For the Brand

by Ralph Compton

  “I say we try to talk sense into him one more time,” Deputy Ivers suggested, “and if he won’t go back with us, he’s on his own.”

  “You’re wearing the badge,” Yost noted.

  At that, Ivers frowned. “There’s only so much I can do. You saw me earlier. I did all I could to convince him this is a mistake. It was like talkin’ to a rock.”

  “I saw you,” the last townsman, Nesbitt, said. “You did all anyone could do, and then some.”

  Yost nodded. “It’s not your fault. That cowboy is half out of his mind. If he’s not careful, he’ll get himself killed.”

  At that exact instant the mountains echoed to the boom of a rifle shot. Deputy Ivers straightened, swore, and used his reins and his spurs on his horse. He was first to reach the top and the first to behold the prone figure. A slug had caught Jim Palmer in the middle of his left cheek and made a mess of the right half of his head. His handsome face would never be handsome again.

  “Over there!” Yost yelled.

  Two hundred yards to their left was a shelf slightly higher than the slope. A figure dressed all in gray was astride a gray horse, holding a rifle with the stock on his thigh.

  Deputy Ivers bent to shuck his own rifle from its saddle scabbard but he did not pull it out. The man in gray was making no move to take aim at them. “It’s the one called Mason.”

  “They say he’s a Reb, like Johnny Vance,” Yost said.

  “That’s a hell of a long shot he made. He must be a sharpshooter,” Nesbitt breathlessly commented. “He could probably pick us off without half trying.”

  “We’re easy targets for him here,” Deputy Ivers agreed, and promptly reined around and down the other side a dozen yards.

  “What about the cowboy?” Yost asked when they reined up. “We should bury him.”

  “Maybe that’s what the outlaws are waiting for,” Nesbitt said. “I didn’t see the other three. They might be hiding. When we go down to the body, they’ll pop up and blast away.”

  Both townsmen looked at Jared Ivers. “You make the decisions,” Yost said. “What do we do?”

  Ivers gnawed on his lower lip. He rose in the stirrups and sank back down. He put his hand on his revolver and took it off again. “They’re only three of us now. We’re outnumbered. It would be foolish for us to die for a man who is already dead.” He squared his shoulders. “I say we head back.”

  “About damn time,” Nesbitt said.

  “I don’t like the idea of leaving that cowboy lying there,” Yost mentioned. “I liked him.”

  “Everyone liked Jim Palmer,” Deputy Ivers said. “I liked him, too, but I didn’t like him enough to die for him when he’s past help.”

  “But his body,” Yost persisted. “His horse.”

  “The outlaws will take his horse and whatever else they can use,” Ivers predicted. “The body won’t be there long, not with all the coyotes and buzzards and bears in this part of the country.”

  “That’s not very Christian,” Yost said.

  “No, it’s not,” Deputy Ivers agreed, “but Jim Palmer wasn’t Christ.” He gigged his mount to the southwest, saying over a shoulder, “If you want to give the coyotes more to eat, you go right ahead. I’ll let your wife know you died doing what was right.”

  Nesbitt was already following. Ted Yost stared up the slope a few seconds; then the young bank clerk wheeled his horse and started down after the others. “Wait for me!”

  The three rode hard the rest of the day, or as hard as they dared given that their mounts were about played out. They continually scoured their back trail for sign of pursuit but it appeared the outlaws were not after them.

  “That’s a relief,” Nesbitt said. “I half expected them to come after us and wipe us out.”

  “We’re not safe yet,” Deputy Ivers scowled.

  That night they had neither water nor food. The next morning they were under way as soon as the pink flush of dawn marked the horizon. It was Ivers’ intention to push on to the stream the posse had camped beside the first night out. “Once we reach it, we’ll be all right.”

  By the sun it was close to eleven and they were descending a rocky slope when suddenly a harsh rattling sound caused the deputy’s animal to rear and whinny. Ivers palmed his pistol and snapped a shot at the rattlesnake but the snake was too fast and slithered into some boulders.

  “Whoa there, boy!” he said to his horse as it abruptly bolted. He hauled on the reins but it did no good. Another moment, and the horse squealed and catapulted into a forward roll. Ivers left the saddle and threw his arms over his head. He hit and rolled and came to a stop against a log.

