“Fine. You’re talking about us owning lots of ground in one big patch and really tying all that country up? From where Hoot has the ranch to clear past the Underground Ranch place on the west? And that would join the Erickson place up, too. Long will love it.”
“You’ll own it in a week.”
They shook hands.
His other land agent only had some disconnected home places and the price on them had gone up with the expectations of a land boom being talked about, so he didn’t make any deals there. He gathered the two cowboys and they went to Clare’s Café for lunch. Things were quiet in town, he was happy to notice. All the signs were taken down, but moving around, Harp still felt some tension in the air.
“Well, the H Bar H bunch is back. I’ve been missing you guys,” Harriet, the ample-butted waitress in her white uniform, said, then licking the lead pencil she used to write their food orders on her pad. “Meat loaf is the special today.”
“Three specials, three coffees, and three pieces of pecan pie,” Harp ordered.
“All right, guys, it will be coming up shortly.”
“Learn much today?” Tyrone asked.
“Quite a bit. We may have us a real ranch coming. But it needs to be kept quiet until we make the deal.”
Jim said, “Sounds good, boss man. You are going to need some new head drovers. Me and Tyrone want to apply for those jobs. We learned a lot last year and figure with good help we can get them up there.”
“Boys, good help may be damn hard to find. I agree you both can be candidates, but I want Long here when we decide. I will put you both down.”
Around that time, he heard a man say aloud to his tablemates, “I see they let anybody in this gawdamn place. They even let boy killers eat here.”
Harp stopped Jim from saying anything or getting up. Under his breath, he said, “He ain’t worth anything. Stay put. Eat like nothing’s happened.”
The loud mouth went on, “Aw, hell, they think anyone can shoot a damn kid.”
Harp and his men finished lunch and their pies. Quietly he said, “Start for the door. When you get there, hold it open for me.”
Both men looked at him to explain. He whispered, “No matter what happens go outside, hold that door open, and stay there.”
They went for the door and Harp stood, leaving a tip on the table.
Headed for the door, Harp caught the loud mouth by his shirt collar, jerked him up, drew the man’s gun, discarded it, and with his belt also in Harp’s grip rushed him, cussing a blue streak, out the door that his men held open. The charge carried the guy outside and tossed him on the ground past the boardwalk.
He struggled to get up, but Harp had his finger in his face. “Listen, if you don’t shut your mouth about this matter, you will need a new face to wear, because I am bashing in the one you have. Now do you hear me?”
“I-I—” the man stammered, red faced.
“Yes, coming in a place, cussing at me, will get you killed and make the world a better place without you. Now don’t forget what I said.”
“Yeah—yeah.”
“I mean it. That boy died with his killer friends. I considered him one of them or he’d be alive today.”
The man still on the ground was sitting up wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “All right.”
“That’s better. Now, let’s go to the ranch,” he said to his own men.
On the way home, Jim was laughing. “Boy that was fast action, Harp. He never knew what came at him.”
“I thought he was drunk and not able to move fast enough. But he is sober now.”
“Damn sure sober now.” All three laughed.
“He’s lucky, boys, that it was me and not Long that did that. He’d been missing teeth instead of brushing the dust off his butt.”
“Is Long coming back?”
“He better or I’ll haunt him. He said he’ll be back here by Christmas. That’s what he told me when he rode off.”
“What’cha figure he went looking for?”
“I’m not sure. But he and I have worked pretty hard since we were boys at ranching and being rangers watching for Comanche. I think he wanted to see new places and new people. We also made two large cattle drives in that time, and he wanted to be away from it all for a time.”
“Folks thought him and that captain’s wife were once close?” Tyrone asked.
“He said it didn’t work out. No telling but I could sure use him around here. Oh, well, I can handle it till he gets back.”
They unhitched their horses, stepped in their saddles, and rode home. At the ranch they took his horse to put up, and he thanked the men for going along.
His dad came out on the porch where he washed up in the waning light of the day.
“How did it go today?”
“The State of Texas really needs money. Tommy Snyder found out that they are selling rangeland to adjoining landowners for two dollars an acre.
“He thinks we can tie up all that land over there. Twenty sections for twenty-seven thousand dollars. Land that ties into the Erickson Ranch, which is ten sections, and Grass Valley where Hoot is at.”
“You serious?”
Harp nodded. “That would make one helluva ranch wouldn’t it?”
“It sure would for that price.”
“He’s going to Austin to cinch the deal for us. He wants it quiet until he gets it stamped as rangeland down there.”
“I still can’t believe that those guys griped about you taking unbranded cattle. After this they may really hate you as the landowner next to them.”
“You two staying out here in the cold all night?” Katy asked from the door.
“No, ma’am, we’re coming.”
They stormed in. He hugged and kissed her.
“You look unscathed.” She set his full plate of food in front of him.
“I am. Had a good day.”
“We have the wedding all set up for Saturday.” Katy sat down beside him and hugged his shoulder.
“That should make them happy.”
“Oh, they are. What else?”
