Deadly Is the Night

by Dusty Richards

  He felt a little short of words for a second, then gathered his wits. He took off his hat and the others did, too. “Lord, Anita and Jesus have bought this place to raise a family. A place of their own. They never imagined such a place as ever being theirs growing up, working hard, but you have helped provide this acreage. Let this be a holy place to raise a family, to put a ranch together, and some day pass a better place on to their children. Amen.”

  Mid-afternoon they went back home. Riding along with Miguel and Chet, Fred asked, “Why did it take Anita so long to marry Jesus?”

  “She told him she feared becoming a wife.”

  “Hmm, she looks as happy as Talley did over there.”

  “Fred, you will learn a lot about women in the next few years. They’re different and every one of them is different in a different way. Right, Miguel?”

  “Boy, yes. Completely different. A lot of women would have grabbed Jesus in a minute. He had to convince her. They’ll do fine, and she is coming out of the shell she was in. In Mexico there would have been no such a step up for her to make, from servant to home owner. You stay where you always were all your life. In Mexico I’d still be a farm hand.”

  “Guys, I have a lot to learn. I have been scratching at a living to even eat before I joined you. I feel damn grateful riding with you all everywhere I go. I never spoke to a girl like an equal in my life until I met Claire. I sure didn’t impress her, but it sure was nice to talk with her like I was one. You all taught me that.”

  “I know how you feel,” Miguel said. “Bandits killed my first wife. I ran away from Mexico and Raphael gave me a job. I thought my life would be in shambles forever. This tall pretty girl who worked in the big house wanted no part of a simple vaquero. But when I took my hat off to talk to her, she looked at me like I was funny.

  “Boy, she was as cold as the north wind in winter. Then Chet told me part of her story, how she ran away with a man who she expected would marry her. He didn’t have her story right, but in the end she told me the details, and they were sad. I had to make her believe I was not there for that. I asked her to go riding on a Sunday. She got permission and we had what you call a good time but at a distance.

  “When we got back, I said, ‘Can we ride again?’ I feared she’d say no. She said she would ask Elizabeth again.

  “So we rode again on the next Sunday. Then we danced at a wedding here and all those hombres who had no wives danced with her, too. But she came and found me that night and told me she had saved the last dance for me. I knew I’d made a step up.

  “I was living in the bunkhouse. She lived in the big house. If I asked her to marry me I needed a house. I asked Raphael if she would marry me could I have a house. He laughed and said, ‘Maybe not for you, but she could have one.’”

  They all laughed at that.

  “I am learning.” Fred shook his head and smiled. “Lots to learn.”

  “Let’s move it. When we get back to the house, we will have a lot to do. This telegraph business is about to bust open. Harold is going north to get set up buying posts. The family will tack up signs all over and hope a hundred loggers come running forth with posts. The four of us need to go to Gallup. In a week I hope it will all begin.”

  That evening Chet talked to Spencer and his wife about the plans. “Why not wait until we get started. Then we can move you, Lucinda, and the children to the main camp.”

  “I agree things will be more orderly by then. Who will move us?”

  “Maybe Jesus. He understands moving and handles expenses well. I will supply him some good men.”

  “We won’t have raiders like the stage line had?”

  “I hope not.”

  Liz came into the room. “Lisa has supper ready; we better get in there.” She caught him by the arm and whispered, “Did you see Fred sneak a kiss on Claire earlier?”

  “No.”

  “They did it pretty private, I was upstairs, but I peeked and saw. It was very nice and cute.”

  “He said she was the first girl he ever talked to he was so busy surviving.”

  “I can imagine.”

  They had a wonderful supper. Lisa had a girl to help her named Sonja. She was in her mid-teens and very bashful, but she, too, would emerge out of her shell. Chet thought the girl was very pleased in her new dress on her first day of work.

  Miguel was very proud of his wife’s cooking. He showed it in his beaming but never uttered a word until they all applauded her.

