The Brothers O'Brien

by J. A. Johnstone

  Aracela looked at her wounds and nodded. “He had a knife.” She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, it was too horrible.”

  One of the women had gone for the priest, and Father Diego bustled inside. “What has happened, my child?” he exclaimed, hurrying to take Aracela in his arms.

  Her head on the priest’s shoulder, Aracela sobbed. “Otilio tried to rape me and . . . and I was forced to shoot him.”

  She felt Father Diego’s head shake. “And I always thought him such a fine boy.”

  “And so did I, Padre,” Aracela said. “But tonight, he was like a crazed animal.” She stepped back, letting the priest see her shoulder.

  “He did that to you?” Father Diego asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I cannot let Otilio lie in the chapel tonight, for surely he is already damned.

  “I’ll have my men carry him to the icehouse,” Aracela said.

  “Yes, and then we will tend to your wounds and I will pray with you.” Aracela grimaced, knowing Father Diego would take it as an expression of pain. The priest would babble for hours, but it was a small price to pay. She bent her head, as though bowing to the padre’s will, but in reality she was hiding a smile.

  Yet another obstacle had been removed from her path, a minor one certainly. But then, Aracela told herself, every little bit helps, doesn’t it?

  Chapter Forty-two

  “If I never see this town again, it will be too soon,” Patrick O’Brien said as he tightened his saddle cinch.

  “Tell me that a few days from now when you’re freezing your ass off up in the high country,” Jacob said.

  “Herding sheep,” Shawn said.

  Patrick swung into the saddle. “Well, since the sheep are smarter than my brothers, it just might make a welcome change.”

  Jacob kneed his horse alongside Patrick. “Since you’re so anxious to leave, lead on, brother.”

  Behind them as they headed north, Mrs. Hazel stood on the porch, a handkerchief to her eyes with one hand, waving with the other. “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Ironside!” she yelled.

  Luther drew rein and turned. He swept off his hat and made a little bow. “What can I do for you, dear lady?”

  “Will you come back and see me, Mr. Ironside?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “You could write. Just address the envelope, to Mrs. Hazel, care of the Prince Regent Hotel, Estancia. Your letter will get to me.”

  “Then I will surely pen you a billet-doux just as soon as I am able, dear lady.”

  As Ironside settled his hat on his head and followed the others, Jacob said to him, “What the hell is a billy doo?”

  “Ah, my boy, your education is sadly lacking,” Ironside said. “A billet-doux means love letter, in French like.”

  “Then why didn’t you just say love letter?”

  “Because French is the language of love, my boy. Something you should keep in mind, but will soon forget.”

  “I didn’t know you could speak French, Luther,” Patrick said.

  “I can’t, but I learned billet-doux from a French whore up Abilene way.”

  “When was that?”

  “When you were still young enough to mind your own damned business, Patrick,” Ironside said.

  Patrick laughed and the others laughed with him, but Ironside was disgruntled. “I didn’t whup you boys enough when you were younkers.” He lowered his shaggy eyebrows. “I can see that now.”

  The Dromore riders were following the bend of Big Draw, walking their horses through falling snow and a rising wind, when they came under fire. Bullets cracked the air above their heads and one kicked up dirt a few feet in front of Andre Perez.

  “What the hell?” Jacob drew rein and looked around him. “I can’t see a thing.”

  “There!” Perez pointed to a clump of mixed juniper and piñon at the bottom of a shallow valley. “I saw a drift of smoke from the trees.”

  “Is it Whitney’s men?” Samuel asked.

  “Hell if I know,” Jacob said. “But I’m going to find out.” Without waiting to see if the others were following, he kicked his horse into a gallop and headed for the trees, his Colt up and ready.

  Ahead of him, Jacob saw three mounted Apaches break from the juniper. The Indians cut loose with a few ineffective shots, then swung north. Yipping, they held rifles above their heads.

  Jacob didn’t fire. The range was too great for a Colt, and the Apaches had already vanished into swirling snow.

  Samuel drew up beside him. “Those must be the three that killed Charlie Packett.”

  “Seems like,” Jacob said.

  “Hell,” Ironside said, “are them boys gonna be pests and take pots at us every time we come in range?”

