Lassiter Tough Read online

  He was just filling a bucket from the yard pump when he happened to look through the open gate. He saw four men approaching. They were afoot, which was odd, and limping badly. His first impression was that they had been wounded in a gunfight. The big one had his teeth bared as if it was agony to take one more step.

  Harkness went into the house and got his old Sharps. He levered in a .50-caliber shell and waited till they got near enough to hear his voice.

  “What do you want here?” he demanded loudly.

  Doane shouted through cupped hands. “Need horses.”

  “You got money?”

  “Some.”

  Harkness sniffed at the word “some.” “I can only let you have one. An’ it’ll cost you.”

  The men had halted some twenty-five yards away. Now they exchanged glances.

  “We’ll come ahead an’ dicker,” Doane called. They started walking again.

  “Only one of you come,” Harkness shouted back. “I want one hundred dollars for the horse.”

  “You go to hell, you ol’ skinflint!” Doane yelled.

  For an answer, Harkness sent one of the .50-caliber bullets whistling just above their heads. They halted abruptly.

  “You got a hundred dollars between you?” Harkness called.

  “Yeah,” Doane replied after a slight hesitation.

  “Looks like you’ll have to take turns in the saddle. But it can’t be helped. One horse is all I can spare.” Harkness pointed to Jeddy Quine, whom he considered the less dangerous. “You come with the money. The rest of you stay put.”

  Doane, in a low voice, said, “Pretend we’re dig-gin’ money from our pockets. Then you take care of him, Jeddy. We need four horses, an’ we ain’t got all day to argue about it.”

  Quine made a great show of stuffing money into his pocket, then started forward. But Harkness yelled for him to leave his gun. Quine nodded and handed his revolver to Doane. Then he pretended to stumble. As he came up, he had plucked the bone-handled knife from Doane’s boot. With the blade up his shirt sleeve, he started again toward the house. Its roof line could barely be seen above the rock wall.

  As Quine approached, Harkness thought of letting Chief out of the house. He was a smooth-coated brown animal of enormous size but these days was unpredictable due to old age. But if the four men gave him any trouble, he’d turn Chief loose. They’d be limping a lot worse than they were now after Chief snapped at their legs and ankles a few times.

  Harkness waited by the gate, a lean, weathered figure with a deeply lined face. He had the Sharps under one arm and an eye on the pocket where he thought Quine had shoved the money.

  “Hand over the money first,” Harkness ordered when Quine reached the gate. “Then I’ll show you the horse.”

  “Sure,” Quine said. Excitement made his left eyelid droop.

  He shoved his left hand into his pants pocket, withdrew it slowly. Harkness had his greedy eyes fixed on the pocket. Too late he saw Quine leap. Quine brushed aside the Sharps and in the same movement his knife flashed. A stream of pinkish blood erupted from the seamed brown throat. Harkness collapsed, his blood staining the ground.

  Quine waved the others in. “Looks like we got us four horses!”

  A dog in the house was making a great racket, jumping against the front door and snarling.

  “Better take care of it, one of you,” Doane said as he hurried to the corral, as fast as sore feet would allow.

  Just as he reached the corral, there was the crash of a .45. The dog no longer uttered a sound.

  “We better get the hell out as fast as we can,” Tige said.

  Pinto George turned on Quine. “Did you have to kill him?”

  Quine rested a hand on his gun and just looked at him.

  “My pa brung me by a few times when I was a kid,” George went on. “Harkness had his squaw give us supper a time or two.”

  “Bet your pa paid good money,” Doane said with a harsh laugh. “Now quit your whining, Pinto. An’ let’s put miles between us an’ this place.”

  Just in case they’d run into somebody who would spot the Harkness T Bar brand on the horses, they kept off the main cattle trail. They made a wide circle to reach Diamond Eight headquarters by a route where a chance meeting with anyone would be minimized.

  It was midday when they came riding into the yard. A team and buckboard waited in front of the rather ornate ranch house, sunlight sparkling on wide front windows. The team stood with heads down, lines wrapped around an iron tie boy.

