Valley of Bones

by Dusty Richards

“Cattle are being moved to the Oracle Ranch. They have hay wagons and water wagons hired. Spencer says unless you need him, he wants to go over to the headquarters before coming back home. He wants to be certain everything is being done right and will be completed on time for the new owners. The plans are to scatter the cattle in groups. Spencer and Jesus bought the bulls that Slaughter had with the herd and hoped that was the thing to do. I wired yes in your absence,” Liz said.

  “How was the Oracle Ranch foreman down there?” Chet asked.

  “The word was excited, Spencer said,” Fred said.

  “One down and one to go,” Chet said.

  “How is that?” Liz asked.

  “I came up here on a secret deal to talk to Cole because Hannagen told me the railroad wanted the telegraph line and Hannagen was about to move on it. I also convinced Hannagen to sell the stage line with it, since it would end when the tracks got here. He did that, too. Then I told Cole to do what he wanted, but I would have a job for him if he didn’t get a good offer from the railroad.”

  “I had wondered about that deal.”

  “They wanted that four hundred miles of line and the stage deal wasn’t that big to hold them back. They took it.”

  “What happens next?” Liz asked.

  “We’ll see if they offer Cole something or not. I bet those stuffed shirts want their own person in charge of it, but we will see.”

  “You will get your money back on the headquarters?”

  “It is in the deal but, heavens, we can buy and build hundreds of headquarters for what we made off it.”

  “I told those buyers on the Oracle place you would be in contact with them in plenty of time for the closing—before the first of the year.”

  “Good. You have been working hard.” He was chewing on more sweet elk meat. Things were working like good watch gears did.

  * * *

  The next day Chet and Liz drove on to Flagstaff in the company buckboard and then to the headquarters. He took Liz off the buckboard while hostlers took charge of the horses.

  Val and Rocky came running.

  “Momma Liz, you are here,”

  She swept him up. “How are you, Rocky?”

  “I have a great pony. I can ride him, and I bet you could, too.”

  “I will have to see him. I bet he is great.”

  Val took him. “He’s getting big, isn’t he? But come, supper’s ready.”

  “Yes, he’s darling. I know how much you enjoy him and he is so bright.”

  “He is growing up too fast.”

  “That happens with them.” The two women hugged each other.

  Chet showed her to a place and plates of food soon appeared before them.

  Cole asked for silence. Then he asked Chet to stand. “We need you to ask a blessing for the food and our activities.”

  With a nod Chet began raising his voice. “Let us pray.” He asked for the Lord’s blessing on the food, healing the sick and injured, and protecting them all. “Amen.”

  Everyone applauded and sat down to eat. This might be the last time for him to eat here and know these men and their families. The company they formed to start the move to rails across the entire territory. A company born to die when the iron rails took the stage line’s place. But more jobs would open in the wake of the trains. Already people wanted ranches along this route. And with trains they’d have markets they never had before which had led to all those empty homesteads Bo had bought as a bargain.

  The steam engine chugging across ruts left by wagon wheels would stir up new blood along the entire route of this land. Damn. Time and progress marched on. By coincidence he came to Arizona to escape persecution of a feud in Texas and found bargains were all around if he had the way to make them work, and he had. From the sacred Navajo Mountains that surrounded Flagstaff to the Mexican border he and his ranches moved on. And ranches like Rustler’s were blossoming in plenty of time to succeed.

  “You’ve shocked some people selling the Oracle Ranch.”

  “Liz,” he said between bites, “there is time to pick fruit when it is ripe. It may be twenty more years before that place exceeds its value today.”

  “Things are beginning to sell.”

  “They will with a train coming. I told you I saw it as the light we needed to open this land. But it still borders on a drought every season. I love it, but it is not the Garden of Eden for everyone or even us at times, though we are more prepared to live through them.”

  “I know and it has worked well.”

