Darturo wiped off the thin-bladed knife on the grimy buckskinned leg flopped at his feet. He pulled in a long, slow draft of night air. “Pity the saloon is closed,” Darturo said in a quiet voice as he wandered out of the alley and into the silent, empty little main street of Turnbull. “A nice glass of milk with perhaps a splash of whiskey would be soothing right now. Ah well. Tomorrow is another day.”
Chapter 47
“What’s wrong, Chester?”
The broad-shouldered ranch hand, though he towered over his employer, curled the brim of his boss of the plains. “Oh well, sir…nothing’s wrong with the ranch, Mr. Grindle.” He hurried his words.
Wilf smiled and said, “Something’s on your mind, Chester.” It never failed to impress him, even after all these years, how men twice his size would squirm before him, and only because he owned land and they didn’t. Odd, but he had to admit he still liked the feeling. A lot. He stepped to the side and waved an arm inside the house. “Just having breakfast. How ’bout a cup of coffee?”
Chester’s eyebrows rose, and then he looked down again. “I better not, Mr. Grindle. You see, me and the boys, well, we drew straws and I…”
“Got the short one. Okay, out with it.” Wilf, still smiling, eyed the man more closely now. “It’s Junior, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. He’s…in jail.”
Wilf stared for a moment, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Drunk?”
Chester just nodded. “Me and a few of the boys went into town last night for a drink or two.” The big man warmed to the telling and stopped fidgeting with his hat brim and looked at his boss. “But he’d been there awhile before us, it looked. So we said we’d call it an early night, tried to get him to come on back with us, but he wasn’t having none of it. He commenced to bust up the place.”
“Again?” Wilf felt his face redden. “Then what, Chester?”
Chester sighed and said, “Then the sheriff came in, looked fairly put out, if I read him right.” Chester licked his lips. “Marched right over to Junior, give him a quick tongue-lashin’, though I don’t think Junior took in much of it. Anyhow, he had us muckle onto him, bring him to the jail.” The cowhand reddened.
“So Junior spent the night there?”
Chester nodded. “Yes, sir, but we tried—”
Wilf clapped the man on the arm. “I know, Chester, and I appreciate it. But you shouldn’t have had to.” The old rancher crossed his arms and shook his head. “Might be a night in a cell will do the boy some good.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure it will.” Chester looked up again, eyes wide. “What I mean is that Sheriff Tucker told us to tell you he’ll hold Junior there until you pick him up this mornin’.” Chester leaned in toward his employer and lowered his voice, as if they were in a crowd, “Said he wanted to talk with you.”
Wilf sighed. “All right, Chester. Appreciate it.”
The big man nodded once, plopped his big hat back on his head, but remained facing his boss.
“Something else you’d like to say, Chester?”
“Yes, sir. Well, no, sir, but…what I mean is there is something else.”
“Out with it, then.” Wilf almost smiled again.
“Well, me and the boys noticed this fella Junior, your son, was talking to at the Doubloon.”
“No crime in a conversation, is there, Chester?”
“Well, no, sir. But this one, well, F.J., you know, the fella who hired on last month?”
Wilf nodded.
“Well, it come to him later on that he recognized this fella Junior was jawing with over at that table in the corner. Then the fella up and left and later F.J. told us he’d seen him before. Didn’t say how he knew him, just that he’d crossed paths with him a few years back. Said he was a bad, bad seed. Felt sure the man was wanted somewhere for at least a couple of killings.”
Wilf didn’t say anything, just watched Chester’s face. Finally, in a small voice, the cowhand said, “We thought you might want to know.”
Wilf nodded. “Appreciate it.”
Chester made it halfway down the path to the front gate before Wilf spoke again. “Chester.”
The big man spun, eyes wide, and hands reaching for his hat.
“Tell the boys I said thanks. And ask ’em to keep it to themselves, not that it matters all that much.”
“Yes, sir, count on it.” Chester headed for the gate.
“Oh, and, Chester, one more thing….I might as well kill two birds at once and take the long way into town through the east pastures, see how the boys are making out. See that the barouche is rigged and ready up here for me.”
