Ralph Compton Ride the Hard Trail Read online

  “I had no idea,” Etta June said.

  Again Lin spoke up. “I am sorry. I should have warned you. He holds some peculiar notions. I don’t know where he got them from because he sure did not get them from anything our folks did or said.”

  “I get my notions from me,” Chancy declared.

  The trail they were winding along had brought them out of the foothills and into the mountains proper. Off a ways an eagle soared high on outstretched pinions. Songbirds warbled in the woods.

  Lin breathed deep and said, “I could learn to love it here.”

  “That is good to hear,” Etta June said. “How about you, Chancy?”

  “Need you ask? Trees and squirrels do not mean much. Give me a saloon and a bottle of whiskey and a card game and I am in heaven.”

  “You are young yet.”

  “So? Are you saying I do not know my own mind? That when I am older I will think a mountain is God’s gift to creation?”

  “That was harsh,” Lin said.

  “I don’t know why some people seem to think I should think like they do,” Chancy said to Etta June.

  “I would never presume in that regard.”

  “Then maybe we will get along. For my brother’s sake I am willing to try.”

  “May I ask you a personal question?” Etta June said.

  “What do you call what you have been doing?” Chancy laughed. “I suppose one more won’t hurt.”

  “What do you want out of life?”

  “See what I mean? Only a woman would ask a thing like that.” Chancy shrugged. “I don’t reckon I want anything.”

  “Everyone wants something.”

  “There you go. Telling me what I should think. But I honest to God don’t want a thing. Except maybe to be left alone to do what I want and not have people saying as how I should do this, that, or the other.”

  “He means me,” Lin said.

  They climbed until they came to a broad shelf. The afternoon was waning, and Etta June brought the buckboard to a stop near a ring of blackened rocks that showed the spot was regularly used as a campsite.

  “We are stopping?” Lin asked in some surprise.

  “We are,” Etta June confirmed. “The mountains at night are dangerous. A horse can easily break a leg. And there are bears and mountain lions and Indians.”

  Chancy pressed a hand to the small of his back and arched his spine. “How far is this ranch of yours, anyhow?”

  “We will reach it tomorrow afternoon.”

  Lin was more interested in another of her comments. “Abe said something about Indians too. Has there been an outbreak?”

  “A small band has been spotted a few times,” Etta June revealed. “Some say they are Crows; others say they are Blackfeet. Everyone suspects they are out to make trouble, but so far they have not gone on the warpath.”

  “Let them give us trouble,” Chancy said, patting his pearl-handled Colt. “I will kill redskins as soon as anyone.”

  About to climb down, Etta June paused. “You make it sound as if you have killed before.”

  Again Chancy patted his Colt. “I do not wear this for bluff or ballast.”

  Lin had dismounted and offered his arm to Etta June, saying, “That is his age talking.”

  “I will be glad when I am thirty,” Chancy said. “I am sick to death of being thought a shaver.”

  Smoothing her dress, Etta June regarded his Colt. “I trust you will not wear your artillery when you are working.”

  “You might as well ask me to shed my nose or my ears,” Chancy said.

  “What if I insist?”

  “Then we might as well part company now,” Chancy replied. “You just got through saying redskins are on the prowl, yet you want me to ride the range unarmed? If that is female logic, it proves what I have been saying.”

  “Very well. But you are not to let my son or my daughter handle it or shoot it without my consent.”

  “It will be a cold day in”—Chancy stopped and grinned—“Hades…before anyone but me touches my hardware.”

  Lin had listened to enough. “Why don’t you fetch some firewood while I help Mrs. Cather unhitch the team?”

  Later, seated near the crackling flames, with the aroma of brewing Arbuckle’s in his nostrils, Lin watched as Etta June opened a can of Van Camp’s beans. Stretching out his legs, he leaned back against his saddle and gave a contented sigh.

  “You seem quite happy at the moment,” Etta June remarked.

