Law of the Land, page 8
This cooled Guyman down some. But in stubborn resentment he said, “The Two Bar used to tell the sheriff what to do.”
In the old puncher’s face O’Malley could see the faintest trace of contempt. “Your father was still living then.”
Hodge Guyman took the full implication, the unstated comparison, and made no reply. But the anger deepened in his eyes. “All right, Newt, what can I do? If I let him get away with this, the whole country’ll be thinking the Two Bar can be taken. They’ll be down on us like a pack of wolves.”
The old rider, Newt, shook his head. “I’m no lawyer, but I’d say there’s not much you can do, as long as he stays in the riverbed.”
It was then that Mary pulled the wagon up to the river’s edge to look down and determine what was wrong. Guyman stared at her, the corners of his mouth lifting a little, like the grin of a coyote. Guyman liked women. From Del Rio to Fort Worth, they could tell you about this woman or the other, and Hodge Guyman. He got around. He looked at Mary, and his tone changed.
“Have it your way then, Newt. He can drive his sheep on state property, but we’ll escort him. Any sheep that steps up over the bank, we’ll shoot.”
O’Malley did not like what he saw building in Guyman’s eyes as he looked at Mary.
“And get that wagon down here too,” Guyman said. “It’s not going to travel on Two Bar land.”
“The bank’s too steep,” O’Malley argued, glancing apprehensively up toward Mary. It was not the bank he was worried about.
“There’s a place ahead where it can come down. See that it does.”
Guyman split his men, half riding on one side of the river, half on the other, back from the unpleasant drift of sheep dust. When they reached the spot where the bank flattened out, O’Malley rode up and helped Mary bring the wagon down. She did not ask him any questions, except with her eyes. The whole thing had been obvious enough.
Once a ewe pulled away from the band and headed up the bank, her lamb following. O’Malley touched spurs to his horse, but the ewe reached the top before he could stop her.
Two shots roared, frightening the other sheep. O’Malley reined up in helpless anger, the sharp smell of gunpowder reaching him on the stifling hot breeze. Hodge Guyman made a dry, triumphant grin with no humor in it and calmly thumbed two new cartridges into the cylinder of his .44. Julio watched with tears in his brown eyes, for the sheep were like his children.
The riders stayed until almost dark. They stood by silently while Julio and O’Malley brought the strung-out sheep together to bed them down.
Guyman’s eyes lingered on Mary. “We’re going home now, but we’ll be back bright and early in the morning. You keep that coffee hot.”
Not until after supper did Mary ask O’Malley, “Why did we get into a fix like this?”
He told her how long it would have taken had they turned back and headed south from San Angelo.
“But this way you might lose all the sheep,” she argued.
“It’s better to lose the sheep than to lose you.”
Her mouth dropped open. Her eyes were wounded. For a moment she stared at him in hurt silence. “Did you think I would be leaving you, Larkin?”
He stared morosely into the campfire, poking aimlessly at the coals with a burned-off mesquite stick. “I couldn’t have blamed you. You’re a town girl, like your father said. This life is hard enough on men sometimes, but for a girl, a girl from town…”
His voice trailed off. He looked up and saw her temper change from deep hurt to a proud anger. “Why did you marry me then, Larkin, if you had so little faith in me?”
She arose stiffly and turned away from him. Pleading, he followed after her, but she would not listen to him. For a long time, then, he sat brooding at the dying campfire, watching the flashes of lightning that built in the west. He watched them, but he did not really see them at all.
Next morning the wind came out of the west, bringing patchy lead-gray clouds hurrying low overhead. The west wind was damp and cool, foretelling of rain somewhere. O’Malley’s pulse quickened at the thought of rain. But there was an irony to it that did not escape him. Had it come a week earlier, he could have skirted around the Two Bar country. Now he was in the middle of it, and no amount of rain could change that.
Hodge Guyman arrived early. Arrogantly he rode into the middle of camp, heedless of the dust kicked up by his skittish, ear-twitching dun. It was a nervous young bronc with a hackamore over its head instead of a bridle and bit. That would be Guyman’s way of making a show. And O’Malley knew who the show was for.
