The Brothers O'Brien

by J. A. Johnstone

  A fallen tree branch bumped against O’Brien’s shoulder and Ironside reached out and pushed it away.

  Saraid pulled her hat further down on her head as the rising wind threatened to steal it, and she huddled deeper into the thin cloth of the greatcoat. Leaning over, she placed her hand over her husband’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat. After a while she detected it, faint, but regular, no longer faltering.

  Behind her, at the cabin, Patrick loudly screamed his outrage, and Saraid fervently wished she could be in two places at once.

  “How much longer, Saraid?” Ironside’s mustache and eyebrows were white with snow, giving him the look of an old man.

  “I think it’s time. If we stay much longer all three of us will freeze to death.”

  Ironside lifted O’Brien from the icy water. “He’s quiet now.”

  “It’s because the fever is down.” Saraid wrapped the blanket around her husband, and Ironside carried him to the cabin.

  “Saraid, I could stitch up the Colonel’s wound,” Ironside said. “During the war I saw it done plenty of times.”

  “No, he must heal from the inside, Luther.”

  While Ironside held her husband in a sitting position on the bed, Saraid bandaged the gaping wound with strips torn from an old petticoat.

  “Lay him back down now, Luther.”

  “Ma,” Samuel said, “will my pa live?”

  “Yes, he’ll live,” Saraid said. “Because I want him to live.”

  Chapter Ten

  New Mexico Territory, 1876

  There were some who said Shamus O’Brien was never the same man after the Apaches left their steel in him.

  Certainly, he was not as ready to laugh. As the years passed he grew graver, and pain was never far from his eyes, a thing four years of war had not accomplished.

  Doctors came and went at Dromore, one of them a famous surgeon from Boston who was on a tour of the western territories. But none would consider cutting for the lance head.

  “Too near the spine,” they said. “You could be paralyzed for life, Colonel O’Brien, so best to let it stay where it is.”

  The wound slowed him physically, but his spirit was as strong as ever, and his ranch prospered.

  During the ten years that passed after the Apache fight, Saraid gave birth to two more sons, Shawn and Jacob. She’d badly wanted a girl, but after Jacob was born she was told she could have no more children. She did not grieve for what might have been, but put all her energies into raising her sons well.

  A bigger cabin, then a small house, a larger house, then a grand mansion with four white pillars in front grew around the pink hearthstone, which was never moved. O’Brien added a bunkhouse for his hands, and a sprawling complex of outbuildings that gave Dromore the look of a medieval Irish fiefdom.

  As his herds grew, he expanded his ranch, adding another two hundred thousand acres of open range to his original land grant. He had twenty men riding for him, all of them tough and good with a gun. Luther Ironside became foreman, and a partner in all but name.

  Nellie supervised the household staff, ruled the Chinese cook with a rod of iron, and domineered the punchers every chance she got, insisting on clean hands at the table and please-pass-the-potatoes manners.

  Saraid had had a piano delivered to Dromore, hauled by wagon all the way from Santa Fe. To her disappointment Samuel showed no interest, nor did Patrick, though Shawn took to it and Jacob revealed a great deal of talent.

  On a Saturday in July, Samuel, now fifteen and man-grown by frontier standards, acquired a third memory that would stay with him to haunt his dreams for years to come.

  It began on a morning of glittering heat when a Dromore puncher by the name of Danny Anderson rode up to the ranch house more dead than alive.

  Luther Ironside caught the man as he fell from his horse and eased him gently onto his back. Anderson’s shirtfront was splashed with blood, and he had a second lesser wound on his forehead.

  “What happened, Danny?” Ironside said, aware that Shamus O’Brien, supported by a cane, had just joined him.

  “Rustlers, Mr. Ironside,” the young cowboy said. “Hit us south of Starvation Peak an’ run off, fifty, maybe sixty head.” Anderson winced as a wave of pain hit him. “They shot Shack Caldwell off his horse, an’ I don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”

  That last gave O’Brien pause. Caldwell was a top hand and a man with a gun rep. Over to the Nations a couple of years back, he’d outdrawn and killed the Texas gunfighter Ryan Buck, a man nobody considered a bargain. If the rustlers had gotten the drop on Shack, they weren’t amateurs.

