Sharpshooter

by Dusty Richards

  Later a citizen brought the four men involved in the incident in under a citizen’s arrest and swore to the deputy sheriff on duty they needed to be indicted for their involvement in the attack on the rancher and his wife. The two Cassidy brothers, Roy and Elmer, and their son-in-law Earl Gum were charged along with the fourth man also in custody charged for this crime, named in the indictment as Burl Ralston of (town unknown) Texas. Ralston was wanted in the Lone Star state by several communities for armed robbery, three counts of rape, and two pending murder charges. After his trial and sentencing here, Texas authorities will return him back there for multiple trials.

  Poor Burl. It looked to Chet that if he was found guilty, he’d be serving those sentences somewhere else besides Arizona. Good. He had less to worry about his getting out. He hoped Ralston rotted in prison for that and when they tried him for those other crimes in Texas.

  He took the newspaper in the kitchen and showed Lisa.

  She shook her head. “I hope that is the last of the Texas invasions.”

  He wanted to say he hoped so, too, but he knew it would never be completely over until all involved in it were buried. “When Salty and Oleta are married, let’s go see Shawn and Lucy. Winter isn’t many months away and travel up there later could be cold and icy. We can go south and see about the Diablo Ranch in midwinter and sweat.”

  “Fine with me,” she said.

  “I’ll tell my bodyguards my plan and see who wants to go.”

  “Who will you take if one of them wants out for a trip?”

  “Salty—no, I better let him honeymoon. I think Vic would be good.”

  Lisa nodded. “I’ll be packed.”

  “Good. You know the story. Lucy showed Marge, my first wife, and I the ranching country up on top of the world. She later married my nephew Reg and they had one daughter. He had stayed behind in Texas and married a young woman who had worked in our house. They were running a ranch for an older couple in an exchange for when the people passed on and the ranch would be theirs for taking care of them. But he got a divorce from her and no one knew where he went. I know nothing about the reason for the divorce. One day he showed up here in Arizona. He never was the same person that I left in Texas, but he showed lots of aspects that he might return to being his old self.

  “When Reg and Lucy met and were married, I hoped for the best. Then I think a bruja stepped into his life and threw a switch in his brain. He drank too much, turned inside himself, and I am sure his wife was treated the worst. Then he must have had enough so he rode off one night and shot himself.”

  “Bruja?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t her first victim. He didn’t have the money she thought he had. The ranch was mine, not his. But she’d ruined another man’s life who in the end lost all he had, too. He was not a particular friend of mine—but she ruined him and he lost it all.

  “Lucy is married to Shawn now and they have a child. Shawn McElroy joined me and went to the border where I was a U.S. Marshal up on the U.S. side. He met Lucy at a family gathering here, as I recall, and began to write her. You know what happened next. They got married and have done wonderful with the ranch up there. His right-hand man is a short guy named Spud Carnes who has a wife, Shirley. Shawn and Spud make a great pair and the four do a helluva job. That country had lots of maverick cattle running lose, and we nearly stocked that whole ranch with those mavericks.”

  “I met Robert and Betty at the sawmill. That business is a real moneymaker, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it certainly is. Robert was coming down to the dances at Camp Verde and his wife, Betty, was tall enough he didn’t need to bend over to dance with her. But her friends said he wasn’t Mormon and she should stay clear of him. Think it kind of made Robert mad. He was making way lots more money than four boys his age could. Those two worked out a compromise. She kept her church and he takes her every Sunday. Today she has a big new ranch house like Tom, Sis, and Lucy have, and her husband makes a big living by the standards in Arizona today.”

  “They have a sweet daughter, too, I hear. What about the Oak Creek couple?”

  “Betty and Leroy Sipes could not make a living farming vegetables on their small ranch. That orchard in Oak Creek came up for sale. I went and hauled them up there. They loved it and promised me they could make it pay. Now, he was a real gardener and you know he sends berries, fruit, and fresh vegetables to all the company ranches close by. I have never regretted a day on buying that place. It more than breaks even on his sales and we all benefit from all the fruits and vegetables he hauls us.”

  “I won’t forget my honeymoon there, either. It is a heavenly place.”

  He chuckled. “It was nice. Salty said he could afford to pay me for using it. I told him no. It was for all of us and he did his part already.”

  “Heavens, yes. Sis told me part of her life.”

  “That was a tough one. She married a nice young man who worked for me. He had a horse wreck, broke his neck, and died. I had to go down and tell my pregnant sister he’d got killed.”

  “You two were very close, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. But we did what we could. Sarge, who you met, had asked me if he could date her before she married her first husband. He was too late, but when she became a widow, he didn’t let any moss grow on his boots. She was concerned more about the baby in her but that did not bother Sarge. They finally got married and she had the son, who he raises like his own. He has the wife he always wanted.”

  “JD?”

