Chapter Ten
Accordin' to Murdoch, Laura Wallace was one of the most considerate women he'd ever met. She knew how much work went into a round up, how little time the ranchers and their hands had for anything that didn't have hide and horns. She never wanted to cause what Boston called inconvenience.
Yeah, real considerate. She waited until the Spring round up was done before she was done herself.
They buried her in the graveyard on the outskirts of Green River; in the proper part, where there were trees and markers and even a stone angel, and not the little corner that was Boot Hill where Day Pardee had his six feet of Californian ground. Johnny didn't go over to pay his respects. Day wouldn't expect it of him and there was no tellin' which of the graves was Ol' Day's anyway. There wouldn't be much of a marker. Day sure as hell didn't rate no angel.
Murdoch paid for everything. He paid Sam Jenkins, the undertaker and the minister, just like a Patrón should. Murdoch said that that was what mattered, though. What mattered was that Lancer hands dug the grave and Lancer hands carried her to it. Along with a few people from the town, all the hands were there, even the newer ones who'd never met her. It was about respect, said Murdoch, and what was due to her.
Toledano said it best. Like Johnny, he was a bystander, although Scott was one of the pall-bearers, taking the place Murdoch might have if it hadn't been for his back and him being so big. Even Toledano was quiet and solemn as he helped settle the coffin on the shoulders of the six men who carried her.
"She was a part of the estancia, Juanito, and will be much missed." He gave the coffin a little pat as it started towards the grave. "I am too short to carry her and the Patrón is too tall, but Lancer looks after its own."
It was a real nice day. Everything was green and pretty. The grasses were laced through with little flowers, pink and yellow and blue. Teresa picked a handful of them and laid them on the coffin. Crickets jumped out of the grasses around their feet as they followed the pine box to the grave, bees and flies buzzed past their ears, and over by the trees there was a bird singing and fluttering. The sun was hot enough to make a man lazy and slow. It was the kind of day to think about a cantina and a tall glass of beer and maybe a pretty dark-eyed girl to share it with; it was too nice a day to think about pine boxes and holes in the ground.
The preacher talked for a long time. The afternoon sun burned against the back of Johnny's neck, with no hat there to shade him. He held onto the storm strap with his left hand while he listened to the old man's voice tell them how Laura Wallace was a good woman and a good mother; how the church and the Ladies Aid would be lost without her; how hard she'd worked to raise her son alone. How she was quiet, kept herself to herself; but never hesitated to help a neighbour or a soul in need. How she was a good Christian, assured of the Life Eternal.
"Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed…"
The old preacher's voice droned like one of them big pesky horseflies. Listening to him didn't make a man think that the Life Eternal would be a whole mess of fun.
Toledano's simple words were better.
Dammit, but Johnny hated funerals. He looked across the grave to where the boy, Ben, stood in a town suit. Ten years old and on his own. Well hell, Johnny knew what that was like. The kid looked lost. He kept liftin' one hand to his mouth, and even from several yards away, Johnny could see how much Ben's hand shook and that his mouth worked all the time. A brave kid, too; and proud. He set his chin and wouldn't let people see him cry.
He really knew what that was like, watching them put your Mama in the ground. He knew how it felt, trying not to let the tears show because boys didn't cry and big boys of ten sure as hell didn't cry. But he'd had Papa behind him, big broad hands on Johnny's shoulders, and even though Papa's hands had been shaking and Papa's mouth had worked, just like Ben's was now, still somehow the weight of Papa's hands hadn't pushed Johnny down but held him up.
Ben didn't have a Papa to hold him up, poor little cuss.
'Course, Murdoch would see the kid was all right. The day the round up was over, when they got back to the hacienda that night, tired and sore and hungry, Teresa told them that word had just come from Sam in Green River. She was red-eyed and sad, poor little girl, and cried when she mentioned the Wallace kid. Must have made her think of her Pa, thinking of a kid left all alone the way Paul O'Brien had left her. Murdoch had to have been as tired as hell, but he'd gone straight into town that night and brought Ben out to the ranch. Must have felt obligated. Laura Wallace had worked on Lancer for the past ten years, cooking and sewin' for the bunkhouse and helping out in the main house. Guess that Murdoch owed her that much, taking care of her son.
