LITMIR.BIZ

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help’s back,” he said to her.

      “Yes. I missed them.” She shook her head like she was tired of being chief cook and bottle washer. Besides nursing her own, she had eighteen-month-old Rachel crawling around, getting into everything. “I’m glad Susie brought us some help.”

      The poor girl had come from being a pampered banker’s daughter to becoming a mother of two—one was Rachel, whose birth cost Nancy her life, and the second one arrived nine months after the wedding. May still carried some baby fat. Not as pretty as Nancy, she still tried hard in Chet’s book, and did not receive a lot of help or attention from his brother—her husband.

      “Louise and I are making new shirts for the men,” Susie announced, showing him the bolt of blue denim. “We have material for dresses for the spring and even for Mother.”

      Louise stood back silent and helped unpack staples like coffee and baking powder from the wooden crates. She’d not said one word to Chet since the schoolyard, and he could see behind her darting brown eyes that she wanted to rake him over the coals again.

      “There’s a new doctor in Mason,” said Susie.

      “Good. Always can use one to them,” Chet said, making room to set his load on the table. “I understand the funeral is tomorrow. I think we should go and pay our respects.”

      “Isn’t that hypocritical?” Louise asked.

      “You don’t have to go if you feel that way,” Chet said.

      “You’re right, Chet Byrnes. I don’t have to do one thing that you tell me to do. I have wired an attorney in Shreveport and asked him what my rights were.”

      “Does that mean you are leaving, Louise?”

      “I want my sons to grow up in a more civilized place than this outpost in hell.”

      “You sure they want to leave here?”

      “They are both under eighteen and they will do as I say.”

      “Fine, when you get that letter from that lawyer, show it to me. You have not seen Shreveport in a number of years. May I suggest you go there on a visit and see it first? I understand that much of the South is still so torn up from the war, it hardly is the same.”

      “You want rid of me, is that it?”

      “No, ma’am, but you don’t know what the South is like today. We may live in hell, but there are worse places.”

      “How would I get the means?”

      “We can pay for it.” He waited for her answer.

      She turned on her heel to leave, would not look back at him, and tossed her words at him while leaving. “I will consider it.”

      Reg dried his palms on the front of his pants. “I damn sure ain’t going along with her.”

      Chet shook his head to quiet him. A trip to Shreveport might settle her for a while. At least she would not be around to harass him; let her go see the slave-free South. All those once-rich people doing their own wash on boards in tubs. She might think the ranch wasn’t so bad after all.

      The taste and quality of the food picked up with Susie back, and so did everyone’s appetite at the supper table. After the meal, he excused himself, slipped off, saddled a horse, and rode out in the twilight. The short days wouldn’t be getting longer for months.

      He rode up on the ridge under the stars, listened to the coyotes. Huddled in his jumper shell, he wished he’d worn more clothing. A new cold front had moved in and no rain. His thirsty ranch needed all the rain he could get for it.

      This mess with the Reynolds clan might hurt his spring cattle drive. People might be challenged not to use his services. Those extra thousand head paid the expenses for the drive. There was still money going north with a herd of his own, but the extra insured a profit. Time would tell.

      At the end of the ridge, he looked off across the pearl-lighted country. Better forget about seeing Marla for the night and head home. He short-loped the good horse for the house.

      When the roan was put up, he realized that that late smoke was coming from the fireplace and a light was on in the living room. The notion of warming up at the hearth made him head for the main house’s front door. He opened it quietly and in the rosy glow from the hearth, May was rocking the older girl in her lap.

      “Baby sick?” he asked quietly. Pulling off his thin gloves, he held his hands out to the radiant heat.

      “I am afraid Rachel’s not the healthiest baby. I try. I make sure she gets food, but it upsets her stomach a lot and she must have had a bad dream tonight.” May made the rocker go faster and hugged the child closer. “Do you think she will go?”

      He turned and frowned at her.

      “Louise—you said she could go on a visit to Louisiana. You’d pay her way.”

      He shrugged. Why did that sound so important to May? “Yes.”

      “Maybe when she’s gone away, my husband will share our bed again.”

      Shocked, he stopped warming himself. Was she telling the truth? Why wouldn’t she? Slowly, he nodded, “I’m sorry, May. You have a large cross to bear.”

      “I just want to be his wife.”

      He saw the tears in her eyes. Two days doing Susie’s job and all the rest had worn her out—but his brother’s spurning her had hurt her the worst.

      “I will press her to go on that visit.”

      “Thank you,” she said, and rocked harder.

      All the way to the bunkhouse, he wondered what he should do next. Damn Dale Allen’s worthless soul.

      Chapter 8

      The men rode horses. The rest were in the farm wagon that Reg drove behind the big black mares to the schoolhouse for the funeral. Louise, in the end, had decided to go along. May and Astria stayed home to watch the babies and old folks. The boys were dressed in suits and looked stiff-necked wearing ties. Chet wore his six-gun under his brown suit coat.

      A crowd was gathered when they arrived, and lots of hard looks from the Reynolds clan came at Chet. He didn’t expect anything less, but he felt the schoolhouse was public-held land and he had as much right as anyone to be there.

      He herded the two women ahead, and had reached the three-step stoop when Earl Reynolds burst through the shocked onlookers and brandished a pistol in the doorway. “Gawdamn you, Byrnes! You hung my boy.”

      “Put that pistol away,” Chet ordered. “There’s women and children here.”

      “I don’t give a damn. I’m going to kill you.”

      Chet was never certain who hit Earl in all the confusion and women screaming, but whoever delivered the blow knocked the gun out of his hand and may have broken his forearm. Earl went to his knees screaming. A bystander swept up the revolver and promptly stripped the caps off the nipples.

      Earl, on his knees, held his disabled arm and swore revenge.

      “Stand aside,” Chet ordered, and the man reached for him. A swift kick spilled Reynolds on his back and Chet jammed a boot on his chest. “This is a funeral, not a bar fight. Go to your seat and pray for that boy’s delivery to God. They stole those horses and were nearly to the Red River before I caught them. That was no prank, it was thievery. He took on a man’s part of that crime and got the same in punishment.”

      “I’ll kill you—I’ll kill you—”

      Chet jerked him up by his collar, dragged him outside, and threw him down the steps. “Come back when you’re civil.”

      “I’ll get my damn rifle—”

      “You people that are kin of his get him under control or you’ll have another funeral.”

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