by Elmer Kelton
Now crushed bones and his many years were piling up on him. The old Mexican was finishing out his time over the cookfires. No pensioner, Paco. He wanted only to work—to stay with the Monahans. The aging chuckbox with a Bar M burned deeply into each side was all that was left to show for the ranch. And Doug was the only Monahan.
Eating, Doug found himself watching the girl. These farmer girls were taught to be wary of strangers. Especially a stranger who looked like a cowboy. She and her father ate silently and hungrily. Monahan could tell they had had a long ride. He felt a touch of pity for the girl. Pretty thing, she was, like a wild flower growing up in the middle of nowhere. A girl like this was meant to be seen.
Noah Wheeler pushed to his feet. He took his daughter’s empty plate and cup and dropped them into the wreck pan along with his own. “Fine dinner,” he said to Paco. “We sure did enjoy it.”
“Grácias,” smiled Paco, warming to the compliment. “The camp is yours.”
Wheeler turned to Monahan. “We’d best get along if we’re going to find our cattle. No telling where those Longhorns have led them to.”
He looked once again at the barbed wire fence which was edging slowly out across the range. “Going to be a big change. Always been open country. How far do you figure on going with it?”
Monahan replied, “I’ve contracted to build it all the way around Gordon Finch’s range.”
Wheeler’s thick eyebrows lifted a little. “Finch’s range?” He gave the rancher a sharp, questioning glance. “You got more ambition than I thought you had, Mr. Finch.”
Finch’s eyes flashed anger.
Wheeler walked to his horse and swung heavily into the old saddle. Monahan gave the girl a boost up. She smiled at him, and in a quiet voice she spoke the first words he had heard from her. “Thank you, Mr. Monahan. Maybe someday we can return the favor.”
He watched them ride away, his eyes mostly on the girl.
Firing up a fresh cigar, Finch muttered contemptuously, “About time they left. They got the smell of hogs about them.”
Flaring, Monahan turned to answer him, then thought better of it. He hadn’t been paid yet. But someday someone was going to make Finch eat that cigar, raw, and maybe with the fire still on it.
* * *
MONAHAN KNEW IT was trouble, as soon as he saw the horsemen. He was using a shovel handle to tamp fresh dirt tightly while Stub Bailey held a post straight. Looking up, Bailey stiffened.
“Uh-oh. Look yonder coming.”
Doug let the shovel rest against his broad shoulder. He rubbed a sleeve across his forehead and blinked at the burn of sweat that worked into his eyes.
“That ain’t Noah Wheeler,” Bailey said with tightness in his voice. He suddenly looked as if he needed a drink. “Must be thirty-forty of ’em.”
Monahan squinted. Fifteen or twenty, more like it; but that was enough. The riders were moving along the fenceline. As they moved, men stepped down from their saddles, stopping to snip the wire.
“They mean business, looks like,” said Bailey. “Cuttin’ it between every post.”
Down at the chuckwagon, Gordon Finch stood frozen, watching and not making a move. Anger sweeping him like a sudden blaze in dry grass, Monahan dropped the shovel, grabbed his rifle and sprinted down to the wagon.
“Finch,” he exploded, “where’s that protection? You’ve sat around here filling your belly and getting in the way! Now what’re you going to do?”
Finch’s face had paled. “My men,” he rasped helplessly, pointing. “They’ve rounded up all my men and got them along. There ain’t a thing I can do.”
Monahan’s small fencing crew gathered and stood tensely beside the wagon, where Paco Sanchez’s cookfire had burned down to a few glowing coals which he was keeping alive for supper.
“You want us to fight, Doug?” asked Stub Bailey, spinning the cylinder of a six-shooter.
“Put it up,” Doug said. “We don’t have a chance, and there’s no use getting somebody killed.” He set down his rifle and stood there waiting.
2
The riders came on leisurely, knowing they had the upper hand. They didn’t leave behind them a single piece of wire more than twenty feet long.
“We’re in for it,” Bailey muttered. “That’s the old he-coon hisself in the lead yonder, ridin’ the gray horse. Captain Andrew Rinehart. He don’t answer to nobody, not even to God.”
