The Sons of Grady Rourke

by Douglas Savage

  Liam awoke to the sound of groggy men shuffling through the bunk house. Some cursed the icy floor as if the discomfort of cold splinters piercing stocking feet were deliberate. Others dropped heavy boots onto the floor as they dressed in dirty clothes that had been folded within their bedrolls to keep the outfits warm.

  The newest man rubbed his eyes, felt the intense pressure in his bladder, and stumbled out of bed. He could hardly open his eyes to the blinding daylight outside. Wearing boots and his longjohns, Liam could not wait to dress before making some yellow snow. But before such certain relief beyond the corner of the cabin, he paused and looked away from the sun to where his nightmare had stood. He saw three cow hands standing closely together. Liam joined them.

  The three men made room for the new man so all four could examine the strangely painted post sticking in the snow. But there were no footprints leading to it from the nearby pines. No snow had fallen for two days to cover tracks. Liam shivered this Saturday morning. But not from the cold.

  SEAN ROURKE COULD sense that Abigail’s cheerful face looked at him differently. The sun was never quite peeking over the eastern mountains each morning when he slipped silently out of Melissa’s soft, warm bed of deep goose down. The hand-me-down mattress from Lawrence Murphy—founder of the House—was the little home’s one luxury. If the little girl heard the door creak open after she blew out her oil lamp, or heard the door close softly before dawn, she never said a word. But Sean felt something different in her eyes when she opened the door at midday on Saturday, March 2nd.

  “Mama ain’t back yet. She had to buy flour at the House for hot cakes.”

  “I can come back.”

  “No. Mama said for you to wait. She won’t be but a minute.”

  Sean was not quite comfortable when he hung his coat on the peg beside the door. He had never been alone with the eight-year-old before.

  “Does Melissa talk to you?” Sean was intrigued.

  “Not really. I just know.”

  He nodded. Sean had the same sensation with the soft-bodied woman. He was grateful when Melissa opened the door five minutes after his arrival. The tall man took a heavy basket from her arms.

  Melissa had flour on the flatiron griddle within ten minutes. She had also bought a fresh tin of maple syrup shipped in from the East. Sean regretted that he had not thought to buy it for her. When the three took their places at the table, Sean felt as if he finally had a family. The feeling comforted him as much as Melissa’s cooking.

  “Dolan says that Justice Wilson deputized Dick Brewer yesterday to lead them Regulators going after Tunstall’s killers.”

  Melissa looked up at him. Her eyes were fearful.

  “ ain’t worried. I didn’t shoot no one out there. Besides, I suppose I’m part of Jesse’s gang now and Sheriff Brady’s camp. And I live in Jimmy Dolan’s hotel. I’m as safe as I can be. Don’t you worry, neither.”

  The woman nodded without much conviction.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t think to get the maple syrup. I’ll get a quart today.”

  Melissa shrugged toward the new tin.

  “That’s all right. An extra won’t go to waste.” Sean smiled toward Abbey who grinned back at him with eyes he had not seen before.

  BY SUNDAY, CYRUS Buchanan had waited a week to see Bonita Ramos again. He fought the urge by pounding fence posts into the ground and by nailing patches onto the weather-beaten barn. When that failed to clear his mind of the woman’s presence, he cursed John Chisum’s cattle for leaning too hard against new fencing, which would not set firm until the earth finally thawed.

  “You’re like an old woman,” Patrick had said goodnaturedly. “You’ll be giving me your boot if you don’t ride into town and make some time, Sergeant Buchanan.”

  Patrick never used the big man’s former rank except for conversations of serious gravity involving Tunstall’s murder or whiskey and women.

  “If that’s an order,” Cyrus laughed.

  “And so’s a clean shirt.”

  “Yes, sir. With my respects, sir.” The soldier’s laughter filled the house and he hummed the cavalry tune “Garry-owen”—the 7th Cavalry’s marching song—when he pulled his scrubbed blouse from a chairback pushed close to the hearth to dry. He took a wire brush to his cavalry-issue floppy hat and whisked the dust out of the crown.

  “Have a good campaign,” Patrick waved as Cyrus opened the door.

  “Just going to church,” the soldier said as he closed the door behind him.

