Open Range

by Lauran Paine

  Button left the room. Sue watched him depart before she spoke. “There was nothing my brother could do. He was bleeding internally. By the time we got him up here he was—”

  “Yeah,” Charley said quietly, and turned from the bed to look at the handsome woman. “I heard about it yesterday. I guess we could take him out yonder and bury him beside Mose.”

  Sue was looking at Boss’s face when she said, “Walt and I sat with him. I went to Button’s room to be with him. He took it very hard.”

  Charley nodded. “They was close, Sue. Button had no one and neither did Boss. They was good for each other.”

  “Boss asked for some paper and a pencil. He wrote you a note. It’s in my brother’s office. I’ll get it.”

  “No. Not right now,” Charley said, moving out of the darkened little room.

  She followed him to the parlor, where he paused gazing in the direction of Button’s room. She waited for him to speak. She had already heard the details of what had happened last night. She knew Baxter was dead and one of his riders, the man who had been identified as the gunman who shot Boss Spearman, was also dead. One of the details she had heard was that the man who shot Boss Spearman had been shot three times at fairly close range; any of the three shots would have resulted in death.

  He retrieved his hat and stood holding it in both hands as he said, “We brought back two prisoners.”

  She knew that.

  “There are two more down at the jailhouse. I guess the federal marshal will take them up to Denver to stand trial.”

  She raised her brows. “What about Judge Collins?”

  He thought about that. “Well, Marshal Pierce said something about extraditing the prisoners. That’s between him and the judge, I guess. I don’t know much about the law.”

  “Charley?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “What about Button? What about you?”

  “Me? I was lookin’ for work when I met Boss. I’ll start lookin’ again, somewhere.”

  “And Button?”

  He raised his hat to study it. “Boss told me one time he didn’t like the notion of Button becomin’ a cowman. He wanted him to go to work in a town an’ learn a trade.”

  Sue waited for more, but Charley remained silent for a while, so she said, “He . . . you and Mister Spearman and the big man who was killed, were his family. Charley, we’ve talked a lot.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Would you like me to tell you what I think?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “I’m sure he could apprentice out to someone in Harmonville. The harness maker or the blacksmith. Maybe to the gunsmith or the man who owns the abstract office.”

  Charley nodded and her eyes never left him. “But if you ride on, that will complete his loss. When someone is sixteen years old he can’t absorb the shocks of life as well as he can at our age. I think that if you rode on, he would try to find you.”

  He looked steadily at her. “And if I took him with me, he could most likely get hired on somewhere as a chore boy. Someday he’d become a hired rider. Sue, I don’t know anything but cattle and horses, so that’s about all I could pass along to him.”

  She said, “Excuse me for a moment,” and disappeared beyond a door on the south side of the parlor next to her brother’s examination room. When she returned she was holding a folded paper, which she handed him. “From Mister Spearman.”

  He nodded, pocketed the paper, and put on his hat as he moved toward the roadway door. She went out onto the porch with him. It was a magnificent day. Instead of the usual rising heat, there was a soft, cool breeze coming in from the east. It loosened a coil of her sorrel hair, which she pushed away with the back of one hand. “Charley, please don’t ride on until we’ve talked again.”

  He told her he wouldn’t do that. He wanted to talk to Button when he was up to it; they’d have to decide where to bury Boss Spearman. Then he left her and walked southward. She watched him. On the opposite side of the road, someone called. Charley stopped and waited for Marshal Pierce to cross over.

  The federal officer was clean, shaved, clear-eyed, and evidently fed because he was chewing on a toothpick as he stepped up and nodded at Charley Waite. “The judge got Fenwick to get up a posse and go up to the Baxter place. Collins wants the town marshal brought back, along with anyone else the posse finds up there.”

  Charley spoke dryly. “All they’re goin’ to find up there is an empty bunkhouse and maybe some dust. What about the prisoners at the jailhouse?”

  “Well, His Honor and I got into an argument about that yesterday. He says they got to be tried here in Harmonville. I want to take them back to Denver to be tried before a federal magistrate. But I got to get an extradition paper from the territorial governor to do that, which might take up to about three weeks.”

  “So they’ll be tried here?”

  Pierce shrugged. “I got to wait for the extradition paper anyway, Mister Waite. But His Honor can’t do no more than have a hearing.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “Then he’ll remand them back to jail with a recommendation that a territorial prosecutor come to Harmonville to try them.”

  “So you lose out.”

  “Maybe. But all but that young one, Joe Evans, are fugitives. Poole had posters cached in his office showing them to be wanted by federal authorities.”

  “So, after they are remanded, you’ll get your extradition paper and haul them up to Denver?”

  Marshal Pierce smiled. “That’s what His Honor an’ I been haggling about.”

  “Marshal, what the hell difference does it make where they’re tried?”

  Pierce continued to smile. “Ambrose Collins is afraid a federal judge up yonder who wasn’t down here an’ who won’t know everything will maybe sentence them to a few years in prison. He wants to turn his hearing into a formal trial for the feller you know as Ed Butler, and sentence him to hang for murder. He don’t want the others to get off any lighter than the maximum the law says.”

