CHAPTER SEVEN
In El Paso’s finest restaurant, the Lone Star, Agon Bordner was enjoying a noon meal of an enormous rare steak, six fried eggs, three baked potatoes, sliced beets, a basket of fresh biscuits, and a bottle of red wine. As usual, he ate alone in a back room reserved for parties and meetings. A waiter stood quietly next to the closed door to accommodate any need he might have.
Bordner was a huge man with bulging eyes that rarely seemed to blink; his hair was thinning and long over his ears, curling around his white paper collar. He wore a custom-tailored, navy blue suit, accented by a huge, gold watch chain stretched across his mountainous stomach and vest. Like his voracious appetite, his business desire was to join the handful of great ranchers—Charles Goodnight, Richard King, John Chisum, and Henry Miller—with, like them, hundreds of thousands of acres under his control. They had overcome drought, fluctuating cattle prices, and Eastern financial panics. All he had to do was take control of the five ranches around Wilkon, and he already had three—one of them, the largest in the region. He smiled at the thought, took another bite of steak, and washed it down with half of his wineglass. The waiter rushed over to refill it.
His strategy to achieve this goal was simple, brutal—and, so far, effective. First, he had purchased the Wilkon Bank. Well, the price was basically a steal with several of his gunmen convincing the president-owner that it was time for him to leave. His men had gotten a big laugh out of actually stealing a bank, not robbing it. One of his men, Willard Hixon, had taken over as president. From there, Bordner would take control of one ranch at a time. The initial ranch acquisition was the Bar 3, the largest ranch in the region. The former owner and his family were murdered in the night. Comanches were blamed. He took over after a large Bar 3 loan from the Wilkon Bank surfaced.
The two small ranches abutting the Bar 3 were then coerced into selling. When the two families left for a more peaceful life, Bordner’s men followed and killed them, taking back the money used in the purchases. Again, Comanches were blamed. Keeping his operation flush with actual cash was a secondary, but essential, strategy.
Taking another mouthful of potato and gravy, he let his mind wander over the details of the Bar 3 massacre, as his right hand man Rhey Selmon had related. His fascination with such gory details had no bounds. Of course, he wasn’t personally involved in the night’s savagery. Such endeavors had ended years ago when he murdered his stepfather, cut up the body, and fed the pieces to the family’s hogs. Since then, he had mostly hired his killings done. But not always.
Smiling, he hummed part of a hymn that his church choir was practicing, then began singing,
“Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure.”
He stopped singing and gulped a drink of wine. Singing made him thirsty. He loved singing and had bought robes for the choir so there would be one big enough for him. It didn’t hurt his image either, he knew. On several occasions, he had even sung a solo, but only when requested. People would have a difficult time believing such an upstanding churchgoing man could be behind the largest land grab in Texas history. That was the idea.
He hummed more of the hymn and motioned to the waiter, told him to bring more gravy and another bottle of wine. The anxious man hurried away to handle the request. Agon Bordner had come from New Mexico Territory with his gang under Rhey’s direction. Together they had built a gang of thieves, gunmen, bank robbers, and rustlers, as well as specialists. Specialists like Willard Hixon, a wizard with numbers and an artist at forging signatures. They could have stayed in New Mexico, enjoying the fruits of their well-planned stagecoach and bank robberies. But Bordner wanted more; he wanted a cattle empire. And Texas was the place to take it. His men were happy to follow him—especially now that they were settled into the Bar 3, glad to leave their camp in the hills. The money earned from the Bar 3 trail drive gave him the kind of cash he needed to keep them happy.
Snorting and laughing, Bordner yelled, “Texas! Look out, here comes Agon Bordner!”
The fourth ranch on his list of acquisitions was the Lazy S, almost as big as the Bar 3 and owned by a Mexican family with deep roots in the region. The attack would take place within the month with the same strategy and Comanches would be blamed again. That would leave only the Corrigan spread with its excellent, year-round water.
However, the first step in that acquisition, a crucial one, would be to eliminate Deed Corrigan. Even Rhey Selmon, his right-hand man and excellent with a gun, wanted no part of him. Neither did Macy Shields, his next best gunman. Nor did Sear Georgian, the brute with a lust for beating up men and women, who had especially enjoyed the Bar 3 massacre.
