Bleeding Texas (9 page)

Rising several hundred feet from the plains and rolling hills around it, Caddo Knob was covered with brush and was rockier than most of the landscape around it. Whatever geologic upheaval in ages past had caused it to jut up from the Texas earth had torn numerous gullies in the surrounding countryside, as well. Erosion had deepened those gullies, and over time they had grown thick with brush.

Some of the Star C cattle, especially the older, wilier steers, liked to work their way back into that brush where they would be left alone for the most part. Finding them was a chore, and chousing them out was an even bigger one.

Despite the fact that the day wasn't overly warm, Lee Creel's faded blue shirt had grown dark with sweat. The batwing chaps he wore protected his legs, but the brush had torn his shirtsleeves and raked the flesh under them, leaving red welts.

Lee wasn't sure what had possessed him to ride over here into this hellhole by himself. He wasn't trying to impress anybody by taking on one of the harder tasks. It was just a job that needed done, that was all.

He was tired, though, and hadn't done much good. He had four cows and a couple of calves he had pushed into a temporary brush corral, and that was all he had to show for several hours of work.

When he heard a horse approaching, he was more than happy to accept it as a reason to take a break. He pushed out of the thicket where he had been searching and rode into the open on the edge of one of the gullies.

This particular gully wasn't deep, maybe ten feet, and about twice that wide. Its banks dropped off sharply, though.

A familiar figure rode up to the other side. Lee lifted a hand in greeting and called, “Howdy, Grandpa.”

John Creel reined in and nodded curtly.

“Lee,” he said. “You out here by yourself ?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring one of the other boys with you next time,” John Creel advised. “Too many things can happen to a fella when he's ridin' the range alone, and most of 'em are bad.”

“Yes, sir. Usually I work with Jason or Davy, but they're off somewhere else today.”

“Well, the two of us can ride together for a while. How's that sound to you?”

Lee smiled and said, “Why, I'd like that mighty fine.”

As far back as he could remember, his grandfather had been a stern, forbidding figure, not the sort of warm, friendly grandpa some fellas had while they were growing up. Lee knew that John Creel was a true pioneer, one of the first ranchers in this part of Texas. Almost a legendary figure. He had plenty of respect for his grandfather, but they had never been particularly close.

Because of that, he welcomed the opportunity to spend a little time with the older man, just the two of them.

“Havin' much luck?” John Creel asked.

“Not today. Half a dozen head.”

“Every half dozen is that many more,” John said with a nod. “Where's the closest place a man can get across this gully?”

Lee pointed to the right and said, “There's a spot where the banks are washed out, about a quarter mile that way.”

“Let's ride down there, then. You want to cross over, or should I?”

“Why, it don't make any difference to me, sir.”

“You're the one who's been workin' this part of the country today,” John said gruffly. “You know better than I do where we ought to head next.”

“Well, in that case, I ain't really finished over here, so if you want to join me . . .”

“That's more like it,” John Creel said, nodding again. “When it's your decision to make, go ahead and make it, by God.” He turned his horse. “I'll meet you there.”

Because of the pathways in the brush he had to follow as he rode along the gully, Lee soon lost sight of his grandfather. The old man had asked where he could cross the gully, but Lee figured John Creel already knew. He'd heard his grandfather boast many times that he knew every foot of the Star C as well as he knew his own face in the shaving mirror.

Lee reached the crossing first and reined in to wait. He could still hear John's horse moving through the brush on the other side of the gully. He took his hat off, sleeved sweat from his brow, and heard something else.

It wasn't much, just a little crackling of branches, but it was enough to tell Lee that somebody—or something—was over there on the other side of the gully. His first thought was that some cagey old steer was lurking in the brush. Those mossyhorns would sometimes attack a rider if they got the chance.

His grandfather came into view. Lee opened his mouth and was about to call out a warning when he saw something that froze the words in his throat for a second.

A rifle barrel had poked through a gap in the brush, unmistakable in its blued-steel menace.

And it was pointing right at John Creel.

“Grandpa, look out!” Lee yelled as his hand flashed toward the butt of the revolver holstered on his hip.

John reacted as quickly as a younger man would have. He yanked back hard on the reins, and his horse reared a little just as the rifle cracked. The animal screamed and jumped.

At the same time, Lee's Colt boomed as he triggered a pair of shots. The bullets tore through the brush near the spot where Lee had seen the rifle barrel, which disappeared abruptly.