  “How many of them were there, Danny?” O’Brien said.

  “Five I saw, Colonel.” The young puncher hesitated a moment. “I ain’t real sure, but I could swear one o’ them was Tom Platt.”

  O’Brien and Ironside exchanged glances. Platt had been fired the week before for stealing a barlow knife from another puncher. An easygoing bunch, there were two classes of men cowboys would not tolerate, cowards and thieves. Platt qualified as the latter. There were some who said he was also in the running for the former, so nobody was sorry to see him go.

  O’Brien looked at the wounded puncher, then at Ironside, a question on his face. His foreman gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.

  “Luther, carry Danny inside the house and make him comfortable. Then mount up. We’re going after those damned animals. I want Isham Banks as scout, and Samuel will ride with us.”

  A scant ten minutes later Ironside had a dozen armed men mounted, including Samuel, who rode a lanky, American stud, a gift from his father. Banks, a black former mountain man and army scout, had pulled out ahead of the rest, riding across the mesa in the direction of Starvation Peak.

  Saraid stepped out of the house and stood by O’Brien’s stirrup, looking up at him. “Shamus, I think Samuel is too young to go off chasing rustlers.”

  “And I think he’s old enough, Saraid. The ranch will be his one day, and the sooner he learns how to fight for his land and cattle, the better.”

  There was gray in Saraid’s hair, deeper lines in her face, but she was still a beautiful woman. O’Brien’s heart always leapt at the sight of her.

  “Will there be a battle, Shamus?”

  “That depends on the rustlers.”

  “You will not leave Samuel behind?”

  “No, I won’t, Saraid. Today, he’ll prove he’s a man, and an O’Brien.”

  Saraid stepped to Ironside and put her hand on his knee. “Luther, take care of my boy.” Much overcome, the man said nothing. He touched his hat to Saraid, and then kneed his horse in the direction of the mesa, waving on the rest of the riders.

  “Take care, Shamus,” Saraid said to her husband.

  As Ironside had done before, O’Brien made no answer, but he smiled and nodded. Ahead of him the mesa bulked large against the morning sky and birds sang in the trees.

  Standing more than seven thousand feet above the flat, Starvation Peak was a steep-sided mesa that looked like a truncated cone in the distance. Years before, the Apaches had marooned the survivors of a wagon train on the summit, where they all starved to death, hence the name.

  Isham Banks, the Dromore horse wrangler, waited until O’Brien and the rest arrived on the bank of a dry creek, a mile west of the peak. “There were more cows taken than Danny reckoned, Colonel. I’d say five men driving a hundred head.” He pointed. “Shack’s body is over there by the piñon trees. I covered him up the best I could to keep the flies off him.”

  O’Brien felt that like a blow, and his face stiffened. “Where are they headed, Isham?”

  “West, Colonel, toward Apache Mesa. I’d say an hour ahead of us.”

  “That’s rough country, Isham. I don’t want to lose them.”

  “We won’t lose them, Colonel. Hell, they’ve left a trail a hundred yards wide.”

  “All right, let’s get it done.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Samuel O’Brien
rode beside his father. They didn’t talk, each busy with his own thoughts.

  The day’s heat lay like a mailed fist on the land. In the distance Apache Mesa was a hazy bulk behind a shimmering veil. The only sounds were the creak of saddle leather and the soft thud of hooves. A couple hands bantered back and forth for a while, but soon fell silent, as though the effort to talk was suddenly too much for them.

  The high desert air smelled of piñon and sage, faintly tinged with the musky odor of the cattle that had passed that way only a short time before.

  Finally, O’Brien turned to his son. “How are you holding up, boy?”

  Samuel nodded. “As well as anybody else, I reckon.”

  “You scared any?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess a little.” Samuel gave his father a weak smile. “I’m scared of being scared, Pa.”

  O’Brien smiled and nodded, and for a moment the pain left his eyes. “That’s how I feel and that’s how it should be. If it starts to get rough when the guns start shooting, say a Hail Mary. That always works for me when the Apaches are out.”

