Although possessing an immense spread with thousands of cattle and horses, Wilshaw Broome didn’t build himself a fine new home, or even make a mark on the old one with renovations or improvements. He moved his family into the main house that was once occupied by the Kettle family, but his wife didn’t take; she wanted back to the bosom of her family and friends. Now, Broome lived there with his son Felix and a few Mexican servants
The ageing, once-upon-a-time foreman sat in the den with a high beamed ceiling. The November chill was stealing its way across the range, and Broome’s features turned ruddy in the reflected firelight from the open hearth. He stirred in his wing-back chair, frowned, grunted at the sound of someone trailing his spurs through the hallway. ‘Felix’, he muttered. No one else would risk marking the polished oak.
‘Pa,’ was Felix’s simple greeting as he dropped onto a short sofa. ‘I thought maybe we could talk. I want to offer some straight goods about my life,’ he said, without preamble or the removal of his hat.
Broome looked his son over less companionably than if he’d been a remuda bronc, scanned him from his pale-blue eyes to his neatly shod feet. ‘Well, if you do, Lemmon will be all the poorer for it. Specially the tinhorn gamblers you’re so fond o’ donatin’ my money to,’ he answered sarcastically.
‘I knew you’d scoff, Pa, but this time, it’s different. I didn’t really decide, it just sort o’ happened. The feelin’ hit me, an’ that was it. I want to settle down, have a wife an’ home.’
‘There’s some would call that the thunderbolt,’ Broome said, while favouring Felix with an incredulous stare. ‘If your brain was an egg, I’d say it was addled under that goddamn hat you’re still wearin’.’
Felix grimaced, removed his hat before he responded. ‘I knew it wouldn’t be easy gettin’ your approval, Pa, but I’d like it anyway,’ he said. ‘The girl’s Megan McGovren.’
‘What?’ Wilshaw Broome’s eyes took on a curious, alarmed glint.
‘Megan. I asked her today. Asked her to marry me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said she’d think it over. Comin’ from a well-mannered girl, that’s got to mean yes.’
‘So how bad do you want all this – the girl, the home, the settlin’ down? How’s your gut feelin’?’
‘I never thought of it in them terms, Pa. It’s just somethin’ that I feel when I’m with Meg.’ By Felix’s sensitive assessment, Broome thought he might have his son cornered. ‘Well, I ain’t givin’ my approval or anythin’ else,’ he said. ‘You really thought I would?’
Felix winced at his father’s spoiling. ‘No, o’ course I didn’t. I was just runnin’ out some courtesy I picked up from somewhere,’ he retaliated. ‘What’s your difficulty with Megan McGovren?’
‘It’s the difficulty that you’re goin’ to have with her pa, the moment she tells him your intentions towards her. He’ll lay for you with everythin’ he’s got. The only chance you’ll have of a life with young Megan is to wait till the worms are feedin’ off his scrawny ol’ hide.’
‘We’ll just up an’ marry. I’m prepared to take a chance if Megan is.’
‘There won’t be a chance, Felix. He’ll shoot you from the saddle. At the very least go an’ see him. Use that new found courtesy to pay your respects. See his reaction for yourself.’ Broome waited for a second, while his opinion sank in. ‘An’ I don’t blame you for wantin’ Megan McGovren,’ he added. ‘Now get, I still got me some business thoughts.’
When Felix had left the room, Broome turned back to the fire, closed his eyes on his new problems. Goddamn Ben MeGovren, was his immediate thought. Less than a month to go until my title’s good, an’ he still ain’t talkin’ to me. He’s got somethin’ up his sleeve, that’s for sure. Although, if his boy was enamoured of the man’s daughter, maybe he had an advantage. Hmm, but just where and when, he schemed.
Early next morning Ben McGovren was saddling his horse, when Megan came out. She drew the mare’s head towards her, while Ben fastened the cinch.
‘Megan, there ain’t much I ever told you not to do,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘but I got to make sure you don’t go ridin’ the thickets for a few days.’
‘I know, you already told me, Pa,’ Megan replied. ‘So where are you ridin’ to?’
‘Lemmon. It ain’t likely that Hector an’ Joseph will turn up there, but I’ve got to go see. They might need mounts.’
‘You told me it would be you found dead in the thicket, not me.’
‘Think, Megan. I was talkin’ about events after the trouble, not before.’
A few minutes later, Megan watched her father ride across the river. I never saw him so tired and worried, she mused. He only hints at stuff, the stuff I don’t know about. For heaven’s sake why can’t one of us amount to something? If I had, I can’t see Felix Broome thinking I’d want to marry him. She shook her head sadly, turned away as Ben disappeared into the trail that cut through the pear and mesquite.
Back at the cabin, she turned the other horses out on the range, left her own mount in the corral. She would much rather be riding out than staying close and listening to the trials and tribulations of her mother. But her father had asked her, and she wouldn’t flout his request. She had long known of hostility between her father and Wilshaw Broome; in more recent years, had supposed it to be the explicable envy of a cockle-bar cow outfit. Now she knew there was something more behind the hostility, something to do with the land. It was her pa blaming Broome for losing the ‘little world of league and labour’ that for so many years, he thought he had inherited. She also knew that if her pa was in danger for that ‘blame’ it would only be on her account.
As the hours dragged on, Megan’s concern persisted. She expected Ben to return shortly after midday, so after a bite of lunch, she went back to the corral and with growing unease saddled her horse. But then she climbed up on the corral fence and looked out across the creek to the mesquite through which the clearing ran. She sat there for nearly an hour, until she caught a glimpse of something moving through the brush. She watched until she could see the mount that was swerving erratically towards the creek, and barely a half-mile distant. She swung from the corral, was quickly astride her own horse, and she rode to just beyond the creek, where she almost ran headlong into Ben’s mare. The animal was fractious and jumpy from its run, was trailing ribbons of foam across its sweating neck. Megan herded it into a tight circle, and pushed it back along the trail in the direction of Lemmon.
About halfway between the McGovren cabin and Lemmon, the trail crossed a long draw that ran into the Rio Bonito. The broad, flat-bottomed gully was thickly grown over with mesquite, vine and catclaw, and Megan’s horse stopped short, snorted its displeasure. The girl dismounted and, catching Ben’s still frightened horse, she stood looking about her, groaned audibly when she recognized Ben’s Colt .44 by the side of the trail.
She noticed the near empty bottle of Jim Beam and the scuffle marks in the dust as she picked up the Colt. She could see the gun hadn’t been fired, and cursed for an explanation. Perhaps the mount ain’t such a clear foot as we all thought. ‘Yeah, that’ll be it,’ she muttered wretchedly, knowing that it wasn’t, and not understanding the whiskey bottle. She was on the point of tethering the horses and taking a look around when she heard the rumble of hoofs from the direction of Lemmon. Almost immediately, two dust-covered riders appeared through the brush and reined in within thirty feet of Megan. There was no need to ask or wonder who they were, she just knew.