Dead Man's Ranch

by Ralph Compton

  “Well, I saved you the trouble, didn’t I?” Junior nodded to the chair opposite him and splashed whiskey into Mort’s glass. “So, Mr. Darturo. You say you’ve worked cattle. Funny, you don’t look much like a cowhand.”

  Darturo stared awhile at Junior, then smiled. “It could be I did a poor job of explaining myself. It has been a couple of years since I’ve been following a herd. Time has a way of tricking a man. I took some time off the trail to try my luck at the tables.” He gestured at the empty green-topped poker table to his left.

  Junior nodded as if he’d been down the same path only yesterday.

  “Let us cut to the chase, eh, Mr. Grindle?”

  Junior looked up, watery eyed. “I ain’t ‘Mr. Grindle.’ That’s my father, damn it!” The young blond man slammed his shot glass on the tabletop. Drops of honey-colored whiskey flew upward. “I am Junior. Just plain ol’ Junior and nothin’ but. I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever have my own name.”

  Mort smiled, wet his lips with his own whiskey, and leaned forward. “All right, then, Junior, I am betting you need more than another ranch hand.” He watched the younger man, but Junior studied his glass as if it were a book. Mort continued. “I am betting you have a problem you need taken care of. Something you cannot possibly do on your own, it being of a sensitive nature.” He leaned back. “Am I right?”

  The saloon doors pushed open and three young men, spruced in clean shirts, kerchiefs, and fresh shaves, shoved into the saloon, laughing and each trying to get in front of the others to be first at the bar. One looked toward Junior and his smile gave way to a serious expression. He poked the other two, who also looked, nodding and becoming quiet as they stepped up to the bar.

  “Think you know something, do you?” said Junior, not seeing the men.

  “Come, now, Junior. You invited me over here, remember?”

  The young man sighed. “Course I remember.” He fiddled with his glass, turning it in circles between his fingertips. Then he leaned forward, hunching over the small round table. He waited for Mort to lean in too. “It’s like this. Say there was a couple of fellas. Say they were half brothers who stood to inherit a certain ranch because their father just up and died.”

  Mort nodded once, no trace of his wry smile left on his face. His eyes pinned Junior’s and held the boy still for a moment.

  Junior licked his lips and looked back to his glass. “And there’s this other fella…oh…about their age, who’d be the best one anywhere to own that ranch. This other fella’s got money enough, but his father won’t back his play. The old man wants it all done legallike. But that ain’t likely, leastwise not with them two half brothers gumming up the works.” Junior leaned back and poured another drink. “You savvy, Mort?”

  Darturo nodded, eyes half-closed like a lizard’s. He stared at the boy a moment, then leaned forward. “I understand perfectly. And what is more, Junior, I know who you’re talking about. Like I said, I have been around.” He leaned in and said in a low, hollow voice, “One thing that’s unexplained. This young man, the son of the rich rancher, how can he be sure he will end up owning the dead man’s ranch?”

  Junior smiled and shook his head as if explaining something fundamental to a child. “Shoot, Mort, my father’s got more money than God himself.” Junior’s smile dropped and the two men regarded each other for a moment. “Well, not that much, but—he wants something, he buys it. Problem is, he’s on and on about making it all a legal affair.” He leaned forward again, crowding the little table. The bottle slid a few inches, and Mort reached up and quietly moved it out of harm’s way. Junior never noticed. His eyes narrowed and he warmed to his subject. “He’s going to ruin everything. With thinking like that, we’ll never get the Dancing M. He needs to let me do this my own way…” A scowl hardened the young man’s features. “Or he needs to get the hell out of my way…for good! I’m through living under his thumb.”

  “Understood…Mr. Grindle. For that is truly your name, is it not?” Mort stood, his chair squawking on the plank floor. He downed his shot and said, “You will be hearing from me.”