Funny how good he was at takin' care of other folks' kids.
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Scott went straight to Ben when the preacher was finished. He hadn't been happy about leaving the kid to stand by the preacher in the first place, and hell, Ben could have done with Boston there beside him. Scott had taken to Ben, the last few days. He'd taken the kid about with him on the range, he let Ben help with the barn work every night, he listened when Ben talked about his worries about what was going to happen to him and he probably let the kid cry if Ben had a mind to. He'd even taken to reading to Ben in the salón every night after supper. He read from that fat red book about the feller left all alone on the island when his ship wrecked. Scott was damned fond of that book. He'd read it to Johnny, too, when Johnny was sick. That was something, Boston thinking the same book would do for the both of them. Johnny was still reckoning out what he thought about that one.
But right now he was thinking more about the men up on the ridge above town. He'd noticed them about half way through the service. Murdoch had looked too, and Scott. They'd all seen them. Three… no, four of 'em, all on horseback, all just sitting up there, watching. Johnny had watched them back, his hand resting on his gun butt, until the service was over and the horsemen rode over the ridge and out of sight.
Teresa tugged at his sleeve. "Who are those men?"
How in tarnation should he know? He'd been around a lot of places but he still didn't know every damn drifter in the west. Johnny shrugged. "Whoever they are, they aren't too sociable."
"Well, it can't hurt Laura now, I guess." Murdoch nodded to Cipriano to get the hands rounded up and back to the ranch, but for Frank and Walt who'd volunteered to fill the grave. He helped Teresa up into the buggy. "Ten years ago when she came to me for a job to support herself and Ben—he was just a baby then—she was running away from the man she'd thought she was in love with. I think he was up there on the ridge today. I think that one of those men was Ben's father."
Johnny looked around, but Scott had taken Ben away from the graveside and was talking to Sam Jenkins and the Tafts, friends of Laura Wallace's who had no kids and wanted to take Ben as their own. Mr Taft had a hand on Ben's shoulder. His hand was brown and callused, like he worked hard, but it sat gentle on the kid, not weighing him down. He looked kind. Mrs Taft, too. Ben would be okay with them.
The boy was out of earshot and wouldn't hear anything to stir him up more than he needed to be on the day he buried his Mama. The kid had enough to worry him, even with the Tafts bein' kind. Johnny turned back to Murdoch, not sure he had really heard right. If he had… well, wasn't that something.
Looked like Murdoch knew more than one woman who'd grabbed her son and run away from her man.
Strange, that Murdoch had helped her to do it. Maybe Murdoch hadn't seen how he and the man on the ridge could use each other for a mirror. Maybe he hadn't ever considered, when he helped Laura Wallace, that he was keeping a man from his son.
Murdoch's voice was real calm. "Yes, I think that was Morgan Price."
Teresa's eyes were wide. She was still dabbing at them with a bit of cloth with lace edging. "The Morgan Price?"
Murdoch nodded and climbed up into the buggy.
Johnny looked back up at the ridge. There was nothing to see there now. "Never heard of him."
"He's an outlaw." Murdoch answered Johnny's shrug with a tight grin. "He's quite famous in this part of California and the Cattleman's Association has put a price on his head—a very large price. He's thought to have a hideout somewhere around Blood Rock and Lost Hills."
"That's what… about seventy or eighty miles south of here?"
"About that. Down Bakersfield way." Murdoch gathered up the reins but didn't start the horses. His pale blue eyes, paler than Johnny's own, narrowed. "What is it?"
"I dunno, Murdoch." Johnny tugged on his hat's stampede strings to pull it up far enough for him to catch at it and put it back on. "I was just thinkin', that's all."
"Thinking what?"
"You say she ran away from this man Price, takin' the kid with her?"
Murdoch nodded.
"Well, I was just thinkin' that she didn't run very far."
