The Irish Westerns Boxed Set

by C. H. Admirand

  ***

  Joshua straightened in the saddle. Every muscle in his body protested until each one felt coiled tighter than a rattlesnake ready to strike. Though he was stiff from the hours spent in the saddle, he made himself relax enough to move with the motion of his mount. Blaze immediately sensed the change and settled into an easy trot. He kept an eye on the surrounding countryside. It never paid to be careless.

  Bits and pieces of recent conversations swirled around in his head while he rode. Rather than pigeonhole each bit, he let them float around while he mulled them over. He was not surprised to learn that Johnson, Morrison, and Baker had each offered to purchase the Ryan spread within the last six months. He wasn’t even surprised that the offers had been below what he figured prime grazing land with a superior source of water would have been worth. There had been talk of adding another railroad spur out this way. He’d have to confirm that information. Men had been killed for a lot less than refusing to sell their land.

  As far as he could see, the quickest way to make money, without actually ranching, would be to buy up a valuable spread like the Ryan place for half of what it was worth, then turn around to sell it for twice what you paid. All three men had profitable ranches of their own, but they would stand to make a great deal of money if they could buy Ryan out at the right price.

  In between thoughts of possible rustling suspects, a petite fiery-haired woman, with the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen, kept intruding into his thoughts. She had looked so tired, he thought. Was she getting enough rest? He hoped she wouldn’t succumb to wound fever.

  Blaze snorted and shook his head back and forth, jarring Joshua from his thoughts. He cursed roundly, when he realized he hadn’t been paying much attention to the trail ahead or his surroundings. Great way to become part of the statistics. He could envision the wire telling of it: 29-year-old U.S. Marshal gunned down in the line of duty…

  The distant sound of gunshots echoed through the still night air. His slack fingers tightened on the reins. He squeezed his knees against his mount’s sides and wheeled around to follow in the direction of the sound.

  He saw a group of mounted men in the distance. Rifle cocked, aimed, and ready to fire, he closed the distance between himself and the four men riding just ahead of him. Hoping they’d listen to reason—reason being that his Winchester was a whole lot more accurate than their hand-held guns—he spurred his horse on. If not, he could draw his Peacemaker. More often than not, those ready to bend the law were amiable when his Colt was aimed right between their eyes.

  He pointed the barrel of his rifle skyward and fired. The four men turned as one unit and leveled their weapons. Two aimed for his heart, another for his head. The fourth aimed at the rifle in his hand. He tamped down on the feeling of uncertainty that washed over him. The evening was just light enough to make out the outlines of the men who rode toward him.

  Though he was out-gunned, he did not lower his weapon, instead kept it trained on the man riding in the middle. As the group drew closer, he recognized him.

  “Ryan.”

  “Turner.” The look of surprise in Ryan’s eyes changed to one of neutral acceptance.

  It was long past sundown, but there was a job to be done and outlaws to roust out of hiding. Joshua figured he had as much right to be out looking for rustlers on Ryan’s land as Ryan and his men had for supposedly chasing after them. He’d have to keep his thoughts on that score to himself. Soon enough he’d be able to see clearly which way the wind blew. If Ryan was guilty of rustling his own cattle, he’d trip him up sooner or later. It had happened before; where large amounts of money were concerned, ranchers rustling their own herd would continue to happen.

  “Who were you shooting at?” His original thought that he was about to learn the identity of the rustlers had been altered slightly. The men facing him must be the rest of the hands from the Ryan place. Either their claims of giving chase were dead on, or… He decided to leave thoughts for later.

  “Rustlers were at it again. Nearly lost another twenty head of cattle tonight,” Ryan said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” a tall quiet man said in a deep voice.

  “Marshal Turner’s investigating our land fraud claim,” Ryan told the group.

  Joshua pushed his Stetson further back on his head. The uneasy feeling that had started worrying in his gut at the sound of gunfire settled down. His instincts had already told him these men were not dangerous. While he mentally compared the men’s faces with the dozen or so wanted posters he had recently memorized, he followed along in their chase. Sooner or later the guilty always revealed themselves.