  The next morning Chet’s men loaded a supply wagon with wall tents, cots, necessary food items, bedrolls, and extra clothing as well as all the tools they might need. Fred was appointed driver. The plans were to camp the next evening on the far side of the Verde, on top of the Mogollon Rim. They had the ranch’s best team of Percheron horses who had plenty of speed and power for the grades they faced. Fred had driven them around for two days, so they felt he was the man. One of Raphael’s best teamsters, Tonio, was going to hitch a saddle horse behind and then ride to the bottom of the mountain to be sure that things went well, and then Fred would be on his own.

  They had one packhorse that Fred could use for a saddle horse. He also had his new saddle, blanket, and bridle in the wagon. He and Tonio had left an hour early in the dark but the stars and moon were out.

  Chet, Spencer, Jesus, and Miguel all left later but they expected to catch him before he climbed the north road up the far mountain. A cool, not a cold morning, their horses did some extra prancing—none bucked. Waving to everyone they left for Gallup.

  They stopped for a short reprieve at the Verde Ranch to hug his growing son Adam and Rhea. He spoke to Millie. Tom had gone to the Hereford Ranch. Victor was off working on a farm project. With that visit done, they rode to catch Fred who was halfway up the north slope and smiling like a tomcat who’d just ate a rat when they rode up beside him.

  The big horses were sweating but not too much. He said he planned to rest them on the next flatter spot for a few minutes.

  “We’ll go make camp and build a fire for supper.”

  “No problem.” Then he spoke to his team who were lagging. They threw their heads up and pulled hard.

  Trotting his horse, Jesus looked back. “He must have driven horses before.”

  “I bet he did lots of things back then to survive.”

  “He sure is a survivor and he learns fast. That boy even talks different than when he first came.”

  Miguel nodded. “He told me Liz told him to vary his words. He does that thinking about it a lot I bet.”

  “That’s what it is,” Jesus said. “He never says the same thing often.”

  Chet agreed. “He doesn’t miss much that goes on. Doesn’t cuss much more than we do when we get mad. But he has changed his words and how he says things since he came to the ranch.”

  “That moved him from a dumb boy to a real guy. I guess I never noticed the guys who say the same things all the time until lately, and riding with you guys I am learning a lot more to say and how to do that,” Miguel admitted.

  Spencer made his horse get up beside them. “I really missed Jesus’s and Chet’s talking, with me down there working them poor boys from Mexico.”

  They laughed and rode on.

  Camp made and Fred arrived shortly with his wagon. They brushed down the big horses, then fed them and the saddle horses while Jesus and Miguel cooked supper. The ranch cook at the Verde had cut them some choice steaks to take along. That and beans made the supper.

  Going north, they saw the printed signs for posts wanted tacked onto trees. Fred drove on while Chet and the men stopped to visit Betty and her baby. Robert was working so the riders kept on going north. They arrived at the Center Point compound. Val and Rocky came out to see the big horses. Claire showed up to help him unhitch, and the two worked like a team. After the horses were watered and brushed down, the other workers came by and watched as the two polished the animals.

  Chet came and told them, “The food’s ready.”

&
nbsp; And the pair came along, talking softly to each other.

  “How was the second day?” Chet asked him.

  “Even better than the first one. I got over the stomach cramps.”

  The two of them nodded at each other.

  “You think he may make a teamster, Claire?”

  “Yes, sir. I saw him drive in here. He’s pretty da—I mean good at handling them.”

  “I agree. Your dad buy any poles yet?”

  “No, but from all the promises we have, we may soon be buried in them.”

  “I hope so. We’ll need them.”

  “I like your son Rocky. He’s going to be as big as you are someday.”

  “He is growing. You going to eat with us?”

  “May I?”

  “Certainly. Show her the way, Fred. I’ll have to sit with the others but you two don’t.”

  “Thanks, Chet, we want to be right.”

  “You are.” He went to join his other men.

  “Fred isn’t going to share her?” Spencer teased.

  “No. They need some private time.”

