Sandi stood leaning against Beans, softly weeping. Del stood with Fae. Ring stood with Hilda and Hans and Olga. Gage with Liz. Cord stood stony-faced with his wife, a black veil over her face. Parnell stood with Smoke and the other hands and gunfighters. And Smoke had noticed something: the schoolteacher had strapped on a gun.
The final words were spoken over Max, and the family left while the hands shoveled the dirt over the young man’s final resting place on this earth.
Parnell walked up to Smoke. “I would like for you to teach me the nomenclature of this weapon and the proper way to fire it. ”
A small smile touched Smoke’s lips, so faint he doubted Parnell even noticed it. “You plannin’ on ridin’ with us, Cousin?”
The man shook his head. “Regretfully, no. I am not that good a horseman. I would only be in the way. But someone needs to be here at the ranch with the women. I can serve in that manner.”
Smoke stuck out his hand and the schoolteacher, with a surprised look on his face, took it. “Glad to have you with us, Parnell.”
“Pleased to be here, Cousin.”
“We’ll start later on this afternoon. Right now, let’s wander on down to the house. Mrs. McCorkle and the others have been cookin’ all morning. Big crowd here. I ’spect the neighbors will be visitin’ and such all afternoon.”
“Funerals are barbaric. Nothing more than a throwback to primitive and pagan rites.”
“Is that right?
“Yes. And dreadfully hard on the family.”
Weddings and funerals were social events in the West, often drawing crowds from fifty to seventy-five miles away. It was a chance to catch up on the latest gossip, eat a lot of good food—everybody brought a covered dish-and see old friends.
“We got the same thing goin’ on up on the Missouri,” Smoke heard one man tell Cord. “Damn nesters are tryin’ to grab our land. Some of the ranchers have brung in some gunfighters. I don’t hold with that myself, but it may come to it. I writ the territorial governor, but he ain’t seen fit to reply as yet. Probably never even got the letter.”
Smoke moved around the lower part of the ranch house and listened. Few knew who he was, and that was just fine with him.
“Maybe we could get Dooley put in the crazy house,” a man suggested. “He’s sure enough nuts. All we got to do is find someone to sign the papers. ”
“No,” another said. “There’s one more thing: findin’ someone stupid enough to serve the papers when Dooley’s got hisself surrounded by fifty or sixty gunslicks.”
“I wish I could help Cord out, but I’m shorthanded as it is. The damn Army ought to come in. That’s what I think.”
Smoke heard the words “vigilante” and “regulators” several times. But they were not spoken with very much enthusiasm.
Smoke ate, but with little appetite. Cord was holding up well, but his two remaining sons, Rock and Troy, were geared up for trouble, and unless he could head them off, they would be riding into disaster. He moved to the boys’ side, where they stood backed up against a wall, keeping as far away from the crowd as possible.
“You boys best just snuff out your powder fuse,” Smoke told them. “Dooley and his bunch will get their due, but for right now, think about your mother. She s got enough grief on her shoulders without you two adding to it. Just settle down.”
The boys didn’t like it, but Smoke could tell by the looks on their faces his words about their mother had hit home. He felt they would check-rein their emotions for a time. For how long was another matter.
Having never liked the feel of large crowds, Smoke stayed a reasonable time, paid his respects to Cord and Alice, and took his leave, walking back to the bunkhouse to join the other hands.
“When do we ride?” Fitz asked as soon as Smoke had walked in.
“Don’t know. Just get that burr out from under your blanket and settle down. You can bet that Dooley is ready and waiting for us right this minute. Let’s don’t go riding into a trap. We’ll wait a few days and let the pot cool its boil. Then we’ll come up with something.”
Fine words, but Smoke didn’t have any plan at all.
They all worked cattle for a few days, riding loose but ready. In the afternoons, Smoke spent several hours each day with Parnell and his pistol. Parnell was very fast, but he couldn’t hit anything but air. On the third day, Smoke concluded that the man never would be able to hit the side of a barn, even if he was standing inside the barn. Since they had plenty of rifles, Smoke decided to try the man with a Winchester. To his surprise, Parnell turned out to be a good shot with a carbine. ”
“You can tote that pistol around if you want to, Parnell,” Smoke told him. “But you just remember this: out here, if a man straps on a gun, he best be ready and able to use it. Don’t go off the ranch grounds packing a short gun, somebody’s damn sure going to call your hand with it. Stick with the rifle. You’re a pretty good shot with it. We got plenty of rifles, so keep half a dozen of them loaded up full at all times.”
“I need to go in and get some books and papers from the school.”
“I wouldn’t advise it, Cousin. You’d just be askin’ for trouble. Tell me what you need, and I’ll fetch it for you.”
“Perhaps,” the schoolteacher said mysteriously, and walked away.
Smoke had a feeling that, despite his words, the man was going into town anyway. He’d have to keep an eye on him. He knew Parnell was feeding on his newly found oats, so to speak, and felt he didn’t need a baby-sitter. But Smoke had a hunch that Parnell really didn’t know or understand the caliber of men who might jump him, prod him into doing something that would end up getting the schoolteacher hurt, or dead.
Smoke spread the word among the men to keep an eye on Parnell.
“Seems to me that Rita’s been lookin’ all wall-eyed at him the last couple of days,” Pistol said. “Shore is a bunch of spoonin’ goin’ on around here. Makes a man plumb nervous.”
“Wal, you can re-lax, Pistol,” Hardrock told him. “No woman in her right mind would throw her loop for the likes of you. You too damn old and too damn ugly.”
“Huh!” the old gunfighter grunted. “You a fine one to be talkin’. You could hire that face of yours out to scare little children.”
Smoke left the two old friends insulting each other and walked to the house to speak with Cord sitting on the front porch, drinking coffee.
Cord waved him up and Smoke took a seat.
“I’m surprised Dooley hasn’t made a move,” the rancher said. “But the men say the range has been clear. Maybe he’s counting on that Danny Rouge to pick us off one at a time.”
“I doubt that Dooley even knows what’s in his mind,” Smoke replied. “I’ve been thinking, Cord. If we could get a judge to him, the judge would declare him insane and stick him in an institution. ”
“Umm. Might be worth a shot. I can send a rider up to Helena with a letter. I know Judge Ford. Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Maybe he’d like to come down for a visit?” Smoke suggested. “Has he been here before?”
“Several times. Good idea. I’ll spell it all out in a letter and get a man riding within the hour. I’ll ask him if he can bring a deputy U.S. marshal down with him.”
“We just might be able to end this mess,” Smoke said, a hopeful note in his voice. ”With Dooley out of the picture, Liz could take over the running of the ranch, with Gage to help her, and she could fire the gunslicks.”
“It sounds so simple.”
“All we can do is try. Have you seen Parnell and Rita?”
“Yeah. They went for a walk. Can’t get used to the idea of that schoolteacher packin’ iron. It looks funny.”
“I warned him about totin’ that gun in town.”
“And I told Rita not to go into town. However, since I’m not her father, it probably went in one ear and out the other. Dooley and me told those girls fifteen years ago not to see one another. Did a hell of a lot of good, didn’t it? Both those girls are stubborn as mules. Did Parnell get his back up when you warned him?”