Ben watched from the dark street as the dancers filed laughing and talking out of the town hall. Lester and his wives came out, followed by the two fiddlers carrying their cased instruments.
Calling good night to each other, the people began to climb into their vehicles and go off in various directions through Canutillo. Lester helped his wives into his two-seated buggy and drove off toward his home on the south end of the town.
Ben mounted Brutus, and holding a block to the rear, followed Lester. His anger at the man for beating Maude was growing like a great serpent uncoiling in his stomach. Never could he let the man go unpunished for that.
Lester turned off the main street and drove up the lane to his house, where he stopped to let his wives step down from the buggy. He then continued around the end of the house to the barn in the rear.
Ben dismounted from Brutus, hung his hat on the pommel, and shadowed his way through the darkness to the front of the barn. There he waited, listening to Lester unharness the team of horses and put them in their stalls. The man came out of the barn whistling one of the pieces of music that had been played at the dance.
Ben silently approached Lester from behind. He closed the last few feet with a rush, and springing upon Lester, hooked him around the neck with his left arm and bent him far down in front. He struck Lester a savage blow to the ribs. Then slugged him again in the same place, putting all his pent-up rage into the blow. The jarring impact of the blows running up Ben's arms and into his shoulder was a glorious sensation.
Lester went to his knees under the savage onslaught. Then he caught his fall and heaved upward straining to straighten, and Ben, half lifted off the ground felt the full strength of the man's muscular body. Ben hung more of his weight on Lester, and tightened his arm into a choking hold and kept the man bent down so he could not see who was attacking him.
Lester spun to the left, trying to dislodge his foe. Ben spun with Lester, maintaining his tight neck-hold and staying on the man's side where he couldn't be hit. He hammered Lester twice more in the ribs with his right fist.
Lester swung his foot out to trip Ben and throw both men to the ground where he could roll and break free. Ben held them upright, and raised the aim of his fist and rained three fast wallops to the side of Lester's head.
Ben felt Lester weakening under the flood of punishing blows. He gave him three more hard ones to the head. The man's legs gave way and he hung limp in the crook of Ben's arm.
Detesting the touch of the man, Ben flung him down as so much offal and stepped away. Lester lay bloody and moaning on the dirt of the barnyard. Ben's rage wasn't yet cooled. He stepped back close to Lester and stomped him in the ribs. He felt bones break under his boot.
Smiling his satisfaction to the night, Ben turned and walked away.
* * *
"Hello, the house. Tom, you there?"
Ben was in the front yard of a two-story house on the east outskirts of Canutillo. The home belonged to his half brother, Tom Hawkins. Tom was the only one of his fourteen half brothers and sisters with whom he had associated. When he had arrived in the town earlier in the day, he had stabled his packhorse in the shed behind the house, and gone off to the hillside above town.
A light came alive in the upstairs and floated down the stairs to the front room. Tom came out onto the porch.
"About time you showed up," Tom said with obvious pleasure at Ben's arrival. "Saw a horse in the shed and figured it was yours."
"Good to see you, Tom."
"You too, Ben. Since you hadn't been around for months, I thought those greasers in Mexico might've shot you. Come on in."
"Sally home?" Ben said, moving up the walk to the porch.
"She's been over to her mom's visiting for the past two days. Seems young wives got to go and see their mom even when they've got a husband to take care of at home." Tom gestured at one of the rocking chairs on the porch. "Sit and tell me what you've been up to."
Ben sat and stretched his legs out on the porch. "Just stealing horses."
Tom chuckled. "I heard that rumor. I wasn't joking about the Mexicans killing you. Someday they'll get lucky."
"Maybe. How's business?" Though a year younger than Ben, his industrious brother owned a wheelwright business. He manufactured the wheels in Canutillo and sold them out of his store in El Paso. The huge traffic of vehicles passing through that town insured a thriving business.
"Better than ever. I'm selling every wheel I can make.
I'd like to expand to Abilene and Arizona City. I could use a partner. Especially one with a few thousand dollars. Are you interested?"
A month ago, even a day ago, Ben would have known the answer with certainty. It would have been no. But now? "Maybe so. I'll give it some thought."
"Good. I hope you do come in with me. But that's enough talk about work. What have you been up to so late at night?"
"That's something we need to talk about, in case the sheriff comes around asking 'bout me."
"What happened?"
"I worked Lester Ivorsen over."
Tom peered at Ben in the lamplight coming through the open door. "Lester's a strong man. But I don't see any bruises on you."
"I didn't go to fight him. I went to give him a beating.
"Did you give him a good one?"
"Left him laying flat with broken bones and bleeding."
"Couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow. He's been needing a thrashing for a long time. Just last month he knocked the hell out of Eddy for simply talking with one of his wives, the one named Alice."
"Hell, if I'd known that, I would've give him even more." Eddy was Tom's younger brother.
"But why did you feel it necessary to fight him?"
"He hit Maude Bradshaw."
"You mean Maude Ivorsen."
"I reckon so, now that she's married to that bastard."
"Lester does rule his covey of hens with a hard hand."
"Too damn hard. She tried to tell me that she fell, but I knew better."
"All of Lester's wives are pretty. But Maude is the prettiest. I remember how she used to look at you when you were around here."
"She is real easy to look at." Ben regretted not knowing Maude's feelings toward him back in those long past days.
"Ben, be careful about Lester for he's a mean one. He probably won't go to the sheriff. He'll come looking for you himself."
"I don't think he ever got a look at my face. But if he does come after me, I hope he comes with a gun."
"I've heard too much already," Tom said. He rose from the rocking chair. "Well, knowing you, you're probably hungry. So come inside and let's see what we can find to eat before we go to bed."