Lassiter Tough (4 page)

“I guess you decide to take the job, no?” Herrera said with a faint grin.

“You a mind reader, Luis?”

“You come back. If you make up your mind not to take it, you keep going.”

“Something bothers me, Luis. You're already segundo. The next step up is foreman.”

Herrera studied the pointed toe of his boot, which he dug into the mud. “I'm happy where I am.”

“Did the old man ever ask you to take over?”

Herrera thought about it, then looked Lassiter in the eye. “He worries now about roundup. He hears you're a good man. He wants you to see him through.”

Although Lassiter wasn't satisfied with the answer, he decided to accept it for the present. When he related the encounter with the pair of Sanlee men, whom he described, Herrera was impressed.

“A wonder Krinkle didn't shoot out your liver an' Doane bust your back in three places. Them's tough hombres.” Then Herrera laughed. “You also a tough hombre, amigo.”

Lassiter went up to the house to see Chandler. The rancher was sitting in his parlor, his splinted leg resting on a stool. His eyes, faded from years of squinting into the Texas sun, studied Lassiter as he whipped around a chair to straddle.

“Lassiter, you make up your mind yet?”

“Like Herrera said, if I decided not to take the job, I wouldn't have come back.”

Chandler's seamed face broke into a smile. “That's damn good news, Lassiter.” For a middle-aged rancher, incapacitated with a broken leg, he seemed unusually happy.

“Tell me something, Mr. Chandler . . .”

“Call me Rep. The only ones around here call me mister are my vaqueros.”

“How about Herrera?”

“Well, he's a little different.”

“How come you didn't make him foreman when Tevis left?”

Chandler studied a patch of cobweb on the ceiling. “Texas brush country is the toughest place on God's earth to hold a roundup. I wanted a man with experience.”

“I'm sure Herrera has experience. . . .”

“You tryin' to talk yourself outta the job?” Chandler chuckled. “Let's have us a drink. Hurts me to move, so how about you fetchin' the bottle an' glasses?” He waved a long-fingered hand at a sideboard. “I tell you right off,” Chandler said as they were drinking. “I'm thinkin' of askin' you to stay on full time after roundup.”

“Well, now, I don't know. . . .”

“I heard somethin' today that kinda changes my plans.” Chandler seemed elated about whatever it was he had heard.

“That so?” It was all Lassiter could think to say.

“Yep. Might be fixin' to get myself married.”

“Congratulations.” Lassiter took a swallow of the good whiskey. Across the room was a big stone fireplace and above it a pair of horns from a Chihuahua steer with the widest spread Lassiter had ever seen.

“I'll want me an' the new wife to do some pokin' around this ol' world. I done real well since the war an' I figure to spend some of the money I made pushin' cows up to Kansas.”

“The lucky lady a local girl?”

Chandler, still smiling, looked mysterious. “Best I don't talk no more about it till I do some dickerin'.”

Lassiter finished his drink, wondering if Chandler's reference to dickering meant the dowry of his bride-to-be.

He switched the subject to his encounter with Brad Sanlee and later with his two men. Then he
mentioned the three names on Sanlee's list that he wanted eliminated.

When Lassiter finished, Chandler sat staring down at a bead of whiskey that remained in the bottom of his glass. Then he drained it and said, “Brad was just joshin' with you. Hell, they're all good neighbors of mine an' his. All good friends we are, mighty good.”

Lassiter got to his feet and put the empty glass on a table that bore a daguerreotype of a round-faced woman in a high-lace collar. “Sanlee offered me three thousand for the job at first. Then he raised it another thousand.”

“Brad's mighty close with a dollar. Learned it from his pa who'd beat the bejeezus outta him if he spent more'n he should. Brad was just havin' fun with you today.”

But Lassiter knew otherwise and sensed Chandler did also.

Then Chandler said with forced joviality, “Brad'll be some put out that you busted up his two men. But it'll make him understand you're nobody to fool with.”

But Sanlee already knew that, Lassiter reflected, having witnessed him gun down a no-good braggart named Doc Kelmmer, a man wanted by half the sheriffs of the West.

Chandler's pale eyes narrowed. “You come here lookin' for somebody named Sam Lee, so you told me. Well, I figured you meant Sanlee, but I couldn't figure out why you was so interested. Mind tellin' me about it?”

