by Ron Schwab
IT WAS WELL past midnight when Dan reined the strawberry roan mare onto the trail that led over the ridge that divided his land from Megan Grant’s. The mare, which he had borrowed from the Bar G, was fresh and strong in the unseasonable cool night air. His own horse had been blowing hard and limping on a tender front leg when Dan had dismounted and walked it the last half mile to Megan’s ranch. He had scared the hell out of them when he had led the horse into the ranch yard a little more than an hour earlier. At least Megan had had the good sense to post a guard on the veranda of the limestone-walled house. Sol’s nondescript old hound, though, had started howling like he had a coon treed when Dan had reached the fringes of the farmstead, and the kid keeping watch on the porch had displayed a nervous trigger finger and fired off a wild shot before Dan identified himself and walked into the open. Within seconds, Charlie Gage, who had taken up residence in Sol’s old room, burst out of the house clad only in his long johns with his six-gun probing the air, looking for a target. Dan smiled now at the thought of the old man standing there on the porch ready to take on the whole Sioux nation if he had to in the defense of Megan Grant. Long John Charlie, they called him, for he wore red flannels winter and summer. Sometimes when you rode downwind from the old bird you had to wonder if he always wore the same pair.
Nate Coates and the other hands had come rushing up from the bunkhouse. Poor Nate, what the kid wouldn’t give to have Charlie’s bed in the main house . . . or to share Megan Grant’s.
Megan had a rare, indefinable quality that bred instant loyalty. Even when her quick temper and sometimes razor-sharp tongue made you want to give her a quick whack on the butt, you never felt like walking away from her. He was not sure what he felt for Megan Grant, but loyalty had something to do with it and that was no small part of the reason he and Liz Dunkirk had parted company.
Damn, Megan Grant. She had made him weak in his knees when she had appeared in the doorway tonight. And it wasn’t because he was saddle sore and dead tired from the gauntlet-like ride from ranch to ranch through the Pine Ridge this day. She had stood there, the moonlight casting an eerie glow on her face, her unseeing eyes bright and alert. He should not have been surprised, for why should he expect to see the strong-willed and fiercely independent Megan Grant surrender to the demands of custom and style and adorn herself in a frilly, appropriately modest nightdress? No, she had stood there in an old flannel shirt that had sheared-off sleeves and stopped well above her knees, showing too much of her brown shapely legs. Her good sense had stopped her before she stepped out onto the porch in that outfit.
Dan had seen the longing in Nate Coate’s eyes as he stood in front of the porch, his mouth gaping open in awe. Then he had observed the hurt in the young man’s eyes when she invited Dan in for coffee before he rode on. Charlie had instructed one of the hands to saddle up a fresh horse and to look after Dan’s own exhausted mount before he limped off to bed, leaving Dan and Megan alone in the kitchen where Megan, with seemingly little effort, brewed a pot of coffee on the stove that still had hot coals in its belly from the evening’s supper.
Dan sat at the table, watching her silently, as she took two cups from the cupboard and placed them on the table. She must have somehow sensed his gaze, he thought, when she said, “You’ll have to forgive my attire. It was the only thing handy.” Her face had suddenly blushed scarlet when she realized the implication of what she had said.
He smiled at her discomfort, letting the silence speak for itself as she turned abruptly away to move to the stove. “The coffee should be ready,” she said.
“Thank you for your trouble.”
“No trouble. I’d do the same for anybody.” She placed the pot on the table and sat down across from Dan. “Perhaps you’d better pour,” she said. “I’m a little clumsy at that yet.”
Dan took the pot and filled their cups with steaming coffee. “Thank you for not coddling me,” she said as she reached for her cup, touching it tentatively before enclosing it in her slender fingers.
“I don’t understand.”
“Everyone around here treats me like a child. Charlie and Nate are like a couple of old mother hens. They mean well, but it upsets me the way they stumble over each other trying to help me. They don’t think I can do anything for myself. You aren’t like that. In fact, you’re just the opposite. Sometimes you let me do things I’d just as soon let somebody else do, but at least you don’t treat me like a child.”