He hoped he had hit the bushwhacking snake.

John Creel's rearing, mortally wounded horse fell backward and to the side. John kicked his feet out of the stirrups and tried to leap clear, but he was too late.

The black's weight came crashing down on him.

On the other side of the gully, the rifle blasted again. Lee heard the slug's high-pitched whine as it passed close to his head. He dived out of the saddle, hit the ground running, and fired twice more as he dashed for the cover of the nearest tree.

He reached it unharmed and made himself as small as he could as he crouched behind it. He reached behind him to the loops in his shell belt for fresh rounds to replace the ones he had fired.

From where he was, he could see his grandfather's horse lying motionless on the gully's other bank, but he couldn't see John Creel. The horse's body blocked Lee's view of the old man.

“Grandpa!” Lee shouted. “Grandpa, are you all right?”

There was no answer. Fury and fear rose up inside Lee.

Fury at whoever had ambushed his grandfather.

Fear that the old man might be dead.

The hidden rifleman hadn't fired again. Lee risked sticking his gun hand and part of his head past the tree trunk. He squeezed off three fast shots, spacing them along the other bank in the vicinity of the bushwhacker's hiding place. The man didn't return the fire.

But as the echoes of the shots began to die away, Lee heard something else—the swift rataplan of hoofbeats receding into the distance.

The rifleman had fled.

But Lee waited a few minutes before moving anyway, just to be sure. The delay gnawed at his guts. He wanted to get over there and find out how badly his grandfather was hurt. John Creel hadn't made a sound since he and the horse had gone down.

Lee was almost certain that the bushwhacker's first shot had struck the black horse and killed it. More than likely, that hadn't been the hidden gunman's intention, but if the falling horse had crushed the life out of John Creel, that accomplished the purpose. Dead was dead, either way.

Lee reloaded again, so he'd have a full wheel in the Colt, and then when he couldn't stand it anymore he darted out from behind the tree and ran to the place where the bank was caved in. He bounded down the slope, sliding a little but quickly catching his balance. Weaving around bushes, he ran across the gully and charged up the broken-down bank on the other side.

Nobody took a shot at him, which convinced him more than ever that the would-be killer was gone.

Lee raced along the bank. He could see his grandfather now, lying there without moving, the horse's carcass pinning down his legs. Lee holstered his gun and dropped to his knees beside John Creel.

“Grandpa!” he said. “Grandpa, can you hear me?”

He thought the old man was breathing. He rested a hand on John's chest until he was sure of it. His grandfather's eyes remained closed, however. He must have hit his head when he fell, Lee decided, and knocked himself unconscious.

More hoofbeats sounded, but this time they were coming closer on this side of the gully. Lee moved his hand to the butt of his gun, then heaved a sigh of relief when his uncle Bo and Scratch Morton galloped into sight.

The two older men were out of their saddles before their horses even stopped moving. Bo said, “Scratch, take a look around,” as he knelt on John Creel's other side.

Scratch already had his ivory-handled Remingtons in his hands. He nodded and hurried along the bank, alert for any sign of danger.

“The varmint who did this is gone,” Lee said. “He rode off a few minutes ago.”

“Are you sure about that?” Bo asked. “Maybe he doubled back and is trying to trick you.”

The same possibility had occurred to Lee, but he'd been too worried about his grandfather to check it out. So it was a good thing Scratch was doing that.

“What happened?” Bo went on. “We heard a shot and were about to head in this direction, but before we could get mounted up it sounded like a war had broken out over here.”

“That's about what it felt like,” Lee admitted. Quickly, he told Bo how someone had taken a shot at his grandfather from the brush, only to miss and kill the horse instead because of John Creel's quick reaction to Lee's warning.

“I reckon you saved his life,” Bo said.

“Maybe, maybe not. He acts like he don't want to wake up.”

As if to contradict Lee's statement, John Creel abruptly let out a groan. His eyelids flickered open under the shaggy white brows.

“What . . . what in hell . . .”

Bo leaned over him and said, “Take it easy, Pa. You've been hurt.”

“Am I shot?”

“I don't think so, but a horse fell on you.”

John groaned again and said, “It feels like it, too.”

Scratch came back and reported, “I found hoofprints and some empty cartridges. Looks like the fella's long gone, Bo.”

“All right. Now, Pa, we've got to get this carcass off of you.”

“I'll get my rope,” Scratch said.