  “I am.” Lin gazed at the stars sparkling in the firmament. “I want to thank you again for taking us on.”

  “Thank me after you have been at it a month,” Etta June said. “Ranching is hard work.”

  Chancy, his arms wrapped around his chest, his hat pulled low, grunted. “Don’t we know it. Our pa worked from dawn until dusk to make ends meet.”

  “Did you admire him for that?”

  “What is admirable about working yourself to death?” Chancy rejoined. “I do not rate calluses all that high.”

  Etta June removed the lid and upended the can over a pan. “You prefer the easy life, I take it?”

  “Who doesn’t? If given their druthers between breaking their backs ten to twelve hours a day or playing cards all night long, most men would choose the cards.”

  “That simply is not true,” Etta June said. “My Tom was devoted to his family. He would never jeopardize our future by squandering our hard-earned money at poker.”

  “He would if he was any good at it,” Chancy said.

  About to stir the beans with a large wooden spoon, Etta June glanced across the fire. “My Tom was good at a lot of things, but that is neither here nor there. A man who cares for his family does not indulge in immature habits.”

  “So cards are immature, are they?”

  “When you have mouths to feed besides your own and a roof to keep over their heads, gambling is as irresponsible as you can be.” Etta June looked at Lin. “You are conspicuous by your silence.”

  “I agree with you. A husband and father should put his wife and family before everything else.”

  Etta June smiled. “I like your answer.”

  “That is not for me,” Chancy said. “There is too much of the world I have not seen, too many things I have not done. I will not let myself be tied to apron strings or bibs.”

  “Some folks would call that selfish,” Etta June said.

  “It is his age speaking again,” Lin interjected. It seemed to him that the two of them could not open their mouths without clawing at each other’s throats.

  “Folks may call it whatever they like,” Chancy said. “If there is one thing I do not care about, it is what others think.”

  “I wish I had that luxury.”

  Chancy poked at the unlit end of a burning brand with a toe, pushing it into the fire. “Are you saying you don’t?”

  “I am a widow with two children,” Etta June said. “People expect me to behave a certain way. Were I to take up with men and keep all hours, I would be branded a harlot.”

  “There are worse things to be branded,” Chancy said.

  “Not if you are a mother. Loose morals are frowned on. I would lose my credit at the store. The few dollars I have saved would not last long. When the money ran out I would lose my ranch. I would need a job or we would starve. And when you are female and have a reputation, there is only one sort of work you can get.”

  “We are back to the harlot.”

  “Some women might not have qualms about lying in bed with total strangers, but I do.”

  Lin gestured at his brother, who was about to say something more. “This is hardly fit talk.”

  “She started it.”

  “Be that as it may,” Lin said, “I would like to hear about her cows and anything else she considers important.”

  The next moment one of the horses raised its head, stamped a front hoof and nickered.

  Chancy was on his feet in a twinkling, his hand on his Colt. “Something is
out there.”

  “He caught a whiff of a cat or a wolf or a bear,” Etta June said. “Whatever it is, it will leave us be.”

  “But what if it’s a grizzly?” Lin brought up. He had heard stories about grizzlies—formidable monsters that could not be stopped once their dander was up. Or if they were hungry enough.

  “Most of those that are left are higher up,” Etta June said.

  “Most?”

  “Oh, we get one down here from time to time. But they pretty much leave people alone.”

  “Pretty much?”

  Etta laughed. “You two should move back east where the most you have to worry about are rabid raccoons. Relax. Nothing will bother us.”

  As if to prove her wrong, the night was suddenly shattered by an inhuman shriek.

  Chapter 4

  The cry was enough to freeze a man’s blood. Rising to a piercing wail, it wavered on the wind, then gradually faded.

  Lin Bryce felt the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickle. “God in heaven.”

  “What the hell? Where did that come from?” Chancy asked, anxiously turning every which way.

