That morning Brad Sanlee was called aside by Doug Krinkle. Sanlee had just missed a cast with his rope and was in an ugly mood. His broad, bearded face bore numerous scratches from tangling with a steer in a thicket.
“Deverax is back,” Krinkle said, cupping his hands to shout above the noise of yelling men and pounding cattle.
“Bolin with him?” Sanlee demanded.
“Ad’s alone,” Krinkle replied, his heavily freckled face tight with concern.
“If the son of a bitch wants his job back, tell him to try the moon.”
“Ad’s got somethin’ to tell you. It’s important, he claims.”
“Where the hell’s he been all this time? Likely layin’ up in some congal with a chica.”
“He’s been in a hospital up at Wheeler City.”
“Hospital?”
“He’s shot bad, Brad.” Krinkle gestured at a wagon.
Sanlee scowled, wound his catch rope, then mounted up and rode over to where Deverax was lying in the bed of a ranch wagon.
“What the hell happened to you?” Sanlee asked the tall man who lay on straw in the wagon. Deverax was so thinned down that Sanlee hardly recognized him. Through the dirty, unbuttoned shirt could be seen a pack of stained bandages.
“I know the fella’s here,” Deverax gasped. “The one that done it. I seen him here. . . .”
“Done what, for Chris’ sakes?”
“Killed Bolin an’ put a bullet in me. Leastwise I think Bolin’s dead. I rode like hell. He was trailin’ me but it rained one night an’ I gave him the slip. But I was so bad by then, I had to hunt up a doc. . . .”
“Who the hell you talkin’ about, anyhow?”
Krinkle cut in. “He saw Lassiter a while ago. He says it’s him.”
Sanlee drew a deep breath. “Lassiter?”
Deverax nodded weakly. “Doug says it’s his name.”
Sanlee jerked his thumb at Krinkle. “Get back to work, Doug.” He didn’t want too many details of the New Mexico venture spread about. Deverax and Bolin had been his two most trusted underlings, which was why he had taken them along on the hunt for the runaway Millie.
When Krinkle was gone, Sanlee leaned into the wagon. “Tell me about it, Ad.”
Deverax was so weak he could speak only a few words at a time. “You told me an’ . . . Bolin . . . to stay behind . . . an’ at full dark to finish off Tevis. . . . This Lassiter was there by then . . . in the house. . . . I thought Bolin got him sure, but the next thing I knew, Bolin is down an’ I’m hit bad. . . .”
“Lassiter,” Sanlee said softly through his teeth. “Then it wasn’t a coincidence, his coming to Texas.” Sanlee could speak decent English when he felt like it. “How’d Lassiter find out about me?”
“Tevis, I reckon. Your bullet didn’t finish him, remember?”
“You get back to the ranch an’ keep your mouth shut, Ad. You hear me?”
Deverax nodded. Then Sanlee shouted at the older ranch hand who had driven Deverax out to the roundup camp. “You get him home, pronto.”
Sanlee stood in the hot spring sunlight, sweating. He thought about Lassiter and all that had happened. Then, with a fierce grin, he mounted up and returned to the roundup.
The next stretch of brush country to be worked for cattle was the most dangerous. A rider had to be constantly alert to the many hazards that could end his life in the flick of an eyelash.
Herrera and most of the vaqueros were mounted on small Spanish ponies. That day they rode into the black brush with its thorns like spiked fingers ready to tear cloth or the flesh of rider or horse. Whenever the vaqueros were riding down an evasive bull or a raging cow with her calf their shouts of “Ai-i-i-i-i!” rang through the heavy undergrowth. Recklessly they rode with ropes tied fast to the saddle horns. The big Chihuahua steers were nimble and smart, with horns that could rip like a saber into the tough hide of horses or impale a man.
Their first casualty was Tony Jerez.
It had been a grueling day in the hot and sticky hell of the Texas jungle. Lassiter had just coiled his rope for a return to the fray. He had helped bring in a half-dozen mavericks and waited until the brands were parceled out, one for each ranch. When he started riding after a big cow with her calf he heard a bellowing to his right and a great crashing in the brush. He reined in and saw a red-eyed ladino bulling his way through the thicket like a loaded, runaway freight wagon. A noose was anchored over the great spread of horns. Behind the roaring beast pounded Tony Jerez, trying to keep up because the other end of the rope was tied to his saddle horn. Jerez lost his sombrero to the brush and his long hair streamed like a black mane in the wind.