They tied the rope to the saddle on the dead horse, then threw it over a tree branch and tied it to both of the saddles on Bo and Scratch's mounts. Scratch led the horses away, which lifted the dead animal's weight from the lower half of John Creel's body.

Bo and Lee were ready. They grasped John's arms and pulled him clear.

That movement was enough to make John let out a high-pitched yell of pain.

“My leg!” he gasped.

“I see it,” Bo said. “I'm sorry to tell you this, Pa, but that right leg of yours is busted.”

“The drive—”

Bo shook his head and said, “You won't be going on a cattle drive any time soon.”

Not even John Creel was stubborn enough to argue with a broken leg.

In fact, he didn't say much of anything as Bo did a rough job of splinting the injured limb to keep the damage from getting worse until they could get some medical help.

While that was going on, Riley, Cooper, Davy, Jason, and several more of the Creel cousins who'd been working the gather showed up, drawn by the shots they had heard earlier. Bo sent some of the young men back to the ranch headquarters for the wagon.

“Put a lot of blankets in the back to make a nice thick pallet,” he told them. “Then get as close as you can with it. We'll make a stretcher and carry him out to meet you.”

Bo noticed Riley frowning a little and figured his little brother didn't like the way he had taken charge, but he wasn't going to worry about such a thing right now. Taking care of their father was more important than anything else.

They cut down some saplings and used them along with a lariat and a saddle blanket to rig a crude stretcher. Then several of them gathered around and lifted John Creel onto it. John grunted once, but that was the only time he gave any sign of the pain he had to be feeling.

Four of the cousins, two on each side, lifted the stretcher and carried it away from Caddo Knob.

“Be careful,” Riley told them. “Don't jolt him around, and for God's sake, don't drop him.”

Lee, who was one of the stretcher bearers, said, “Don't worry, we'll take it mighty easy with him.”

John Creel finally spoke up, growling, “I ain't a damn porcelain doll, you know.”

Bo and Scratch stood with Riley and Cooper and watched as the younger men proceeded cautiously away from the gully. Quietly, Bo said, “Coop, I reckon your boy Lee saved Pa's life.” He explained how Lee had ruined the ambush attempt.

“Has anybody tried to track the son of a bitch who did this?” Riley asked.

Scratch said, “I looked around enough to know that he took off toward the creek.”

“Toward the Rafter F, you mean.”

Scratch shrugged.

“That's the way he started. Can't speak as to where he finished up.”

“You know good and well the Fontaines are to blame for this.” Riley looked around at the others. “We all know that, as sure as we're standing here.”

“I don't doubt it,” Bo admitted. “But proving it could be a problem.” He scraped a thumbnail along his jawline as he frowned in thought. “Scratch, let's have a look at those hoofprints you found.”

Scratch led the others to the tracks. Bo hunkered on his heels and studied them, as did Riley and Cooper. After a few minutes, they had committed to memory all the nicks and other little oddities in the marks the horseshoes had left, and they would recognize the tracks if they saw them again.

Scratch held out his hand with the empty shell casings lying in his palm and said, “They're .44 rounds. Bushwhacker probably had a Winchester. Which don't tell us a blasted thing. There's only about a million of 'em in Texas.”

“What we ought to do is get everybody together and ride over to the Rafter F,” Riley said. “Go in there with our guns out and make the bastards tell us the truth.”

“Go in there and get a bunch of people killed, that's what you mean,” Bo said. “Scratch and I have been mixed up in a few range wars in our time, and I've never seen one yet where innocent folks didn't get hurt.”

“Nobody on the Rafter F is innocent.”

“Now, Riley, that's not true and you know it,” Cooper said. “Some of the hands working for Fontaine used to ride for us. They're just honest cowboys. They're not gunslingers. And what about Ned Fontaine's daughter, Samantha? She didn't have any part in this or any of our other troubles.”

“How can you be so sure of that? You don't know it for a fact. As for those punchers, they're just a bunch of traitors as far as I'm concerned.”

Cooper blew out an exasperated breath and shook his head.

“There's just no arguin' with you, is there?” he said. “Never has been. You're as hardheaded as an old mule.”

Riley clenched his fists and took a step toward his brother as he scowled darkly.

Bo moved between them and said, “Pa's been hurt. We can stand around here and butt heads like old billy goats, or we can go see how he's doing.”

“You fellas go on,” Scratch said. “I'll trail this
hombre
and see if I can find out where he went.”

