“Okay, boss,” Joe Bailey said and Benton and Goodwill rode off toward the mud hole, stopping off at the small range shack for short-handled shovels.
“It’s this damn heat,” Lew said as the two of them dismounted by the bog. “They try to get cool and all they get is stuck.”
Benton grunted and they walked across the rilled ground toward the almost dry spring. As they walked, they saw the two steers struggling in the wire and heard the bellowing of their complaints.
“Sure. Tell us your troubles,” Benton said to them under his breath. “If you weren’t so damn mule-headed, you wouldn’t get stuck in there.” But he knew it was really because he didn’t have enough men to keep a closer watch on the herd. How could one man keep tabs on two hundred head?
As they came to the edge of the mud hole, Benton and Lew unbuckled their gunbelts and lay them on the top of a boulder.
“Let’s get the wrinkle-horn out first,” Benton said.
“Right,” Lew said and they struggled out into the viscous mud toward the older steer with its wrinkled, scaly horns. Benton gritted his teeth as the smell of hot slime surrounded him.
“Oh, shut up!” he snapped as the steer bellowed loudly, trying, in vain, to dislodge its legs.
Quickly, with angrily driven shovel strokes, Benton dug around the steer’s legs. The steer kept struggling, sometimes sinking deeper into the hot, reeking muck, its angry, frightened bellows blasting at Benton’s eardrums.
Once, its muzzle crashed against Benton’s shoulder as he straightened up for a moment and knocked him onto his side, getting his Levi’s and shirt mud-coated. Jumping up, he grabbed hold of the scaly horn and shoved the steer’s head away with a curse, then started digging again.
Finally, he’d freed most of the front leg and, stepping over the back leg, he started working on that quickly so the mud wouldn’t come back around the free leg. On the other side of the struggling steer, he heard his own curses echoed by Lew Goodwill.
“Damn fool!” Lew snapped. “Stop fussin’ so!”
As he dug, trying to breathe through his clenched teeth, Benton felt great sweat drops trickling down the sides of his chest from his armpits. He kept digging, plunging the shovel point in and hurling the black mud away with angry arm jerks. It’s times like this—he thought—when I wish I was back in the Rangers where the only thing a man has to worry about is getting shot.
He hadn’t slept much the night before. Julia had kept talking about Robby Coles and he was still thinking about it when he fell into an uneasy doze.
He dreamed that Matthew Coles was tying him to a hitching post while Robby stood nearby, waiting to fire slugs into him. When the first bullets had struck, he’d jolted up on the bed with a grunt, wide awake.
Then Lew Goodwill had ridden in from the first night watch and said he thought there better be another man to help Joe Bailey on the second watch because there was some electric lightning in the sky and the herd was getting spooky.
Benton had dressed and ridden out to the herd and stayed with Joe a couple of hours until the lightning was gone. Then he’d ridden back to the house. In all, he’d gotten about three hours of sleep.
“All right, get on your horse,” he said to Lew.
“Ain’t finished the back leg, boss.”
“I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” Benton snapped. “Get on your horse.”
“Okay.” Lew slogged out of the mud hole and moved up to where his horse was tied. He cinched up the saddle as tightly as the latigo straps could be drawn, then led the animal down to the edge of the mud hole.
“All right, toss in your rope,” Benton said.
Lew lifted the rope coil off his saddle horn and shook it loose, then tossed one end of it to Benton who tied it securely around the steer’s horns. While he did that, Lew fastened the other rope end around his saddle horn and drew it taut. Mounting then, he backed off his sturdy piebald until the lariat was taut.
“All right,” Benton called, “drag her out!”
The piebald dug in its hooves and started pulling at the dead weight of the steer. Dust rose under its slipping, straining legs and the muscles of its body stood out like sheathed cables. In the mud hole, Benton shoved at the steer from behind, trying to avoid the spray of mud from its flailing legs but not always succeeding.
