CHAPTER 29
“Chet, Ty and Victoria are here,” Liz said. “They just drove up in a buckboard.”
Chet put the Miner newspaper aside. “I’ll invite them in.”
“What could I serve them?”
“Apple cider. We have lots of it.”
“That will work.”
He kissed her going by.
Chet leaned out the back door. “I’m home. Come on in. Liz has some cool apple cider.”
Ty stopped at the base of the stairs standing behind her. “We aren’t interrupting anything?”
“Lord no. Come on. How are things going?”
“Pretty fast. I think we found a place that would suit us.”
“Come on in here. Give me her shawl to hang up. Grab a mug and go into the living room. Liz and I were loafing this afternoon. You found a place you like?”
They sat together on the couch, and Ty sat on the edge to explain. “Yes, we wanted to run some things by you and ask what you think.”
“Go ahead.”
“The ranch we liked is the Fieldman place. It is in the north end of things. Has thirty acres irrigated alfalfa, watered by two artesian wells. Has corrals and even a barn to store hay, with milking stanchions we would change on the left and horse stalls on the right. There are some half shelters we could use for mares and colts in bad weather. There is a fenced pasture he used for dairy cows. There’s a bunkhouse. The house needs some repair and the water system needs to be hooked to the windmill. It is three hundred twenty acres. The price is five thousand.”
“Is there any dicker in that price?”
“You mean will they lower it?”
“Like trading for a good horse.”
Ty looked back at her.
She held up her hands.
“We haven’t asked. What would you suggest?”
“The bank foreclosed on him, right?”
Victoria nodded.
“I think he has tacked the unpaid interest on the price.”
“How much is that?” Ty asked.
“Probably twenty percent.”
“A thousand dollars.”
Chet nodded.
“What should we offer him?”
“I’d say thirty-five hundred cash. You can always go up.”
“I can do that. How will I pay him?”
“Liz, get a check. You write in the amount. I will sign it.”
“I put his bank’s name on it and the amount?”
“You want a registered clear deed.”
“I can request that.”
“I am going to give you another check to deposit in your and Victoria’s new bank account. This will be to fix the house and your needs to make it a ranch. It will be for three thousand dollars. You will need living expenses and ranch expenses. When it gets down we will replenish it.”
“That is a helluva lot of money.” She nodded, agreeing with him.
“You have about three weeks to fix a house. But don’t let that make you do something you don’t want.” Chet directed that to her.
“We think we can do this. And we thank you.”
“Have fun.”
He signed the checks. Ty shook his hand and Victoria kissed him. She also hugged Liz.
They finished their cider and left the mugs on the kitchen table. Liz and Chet walked them to the back door. Chet went with them to the buckboard and sent them on their way. Victoria waved at him, then she settled in close to her man.
“You beginning to feel old?” Liz asked when he returned to the house.
“No, but we sure have young folks around us and another child coming in our life.”
“Will you help them get that ranch ready?”
“If they ask.”
“Good idea. You have been helping people, I mean really helping young people, with their lives.”
“Trying.”
At supper, Toby and Talley were there. Anita helped Monica set the table. Lisa came in from helping the ranch women working on the dried brown beans and sacking them. She washed her hands and apologized for not helping Monica sooner.
“You do lots of work down there. You earn your keep around here.”
Everyone agreed.
Chet said, “Lisa, I told Raphael this morning to build the requested casa.”
“Really?” She rose up and clapped her hands.
“Yes. It will take more time in the winter, but we have the adobe bricks and the rest is close by.”
Lisa crossed herself. “Thank you, Blessed Mother.”
Toby spoke, “I guess I am next here to tell our plans. Talley and I want to be married when it can be arranged. We don’t want to push anyone out. She and I have known each other and we think we can make a marriage work. I asked Liz and she said we could get married in two weeks and not get in Ty and Victoria’s way. So I invite you all to come.”
“We all will be there,” Chet said. They applauded them.
After the meal when he and his wife were alone in the living room, she asked him what he thought was his next move.
“I can’t leave here until after the weddings, and perhaps by then, the New Mexico office will have found and arrested Hall. Whatever is the case I want that matter settled. Then solve who hired him and arrest those people. That might be the hardest to do.”
“You think he will hire more raiders?”
“No. But he planned the murder of Iris and paid for it. Perhaps not her directly but he sent others there to do that.”
“So if they don’t get Hall in Mesilla you intend to try and find him?”
“Yes, and bring him to justice.”
“I’ll pray they arrest him.”
“I will too.”
Ty was back the next day with Victoria. They looked excited when they drew into the yard. The cool north wind swept Chet’s face as he came down the back stairs. He stopped on her side of the buckboard and offered her a hand down.
“Well?”
She turned for Ty to answer him.
“We did better, Chet. We got the ranch for four thousand and Victoria’s dad said he’d pay half the money. You only have to pay two thousand. Now, honey, tell him what your mother wants to do.”
“Mother has money from her family inheritance. She said that the present house could be my foreman’s place to live and is building us a new house. Oh, she asked if you could get the lumber for it. She’d pay for it, but the contractor told her you have it all tied up.”
“I’ll get that done. You two will really start out great.” He turned to Liz standing on the steps wrapped in a wool shawl. “You hear about all the free stuff they are getting?”
“Yes, yes, how nice of them.”
