For the Brand Page 20

  Relief flooded through Willis. Maybe the young cowboy had missed, and in the woods, his father had a good chance of eluding them.

  Hooves thundered, heralding Abe’s arrival. On being told the news, he rose in the stirrups. “What are you waiting for? After him! Spread out! But stay in sight of the man to your right and your left. Don’t take any chances! Don’t try to take him alive. Shoot the Kid down on sight!”

  “The Kid’s not a rustler,” Willis heard himself saying. “He deserves a trial, the same as anybody else would.”

  “He shot the parson,” someone said.

  “The parson ain’t Moses,” Willis responded. “If the Kid had shot Baxter, we wouldn’t be so all-fired eager to string him up.”

  “What’s gotten into you?” Casey McLeash asked.

  “Since when do you give a damn about outlaws, whether they’re hot-brand artists or not?”

  “With the marshal and the deputy dead, we’re the law now,” George Trimble pointed out.

  “Then we should act like the law,” Willis said, “and the law doesn’t hang folks without a trial.”

  “You’re gettin’ soft now that you have a cow bunny,” Trimble replied.

  Willis almost reined over to punch him but Abe Tyler spared him from making a fool of himself.

  “No. Will is right. I’ve always said that Wyoming isn’t Montana. We can’t have vigilantes take over. Yet here we are, behaving like vigilantes ourselves. My only excuse is that I think shooting a man of the cloth is as low as a badman can go.” Abe smiled at Willis. “Thank you for keeping your head. The rest of you, if we can, we’ll take the Kid to town to stand trial.”

  “Hell,” Gus said in disgust, “why don’t we just paint big white bull’s-eyes on our backs?”

  “I didn’t say not to shoot if he resists,” Abe said. “If he lifts a finger against you, fill him with lead. We’re justified in defending ourselves, law or no law.”

  “The law!” Bob Ashlon scoffed. “It’s real good at protectin’ those who break it but not worth a damn at protectin’ those who don’t.”

  “Save the legal niceties for later,” Abe said. “As we speak, the Flour Sack Kid is getting away. After him!”

  Willis trailed them into the trees. He reined wide to the left to be at the north end of the line as it advanced. More than likely his father was somewhere near the center and he did not want to be one of the punchers who caught him. He did not even try to search. He was absorbed in thoughts of life and fate and how one woman could change everything for the better.

  The cowhands were shouting back and forth.

  “Any sign of him yet?”

  “He’s not over here!”

  “Nothin’ this way!”

  “Look up in the trees! He could be hidin’ up a tree!”

  “Watch for logs, too! He could be hidin’ behind one!”

  His head down, Willis thought of another woman who had loved him once—a woman who had doted over him as only a mother could. Lord, there were times when he missed her! He often wondered how different his life would have been had she not died.

  Suddenly a hand grasped hold of his left leg and a muffled voice whispered, “Son! It’s me! Don’t let on that I’m here!”

  Willis jerked straight in the saddle. The flour sack was pale in the night; the Kid was holding his other hand to his shoulder. “Go away,” Willis whispered. “I don’t want anythin’ to do with you.”

  “I’m bleedin’.”

  “Serves you right for goin’ around shootin’ parsons,” Willis whispered almost savagely. “You have no more brains than a turnip.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” the Kid protested. “The jackass grabbed me and tried to take my pistols from me and one went off.”

  “It’s never your fault, is it?”

  “Damn it, son, I’m hurt. Are you goin’ to put on airs or help me?”

  Willis glanced to his right. The nearest rider, Bob Ashlon, was barely visible. “Take off that stupid sack and wad it under your shirt.”

  “What for?” his father balked. “I’ve had it for years. It’s part of me, like your hat is part of you.”

  “Where did you get a silly notion like that? My hat is no more a part of me than my belt buckle.” Willis caught himself. Now was not the time for another of their arguments. He must control his temper. “That damn sack stands out like a sheet on a clothesline. Do somethin’ with it or I’ll leave you and your precious sack to bleed to death.”