  “JD had a rough time finding himself. My brother’s second son took up with the woman Kay, who is married now to our banker Tanner. She had been recently widowed. Her first husband had been older and his place was run-down. JD came to me to get some money for some things he needed to ranch with. She found out and had a fit. They broke up and he went wild drinking and not caring. We lost track until he managed to get a letter out of a New Mexico jail that he had been framed and in prison for having stolen a horse. Me and my men went over and they wouldn’t let a U.S. Marshal talk to him. I telegraphed DC and then the locals couldn’t do enough for me. We got him out and back home. He’d learned a lot. Tough education.”

  “After that he married Jenn’s daughter Bonnie?”

  “When I came here on my first trip looking for a place to light I ate at Jenn’s Café. She’s a great gal and when I needed help to take the Verde Ranch away from a crooked foreman she found all these men who’d once worked there but were boycotted by their ex-boss. Most other ranchers would not hire them because of him. I learned her daughter was working in a brothel in Tombstone. She asked me in tears one day could I get her out of there. I said I’d try.

  “Myself, Jesus, and, I guess, Cole went down there. Valerie had gone down there with Bonnie but working in one of those places was not for her. So, Valerie worked as a waitress and wanted out of Tombstone. I could not convince Bonnie to quit. We gave Val a one-way ticket to Preskitt and shipped her to Jenn, plus promised her a place to live and a job helping in Jenn’s restaurant.

  “I can recall the day, sitting out there on the stage line porch, waiting for her stage, telling her we’d all help her.”

  “But Bonnie didn’t come back?”

  “No. Some white slaver kidnapped her and we had to go get her back. I think Cole had already married Val. Maybe JD was along. We found where she was, deep in Mexico, being held by a very rich man. I traded a Barbarossa colt out of my famous horses for her safe return.

  “He wanted the horse and delivered her to us. We never knew if he paid for her or took her by force from the slaver. I knew I didn’t have the force or the money to ransom her. When JD married her, I wouldn’t have given ten cents for their marriage, but they made it and she’s having child number three and loving it.”

  “And Elizabeth found you south of Tucson?”

  “She told you that story?”

  “Yes. How she shot the man who had killed her husband. How later she learned that a rich man who owned Barbarossa
horses was at a fancy hacienda just off the King’s Highway and she went to see him to buy one. How she knew it was you striding from an old brown tent and you stole her heart.

  “She told me about wading in the shallow river and you drying her feet afterward. That impressed her more than anything else. She said, ‘He never said one impatient word to me.’

  “You bathed her and she led you to a hay pile so you would not forget the experience of having her. Chet Byrnes, you lived a storybook life that day, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I had one with her and now with you.”

  “I asked her if she had not been a widow would she have seduced you on that first day she met you.”

  “What did she say?” He shook his head amused. “I would never have asked her that.”

  “She replied, ‘Even today I think so. I was riding a powerful horse in the clouds and I was in the arms of the man I loved from the first minute I saw him. To share my body with him was what I had to do. How else would he know me enough to make the effort to reunite us?’”

  “It worked,” he agreed. “I have never forked hay that I didn’t recall those great moments we’d had.”

  “That is a storybook romance.”

  “No more than yours and mine. God gave her and me some lovely years together. But when we found each other it freed our souls. Life goes on and hand in hand we will continue. Our experience opened my eyes, I had found someone who loved me, and I loved her, and together we made good love. Let’s pray?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .”

  CHAPTER 18

  Wedding day for Oleta and Salty. The big circus tent was up in case it rained. Cool air had slipped south and touched them. This setup, like all the ranch parties, had required lots of work and they expected many people. Everyone was dressed for the occasion. Ranch men wore starched white shirts and black pants, polished boots, and sombreros. Everyone was in a party mood and laughter rang across the yard.

  The hardwood smoke that cooked the meat—beef, pork, and venison—shifted direction.

  Ice cooled the tanks of draft beer and the lemonade in gallon glass jars. Sun tea waited in pitchers. Plus there was lots of spring water in buckets with dippers. Glass mugs were stacked on the side tables—the Preskitt Valley ranch waited with open arms for the big crowd coming for the wedding.

  From Chet’s seat on the porch swing he saw the guests arrive and went to greet them. Sis and her two young boys were there. Sarge was on his way to Gallup with six hundred head of cattle.

  Lucy and her three plus Shawn were there. May, Hampt, and their toddlers to babies were there. Tom and Millie attended the wedding, too. Chet’s farm implement and mercantile folks attended. He knew the list was an arm long.

  The ranch employees parked rigs, hitched horses on the picket lines, and fetched what the women had forgotten. The wedding came first and then the cutting of the creamy cake. The band struck up and the site turned into a square dance party. Daylight shut down early but the Chinese lanterns made it light enough to see by.

  “How many of these have you sponsored?” Bo asked Chet, standing on the sidelines

  “I have no idea. We simply do them.”

  “Great parties. My wife and I always enjoy them. We meet people we didn’t know and maybe never see again. The social event of the season, I call them.”

  “My ranch crew enjoys it as much as the town folks do.”

  “Oh, you should patent how to do it and sell it.”

  “Hey, what’s happened? You haven’t bought a homestead for me in five months.”

  “More fools are outbidding me. We had a few liberal rain years. We have a dry one or two and there will be more ranches for sale.”