  JOHN CHISUM AND Alexander McSween assembled two dozen men around the large dining table in the big house. Everyone except Liam went into the kitchen for thirds of the midday Sunday supper.

  When the last cowhand finally pushed his plate away clean enough to put back into the cabinet, the lawyer stood up at a corner of the long table where Chisum presided at the head. McSween waited for all eyes to look up.

  “Boys, it’s time we brought John Tunstall’s killers to justice. We all know it was Bill Morton’s posse who gunned down the only honest shopkeeper in Lincoln. Tomorrow, the Regulators will ride. I’ve sent word to Dick Brewer to lead you.”

  Everyone looked at McSween as he sat down. The eyes around the table were narrow and hard.

  Only Liam was not thinking of high-country justice. He thought instead of two mornings in a row, pulling spirit posts out of the snow. Saturday after midnight. the Spirit Keeper had pressed her nose against the glass window. Liam alone saw her last night. No foot prints marked the mourning mother’s coming or going.

  PATRICK WAS NOT surprised when Cyrus did not ride home Sunday night. Monday morning, he awoke alone in the house for the first time since Liam had returned from the Army. He got up early and was busy pushing steers away from the fence when two riders came hard down the lane.

  “Is Cyrus all right?” Patrick demanded instinctively.

  “Cyrus’?” Billy Bonney asked as he dismounted beside a winded Dick Brewer.

  “Yes. He rode into town yesterday.”

  “I wouldn’t worry none,” Billy smiled. “He won’t freeze in Bonita’s room.”

  “I suppose not,” Patrick said, wondering how the youth knew. “What brings you out so early?”

  “The Regulators is riding,” Dick Brewer answered quickly before Billy could. “Tomorrow. We need to know if you be with us?”

  “Come in out of the cold,” Patrick said to change the subject, even for a moment. Billy and Brewer tied their sweating horses to the new fence rail. Steam floated on each animal’s back from tile canter to the ranch. The three men walked inside where the room was comfortable although the fire was little more than red embers.

  “Coffee might be warm,” Patrick said.

  “Thanks,” Brewer said.

  “Sheriff Brady is going to get his comeuppance, if I have any say in this business.” Billy sounded genuinely angry.

  “Come on, Billy. One night in the poky ain’t done you no harm.” Dick Brewer was overly cheerful. “You got a hot breakfast you ain’t had to pay for.”

  Billy was simmering where he sipped his lukewarm coffee.

  “Jail?” Patrick tried to follow.

  “Brady arrested me yesterday just for asking him to make me a deputy to go after Morton’s posse of bushwhackers. All I wanted was to be legal all ’round. I figured that Brady’s warrant and Justice Wilson’s would make me legal and proper four square. But he locked me up last night just for asking. He’ll get his, you’ll see.”

  “Ease off, Billy,” Brewer’s voice was calm and father-like. “You got Wilson’s warrants and that’s enough by me. Brady don’t mean no harm to you.”

  “Well, I mean harm to him.”

  “I don’t want to be part of no lynching,” Patrick said firmly. He was not drinking coffee and both of his hands were free to gesture forcefully. “I ain’t no vigilante. Like McSween said.”

  “Don’t worry, Patrick. We ain’t either. Billy’ll cool down.” William Bonney did not look cool to Patrick’s e
yes. “Besides, if you ride with us tomorrow, you can be sure that the law is rightly served.”

  Patrick thought of his brother Sean.

  “The law serves who pays the most.” The middle brother did not want to be a Regulator, oath or no oath.

  “’Well,” Dick Brewer grinned, “we ain’t being paid nothing to go after Morton’s posse. We’re volunteers. You better come, too, if you’re worried.”

  Patrick looked into Billy’s fiery eyes filled with blood. There was no choice.

  “All right. I’ll ride with you. But we ain’t no assassins.”

  Billy put his coffee cup down and did not say a word.

  “Well then,” Brewer said softly, “we’ll ride over here in the morning. Bring a good horse. The darkie can come if he wants.”

  “He ain’t about to leave Bonita’s for no posse,” Billy smiled for the first time. “I sure wouldn’t trade her bed for no horse.”

  Dick Brewer handed his empty cup to Patrick and led Billy back into the sunshine. Patrick stood in the doorway and watched them ride off at an easy trot. He closed the door and set the cup down.

