by Lilah Rivers
Josh said, “You bribed him to suppress the homesteaders’ claims! Then you tried to have him killed in the street!”
“Lies! Slander!” Saul snared from his balcony, pointing an angry finger at Josh. “I’ll have you behind bars for this! The wedding day is not so close after all, my friend.”
Bella said, “You’ll have no word of our wedding day, Saul Decker. You’ll be well out of all our lives by then.”
“Ah yes, the lovely Miss Archer. What a bold manner you have, insinuating yourself in the business of men! What are you doing here, I wonder? If these cowards think I won’t have my men fire on you for the sake of a young woman and her nearly decrepit mother —”
Sybil said, “I beg your pardon? Come down here now and I’ll show you how decrepit I am!” Some of the men behind her laughed, rancher and homesteader alike.
“A thoughtful invitation,” Saul said, “though I think I shall have to offer my regrets.”
“You’ll have regrets all right,” Josh said. “If you’re looking for Parker among us, you’ll note that he’s not here. Because he’d dead, Decker, killed trying to bring back information that would dethrone you as the de facto Lord of Nebraska!”
“The Lord of … I’m just a businessman!”
“You bribed a public official,” Josh said, “I’ve heard you declare it openly in meetings I attended with my father.”
Barton said, “That’s right! I heard you say it!”
“And Bristol admitted it to me personally,” Josh went on.
“We all know it,” Jesse called out, “he admitted everything!” The crowd threw up a great and angry cheer.
“And how did this man die, I wonder? In a cover-up staged by you all?”
“By all of us?” Samuel shook his head. “You can’t hornswoggle a mob, you daffy dandy!” The crowd cheered around him, and Josh could feel their ire, their growing upset, their readiness to fight and to kill, even to die.
“I’m not trying to hornswoggle anybody,” Saul said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve only helped you ranchers.”
Elroy asked, “What about us homesteaders?”
“Keep your homesteads,” Saul said, “what do I care about any of you? It doesn’t mean you can just start grabbing up land that has been common grazing ground for decades!”
Josh was ready to counter the argument, but Barton called to Saul, “What’s going to happen to us locals when the homesteaders are gone?”
Elroy repeated, “Gone! Because there’s not enough land for us to make our way!”
“That’s not my problem,” Saul spat back. “It’s certainly no reason for you to storm my property this way! You’re frightening my horses; I can hear them!”
“We’re frightening more than your horses,” Jonah shouted, “and we can hear that!” A few more of the ready combatants laughed behind them, Dean giving his brother a smile and a nod.
“It is your problem,” Josh said to Saul. “You agreed to let the homesteaders work that land.”
“The land’s not mine to grant,” Saul said. “Your whole argument is built on lies and foolishness! I wonder what really happened to Parker Bristol … are you murderers too?”
Dean said, “We’ll show you murderers!” The crowd lurched forward as if with a single mind, ready to storm the house properly and kill everyone inside it.
“No, stop,” Bella called out, “stand your ground!”
“She’s right,” Josh said, his voice echoing over the small army under his command. “Let the peaceable way resolve this.” He turned his attention back to Saul. “He died by accident, horse tripped over a hole or trench. He knew riding back here could be the end of him. He didn’t cry about it or demand I ride him back to Lincoln. That would have meant death for dozens, maybe even hundreds of others. He gave his life … willingly … in this cause.”
“And we believe him,” Elroy said to Saul.
Barton added, “Not without good reason.”
Saul huffed. “And what, pray tell, would that be?”
Josh pulled out one of the folded documents. “From Parker’s office, signed and official, granting the land south of Nelson’s Creek, to the homesteaders, to be known by the government as the homesteaders’ collective of Barnock, Nebraska, to be governed by their own decrees as to who will reap and sew, and who, if anyone, shall graze.”
Jesse said, “Don’t hold your breath, Decker!” The others around him chortled, but it didn’t last.
Saul shook his head. “We’ll see what the next man in that office has to say.”
“It’s been notified and recorded,” Josh said, “notarized and finalized. There’s nothing any of your money or power can do about it, Mr. Decker.” But Saul Decker looked over the crowd, his men filling the windows with rifles at the ready. Other guards stepped around from the side of the house, those willing to make a stand with their master.