A chill worked down Doug Monahan’s back. He knew that this was going to be nasty. But this was Finch’s land. He ought to have the right to do what he wanted to with it.…
The horsemen crowded in close, forming a semicircle around the small fencing crew. Some of the horses fidgeted, slinging their heads. Gordon Finch held back, sliding behind the chuckbox.
The captain edged forward on his big gray, as fine a horse as a man would ever see. Captain Andrew Rinehart was a man of strong will and fierce pride. He was an aging cowman with a clipped gray beard and piercing eyes that stabbed from under heavy gray brows. Despite the weight of years, his back was rigid. Not a young cowboy with him sat straighter in the saddle.
He was one of those real old patriarchs, Monahan knew, one of the kind who had whipped and carved this state into being. You still found a few like him down in South Texas. Monahan knew the breed, for his father had been one. Most of them were gone now.
Those commanding eyes searched the fencing crew, then lit on Monahan. “You’re in charge here.” It was a statement, rather than a question.
Monahan took a step forward. “It’s my camp. I’m Doug Monahan.”
Rinehart studied him intently, squinting as if to see him better. “Monahan, you’re trespassing.”
Monahan felt the stretch of tension within him. He had heard about Captain Rinehart. This old man controlled the R Cross, which sprawled haphazardly over a big part of Kiowa County, its boundaries ragged and loose—and uncontested. Once a Texas Ranger, and later an officer in the Confederate army, he had been the first man to move into this county and stay. He had pushed the Indians out. In the years that followed, no one had ever seriously challenged him.
Kiowa County, it said on the map. Around here they called it Rinehart County more often than not.
“Well now,” Monahan said. “We have a contract from Gordon Finch to fence his ranch, so I don’t see how we could be trespassing.”
Rinehart’s gaze searched over the men on the ground. “Where is Gordon Finch? Finch, step out here.”
Finch moved hesitantly. He came out from behind the chuckbox and stood beside Monahan. His mouth opened, and in his face was a fleeting intention to speak up to this stern old cowman. Then his eyes fell, and his mouth closed.
Rinehart’s voice was as hard as flint rock. “I never would’ve thought you had the nerve, Finch. Now you’re through around here. Catch up your horse and git.”
Without lifting his eyes to those of the men around him, Gordon Finch walked out to where his horse stood hitched to a stunty mesquite behind the woodpile. He swung into the saddle, shoulders sagging.
“Sell out and leave,” Rinehart said to him. The old man didn’t speak loudly, but his voice carried the crack of a whip. “I don’t want to see you around here again.”
Just like that. Sell out and leave. And Monahan knew Finch would do it.
Finch rode off without a glance at Monahan. His cowboys followed after him, all but one whose name Monahan remembered was Dundee. Dundee held back a moment, his eyes touching Monahan’s and making a silent apology. Dundee’s holster was empty. Some R Cross cowboy had gotten himself a six-shooter mighty cheap.
Rinehart’s gaze cut back to Monahan. “This isn’t Finch’s range. It’s mine. It always was.”
Monahan clenched his rough fist. He ought to have guessed, but he hadn’t. Finch had tried to run a sandy, and he hadn’t had the nerve it took to go through with it.
Monahan said, “He told me it was his, and I had no reason to doubt him.”
Rinehart’s eyes were cold
. He thought Monahan was lying. The captain glanced at a man who sat beside him on a black-legged dun. “All right, Archer!”
Men stepped down from the horses and started throwing loose cedar posts up into a pile. They heaved the red spools of wire up atop the posts. Someone took Paco Sanchez’s big coaloil can and started pouring kerosene.
“Rinehart,” Monahan protested, “I tell you I didn’t know! Finch lied to me. Everything I’ve got is tied up here. Finch hasn’t paid me a cent.”
If Rinehart heard him, he gave no sign of it. He just sat there stiffly on the big gray horse, watching.
“Burn it,” he said, looking at the rider he had called Archer.
This was a tall, angular man of about thirty-five, a stiff-backed man who might have been the captain’s son, he was so much like him. He had the same aristocratic bearing, the same strong face, the same driving will. He struck a match on the sole of his boot and flipped it onto the posts near the bottom of the pile. The flames licked upward, spreading hungrily, seeking out the kerosene.
