Dead Aim

by Dusty Richards

  The next morning they were headed for the Three Star. Two more of Red’s ranch hands were bringing the loaded wagon. Gladys and Missy were there to send Rob off. Hiram was there nodding his head and grinning. Easter told them at breakfast she was cheering for them. They’d pick up Boone around mid-day near Honey Springs, and plans were to camp north that night, about forty miles from home.

  His paint Comanche horse was excited, so he rode him around some, held close to set him down if he considered bucking. The horse calmed, and they were soon on the road. He, Jan, and Rob rode together up front in the pink crease of dawn on the horizon. There was a touch of silver frost on the grass, and they were all breathing steam into the cold.

  Noontime Boone met them on the road. A pretty brunette girl sat in a buckboard; Jan rode over and spoke to her.

  “Everything all right?” Long asked him.

  “Oh, we’re fine. Marsha says she can wait. She thinks the Three Star will be a better place to live than Cash’s ranch way down there.”

  Long laughed. “It might be. Jan’s coming. We better ride. We still have miles to make today.”

  Jan joined them. “You have a lovely future wife, Boone. She said you told her about the dress we’ll sew for her.”

  “Her folks are excited we are going to be closer to them.”

  “We have lots to do.”

  “Oh, I figured that. I told Rob we’d have a real job up there.”

  Long nodded. “The four of us can cover a lot.”

  That evening, they camped beside a small stream. Everyone helped her fix the evening meal. Toby Carpenter and Rowdy Peabody were the younger hands and excited to be in on the trip. They reminded Long of him and his brother headed for Sedalia—lots to learn.

  They avoided contact with people in settlements they passed through, and Long told them the less learned about them the better it might be. Noon the next day they were at the base of a hill looking up at the huge, redbrick, two-story mansion above them.

  “Wow,” Jan said, reining up her horse. “Now that is a mansion.”

  “Big house.”

  “How many people live there?” Boone asked, holding his saddle horn and rising in the stirrups to stretch.

  “I don’t know where his son is. The lady, his widow, lives there.”

  “It would take all day to just check the rooms,” Rob said.

  Long booted his horse on. “I was thinking the same thing. Let’s go see what we have.”

  At the circle drive, he dismounted and then waited for Jan to join him at the door. He’d not seen any security checking on them.

  A butler answered the door and asked for their card.

  Long frowned at him and Jan spoke up. “Mrs. Glass is expecting him. His name is Long O’Malley and mine is Jan. I am his wife. We are the buyers her lawyer sent.”

  “Wait here. Who are those armed men out there?” the butler asked.

  “Employees of mine. No threat.”

  “I can’t be too careful.”

  “We understand—that is why we are here.”

  “I will tell Mrs. Glass you are here. She may be indisposed at the moment.”

  Long nodded and looked around the entrance. He laughed. A butler had put him down. He recalled riding into that camp of buck skinners and getting into the ax-tossing contest—at least they welcomed him.

  The butler returned. “She asked I show you to the living room. She will be there shortly to talk to you.”

  The living room was a long one furnished with couches and drapes from floor to ceiling. He went to the front windows. He couldn’t see the operating portion of the ranch from any of them. There was a lawn surrounding, big enough to pasture a herd and obviously trimmed by a large flock of sheep brought to do that, and then returned to their pasture.

  “Would you desire some coffee?” the butler asked them.

  “That would be fine.” Long looked at Jan, who nodded, examining a book on the table.

  He strode over there.

  “Photographs of them.”

  There was a photo of a man with a jaguar that must have been shot in Mexico. He’d seen Rupert Glass back when he was a boy and recalled he always wore those pants that ballooned out and German riding boots. He carried a quirt that he used to point things out and had a monocle in his left eye.

  His second wife looked like a teenager in their wedding photos. Long thought she couldn’t have been any older than fifteen when Glass married her. His son was from his first marriage. That woman died suddenly and, some said, conveniently for Glass to marry Juanita. This led to his inheriting those Mexican ranches.

