognize me,’cause I cut off my hair to try to fool anyone who might see me.”