The sky was overcast with gun-metal hue. No wind moved the tops of the tall grass. No light showed where the crests of far hills merged with the horizon. A solitary bird, black, the edges of its broad wings like ragged lace, flew lazily through the still air. The slow, occasional flap of its wings echoed dully over the riders’ heads. Not one of them looked up.
They rode in a slow, silent swathe through the rising grass; rode in a hazy V, Matthew Jakes at their head. The dun mare he straddled seemed too small for him, as though his boots might trail the ground, his weight might hazard the animal’s back. Jakes looked neither to right nor left, but straight ahead, west through the grassland.
The Donaldsons rode to either side of him, their flat, round faces equally expressionless. Vests fastened over the faded blue of their shirts, Stetsons levered back on their heads. Dink was at the far left of the curving line, three other men between himself and Angus Donaldson. A further four riders were to Andy Donaldson’s right and the last of these was Frank Escort. His thick-set body rose and fell with the steady rhythm of the gelding he rode; his eyes and mind were rarely still. Ever since Jakes had come out to the farm, ever since he’d listened with the others to the words of Clancy Shire as the rancher sat in his wheelchair and addressed them all – ever since he’d seen the light of death in Matthew Jakes’ eyes – he’d known it was wrong. What they were doing, it was wrong. Not the why. Not the wherefore. But the what.
He thought of the small ranch they had ridden through less than three hours since. The stock, not just run off and stampeded, but slaughtered. Men firing into the panicking bodies of corralled animals like they were taking shies at a county fair. The hand who had tried to stop them, rushing towards the mounted men with nothing more than a shovel in his hands. The way Jakes had laughed and drawn his pistol and waited until he knew the shot would hurl the man’s body aside like so much wasted rags. The body of the rancher himself. Frank wondered if it was still swinging, slowly swinging from the length of thick woven hemp that the youngster Dink had thrown over a rafter inside the barn. It had seemed to swing for a long time: and there had been no one to cut it down.
And now they were …
And now they were …
Frank Escort glanced at the bushy-bearded figure at the center of the line and wished that he had the courage to do what was in his heart. He was thinking this, looking at Jakes still, when the big man’s head turned and their eyes met and, as if guessing what was running through the farmer’s mind, Jakes laughed aloud.
Frank Escort swung his head away and stared vacantly at the endless green and tried to think of Emily and the children but their images came to him only fleetingly and then they were not smiling.
The ranch was small, settled into the end of a narrowing valley; the water that ran down the creek was as yet not much more than a trickle of cold blue. A long, thin corral held perhaps a dozen horses and then there was a smaller corral, empty. Two barns, angled against one another so that they shared a common wall. The ranch house was low and flat and made half of timber and half from earth and stone. Smoke drifted upwards from a hole at the center of the roof and disappeared into the flat grey of the air.
Jakes raised his hand and the men stopped, horses’ heads shifting and tossing. Jakes looked along the valley and chuckled and said something to the Donaldson on his right. Andy Donaldson laughed and, although he hadn’t heard Jakes’ remark, his twin laughed in sympathy. Frank Escort looked over at Dink and the sallow youth looked back at him and shook his head. The others - men from Shire’s own ranch, farmers like Frank who opposed the coming of the railroad and wanted an end to Texas cattle - waited uneasily. Uncertain. Remembering, possibly, the way the man they had hanged earlier had bucked and kicked before his body had finally twisted and turned at the rope’s end, turned and twisted this way round and that and never seemed to be still. Perhaps never would be still in their minds: no easy thing to hang a man. Not for some.
Matthew Jakes spat to the ground and wiped the sleeve of his greasy shirt across his mouth. He lifted his arm again and moved the men forward, along the valley towards the ranch.
Grant saw them coming a couple of hundred yards from the corral and saw from the way they rode, the formation, the way they were set in the saddle, that they meant trouble.
He glanced anxiously at his wife’s back as she bent over the rough kitchen table, kneading and pummeling the dark dough into bread. He knew that their son, Aaron, was away from the ranch, had gone out hunting early that morning, sixteen and proud of the new rifle his parents had bought for him. Proud and wanting to show that he could use it and bring home food for the family supper.
‘Mary.’ His voice was soft but there was something in it which prevented her from turning to him straight away; something which made the dough against her fingers seem suddenly oppressive, alien.
‘Mary, get to the shutters.’
‘But Aaron is…’
‘I know.’ He nodded in the direction of the windows. ‘The shutters.’
Particles of brown dough slipped away from the woman’s fingers like thick, tacky glue.
Grant went to the back wall and lifted down the rifle he kept there, going then to the side cupboard for a box of cartridges, all the while trying not to appear flustered, not to scare his wife; all the while knowing the necessity for speed.
Praying that Aaron would not come back.
Matthew Jakes kicked the dun mare into a sudden trot; a space developed between himself and the other riders and then they quickly closed it again, the V becoming more narrow. Dink and Frank Escort were side by side, less than six feet separating them.
