Paint the Hills Red

by Ron Schwab

  The door opened and Sutherly stepped out. He stood there for a moment, studying Dan, a scowl etched on his angular face. Dan stared back, doing his own sizing up of the ranch manager. Sutherly was of average height; his bearing made him appear larger. Dan supposed that women might find the man ruggedly handsome and might well be attracted to the self-assurance and confidence he obviously carried, but on Dan’s part, his impulsive judgment was that love, other than self, was an emotion that would run very shallow in Clay Sutherly.

  “What’s your name, mister?” Sutherly said from his position in front of the door some twenty-five feet away.

  “McClure. Dan McClure.”

  Sutherly gave a slight nod, as if confirming what he already knew. “Levi said you wanted to see Mr. Dunkirk. What’s your business?”

  “I prefer to tell Mr. Dunkirk.”

  “I speak for Mr. Dunkirk.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t want you to listen for him. I own Ike Hanson’s place. I think Mr. Dunkirk will want to hear what I have to say.”

  “Mr. Dunkirk is a busy man. He doesn’t have much time for palaver. But he’ll talk to you for a few minutes. You’ll have to make it quick. You can come in the house, but leave your gun belt on your horse.”

  “Are you leaving yours outside?” Dan asked. Sutherly glared back. “Then I’ll wear mine,” Dan said, moving toward the house, and as soon as the words slipped out, he chastised himself for the unnecessary display of bravado. That was the second time today he had let his tongue override his good sense. He should know better.

  Sutherly led Dan through the doors which opened into a cavernous foyer with a giant glittering crystal chandelier and a double staircase that climbed to the second floor balcony. The room, no doubt, doubled as a ballroom when the Dunkirks entertained, and Dan conceded he had never seen a room so stunning. And he had been in many splendid homes when he and Larisa had lived in the East for a brief period following their marriage when, like the dutiful son-in-law he could not be, he had filled a chair as vice president in her industrialist father’s munitions firm. Larisa’s family was old money in Boston, going back to pre-Revolutionary days, and they moved in elite circles. But a visit to the Dunkirk home would have made them feel like paupers.

  They stood there for a moment while Dan took in the room, and he had a feeling that Sutherly’s pause here was his way of preparing Dan for the audience with the king. Dan studied the room with an artist’s eyes, concluding quickly that its accouterments, individually, were elegant and beautiful and, at the same time, out of place and tasteless in their setting.

  Suddenly, his heart hammered and his pulse raced when he looked up and saw the young woman standing on the balcony at the top of the winding stairway, her hair gleaming and golden as a western sunrise, flowing over her shoulders like spun silk. For a fleeting moment, he thought he saw Larisa standing there—or her ghost.

  The woman stared back at him, her deep blue eyes inquisitive. She stepped slowly down the staircase, watching him all the way. It was her poise, Dan thought, her almost regal bearing that reminded him of Larisa, for as she drew closer he realized that aside from the coloring of her hair and the fairness of her skin, her resemblance to Larisa was slight.

  The woman who approached him was statuesque, and although slender, quite voluptuous, with ample cleavage threatening to spill over the top of her dress. Larisa had been petite, almost frail. He knew before she spoke a word that this woman would be forward and unconstrained, if not downright brash. Larisa had been quiet, reserved, and soft-spoken.

  She stepped up to him, studying him, her lips parting in an amused smile. “Who are you?” she asked.

  Her manner was cordial enough in spite of her directness. “My name’s Dan McClure.”

  “I’m Elizabeth Dunkirk,” she said. “You may call me Liz. My, you’re a tall man and quite handsome, too.”

  “Thank you. And you’re quite beautiful.”

  “This man came to see your father, Elizabeth,” Sutherly said. “He’s waiting in the study, and you know he doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

  In his enchantment with Elizabeth Dunkirk, Dan had been oblivious to Clay Sutherly’s presence in the room, and a glance at the man’s flushed face and stormy eyes told him that Sutherly was enraged. That pleased Dan.

  “I won’t be but a moment, Clay,” Elizabeth Dunkirk said. “Besides, you’re just trying to impress Mr. McClure. Daddy’s not all that busy, and I doubt if Mr. McClure impresses all that easily. Do you live in the Pine Ridge, Mr. McClure?”