  Darturo crossed the room and as he passed the bar, one of the newly arrived cowhands, a tall fellow in a blue shirt, older by a couple of years than his companions, stared at him. Darturo stopped, his thumbs resting on his gun belt. They regarded each other for a moment; then Darturo ran his tongue over his teeth, his mouth fixed in a sneer. He smoothed his clipped mustache and walked out into the dark. The jangle of his spurs and the echo of his boots on the boardwalk could be heard for the half minute of silence that followed his departure, only broken by the sound of Junior’s bottle neck clinking the rim of his glass as he poured himself another drink.

  Tom slid beers to the three men and leaned in. “You boys got to see if you can yarn him out of here before he busts up the place again like the other night. I don’t care if he does pay. It’s nothing but a load of extra work for me.”

  One of the three, a large, round-faced fellow, nodded, said, “Okay, Tom,” and turned to rest his elbows on the bar. He cleared his throat. “Mr., uh, I mean Junior….”

  The boy looked up, focused on the speaker, and said, “Chester, you ox, how’re you tonight?”

  “Fine, just fine.” Chester walked closer, his hands on his hips. “Me and the boys, we’re just about ready to head back to the Drivin’ D. Wondered if you wanted to ride along.”

  Junior squinted and looked from the bartender to Chester, then the other two men. They all stood silent, watching him. “What is this?” He stood, flipping the table forward as he rose. The bottle, almost empty, rolled across the floor and the glasses both broke. “The bum’s rush? No, no, no.” He swung his head from side to side, the action dizzying him. “I have had it with people telling me what to do, when to do it. Had it up to here!” The thin wooden chair flew from his hand and clattered against the wall, knocking free the glass globe of a sconce. It shattered against the floor as Tom rounded the bar, headed for the door. “Keep him from breaking anything else. I’m getting the sheriff!”

  All three Driving D men rushed the boy and pinned his arms down. Despite their size and strength and his drunken infirmity, Junior lashed out, striking at the faces and torsos of his suppressors with surprising vigor.

  By the time Tom returned with Sheriff Tucker, the three men had shucked Junior’s pistol and had him pinned to the floor. He’d gone limp and his head lolled, the booze now washing fully through his system.

  “Okay, boys. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask you to transport him on over to the cells for the night. And tell Wilf he can come for him tomorrow. I’ll not turn him loose before then. I, for one, have had enough of his foolishness. Wilf had better do something about him, and soon.”

  The men nodded and heaved the limp form of their boss’s son up onto his feet, then eased the lolling drunk on out the door.

  “Fight’s gone out of him, I’d say.” Squirly Ross wheezed out a ragged laugh as if he’d told a real ripper. “Boy ought to learn to pace himself if he ever hopes to make it to a ripe old age.”

  “And end up like you, I suppose, eh, Squirly?” The sheriff shook his head and turned back to the bartender. “Tom, when these boys are done at the jail, set ’em each up with a beer and a whiskey, on me. And tally up this mess. I’ll be sure Wilf pays you tomorrow.”

  The bartender nodded and resumed sweeping up the shattered glass.

  “Might be you want to ask about the stranger young Grindle’s been jawin’ with, Sheriff.” Squirly sipped his glass and licked his lips.

  Sheriff Tucker stopped in the doorway and looked down at the pudgy little wreck seated in the corner. “And I suppose he’s the one you told me about, eh? The one who you claimed killed your old friend, what’s-his-name the cowhand?”

  Squirly fixed the sheriff with his bleary eyes. “That’d be the man, yes, indeed.”

  “When I want something from you, you’ll be the first to know. But until then, Squirly Ross, keep your mouth shut.
I’m the one wearin’ the badge, in case you forgot.”

  The little drunk’s eyes widened in mock surprise, and he raised his hands as if he were the victim of a holdup. But he didn’t say another word as he watched the sheriff leave.

  Hours later, after the last Driving D hand had staggered out to his waiting horse, Squirly grunted to a standing position and weaved out the door himself, and into the dark of the alley.

  Chapter 46

  “So, you think the sheriff might be interested in talking with me, huh?”

  The snagging purr of the voice, like rawhide dragged over rusted steel, crawled out of the dark of the alley, over Squirly’s shoulder, and into his ear. He peed on his own foot and didn’t realize it. “Who….?” But he knew who it was. And for the first time in years, he wished he wasn’t drunk.

