The Return of Caulfield Blake Page 4

  “I sent money, all I could spare.”

  “It’s hard to go hunting with a Yankee greenback,” Carter said. “You could’ve come for a visit, even a short one.”

  Now it was Blake’s time to stand silently, searching for words. How could he explain something he himself didn’t fully understand?

  “How could you run from them?” Carter cried out with tearful eyes. Zach said nothing, but the smaller boy’s eyes were just as moist.

  “I’m not runnin’ now,” Blake said stiffening his spine. “Maybe after a time, you’ll find a way to understand.”

  “Understand what?” Carter asked accusingly. “How you left without so much as a good-bye? How you never once cared enough to ride by?”

  Never cared? Blake felt all the brightness, all the warmth within himself die. How many times had he stayed up wondering how they were faring, imagining what they looked like? How many sleepless nights came when a winter blizzard struck, just because he wondered if they were warm?

  “I’m here now,” Blake mumbled. “For what it’s worth I’ve missed you. Maybe after the sting is gone, you’ll ride out and visit a bit.”

  They turned their heads and returned to the house.

  “They’re only boys,” Hannah told him afterward. “They’re confused. And hurt. They’ll come around.”

  But as Blake mounted his horse and headed for Dix’s ranch, he couldn’t help wondering. Forgiving came hard at thirteen or fourteen. And he wasn’t able to forget the cold, hard look in their eyes.

  Chapter Five

  Blake reached the small gate of the Stewart ranch as the sun began its long descent into the western hills. Dix had built a wooden cabin on the place after returning from the war, but a month after he’d married Rita Thorpe, he’d moved to town and taken over the small mercantile store owned by her uncle. In the late sixties Dix had turned the store over to Rita while he’d teamed with Caulfield Blake and Martin Cabot to round up wild mustangs from the plains and break them to saddle. The army had been buying mounts then, and although the market was poor enough in town, it was as good a cash crop as corn or vegetables.

  As Blake crossed the rolling hills that led to the cabin, he noticed Dix had added cattle. It wasn’t much of a herd, only a scattered mixture of range cows and steers plus an occasional bull. Blake had seen a thousand like herds. All over western Texas small farms had turned their fields over to cattle. And those lucky enough to consign their stock to a large ranch in order to get them to market could make a nice enough profit. For many the cattle were destined to graze a lifetime on the scrub grasses of the plain, providing food for the family and barter for other goods in town.

  As Blake paused to stare back at the ranch his father had carved out of the barren frontier landscape, he noticed a rider approaching from the west. It was a familiar sight, that lean man crouched over his horse, blazing along and shouting like a Comanche.

  “Caulie!” the man screamed.

  “Dix Stewart,” Blake mumbled, turning his horse so as to greet his old friend.

  “I knew you’d come,” Dix said, fighting to catch his breath as he reined his horse to a stop. “Knew it.”

  “Well, you’ve got trouble, I hear.”

  “In spades, Caulie. Have you been to see Hannah yet? She’s in for the worst of it, I expect.”

  “The creek’s dryin’ up.”

  “Simpson built a dam across Carpenter Creek just this side of Siler’s Hollow.”

  “He must want this land bad. Has he offered you a price as of yet?”

  “No.”

  “He’s likely to wait a bit longer now.”

  “Oh?”

  “I saw him in town. He wasn’t exactly glad to see me.”

  “Never was too high on you, Caulie. Well, he did run you out of the county.”

  “No, the rest of ’em did that. Simpson could never have managed it on his own.”

  “And I guess we helped, Hannah and me and Marty. Can’t tell you the nights I’ve thought about that, Caulie. It would have been so easy to step right into the middle of it.”

  “It wasn’t your fight.”

  “Since when did either one of us ever have a fight without the other divin’ into it?”

  “You had Rita and the kids to worry after.”

  “That’s what I told myself, Caulie, but I believe it a little less every year. And now, when Simpson’s after the rest of us, you come runnin’ the first time we ask.”

  “It was Hannah who asked.”

  “She’d never done it on her own. Caulie, she’s just as rock stubborn as you are. That’s why you came to leave, or can’t you recall? Somebody should’ve sat down with you and made you listen.”

  “Nobody did, though, Dix.”

  “It was just plain stupid for you two to go separate ways.”

  “I wouldn’t say she’s done all that bad since I left. She’s got a good man in Marsh Merritt. The ranch looks better’n ever.”