  “Possible land fraud…I’ve yet to establish proof.” And if that didn’t get a rise out of Ryan, he would have to reconsider the possibility of the man’s guilt more closely.

  “Flynn,” Joshua said, acknowledging the only other man he knew in the group. “The rest of you work for Ryan?”

  “Aye,” the three chorused in unison.

  He moved his horse a few paces closer. Close enough to clearly see a glint of determination harden the tall man’s features. He casually looked over at Ryan and back to the three he didn’t know. The tall one in the middle would definitely not be one to cross.

  “I have proof,” Ryan said through clenched teeth.

  “In your hands?” Joshua asked the rancher. While he studied the man, he noticed the set of Ryan’s jaw and the tiny vein that popped out of the man’s left temple. Yes sir, he was agitated all right. Good. Anger was a very useful emotion. Even very crafty outlaws lost a bit of their caution when goaded into a temper.

  With soft fiery curls to match.

  His entire body jolted, as if he’d been standing out in the middle of nowhere and lightning had struck nearby. He let out a shaky breath and wondered where that bit of though came from. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice his breach of concentration. That was the second time tonight his thoughts had strayed to Maggie. He could not let her cloud his mind. If he kept this up, by next week he’d be laid out in a pine box wearing his only suit.

  Grinding his teeth together, he focused on the situation at hand. “Did you get a good look at them?”

  Reilly shook his head. “By the time we realized what was happening, all we could do was follow behind. Ryan met up with us as we passed by the house.”

  “How many were there?” He hoped one of the men had more information for him to go on than what the backside of the rustlers looked like.

  “Five,” Ryan answered, his jaw clenching, “but they’ll be long gone.”

  Joshua picked up on the heavy hint that he was to blame for the rustlers getting away. “They won’t expect us to follow along after the rifle shots,” he said quietly. “Their trail ought to be easy enough to follow.”

  “We’ve been close before,” the tall flinty-eyed one said.

  Joshua turned toward him to speak and the words died on his tongue. From the looks of it, the man had suffered a brutal beating recently. His one eye was swollen shut, his lip was split, and he had a livid reddish-purple line running from cheek to jaw. The man had been whipped across the face, probably with a length of rope.

  Joshua made an effort to keep his voice even, and not openly wince in sympathy for the man’s pain. “Happens tracking is what I do best,” he said, making eye contact with the man.

  “Obliged, Marshal,” Ryan said quietly. “You already know Flynn and Reilly. Masterson,” he said by way of introduction.

  He acknowledged the men, and turned toward Masterson. “Who did it?”

  Masterson grimaced, then rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Never saw him.”

  As they made their way through the open countryside, he stopped and dismounted to hunker down next to fresh tracks in the moist dirt by the stream bed. The group waited restlessly while he took his time, but he could tell they were anxious to keep moving. And that, he thought, would have been one of the many reasons Ryan’s men hadn’t been succes
sful tracking down the rustlers.

  “We’ve lost ‘em,” Ryan said, cursing under his breath.

  Joshua couldn’t help but smile. It didn’t bother him in the slightest that the tracks seemed to disappear. In fact, he expected them to. Any outlaw worth his salt would be able to lose a whole posse of lawmen.

  “We’ll pick up the trail on the other side of the stream,” he said confidently. He’d followed trickier quarry before. Since he’d been appointed Marshal, there wasn’t much he hadn’t seen or heard.

  The next time he held his hand up to stop the men’s progress along the stream bed, they waited patiently while he got down on his haunches to examine the half a dozen or so hoofprints indicating more than one horse and rider had passed through recently. The fact that the tracks dead-ended at a washed-out section of gravelly bank just made the hunt more interesting.

  “Separate and fan out,” he said quietly. “I expect your rustlers have headed more toward the west, but I don’t want to take any chances that they’ve doubled back and headed toward town.”