  “Are you all right?” Yost called down.

  Deputy Ivers was fine but his horse had a broken leg. Jagged white bone stuck six inches from ruptured flesh. “Hell,” he said, standing over the thrashing animal and cocking his revolver. “Hell, hell, hell.”

  The shot pealed off the mountain and the horse stopped thrashing.

  Ted Yost and Nesbitt fidgeted in their saddles and Nesbitt asked, “Now what? There’s three of us but only two horses.”

  “I’ll ride double with Yost and you can bring my saddle.” Ivers squatted by his former mount.

  “No,” Nesbitt said.

  “No, what?”

  “No, I’m not taking your saddle. My horse is tired enough. Hell, I’m about done in, and we have a long way to go. We should leave your saddle and effects here and you can come back for them.”

  “I’m not leavin’ my saddle,” the deputy said. “It cost me pretty near half a month’s pay.”

  “You can’t make us take it,” Nesbitt said, and Ted Yost nodded.

  Jared Ivers’ thin lips twitched. He glared as best he could glare and he cursed them with a vehemence a mule skinner would envy, but in the end Nesbitt and Yost sat firm and refused to take the saddle.

  “I’ll remember this,” Ivers spat. “The next time you need a favor of the law, don’t come to me.”

  “Be reasonable, Jared,” Nesbitt said.

  But Ivers would not be reasonable, and for the rest of the day, he griped about their ill treatment of him and his saddle. Nightfall found them at the creek, where their horses drank too much and had to be pulled from the water. Deputy Ivers took his rifle and prowled in search of game but came back empty-handed.

  “I’m so hungry I’d eat your dead horse,” Yost mentioned, which was perhaps not the wisest comment to make as it brought a new torrent of curses from Ivers and a vow that if it was the last thing he ever did, he would repay them for the injustice of abandoning his saddle.

  They did not sleep well. They tossed and turned. Their stomachs growled like ravenous bears. Each got up several times to drink. Sunrise brought them out from under their blankets stiff and sore and famished.

  Deputy Ivers stood and arched his back to stretch and saw the Flour Sack Kid not ten feet away holding the matched pair of black-handled revolvers on him. “What the hell?” he blurted.

  “Mornin’,” the Kid said. “You sure are a sorry-lookin’ bunch.”

  Yost and Nesbitt were too stupefied to speak.

  Not Deputy Ivers. “What are you doin’ here? What do you want?” he demanded.

  “I heard some shots yesterday and came for a look-see,” the Kid said. “Found a dead horse and the tracks of two others, and here I am.” His eyes regarded them from under the flour sack. “The question is, what are you doin’ here?”

  “We’re a posse out after the Wilkes gang,” Deputy Ivers informed him.

  “A posse? All three of you?”

  “There were twenty. It’s a long story.”

  “I’ll spare you the tongue waggin’,” the Kid said. “I’ve got somewhere I need to be tonight, so hand over your money.”

  Yost made a gurgling noise, then bleated, “You’re robbing us?”

  “It’s how I make my livin’, remember?” the Kid replied. “Why else do you reckon I followed you all this way? Dig in your pockets and I’ll
be out of your hair.”

  “No, by God!” Deputy Ivers fell into a crouch with his hand poised to draw. “There’s three of us and only one of you! You might get me but you can’t get Yost and Nesbitt, too. Compared to the Wilkes gang, you’ll be easy.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the Flour Sack Kid said, and shot him in the leg.

  Deputy Ivers howled as he fell. Clutching his right thigh, he rolled back and forth, spewing swear words through his clenched teeth.

  Walking up to him, the Kid relieved Ivers of his revolver, then collected pistols from Yost and Nesbitt. He threw the revolvers and rifles into the brush and held out a hand. “Now for the money.”

  Between them, Yost and Nesbitt had six dollars and forty-three cents.

  “Mighty slim pickin’s,” the Kid said, “but every little bit helps.” He stood over Jared Ivers and nudged him with a boot. “How about you, lawdog?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Hunkering, the Kid pressed a pistol barrel to Ivers’ head and patted down each of Ivers’ pockets. His search yielded another dollar and twenty cents. “And folks wonder why I don’t work for a livin’,” he said.

