Battle Fury Page 17
‘Why should you worry about Broken Spur? You think it’ll be yours one day and you should protect your interest?’
‘That’s as good a reason as any.’
Brack realized that there was no tension in his son. All the tension was on his side. The boy was as relaxed as hell.
‘You don’t happen to be here because I’m your father and you owe it to me?’
‘I don’t owe you a thing. But it could be because you’re my father.’
Brack drank. Riley followed suit.
‘Could be you want to look big to that Storm girl,’ Brad said.
‘That could be part of it too,’ Riley admitted frankly. ‘Does it matter? I’m here and you need me.’
Brack looked solemn and then he laughed. Something like warmth came into his cold eyes. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was something more.
‘You didn’t turn into the man I wanted,’ he said. ‘Could be I like this one better.’
‘Now you’re being sentimental,’ Riley said.
‘That’s what Will Storm said.’ Brack sipped his drink and cocked his head. ‘All right. Stay. I’ll pay you foreman’s wages.’
‘Manager’s,’ Riley said. ‘You need more than a foreman here. You’re not here half the year.’
‘Jesus,’ Brack said, ‘first you make the big gesture, then you dicker.’
‘I’m not dickering,’ Riley said. ‘I’m making you an offer.’
Brack laughed. He laughed till his son thought he would never stop laughing. Finally, he said: ‘I have an idea.’
‘What is it?’
‘Let’s you and me get drunk,’ Brack said.
Riley gave it some consideration—‘That’s the first sensible suggestion I heard from you in a long time.’
Will Storm stood on the knoll to the east of the house and looked out over the valley. Grass to the blue rim of the eastern wall of the valley. He didn’t know how a man like him could deserve a place like this. The excitement of his and the crew’s return had died down. George had been feted like a hero by the women because of his wound. Joe and Serafina had slipped quietly away to their retreat in the hills, Utes or no Utes. Most of the family slept, but Will was past sleep. He wanted to taste the fact that he was still alive and back among his own folks again.
He heard a sound behind him and turned.
It was his daughter, Kate. He looked at her as she approached, lifting her skirts for the climb up the small hill. Her face was flushed from the exertion, but it still had the drawn look that had come after the shooting of Pete Hasso and the death of Harvey Dana that followed.
‘Pa,’ she said and slipped an arm around his waist. He put his own around her shoulder. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was a little afraid of Kate, just as he was afraid of anything he did not understand.
Just the same, he said to her directly: ‘You’ll have to make up your mind, sweetheart.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I think I made it up.’
‘What did it?’
‘Having Pete shot.’
‘He’ll pull through, you know. He comes of a tough breed.’
‘I know. But it isn’t Pete, pa.’
‘Rile?’
‘Pa,’ she said, ‘I made up my mind to do something and I want you to approve. But even if you don’t approve, I have to do it.’
He smiled—‘Why tell me? Just do it.’
‘Riley’s gone back to Broken Spur,’ she said. ‘He’ll stay by Ed till Broken Spur’s on its feet again. I know Riley. There’s no woman up there. The Chinee’s dead. They need somebody to look and care for the place. So I’m going.’
He looked down at her face and she raised her eyes to his.
‘You know it ain’t seemly,’ he said. ‘Folks’ll talk. I don’t have to tell you that.’
‘No, you don’t have to tell me.’
‘You going to marry Riley? You going to take on that old bear Ed Brack?’ he demanded. ‘Are you man enough?’ Even as he said it, he knew Kate was man enough if anybody was.
But she said: ‘I don’t have to be. Riley will attend to that. I haven’t made up my mind to marry him, but if I’m going to live on Broken Spur, I have to ... I guess I don’t know how to put it.’
‘I reckon you want to see Riley on new grass and see how he shapes, to get the feel of Broken Spur. Makes sense. Maybe you’ll raise kids there.’
She smiled: ‘Sounds kind of hard of me, but I only want to marry once, pa.’
‘How about Pete?’
‘I like Pete fine. But he never had a chance.’
‘He know this?’
‘Yes. He’s enjoying acting the broken-hearted swain.’
They smiled together and started down the hill. Will said: ‘I’ll drive you up there on the wagon. Rile will need supplies The Indians most likely cleaned them out. Maybe Meredith could come along and lend a hand.’
She squeezed his hand.
‘There’s nobody in the world like you, pa,’ she said.
‘That’s a fact,’ he agreed. ‘I’m the biggest damn fool ever born.’
Martha watched them from the window as they came toward the house in the bright sunlight and it was as though the light itself were inside her. She knew that Will had agreed. She thought how good life was and she knew it wasn’t because they had the land and the cattle now and they had four square meals a day. It was because of Will and the others. What you received from life depended on yourself and the people around you.
She started to plan the supper and planned to give them the finest meal they had ever eaten. That was one way a woman could show her love.
Books by Matt Chisholm
The Storm Series
Stampede
Hard Texas Trail
Riders West
One Notch to Death
Thunder in the West
One Man, One Gun
A Breed of Men
The Spur Series Writing as Cy James
The Gun is my Brother
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Christopher Watts was born in London, England in 1919 and died on Nov. 30, 1983. He was educated in art schools in England, then served with the British Army in Burma from 1940 to 1946.
Peter Watts, the author of more than 150 novels, is better known by his pen names of "Matt Chisholm" and "Cy James". He published his first western novel under the Matt Chisholm name in 1958 (Halfbreed). He began writing the "McAllister" series in 1963 with The Hard Men, and that series ran to 35 novels. He followed that up with the "Storm" series. And used the Cy James name for his "Spur" series.
Under his own name, Peter Watts wrote Out of Yesterday, The Long Night Through, and Scream and Shout. He wrote both fiction and nonfiction books, including the very useful nonfiction reference work, A Dictionary of the Old West (Knopf, 1977).
Visit the Author’s page at http://piccadillypublishing.org/chisholm.html
PICCADILLY PUBLISHING
Piccadilly Publishing is the brainchild of long time Western fans and Amazon Kindle Number One bestselling Western writers Mike Stotter and David Whitehead (a.k.a. Ben Bridges). The company intends to bring back into 'e-print' some of the most popular and best-loved Western and action-adventure series fiction of the last forty years.
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