  “Oh, I am so sorry I have kept you waiting.” He decided the woman wearing layers of white lacy gowns rushing in the room was Juanita Glass. “I have been so upset about my situation. But I see you are here.”

  “I am Long O’Malley and this is my wife, Jan.”

  “Yes, I have been told. They are bringing you coffee. Have a seat. Did you have a nice journey up here?”

  “It was all right,” Jan said, taking a seat on a sofa close to her choice of a chair.

  “I will have my foreman show the ranch, Mr. O’Malley, when you two are settled. Perhaps after you have rested today and tonight.”

  “Mrs. Glass, I brought four men with me. Direct me to the ranch operation and I’ll introduce myself to your men.”

  “Oh, I wanted to let you rest after such a distant journey.”

  “No problem. We are all right and ready to inspect the ranch.”

  “I don’t know where Mr. Doogan is this morning.”

  “How far is the ranch operation from here?”

  “Two miles. That is why the house is here. Too much smelly fecal stuff and dusty animals always bawling. That is why Rupert built me the house here.”

  “Has anyone threatened you since he died?”

  “Yes . . . they came with torches, and masked, and told me to leave.”

  “How many times?”

  “Twice.”

  “Have they been back?”

  “Yes. I was worried they’d burn this house down.”

  “Did the law do anything?”

  “There is a justice of the peace at Thorny. He said he would have the deputy sheriff investigate. But he only makes monthly trips over here. I told my lawyers I feared for my life, so they hired some men to guard me.”

  “Where are those men at?”

  “Oh, over at the ranch operation.”

  Long was on his feet pacing back and forth. “Mrs. Glass, those men need to be stationed here if they are going to save your life and house.”

  “Oh, Mr. O’Malley. They smell like horses. No. Not in my house.”

  “Mrs. Glass, that might be better than smelling smoke or bleeding to death.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “If not in your house, then in a tent and guards around the house. Two miles away they may never get here in time. I will look into that.”

  “I understand you and your brother are much respected men who could help me. I know nothing about the ranch business. Rupert handled all that.”

  “One more thing. Who handled your cattle sale?”

  “I was assured that Mr. Bell was a very honest man, and I told him to get some cattle—we had lots of them—and take them to Kansas.”

  “Well, you got robbed but we can’t do anything about that now. Who is the man in charge at the operations?”

  “Mr. Doogan is the superintendent. He is a very honest hardworking man.”

  “I will go meet him. You don’t need to go along. Jan?”

  “Oh, I will go with you. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Glass.”

  “You won’t stay down there. It is usually dusty and smelly down there. I cannot stand it. You can come up and stay here, in the house.”

  “I was a widow and I had to run my own ranch for some time. I am used to it.”

  “Oh, my dear, and you are such a lovely woman. I don’t see how you remained with such a fair complexion
under those conditions.”

  “Thank you. I have to go with my husband. We can talk later.” Jan excused herself.

  Outside, Long took his rein from Rob.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “A snob. More later. We’re going to the operation. It is two miles away”—he lowered his voice—“and see just how this ranch is run.”

  “Who lives in that house?” Boone asked, still sneaking looks back at it.

  “Just her and maybe the butler. She is obviously a rich girl, and the cattle bawling and the dust upsets her.”

  “Smells like money to me,” Rob teased them.

  “I asked why her guards are not up here. ‘Oh, they smell like horses,’ she said.”

  “Boy you’ve got a real winner.”

  Jan was laughing. “She’s a widow, guys. A rich one, too.”

  Rob shook his head. “I’d have to sleep two miles away so she couldn’t smell me. What will we do?”

  “If she is so worried what can we do?” Boone asked.

  “Set up a tent. And give her a twenty-four-hour guard.”

  “Will she smell it?”

  “I don’t give a damn what she smells,” Long said.