Murdoch's mouth tightened right down. He glanced up at the ridge, then at the still-open grave and the mound of dirt beside it. Ben was in the Tafts' buckboard on his way back into town and Scott and Sam were walking towards them, talking. Frank and Walt started in on the dirt and Johnny heard the thud as the first spadeful hit the coffin lid.
"No." Murdoch's eyes were cold, real cold. He added, with a harsh emphasis that told Johnny everything he wanted to know: "She didn't."
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Johnny was the first into the salón that night. He could hear Teresa talking to Maria in the kitchen and the faint clash of pans on the stove. He didn't know where Murdoch and Scott were.
He'd managed this a few times before the round up, snatching a minute or two when no one was around. The big globe stood in front of the bookcases on a polished wooden frame, hung on a rod like a wheel on an axle, so he could twirl it around and look at it. It was a handsome thing.
He'd heard of these things, but the mission school in Cantamar had been poor and hadn't run to globes. He'd never seen one before coming to Lancer. The first time he'd looked, it had taken him a few minutes to figure it out and find Mexico on it. He'd traced the Baja California coastline with his finger until he found Colinas de Rosarito. The farm had been somewhere around there. He couldn't work out exactly where, not on this queer map pasted onto the globe. And yet if he had to go there, he'd find it in a heartbeat. He didn't need a map.
He might go back, one day, and pay Tadeo Madrid a visit, him being family and all. Call him Tio, maybe, and see him sweat. He sure did sweat the last time Johnny was down that way. Couldn't ever remember Tio Tadeo bein' so polite or makin' him so welcome. Tio couldn't do enough to make Johnny's stay a pleasant one.
He grinned and twirled the globe, stopping it when it reached the part he wanted. Every time he sneaked in here to look, he started by rubbing his fingertip over Colinas de Rosarito before turning the globe to keep looking. Maybe he did it for luck; Dios knew, he needed it. He hadn't realised there were so many places in the world. Didn't help that the writing on the globe was small and sort of crabbed-looking – nothing here like that clear lawhand Boston had jawed about once.
The last time he'd looked he'd thought he'd found what he was looking for, but then he'd heard Murdoch's heavy tread on the tiled floor and he'd had to leave it and be over by the fireplace before Murdoch got through the door. Yeah, there it was, across all the blue spaces that had to mean seas and oceans. The country was coloured green.
Looked a real small place, Scotland did. Didn't look like a man would have enough room to stretch out his arms and claim space for his own.
He glanced out of the window. The sun was dropping down behind the mountains and everything out there—pasture, meadows, mountains—was shadowed with a dark purple in the dusk, like the bloom on a grape. He could just see a star above the mountains. This was a real pretty land, with lots of open space and room for a man to breathe.
He could see why Murdoch came here. What he couldn't see, not to be certain, was why his mother left. He knew what she'd said was the reason, but… well.
The globe wouldn't help him there.
Scott came into the room. He walked softer than Murdoch, but still Johnny heard him and gave the globe one more twirl for luck, and so Scott wouldn't see which bit he'd been looking at. "Taking up geography?"
Johnny turned, grinning. "I never saw one before coming here. It's a fine looking thing."
"It certainly is." Scott came to stand beside him. "It's a remarkably good one. Better than the one I had in my schoolroom, I can tell you." He gave Johnny a moody look. "Round about the time you were fighting the French, I expect."
Johnny shrugged. "Different schools, that's all, Boston."
Scott nodded, still a bit solemn, like he was in church or still at Laura Wallace's funeral. He reached out and gave the globe another spin, grinned and headed for the gun tree to hang up his fancy new Russian revolver. He looked at Johnny and raised an eyebrow, and jerked his head towards the gun tree.
"Is there a long fancy word for that, brother, for doing what you do there?" Johnny waggled his eyebrows at him.
Scott chuffed out a laugh. He frowned, thought about it and shook his head. "You know, Johnny, I don't believe there is."
Well, that was kinda disappointing. He'd got used to Boston having a word for everything. "Seems to me that education of yours ain't all it's cracked up to be, then."
