Ralph Compton Brother's Keeper

by Ralph Compton

  “You can’t tell who we are?” one of them said.

  “We’re lookin’ for you, you lunkhead,” said the other.

  Thal forgot his ma and pa were asleep, and whooped for joy. “Craw? Jesse Lee? Is that you?”

  Slumped in fatigue, the pair drew rein and grinned.

  “Did you miss us?” Jesse Lee said.

  “We rode like the dickens to catch up to you,” Crawford said. “It’s a good thing you used to talk a lot about your folks and their farm so we knew where to find you. Or almost. We had to ask in town for directions.”

  “And here we are,” Jesse Lee said. Suddenly stiffening, he doffed his hat. “Why, lookee there. An angel has come to earth to pay us a visit.”

  Ursula had come down the steps. “Oh my,” she said.

  Thal was trying to collect this wits. “What are you two doing here?”

  “Is that anything to say?” Crawford said. “After we’ve ridden so hard and so long?” The older puncher touched his hat brim to Ursula. “Ma’am. You must be his sister. He was always sayin’ how you were the prettiest girl in these parts.”

  “He did?” Ursula said.

  “And he was right,” Jesse Lee declared. Lithely swinging down, he gave a slight bow. “Jesse Lee Hardesty, at your service, Miss Christie.”

  “Oh my,” Ursula said again.

  “Quit tryin’ to impress my sister and tell me why you’re here,” Thal said, a trifle ruffled.

  “Should you even have to ask?” Jesse Lee said, his gaze fixed wonderingly on Ursula. “We’re your friends. When we heard about your brother, we went to the big sugar and told him we’d be obliged if’n he’d let us come help you in your hunt.”

  Crawford nodded. “It was Jesse’s doin’ more than mine. I was worried Mr. Hopper would say no and Jesse would go anyway and we’d be out of work.”

  Still looking at Ursula, Jesse Lee said, “Mr. Hooper might have, at that. But Mrs. Hooper was there, and it pleased her that we were concerned about you, and she asked him to let us come.”

  “And here we are,” Crawford said.

  “I’ll be switched,” was all Thal could think of to say.

  Ursula was returning Jesse Lee’s stare with a peculiar expression on her face. “Such wonderful friends you have, and you’ve never said a word about them.”

  “Why would I?” Thal said. “It’s Myles I’m here about.”

  “And Myles we’ll help you find,” Jesse Lee said. “The four of us together can do anything we put our minds to.”

  “Aren’t you something?” Ursula said.

  “Until a minute ago I didn’t know what I was,” Jesse Lee said to her.

  “Behave,” Crawford said.

  Thal was growing annoyed. “Yes. Behave. This is my sister you’re makin’ cow eyes at. You’re worse than Ned.”

  “Who?” Jesse Lee said.

  “Would you like some food?” Ursula asked. “Or something to drink? Water perhaps?”

  Crawford was climbing down. He moved stiffly, which was unusual for him. “We’re fine, ma’am. Except that we’re worn out. Point us to where we can bed down and we’ll be happy.”

  “You can sleep in the barn,” Thal said. “There’s plenty of straw, and you’ll have a roof over your heads.”

  “Who cares about a roof?” Jesse Lee said.

  Crawford tugged at his pard’s shirtsleeve. “Come on, kid. I’m plumb wore-out. We’ll get some sleep and you can make a spectacle of yourself in the mornin’.”

  “Ma’am,” Jesse Lee said, with another bow to Ursula. “May you dream of sugarplums and flowers.”

  “Will you listen to yourself?” Thal said, and watched as they walked off leading their mounts. “Sorry about that, sis. He’s young and doesn’t know any better.”

  “I think he’s gorgeous,” Ursula said.

  Chapter 8

  They got an early start.

  Thal would have liked to stay another day, but his sister insisted he must reach the Black Hills as quickly as possible. She was so worried about Myles she was losing sleep and didn’t have much of an appetite. So an hour after sunrise, Thal bade his father farewell, gave his mother and sister a hug, and climbed onto his chestnut.

