Badlanders

by David Robbins

  “What?” Isolda tore her eyes from the gore.

  “There will be more shootin’ unless you go with him,” Beaumont said. “Not that I want you to, you understand. You are a delight to be with.”

  Isolda yearned to spend the rest of the day and into the night in the gambler’s company. She found him fascinating. That she was being forced to leave was an outrage. Then and there she hated the man called Jericho as she had never hated anyone or anything in her entire life. “I’ll go, but only because it would upset me greatly were you or any of these others to come to harm on my account.” She glared at her new hate.

  “I’m only doin’ my job, ma’am.”

  Isolda went to rise, but Beaumont beat her to it and pulled out her chair for her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “At least someone here is a gentleman.”

  “I hope to see you again,” Beaumont said, “under more favorable circumstances.”

  “Count on it.” Holding her head high and her back stiff, Isolda marched out. Jericho backed up, staying at her side but never taking his eyes off the others. He sought to push a batwing for her, but she swatted his hand aside and did it herself.

  Blinking in the bright glare of the Badlands sun, Isolda headed for the buckboard. She refused to so much as glance at her second shadow.

  “I’m right sorry, ma’am.”

  “No, you’re not,” Isolda said scathingly.

  “I hired on to nursemaid cattle for the Diamond B, not to nursemaid a filly like you. Truth is, I didn’t like havin’ to shoot that hombre. One shootin’ always leads to another, and I can do without that.” Jericho paused. “Then there’s the fact that your personal life is none of my business. I honest to heaven don’t care who you hanker after. But I have your pa to answer to.”

  He sounded so sincere that Isolda halted and regarded him with slightly less venom. “Do you mean that?”

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have said it.”

  “Then you can do me a great favor by not mentioning any of this when we get back to the ranch.”

  “I’m no chatterbox. But folks love to gossip, especially about a shootin’. Your pa is bound to hear about it, and that you were there.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Isolda said. “In the meantime, not a word to anyone when we get back. Not even to your friend, Mr. Bonner.”

  “I don’t keep secrets from Neal, ma’am. He’s my pard.”

  It exasperated Isolda no end, how obtuse the man could be. “Then at least ask Mr. Bonner not to say anything to my father. Explain that this is between my father and me. Can you do that much?”

  “I can,” Jericho said.

  Isolda marched on. The trip hadn’t turned out as she’d wanted, but she held hope for the days and weeks to come. She’d shown Beaumont Adams that she was interested and he clearly reciprocated.

  Perhaps her stay in the Badlands would turn out to be more rewarding than she could possibly have imagined.

  • • •

  Neal Bonner had never felt so heavy of heart. He was miserable to his core, and he had only himself to blame. He should never have let Alexander Jessup ride the mustang.

  Long ago, Neal had learned to trust his instincts. A man couldn’t always rely on what went on in his head. He had to rely on his gut, too, on those occasions when a feeling came over him that something or other shouldn’t be done or should be avoided. He’d gone against his instincts with regards to the mustang, and look at what happened.

  Now, pacing the front porch, he prayed that his mistake wouldn’t cost his new boss his life. Kantor was up there doing what he could, with Edana helping. Neal had felt useless just standing there, so he’d come out for a breath of fresh air.

  Over a score of cowhands and ranch workers were waiting for word, as well.

  Billy, Yeager, and Holland were on the porch with him, leaning against the rail, equally downcast.

  Clearing his throat, Billy said, “You’ll wear a rut in those boards if you don’t stop walkin’ back and forth.”

  “This is no time for your jokes,” Neal said.

  “Who’s jokin’?” Billy said.

  Neal went on pacing. He needed a release for his tension. He had half a mind to disperse the men and tell them to get back to work, but they were as concerned as he was, even though they hardly knew the man lying in the bed upstairs.

  This was a bad omen, this accident, Neal reflected. Some might call it superstition, some might call it downright silly, but a thing like this could set tongues to wagging. A new ranch starts, and one of the first things that happens is the new manager is busted to pieces.

