A Manner of Speaking by Margaret P.
(With thanks to my beta, Terri Derr) (2018: Words: 2,028)
Chapter One
"Hey, look." Johnny reined Barranca to a halt in front of the Johnson place and pointed down the left-hand side. The last rays of daylight were reflecting off a window pane.
"That's strange." Scott steered Ulysses closer to the fence for a better look as the vaqueros ahead of them rode on to the saloon.
Wooden planks lay criss-crossed on the dried grass below the rear window of the house and one of the peeling blue shutters hung askew, casting shadows on the white-painted clapboard.
Johnny looked for someone to ask, but it seemed the townsfolk had gone for their suppers. He could see movement and light behind the net curtains of the Majestic Hotel, but the street was deserted. "This place has been boarded up ever since we got here."
"I asked Murdoch about it once. He said the owners had moved back east."
"Maybe it's rented now."
"Sold for demolition more likely. Look around. It's all businesses in this part of Green River now."
"Why uncover the windows to knock it down?" Johnny frowned; the idea of tearing down such a grand lady didn't sit right with him. She wasn't even that old. "Waste of a good house."
"It's called progress."
"Pfft."
"In a manner of speaking." Scott raised an eyebrow.
"It'd be a damn shame. Wouldn't take much to—"
A wind chime above the porch jingled in the breeze, and Johnny turned his head to the sound.
Before he could stop himself, he fell inside a memory: a long row of cabañas, ropes, horses and burning torches. Juanita's wind chime sang until the thatch over the porch collapsed, and then all he heard was the children crying and the women wailing. Lucian and what was left of the other village men knelt beside him in the dust, guns aimed at their heads.
"Johnny?"
It took a moment. He blinked and swallowed and breathed. The heat and the smoke faded, and he was back, a white clapboard house standing lonely but peaceful in front of him.
"Happy homes shouldn't be torn down just because greedy men want land." Glancing sideways, he forced a smile.
Scott gave him one of those long steady looks, and then tried to laugh it off. "How do you know it was happy?"
Was he blind? Johnny made a wide sweep with his hand. "Look at it—the garden, the swing hanging from the tree." Everything was overgrown and weather-weary now, but once someone had spent a lot of time on the rose garden. Wind chimes, swings and honeysuckle growing over the porch spoke of a woman and children, and…well, shoot, he didn't really know how he knew, but this old place had a heart. "Don't you feel it?"
Scott stared at the house. "You could be right, but whatever's going on, it's got nothing to do with us."
Johnny shrugged; it was pointless arguing, and besides, the hairs on the back of his neck told him Scott's eyes were now on him, trying to get inside his head. To find what? A can of worms better left unopened. He didn't look around again; Scott could think what he liked.
"Come on. It's probably just kids being nosy."
Before Johnny could answer, there was a thud and the scraping of wood. The un-boarded sash was pushed up, and a young man wearing fancy duds like the ones Scott had arrived in climbed out of the window.
"Hey!" Johnny stood high in his stirrups, but the kid didn't look around. He shut the window and strode off in the opposite direction, vaulting the rear side fence and disappearing from view. "Damn it."
"Let's take a look." Dismounting, Scott tied his horse to the picket fence and kneed the gate open on rusty hinges.
They crossed the yard together, skirting the once-loved rose garden to reach the rear window. While Scott investigated inside, Johnny jogged on to the road that dead-ended half way down the double lot. All he could see was the rangy orange tom cat from the granary on a parapet wall, pouncing and batting its paws at bugs, and a housemaid bringing in sheets from the clothes lines at the rear of Mrs Flower's boarding house.
Where in hell did the kid go? Buildings—some with backyards, some without—stretched towards the centre of town; he could have gone through any one of a dozen doors or alleys. With a shake of his head, Johnny returned to the house. "No sign of him."
Climbing out of the window, Scott pushed the sash down. "Well, he hasn't done any damage. This only gets you into the kitchen and washhouse. The door into the rest of the house is locked."
"What do you think we should do?"
"Nothing we can do. I vote we join the others at the Silver Dollar."
"I like the way you think, brother." Johnny gave Scott a friendly punch on the arm, and they headed for their horses. A nice cold beer and a few hands of poker were just what the doctor ordered after the week they'd had. "If you're lucky I'll let you win."
As it turned out, Scott beat him without any 'letting'; the days of needing to be kind to the greenhorn were clearly over. Downing a shot of whiskey, Johnny prepared to take his revenge, but before he had reshuffled the deck three drifters asked to join the game. Relieving strangers of their hard-earned wages had to be more fun than beating each other.
He exchanged a look with Scott and his brother pulled out a chair. "The more the merrier."
A couple of Lancer men joined them as well, and it was a good game until Walt had a winning streak and started crowing.
"You fellas need to learn how to play." He scooped the pot towards him from the centre of the table.
"You know what happens to the rooster that crows too loudly, Walt." Johnny started picking up cards.
"Aw, Johnny, you know I'm only foolin'."
"Well, I reckon you cheated." One of the strangers got to his feet. "And I want my money back."
"I was not cheating. I won fair and square." Walt jumped up, chest all puffed out like an indignant bullfrog.