“Yes, sir. I will surely do that.” Chester spun again and jogged his big bulky frame to the bunkhouse.
Wilf stood watching him go, but not seeing him. In his mind he was already deep into what he knew would be a one-sided conversation with a hungover son who was fast turning out to be the biggest disappointment of his life.
Chapter 48
“And just who are you to make such a request?” The young deputy slid his scuffed brown boots off the bare desk and rose to full height.
“Easy now, pup. Easy.” Mort Darturo worked his slim hands in a patting motion. “There is no reason to get yourself worked up. My boss sent me to get Junior Grindle out of the jail. He is needed back at the ranch. I was told to tell the sheriff he appreciates what he did and that he would be in town later to talk with him.”
“Who’s your boss?”
“Who else? Wilf Grindle.”
“You work for the Driving D?” The deputy looked the well-dressed man up and down. “You don’t look much like a cowhand.”
Darturo nodded. “I am new to his employ.”
The deputy chewed the inside of his lip. Finally, he stood and said, “I reckon if it’s good enough for Mr. Grindle, it’s good for this chicken too.” He smiled and slid the steel ring off a hook under the desk. The keys jangled as he worked the latches on the outer door and the cell in the back.
“Mr. Grindle, time to wake up. Your father’s man is here for you.”
The young man lay on his side, his back to the cell door. He didn’t move. The deputy coughed once. Nothing. So Deputy Sweazy let out his held breath and clanged the door hard. He hated to do it, but something had to happen, even if it was Junior Grindle, no older than himself but a heap richer. He secretly wanted to dump a pail of cold water on the young spoiled drunk, but he knew that was no way to get ahead in law enforcement, even if it was only Turnbull that he was working in. He’d need connections to wealthy and powerful people if he was ever going to work the bigger towns like Dodge or Phoenix. Still, the reaction he’d get from the drunk would be worth it. Sweazy smiled.
The clashing ring of the steel cell door whipped the sleeping man upright. “What! What’s wrong?”
Deputy Sweazy really wanted to laugh, but didn’t dare. He cleared his throat. “Mr. Grindle, your father sent a man for you. Said they need you at the Driving D.”
Junior held his surprised pose for a few moments more, then swung his legs over the side of the cot and sat there, his head resting in his hands. He said nothing for a full minute.
“Mr. Grindle…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough already. I’m leaving.”
Sweazy let the cell door open hard. It clanged and he smiled as he headed back toward the front of the jail.
“Hey,” said Junior’s voice from behind him, back in the cell.
The deputy stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Who came for me? Was it Mica?”
“Who?”
“Big black man.”
“No. He said he’s one of your father’s men. Probably waiting for you.”
Grindle pushed to his feet and headed out of the cell. He glanced back, saw his hat, crown down, on the floor, went back, and snatched it up.
By the time he made it to the office, the deputy was pouring two gray tin cups of coffee. He handed one to Junior.
“Call me Junior,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “My damned old man’s ‘Mr. Grindle.’ Where’s the Driving D man?”
“Dunno. I got back out here and he was gone.”
Junior went over to the door, leaned out, and looked up and down the street, but saw no one.
“What’d he look like?”
“Thin, not overly tall. Dark hair, had an accent too, sort of Mexican, but not really, if you know what I mean. Had a low, black hat. Real neat clothes, now that I think on it. More like a dandy than a cowhand.”
At the mention of the man’s hat and clothes, Junior raised his eyebrows, looking over the cup’s rim at the young deputy for the first time. “Black hat, you say? And nice clothes?”
Sweazy nodded, sipped his own coffee. “Yep.”
Junior stood there a moment, staring at the plaster wall behind the sheriff’s desk. “Darturo,” he muttered. Then his eyes widened and he said, “Oh Lord….”
“Here’s your gun and belt, Mr. Grin—uh.”
Junior grabbed them from him and strapped on the belt as he raced for the door.
Sweazy followed, shouting after him, “Sheriff said your horse is with Silver Haskell at the livery….”