“Come on, you wall-eyed mule!” Benton gasped furiously as he shoved the steer, his muscles straining violently.
Slowly, the steer was pulled loose and dragged up onto hard ground. When they tailed it up, it charged Benton and he had to make a zig-zag dash for the bush. Then Lew chased the steer off and they went back into the mud for the second one.
By the time they had that one out, they were both spattered with mud from head to knee and caked solid below that. They sat in the shade a little while, panting and cursing under their breath.
They were sitting like that when the gelding came over the rise. “Who’s that?” Lew asked.
Benton looked up and sudden alarm tightened his face. “My gun,” he muttered, and stood up quickly as Matthew Coles spurred his gelding down the gradual slope and reined up.
“What do you want?” Benton asked, realizing that Coles was unarmed.
“I’m here as second for my son,” Coles said, stiffly.
“You’re what?” Benton squinted up at the older man.
“You will be in town by three o’clock this afternoon to defend yourself,” stated Matthew Coles.
Benton stared up incredulously. “What did you say?”
“You heard what I said, sir!”
Benton felt the heat and the dirt and the exhaustion all well up in him and explode as anger. “God damn it, get off my ranch! I told you that girl lied! Now—”
“Either you come in like a man,” Matthew Coles flared, “or my son will ride out after you!”
Benton felt like dragging the older man off his horse and pitching him head first into the mud hole. His body shook with repression of the desire.
“Listen,” he said. “For the last time, you tell your kid that—”
“By three, Mister Benton. Three o’clock this afternoon.”
“Coles, I swear to God, if you don’t—”
Matthew Coles pulled his horse around and rode quickly up the incline as Benton started forward, his face suddenly whitening with fury.
Benton stopped and watched the older man ride away.
“He’s loco,” Lew Goodwill said then and Benton glanced over at the big man. “He’s tryin’ to kill his own kid,” Lew went on. “He must be loco.”
Benton walked away on stiff legs and stood by the boulder buckling on his gunbelt. What was he supposed to do now, he wondered. Did he stay out on the ranch and wait to see if Robby Coles really would come after him? It was what he felt like doing. Without any trouble at all, he could convince himself that the kid wasn’t going to commit suicide.
But he didn’t try to convince himself. He stood there worriedly, staring at the crest of the slope where Matthew Coles had disappeared.
Finally, he exhaled a heavy breath and groaned because he knew what he had to do. “Oh . . . damn!” he muttered to himself and started in quick, angry strides for his horse.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told Lew. “Tell Merv and Joe I . . .” Another disgusted hiss of breath. “Tell ’em I have to go into the damn town again.”
“Take it easy, boss,” Lew said and Benton grunted a reply as he started up the slope.
As he swung into the saddle, he ran his right hand across his brow and slung away the sweat drops on his fingers. Then he nudged his spurs into the horse’s flanks and felt the animal charge up the incline beneath him.
What do I do first? The thought plagued him as he galloped for the ranch. Should he try Robby first or his father, Louisa or her aunt or her mother, the Reverend Bond or maybe even the sheriff? He didn’t know. All he knew was that things were too damn complicated. Some stupid little girl makes up a story about him and, in two days, ev
erybody expects him to defend his life.
It was hard not to let them have their way. Certainly he was fed up enough just to let it happen the way they wanted. But then he knew again that killing Robby wasn’t the answer. Robby wasn’t any villain to be killed; he was only a pawn.
Why did I leave the Rangers? He was asking himself the question again as he rode up to the house and jumped off his horse.
Julia was in the doorway before he’d even tied up the panting mount.
“John,” she said breathlessly, staring at his mud-spattered clothes.
“It’s all right,” he said quickly as she ran to him.
“Oh.” She swallowed and caught his hand. “Mud. I thought—” She swallowed again and didn’t finish. “What happened, John?” she asked instead.
He told her briefly as he went into the house, pulling off his mud-caked shirt and starting to wash up at the pump.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, apprenhensively.