  “A fine way to talk to your pa,” the Kid said, but he took off the sack, folded it, unbuttoned his shirt, and slid the sack underneath. “There. Happy now?”

  “I’ll be happy the day you’re out of my hair for good,” Willis whispered. He had been slowly drifting to the left and was now out of Ashlon’s sight. “Quick,” he said, lowering his arm, “grab hold and swing up. I’ll get you out of here before my whole life is ruined.”

  “Thank you, son.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’d rather not be reminded.”

  “A little inconvenience and you become all prickly. I’m the one who’s been shot, not you.”

  The saddle creaked. The Kid’s hand gripped Willis’ shoulder. Willis reined west but held the zebra dun to a walk.

  “Thank the good Lord I spotted you before any of those others spotted me,” the Kid whispered.

  “I wouldn’t be bringin’ the Lord into this so soon after shootin’ one of His shepherds.”

  “You haven’t changed much, Will,” the Kid grumbled.

  “Neither have you, Matthew.”

  They went a short way, and the Kid said, “I thought maybe you had forgotten my name.”

  “I tried to forget you but you won’t let me,” Willis said. “I reckon some ties are deeper than we count on.”

  “I’m sorry for all the aggravation I’ve caused you.”

  “Don’t you dare be nice to me,” Willis snapped. “I’m entitled to want to split your skull with a brandin’ iron.”

  “It’s been that rough, has it?” Matthew whispered.

  Willis was shaking, he was so mad. “I’m not foolin’. I’ll push you off and you can fend for your own damn self.”

  “It’s no less than I deserve, I guess. I took the wrong road in life, and I’m not makin’ excuses.”

  Willis half turned and jabbed a finger into his father’s chest. “Quit being so all-fired reasonable! It’s a little late to be apologizin’.”

  “I know that, son. Believe me, I know—”

  “What does it take to get through to you?” Willis was practically beside himself. “I don’t care, Pa. I just don’t care anymore. So save your excuses for when you’re lookin’ in the mirror.”

  “If you don’t care, why are you so upset?”

  Willis refused to answer. For over a mile, he wound to the northwest and then headed due west, relying on the Big Dipper and the North Star to guide him.

  “Where are you takin’ me, son?”

  “Stop callin’ me that,” Willis said testily. “We’re goin’ to the Bar T—to a gully near the ranch house. It’s choked with brush you can hide in until I arrange for you to leave the country.”

  “Who says I’m leavin’?”

  “I do,” Willis declared. “The parson was the last straw. Pick a place, any place, so long as it’s not within five hundred miles of the Bar T. I’ll get you a horse and supplies, and I never want to set eyes on you again.”

  “It’s that bad between us?” the Kid asked.

  “When hasn’t it been?”

  “That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. I did my best by you when you were younger. Then your ma died and I lost my head.”

  “And it’s been lost ever since.”

  His father chuckled. “That was a good one.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. I’m serious, Pa. I want you gone. I have a chance at a new life and I don’t want you to spoil it.”

  “Is it that filly you were with—the strange one who wears the
hat and veil all over the place?”

  “She’s agreed to marry me,” Willis revealed. “We’re going to run the Bar T together, have kids of our own. I pray to God I’m a better pa to them than you ever were to me.”

  “Did I miss somethin’? What’s that business about runnin’ the Bar T?”

  “I thought you knew. She’s here to buy it, all the way from Texas. Once I marry her, I’ll be half owner.”

  “So the ranch will be yours?” The Kid whistled. “That’s good news, son. Mighty good news. Now I don’t need to go anywhere. Your marriage is the answer to our prayers.”

  Reining up, Willis twisted around. He had not gotten a good look at his father earlier but now he did, and was shocked. Once a deep brown, his father’s hair was nearly white, with broad gray streaks. Once smooth and rugged, his father’s face was seamed with wrinkles, his father’s jaw framed by a couple week’s worth of whitish-gray stubble. “The only prayer I have is to be rid of you.”

  “Don’t you see?” Matthew said. “Thanks to you, I can start a new life, too. I can give up my wicked ways. Isn’t that what you want more than anythin’?”