“You’re not a child. Far from it. But be patient with Nate and Charlie. You’re lucky to have them. And your other hands; they’re good men. They’ll stick by you come hell or high water, and from the commotion that was raised out there when I showed up, I feel a lot better about things. I don’t think anybody’s going to take the Bar G by surprise.”
“But what about your place?” she asked, before suddenly changing the subject. “By the way, you’ve never named your ranch or given it a brand. We can’t just go on calling it the Hanson place forever.”
“There’s no hurry. Maybe it won’t need a name or a brand.”
“You’re thinking of leaving?”
He caught the concern in her voice. “No. I said before I wasn’t leaving. I meant it. I’m just not in a hurry to tag it with a name.”
“But I do worry,” she said. “You have to sleep sometime, and you’re there alone. It’s dangerous for you to stay there like that. I could send one of my hands over to stay nights, and you could sleep in shifts.”
“No, that’s not necessary. I’ll be all right. Things will be a lot safer in the valley in a few days. I talked to Cal Salway and Powell and the other captains. They’ve already been at work, and they’re going to make more contacts tomorrow. By tomorrow night, we’ll have seven watch posts manned at the highest points of Pine Ridge. At first sign of trouble, someone will ride for help. By this time next week, we’ll have patrols riding the trails at night.”
“But you have hundreds of square miles of hills and valleys to cover,” Megan reminded. “It won’t take all that much skill to get past your patrols.”
“No, but with scouts working around the Diamond D and relay riders at strategic places, we can get word of trouble to the watch stations and move men quickly with signal fires. We’ll have armed men ready to strike, and we’ll improve our odds of dealing Dunkirk’s riders a blow. We’ll certainly get help faster to the people who need it. I have a hunch that eventually we’ll have to carry the fight to the Diamond D, but I haven’t come up with the right plan yet. But I will.”
He had left Megan Grant’s kitchen reluctantly. It was a comfortable place to be. It was nice to share a table with a woman. Sometimes, nicer than sharing a bed.
They talked easily now. He and Megan weren’t like a pair of bulldogs fighting over a bone anymore. They could speak frankly, yet amiably, with each other, like old friends, and he had a hard time now recollecting what they had ever argued about.
21
REACHING THE TOP of the ridge, Dan stopped for a moment while he looked out over the starlit valleys that weaved between the twisting hills and ridges and widened and converged into great flatlands before, like spokes off a hub, they angled in all directions before they split off into the hills again. They talked about the ranchers in the valley, Dan thought, but in reality the Pine Ridge was a network of many grass-carpeted valleys, protected and bordered by rocky hills and ridges rich with ponderosa and ash and oak. God’s country, the cowboys said, as they called ranch country everywhere. Dan agreed. Whatever God there was above, he felt closer to Him here than in any church he ever frequented.
Suddenly, his body tensed in the saddle. Through the trees, he caught the sight of a tiny, almost imperceptible glow of orange flickering like a candle in a draft. It was his place, and it wasn’t a candle. He slapped the roan on the rump and reined her down the rocky trail that wound down the slope floor of his own small valley. He pushed the horse harder than he should have down the trail. Several times before they broke off the slo
pe and onto the meadow, the game mare lost her footing and pitched forward, almost throwing him off before she regained her balance.
Once out of the hills, Dan dug his heels into the mare’s flanks and raced her across the meadow at a reckless gallop. The fiery glow grew brighter and lighter and higher as he neared the ranch buildings, confirming his worst fears. He could see now there were three distinct fires raging on the ranch; the largest would be the barn; the others the cow shed and house.
The house. His paintings. A lifetime’s work. He urged the horse forward at a frantic gait now, and as he barreled down the road that led into the ranch yard, he saw three, perhaps four horseback raiders fleeing the ranch at breakneck speed. Then, as he burst into the ranch yard, he came upon two stragglers, one yanking sharply at the reins of a reluctant, fire-spooked horse. The other was afoot, trying to steady another panicky horse, trying to run without its rider.