  Brad saw them from a parlor window and stiffened in his armchair. Seated on a sofa, wearing a silk dress to match her eyes, was Isobel Hartney. Her long legs were crossed and she was regarding Sanlee out of narrowed green eyes. She said, “I’ll have to give marriage a lot of thought, Brad… .”

  He twisted in his chair to glare at her, his lips in the bearded face compressed to a pair of white lines. “You was more or less sure. Till that Lassiter showed up.”

  That caused her to smile. “Don’t tell me you have spies in my bedroom.” She knew instantly it had been the wrong thing to say, even in jest. He sprang out of the chair and his backhand swung. It struck her so hard that lights danced in her head. As she fell over on the sofa, he went storming out the door. She heard him thumping down the veranda stairs, yelling stridently, “Where’re the others? What in hell happened!”

  Most of her life, she had been aware of his explosive temper, so why had she goaded him? Her face throbbed. She sat up and gingerly felt her right cheek. There would be swelling and quite possibly a black eye. It crossed her mind to tell Lassiter what Brad had done. But just as quickly she tossed the idea aside. It would mean the end of Lassiter, no matter how valiant he might be. Brad would crush him with superior numbers.

  Out in the yard, Sanlee was listening to Doane relate the tragic incident. But he embellished the story. On the way, Lassiter had picked up more men and Diamond Eight was simply outnumbered, implying that Brad should have sent more men.

  In the next breath, Doane told him about the horses and old man Harkness. “We better get rid of the horses, Brad.”

  “Yeah. In case somebody comes lookin’ at brands.” Then he rubbed his bearded chin. “Tell you what, hide ’em for a spell till I do some thinkin’ on the subject.” He grinned, then sobered. “Now I got to go to town.” He loped for the house, knowing that after having her face punched, Isobel wouldn’t stay the night.

  He guessed he shouldn’t have hit her. So far, during courtship, he had kept himself under control. Time enough to use the flat of his hand after the marriage vows were sealed. He recalled the old man blackening the eyes of Millie’s mother a time or two. He supposed it ran in the family.

  In the house, Mrs. Elva Dowd’s austere features were expressionless, but she had evidently overheard the business with Isobel. He made his apologies to the green-eyed beauty while she listened stiffly on the sofa, her knees pressed primly together. The puffy right side of her face was an ugly shade of red.

  “When I saw my four men come ridin’ in as if nothing had happened, when I sent six to do a job, I … well, I just exploded. I’m sorry, Isobel, damn sorry.”

  “You may drive me home, Brad,” she said coolly.

  All the way to town he tried to make amends but she failed to respond. She just sat hunched in the wagon, staring at the miles of brush as if counting each clump.

  At the rear door of the store he tried to help her down. But she alighted from the wagon without his assistance. “When’ll I see you again?” he asked, standing with his hat in hand, a lock of coarse, reddish hair hanging over one eye.

  “I’ll let you know. I tripped over something is how I’ll explain my face.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry about that.” Then he looked at her intently, the eyes with their sheen of gray steel. “It ain’t true about Lassiter, is it?”

  Not wishing to risk his wrath twice in one day, even if now in town and at her own doorstep, she said, “Now that’s the silliest
thing you’ve ever asked me.”

  Giving him a faint smile, she hurried into the store. He heard her on the stairs to the second-floor living quarters.

  It was a moment before he put on his hat. He stood there, a big man with shoulders tensed, thinking. Had there been just a flicker of something in her green eyes at the mention of Lassiter’s name? Well, Lassiter wouldn’t be alive much longer to worry about it. After they were married, he’d ask Isobel point-blank about Lassiter. And if he figured she was lying, she’d end up with more than a puffy cheek.

  Jerking down the brim of his hat, he drove the buckboard over to O’Leary’s and stormed inside for a drink from his private bottle. He was in such a mood that O’Leary, with his plump red face, kept out of the way.

  Sanlee thought of his great plans that had somehow gone awry, thanks to Lassiter. When his father had died, instead of sorrow he had felt a great relief, a surging excitement that at last he was his own man to carve out his own empire. The old man had acquired Diamond Eight but had let that be the extent of his ambition. Not so the son. Brad Sanlee had a vision of owning a goodly share of acreage and cows in this part of Texas. All that stood in his way were Rep Chandler, Marcus Kilhaven, Rooney and Tate. With their acreage and cattle added to his, he could dictate his own terms, more or less, as to shipping costs and cattle prices. Year by year the railroad would be getting closer. It would cause the Santos country to boom. Sanlee was already making plans to be ready for it.

