For the Brand

by Ralph Compton

  Willis shoved his Colt back into its holster and bent and extended an arm. “I hate you so much.”

  “You would like to,” the Flour Sack Kid said. Chuckling, he sat up and slid his revolvers into their holsters, then placed a palm to the flour sack about where his jaw would be. “That was some punch. A little harder and you would have broke half my teeth.”

  “Did I break any at all?” Willis asked.

  The flour sack wriggled from within. “Not a one.”

  “Damn.” Willis pulled the Kid to his feet. “I forgot. You always did have an iron jaw. Must come from all your clean livin’.”

  The Kid chuckled louder and the sack swung toward Laurella. “Did you hear him, ma’am? He poked fun at me. There’s hope yet.”

  “There’s no hope,” Willis said.

  “I don’t understand.” Laurella looked from Willis to the sack and back again. “Why didn’t you shoot him? I would have shot him.”

  “Bloodthirsty as hell,” the Kid said. He was staring at her face. Specifically, the left half of her face.

  “You’re a badman, aren’t you? Why else go around in that sack?”

  “Why do you go around in that veil?” the Kid retorted.

  “Are you sayin’ that you’re like me?” Laurella asked.

  “No. You’re a heap prettier.” The Kid winked at her but she did not react. “You were right the first time. I’m an outlaw. I deserve to be shot or hung or both.”

  “You sure do,” Willis said. “What in God’s name are you doin’ here? In broad daylight, no less.”

  “What else? Lookin’ for you. I’ve been spyin’ on the ranch for days now, waitin’ for a chance to talk to you. Some of the punchers saw me a day or so ago, I think.”

  “No think about it.” Willis sighed and glanced toward the distant buildings. “So talk before we’re spotted. I won’t help if they throw a noose around your neck.”

  “Yes, you will,” the Kid said confidently, and winked a second time at Laurella. “He talks mean but he’s a kitten.”

  “You two know each other?”

  “Nothin’ gets past you, does it, Texas?” the Kid said. “Oh, you can put your hat back on. I’m sorry I had you take it off. But it’s a shame you hide the pretty half.”

  “I wish I had a gun,” Laurella said.

  Willis had to brace his left leg to stoop and pick up her hat. Brushing it off, he said, “This is the Flour Sack Kid. He’s been robbin’ folks since shortly after the war. Every marshal and sheriff in the territory is on the lookout for him. He went to Colorado for a spell but didn’t have the sense to stay.”

  “I got homesick.”

  “We don’t have a home anymore,” Willis said. “Ma went to her reward long ago, if you’ll recollect, and sis died about a year after you left us. Uncle Jessup, last I heard, was in California, workin’ as a clerk.”

  “He never did have any dash,” the Kid said.

  “Is that what you call robbin’ folks? Dash? Hereabouts most call it despicable, or worse.” Willis sadly shook his head. “You should have given it up and gone straight years ago. Now it can only end one way.”

  “We all die.”

  “Not at the end of a rope.” Willis was growing mad. “Not on the wrong side of the law. Not on the wrong side of the Good Book.”

  “Oh, please. Did you get religion while I was gone? You’ve had no more truck with the parson than I have. We both went our own path, the devil be damned.”

  “Just go,” Willis said.

  “I only wanted to see how you were,” the Kid explained, “maybe spend a night around a campfire swappin’ stories about how it used to be. They were happy times back then.”

  “They were,” Willis agreed, “but they don’t excuse what you’ve done. Go away and don’t come near me ever again.”

  “If that’s what you really want,” the Flour Sack Kid said. When Willis did not respond, the Kid slowly turned and melted into the underbrush. He looked back only once, and gave a little wave.

  “I hate him,” Willis said.

  “How many people know your brother is an outlaw?”

  Willis was thinking of the many happy times before his mother died. Thinking of the first time they had hunted and the first time they had fished and his first pony. “He sounds young, doesn’t he? Younger than me. So I guess it’s only natural you reckon he’s my brother. But he’s not.” Willis’ chest was tight and his nose felt congested. “The Flour Sack Kid is my pa.”

