The railroad rumors had risen periodically ever since the war, about as regularly as the big crops of grasshoppers that plagued us now and again. They always seemed reasonable enough. Somebody, someday, was bound to decide there was a profit to be made hauling goods from the coast by rail instead of by trail. I figured this fear must sometimes have awakened Branch Isom in the middle of a long night. Now the rumors started again, but this time there was a difference. A surveying party moved through the country. They made no secret of the fact that the newly-organized Gulf Coast and San Antonio Railroad planned to build along the general route of the old cart and wagon trails.
I expected Thomas to be pleased, but as usual he was looking farther ahead than I did. That was why I was still a little landowner and he was a big one. He said, “Sure, it’ll be the end of Isom’s mainline freight outfit, but they’ll still need smaller lines to serve towns away from the rails. And a railroad will mean more prosperity
for Stonehill than the freight trails did. Isom can throw the freight line away and still be richer than he ever was. He owns half of that wretched, damnable town.” His face clouded over, and I was sorry I had brought up the subject.
There was a lot I didn’t know about railroads. I guess I was like the fellow who buys crackers out of a barrel and figures they just grew that way. I had assumed somebody with a lot of money just came along and built the line. The people in Stonehill must have thought as I did. It came as a shock to them when the builder of the road arrived one day and asked for a sixty-thousand-dollar bonus to put his tracks through town. Their first inclination was to treat him to tar and feathers. As I heard it later, Branch Isom had a better grip on reality and advised that they study the proposition. Lamps burned far into the night at the big Isom house. Sixty thousand dollars was not a sum you snapped your fingers and called up easily, not in those days.
Our interest in the matter was only one of curiosity, because the route the surveyors had marked lay a couple of miles south of Thomas’ land at the nearest point and a good dozen from mine. Thomas paid no attention to it. He predicted that the deal would blow apart anyway, and the railroad would never be built. Some sharp Yankee lawyer would get away with a lot of money and never be heard of again; it had happened before.
But one day while Thomas and I were at the corrals watching one of the Fernandez boys—men now, really—sack out a new bronc, a nice black carriage drew up to the big house. It had a Negro driver. A portly gentleman climbed down from the back seat and dusted himself. He looked up at the many front steps with dread.
Thomas called to him and saved him the climb. I followed along with Thomas. I had no real business there, but I gave in to curiosity, my biggest vice. We seldom saw such a rig at the ranch. It, and the gentleman who had arrived in it, reeked of money and importance.
I am sure the gray-bearded man sensed who Thomas was but he went through the polite motions. “I have come to see Mr. Thomas Canfield?” He put it like a question.
Thomas introduced himself. The gentleman wasted no time with me; he could probably tell at a glance that I had about as much authority over major business decisions as one of Laura’s white chickens scratching about the yard. “I am Jefferson P. Ashcroft, sir, vice-president of the GC and SA Railroad.”
I had known right off that he had not come to sell hay and that he was no horse trader. Well, maybe he was, but of a higher order than those of my previous acquaintance.
“I have come on a matter of urgent business, Mr. Canfield,” he said, fanning himself with his felt hat. Thomas led him to a bench Laura had placed beneath a big tree in the front yard. The man looked too tired to climb those front steps right now. He said, “You have perhaps heard of the impasse we have reached in our negotiations with the businessmen of Stonehill? We have asked what we feel is a reasonable bonus for placing a terminal in their city. They have not seen fit to meet our offer.”
Thomas shrugged. “Stonehill’s affairs are of no interest to me, Mr. Ashcroft. I have no interest in whether that town gets a railroad or not. For that matter, I do not care whether your railroad is ever built or not.”
Ashcroft frowned. “I am given to understand that you are the largest landholder in this region. You ship thousands upon thousands of cattle each year.”
“Drive, not ship. I have them driven.”
“But sooner or later they are put upon a train. How much more beneficial would it be to you, sir, if you were able to ship them from right here on your property?”
“To where? Your railroad will go nowhere except to San Antonio and to the coast. My cattle go to Chicago and points east.”
“Our railroad will someday connect with others.”
“Someday! Someday I will be dead.”
Ashcroft was a horse trader, all right. He recognized when he had a lame horse on his hands. “I shall lay my cards on the table, sir. As our route is surveyed it will cost us several miles of extra track to pass through Stonehill. We could cut our cost by building across your land.”
There was not a trace of “give” in Thomas’ eyes. “I am sure you could. And I suppose you would want me to pay you for the privilege.”