Dan pulled the roan up short and reached for his revolver, which slid into his hand and was aimed at the bulky rider before the man caught sight of him and grappled for his own gun. The man’s gun never cleared its holster, as Dan squeezed the trigger of the army Colt, and the bullet tore through the raider’s throat and seemed to lift him from the saddle as his horse vaulted out from under him and dashed away, leaving its dead master in a heap on the dusty earth.
The other raider’s six-gun appeared instantly in his hand, and he leveled off a quick shot before Dan could steady the roan and get off a shot of his own. The horse lunged forward, letting out a blood-curdling shriek that seemed almost human before it fell to the earth. Dan leaped free, landing next to the wounded mare and taking a jolting blow to his left shoulder. He then scrambled to his feet with the revolver poised in his right hand. The gunfighter’s six-gun roared again, but the frantic jerking of his horse threw him off his mark, and before he could fire again, Dan’s bullet dug into the man’s hip. The bullet’s impact drove the man reeling backward and he stumbled, releasing his horse’s reins before he steadied himself. His eyes were dazed and stunned as he tried to focus on his target.
The bastard isn’t a quitter, Dan thought, giving him grudging respect before his own gun exploded and drove a bullet into the man’s chest. The raider’s gun slid from his hand and dropped to the ground as the man’s knees buckled and he sunk to the earth, collapsing not more than a few feet from his sidekick.
Dan holstered his pistol, his eyes taking in the scene. The house. The paintings. Flames raced up the side walls of the house and danced over the rooftop while black smoke billowed out the open door. But the doorway itself seemed clear of fire. Was there a chance he could still salvage the paintings?
He raced for the house, oblivious to the searing heat that had turned the ranch yard into a broiling oven. He pounded across the front porch and sucked in a deep breath before he bolted through the open entryway. Once inside, he knew instantly he was too late. One room had already been devoured by the vicious fire, and the paintings in this room had already been swallowed by the flames. He hesitated for a dangerous moment, and almost blinded by the thick stinging smoke, surveyed the room with tear-filled eyes.
Then he remembered Sol’s portrait. He had left it near the door, planning to take it to Megan’s the first chance he got, feeling that somehow it belonged on the Bar G, even if Megan couldn’t see it. He wheeled, pulling the heavy smoke into his lungs as he tried to catch his breath. Choking and coughing, he staggered to the front wall where he found the canvas resting on the floor. He snatched it up and, clutching it protectively to his chest, Dan charged for the open doorway and broke out onto the porch. Only after he had stumbled across the yard and collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath, his stomach churning, was he aware of the pain where the flames had scorched his arms and face.
Then he heard the agonizing whinny of the roan. Looking across the yard, he saw the flailing legs and the strained jerking of the helpless mare’s head and neck. He lifted himself up, and after depositing the rescued canvas on a soft bed of grass, he walked on trembling legs to the suffering horse. He looked down at her and saw that she had taken a bullet in the upper neck just behind the jaw. Her glazed eyes told him she was beyond help. He pulled the long barreled service revolver from its holster and ended the animal’s misery.
He turned away from the dead horse and stopped, standing there and surveying the ranch yard totally illuminated now by the fiery blaze that had once been his home. He tried not to think of the three horses that had been in the barn, but the thought occurred to him that this was an odd breed of Westerner who fired a barn without turning out the horses.
His eyes were drawn to the house and the sounds of the creaking and crackling of the timbers just before the roof collapsed and sunk into the rooms that had housed his paintings. Ten years’ harvest of a creative mind and skilled hands, cremated to ashes. His only tangible reminders of Larisa and Emily and Angela burned into the Pine Ridge dust.
The paintings, all of them, had been a part of him, children of his soul. And now they were nothing.
He began to shake spasmodically; his stomach knotted with a knifelike pain that ripped through his belly. He bent forward and began to cough and retch violently, before the dizziness struck and blackness overtook him, and he fell into his own vomit.