  Chapter 12

  Willis did not eat much at supper. Gus grumbled that his cooking was never appreciated but Willis had no appetite. Afterward, he lay on his bunk staring at the ceiling and waiting for Abe to show up at the bunkhouse or for Reuben Marsh to come in and tell him Abe wanted to see him. But Abe never came and there was no summons.

  He was the last to fall asleep. He tried, truly tried, but he could not get comfortable enough. He refused to fool himself into thinking it was the bed. It was him. Deep down inside he was a boiling cauldron of twisted emotions.

  Eventually, though, his exhausted body refused to be denied, and Willis slept fitfully until the crow of the cock. He was first up, first at the washbasin, first out of the bunkhouse. He opened the stable doors and brought out the team and the harness and had the buckboard ready before the sun fully rose.

  Laurella had told Willis she wanted to start early for the north valley. His idea of early was first light. He did not know what her idea of early was but he deemed it best to be ready, just in case. It proved to be smart. Not ten minutes after he was done hitching the team, the front door to the big house opened and out came the Tylers and their guest from Texas and her protector, Armando.

  Willis went up the path to the porch. He could not bring himself to look at her. He nodded at Abe and said, “Mornin’.”

  “Good morning, Will. Miss Hendershot tells us you did a marvelous job yesterday. She was extremely pleased.”

  “I did my best,” Willis said quietly.

  Elfie bestowed a warm smile. “I knew I picked the right man for the job. I expect the same performance today.”

  Laurella was holding a bundle. “I’ve brought food for our midday meal. Chicken and bread and apples and more.”

  “I expect I’ll be hungry by then,” Willis said.

  “Well then, off you go,” Elfie said. “Remember, my dear. If you have any questions Mr. Lander can’t answer, any questions at all, bring them up with Abe and me. We’re at your beck and call.”

  “So far I’ve liked what I’ve seen,” Laurella said.

  “Excellent.” Elfie was as subtle as an avalanche. “A few more days and we can sign the papers and I’m off to Saint Louis.”

  Laurella turned to Armando. “Stay close to the house until I return. I can’t say when that will be.”

  “I am to stay by you at all times, senorita.”

  “Must we go through this again?” Laurella asked. “I’m perfectly safe. Nothin’ happened to me yesterday. Nothin’ will happen to me today.”

  Willis contained himself until they were almost to the buckboard. Then he said out of the side of his mouth, “You didn’t tell them.”

  “You thought I would?”

  Until that moment Willis had never truly hated veils. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t. But I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?” Laurella placed the bundle in the bed.

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Willis said, “but yes, I reckon we are.”

  “There are many ways to think of it. The important thing is which one you want. I was up most of the night and I came to peace with myself about which one I want.”

  Willis wanted to kick something. Here they had not started out yet and already he was confused. He helped her up, climbed on, and gave a holler and a flick of the reins. No one watched from the stable or the bunkhouse.

  In the yellow glow of dawn, the cattle were astir. Some grazed. Some had their legs curled under
them, chewing. A few late calves frolicked in the only play their short lives would know. The green grass glistened with dew. On the surrounding slopes the timber stood in shadowed ranks. Way to the west reared the mountains, crowned by the Tetons. The air was crisp and clear and there was no dust yet.

  “Why?” Laurella asked.

  Willis tried to associate her question with a reason for asking it, and couldn’t. “Why what?”

  “Why did your pa turn to the owlhoot trail?”

  “It was after the war,” Willis answered. “He had gone off to fight for the Union. He’d known a black family once, back in Indiana, and he wanted to do his part to free all blacks. My ma got a few letters from him, then nothin’. We all thought he was dead until he showed up on our doorstep.”

  “Go on,” Laurella coaxed when Willis stopped.

  “My ma was so happy for a while. Happy, but sick.