  Alone in Grady Rourke’s house, Patrick stood quietly and looked at the portrait of his uniformed father and his Confederate brother.

  SHERIFF WILLIAM BRADY paced the floor of his adobe home four miles east of Lincoln before daybreak Tuesday, March 4th. His roundly pregnant wife, Bonifacia, and their eight children slept peacefully all around him, surrounded by the one thousand acres that he had earned for them. His house looked like the barracks the former, brevet major remembered from his Civil War days when he chased Indians instead of Rebels.

  Brady could feel trouble coming the same way his wife’s back—weakened by too many babies—could forecast rain. So he touched his wife’s face, whispered in her ear, and stepped quietly into the calm darkness.

  Morning twilight turned the southeastern sky a hard pink in the cold, thin air by the time the sheriff rode into Lincoln. Even in the fragile light of dawn, the single street showed dark clods of freshly turned earth within pale, dried ruts from yesterday’s wagon wheels. Brady rode to his adobe courthouse next to Ike Stockton’s saloon on the lightly settled, south side of the street—the House side.

  “Looks like a stampede tore up the street,” Brady said as he entered his cramped office. He hung his coat on a peg and adjusted his Peacemaker low on his hip. With his gloves off, he rubbed his chapped hands together near the pot-bel-lied stove.

  “Dick Brewer rode out around midnight with maybe ten men.” Deputy George Peppin handed the sheriff a hot cup of coffee.

  “Regulators?”

  “Yes, Sheriff. Stopped at Justice Wilson’s on the way out of town.”

  “Damn.” Brady wrapped his red fingers around the hot tin cup. “McSween still down at South Spring?”

  “Far as I know.” Peppin had his boots on the sheriff’s desk. Brady was too preoccupied to care.

  “Which way they ride?”

  “East.”

  “Any word from Morton?”

  “None for two days. He’ll stay scarce once he learns Brewer’S gang is on the loose.”

  “What about Jesse?”

  “He ain’t gone no place. His Boys will take care of the captain. He ain’t worried.” The deputy scraped his spurs across the desk and Brady winced. “Heard you arrested young Bonney.”

  “For a night only. Wanted me to countersign Wilson’s warrants for Morton, Jesse, and Jimmy. For God’s sake!”

  The sheriff had not taken a seat. He paced nervously. The stove brought beads of sweat to his cheeks around his wide mustache. He spoke to the fogged window.

  “Take a message, please, George.”

  The deputy set his feet on the hardwood floor, took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer, and licked the tip of a pencil.

  “Ready, Sheriff.”

  “Get this to the telegraph office as soon as you see a light down there: ’A. A. McSween, Widenmann and others have collected a well armed mob of about fifty men and are getting more to join them. They defy the law. They threaten the lives and property of our best citizens. I cannot serve any legal documents or carry out the law if I am not assisted by the military. Please see His Excellency Governor Axtell and ask him to obtain an order from General Hatch to the Post Master of Fort Stanton to protect me in the discharge of my official duties.’ Signed, William Brady, Sheriff.”

  George Peppin scribbled for another moment to catch up.

  “Fifty men, Sheriff? I ain’t seen but a dozen at most.” The deputy suppressed a tight smile.

  Brady paced to the window where morning light pushed back the last of the shadows.

  “They’ll be fifty by the time Brewer gets to South Spring River and takes on Chisum’s little army.”

  Deputy Peppin’s face hardened at the sudden picture in his mind.

  “Yes. Who should I telegraph this message to?”

  “Wire it to Governor Axtell for countersignature, with instructions to send it on to President Rutherford B. Hayes.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE RANKS OF THE REGULATORS DOUBLED WHEN DICK Brewer’s posse reached John Chisum’s spread Monday night. Patrick Rourke rode grimly with them. Billy Bonney and Rob Widenmann joined ten other Chisum men who rode out with Brewer Tuesday morning. Sunday, Brewer had spoken with townsfolk who were too afraid to ride with the Regulators but hated the House for its usury. With lowered eyes and raspy whispers, they told Brewer to burn daylight for Roswell to the west.

