Lassiter Tough (12 page)

Chandler stuck his head in the door and spoke to Millie, who was looking at yard goods by the strong light of a front window.

Isobel Hartney, a pencil behind her ear, stepped to the door. “You're looking some better, Lassiter, than you did the other day.”

“Some,” he agreed and looked at her. Today she wore a big apron and her yellow hair was parted in the center and drawn back severely from her pretty face and done up in a knot at the back. Her eyes were lively, her smile seductive, the way she kept running the tip of her tongue lovingly along the lower lip. Lassiter wondered if she'd seen Brad Sanlee. Probably.

“Rep's right about Tige,” she said. “He has a nasty disposition. He won't like it that you relieved him of a gun, yours or not.”

“I'll keep one eye open for him,” Lassiter said. “And the other eye on more pleasant things.” He gave her a direct look. Then, with a wave of the hand, he was walking with Chandler toward O'Leary's.

It was ten in the morning and this time of day there were only two other drinkers in the large saloon. Aswamper was dismantling the big pot-bellied stove near the center of the room, cleaning out the winter buildup of soot. It wouldn't be used again till fall. Lassiter felt he would be long gone by then.

Chandler spoke in a heavy voice as he mentioned Brad Sanlee and poured whiskey for them. “Brad ain't foolin' me none,” he said in a low voice. “I know that with me marryin' up with his kid sister that he figures to get a foot in the door at Box C.”

Lassiter had told him as much before the wedding. But he didn't bring it up to Chandler. He savored the good whiskey, staring out a rear window at the unending miles of brush that stretched south from Santos.

Chandler said, “Well, Brad's got another think comin'. It's why I wanted a tough foreman like you.”

Lassiter felt uncomfortable, sensing what was coming next. Chandler would outline the many reasons why he should stick around.

“In one way it's a good thing I busted my leg,” the rancher was saying. He was waiting for Lassiter to say, “Why so?” But Lassiter remained silent.

“Bein' laid up with my leg gives me time to chew things over, Lassiter. I know damn well Brad had gone to hunt Millie down. An' knowin' Brad, I figured he'd bring her back sooner or later.”

“And he sure did,” Lassiter put in, thinking of Vince Tevis.

“I tell you, Lassiter, the fight you put up with that bastard Doane was one of the best examples of pure guts I ever did see. How you stood up to him I'll never know. But you sure did.”

“I had no choice. Either stand up to him or have my skull busted like a dropped melon.”

Chandler smiled at that, then grew serious. “I'm gonna do my damnedest to get Millie with child. I want a son so bad I can purely taste it.”

That kind of talk about Millie was disturbing to Lassiter. He didn't like to think of Millie's sweet
young body entwined with the creaking framework that housed the spirit of Rep Chandler. He wondered if Chandler at his age was still up to fathering an offspring.

“I need a son to carry on,” Chandler said and started to refill Lassiter's glass.

But Lassiter put a hand over it. “I need a clear head in case Tige wants to start anything.”

“Yeah.” He refilled his own glass, then started talking again about a son. Then he seemed to descend into a black mood. “Likely, I won't be around to see him grow. But you will.”

“Now wait a minute there. . . . That's years away and . . .”

But Chandler rode right over the objection he was about to voice. “I'm countin' on you, Lassiter. All the way.”

“We'll see,” was all that Lassiter felt like saying at the moment.

“A man with my years on his back oughta know better'n to try an' bust a mustang. But I did. That's where I got my busted leg. An' while I was layin' there thinkin', I got out the ranch books. Things kinda gone to hell since Bertha died. I ain't been payin' much attention. But it seems I owe a hell of a lot of money to a bank up at San Antone.”

“You had a good cattle sale,” Lassiter said, mentioning the $74,000 he had brought back from Tiempo.

“I reckon that'll help . . . some.”

Lassiter didn't have time to dwell on it because he looked over his shoulder and saw Tige leave the saddle shop and start across the street toward O'Leary's. Lassiter tensed when the big man swaggered right up to the swinging doors. He was about
to open them but peered over the tops and saw Lassiter. They locked eyes for a moment.