"He wasn't cheating." Scott slipped his gambling money back into his pocket.
Johnny did the same—just in case. "Sit down, both of you."
"He had to be palming cards or something to win four times in a row." The stranger glared at Walt. "Now give me back my money."
"No."
Johnny opened his mouth to make a joke, but it was too late.
The stranger took a swing at Walt, and Walt swung back. The stranger's friends, the other Lancer hands and a few onlookers joined in the fracas.
Johnny and Scott got to their feet in the nick of time. Walt and the stranger crashed down on the table, and cards, money and splinters of wood went flying.
Johnny drained his glass and set it down on the bar. "I don't suppose…?"
"No, unfortunately not. Being the boss does have its drawbacks."
Working together they began breaking up the fight, one Lancer man at a time.
"Enough." Johnny hauled the last one through the door onto the boardwalk ten minutes later while Scott paid for the damage and collected their guns from behind the bar. They were lucky the sheriff hadn't shown up, but from the noise further along the street he must have had his hands full at the Pioneer.
"What do you think?" Scott looked up at the full moon as they rode home herding bruised and battered cowhands ahead of them. "Do you think Murdoch will buy moon-madness?"
Johnny rubbed his arm where it had connected with a chair. "Maybe he'll see the funny side." Fat chance, but it was in his interest to give false hope. Scott took his status as first born way too seriously, but in this case he was welcome to take the lead. "You tell him."
In true big-brother style, Scott grabbed the bull by the horns and got the job done as soon as they sat down to breakfast. "Our men weren't to blame, sir. The drifter threw the first punch. Walt only defended himself."
"I don't care. I was relying on you two to keep them out of trouble. You heard what Sheriff Crawford said last week."
"Val wouldn't really ban Lancer hands from town on a Saturday night, Murdoch. He only said that because the old biddies from the Temperance Society were listening."
"Not the point, Johnny, and you know it." Murdoch snatched a biscuit from the basket in the middle of the breakfast table, accidentally knocking the milk as he withdrew his arm.
Scott rescued the jug in the nick of time and changed the subject. "Some guy broke into the Johnson house on Main Street last night. Jimmied the boards off the kitchen window and got inside. We spotted him climbing out as we rode into town."
"Did you catch him?"
"Nope. Disappeared too quick, but Scott checked inside. Whoever he was he didn't do any harm."
"Glad to hear it. That house belongs to old friends of mine." Murdoch mopped up the last of his egg with his biscuit. "Daniel and Sarah Johnson were the original owners of the emporium on Main Street."
"How come the house has been empty so long?" From what Johnny had heard, it had been shut up for years. Val Crawford reckoned the grounds only got tidied because the owner of the Majestic Hotel across the road caused a ruckus if they got too scruffy.
"The people who bought out the business rented it for a while, but when they sold up about eight years ago, the new owners didn't want it."
"Why didn't the Johnsons sell then?" Scott asked between mouthfuls.
"It wasn't long after the flood. No one was buying anything much and paying a pittance if they did. Besides, Daniel and Sarah had ideas of moving back some day when their kids grew up." Murdoch sighed and poured himself more coffee. "I think that's gone by the bye. Sarah writes every Christmas, but she hasn't mentioned it recently."
Johnny lowered his glass of milk. "Why'd they go in the first place?"
"In '58 there was a chickenpox epidemic. Daniel and Sarah's son, Christopher, was badly affected. The family moved to Hartford in Connecticut to get him the help he needed."
Teresa reached for the salt. "I remember having chickenpox. I stayed with the Ramirez family. All the children slept together in Maria and Cipriano's big bed, girls at one end and boys at the other."
"There were ten in the bed and the little one said, 'Roll over, roll over'." Johnny sat back in his chair and grinned.
Scott took up the song. "So they all rolled over and Teresa fell out."
Teresa laughed. "I did too—a few times. Mainly because, when we felt better, we had pillow fights."
"Your daddy and Maria nursed you back to health. Cipriano had never had chickenpox so he was banned from the house, and I couldn't remember if I'd had it or not so I was ordered to stay away too. I'm glad you and the Ramirez children have some happy memories, but for the adults it was a terrible time." Murdoch got up from the table, folding his napkin and sliding it back into its wooden ring. "When you two have finished your breakfasts I'd like to know how many head have been brought down from the hills for branding. I'll have a word with the men who disgraced themselves last night, and then I'll check on the new culverts."
So much for distracting him from the fight the night before; Johnny and Scott swapped looks of resignation. God help Walt and the others; they'd done their best.
Murdoch paused in the archway on his way out. "We've got to go into Green River tomorrow to get those papers signed. Malachi Lambeth is the agent for the Johnson place. We'll visit his office afterwards and let him know what you saw."
Notes:
The Johnson family first appeared in my back story for Murdoch Lancer, From Highlands to Homecoming. The chicken pox epidemic was the subject of Chapter 41.
Lucian was the Mexican prisoner kneeling next to Johnny waiting to take his turn in front of the firing squad in the Lancer pilot, The Highriders.
Val Crawford was Green River's sheriff in The Man Without a Gun, Series 1, Episode 23.