A hill of beans, p.8
A Hill of Beans, page 8
Colleen said, “Belinda is convinced—and, from everything she’s told me, I believe she’s right—that certain members of that lynch mob are still bloodthirsty enough and unsatisfied enough to very likely come after her father in order to try and finish what they started.”
Bradley nodded. “Yes, we’ve been talking about that, too.”
“Obviously, we can’t let that happen,” Colleen stated firmly. “We must continue to help keep them safe.”
Bradley’s eyebrows lifted. “Well now. That’s a real admirable notion, daughter. But considering the little matter of about eight hundred longhorns our outfit is in the middle of driving north with still a long stretch to go, don’t you think we’ve got about all we can handle looking out for our own interests? When and how, exactly, do you figure we can fit in seeing to the safety of these folks?”
“We take them with us,” Colleen answered. “The cowards from Torrence who’d be quick to track them and jump them if they were traveling on their own would know better, after Roman and Mac already gave them a taste of what they’d run into, than to try anything if they were traveling with us. Belinda and her father talked it over on the ride out here to our camp. They agreed that Montana would be a good place for them. In Miles City, they’d have the chance for a fresh start with a clean slate.”
“Before you go any farther,” said Bradley, “you should know that the professor here already brought up the notion of him and his daughter coming along on our drive—and I said no.”
Colleen’s expression turned anguished. “Father! I can’t believe that. I’ve never known you to turn your back on someone in a time of need—especially not someone in danger.”
“Now doggone it, that ain’t fair,” Bradley protested. “I don’t make a habit of turning my back on folks in need, and you blasted well know it. But it starts with those dearest and nearest to me. You’re well aware that when we left Texas we left behind a certain situation of our own. That makes this drive to Miles City almighty important to the future of each and every person in our outfit. Important enough to come first, before we can afford to worry too much about others, no matter how much we may want to. Surely you understand that... don’t you?”
“Yes. Of course, I do. But in this case, I don’t see one as being exclusive of the other,” Colleen insisted. “The professor’s wagon can easily keep up with our herd. He and Belinda even have their own provisions. So they won’t slow us down and they won’t deplete our supplies. The only possible problem I can see resulting from having them travel with us is if those varmints from Torrence show up and try to start something. But once they realize that the Forrests remain under the protection of the men in our crew . . . well, I think it’s safe to say their eagerness to make any more trouble will shrivel up quickly.”
CHAPTER 15
Plaster of Paris casts had been around for years and were frequently used by doctors in larger cities, mainly to help in the mending of fractures and the like. They weren’t all that common on the frontier, however, making the one Orson Brandenburger was sporting on his injured hand something of a novelty and Orson himself, by extension, a bit of a celebrity in some of the saloons and cafés where he stopped as he made his way south.
Flush with money from drawing his pay when he left the drive and having no particular destination in mind nor any big hurry to decide on one, the disgruntled cook was taking his time meandering through the small towns and settlements sprinkled along the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Discovering that his cast generated a surprising amount of interest and friendliness toward him, his disposition had improved considerably in the four days since he’d bitterly parted ways with Norris Bradley’s outfit.
It had gotten so that when he entered a new establishment like this one here tonight—the dingy, smoky Buffalo Wallow Saloon in a settlement called Bison Horn—Orson made it a point to brandish his hand with a bit of a flourish in order to make sure folks noticed the cast adorning it. By the time he got to the bar and thumped the hand onto its top, as if to rest it there as he bellied up, he could feel the eyes following him and knew it would be just a matter of time before folks would be coming around, wanting to strike up a conversation about it and often as not offering to buy a drink.