Then Tige said, “Be seein' you,” in a threatening tone.

He wheeled from the double doors and stormed away, his boots rapping the boardwalk with such force it seemed he had a personal vendetta against the planks underfoot. He got his horse and headed down the street in the direction of Diamond Eight.

Chandler, oblivious to what had gone on, was talking about the years that stretched ahead. They would be good years, he said, with Millie having a bunch of kids to keep her happy. But again Lassiter reminded himself that he had no intention of being tied down for years on a Texas ranch deep in the brasada. Chandler would just have to understand when the day of parting was at hand.

But it seems that mortal men seldom realize fulfillment of the grand plans they have made. Rep Chandler was no exception. Tragedy's shadow began to loom ominously over the Texas brush country a week later.

Chandler was over east near the boundary of Kilhaven's Slash K when Brad Sanlee, mounted on a big grulla, rode out of a mesquite thicket. “Rep, I got somethin' to tell you,” Sanlee said gravely. “Alone.”

Chandler frowned a moment. Five of his vaqueros were accompanying him as they moved a small bunch of Box C cows to better grass. Chandler told them to go on ahead, that he'd catch up. Then he added, just to be on the safe side, in case Brad had any skullduggery up his sleeve, “If I ain't caught up to you in ten minutes, you come lookin' for me.” A warning to Sanlee, just in case.

They looked from Chandler to Sanlee and nodded.

When they were again pushing the small herd, Sanlee said, “There was no need to do that, Rep. You act like I might do somethin' to you.”

“What's on your mind, Brad?”

“Hell, we're kinfolks, you an' me. I'm your brother-in-law. You can't forget that.” Sanlee sat with his big hands folded over the scuffed horn of his saddle. “I've been hearin' talk I don't like, Rep.”

Chandler felt a stiffness in his shoulders. “What kind of talk?”

“Now it's between you an' me, Rep. She's my sister an' all that, but I feel obliged to look after my new brother-in-law. . . .”

“What in hell do you mean, Brad?” Chandler demanded coldly.

“It's talk I've been hearin' that I don't like.”

“For Chris' sakes, get to the point!”

“It's about her an' Lassiter.”

Chandler swallowed and turned his head to focus on a cluster of yellow blossoms against the green of the brush. “I don't want to hear another damn word, Brad.” His voice shook. He gathered the reins in his left hand, preparing to ride on, his eyes raking Sanlee's bearded face.

“I'd keep my eyes open all the same. I know that sister of mine pretty damn well. I ought to. I grew up with her.”

With that, he turned his grulla and galloped off, his wide shoulders tight in a Texas brush jacket, hat on the back of his head. It crossed Chandler's mind how easy it would be to put a bullet in that broad back and end that gutter talk. He hoped to God that Lassiter didn't get wind of it and go trying to avenge the Chandler family honor. He knew that
Lassiter thought a heap of Millie and she of him, which was only natural, Chandler told himself, as he began riding slowly through the brush to catch up with his men. He could hear the sounds of cattle trampling the brush as they were moved out. Sure, Millie liked Lassiter because he was her husband's foreman. Nothing more than that. Not one damn thing more than that.

When he got home late that afternoon he saw that Lassiter had finished up early. He was at the corral, standing straddle-legged, holding the end of a lead rope attached to the bridle of a small pinto. Aboard the pinto was Luis Herrera's ten-year-old nephew, who was on a visit. Lassiter was teaching him to ride bareback.

Looking on was Millie.

As Chandler reined in to watch the fun from a distance, the boy slipped sideways and was pitched off. Lassiter instantly snatched him from the ground. From what Rep could see of Millie, she was smiling broadly. She had both arms draped over a pole in the corral. Her black hair was in two braids hanging down her slender back. She looked like a young girl. Chandler's heart went out to her. But a moment later he froze as she groped between the corral bars and caught Lassiter by the hand. She said something to him and they both laughed.

Then she saw Chandler riding up. “You work hard today? I fix you a good supper.” At times, he noticed, when she was excited about something, she took on the speech colorations of her late half-breed mother.

