Dead Man's Ranch

by Ralph Compton

  “You can’t just take that off, Callie.”

  She looked up at him. “We have to know how bad this is.”

  “First things first. I saw plenty of this sort of thing in the war. Now, even if there was time to ride to town for the doc, the only thing Turnbull’s got is Durkee the barber. He’s a savage with a pliers on teeth and he’s even worse with a head of hair, let alone a gunshot wound. And that roving Doc What’s-his-name ain’t due back around these parts for weeks yet.”

  “What are we going to do? He’s in a bad way, Mica.”

  “I know, I know, but getting worked up about it ain’t going to help matters none. We need hot water and clean cloth for bandages. And I’ll need a sharp knife, and a few other things.”

  Despite the dire situation, Mica felt solid. He liked being in control of a situation and he knew he was at his best when a problem arose. Oftentimes other men would go weak in the knees at the thought of having to fish out a bullet from a man’s gut, but Mica knew he could do it. He had no choice. The boy might die in the process, but he was darn sure going to die if no one did anything.

  Mica unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and set to work, delegating tasks to the two women, though he knew that Espy needed no prompting. He cut his eyes over to Callie and yes, no mistaking it, there was a gleam there, of concern and maybe something more. Too early to tell, but all the more reason to make sure this big red-haired boy didn’t up and die on him.

  Chapter 34

  After a leisurely sleep-in and a late breakfast, Mortimer Darturo had checked on Picolo, then crossed the street and headed for the saloon. And all the while, even before he rose and dressed for the day, he decided he had made a mistake in making sure that he knew the identity of the shooter in last night’s campsite raid halfway to the Dancing M. He was almost positive that it was the foolish young ranch boy, Junior Grindle. And while it did not bother him too terribly much to pin the blame on the boy, it was always preferable to make sure you had the right person in your sights before you pulled the trigger. Or not. Still, the odds were that it was the boy. And never had he been handed a more promising blackmail victim.

  Darturo was still smiling when he heard the sheriff’s voice addressing him. He looked up to find he was being addressed by a man wearing a badge.

  “You’re new here, Mr….? Any particular reason you came to Turnbull?” Sheriff Tucker had been about to pass the swarthy little man on the sidewalk.

  Darturo nodded and smiled. “Yes, yes, a fine town you have here. I am on my way somewhere. As are we all in this life—merely going from one place to another, eh?”

  Tucker thrust out his bottom lip, considered the small, slender man standing before him. He was white, but something about him seemed dark, more a feeling than anything specific. “You don’t sound Mexican….Where you from?”

  “Now, that, Sheriff, is a question I am still trying to answer, eh?”

  Tucker stared at him, waiting.

  “As a boy I came from Italia.”

  The sheriff’s eyebrows rose. “Italy? Now, that is a far piece…Mr….uh…”

  “You know Italy, then?”

  “I know of it. Does that surprise you, Mr….?”

  “Oh, it is no surprise. In my travels, I have found that people are from everywhere and nowhere, all at once.”

  Sheriff Tucker shifted the matchstick to the other side of his mouth. “That so? Where have your travels taken you, then?”

  “Your questions are interesting to me, Sheriff. Very interesting, eh?”

  Tucker slid the match from his lips, said, “Why?”

  The little man laughed, said, “I was told a long time ago that it’s not polite to ask questions of people out West.” He rested a hand atop the batwings of the Doubloon Saloon and stood like that, a half smile on his mouth and his eyes narrowed as if he were looking at the sun.

  Sheriff Tucker stared at him a moment more, then flicked his splintered matchstick into the dirt street. “Good day to you, then.” And he headed for Silver Haskell’s livery.

  “I don’t know any more’n you do, Tucker. Seems harmless. And his money spends same as the next man’s.” Silver Haskell stabbed his hay fork into the half-loaded wheelbarrow and ran a forearm across his face. “You’re welcome to search his traps—though he didn’t leave much with me. I expect it’s all at his room over to the hotel. Go ahead, look at his horse. It’s that feisty buckskin over there in the last stall before the door. But there ain’t no brand. And his saddle’s got no markings neither.”