Monahan took an angry step forward, then stopped as he felt a gunbarrel poke him in the back. Rinehart’s men pitched his crew’s bedding and camp gear into the flames.
The one called Archer stood watching the fire, his face grimly silent. It was then that Monahan noticed the man’s eyes.
They were black, compelling eyes, framed in heavy, dark brows and long black lashes, eyes that burned with a ruthlessness that seemed even greater than the captain’s.
Monahan remembered then. He had heard of this man, too. Archer Spann, his name was. Foreman of the R Cross, and the captain all over again except younger. The captain had never had a son, they said, but he had found Archer Spann, and Spann was as much like him as a son could ever be.
Spann picked up the kerosene can and climbed up into the chuckwagon. He poured the rest of the contents out over the chuckbox and into the wagonbed. Paco Sanchez had held still through all that had happened. Suddenly now he broke loose as he realized that the old Bar M chuckwagon was about to be destroyed.
“No, no,” he cried, “don’t you burn my wagon!”
He grabbed at Spann’s long legs, trying to pull him down. Spann lifted the heavy can and swung it at Paco’s head. Stunned, Paco went down on hands and knees.
Spann pitched a match into the kerosene. As the flames spread, he dropped down from the wagon.
Near Paco’s hands the water basin had fallen to the ground. He grabbed it, scooped up sand and threw it on the flames. Spann jerked the pan from his twisted hands. It went spinning away. One of the horses, nervous already because of the fire, broke into pitching. In a moment of wild confusion, the riders pulled one way and another, trying to stop the bucking horse.
Raging now at the destruction of his wagon, Paco found his fallen pothook.
“No, Paco!” Monahan shouted and jumped to stop him.
Spann stepped back in sudden alarm as the pothook swung at him. It missed, and Paco never had a chance to swing it again. Spann’s gun came up. It roared. Paco jerked under the impact, falling against the burning wagon.
“Paco!” Monahan rushed to the old Mexican, grabbing him and dragging him back from the flames. In desperation he ripped away the cook’s heavy black shirt. The old man caught a sharp, sobbing breath. For a moment he struggled to speak, but no words came. His tough old fingers closed on Monahan’s hand, telling in their own way what Paco wanted to say. Then they relaxed, and the scarred, twisted hand fell away.
Monahan was on his knees, stunned, just holding Paco’s body and not knowing what to do. Then, gently, he eased him down to earth and stood up, trembling in fury.
Spann was watching him, his own face taut. He held the smoking gun, its barrel leveled at Monahan.
Captain Rinehart said, “Put the gun away, Archer.”
Monahan leaped at the man. He saw the gunbarrel tilt upward. He grabbed Spann’s wrist, forced the gun aside as it roared again. He reached for Spann’s throat.
Spann wrenched loose. There was a quick swish, and the gunbarrel struck Monahan behind the ear. He fell solidly, the ground smashing against his face. He lay there tasting sand. He pushed onto his knees, trying to clear his head and find Spann again, but the horsemen seemed to swirl around him. He was conscious of the flames, the crackling heat, the stench of smoke. But he could not see. There was sand in his eyes, and a blinding pain-flash of red.
Rinehart’s riders held their nervous horses as still as they could, gripped in sudden shock by the quick explosion of violence, the death of the old Mexican. It had not been part of the plan. Rinehart’s riders waited uncertainly, and Monahan waited, too, half expecting the gun to roar again.
“I said put it up,” Rinehart spoke in a quiet but commanding voice.
Spann dropped the six-shooter back into its holster.
Cold reason returned to Monahan then. He blinked hard, shaking his head, trying to clear his sight. He couldn’t fight them now. But he wouldn’t forget. He’d bide his time and take whatever else they dealt him, for there would be another day.…
The bed of the blazing wagon broke. Camp goods spilled through the charring bottom. The heavy chuckbox lurched sideways, hung a moment in the balance, then slid to the ground with a crash of tin plates and cups and cutlery and a shower of hot sparks.
Horses danced excitedly away from the flames. Captain Rinehart held his big gray with a strong, steady hand.
