“YOU THOUGHT I held a hatred against all you Southrons over what happened to us in Arkansas during the War?” Wilson Eardle asked, running his gaze around the Texans who were seated with his wife, foreman, and himself at the dining table. “Hell—sorry, my dear—we cursed you and the rest of the Texas Light Cavalry more than once, the way you hit us, Captain Fog, but we admired you all as brave and honorable fighting men.”
“And that’s how we always thought of you New Jersey Dragoons, Major,” the small Texan replied. “I had good cause to know it was so on a couple of occasions, at least.”
After ordering the Ysabel Kid to arrange for the guards to be released and to see to it that any injuries they had sustained received treatment without delay, April Eardle, speaking in the same “accept no nonsense” fashion, had told the rest of the men in the dining room to sit down and talk things out. Then she went to the kitchen—where its Chinese occupants were engaged in a noisy game of mahjongg that, along with the sturdy construction of the building, had prevented them from hearing the disturbance caused by the arrival of the three Texans—and gave instructions for coffee to be delivered. With this done, she had sat by her husband and listened to the raiding party as they explained what had brought them to the ranch.
Upon being informed by Waggles Harrison why the action was being taken, Jimmy Conlin had stated that there were not and never had been any pistoleros hired by his employer. Then he had explained that the guards had been put out because a man had arrived earlier claiming to come from Sheriff Amon Reeves with a warning that a bunch of owlhoots who were raiding in the surrounding area were reported to be headed for Spanish Grant County and that the AW Ranch would be their most likely first target. Therefore, particularly since his wife had finally joined him after having been delayed in her arrival by urgent business matters, precautions had to be taken. Hearing this, the segundo of the Wedge had decided that they should come to the main house immediately to help clarify the situation.
Having been assured once more that none of his guards had been seriously injured, Eardle, showing he had not forgotten the attitudes of the professional soldier, had said they deserved what happened to them for being so slack in the performance of their duties. Then, in their defense, he had suggested that they were just young cowhands who were not experienced in such matters. To further win the approbation of the Texans, he had praised those of their party responsible for the excellent way in which they had performed their duty of silencing the guards and had voiced his gratitude over the leniency they employed while doing so.
The mention by Waggles Harrison of the possible reason for Eardle’s disliking Southerners had brought the incredulous response from him.
“If our noble veterans of the War have finished with their mutual-admiration meeting,” April said in an apparently cold and disapproving fashion, “may I suggest we get on with the important matters that we’re here to discuss.”
“Were your Southern belles like that, Captain Fog?” Eardle inquired.
“Some of them were worse,” Dusty answered. “Why, Belle Boyd, Mrs. Greenhow, and my cousin Betty”—at this point Mark Counter injected “and ’specially her!”—“why, they could come to being close to terse and even uppity at times.” xxviii
“My momma always told me the best way to make a man see reason was whomp him over the head with a skillet,” April warned, realizing that the remarks just made were proof that no animosity was felt by her husband or the small Texan. “Do I have to have Hop Lee fetch one for me?”
“Anyway, gentlemen,” Eardle said, “as I’m not responsible for the trouble which Captain Hart—!”
“Why not say ‘Dusty’ and ‘Stone’ instead of ‘Captain,’ husband of mine?” April put in, her manner redolent of badly strained patience. “There’s neither of you, nor him if it comes to that, in the Army anymore—which being, I bet the Army prays every night for its good fortune.”
“As I was saying, Captain Fog—!” the rancher began.
“I’d admire to hear it, Major Eardley—!” Dusty said in just as seemingly sober and serious a fashion.
“Hop Lee,” April yelled. “Fetch me your heaviest skillet!”
“Calf rope, Miz Eardle, ma’am!” the small Texan announced, spreading his open hands in a gesture of supplication.
“I should hope so, for shame,” the blonde declared, knowing the words were the way in which cowhands announced a desire to surrender. “Now, get to talking sensible, the both of you, and if any of you other knob heads—!”
“The lady means us three,” Mark informed Waggles and Conlin as if imparting a secret of magnitude.
“Of course I do,” April confirmed. “There’s only my fool husband and that Rio Hondo varmint here besides you to take pick of the remuda from.”
“I must apologize for my wife, gentlemen,” Eardle said somberly, although he realized that—regardless of the gravity of the situation—he was behaving in a lighthearted fashion he had not employed since he was a young second lieutenant fresh out of West Point. He also concluded that he was finding responding in such a fashion to be enjoyable—and the cause of his wife considerable amusement. “My mother always said I was marrying beneath myself; but what did she know—look at what she had for a son. And now, unless the distaff side of the family wants to make any more frivolous interruptions, Dusty, seeing as how I’m not responsible for Stone’s trouble, it strikes me as being a fairly good notion to try and find out who is.”
