Badlanders

by David Robbins

  Isolda had seen the sun rise before. But she had nothing else to do, so she humored him and shifted.

  Jericho was following behind, and touched a finger to his hat brim.

  Isolda nodded, even though she resented his being there. Or, rather, she resented that her father had made him come along. She gazed past him at the horizon, and received a surprise. Stumpy was right. The sunrise was spectacular. The sun seemed larger somehow. It reminded her of nothing so much as a great circular furnace, shimmering with molten fires, suspended on edge. From it radiated bands of red, orange, and yellow. She had never seen a sunrise so dazzling. By some freak effect of the atmosphere, she had the illusion she could reach out and touch it. “It truly is wonderful.”

  “Told you, ma’am,” Stumpy crowed. “The sunsets can be just as pretty, but I’m partial to sunrise myself. It makes me start off the day in a good mood.”

  “I’ve never enjoyed nature as much as my sister does, but I agree with you about your sunrises.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  After that, not a word out of him. Isolda had the sense that as friendly as Stumpy had been, he wasn’t entirely comfortable around her. Or perhaps he wasn’t comfortable around females, period.

  Neal Bonner had told Edana not to be offended if the hands acted shy around them. Cowboys, by and large, held a high respect for womanhood but were so unaccustomed to their company that when circumstances conspired to throw them together, the average cowboy’s tongue became tied in knots.

  Isolda thought that was silly.

  It was bad enough, in her estimation, that a lot of men put women on pedestals. Churchgoing ladies and married ladies in particular. But then don a woman in a tight dress and have her prance around a saloon, and suddenly she wasn’t deserving of a pedestal anymore.

  Isolda had always thought that was hypocritical. As far as she was concerned, she shouldn’t be treated any differently than a man treated another man. That Stumpy plainly did brought her old peeve to the surface. Just once she’d like a man to regard her as just another person. As no better, or worse, than he was.

  For now she put it from her mind and gave some regard to the scenery. In the spreading glow of the new dawn, the Badlands acquired a rosy tint that made them less stark, less foreboding. The colors in the rock strata stood out, and many cliffs and buttes were golden with reflected light.

  After about an hour, the charm of the landscape wore off. The sun was all the way up and the temperature climbed.

  Isolda wasn’t looking forward to two more hours of just sitting there doing nothing. Turning to Stumpy, she asked, “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “All this time on our hands, we should make conversation. Pick a subject and we’ll talk about it.”

  Stumpy shifted uncomfortably. “The only things I know much about, Miss Jessup, are horses and cows. How about you pick which it should be?”

  “Neither,” Isolda said. “I have no interest in horses and even less in cows.” She had an idea. “I know. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “Me, ma’am?”

  “Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Do you have family? Those sorts of things.”

  “Well, let’s see. I was born in Illinois but my pa moved all of us to what’s now called Wyomin’ Territory when I was a sprout. Ma and him died a few years back. He went first and she didn’t want to live anymore and went soon after. I’ve got a sister in Colorado, but I don’t see her much.” Stumpy shrugged. “That’s all there is to me, I reckon.”

  “Well, that was entertaining,” Isolda said.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I was hoping there was more to you.” Isolda glanced over her shoulder. “I know, I’ll ask Mr. Jericho.”

  “I’d think twice about that, ma’am. He won’t take kindly to you pryin’ into his personal life.”

  “Oh, really?” Isolda said, and raising her arm to get her bodyguard’s attention, she called out, “Mr. Jericho! If you would be so kind, come up here and join us. I have some questions to ask you.”

  “Oh Lordy,” Stumpy said.

  16

  Solomon Corinthians Jericho was born to a deeply religious woman on a cold and blustery winter’s morning in North Carolina. Esther Jericho loved her Bible. She never went anywhere without it. She attended church not once but three times a week, and sang in the choir. She was devoted to the Lord, and to Scripture. So when her first child came into the world, she showed her devotion by naming him after her favorite person from the Old Testament and her favorite book from the New.