“We didn’t come to kill anybody, Monahan,” he said evenly. “I didn’t mean it to happen. But it doesn’t change anything. This is open range. It was that way when I came here, and it will remain so. Now move out, Monahan. Don’t stop for anything. Move out, and don’t come back!”
He turned his gray horse about then, and pulled away without a backward glance. His cowboys drew aside to let him pass. Then they fell in behind him. Some of them looked back at the blazing ruin of the camp, but Captain Rinehart never did.
Doug Monahan dragged himself to the old Mexican. He gripped the corded brown hand, closing his eyes against the sudden rush of hot tears. Stub Bailey came and laid his hand on Monahan’s shoulder.
Monahan said tightly, “I can’t remember a time when Paco Sanchez wasn’t somewhere around. As far back as I can remember, he’s been with me.”
Paco had taught him, had guided him, had occasionally used the double of a rope on him when Doug’s own father wasn’t there and the job needed doing.
“Time has a way of going on, Doug,” Stub said quietly. “It takes away the old things we been used to. We can’t hold them forever.”
Bailey and the others of the fencing crew threw sand on the fires, snuffing them out. Doug couldn’t stand up to it, and right now he didn’t care.
Presently he looked up to find the fires out. Bailey was digging around under a flat rock just outside of camp. He came back carrying a bottle, wiping the dirt off onto his shirt. He held the bottle out to Doug.
“Take a good stiff one. You need it.”
Monahan managed two long swallows and choked. It was cheap, raw whisky. Bailey took the bottle and turned it up for himself.
“One thing they didn’t burn up,” he commented, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, his blue eyes watering from the sting. “Bet you didn’t even know I had this.”
“I knew you had it,” Monahan replied. “I just didn’t know where.”
Bad as the whisky was, it made Monahan feel better. Stub knelt uncomfortably beside him, looking at Paco. One of the men dragged a half-burned blanket out of the fire and covered the body with it.
“We saved some of the stuff,” Bailey said. “Cedar ain’t easy burned, so most of the posts are still good. Them wooden spools burned quick, though, and the wire’s tangled up into an awful mess. Lost the temper, too, I expect. I don’t reckon it’ll be to where we can salvage much of it.”
Monahan stood up painfully to look over the shambles. “Thanks, Stub.”
Bailey said, “You better let me fix that place where they hit you. It don
’t look good.”
“It’ll be all right.” Doug’s voice was hollow.
Bailey shrugged. The boss was old enough to take care of himself. “What do we do now?”
“First thing, we better see if we can find a shovel that isn’t burned up.”
They had to bury Paco without so much as the Scripture, for the only Bible had been in the chuckbox. It hadn’t been used much. Sometime, Monahan thought, he would try to find a priest and bring him out here. Right now, a short prayer had to do.
They had just finished filling the grave when Noah Wheeler and his daughter came back, driving three plodding Durham cows. The cows warily skirted the camp, but the two riders came straight in. Their eyes were grim as they read the meaning in the burned-out camp, the cut fence, the new mound of earth where a fire-blackened piece of the chuckbox lid stood as a temporary headboard.
The old farmer solemnly looked over the faces of the men in camp, mentally tallying up. He glanced at the grave and said, “The cook?”
Monahan nodded stiffly. Wheeler slowly climbed out of the saddle. The girl also got down. Her soft voice was tight. “Who did it?”
“Rinehart,” Monahan said bitterly.
“The captain?” Noah Wheeler shook his head incredulously. “He’s a hard man on occasion, but he’s never killed without the need for it.”
Monahan said, “Archer Spann did the shooting.”
The old farmer nodded grimly. “Cold as ice. He’s the man they say will own the R Cross someday.” With sorrow, Wheeler said, “I reckon it’s my fault. I should have told you it was Rinehart’s range, but I figured it was none of my business.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered,” Monahan replied. “It was already too late.”
Trudy Wheeler carefully touched the wound on Monahan’s head. “That looks bad.”
“It’ll heal.”
Noah Wheeler frowned. “You-all better come with us for tonight. We got plenty of room at home, and plenty to eat.”
Monahan shook his head. “The captain’s down on us. You take us in, he’s liable to bear down on you, too.”
