Mary Connealy

by Montana Marriages Trilogy

  Wade, however, had spoken of honoring his father. Ashamed of herself, Abby watched Mort nod, his eyes downcast, as he waited for his son to politely move the same chair they’d used as a wall between them earlier. Mort rolled past that side of the table.

  Laying one hand on his father’s shoulder, Wade said, “I’ll get things straightened out fast with the roundup, Pa.”

  “Thanks.” Nodding, Mort headed for the office they’d converted to a bedroom.

  CHAPTER 15

  Belle, honey, I might need you to shoot a man.”

  “Now, Silas? Or can it wait until after lunch?”

  “After lunch is probably soon enough. The Jessups are sending three men over. They’ll sleep in the barn and watch over Cassie and the children. I need a couple of sharpshooters, though. Can Emma come, too?”

  “I want to go. I’m a good shot.” Cassie smiled eagerly.

  Suppressing a groan, Red went to his newly bloodthirsty wife’s side and slid an arm around her waist. “You are a good shot. But someone’s gotta stay here with the young’uns.”

  “We can take the children.”

  Silas shook his head and scrubbed his face with his gloved hands. “No babies allowed in our posse. That’s final. Belle, tell her. I’m going to get something to eat.” Silas marched inside.

  “You go eat, too, Red,” Belle ordered. “We can’t leave until the Jessups get here, so there’s time.”

  Cassie turned, her hands fisted and plunked on her hips, as Red, recognizing a will stronger than his own, obeyed Belle. As he went in the house, he heard Cassie say, “Don’t you tell me what to do, Belle Tanner.”

  “It’s Harden,” Silas yelled from inside the house. “Try and remember her name, Cassie.”

  The Jessups showed up, three of the six brothers, who batched with their pa on a nearby ranch. They were a rough bunch, with no female influences to soften their manly ways, but decent men and the Dawsons’ closest neighbors. They often rode over to share church services when the weather wasn’t fit for them to all get to Divide.

  Red was pretty sure they were believers, but he didn’t kid himself that they were coming for his sermons. They liked looking at his pretty wife and two little children. The men were as fascinated by the young’uns as they were by Cassie…well, almost. Close enough Red hadn’t had to punch anyone yet.

  Despite her nagging, Red, Silas, Belle, and Emma left Cassie behind.

  “I can’t thank you enough for teaching Cassie to stand up for herself more.” Red considered Belle to be an uncommonly intelligent woman. No chance she missed the sarcasm.

  Belle worked the lever on her Winchester as her horse galloped smoothly along, the four riders abreast.

  They made good time closing the distance to the gap. It had been slow going to keep up with the faint trail before, but now they knew where they were headed.

  “You may not like her standing up to you—”

  “She’s never had much trouble standing up to me anyway. Maybe a little bit at first, but it didn’t last.”

  “But she needs to stand on her own two feet. What if something happened to you? You want her to be trapped like she was last time, when that worthless Lester Griffin died? Forced into a marriage she doesn’t want? The next time she might not get as lucky as to have a kindhearted man at the ready to save her.”

  “What do you want us to do, Pa?” Emma slipped her rifle into the boot on her saddle and settled in to take the long ride to the gap.

  “Red’s idea. Let him explain.” Silas rode with Belle on his left and Emma on his right. Red was beside Belle, probably so she was handy to protect them both, trusting Emma to take care of herself.

  Remembering how Belle had taught Cassie to sass him, Red couldn’t bring himself to break the news of what Belle’s part of this plan entailed.

  “You want me to scale that mountain?” Belle stared at the sheer rock. “Emma, too?”

  “This is the steepest part.” Red pointed to his left. “There’s an easy place to climb farther down that way.” Relatively easy.

  Silas pointed right. “And Emma, you can climb that tree. It’ll take you up to that rock shelf.” Silas raised his hand, his finger pointing almost straight upward. “From there you can get a clear view of the canyon inside. Be mighty careful when you get up there. Keep your head down. We think there are two men in there, and they’re wily. They most likely are watching the gap, but they could see some movement on the rim, too.”

  “They had to be wily to find that gap.” Belle studied the almost invisible fissure in the sheer rock wall.