Johnny walked over to the table and unbuckled his gun belt. Since they'd got back to the hacienda after the round up, he'd given in to Murdoch about taking off his gun while they ate supper. He didn't like it, but he did it. He hooked the belt around his chair. He might as well put it on the gun tree with Scott's for all the good it would do him, but that was as far as he'd go, just yet, and he still kept it with him when they sat in the salón after the meal. Murdoch just sort of grunted when he saw it the first time, but Johnny thought he was pleased and it stopped the old man from jawin' on about it—and that pleased Johnny.
What was it Boston had called it? Oh yeah. A reasonable compromise, or something like that. Strange that he had a fancy word for Johnny taking off his gun in the house to please Murdoch, but didn't have one for that thing he did with his eyebrows.
Murdoch looked tired when he finally joined them in the salón. He'd spent the rest of the afternoon out at the smithy, banging the hell outa long bits of metal and scowling a lot. Johnny ducked his head and watched him while everyone ate and talked about the funeral and Ben. The smithy had to be a good place for a man to hammer out his mad until he was too tired to think about the past that maybe wasn't as dead and gone as he'd like. Maybe Laura Wallace's story had had cut closer to the bone than Murdoch was willin' to let on.
He was still watching Murdoch when the door slammed open and two men burst in, waving their pistols around. Johnny didn't have time even to curse, before he was on his feet, hand clawing for the gun butt that wasn't there, dammit.
It damn well wasn't there.
Across the table from him, Scott was halfway out of his chair, before realising what Johnny already had. They were helpless. ¡Chingalo, but they were helpless! ¡Mierda!
"Don't move. Don't anybody make a move." One of the men took a step forward. His gun was cocked and ready, finger on the trigger.
The big pinche cabron was smirking so much that Johnny ached to hit something. Maybe the man, maybe Murdoch for making him take off his gun, maybe himself for being so stupid as to do it. He took a deep breath, letting it calm him. He'd have to twist to get at his gun on the chair back. They'd likely get at least one slug into him before he could reach it. He'd have to move fast…
"All right." Murdoch was real calm. "Settle down."
The other man spoke direct to Murdoch. "These two hotheads yours?"
Murdoch nodded. "Yes."
The man grinned. "Well, let's try to make this a friendly visit, huh?"
It had to be Morgan Price; him and one of his men and another two at the French windows behind Johnny. The two were waiting outside, said Price—and he grinned when he said it in a way that made Johnny itch to knock his teeth in— because he wasn't too sure of Murdoch's hospitality. Four of them. Johnny couldn't take on four of them, not unarmed and having to twist to even get at his gun belt. They'd gun him down before he could even touch the leather.
Johnny dropped back in his chair. While Price made a show of putting a big bag of money on the table in front of Murdoch, the other man walked behind Johnny, twitched the gun belt off the chair back and tossed it onto the floor against the wall. There wasn't a hope in hell of him reaching it there. The bastard grinned at him.
Beside him, Teresa was shaking. She'd barely squeaked when Price and his friend had burst in, but she was shaking now. Maybe she'd been too shocked before, but now she was just plain scared. Johnny put his hand over hers and squeezed. She gripped back so hard his fingers ached. They'd have to shoot him down to get to her, if that was on their minds.
Murdoch looked down at the money bag. "What's this?"
Price leaned up against the empty chair beside Scott. "Five thousand dollars. That's the amount of reward they've got posted on me."
"I heard." Murdoch damn near snorted like a bull. He didn't sound too impressed.
"Seems like a fair amount of money for a kid to get started with."
"Ben doesn't need your money, Price. He'll be well taken care of."
"But not the way I want him to be taken care of. You see that he gets it, Lancer. You see he buys what he needs."
Murdoch frowned. "Why?"
Price shrugged at him. "Why? Because he's my son. Maybe I owe him. Whatever. I always pay my debts."
Murdoch snorted again. "Money doesn't pay that debt, Price. You weren't around all those times when he needed your help."
