“Get! ”
“Now, Rory, now.” He jumped up and down. “Don’t shoot now. Rory.”
“Get that hot water!”
“All right, all right. But at least let me first have a couple stiff jolts of hooch. Oh, my God.”
“And let you get so snockered drunk you won’t know what you’re doin’? Oh, no.” She cocked the hammer. “Get!”
He got.
Within an hour the baby was born. It was another boy. She named him after his uncle: Cain Hammett.
Jesse
With Mitch beside him on the democrat, Jesse led the way. Behind them trailed a dozen tough punchers on horseback.
It was just noon. Though the sun was out, bright, it was biting cold. It was November and all shadows leaned long to the north. Each shadow glinted with night’s lingering hoarfrost. The gray ground rang like a great stone bell under the iron horseshoes and iron rims of the wheels. Every man was bundled up in winter clothes: overcoats with fur collars, heavy gloves, and hats tied down over the ears with varicolored silk bandannas.
They breasted the final hill. Jesse held up a gloved hand. “Whoa!” Mitch hauled back on the lines and the spanking pair of bays stopped. The horsebackers behind stopped too. Horses puffed. Men breathed deep. Bridle bits and spurs gingled gently.
Below and to the left of the trail lay Avery Jimson’s Hog Ranch; to the right lay Cattle Queen’s spread. Rust Creek under the little wooden bridge sparkled in the noon sun. There were no birds. Wolves and coyotes lay hidden. West of them loomed the Big Stonies, high and pure and white, with new snowfall reaching far down the slopes, into the near canyons and low passes. The white peaks glinted against the sky like icicles against a vast silk bedspread, blue, fine-spun.
Jesse stroked his game leg. He was careful to stay well away from a big bandage covering a pussing pulpy wound. “Well, there she lays.” Jesse’s face was beetling red in the cold. “Now, boys, I want you to get this straight. No killing bee today. We can’t afford it. Lord Peter is ready to back out and bolt as it is now. A killin’ would queer him sure. Hangin’ or shootin’, one.”
Mitch glowered beside him. Mitch was for the killing bee.
His wife had been eating him out for tolerating a whore in the valley.
Jesse turned in his seat and looked up at wizened sour-eyed Stalker on horseback. “All we’re going to do is go in and scare the daylights out of ’em. So they’ll pack up and leave. Got it?”
Stalker spat. “Got it.”
Jesse looked at the rest of the boys one by one: Hog, Ringbone, Spade, Beavertooth, Peakhead, Dried Apple Bill, Stuttering Dick, Four-eye Irish. “You boys got it too?”
“Got it, boss.”
Again Jesse examined the valley below. Gray smoke rose in slow and wafting spirals from the chimneys of both buildings. Whiteface cattle browsed on rusty bunch grass in Queenie’s pasture. A solitary cowboy’s pony waited at the hitching rail outside Avery’s place. Jesse snorted, high-headed. “Take her pay in my calves, will she? Write letters to the paper about me being a crook, will he? The blinkin’ buzzards.”
The boys sat quiet. Their horses chafed under them.
Jesse smiled some under his dark mustache. There wasn’t a waddy in his bunch who hadn’t contributed at least one calf to Queenie’s herd. Even Mitch who was now all for killing her. Silently Jesse thanked his lucky star that he hadn’t got around to asking her for a private viewing of her famous breasts. He was the only one free to do what had to be done.
“Sorry, boys,” Jesse said at last. “But I’m afraid our Queenie’s got in the way of progress.”
Stalker spat. “Will her little herd be enough to fill out the tally for the earl?”
Jesse’s smile held. “It’ll help.”
“How many you figure she’s got in there?”
“Mitch, how many? You had them counted last week.”
“About a thousand.”
Jesse whistled. “She and Solomon would have made quite a pair.”
At that all the boys smiled, even Stalker.
“Remember now. No killin’,” Jesse warned again. “Just a durn good scaring bee is all we want.”
“Hell, boss,” Spade said, “if it was to be the other bee, you wouldn’t a got us with. You know that.”
Jesse nodded. “I know, boys. And I appreciate it. I almost took titty there myself. But you know she’s been putting on a style we just can’t tolerate in this valley. It’s got to be done.”