  “But Geronimo surrendered,” Patrick said.

  “Looks like those three didn’t get the message,” Jacob said.

  A string of smoke still lifted above the juniper only to be quickly shredded by the wind. “You reckon they’ve got a white man stashed in there?” Ironside said. “Or maybe a Mexican sheepherder?”

  Jacob lifted his beak of a nose and let the wind talk to him. “Hell, I smell meat roasting.”

  “Could be a white man staked down over a fire,” Ironside said, his voice dark.

  Without saying anything, Jacob kneed his horse into motion and headed for the trees. The others followed. The vaqueros, who had even more reason than white men to fear Apaches, rode with rifles across their saddle horns, wary eyes searching ahead of them.

  But their caution was for nothing.

  The Apaches had cut up a sheep and had been roasting chunks of meat in the fire when they saw the Dromore riders.

  “Eat your fill, boys,” Ironside said. “There ain’t nothing better than sheep meat when a man’s hungry.”

  The meat was blackened on the outside, bloody on the inside, but even Patrick, a picky eater, admitted that it wasn’t half bad if a man closed his eyes and didn’t chew it much.

  They boiled up coffee, and sat under the thin shelter of the trees while Samuel told them what he’d decided. “I reckon we’ll patrol a line from the foothills of the Manzano Mountains to the west, all the way to Palma Hill in the east. I’d say that’s a distance of about forty-five miles, give or take.”

  “That’s a far piece, Sam,” Ironside said.

  Samuel nodded. “I reckon so. Anywhere along that line we find sheep, we’ll turn them back south.” He looked at Jacob as random snowflakes sizzled in the fire. “If we have to use force, we will.”

  Jacob shrugged his indifference. “What’s best for Dromore, is what I’ll do.”

  “You know, boys,” Ironside said, “I’ve been studying the Estancia, and it seems to me”—he took time to light a cigar with a brand from the fire—“that cattle would thrive in the valley.”

  “I think we’ve all noticed that, Luther,” Shawn said.

  “What’s your drift?”

  “The colonel could move a big herd down here,” Ironside said. “Hell, he could double his grass overnight.”

  Samuel didn’t show surprise. “That’s a thought for the future. Right now the colonel feels Dromore is big enough. But his opinion could change.”

  “You mean, just take the land for ourselves?” Patrick said.

  “Yes, something like that,” Samuel said.

  “Wouldn’t that make us as bad as Joel Whitney?” Patrick said.

  “No,” Samuel said. “We’re nothing like Whitney. We’re Dromore.”

  It took the O’Brien brothers and their assembled vaqueros a week to realize the Estancia Valley sheepherders were under no pressure from Whitney and his gunmen.

  They spoke to several parties of Mexicans and their stories were always the same—they’d seen nothing of Whitney and their flocks grazed in peace.

  Not a single wooly had moved north of Lobo Hill. As one herder told them, “Why go from one winter graze to another when we don’t have to? The grass here is poor, but is it not poor everywhere?”


  Alarm bells rang in Jacob’s head. It wasn’t Whitney’s style to lie low. What mischief was the little man up to, and did it involve Dromore?

  He voiced his fears to Samuel, who said, “Jacob, Whitney won’t attack Dromore. He doesn’t have the cojones for that.”

  Luther Ironside smiled behind his coffee cup. “Hell, he knows we’d be down on him like a ton of brick. We’d skin him alive, and he knows that, too.”

  “There’s no one at Dromore, only the colonel.” Jacob looked at Samuel over the flames of the campfire. “There’s something wrong, Sam. I can sense it.”

  Like the others, Samuel knew better than to discount his brother’s feelings. Their ma always said Jacob had the gift of second sight, a legacy of his Celtic forebears.

  Ironside looked around him, counting heads. They were camped west of Rattlesnake Draw under a narrow rock overhang that sheltered them from the worst of the snow and wind. “There’s fifteen of us, more than enough to take Dromore back from Whitney.” He smiled. “Not that I think he has it.”

  “I don’t think he has Dromore, either,” Shawn said. “But if Jacob feels something, then we should take him seriously. Maybe Pa’s ill.”

