CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The gunshot woke Dave Sloan. His room was at the back of the ranch house, far enough away that his nighttime coughing didn’t keep others awake. Ben Kane was slightly deaf and didn’t seem to mind.

But the gunshot had seemed to come from Ben’s room.

Sloan jumped out of bed, put on his hat—a habit of his long-gone cowboying days—and pulled on his pants. Gun in hand, he made his way through the dark house toward Kane’s room. From outside, he heard the hands yelling to one another and the sound of pounding feet. The bedroom door was ajar, and its hinges creaked when Sloan opened it.

Helped by the moonlight that streamed through the windows, he took in the scene at a glance, a stark image that burned itself on his consciousness . . . the disheveled bed, the Navajo rug on the floor, the polished furniture and trimmed oil lamps, the painting of Robert E. Lee on the wall and the picture of Kane’s dead wife Martha. Ben had once told him he wanted to remove her portrait because it broke his heart to look at her as she was in life, but he never did.

The focus of Sloan’s attention was the body on the floor. Ben Kane, never a big man, looked even smaller in death. He lay on his back, the Colt still clutched in his right hand. Blood spread from under his head like a pool of spilled ink. Sloan took a knee and placed his hand flat on Kane’s chest. The old man’s breathing had stopped, his heart had stopped . . . and the stillness of death was on him. His face showed no pain. His features were serene, as though he was sound asleep.

Sloan heard footsteps behind him, looked up, and saw Ansley Dryden looming over him, a revolver in his hand.

“Ben killed himself.” Sloan rose to his feet and started to cough, his frail body racked by hacking, choking barks that doubled him over, sent him staggering across the room, and stained scarlet the handkerchief he’d hurriedly pulled from his pocket.

The other hands drifted into the room and gathered around their boss’s body. No one said a word or looked at Sloan until his coughing attack ended and he straightened up, his face a white, bleached skull.

“You are wrong, Dave,” Dryden said. “Ben Kane didn’t kill himself. The Rathmores killed him.”

No one questioned that statement.

One young puncher said, “Mr. Kane was getting old and couldn’t take it any longer.” Then slightly embarrassed for speaking up, “It seems to me.”

Dryden nodded. “I saw it on him. He was getting worn out. The Rathmores were wearing him out.”

Breathing hard, Sloan said, “For a spell there, we were the same, Ben and me, but at different levels. He was ahead of me in the race, dealing with the same hell but different demons.”

“Well, he’s at peace now,” Dryden said. “If a man who blows his brains out can find peace.”

“Ben served his time in hell. The Rathmores saw to that,” Sloan said. “He’s at peace.”

“I say we bury the boss with a Rathmore at his feet,” the young cowboy said.

“Anse, did Ben have an heir?” Sloan said.

The foreman shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of. He told me once he hadn’t written a will because too many hopeful people would want him dead.” Dryden smiled slightly. “He was making a funny joke.”

“This is no funny joke,” Sloan said. “Anse, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the new boss of the Rafter-K.” He gave a series of short, dense coughs and then said to the hands, “How do you boys see it?”

The young puncher, a tough kid named Pete Harker, said, “I can only speak for myself, but I say Mr. Dryden is the new boss of this ranch. He served his time.”

That brought a murmur of agreement from the rest of the hands.

Sloan said, “You heard them, Anse. Now you call the shots around here.”

Suddenly Dryden seemed angry. “Look at us. The boss isn’t even cold yet and you want me to take his place. It ain’t right.” He kneeled and put his hand on Kane’s bloody forehead. “Hell, Ben, you were the one always gave the orders. Give me one now. What do I do?”

“He can’t talk to you,” Sloan said. “He can’t say anything to you. Ben Kane’s time for giving orders is over.”

“Dave, I’ve worked for wages all my life,” Dryden said. “I don’t know how to be a ranch owner.”

“You make one decision at a time,” Sloan said. “That’s how it’s done. Ben’s dead, but the Rathmores are still aboveground, and that ain’t right. Come dawn, we were to attack their nest and wipe them off the face of the earth. Do we still do it? Or do we sit back and do nothing? That’s your first decision, Anse.”

Dryden ignored that and said, “You men get shovels. We’ll bury Ben beside Martha and we’ll do it now. I don’t want to see him laid out in his parlor like a side of beef. Does anybody know the words?”

An older hand with a canvas patch over his left eye, partly covering a deep knife scar, said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”

“How do you know that, Cogan?” Dryden said.

“I heard it said often enough. Ben Kane must’ve said it a score of times. A stickler for the proprieties, was Ben.”

Dryden nodded. “Then you’ll say that at his grave.” He turned to Sloan. “Give me until an hour before sunup to study on things, Dave.”

“A man’s got that right,” Sloan said. “Now we got a burying to do.”

When the others filed out, the puncher with the eyepatch said to Dryden, “Anse, is this the end of the Rafter-K? I fit Comanches with Ben and I fit Apaches and I fit rustlers and I fit the Rathmores. Do all that go for nothing, like a hill of beans?”

“I don’t know,” Dryden said. “I haven’t even seen the books yet. Hell, maybe Ben was broke. Maybe he wasn’t. We’ll know soon enough.”

“Tell me when you got it figured all out,” Cogan said. “Man gets to my age and all he’s ever known is cowboying, he has to make plans. The boss dying like this, well, it brung all that to mind.”

“We all got to make plans, Cogan,” Dryden said. “After today, we’ll talk on it.”