  A low rumble turned them around in their saddles. “And here comes the rest of my plan.” Red settled his hat firmly on his head and turned to see cattle of all colors, but mostly brown with dust, tromping up the trail.

  Jessups, the three sons who weren’t staying to protect Cassie, herded twenty head of cattle up the trail.

  “You think they’ll find that gap?” Emma reined her horse aside to make way for the oncoming cattle and to help funnel them toward the rocky gap. The girl knew more about horses, cattle, and ranching than Red ever would.

  “Get to climbing, girls. We’ll hold the herd till you give us a signal.” Silas rode with Belle to make sure her horse got tied up tight when Belle started climbing. Red followed Emma, though the Harden horses were so well trained Red suspected they’d both stand untied and riderless for hours.

  As Emma stood on her horse’s back and reached for the nearest branch on the twisted pine tree growing out of the rock, she said to Red, “How’d you come up with this plan anyway?”

  “Well, my first idea was to dynamite the gap.”

  Emma swung herself up to sit on a branch then looked down at him. “That seems kinda mean hearted.”

  “I s’pose. But in a way, it’s no different than putting those outlaws in jail. If we catch ’em, they’ll be hanged or end up in the territorial prison. They’d probably be happier in that canyon.”

  “I didn’t say it was bad, just mean. I like it. If this doesn’t work, Ma and I can ride to Divide for the dynamite.”

  Red sincerely hoped it did work, or chances were he and Silas and the Jessup brothers wouldn’t live to tell the tale. Belle and Emma would be all right, though. No one was going to get them up on those rocks. And between the two of them and Cassie, there would be three remaining Jessup men to marry.

  The more Red thought about his own sweet Cassie married to one of the Jessups, the more determined he was to win this showdown.

  Emma scrambled up the rock wall like a mountain goat and vanished over the rim. Red turned to see Belle swing over the top with her rifle strapped on her back.

  Red and Silas rode out to meet the Jessups. All three cut from the same cloth, dark hair windblown and too long for respectability. They all were lean, running to skin and bones, with weathered skin and eyes, wise to the trail.

  “Let’s get this over and done.” Red fell into a semicircle with the Jessups and Silas, urging the cattle forward, hoping that a sudden rush of cattle and gunfire from above would give them the seconds they needed to breach this outlaw fortress.

  “We’re short a couple of men, Chester.” Wade looked up from the list he’d made when he went over the ranch books late in the evening.

  Chester slapped leather on a feisty black mustang Wade had always admired. Chester was a steady hand, and with that bright-eyed little cutting horse under him, there was no cow that could best him. “Boog’s at the line shack and Harv’s in at the doc’s. Sid left him because he needed some care and we don’t have time for it.”

  “Harv’s the one that came up on the rustlers, right?”

  “Yep, caught a man kneeling over a calf, using a running iron. Leastways that’s what Sid said. Harv wasn’t talkin’. The outlaw knocked him cold. Sid couldn’t get anything out of him, a description of the man or the horse.”

  Wade stared at his notes for a long second. “I went in to the doctor’s office to talk to him and he�
��s taken off. So that’s another hand we’ve lost. We’ve been losing cattle all winter, it sounds like.”

  “Yep, nothing big, but more than can be explained by wolves and blizzards. And we’ve got more than two men missing; three of the hands you picked out yesterday as no-accounts were gone when I woke up this morning. Payday was last week. They didn’t have cash coming and they didn’t want to work, so why wait around?”

  Wade got their names and marked them off his list. “That leaves us shorthanded, but those men weren’t pulling their weight anyway. We’re no worse off. I don’t want to take the time to ride to Divide and hire more help. We can get by until the roundup is finished. Who sent Boog out to the line shack?”

  “Sid. Bad thinking, too, because Boog’s a top hand. Too fast with his gun, but he knows cattle. Did the work of two men. Harv wasn’t so good. Knew the job but didn’t push any harder’n he had to.”

  “What was my pa thinking to hire Sid?”

  Chester shrugged. “You want my opinion? Your pa wasn’t right in the head when he made that decision. Sid rode in a couple of days after Mort was hurt. He went in the house and came out with the foreman job. I’d have accused him of lying about being hired except he went in that house every day, a couple of times a day, and did a lot of the heavy lifting work for Gertie.”