  “No one was haying cattle before we started. The free range is not virgin anymore, and winter does not have the carry-over of graze it once had.”

  “I wondered about the Oracle place not having hay ground?”

  “It may have pushed my decision.”

  She smiled. “I never doubt your thinking. I just need to understand and be filled in from time to time.”

  “I know I have been closemouthed. I will try to share more in the future.”

  “When do we go over there?”

  “We take the stage Friday.”

  “I have two days here then?”

  “Right.”

  * * *

  Cole and Chet strolled through the cool morning checking out goings-on. Coach horses were being reshod in the blacksmith shop, the air saturated with sharp coal smoke from the forge that heated the shoes to shape them. Hammering on the anvils rung in his ears as he met the individuals manning the hammers.

  The harness shop where the leather goods were washed in saddle soap and then dried and oiled came next. The aroma was saddle oil and they repaired any cracks that might break in service. Collars were all checked for wear and then soaped. Stitching machines repaired parts.

  They went to where they were rebuilding a broken coach. It was quickly being reconstructed like new.

  “You have an amazing amount of craftsmen here.”

  Cole nodded. “It’s what you did on the ranches. I found the fix-it workers. I know this will all be in the past someday, but we have safe vehicles and they run smoothly.”

  Chet wondered what the buyers would do with this operation. Why should he care? It was sold. Trains were on the move. Step aside horses and wagons.

  They walked through the pens of horses eating hay at the feeders and fussing around like strangers deciding who is boss with their sharp teeth or a fast kick. Then it settled for them and they went to eating grass and rolling in the dirt to salve itchy backs or to suck up cool spring water at the clean troughs.

  What luxury for the fine stock that hauled the coaches and mail buckboards across the high desert trip after trip. They earned their oats every trip. But he was sobering up to the fact that horses were being replaced by iron ones. And the whole scene was changing right before his eyes.

  Meanwhile, Fred and Miguel had been listening around the village and in the saloons. None knew or had heard of the dead man and they learned no scuttlebutt about anyone wanting him dead.

  So when they climbed on the eastbound stage, Chet felt more secure than he had than when Liz came to him from the rim. Spencer and Jesus were working on getting the Oracle headquarters finished before the buyers came back. The auction of the Three V’s was only ten days away and he needed to be there for it.

  In a day and a half they were in Gallup and riding in a surrey out to Hannagen’s place. Liz had hoped for a hotel room to get straightened up, but Hannagen’s man insisted that they all would stay at the house. Rocky was home riding his horse with his nanny, but Cole and Val, Liz, Chet and his guards, all fit in the surrey.

  Val said his rambling house was a castle. Liz was grateful hers was smaller and easier to care for.

  They were greeted by Hannagen’s wife and shown to their rooms. Baths were drawn and laundry service provided. Fred and Miguel said they could sleep in the bunkhouse, but their offer was declined. Chet wore a suit Liz brought for him. Someone polished his boots. They all looked very nice seated at the dining table. Hannagen’s p
eople and their wives were also there. Photoflashes recorded the event from all angles.

  Hannagen stood and introduced Chet and his people, saying how successful the association with the Byrnes Family had been for them all. “It never would have been done without them.”

  Chet appreciated the words.

  Cole met his new bosses the next day. They told him they were cutting his wages in half immediately and he had a job only until the track was laid three-quarters of the way across Arizona, then they would close down the operation.

  At his meeting with Chet that afternoon Cole told Chet, “When they told me my wages were to be cut in half immediately, I made up my mind I was going back to work for real people. I stood up and told them to not even continue, that, as of now that moment the stage line was theirs, and that I quit and they could all go to hell.

  “This big guy got up red-faced and shook his finger at me. ‘You will never work for anyone again.’ I said, ‘Oh, yes, I have work with a great company right now running a ranch and he won’t cut my pay or backstab me.’ And I warned them that they all better get out there. There will be wagon wrecks, robberies, and drivers quitting from here on.”