Ashcroft seemed surprised at the thought. “No sir. We would buy your right-of-way at a fair price.”
Thomas did not study the proposition long. “I buy land. I do not sell it. I would be happy to have you stay for supper, Mr. Ashcroft, but our business talk has come to an end.”
Ashcroft was inclined to argue the point, but that look came into Thomas’ eyes, the one that always turned away argument.
Laura came onto the porch as Ashcroft’s carriage rounded the barn. “Mr. Canfield, wasn’t your company staying for supper?”
Thomas shook his head. “No, Mrs. Canfield. His digestion seems poorly.”
I have always sort of blamed the Hallcomb boys for what happened to Kirby, though I know the fault was not theirs alone. Kirby rode right into it himself. And I know you could blame Thomas, for not knowing how to give him a more righteous upbringing. I even blame myself, remembering the times I should have put him over my knee instead of leaving that for Thomas when I knew he would not do it either, unless sorely provoked. A strong rod can sometimes help a tree grow straight and tall. Kirby bent with the wind.
It started, in a way, when the sheriff threw Speck Hallcomb in jail for beating up a San Antonio teamster he outweighed by thirty pounds. This put Speck in a mood
for retaliation, a task for which he would need help. Kirby had not been running with the Hallcomb boys for a while; they had gotten along well enough without him. But Speck could not get out of jail, and Bo became tired of hunting up deviltry by himself, so he came out to the ranch and fetched Kirby when he know Thomas was away from home. When Thomas returned, Kirby had been on a double-rectified drunk with Bo Hallcomb in Stonehill for three days. He was nineteen then, going on twenty, and tall for his age. Buying whisky was easy for him so long as he had the money. Thomas would not go to Stonehill himself to bring Kirby home; he sent the Fernandez brothers.
They brought Kirby home grimly, all three looking somewhat the worse for wear. The brothers would not talk about it, but I found out later that Kirby had fought them, saying some sorry things about their being nothing but a couple of dirty Mexicans who could not tell him what to do. Those were things they would not have heard from him had he been sober, for Marco and Juan had taught him most of what he knew about horse and cow work and most of the decent things he knew about life in general. But the things a man says when drunk are often those which have been on his mind when he was sober. The brothers did not have much to do with Kirby after that.
Thomas put Kirby to the dirtiest, meanest work he could find around the ranch. As usual, the reformation was shallow and short. Speck Hallcomb got out of jail in due time, nursing his grudges. He and Bo sneaked out to the south camp and took Kirby away with them. He did not need persuasion, just an opportunity.
The first any of us knew about it, the priest came hurrying down from the church in New Silesia, the buggy team lathered, his face furrowed with trouble. Thomas was gone, as usual. Laura sent for me. I knew when I looked at her and at the priest that something was badly wrong. Kirby and the Hallcomb boys had ridden
into New Silesia roaring drunk and had shot up the place, running all the “potato-eaters” off of the street.
It was a merciful thing that both of the old Brozeks had gone to their reward and did not have to suffer through another humiliation at their grandson’s hands, the priest lamented.
Laura cried softly. She looked older than she really was; part of it was Thomas, but a lot of it, I knew, was Kirby. “Reed, maybe you can talk to him. Please, bring him home,” she said.
It had been a long time since Kirby had talked much to me, and longer since he had listened to me. I had to call on all the persuasive powers I had to convince Marco and Juan that they should go with me. They had not forgotten the last time, and probably they never would. I managed to convey to them my concern that Kirby might require stronger persuasion than I was physically able to give.
We arrived in New Silesia too late. Kirby and the Hallcombs had moved on to richer game, to Stonehill, where Speck still had a score he wanted to mark off. New Silesia normally was a quiet little place where you still heard more Polish spoken on the streets than English. The only local law was a little constable whose most strenuous normal duty was chasing schoolboys home at dark to study their books. Kirby and the Hallcombs had buffaloed him the first ten minutes they were in town; he had not come back outside again until they left.
He spent a minute or two telling me what he would do if they ever came back, then said darkly, “Stonehill is not New Silesia. They will kill somebody there, or be killed.”
I did not want to take him all that seriously, but I got a cold feeling in my stomach. I glanced at Marco and Juan. Their eyes told me they had it too. We set our horses into a long trot for Stonehill. For the animals’ sake I tried to hold the pace to that, but in a while I was
loping, and the brothers were close beside me.
