"So it seems unlikely they'd use a rifle to shoot Oliver and then, only a short time later, show up to try for us with only handguns," said Kate, beginning to catch on.
"Sure makes you wonder," J.D. said.
"And their reason for coming after us at all was simply revenge for us interfering with them out on the trail?"
J.D. nodded. "Trying to get even is a powerful motivator, especially for men who have violent habits to begin with."
"But if not Hiram and his men, then who murdered my husband?" said Belle.
"Finding that out—along with running Hiram to ground for what he has done, and keeping you safe in the meantime," J.D. told her, "is the rest of the job we just signed on for."
Chapter 10
The next morning, right after sunup, J.D. rode out to the Bar OB ranch headquarters. Kate stayed behind in Elk City with Belle, to be on hand in case the Braedon offspring showed up before J.D. got back. They were coming to finalize funeral arrangements, that much was already established. But with a night for the fact to sink in that their father was permanently gone now, it wasn't impossible to think that the resentment they felt toward Belle could have taken deeper root, too, and the chips on their collective shoulders might lead to something less subdued and civil than the way they'd behaved when last seen.
As he rode through the crisp early air, putting the lodge and the town behind him as he passed into the flatter, grassier rangeland of the valley, J.D. reflected a bit on what he knew of the history of this place. How a man named Joel Estes, after striking it rich in the California gold fields, had come here with his wife and thirteen children and first saw the potential for raising cattle in the area. A dozen harsh winters, however, was enough to convince Estes that his wealth rated him an easier life so he moved on. But other, heartier souls, like Oliver Braedon, had taken his initial lead and stuck it out to make a go of what had become several thriving herds.
Somewhere along the way, an English duke or earl or some such—J.D. couldn't recall his exact name or title—had attempted to horn in and claim vast sections of the land for his own personal hunting preserve. It didn't take long for the ranchers and a handful of leftover rugged mountain men to send him packing, however. After that, the hunting lodge the Englishman had started to build was completed and expanded into the public lodge where Kate and J.D. were now staying, and soon the town of Elk City was spawned. So, in the end, the whole matter had yielded some positive results.
Nevertheless, looking around him at the mountains and peaks and stands of timber with the wide expanses of grasslands in between, J.D. could only shake his head at the pompous greed of anyone who would think they could ever claim and tame so much raw beauty for their very own. Pieces of it? Maybe. But even then only if and when Mother Nature was feeling charitable enough to go for stretches without reminding puny humans with even the noblest intentions who was the real boss of the land.
Moving on from those thoughts, J.D.'s mind next lingered on a bit of more recent, more personal, and far more pleasant history.
In the middle of the night, Kate had awakened him to resume the "honeymoon" friskiness they'd had interrupted earlier in the course of their picnic. One of the best parts of their union was the strong sexual appetite they shared and it had become almost a tradition for them—like a reaffirmation of living as counterpoint to having faced a hail of hot lead meant specifically to end life—that, following their participation in a gunfight, they would engage in a bout of fierce lovemaking.
Nevertheless, J.D.'s first reaction last night had been a momentary reluctance due to concern for the advisability, maybe even propriety, of pursuing such activity with Belle so relatively close beyond their bedroom door, asleep on a day bed in another part of the suite. But his passion for Kate was never very far from the boiling point so whenever she took on the role of aggressor, her conquest was all but assured right from the get-go. Plus, when it came right down to it, J.D.'s concerns about Belle's nearby presence hadn't really been all that great…
"Besides," Kate had whispered feverishly in his ear as her hands were busily, expertly manipulating his rapidly-hardening manhood, "it's not like she's never heard the sound of lovemaking coming from another room before."
It was then that J.D. realized the devilish side to what Kate was up to. Yes, there was their post-gunfight tradition to maintain and Kate's boldness when it came to sex hardly made this the first time she'd been the one to initiate a romp.
But adding spice to this particular occasion—for Kate, J.D. sensed, and maybe even a little for himself, too, if he was honest about it—was the very fact that Belle was close by. And if J.D.'s former lover happened to overhear the sounds of their passion, then she could take it as a friendly if non-too-subtle reminder from Kate that he is mine now.