  Liam Rourke made excuses and stayed behind at South Spring with a few hands too old to ride through the mountains in the late-winter cold. He had begged Patrick to stay with him at the ranch. But the middle brother rode out to protect Sean if he were found with Morton’s fugitive lawmen. Liam was beyond exhausted. All night he had waited at the bunk house window for Spirit Keeper to come for him out of the ground and its fires below. But she did not come for the first night in four.

  After the Regulators thundered down the stage road to cross the frozen Rio Hondo for Roswell only six miles to the northwest of South Spring, Liam sleep-walked to the bam where he stacked hay to keep from falling down between the dozing horses. In the house, Alex McSween and John Chisum smoked expensive cigars and sipped brandy when they spoke confidently about justice certain and righteous.

  When Liam’s head touched his bedroll Tuesday night, he did not remember closing his eyes. The spacious cabin was chilly with more than half of the bunks empty. Red embers glowed in the dying fireplaces when he awoke three hours before dawn. Sitting up in bed, he gathered his wits to put his feet down on the cold floor to throw fresh logs into the hearth. He knew that the cold had awakened him until he saw the woman’s face in the frosted window.

  ALL DAY WEDNESDAY, Liam watched the road where snow was finally melting into stinking brown puddles of mud and manure. He looked for Patrick with the same pursed brow that Patrick had worn when he stood on Grady Rourke’s porch waiting for Liam to ride home from Chief Joseph’s surrender. That morning, the spirit post behind the bunk house had toppled over with a warm breeze blowing from the south. Locals enjoyed what they called false spring.

  Liam slept fitfully Wednesday night, but Spirit Keeper did not come with the encouraging warm spell.

  By midday Thursday, March 7th, Chisum’s vast herd of steers had turned from brown to coal black as they wallowed like pigs in the newly soft earth. The split-eared animals did not look up when two dozen weary men on horseback rode slowly down the muddy hillside toward the ranch. Dick Brewer rode in the lead beside three men whom Liam had never before seen.

  The three men were the only riders without iron bulges under their long dusters. Their hands were bound with coarse hemp to their saddle horns.

  The Regulators dismounted under the watchful eyes of Alex McSween and John Chisum. Six possemen, two at a time, helped the three prisoners from their saddles. All of the riders were caked with sweat and mud.

  “Welcome to South Spring,” Chisum
said coldly in the comfortable air. Deputies William Morton, Frank Baker, and William McCloskey did not return the cattleman’s contrived civility when they were pushed stumbling onto the low porch. A Regulator behind each prisoner pulled off each captive’s muddy hat as if they were in the presence of royalty.

  “Inside,” McSween ordered. Sheriff Brady’s men were led into the house. Their weary faces had the gray pallor of condemned men.

  “Take the ropes off them,” Chisum said. Dick Brewer obliged, one at a time. When Patrick walked in, Liam stepped close to his brother who smelled of horse sweat and man sweat.

  “Four of them got away,” Patrick said softly. “We chased them for five miles before we run them to ground. Sean weren’t with them.” Liam looked relieved, although his eyes were sunken into black wells on his lightly bearded face. Patrick was surprised by Liam’s gaunt face. “You all right?”

  “Just tired. I ain’t up to ranching yet.”

  Patrick pulled a chair from under the long table. He looked to Chisum who nodded. Patrick slumped down hard.

  “You, too,” Chisum said to Morton and his two men. “You’ll be guests here till Deputy Brewer escorts you back to Lincoln to stand trial for murdering John Tunstall.”

  “In cold blood,” the lawyer interrupted before Chisum had finished his greeting.

  The prisoners sat down close to Patrick. Liam took two steps backward to give Chisum speeching room.

  “Tunstall drew on us, Mr. Chisum. That’s a fact.” William Morton spoke respectfully but firmly. “You weren’t in town for the inquest. Tunstall fired three rounds at us on the road to Lincoln. His iron had three spent cases in it. Tell him, Mr. McSween.”

  Morton’s voice was tired but confident. Facts were facts.

  “Tunstall wouldn’t draw on an armed mob in the middle of nowhere. He was a businessman, not a shooter.” McSween spoke with emotion. He owed his livelihood to the dead Englishman after the House had fired him as their attorney. And he had grown to like the soft-spoken foreigner who loved Americans.