‘This is gonna…’ said Dink, without looking anywhere but ahead, ‘…this is gonna be good.’
Bile caught at the back of Escort’s throat and clung.
Jakes saw the shutter fasten over the window to the left of the door and he kicked again and whipped with the ends of the reins; within seconds all of the men were galloping past the long corral, reaching for their guns as they did so.
‘Mary!’ Grant shouted and leaned against the side of the other window at the same moment, leveling the rifle at the leading rider. He saw the tall hat, the bearded face, the open, red mouth through the end sight and pulled back on the trigger. Too fast.
The bullet went high and to the right of Jakes and the big man growled and laughed and growled some more. He began to haul in on the reins and shouted orders to the others to spread themselves. A second shot came from the timbered section of the ranch, no more dangerous than the first.
‘Bastard can’t shoot worth shit!’ said Jakes and, sideways on to the house, pulled the Colt .45 from his holster and aimed a shot towards the window. Splinters of wood burst about Grant’s face as he ducked hastily away.
‘Oh, my God!’ His wife came running towards him, thinking that her husband had been hit.
‘It’s all right, Mary. All right. Get back! Get away!’
There was already nowhere to run: nowhere to hide.
The Donaldsons’ shoulders crashed into the thick wood of the door and it reverberated against its hinges. Shots aimed more or less at random raked the ranch house. The two men sent their weight into the door again and again and it began to give.
Grant and his wife looked at each other, hopelessly.
Grant turned and threw his rifle through the open window. It pitched awkwardly, somersaulted and lay close by Matthew Jakes’ horse. Jakes laughed.
‘Stand off, boys!’ he called. ‘Looks like we’re goin’ to be made welcome after all.’
The Donaldsons backed off from the door and drew their guns. After less than a minute Grant slid back the length of wood back of the door and stepped outside. It took him longer to look Jakes in the eye.
‘Ain’t no way…’ laughed Jakes. ‘Ain’t no way to welcome folks as come a callin’ friendly.’
‘Way you rode up,’ muttered Grant to the ground.
‘Huh?’
‘Way you men rode up here,’ said Grant, looking at the bearded man now. ‘Seemed you was meanin’ trouble.’
Dink sniggered and close to him Frank Escort shifted uneasily in his saddle.
‘Depends,’ said Jakes. ‘We come to talk to you folk.’ He glanced past Grant towards the house. ‘Is more of you, ain’t there? More’n just you?’
‘No. No, I…’
Jakes spurred the dun horse forward and sent the animal into the rancher, knocking him sprawling to the dirt.
‘Lyin’ bastard! Can’t shoot straight and can’t talk straight neither.’
‘Get up!’ called one of the Donaldsons, coming towards him, a pistol in his hand.
Grant stumbled up and Jakes moved the mare towards him once again. ‘Now, who’s in there?’
‘Just … only … my wife. Mary, that’s all.’
‘All, huh?’ Jakes pointed at one of Shire’s men. ‘Fetch her out.’
‘No, it’s…’ Grant turned to run and Andy Donaldson stuck out his boot and tripped him.
As Shire’s man appeared in the doorway, Grant’s wife stepped towards him, arms folded across her apron, graying hair circled in a braid about her head. Pain flooded her eyes when she saw her husband trying to scramble up from the floor. He made to go towards her, but hands held him back. Spun him round.
‘You been supportin’ the railroad,’ Jakes said. ‘Payin’ out good money so’ they’ll run track through. You been hirin’ out your land for them Texans to pasture their herds. Makin’ ‘em welcome. An’ lookin’ to do so again.’
Grant stared back up at him; he knew for certain now how the men had come and why. It wasn’t ordinary desperadoes, bandits out for what they could ravage and steal.
‘Ain’t no law…’ Grant began.
Jakes’ laugh shut him off. ‘That’s damn true. No law at all. But this.’ He tapped the butt of his Colt.
Grant’s wife pressed her hands tight against her apron and gulped air noisily. Aaron! Aaron! She said nothing.
‘Got to teach you Texas-lovers a lesson,’ said Jakes, looking around the men he’d brought with him. ‘All of us. Ain’t that so?’
Some of the men called their assent, others, like Frank Escort, kept their mouth closed and waited.
‘A lesson,’ laughed Jakes and Grant’s wife tried once more to get close to her husband.
Shire’s man grabbed at her and pulled her back.
‘Keep the bitch off!’ said one of the Donaldsons.
‘You want it with your eyes open like a man, Texas-lover,’ said Jakes, grinning through his beard, ‘or you want to close your eyes an’ pray?’
Grant tried to run at Jakes and the Donaldsons grabbed hold of his arms, swinging him back and holding him fast. Mary made as if to go to his aid and Caleb Shire’s man grasped her by the shoulders, setting himself between her husband and her. With a strength that took the man by surprise, Grant’s wife freed her right arm and reached beneath her apron.
‘Ready for it, Texas-lover?’ called Jakes, but Mary was no longer listening to what was happening around her.