Apart from the question of at least partial motive, which really took only a flicker of time in the course of things, the lovemaking Kate and J.D. had subsequently engaged in was intense and wholly satisfying. Seldom had the lush contours of Kate's splendid body felt silkier under his touch or the taste of her sweeter to his probing tongue. Never were her mewlings of pleasure more gratifying to his ear, urging him to thrust deeper and harder and longer until they both exploded in a shattering mutual climax.
Afterward, as they lay sweaty and spent in each other's arms, when he was able to catch his breath again, J.D. had muttered, "Okay. I gotta hand it to you...That wasn't such a bad idea after all."
* * *
In the daylight, the sprawl of the Bar OB ranch headquarters was even more impressive than what J.D. had been able to discern the night before. Still, amidst the collection of outbuildings and corrals and so forth, he had little trouble finding the bunkhouse and adjoining mess hall. Even through the smell of cattle and their inevitable byproduct, the aroma of strong coffee wafting in the air helped to guide him.
Although he well knew that the working day for ranch hands started ungodly early, J.D. was nevertheless hoping he'd find a lingerer or two somewhere around the mess hall. As it turned out, he was right. And, in an even bigger stroke of luck, one of the men he found was none other than the very hombre he was looking for.
When J.D. entered the smoky, low-ceilinged structure through an open doorway, sitting right there at a long, rough-hewn table with a stubby, apron-clad individual whom J.D. took to be the cook, was Sam Ruckner in the act of raising a cup of coffee to his mustache fringed mouth.
"Mornin', Sam," J.D. greeted, flashing an easy grin. "I really hate to interrupt a fella who's concentrating so mightily on hard, gut-bustin' labor, but I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time."
If Ruckner was surprised to see J.D., he didn't let it show. He simply went ahead and finished taking a drink of his coffee.
The cook, on the other hand, got a big kick out of J.D.'s words. He was a moon-faced specimen with shaggy sideburns poking out from under a derby hat and a soggy, half-chewed, unlighted cigar planted in one corner of his mouth. J.D. was willing to bet that the derby, cigar, and apron constituted a uniform of sorts that was as much a part of the man as his skin.
"I don't rightly know who this big fella is," the cook chuckled, "but he's dang sure got you pegged, Sam. He dang sure does."
"Save the commentary, Porkchop," Ruckner grumbled in return. "If you must know, this gent is the famous gunfighter J.D. Blaze...J.D., this overstuffed tablemate of mine is the infamous—leastways that's what he should be, considering how many innocent men he's poisoned over the years with his cooking—Porkchop Myers."
Porkchop tipped the brim of his derby. "Pleased to meet ya. Heard you shot up the town pretty good last night."
"Little matter of self defense. Some misguided jaspers laid an ambush for my wife and me. We had to convince 'em it was a bad idea."
"Yeah, heard that part, too. A gun-totin' female—what'll they think of next?" Porkchop gestured toward the empty bench on the other side of the table from him and Ruckner, adding, "Have a seat, take a load off."
"You up for some of the worst coffee in the world?" Ruckner asked.
As J.D. lowered himself onto the bench, he answered, "Be obliged. Been catching whiffs of it ever since I got onto the property."
Ruckner grunted. "Well, if that wasn't enough to scare you off then maybe you're a brave enough soul to actually survive a cup...Porkchop, get off that lard ass of yours and show our visitor some hospitality."
"He's your visitor, not mine," Porkchop shot back, but he nevertheless rose up and returned in a minute with a steaming cup that he placed in front of J.D. Next to it, he set a plate containing half a dozen biscuits. "Those are left over from breakfast, if you'd care for a couple."
Last night, after things finally settled down, before going to bed J.D. had raided the lodge's kitchen and from there foraged a roast beef sandwich, a large wedge of tangy cheese, and a bowl of apple slices as means to quell the hunger pangs he was suffering. That had gotten him through the night. But he'd ridden out before breakfast this morning and hadn't been on the trail for very long before his stomach grumbled a stern warning against a repeat performance of attempting to run on empty again for any length of time.