  “So we go back and get our things, leave, and they have charge?” Chet asked.

  “That is the way it will be,” Cole replied.

  “I am going to tell Hannagen. He knows them. They will regret lvetting you go before the track is laid.”

  * * *

  Chet knocked on the door to the office and heard a “come in” call.

  “The tycoons cut Cole’s salary in half immediately. He quit and dumped it in their laps.”

  “Those stupid bastards. They have no one to run that operation. I told them not to do that when I signed the papers. But they know it all. Well, they’ll learn the hard way. It will take four or five supervisors to do the job Cole did to keep things going.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  “You have a job for him?”

  “I am going home and make one.”

  “Then it’s their loss and they may lose more at this rate. They are such chiselers.”

  “I will remember that if I do business with them again.”

  “Thanks. You running off?”

  “I need to.”

  “You sold Regis and his buddy a good ranch?”

  “Yes. It is already set up to make money. They have a good supervisor, brand-new headquarters, and some great cattle. It has a lot of deeded land, and they can own it for twenty years and make a huge profit.”

  “They said you made them a square deal. Do you have any more like it?”

  “Not today.”

  “Okay. Should I transfer your share of the sale to your banker Tennant in Prescott?”

  “Yes, though he may have a heart attack. I will warn him.”

  “Tell Cole thanks for all he’s done and that I don’t blame him for quitting.”

  Chet waved good-bye and left. They headed back to Flagstaff.

  Val asked, “Where do we live now that we are penniless and out of a job?”

  “Our house. We only have Fred and Josey. Lisa and Miguel are also there now, so what’s three more?”

  “Four counting his nanny. And his painted horse makes five more.”

  “I would kiss that Navajo chief for giving that sweet horse to a boy who will ride him,” Liz said.

  “I bet he’d take it, too.” They’d be home in a few days.

  Cole and Val had two large wagons loaded with their things and some draft mules to move them. Chet commandeered a buckboard and a team for forty dollars—stamped as unneeded on the paperwork they were leaving in the office. Liz and Chet were driving south. Miguel and Fred brought the ranch horses with packs and saddles right on their tail.

  Cole and a hired driver brought their two wagons while Val, with Rocky and his nanny, drove another unneeded buckboard and team behind them.

  It made quite a parade or wagon train and Chet wished he had a U.S. flag to hang at the front of the train. He’d gotten Fred to ride out in front as the color guard and painted Prescott or Bust on the wagons. When he told Liz his plans, she laughed for half a mile and shoved him around to be ornery.

  He finally gave her the reins and made her drive for a few miles.

  They reached the rim edge and camped for the night. The women cooked some beef and rice and they ate as it grew dark.

  Seated in folding chairs around the fire, they talked about the day and how a coyote got all upset trying to cross through the wagon train and jumping back each time until he finally flew between the wagons and buckboards, getting clipped by a wheel and then kicked by a mule until he reached the other side of the road.

  “He had a bad day,” Fred said, amused.

  “He couldn’t go around. He had to blunder through.” They all laughed.

  Afternoon the next day they stopped at the Verde Ranch, so Rocky and Adam could meet up and visit. Rocky showed Adam his paint horse. Adam said he had two sheep, broke to ride, but they had no time to ride them. They would be late getting up the mountain to the Valley Ranch.

  “Does Adam really have two sheep to ride?” Liz asked as they headed up the steep mountain in their buckboard.

  “Oh yes. He’s rode those sheep a lot.”

  “One son on a painted pony and the other riding sheep Roman style.”

  More laughter rang out as they wound up the deep canyon.

  When the caravan came into the yard, the sun was almost down. The schoolhouse bell went to pealing out.

  Lisa and Josey had a footrace from the house to greet them.

  Folks came from everywhere to shake a hand or hug someone.

  Chet stood in the buckboard. “Look who I brought back with me. Val, Cole, and Rocky are back here with us.”