In the past couple of days, Orson had concocted some colorful yarns about the dreadful thing had happened to require such special treatment. He’d recognized early on that nothing killed the interest in him quicker than explaining how he’d merely cut himself slicing bacon. So, to match the initial curiosity and keep the interest fueled, he’d come up with a range of imaginative encounters that amounted to nothing more than tall tales. Everything from being attacked by a mountain lion and having to reach straight into the beast’s mouth and rip out its tongue and gizzard in order to kill it . . . to being forced into a knife fight with a descendant of the fabled Jim Bowie and suffering severe lacerations to his hand when he blocked his opponent’s blade to keep it from cutting his throat . . . to rushing into a burning orphanage and receiving terrible burns when he used the hand to rip away flaming blankets from a tiny toddler trapped in the bowels of the inferno.
Orson had several new embellishments rolling around inside his head that he hoped he could use once he got some final details worked out. If not for the cast on his hand, undoubtedly a few folks would have balked at his outrageous claims. But something about the cast, some mystique, made anything related to the rather grotesque apparatus seem too serious to question.
Tonight, here in the Buffalo Wallow, Orson had used the burning orphanage tale, and it had gone down like candy. He hadn’t had to buy a drink for himself in nearly three hours. What was more, there happened to be a little half-breed Arapaho gal on hand—available as part of the saloon’s “entertainment”—who seemed particularly fascinated by Orson’s cast. She had planted herself on his lap as he was washing down a plate of enchiladas with the latest mug of beer someone had put in front of him and had let it be known in no uncertain terms that she was intent on taking Orson—and his cast—to her room in the back and showing him a very special time.
It had been a long time since any gal, even the for-hire kind, had gone out of her way to show any interest in Orson, and he was ready to enjoy the experience. He could hardly get his enchiladas gobbled down fast enough.
“Take your time, my brave firefighter,” the girl cautioned him. “You do not want to get, how you say, an upset tummy in the time that lies ahead for the two of us. There is no hurry. We have all night.”
The bite of enchilada Orson was in the process of swallowing suddenly seemed to grow in size and he barely managed to get it down. As she spoke, the girl was caressing the cast on his hand. Caressing it as if... Orson felt beads of sweat pop out on his forehead, and it wasn’t from the spiciness of the food. Somehow, even though he couldn’t actually feel anything through the cast, the girl’s lightly gliding hand felt good. Felt wonderful, exciting. His imagination raced. If she could excite him like that caressing him through thick layers of plaster, what would it be like to . . .
“Hey, you. You in the derby hat.”
Orson had been so lost in thinking about the girl, the touch of her hand, and on getting this meal finished so he could go with her to the back that he’d failed to notice the two new patrons who’d entered the saloon and were now standing directly in front of his table. He looked up, somewhat startled, and ran his gaze over them in a quick appraisal.
One of the men was average in size and appearance, unshaven, clad in dusty, well-worn trail garb, a pistol holstered on one hip. A type so common as to hardly rate a second look under normal circumstances.
The other man, the one who apparently had spoken, was a slightly different story. He was taller, dressed in a better cut of duds, though still dusty and showing recent miles on the trail, and wore his gun lower with its holster tied down.
“You talking to me?” Orson asked.
“You’re wearing a derby hat and I’m looking right at you. Who do you think I’m talking to?” said the man with the tied-down holster. He had brittle, cruel eyes in an otherwise handsomely chiseled face.
Orson’s expression hardened. He might not be the firefighting, mountain lion–slaying hero he was pretending to be, but he was still a hot-tempered German far from being in the habit of taking guff off any man.
“You’re interrupting my meal and my conversation with this young lady,” he grated, “and you have an unfriendly tone to boot. Whoever you are, that makes you someone I have no interest in talking with. Best be on your way.”
“Best? You want to talk about what’s best?” the tall man sneered. “Then let’s talk about that horse at the rail out front, the one wearing a Rafter B brand that we’ve been told you rode in on. Because you’d best have a mighty good answer for how you came by that nag, or I’m calling you out as a stinkin’, lowdown horse thief!”
CHAPTER 16
“Me and Curly had finished buying the supplies we went into town for,” Chance Barlow, the man in the tied-down holster, was explaining, “and decided to stop for a quick shot and a beer before heading back. Walking into the joint was when we spotted the horse tied out front with the Rafter B brand.”
