South Spring Ranch
September 1878
The long striding, big boned buckskin ate up the last mile home at a slow lope. John Simpson Chisum sat an easy saddle at the end of an uneventful ride down from Lincoln. The trail spilled out of hills dotted in juniper and thatched in greens burnished old gold by the sun. A faultless blue sky soared overhead in the waning light of late afternoon, setting a perfect stage for the ascent of the evening star in the east. Average height and rangy strong, Chisum had a presence about him. He tucked wavy brown hair salted gray at the temples under a sweat-stained hat. Intense blue-gray eyes flickered under a rack of bushy brows set in lean sun-weathered features. His mustache was neatly trimmed and waxed with a whisker patch at his lower lip. He wore a plain spun shirt and britches. A Winchester rifle rode in his saddle boot on the trail. Past that, he found no need to carry a gun. Others did that for him.
South Spring Ranch was home to Chisum’s Long Rail brand. His herds ranged up and down the Pecos Valley, numbering near one hundred thousand head. The ranch sat on a low rise, a half day’s ride west of the river near the north end of the valley. He loped through a weathered split rail arch bearing the Long Rail brand and let the buckskin turn his nose up the rise to the bunkhouse, corral and stable beyond. A large adobe hacienda sprawled across the crest of a rise backed up to hill country to the north and west. A creek ran out of the hills from the north along the back of the house and corral, providing fresh water for the ranch house and stock.
He drew up to the stable and stepped down. A bright white smile lit the shadows beyond the open stable doors. Deacon Swain’s shiny broad features resolved out of the shadows.
“Welcome home, Mr. John. Here, let me put up that horse for you.” A bear of a man, the former South Carolina slave came to South Spring with Wade Caneris, the Long Rail foreman. Deac had proven himself a capable hand and Dawn Sky’s closest friend until Johnny Roth came along.
“Thanks, Deac.” He pulled the Winchester from the saddle boot, rested the long barrel on his right shoulder and handed over the reins. He set off up the hill to the house. His eyes drifted northeast to the house Roth built for Dawn Sky. He’d given them the section for a wedding present. He could see the beginnings of a second house further down the slope. Johnny took Ty Ledger on as a partner after the battle for Lincoln. Ty and his new bride Lucy settled right into South Spring’s extended family. They’d all be interested in the news from Lincoln.
He clumped up the porch to a massive front door. The door opened to a sprawling adobe hacienda furnished in heavy rustic wood and leather covered furniture. The smell of fresh baked bread greeted him. Dawn Sky stepped out of the kitchen into the dining room.
“Sure smells good in here,” he said.
She smiled. The girl was the closest thing to a daughter a man could have without being blood kin. Her mother had been his housekeeper until the fever took her, leaving the little girl to no one’s care but his. He’d raised her like his own. In time, she kept house for him too. She was a young woman now, married he reminded himself. She carried her lean frame with the proud bearing of her Navajo people. Wide-set dark eyes atop high cheekbones gave lively expression to the serious set of full lips. Those eyes might flash like summer lightning or turn soft and liquid like a river eddy with the mood of the moment. She’d grown up easy on the eye. Easy to see why she’d dropped a loop on a man like Johnny Roth. Likely the first thing that ever held him in one place.
“You got enough supper fixin’s in there for the five of us?”
She nodded.
He knew she would. Dawn saw things or felt things or dreamed things in ways he never understood. He just came to accept the fact she was always a step ahead of him.
They gathered around the dining room table just after sunset. Dawn and Lucy served a steaming platter of roast beef, baked potatoes, gravy, and green beans fresh picked from the garden Dawn kept along the creek at the back of the house.
Johnny Roth had already started to feel like something of a son to Chisum. Tall and muscled, Roth came with a history. His eyes, the color of mountain ice told some of it along with a small scar that split his lower lip. He wore a pair of black leather rigged Colts that marked him a competent man. He’d worn them in his days as a bounty hunter, a part of his past Chisum feared might haunt him. Still, Dawn loved him and he loved her, plain to see. In the end, that had to be enough.
He felt better for having Ty Ledger around. He and Lucy hadn’t married yet. They planned to once the house was finished. For the time bein’ she was bunkin’ at Dawn and Johnny’s place while Ty stayed down in the bunkhouse with the hands. That arrangement probably accounted for the noticeable rate of progress on the house. Ty and Lucy had their stories too. Chisum didn’t know them near as well.
Ledger was a tall wiry rough shaved Texan who’d worked as a drover before turnin’ to lawman. He’d been sheriff up in Cheyenne and a deputy US marshal for a time. He and Roth came to New Mexico on the trail of a man who’d murdered Ty’s wife. They’d nearly got their hair lifted by renegade C’manch in the bargain. It made for a special bond between the two men.