  “I’ll see your neck stretched if it’s the last thing I do,” Jared Ivers vowed. His hands were slick with blood and his face was a mask of pain.

  “You’re welcome to try.” The Kid whistled. Out of the brush came the Appaloosa. It cantered to his side and waited for him to climb on.

  “That’s some horse,” Nesbitt said.

  Deputy Ivers had not used up his store of swear words. When he was done, he snarled, “I’m lyin’ here bleedin’ to death and you compliment his cayuse.”

  “But it is some horse. My uncle back in Indiana was a horse breeder and I know a fine animal when I see one.”

  “I wish I could hang you, too,” Ivers said.

  Ted Yost tried to soothe him. “Look at the bright side. Things can’t get any worse.”

  “I’m takin’ your horses as well,” the Flour Sack Kid announced as he swung onto the Appaloosa.

  “But we need them!” Yost cried. “We need to get the deputy to a doctor as soon as possible.”

  The Kid reined the Appaloosa over to Ivers and looked down at him. “Wrap your belt real tight around your leg and the bleedin’ will stop. If I were you, I’d lie here and take it easy while these other two go for help.”

  “Oh, sure,” Ivers said. “Shoot me. Then pretend you give a damn.”

  The Flour Sack Kid looped a lead rope over the two horses. He saw Yost and Nesbitt watching him and said, “What are you waitin’ for? If you don’t light a shuck, Jared there will be dead inside of twenty-four hours.”

  Ivers rose onto an elbow. “How is it you know my first name?”

  “I know a lot of first names,” the Kid said. With that, he departed in a flurry of hooves.

  “You heard him!” Ivers barked at the bank clerk and the assistant at the feed and grain. “If you don’t make it back in time and I die, I’ll come back and haunt the both of you, so help me God.”

  “He’s delirious,” Yost said.

  The two men maintained a brisk pace for a half mile or so, at which point fatigue and hunger conspired to hold them to a less-than-brisk walk. They wanted to go faster but they had dwelled in towns their entire lives and were as adept in the woods as newborn infants. Again and again they stumbled or tore their clothes or tripped over a rock or their own feet. They were clammy with sweat and their legs became leaden.

  Then fickle fate came to their rescue. Three of the men who had turned back with Treach lost battles to their consciences and, after buying provisions, had set right back out again. The surprise was mutual when they came on Yost and Nesbitt at close to four o’clock that afternoon.

  It was decided one man would ride like the wind back to Cottonwood for the doctor. The others hastened to the clearing by the creek, Yost and Nesbitt riding double.

  “Ivers! We’re back! You’re saved!” Yost hollered as he jumped down. He ran to where they had left the deputy propped against a tree but Ivers wasn’t there. “Where in the world . . . ?”

  “I thought you said he couldn’t hardly walk.” This from Isaac Jorgenson, who had a small spread ten miles south of Cottonwood and happened to be in town the day of the shootings.

  “He was,” Nesbitt said. “I don’t understand where he could have gotten to.”

  They commenced a search and were at it five minutes when Ted Yost strayed near the stream and happened to glance at a shallow pool. What he saw turned his blood to ice and tore a yelp from his throat. The others rushed to find out why, and Nesbitt turned and retched.

  “That’s a hand,” Jorgenson said. “A human hand.”

  On the other side of the stream, they came on an arm and then a half-eaten leg. They were not trackers but the tracks of the culprit were impossible to miss.

  “What a horrible way to die,” Yost said.

  “I can’t think of any good ways,” Jorgenson responded, and squatted to place his left hand over a paw print. “The blood must have drawn it in. Old-timers says a grizzly can smell blood a mile off.”

  “Eaten by a bear,” Nesbitt said. “Ivers never counted on having that on his tombstone.”

  “What tombstone?” Jorgenson asked.

  “All I know,” Ted Yost said, taking off his hat and moping his brow with a sleeve, “is that this was one hell of a posse.”

  Chapter 9

  A pall of gloom hung over the Bar T and it did not sit well with Elfie Tyler. She complained about it to Abe, and he called all the hands who were not out on the range to the stable. Or, rather, Reuben Marsh did. To all questions about why the big augur wanted to see them, the foreman would only say they must wait and hear him out.