  “I don’t catch her laughin’ often, Caulie.”

  “Well, she’s had little enough to laugh about in this life. It’s been hard on her.”

  “Harder than on you?”

  “I didn’t ride out here to talk about me. Fill me in on what’s been goin’ on.”

  “Let’s sit a bit. I’ve been ridin’ all day, and I’m not young anymore. Too much shopkeepin’, I suppose.”

  “You?” Blake said, dismounting and following Dix to a nearby oak grove. “I once remember you stayin’ in the saddle thirty-six hours runnin’.”

  “Runnin’ from Yanks. Caulie, that’s been fifteen years. I don’t know as I could do it now.”

  “I imagine you could.”

  “I’d hate to have my life hangin’ on it. Caulie, have you seen the boys?”

  “Carter and Zach?”

  “You got any others? That Carter’s grown another foot every time I see him. Zach’s the one to watch, though. He’s quiet, but that mind’s always workin’. He’s like you, Caulie. Rides the same, too. I swear sometimes there’s a cyclone roarin’ across these hills, but I look close and find out it’s only Zach.”

  “They weren’t any too glad to see me.”

  “Don’t expect they remember you much. And they’re worried about their ma. Hannah’s been showin’ the strain lately.”

  Blake frowned. The words weren’t pleasant to hear. Still, she’d endured hardships before. He sat across a small pond from Dix and stared at the dying sun.

  “Simpson’s got no hold on us legally,” Dixon said. “The deeds all spell out rights to water from Carpenter Creek. I talked to Jefferson Perry, a young lawyer out of Austin. He says we’re within our rights to bust the dam.”

  “So, why haven’t you?”

  “Simpson keeps a small army up there all the time. Who is there besides Marty and me to do it? You know I never used explosives, Caulie. What we need is help with some dynamite.”

  “Black powder’d do it.”

  “Not so sure. Simpson put rocks in the foundation. It won’t go easy.”

  “Neither did the rail bridges at Good Hope Church. It can be done.”

  “We may not have a choice. Perry filed papers, but somehow they got lost short of Austin. What’s more, Simpson had dinner with the new land commissioner.”

  “So we’re unlikely to get help from the authorities.”

  “’Bout as likely as for the old man to get hit by lightnin’ eatin’ his breakfast.”

  Blake laughed at the thought. Dix was less amused.

  “Caulie, first thing we’ve got to do is meet with the colonel, see if we can reach an understandin’.”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “Got to try just the same.”

  “And when that doesn’t work?”

  “Then we get serious. We can hurt Simpson as much as he can hurt us. He gets his supplies off the road that runs through the off quarter of my property. We can close that road.”

  “It’d take a hundred men. Anyw
ay, he’ll just cut a new road.”

  “That’d take time, and lots of manpower.”

  “Leavin’ the dam open.”

  “And the fences. Fences are easy to cut. Cattle all over means a roundup.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not on our part. But there is another factor.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s started bringin’ in men. Not ranch hands. These men ride tall horses and wear Mexican spurs.”

  “Killers.”

  “And you’re bound to be the first target, Caulie. Done much shootin’ lately?”

  “Not at people.”

  “You were good with a handgun once.”

  “Guess I’ll have to be again. Tell me, Dix, have you discussed any of this with Hannah?”

  “Not even with Rita. The less they know, the better.”

  “I agree. I think we should meet with Simpson first. Then we try a few diversions. Finally, if necessary, we blow the dam.”

  “How do you think it’ll turn out?”

  “I think we’ve got too few people to make it work.”

  “Well, the Mexicans over in Ox Hollow will pitch in. And Marty Cabot, of course. Three or four families from town, too.”

  “Can they fight?”

  “Joe Stovall and Art Powell you remember from the war. I ordered us a case of Winchesters. That ought to even things a bit.”

  “People are goin’ to get killed over this, Dix.”

  “Seems likely.”

  “Is it worth it?”

  “If it isn’t, I don’t know what is. I don’t make my livin’ out here anymore, Caulie, but it’s my land. My daddy passed it on to me, and I aim to do the same to Charlie. No fat old man’s goin’ to chase me off it. I never retreated from Grant, and I’ll be hanged if I back down now.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  “Caulie, you plannin’ to stay with Hannah?”

  “I didn’t feel I’d be welcome.”

  “Nobody stays at the cabin anymore. You’re welcome to it. We’ve got a spare bed in town, but if it’s all the same, I’d feel better havin’ someone out here.”