Far from being annoyed by the reference to the statement falsely attributed by her husband to his mother, April was delighted by the way in which he was behaving like the kindhearted and considerate man she knew him to be under the mantle of hardness wrought by his military upbringing and training. They had met while he was still coming to terms with his retirement from the Army, and having recognized his true character as well as developing an affection for him equal to that he had shown her, had sought to bring it where it would be noticeable to others. It struck her now that, in the company of men like the big dusty-blond Texan she had come to respect during their meeting, he was capable of thawing out. She felt their already satisfactory life would be much improved by the change.
“I’m thinking along those same lines myself, Wils,” Dusty admitted, employing the name April had given to her husband. “There’re some who’d say the fellers who own the other two spreads hereabouts’d seem the most likely choice, and seeing that the other got himself killed in a riding accident this morning, that leaves just one.”
“Going to see that one seems like the most logical way for us to find out,” Eardle suggested. “And I’m willing to bet that is what you already had in mind.”
“I was thinking on doing just that,” the small Texan declared.
“Then some of my men and I are coming along,” the rancher stated. “As there’s been plenty done to make it looked like I was to blame for all the trouble Stone’s been having, I want to make sure it stops happening.”
“Could be we’re picking on the wrong feller,” Dusty reminded.
“I’m not forgetting that,” Eardle replied.
“Which being, I’m going to tell Sheriff Reeves what we’ve found out before I do anything,” Dusty warned. “Then it’ll be up to him how he wants it played.”
“You won’t get any arguments from me on that,” Eardle answered. “I haven’t met him yet, but Mis—Jimmy tells me he’s a decent and fair man. Only, you say there are some hired guns involved. In that case he could need help, and the stronger a posse he can take with him, the better chance he will have to deal with them.”
“They do say the Good Lord is on the side of the stronger battalions,” April put in, noticing with satisfaction that her husband had employed their foreman’s given name instead of using “Mr. Conlin,” as had been his practice previously. “And, even if it’s wrong, he should be. I’ll go tell Hop Lee and the rest of them to quit their game of mahjong and get food ready for you. My momma always said men could fight better on a full stomach and, whoever is behind this fuss will have hired guns backing him, so fighting’s likely to be needed.”
“Well, now, Mr. Eisteddfod,” Jeremy Korbin remarked, his manner threatening. “It’s time for us to be paid off so’s we can be on our way.”
The time was just past noon on the day after the events that had caused such a stir in Child City.
Having spent the previous day and until late at night in the town, supervising the activities of his men and creating an alibi for himself, Egbert Eustace Eisteddfod had decided to visit them instead of returning to the Vertical Triple E ranch.
Now he realized he had made an error in judgment.
Ever since he had arrived at the small yet sturdy old adobe building concealed near the center of an extensive area of woodland some eight miles from the main house of the Vertical Triple E ranch, a structure he believed was not known to exist by any members of the crew, he had been expecting something of the sort, although hoping it would come from another, less dangerous source. From the moment he had entered, he had been aware that everybody present was in a disturbed or alarmed frame of mind. Although less discernible where the surviving hired guns were concerned, Peter Medak and the young men who had been in the Arizona State Saloon were clearly frightened. Eisteddfod’s instinct in such matters told him they were already making plans to get well clear of Spanish Grant County as soon as possible. The same was clearly also true of the man injured in the fight with Peaceful Gunn; this man was also present, although in no state to offer an opinion. However, knowing Korbin and his fellow pistoleros would pose a far greater threat to him should they desert, he had hoped they would be ruled by a desire to keep receiving their pay.
For some years before he took possession of the property he had named the Vertical Triple E ranch—using the name “Egbert Eustace Eisteddfod,” selected to support his claim to be of Welsh descent—he had made a lucrative livelihood as a fence for stolen goods in Washington, D.C. As he had when circumstances compelled him to flee from the city and live in Arizona, xxix he had used an alias, “Lachlan Lachlan of McLachlan,” and given Glasgow—a town in Scotland known to practically everybody with whom he had come into contact—as the place of his birth. He had adopted a suitable accent and turned to ways of living that would not be practiced by one of his true nationality in the hope that doing so would prevent the cover from being suspected.
Moving westward in his attempt to evade the law, Eisteddfod had seen a way by which he might throw any hunters off his trail completely. He had contrived to bring away most of the money acquired during his career as a fence, and this was more than sufficient for him to be able to pay his share in the scheme he had concocted with Cornelius Maclaine, Patrick Hayes, and Douglas Loxley. Obtaining the connivance of a dishonest official in the Land Office, they had purchased the four ranches into which the original Spanish grant was split on the death intestate of its owner. The arrangement was that the property of any member who died should be divided among the survivors. It had not been the most satisfactory arrangement and was the cause of considerable bitterness and hostility among the participants, although this had never been obvious to anybody other than themselves.