Chapter 49
Wilf heard the first shot after he felt it. His right arm jerked as blood sprayed outward. Unimagined pain raced through the dangling limb and burst into his chest. He gritted his teeth and fought the fogging, fuzzy feeling that threatened him, and watched red-black blood flower into his puckered blue shirt at the shoulder. He still gripped the reins hard with his good left hand and as he fought to stay conscious watched the single horse fidget in the traces. Wilf shook his head and blinked to try to keep his vision focused. Was it an accident, a stray shot? Had to be—who’d want to kill him? He knew he should climb down, hide behind the buggy and wait to see if the shooter intended to come closer. But he wasn’t thinking right. The best he could muster was to jerk hard on the reins in his left hand and turn the barouche around, head back to the ranch.
In his raw pain and confusion, he was pleased to note that earlier he’d taken off his dress coat and folded it on the seat; otherwise it too would have been ruined. As the reality of the situation slapped him, he realized the folly of such thinking. So much for seeing Miss Gleason today, he thought. And if the shooter intends to kill me, I’m to be shot in the back and it won’t matter anyway. But who? he wondered as he snapped the leather reins hard on the back of the confused horse.
Wilf crouched low and waited for another bullet to tear into the black canopy he’d had raised to ward off the sun as he drove to town. He slipped the looped reins over his good arm and worked one-handed at the knotted kerchief about his neck, then stuffed the wadded silk under his shirt, gritting his teeth at the hot, slicking pain. There was little more he could do, but he knew if he didn’t make it back to the ranch soon he’d bleed out. Unless he was shot again. He leaned his head out the side of the rumbling carriage, but no one thundered close by on horseback. No one followed.
Who would do this? And why? It surely must have something to do with the Dancing M and the tangled mess it was becoming with that damnable Mexican woman. But to shoot him? He knew Esperanza was angry with him, as was Rory’s boy, Brandon, and even his own daughter, Callie, but he expected no less. After all, she was a woman, weak with emotion when it came to her friends.
Who else, then? Mica? No, they might have exchanged harsh words, harsher than Wilf had ever intended them to be, but never in a hundred lifetimes would Mica shoot him; of that Wilf was certain. Who, then? One of the ranch hands taking potshots at coyotes or buzzards? His head ached with the effort of thinking.
But a new face flashed in his mind. Perhaps it was the boy, Brandon. Rory’s bastard son. He’d never liked the youth, and since Rory’s death the boy had taken a definite turn for the worse—drinking in public and at all hours, making a nuisance of himself in town. Junior had complained to him about the boy on more than one occasion, even though he had been playmates with the half-breed.
It could well be the boy, he thought, as pain bloomed anew through his arm and across his chest with each jarring slam over a rock or through a rut. Why was life dealing him and his family such dire blows lately? Hadn’t they suffered enough over the years? His dear Carla, gone nearly twenty years now. Damn that filly that threw her. He’d had to bury his wife and shoot her prize horse. But he thanked God every day Carla had seen fit to leave him with two beautiful children, troublesome though the boy could be….
And at that moment a sudden thought came to him—Junior. His own boy. The person he hoped to pass everything to. No, the thought that Junior would want to kill him was ridiculous. But then everything Callie had said about Junior, about how Wilf rode him too hard, it all made sudden sense. And the boy had been nearly unrecognizable to him these past few months, until now he seemed almost like a stranger to him, coming home less frequently, long enough these past few weeks only for clean clothes and food—and hardly at all these past two days. As one thought led to another, so Junior’s last words to him echoed in his fevered head: “I will kill you….”
A fresh rush of nausea rose from Wilf’s boots, and his teeth chattered. He was close to passing out, he knew, but he had to get back to the ranch. With the last of his waning strength, he snapped the reins hard against the poor lathered horse’s back and managed to shout, “Heeyaa!” once. Then he pitched off the seat and to his knees on the floor of the barouche, the reins slipping from his hand. His breakfast of ham and eggs and bread and coffee rose in his gorge, then left him, spattering the side of the black carriage. His last thought before losing consciousness was of his boy, Junior, and of how it very well could have been his own son who had shot him. But why?