Riley looked like he wanted to argue some more, but after a moment he nodded and said, “All right, I reckon we'd better get back to the house. We should've told one of the boys to ride into town and fetch Doc Perkins.”

“I think they're smart enough to figure that out on their own,” Bo said. He added with a faint smile, “They're Creels, after all.”

“I'm not sure that means much anymore,” Riley said ominously.

 

 

Nick Fontaine was mad enough to chew nails by the time he got back to the Rafter F headquarters.

Part of the anger was directed at himself. He had acted impulsively when he took his rifle and headed across Bear Creek to find and kill John Creel. He knew that. It had been a reckless, foolish move.

But it had almost paid off. He had come damned close to ventilating the old pelican. He'd had a good shot at one of Creel's grandsons, too. If he had managed to kill both of them, it might have been enough to make that stubborn bunch give up.

Probably not, though, he mused as he rode into the barn and swung down from his saddle. John Creel's sons were as bullheaded as the old man.

But if all of them were to die . . .

“Where have you been, Nick?”

The question made him look around. His father had just walked into the barn.

“Just out on the range checking a few things,” Nick answered easily. When the family had first come to Texas, Ned Fontaine had been determined to learn the cattle industry from the inside out, but of late his interest in the ranch's workings had lagged. These days, Nick did pretty much whatever he wanted, without his father questioning him or giving him orders.

That was the way Nick liked it.

Fontaine nodded and asked, “Everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure.” For a second, Nick considered telling him about the cattle drive the Creels were putting together. But there was no real point in it, he decided. He would have to deal with that threat himself, with no help from his father. The old man waffled too much these days. If he knew some of the things Nick had done—

No point in thinking about that, Nick told himself. He would keep his father in the dark until it was too late to do anything except seize control of the ruined Star C ranch.

Fontaine rubbed his chin and went on, “You haven't seen Danny, have you?”

“Danny?” The question actually took Nick a little by surprise. He shook his head and went on, “No, not since breakfast this morning. Is something wrong?”

“No, I don't think so. I hope not. He's probably gone into town.”

Nick thought there was a good chance his father was right. Danny had a hard time staying away from whiskey and whores and poker games for very long.

That was fine with Nick, too. Being a full-time wastrel kept Danny out of the way.

“It's just that I'm a little worried about the boy,” Fontaine went on. “He's not around much, and he does hardly any work. That's not fair to you, Nick.”

“I don't mind, Pa, you know that.”

“Of course, but still, you shouldn't have to bear all the load yourself. There'll come a time when you two boys will have to take over here. When I'm gone, half of this ranch will belong to Danny. He needs to stop shirking his responsibilities.”

Nick's jaw clenched. His father had said things like that before, about splitting the ranch between his two sons, and Nick didn't like it. Danny could still live here if he wanted to, and Nick would even see to it that he had enough money to continue with his decadent ways, but he sure as hell didn't deserve half of the Rafter F.

That would be even more true once Nick had doubled the size of the spread by taking over the Star C.

The old man didn't say anything about Samantha, which came as no surprise to Nick. She was expected to marry somebody and go live with her husband. If she didn't, then Nick would see to it that she was taken care of, like Danny, but she was no real threat to his plans.

“Danny's still sowing his wild oats, Pa, you know that. But I'll have a talk with him and tell him he needs to straighten up a mite. Maybe I'll try to find him one particular chore around here that it can be his job to take care of.”

Ned Fontaine nodded and said, “That's an excellent idea, Nick. Thank you. I knew that if I talked to you, you'd come up with an idea. You always know what to do.”

“I try,” Nick said.

He knew one thing that needed to be done. He ought to pull the shoes off his horse, put a new pair on, and bury the old ones. He didn't think anybody would be able to track him here—he had ridden into the creek and followed it for several miles before coming out on the eastern bank—but just in case someone did, he didn't want any incriminating evidence linking him to the attempt on John Creel's life.

He could get started on that as soon as his father got out of here. He put a worried frown on his face and said, “You look a little gray, Pa. Are you all right?”

“Well, I am feeling a bit peaked, now that you mention it,” Fontaine said.

“Why don't you go on back in the house and take it easy? It won't be long now until supper.”

“All right.” Fontaine started to turn away, then paused and said, “I don't know what I'd do without you, Nick.”

“Well, you won't ever have to find out,” Nick said. “I plan to be around here for a long, long time.”

On
his
ranch.