After casting yet another baleful look in Barlow’s direction, Orson Brandenburger shifted his gaze to the man the gunman was addressing. The latter was a stocky individual running to fat, a once robust type gone to seed yet still projecting a commanding presence. He wore a wide-brimmed, high-crowned Stetson, cream in color, as pristine looking as the day it was first displayed in an Austin haberdashery. Seated on a folding canvas chair before a campfire, the man held a cup of coffee in one hand, and clenched between the fingers of the other was a fat cigar. The plain, blunt features of the man’s bloated face showed no expression as he listened to what was being told to him.
Eager to take his turn at doing some of the telling, Orson spoke indignantly. “Based on that and nothing more, these men of yours barged into the establishment where I was enjoying a meal and the company of a young woman and blatantly declared me to be a horse thief! They refused to listen to my perfectly logical explanation and insisted on creating a highly disruptive and humiliating scene!”
Orson’s head was still reeling from how fast Barlow’s accusation—the mere mention of the words “horse thief ”—had turned the saloon crowd that prior to then had been eating out of the palm of his hand into a sneering, suspicious-eyed horde. Continuing, he said, “It was only the mention of your name, Mr. Van Horne, and my recognition of it as that of an honest, highly respected man that made me agree to come here and meet with you.”
“Here” was a small grove of cottonwood trees a mile outside the town of Bison Horn. Escorted in by Barlow and the man called Curly less than an hour after the sun had gone down and there was still grayish half-light to see by, Orson found himself at a well-laid-out campsite occupied by five additional men, all well-armed save for Van Horne, and all giving the impression of having been on the trail for some time.
In response to Orson’s lament, Barlow snorted derisively. “Whether you’d’ve agreed or not, bub, you was coming to this meeting,” he said. “Don’t pretend it could have gone otherwise.”
Caleb Van Horne took a puff of the cigar and blew a jet of smoke out one corner of his mouth. “Appears to me that Chance is right. Looks like it would have been smarter for you to agree to this meeting a little quicker.”
Orson involuntarily touched the bruised, swollen area on the left side of his face where a heavy and unexpected punch had been delivered. “Smart or not, I wasn’t inclined to hop to the demands of a couple strangers throwing around lies about me. If they’d have been more reasonable in their approach or, like I said, mentioned your name sooner—”
A man standing off to one side of Van Horne cut Orson short, saying, “I think it’s time for me to say something here. This hombre . . . Burlenberger, is it?”
“Brandenburger,” Orson told him.
“Brandenburger, then,” said the new speaker. He was a wiry hombre, five-ten, late thirties, with a boyishly handsome face until you got to the eyes: a no-nonsense edginess lurking just behind the mildness, waiting to flare up at the right provocation. There was something about the way he carried himself, too, and the way a Colt .45 rode with quiet menace on his hip. The hint of something more behind his easy-going veneer.
“Bracing Mr. Brandenburger that way, roughing him up,” the interrupter went on, “was uncalled for. That ain’t the Ranger way.”
Barlow grinned smugly. “Well now, there’s a real simple explanation for that, Malloy. Me and Curly, we ain’t Rangers.”
“No, but I am. Since Brandenburger was showing no signs of being a flight risk, you should have taken the time to come and get me,” said the man referred to as Malloy. He cut his gaze to Van Horne. “I understand that I’m part of this as arranged through Judge Ballantine and your influence with him, but I still operate under Ranger policy. There are certain things I made clear from the beginning that I won’t be a part of.”
Orson eyed Malloy with increased interest. “You’re a Texas Ranger?”
Malloy nodded. “Am for a fact. Garfield Malloy’s the name.”
Van Horne blew another stream of smoke and shifted impatiently in his chair. “Okay, let’s get to the real meat of this matter. Brandenburger, if my boys were out of line in roughing you up, then you’ll get my apology in due course. But first I want to hear the full story behind that Rafter B brand. And Malloy, if you’ve got some special Ranger way of getting to the truth of things, then have at it. And try not to take all night. I’m tired and want to get this over with.”