“Use your knife!” Lassiter shouted to him. “Cut the bastard loose!”
But Jerez either didn’t hear him above the wild crashing in the brush or was determined to prove his manhood and not accept defeat by a bull, no matter how big or ferocious. He dug in his Chihuahua spurs and the wild-eyed pony leaped ahead. Its coat was damp with sweat and in places the winter hair had been scraped off by the lethal brush. Again Lassiter yelled advice, which Jerez chose to ignore. His white teeth gleamed in his dark face, reminding Lassiter of miniature tombstones. A chill ran down his spine at the thought.
Swearing under his breath, Lassiter drew his rifle and tried to pump a bullet into the skull of the maddened ladino. But at the last moment the big animal swerved, and it and the pursuing vaquero disappeared into the stifling ocean of brush.
As Lassiter pounded after them, he saw that Jerez was maneuvering the ladino toward the holding ground. He saw the vaquero pull hard on his reins in an attempt to slow the crazed animal. The Spanish pony dug in its heels but there was no halting the steer. It was shaking its head, trying to rid itself of the noose that had trapped its horns. It pounded across the clearing. Branders yelled warnings and leaped back from their fires.
The ladino trampled one of the fires, scattering embers. Other riders reined in to stare at what could be a potential tragedy. Jerez could have freed himself of his mistake by shooting the savage bull. And mistake it had been—a rope aimed for a hind leg had instead settled over the horns. Jerez had missed his cast and now seemed determined to bring his quarry to bay.
But as the pony settled its weight, the rope stretched taut as a banjo string, the ladino suddenly changed directions. With foam dripping from its nostrils and jaws, it charged directly at the pony. One horn tip splintered the breastbone. The Chihuahua steer quickly withdrew from the floundering horse and turned on its rider, who had flung himself to the ground, landing lightly on his feet. Now Jerez was waving his arms, trying to confuse the beast and get it tangled up in the brush by the rope stretched from steer horns to the saddle of the downed pony.
Again Lassiter fired. His bullet nicked a horn. By then the steer had lunged at Jerez and Lassiter had to spin his horse to get out of the way. When he looked back over his shoulder he saw to his horror that Jerez was running, and that there was still plenty of slack in the rope now between the charging beast and the dying horse. It caught Jerez at the edge of the clearing. With a great upsweep of its horn, Jerez was lifted off the ground and hurled headfirst into the thick trunk of a mesquite. Even above the pounding hooves was the terrible sound of a neck bone snapping.
Before the steer could turn and trample the body of its enemy, Lassiter was finally able to place a bullet between its maddened eyes. The big steer took a couple of wobbly steps, then crashed to earth.
Lassiter was just dismounting when a bullet whipped past his ear, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. He spun in time to see Doug Krinkle lowering his weapon.
“I figured to put a bullet in that big Chihuahua,” the freckled Diamond Eight rider called. “But I see you got him.”
Krinkle rode away.
Lassiter was hot with rage.
“One of these days, Sanlee,” Lassiter said softly in his anger.
With the aroma of yellow huisache blossoms lacing the air, they buried Jerez. There he would lie for all eternity in an unmarked grave.
That evening the Box C crew ate supper in silence, each man wondering—not fearfully but realistically—if tomorrow he might be the next one buried. They had a code of living hard and, if it came time, to die hard. It was agreed among them that it was better for a man to lose his life than his pride. Jerez had attempted to erase a mistake by heroically challenging the great steer. He had lost the gamble. It was as simple as that.
Sanlee came tramping up, wiping his large bearded face with a bandanna. “That crazy Mex,” he said to Lassiter. “More bone in his head than sense. It’s why I never hire one of the bastards.”
Lassiter often wondered what would have happened had not Sanlee turned abruptly on his heel and walked away. It was much later before Lassiter could calm down after the insult to the dead rider.
Several times during the night, Lassiter thought about Sanlee’s proposition to make him ramrod of Diamond Eight and Box C. Each time it crossed his mind, he smiled coldly. His working for Brad Sanlee would be the longest day in Texas history. He’d bide his time before calling Sanlee for the murder of Vince Tevis. His old friend was no doubt a misguided Lothario who had been carried away by Millie Sanlee’s fetching figure and those intense black eyes.