  Consumption, the doctor said. All he could do was give her laudanum. We had no money. No money at all. And the doctor had to be paid and the laudanum had to be bought.” Willis lost his interest in the beautiful morning. “So my pa went out and stole some money.”

  “Oh my,” Laurella said.

  “He emptied out the little bit of flour we had left and took the flour sack with him,” Willis related, “and when he came back, the flour sack had holes in it that had not been in it when he left, and he had twenty-two dollars. I’ll never forget how much because he counted it at the table in front of us kids.”

  “How bad was it for your mother?”

  “She just sort of shrunk away. Her skin became a sickly gray. Her face was as white as a picket fence except for her eyes. The laudanum helped with the pain for a while but then it didn’t do any good and she was in pain all the time. Pain in her back and hips, mostly, until it spread. She couldn’t go, you know, in the outhouse, and toward the end she got all puffy and couldn’t move, couldn’t lift her arms more than a tiny bit, and she would scream and scream and pass out and then wake up and scream and scream some more.”

  “Dear God in heaven.”

  “Do you really think so? I used to. Before my ma died. But after what she went through, I couldn’t look up at the sky without bein’ mad. How could God let someone suffer like that? I haven’t been sure of nothin’ since.”

  “Your pa—how did he take it?”

  “He was crushed. I caught him cryin’ a few times. Then he got mad. Madder than me. He said ma died because we were poor—that if we had more money, we might have saved her.”

  “There’s no cure for consumption.”

  “I know. I think my pa knew, too. But like I said, he was mad, and crazy with grief. There he was, a soldier who had served his country, and no one offered to help us except the doctor. I guess that’s why he turned bad for good.”

  “He kept on robbin’, I take it.”

  “Not a lot at first. Enough to feed us and clothe us. He always wore the flour sack so no one would know who he was, and soon folks were callin’ him the Flour Sack Kid. He thought it was funny, him being mistook for a kid. Came a time when he up and left us. We were old enough to make it on our own, he said. That, and he did not want us to be blamed in any way for what he was doin’. So off he went. It wasn’t long after that my sister came down with consumption, too, and within a year she was dead.”

  “A lot of people die of it.”

  “People die from a lot of things. But I’ll be one of the few who can say his pa was hung by the neck until dead.”

  “You’re gettin’ ahead of yourself.”

  Willis looked at the veil for the first time that morning. “He’s overdue to be caught. No one can go around stealin’ as long as he has without payin’ the price. Sooner or later the odds always catch up with you.”

  “He’s lasted this long,” Laurella said. “Don’t underestimate him.”

  “Now who is bein’ kind? I’d rather not think of him at all but how can I not when I’m his own flesh and blood?”

  “He must love you very much.”

  Willis hauled on the reins much too hard, much harder than anyone ever should, and when the buckboard stopped he turned in the seat and demanded, “How can you be so cruel?”

  “He came all the way back from Colorado just to see you again,” Laurella said, unfazed. “He would not do that if he did not care.”

  “If he cared, he would have stopped robbin’ folks when my sister and I asked him to after that first time. If he cared, he would throw that flour sack in a river and start a new life.”

  “We get set in our ways,” Laurella said.

  “Why are you defendin’ him? Why speak up for a man who chose the wrong road and stayed on it even though he knew it was wrong and those he cared for wanted him to take the straight and narrow? What is he to you that you like him so much?”

  “He is nothin’ to me and I don’t like or dislike him. I like you.”

  “Honestly, if I lived to be a thousand I will never—” Willis’ tongue froze in his mouth. He blinked at the veil, and when he could talk, he said, “You like me?”

  “You.”

  “Like me as in like or as in something else?”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night for thinkin’ about you.”

  “Oh,” Willis said. “Oh.”

  “Sorry if that was too forward or if it shocked you. But I enjoy bein’ with you. I enjoy talkin’ to you. You’ve seen my face and you still talk to me like I’m normal, and that means more to me than you can imagine.”

  “Oh,” Willis said again.