  “I’ll remember that, Pa.” Samuel kept his face straight.

  O’Brien nodded. “Now, see to your guns. We should sight those damned bandits soon.”

  “It’s a pity about Tom Platt,” Samuel said. “I kinda liked him.”

  “It’s a pity about Danny Anderson and Shack Caldwell,” O’Brien said, his mouth a hard tight line under his mustache. “I liked those boys too.”

  Isham Banks had ridden ahead again. He cantered back, and O’Brien halted his column.

  “They hazed the herd into an arroyo, Colonel, and them boys are still in there.”

  “Isham, is it a box?”

  “Looks like, Colonel. I reckon they plan to hold the herd in the arroyo until their buyer shows up.” Banks wiped his face with a red bandana. “It’s as hot as hell down there near the mesa.”

  O’Brien’s face was grim. “And it’s going to get a lot hotter. Lead the way, Isham.”

  The arroyo cut into the treed hills at the base of Apache Mesa. The ground O’Brien and his men had just crossed, a wide area of brush and cactus flat, stretched in front of it.

  He halted the column a hundred yards from the mouth of the arroyo, and Ironside deployed the punchers in a skirmish line on each side of him. Most carried a Henry, but a few had the new model ’73 Winchesters.

  “Isham, I’m not going in there after them,” O’Brien said. “But you’ve gotten cows out of slot canyons before, huh?”

  “Sure have, Colonel, a heap of times.”

  “Good. Take Samuel and get up on the top of the arroyo and roust those damned murderers out of there, only use lead, not rocks.”

  “What about the cattle, Colonel?”

  “We’ll lose a few, but that can’t be helped.” He looked at Samuel. “You game, son?”

  Samuel nodded, but said nothing. He felt a strange niggling sensation in his belly, a mix of excitement and apprehension.

  “Say a Hail Mary, Samuel, remember?”

  “I’ll remember, Pa.”

  “Well, that’s fine then, just fine. Isham, take my son and go do it.”

  O’Brien watched Banks and Samuel ride away, his face troubled. The boy had to prove himself, that was necessary for the future of Dromore, but his thoughts kept drifting to Saraid. Rather than bring her home a dead son draped across his saddle, he’d willingly die himself . . . a hundred times over.

  “Colonel.” Ironside passed field glasses to O’Brien. “I reckon you’ll want to keep an eye on Isham. And Sam.”

  O’Brien nodded. He met Ironside’s gaze. “You think I’m asking too much of the boy?”

  “Did we ask too much of fifteen-year-old boys at Chickamauga, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and all the others?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, O’Brien said, “Yes, I believe we did.”

  “Then there’s your answer, Colonel.”

  “Did Saraid put you up to this, Luther?”

  “No, I did it my ownself.”

  “The boy’s got to prove himself.”

  “I think he’s already done that, Colonel. Maybe you set too high a standard.”

  The reports of rifle shots echoed across the flat and stilled the retort on O’Brien’s lips. He stood in the stirrups and yelled, “Get ready, boys. They’ll be coming.”

  Ironside’s remarks forgiven, O’Brien said, “Makes me wish I had my saber, Luther.”

  The other man smiled. “Be just like old times, huh, Colonel?”

  “Damn right.”

  Dozens of longhorns boiled out of the arroyo, five riders galloping behind them. Up on the rim, Samuel and Banks fired steadily, and O’Brien saw a man go down.

  He motioned with his rifle. “Charge ’em, boys!”

  The Dromore riders followed O’Brien, the Texans among them hollering rebel yells. The longhorns split, leaving the surviving rustlers exposed. Firing from the shoulder, O’Brien and his punchers unleashed a storm of lead. Another rustler went down, then a horse.

  O’Brien’s men surrounded the two mounted outlaws. Both had their hands in the air, grabbing for handfuls of the blue sky. The man whose horse had been shot rose unsteadily to his feet, his boyish, beardless face pale and frightened.

  “Tom, I’m sorry to see you in such company,” O’Brien told him.

