"Laid into him?" First she glanced at Daniel, then Dal. "What did you do?"
"I hit him." Dal admitted. He shot Daniel a quick frown.
Daniel stammered with his foot. "Sorry, but she needs to know."
He bristled a bit, then relaxed, knowing now he was going to have to confess the whole thing to her. He hadn't wanted to bring it up. It was just more for her to worry over. And he knew she'd worry.
"Why?" Bonnie asked, narrowing her gaze on Dal. "Why did you do such a thing?"
"Doesn't matter why. What matters is that I did." He muttered, turning his head away from her so she couldn't read his expression.
"He was taking up for you. Lee Summers was talking in front of the kids about you. Dal set him straight." Daniel muttered and saw Dal frown at him again. Daniel hung his head.
"Daniel do you know how to keep your trap shut?" Dal barked.
"Sorry, thought she should know," Daniel added, his shoulders slumping with disappointment.
"Did you curry those horses when you got home today?" Dal asked. "I promised Mr. Hendricks I'd bring them back in good shape, tomorrow."
"No…I thought I'd do it in the morning." Daniel tried to explain.
"Well, go do it now."
"But…"
"Now."
"What was that all about?" Bonnie glanced at Dal defensively.
"Boy needs to learn there are some things you don't talk about. Men things. I don't want you worrying over things that you can't control. I can handle it."
"I never heard of such. We are a family, Dal. And you don't have to keep secrets. Just tell me what he said."
"I didn't want him talking about it around the kids, they'll think violence is the only way to settle things. I should have known better, but the boys were listening to his trash mouth and the boys were taking it all in. Every one of them responded just like me, with anger. Samuel turned so red I thought he'd lash out at Lee himself. I just couldn't handle the things he said in front of the them."
"What did he say?" Bonnie asked. "He has no call to talk about me, he don't know me."
"That you were a child, that he'd come an introduce himself to you. That's about as far as it got before I laid into him. And I'd do it again."
"Come and introduce himself? What for?" She sat beside him now, looking into his face innocently.
"Lee was goading me. Trying to pick a fight. He got one, at least part of one." He sighed too heavily. "I'm sorry Bonnie, I lost it. But I won't have him talkin' about you. And especially in front of the boys. They don't need to hear such things. And you don't deserve your name being dragged in the mud. He only did it to goad me into a fight. I knew that."
She blushed, and reached to touch his hand. "You can't stop people from talking Dal. And if you knew he was goading you, maybe you should have walked away."
"Sure I should have. But…dang it, he was popping off about you and this place. He got a little personal…"
"How personal?"
Dal slanted her a look.
She blushed.
"So you hit him? Lee Summers is the one you are talking about right?"
"Yeah, he's the one."
"But Dal, he's a gunslinger. You can't go picking fights with the likes of him. He could have killed you." She protested. She forced him to look at her.
"Thanks for the confidence in me!" He barked.
"I don't know how fast you are, but I seen him kill a fella last year, right out on the street, so everyone could see. Sure the other guy drew first. He goaded him into a fight too." Bonnie said. "He didn't hit you back?"
"Nope, but I got a feeling he will. One way or another. I don't understand the itch he has to tangle with me, but it's bound to happen. I knew he was trying to get me to fight. And I'm not sure why. I wouldn't have done anything if the kids hadn't been standing there, listening."
"I understand that." She murmured.
"Oh then explain it to me." He insisted. "Any other time I could have controlled my anger. But it struck me as dead wrong. And he knew what he was doing too."
"You've made something of yourself Dal. No matter the circumstances you can hold your own. You made something of this place and look how well you are handling the water crisis. The whole town knows what you've accomplished."
"Yeah, just look. Banister is pestering us every week. I'm sure doing a great job there." He shook his head.
"If it weren't for you, me and the kids wouldn't be here, Dal. You know that. This place would belong to Banister once more. You kept that from happening. You've got one of the richest and most powerful men trying to take you down. You must have made a big impression on Banister, to do that."
He turned to look at her and realized she was trying to build him up. He wanted to kiss her for that.
"Dal Odom don't you ever do anything like that again. Do you hear me?" She tried to shake him. "I don't care what he says about me. I won't have you killed because he insulted me. I couldn't live with that."
"Would you stop…" He caught her hands and looked into her eyes and he saw a smile breaking over her beautiful young face.
He took her face into his hands and caressed her cheek. "I won't have anyone talking about you, Bonnie. You're my wife and I love you…" And he proved it when he put his lips to hers in a kiss that set the very air on fire.
When he pulled away, he looked into her eyes. "I better get to work on that bed. We'll never get it done at the rate we are going. And I'm getting mighty anxious about it."
He got up and started for the barn.
"You're anxious about it?" She turned her head in question.
"Aren't you?"
"I guess I am…" She smiled with a blush to her cheeks.
"Want a cup of coffee?" She hollered at him with a smile.
"That would be nice…" He smiled back as the warm feeling of being home where he belonged surrounded him.
"Can I bring it out to the shed?"
"Nope, just holler I'll come get it." He grinned at her. "No peeking until it's done."
"It's sure is taking a long time. Are you having trouble with it?" She quirked her head and smiled. "Maybe I could help."