  Neal stopped and turned to the front door. It was all he could do not to barge on in and go up to find out how things were going.

  “I blame myself for this,” Holland remarked miserably. “I shouldn’t have let him climb on.”

  “What were you to do?” Yeager said. “He’s the boss.”

  “What happens if he doesn’t make it?” Billy asked.

  “Don’t talk like that, boy,” Yeager said. “You’ll jinx it.”

  “I’m only wonderin’,” Billy said. “You saw the shape he was in, the same as me. Will those cock-a-doodle-doos back East hire somebody else to take his place? Or will they maybe let Neal be the big augur?”

  “How would we know?” Yeager said.

  Neal was jarred by a thought. If Jessup did pass on and the consortium did hire a new manager, where did that leave Edana? She’d have to pack up and go, along with her sister.

  “What’s the matter?” Billy asked. “You look sickly all of a sudden.”

  “Quit lookin’ at me,” Neal said.

  The front door opened and out came the cook. Kantor had blood on his hands and was holding a towel, but he made no attempt to wipe the blood off. “I did the best I knew how,” he said wearily.

  “And?” Neal prompted.

  Kantor shook his head. “I doubt the best sawbones alive could save him, as broken up as he is.” He motioned. “You should go on up. She wants to see you.” Kantor stepped aside and slumped against the wall, his head bowed. “I am plumb tuckered out.”

  Entering, Neal closed the door behind him. He took the stairs three at a stride. The bedroom door was closed. Cracking it, he peered in.

  Alexander Jessup was on his back, propped on pillows, the bedspread pulled to his chin. His eyes were closed and he was breathing raggedly.

  Edana was perched on the edge, holding her father’s hand in both of hers. Wet tracks glistened on her cheeks and her eyes brimmed, but she wasn’t sobbing or wailing. she’d either heard him or sensed him because she glanced over. “Neal? Is that you?”

  Swallowing, Neal went in. He took off his hat and stayed by the door. “I’m awful sorry,” was all he could think of to say.

  More tears trickled and Edana said, “Come on over, if you would.”

  They were the longest three steps Neal ever took. His mouth had gone as dry as a desert, and he had to will his legs to move. When she looked up at him in abject sorrow, he yearned to crush her to his chest and tell her he was there for her.

  “He won’t make it,” Edana said forlornly.

  Neal felt his own eyes moistening and fought the impulse.

  “Your cook did everything he could.”

  Neal coughed.

  Edana turned and placed a hand on her father’s brow. “Oh, Neal. Whatever will I do without him?”

  Neal didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “We had such plans, he and I,” Edana said fondly. “We were going to build the Diamond B into one of the most profitable ranches anywhere. Isolda would help, but it would mainly have been on our shoulders. He was looking forward to the challenge.” She tenderly stroked her father’s forehead. “And now this.”

  Alexander groaned. His eye
lids fluttered, and opened, and he looked about in confusion. “Where?” he said. “What?”

  “Father!” Edana exclaimed, and slid closer. “We didn’t think you’d come around. Lie still. You’ve been hurt.”

  “Daughter?” Alexander gritted his teeth and quaked. “I feel so strange. I can’t seem to collect my thoughts.”

  “Don’t try,” Edana said. “Just rest.”

  “Daughter?” Alexander said again. He gazed at the ceiling and smiled. “Why, there’s your mother. She’s come to meet me.” A peaceful look came over him and he tried to raise his arm as if he were reaching for someone when suddenly he went limp, his eyes closed, and his head sagged to one side.

  “Oh, Father,” Edana said, and lowering her face to the spread, she burst into loud sobs.

  23

  The buckboard got back early. It was still light, the sun not quite set, when it clattered and rattled over the last low rise and before them stretched the home ranch with its many buildings and corrals.

  Jericho was riding beside them and almost immediately announced, “Somethin’s wrong.”