  “We are going to stop those night raiders or anyone who aims to hurt her.”

  “And I am not living in that house with her. So find me a tent, too.”

  Long was laughing. “Whatever gave me that notion?”

  “You can put up with her. I don’t have to.” Riding along with them, she was shaking her head, repulsed at the thought of living in the house with Juanita Glass.

  “So much for part one,” Long said, checking his horse to go around a chuckhole in the road.

  “Bet she never drives down here or that hole would be fixed,” Rob said, sliding his horse over on the other side. “We’re going to suit her?”

  “I don’t care if we do. We will see she is protected. But that is all I am doing.”

  “What else did you learn?” Boone asked.

  “I asked her who made the cattle deal. She said she trusted the man, a Mr. Bell.”

  “I figure that means they drove some cattle in and took them to Abilene.”

  “I think Rob said it. The only cattle you can sell are large steers to go in feeder pens for fattening. They don’t want cows, calves, or bulls.”

  “So they rounded up some cattle, whatever they were, and drove them to Abilene?” Jan asked.

  Long nodded his head. “I bet that’s what happened.”

  They found the operation headquarters and stopped a man who looked like he worked there.

  “Where can I find Doogan?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t seed him in two days.”

  “Who runs things when he isn’t here?”

  “Oh, Sam Rogers. He’s up around the dairy barn.”

  “Thanks.” Where was Doogan? The worker didn’t know. Not a good thing.

  He saw an operation that might be a dairy. Several Jersey cows were in the pen.

  He dismounted, and a large man in a plaid shirt came out of the doors. With a speculative look at them he asked, “What’cha need?”

  “Rogers?”

  “Yeah, that’s who I am.”

  “I’m Long O’Malley and I just bought this ranch.”

  “The hell you did. I talked to Juanita two days ago, and she said it was not for sale.”

  “It was sold. And I am down here to see what all it needs.”

  “Okay. I don’t reckon you’d lie about that. What do you want now?”

  “Do you have an office where we can go and talk?”

  “Doogan locked it. Told me no one was to get in there.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Said he’ll be back in a day or two.”

  “Show me the office. I am going to open it. I don’t have two or three days.”

  Rogers shrugged. “He may have a fit?”

  “I own this ranch. I can handle Doogan.”

  “It’s that building over there.”

  “Let’s go over there and open it up. Where are those guards her lawyers hired?” Long asked, looking around at things.

  “Sleeping I guess. She asked we not be up there.”

  “Where do they sleep?”

  “In that cabin over there.” Rogers pointed to a building.

  “We can check on it later.”

  On the porch Long found there was a padlock on the door.

  “You have a hammer or a crow bar?” Long asked.

  “Toby, get that pry bar from the wagon,” Boone said as the rest were looking around at everything.

  The youth quickly got it and put it under the lock bar and ripped it off.

  Long walked inside the room. It had an office desk piled with papers and receipts, and it stank.

  “That’s a dirty socks’ smell,” Jan said. “Everyone, find them and throw them outside.”

  So their search began while Long searched the desk. He opened a leather-bound book and flipped to the back. It gave a head count from almost eighteen months earlier and it was crossed out—in pencil. “NOT RIGHT.”

  With some concern, he closed it. He’d inspect this later.

  The men had pitchforks and were gathering dirty underwear and socks and throwing them on the porch. Rob was building a fire in the woodstove after lugging out two pails of old ashes. The windows and doors were open. Both younger hands that came along, Toby Carpenter and Rowdy Peabody, were proving to be real workers.

  “Get that mattress and all those blankets out on an ant hill,” Jan told the men while she swept up the floor with a broom, Toby holding a shovel to scoop it up.

  “You know where he kept his books? That is an old head count.”

  “I guess in that safe.”

  It was obviously closed. “Did he need a combination to open it?”

  “Turn the dial to the left a quarter turn,” Rogers said. “That is all he ever does.”