“I told Dad. Tommy found a crack in the state of Texas’s land sale. Adjoining landowners can buy rangeland for two dollars an acre.”
“And?”
“Start at Grass Valley go west of the Underground House and tuck in the Erickson Ranch and we will own a large continuous block of land.”
“Is it all rangeland?” she asked.
“It will be if so designated.”
“Boy, I am impressed. Your brother will like it won’t he?”
“He don’t, he can lump it.” They both laughed.
“He will like it and be impressed,” his father said quietly.
“You two make my head swim,” Easter said. “I can’t keep up with all these land deals.”
“I better get Reg to count it. Make sure we have the money. We don’t have this last purchase yet, but Tommy is going to wire me when he has it done.”
“Your dad told you two that money really counted in this economy, and you two have done a real job with it if this works,” Katy said.
“We’ll know in a week or ten days.”
He went to bed with his wife almost too keyed up to sleep.
CHAPTER 36
The next day Reg was busy working on the books when Harp walked in.
“I need a count of the sections we own now.”
“Oh, I’d saw that it was over two sections and if you add Erickson’s ten, then it’s twelve. Why?”
Harp put his finger to his mouth to shush him. “I am looking at twenty more.”
“Wow. I won’t tell anyone.”
“I think Texas needs money and they may have some fire sales.”
“Katy calls you land barons.” He laughed.
“It is all in a block with the current land we own.”
“When will we know?”
“In two weeks.”
Reg wheeled his chair around in a circle laughing. Back aro
und he was still laughing. “You guys are sure making bells ring. Nice to be working for you.”
“I hope it works.”
Red came back from Diamond, said Doug figured he’d make it, and he could now resume his role as foreman here at the home place. Chadron Turner became his jingle bob foreman. Everyone got ready for the big crowd coming to Chaw’s wedding to Calamity.
Things were settling down. They almost had the consignment herd signed up with cattle and it was only November. That made Harp think about a second consignment herd. He rode over and talked to Doug one morning.
He found him working on books. “You ever think you need a bookkeeper, get one.”
“Is there enough money in this game to do that?”
“Sure.”
“Well, you are the boss.” Doug put down his pen and closed the book. “What else is happening?”
“We have the consignment herd about full here and it’s only mid-November. I think we may need another one.”
“Four herds?” Doug shook his head in amazement.
“Yes, two thousand is enough in one herd. We were lucky with that three thousand but it was too many at the big river crossings.”
“That’s for sure. Can you man it?”
“I know I’ve got you and Chaw into jobs as foremen and you both will be needed here. But if two dumb boys made it to Sedalia, I can surely find some leaders for that many herds.”
Doug chuckled and agreed.
“Really. How is this job going?” Harp asked.
“Very well for me. I like the vaqueros. They will almost do anything for you. They are all good hands. I think we have made many repairs to the operation. Finding bulls has been a chore, but I am replacing the longhorn crosses with Shorthorns and Herefords.”
“And you haven’t found a woman yet?”
Doug smiled. “I have some prospects.”
“I hope you do find one. Katy and Lee are the center of my life.”
“If you had not taken a chance on me on that drive, I’d still be bumming around. There is no end to the unemployed cowboys that come by here looking for work.”
“Same at our house, but I don’t see many I’d keep.”
Doug agreed. “Kiss Katy and tell her I miss her.”
After he left Doug he rode into town for the mail. While at the post office, getting everyone’s mail, three ranchers asked if he had room for more cattle to take to Kansas.
“Give me ten days,” he told each of them, mentally adding their numbers and found it came to over three hundred head. “I’m thinking of forming a new herd. Check back in ten days.”
Johnny Crabbe, a man with silver temples and a longtime friend of his father’s, nodded at his words. “I sure hope so. You two O’Malley boys have a real record of success in that business. Tell Hiram I said hi.”
“Oh, I will. And I think I can manage another herd.”
“Did I hear you say you had another herd forming?”
He looked up at the woman’s voice. It was Anna Greg. Her perfume was in his nose. She looked very nice in black—still.
“How are you?” he asked, feeling as if he was the young cowboy coming to ask for her husband. He shifted the mail to under his other arm and took off his hat.
“Fine. How are you, Harper?”
“Very well, ma’am. How are the children?”
“They are fine. I was being nosey. I heard you tell the last gentleman you might form another herd to take to Kansas.”
Why did she unnerve him so much with her presence?
“If you need cattle taken anywhere, Anna, I will take them for you.”
“I know you are very busy.”
“Tell me the numbers you have, and they will get to market. New consignment herd or not.”
“Maybe you could come by and look at my cattle when you have time. Then you will know what I should sell.”
He nodded numbly. “When is it convenient?”
She shrugged. “On Thursday?”
“Sure.”
“Plan to eat lunch. I will have it ready. So nice to see you again, Harper.”
What was it that was so alluring about her? It had been a long time since he’d seen her. He felt like she had some power over him simply by talking to him. Why didn’t her and Long ever make it together? He might never know, but he better figure out what it was she really wanted from him. Check and count her steers? That sounded vague. Why? What? He’d find out on Thursday.
