Once Upon The Prairie (The Brides Of Courage, Kansas, Book 1)

Chapter 5

  Jesse heard the commotion outside his tent. He got up from behind his table, went and pushed through the tent flaps and stood outside. Pierre Beauregard and his men had just come back. Jesse's face darkened when he saw what condition they were in. Their clothes were soiled and ripped. One man's hat was missing. All had lost their guns. And they all, including Pierre, pressed their bunched-up handkerchiefs onto the scrapes in their faces.

  "Who's done that?" Jesse asked.

  "Black Thirteen," Pierre replied.

  Morlock's thugs.

  "You men best come in here." He pointed his thumb at his tent. Jesse turned to an older woman nearby and said, "Get us some hot water, Rachel, and get a few of the girls to tend to their wounds."

  Rachel nodded and went to the nearby campfire.

  Jesse, Pierre and the men entered the tent. The boys eased themselves into the wicker chairs that were standing around, while Jesse and Pierre sat down by the table.

  "Tell me everything," Jesse demanded.

  Pierre described how his talk to Neville Morlock had gone and how the irate rancher had in a fit of insanity ordered the Black Thirteen to rough them up and send them on their way. By the time he was finished, Jesse was pacing the floor with his hands behind his back.

  Whenever Jesse Bartleby was truly mad, he didn't speak. He knew that most people regretted their words spoken in anger later and that you couldn't take them back, no matter how hard you tried. A word that had gone out, stayed out. Therefore he kept quiet a lot.

  Rachel and the girls came. They washed the men and tended to their bruises.

  While his tent changed into a veritable hospital ward, Jesse pondered what to do now. He hadn't sent the boys to Morlock just for fun.

  They needed supplies.

  Desperately.

  Living off the fat of the land after September was increasingly harder to do, even if you lived frugally. Jesse had about a hundred men under his command and about half as many women and children. They all looked to him for food and shelter. He was usually good at providing it. He kept his men busy doing useful things like guarding herds in exchange for money and supplies. Most cattle men were honorable and paid him and his men a fair amount for their work.

  Obviously not Neville Morlock.

  The more Jesse listened to Pierre as he described what happened at the ranch house, the madder Jesse got, until he was seething. The men and their nurses looked at Jesse. They had never seen their leader so agitated. Usually Jesse was calm and collected and easy to be with.

  He was different now.

  A change had come over him. He still didn't speak, but his eyes were shooting fire. He was prowling the room, tense like a tiger. His serious face looked truly frightening. This was not the easy-going Jesse that they all loved. They all felt as if they stood in the presence of an avenging angel.

  When Pierre's head was bandaged and his story told, Jesse put the knuckles of both fists on the table and leaned on them. He glowered at Pierre and said, "Call a meeting. Get the men together. We have business to tend to tonight." He inhaled briskly and leaned back. "It's going to be bloody business."

  Half an hour later the men and women in camp had assembled in front of Jesse's tent. By now everybody had seen and heard what had happened to Pierre Beauregard and the group of men that had gone to talk to Neville Morlock. It was unusual that Jesse called a meeting for all to attend. Normally everybody had his or her assigned task and was busy for the day. Jesse Bartleby only called meetings when there was some major change in the air. They stood and waited for him to appear.

  In the tent, Jesse was still pacing the floor. He had calmed down, but just a bit. He fully intended to ride over to the ranch and kill every member of the Black Thirteen that he found there as well as Neville Morlock. Winter was around the corner and without supplies and some money his group would suffer direly. Hunger and frost would be waiting. People, particularly little children, would be dying. Jesse and his gang had worked for Morlock this year, so, by God, it was right to take what belonged to them.

  He even thought about burning the house down. But then he remembered the beautiful woman that he'd met last night. She'd been weeping under the willow tree. It was her house, too, so Jesse decided not to torch it. She was a victim of Morlock's as much as he was.

  Just to think Neville's name kindled Jesse's anger again.

  This man had to die.

  And the Black Thirteen, too.

  The world would be a better place once they were gone. Nobody had ever shamed and humiliated Jesse's men like this rancher had done, requiting good for evil.

  Morlock needed to go.

  In the end, Jesse decided that he would allow the women at the ranch to live. But every man wearing black over there was doomed. And every cowhand helping them against him would share their fate. Jesse would come over them with a hundred battle-hardened men and they were only thirteen gunslinging goons. They were probably nothing more than cowards anyway, hiding behind a façade of black made-to-measure clothes.

  Jesse went out to the waiting crowd and made his point. When he had finished his speech the atmosphere in the camp changed. This was no longer a group of happy cowboys, but of jaded veterans of war. Many of the men were more than content to fight again. But the women were all distraught as they looked at one another with horror in their faces.

  Rachel turned to Jesse and said, "I thought the war was over."

  Pierre Beauregard stood by her. "Don't contradict him," he said. "He knows what he's doing. Mary's child is dying because of that greedy rancher, don't you know it?"

  Rachel didn't reply. An older woman, Jesse and his men had once rescued her out of a burning wagon when a roving band of Kiowa Apache had raided their homestead in Texas. The only survivor of her family, she owed her life to Jesse Bartleby. In time, she'd become a mother to many of his younger cowboys. Not to mention their girls.

  "Everybody, make sure that your arms are in working order," Jesse shouted at the assembled men. "We aim to reach the ranch at sundown. We'll be coming from the west, so the sun will be in our back. Nobody looks into the sun, therefore they won't see us when we get there. We'll take them out before they know what's come over them."

  Jesse Bartleby was a grim and determined man.