“I heard the name is all.” This was more or less the truth. “But I got it all wrong.” He decided to say
no more, not even about the girl's part in it. He'd let everything unfold in natural order.

Chandler insisted on them having another drink, then talked about the cattle business.

“Reckon I'll get Herrera to show me where we'll be holding roundup,” Lassiter said.

“Seems like every year one or the other of the outfits loses a man or two. If it ain't a man gettin' his throat tore out with thorns or a steer horn in the belly, he's liable to get kicked to death by a wild ladino. But you know all that anyhow. . . .”

“I worked roundup for Major Mitchell over east of here.”

“I recollect you sayin' so, yes.” Chandler rubbed his splints. “An' here I am laid low with this damn leg an' with roundup comin' on. An' me likely takin' a new wife.” He waved toward the daguerreotype on the table. “That there's Bertha—been gone three years now. You reckon that's long enough to wait before takin' another wife?”

“Sure it is,” Lassiter said. The big house smelled of dust and cobwebs and field mice. Chandler's new wife would have a cleaning job on her hands.

“Me takin' this certain gal as my bride will make things some different in this part of the country,” Chandler mused.

Lassiter wondered in what way things would be different. But Chandler failed to explain. All Lassiter intended to do was to finally make Sanlee pay for his part in the murder of Vince Tevis and earn some money as Chandler's ramrod at the same time. Chandler had set his pay at a hundred a month, plus 10 percent of the gross from a cattle sale. No one could fault those terms. Chandler had done well in
the cattle business and evidently didn't mind sharing it.

But why not share the good fortune with Luis Herrera? Lassiter wondered again. But he decided not to bring it up—at least for the present. He had a ranch to run which was trouble enough without mixing in sidelines, such as the segundo, or who Chandler might be taking as his bride. Some local widow, still personable and with a little money of her own, Lassiter assumed.

After going to the quarters assigned to him, Lassiter cleaned his .44 revolver and Henry rifle, to be ready for any eventuality. He was thinking of the hard-nosed bearded owner of Diamond Eight, Brad Sanlee.

Just before the start of roundup, Lassiter met the three men on Brad Sanlee's death list, all of them tough Texans. Marcus Kilhaven was a tall, raw-boned quiet man of thirty or so with a hand-busting grip. Buck Rooney was heavier, a man with a hearty laugh. He had lost his wife a year before. Jasper Tate, stocky and dark, was the only one of the three with a wife. Kilhaven, for one reason or other, had never married.

Brad Sanlee's was the last of the five outfits to show up at the agreed site for roundup. Sanlee gave Lassiter a spare nod. Krinkle muttered something and Shorty Doane glared. But neither man made a threatening move.

Sanlee seemed to find the whole thing amusing and later got Lassiter aside as his men were setting up camp, which was away from the others. “I sure was peeved at you, Lassiter, for talkin' up to me like you done that day in town. So I wanted to have a little fun. I sent Krinkle an' Doane to tame you down a
bit. But seems you're the one done the tamin'.” Sanlee bellowed with laughter and slapped himself on the knee. But the merriment failed to reach his slate-gray eyes.

“Also your idea of fun to write out those three names?” Lassiter asked quietly.

Sanlee managed to look blank. “Don't know what you're talkin' about. What three names?”

“You're not much of an actor,” Lassiter said with a tight grin. “You wouldn't make a dime behind the footlights.”

“Hey, I kinda like you, Lassiter,” Sanlee boomed. He started to throw a heavy arm across Lassiter's shoulders. But Lassiter stepped aside. He knew that old trick, in case Sanlee was intending to use it—a pretense of friendship, then grabbing a man in a bear hug and holding him while someone like Krinkle or Doane beat him down to his socks.

“You ain't very friendly, though,” Sanlee said with a short laugh. He stomped over to where his men were spreading their blanket rolls.

For the first time, Lassiter noticed a small tent set a little apart from the bedrolls that were strung out across the cleared stretch of ground chosen for the Diamond Eight campsite. But he didn't think much about it till later, for the next hectic day he was busy chasing steers from their sanctuaries in the brutal brush. And rousting cows who could be even deadlier than the males. Calves were torn from their mothers and dragged kicking and bawling to the branding fires. There one of the branders would apply the proper red-hot iron to tender hide and ownership established.