After Deed was killed, that would leave Blue Corrigan and the crazy Japanese fighter who rode with them. The two would still be a significant force, but without Deed, Rhey was certain he and his men could handle them. Once they were dead, a bill of sale would surface. Bordner had sent for the well-known gunman, James Hannah, to join in this phase of elimination and expected his arrival any day now. Rhey Selmon had mentioned the possibility that the third brother, Holt Corrigan, might get involved, but just in passing. Holt was a known outlaw and not part of the LC ranch operation. Rhey wasn’t certain if he was even alive. There had been talk of a gunfight in an Amarillo saloon that had ended his life, though Sear Georgian told them it wasn’t true. Just a saloon tale that actually involved another man named Holt.
Bordner grinned and steak juice ran down his chin. The waiter returned with a bowl of hot gravy and a bottle of wine. The large man accepted them without comment and the waiter returned to his post by the door. After pouring gravy over his remaining potatoes, beets, and eggs, he started eating again.
Since coming to Texas, his wealth had grown greater by a series of stagecoach and bank robberies all done with care. Owning the Wilkon Bank gave him access to the timing of shipments of gold and gold certificates. Rhey Selmon took it from there, sending teams of gunmen wherever they were needed. Whenever possible, they made sure Holt Corrigan was blamed. It kept the Texas Rangers and Pinkertons looking for him.
Utterly without scruples, Rhey was the driving force in Bordner’s scheme to become the dominant rancher in the region. Another member of the gang, Dixie Murphy, took care of the cattle operations; he was a mean man, well suited to Bordner’s task. Two days ago, Dixie wired Bordner about catching up with the Bar 3 cattle herd en route to Kansas, successfully selling the beef in Abilene, and now returning. Left unstated in the wire was what had happened to the original Bar 3 drovers.
A knock on the door startled both Bordner and the waiter.
“Boss, I need to talk with you.” The voice was Rhey Selmon’s.
Bordner motioned for the waiter to let in his associate. How unlike Rhey to interrupt his lunch. Surely this had to be more than a report of moving the gang to the Bar 3 as planned. Bordner planned to move there himself in the next week or two.
Tall and skinny, Rhey Selmon entered. He was loyal to one man, Agon Bordner, and one cause, helping Bordner become a cattle baron. The two were alike in their love of greed and power. Physically, they were as different as night and day. Although hollow cheeked and thin, Rhey was quite strong and never seemed to sleep much. Regardless of the weather or the season, he wore a long bearskin coat. His clothes were of the range and nondescript. His eyes were ice blue and slightly crossed. Black hair strung from a narrow-brimmed hat. At his waist were two crossed gunbelts holding twin silver-plated revolvers with pearl handles, the only things of distinction that he wore or owned.
“What is it, Rhey? Can’t you see I’m dining?” Bordner said angrily. “Surely your news could have waited.”
“One of the Regan kids is alive,” the tall gunman blurted.
Bordner stared at his lieutenant without speaking, then motioned for the waiter to leave the room. Gulping his words, Rhey told him one of his men had overheard Blue Corrigan’s wife buying canned milk and candy at the general store and telling why the purchase was necessary. For a moment, the fat man thought he was going to vomit. How could this be?
“I thought you were better than that, Rhey,” he growled and slammed a fat fist against the top of the table. The filled glass jumped and spilled red wine down the side. “You’ve got to find that little brat—and kill him before he starts telling the world what really happened.”
“Right,” Rhey took a deep breath.
Bordner crossed his fat arms. “Wait. Nothing’s been damaged. Not really. Nobody’s going to believe that kid. What is he, five or six? Give me some time by myself and I’ll figure out our next move.”
“Do you still want us to get the kid?”
“No. If you shoot him now, it’ll only look suspicious. We’ll wait until James Hannah gets here. I’ll give him that job.” Bordner speared another slice of steak with his fork. “Say, three of Rose’s best doves are coming to my place tonight. Want to join in?”
Both men laughed.
“Are the boys outside?”
“Yeah, except the men I sent to hold up the stage.”
“Send’em in. I need to talk to Sear. Tell the waiter, we’re going to need more food. Lots of it.”