  An hour later, their quarry had been spotted. The men converged and waited while Joshua handed out instructions in hushed tones.

  “There are five of them, but only one is on watch,” he whispered. “The others seem to be settled in for the night.”

  The nod of his head indicated four men sprawled on their bedrolls next to a small campfire. “The best way to describe what I want you to do is think of a box.”

  By the time he finished, the men had positioned themselves at the imaginary corners of the box he planned to shrink up and capture the rustlers inside of. Firing his rifle in the air, and then his Peacemaker, he quickly closed the gap while the others followed suit.

  Ten minutes later, five outlaws lay hog-tied, facedown on their bedrolls, cursing under their breaths.

  “Good plan, Marshal.” Ryan’s quick grin flashed across his craggy features. For a moment, Joshua was reminded of someone, but then it was gone. He let the unfinished thought slip away.

  Reilly and Masterson rounded up the horses, while Flynn threw dirt on the fire and stamped it the rest of the way out.

  “It would save you boys a lot of trouble later on if you’d give me the name.” Joshua nudged the first man over onto his back.

  The man spat out a thin stream of tobacco juice that hit him in the knee. Joshua looked down at the ugly brown stain and shook his head, before moving on down to the next man. He nudged the second man over onto his back and asked the same question. The response was only slightly different. The string of curses the second man hurled at him would have made his own mother faint. He still remembered bits and pieces of her now and again.

  “I don’t think you’ll be gettin’ the answer you want out of these men,” Ryan said, loading up the last of the cooking supplies.

  Joshua gave the third man a chance to speak up. When the next two men didn’t avail themselves of the opportunity either, he nudged the last man over. He said a silent prayer of thanks to his Maker and hunkered down next to the young man. This was more like it. If the peach-fuzz on the rustler’s chin was any indication, the boy couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen—maybe as old as fifteen—he wouldn’t know for sure until the boy opened his mouth to speak.

  “Now then son,” he began, in a surprisingly even tone, “why don’t you save your mamma the worry of having to watch you hang?” The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he visibly swallowed his fear.

  “I swear, I don’t know—”

  “Shut your mouth, Mick,” one of the others called out.

  “Don’t mind them,” Joshua said. “They’re just anxious to get acquainted with the length of rope Sheriff Coltrane has waitin’ for them down at the jail.”

  The boy’s eyes grew dark and wide, while Joshua watched the reality of his situation sink in. “No mother should have to watch her boy hang,” he said quietly. And no son should have to watch his mother and father die.

  The foul epithets that followed were more than he wanted to hear. “Gag ‘em,” he ordered, before turning back to the boy.

  “I don’t know his name, I swear,” the boy said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I only know we were supposed to meet him tomorrow night.”

  While the others were being gagged and tossed facedown over their saddles, Joshua put the boy up on his horse, propped him up, and untied his feet. “It’ll be easier to ride if your legs are free,” he said.

  The look of uncertainty that flashed across the boy’s pale thin face was almost worth the muffled sounds coming from the backs of the four rustlers’ horses. “Too bad your friends aren’t as smart as you, son.”

  “My ma needed the money,” the young boy said, his voice edged with sadness. “She’s awful sick, and the doc won’t come back til I got enough to pay him or the last three times he came.”

  Joshua heard a low rough curse and turned to look at Ryan. The way Ryan watched the boy should not have been as surprising as the compassion that softened the man’s hard features. But it made him wonder if all of Ryan’s men had been hard-luck cases like Mick. One brief glance at the faces surrounding him was all the answer he needed. It would certainly make it easier to be loyal to a man who inspired trust with compassion and understanding.

  “A son should take care of his mother,” Ryan said, his voice gruff.

  He thought Ryan’s voice sounded strained. Had he heard regret? Ryan definitely had more to him that the rough exterior the man allowed the rest of the world to see. Don’t we all. He pushed the memory of watching twin coffins being lowered into the ground deep.

  Back in focus, on top of the situation, he ground out, “Stealing isn’t the way to do it,” he ground out, leading the group back over the long distance to town.