  Ironside glared at Jacob. “Damn it, boy, you’ve got us all spooked.”

  “I know this much,” Jacob said. “I’m riding for Dromore at first light.”

  “And we’ll ride with you. We’re sure as hell not doing any good here. Besides, I want to see my wife and son and . . .” Samuel’s voice faltered to a halt, a look of dawning horror on his face.

  “I’m sure they’re all right, Sam,” Shawn said. But his worried face gave lie to his words.

  Chapter Forty-three

  “The contract is in front of you, Colonel O’Brien,” Joel Whitney said. “And the pen is in your hand. Now, sign it.”

  Shamus O’Brien threw the pen at Whitney’s head, making the little man duck. “You go to hell, you Yankee trash.”

  Whitney walked past the colonel’s desk and stared at the portrait above the mantel. “Your late wife, I presume.” Shamus said nothing, his face ablaze with anger at Whitney and rage at his own, utter helplessness.

  “Pity she’s not still alive,” the little man said. “She might have convinced you to see reason.”

  “Do you really think that piece of paper will hold up in court, you damned fool?” Shamus said.

  “Oh but it will, Colonel. I used my legal training to draw it up very carefully. It will stand up in any court in the land.”

  “Not when I testify I signed it at gunpoint.”

  “Gunpoint?” Whitney glanced around him. “I see no gun pointed at your head. Mr. Stanley, do you see a gun pointed at the colonel’s head? Am I missing something?”

  Clay Stanley grinned. “No, you sure aren’t, boss.”

  “There you are, Colonel,” Whitney said, “no gun.” He picked up the pen from the floor and slammed it onto Shamus’s desk. “Now sign Dromore over to me, then you can pack your bags and get out.”

  “Go to hell,” Shamus said.

  “Oh dear, has it come to this? I abhor violence, but sometimes it’s the only way to make a stubborn old man see reason.” Whitney motioned to one of three grinning gunmen in the colonel’s study. “Bring the black woman in here.”

  The man left, and Shamus said, “What are you going to do to Nellie?”

  Whitney spread his pink hands. In his fur coat he looked like a malevolent mole. “Why, shoot her dead, of course.”

  “Harm a hair on Nellie’s head and I’ll hang you myself, Whitney,” Shamus said.

  “Why, you useless old cripple, you won’t hang anybody,” Whitney snapped. He picked up the pen and forced it into Shamus’s hand. “Sign it!” he screamed as he tried to twist the colonel’s fingers around the pen. “Sign it! Sign it!”

  Confined to a wheelchair as he was, the constant struggle to push himself around had preserved the thick muscles of Shamus’s arms and shoulders. He drew back his fist and slammed Whitney hard in the mouth.

  The little man staggered back, blood dripping from his mashed lips. “Damn you, O’Brien,” he said, his eyes ugly, “you’ll regret that blow.”

  The door opened and Nellie was dragged inside. She looked at Shamus, her eyes pleading. “Colonel, help me. I’m sore afeared.”

  “They won’t harm you, Nellie,” Shamus said. “I’ll hang any man who lays a finger on you.”

  Whitney grabbed the woman by the arm and held her. “Will you sign?”

  “I’m warning you, Whitney,” Shamus said, “leave Nellie alone.”

  “Will you sign the contract?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Clay,” Whitney said, “place the muzzle of your gun against this woman’s head.”

  Stanley drew and shoved the muzzle of his Russian into Nellie’s temple. The woman shrieked. “Help me, Colonel. Oh, please help me!”

  Shamus tried to rise out of his wheelchair. “Whitney—”

  “Will you sign?”

  “Damn you, Whitney!” Shamus roared, still trying to rise.

  “Kill her!” Whitney cried.

  Stanley pulled the trigger.

  Blood, bone, and brain haloed above Nellie’s head and splashed in a gory splatter across Shamus’s desk. Whitney let go of the woman’s arm and she dropped to the floor amid the ringing silence that followed the shot.

  “Her blood is on you, O’Brien, not me,” Whitney screamed.

  Stunned, horrified as he was, Shamus found himself unable to speak. He stared at Whitney, his hate-filled eyes talking volumes.

  “Will you sign?” Whitney said. “Damn you, take up the pen and sign.”