Yes, it had to be done. From somewhere he had to pick up a thousand head or the deal was off. Lord Peter would go elsewhere for a buyer. Jesse felt he was right in taking Queenie’s calves away from her. Hadn’t they all originally been the earl’s? Besides, wasn’t it high time somebody did something to put a chill into all them homesteaders coming into the valley? Let alone them goldurn overbold rustlers Harry Hammett and Timberline? And especially that king rebel of them all, Cain Hammett? Yes, getting rid of Queenie and Avery would be just the thing to start the ball arolling.
Jesse rubbed his bad leg slowly. “All right, you saddlestiffs. Mitch and I’ll drive up to Queenie’s cabin. While Mitch holds the horses, I’ll shoot down that goldurn big black monster she’s got for a dog. Then you boys cut the pasture wire and drive off her beef. Head them for the hills under the Horn where we’ll vent her Hanging RH and put on the Derby brand. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Jesse waved his arm again. Mitch slapped the reins over the rumps of the bays. Off they went. Wheels cracked on stones. Green spokes shone whizzing in the sun. Throwing hooves kicked up sparks. The two men rolled with each lurch of the green democrat as it careened down the irregular roadbed. The cowboys racked after them. Hoarfrost held down the dust.
Slope-shouldered in his heavy black winter coat, Mitch held the bays firm in hand. A smile worked his wily Mongoloid face. He laughed short, once.
Jesse saw the smile, and he yelled over the noise, “What you chokin’ on?”
Mitch shrugged. He yelled back, “Heard tell that if you can’t find no weapon on Queenie, look for a derringer hid on her somewheres.”
“What!”
“They make them tomtit guns mighty small these days. No bigger than a thumb.”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her to hide it there. A woman will do anything when she gets in a tight.”
Jesse grunted. “We’ll make her keep her hands high.”
Mitch pulled slightly on the right rein and they whirled into her lane on two wheels. Small red rocks shot out from under the twisting spinning wheels. Behind them trotted the pack of tough punchers.
Jesse saw the big black dog rise to its feet in front of Queenie’s door. Even from where he sat on the tossing democrat, Jesse could see the big black devil blink its cold evil eyes. Jesse picked up the Winchester from the floor of the democrat; levered a shell into the firing chamber.
When they got to within fifty feet, Jesse commanded, “Hold up.”
Mitch drew back on the lines, hard. The bays reared up, forefeet pawing the air; then stopped so sudden both Jesse and Mitch slid forward off their seat some.
Jesse took off his right glove. He stood up and brought the carbine to his shoulder. He caught the center of the dog’s head, just above the blue nose, in the sights of his gun. He pulled the trigger. There was a roar; the bays reared again; the dog dropped to the ground.
Almost the same instant the cabin door opened and out stepped Queenie. As usual Queenie wore a light green dress, narrow at the waist and bosom enormous. Her hair, the color of a lion’s tail, was done up in a bun on the top of her head. She’d apparently been napping and had quick slipped on a pair of beaded moccasins. She burned hell’s own light green eyes at Jesse. “What goes on here?”
Jesse waved an arm. From behind him swept the cowboys. One of them stepped down off his horse and got out a pair of blue nippers and cut the barbwire pasture fence. The next thing the horsemen were all in the pasture, spreading out
on circle drive.
Queenie looked down at her dead dog. A final wink closed its eyes. A trickle of scarlet blood ran down its blue muzzle. It stiffened slowly in the cold. Queenie looked over to where the pasture fence was cut. The ends of the barbwire had been ripped off the fence posts and dragged back a good hundred feet. Queenie’s face convulsed a moment, showing wrinkles and age; then smoothed over. She made as if to dart back into the cabin.
“No, you don’t!” Jesse yelled, throwing down on her from the green democrat, aiming the Winchester straight for her big breasts. “Reach for the sky! Reach!”
Queenie glared at him. Slowly she raised her small white hands as high as her face, palms out.
Jesse said, “I’ve heard tell you been expectin’ me on a private visit for some time.”
“Go to grass.”
“Well, I finally have come for a private look-see at them wonders of yours.” Jesse looked at her bosom while at the same time he nodded toward her cattle. “Steers that use the multiplication tables like them do should go under the name of mule-eared rabbits.”