  “How is it thanks to me?” Willis asked suspiciously as he slapped his legs against the zebra dun.

  “You’ll be runnin’ the Bar T. I’ll throw away my flour sack, and you can hire me on as a new hand. We’ll make up some name for me so no one will suspect who I really am.” His father clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll work hard—you’ll see. You won’t have any regrets.”

  “No,” Willis said.

  “You won’t hire me? Why not? No one knows what I look like under the flour sack. It’s perfectly safe.”

  “I’ll know the truth,” Willis said, “and my wife will know because I won’t keep it a secret from her. I can’t. I care for her too much.”

  His father was growing angry. “I won’t be a burden. I promise. I’ll do the same work as the rest of the hands, and I’ll do it well. I won’t give you cause to regret takin’ me on.”

  “You’re not listenin’. I’ve already made up my mind. You’re leavin’ the territory and you’re not comin’ back.”

  “I don’t believe my ears. You’d deny your pa a normal life?”

  “You denied me one,” Willis said. “Don’t make more of our relationship than there is—if we can even call it that.” He let out a long sigh. “We’re doin’ it my way or we’re not doin’ it at all. Climb down and we’ll part company for once and for all.”

  “You don’t leave a man breathin’ room.”

  “What makes you think you deserve any?”

  That shut him up for a while. Willis came to a clearing and spied lights at the far end of the home valley. It would be a while yet before they reached the gully.

  “What is this filly of yours like, if you don’t mind my askin’?” Matthew inquired.

  “I do mind.” To Willis, Laurella was the one truly clean and wonderful thing in his life, and he would not discuss her with a man who had tainted the Lander family with the stamp of lawlessness.

  “I would be a wonderful grandpa.”

  Willis had endured all he could. He drew rein and swung down, careful to put most of his weight on his good leg, then reached up and gripped the front of his father’s shirt and hauled him off the zebra dun. “No more!” he raged, and shoved. His father fell onto his back, still clutching his wound. “I will not put up with you anymore—do you hear me?”

  Straddling his father, Willis grabbed him by the throat and slapped him full across the face, not once but five, six, seven, eight times, slapped him hard, so hard that his father’s lower lip split and blood trickled from the corner of his father’s mouth. Willis raised his hand to slap him again and abruptly realized his father was not fighting back, was not making any attempt whatsoever to defend himself.

  “Are you done, son?”

  Willis shoved his father to the ground. Whirling, he stalked a dozen steps, his arms tight against his ribs, unable to keep his eyes from misting and furious at himself for being so weak. “I hate you.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Stop it! You gave up your right to be my pa when you left us. And I will not inflict you on my own children.”

  “If you feel this strongly—”

  Willis’ revolver was in his hand. He thumbed back the hammer. His father was an indistinct shape in the darkness, but at that range, Willis couldn’t miss him. “You deserve this.”

  “I’ve always loved you,” Matthew said.

  Invisible daggers sliced into Willis’ insides. His finger curled around the trigger. The metal was cool to the touch. All it would take was a slight squeeze.

  “I know I’ve done you wrong, son. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t curse myself. But I couldn’t stop. They took your ma from me and I can never forgive them for as long as I live.”

  “No one took her. It was just how things worked out.”

  “You’re a grown man. You should know better. Did the parson take up a collection for your ma? Did any of those fine, upstandin’ ladies from town come by to comfort her? Did anyone do anything for us?”

  “The doctor tried his best.”

  “He took an oath. All doctors do. They have to help whether they want to or not. But no one else would soil themselves by reachin’ out to poor white trash like us, and me a veteran. They left your ma to rot. Not one flower at her funeral. Not one person showed to mourn her.”

  “Have you forgotten what you did? How you got drunk and stood out in the middle of the street and cursed the town and said that if anyone showed up at the funeral, you would shoot them dead? Now you lie there and blame them?”

  “Someone should have come. Someone should have helped.”