"No, so keep your little nose out of it," he smiled back.
She started to go inside and then hesitated. "Dal…"
"Yeah…" he glanced over his shoulder at her.
"Thanks…"
"For what?" He asked.
"Taking care of the boys. Defending my honor. Everything."
"Anytime."
He stared after her a long while. Then he went out to the barn and worked on his project.
Chapter Twenty
"Where are you going?" Bonnie asked when she saw Dal had hooked up the wagon and was about to leave.
"I got to return the horses. And then I'm going to talk to Banister."
"Be careful Dal," Bonnie came up to him, she put her hand on his arm. "And tell Mr. Hendricks how much we appreciate the loan of his horses."
He looked at her hand, kissed it, and smiled. "I plan to. I'll be back, directly."
"Good luck! And Dal…be careful."
He nodded and smiled as he pulled out of the yard.
He wasn't looking forward to talking to Banister, but it had to be done. He only hoped they could reach some kind of understanding.
As he pulled up into Mr. Hendricks yard, he saw him in the distance.
Mr. Hendricks was coming in from his field when he spotted the wagon. He headed for his house on foot. Dal watched the older man coming toward him. Mr. Hendricks was tall and lanky, with a stoop to his shoulders. He was one of the most generous men he knew.
"Well, you got them back. Thanks." He said as he eyed Dal.
"Thank you. I got the barbed wire." He told him.
"Good for you. It won't be long everyone will have their land fenced. And that's as it should be. This way we can keep our cattle on our range. Glad to see you doing it, son. Especially since Banister is fast on the draw about his cattle."
"Thanks. I appreciate the loan of the horses." He unhooked them and put his own horse in front of the wagon. Then he began walking the borrowed horses to the barn.
Hendricks took over from there and put them in their stalls. "Looks like you curried them already."
"Daniel did. We wanted them to look good when we brought them back."
"You're very welcome. You are sure up and out early." Mr. Hendricks noted. "I didn't expect you until this afternoon."
"Yeah, I thought I'd get an early start. I'm headed over to Mr. Banister's this morning. See if we can't reach some agreement on the water." He informed him. He glanced out at the old man's fields and nodded. "You sure have a pretty spread."
"Takes a lot of years of work. But if you keep up, you'll have the same before too long."
"I sure hope so. Just gotta get this water thing settled."
"Good luck, you'll need it. He's the hard-headiest man I know."
"Well, once the fence is up, if he cuts it, then I have a right with the law, plus we got those signs up all over the place too. I can put him in jail if he tears them down."
"You did right son. Just be careful. I hear he's hired Lee Summers for some of his dirty work."
"Yeah, I've already tangled with him once." Dal nodded. "This whole thing could have been settled without all this trouble if he'd just paid the fee like the rest of them. But Lee, he seems to take this as personal. I'm not sure why. I've never tangled with him personally. However, I did have a run-in with his brother, once."
"Yeah, but the way he sees it, he was here first and he should get the water free. 'Course things don't work that way. It would be plum unfair to let some have it for nothing and charge others. So you're in your rights."
"Hope he can come to see it that way."
"You watch that Lee though. He's a mean one."
"I plan to."
"He's good with a gun, Dal."
"I know. But maybe I can settle the feud now. At least that's what I aim to try to do." He said. "Without any gun play. If I can get Banister to cooperate, maybe I can get Lee to too."
Mr. Hendricks nodded and pushed his hat back from his eyes. "Well, I wish you luck son. Is there anything I can do?"
"No, not now." He said and hooked up his horse to the wagon.
He was off again, this time to see Banister himself.
As he pulled into Banister's yard, there were a handful of cowboys standing around. He wondered why they weren't working. Banister had a big ranch and plenty of cattle to tend to.
All of them got quiet as he pulled the wagon around to the front of the house.
They followed.
One of them walked up to his wagon. "What do you want Odom?"
Dal glanced at the man, he was Banister's foreman. "I want to talk to Mr. Banister. Is he home?"
"Nope, he went to Dallas on business," Frank Coleman said, eyeing him.
"I see. Well, I'll be back then."
"What did you want with him?" Lee Summers came out of the barn, wearing his guns and carry a leather whip. He beat it into the ground a time or two to draw attention.
"I wanted to talk to him about water rights. But since he's not here, I'll come back."
"You aren't welcome on Banister land, Dal." Lee sneered. "We could shoot you as easy as look at you."
"I don't see any no trespassing signs. But not to worry, I'll be leaving." He said quietly. He knew Lee was itching for a fight, but it wouldn't be today.
"I don't think we ought to let you leave. I think we ought to tear into you for coming in the first place. What do you say boys?"
The men crowded around the wagon.
Dal started to whip the horses into a run, but one of the men jerked the reins out of his hands and someone else pulled him off the seat.
He tried to fight back. He punched one cowboy and he fell, but another attacked him from the other side. There were too many of them. He felt blows to his stomach, and one to his jaw and his head was aching so bad, he could hardly see. Seeing the boys had the best of him, Lee came closer.
Lee marched up to him and laughed. "Take his shirt off."
"What for?" Someone cried.