“Go into town,” he said. “No, I’m not takin’ a gun with me,” he added quickly, seeing the look in her eyes. “I’ll try talkin’ reason to them again.” He dashed water in his face and washed off the soap. “There must be one of them that’ll listen to reason. I sure can’t see shootin’ that kid over nothin’ at all.”
“I want to go with you,” Julia said, suddenly.
“No, I’ll get there faster by myself,” he told her.
“John, I want to go,” she said again and this time it wasn’t just a request. He looked over at her as he lathered his muddy arms.
“Honey, who’s goin’ to feed the boys? They gotta have their chuck, you know.”
“They can manage by themselves one day,” she said. “I’ll leave the food on the table.”
“Julia, there isn’t that much time.”
“Then I’ll leave a note telling them where everything is,” she argued. “If there isn’t much time, it’s even more important that I go with you. There may be a lot of people to see and two of us can do more than one. And—besides—the women are more likely to listen to me than you.” She spoke quickly, submerging the rise of dread in a tide of rapid planning.
Benton hesitated a moment longer, looking at her intent face. Then he turned away with a shrug. “All right,” he said, wearily. As she sat down to write the note, she heard him muttering to himself about how the ranch was going to go to hell because of all this lost time.
“We’ll tie Socks behind the buckboard,” she said, looking up from the note, “then, when we get into town, we can separate and get more done that way.”
“Well, there isn’t much time,” Benton said, looking at the clock, “it’s almost eleven now. It’ll take till quarter of twelve to reach town even if we push it.”
“He didn’t set a time, did he?” she asked, her voice suddenly faint.
“Three,” he said.
“This afternoon?” She knew even as she said it that it had to be that afternoon. “Oh, dear God.”
Benton grunted, then turned from the pump. “I’m goin’ to change clothes now,” he said. “Will you get Socks and the dark mare outta the barn? I’ll put the other one away before we leave.”
He headed for the bedroom.
“John,” she said suddenly when he was almost out of the kitchen. He looked back over his shoulder.
“John . . . promise me that . . .” she swallowed, “. . . that whatever happens you won’t . . .” She couldn’t finish.
They looked at each other a long moment and it seemed as if the great conflict in their life and marriage were a wall being erected between them again.
Then John said, “There’s no time to talk now,” and left her staring at the place where he’d been standing. She listened to the sound of her pencil hitting the floor and rolling across the boards.
Chapter Twenty-two
The two women sat in the front room. They both had yarn and needles in their laps but only one of them was knitting; that was Agatha Winston. Her sister sat without moving, her limpid eyes unfocused, on her face a look of disconcerted reflection.
Miss Winston looked up. “You’ll never finish the shawl like that,” she said, curtly.
Elizabeth Harper’s hands twitched in her lap and her gaze lifted for a moment to the carved features of her sister.
“I can’t,” she said then, with an unhappy sigh.
Agatha Winston’s thin lips pressed a grimace into her face and she went back to her knitting without another word.
In the hall, the clock chimed a hollow stroke and then eleven more. Elizabeth Harper sat listening, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes on the calmly moving fingers of Agatha Winston. Noon, she thought, it’s noon.
“How can you be so—?” she began to say and then was halted by the coldness in her sister’s eyes.
Miss Winston put down her work. “What is happening,” she said, “is beyond our control. It had to be this way. John Benton made it so.” She picked up her work again. “And there’s no point in our dwelling on it,” she said.
Elizabeth Harper stirred restlessly on the chair. “But that poor boy,” she murmured. “What will happen to him?”
“He is not a boy, Elizabeth.”
“But he’s not . . .” Mrs. Harper looked upset. “Oh . . . how can he hope to do anything against that . . . that awful man?”
Miss Winston breathed in deeply. “It is what he has to do,” was all she said. “Let’s not talk about it.”
