CHAPTER 12
The water was too cold to stay in, but the sun’s heat warmed them quickly as they sat on the blanket.
“I thought it would be warmer, but I guess it didn’t have time enough to warm. I’m sorry.”
She sighed. “You are so neat, Harp. I really can’t believe how nice you treat me. Most guys would say, ‘Hurry up; I ain’t got no time for you now.’”
“I guess I was so wound up about having all those cattle worked and branded; now it’s done, I wanted to show you a good time.”
“I understand. Let’s go back to our camp and while everyone is gone we can do what we do—at night.”
“I love you.”
“Oh, you saved my life.” She kissed him and they dressed, rode to the camp, and entertained each other until someone outside shouted, “You two dressed?”
“ No.”
“I’ll wait.”
They scrambled into their clothes. When Harp was sure that she was covered he untied the flap and invited Long inside.
Hatless, he ducked in and sat on a cot.
Harp and Kate sat across from his brother in the shady light of their tent.
“Well, are you and Anna still talking?” Kate asked him.
“It is hard to tell you, but Katy, you are my sister. Don’t spread this around, but she is concerned about her children accepting me as their father. She said she is not ready to marry anyone or even become involved with anyone. She apologized if she let me believe anything else. I respect her. I understand her situation, but I am not happy about this.”
“If we were up near Fort Smith I could find you a good woman, but I don’t know any down here.”
“Thanks, Katy. I will find someone. I just pinned too much on getting her.”
Kate jumped up, went over, and hugged him. “There are thousands of good women would give their eye teeth to have you, Long O’Malley.”
“Katy, that damn brother of mine is just so damn lucky to have you.”
She put a finger on his nose. “He saved my life. The man I lived with was sentenced to hang. When I went down to the store to get something to eat, I found this tall cowboy leaving the store. The notion that I wanted to know him struck me like lightning from a cloudless sky.
“I said let’s go eat some canned peaches, I want to meet you. He frowned at me. I guess some doves had propositioned him before that. I really simply wanted to meet him—that was all.”
Harp laughed. “If she was struck I soon got that way. We went off by ourselves up on Lee’s Creek, sat on a blanket, ate some and then kissed some, ate some more and kissed some more. She said we needed to bathe next. We were naked in a flash and splashing in the water. I never thought about it. She didn’t, either. I later decided that was the way it should be for lovers. Clothes were nothing.
“Then like we had made love forever, we did so on the blanket. Afterward I took her to the camp and you know we have not been apart since. She promised me earlier she would marry me before we have children.”
Shaking his head, Long chuckled. “Mom will like that part.”
“I told her that, too. Jim Yale came by. We have that ranch and cattle we looked at for five thousand. He wants our banking business.”
“Is that what you want to do? Bank with him?”
“Only if we can borrow enough money from him for two herds of steers to drive somewhere north where we can unload them.”
“Good idea. We might need two banks. I saw that you have about three hundred head of branded cattle.”
She said, “Three hundred and forty-two to be exact.”
Harp shrugged. “Those were the first. We need to build another corral like that one on Ivy Mountain and have two squeeze chutes to work them through over there.”
“When are we building it?”
“Next week.”
Long elbowed her. “Damn. He is a task maker ain’t he?”
She gave him a sure nod. “But because he is, you two own three hundred and forty-two head of branded cattle now.”
“Not only is she cute but accurate, huh?”
Harp agreed. “She thinks we will soon be in a pushing and shoving match with the big ranchers for catching these unbranded cattle now that we put a price on them.”
“Katy, do you believe that?” Long asked.
“It makes sense. You two did the impossible. Taking all those steers to Missouri and selling them for such a high price. Over here you caught all those cattle and branded them before they even got out of bed. Yes, at this rate, I can see you two will be, in their opinion, keeping them from getting rich. That to them will be stealing.”
“Then we better do a lot more before they really catch on,” Long said.
“Christmas is around the corner. And we’ll have some cold weather and I hope rain. We need that corral built over on Ivy Mountain in a hurry.”
“You think that is better than rounding them up and roping them?” Long asked.
“We took the whole crew, surrounded them in a circle, and charged them off the mountain and into that pen. Then we worked them all in six hours. If we’d had another squeeze chute we could’ve done it in four hours.”
“We have a great crew, but we’ll need more good horses for next year. Those boys aren’t going to quit us if we pay them all winter.”
Harp agreed. “We will keep them working. They are too experienced to lose.”
“First, why not buy a hundred and sixty acres where there is water, and build the chutes and corrals on our own land? Then they can’t use it and they will have to build their own facilities to work cattle or do it in the open.”
“That might be a better idea. I bet that you and a hand can find some deeded land and get us a place to do that,” Harp said.
“What is that other lawyer’s name who sells land in Kerrville?”
“Sandy Van Hook.”
Long nodded his head. “I will be in his office bright and early Monday.”