  They had music to celebrate the homecoming. Miguel and Lisa disappeared first, then Josey and Fred left, too. Chet and Liz thanked everyone and went hand in hand upstairs to bed.

  While undressing, she asked him, “Will this let you go higher on the price for the Three V’s?”

  He went over and hugged her. “A few bucks more.”

  “I don’t care. You make these deals like the stage line and telegraph and you sell them high as the sky. You made over two hundred thousand on the Oracle Ranch that the bankers couldn’t even sell. Did the new headquarters sell that place?”

  “Hell yes. I told the banker how it would, but he had all that money he wanted in it and sold it to me at a discount.”

  “Can you do that with the Three V’s?”

  “If I buy it right. Next week we will know.”

  “All this money in one bank?”

  “I know banks fail. I am putting a large sum of our money in lockboxes. They can’t get it. The rest I will share in the loans with the bank. I have plans.”

  “May I come along Tuesday?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Val would like to, too.”

  “I may not buy that ranch.”

  “We know, but we’d like to be along.”

  “Plan on it.”

  “Thanks. You really do surprise me at times. But so far it has worked.”

  “I have been thinking—I never thought that Rustler’s Ranch would have that much potential. Those crazy kids ran away with it. I have to get them more mowers, rakes, and stackers for next year. They will rival Tom’s operation in just a few years.”

  “What did those homesteads cost?”

  “Four to seven hundred dollars each. Most are one-sixty acres. Some double that.”

  “Those two kids sure are explosive together. How much they’ve grown. Everything was beneath Talley the whole time she was here. She finally agreed to marry Toby and then bitched he was all she could find. Like she was so much better than the rest of us. I never thought she’d go over there and even stay or work that hard. She sure is such a different girl.”

  “He may be more horse than she thought she was marrying.”

  She frowned at him. “He is a
worker, and I think she caught the fever he has to get things done and likes seeing the results.”

  “Let’s get some sleep. Be a big day tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I am still tired from all the running around.”

  * * *

  Tuesday came. The auction was a big event. Folks came from near and far on wagons, buggies, horses, mules, and even bicycles. Chet and Liz in one buckboard. Val and Cole with Rocky drove a surrey over. Josey and Lisa came in another buckboard and two of Chet’s guards rode horseback just in case. They brought folding chairs, blankets, water and tea, plus sandwiches for an army, along with several bags of fresh peaches from Betty Lou and Leroy Simpson’s Oak Creek operation.

  Set up in the shade of a gnarled cottonwood, before the sale, Chet talked to Tanner about separating the money. It was done and they struck a fifty-fifty split in loaning a portion for land-backed mortgages at twelve percent interest. If he loaned the whole portion out, and folks paid their interest, Chet stood to earn thirty thousand a year. It would be nice, but nothing was perfect, and Chet took that into consideration.

  The auctioneers announced, at the start, that they would sell the land and buildings last. First were the household items and the women clamored, buying Alice’s personal items. Doilies, vases, the gold-edged dishes, chairs, tables, stuffed sofas, a grandfather clock that didn’t work, blankets, towels, and men’s long johns. They broke for lunch and two dogs got in such a hair-tearing fight that men took to slapping them with ax handles to make them quit. Finally the two were parted. Most of Lisa’s sandwiches were eaten by freeloaders too cheap to pay the Baptist Church ladies fifty cents for a hot lunch. The auctioneers were back and started selling cows five pair, or five open cows, to the lot.

  Miguel had the breed cows marked on his sheet.

  The auctioneer sold two pens that Chet never bid on. He asked Chet if he needed any.

  “Yes. I’ll give a hundred on the next pen.” He bought them for one-fifty.

  “How about these?”

  “Seventy-five.”

  They brought a hundred but there was an unbred cow in that pen. Chet was still in his budget.

  The next pen of five cows and calves sold for over two hundred and fifty.