  Her husband, Abe, didn’t mind. He wasn’t as religious himself. He only went to church because she made him. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe. He’d just rather be off hunting or fishing or just about be doing anything other than listen to a sermon.

  Solomon didn’t mind his name, although he didn’t like that a lot of the kids called him “Sol” for short. It sounded too much like “Sal,” which was short for Sally, and a girl’s name besides.

  Then he turned fourteen, and something happened that not only changed his name forever after, but changed his life, as well.

  Sol had been raised to treat everyone fairly and decently, to do unto others as he’d like them to do to him. He never bullied anyone and didn’t like it when others did.

  He didn’t like liars and cheats, either. His mother was always reminding him to be a good boy, and he took that to heart.

  He got into trouble a few times when he saw someone being picked on and stuck up for them. Tempers flared, and tempers often led to blows. His mother always sat him down afterward and explained how he must turn the other cheek. Solomon tried. He honestly tried. But by the age of twelve he knew he wasn’t a cheek turner. It just wasn’t in him.

  Then came his fourteenth year and he took the family wagon into town. A neighbor boy he knew was being picked on by several young men, strangers who were passing through, and who’d had a lot to drink. Sol tried his mother’s way. He tried to get the boy away from them without violence, but one of the men started pushing him and calling him names, and when he couldn’t take it anymore and slugged him, the man pulled a knife.

  All three strangers jumped him, and it was plain to Sol that they aimed to kill him if they could. But he was strong for his age, and quick. Everyone was always saying how quick he was. He broke one’s nose and smashed another’s teeth, and then he and the last boy scuffled and somehow the boy stabbed himself with his own knife, cried out, and died.

  Solomon panicked. The sheriff in those parts liked to boast that there hadn’t been a killer he hadn’t had hanged. Solomon didn’t want to hang. So he ran.

  Looking back years later, he regretted being so rash. It had been self-defense. A jury might have let him off. But he didn’t know that then, and he fled all the way to New Orleans by taking a job hauling for a freighting outfit. He didn’t stay in New Orleans long. The city was too big for his tastes, and too refined. He had little in common with all the fancy folk with their elegant clothes and carriages, and even less with the river rats who swarmed the docks. He was a plain country boy, and he drifted in search of a place where he’d feel more at home.

  It took him a while. Three years of roaming. But he found the heaven he was looking for.

  They called it “Texas.”

  Solomon took to the Lone Star State like a duck to water. Most of the people were down-to-earth, and he liked that. They were friendly, and he liked that. And they didn’t pry into what others had done in the past, and he especially liked that.

  Out of worry there still might be a warrant out for his arrest, he changed his name by dropping Solomon and Corinthians and calling himself Jericho. When anyone asked if that was his first or his last, he always told them it was his only and let it go at that.

  Jericho took a job at a ranch. It was
his introduction to cattle and to six-shooters. He bought his first Colt the day he turned eighteen, never suspecting that less than a month later, he’d kill two men with it.

  His employer was squabbling with another rancher over water rights. The other rancher had a bigger spread, and more hands, and two of them were toughs who reminded Jericho of those bullies from his younger days.

  On a sunny summer morning, Jericho went into Jeffersonville with his boss to pick up supplies. Mr. Hamilton—that was his boss’s name—told him to wait with the wagon while he went down the street. As Hamilton passed the saloon, who should stroll out but the two toughs, and they were on the prod. They insulted Hamilton and dared him to go for his six-gun, but he refused. Hamilton was no gun hand, and he was pushing fifty, besides. One of them knocked him down.

  That was when Jericho stepped in. He’d felt oddly calm. He didn’t shout or curse or do any of the usual things men did when they were about to come to blows. He walked up and told them to light a shuck, or else.

  They picked the “or else.”