So not only were the biscuits a welcome offer but, when the first bite proved to be fluffy and wonderfully delicious, it was almost too good to be true. Reality hit with a resounding thud only a moment later, however, when a follow-up sip of coffee turned out to be every bit as vile as Ruckner had prophesied. J.D. was thunderstruck by the contrast between the two—how could the same pair of hands that had made such terrific biscuits then produce such awful brew?
Ruckner waited to have a good laugh at the expression on J.D.'s face and then explained the puzzle. "The biscuits got sent down by Maria, the cook at the main house. She made them last night for a certain dinner that never took place, didn't want to see 'em go to waste...The coffee, unfortunately, is strictly the handiwork of Porkchop here."
"Hey," Porkchop protested, "if I had a big, fancy stove and oven and all the hotsy-totsy cooking utensils like Maria does, I could turn out better grub, too. Not that it matters to most of the chow hounds around here. All they need is something to fill their bellies with a lump that'll last to the next meal, and they're satisfied. It ain't like they would appreciate gourmet food if I did serve it." He pronounced "gourmet" like "gor-met".
"Well, it's highly doubtful we'll ever know the true answer to that," said Ruckner with a skeptical arch to his brows, "because the day anything close to resembling gourmet food comes off that corncob-burner stove of yours is the day Hell will have frozen over and we'll all be nothing but slabs of ice."
J.D. reached for a second biscuit, deciding this time he'd keep from ruining it by holding off on taking another drink of coffee. "If you fellas ever get tired of slingin' insults back and forth," he said around a mouthful of fluffy goodness, "I'd still like to squeeze in a couple minutes of your time, Sam."
"Sure, sure, J.D.," Ruckner said. "I was allowed to bunk in a little extra this morning because I didn't get back until late after driving Mrs. Braedon and the boss's body into town. The bad thing about that, though, is that I woke up to no company except this damned old bacon burner and his usual cantankerous attitude. Be glad as hell for somebody else to talk to."
"I'll remember that," Porkchop responded. "Next time you ain't here when grub is served and you still want something to eat when you do show up, I'll remind you that meals are served at certain times and then I'll leave you go hungry."
"No, you won't," said Ruckner, rising to his feet. "Because that would be too much like doing me a favor and you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if your sorry ass ever did that for anybody."
Porkchop's round face took on an expression somewhere between a scowl and a look of bemusement. "You might have a point there...Damn, I hate it when you're right."
"Come on, J.D., let's talk outside," Ruckner said, motioning. "Grab yourself another couple of those biscuits if you want."
* * *
"So you're sure it was rifle shots you heard?"
"No doubt about it," Ruckner answered.
"And right around here is where the boy saw the haze of gunsmoke hanging in the air?"
"Uh-huh."
J.D. and Ruckner were standing on the back side of a small corral located near the north edge of the ranch headquarters layout. A carriage barn was about a hundred yards off to their left and sixty or so yards to their right was the main house. Behind them, the cleared land abruptly ended and fell off in a rock-strewn slope choked with underbrush and stunted trees. At the bottom of the slope, a shallow gully or dry wash twisted away crookedly in either direction.
"Did the sheriff or anybody examine this area very closely after the shooting?" J.D. asked.
Ruckner shook his head. "Not to speak of. I mean, those of us who came running at the sound of the shots were more interested in looking after Boss Braedon. I guess a couple of the fellas came over this way to make sure the shooter still wasn't lurking around, but that was about it."
"Nobody heard the sound of a horse riding off or anything?"
"Nope. Had that been the case, you can bet some of us would have been tearing after it."
J.D. got down on one knee and ran his fingers through the grass. "The sheriff told Mrs. Braedon the angle of the bullets that hit Oliver matched with coming from over here. So he must have poked around a little."
