Dead Man's Ranch Read online

  “Do I have a choice? No menu from which to choose?” As he said this the door opened and two women entered.

  Mae looked up from scowling at the stranger, and a smile transformed her face. “Miss Callie. Miss Gleason. Come in, come in. Harvey vill help you with your things.”

  “Course I will. I do everything else around here.”

  “Oh, hush, silly man.”

  But he strode forward and helped them off with their coats, hanging them on pegs by the door. Then, just in case they hadn’t seen the tall man sitting fifteen feet away, he raised his eyebrows and jerked his head in the stranger’s direction. The younger of the two ladies said, “Do you have a nervous condition, Mr. Peterson? Your neck is twitching something fierce.”

  “I…I have dishes to wash.” He scurried off to the kitchen.

  The proprietor looked at him as he passed, then exchanged a spluttered laugh with the ladies, before heading for the kitchen herself. Soon they heard clanging of pots and shouts in German.

  Middleton saw no solution but to offer seats at his table to the two ladies. He stood, his chair dragging along the floorboards, and gestured at his table. “Would you ladies care to join me? I can’t guarantee the palatability of the fare, but I can assure you that the level of conversation may help to render the repast tolerable.”

  He saw the smile slide from the young blond woman’s face. Where before there had been a dancing light in her dark eyes, he now saw sharpness. The older woman at her side held her by the elbow and steered her to a table on the other side of the room. He sighed and sat down.

  It was some time before he spoke again. He had finished his meal, and it had been surprisingly toothsome. He felt a judicious comment now might help to heal the rift he had apparently caused earlier, though for the life of him he couldn’t understand how a plain statement of the truth could be so offensive.

  He cleared his throat and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “I had no idea such plain fare could taste so…truly acceptable.” It wasn’t really what he wanted to say. It had indeed tasted exceptional.

  The young woman looked up from her plate. “And I had no idea people would travel so great a distance just to be rude.”

  The older lady laid a hand on the young woman’s arm and murmured something, not even looking at him. But not so with the young lady. She stared at him, her blue eyes sharp and glinting.

  “The truth is rarely rude, miss. And how do you know I have traveled from afar?”

  “No one from these parts would ever complain about Mae’s cooking.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  The sound of her rage and exasperation—a harsh growl—mixed with the sound of the door slamming open, caught them all by surprise. Mae and Harv came out from the kitchen in time to see the young lady stand up and throw her balled napkin on her half-eaten meal. Beyond her, a dark young man stood weaving in the shadows of the doorway, his face partially shadowed by his low-pulled hat.

  “Hot in here, ain’t it?” he said. No one said anything. He turned his head to his right as if a string were attached to his chin. Even from across the room, the smell of booze and sweat rolled in a wave off the young man. “Why, Miss Callie….I didn’t know you were in town.” He sounded as if he had just awakened.

  “Brandon,” she said, barely glancing at the drunk. Then she shifted her gaze from the tall stranger, who was also standing, staring at her, his brow furrowed, a funny smile on his mouth, and looked at the swaying man. “Shouldn’t you be at the ranch? Your mother’s alone there, Brandon.”

  “Okay, okay, that’s what I’m talking about. Everyone is trying to tell me what to do, like I’m a child. I’m a man now!” He thumbed his chest. “The man of the house, right? The man of the ranch now. So, everyone”—he whipped his arms wide, one hitting the door and knocking it open—“just stop calling me a child.”

  “Then stop acting like one,” said the girl.

  The young man walked toward her, and the stranger stepped from behind his table and placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “See here, sir. You are intoxicated and in no suitable state to address a young lady. Do you hear?”

  The young man’s fist, despite his advanced state of inebriation, found its true mark with unerring accuracy and drove square into Middleton’s cheekbone. The force of the punch, unexpected as it was, sent the broad-shouldered stranger slamming into an empty table. His head whipped backward against the wood surface; then he flopped to the floor, unconscious.