  “Yes, about five miles west of here.”

  “You’re a rancher then?”

  “I don’t make my living at ranching, but I own a small ranch. I bought it recently from Mr. Hanson.”

  “Oh, the Ike Hanson ranch. I know the place. I’ve been there. It’s very scenic. An idyllic setting. My father tried to buy the ranch from Mr. Hanson for years. He wants to own it very badly.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “I’m glad you purchased it, Mr. McClure.”

  “Dan.”

  “Very well, Dan. I think you will present an interesting challenge for my father. But you say you don’t make your living as a rancher. May I ask what you do?”

  “I’m a painter.”

  “You mean an artist?”

  “Yes.”

  “How interesting. I visited galleries when I was at school in the East. I thought it would be fascinating to know a painter. I always wanted to watch an artist paint. Do you ever let anyone watch you?”

  “It depends on what I’m painting. I have my quirks, I guess. I can’t let anyone see a portrait until it’s finished, but I don’t mind letting someone watch while I work a landscape.”

  “Could I see your paintings sometime? Do you suppose I might watch you paint? I’d be quiet as a mouse.”

  “Certainly. Drop by my ranch sometime. I’d be delighted to show you my work.”

  He liked Elizabeth Dunkirk. If Woodson Dunkirk could sire a daughter like that, Dan found it hard to believe that he could be all bad. And still, he knew his judgment about people was not infallible. For some reason, he often did not seem to know them till he tried to paint them.

  “Elizabeth,” Sutherly said, “I think you’d better excuse Mr. McClure now.”

  “Oh, very well, Clay. You can be such a bore.” She gave an exaggerated curtsey. “Good day, Dan. I can’t wait to see your paintings.”

  She whirled and hurried out the room, leaving behind the intoxicating image of the swell of her generous bosom framed by the daring indigo dress that Dan guessed would have scandalized most of the Pine Ridge matrons. He hoped Elizabeth Dunkirk was sincere when she said she would be dropping by to see his paintings.

  “Follow me,” Sutherly snapped, jolting Dan back to the purpose of his mission.

  Dan trailed the man down the hallway that led away from the foyer. At the end of the hall, Sutherly paused at an ornately carved oak door and rapped softly. “Come in, Clay,” came a strong, precise voice from within. Sutherly opened the door and led Dan into a spacious room with book-lined walls and leather-covered chairs.

  The room was dominated by a huge mahogany desk and, almost dwarfed behind it, sat a pale, wizened man with chalk-white hair. He sat stiff-backed with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair and his bony fingers interlaced in front of him, staring at Dan with porcine eyes, hidden behind layered folds of flesh. This had to be Woodson Dunkirk, but the man was a far cry from the image Dan had conjured up of him. This frail old man was the scourge of Pine Ridge? My God, he had to be well into his seventies, and he looked every bit of it.

  Without standing or even shifting in his chair, the old man spoke in a commanding, unwavering voice that did not fit his body. “Mr. McClure, I am told that you insist upon speaking with me.”

  “That’s right, if you’re Mr. Dunkirk.”

  “I am.” The old man nodded at a chair in front of the desk. “You may sit down if you wish.”

&n
bsp; Dan took the chair and Sutherly sank into an overstuffed chair off to one side. “I had hoped to talk with you privately, Mr. Dunkirk,” Dan said.

  “Mr. Sutherly can hear anything you have to say to me,” Dunkirk said.

  Dan decided not to press the issue for the moment. “All right, I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Dunkirk. I killed a man over at my place. I have been told his name was Mendosa and that he rode for the Diamond D.”

  The old man’s brow wrinkled. “Mendosa?” He turned to Sutherly. “Do we have a Mendosa on our payroll?”

  “No, Mr. Dunkirk, this man heard wrong. We don’t have anybody with that handle working here.”