He swung down and one of the vaqueros took his horse. Millie slung an arm around his waist as they walked to the house together. “Lassiter was telling
Jaime that he should know how to ride bareback in case he is ever out someplace without a saddle. . . .”

“That's Herrera's job,” Chandler interrupted. “To teach his nephew.” He spoke so gruffly that Millie removed her arm and looked up at him with a frown. His mouth was a grim line under the mustache.

“How cold you sounded just then, Rep.”

“What's for supper?”

Midway through the meal, she said off-handedly, “Lassiter's taking the big wagon to town tomorrow to pick up supplies. I thought I'd ride with him. I want to get some more yard goods to match the sample I got the other day. I think it's a lovely shade of blue. . . .” She broke off, staring through the light of double candles to Chandler's tight face. “Rep, what's the matter?”

“Nothin',” he said grumpily.

“But I . . .” She drew a deep breath. “You told me last night it would take three or four days to move cattle to where you want them. I just thought that as long as Lassiter was going to town anyway . . . and you said I shouldn't ride alone because of Brad . . .”

“Oh, no, you go ahead. I got somethin' caught in my throat for a minute is all.” He coughed several times. “There, I got it down. Piece of gristle, I reckon.” The smile he gave her was ghastly.

Millie frowned down at her plate and finally pushed it aside. My God, he didn't think that Lassiter . . . Today she had impulsively reached for Lassiter's hand because he was bringing so much pleasure to a young boy. Had Rep seen it?

She decided to bring the matter into the open. “Rep, don't be jealous of Lassiter.”

“Now that's downright silly of you to say.” His
laughter was strained. She spoke again of going to town.

“And I thought it would be a chance for me to get away from the account books. You asked me to go over them, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Far as I can tell, most of the money from the cattle sale is already owed. Some bills are two or three years old, Rep.”

“Yeah.”

At first he had been on the verge of forbidding her to go to town with Lassiter. Then a small voice had said, Keep an eye on them. See what they're up to. . . .

But the next day Millie didn't go to town with Lassiter. She said she had a headache. So Chandler was surprised when he saw the wagon from a screen of brush, at the halfway point. Millie wasn't sharing the high seat with his foreman.

He rode back home, wondering.

When he got home, Millie was dragging around the kitchen with a long face. He asked her about the day and beamed when she told him she had decided not to go to town after all.

But the joy went out of him when she added, “I had a feeling you really didn't want me to go.”

He spluttered and stammered for a moment, then managed to speak a straight string of words. “Now that's the craziest thing I ever heard of.”

“Well, you certainly didn't act like it last night at supper.”

“I didn't feel too good.”

She looked at him critically. “Rep, you do look sort of peaked.” And there was something in his
eyes she didn't like and the corners of his mouth dropped. There seemed to be a grayness in his face.

She told him that he needed a bath and then she'd put him to bed. “You look like you might be coming down with the fevers. . . .”

“Naw, I ain't. All I got . . .” He hadn't planned to tell her, but since the wedding he'd felt an occasional sharp pain when he breathed. “Well, all I got is a mite of pain in my chest. Musta been from that piece of gristle I had a time swallowin' last night,” he said, passing it off lightly.

By the end of the week she brought up another troubling subject. “
Every
night, Rep? You should rest up a day or so in between.” She started to say, “A man your age . . .” Then she decided not to because it would puncture his vanity. All she said was, “I don't think it's good for you. Not every single night.”

Somehow in all this intimate discussion the name of Lassiter crossed her mind. Her heart sang for a few moments, then she turned the feeling off like it was a spigot. “It's for your own good, Rep,” she finished.

In going over the books, Millie found their affairs to be in deplorable shape—even worse than she imagined at first. Her husband hated keeping records and Herrera didn't understand it. And Vince Tevis, while he was foreman, had left it up to the boss.

Finally, after much hemming and hawing, Chandler admitted that his late wife had handled the books and kept everything running smoothly.

Most of the money from the cattle sale had gone in delinquent mortgage payments to a bank in San Antonio. It was agreed that Lassiter should take
north another thousand head of cattle for a quick sale. They needed money.