She turned slightly and stared out to where the punchers had just finished rounding up the herd. They had them bunched for the opening. Little triggering movements jerked at the corners of her eyes. “Them sonsa! So this is what I get for being goodhearted to poor lonesome cowboys.”
All of a sudden the bays on the democrat smelled blood. They snorted; shied away from the dead black dog.
“Whoa, boys,” Mitch growled, “easy now.” Mitch held them steady.
Jessie stepped down off the democrat, careful to keep his carbine trained on her bosom. “All right, Queenie, step right up.”
She shivered, dress rippling all the way down to her moccasined feet. “Won’t you at least let me get a coat and shawl?” She looked down at her feet. “And something warm for them?”
“Get aboard!”
“But, my God, Jesse, I can’t ride this way, wherever it is you’re taking me. I’ll freeze to death.”
“It’ll be plenty warm where you’re going.”
Calves and young steers bellered behind them and in a moment all of Queenie’s wealth began to chouse past, around both sides of the democrat and the brown cabin. Jesse looked at them admiringly. Choice whitefaces. Chunky. Almost all of even weight. Lord Peter couldn’t kick on them.
Queenie watched them go, one by ten by hundred, and she cried. Tears in her lashes gave her light green eyes the look of just fallen hailstones. “Them sonsa!”
Despite heavy hoarfrost, hooves slowly began to kick up red dust. The boys in the drag soon had to cover their noses with silk kerchiefs.
Jesse waved for Stalker and Ringbone and Spade to come over. They came at a gallop and pulled up almost on top of him and Queenie.
“Yeh, boss?” Stalker said, leaning on the pommel of his saddle, face sour, hard. He ignored Queenie.
“Get over to the Hog Ranch and corral Avery before he gets wise. And whoever else that waddy is with that lone horse at the hitching rail there.”
Spade held a hand over a frost-pinched ear. “What if the lone waddy is one of our boys, Jesse?”
Ringbone broke in. “It’s Harry Hammett.”
Jesse’s eyebrows raised. “No!”
“It’s his hoss. Star.”
“Well, well. Now we will really have us a necktie party. We’ll string him up too.”
“Why, you strangling sons-a-bitches,” Queenie said, low. “So that’s your game.“
Stalker and Ringbone and Spade gave her a sliding look; then galloped toward the Hog Ranch. They were afoot and had gun in hand before their horses had stopped. They popped into the front door, one right after the other. But they had hardly vanished inside when out of the back door darted Harry in his flashy rigging. With a run and a flying leap, Harry forked his bay and was off, heading for the hills. As he disappeared over the rise, he stood up in his stirrups and thumbed his nose at them. Then he fired his gun at them, once. The bullet skipped across the ground in front of the bay team. Once again Mitch had to steady the horses with a sharp haul on the lines.
“Hah! Good!” Queenie said, “Now he’ll bring his Red Sash boys on the run.”
“Won’t do you much good, Queenie. The party’ll be over by then.” Jesse gestured with his Winchester. “Get aboard!”
“You won’t let me get a coat and shawl? Or some shoes for my feet?”
“Get aboard!”
“Jesse, my God, where are you taking me? You’re not really going to hang me?”
Jesse smiled, mean. “Well, if you really want to know, we’re running you out of the country on a rail, hive you back to where you came from. To Old Cheyenne and your old biscuit-shooting job in that U. P. restaurant.”
“If that’s where I’m going, please let me change clothes first, Jesse. As a woman I have a right to show up in my best.”
“No.”
“Haven’t you any respect for a woman atall? I look a fright in all this dust.”
Jesse considered a moment. “All right, where’s your coat hanging?”
“Just behind the door.”
“Mitch, hold down on her.”
Mitch put the reins in one hand and with the other held down on her. His blue gun glinted in the sharp sunlight. “Up,” Mitch said, “and no reaching under the dress on the way up either. I know your puncture tricks.”
Queenie swore. “Mitch, you Judas you. I knew I should’ve had at least one good talk with that poor wife of yours.”
Mitch’s round face reddened. He held steady on her.
Jesse went in and got her coat, a long black affair, velvet, voluminous. He also got her a shawl, a light blue woolen one.
“And my overshoes, Jesse. And a muff, if you please. And oh, yes, my diamond earrings.”
Jesse said, “Goldurn, no. I’ve already been enough of a gentleman as ’tis.” Jesse glanced across the road. “Ah! I see they got Avery ready for us at the Hog Ranch. C’mon, get aboard.”