Lucy Sample showed up in Lincoln about the same time as Roth and Ledger. A wisp of a girl, she was almost childlike, taking her woman’s figure from a tiny waist. She had a rich fall of sable hair and large brown eyes that said they knew more than the rest of her let on. She’d worked for John Tunstall before he got killed. Ty managed to get her out of the store before the battle for Lincoln started. Somewhere along that way the romance must have gotten started was all Chisum could figure.
The ladies took their seats and started passing platters of food. Roth helped himself to a slice of beef and passed the platter to Chisum.
“So what’s the news up in Lincoln?”
“Well, things has quieted down some since you three left.”
They laughed.
“Dolan’s fixin’ to get back in business. They say he’s makin’ a deal to turn the House over to the county for a new courthouse. He’ll take over Tunstall’s old store and fix up the damage.”
“John’s turnin’ over in his grave,” Lucy said, passing the potatoes.
Roth cut a bite of beef. “What’s Evans up to?”
“Nothin’ I’ve heard.”
“Likely we’ll know next time Dolan needs cattle for the fort or the reservation.”
Chisum shook his head. “Don’t look like we accomplished much does it?”
Conversation fell silent for a time. “There’s more news out of Santa Fe.” All eyes fixed on Chisum. “President Hays has replaced Governor Axtel. He’s appointed General Lew Wallace governor. He’s also removed T. B. Catron as US attorney.”
Ty knit his brow. “What do you suppose that means?”
Chisum paused, a forkful of beans halfway to his mouth. “For one thing it puts a big hole in the Santa Fe Ring. They say General Wallace is honest.”
“Santa Fe won’t know what to do with an honest governor,” Roth said.
“A man like that might have answered my call for martial law,” Ty said.
Roth cut his eyes to Ty. “A lot of people might still be alive if he had.”
Chisum gave a wry nod. “The president is a day late and a buck short. Just like government, tryin’ to catch up with what’s already happened.”
Sumner Saloon
September 1878
Oil lamps flickered along the walls and behind the bar, the beacons shrouded in a fog of tobacco smoke. Conversation set out a low hum, punctuated by an occasional peel of laughter or outburst of profanity. Garrett filled the Kid’s glass.
“They say this new governor might grant them as fought in the war am . . . am . . . nasty . . .”
“Amnesty.”
“That’s right. It’s kind of like a pardon, ain’t it?”
“It is.”
“You think he will, Pat?”
Garrett shrugged. “He might. It’d be a quick way to settle things down.”
“If I could get me one of them pardons, I’d start over fresh. I wouldn’t be no trouble to nobody. I’d be the same Billy Bonney Mr. Tunstall saw fit to hire. I’d get me an honest job. Maybe even settle down.”
Garrett refilled his glass. “Write a letter to Governor Wallace and ask him for one.”
“You think that would help?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“Aw shucks, I wouldn’t know the first thing to say.”
“Give it a try. I’ll help if I can.”
“Would you, Pat? Would you really? I’d be much obliged.”
“Sure, Kid.”
“Evenin’, Billy.”
The Kid glanced over his shoulder.
“Remember me? Billy Barlow. I been workin’ on my draw. It’s comin’ along real good. Someday I’ll show you I’d be a good man to ride with.”
The Kid turned back to the bar. Barlow slid off to the far end. Garrett’s gaze lifted toward the batwings. The Kid followed his eyes in the mirror behind the bar.
A stern-looking, bespectacled man of average height stood framed in the doors. He wore a shabby coat, plain shirt and baggy britches. He had a prominent forehead, courtesy of a receded hairline, and a drooping mustache. He blinked behind spectacles reflecting the low light. He seemed to settle on Garrett and crossed to the end of the bar near Barlow.
“Excuse me.” Garrett sidled down the bar to his new customer. “What’ll it be, Pete?”
“Whiskey.”
Garrett set down a glass and poured.
“Nice to see you honestly employed.”
Garrett shook his head. “How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t have nothin’ to do with them cattle of yours.”
“So you say. Leave the bottle.”
Garrett returned to the Kid.
“Nice feller,” the Kid said.
“Pete? Oh he’s all right. I used to work for him. He lost some cattle and blamed it on me.”
“Did you take ’em?”
He shook his head. “He got it wrong.”
The Kid tossed off his drink. “I know how that works.”
Pete Maxwell eyed Garrett and the Kid.
“You know who that is talkin’ to Pat?” asked Billy Barlow.
Maxwell glanced at young Barlow and shrugged.
His eyes glittered. “That there’s Billy the Kid.”
Pete took a second look.
“He’s the fastest gun around these parts.”
Maxwell studied his drink. “You’d do well to find someone else to admire, Barlow. His kind ain’t nothin’ but trouble.”