Guyman stepped down, took a tin cup without asking, and poured himself some black coffee. He did not have his crew with him, just Newt. Newt stopped outside of camp and led his horse in, as an old-time cowboy of good manners would do. He tipped his hat to Mary.
Guyman eased up to O’Malley’s horse. Before O’Malley could move to stop him, he slipped the saddle gun out of its scabbard. He smashed the stock against an iron wagon rim and pitched the rifle into the wagon. Grinning, he stationed himself beside the wagon, where Mary had to pass close as she loaded the camp gear.
O’Malley clenched his fists, knowing he had to put up with it or see his flock wiped out. But he knew he could not put up with it long, sheep or no sheep. He gave Julio a signal, and they started the flock moving.
To the west the gray clouds darkened almost to black. The wind, so hot yesterday, now was cool with the stirring smell of rain that a drouth-hardened Texan can truly appreciate. Somewhere ahead, O’Malley thought, it must be raining torrents.
They had not been on the move long before a ewe up near the lead decided to take off on a cow trail that led up the bank. Seeing her, Julio Ramirez trotted heavily over to head her off.
Guyman was riding far back, near Mary and the wagon. Seeing Julio and the ewe, he jabbed spurs into the dun bronc. It made a couple of pitching jumps, but Guyman held its head up. Another time, maybe, he would let the bronc pitch its damnedest and put on a show. Right now he was more interested in beating the Mexican to that ewe.
But Julio had a head start. He was up on the bank first, waving his arms and shouting. The ewe wheeled and skittered back down to the flock. Guyman came charging up too late, his pistol out. In frustration he reined the bronc straight toward Julio.
The old Mexican tried to dodge, and the dun horse tried to miss him. But Guyman firmly jerked on the reins and slammed his mount into the herder. The impact flung Julio over the edge. He rolled down the steep incline.
Loping fearfully to him, seeing how crookedly the old Mexican lay there, O’Malley thought surely he would have some broken bones. For a moment his eyes stabbed at Guyman. He had to force down a wild urge to drag the man out of the saddle. But he had to take care of Julio. While he was doing that, Guyman rode away.
The old rider Newt came up and peered down the bank, shame in his eyes. “Your man hurt?”
The breath had been knocked out of Julio. When he tried to stand, he winced at the pain of it.
O’Malley said, “You’ll do no more walking. You’ll have to use the wagon.”
Newt watched without comment as Mary brought the wagon. With Julio riding the wagon and O’Malley taking Julio’s place afoot at the head of the band, it would be Mary’s job to take O’Malley’s horse and follow behind, keeping the drags moving. She accepted without saying anything. Her eyes were still angry. She did not look at O’Malley.
She retreated beneath the wagon’s canvas cover and came out moments later wearing a pair of O’Malley’s rolled-up trousers belted tightly around her slim waist. She swung onto the horse without accepting a foot lift. Her small boots, with Mexican spurs jingling on the heels, were far short of the stirrups when she sat in the saddle.
Looking back often from his place in front of the slow-moving flock, O’Malley could see her riding back there, and Julio bringing up the wagon. His face twisted in worry as he saw Hodge Guyman riding beside Mary, following her like a persistent dog when she tried to pull away.
The rain started, gentle at first but gradually beating heavier. The tiny pencil-thin stream slowly widened, its trickle of clear water turning chocolate with mud. As the water deepened, O’Malley could see that soon it would be impossible for his sheep to cross it. He began working back afoot, shoving all of them to the north side. Before long the stream was ten feet wide and moving rapidly.
O’Malley knew he could wait no longer. He led the sheep up the slanting riverbank, out and away from the water.
Guyman wasted no time in getting there. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“This river’s fixing to flood. I have to get these sheep up on the bank or they’ll drown.”
Hodge Guyman wore that grin again, cold as ice in January. “This up here is the Two Bar. That down yonder is the state property. You get back on it!”
He drew his pistol and sat there with it in his hand, looking like a coyote that had just caught a lamb. O’Malley took an angry step toward him, ready to force a showdown. The pistol lifted. O’Malley’s mouth went thin with the fury that welled up in him.