  Dunkirk turned back to Dan. “I’m afraid you were mistaken, Mr. McClure. Now, if that was the only purpose of your visit—”

  “Mr. Dunkirk, there’s a body outside on one of my horses. I intend to dump it here on your ranch yard. I’m satisfied that the man had some connection with the Diamond D. I also have reason to believe you are interested in acquiring my ranch.” Dan started to rise. “Now, if you don’t want to talk about these things, fine. I’ll unload Mr. Mendosa and be on my way.”

  Dunkirk waved Dan back in his chair. “Now, don’t be hasty, Mr. McClure. It can’t do any harm to talk about this.”

  He had taken the bait. Dunkirk’s eyes had brightened noticeably at the mention of the ranch.

  “As I said before, Mr. Dunkirk, I’d like to speak to you privately. I don’t think I have anything else to say in Mr. Sutherly’s presence.”

  The old man leaned forward in his chair, his eyes thoughtful, and after a moment of silence, he said, “Clay, why don’t you tend to this man Mendosa. The poor devil’s entitled to a burial no matter who he is. Have some of the boys plant him in the drifter’s plot. We can at least relieve our neighbor here of that concern.”

  The muscles in Sutherly’s neck tightened and his face grew scarlet. “Mr. Dunkirk, this man is carrying a gun.”

  “Now, Clay,” Dunkirk chided, “Mr. McClure hardly seems the kind to use his gun imprudently. I don’t think he came here to kill me. Not this visit anyway,” he said meaningfully. “I’ll chat with Mr. McClure a bit. Now, I would consider it a favor if you would look to the disposition of Mr. Mendosa.”

  Sutherly glowered at Dan a moment, and Dan could see that the man was a simmering volcano. Then Sutherly lifted himself out of the chair and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “You’ll have to excuse Clay,” Dunkirk said, “he’s somewhat on the temperamental side. But don’t underestimate him. He’s very shrewd and, I might say, intensely loyal. Of course, you must pay a certain price for his kind of loyalty,” Dunkirk said musingly. “But you didn’t come here to talk about Mr. Sutherly, so I suggest we pursue the conversation we started. About the sale of your ranch?”

  “We were talking about Mr. Mendosa and your interest in my ranch,” Dan corrected.

  “Very well.”

  “Mr. Dunkirk, Mendosa tried to kill a young woman, Megan Grant. He didn’t quite get the job done, but he left her blind. This happened on my ranch, and I have a hunch that he’d come to finish a job he’d left undone a few weeks earlier.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Please don’t speak in riddles, Mr. McClure. I don’t like that.” Dunkirk was a tough old bird. He would not be easily intimidated. “I was bushwhacked in my ranch yard several weeks ago. Shot in the back. If Megan Grant and her foreman, Sol Pyle, hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “That’s terribly unfortunate,” Dunkirk said matter-of-factly.

  Dan could not tell whether it was unfortunate he had been shot, or unfortunate that Megan and Sol had come to his assistance.

  “Yes, it is too bad because I don’t like violence. I came to the Pine Ridge to paint. I was looking for peace here. I want to get along with my neighbors. But I am capable of violence, Mr. Dunkirk. Mendosa found out the hard way.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “I came here, Mr. Dunkirk, because I’ve almost been persuaded that Mendosa was hired by the Diamond D to kill me.”

  Dunkirk seemed unperturbed. “You’re not making any sense, young man. Why, for whatever reason, would I want to have you killed?”

  “I suppose it would make it easier for you to acquire my ranch. The administrator of my estate would no doubt put it on the market, or if nobody claimed it, you could just move in.”

  “Mr. McClure, need I remind you that your ranch is no more than a garden plot in comparison to my land holdings.”

  “I’m aware of that. But I’ve also been trained as an engineer, and I’ve been informed that my ranch is the key to the water supply for a sizable amount of your grazing land. Besides, if you could acquire my ranch and the Bar G, you’d be able to tie a big part of our land into a single unit. I can see the possibilities. I can understand why you might want my ranch and the Bar G, but I can’t see why you’d kill for it.”

  “Are you accusing me, Mr. McClure?”

  “Not yet, but there are a lot of small ranchers who are, I’m told. Most of the ranchers around here live on islands in the middle of the Diamond D, and their owners seem to think it’s just a matter of time before they’re swallowed up by your operation.”