He rode on home, gave the cowboy mail to Ira, left his horse with Holy Wars, and went on up to the house. Katy greeted him with a kiss on the back porch in the cool wind.
“Have a good trip?”
“Doug is doing fine. The town is quiet. I have more consigned cattle and may form a fourth herd. Oh, I saw Anna Greg in the post office. She has cattle that need to go to Kansas. I told her I’d go over and look at them and we’d fit them in even if I can’t get another herd.”
“How was she?”
“Still wearing black.”
“Hmm, well, she turned down your brother. Guess she still misses her husband.”
“Darling, I have no idea. But I will take her stock to Abilene.”
“Oh, I would expect you to. Have you had lunch?”
“No, I got the mail and came on home.”
“I can fix you something.”
He thanked her. Why was Anna still on his mind? No telling.
Late afternoon Kate woke him from a nap. She had a yellow piece of paper. “I think you will want to read this. It’s from your land lawyer.”
He sat up and looked hard to focus on the wire.
HARPER O MALLEY THAT LAND HAS BEEN DESIGNATED AS RANGE STOP I LOOKED AT THIRTY UNITS STOP TELL ME HOW MANY BY WIRE STOP TOMMY SNYDER
He was talking forty thousand dollars. Damn you, Long O’Malley. Why aren’t you here right now when I need you? If he bought it they’d need to borrow money to make four herd drives. This was the deal of a lifetime. Hell, yes.
“The boy is waiting in the living room for your reply. Is it good?”
“Yes. Wonderful. I will go in and tell him yes.”
“Then Tommy made the connection?”
“That and more. Wow.”
He quickly wrote a reply.
Tommy Snyder Austin Texas. Stop. Yes make the deal. Stop. Give me all details and if I need to come down there with the money. Stop. Harper O’Malley
“What does that mean?” she whispered.
“He lined up thirty sections designated as rangeland.”
Her brown eyes flew open. “Thirty?”
He nodded, then dug into his pocket for money. “Young man, here is a dollar for you bringing this to me and two more to send my reply.”
“Wow. No one ever paid me that much. Thank you, sir.”
“Now get back to town and wire mine back to him.”
“Thanks, Mr. O’Malley. I will do that promptly.”
Katy laughed as he fled the house.
“Good news?” Easter asked, coming from the kitchen, stirring a bowl in her hand.
Harp made sure they were alone in the house. “Tommy got thirty sections declared as rangeland.”
She dropped her shoulders. “You are buying it all?”
“Yes. Don’t feed that bowl to the chickens, Mom.”
“I almost did that very thing.”
All three were laughing as she set it on the dining table.
“What’s happening?” Reg asked, wheeling in the room in his wheelchair.
“Harp just bought the rest of Texas,” Katy said.
“Wonderful. How much?”
“Thirty sections,” Harp told him.
“That is lots of land.”
“What will you call the place?” his mother asked.
“Probably New Hell,” Harp said, and laughed.
“Speaking of that, you remember that Chaw’s wedding is all set for Saturday,” Katy told him.
“You need me for anything? If not, I may go check on the
cattle Anna wants to sell tomorrow.”
“We are baking lots of cake . . . I can’t go,” Katy said.
“I won’t take all day. Are we going to have enough seating?”
“We are borrowing benches that we will need. They will go back to several churches after the wedding. Red has told the hands that they have to return them after the reception.”
“You ladies are handling it well.”
“How much needs to be done to their house over there?” Katy asked.
“Those two are going somewhere after their wedding. We can take a crew, paint, and mop buckets over on Monday and spruce it up some.”
“Will you need to go to Austin to settle the land deal?” Katy asked.
“I don’t know yet. I asked in my wire to him.”
“Do you feel good about it all?”
He hugged and swung her around. “Yes, I am excited. We bought Erickson’s for a song and forty dollars a month. The old man figures that money each month will feed and cover his needs. That was all he wanted. I doubt he’ll live for ten years more and he has no kin. We will look after him if he gets disabled.”
Katy shook her head. “You do some wild deals I’ve never heard of, but you paid the old man some attention and he appreciates that more than all the thinking about selling a place and re-finding him a place.”
“And we moved him.”
“Yes, you did. Your brother is missing a lot isn’t he?”
“He is indeed.”
“He won’t know half of what you’ve done when he comes home, will he?”
“No, but I am on the same path as we were before. Building a big ranch.”
His mother piped in, “You really are doing that.”
He thought so, too.
* * *
He left after an early breakfast. Why did he have a guilty feeling about going to see Anna Greg? She was just another woman. His ex-boss’s wife. A woman he met almost two years earlier when he was on the payroll as a herd driver. He’d gone to find Greg and tell him he’d fired the cook.
He recalled her standing on the porch that day in an ironed starched dress. The captain’s lady was her rank back then. He’d always figured she had earned that respect being Greg’s wife. But there was some strain talking to her in the post office, and why did he feel that she wanted more than for him to look at cattle she wanted to sell?
The O'Malleys of Texas Page 29