The New Silesia-Stonehill road led by the Goodson Hallcomb farm. As we passed it, Speck and Bo Hallcomb came riding out. I hailed them. They glanced at us but kept riding. I had to spur a tired horse to catch up to them. I rode past and turned around to face them before they would stop. They were cold sober, both of them, and scared.
“Where’s Kirby?” I demanded. Neither would look at me. I asked them again. The Fernandez brothers pushed in behind them, adding to the pressure.
Speck still would not look at me, but he said, “It was Kirby done it, not us. We didn’t figure on anything going that far.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him. “Did what?”
“He shot and killed the sheriff. We tried to stop him, but he went and done it anyway. Now you got to let us go, Mr. Sawyer. Them people’ll be coming after us.”
“What people?”
“The whole town, I expect. We turned and lit out when we seen the sheriff go down. Seemed like the whole town was shooting at Kirby, and at us too.”
“You went off and left him there by himself?”
“Them was awful mad people.”
I put spurs to my horse, cursing and praying at the same time. I could hear the Fernandez brothers pushing to stay close behind me. We were still in a lope as we hit the edge of town. I reined up to look for a minute. The chill came back, for the place was quiet, much too quiet. Not a wagon was rolling. I saw a few horsemen milling around, and people standing in clusters. Whatever had happened was over and done. I could not bring myself to look at the brothers, but I knew they must share the cold dread that came over me like a winter fog. We walked out hard-breathing horses down the street. The people turned to stare, and I felt anger and hostility rising against us. Everybody knew who we were.
A familiar figure walked out into the street and stood waiting. Branch Isom had put on weight the last few years. He was not exactly portly, but prosperity had made him comfortable and soft, a far cry from the muscular, driving man I remembered from my first acquaintance with him in old Indianola town. I noted that he was not armed, though nearly everyone else on the street was.
We stopped our horses a few feet from him. He seemed to be looking beyond us. “Is Thomas Canfield on his way?” he asked.
I sensed right off that the town was braced for invasion. They took us for the vanguard. I hoped they could see we were not carrying guns. “We haven’t seen him,” I said. “Where’s Kirby?”
Isom did not answer me directly. “You know what he did? He killed the sheriff. Wounded a couple of other people, too.”
“We just heard about the sheriff from the Hallcomb boys. We didn’t know about anybody else. Where’s Kirby?” I was afraid I knew better, but I added, “You have him in jail?”
Isom shook his head and turned, beckoning. The people had moved out into the street as if to block us, but they stepped back and made room as Isom led us fifty yards to the open livery barn. Beneath a brush arbor, on a pile of hay, lay an old gray blanket. I knew what was under it and did not want to look as Isom pulled it back, but I forced myself.
Kirby must have been shot twenty times.
Isom said, “I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world. But the way things were, people didn’t have a choice. He had to be stopped.”
I supposed he was right, but the grief and the anger and the cold nausea all came up on me just the same. They did not have to shoot him to pieces.
“Who-all did it, Branch?” I asked.
He let the blanket down gently. “All I can tell you is
that I was not among them. Don’t ask me to tell you more.”
“Thomas will ask you.”
“I hoped you would head him off, Sawyer. If he comes in here boiling for trouble, he’ll find it. This town is in a black mood. I’ll have a wagon fetched around so you can take Kirby home. Try and keep Thomas away from here. Please!”
It was hard to realize this was the same Branch Isom I had known so long ago. There had been a time he would have stood in the middle of the street and dared Thomas to come. Now he was begging me for peace.
“I have worked hard to get this town a respectable name, to live down what it used to be,” he continued. “Now we have a railroad coming in. We don’t want any more trouble here.”
I said, “Bring the wagon.”
The hostility of the people was silent but as real as a pit of rattlesnakes. Juan and Marco and I lifted Kirby into the wagon and covered him with the blanket. Nobody offered to help. Juan climbed onto the wagon seat. Isom handed him the lines and looked back at me. “For God’s sake, Sawyer, keep Thomas away from here!”
A shout lifted from the far end of the street. My heart came to my throat as I saw a group of riders coming, fanned out in a wedge. Townspeople pulled back to the porches and wooden sidewalks, making room.
“It’s too late,” I said. “He’s here.”
Thomas’ face was gray as he rode up the street. He stopped before the wagon, his jaw set like a block of stone. He stared at the covered form. The voice did not sound like his.
“Pull back the blanket.”
Juan started to obey. I reined my horse in close and caught the comer of the blanket. “No, Thomas. You don’t want to, not here.”