  “May the Lord watch over you,” his mother said.

  His father smiled and nodded. They’d shared a short talk the night before. As always, his father didn’t have a lot to say, and held his emotions in check. They hadn’t even hugged when they greeted each other.

  Now Ursula came up to his horse and touched his leg. “Don’t let anything happen to you. You’re doing this on my account, and it would weigh on me forever.”

  Thal raised his reins. “I’ll be careful,” he said, knowing full well it was an empty promise. Whether he made it back or not wasn’t entirely up to him.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Christie,” Ned said. “I look forward to makin’ your acquaintance again on our way back.”

  “You’ll have to stand in line,” Jesse Lee said. “She already promised me a walk about the property under the stars.”

  “She did?” Ned said, sounding shocked.

  Ursula laughed. “It was the only way I could persuade him to let go of my hand.”

  “Why, you skunk, you,” Ned said to the Southerner.

  “Did you just call me a polecat?” Jesse Lee demanded.

  Thal nipped their argument in the bud with “Let’s light a shuck.” He gave his family a last look and reined around. A feeling came over him that he might never see them again, but he shrugged it off. If there was one thing he’d learned about feelings, it was that they were unreliable.

  As the four of them swung from the lane onto the road to Salina, Ned brought his animal alongside. “Did you hear your sister back there? That coyote forced her to promise him.”

  “First of all,” Thal said, “Jesse’s not a coyote. He’s our friend.” The pair had been like roosters on the peck since they woke up, each trying to outdo the other to impress Ursula. “Second of all, she’s old enough to take walks with whoever she pleases.”

  “That’s awful liberal of you,” Ned replied, “seein’ as how you’re her own brother.”

  Against his better judgment, Thal asked, “What would you have me do?”

  “Guard her like a hawk, as a brother should,” Ned said. “It’s your job to keep the wolves away.”

  “In that case,” Thal said, “neither Jesse nor you should go anywhere near her.”

  “I’m your pard. That gives me special rights.”

  “To my sister?” Thal said, and snorted. “Do me a favor and put her from your mind until I find my brother. I don’t want Jesse Lee and you squabblin’ the whole time.”

  “I’ll try, for you,” Ned said, “but you better talk to him too.”

  “I will,” Thal said, and since there was no time like the present, he fell back until he was riding next to Jesse Lee and Crawford. “Did you hear any of that?”

  “Any of what?” Jesse Lee said.

  “He’s moonin’ over your sister,” Crawford said. “He doesn’t even hear me when I talk to him.”

  “I do so,” Jesse Lee said.

  “I need Ned and you to have a truce,” Thal said bluntly. “Not one word about my sis until after I’ve found Myles. Otherwise you two will nitpick to death, and Craw and me can do without that.”

  “Can we ever!” Crawford said. “I never saw it fail yet. There’s nothin’ like a pretty gal to put one gent at another’s throat.”

  “I’d never hurt Ned,” Jesse Lee said. “I like him.”

  “Prove it by not mentionin’ Ursula until we’re done in the Black Hills,” Thal said. “That’s not too much to ask. He’s already agreed. I want your word too.”

  “If’n it will make you happy,” Jesse Lee said. “But you can�
��t stop me from dreamin’ about her.”

  “Now, see?” Crawford said. “This is why I should partner up with an older hand. Us older ones keep our heads better.”

  “It’s not my head Ursula took,” Jesse Lee said. “It’s my heart.”

  “You hardly even know her,” Thal said.

  “You’re not Southern,” Jesse Lee said. “You don’t understand. Southern men are born with romance in their blood.”

  “Just make sure it stays there,” Thal said.

  “I could use some whiskey in my blood right about now,” Crawford remarked. “All this silliness gets to a man.”

  “You won’t think it’s silly when her and me are hitched,” Jesse Lee declared.

  Thal had had enough. “You know her barely twelve hours and you’re ready to walk down the aisle with her?”

  “You’re her brother. You wouldn’t savvy.”

