Ralph Compton Texas Hills Page 5

  Thaxter was the fast pup. The one that always got to the mother’s teats first. He was fast on his feet and fast with his six-shooter, and eager to show off how fast he could be.

  Wylie was the thinker of the litter. There was always a pup that didn’t play much but sat off by itself and seemed to study on things all the time. That was Wylie.

  Gareth had never seen it fail that in most litters there was a dumb one, a pup that would run into things, that had as much coordination as a drunk, and that was always yipping and yapping even when there was nothing to yip or yap about. Silsby, sad to say, was the brainless pup of their bunch.

  That left Iden. His youngest son, as with many litters, had turned out to be the runt. Five-feet-two in his stocking feet, Iden had been mercilessly picked on when he was little. Now he was sixteen, and still the runt. Only he wore an Arkansas toothpick on his right hip, and no one picked on him as much anymore.

  Growing up around nothing but boys, Lorette was practically a boy herself. She could shoot like a boy, ride like a boy, rope like a boy. She even dressed like a boy in britches and a shirt instead of a dress. She was so boyish, Gareth had half-taken to thinking of her more as a son than as a daughter.

  Lorette didn’t mind. She swaggered around saying how she could lick anything on two legs. These days, any man who made the mistake of poking fun at her over how she acted or dressed regretted it. She didn’t take any guff, that gal.

  Truth to tell, Gareth was proud of her. He felt that pride yet again as he gazed out over his entire clan.

  With the blue of day giving way to the gray of twilight as the sun dipped below the far horizon, Gareth stood with his arms folded. They were gathered outside their cabin rather than inside where the heat of the day hadn’t dissipated yet.

  Harland, Thaxter, and Silsby had their heads huddled and were talking in low tones.

  Gareth cleared his throat to get their attention, and when they didn’t look up, he barked, “Whatever you three are jawing about can wait. We have something important to discuss.”

  Gareth glanced at Ariel, seated on a stump he’d never gotten around to clearing. There were a lot of stumps. Removing them was hard work, and if there was one thing Gareth hated more than work, he’d yet to make its acquaintance.

  “We know why you called us together, Pa,” Harland said. “The longhorn business.”

  “I don’t see what there is to talk about,” Thaxter said. “We can round up cattle as good as anybody.”

  “Let Pa speak,” Wylie said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  Iden nodded. “Go ahead, Pa.”

  “As if I need your permission,” Gareth said. He’d already worked out part of what he was going to say, and he began with, “All of you know about the cowpoke I ran into in town. How he told Owen Burnett and Jasper Weaver and me about the money to be made if we take a herd of longhorns north to market. The meat packers are paying forty dollars a head, if you can believe it.”

  Silsby chuckled. “How dumb is that when a longhorn can be had for four or five dollars hereabouts?”

  “It’s not dumb at all.” Gareth set him straight. He had to do that a lot with Silsby. “They cut the cattle up and sell the meat by the pound and make twice what they pay, if not more.”

  “We should cut the cows up and make that much, too,” Silsby said.

  Gareth reminded himself that Silsby was the slow one, and he must be patient. “What do you know about butchering?”

  “I can carve up a deer,” Silsby said.

  “Not the same,” Gareth said. “And how would we get the meat to market even if we did? It would rot long before we got to the meat buyers. That’s just not practical, boy.”

  “You use that word with me a lot, Pa,” Silsby said.

  Lorette, who was chewing on a stick, spat it out. “That’s because you don’t use your thinker, brother-mine. You ain’t got no common sense.”

  “Do, too,” Silsby said.

  “Who was it threw rocks at that hornet’s nest the other day, and had to run when they swarmed him?” Lorette laughed. “And who nearly shot his toe off a while back when he stuck his six-gun in his holster with the six-gun cocked, and it went off? Who rigged a rope to swing out over the creek but didn’t tie the knot tight and got tangled in the rope when it fell in with him?”

  “What’s your point?” Silsby said.

  “Enough,” Gareth said. If he didn’t intervene, they’d bicker endlessly.