The long-bladed kitchen knife came sideways through the heavy air and the tip of the blade cut through the vest and shirt close by the man’s heart. Mary leaned all her weight upon it, both hands to the haft.
Silent, open-mouthed, Shire’s man staggered back: stared. The knife was sticking from his chest, shaking with the movement. Blood ran out at both sides of the blade and began a blurred trail down his shirt. The man continued to stare at the knife; he reached his hand towards it, gingerly.
The other men looked on, silent.
Mary gazed, fascinated, at the meandering blood, at the kitchen knife so strangely angled from the man’s chest.
Matthew Jakes turned the upper half of his body, brought round his arm, thumbed back the hammer of his Colt .45 and shot her through the neck.
Mary clung to the wound even as she was being hurled backwards, even as her eyes were failing, as she could no longer see.
Grant shook off one of the Donaldsons and the other twisted his arm high behind his back. Grant screamed but kept on going. Andy Donaldson kicked up into the man’s groin and Angus lifted the arm higher till it had to crack. Frank Escort jumped from his saddle and started towards them, uncertain of what he was going to do but feeling that he had to do something.
Matthew Jakes moved his dun mare across Frank’s path and grinned down at him and shook his head.
‘We don’t want to start killin’ our own, now, do we?’
Frank bristled with anger, his short brown hair threatened to stand stiff on his scalp. Dink went in fast behind him and let Frank feel the barrel end of a pistol in his back.
‘Ease off,’ said Dink and it was the first time Frank had heard the youngster speak and he swung his head round in surprise.
‘Ease off like Matthew says.’
Frank let his arms hang limp and useless by his sides, let his head fall.
‘Take him back of the barn,’ ordered Jakes.
The Donaldsons dragged Grant, struggling like a fish on a hook. The others mostly followed behind, one of them with a coiled rope over his shoulder.
‘Get them horses strung up,’ said Jakes to two others and pointing in the direction of the long corral. ‘We’ll take ‘em along.’
He clicked his tongue and the dun mare went close by where the woman lay on the ground. One hand was still at her throat and the insides of the fingers and the palm were red. The other hand rested at her waist, ends of the first finger and thumb fast on the string of her apron. She looked old beyond her forty or so years. More red flecked her face and the grey of her braided hair.
‘Bitch!’
Jakes hawked phlegm from the back of his throat and spat down at her body.
‘You!’ he shouted at Frank. ‘Get here an’ see to this man. Get that bleedin’ stopped.’
The man Mary had stabbed was kneeling on the ground, the kitchen knife lying close by. He had opened his shirt and was trying to use a soiled bandanna to stem the slow but steady flow of blood. He still could not believe what had happened.
A shout came from the barn, a shout and the gargled cry of a man whose breath is being violently jerked out of him. The cry was dying almost before it was heard.
‘See what’s in there as is worth takin’,’ said Jakes to Dink, pointing his pistol towards the ranch house. ‘Smash the rest.’
Ten minutes later they were all saddled up and ready to move away, the string of stolen horses waiting beyond the corral with two of the men.
‘Move out!’ called Jakes and they set off, in twos this time, a ragged column heading back eastwards under the same gun-metal sky. Only this time a pair of eyes watched them go.
Aaron had taken a couple of shots at a grey fox for fun and missed; he had killed three rabbits and four quail. Travelling back to the ranch he had felt good, proud. Now he lay on his stomach and beads of cold sweat lined his forehead and stung his eyes and the hands which held the brand new rifle were less than steady.
He whispered advice to himself, words his father had told him time out of number; whispered the words and tried to make his hands and eye obey. He knew he would have to shoot straight and fast and that even though he might take as many as half a dozen of the men he could never hope to take them all. He had no horse and to run would be cowardly and useless.
Aaron squinted along the shiny barrel and his finger began to squeeze back on the trigger.
The explosion rocked the riders into sudden life. The man alongside Andy Donaldson gasped and grabbed for his side and before he knew what was happening he was falling from the saddle, his mount was bucking in panic and he was being dragged over the ground, one foot twisted in the stirrup and a bullet wound between his ribs.
Aaron fired a second time.
Frank Escort was looking up at the side of the valley, searching for the telltale rise of smoke. The bullet drove him backwards, legs coming up in the air as he rolled head-first over his horse’s rump. The slug had driven into his left side, high up, and torn a passage through the muscle at the back. He was dead within seconds of hitting the ground.
Aaron fired twice again and hit one of the horses but nothing more. A volley of shots rang about him and he willed himself to stay flat and fire slowly, but it wasn’t any use. He was on one knee, on his feet. The shot he snapped off went harmlessly into the air. Horses were being driven fast up the slope towards him. Aaron chanced one more shot and without waiting to see the result, he turned and began to run. Eyes smarting with sweat and tears he ran like a rabbit being driven to ground. The sound of galloping hoofs resounded in his ears until he thought they would burst with it.
Matthew Jakes angled his right arm so that the elbow was steadied against his side and shot the boy in the small of the back, twice.