  The two older women bent low over the man while the younger woman stood behind them, a hand over her mouth, hiding a smile. He’s rather handsome for a big-city dandy, she thought. And after all, how could he know that Brandon is harmless? As if on cue, a belch from the young drunk interrupted her musing. She turned a sharp eye on Brandon, who smiled and wobbled in place.

  Harv bolted through the door and into the street, and in minutes had retrieved a man wearing a star and carrying a half-eaten chicken leg. The lawman took one last bite before tossing it into the street. He wiped his mouth on his shirt cuff and strode into the dining room, hefting his belt and canting his head to one side.

  “Brandon, what in the world have you done now?”

  The young man wobbled around to stare at the speaker. “Oh, hello, Sheriff Tucker. I didn’t see you standing there.”

  “Surprised you can see anything, the state you’re in.” He gestured with his chin toward the prone form on the floor. “He all right, Miss Callie?”

  She nodded as the unconscious man slowly shook his head, his eyelids fluttering.

  “Somebody wanna give me an explanation? I’m in the middle of a home-cooked meal and Harv here busts in to tell me this little hothead is just about killing somebody.”

  “Didn’t think you’d come if I told you that Brandon had punched a fella in the jaw.”

  “You’re right, Harv.” He poked a finger in the hotelier’s face. “Not with a meal like that and me barely set down to it.” He sighed and said, “Well, I’m here now. So what happened?”

  Callie stepped forward and said, “That man”—she pointed at the now awake stranger on the floor—“and I were having a, uh, verbal disagreement when Brandon barged in, drunk, as usual.”

  Brandon giggled and slumped into a chair at the table behind him, resting his head on his hands. They all watched him, the locals shaking their heads.

  “I told Brandon that he was acting like a child and he stepped toward me, but he”—she pointed at the stranger, who had grabbed a corner of the table and was pulling himself upright—“interfered, and that’s when Brandon punched him.”

  “Interfered?” said Middleton, shaking his head. “Why, that drunken brute was about to attack you, miss….”

  The sheriff and Callie snorted at the same time. “I don’t reckon little ol’ Brandon would ever attack Callie, mister. She’s like an older sister to him. No, stranger, I guess your face was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Best get a bit of raw beefsteak for that bruise. She’s forming to lump now. I can see it. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of ’em. See some more too, come Saturday night.”

  Harv laughed and nodded.

  “Surely you don’t expect I’m going to let this matter drop? I want that man arrested, Sheriff. I want him incarcerated for what he’s done.”

  “Well, what’s he really done, eh, stranger?”

  “Why, he assaulted me!”

  They all looked at Brandon, whose head was flat on the tabletop, and who was snoring.

  “I reckon I could take him to the cell. Let him sleep it off there. Safer for him anyway.” The sheriff looked at the tall man. “What with strangers on the loose and all. Harv, you wanna give me a hand with the boy?”

  “Sure, sure. Let’s go.”

  The two men left, dragging the unconscious lad between them.

  “That savage should be in prison.” The stranger worked a big hand over his tender cheek.

  No one said anything, but the pretty young la
dy they’d called Callie, the one with the sharp blue eyes, made to step toward him. The older woman with her held her by the arm and said, “No, Callie. Leave well enough alone.”

  The stranger shook his head and strode to the door. “Savages,” he muttered. “The dime novels are correct, after all.”

  “You forget two things, mister.” Mae stood in the middle of the room, her large white apron stained with food, fists resting on her broad waist.

  “What precisely would they be, ma’am?” said Middleton, paused in the doorway.

  She leaned over and snatched his derby from the chair on which it sat. “Your hat,” she said, and flung it toward him. He reached for it, but it sailed past him into the dark street. The sudden movement roused a fresh wave of pain from his throbbing face. He brought his hands to his temples and rubbed gingerly.

  “And your bill,” she said.

  “I should hardly have thought,” he said in a voice little more than a raspy whisper, “that I’d be charged for being attacked in your establishment, ma’am.”

  “You interfered. And besides, you enjoyed your meal.” She nodded at his plate, a few traces of brown gravy the only signs of the ample portions that had been piled on it a little while before.

  He sighed and said, “How much?”

  “One dollar.”