Thomas’ eyes cut me like a knife. He bumped his horse’s shoulder against mine and pushed me aside. He
lifted the blanket for himself. His cheekbones seemed to bulge. His eyes glassed over. When he turned, he was in a wild rage. He fixed his gaze on Branch Isom.
“Who did it?”
Branch Isom had lost color, but he did not back away. “Your boy killed the sheriff, Thomas. He was shooting up the town.”
“I want to know who-all did this to him!”
“Nobody wanted this. I know how you feel, Thomas; I’ve got a boy of my own. If there’d been any other way …”
“Damn you, Isom! I don’t want to take on this whole town, but I’ll do it if I don’t see the men who did this to my boy. You call them out here!”
Thomas’ hand was on the butt of his pistol. My throat went dry as I looked at the cowboys he had brought with him … gringos, Mexicans … he had never made much distinction so long as they did their work. They were scared, most of them, looking into the guns of half that town. But they also appeared determined. If Thomas said the word, war would explode then and there. Seeing those wild and ungiving eyes, I was sure Thomas was about to give that word. We were badly outnumbered, but not one man of Thomas’ crew pulled back or showed any sign of the feather. No less was tolerated of a man in those days; he was expected to be loyal to the brand he worked for and die for it, if circumstances carried him to that. Marco and Juan and I were unarmed, but I knew we would be shot down with the rest.
I said, “Thomas, Kirby was in the wrong.”
Thomas did not respond.
Cold sweat glistened on Branch Isom’s round, reddish face. “For the love of God, Thomas, look around you. There’s two men dead already. You pull that gun and there may be twenty.”
“You’ll be the first one.”
Isom’s shoulders slumped. I thought he had given up. Then he said something I would never have expected.
“Shoot me, then, if it’ll satisfy you. Shoot me and let my town alone.”
Thomas seethed. “I should have shot you twenty years ago. I had the chance, once. I’ve always been sorry I didn’t do it.”
Fear was plain in Isom’s eyes, but he did not back away.
Thomas said, “You’re not armed.”
“I haven’t carried a gun in years.”
“Get one.”
Isom brought himself to look in Thomas’ terrible eyes. “No. You’ll have to shoot me as I am.”
Thomas drew the pistol halfway out of the holster, and thirty men brought up their guns. Isom stood watching him, his face frozen. He did not plead. He did not move his feet.
Thomas seemed oblivious to the guns raised against him. He never took his eyes from Isom’s face. “One last time, Isom, tell me who killed him.”
Isom said nothing. He held his eyes to Thomas’, and after a long moment it was Thomas who looked away.
“Whoever you are,” he shouted to the town, “whoever shot my boy, come out here and face me!”
Nobody answered. Nobody came.
Thomas let the pistol slip back into the holster. His gaze ran the length of the street, touching on every man. His voice rose so that everybody on the street could hear. “Then you all killed him. This whole town killed him, the way it’s killed almost everybody I ever cared about in my life. This town killed my father. It killed my brother, and my mother, and my wife. Now it’s killed my son!”
He paused. I could not hear a sound except the nervous movement of horses, the squeak of saddle leather.
Thomas stood in his stirrups and raised his fist over his head. In a voice that must have carried out onto the prairie he shouted. “This town had killed the last of
mine. I swear by Almighty God, I am going to kill this town!”
He reined his horse around and moved back down the street. The crowd melted aside as the Red Sea must have parted for Moses. The cowboys, much relieved, turned their horses and followed him. I felt weak enough to fall out of my saddle. I nodded at Juan, still on the wagon. “Let’s go.”
I tried not to look at the townspeople, though I had to give one more glance to Branch Isom. He looked drained and limp and incredibly sad. But he never moved.
We buried Kirby in the family plot on the slope, beside the uncle whose unlucky name he bore. Staring at the weathered stone with the first Kirby’s name on it, I thought of the many ways in which the two young men had been alike, impetuous, even wild. But the first Kirby had sought nothing more than fun; there had never been anything little about him, or mean.
Mostly I watched Thomas during the ceremony. Laura held his arm at first, trying to give him comfort. But Thomas seemed to draw away, shutting her out. He stood alone. Laura put her arms around Katy, and the two women wept quietly together.
As the minister finished his final prayer, the little crowd dutifully came by in an informal line and expressed their condolences, the custom of the country, a burden the bereaved were expected to endure stoically. Thomas received them with a stony face and a mechanical manner. The last two men to come up were strangers, each wearing a circular badge with a star in its center. One of them asked, “Could we talk with you a minute, Mr. Canfield? Somewhere in private?”