From the beginning, Eisteddfod had been determined that he would be the sole survivor—as he suspected was the case with the others. He did not learn until after he had arranged for the fatal accident that should have caused the C Over M to be shared by the survivors that, presumably in a fit of spite, Maclaine had left it to a nephew in Texas. Then, following a similarly created end for Loxley, he found out that the Lazy Scissors was to go to a cousin not long retired from the Army.
Determined not to be thwarted in his desire to gain possession of the whole of the former Spanish grant’s lands and knowing that this could not be achieved legally—no written proof of the deal’s existence having been made, for obvious reasons—Eisteddfod had started to obtain the means by which he hoped to bring it about. Having enough of the necessary connections in Arizona to know where to apply, he had secured the services of Korbin and the other hired guns. Their purpose was to create trouble between the new owners of the two ranches in such a way that each would blame the other. Because none of them had the necessary specialized knowledge to perform the task, the injured man, before being incapacitated at the hands of Peaceful Gunn, was to have hair-branded stock from both ranches in such a way as to make it appear it was being done at the instigation of either Stone Hart or Major Wilson Eardle.
Having no faith in either their intelligence or abilities, Eisteddfod had not wanted to have the six Easterners and Peter Medak foisted upon him. However, this was done at the request of a group of “liberals” with whom he had done business in Washington, D.C., and who had somehow learned of his whereabouts. Along with others of their kind in Arizona, they had no desire to see the territory status turned into states until they were sure they could take sufficient control of its affairs to be able to run things their way. Because of what was known about his past, and because he had decided it would be useful and profitable to him should they attain their ends, he had raised no objections. While far from enamored of the prospect, and despite suspecting that the men were sent in part to keep watch over him and suspecting most of them would be more of a hindrance than help, he had been unable to turn away the assistance sent to him.
By offering to accept a lower rate of pay than the others employed by Angus McTavish, claiming he wanted to gain experience at working in the West prior to taking a place of his own in another town, Medak had obtained employment as a bartender at the Arizona State Saloon. This gave him a reason for being in Child City and, when the young “liberals” were sent to take part in the causing of trouble between the two ranchers, to supervise their efforts. After the debacle of their attempt to carry out the first task assigned to them, rather than have them face a further interrogation by the shrewd sheriff Amon Reeves, Eisteddfod had ordered them to go to and remain at the place where they were staying until a means for them to return to the East could be organized.
Unlike the hired guns and the cow thief, the young “liberals” had never relished having to stay in the poorly furnished—albeit weatherproof—old Spanish house. Nor, despite their professed desire to be at one with those they considered to be of a lower status, had they cared for the disdainful way in which the older Western men had treated them. Therefore, Eisteddfod had arrived expecting them to begin demanding to be sent back to the safety of the East without delay. He had no doubt that he could deal with them easily enough. And he was confident he would be able to cope with a similar desire to leave on the part of Medak and the injured cow thief. However, he knew that what was implied by the statement from Korbin was a vastly different and infinitely more dangerous proposition.
“You’ve already been paid in advance for everything you’ve done,” Eisteddfod pointed out, trying to sound less worried than he was feeling.
“Call it a parting bonus, if you like,” Korbin replied.
“I don’t have any money with me,” Eisteddfod said in a whine.
“Then go get some from that safe you’ve got hid down in the cellar.”
“S-safe! What safe is that?”
“Don’t try to hand me that shit!” Korbin growled, and the other hired guns displayed a similar menacing posture. “I found it behind the junk you put there to keep it hidden almost as soon as you left us here.”
“Then it must have been there since the old don’s day,” Eisteddfod offered.
“I might’ve believed you,” the gambler-dressed hard case sneered. “Only, it’s been opened way too recently for that, and unless it was the old son of a bitch’s ghost around ’n’ haunting, which don’t strike me as likely, that only leaves you able to do the unlocking.”
“I don’t have the key with m—!” Eisteddfod began.
“We’ll search you to make sure you aren’t lying to us,” Korbin threatened. “Which, should you be, we won’t be any too pleased with you and’ll be able to do the opening after we’re through with you.”
Before the matter could be taken any further, there was an interruption.
However, Eisteddfod did not regard what happened next as likely to improve his chances to any great extent.
“You in the house!” a voice yelled from the woodland surrounding the building. “This is Sheriff Amon Reeves of Spanish Grant County here. You’re surrounded and best come out with your hands raised empty in the air.”