  Charley flapped his arms. None of this was more than passingly interesting to him. As far as he was concerned the whole damned dirty mess was finished. His personal urge to settle up for Boss had been satisfied. “Just tell me one thing,” he said to the lawman. “Will Butler, or whatever his name is, get off easy if he’s tried in Denver?”

  “If you mean will he hang, I’ll guess that he will. A man can’t ever be sure what a judge will do, but like I told Judge Collins, in my experience they’re just as hard on killers in Denver as he’d be down here. An’ they got more authority.”

  Charley saw Doctor Barlow across the road in front of the general store, so he said, “Good luck,” and walked on an angling course to the far plank-walk.

  Walt Barlow had been down at the apothecary’s shop. He greeted Charley with a “Good morning,” then asked if Charley had been up at his cottage. Charley nodded. “Yes. As soon as I can hitch up our campwagon I’ll take Boss back out where we were livin’ and bury him.”

  “What about Button? Will you take him along?”

  “I don’t like the idea, doctor, but he’d sure never forget it if I didn’t.”

  Barlow watched a fringed-top buggy pass northward as he said, “My sister could go along, Mister Waite.”

  Charley stared. “Why?”

  Barlow’s gaze returned from the buggy to Charley’s face. “Because Sue and Button have become very close. It’ll be hard on him out there. He’s somewhere between boyhood and manhood.”

  “She might not want to go, doctor.”

  Barlow’s reply indicated he and his sister had already discussed this. “She’ll go. She’s fond of Button. Women like my sister have a powerful mothering instinct. Would you object to her going?”

  Charley had to think this over. He’d had no inkling that this might come up. He turned at the sound of loud voices over in front of the jailhouse, where Judge Collins and Marshal Pierce were arguing as they pushed open the jail-house door an
d went inside.

  He turned back. “No objection.”

  After Doctor Barlow departed, walking briskly northward, Charley entered the saloon, which had a few midday customers, and a barman he had never seen before. He took a bottle with a jolt glass to a far table, shoved back his hat, filled the little glass, fished out the paper Sue Barlow had given him, and after downing the whiskey, unfolded it, certain it would be Boss’s farewell to him, perhaps with some of Boss’s homespun wisdom and a few admonitions.

  He was wrong. There was no philosophy and no admonitions. Boss had evidently known he did not have time for those things. The note, signed by Boss and witnessed by Sue Barlow, was short and to the point. It was Boss’s last testament. It bequeathed everything Boss owned to Charley—his cattle, the old wagon, his personal effects, and his last prayer that, as his sole heir, Charley would look after Button.

  Charley reread the note, placed it on the table, and refilled the jolt glass. He downed its contents, pushed both glass and bottle away, and read the note again.

  When the barman came to see if he wanted anything else, Charley shook his head, handed over some silver, and told the barman to take the whiskey away. Then he leaned back in the chair, shoved his feet out beneath the table, and gazed at the farthest wall.

  So much for saddling up and riding on.

  He was still sitting there a half hour later when two raffish older men came in to lean on the bar. They wore almost identical long rider’s coats. He heard one of them ask the barkeeper for directions to the Baxter ranch. They were interested in buying cattle, and since they had heard Baxter was dead, they wondered if the barman could tell them who his heir might be before they made that long a ride.

  The barman answered with the authority of a man whose knowledge had been gathered over a number of years of listening to saloon talk. In a place like Harmonville, in any cowtown for that matter, the best source of local information, gossip, and slander, was the most frequented bar.

  “Mister Baxter has a sister living back in Chicago. She visited him at the ranch three years ago. His foreman, a feller named Vince Ballester, told me one time she was Mister Baxter’s only kin.”

  The cattle buyers exchanged a long-faced look. One of them said, “Chicago? Who’d know her address back there?”

  The barman did not know. “Ballester might have, but he got a broken hip a while back in some kind of brawl out on the range, and the last I heard he’d went down to Albuquerque to see a doctor. You gents might ride up there; there should be someone around who could help.”

  Charley watched the cattle buyers lean their heads together after the barman walked away. They conversed like conspirators for several minutes, then left the saloon.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Last Drive Out

  The weather was beautiful. Visibility to the north was limited only by the mountains, and to the west by the soft blending of earth and sky. Wild grass, revitalized by the storm, rose tall enough to rub wheelhubs as the old camp-wagon passed the place where Charley and Marshal Pierce had met the riders from town with their canteens.

  Sue Barlow held Button’s hand while Charley drove in the shade of the rain-tightened canvas over the bows. In back, Boss Spearman had been propped on both sides with bedrolls.

  They were within sight of the old camp by nightfall, and they continued through the darkness until they reached it. After caring for the team, Charley dropped the tailgate, set the poles for the texas, then took digging tools and walked southward, leaving Button and Sue to make camp.

  A half hour later with a yellow moon rising, Button came out with another shovel. Charley climbed out and handed Button down. Charley drank from a canteen, rolled and lit a smoke, and gazed back where the texas reflected the supper fire. He could see Sue working at the fire.