  “No ranches that I’d like to own are for sale?”

  “I know of a lemon ranch in the valley.”

  “No. Things are sour enough now.”

  “With the railroad coming the land on top is selling. I understand you stole that place that Spencer runs over east?”

  “We did okay. It is way too fancy for a working cow ranch. We call it Wagon Wheel Ranch.”

  “Will it work?”

  “Oh yes, this year we will recover the cost of it.”

  “You are filling lots of those beef cattle shipments with your own now?”

  “That crowds the market and there is not another that great to match it here yet.”

  “The train will be here?”

  “Four years.”

  “Too late?”

  “Yes. Too late.”

  The next morning a boy rode out from town with a letter and said he had to give it to Mr. Chet Byrnes. Through the messy party remains and trash that buried the yard the boy rode his skinny horse up to the house’s back steps, and when the new house girl, Natalie, went down to get his letter, he coldly said, “You ain’t Mr. Chet Byrnes. The man said to give it to no one but him.”

  Chet heard the boy’s words and told him he’d be right down.

  He thanked Natalie for trying to save him the climb and took the envelope. He sat on the step considering the barefoot boy and using his jackknife to slit the envelope open.

  “You do this work regularly or is it a special-duty job?” he asked the youth.

  “Mister, I do lots of things besides this.”

  “Thanks for the letter.” Chet began to read it.

  To Chet Byrnes:

  The felon Burl Ralston has made several threats regarding you personally. He was found guilty last week of terroristic threatening and attempted murder by a jury. The state of Texas is sending officials here next week to transport him back to San Antonio for more trials. While he may be in jail for many years or even executed, his threats against you are very intense. His request for others to come kill you in his letters have been blacked out from his mail. We simply wanted to warn you about what you might expect in the future.

  The Yavapai County Sheriff Department

  Chet spoke to the boy. “Thank you very much. Thank who sent you. I am going to pay you a dollar for your services.”

  “They paid me.”

  “I am also going to pay you a dollar.”

  “You don’t have a reply?”

  “Tell them I said thanks for their information.”

  Chet put out his hand with the four quarters in it and dropped them into the boy’s palm.

  The messenger, without another word, reined his horse around and trotted off for town.

  “Good news or bad?” Vance asked, joining him.

  “Here, you can read it.” He handed him the letter. Damn strange no one signed it. Simply the Yavapai County Sheriff Office.

  “I have kept the night patrol on the headquarters that Raphael had.”

  “I know, but they don’t know that and it was damn nice of someone there to warn me. But I’d bet the sheriff never authorized it. Through my years here those vaqueros have protected me and my family. Just tell them there might be intruders.”

  Vance nodded. “Some folks can’t leave a dead deal alone, can they?”

  “You are right. I am going to show Lisa the letter. Big mess to clean up here this morning.”

  “I was amused earlier. I said that to the men working and they said it was much better than the old days. They told me then the pews before were borrowed from area churches and had to be back there before the Sunday-morning services. It was much better now the ranch has their own.”

  Chet, amused, agreed.

  “What did the letter say?” Lisa asked when he got upstairs.

  He gave the note to her.

  “Strange. The sheriff didn’t sign it?”

  “He didn’t know they sent it. Some conscientious deputies wanted me to know that Ralston was still planning my demise.”

  “I believe that. I guess that gap can’t be healed.”

  “No, it can’t. But I am grateful at least some in the courthouse appreciate our efforts for law and order.”

  “When do we go to Hackberr
y?” Lisa asked.

  “Tuesday. That’ll give us a day to secure what we need.”

  “Both of your men are going?”

  “Yes. We may be gone two weeks.”

  “That’s fine. I saw Tad Newman is cooking and Billy Bob, who went with us to the North Rim, are also on your list.”

  “Things are slow enough at Tom’s he can spare them. They know how we like things. Then later this fall we will slip off by stagecoach and go see JD and Bonnie.”

  “I enjoy traveling. You said there were no bargain land deals since the train is coming?”

  “Bo thinks people have too much faith in the railroad’s coming changing the economic culture of northern Arizona. I think it will take four years to reach here. You won’t be able to go to California on it for several more years and people will realize this is a dry land with a small population and there are not many markets for the sand lizards and rattlesnakes we grow.”

  “Oh, that is funny. I know you, and I’ll bet you’ll find another perfect bargain like Wagon Wheel in the next six months.”

  “We may do that. I am looking.”

  She smiled and went to dress.

  He did notice that morning between Julie and the new girl, Natalie, there was not the humor or fun that Oleta spread around every morning. Oh, they’d loosen up in time. Salty chose the right one to marry. Chet thought he’d better get moving. Jesus was down there, checking on things already.

  He told his man about the letter, and Jesus laughed. “No ‘dear Chet’ or personal sign-off?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s good that we have friends. It’s just, they can’t tell us who they are.”

  Chet agreed and they went off to see how much was packed and what needed to be added.

  “Great party last night.”

  “I thought so, too. Plenty of folks came. The wedding went well and they were off from an undisclosed hideout this morning for Oak Creek Canyon.”