  “Eh?” Stumpy said, looking up.

  Isolda was annoyed with him. He hadn’t been as friendly on the way back as he had on the way out. Not that she cared whether he liked her or not. “I don’t see anything the matter,” she said. It was as boringly picturesque as before.

  “Where is everybody?” Stumpy said.

  Only then did Isolda realize hardly any of the hands were out and about. There should be men working at various tasks, but the only sign of life was smoke rising from the cookhouse chimney and a single puncher lounging in front of the bunkhouse.

  “I see Neal,” Jericho said.

  Isolda was about to ask where when she spotted the foreman seated in a rocking chair on the front porch of the ranch house. Although “seated” wasn’t quite the right word. Slumped would have been better, as if he had collapsed into it.

  “Somethin’ has happened,” Stumpy said. “Somethin’ awful bad.”

  “You’re just guessing,” Isolda said.

  “No, ma’am,” Stumpy said. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  Isolda was tempted to tell him what he could do with his old bones. But she sat up and held her bag in her lap and grew a little anxious as Stumpy brought the buckboard up to the house and held his hand out to help her climb down. She refused the offer and clambered from the seat on her own, her legs stiff from the long ride.

  Jericho had dismounted and was approaching the steps. “Pard?” he said.

  Neal Bonner rose from the rocking chair with the air of someone going to his own grave. He came to the steps and stared sorrowfully at Isolda. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”

  Isolda was taken aback. “What loss?”

  “You’d best go right in,” Neal said. “Your sister is upstairs in your pa’s bedroom. She wanted to be alone with him.”

  A terrible dread filled Isolda. She rushed up the steps and was inside and on the second floor before she regained control of her emotions. Moving to the doorway, she halted. Her father lay as one dead in his bed. Her sister had her face buried in the covers and an arm partly over him. “Edana?”

  Edana jerked up and turned. Her eyes moistening, she startled Isolda by dashing over and throwing her arms around her. “Oh, sister. I wish you had been here. I’ve felt so alone.”

  Isolda stared over her shoulder at the bed. She could feel her blood draining from her face, and a light-headedness came over her. “Is Father . . . ?”

  “Dead? Yes,” Edana said, stepping back. Tears flowed, and she sniffled. “He insisted on riding a mustang and was thrown. Our cook did all he could, but there was nothing anyone could have done.”

  Isolda was too shocked to dwell on the absurdity of the cook playing at being a doctor. Going over, she sat on the bed and studied the pale face that for years had been both her comfort and her trial. She’d loved her father. She truly did. But he’d annoyed her no end with his insistence that she help in the family business. It had been his idea she take up bookkeeping. She’d have quit it long ago if something better had come along. “Oh, Father,” was all she said.

  Edana joined her and clasped her hand. “I was with him at the end. He said he saw Mother.”

  “Delirium,” Isolda said.

  “You don’t know that,” Edana said. “It could very well have been her in her spirit form.”

  “Don’t start with that again,” Isolda said. A long-running point of contention between them, one of many, was her refusal to believe in the fairy tale of life after death. Her sister did, though, and so had her father.

  “I can’t think of a better time,” Edana said. “Father has gone to his reward. We must give him a proper burial so his soul can rest in peace.”

  “I agree about the funeral, but the rest is so much doggerel.”

  Edana shook her head in reproach. “I will never understand how you can’t have faith.”

  “I’ll never understand how you do.”

  “There’s the Bible, for one thing,” Edana said. “God and Jesus and . . .”

  Isolda held up a hand. “Let’s not quarrel. Not here. Not now. I’ll go along with whatever you want, but don’t impose the other on me.”

  Edana looked at her strangely.

  “What?”

  “It just occurred to me,” Edana said, “you’re not crying. I fell apart when he passed on, yet there you sit, as cool and collected as can be.”