Two days later Rep Chandler appeared at roundup camp in a hack wagon. With his splinted leg, it was awkward for him to get out of the small wagon.
Lassiter had just ridden in with a dozen steers that he and his men had rousted from a tornillo thicket. Lassiter rode over and dismounted. Chandler offered his hand, which Lassiter shook. Then the rancher, using a cane, limped over to a large flat rock next to a fernlike growth of juajuillo and sat down. He removed his hat. Perspiration dampened his sparse brown hair. “I told Brad Sanlee I never had a foreman as good as you,” Chandler said.
Lassiter laughed. “What’d he say to that?”
“He said if that’s what I wanted, that’s the way it’d be.”
Lassiter shook his head.
“You seem skeptical,” Chandler said with a frown.
“I am.”
“Sanlee will leave you alone—believe me on that. . . .”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“That’s what I like about you, Lassiter—your toughness. He’ll leave you alone because I’ll be marryin’ his sister.”
“She’s agreeable, I suppose,” Lassiter said, watching the rancher’s face.
Chandler rubbed his jaw. “I don’t rightly know, to tell the truth. But it makes no mind whether she is or not.”
Lassiter couldn’t forget Millie’s frightened face. “She oughta have a say about who she marries.”
“I reckon you don’t know how things are done down here.”
“One thing I do know is right from wrong!”
But Chandler was talking about his first wife and not even listening to Lassiter. “When me an’ my first wife was married, she didn’t like me worth a damn. She was fourteen an’ I was four years older. But my pa said marry her. Her pa said the same to her. It worked out purty good, considerin’. Twenty-eight years later she up an’ got a sickness an’ died on me. So it’ll be the same with me an’ Millie.”
“Things have changed since you got married the first time.”
“I aim to take Millie over to Austin, then go up to New York to see them tall buildings they got there. Hell, I’m over hatin’ the blue bellies. The war’s long over.” He leaned over to give Lassiter a friendly slap on the arm. “I’m countin’ on you to run things while I’m gone.”
“You and Sanlee.”
“What’d you mean by that?”
“Nothing. The hell with it. But as soon as roundup’s over and the cows sold, I’ll be gettin’ an itch to see what’s on the yonder side of the mountain.”
“Ain’t no mountain around here.”
Lassiter gave him a hard smile. “Just a way of putting things. But I stay in a place just so long, then I’ve got to push on.”
“You can’t quit on me. Hell, I . . .”
“You’ve got a good man in Luis Herrera.”
Chandler fidgeted on the flat rock. Men were drifting in and out of camp. Some helped themselves to coffee from the big pot on the coals of the cook fire. Others swapped a jaded horse for a fresh one.
“I already let Luis get up the ladder farther than I should, likely,” Chandler said.
“He’s segundo. Let him go up a step. Why not, for Chris’ sakes?”
“It just ain’t done—not around here it ain’t, anyhow.”
Lassiter guessed the problem. Chandler stubbornly refused to advance a good man like Herrera because it was the local custom to have only Anglos in positions of authority. Memories of the Alamo, it seemed, still clouded some Texas minds. One thing Lassiter couldn’t abide was injustice, whether to a girl like Millie Sanlee or a man like Luis Herrera.
“You got any idea why Sanlee is trying to force his sister to marry you?” he demanded, anger spilling over.
“Now see here . . .”
It was as far as Chandler got because Lassiter unloaded, telling him of Sanlee’s plans. “To move in on you and eventually take over,” he finished.
“Just how the hell do you know that, Lassiter?”
“He told me.”
Chandler studied him a moment, then began to laugh. “Brad was just joshin’ you. I watched that boy grow up. Me an’ his daddy was friends. . . .”
“My strong hunch is that Sanlee meant every word.”
“What if he did?” Chandler jerked at an end of his mustache. “With you as my ramrod, he won’t make a move against me.” Chandler grunted and got to his feet. “I’m meetin’ with Millie in town tomorrow at noon at the Hartney Store. I better get home an’ rest up my leg.” He gave a weak grin and limped with his cane to the hack wagon.
Yesterday, Millie had been allowed to go home, Lassiter had learned from others, and put in the charge of a dour housekeeper named Elva Dowd. He wanted to see her and thought about tomorrow at noon in Santos. Just thinking of seeing her again pumped excitement through his veins. . . .