22
THE PUNGENT ODOR of smoke struck Megan’s nostrils long before they reached Dan’s ranch and told her the story that would unfold there. One of the hands had sighted smoke shortly after sunrise and had carried word to the house, and the news had hit her with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that lingered yet as she pondered what they might find when they rode into Dan McClure’s ranch yard. There was a chance, just a chance, that Dan might have arrived home after the raiders hit the ranch, but if he had, why hadn’t he returned to the Bar G for help? Not that there was much anyone could have done at that point.
They rode across the flatlands at a fast, steady gait: Megan, Nate Coates, and Charlie Gates. When she had announced she was riding with them, Charlie had grumbled and Nate had whined in protest, but she bristled and bluntly pulled rank. “Are you still working for me,” she asked, “or do you want to draw your pay?”
Charlie had replied, “You’re the boss, Miss Megan,” and Nate just walked away and saddled his horse. Charlie didn’t harbor grudges and had been a cowhand for years, taken too many orders to let one stick in his craw now.
But Nate had been quiet and sullen ever since they rode away from the Bar G. He was pouting again. He had been doing a lot of that lately. He still fancied that he would be ramrodding the Bar G one day as her husband. Well, he had better not take that for granted. Maybe he would; then again, maybe he would not. She was fond of Nate, grateful to him for his loyalty, appreciative of his affection, but there had been no more than a few quick, clumsy kisses passed between them, and when she thought about it, she had to admit that her feelings for Nate were more akin to what one might have for a kid brother than for a man she would want to spend a lifetime with. What Nate stirred in her was nothing compared to what she felt when in Dan McClure’s presence. My God, what was she thinking?
Dan. She had resigned herself to the possibility that she might never see his face again. She could endure that thought, live with it. But now, she was faced with the prospect that she might never again hear the sound of his voice or tremble at the touch of his hand.
The smoke was heavy now, choking, suffocating, as they slowed their horses and trotted into the yard. “Charlie, what do you see?” Megan asked, as they reined in the horses. “Do you see Dan? Tell me.”
“Nope. The roan’s stretched out in the yard. Took some lead in the neck. It looks like somebody could have put her out of her misery. And she’s got company. Two hombres is layin’ there staring at the sky, but seeing nothin’. One of them I’ve seen riding with the Diamond D outfit. They didn’t suffer none, that’s for damn sure. Somebody sunk his bullets where they count.”
“Dan?”
“It
would be a good bet,” Charlie said, “but don’t get your hopes up, Miss Megan. There was a bunch of riders here last night.”
She heard the creaking of Nate’s saddle as he dismounted. “I’m going to take a look around,” he said.
As Nate walked away, Megan said, “Tell me about it, Charlie. The buildings . . . is there anything left?”
“Not a golderned thing, Miss Megan. Ain’t nothin’ but smoke and ashes. The barn, the sheds, the house—”
“The house. What does the house look like?”
“Like I said, ashes. No, more like a big bed of cooking coals excepting for the chimney sticking out.”
The sinking feeling hit her again. “The paintings. Dan’s paintings.”
“What’s that, Miss Megan?”
“Nothing, Charlie.” Little tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. You could rebuild a house or a barn; you could restock a ranch; but you could not replace Dan’s paintings. The mood and emotions that gave birth to a particular painting had to be something you couldn’t recapture and recreate again. Each painting would be like a child, each uniquely different and special, prized and cherished for that uniqueness. And just as irreplaceable as human life, if not as valued.
Dan, she prayed silently, you have to be alive. You have to paint again.
“Meg. Charlie,” Nate called. “He’s over here.”
Megan turned to the sound of Nate’s voice. “Is he—”
“He’s all right,” Nate said. “Leastways, he don’t seem too bad.”
Megan and Charlie dismounted, and Charlie led her around the smoldering embers of the house. “Nate’s over by the trees west of the house,” Charlie said as they walked. “There’s McClure. He’s just sitting there with his back against a ponderosa. Looks mighty worn out.”
“He’s alive. That’s all that matters.”