“All right,” said Malloy. His eyes came to rest on Orson. There was no mildness in them now, nor any particular hostility, either. Just a penetrating intensity. “Let’s start with that Rafter B–branded horse. How did you come by it, Brandenburger?”
“It came from the Rafter B remuda. It was give to me by Norris Bradley himself—he’s the owner of the Rafter B spread, you see—when me and him parted ways four days ago,” Orson answered straightforwardly.
“Four days ago?”
“That’s right.”
Malloy frowned. “Mr. Brandenburger, I happen to know that the Rafter B ranch is down in Bellow County, Texas. That’s a lot farther than a four-day ride from here.”
“Well, of course it is. I know that. But I never said we was at the ranch when I was give the horse, did I?” Orson paused, looking a little smug. “That happened north of here, not far across the Wyoming border.”
The other men around camp had all drawn in closer, clearly interested in what was being said.
“And what were you and Mr. Bradley doing up in Wyoming?” Malloy wanted to know.
Orson grunted. “He was firing me, and I was telling him to take his cattle drive and shove it! That’s what we was doing.” He held up his cast-encased hand. “I was cooking for the drive, that’s how I got this. Then, when I ended up too crippled to cook, the ungrateful blackguard sent me packing. And good riddance to ’em all, says I. I never could satisfy that bunch of belly-achers anyway.”
“So,” Van Horne said, “you were part of Bradley’s drive right from the start. Is that it?”
Orson’s head bobbed. “That’s right. He hired me at the last minute, just before they headed out. His regular cook got married all of a sudden and didn’t want to trade taking his honeymoon for going on a long, dusty cattle drive. So I was obliging enough to sign on at a second’s notice and work my tail off to keep the ingrates fed. And what do I get for my trouble? This”—once again Orson brandished his injured hand—“and a lousy kick out the door!”
Malloy and Van Horne exchanged looks. “Matches what we already know from back in Texas, about Bradley hiring a last-minute cook before he took off.”
“Yeah, and something else,” said Barlow, somewhat grudgingly. “Now that I’ve listened to him babble and looked this crusty old goat over a little closer, I recognize him from seeing him around Hart City. Wasn’t very long ago he was bartending a while for Jules O’Roarke at the High Top. He got canned from there, too, way I recall. And it didn’t have nothing to do with no hurt paw.”
“So he’s telling the truth, at least about not working for Bradley until only recently,” muttered Van Horne.
“Seems like,” agreed Malloy.
Van Horne turned his attention to Orson. He said, “You say you were quick to recognize my name, Brandenburger. What is it you think you know of me?”
Orson blinked. “Why, pretty much what everybody knows, I guess. That you’re one of the biggest cattleman down in the Panhandle. Certainly in Bellow County and the area close around. I mean, you can ride any direction out of Hart City and practically everything you see with four legs has got your Horned-V brand stamped on it, right?”
A mildly satisfied expression touched Van Horne’s face. “Almost,” he said. “Before I’m done, I aim for every four-legged critter—leastways the kind money can be made off of—to carry that brand. And as of a few weeks ago, that legally includes everything that used to carry the Rafter B mark.”
“Not sure I’m following you,” said Orson, looking puzzled.
“It’s simple.” Van Horne made an expansive gesture with the hand holding the cigar. “After the first of this year, it was discovered that Norris Bradley had fallen in serious arrears on the taxes he owed for the Rafter B. The court allowed him a reasonable amount of time to catch up. He wasn’t able to, not even close. Learning of this, I took the opportunity to satisfy the tax burden and thereby took over legal ownership of the Rafter B. Not wanting to be unduly harsh, I gave Bradley and his people a month to settle their affairs and gather together their personal belongings before vacating the place. And then, while I was away on business and nobody was paying close enough attention, they vacated the place all right. Trouble was, when they did they took eight hundred head of cattle—my cattle—along with ’em!”