  “Sorry, Colonel,” Tom Platt said. “Whiskey and loose women drove me to this pass.”

  “Greed drove you to it, Tom,” O’Brien said. “The greed for what belonged to another man, a man who was once your employer.”

  The two other rustlers were older, one of them with gray in his hair that looked like he’d lived some hard years. The second man was younger, his bold blue eyes defiant.

  O’Brien stared at the older rustler. “What’s your name?”

  “You go to hell,” the man said. “If I’d had any kind of fair show with you, I wouldn’t have been taken so easily.”

  “And you?” O’Brien asked the other man. The rustler spat over the side of his horse and said nothing.

  O’Brien glanced around his milling riders. “Any of you boys know these two?”

  A puncher said, “Yeah, Colonel, I know one of them from when I was a peace officer down Lordsburg way.” The man smiled. “The ranny who told you to go to hell is Sonora Steve Warren, a bank and train robber by profession. But times must be hard because he don’t usually ride with amateurs.” The cowboy nodded at Warren. “Fur piece off your home range, ain’t you, Steve?”

  “Some, Luke,” Warren allowed.

  “Anybody recognize the others?” O’Brien said. “Take a look at the dead men.”

  The two dead rustlers were strangers, not recognized by anyone.

  Samuel and Banks rode up and O’Brien said, “You two did well, cleared them out of there just fine. Whose shot killed the one as he left the arroyo?”

  Banks shook his head. “Don’t rightly know, Colonel. Me and Sam was both shooting.”

  O’Brien seemed disappointed, but he recovered and smiled. “In any case, what you did was true blue. Well done to both of you.”

  After the rustlers were disarmed, Ironside said, “Tom, you mount one of the dead men’s horses.”

  “Where are you taking us, Mr. Ironside?” Platt asked, his words thick from a dry mouth.

  “To the law, Tom. And that goes for your pals.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” O’Brien’s face looked as though it had been chiseled from a block of granite. “This is my range, and my cattle that were stolen.” His eyes were cold on Ironside’s face, all the Irish laughter having fled from them years before. “I’m the law here.”

  “Colonel, the county sheriff—”

  “Has nothing to do with this.” O’Brien’s horse tossed its head, the bit chiming. “Isham, find me a tree.”

  Banks hesitated, his gaze searching O’Brien’s face, looking for the smile, the twinkle in the eye that would betray the joke. There was neither.


  “Damn you, do it, Isham!”

  “Yes, Colonel, right away.”

  After the wrangler left, Ironside said, “We should let the law deal with these men, Colonel.”

  “We, Luther? Who are we? Do you see the brand on my horse, the same one as is on the flanks of the longhorns over there?”

  “I see it.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s the Shamrock-D.”

  “Then there’s no ‘we,’ Luther. The brand is mine and mine alone.”

  “And I ride for it, Colonel.”

  “You always have, Luther. Will you back away from it now?”

  “As I said, I ride for the brand.”

  “I did not expect you to say anything less.”

  “Sam,” Tom Platt said, fear chasing across his face like cloud shadows on a prairie, “old times, huh? Remember old times, Sam?”

  Samuel O’Brien felt sick. He couldn’t meet Platt’s eyes.

  “Say the words, Sam. Say them to the Colonel. Say you remember the good old times. Let me ride away from here for old times’ sake, Sam.”

  “Tom Platt,” Shamus O’Brien said, “make your peace with God, then take your medicine like a man. My son can do nothing for you now.”

  Dismounted Dromore hands stood around a dying cottonwood by the bank of a dry wash. The three rustlers sat their horses under a thick, white limb, nooses around their necks.

  O’Brien, still in the saddle, looked from one to another. “Sentence has been passed. Do any of you men want to say anything before justice is done?”

  “Yeah,” Warren said. “You go to hell.”

  O’Brien’s face didn’t change. “Anyone else?”

  The silent rustler remained silent, his head tilted, his eyes on the sky. Platt, who realized that any hope he might have had was gone, tried his best to die game. “Sam,” he said, smiling through tears, “recollect the day we chased them wild turkeys? That was—”