It would be a last stand for some, Josh knew. He glanced at Bella, who sat on her mount by his side, where she seemed to know she belonged. He offered one last prayer for her safety before turning back to face their mortal enemy, perhaps for the very last time.
Chapter 62
Saul surveyed the crowd again, clearly taking in their determination, their steely resolve. He paced a bit on that balcony, puffing on his thick cigar, and shrugged.
“There’s nothing I can do about the other big ranchers,” Saul said. “I’m no authority over them, they do as they please.”
To which Josh said, “It’s a close-knit industry, you told me that yourself. People talk, reputations are made and broken. There’s nothing you can do?”
“Nothing!”
“Why not have them beat up,” Elroy said, “the way you did my poor hand, Richie Knob?”
Saul winced as if in distasteful shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“In your efforts to trigger a range war between the ranchers and the homesteaders,” Josh said. “It would give you control over all the land in the area; convenient, having us kill each other off like that.”
“But we’re not playing your wicked game,” Samuel shouted out, the others cheering behind him.
“We tried to tell you,” Elroy said to Saul, “me and Barton, for the better part of a year. But you just wouldn’t listen.”
“You were both weak,” Saul said, pointing at them from his balcony. “You have no concept of how to lead. The next century, and all the centuries to come, will belong to men with guts enough to take them! Leaders lead, you bungling oafs!”
“Leaders lead with compassion,” Bella said, “with love and understanding for those whom they lead. They don’t run roughshod over them for their own sake, for the love of money and power, in the name of greed and disdain for your fellow man!”
The men cheered for Bella, and she and her mother shared a little glance which told Bella that her mother was proud of her, that she always had been.
Josh pulled out the other document and held it up for Saul to see. “Something else, Mr. Decker, notarized and registered, secured with the local government, beyond reproach; can’t be rescinded, not even questioned.”
Saul huffed and took another few puffs of his cigar. “Your last will and testament?” He chuckled, a few of his men in the other windows doing the same. The men on the ground didn’t seem so ready to be amused, considering how many men they were facing and at such close range.
“Documents from the United States Army claiming this land … your land … as an asset, for strategic purposes, it seems.”
Saul Decker’s expression was more reward than Josh could ever have demanded; utter astonishment, mouth fallen open and incapable of taking another noxious puff. “That’s … that’s impossible!”
“You know it’s more than possible,” Josh said, “and it’s a verified, bon afide fact!”
Jesse called out, “You’re finished, Decker!”
“All this land and that means everything on it,” Josh went on. “All your cattle, horses, chick
ens, your structures, gardens, everything.”
Saul glanced at his men, and Josh could see that he was utterly dumbfounded. “Well, I, um, that is to say … they can’t do that!”
“You know full well that they can,” Josh said. “And, as it turned out, I was with Bristol around the time he made this … fortuitous discovery, and I arranged to secure the land myself!”
“For yourself,” Saul said, pointing his finger like a loaded pistol. “You others see what’s going on here? This young scalawag is using you, conning you! He tried to do the same thing to me, offering to sell you all out in order to dip his hands into my pockets! He’s no knight errant, but a land-grabbing hustler, a criminal!”
“It’s true that he made an offer,” Bella said, “but I was there, and the offer was counterfeit all along! Josh was spinning a web of lies to trap this fine, fat cockroach.”
“Ah yes,” Saul said, “the Princess of Barnock! My young Mr. Callahan, do you really believe in this young woman’s love? Or are you so young and stupid and struck by her beauty that you cannot see the truth?” Josh and Bella and the others looked up as Saul tried desperately to turn them against each other. But they’d been through that and to the other side, and nothing was going to divide the ranchers and homesteaders of Barnock ever again.
But Saul didn’t seem to understand that, as he’d misunderstood so much for so long.
“My daughter is beyond your chicanery,” Elroy said.
Dean said, “And the love she shares with Josh is true and just and right! You can’t blight it the way you’ve blighted everything else you touch!” The men threw up another cheer.
Jonah added, “You’re the one who mucks things up for us, an outsider and an interloper!”