  “Why, Silver, it seems that you’ve anticipated my visit.” The sheriff plucked a fresh match from the same shirt pocket on which his star was pinned.

  “Nope,” said Haskell, retrieving his fork and disappearing into the open stall behind him. “I’m just nosy, is all.” A few seconds passed, and then Haskell said, “Why? Is there paper on him? What’s he done?”

  But there was no answer. The sheriff had moved on. Haskell thought briefly that maybe he should have mentioned that he thought the stranger had been out awfully late. But by the time he brought the horse in, Silver had been in his rooms off the stable, curled around a near-empty bottle of rye whiskey. And he didn’t feel like listening to Tucker’s superior tone about the dangers of too much drink.

  Haskell went back to forking the sullied hay. He was a grown man, by God, and there wasn’t nobody alive who could claim to be the boss of him. He wasn’t about to change that now.

  “Harv.”

  “Well….” The man behind the counter smiled, then closed his accounts book and drew his eyebrows together. “Hello, Sheriff Tucker.”

  “Knock it off, Harv. Or should I say, ‘Hotel Owner Harvey Peterson’?”

  “Bee in your bonnet, Tuck? Would a cup of coffee help?”

  “Nah. Got a pot of sludge on the stove at the office. Just wanted to ask you what you know of the new fella.”

  “MacMawe’s prodigal? He’s—”

  Sheriff Tucker shook his head and said, “Naw, that other one, the short, dark-looking rig, looks like a Mexican.”

  “Oh yeah.” Harv ran a hand through his fringe of hair and scratched behind his ear. “That one.” He leaned over the counter toward Sheriff Tucker. “He’s a mite strange. Don’t know how to take him. Something about him doesn’t sit right with me. Don’t know what it is….”

  Tucker thought for a moment, then said, “Notice anything odd about him?”

  “Odd how? Other than the way he talks, the way he dresses, sneaks around like he’s some sort of snake man. Odd like that?”

  Tucker smiled. “Yeah, I guess that would cover it. How do you mean ‘sneaks around’?”

  “Day he checked in, I saw him go upstairs, heard him trompin’ around up there. I turn around for a minute, next thing I know he’s right there behind me. Gave me the shivers, I tell ya.”

  “Okay, thanks, Harv. I better get back.”

  “Is there paper on him?”

  “Seems like there ought to be, what with everyone thinkin’ there is. We’ll find out.” He rapped the countertop once with an open hand, then headed out the front door.

  Chapter 35

  Callie rode back slowly to the Driving D, stars glinting in the cool night sky. Mica had returned to the Driving D hours before to get supper cooking for the crew, but before he left, he’d made her promise to come home soon from Esperanza’s, said her father would be worried. That had made her smile—Mica was the biggest worrier at the Driving D. But the time had crept away from her and now it was full dark.

  Fortunately, she and her horse knew the route well enough that they loped along, her head filled with conflicting, confusing thoughts. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about the big stranger, Brian Middleton. After that first night in the café, she’d been prepared to hate him. But seeing him so helpless today, so reliant on them—on her—had made her see him in a new light. Several times she found herself studying his face, wondering what sort of man he really was, what his childho
od away from his father had been like. For a pompous Easterner, he was handsome; that was obvious to her. But there was something else that had kept her staring at him, until she’d been interrupted by Mica and Espy both, her face reddening red each time.

  The larger issue, of course, was the identity of whoever had committed the foul act against the two brothers, for she, like Espy, didn’t believe that Brandon had attacked Brian. She failed to detect any justification behind the savage attack. Who would have a good enough reason to want them dead? And if someone did really wish them dead, wouldn’t that someone have finished the job? Who would be so blatantly spineless, so indecisive?

  Then, with the force of a bullet, the strongest possibility of all hit Callie, and she had her answer. It pulled the breath from her throat as if yanked, and she reined up without knowing it.