"Yeah, I guess I did hear something about that," Ruckner allowed. "I was heading out to bring that note to you and your wife about the time the sheriff showed up, so I can't say for sure what all he done. But it was getting onto dark by then, so conditions for seeing to poke around wouldn't have been the best."
"Which may be why," J.D. said, plucking a small shiny object out of the grass, "he didn't spot this."
Ruckner leaned in and scowled at the spent shell casing that J.D. held up. ".40 caliber. From a Henry repeater," he declared.
"Uh-huh," J.D. agreed.
"So it was a rifle that was shot from here, just like everybody's been saying. Don't see where that gains you anything."
J.D. grinned. "Verification. Satisfaction, my friend." He dropped the shell casing in his shirt pocket, then asked, "I suppose there's no shortage of Henry repeaters amongst the ranch hands hereabouts?"
"Not so's you could notice. Most of the boys will pack a long gun, in case of running into bigger varmints, when they ride out into the brush. Some favor a Winchester, some a Henry. Probably 'bout an equal mix."
While J.D. was digesting this, movement over by the house caught the eye of each man. They turned their heads to watch a woman emerge from the rear of the house carrying a basket of laundry. By her copper skin and long, flowing black hair, J.D. judged her to be of either Spanish or Indian blood. She was no longer young but her bold- featured, unlined face made her exact age hard to judge—it could have been thirty, it could have been forty. The long skirt and off-the-shoulders peasant blouse she wore showed a somewhat thickened waist yet a form that was still attractively curvaceous, made especially so by a pair of proudly thrusting breasts. When she bent over to set the basket down, the front of her blouse sagged open to reveal a very generous amount of cleavage.
"Quite a handsome woman," J.D. muttered.
"You ain't wrong there, son," agreed Ruckner. "But you should have seen her twenty-some years ago when she first came to this valley. One look at her sucked every ounce of breath out of your body and made you want to drop to your knees right on the spot and give thanks to the Man Upstairs for creating something so fine, even if all you ever got to do was only look."
J.D. cut him a sidelong glance. "And for all these years that's all you've ever done...just look?"
Ruckner sighed. "Afraid so. You see, Maria came here—Maria, that's her name, by the way—as the bride of my friend Alfredo Sandimez. 'Fredo, Porkchop, and me were the first wranglers to hire on for the Bar OB. 'Fredo became the first ramrod for the outfit. Until he got killed in that damn freak horse fall. By then, hi
m and Maria had a son. Anyway, after 'Fredo was gone, it fell to the rest of us to sort of look out for Maria and the boy, Jorge. Before long, Boss Braedon took her on as a housekeeper and cook to help Dorothy, the first Mrs. Braedon, who was in frail health and always suffering from one ailment or other. With Dorothy's ailments and four young kids to raise up and all, having Maria on board worked out good for everybody.
"In the last few years before Dorothy passed, even though the kids were fairly grown by then, Dorothy kept getting sicker and sicker. So Maria stayed on. And then even after Dorothy was gone. Her and Jorge have become sort of fixtures around here, almost like part of the family, I guess you could say."
"Almost, but not quite," J.D. amended. "And all the while you've pined over her, but never made your move."
Ruckner shrugged again. "Reckon that's the size of it. The time just never seemed right...Plus, I never could shake the feeling that, even though he was dead, I'd somehow be betrayin' my old pal 'Fredo."
After setting down her basket, Maria had paused to regard the two men who were watching her. Somewhat abruptly, without hanging any of the clothes on the line that was stretched between two tall posts, she turned away and went back into the house.
"Guess she's kinda shy," J.D. observed.
"Yeah, she's like that."
"I suppose us standing here gawping like a couple of rutting coyotes wasn't smart, either. Probably be enough to unnerve any woman." J.D. jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Come on. I want to have a look down in that gully, see if I can spot any sign of where a horse might have been tied or passed in and out of there recently. Then I'll get out of your hair and leave you to your work."
"Okay. But, before you light out, I want to hear some first-hand details on that horse barn shootout. The sheriff and his deputy clamped themselves around you so tight last night that I couldn't get close enough to talk to you at all."
Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels Page 24