  Etta June was unfazed. Chuckling, she said, “Haven’t you ever heard a mountain lion before?”

  “Are you sure that is what it was?” Chancy peered into the dark as if expecting something to rush out at them.

  “I am sure,” Etta June said. “Unless I miss my guess, it was a female letting the males know she is feeling romantic.”

  “A hell of a note,” Chancy said, straightening. “If people did that, the nights would be bedlam.”

  Etta June laughed. “That they would.” She cocked her head at him. “But that makes twice you have used language I do not want you to use in front of my children. I will thank you to limit your cussing from here on out to inside your head.”

  “You ask too much,” Chancy said, sitting back down. “The words just pop out. There is nothing a man can do.”

  “Not all men swear. Your brother, here, hasn’t cursed once since I met him.”

  “I never got into the habit,” Lin said.

  Chancy sighed. “I will try not to do it around your sprouts, but don’t blame me if I slip up now and then.”

  “Try your best is all I ask,” Etta June told him.

  Lin faced into the wind and breathed deep of the crisp mountain air. It had a vaguely piney scent. “This sure is wild country,” he said to change the subject.

  “None wilder,” Etta June agreed. “It is not like down Colorado way, where the mountains have been overrun by gold and silver seekers, and most of the big game has been killed off. Here it is like it has always been. Savage beasts, savage men and a savage land—and none show mercy to the weak and the helpless.”

  Lin looked at Etta June. “If it is as bad as you say, why do you stay? Why put yourself and your children in danger?”

  “Because I love it here. I love the mountains; I love the freedom.”

  “But the dangers,” Lin persisted.

  “Safe is overrated. Safe is living in a town or city where you can’t turn around without bumping into someone. Safe is living by others’ rules and always having someone looking over your shoulder.”

  “I hate that,” Chancy said.

  “A lot of folks would rather stick their heads in the ground like one of those ostriches than face the fact that life was never meant to be safe,” Etta June said. “We come into this world with no guarantee of how long we have before we are called to the other side. Whether it is an arrow or a bear or old age, it is all the same.”

  “You have it all thought out,” Lin said.

  “I like being able to live as I please. If the only place I can do that is a place like the Big Horns, then that is where I will live, dangers or no.”

  Chancy gave her a strange look. “It could be I was wrong about you. You have grit, ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” Etta June said.

  She filled their tin cups with steaming coffee, and for a while the three of them sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the night and drifting with the tides of their own thoughts.

  Lin was troubled. He had known Etta June Cather less than a day, but he was growing powerful fond of her. In a way she reminded him of his ma before the awful event that changed their lives forever.

  Soon the beans were simmering. Etta June heaped spoonfuls on tin plates for each of them. She added a thick slice of bread smeared with butter.

  Lin was ravenous. He dipped the bread in the tomato sauce, bit off the end, and chewed with relish. If there was anything better than eating food, he had yet to come across it. He caught Etta June staring at him. “What?”

  “You look just like my Tom used to look when he was eating. From his face you would think he was in heaven.”

  Lin’s ears grew hot. “I like to eat,” he admitted.

  Chancy snickered. “All my big brother asks out of life is a full belly and a roof over his head and he is content.”

  “What about you?” Etta June said. “What will make you content?”

  “My share,” Chancy said.

  Etta June took a sip of coffee. “Your share of what?”

  “Of all there is. I want to bite into life and chew it like my brother is chewing that bread. I want to taste all it has to offer, to never settle for being one of the common herd.”

  “That is a tall order.”

  Lin lost some of his appetite. He hated to hear his brother talk like that. Not after all they had been through. “There is a lot to be said for a roof over your head and three meals a day.”

  Chancy’s laugh was harsh. “For sheep in a pen that will do, but not for those of us who think life is for living.”

  Later, lying on his back with his head and shoulders propped on his saddle, Lin gave silent thanks that Etta June had offered them work. It bought him time. Time to convince his brother that sheep had one advantage over curly wolves; they lived longer.