  Her sudden conviction felt all too true. There were only two people who could have such reason to want the brothers dead, no matter how wrong and twisted that reasoning seemed to her. She rubbed her temples. It was too horrible to think about. But there it was, in black and white in her mind. Her father and brother were plotting to take control of the Dancing M. And apparently they were prepared to take it no matter the cost.

  She shook her head. “It can’t be,” she said aloud. For despite what her head told her, her heart told her no, she had to be wrong.

  Callie sat up in the saddle and shook her head as if doused with cold water. This sort of thinking would not do. She had to find out the truth. She nudged her horse into a trot and ten minutes later found herself back at the Driving D and confiding in the one person she felt she could tell—without fear of shame.

  “Now, right here’s where I have to stop you, Miss Callie.” Mica regarded the young woman with an unintentional scowl. He softened his features and tried to smile. It was difficult, especially considering what she’d just told him. Like it or not, the girl’s notions had the ring of truth about them. “I can’t be any other way but blunt, so I’m just going to say it….Way you feel for Brian Middleton might be clouding your thinking, making you say things you might not mean, or that might not be true.”

  Callie set her jaw and straightened. “I certainly don’t know what you mean, Mica, but I promise you, I have no feelings for—”

  The big man smiled and shook his head. “Ain’t no way you can convince me otherwise, girl. I’ve known you too long. So let’s cut to the chase, okay? I saw you today, tending to the boy, staring at him when you thought no one was looking, asking Espy questions about him….” Mica’s raised eyebrows said it all.

  Callie’s shoulders relaxed and she closed her eyes. She was too tired and confused to argue the point, even though she wasn’t so sure Mica was right. “But, Mica, you know what my father is like where land is concerned. And you should have seen Junior’s face. It’s as if I saw in his eyes that he will do anything at all to please my father.”

  Mica held up a hand and shook his head. “I’ve known your father pretty near as long as anybody, I guess. And as hard as Rory MacMawe’s death was on all his friends, me included, it was hardest on your papa. They might not have talked in years, but there was still a mighty bond between them. There are some things that even time can’t erode, if you know what I mean.”

  “But—”

  “Girl, let me finish my piece. Now, you think your papa and your brother are hatching some sort of scheme to get hold of the Dancing M. I will admit that I have heard your father, on more than one occasion, speaking covetously of that ranch, of all that land and water, and what he could do with it if only he had it.” Mica held up a long finger, like a stick of dynamite, between them. “But that’s just dreaming, girl. He’s got the Driving D, a ranch any man would envy.”

  “Mica—”

  “Callie, your father’s a good man and I don’t believe for one minute that he would try to corral your brother into doing anything like plotting to steal the Dancing M from Esperanza or her son, let alone cause them any harm.”

  But inside, Mica knew different. Those plans of theirs he’d overheard as they smoked their cigarillos gnawed at him. The boy’s been a tough one to figure for a couple of years now, thought Mica. Wilf has ridden him too hard, always trying to make him into the way he was, or worse—the way he always wanted to be. And Mica knew it was that rough treatment more than anything else that bent the boy inward, made him crooked.

  No, sir, he wouldn’t put it past Junior to have savaged the Dancing M boys on his own. He had to confront the boy. But should he talk with Wilf first? Knowing how the man felt about his son—proud and angry all at once—he was afraid there’d be a fight, and that wouldn’t help any of them. Especially not now that all this had happened.

  Callie shook her head and folded her arms, and sighed. “It’s all so confusing, Mica.” Her voice trembled and she covered her eyes with her hand as if she were playing hide-and-seek with her brother.

  Where did those innocent children go? thought Mica. Surely it wasn’t so long ago that they played harmless games. And now look at things. A world of hurt, that’s what his mama used to call this. Mica knew that if Callie’s suspicions turned out to be true, then they were all in a world of hurt. And he wasn’t sure he knew of a way to get out of it.

  “I didn’t want to believe it, Mica.” Callie wiped her eyes.

  “Believe what?”

  “I don’t want to think this, Mica. But what if it was…Junior who attacked Brian and Brandon?”