  On his knees, Long gingerly turned it a quarter turn, then pulled on the handle. It opened with a creak. He shook his head at what he discovered—there were piles of bound currency and sacks of coins. His first thought was worthless Confederate money—southern rich people lost fortunes when the South gave up. He shook the dust off one bundle—he could not believe his eyes. These were very good one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Long could not hardly fathom the value of the treasure in this old safe. Harp, there may be enough here to pay for this ranch.

  Stunned he sat down on his butt. Jan settled down on her knees next to him.

  “That real?”

  He simply sat there and nodded. There were all kinds of implications to this find.

  CHAPTER 28

  The office was cleaned, the stinking old clothing and bedding were removed, and the trash taken out and burned. Long had carefully closed the safe, and the ranch people began to gather outside and talk among themselves about what was going on. In the living part of the building, Jan had her things set up and Doogan’s were put in another shed.

  Long had Rob and Boone sorting things of obvious value, putting them apart from things they would not need. Mid-afternoon, that done, Long addressed the gathered workers and spoke to them.

  “My brother and I have bought this ranch. We are cattlemen. We took cattle to Sedalia before the peace was signed, but we are Texas ranchers and we need people to plant crops, raise livestock, and keep up a nice ranch. If you had a job with the Glass family, you will have a job here.

  “My name is Long O’Malley. I am not a patron. You call me Long. Over there is Boone. Stand up. He is one of my segundos. The other is Robbie Boyd. Call him Robbie. If I am not here you can talk to them. Tomorrow we will want your names and talk about what you do here and if you want to stay.”

  He looked them over as the sun began to dip for the day. “We are proud you are here and will try to keep all of you working for many years. Does anyone have a problem?”

  They all shook their heads.


  The men hired to be guards were rounded up by his four. They met him in the office, and Rogers went along.

  “I want a guard of two men set up to secure her house every night. The purpose of hiring you was her safety. If she is not protected, why haven’t you?”

  “She didn’t want us down there,” one shouted.

  “I do. I want a signal bell, too. So the rest of us can come help you if you are challenged. Do we have such a bell?”

  “It is set up down here.”

  “Tomorrow we set a tent up there. Move the bell and when it rings everyone will get a gun and come to back you. You men on duty can sleep in the tent. If you can’t live with this plan, load your things up and ride out.”

  He felt none would quit. The pay scale was forty a month for guards. Everyday cowhands were paid twenty-five to thirty bucks a month.

  “Who’s in charge of you?”

  “When Doogan ain’t here, Carter is. He’s checking cattle today. Then me,” Sam Rogers said.

  “Sam, come back here after you set up who will be the guards for tonight. We need to discuss the job you have here and how we can make it work better.”

  “I will set it up and be back. Doogan did all that.”

  “That rule is out. You will answer for these men as their boss, and I expect my orders to be kept or I will find a new boss.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My name is Long.”

  “Yes, Long.” The man stood there before him in the bloody light of sundown. Holding his hat in hand, he turned to go gather his men to the side.

  “Much better. Anyone of you hear where Doogan went?” Long asked his four men.

  “They say he drinks a lot.”

  “They also say he likes women and isn’t married.”

  “Well, I am not afraid of him unless he gets violent. But I am certain he will be in an uproar over what we have done so far. I am not Harp. My patience is very thin. If he gets out of hand I’ll slap him on the ground, disarm him, and hold court.”

  “You going to hang him?” Boone asked, amused.

  “I may have him charged with some crimes and sent to prison. Rob, you and Boone put up some drapes on the windows for Jan. When things quiet down, we need to count and verify the money. I have no idea how much is in there.”

  Jan and the two young cowboys fed them supper. Long and Jan would sleep in Doogan’s room now that they scoured it out before moving her bed and their things in there. It had a back door to a row of outhouses in a line. The men would sleep in their bedrolls in the office until he got them quarters.