  “Boy, back in Texas I saved my money from picking cotton, doing odd jobs, and had three dollars made from an entire summer’s work. They had a box dinner auction and dance where you bid on a girl’s box lunch. Sharon McIlhaney, the prettiest girl in Shade County, would be the highest one sold. I held out for her red-wrapped box to sell.

  “Big Mike Hansen was real serious about her and I knew I had to out-bid him. The auctioneer said on the start the limit on bidding was three dollars and when it got there that bidder was the buyer. They’d been selling for forty to fifty cents a box. When they held up the red box lunch, Big Mike popped up and shouted, ‘One dollar.’ The whole crowd got real quiet. Then this barefoot boy from Siler Crick, jumped up, shoved his fist in the sky, and shouted, ‘Three dollars!’

  “Big Mike shouted, ‘Ten dollars.’

  “The auctioneer shook his head. ‘Spencer gets the bid.’

  “‘He won’t live to eat it. I’ll kill that wormy son of a bitch here and now.’

  “Some elders grabbed Mike, threw him outside, and told him not to come back. But my belly cramped eating her mother’s fried chicken and dancing with her at arm’s length. I could dance barefooted then, too. She was very polite to me and even asked how I got so much money to buy her lunch. I told her I earned every dime. I had a heavenly night. She danced with others but danced every third one with me. Plus she came got me for the last one. I had a good evening but as the end drew near I began to wonder if I’d live to see the next sun come up.

  “I knew from my friends Big Mike and his thugs were waiting outside. Before the last dance, Jim Griffin, a buddy, came by and said he had his grandfather’s mule, Jacob, he rode over here and how he was out of a Kentucky racehorse and nothing in the county could catch him. He said if I’d come out the back door and jump over the rail the Colonel would carry me away.

  “Sharon kissed me good-bye on the cheek and thanked me for being so polite. I tore out the back door, bound over the rail, hit the saddle kinda hard, grabbed the reins, and never stopped running him until I reached Siler Creek.”

  They all laughed.

  “That is not all the story. I knew Big Mike would not be satisfied until I was dead. I told my grandma who raised me that Jim would come for the mule. I had a skinny pony, a dry hull of a saddle, a blanket for a bedroll, plus one small iron skillet, and the next morning I left Shade County. She gave me seventy-five cents, which was all she had, and I was on my own at fifteen. I sent her money every time I made some until her sister wrote me that she died and how she appreciated my helping her.

  “I saw in a paper where they hung Big Mike for murder in Fort Worth a few years later. I was in an El Paso house of ill repute a short time after that and someone spoke my name when I came in the parlor. Boys, I swear it was Sharon McIlhaney. I asked her why she was in there. She got teary eyed. Told me she married Big Mike and should not have, but when they hung him she had no choice but take up that profession.

  “I gave her twenty dollars and she begged me to stay. I couldn’t. It hurt too bad. I guess now you know why I don’t get along with doves.”

  “Spencer, you have a great lady now in your life, a family, and you are a long ways from leading a shabby life.”

  “Thanks. Those two kids are cute. Heck, did you hear Claire earlier. She damn near said damn earlier.” Spencer chuckled over it. “Guess she is learning like we all learned.”

  Miguel nodded. “My wife said she swore a lot when Chet met her. She doesn’t anymore. She told me so.”

  “I’d sworn, too, if I’d suffered what she had. Guys, we’re all lucky to be here. I plan to spend a day here talking to Cole, my son, and Harold. Then we’ll head east to meet the company people in Gallup and get things on the road.”

  Val gave them all tents to sleep in. Chet and Rocky played until bedtime. Cole still wasn’t back, but she said his job did that a lot to him.

  “You handle it well,” he said to her.

  “Oh, Chet Byrnes, he’s your twin. He rode so long with you, he never leaves anything unturned. I can get a little mad, but he does things right for me. He puts up with me and he is as loyal as you are to your wife. That really means a lot to me and to Liz, too. I know we have talked about it. He rose from a common cowboy to a superintendent. He’s your student and he learned well. Like his mentor, he works double hard at making it go right. How lucky can I be? And my childless state doesn’t bother him.”