  Button tired quickly, so Charley pulled him out and climbed back down. From up above Button said, “There’s no sign of the cattle.”

  His answer came from below the ground. “They’re a mile or so beyond the creek where Baxter’s crew camped while they rounded them up. They won’t have drifted much. Not with feed to their hocks.”

  “They rounded them up?”

  “Yeah, Button. Seems Baxter’d done this before. Run off freegrazers, scatter their cattle, then catch ’em after the freegrazers was scairt out of the country and drive ’em up north an’ sell ’em.”

  “Charley?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you find out who shot Boss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who was he, one of Baxter’s riders?”

  “Yeah. Feller named Pete Brant.”

  “Is he the other one Doctor Barlow brought up from the livery barn to embalm before they bury them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Charley . . . ?”

  The voice from below ground level spoke quietly. “Button, it’s finished with. Talking about it won’t change anything. You were going to ask me who shot that feller who shot Boss. It don’t matter. He’s dead. . . . Hand me down the canteen, will you?”

  There was no more conversation until the grave was ready and Charley climbed up to lean on the shovel, wrinkling his nose as the fragrance of cooking food came down to him.

  As they were walking back he slapped Button roughly on the shoulder. “You’re still a little puny.”

  “I’ll be all right in a week or so. Miss Barlow said so.”

  Charley repositioned the shovel he was carrying so that it would not gouge his shoulder. “Did you ever know a lady like her?”

  “No. I think my mother must have been like her.”

  “You don’t remember your mother?”

  “She died when I was born. My paw . . . he stayed around until she was buried, then I never saw him again. . . . Charley?”

  “What?”

  “After we bury Boss, what will we do?”

  Charley shifted the shovel again and looked ahead where Sue was bending over the fire. He had no idea their voices carried to her through the still night. “We gather all the cattle. Boss left half to you and half to me. I think we ought to sell them, but you got an interest so what we do with them’ll be your decision too.”

  Button looked shocked as he watched Charley’s profile. Finally he said, “All of them?”

  “Yeah. And the horses, the wagon, his weapons, and his gatherings. Half to you, half to me. Think on it tonight, Button. Take your time. The cattle won’t drift much and they’ll be packin’ more lard under their hides on the new grass.”

  Sue had coffee and a full meal for them. Charley was impressed by her efficiency at camping. He told her the grave was completed and that they’d bury Boss about sunup, which had been Boss’s favorite time of day.

  Button went after his bedroll and carried it up front, where the wagon tongue was lying in the grass. Sue refilled Charley’s coffee cup, watched him roll and light a smoke, and said, “Did you read Mister Spearman’s note?”

  He nodded while lighting the quirley.

  She looked steadily at him. “So did I when I witnessed it.”

  He pitched the firebrand back into the fire and glanced up because he felt her eyes on him. He smiled at her. “Well, that’s the way he would have left things if he’d been up to it.”

  She smiled back. “You knew him better than I did. All I know is that he didn’t divide things like that.”

  He sipped black coffee, put the cup down, and blew smoke at the vault of heaven. “There’d be no point in telling Button.”

  She agreed. “No point at all. Charley . . . you’re a really fine man.”

  He sat like a stone, looking into the fire for a long time, too startled at first even to look at her. As he stared into the fire, he grew downright uncomfortable.

  Eventually he said, “If you want, I’ll put your bedroll here by the fire before I turn in.”

  She declined the offer. “I can do it.”

  He stood up, still avoiding her face. “Goodnight. That was about as good a s
upper as I’ve ever had.”

  “Goodnight, Charley.”

  He bedded down up front, a few yards from Button, which gave Sue the privacy of the rear of the wagon. He rested his head on his hands and watched the stars until he was drowsy. Button’s quiet voice said, “I guess we’d ought to do like you said and sell the cattle. We don’t own any land, an’ like Boss said, freegrazing seems to be about finished. Ever since we been moving there’s been some kind of trouble. Even in the towns we passed through, folks didn’t like us. Only, what’ll we do without the cattle?”

  Charley yawned before answering. “Darned if I know. I’ve been looking at the back end of cattle since I was about your age. I never thought about living different, partner.” He yawned again. “You got any ideas?”

  “No. Except that living in town . . . I don’t know, Charley.”

  The older man listened to Button’s voice trailing off, and intuitively felt the youth’s indecision.

  He felt his way by saying, “It’s got its advantages, Button,” and waited to see what the response would be.

  “Yeah, I reckon it does. The roofs don’t leak like a wagon canvas and . . .”

  “And what?”

  Button was squirming. “Those freighters,” he said.

  Charley’s intuition brought him wide awake. Button wasn’t thinking about the freighters; not the male ones anyway. “That girl’s nice,” Charley said.

  Button’s reply seemed to have been dragged out of him. “Annie? Yeah, she’s nice. Only she’s awful young.”

  “What’d she be, you reckon; about twelve?”

  “Something like that. An’ that’s awful young.”

  Charley smiled in the darkness. “They grow up fast, Button. You’re only maybe four years older than she is. In another couple of years you’ll be eighteen and she’ll be about fourteen, or thereabouts. I saw some other girls down there.”