Thomas blinked, taken by surprise. His stony look returned. “This is private enough.”
The Rangers were ill at ease. The spokesman said, “We’ve been sent from San Antonio to keep the peace.”
“It’s a little late, don’t you think?”
“We were sent to be sure nothing more happens. Our orders are to do anything necessary to see that it doesn’t. Anything.”
Thomas’ eyes narrowed. His gaze dropped to the pistols both men wore prominently on their hips. “If I were going to shoot up Stonehill, I would have done it yesterday.”
“You made a threat about killing the town.”
“I intend to,” he said coldly. “And there won’t be one thing you or anybody can do about it.”
He turned from the Rangers as if they were not there. He drew me away from the crowd and asked, “Do you have any idea where that railroad man is, that Ashcroft?”
I thought he might be in Stonehill, but there was no way to know except by going and seeing for myself. I did not want to go to Stonehill.
Thomas said, “Please, Reed, go for me. Go for Kirby. Find him if you have to ride all the way to San Antonio. Fetch him here.”
I began to sense some of what was in his mind. It made me feel sad. “Thomas, you don’t really want to do this.”
He looked me in the eyes, and I could not hold against his stare. “If you don’t go, I will,” he said.
It was ticklish, riding into Stonehill. My skin prickled at the sight of the town. Its streets seemed deserted. Most of the people were at the cemetery, showing the sheriff’s family their support at the funeral. The Canfield ranch had few friends left in that place, but I sought out one of those few who might know something of the railroad man. He told me Ashcroft had departed Stonehill in anger the day before the shooting, bound for San Antonio.
I spent the night on the road, stopping for a few hours’ sleep on the ground. I found Ashcroft in the Menger Hotel bar, where he had been paying homage to the state of Kentucky for most of three days. He was in little mood to talk to anyone from Stonehill or its environs. “Robbers and thieves, all of them,” he grumbled, “hoping
to enrich themselves at the expense of the railroad.”
I explained that I had nothing to do with Stonehill but represented Thomas Canfield instead. His resentment survived intact.
“I suppose Mr. Canfield has decided to sell us a right-of-way and enrich himself at our expense also.”
He had no intention of coming with me. I thought of force but rejected that because I knew San Antonio had a high ratio of policemen to citizens and would not tolerate that kind of behavior. I sat with him in the bar and plied him with Bourbon until he went to sleep in his chair. Had he died then and there, the undertaker would have had nothing to do but place him in a box. I rented a carriage from a wagonyard, loaded him into it and started for the ranch. We had put many miles behind us before he rallied enough to realize he was on the road. He cursed me for twelve kinds of blackguard and threatened me with a lifetime in Huntsville penitentiary, but he had no wish to walk back to San Antonio. It was far past midnight when we reached the ranch, and he was cold sober.
Thomas dressed and met Ashcroft in the front parlor. He got right to the point.
“Mr. Ashcroft, are you still interested in a right-of-way across my ranch?”
Ashcroft blustered. “Kidnapping me and dragging me out here is a poor way of doing business. If you think we are going to pay you some exorbitant price …”
Thomas did not let him finish. He leaned forward, into the man’s face. His eyes had the look of a hawk at the kill. “I’ll give you the land!”
He had Ashcroft’s total attention, and mine. “Give it?”
“With conditions. I want you to route your rails as far from Stonehill as you can.”
Ashcroft blinked a few times. “We need Stonehill.”
“No you don’t. If you need a town, build one. I’ll give you the land for that too.”
Ashcroft was momentarily shocked beyond speech.
He stared at me as if he did not quite believe, as if he feared he might still be drunk and dreaming all this.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. All you have to do is agree.”
Ashcroft mumbled, benumbed. “I am not certain I can speak for the board of directors …”
“To hell with the directors. Just say yes.”
Ashcroft was still looking for a catch but could not see one.
“Well, yes,” he sputtered. “Of course, yes.”
Not until that moment had I realized the full depth of Thomas’ hatred, the sacrifice he was willing to make for revenge. I could not remember that he had ever sold a square foot of land; once he had gotten hold of it, he had held it fiercely. Now he was giving it away.
I stared at the fire in Thomas’ eyes, and at the bewilderment in Ashcroft’s.
I said, “There’s a passage in the Bible, Thomas. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”
He shook his head.
“No. This time, it’s mine.”