"I'm gonna give him a whipping he won't forget." Lee hollered.
Two of the men grabbed him and tore his shirt off of him. Another two tied his hands to the back of his wagon and moved away quickly.
Lee brought out his whip and everyone got out of his way.
At first the whip landed near him on the dirt. Dust flew. But before he could figure out how to get loose, Lee had swung the whip around and hit his back. Dal winced with pain.
The boys cheered.
Lee kept cracking the whip. Blood trickled down his back in several places. The pain was like a fire on his back. He could almost feel the flesh peeling. Too many times he'd been trapped by Banister's men. It had to stop. And he was the one to stop them.
He struggled to get loose, but they had him tied good to the back of the wagon as Lee kept whipping him with the leather.
When Dal's head began to droop, Lee stopped, admiring his bloody work on Dal's back.
"Put him in the wagon, and head him for home…" Lee ordered, he took Dal by the hair and pulled his face around to look at him. "This is what you get for coming on Banister land."
"The boss might be mad about this, Lee." The foreman said as he helped carry Dal to the wagon.
"I don't think he'll mind so much." Lee laughed.
Frank's voice was reprimanding. "He didn't tell us to do something like this."
"Who's side are you on Frank?" Lee bellowed.
"I'm on Mr. Banister's side, that's who. But you might have gone too far. There was no call for this…"
He heard the man defending him, and closed his eyes when Lee laughed.
"Does Banister know how chicken you are?" Lee laughed.
Frank walked off. "I want no part of this…"
"Suit yourself Frank, but you could lose your job, you know. If Banister was to find out how queasy you get.
Dal felt the wagon moving, saw someone sitting on the seat, but because of the sweat dripping into his eyes, he didn't know who it was.
He couldn't move without wincing.
Directly the man jumped off the wagon and rode off in another direction.
He tried to pull himself up, but it was just too much. He passed out.
He lay there only about a mile from the home place, in the back of the wagon all night. He woke up once, but the chill he felt in the air, made him shiver until he passed out again. Come morning though he heard horse hooves in the distance. He squinted in the noon day sun. He couldn't get up, his back hurt so bad.
He wondered if they had come back to get him.
But as he peeked over the wagon's wall, he saw it was Daniel on the mule.
"My God…what did they do to you?" Daniel cried when he saw Dal in the back of the wagon. Blood covered his back and Daniel ran and got the water. He gave Dal a drink.
Dal tried to raise up, but it was too painful.
"Don't move. I'll take you back to the house. Bonnie will take care of you…"
He hated for her to see this. It hurt his pride and embarrassed him that he had let Lee and the others get the best of him. But he couldn't doctor himself. Somehow he had to best Lee.
As Daniel tied the mule to the back of the wagon, he got up on the seat and whipped the horse in the right direction, Dal passed out again.
Daniel whipped the horses into a run and hung on.
Dal came to for a minute when they pulled into the yard. He heard Bonnie cry out, saw Becky's little face look worried and heard Martin almost cry as they lifted him out of the wagon.
"They beat him to death!" Samuel cried.
"Is he gonna die?" Becky asked in a whispered voice.
Daniel looked at them and shook his head. "He ain't gonna die…Now hush that kind of talk."
Somehow they managed to get him into the house.
Bonnie got the medicine and some hot
clean water to clean the wounds. Dal glanced at her when he came to for a second, her face was a wad of frowns and worry.
"Who did this?" She demanded to know as Daniel laid him on her bed. But Dal was in and out of it, he couldn't answer. His pain had got the best of him.
Dal was barely aware of the goings on.
It was several hours later when he woke up. He was on Bonnie's bed, and she was sitting in a rocking chair staring at him.
He noticed his back felt a little better, at least he could move without a lot of pain.
"What'd you use on me?"
"Axle grease, mixed it with some aloe plant," Bonnie said.
He raised gently on one elbow and winced.
"Don't move around, you might hurt yourself more." Bonnie cried out. "We don't want it to start bleeding again and get infected."
"What am I doing in here?" He looked around and realized he was in her room.
"I was planning on sitting up with you, so I figured my bed would be the only one not used. How do you feel?"
"Like a train ran over me." Dal tried to laugh.
"It isn't funny." She corrected him. "Who did this to you?"
"Lee and Banister's boys."
"Why?"
"'Cause he could, I guess," Dal answered.
"Did you see or talk to Mr. Banister?" She asked coming closer.
"No…he wasn't there."
"Don't you never go over there alone again. Do you hear me, Dal Odom?" Bonnie's voice screeched with emotions unspoken.
"I hear you. Next time I'll go armed." He added.
"I don't want you going over there at all…" Bonnie cried.
"This has got to be settled, one way or another…" Dal managed to say. "When I spoke to the Sheriff he said he thought Banister was ready to talk. That's why I went."
"Lie still, you'll have them bleeding again." She murmured coming closer.
"Okay…okay." He replied with a sigh.
"I love you…" She whispered and kissed his cheek.
He looked up at her and smiled. "I never thought I'd be lying in your bed like this?"
She burst out laughing.
She was so glad to have him home and alive.
Brides of the West-Part One Page 16