Wilf never felt the second shot.
Chapter 50
Junior reined up at the fork in the road from town, looked to his right, to the west branch that led to the Dancing M, and for a moment he held the stamping horse, his thoughts on the people he’d wronged there. But he shook his head and knew that right now it was his father who needed his help. He touched heels to the horse’s flanks and shouted, “Haaa!”
He rode hard the last few miles, his horse lathered and breathing like a demon as they barreled into the dooryard outside the bunkhouse. Chester, Chaz, Dilly, and a few other men filed out.
“Junior,” said the big man, eyeing the overworked horse as he grabbed the reins. “Your father left here early to fetch you back from jail.”
“I know, Chester, but which way did he go?” Junior slipped down off the horse, shucked his hat, and scanned the rolling terrain to the east.
“Well, he said he was going to take the east road….Didn’t you see him?”
“East road? No, no, he wasn’t in town when I left. And he wasn’t on the road back home. Must still be on the east road.”
“Why wasn’t he in town, Junior?”
Junior continued to scan the horizon, but said nothing.
Chester eyed the boy hard. “As I say, he went out the east way to check on the boys while he was headed to town. To get you out of jail.”
Junior returned the look and said, “Look, Chester. I don’t give a hang about your problems with me right now. There’s something more important than all that. I have to find my father. I think he might be in danger. Because of something I did. I think.”
“Boy, you’re not making sense, but if I find that something’s happened to your father because you did something stupid, you can rest assured there will be hell to pay.”
“Yeah,” said Chaz. “We’ve all had it up to here with your crazy ways.”
Junior nodded as if he were agreeing with a child. “I understand all that. But right now I need to find my father.” Even as he said it he snatched the reins from Chester and mounted up.
“Hey, Junior! No more worries on that score. Here comes your father’s buggy now.” They all looked to where Dilly, the cook, pointed, and there was the barouche, but it was led by a man a-h
orseback, not wasting any time.
“What’s this?” Chester strode forward to intercept them, waving his big arms.
Junior climbed down from his horse and stiffened. Wilf was nowhere in sight. He ran ahead, past Chester, and jumped up on the side of the dusty black barouche.
There lay his father, slumped on his side on the red leather seat. Junior jumped over the low door and lifted his father to him, touching the gray face with the flat of his hand, patting. “Papa, Papa, come on, it’s me, Junior. Papa?”
He turned to the handful of cowboys gathered and watching. “You fools! Don’t stand there. Someone get the doctor! Where’s Mica? He should be here. Mica!” He shouted the man’s name, but his shouts were ridden down by those of Picket Jim, the man who’d brought the buggy in.
“Too late for that, boy. He’s dead.” The tall, mustachioed cowboy had been with the Driving D for most of Junior’s youth, knew Wilf well, and by the grim set of his mouth, the resigned droop of his eyes, all the other hands knew that it must be true. Their boss man, Wilf, was dead.
“Shot?” said Chester in a low voice.
Picket Jim nodded. “Twice, from the looks. Don’t know by who.”
“No!” They all watched the boy, angry with him but not sure why. Then Junior vaulted out of the buggy and gripped the near wheel, looking back at all of them, a wild, hard look in his eyes. He grabbed at Chester’s shirtfront. “Where’s Mica? Where’s Callie? Don’t any of you know where they are?”
“Take it easy, Junior,” said Chester, gripping the boy’s wrists. “They both went off to the Dancing M. Mica left early. Callie went over just a short time ago.”
“The brothers are in trouble, don’t you see?” said Junior, wrenching himself free of the big man’s grip. “It’s them he’s after now. And now Callie and Mica are there. Oh God…I have to go….” Junior bolted for his horse, the men after him.
“Leave him be,” shouted Chester. “We’ll get Mr. Grindle in the house, then get to the Dancing M. Chaz, get on that little bay, the spirited one, and ride for the sheriff. Tell him what’s happened, tell him Junior knows something about who did it, but that he’s gone to the Dancing M. Tell the sheriff we’ll meet him there.”
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