  “You…I thought you was gone.” Squirly couldn’t see more than a dark outline, but he knew it was Darturo. He had hoped that the man would just ignore him. That maybe word hadn’t gotten around to him that he’d said all those things about him to the sheriff. Now he knew he was wrong. No matter who told, or if they told—this foreigner seemed to know a little bit of everybody’s business. He wasn’t sure how, but the man seemed to be everywhere.

  “Yes, Mr. Ross. It’s me.” He advanced on the little man in buckskins. The only light in the alley came from the faint glow of an oil lamp across the street, beyond the mouth of the alley, and the glow of the quarter moon high above. Squirly remembered what he’d been up to and fidgeted to stuff his trousers back together. His heel clunked an empty bottle spinning back against a crate. Other than that noise, his own stuttering breaths, the town sounded utterly still to Squirly. The man backed him up to the far side wall of the saloon. He’d spent enough time back here, either as swamper for the Doubloon or urinating in the dust, that he knew he was still a dozen yards from the rear mouth of the alley. “What do you want of me?”

  “Of you, Mr. Ross? Not much. Nothing of yours, in fact. Not yet anyway.”

  “Wh-what, then?” Squirly swallowed and wished he had a tall glass of cool water.

  There was that loose chuckle again, like little coils of dry paper rattling together. “That friend of yours? You found him well, I presume?”

  “I…I found him, if that’s what you mean.” A vision of Mitchell’s picked-over corpse came to him, just enough of the face’s flesh left to let Squirly know it was his old friend. A spark of anger flared in him. This was the man who had killed Mitchell, and they each knew that the other knew it. And what’s more, it was all my fault, thought Squirly. If I hadn’t opened my mouth and let this killer pour booze into it, Mitchell would still be alive. They’d be planning a way to buy the Dancing M with his poke, whooping it up in fine shape, talking about old times.

  At the thought of all that money, of the future that might have been, Squirly grew even angrier at the damned killer. He pictured the thin foreigner standing there just in front of him in the dark of the alley, and something within him tensed. He guessed it was the spirit of Mitchell, fighting for revenge over the awful end he’d come to. Squirly crouched and lunged at Mortimer Darturo.

  Though his heart was in the right place, his mind was nonetheless addled by drink and Darturo slammed the butt of his pistol hard against the back of the little man’s head. The little drunk sprawled forward in the dirt, his face mashing hard against the hard-packed alley. “Where is the poke, as you call it? Where is your friend’s great stash of money?”

  Squirly’s head was swimming, his ears buzzed, and a righteous hammering had begun at the base of his skull. He was used to it, hangovers being part of the job for him, but this was odd, as if the man had a knee to his neck. Squirly tried to rise, but couldn’t. The man did indeed have him pinned. Then the man’s questions seeped into his brain and he stopped squirming. Had he just asked Squirly where Mitchell’s poke was? Did he really not have it? Had he not taken it when he killed Mitchell?

  “What do you mean, you damn killer? You robbed Farthing when you killed him.”

  He heard a long sigh, as if the man had become too tired to discuss the matter.

  “Alas, Mr. Ross, there was nothing more of value on the man when I last saw him than a half-empty sack of tobacco. Not even a good brand. Just something cowboys indulge in—cheap and of poor quality, like so much they spend their time and money on.”

  “What are you on about?” said Squirly, managing to get his face turned so that his cheek rested in the dirt. He still couldn’t see the man, but he could hear him better. Sounded to him as if he were becoming increasingly disappointed in the way things were turning out.

  “So that means if you don’t have it, you must think I have it,” said Squirly, raising his voice a notch or two in hopes someone might hear them.

  “Sh-sh-sh-shhhh…Hush, now, little soak, or someone will mistake you for a diseased alley cat and kill you.”

  Squirly stopped struggling and tasted grit as he licked his lips. “So,” he said, in a lowered voice. “You think I have Mitchell’s money?”

  Another sigh, then, “That was my fondest desire. But I am beginning to think that we have both been had, eh? I think your friend, the old cowhand, Mitchell Farthing, was as destitute as you are. A fine pair of ranchers you would have made, without the means between you to buy even a single bull calf.”