  After a mile of silence, the boy whispered shamefully, “No one’ll hire me.”

  “You look strong enough to me,” Ryan said thoughtfully.

  The boy hung his head so low, his chin bumped against his bony chest. The next words he mumbled were unintelligible.

  “I didn’t quite catch that,” Joshua said, bringing his horse closer to the boy’s.

  The boy lifted his head, a lone tear making a track through the dirt staining his cheek. “Pa ran off before I was born—most people don’t believe he ever married my ma.” He paused. “But he did, I swear!”

  The men rode for a little ways in silence before Ryan asked, “Can you cook?”

  “I make a mean squirrel stew,” Mick offered.

  Joshua smothered a grin. It had been quite a while since he’d had squirrel—never could develop a fondness for it.

  “You’re hired, “Ryan said, coming alongside them.

  “You seem to be forgetting a minor detail, Ryan,” Joshua said quietly. “This boy has broken the law—”

  “Not if no one remembers seeing him among that group of rustlers.” Ryan nosed his mount in front of Joshua’s, blocking the way.

  “We’ve never seen him before, men,” Ryan said quietly. “Have we?”

  As if they were a trained fighting unit, the men were instantly beside Ryan, adding their voices to his own.

  “Never saw the boy before.”

  “He just wandered by the ranch one mornin’—”

  “He’d been beaten.”

  “Out of his head for two days.”

  Joshua considered the ramifications of hauling in the four rustlers and letting the boy go free. “I may be willing to let you have custody of him, if he can tell us everything he knows about tomorrow night’s meeting.” Joshua’s gut told him, without a doubt, that Ryan would accept whatever terms he offered to keep the boy from spending any time behind bars.

  He admired the man for trying to do what he, as a lawman, could not—circumvent the law to protect a victim of circumstances beyond his control.

  “Done,” the big man answered, then turned toward the boy. “What’s your full name?”

  “Michael,” the boy said quietly. “Michael O’Toole.
”

  The surprised exclamations and welcome that followed convinced Joshua the boy would be well taken care of and watched closely at the same time.

  “What about my ma?” Mick asked, hope stealing into his voice.

  “I’ll send a wagon into town at sunup,” Ryan promised.

  “Let’s get these men settled in nice and cozy over at the jail.” Joshua felt as if a weight had been lifted from his weary body. Once they tracked down who was behind the rustling, half his job would be over. He had a definite plan in mind for how he would be spending his time.

  “I’m sure the sheriff can wait to talk to Mick. Why don’t you and Masterson head out to the ranch. Reilly and Flynn can come with me.”

  “Done,” Ryan agreed for the second time. “We’ll settle in, and Mick’ll have breakfast ready for you when you return. Won’t you?” he asked, turning toward the would-be rustler who rode between them.

  After a long silence, Mick let out a long breath. “My ma taught me how to make scones,” he offered.

  The hoots of approval let Joshua know all would be well with the boy. Mick might have started to wander down the wrong path, but like himself, a strong man was waiting there to redirect Mick’s feet onto the right road. It had made all the difference in his life, he thought. And if he was right about James Ryan, and he didn’t doubt he was, it would be for Mick, too.

  Chapter Eight

  She had to send the telegram today. Restlessness was making her irritable when she needed to be agreeable, or else she’d never convince Ida to let her out of bed before Doc Simpson gave his approval.

  Her arm was still stiff, but she’d gotten used to working around that. She was thankful for her strong constitution, unable to believe she’d regained most of her strength even though the doctor tried to starve her. She shuddered to think of subsisting on bread and broth for the last three days. Today was the first time she had been allowed to eat a normal diet, and she was more than ready to get out of bed and prove she was recovered.

  “Maggie,” Ida called out, before coming to stand in the doorway. Her gaze swept up and down Maggie’s form, a slight frown furrowing between her graying brows. “I suppose you think because you’ve dressed yourself that I should let you stay out of bed.”