  “I’ll see you and Rocky at breakfast.”

  “Thanks again for all you do for all of us. Liz coming sometime soon?”

  “She’ll come later when we get it all going.”

  “Good. I really love her. How did she take Monica’s death? I couldn’t come. It was over by the time we heard.”

  “I think she accepted it now. Lisa is going to do Monica’s job. She’s started and it is working.”

  “That girl has changed, too.”

  “Yes. You saw how hard she worked at the weddings.”

  “And she married your new man, Miguel.”

  “She also helped Monica, knows the house, what and how we do things.”

  “How do you manage all this you do?”

  “I simply try. Good night.”

  Morning came early. Cole, Val, and Rocky joined him for breakfast at the big tent.

  “You made it home after all.”

  Cole nodded. “It was late. One of our drivers got drunk and busted up a bar. He did about fifty dollars in damages. I made him pay for it and told him he was laid off for two months. I told him he could come back if he stayed sober and he’d still have a job, otherwise he was through.”

  “What do you think?”

  “He’s a good on-time driver, but if he doesn’t straighten his life up I won’t take him back.”

  “Real tough being a boss, ain’t it?”

  “I can’t understand it. He has a job that pays forty-five bucks a month. Good cowboys make twenty-five. If he comes back he will only make thirty-five dollars until he shows he can be a real driver and not get drunk.”

  “You can’t save them if they don’t want to try.”

  “I agree. By the way, I think you have a winner in Harold. I don’t have the time for everything, and I know how hard his whole family works. They will buy you the poles, amen.”

  Val clapped his hand on the table. “This is the first time he ever said the whole truth—about not having time for everything.”

  “He is busy enough. But the telegraph wire will save you a hundred trips.”

  “I know it will.”

  “She said you brought Spencer up here to ramrod it.”

  “This was more important than the ranch headquarters. Frisco the foreman will get it done down there.”

  “To good times.” Cole held his coffee cup up. “I wish I was back riding with you. You took care of all our worries. I simply had to ride along and help.”

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p; “You graduated.”

  “Yes. I love this job. It is those hard decisions that kick me. But I know I have to do them along with the rest.”

  “Been there. Done that. Tomorrow we go east and set up. Just help Harold and his bunch get the posts bought. They can do it but if he gets stuck, help him and get them rolling east with every empty freighter going that way.”

  “Holler when you have enough.”

  “I can do that.”

  He stopped Jesus. “Where’s Fred at?”

  “Oh, he asked me if it was all right to go riding on our horses with Claire today. I told him this was a get it straight day here and saw no reason why not. They left before sunup to ride to some small lake with a lunch she fixed for them.”

  “Does her mother know?”

  Jesus laughed. “I guess she does but that girl is pretty strong minded. Would decide for herself if she were going or not.”

  “Jesus, you think you know it all now. I don’t know about you.”

  “Yeah. You do. You were young once, too. They won’t get into any trouble.”

  “Harold and Spencer are meeting today. Going over the posts he can buy.”

  “I guess we go east tomorrow?”

  “Yes. We leave at sunup. It will take over four days to get to Gallup.”

  “Fred will be back by then. I know.”

  “He better be or her mom will kill them both.”

  Chet went over the stage line books with the young man hired to keep them. Rick Simmons was someone Hannagen hired and sent over. He was very smart about bookkeeping and he kept them accurately from all that Chet could learn. Rick was certainly not a rough-and-tumble hand like most of the men around there.

  “How are things going?” he asked the new employee.

  “Mr. Emerson is so hard working and a gracious man to work for. I have enjoyed myself working here for him. But aside from the Methodist church activities I really miss the library, the music concerts, and entertainment I enjoyed in St. Louis. Do you ever think there will be things like that here someday?”

  “Rick, I believe there will, someday when the railroad comes through here.”

  “Oh, thanks. There is hope then.”