  He tossed a coin on the nearest table and walked slowly out the door and into the dark street.

  “Welcome to Turnbull,” shouted Callie after him. “Don’t stay too long.”

  The laughter of the three women followed him into the street. He stretched to his full height, let out a long, slow breath with a sigh, and retrieved his battered hat from the dirt at his feet. He placed the hat on his head and rubbed his jaw and cheek as he stared at the silhouettes of the women in the window of the dining house.

  Soon two of them moved away from the window, but one remained. He fancied that it was the young lady with the gold-silk hair and the fierce blue eyes. The one whose honor he had defended, no matter what the local populace might think.

  Despite the throbbing in his jaw, Brian T. Middleton found himself smiling a little as he walked back to the hotel. Indeed, he thought, the West held one surprise after another.

  Chapter 6

  Wilf Grindle didn’t so much look at his son, Junior, as take in the space around him, as if he were expecting the boy to grow larger right there before his very eyes. Finally his gaze settled on the boy’s face. Eyes red again, dark smudges beneath.

  By God, thought Wilf, but I never thought I’d see the day when my own son would turn out to have bottle fever. He pushed out cigar smoke, seeing through it the lack of success with even this, the latest in a lifetime of failed endeavors. “Did you sort out Mica’s problem?”

  “Well, Father, he wasn’t there when I got down to the bunkhouse.”

  “Did you wait for him, Junior? He was probably only out back doin’ his necessaries.” Wilf watched his son grip the funnel brim of his brown hat, curling it more and turning it in both hands, knuckles tight. What made the boy so nervous around him? He wasn’t so antsy up with the men, nor by himself; he’d often seen him relaxed and walking easy. Or riding. And the boy, by God, could sit a horse. Just as if he were part of the animal.

  I guess that’s just my way, thought Wilf Grindle, reflecting on the men who worked for him, people in town, people who claimed to be friends, all uncomfortable and tense around him. So much so that he’d gotten used to it over the years. Nothing I can help. Besides, there were few people who ever really understood him, who weren’t afraid to speak their minds around him, and two of them were dead.

  His dear, sweet Carla, gone now these nineteen years, and their daughter, Callie, so like her mother—though he fancied he saw a bit of himself in her too. And of course there was Mica, his near-constant companion, cantankerous range boss, and second parent to his kids since Carla passed. Though he would never tell him this to his face, mostly because he would risk buttoned eyes and a swollen jaw, but Mica was the only man of color he’d ever found to be worth a damn.

  But most of all, there was Rory MacMawe, his old friend, gone the better part of two weeks. The best of friends and the only man who ever stood up to him, the only man who ever told him no, the only man to ever defy him. And look where it got them. Hadn’t spoken in more than sixteen years. Not since he sent the boy away. Wilf hated that he would never again get the chance to talk with Rory.

  Junior shifted from one boot to the other, gave a slight cough.

  Wilf looked up. “Junior, damn it, why don’t you ever sit down when you come in here?” He wagged a hand at one of the two leather wingback chairs angled in front of his massive desk. The boy sat as if he’d never used a chair before. Wilf lowered himself into his own worn old chair and said, “We need to discuss a few things more important, I daresay, than the state of Mica’s supply woes. He’s an old range maid. He’ll figure it out—he just likes to have someone to complain to. I reckon he wants to let me know he’s keeping busy. As if I didn’t know it already.”

  “What did you want to talk about, Father?”

  Wilf looked again at his son, scratched his chin, rolled the cigar ash to a point in the glass ashtray. “It’s about the Dancing M.”

  “Mr. MacMawe’s place?”

  Wilf nodded. “I’m going to buy it.”

  Junior leaned forward in his chair. “What about Esperanza and Brandon?”

  Wilf stood up fast, his chair clunking against the bookshelves behind him. “What about them, damn it? Those two are nothing more than squatters. They don’t own the place. No one does, technically. Yet.”

  “But Brandon is old Rory’s son. So that must make Esperanza his—”

  The older man pointed a long finger at his son and said, “Don’t you say it. Don’t you ever say she’s his wife, nor he’s his son. Because it’s not so. Bastards and housemaids do not a family make.”