Johnny almost gasped out loud. It took everything he had to show nothing. It took every damned minute of years of living down on the border, where to let a man get to you meant giving him an edge that could kill you, to stare down at the table and sit still and quiet. He lost the next few minutes. He could only sit there and stare at the white tablecloth while Murdoch pretended he knew what being a father was and Price talked about winning the money at faro.
There was a darn in the tablecloth. It was real neat, the stitches so tiny he could hardly see them. His mother's fancy work, the decoration she'd put on Johnny's clothes when he was a kid, was as fine as that. Couldn't have been Teresa's doing here, not given the stitchin' she did most nights after supper in the salón. Maria, maybe.
He took a deep breath. And another. Murdoch, ese maldito hipócrita, agreed to get the money to the kid.
When he could look up again, Price was halfway out the door. "The kid's still mine. He'll always be mine. You remember that."
The door slammed shut. Johnny surged to his feet and dived for his gun, catching up the belt and yanking the Colt out of the holster. He pulled open the door. Too late. Just dark shapes in the moonlight and the sound of horses galloping away. He raised his gun, staring down the short barrel for a moment, but Price and his men were already out of reach."
Scot appeared beside him. "Johnny! It's too late, they've gone."
He took another deep breath, and lowered the gun. "I fuckin' well know they've gone, Boston. I ain't blind. Just stupid." He stood for a minute, breathing hard, trying to make his heart stop thumping so hard. "Cipriano."
He ran for Cip's house, taking no notice of Scott's shout behind him, or of Murdoch's deeper voice wanting to know where he was going. Round the side of the house and through Teresa's garden at the back, over the adobe wall and into the meadow where the married hands lived in a tiny pueblo of adobe houses. Cip's was the biggest, set in its own little garden. He banged on the door with the butt of his gun.
Cipriano jerked the door open, gun in hand. Jaime was behind him, lifting a rifle into his hands, and behind him stood the Señora, Señora Isabella, just rising from her chair at the supper table.
She looked frightened. "Juanito?"
"We had visitors, Cip. Morgan Price just came callin' and it weren't to spark Teresa. Get someone up onto the tower, will you? And keep a guard up there all night." Johnny took a step into the room. "Lo siente, Señora; lo siente. I didn't mean to frighten you."
The Señora was a very gracious lady. She held out a hand to draw Johnny to her, and she stood tall and straight. "You did not frighten me, niño. I was just a little startled."
"Morgan Price? This far north?" Cipriano nodded to Jaime. "Walt is good with a rifle. Get him up there, hijo mio, and we'll send someone else at midnight."
"Bueno. We've got too soft, too fast. It ain't that long since Pardee, too soon to be lettin' our guard down this far." Johnny shook his head, so angry he was buzzing with it. "Estúpidez! Muy estúpidez! We have no idea who was payin' Day; if they're still around. We need to be a helluva lot sharper than this."
"Si." Cipriano rubbed at the back of his neck. "Si, I agree, niño. You're right."
"What would a man like Price want here?" The Señora's hands closed on Johnny's arm. She took no notice of the gun in his hand.
Johnny moved a little to one side to let Jaime pass him. He opened his mouth to explain, then closed it. It wasn't his tale to tell. "From what he said, it was family business."
She frowned at him and spoke soft and kind. "And why does that anger you, niño?"
Johnny just shook his head. He folded his arms across his chest, but she didn't let go, just came a little closer. She didn't press for an answer. Her hands on his arm were small and soft and warm, just like Mama's. She was very beautiful, too, just like Mama.
Murdoch and Scott were behind him now. He glanced at them once. Fat lot of good it was now, them turning up with guns in their hands.
Murdoch was panting, and had one hand on his back. Sam would have something to say about a man with a back gone sour on him, runnin' like that. "Where's Jaime going?"
Cip put his own gun onto the table. "To get a guard on the roof, Patrón."
"I don't think that will be necessary. Price isn't likely to come back."
Johnny spun around, despite the Senora's soft protests. "Tell that to Teresa. She was shaking to bits up there."
"She's with Maria."
Johnny snorted. "Yeah, that'll scare the likes of Price white-headed. Maria can hold him off with her fryin' pan, maybe. She'll likely do better than we did."