  Willis slowly slid his revolver into his holster, then helped his father to stand. Only then did he realize how much taller he was, and how much broader in the shoulders, and how frail and old his father looked without the flour sack.

  It was pushing midnight by Willis’ watch when they came to the gully. He turned to tell his father to climb down and discovered the Kid was asleep. Gently shaking him, he said quietly, “We’re there.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Matthew stiffly slid down, and grimaced.

  “Let me have a gander at that shoulder.” Willis peeled the blood-soaked shirt partway off. The bullet had gone in under the clavicle and left a nasty exit wound. “You’ll need stitchin’.”

  “I can get by.”

  “We do this my way or we don’t do it. Savvy?” When his father nodded, Willis indicated the brush. “In you go. I’ll be back an hour before sunrise with what food I can scrape up, a canteen, and a needle and thread.”

  Matthew smiled and started to turn. “What if you’re caught? What will they do to you?”

  “It’s a little late to be thinkin’ about me.” Willis swung onto the hurricane deck. “In a couple of days I’ll have a horse and the supplies you’ll need, and you can be on your way.”

  “Whatever you want,” Matthew said meekly.

  Willis paralleled the gully. It came out forty yards from the rear of the ranch house. He reined west and then south to approach from a different direction. Lamps were on in the house, a rarity at that hour, and at the bunkhouse. He stripped the zebra dun, shouldered his saddlebags, and limped to the bunkhouse door. He had hoped everyone was asleep but voices came from within.

  “Will!” Charlie Weaver exclaimed. He and several others were playing poker with toothpicks for chips since Abe did not let them play for money. “Where in hell did you get to? The boys thought maybe the Kid got you.”

  “My leg cramped up.” Willis employed a lie they would accept since it had happened before. “I had to climb down and rest it a while. Afraid I dozed off.”

  “With us scourin’ those woods and callin’ your name?” Bob Ashlon asked.

  “I was on my way back when I stopped.” Willis grinned. “I guess you didn’t holler loud enough.” To keep them from asking more questions, he
said, “What’s the latest on the parson?”

  “The doc has him up to the house,” Charlie said. “It was too far to town, so they’re operatin’ on the kitchen table.”

  “They?”

  “Abe and Elfie and your sweetheart are helpin’. She was powerful worried about you. It was all Abe could to do to keep her from ridin’ out after you.” Charlie added a few toothpicks to the pot. “If you haven’t been up to the house yet, you might want to set her mind at rest.”

  “Did you ever find the Flour Sack Kid?” Willis remembered to ask.

  “Not a trace of him,” Rafe Carter said. “But I swear I hit him. I’ll bet he’s lyin’ out in the timber somewhere, bleedin’ to death.”

  “Let’s hope,” Sam Tinsdale said.

  Willis’ leg really did begin to cramp as he went up the path to the front porch. It had been a long, tiring day. His leg muscles had been neglected so long that it would be a while before he was his old self, or as close to his old self as his bad leg would let him be.

  At his knock, Little Sparrow opened the door. “Mr. Lander,” she said formally, “everyone has been worried.”

  “So I hear.” Willis doffed his hat and limped past her. In a chair in the parlor sat Reuben Marsh, hat in hand. Reuben nodded. “Would you let Miss Hendershot know I’m here?”

  “Certainly, sir.” Little Flower bobbed her exquisite chin, smiled at Reuben, and hurried down the hall.

  “Some night,” the foreman said.

  “Ain’t it?” Willis said.

  “Between the Flour Sack Kid and the Wilkes gang, we’ve had more excitement than we know what to do with.” Reuben was gazing down the hall like a puppy that had lost its master.

  “Some peace and quiet would be nice.” Willis put his hat on and took it off again. He smoothed his bandanna, hitched at his belt.

  “I’m happy for you, Will,” Reuben Marsh said. “About Miss Hendershot, I mean. You’re lucky havin’ a gal you can marry without complications.”

  “There’s not much to it. The man says I do and the woman says I do and the parson says now you are man and wife.”

  “Not that kind of complication,” Reuben said. “Not the ceremony.”

  “What other kind is there?”