  “It’s a free country. They don’t have to sell.”

  “Apparently a lot of people have died because they didn’t.”

  “Perhaps you should consider the source of your information. I wouldn’t look upon the Bar G as reliable in that regard.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ben Grant harbored a grudge against me for years before he died. I knew Ben in his Texas days. I’ll wager Solomon Pyle didn’t tell you that, did he, Mr. McClure?”

  “No, I wasn’t aware of it.”

  “Ben Grant was my foreman in the mid fifties. He had a few acres of his own on the side. He was too ambitious a man to content himself with a lifetime of running someone else’s ranch. I knew that. He was a damn good foreman and I was glad to have him for as long as he would stay. But he was also a dyed-in-the-wool Johnny Reb, and I was a strong Union man. A man’s entitled to his own opinion, and I didn’t hold it against him . . . until the Rebs in our community started taking the notion that my cows and my ranch were fair game because they were Union bred and owned. I lost half my herd to neighboring ranchers who just rode in and ran off with the cows in broad daylight, just like they owned them. The sheriff was Reb and he wouldn’t do anything about it. Grant wasn’t any help. He refused to do anything to track down the rustlers or get my cattle back. I always figured he was in on it. Probably got his own cow herd started with mine as seed stock. Anyway, I fired him. I sent him and his wife packing. We had words before he left. He said he’d see me and my kind run out of Texas.”

  “He was right,” Dunkirk continued. “He, or at least his kind of people ran off most of the rest of my herd over the next several years. Burned out my line shacks and barns. Scared off my hands after they killed a few. Destroyed one of the finest ranches in all of Texas. Finally, one evening in ’59, just before the war broke out, I came home after a trip to town to make one last plea for help from the law, and I found my home, a magnificent mansion, precisely like this one incidentally, in flames. My servants, my ranch hands, everybody, had deserted the place, except two. My wife had stayed behind. She lay in the yard, stripped naked and bloodied. She’d been raped, God knows how many times, before some bastard cut her throat. And my little girl, not yet three years old, sat on the ground beside my wife, clutching her mother’s dead hand while she screamed like nothing I ever heard before or since. Let me tell you, McClure, something like that tears a man’s guts out. I was nearly fifty-five years old and everything I’d built and loved was in shambles.”

  The old man had disarmed him, Dan conceded. With the telling of his own sad tale, Dunkirk had put him on the defensive.

  Woodson Dunkirk went on. “But I’m a practical man, and I saw the handwriting on the wall. I was fighting a
losing battle in Texas. I sold my holdings for little of nothing and took my daughter north. Fortunately, I had made investments outside of ranching, and I still had a rather healthy stake to start again. When I came out here, I knew I had found cattle country that made Texas look like a desert. And when I started buying up land, I promised myself that I would never be at the mercy of my neighbors again. I grew strong enough to tell my neighbors to go to hell. Powerful enough to have the law working for me instead of against me. And that’s how it is, Mr. McClure.”

  “So I’ve learned. But nothing stays the same. Things have a way of changing.”

  “Speaking of change, Mr. McClure,” Dunkirk said, leaning back in his chair, “I’ll buy your ranch from you at a fair price.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “Oh? I had the impression you might be interested in selling.”

  “I think not. You see, I came here with a few promises of my own. One was that I was going to stay here, make my life in the Pine Ridge. Die here.”

  “I’ll pay you twice what you gave for the ranch.”

  “You don’t have enough money to buy my ranch. And I came here to serve notice that if you try to squeeze, I’ll fight back. I’m willing to walk away from everything that’s happened so far, but if there’s any more trouble, you’ll wish you’d never heard of Dan McClure.”

  “I don’t like threats, Mr. McClure.”

  “It wasn’t a threat.”

  The old man lifted his hands and waved them placatingly. His lips parted in a bemused smile as though enjoying some private joke. “Now, don’t be so feisty young man. I must say, I admire your spirit and courage, though you do give me cause to question your good sense. In any case I find you quite likable, so I’ll just disregard your accusatory remarks for the moment. I suggest we declare a truce. Maybe in time, you’ll find I’m not quite the ogre I’ve been made out to be.”