“We can make it in the old house because it will take all winter to build the new one,” Ty explained as they headed for the back door.
“Well, in case you didn’t hear, in two weeks, Toby and Talley are getting married here.”
“Liz, you will really be busy. Does Talley have a dress?”
“We are going tomorrow and get it made. May I buy you a dress?”
“I hate to say no, but my mother has spoken to do that.”
Liz hugged her. “Darling, I would not get in her way.”
“Thanks. But it is great what we are getting together.”
“We have hot coffee,” Monica announced, setting out cups.
They had a nice meeting and the pair soon ran off to handle more business.
“Well, I bet since you threatened him, they sure put on a new face. Her parents I mean,” Liz said.
“Good. He needed one. No, he did do a nice thing for them. They will start out better off than most people. After all, they only have her.”
“And you, my love, you have a tribe you are helping get started.”
Chet agreed. “Did we pay Ray’s tuition plus his room and board?”
“Yes. In his letter he sounded very settled and excited.”
“They say that academy in Saint Louis is the best and should get him in a good university. So Ray is with his nose in books. My brother would never understand it. He spent his entire adult life fixing and repairing machinery. He’d get so involved in doing that his wife would cry to Susie that he would never come to bed with her. And now Ty is getting married and starting a horse ranch.”
“My husband builds ranches and chases down outlaws.”
“We have fun together.”
“I did not say we didn’t have fun, we do, but heavens it is different from ordinary people’s lives.”
Toby came in the house. “A hay wagon headed for the ranch broke down. Needs a new wheel. I am going to take two men, jacks, and a new wheel.”
“How far away is it?”
“The other side of Camp Verde . . . I’ll be back late this evening.”
“Be careful.”
“I will be. Where is Talley?”
“She’s changing sheets upstairs with Anita.”
“I’ll go tell her. Don’t worry, I can handle it.”
Chet shook his head. That boy was going to learn that all the wheels you want to turn might not turn when you need them. At least the surveyor and his two men were up there tying ribbons on property lines.
Next week the sagebrush grubbers were going to be ready to set up camp and tents up there. A dozen boys and their Chinese cook. The boys were all Hispanic from sixteen to twenty years old. Needed work and understood how far away the ranch was, but they’d have four days a month to come back home and raise hell when they were paid. They each had two pairs of long handles and a canvas blanket–lined coat plus gloves that Toby had provided them. And they had their own wardrobe, which wasn’t much.
Each one had a hoe and Raphael showed them how to sharpen them. The sharper the easier it would chop off the sagebrush at the base. They also had axes for small trees and larger brush. They were to leave nothing a mower bar would catch on.
Under Raphael’s help, Toby made a big older boy named Ronaldo the gang boss. Toby warned him he’d lose his job if he could not keep those boys moving. The job paid a dollar a day and the others made fifty cents. Chet thought they’d done well.
“Toby, they may need protection from a bear or even Indians. I’d arm them or those that know about firearms. A double barrel for Ho So Man the cook and a rifle for your lead man to take along.”
“I can do that. I never thought about it, but they could have troubles.”
To sleep in they had a large wall tent with a big stove. A second tent was for the mess hall. Jesus had bought the outfit from some logger who quit the business, and it had cost less than a hundred dollars. The cooking utensils, tin plates, cups, and silverware plus washtubs, woodstove, and the large range for the cook. New all would have cost twice that much. Chet knew he got it cheap. The builders had their own setup, which they moved from Center Point to down there.
Chet had made two trips up there to check on things and he thought it all would work. Tom’s roadwork would require a bridge later, but they could pass each other coming and going in most parts on the wider road already built.
Since the cut-off sagebrush and bushes would not rot, they’d need to take hay rakes and pile it, then load it on wagons and dump it. Toby agreed and said they’d get that done as well.
Chet received a letter from the U.S. Marshal in Santa Fe that week.
Dear Marshal Byrnes,
I instructed two of my deputies in the Mesilla area to locate and arrest one Gerald Anson Hall to be held for Arizona charges on murder and other crimes. These men are top lawmen and they could not find a trace of such a man by that name or description in the Mesilla area. I am sorry I was not able to help you. All offices in the territory have been put on notice to be on lookout for this man. But at this time he has not been located.
Sincerely yours,
Anthony Diaz
Chief U.S. Marshal
for the New Mexico Territory
“What is wrong?”
“Oh, Liz, the New Mexico marshals could find no trace of Hall.”
“But your man said—”
He threw the letter down on the desk. “They might not be able to find their ass either.”
“What now?” Liz asked.
“I’ll talk to Spencer and Jesus. They may have some good ideas.”
“You don’t plan to leave before we host the weddings, do you? This week is Ty and Victoria. Next week Toby and Talley. And we planned the Thanksgiving celebration here on Thursday for the ranch people close by.”
“It is going to wear you out, girl.”
“No, it will keep me from getting depressed. I guess carrying a baby does things to a person that a nonpregnant woman does not feel. I can be up and then feel down. When I am busy I am the happiest.”
“I think I understand. Keep busy.”
But he was upset. He’d planned to send two of his men to bring Hall back when they apprehended him. Something stunk of a buy-off. It simply was not right. Did they think he would not check on it? That he was so far away he would let Hall slip away and not look further into the deal. Think again, dummies. Think real hard. He planned to find and arrest Hall—with or without those marshals and any flimflam deal he’d expose as well.