Scott came up and bowed a polite greeting to the Señora. "Take it easy, Johnny. They didn't mean us any harm. There's no reason to be so agitated."
"Well, hell, I dunno, Boston. Maybe it's having people with guns bust in on me when I'm sittin' there and can't get at my pistol because that old man don't like me wearin' it in the house—that kinda thing gets me real agitated."
"Johnny—"
"And maybe it's having to listen to that shit." Johnny glared at Murdoch. "I dunno about you, but there's only so much of that I can take." He had to stop, and take another deep breath to calm himself. "I'm goin' into Morro Coyo."
Scott looked confused. "Right now?"
"Right now. Right now afore I shoot someone."
They all looked shocked. Scott spoke, real careful: "Johnny, I get that you're mad—"
"Damn right I am. Damn right." And he had to take another deep breath, slow everything down.
"You are going to come back? I mea—"
"Oh, I'll be back, Boston. Maybe not tonight, but yeah, I'll be back. I own a third of this place, now, don't I? And damn, but we better hang onto it, you and me, because it's all we're ever goin' to get. The debt's been paid." Johnny grinned at Murdoch. "I'll bet you're mad as a hornet right now, ain't you, old man? You paid well over the goin' rate for that sort of debt in this part of California. I reckon one third of the estancia's worth way more than five thousand dollars."
Murdoch just looked surprised, like he didn't know what he'd said. "Johnny—"
"You should have held out, old man, and then you wouldn't have had to give away any of that ground out there that you love more than anything else God ever created. That's what you said, right?"
Murdoch's eyes widened. "Johnny, it wasn't like that—"
"Oh yes, it was." Johnny sighed, and scrubbed at his face with his left hand. He loosened the Señora's grip and bowed over her hand, raising it to his lips. "Lo siente, Señora. Buenas noches."
"Niño." Her voice was soft as honey, cajoling and like she was trying to calm him. But he was calm. He really was calm. He shook his head at her.
"Johnny, we need to talk about this." Murdoch was looking worried now.
Well, good. Damn good. He deserved to be worried.
"There's nothing to talk about. Scott and me, we get a third of the ranch each and you get an easy conscience." Johnny stuck his gun into his waistband and turned to the door. Scott was wincing, shaking his head at him, and Murdoch was white-faced and stern. "The debt's paid, Murdoch. That's all there is."
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Johnny had been meaning to go to the Morro Coyo cantina for weeks. He hadn't been in there since the day after he'd arrived in California, when he'd taken a drink with Day Pardee and weighed up which side of the range war he was going to throw in on. Some days he wondered if he'd made the right choice.
It wasn't a very big place, and even on a weekday, it was full and noisy. A canción ranchero singer was trying to be heard over the noise, twanging hard on his guitar strings between every line. Johnny tilted his head to catch the words and grinned. Usual stuff, about bein' patriotic and dying cheerfully for Mexico. Hell, but there was no way he was going to die cheerfully for anything. He'd go out fightin' and griping about it, all the way.
Johnny edged his way in past a group of vaqueros standing in front of the bar. They barred the way, not outa orneriness, but because they were laughing and chatting and not giving a damn until one of them glanced at him and stared. Johnny gave him a big smile.
It got quiet then, voices trailing off. Even the singer let a few chords hang in the air like smoke. Johnny turned the smile on them all, real kind and gentle, and they parted in front of him to let him through like that sea did for Moses when he upped stakes and shinned out of Egypt.
He walked up to the bar, his right hand resting on his gun. There were a helluva lot more people in here than he liked, but these were his people, the sort of people he'd lived with when he was a kid. He felt safer with them here in this crowded cantina than he did walking the empty streets of Nogales, or Santa Fe, or Tucson. He didn't think they'd gun for him.
Behind the polished wood bar, the cantina owner looked a mite nervous. He swallowed so hard that Johnny saw his Adam's apple bob up and down. "Señor Madrid."
Well hell, yeah. He was, wasn't he?
Johnny smiled. "Si. That's me."
tbc