  “You’re upset, aren’t you? Someone as hideous as me sayin’ what I’m sayin’—it’s stupid of me.”

  “Don’t you ever talk about yourself like that again.” Willis raised the reins and clucked to the team and tried to organize the jumble in his head but it was hopeless. He had never had such a jumble. When they came to the turnoff to the north valley, he took it without paying much attention to what he was doing. He was too far inside himself.

  It took slightly over an hour by buckboard. Several times they passed Bar T hands who smiled or waved or both.

  Laurella took out her tally book and her pencil and counted cows, the veil rising and dipping as she looked at the cows and then down at the tally book.

  Willis drove for as long as he could stand it, and when he could not stand it anymore, he brought the buckboard to another stop. The veil shifted toward him. He coughed and said, “I lied to you.”

  “How?”

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie but it wasn’t the whole truth, either, and my insides feel as if a knife is twistin’ into me.”

  “How?” Laurella repeated, her voice very tiny and fragile.

  “About the rustlers. There’s a gang, the Wilkes gang—they’ve been helpin’ themselves to Bar T cows. There was a gunfight in Cottonwood and they killed the marshal and a Bar T hand, and later they killed another Bar T hand who went with the posse. The deputy was killed too but a grizzly was to blame, not Varner Wilkes or those cousins of his or the Southerner.”

  “That’s it?” Laurella said when he did not say anything else.

  “That’s enough. Eflie and Abe were worried if you knew it would sour the sale. They asked me not to say anything unless you asked but you never asked and I couldn’t take not tellin’ you.” Willis had got it all out and slumped back, no longer tense. He waited for her to say something and instead heard the last thing he expected. “Are you laughin’?”

  “Call it a loud smile.”

  “It was important to me and you’re laughin’.”

  “Do you know what it means? What you just did?”

  “No. Yes. Maybe.” Willis resumed driving. “It means Abe and Elfie will be mad at me if we tell them.”

  “Then we won’t tell them. We will have two secrets. Secrets only we share. That makes them special.”

  “You’re plumb wonderful,” Willis blurted.

  Laurella did not reply and she did not count cows, either. She sat with
her arms clasped to her bosom.

  Willis began whistling. For a while he forgot about his leg and the brace and everything, or almost everything.

  The north valley was not as long or as straight as the home valley. The green grass of the valley floor twisted and turned like a winding garter snake for five miles from end to end. Timber was low down on the slopes. The creek that nourished the grass flowed on the north side, a stick toss from the trees.

  Willis brought the rattling buckboard around another bend. To the northwest were more cowboys.

  “We could stop early for our meal,” Laurella suggested.

  Across a strip of grass was a pool overlooked by cottonwoods. There were fish in the pool. Willis had been here before, back when he took a regular turn riding herd if there were no broncs to break. He left the road and they rolled across the flat cushion of grass into the shade of the cottonwoods. He stopped the buckboard and climbed down and limped around to help Laurella down. This time she waited for him to help her. Her body was full and warm. The veil brushed his chest as her feet touched the ground.

  “Let me get the bundle,” she said.

  Willis limped to the edge of the pool. The water was as clear as the air. Several fish were in the middle, suspended in the current. “If I had line and a hook we could have fish, too.”

  Laurella moved to a tall cottonwood, sank to her knees, and opened the bundle. She set out the chicken and the bread and the apples and slices of cherry pie. “I hope this will do.”

  Willis looked at her and at the pool and at the food. “I have never been happier.”

  “Come.” Laurella patted the grass next to her. “Don’t be shy. I’m shy enough for both of us. This can’t be happenin’ and yet it is.”

  “Appears to be, huh?” Willis said. He sat, placed his callused hands on his knee, and admired how the surface of the pool reflected the sun like a burnished mirror. “It’s real yet it’s not real.”

  “It can’t be both.”

  Willis thought she was grinning but he could not tell for the veil. “Take off your hat,” he said softly.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Take off the hat. I want to look into your eyes.”