  “We’re listening, husband.” Ariel broke her silence.

  “You better be, all of you,” Gareth said. “We have a chance here to make a lot of money, and I won’t let any of you spoil it. Which is why I’m laying down the law. I’m going to tell you how it will be, and you damned well better do as I say.”

  “You want us to be nice to the Burnetts and Weavers,” Lorette said. “We get that.”

  “You only think you do,” Gareth said. “Listen. Jasper Weaver is a weak sister, and his son’s not much better. I have nothing but contempt for both, but do you know what? I never let on. You never let anyone outside our clan know how you feel about them.”

  “Why not?” Silsby asked.

  “So they’ll never suspect if you have to stab them in the back,” Harland said.

  Gareth nodded. “In this case, we’ve got another reason. We can use their help gathering a herd and getting it to market. The same with the Burnetts, although they’re not the no-accounts the Weavers are. The Burnetts are hard workers, so we need them even more.”

  “So you want us to be nice?” Iden said. “Is that your point?”

  “Nice as can be. Some of you have tempers, and you’re quick to rile.” Gareth gave Harland and Thaxter pointed looks. “There’s to be none of that with the Burnetts or the Weavers. You hear me?”

  “I don’t like Luke Burnett,” Thaxter said. “He acts like he’s a gunhand when he ain’t ever shot anybody.”

  “I don’t like any of them,” Harland said.

  Lowering his arms, Gareth balled his fists. “No matter how you feel, you’re to treat them decent. If one of them makes you mad, go off somewhere until you simmer down.”

  “All this trouble you want us to go to,” Harland said resentfully. “What’s in it for us?”

  “You’ll all get a share of the money.”

  “But you’ll get most of it, I bet,” Harland said.

  “I’m the pa. I should,” Gareth declared. “Until then, remember. I want each of you on your best behavior. Or else.” He raised a fist to accent his point.

  “Well, hell,” Lorette said.

  Chapter 12

  You’d think Jasper was going to be gone for a year, the way his wife carried on. “I don’t know how long it will take to round up enough cattle,” Jasper said as he adjusted the cinch on his sorrel. “It depends on how hard it is.”

  “You be careful, you hear?” Wilda said. “Watch out that nothing happens to our son.”

  About to climb on his own horse, Reuben rolled his eyes. “I’m not a little boy anymore, Ma.” At seventeen, he was as thin as a rake and took a lot after Jasper. Which was to say his face was all bone and sharp angles, and he had no chin to speak of.

  “Anything happens to you, it would break my heart,” Wilda said.

  Jasper almost snorted in amusement. The notion of his wife having a heart had never occurred to him. A mouth, yes, the way she carped and carped.

  “I won’t let any harm come to him.”

  “Those longhorns aren’t puny,” Wilda reminded him. “And there’s hostiles and rattlesnakes and polecats to watch out for.”

  “When you say polecats, Ma,” Reuben said, “do you mean the smelly kind or the kind who stick you up?”

  “Both.”

  Jasper wished he could take a nip from his flask. He hadn’t had a swallow in over an hour and was i
n dire need. Being around his wife had that effect. “There haven’t been any outlaws in these parts in a coon’s age.” None that he’d heard of, anyway.

  “Even so,” Wilda said.

  “Even so what?” Jasper said.

  “You know.”

  No, Jasper didn’t, but he would be darned if he’d ask her to explain. She had a habit of putting on airs, of acting as if she was smarter than him, when the truth was, he let her think she was smarter because they had fewer spats that way.

  “Where are you going, anyhow?” Wilda asked.

  “I told you already,” Jasper said. “Up near—what’s that creek called? Comanche Creek.”

  “Why so far out?” Wilda clasped her hands together as if she were about to pray. “You do know they named it that because Comanches used to be seen up that way?”

  “Long before we came here,” Jasper said.

  “Even so,” Wilda said a second time. She was fond of using the same expression again and again.

  “You take care of your own self while we’re away,” Jasper felt compelled to say. He went to kiss her but she averted her face like always. He settled for pecking her on the cheek.