  “Pa must have just not cared after he fell. I think he’s coming out of the worst of that black mood and starting to show interest in the ranch again.” At least a little. Most of it rooted in anger. But Wade didn’t think those words would encourage Chester.

  “Whatever Sid said, Mort must have agreed to hire him. I accepted that Mort was out of his head. First because he was knocked cold. Then, when he realized his legs wouldn’t work, he was half crazy. Sid knows cattle, I’ll give him that, but he did a poor excuse of hiring hands and a worse excuse for bossing them. He’s as lazy as the rest of this lot.”

  “One hard week, Chester, we’ll have the cattle branded and can start cutting out the stock for a drive. We’ll put them in the valley with the lush grass and let ’em fatten up then drive ’em to Helena.”

  “We’ll have to push it to give ’em any time at all on grass before market.” Chester swung up on horseback. The mustang danced and crow-hopped a little, but it was just spirit and Chester knew how to stick a saddle. “There’ll be no break between roundup and cutting the herd like most years. And even if we push, there won’t be as much time to fatten the cattle as we’d like.”

  “Sittin’ here talkin’ doesn’t add any more days to the year.” Wade finished saddling his own horse. “Let’s get on with it. We’re burning daylight.”

  CHAPTER 16

  It took considerable work to get the first of those stubborn cattle into the gap.

  For a few minutes—which seemed like an eternity—Red thought he’d come up with a real poor idea.

  The cattle balked inside the gap. They tried to turn.

  Red had worked cattle for years, though, and he knew a thing or two. He and the rest of the men kept them crowded against the rock wall but didn’t push. Instead they waited, letting the herd sniff around and calm down.

  When the herd was settled and quiet and a few had milled close to that narrow gap, Red began threading his way in, quietly, so as not to stir them up. He walked his horse straight into that gap without a moment’s pause. He went in just a few feet and stopped and poured a small bag of corn out on the ground.

  It took about ten seconds for a steer to come sniffing. He licked up the corn and followed Red straight on in. Silas and the Jessups would work from the rear.

  Red kept moving until he got to the slightly wider section of the gap and then eased to the side to let the cattle come on past him. Because others followed the first, the lead steer was pushed along, though he balked when he passed Red. Red used Buck’s big body to crowd the animal forward. Dust churned underfoot as the animals bawled and slashed with their wide horns.

  Choking on the dirt, Red forced the recalcitrant longhorn forward until they both pushed past the wider spot. Then Red dodged to the side and dropped back to push the next cow forward. In here they could walk three abreast. A few tried to turn and go back.

  Silas pushed up beside Red, and the two of them had a few uneasy moments as the cattle wallowed in dirt they were churning up from the canyon floor until it was nearly blinding. At last they moved forward, and the rest followed, pushed by the herd. They picked up speed and began trotting as Red had hoped they would, straight into the rustlers’ canyon.

  A single shot rang out when the first steer charged through. Then gunfire exploded from overhead.

  Red kicked his horse into the line of cattle, dodging those vicious horns. The gunfire from inside the canyon stopped before Red reached the opening. But the shooting from overhead, from Belle and Emma, rained down like hailstones. Red, Silas right behind him and the Jessups a few jumps after that, charged into the valley.

  Red leaned low over Buck’s shoulders to make less of a target. Eyeing the terrain, high and low, for likely lookout spots, Red brought his gun level as Buck’s hooves thundered. Exploding bits of rock drew his eye to an outcropping about fifty yards straight ahead. The perfect spot to keep watch on that canyon mouth.

  Judging by the boulder being battered by gunfire, Belle and Emma had seen the outlaw take a shot when the first longhorn came through. Then they’d pinned the shooter down. He must be crouched at ground level, so he’d never get a clear shot at the womenfolk. And the women made it impossible for the varmint to get a shot at Red and the rest of his posse. Perfect.

  The focus of the gunfire was so exact Red knew Belle hadn’t seen a threat from any other direction or she’d have aimed at one man while Emma took care of the other. It struck Red as just a bit amazing to have such complete confidence in a woman and her skill with a rifle. Amazing but true, because Red had no doubt Belle wouldn’t make the mistake of being careless. But there were two men in here. Red knew it from the tracks. One had yet to show himself. Which meant he still posed a threat.