Elizabeth Harper looked back at her hands, feeling her body tighten as she thought about Robby Coles going against a man who had lived by violence for—how many years? She bit her lip. It was terrible, it was a terrible thing. If only her dear husband were alive; he’d have found a way to avoid violence. Indeed, he’d have raised Louisa so strictly that this terrible thing would never have happened in the first place. She’d been unable to control the girl since Mr. Harper died. Oh, why was he dead, why?
She brushed away an unexpected tear, looking up guiltily to see if Agatha had seen; but Miss Winston was absorbed in knitting.
Three o’clock, Mrs. Harper thought. Less than three hours now. It was terrible, terrible.
“You’re . . . certain he said—?” she started.
“What?” Agatha Winston looked up irritably.
Elizabeth Harper swallowed. “You’re . . . sure he said three o’clock?”
“That is what he said,” Miss Winston answered, looking back to her work. She’d met Matthew Coles that morning on the way to her shop and he’d told her that Robby was going to meet John Benton in the square at three o’clock that afternoon. After she’d heard that, she’d gone immediately to her sister’s house to see personally that Louisa remained in the house all day. Naturally, she’d have to leave the shop closed all day too.
“What is it?” she asked, pettishly, hearing Elizabeth speak her name again.
Mrs. Harper swallowed nervously. “Don’t you . . . think we should tell Louisa?”
“Of course I don’t think we should tell her,” Miss Winston said sharply. “Hasn’t she enough to be concerned with without worrying more?”
“But . . . what if Robby . . . ?” Mrs. Harper dared not finish the sentence.
Miss Winston spoke clearly and authoritatively.
“We will not think about it,” she declared.
Upstairs, Louisa was standing restively by the window, looking out at the great tree in the front yard. She’d come up to her room shortly after breakfast when her Aunt Agatha had arrived at the house. Since then, a strange uneasiness had oppressed her.
What was Aunt Agatha doing at their house? She hadn’t missed opening her shop one day in the past twelve years—outside of Sundays, of course. No one was more strict in her habits than Aunt Agatha. No shop owner could have been more religious in his hours. At nine, the shop was unlocked, dusted, and prepared for the day’s business. At twelve it was shut for dinner, at one, reopened, and, promptly at five, it was locked up for the night. Now, th
is—Aunt Agatha sitting down in the front room with her mother. They’d been there almost three hours now . . .
. . . as if they were waiting for something.
Louisa bit her lower lip and her breasts trembled with a harsh breath. Something was wrong, she could feel it. But what could be wrong? Certainly Robby wasn’t going to . . . no, that was ridiculous, he knew better than that. Maybe something was happening but not that, it couldn’t be that. Maybe Robby and his father were going out to ask John Benton about the story she’d told. That was bad enough—the idea made her sick with dread of what would happen if Aunt Agatha found out she’d lied.
But that was all, that was the worst that could happen.
Then why was Aunt Agatha downstairs with her mother? Why hadn’t Aunt Agatha spoken more than a few words to her that morning, suggesting, almost as soon as she was in the house, that Louisa go up to her room?
Louisa turned from the window and walked in quick, nervous steps across the floor, her small hands closed into fists swinging at her sides. For some reason, her throat felt constricted and she had trouble breathing. For some reason, the muscles in her stomach felt tight as if she were about to be sick—even though there was no reason for it.
She sank down on the bed and forced herself to pick up her embroidery. Then, in a few moments, she put it down on the bedside table again and stroked restless fingers at the skirt of her gingham dress.
No, there was something wrong. No matter how she tried to explain things to herself, she couldn’t find any good reason for Aunt Agatha to be there. Not if everything was all right, not if the story she’d told was being forgotten. No, there was something—
Louisa started as she heard the sound of hooves out front, the rattling squeak of a buckboard. Quickly, heart beating, she jumped up and hurried to the window.
Her breath caught as she saw John Benton’s wife climbing down off the buckboard in front of the house and, unconsciously, a look of apprehensive dread contorted her face. With frightened eyes, she watched Mrs. Benton open the gate and shut it behind her.