“You can’t afford to shoot me, Guyman.”
“Maybe not, but I can shoot your sheep.”
The gun barked twice, sending the sheep scurrying back down the bank, toward the water. All but two that would never go anywhere again.
O’Malley turned away, defeated. He could drag Guyman down and whip him up one side of the riverbank and down the other. He knew he was man enough to do it. But in the end Guyman would still be the winner. It would take two days at best before O’Malley could get his flock off of the Two Bar land. Guyman could bring his men and kill every sheep long before then.
All O’Malley could do now was to let the sheep string out as high up the bank as possible, hoping the water would not rise enough to sweep them away. One thing he knew—if he lost his sheep, he would take their price out of Guyman’s hide. He would make Guyman eat that six-shooter, piece by piece.
The sheep edged ever higher as the water lapped up near their thin cloven hoofs. Once O’Malley looked back to see a big lamb slip down the muddy bank and tumble into the brown water, floundering helplessly until its heavy wool dragged it under.
Julio had taken the wagon up above, and Guyman had not tried to restrain him. Guyman was too busy. He was riding beside Mary, telling her all she might do, all she might have, if she would go with him. He reached across and touched her arm, and this time she did not pull away.
O’Malley stopped suddenly, his mouth open, the hot, jealous anger rising to his face.
He heard the faint rumbling noise somewhere upriver, obscured in the heavy beat of rain on the muddy ground, the rolling of water close to him. He sensed that a wall of it was coming down from somewhere ahead. But at the moment he cared mostly about Mary.
A black fury in him, O’Malley started back in a stiff trot, his fists knotted. Then he saw why Mary was letting Guyman ride up beside her, stirrup to stirrup.
Mary turned her foot outward, ever so little, and raked her big Chihuahua spur rowel down the bronc’s sensitive flank. The dun went straight up as if he had a fire in his tail. Caught by surprise, Guyman grabbed desperately at the saddle horn and managed somehow to catch hold of it. But his left stirrup was flopping free.
The bronc jumped again, sideways this time, as Mary sailed her wet hat under its nose. The right stirrup was flopping now. Guyman was up one side and down the other, helpless. The .44 sailed out of his holster and landed with a splash in the foaming water.
For one brief moment it looked as if Guyman would hang onto the saddle. Then he went down, his eyes and mouth wide open, into the dirty, churning water. The bronc pitched across the river and up the far bank, headed for home. Mary spurred along behind it, shouting, keeping it on the run.
Guyman pulled to his feet, swaying, coughing, the water swirling around his hips. He demanded that Newt catch his horse.
Newt eased through the rising water, in no hurry. Smiling, he looked back over his shoulder. “I’ll try to catch him, Hodge. Don’t you go away.” He set off in a slow trot, taking his time.
Still boiling mad, O’Malley waded after Guyman, swinging his fists. Guyman was strong, and he was mean. But he had a bellyful of dirty water, and O’Malley had the wild strength that comes from an Irish rage. Guyman never had a chance.
The third time O’Malley dragged Guyman up out of the mud and water to pound him some more, Mary pushed her horse between them. “There’s a big rise of water coming yonder. Even the sheep have got sense enough to get up out of the way.”
O’Malley had to half carry Guyman up the north side because the man had so little strength left in him. Before long the river was bank full. Heavy clouds to the west promised to keep it that way. Guyman did not look like the colonel’s son now. Afoot, his hat gone, his muddy clothes clinging to him, his lips blue with cold, he looked like a half-drowned banty rooster.
“It may be a couple of days before you can get back across,” O’Malley told him. “Even if your friends come to help you, they can’t do much from the other side. And maybe by then we’ll be off of the Two Bar country for good.”
There wasn’t any fight left in Guyman now. “Two days is a long time to go without grub. You ain’t going to pull out and leave me here to starve, are you?”
A malicious gleam came to O’Malley’s eyes, and he began to smile for the first time in days. “We’re not leaving anything here for you. But if you want to come along and help us drive the sheep, we’ll see that you eat.”