  Junior opened his mouth, closed it again, and stared at his father, who had pushed his desk chair in and was now pacing slowly behind the desk, the width of the dark room.

  “Now,” said Wilf, more for himself than anyone else, “I’ll admit the boy does bear a resemblance to Rory in certain respects—and while I’m on the subject, you’re to refer to him as Mr. MacMawe, you hear? The woman did keep house for him and care for him in his final days, and that’s good and admirable, but that’s all it was. There’s no proof of anything further than that. And I’d be mighty surprised if old Rory left anything in the way of a will.”

  He looked at his son, but the boy seemed as wary and confused as ever. Wilf leaned on the desk and said, “Of course I will pay fair market value for every one of its 2,997 acres. Pay it to who, I don’t know yet.” He resumed pacing. “And the woman and boy should get something…for their troubles. But it won’t be the ranch. Not by a long shot. That was destined for us,” he said, pointing the smoking cigar at Junior, “to be folded into the Driving D. Hell, that’ll pretty near double the size of our spread.”

  “But…don’t we have enough land already, Father?”

  Wilf paused. His daughter exasperated him daily, but never like the boy. “I thought you were smarter than that, Junior. If I have to explain that, then I have failed as a father, as an example to you, son. Land is the most basic and vital thing a man can have. Without it there’s no power, no influence, no…well, look around you, boy! No fine things! You don’t know what it’s like to wake up hungry and feel that way all day, then go to bed wondering if that bite of damned squirrel meat would be enough to keep you alive till morning.” He stalked the worn path behind his desk, cigar smoke pluming behind him like smoke from a train engine.

  He turned back to the boy, his dynamite stick of a cigar held in one hand. “Why, boy, without land there’s no way a future can be built up. And while I’m thinking of you and your future…” He thumbed his own chest. “This chicken ain’t cooked just yet, you know. And you’re my son. And a grown man now. Time you had a spread of
your own.”

  Wilf worked his way around to the front of the desk and sat on the edge, one long leg dangling, inches separating the two men. He leaned down toward his son. “Time you had a full share in the doings of this place. Carve out a life for your own family. We set you up there and you’ll have your pick of the lassies. Mark my words.” He winked at the boy, but Junior just sat staring at him as if he had just told him he was switching all their stock from beeves to sheep.

  The jangle and clatter of a barouche out front drew Wilf to the window. “Your sister’s back from town,” he said, smiling at his son for the first time that day. “Let’s go help her bring in the supplies. See if she remembered my bourbon….” As they headed out of the room, he patted Junior on the shoulder, who stiffened under his father’s old work-gnarled hands. Wilf lost the smile, but it bloomed again when he opened the front door and there was Callie, arms laden with parcels.

  “My stars, girl, did you buy out Miss Gleason’s entire stock?”

  “Now, Papa, you know I’m the only one in this family who can practice any amount of restraint when it comes to spending money.”

  “Ha! I doubt that very much, but I will say it doesn’t look like you bought yourself a new ladylike hat.”

  “Now, Papa….” Callie turned to her brother, who followed their father down the steps.

  “Junior, have you had to listen to this old mountain goat the entire time I’ve been gone?” Into his arms she plunked a sack of coffee beans and placed a flat, brown-paper bundle on top of it. “That’s for you,” she said, smiling at her brother. And turning to her father, she said, “And I paid for it with my own money.”

  “I never begrudge family trading gifts. It’s downright civilized. Why, before you arrived we were talking of just such a thing….”

  “Nothing wrong with your hat, Callie,” said Junior, not looking at either of them.

  Callie watched Wilf narrow his eyes and stare at the boy. “Speaking of gifts,” she said. “Miss Gleason insisted on sending this for you, Papa.” She handed her father a wooden box, hinged on the side, with a carved surface. He opened it, and nested inside was a bottle of Barr’s Best, his favorite bourbon. Wilf held it at arm’s length and admired it. “Why, it’s fine, just fine. But whatever for?”