Queenie still balked. “I won’t feel dressed unless I have my diamonds.”
“Durn you, Queenie, get in or by the Lord I’ll rope you and drag you out of the country. Instead of just ride you out. All the way to Cheyenne.”
Queenie got in.
“Sit down on the floor just back of the seat. Facing me. Hands up.”
Queenie got down on the floor.
Jesse climbed in. He sat facing her, back to the horses, Winchester still aimed for her bosom. “Let ’er rip, Mitch, across the road and we’ll pick up Avery next.”
Humped Avery stood waiting for them. Avery showed fight. His bulbous brown eyes were burning mad. He looked up at Jesse. He had on his overcoat and hat, but still looked cold. The wattlelike goiter under his chin was purple with it. “Stalker says you got a warrant for my arrest, Jacklin.”
“I have,” Jesse said. “Climb aboard, you blinkin’ wedger-in.”
“Let’s see it,” Avery said. “I want to see with my own eyes just who signed a complaint against me.” Avery gave Queenie the merest flick of a glance.
Mitch drew his gun again. ’’That’s warrant enough, I reckon. Straight from Judge Colt hisself.”
Avery looked into Mitch’s gun barrel. “You going to dry-gulch us in the hills, Jacklin?”
“Might. Climb aboard.”
“You don’t have the warrant then, Jacklin.”
“Get in. I didn’t come here to have a chin with you, Avery.”
“You don’t have the warrant then, Jacklin.”
A new rope of pain tightened around Jesse’s bad leg. It was almost a doubling of the usual searing twinge. It gripped his whole leg, down into each toe, up into his groin. Jesse already resented the way in which Avery used his last name and the sudden increase of pain in his leg didn’t help any. It was Avery who had given him the bad leg in the first place, whacking him in the shin with his stool the night he fought Harry Hammett. He took dead aim with his Winchester on Avery’s brow. “By the Lord, Avery, we can e
nd it right here, if that’s your mind. I’ll put this carbine to your head and scatter your college-warped brains all over the ground.”
Queenie spoke up from the floor of the democrat. “Better get in, Avery, dearie. They’re giving us a free ride to Cheyenne, is all.”
“Free ride to hell, you mean,” Jesse roared, high-headed.
Queenie added, “We can look up the law later, Avery. Climb in.”
Avery thought it over a moment; finally climbed in beside her.
Jesse pointed with the barrel of his gun. “Mitch, follow Rust Creek up the gully a ways.”
Mitch drove. Stalker, Ringbone, Spade followed on horseback. The trail became rough with red stones. Iron hooves and iron rims rang loud in the bitter cold.
Jesse watched the two narrowly for signs of weakening. Except for that one moment back at the cabin, Queenie was taking it calm. She seemed to have guessed it was only going to be a scaring bee. Avery meanwhile sat nodding over his purple wattle. His thin humped body rolled with each pitch of the democrat. Avery was burning but he had dampered it down some.
Jesse hated them and their guts. It always made him as mad as the devil when people dared stand up to him, and especially so when they did it after he’d got the drop on them. He cursed them silently to himself. They’d upset the smooth and orderly flow of what had been the first real paradise on earth—big-time ranching in Bitterness valley. Life had gone along as merry as a marriage bell for him and his family and his friends until these two satans had crept into his Garden of Eden. It enraged him that a smart painted cat like Queenie and a smart ornery cuss like Avery could get his very own boys to play the game of grab against him. A settler or two he could have tolerated. But not an out-and-out calf-stealing whore and a college-warped letter-writing saloonkeeper both of whom went out of theirway to encourage his boys to traitor him.
They rode in silence. The stone-pocked gully deepened into a rocky red canyon. They followed a crude dugway along the cliff edge. Junipers, then stunted pine, appeared along the upper edges of the crimson canyon cliffs. With every twist and jolt the wheels of the green democrat cracked like they might dish and collapse. Sometimes the twisting jolts were so violent Jesse had to hang on with one hand while with the other he held the carbine. Queenie and Avery rolled away from each other; rolled against each other. Once they cracked heads. Mitch had the advantage of hanging onto the lines. The three horsebackers followed along slowly behind.
Riders of Judgment Page 23