  Willis was there. So were Charlie Weaver and Sam Tinsdale and Gus the cook and more than a dozen others. Willis did not speak to anyone. He had not said much since the other day at the saloon.

  Abe and Elfie came from the big house and Abe stood in the open double doors to the stable and raised his hands for quiet. Then he cleared his throat and began right in. “We’ve got to shake it off, boys. Losing Jim and Timmy was awful, yes, but we can’t mope about it. We have to get on with our lives.”

  “I’ll get on with mine when they hang the vermin who done it,” Gus the cook said. He was the only one who dared interrupt. It came from being the only man on the spread who was indispensable.

  “I’m sure the law will bring them to justice,” Abe said, “just as soon as Cottonwood gets around to appointing a new lawman.” He paused. “In the meantime, we have a ranch to run.”

  “And a ranch to sell,” Elfie interjected.

  Willis had always been skeptical of her but now an active tendril of dislike crawled up through him, and even though he was not as indispensable as the cook he dared to say, “We can’t let Jim’s and Timmy’s deaths put a stop to that.”

  “Exactly,” Elfie beamed. “It won’t do for the prospective new owner to arrive today and find the Bar T as lively as a funeral. We need to put on the best face we can.”

  Some of the men shifted and glanced at one another, and Abe Tyler coughed and said, “What my wife is trying to say is that, just as the Good Book says, there is a time and a place for everything, and today is not the time and the Bar T is not the place to give the lady from Texas the notion we’re a bunch of quitters.”

  “Quitters?” Gus said.

  “In the sense of whipped dogs, yes,” Abe said. “Have you looked at yourselves—all of you walking around as if you’re only half here? No one smiles. No one laughs. I joined you men for supper last night, if you’ll recall, and I never saw a gloomier outfit in my life.”

  “You can’t blame us,” Sam Tinsdale said.

  “No one is being blamed for anything,” Abe declared. “All I’m asking is that we try to be more like our old selves. The Hendershot woman will arrive in a couple of hours and I’d like for her to see the Bar T at its best. Is that too much to ask?�
��

  No one answered.

  Abe smiled. “I didn’t think it was. Believe you me, I know how rough this is. No one here liked Jim Palmer more than I did. And Timmy Easton, while young, was a top hand. They will both be missed.”

  Willis wondered if anyone would say the same of him when his time came.

  “But miss them in private,” Abe continued, “not when you’re forking hay or riding herd or branding. Show this woman from Texas that Wyoming cowboys are every bit as hardy as the Texas variety.”

  “We sure are!” Leroy Fisher declared. He was the only puncher Willis ever met who hailed from Connecticut.

  “That’s the spirit!” Abe said. “Now let’s get everything as presentable as we can. Sam, you make sure the bunkhouse is tidied up and stays tied up the whole time Laurella Hendershot is here. Charlie, make the rounds of the home valley and advise the men on herd to be on their best behavior. Hendershot will want to inspect the cattle and I don’t want her catching any of our boys shirking work. Gus, you’ll have those pies we talked about ready?”

  “In the oven already,” Gus said. “They’ll be baked brown before the hour is up.”

  “Excellent,” Elfie said.

  “That’s all, then, I guess,” Abe said, and started to turn but stopped. “Oh, except for Willis. We need to see you up at the house in ten minutes or so, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Willis said, the butterflies in his stomach multiplying. The whole escort business had about ruined his sleep the past few nights. He was deathly afraid he would make some blunder that would spoil the sale.

  Abe smiled and nodded and took his wife’s elbow. She was wearing a new dress and new shoes and had a ribbon in her hair.

  “Well,” Charlie Weaver said.

  “Well,” Willis echoed.

  “I reckon I’d best saddle up.” Charlie put a hand on Willis’s shoulder. “Is it me or are you lookin’ a mite peaked? Does havin’ to chaperon the filly have you that spooked?”

  “No more than stickin’ my head in a rattlesnake den would.”

  Charlie chuckled. “Look at it this way. The first bite, and your worries are all over.”

  “That’s supposed to cheer me up? As a friend you would make a fine disease.”