  Jericho relived that moment many times over the days and years ahead. He’d been practicing with his Colt to where he could draw and hit a bottle at ten paces about eight times out of ten. The toughs were closer than ten paces. They clawed for their hardware and he drew and shot both in the chest before either cleared leather. He was as surprised as Mr. Hamilton and the other onlookers at how quick he was.

  That was the day his life changed. He was no longer just a cowboy. He was a gun shark, a quick-trigger man, a killer. Men talked about him. They pointed at him, and whispered.

  Jericho hadn’t wanted it, but there it was. He heard that the other rancher was bringing in someone to deal with him, and he practiced harder with his Colt, every spare moment he had, until he could hit bottles ten times out of ten.

  Over six weeks went by, and just when Jericho figured the rumors were false, he was in Jeffersonville one afternoon with several punchers and a man came down the street and loudly proclaimed that his name was Luke Spicer, and he was there to kill him.

  Jericho was amazed at how open and loud the man was about it. Later, he learned that this Spicer was a bad man who hired his gun out and had killed a lot of others. Spicer always made it a point to provoke the other man into going for his six-shooter first. He tried it with Jericho, but Jericho never let name-calling anger him. That he didn’t rise to Spicer’s insults made Spicer mad, and easier for Jericho to return the favor. Jericho told Spicer that he heard a cur yapping somewhere, and Spicer glowered. Jericho sniffed a few times and asked Spicer if there was an outhouse nearby or was it him, and Spicer turned red. Then Jericho asked if Spicer’s ma was proud of giving birth to such a miserable son of a bitch, and Spicer went for his pearl-handled, nickel-plated Colt.

  Jericho’s hand flashed and his own Colt boomed and bucked, and Luke Spicer ended up spread-eagle in the street with a hole between his eyes. The pearl-handled Colt had fallen at Spicer’s feet, and Jericho went over and helped himself to it. He felt he was entitled.

  The shooting had some unforeseen consequences. He went from being whispered about to being practically famous. Texans took their shootists seriously. Killers were talked about as much as the weather.

  The second consequence was that the sheriff looked him up to tell him that no, the sheriff wasn’t going to arrest him, and yes, the sheriff knew that Luke Spicer had come looking for trouble, and Jericho might like to know that as contemptible as Spicer was, Spicer had a few equally contemptible friends who might come looking for Jericho, and the sheriff would take it kindly if Jericho wasn’t in his jurisdiction when they caught up to him.

  Jericho would have stuck for Mr. Hamilton’s sake, but the rancher sat him down and told him that things were getting out of hand, and Mrs. Hamilton was worried they would escalate even more. The both agreed it might be best if Jericho moved on.

  Jericho did. His next years were spent drifting. He mostly worked cattle. Once he briefly hired on as a deputy with a friendly marshal who got blown to hell by buckshot when they went to arrest a man accused of horse stealing. The marshal had no chance. The man came to his door loaded for bear, or lawmen, as the case was, and at the marshal’s knock, threw the door wide and cut loose. The marshal took a barrel full in the chest. Then the horse thief swung on Jericho, but Jericho already had his Colt out and put two slugs through the man’s heart. That was it for law work.

  The incident was written up in the local newspaper, and his reputation grew. It got so he rarely mentioned his name so he wouldn’t be recognized.

  It was strange how life worked out sometimes. Growing up back in the hills, he’d never have imagined that one day he’d be regarded as a killer of other men. His ma would be horrified if she knew. She’d raised him to be better than that. Some nights, when he lay thinking of her, it filled him with shame. But he always shrugged it off. A man did what he had to, and had no more control over his fate than he did over the weather.

  Jericho was drifting again when he stopped in Benton City. He’d reckoned to play some poker, have a drink or two, and turn in. A nice, quiet night. Then Lindsey accused someone of cheating who wasn’t, and tried to back-shoot him. He’d had his head half-turned and was watching the no-account out of the corner of his eye when Lindsey made his play. It surprised him when the big cowboy shouted a warning. He’d gone over to shake the cowpoke’s hand, and now it was seven years later and they were still together.