O’Malley thought Guyman was going to die right there in front of him. He shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, and turned away.
But when he looked back later he saw Guyman trudging along in muddy boots, shoving wool-soaked sheep before him.
O’Malley walked slowly beside his wife, trying hard to think of the right thing to say. All that came was, “Forgive me, Mary.”
She smiled the smile that had drawn him to her the first time he had seen her in San Antonio. “That I will, Larkin O’Malley. But remember this—I have the blood of Michael Donovan in my veins, and there’s no quitting in the Donovans. Many a time I’ve seen my father mad and disgusted almost to busting, the way I was. And then he would go on and do a better job than he’d ever done before.
“You’ve seen me mad, and I’ve no doubt you’ll see me mad again. But it doesn’t mean I’m quitting you, Larkin. It just means you’ll have to get a move on you if you want to keep up with me.”
Smiling, Larkin O’Malley squeezed her hand and pulled her down from the horse to kiss her. Then he looked toward his sheep, strung out atop the riverbank, and he got a move on.
IN THE LINE OF DUTY
The two horsemen came west over the deep-rutted wagon road from Austin, their halterless Mexican packmule following like a dog, its busy ears pointing toward everything which aroused its active curiosity.
Frontier Texans always said they could recognize a real peace officer a hundred yards away and a Texas Ranger as far as they could see him. Sergeant Duncan McLendon was plainly a Ranger, though he customarily wore his badge pinned out of sight inside his vest. He rode square-shouldered and straight-backed, his feet braced firmly in the stirrups of his Waco saddle. He wore a flat-brimmed hat and high-topped black boots with big-roweled Petmecky spurs. His gray eyes were pinched and crow-tracked at the corners, and they pierced a man like a brace of bowie knives.
Those eyes moved restlessly, missing little. Quietly, without turning his head, he spoke to Private Billy Hutto. “Two men yonder in that live oak motte.”
Hutto, in his early twenties and as yet simply a cowboy with a commission, let his hand ease cautiously toward the Colt .45 his Ranger wages were still paying for. “I see them. Reckon they’re with us or agin us?”
Firmly McLendon said: “We’re not here to be with anybody or agin anybody. We’ve come to arrest one man and stop a feud.”
The two men did not follow, but the grim frown never stopped tugging at the corners of McLendon’s gray-salted black mustache. It was still there when they skirted the crest of a chalky hill and came in sudden view of the ugly sprawl of picket shacks and rock cabins known as Cedarville.
Disappointment tinged Billy Hutto’s voice. “I sure thought there’d be more to it than this.”
It was common knowledge from here to the Pedernales River that Cedarville had stolen the county seat by voting all its dogs and most of its jackrabbits in the election. McLendon said: “For what it is, there’s more than enough.” Maybe next election the courthouse would go to somebody else.
For now, though, the courthouse was here, a frame structure long and narrow, facing a nondescript row of stone and cedar picket and liveoak-log buildings that dealt in all manner of merchandise but specialized in hard drink, by the shot or by the jug. Beside the courthouse squatted a flat-roofed stone jail which appeared more solidly built. The kind of prisoners they brought in here, it had better be. McLendon pointed his chin. “This is where we’ll likely find Sheriff Prather.”
He swung down and stretched his back and his legs, for it had been a long ride. He cast one wishful glance at a saloon, for it had been a dusty ride, too. But drink had to wait. He looped his reins over a cedar-log hitching rack and pointed at the packmule, which swiveled its neck as its curious eyes and ears took in the sights. “Tie the mule, Billy. She’ll be all over town stirrin’ up mischief.”
A broad man with the beginnings of a middle-age paunch stepped to the open doorway, darkly eyeing McLendon and Hutto with a look just short of actual hostility. “Rangers?”
McLendon nodded. “I’m Sergeant McLendon. This is Billy Hutto.”
“Where’s the rest of you?”
“We’re all there is.”
“I asked for a whole company. We got bad trouble here.”
“The two of us is all that was available. The legislature saw fit to cut the Ranger appropriations. I take it you’re Sheriff Prather.”