  On that note, Thal gigged the chestnut. He had a decision to make and it was an important one. Namely, should they make a beeline for the Black Hills or play it safe and take the longer way around? The beeline involved a more or less straight course across the open prairie. Over four hundred miles, and a lot of it roamed by hostiles. The last two hundred miles or so, they’d be in Sioux territory, and the Sioux were on a tear.

  Or they could head for Cheyenne, a distance of about three hundred and fifty miles, and join one of the “expeditions,” as they were called, that regularly left for the Black Hills. There was an advantage in that the expedition parties were always large and well armed. Their whole purpose was to offer protection to those bound for the gold fields.

  That evening, as they sat around the campfire well north of Salina, Thal put the question to his pard and his friends.

  “The expeditions are safer,” Ned spoke up. “We’d be less likely to lose our scalps.”

  “I don’t care which it is,” Crawford said. “Whatever you boys decide is fine by me.”

  “I say we head straight for the hills,” Jesse Lee said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we find your brother, the sooner I can see your sister again.”

  “You promised not to bring her up,” Thal reminded him.

  “Sorry.”

  “The vote is tied,” Ned said. “It’s up to you, pard. As it should be. He’s your family.”

  Thal was tempted to try the direct route. They might be able to slip through without the Sioux being aware of it. But if they were caught, they were goners. It was as simple as that. “I reckon we should do this smart, and the smart thing is Cheyenne.”

  Even that wasn’t a sure thing. The Sioux weren’t the only tribe who hated that whites were overrunning their land. And then there were outlaws and the like, long riders who roamed the remote regions looking for prey to pounce on.

  By the sixth day, they’d left human habitations far behind. Or so Thal reckoned. Then they came to a bluff overlooking a creek bordered by a belt of woods, and across the creek stood a soddy with a large sign that read DRINKS. To one side was a corral made of saplings, with several horses.

  “My eyes must be playin’ tricks,” Ned said. “A saloon, way out there?”

  “I don’t believe it neither,” Jesse Lee said.

  Much to Thal’s relief, the pair had been getting along since they buried the Ursula hatchet. “Do we stop or not? I’ll leave it up to you.”

  “A swallow of red-eye wouldn’t hurt,” Crawford said. “We can rest the horses for half an hour, then push on.”

  A tiny voice at the back of Thal’s mind was urging him not to, but he nodded. “All right. Keep your eyes skinned, though.”

  “That goes without sayin’,” Jesse Lee said.

  A game trail brought them to the bottom of the bluff. The creek was so shallow the crossing barely got their horses’ hooves wet. As they came up the bank, a plank door attached by leather hinges creaked open and out came a scrawny middle-aged woman wearing a well-worn homespun dress, a soiled apron, and a floppy brown hat. She had stringy gray hair, a pointed chin, and, when she grinned, a gap where several of her upper front teeth should be.

  “Howdy, gents. I’m right pleased to see you.”

  “Who might you be when you’re to home?” Jesse Lee said.

  “I’m Harriet. This here is my place.”

  “Strange spot for a saloon,” Jesse Lee said.

  “It’s my house,” Harriet said. “I serve drinks to those as wander by to make a few dollars now and then.” She motioned. “Climb on down and take a load off. I have victuals, if you’re hungry. Includin’ a pie I baked only yesterday.”

  “I do so love pie,” Crawford said.

  Thal was the last to dismount. That little voice at the back of his head wouldn’t relent. No sooner did his boots touch the ground than the plank door opened again and out came two men about his age. There, any resemblance ended. They were as scrawny as the woman, all bone and sinew, and grubby with dirt on their clothes and their faces. They were greasy besides; their hair looked as if it had been slicked back with bear fat. Neither smiled. Each held a rifle in the crook of an elbow, a Spencer for the one and a Henry for the other.

  Repeaters, both, fine rifles that didn’t come cheap. Thal wondered how the pair could afford them.

  “Here are my boys!” Harriet exclaimed proudly. “Cleve”—she nodded at the one with the Spencer—“and Vernon.” She nodded at the one with the Henry.

  “How do?” Vernon said.

  “Same here,” Cleve said.

  “You take after your ma,” Crawford said.