There were also mavericks to brand, full-grown cattle that somehow had escaped the branding iron
in previous roundups. Over the days, the joint herd at the holding grounds gradually increased. At completion of roundup, cowhands would cut out cattle according to brand for the individual owners.

Sanlee had the most in his Diamond Eight; Chandler was next with his Box C. Then came Kilhaven, Tate and Rooney, much smaller so far as numbers of cattle went, but big enough when it came to acreage. The three of them controlled a great stretch of the brasada to the east of Chandler's Box C.

What surprised Lassiter was to learn one day that there was a female in camp. Rafael Alvarez, a Chandler vaquero new to the area, mentioned that he had glimpsed her. He winked and exaggeratedly rolled his eyes. They were taking a breather after chasing some big longhorns into the herd. They were standing in the sparse shade of a mesquite, passing a canteen, when Alvarez started to say more about the mysterious female. But Luis Herrera told him in crisp, border Spanish to
la boca cerrada,
“keep the mouth closed.”

Lassiter wondered at the warning. But he couldn't get Herrera to explain.

Then it was back to the almost impenetrable brush.

Everywhere was chaos, great clouds of dust from the drying ground, men shouting, steers roaring. And the occasional terrible cry of pain from one of the horses that could freeze a man's guts. And at times a similar cry from a human. If the wound was not too serious, it was quickly bound. And the wounded man was back in the fray. If injuries were of a permanent nature, the man was paid off and sent on his way. A cruel custom, Lassiter thought, and learned that it had been started by Sanlee's late
father. The other ranchers seemed to go along with whatever custom the elder Sanlee had set.

Lassiter got his first look at the captive woman when he was herding some unruly steers, wanting to get them to the holding grounds as soon as possible because he had no help. So he took a shortcut across the edge of the Diamond Eight camp. That was when he saw her sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the small tent. She was brushing her long black hair. Upon seeing him so close, her spine stiffened and she dropped the brush and clamped both hands to her kneecaps. She was wearing a faded blue dress.

In what was left of the late-afternoon sun he saw her dark eyes fixed on him with startling intensity—eyes that reminded him of olives freshly fetched from a tub and still moist. They stared hard as if to impart a message, so it seemed to him. A plea for help? That was when he first got the impression she was being held captive.

But the steers demanded his attention and he was forced to move on.

This first week of roundup he heard low-voiced speculation about her, always from newcomers hired on for roundup. But none of the regulars would discuss her at all. However, there was speculation among the new men that she was Brad Sanlee's woman and he was keeping an eye on her during roundup.

The following day it rained. As Lassiter started his rope-spinning overhead to make a cast, his horse slipped in the mud. Lassiter was thrown heavily. But he was instantly on his feet, dancing away nimbly. However, his pinto, struggling to get up from
the muddy ground, took a steer horn in the belly. Its awesome scream knifed through the roundup camps. Entrails of the animal lay steaming where it had fallen.

Lassiter spun from the advancing steer, but it suddenly veered and went ambling into the brush.

With a dry mouth, Lassiter shot the suffering horse through the head. After stripping off saddle and bridle and carrying his rifle, he walked back to camp for a fresh mount. He gave thanks that it wasn't his black horse in a crumpled heap back in the brush.

It was late in the day when Lassiter, mounted on a chestnut horse, saw some ropers nearby let a wild ladino get away. It went crashing through the brush and across the Diamond Eight camp, scattering pots and bedrolls, bumping against the chuck wagon. Lassiter, who was the nearest, went pounding after it. A perfect cast of his rope pinned the forelegs and dumped the great beast on its nose.

In his rampage, the bull had crushed the woman's tent. She stood now beside the crumpled canvas, her face white, hands clenched at her sides.

And in those moments when his horse was backing away, to drag the bellowing mountain of flesh away from the chaos it had caused, she was looking at him intently again. She seemed younger than he had thought at first. He saw her lips move in greatly exaggerated fashion. He had never practiced lip-reading, but there was no mistaking her silent message:
Help me! Please help me!