  “You’ll have to kill me,” Shamus said. “Or, by God, I’ll kill you.”

  “Damn the rants of an old cripple,” Whitney said. “Bring in the woman—what’s her name?—Samuel O’Brien’s wife. And her child.”

  “Whitney,” Shamus said, his voice like death, “I’m warning you, leave Lorena and my grandson alone.” Lorena O’Brien was a slender, blond woman with a pretty, oval-shaped face and expressive brown eyes. She clung to her baby as she was pushed into the middle of the floor where Nellie’s body lay. Without a moment’s hesitation, Lorena threw herself at Whitney, her baby in her left arm as she struck out with her right. “You animal!” she screamed. “You filthy animal!”

  “Hold her, somebody,” Whitney yelled, ducking back to avoid the woman’s wild blows. A gunman grabbed Lorena and held her.

  “Mr. Stanley,” Whitney said, “place the muzzle of your gun against Mrs. O’Brien’s head.”

  Stanley had all of a Texan’s prejudices. He’d been raised in the belief that it was one thing to kill a black, but to kill a white woman was a different matter entirely. “Boss, are you sure about this?”

  “Are you questioning my order, Mr. Stanley?”

  “No, sir, I guess not.”

  “Then make ready to scatter her brains when I give the word.”

  “You’re scum, all of you,” Lorena said. “My husband will kill you all for this.”

  Whitney spoke past the bloody handkerchief he held to his mouth. “Your husband isn’t here, Mrs. O’Brien. Or haven’t you noticed?”

  That statement brought guffaws from a couple gunmen, and Whitney talked through the laughter. “It’s up to you now, Colonel. It would be a pity to blow apart such a pretty head. And then, there’s the baby, of course. What of his head, I wonder?”

  Dromore was life itself to Shamus, but now it demanded too high a cost. “Damn you to hell, Whitney, I’ll sign your paper.”

  The little man nodded. “What a pity you didn’t agree earlier. The black woman would still be alive.” He stepped to the desk. “Sign.”

  “No, Colonel,” Lorena said. “Please don’t.”

  Shamus took the pen and scrawled away his ownership of Dromore.

  Joel Whitney sat behind Shamus’s desk and ran his hand over its polished mahogany top. He smiled at the colonel. “I’m going t
o enjoy this, being master of Dromore.”

  “Damn you, Whitney. My sons will hunt you down and kill you like the yellow dog you are.”

  Whitney took out his watch, thumbed it open, and glanced at the time. “By now, your sons are all dead. And if they’re not, they soon will be. My men will track them down.”

  “Do you think the riffraff you brought down from Santa Fe will stand against men with sand?” Shamus said.

  “It was my intention not to hire those ruffians, you know,” Whitney said. “But they came cheap, and I thought, ‘Well, now I own Dromore, why not?’”

  “They’re scum, like you are scum, Whitney,” Shamus said.

  The little man sighed, and sank back in the colonel’s cowhide chair. “This grows tiresome. Mr. Stanley, please remove that mess from the floor, and then escort Colonel O’Brien and his kin off the premises.”

  “What about the servants, boss? There’s a bunch of them. And then there’s the families of the vaqueros.”

  “I wish the servants to remain.” Whitney smiled. “A man in my position needs servants. All the others”—he jerked a thumb toward the window and sighed—“must be tossed out in the cold.”

  “And what about horses,” Stanley said.

  “What about them?”

  “Do I give them mounts?”

  “Of course not. I need all my horses. And my cattle.” Whitney’s smile was close to a pout. “And my land.”

  “Then I’ll start with him.” Stanley pointed to Shamus. “I have the feeling that where he goes, the others will follow.”

  Whitney waved a negligent hand. “Do whatever you have to do, just throw the damned beggars out of my house.”

  Forty women and children followed Shamus O’Brien into exile.

  The night closed around them fast. Stumbling tracks in the falling snow marked their passing. Cold was the wind, icy from the north, and the hard land lay around them, indifferent, uncaring.

  Lorena passed her son to one of the women, and at first she tried to push the colonel’s chair. But the narrow wheels snagged on every root and clump of grass, thumped into every depression, and the woman’s strength was soon spent.