  “They’re fixin’ to do some huntin’ for the supper pot,” Harriet said. “Ain’t you, boys?”

  Both nodded.

  Thal noticed that Jesse Lee’s hand was close to his ivory-handled Colt. “What are you after?” the Southerner asked.

  Vernon shrugged. “Whatever we see.”

  Cleve nodded. “Deer, bear, squirrel, rabbit, fox, it don’t make no never mind so long as we can eat it.”

  “I’d like to find me a snake,” Vernon said. “I love fried snake meat.”

  They made for the woods.

  “Ain’t they somethin’?” Harriet declared. “It warms the cockles of my heart, how devoted they are. I couldn’t get by without them.”

  “Where’s their pa, if you don’t mind my askin’?” Crawford said.

  “Gone, about two years now.”

  “Gone as in flew the coop?” Ned wanted to know. “Or gone as in met his Maker?”

  Harriet grew sorrowful and answered woefully, “He went off to hunt buffalo and never came back. Me and the boys went lookin’ for him and found Injun sign. The Cheyenne or whoever, I couldn’t say. But it was redskins who did my man in.”

  “Sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Crawford said.

  Thal didn’t have much to say. He was eager to get their drink and get gone. But he felt compelled to remark, “If my pa died, my ma would be heartbroken.”

  “Enough about my man,” Harriet said. With a toss of her head, she stepped to the plank door and held it open for them. “In you go. Stoop as you do. It’s a bit short.”

  Wondering why that was, Thal bent at the knees and ducked under the lintel. Inside, the place was spacious, but dank. The floor was bare earth, the walls and roof sod. A large table made of pine was along the left-hand wall, with chairs. Dark doorways at the back led to where they slept.

  “Cozy,” Crawford said.

  “It keeps the wind out and the rain off our heads,” Harriet said. “That’s all that matters.” Smiling cheerfully, she hustled to a small, crudely constructed bar that appeared to have been fashioned out of the sides of a Conestoga or some other wagon.

  “You have your own bar?” Ned marveled.

  “My husband’s idea,” Harriet said, going around behind and taking a half-empty bottle of Monongahela from a shelf
. “So those who stop can see we’re serious about our liquor.”

  Crawford pulled out a chair and sat. “Seems like a lot of trouble to go to, as few folks who must stop.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Harriet said, producing glasses and setting them by the bottle. “Last year there were eleven, I think it was. Most were bound for somewhere to the northwest, as I suspect you boys are.”

  “To Cheyenne, and from there to the Black Hills,” Ned said.

  “Have a seat, have a seat,” Harriet urged. She brought out a wooden tray, set the bottle and the glasses on it, and came over. “Here you go. Only two bits a drink.”

  Thal had moved to a chair that let him see the front door and the doorways at the back, both. He was growing uneasy and couldn’t say why.

  “We’re obliged, ma’am,” Crawford said.

  “Oh, pshaw,” Harriet said. “We’re just glad to see you fellers. So glad you wouldn’t believe.”

  Chapter 9

  Thal thought that a peculiar thing to say. But then, everything about the place was peculiar. Or was it just him? Some folks didn’t cotton to other people. They liked to live off by themselves. Mountain men, for instance. It could be that this family wanted the rest of the world to leave them be. Yet if that was the case, why offer drinks to people? With a shrug he put it from his mind. In a little while he and his companions would be on their way.

  Crawford took the first sip of their whiskey and uttered a happy sigh. “I’ll be switched,” he said. “It’s the genuine article.”

  “Did you think it wouldn’t be?” Harriet said.

  “Some saloons water their red-eye down,” Crawford mentioned.

  “We’re not a saloon,” Harriet said. “We just do this to get by.” She gave them another partly toothless smile and returned to the counter.

  Ned swallowed, and nodded. “Just what I needed to wash down the dust. If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d buy a bottle and sit out on the prairie tonight and get drunk.”

  “Whatever for?” Thal asked. His pard wasn’t much of a drinking man. Not like Crawford, who loved to suck the bug juice down but had the presence of mind not to do it when he was out on the range.