  “Why, so I am,” Isolda said. She was mildly shocked at her lack of emotion. But then, she always did keep a tight rein on her feelings, except for her flares of temper. She’d held everything in for so long that there were days when she’d thought she would burst. “I’ll weep for him later. Right now we should see about having a coffin made and arrange for his body to be shipped back.”

  “No,” Edana said. “We’ll bury him here. It’s fitting.”

  “It’s insane,” Isolda said. “This isn’t our property. We’re only running this ranch. We must take him back and bury him in the family plot at the cemetery, where he’d want to be buried.”

  “In what state?”

  “New York, of course.”

  “I was referring to his physical state,” Edana said. “Decomposition will have set in long before we can get him there. He’ll bloat and decay unless he’s embalmed, and who is there to do the embalming? We’re hundreds of miles from any funeral home.”

  Isolda hadn’t thought of that.

  “It would take a week and a half by wagon, if not longer, to get him to one,” Edana continued, “and by then the smell would be horrendous. The rot would be so advanced that preserving his remains would be out of the question.”

  “We can fill the coffin with salt.”

  “From where? We don’t have nearly enough.” Edana placed her hand on their father’s chest. “I’d like to bury him next to Mother, too. But circumstances have conspired against us. And now that I know they’re together again in the hereafter, it’s not really necessary.”

  Isolda bit off a sharp retort. “Let me think about it. There has to be a way.”

  “For your sake I’ll talk to Neal. Perhaps he knows of a method.” Edana had stopped crying but dabbed at an eye. “The other big question is what will become of us.”

  “Us?” Isolda said.

  “What do we do for a living now that Father is gone? Move back East? I, for one, would rather not. The men who hired Father to run the Diamond B will need someone to replace him. I’m sending word to Franklyn Wells, and he’ll probably get here as quickly as he can, but it will still take him weeks to arrive.”

  Isolda hadn’t thought of that, either. What would she like to do? she asked herself. She was no longer bound to her father, and his bookkeeping. She could do whatever she wanted, and she knew just what that was
.

  “This is the end of our life as we knew it,” Edana said sorrowfully.

  “Yes, it is,” Isolda agreed, and inwardly she bubbled with excitement.

  • • •

  Beaumont Adams left Dyson and Stimms at the Three Aces. If he showed up with them at his back, it might give the impression he had a yellow streak. He kept his hands in his specially lined pockets, though, so he could resort to his pistols if he had to.

  He wasn’t stupid.

  The man he was seeking had taken a shine to the Tumbleweed and could be found there most anytime after sunset. Beaumont figured it was because the Tumbleweed attracted the coarser element. A hard case like Scar Wratner fit right in.

  The stars were out and a brisk breeze whirled dust in tiny eddies as Beaumont strode down Main Street.

  It had been an interesting day, to say the least. Isolda Jessup’s visit had started things off. He still couldn’t get over how brazen she’d been. For a decent woman to go into a saloon was unthinkable. In some towns she would be ostracized by her more upstanding sisters.

  Beaumont told himself that part of Isolda’s audacity must stem from her being from back East. Eastern ladies must not be as snobbish as the Western variety. But then, most Western ladies came from back East, so that explanation didn’t hold water.

  No, Isolda Jessup was a rarity in that she apparently didn’t give a good damn what other women thought. She would do as she pleased and the rest of the world could go to hell.

  Beaumont liked her outlook. He liked even more that she’d made a special trip to town to see him. She had made her interest plain. Now it was up to him to do something about it.

  Beaumont must tread carefully. Isolda wasn’t a saloon tart to be dallied with when he was in the mood and otherwise forgotten. She wasn’t Darietta. She had wit, intelligence, beauty. With a woman like her at his side, a man could accomplish just about anything. Beaumont must cultivate her with care.

  It had rankled him, having to let her walk out with that Texas-bred gun slick. Not that Beaumont had anything against Jericho. The man was only doing his job. But it had left the impression, in Beaumont’s own mind, anyway, that he lacked grit. It didn’t help that Floyd went and got his brains blown out, and he hadn’t done anything about it.