  “I don’t understand—he always had a wad of money saved. Always had a poke….”

  “Things change, my friend. I have no doubt that at one time, many years ago, your friend Mr. Farthing was a well-off man, at least by the low standards against which cowhands measure themselves. But look at you—I am equally as sure that at one time you had more to offer the world than a foul stench, a smile that shows no more promise than a mouth half-full of rotted teeth, and a lecherous desire for alcohol. But again, those days are long in the past. Then for a time, you and Mitchell had in common the fact that you were both useless.”

  “I…I ain’t useless. I know where there’s silver—that ledge of silver. I can take you there.”

  “Shh-shhhh.” Darturo pressed harder between the little man’s shoulder blades. “I don’t believe for a single minute that there ever was a ledge of silver, and certainly that you could take me to one now.”

  “No?”

  Darturo shook his head. “No, Mr. Ross. But you do have something else in common with your friend, Mitchell Farthing, and a good many other people in this crazy little town.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You all seem to want to get your hands on that dead man’s ranch.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Darturo eased off his pressure on Squirly’s back and shuffled backward a pace, but remained crouching beside the little man. “I thought that I did,” said Darturo, seeming to consider the question for some time. “But now, now I am only regretting this detour. I think that tomorrow, I will finish what I promised to do, perhaps see if there is something else to be had, and then I will be on my way.”

  Squirly inched backward as Darturo spoke, hoping to keep the man chatting long enough to get up and run. He didn’t know quite where he would go, but he figured that if he could slip by him, he might get out front to the main street and whoop it up enough that someone might take notice and save his hide from this killer.

  “Where will you head?”

  “So kind of you to ask, Mr. Ross. I believe I will head to Mexico. There, I will be able to relax for a time and live the life of a bandit king, eh?”

  Squirly scooted his backside farther away from Darturo. “Sounds like a good plan. I wasn’t so attached to Turnbull, I’d tag along.”

  Darturo chuckled. “While your company is…interesting to me, Mr. Ross, it is hardly such that I would wish to detain you from your previous engagements.”

  “I don’t know what that means, really, since I ain’t got no dance card filled up yet.”

  “No, but you have another thing in common with your good friend Mitchell Farthing.”

 
“Oh?” Squirly eased himself up onto his knees, all the while keeping his eyes on the foreigner, who appeared to be lost in thought, still squatting beside where Squirly had lain moments before. “What might that be, then?” Squirly lunged to his feet and, abandoning his plan to skirt the foreigner and make for the front of the alley, bolted for the rear of the alley. He might race behind the buildings and rap on a few doors in the process, all the while shouting his head off.

  He had barely gotten to his feet and staggered back a few lengths deeper into the alley when he realized he wasn’t nearly as quick as he thought he might be. For the foreigner was there, looking down at him. He could see the man better now, dull moonlight reflecting off eyes that otherwise looked as black as the clothes he wore. The moonlight also glinted dully off the various silver conchos and other decorations adorning the man’s black garb. The man crowded him, forced him backward amid a jumble of old crates and sparse, dry grasses.

  “Yes, Mr. Ross, there is one other thing you have in common with your dear old friend Mitchell Farthing.” Darturo’s breath smelled to Squirly like food gone flyblown and rank on a hot summer afternoon when nothing at all moves, when rocks sizzle if you look at them, when lizards are the only things enjoying the vicious heat. Squirly tried to respond, but the words “What’s that?” came out as a soft whimper.

  The man smiled down at him and said, “You are both dead men.”

  Sharp lancing pains radiated upward from somewhere down low in the drunkard’s guts. He felt a seeping wetness, as if he’d peed himself worse than ever. Then he heard a wet slapping sound, and by the time Squirly Ross thought to scream, hot, thick liquid filled his gorge and all he could manage was a gurgling sound that soon strangled in his throat in a cough. The man before him stared down at him, still smiling, the last of the moon’s glow reflected in those black eyes, slowly giving way to full dark of the shadowed alley.