  Pards for life was how Jericho like to think of it. Or until a filly came along to sweep one or the other away.

  Jericho could tell Edana Jessup was interested in Neal almost from the moment he’d met her. It showed in her eyes. She probably wasn’t even aware that she gave it away.

  Jericho could also tell that Neal liked her. Liked her more than any women they’d come across. He had to face the fact that, even though they’d only just met, it could be that Edana was the one for his pard. Time would tell.

  As for the other sister, Jericho hadn’t cottoned to her. She had cold eyes, aloof eyes, eyes that said she looked down her nose at most of the world and everyone in it. Jericho would as soon have nothing to do with her. But his pard, Neal, wanted him to watch over her, so here he was, escorting the buckboard into Whiskey Flats when he’d rather be at the Diamond B.

  Jericho didn’t pay much attention to the talk she was having with Stumpy. Just so much chatter, as far as he was concerned. Then she twisted in the seat and beckoned, saying she had some questions to ask, so he gigged his zebra dun alongside the buckboard. “Ma’am?”

  Isolda had that looking-down-her-nose look. “I want to ask you a few questions,” she said again.

  “About what, ma’am?”

  “You.”

  Jericho looked at Stumpy.

  “It’s not my doin’,” the older hand said.

  “Call it womanly curiosity,” Isolda said. “Plus, I’m bored. But I’d like to hear all about you. Where you grew up. How you ended up a shootist, or whatever it is they call you. Everything.”

  “No, ma’am,” Jericho said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I reckon I won’t.”

  Those cold eyes of Isolda’s narrowed. “I’m your boss’s daughter. For that matter, since the consortium hired the three of us to run the ranch, I’m as much your boss as my father is. Do you agree?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Then you’ll do as I want.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Isolda sat up and bunched her small fists. “How dare you refuse? It was a reasonable request. Your presumption is uncalled for. I demand you tell me what I want to know.”

  Jericho didn’t respond. He’d already told her no twice, which was one more time than he should have to say it.

  “Say something, blast you. You can’t just ignore me. That’s rude. I’ll speak to my father about you.”r />
  “You do that, ma’am.”

  “I’ll have you disciplined, or even fired.”

  “If you say so, ma’am.”

  “You don’t believe I will?” Isolda said, her voice rising. “I’ll show you. I won’t stand for impertinence. Stumpy here will be my witness that you’ve treated me with rank contempt.”

  “I will?” Stumpy said.

  “You and that Neal Bonner,” Isolda said to Jericho. “Father and my sister think the world of him, but I don’t. You think he’ll protect you from being fired, but he won’t. He’s only the foreman.”

  “I wouldn’t ask him to protect me, ma’am.”

  “Quit being so polite. I’m mad at you, damn it.”

  “I can see that, ma’am.”

  Isolda uttered a strangled snarl of baffled resentment. “Do you think you’re being cute? Is that it?”

  “Not in a million years, ma’am.”

  “Ohhhh, you make me so mad.”

  Jericho rose in the stirrups and peered to the northwest. “You might want to hold off on takin’ out your bile on me.”

  “Why should I?” Isolda demanded.

  Jericho nodded at riders in the distance. “Because some Injuns are comin’ our way.”

  17

  Edana Jessup had seldom looked forward to anything as much as a ride around the Diamond B with its foreman. She could hardly sleep the night before for thinking about it. When she eventually did doze off, she only slept a couple of hours and woke up again and thought about it some more.

  She told herself that she was excited about seeing the ranch. That she was also looking forward to spending more time with Neal Bonner she attributed to a flight of fancy that would soon pass. So what if he was ruggedly good-looking and competent? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been around men before.

  Edana resented her sister teasing her about the rope business. Isolda was a fine one to talk. Edana suspected her sister was keenly interested in the gambler they’d met, Beaumont Adams.