“It’s true,” Jesse said, “you set us against one another, you’d have had us kill our neighbors for your benefit!”
Samuel added, “And now you’ve got nothing! No power, no money, no land, no business …” Josh noticed that Saul looked at his men, hired guns in the windows. One by one, they were pulling back, disappearing, leaving Saul alone in his moment of need.
Jesse went on, “You’ve got nothing to threaten anybody with anymore, Decker.” The men from the side of the house pulled back too, disappearing into the shadows.
“You can’t just force me out of my own home!”
Elroy answered, “Isn’t that what you did to us?”
“And us,” Barton said, “in time?”
In the distance, hands and guns made their escape on Saul’s remaining horses, leaving him stranded in every sense. One glance into his terrified face, bloodless, cigar idle in his hand, told Josh that Saul knew he was out of defenses. His sins had caught up to him at last. But he wasn’t going to go down without a fight, even when he had nothing left to fight with.
Chapter 63
“I’ve got lawyers,” Saul said, “I’ve got power, connections!”
“Not once word of this gets around,” Josh said, “not in your close-knit industry.”
“Just get out, Decker,” Jesse shouted, “yer finished in Nebraska!”
Josh glanced down to see Samuel lowering a torch to a corner of the house. The wooden structure caught fire quickly. Josh called out, “No, you could kill somebody!”
But the deed had been done, and Samuel was already backing away, back among the safety of the throngs.
Saul looked down in terror, and Josh understood where that fear was born. It would be a terrible death, one that no man or woman should have to face. He ran back from the balcony and into the adjoining room.
Josh and the others backed up their horses as the fire spread, soon overtaking the entire structure. The others had all gone, it seemed, the guards and hired guns and staff. Soon enough Saul Decker himself ran out of what was about to become the burnt wreckage of what used to be his palatial home.
The men behind Josh cheered and jeered, and Josh was almost worried that they would descend upon Saul Decker and kill him bodily, right there and then.
Samuel hissed, “Yer a fine little pigeon now, Decker!”
Jesse added, “Looks like the dove ain’t got any nest!” The other men chuckled and their horses carried them forward, closer to him. Saul backed up, away from the house and away from the angry mob.
“String him up,” somebody else shouted. Many cheered.
Another said, “That’s too good fer him! I say we draw and quarter the rascal!” The rest cheered louder.
“You call me a rascal,” Saul said with aggressive cunning, “you think I’m a villain? But I have a soul, I am God’s creation as well! You think you’re so righteous and pure? Let me remind you of our great and wondrous holy Bible, you Philistines! The Lord tells us in Micah 7: The faithful have been swept from the land; not one upright person remains. Everyone lies in wait to shed blood; they hunt each other with nets.”
Josh knew the scripture, and he knew the gambit. It reeked of desperation, though Josh was impressed that the man had any knowledge of the Bible to begin with. He hardly imagined it would save him, and Josh was becoming nervous that Saul Decker was digging his own grave, each word another shovelful of dirt.
The men around and behind Josh glared at Saul, who pointed at them with a trembling finger, voice loud and quivering.
“Both hands are skilled in doing evil,” Saul went on, “the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire; they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come, the day your watchmen sound the alarm.”
“He’s blaspheming,” somebody shouted out.
Sybil added with a mean glare at Saul, “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain!”
Jesse shouted, “Tar and feather him!”
“Now is the time of your confusion,” Saul went on. “Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with the woman who lies in your embrace; guard the words of your lips. For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.”
“I’ll have to do with this snake in the grass myself,” Jesse said, drawing a pistol.
“No,” Josh shouted, “nobody shoot! Holster your arms!”
Samuel said, “Too late for that!”
“But as for me,” Saul went on, “I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. Israel Will Rise! Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.”
“Stop, Mr. Decker,” Josh shouted.
“Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath, until he pleads my case and upholds my cause. He will bring me out into the light.”
Elroy added, “For the love of God, Saul, you’ve become unhinged!”
“I will see his righteousness. Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame,
she who said to me, ‘Where is the Lord your God?’ My eyes will see her downfall; even now she will be trampled underfoot like mire in the streets.”