  “Don’t worry none about me. I have the shotgun.”

  Jasper’s saddle creaked as he stepped into the stirrup and swung up. He was wearing a well-used brown hat, and touched the brim. “Be seeing you.”

  Wilda stepped over and put a hand on Reuben’s leg. “You listen to your pa, son. Do as he says unless it’s something that might get you hurt, then do what you think I would say.”

  “Honestly,” Jasper said.

  “What?” Wilda said.

  Jasper got out of there before he said something that might earn him a tongue-lashing. When her dander was up, Wilda used her tongue like a bullwhip. He glanced back and gave a little wave but only because she expected him to and would complain about it the next time he saw her if he didn’t.

  Reuben waved, too. “I reckon I’m the luckiest boy alive to have a ma like her. She’s always looking out for us.”

  “That’s because if we died,” Jasper said, “she wouldn’t have anybody to gripe to.”

  “Oh, Pa,” Reuben said, and laughed. “You sure are a hoot.”

  Jasper sighed.

  The Texas hill country was in the green lush of early spring. Wildlife was everywhere, deer and rabbits and squirrels and the like. Longhorns, too.

  Jasper and Reuben were about halfway to Comanche Creek when they spied several longhorns off in the brush, watching them. It prompted Jasper to bring up something that had been weighing on his mind.

  “We need to talk, son.”

  “About what, Pa?” Reuben was grinning at the world as he usually did. He seemed to find living a delight.

  Wait until he’s married, Jasper thought. That will cure him. “This cattle affair can mean a lot to us if things go right. To hear Gareth Kurst talk, we’ll have more money than that old king what’s-his-name.”

  “Who?”

  “Some king in Greece or Persia or somewhere who was rich. My point is that we can be rich, too, or as close to it as we’ll ever get. All we have to do is play our cards right.”

  “How do I do that, exactly? I’ve hardly ever played cards. Ma won’t let me. She says gambling is the devil’s work.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Jasper said. There was a whole list of things Wilda didn’t approve of. Drinking was at the top but he did it anyway, sometimes right in front of her to show her he hadn’t been entirely strangled by her apron strings. “I’d take it as a favor if you’d go out of your way not to make the Kursts mad at you. You know how some of Gareth’s boys get.”

  “That girl of his, too,” Reuben said. “Lorette is always laughing at me. Half the time, I don’t even know what she’s laughing at.”

  “The Burnetts are nice,” Jasper mentioned.

  “They treat me real good,” Reuben agreed. “Estelle even talks to me when I see them in town. She’s the sweetest gal there is.”

  Jasper had thought the same, once, about Wilda. Back then he couldn’t look at her without getting excited. Then came their wedding night, and she made it plain that she didn’t share his desire. Being intimate, to her, was a duty she was required to perform as wife, nothing more. She allowed it, but only under her terms. She was ice, that woman.

  Jasper never said anything, but Wilda crushed him that night. She took all his passion and threw it over a cliff, and it crashed to bits on the hard rocks of bitter knowledge that he’d married an icy shrew. Any love he’d felt evaporated like morning dew under a hot sun in the glare of her stern disapproval of nearly everything about him.

  There were days when Jasper wondered why she’d wed him. To listen to her, he had so many faults, he was next to useless. It occurred to him that all he was to Wilda was a pair of ears to listen to her endless gripes.

  Now, hoping to nip his son’s interest in Estelle Burnett in the bud, Jasper said, “Love ain’t always what we figure it to be. You fight shy of her, you hear? Her brothers won’t like you fawning over her.”

  “Who will fawn?” Reuben said. “I can barely get up the courage to say howdy.”

  “Maybe so. But you treat her as a friend and nothing more. We don’t want Owen and Philomena mad at us. We need to stick by them against the Kursts.”

  “Against?”

  “Gareth Kurst has always treated me the same way Lorette treats you. Oh, he doesn’t come out and laugh in my face, but I can see it in his eyes. He has little regard for me. His son Harland has even less. Harland proved that at the saloon one time when he told me flat-out he reckons I’m next to worthless.”