  Sunrise found them on their way. The clatter of the buckboard was nearly drowned out by the creak of a rear wheel.

  Lin reined close to the seat to say, “That wheel needs greasing. When we get to your ranch that is the first thing I will do.”

  “You think ahead. I like that.”

  Lin wished his ears would stop burning.

  “I knew it had to be done, but I had too much to do and didn’t get to it before I left,” Etta June said, and lowered her voice. “I will only say this to you and deny it if you ever tell anyone, but running a ranch, even a small one like mine, is too much for one person.”

  “From what Abe Tucker said, you do as good as any man could,” Lin brought up by way of praise.

  “I try my best,” Etta June said, “but there are days when I miss my Tom severely. A day of toting bales of hay and winching them to the loft leaves me so sore and tired, I can barely stand. It is all I can do to work the plow. I have the will but I lack the muscle.”

  Lin’s tongue moved of its own accord. “I have plenty. Enough muscle for both of us.”

  “I will put them to hard use, on that you can count,” Etta June said with a smile. “To tell you the truth, I would have hired someone sooner, but there aren’t any men hereabouts I trust.”

  “None at all?”

  “None I could count on to do an honest day’s work. Take Efram Pike. He would rather loaf his life away drinking and playing cards.”

  “So you take a gamble on a complete stranger like me,” Lin said.

  Etta June looked him in the eyes. “It is no gamble.”

  Midmorning came and brought with it, to the west, tendrils of dust that grew into a cloud filled with riders. Etta June brought the buckboard to a stop, reached under the seat and pulled out a Winchester.

  Lin hid his surprise. He glanced at his saddlebag and started to reach back but closed his hand into a fist and placed the fist on his thigh. “No,” he said softly to himself.

  Chancy drew rein on the other side of the buckboard. “Know those folks?”
he asked.

  “The man in front is Seth Montfort, owner of the Bar M,” Etta June said. “He does not often come this far north.” The brothers barely heard her next comment; “Unless he is paying me a visit.”

  The rumble of hooves swelled. Seth Montfort held up an arm, as if he were an army officer, and his men slowed their mounts to a walk. He held it up again and they stopped. Montfort sat his saddle much as a dumpling would sit a griddle, which was fitting given that he was short and plump and had two chins. His attire was Eastern, from his bowler to his suit to his boots. The gold chain to a pocket watch gleamed brightly on his vest. His double chin quivered when he spoke. “Etta, my dear. It is a distinct pleasure to run into you.”

  “How are you, Seth?”

  “Fine, fine.” Montfort’s dark eyes shifted from her to Lin to Chancy. “You have new friends, I see.”

  “New hands,” Etta June said.

  “You don’t say.” Montfort frowned. “Why hire them when I have offered time and again to have my men help you whenever you need it?”

  “I could not impose.”

  “Nonsense, my dear.” Montfort reined closer. “I would do anything for you. Anything at all. Surely I have made my feelings plain?”

  “Yes, you have,” Etta June said. “And I have made mine plain, as well. It is much too soon for me to even consider anything like that.”

  “He died over a year ago.”

  Lin had divined what they were talking about, and he did not like it. Not one bit. Anger welled, but he smothered it. He had no right. She was his employer, nothing more.

  “Please, Seth,” Etta June said. “Don’t start.”

  “Very well.” Again Montfort looked at Lin and Chancy. “I do not know who you gentlemen are or where you came from, but I trust you are dependable. Mrs. Cather is a close personal friend of mine, and I would not take it kindly were you to slight her in any way. I would not take it kindly at all.”

  Chancy snorted. “Why, you little butterball.”

  Montfort stiffened. “What did you just call me?”

  “You heard me,” Chancy said. “Who do you think you are, threatening us? I have half a mind to pistol-whip you to teach you some manners.”

  Seth Montfort’s chins twitched. “How dare you talk to me like that,” he snapped.