“Obviously money talks, so use it,” Harp said.
“Boy, don’t it? Seven months ago they considered us boys. Today, hell, we’re businessmen.”
“And going to be bigger.”
“I’m going to get some sleep. Harp, you did something real neat, sending them boys to town with a little money. They were having a helluva time. And, little lady, thanks to you for making a place for my brother in your life. I’d never have thought about buying two cans of peaches and sharing them with some gal. I bet that was a neat deal. I’d rather eat a can of sweet peaches than drink whiskey.”
“It was a ball. You see Van Hook. The men can grease the wagons, look over the harnesses, and check the horses. They’ll have work. We’ll need about three hands up there at the new place in the future.”
“What will we call that place?” Long asked.
“Not Kate’s place. I like it for a ranch but not for me. I don’t want to dry up over there.”
“Well, scratch that name.” Long laughed. Then with a see yeah, he took his hat and went off.
When he was gone, Katy tackled him onto the cot and more tickling, kissing, and wrestling went on between them. Damn, he was glad he found such a fun-loving girl. Shame that Long and Anna didn’t make it together. His brother would find someone.
* * *
Morning came and Harp had his list of things for the men to do, and he and Kate took the buckboard and team to the Mexican village St. Frances on the south banks of the Portales River.
He found some men on the bench in front of the cantina while she went off to look at the handmade goods some women had for sale under the cottonwood trees.
He asked them about who he could hire to plow some ground on his new ranch purchase at Grass Valley. Among the men he found three takers. They would plow with their own oxen for two dollars a day. He acted pained at the price, so they agreed to do it for one dollar a day and he would buy the frijoles they would eat. He knew they would take their wives and children, so it would cost a little more.
They asked when they could start.
“Oh, move up there after church on Sunday?”
“Si. What will you sow, señor?”
“Oats. I will meet you up there and show you the field.”
They agreed they could plow, and for the same money per day broadcast and harrow in the seed. He shook hands with them over the deal and advanced them three dollars apiece. Next he must order the seed from Frank Skyler at the mercantile. His dad told him it wasn’t too late to get oats up and ready for a spring hay crop. That was good.
He also got names of two men who could cut posts on his land and build corrals. They needed work, too. Van Hook better find that place for Long fast. Ranch building would be expensive, but some day they’d be large area ranchers.
Among the women, Kate found a leather vest that fit him and he liked it. The sun was warm but not warm enough to go swimming. Back in town, he had his first face-to-face with Katy’s forewarned opposition. He tied the team off and started up the stairs to the porch. A man of medium height with gray temples stopped him.
“You one of those two damn O’Malleys?”
His wife, standing next to him with two armloads of groceries, tried to stop him. “Now, Earl, that boy—”
“Shut up, woman. I can handle this. If you are, you better stay out of that country—sneaking in on a Saturday, working all those maverick cattle is damn close to stealing them from the ranchers around there like me. You ain’t got no claim on those critters.”
“What’s your name?” Harp demanded.
“Earl Carson, and I can tell you right now you do that trick again, I’ll blow your head off.”
“Mine’s Harper O’Malley, and you have any cattle aren’t branded up there I will brand them, because under Texas law I have that right.”
“No you don’t.”
“Then try to stop me.”
“Earl Carson, get your hand off that gun,” his wife demanded, and pushed at him, with both sacks of grocery, enough to move him.
“I’ll get your ass, boy.”
But she had him herded a little farther away by then.
“Try and you better wear a nice suit, ’cause they will be burying you in it.”
“Quit, Harp. He’s going away. She’s driving him away, telling him to stop threatening you.”
Carson, loud enough to hear, said, “Shit, Lea. He ain’t no more than a snotty-nosed kid, and I ain’t going to be run over by him in my own country.” But his wife forced him across the street and made him take the purchases and load them in the farm wagon parked there.
Harper stopped on the covered porch, watching. Katy moved him toward the door, shaking her head. Quietly, so only he would hear, she said, “He’s just blowing smoke about what he will do, Harper O’Malley. I told you this would happen.”
“Hey, O’Malley,” one of the bench sitters whittling and gossiping on the porch said. “He was sure glad to see you, wasn’t he?”
Harper stopped in the door and nodded. “He won’t be seeing much longer if he tries me again.”
Katy made him go inside. “Forget him.”
“Katy, you can’t simply forget a man who threatens your life like that.”
“You are going to have to, or shoot it out with a lot more of these folks. I told you things would blow up.”
Still upset, he agreed and they went on shopping. She got the small items that Ira wanted and he ordered the oat seed, so they’d have them up at the ranch in two weeks.
He vowed he’d not forget Earl Carson for threatening him in public, which made it worse. On the road he might have sloughed it off, but in town where everyone could hear—that made him damn sure sizzling mad. And no one was pushing him or his brother around.
No one.