  “Now, girl. That’s a big thing to be saying.” But she seemed so adult, so determined in what she suspected. Admitting this suspicion to Mica seemed to have taken the air right out of her thin body. He knew just how much her brother meant to her. She was devoted to her brother, to be sure. But he wondered if she might also be confused by her new feelings for the stranger, Brian Middleton. He also knew she was nearly all done in by her need for sleep.

  At that moment, she looked just like her mother, her concern for others seeming to ride over all her other worries. She was Carla’s twin in nearly every way, and for that they had all been thankful. But it seemed as if the boy was fast showing he’d inherited only the hard side of his father’s personality, and none of Wilf’s kind ways. The peculiar mood Junior had been in that night of the attack when he turned up late at the stable, plus Callie’s suspicions, made Mica think that Junior could well be behind the entire thing.

  “You should get some sleep, Callie. And come morning, I’ll fix you a nice, big breakfast. You’ll see, the world will be a brighter place.”

  “I should leave early. Espy needs me….”

  He grasped her shoulders and gently turned her toward the house. “Espy’s a grown woman and knows more about taking care of people than everybody in this valley put together. I think those boys will be just fine with her until you’ve rested up.”

  Looking back over her shoulder, for the first time in what seemed like weeks, Callie smiled. “When are you going to ask her to marry you, Mica?”

  The big man felt as if someone had sucker punched him square in the breadbox. For a moment he could not speak.

  Callie giggled, and that broke his spell.

  “You get off to bed now,” he said in a low, husky voice, trying to sound menacing. “Or there will be hell to pay, mark my words.” He watched her run to the big house and mount the front steps, turn and wave once, then disappear inside. “Nosy little upstart,” he said, smiling as he turned back to the stable.

  He loosened her horse’s cinch, still smiling, and hummed a tuneless tune. Girl might have a point at that, he thought. He snatched a handful of straw to rub down the horse, and heard footsteps behind him.

  “So, that’s how it is, eh, old man?”

  Mica spun, the golden straw clutched in his hand, a smile fading from his mouth.

  Junior stood in the doorway. And his right hand held a cocked Remington revolver.

  Chapter 36

  Junior looked at Mica as if he’d just stepped in something rancid. Mi
ca stared back, his heart ringing blows in his chest like a hammer on an anvil. He swallowed, dry and thick.

  “Sure, I’m old,” said Mica, straightening, letting a hand slide back behind him.

  Junior shook his head. “You don’t keep from moving that hand, old man, and I’m going to shoot the other one.”

  Mica held still and didn’t take his gaze from the boy’s face. He’d seen that look once before, and it was not something he ever thought he’d see again. Not until the other night in this very stable. And now here it was again, same stable, same boy, same situation. Only this time Mica didn’t see that haze of doubt in Junior’s eyes. Now he only saw the crazy, all-or-nothing, convinced look and Mica wasn’t so sure this time he could talk his way out of a confrontation.

  And especially not when the boy had the drop on him with a cocked six-shooter. How much of his conversation with Callie had the boy heard? Judging from the way his nostrils flared and his teeth gritted in a grim smile, he heard more than Mica would have wished. Got to protect Callie, he thought. Can’t trust that Junior won’t turn on her too. Because now it’s plain to me it was Junior and no other who savaged Brandon and Brian.

  “You and Callie have been talking, Mica. And I don’t believe it’s polite to talk about people when they’re not around. Am I right? Isn’t that what you and dear old Papa always told us? Not that you had any right to butt in on private family matters. You weren’t any more family to me or Callie than a damned goat or the old black cook stove. Leastwise you have something in common with that.”

  Despite the tense situation and the gun pointed at his body, Mica felt a knot of anger rise in him. He stepped forward, a frown pulling down his mouth at the sides, his eyes glinting like cold, hard jewels. “Who do you think you are, you young whelp? I spent the best years of my life being a nursemaid to you, to your sister, and to your father, all after your mother died. Your father was a drifting ship and I pulled him to shore and kept this family from floating off in separate directions. Prevented distant relatives from snatching you and your sister up, cutting you and her out of the herd, taking you off to live elsewhere.”