  A lot of his current problems he laid at the doorstep of his sister Millie—her running off with Vince Tevis, Sanlee having to go tearing after her, wasting all that time trying to track her down, then the long trip back home.

  And then that day he had seen Lassiter standing at the bar in O’Leary’s and had offered him a proposition. How was he to know that Lassiter and Vince Tevis had been friends? And that Lassiter had actually come all this way looking for somebody named Sam Lee, which turned out to be Brad Sanlee in person. All this he learned from Isobel Hartney one lazy night when she was in a talkative mood and disclosed what Rep Chandler had told her in the store during the week.

  And thanks to Shorty Doane and the other five pulling some brainless stunt, Lassiter still lived. But not for long. He poured himself another drink, his thoughts now focused on the horses stolen from a dead man far out on the lonely flats somewhere between Santos and Tiempo.

  He actually smiled, which gave O’Leary the courage to smooth down his thinning locks and waddle up to ask Brad how things were going.

  “Just fine,” Sanlee replied with a hard grin. “Damn fine.”

  16

  *

  Lassiter didn’t expect the reception he received at Box C when he rode in with the remains of his crew, Rudy Ruiz lying in the bed of the new wagon purchased in Tiempo. Lassiter was just swinging into the yard by the big barn when Rep Chandler staggered out of the house, waving a revolver.

  “I figured you’d keep right on goin’,” Chandler said in a thick voice. His sparse brown hair stood on end and there was a stubble of gray whiskers on his chin. His eyes were reddened and he smelled as if dipped in a vat of whiskey.

  “Why would I keep on going?” Lassiter made himself speak calmly. Monjosa and the others eyed Chandler and the pistol.

  “You come back for her is the only answer!” Chandler shouted.

  “Who the hell are you talking about?” Although Lassiter knew, it caused all the tensions of past days to well up and trip his temper.

  “My wife, that’s who I’m talkin’ about!”

  The men were drifting to the bunkhouse, those who had been on the ill-fated cattle drive and the ones who had been left behind, wanting to get away from the loud voices and the accusations. Herrera looked narrowly at the drunken Rep Chandler.

  Millie came flying from the house, her long black hair streaming. Tired and upset as he was, Lassiter couldn’t help but notice how her clothing was pressed tight against her body, revealing every curve. Her dark eyes were filled with sparks.

  “Rep, you fool you!” she screamed at her husband.

  Chandler turned, blinking as she came up and took the gun from his hand. Millie was breathing hard, her bosom heaving. “Brad’s been talking to him,” she gasped, out of breath. “Putting … ideas into his head!”

  Chandler sagged. He looked at Ruiz, who was being carried by two of the men. “What happened to him?” Chandler asked in a weak voice.

  Lassiter told him, making it brief. He handed over a bank draft. Chandler squinted at it, then looked at Lassiter. “Why didn’t you bring cash, like before? You know I trust you.”

  “Trust me?” Lassiter gave a harsh laugh.

  “Don’t pay no mind to me. I’m sorry, Lassiter. I been drinkin’ too much an’ when I saw you, somethin’ exploded in my head.”

  Lassiter only shrugged. But his mind was made up for sure this time. He was through at Box C.

  Chandler rested a hand on Lassiter’s shoulder. All the anger had evaporated, leaving only a husk. “You’ll take supper with me an’ the missus tonight, eh?”

  Lassiter nodded reluctantly and watched Chandler stagger off toward the house. He wished mightily that Millie had gone with him and not compounded an already ugly situation. But she stayed where she was, holding the pistol in both small hands.

  “I’m sorry, Lassiter, really sorry. But worry over money and the awful things my goddamned brother whispered to him …” Tears danced in her eyes as her body trembled. “How could Brad be so … so despicable?”

  “I want you to get Rep sobered up. Pour the black coffee into him before supper. I’ve got something to tell him.”