  “He didn’t!”

  “I’m suspicious of the Kursts, son. I don’t trust them. Owen Burnett does, but they don’t treat Owen the same as they treat me.”

  “If you don’t trust them, I won’t, neither.”

  Jasper wasn’t done. “The whole Kurst clan is like a nest of rattlers. You can’t predict when one of them might strike.”

  “This complicates things, doesn’t it?” Reuben said.

  “So long as we keep our wits about us, we’ll be fine,” Jasper assured him. “I’m not keen on the notion of being away for so long when we drive the cattle to market, but all that money will make it worthwhile.”

  “So long as we live to get our share.”

  “There’s that,” Jasper said.

  Chapter 13

  Comanche Creek was as far into the hills as most settlers ever went. Ebidiah Troutman had gone farther, but then, the old trapper had been everywhere.

  Ebidiah loved the Texas hill country. The first time he set eyes on it years ago, he’d made up his mind then and there that it was where he’d spend the rest of his days. For decades he’d trapped in the High Rockies, but trapping was hard, sometimes brutal work, and when a man got on in years, it became more difficult to do what needed doing. His mind was willing but his body had aches and pains where it never had aches and pains before. Each day was a reminder he wasn’t as spry as he used to be.

  Ebidiah never bothered to build a cabin. He despised having a roof over his head. His more-or-less permanent camp was a gully, a place where he stashed his packs when he didn’t need them. Rimmed by thick forest, it was well-hid from the rest of the world.

  On this particular morning, seated cross-legged close to his fire to warm himself against the chill morning air, Ebidiah sipped coffee and pondered on the revelation that the Burnett family was going to go into the cattle business with the Kursts.

  Ebidiah liked Owen Burnett and his family. They were nice folks. They always treated him cordially.

  Ebidiah didn’t like Gareth Kurst, nor any of that brood. They were filled with spite and venom. He’d seen it with his own eyes, many a time. How they yelled at each other, and were always squabbling. He’d seen ho
w Gareth lorded it over them. Twice he’d witnessed Gareth cuffing one or another of the boys, and once he saw Gareth cuff his missus.

  Ebidiah had seen a lot, thanks to his most prized possession. Thinking of it, he opened a pack next to him and took out his brass spyglass. Back in his trapping days, a lot of trappers owned one. A spyglass kept a man alive; he could spot enemies far off.

  Not many people used one, these days. Which was a shame, in Ebidiah’s opinion, because for sheer entertainment, nothing beat spying on folks with a telescope.

  Ebidiah did it all the time. He’d roost half a mile from a homestead and watch the settlers go about their daily doings. Since the Kursts and the Burnetts and the Weavers were the closest, he spied on them the most. He’d learned a lot of their habits, seen them do things. Which was how he knew the Kurst clan was snake-mean, and why he was worried for the Burnetts.

  Ebidiah shouldn’t let it bother him. He told himself Owen was a grown man and could do as he pleased. But Mrs. Burnett was always especially nice to him, and that sweet oldest gal of theirs, Mandy, treated him like he was her grandpa instead of a stranger.

  It was plain to Ebidiah that Owen didn’t know what he was getting himself into. As sure as the sun rose and set every day, something bad would come of their cattle venture.

  But what could Ebidiah do? He wasn’t their kin. He wasn’t anything except an old man past his prime with nothing to do anymore except spy on people.

  “Listen to me,” Ebidiah said to Sarabell, who was dozing. Her ears pricked but she didn’t muster the effort to raise her head. Like him, she was getting on in years.

  On Ebidiah’s last visit to the Burnetts, Owen had mentioned that he and Gareth and Jasper Weaver were going to Comanche Creek to scout around for longhorns. Ebidiah figured he’d mosey up that way, too, and keep an eye on things, as it were.

  With his spyglass, he could lie low in the hills and watch what was going on.

  He wasn’t worried about being caught. When it came to being stealthy, he could be as sneaky as a Comanche.