  In the melee of bawling cattle and guns, Red raced his horse for cover, hearing the beating of shod hooves behind him. Swinging down, Red saw Silas alight right beside him. Silas had a look of such satisfaction as he threw himself against the rocks, Red knew the man was button-popping proud of his wife and daughter.

  Red, Silas, and all three Jessups had made it into the canyon without a scratch. The women had things so well under control they hadn’t even had to duck any gunfire. A quick glance told Red that none of the cattle were even wounded. The bad hombre who’d done the shooting had fired a single time, and he’d missed. Or maybe he’d pulled his aim when he recognized a longhorn was coming through. But that one shot had alerted Belle, and that had been the end of the shootout.

  “Spread out,” Silas yelled. “We can get the drop on him, if Belle hasn’t filled him with lead.”

  The five men fanned out, slipping along the scattered rocks of the canyon entrance. There was plenty of cover in the rugged mountain canyon once they’d cleared the opening. They drew steadily nearer the rustlers’ hideout boulder, each taking turns providing cover, although Belle and Emma had pinned them down so well there was no sign of a man.

  At last Red found a place on the canyon wall slanted enough he could climb and get a good look at the hiding place. A lone man lay flat on his back. Red leveled his Winchester and shouted at the bloodthirsty women. “I’ve got a bead on him.”

  The thunder of bullets ended.

  Red looked down on a pathetic excuse for a desperado. Bleeding, scratched to bits by chunks of flying rock. “There’s only one man back here. Be careful. There’s another here somewhere.”

  The man raised his hands. “I’m alone. No one with me. Don’t shoot.”

  “Stay up there and keep us covered,” Red hollered at his two faithful sharpshooters.

  While Red kept his eye on the outlaw, the rest of them scoured the canyon, lush with grass, holding nearly a hundred hea
d of cattle, all with fresh brands.

  There was no one.

  While the Jessups continued to search, Silas quickly trussed up the outlaw.

  “Where’s the other one?” Red asked.

  “I’m alone.” The man had an ugly cut on his chin, sewed up but still raw and red. He was clean shaven, except for close around his wound, and his hair looked like he’d cut it himself with a bowie knife and no mirror.

  “I’m not talking to you.” Red raised his rifle in what he hoped was a menacing fashion. Truth was he’d never so much as aimed a gun at a man. The thought of pulling the trigger made him sick.

  Thank You, God. We ended this without any killing.

  “We saw tracks from two men, so we know there’s someone else.”

  “No!” The man’s clothes were battered and slashed as if he’d gone a few rounds with a grizzly. “The tracks were just me riding two different horses.”

  Red didn’t think so, and he wasn’t about to take the word of cattle-stealing scum. “Silas, are you sure the canyon’s empty?”

  Nodding, Silas rose from beside the man he’d just hog-tied. “I was careful. But remember how that gap opened so you could barely see it? There could be a back way out of here just as hidden.

  I found his camp. Two men have been here, but one’s gone.”

  “Are Belle and Emma in danger? Could the other one have gone out over the rim?”

  Both men wheeled to stare up at the women. The rocks the women stood on were so sheer from this side of the canyon that no one could have gotten within a hundred yards of them.

  Emma waved down when they looked at her, but the girl was uncommonly smart. She kept low to the ground, never relaxing her guard.

  “I’ve got me a family of women, don’t I?” Silas blew a soft whistle through his teeth.

  “They’re the kind of women who can help tame a wild land and make no mistake about it.” Red turned back to the outlaw and prodded the vermin with his toe none too gently. “They work their hearts out. They put in long hours in the blazing sun. They work in the bitter cold. They miss meals and get knocked around by longhorns and feisty mustangs. Then you come along and steal from the labor of their backs. You’re going to hang, or if you’re lucky, spend a lot of years in prison. Let’s get you to the sheriff. Maybe if you help us catch your friend, and any others of your gang, the sentence won’t be quite so long. The judge who comes through Divide likes a cooperative prisoner.”