  In the wild run from the house, her hair had fallen across her face. Pushing it back, she peered at Lassiter. “You’re going to leave,” she guessed.

  “It’s best. Herrera can run things for you. He’s a good man.”

  “I know he is, but …” Tears spilled down her cheeks. She rubbed them away with a smooth forearm.

  He gave her a gentle shove toward the house. “Go on, Millicent. Don’t make things any worse than they are.”

  “You remembered how I like that name. It sounded so sweet when you said it… .” Her lower lip trembled. “Oh, damn, damn, why are we put on this earth to suffer?”

  “You made your bed like I made mine. You’re married and I’m a drifter. It’s high time I moved along.”

  “I’ll miss you, Lassiter.” Millie choked up and started away. “See you at supper.” Then she was hurrying across the yard, her shoulders straight, long black hair touched by sunlight.

  A grim Herrera came up to listen to Lassiter’s account of the tragic twilight near Cedar Creek.

  Lassiter was just putting on his clothes in the bunkhouse after a bath when he heard Millie scream his name. He rushed from the bunkhouse, not even taking time to put on his gun rig, but carrying the holstered weapon, the long belt flapping at each step. He found Chandler lying on the parlor floor. His face was gray and he was trying to sit up.

  Millie was white-faced. “He was standing there and the next thing I knew he … he just fell.”

  Lassiter buckled on his gun rig while Millie spoke. Then he picked Chandler up, surprised at how light the man was, and carried him to the bedroom. Millie pulled down the covers. Lassiter laid Rep on the bed.

  Chandler’s eyes were open. “Hell, I’m all right,” he said with a weak smile. “Was kinda dizzy is all.”

  Lassiter got Millie aside. “I’m going to send one of the men to town for the doc.”

  “I’d better go,” a shaken Millie said, untying her apron. “Doc is a strange one. If one of the men came for him, he might take his time, or not come at all, depending on what kind of mood he’s in.”

  “Hell of a doctor.”

  “He’s all we have. He was out here the other day and he and Rep played poker. They did a lot of drinking and Doc shouldn’t. He shouldn’t even touch it and he knows better. So he … he may not be over it yet.”

  She
started for the door, but Lassiter caught her. “I’ll fetch Doc Clayburn. He’ll come. Believe me on that.”

  But after the ride to town, it took nearly an hour to get the doctor ready to set a saddle. He had eaten—Lassiter had seen to that—for the first time in over two days: three eggs, a steak and biscuits at the Santos Cafe.

  “The curse of mankind, strong drink,” the doctor sighed when they were well out of Santos, cantering, his medical bag bouncing behind the saddle. “Rep’s been having troubles so I tried to cheer him up. By doing so, I put another dent in my own soul. In my liver I guess would be a better way to put it.” Clayburn gave a sour laugh.

  “Rep’s got nothing to worry about now,” Lassiter said. It was late afternoon with the sun dipping into fleecy clouds and starting to stain them in rainbow colors. “I brought back enough money from Tiempo to see him squared away.”

  “Well, it wasn’t altogether money that was troubling Rep.” Then the doctor broke off and rubbed his chin and stared at a wall of mesquite they were passing.

  “Go ahead and say it, Doc,” Lassiter snapped.

  “It … it’s only gossip, I’m sure.”

  “Thanks to Brad Sanlee.” Lassiter spoke the name with such venom that Doc Clayburn jerked around in the saddle to stare. He was slender in leg and torso but had a well-rounded stomach. To fill out his narrow face, he wore enormous brown sideburns.

  The rest of the ride was made in silence. When they rode in, the vaqueros were kneeling in front of the main house. With them was Herrera’s wife, a black rebozo over her head. Lassiter turned cold, thinking of Millie. “My God,” he groaned.

  They had laid Chandler out on his own bed. Millie stood woodenly beside it.

  “I went to take him some broth and … and he was gone.” Her chin trembled.

  They left the room while Doc Clayburn made a brief examination. Then the doctor came to the parlor and slumped to a sofa. “Rep had a lot of things on his mind. I guess his old heart just pumped itself to death.”