  “Seems like a hard proposition to pass up.”

  Dix smiled, and the two old friends clasped hands in a firm shake. Then Dix excused himself. Blake watched sadly as his old friend rode toward town and his family, bound for a warmth, a sense of belonging Blake hadn’t known in seven long years. It was painful to think of it.

  As the gathering darkness settled in all around him, Blake rode to the cabin. He spread out his blankets on one of the two beds. The place was clean. Dix had obviously prepared for him. Then Caulie remembered he hadn’t seen Rita in town. The cabin definitely showed a woman’s touch.

  Caulie enjoyed a light supper of boiled beef and corn bread, then readied himself for sleep. As he sat in the bed, staring out the open window at the distant light that marked the Bar Double B, he frowned. He had ridden so far, and yet he was no more at home than when he’d been in the little picket cabin on the Clear Fork of the Brazos. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  No sooner had he fallen into a light slumber than he heard hoofbeats on the road. Instinctively he sat up, grabbed his revolver. He rolled off the bed and slipped over behind a great oaken chest. A horse came to a stop outside, and a lone rider entered the house.

  “Who’s there?” Caulie asked cautiously. “Make yourself known.”

  “It’s just me,” a young voice called out. “Zach.”

  The boy stepped into the moonlight streaming through the window and held his hands out to each side of his body.

  “For heaven’s sake, son, don’t you know better’n to ride up on a man in the middle of the night?”

  “It’s not that late,” Zach said, walking over and sitting beside his father on the bed. “’Sides, Ma wasn’t eager to have me come.”

  “She know you’re here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I was afraid she’d be angry. She doesn’t take to talking about you much. It saddens her, I think.”

  “And what else do you think?”

  “You came ’cause she asked. I heard Ma talking to Marsh about the letter. He wasn’t any too happy.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m glad you came. People always say I’m like you. I guess it’s about time I found out.”

  “You don’t remember much from before, I guess.”

  “Sometimes. I remember how you took us up into the hills. And I remember the fight you had with Ma over riding to town that morning, the day you left.”

  “I didn’t want to leave.”

  “Then how come you did?”

  “It’s not an easy thing to understand.”

  “Maybe that’s because there really wasn’t a good reason. Pa, I used to wake up in the night and think I saw you coming in to look at us, the way you did when we were little. I used to run out whenever a stranger rode up, hoping it might be you.”

  Blake pulled the boy over against his shoulder. Zach threw his arms around his father’s shoulders and sobbed.

  “I won’t be disappearin’ again on you, son,” Blake vowed, squeezing the boy’s thin shoulders. “I promise.”

  “Don’t make any promises, Pa. They’re hard to keep.”

  They sat together in the darkness a long time, swapping stories of hunting deer and buffalo, or riding horses and being thrown. Finally Blake stood up and pointed at the fading lights coming from the Bar Double B.

  “Your ma’s waitin’ up on you,” Blake said, pointing to a single flicker of yellow on the far horizon.

  “Then I guess I better head home. Maybe I can ride night watch with you.”

  “What do you know of night watch?”

  “Mr. Stewart told me all kinds of stories, how you raided the railroads and captured Yankee wagons.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Before I was bom.”

  “Good night, Zach. Be careful on the road home.”

  “I’ll just climb up on old Jasper out there. He knows the trail home blindfolded, so the dark doesn’t much matter.”

  Caulie chuckled at the boy. And watching him ride off, Caulie couldn’t help feeling a father’s pride.

  “He’ll make a fine man,” Caulie said as the hoofbeats melted away into the chorus of crickets and owls. “All he needs is a little time to grow.”

  Lying alone on the hard oak slat bed, Caulfield Blake promised himself Zach would have that time. It would be one thing Simpson wouldn’t steal.

  Chapter Six

  If Caulfield Blake was unsure of his reasons for returning, Zach’s visit erased any doubts. Blake woke up early, took an ax from Dix’s toolshed, and began splitting mesquite logs. For the briefest of times he shut out the world of trouble that was hovering above his head. He was as close to home as he’d been in years, and as he gazed out across the familiar slopes and gullies, he recalled other, better times. He set aside his ax a moment and watched the sun paint an amber swath across the hills. A moment later he trotted toward the porch and fetched a loaded Winchester.

  The sound of approaching horses drifted across the landscape. At first they appeared to be coming from the Bar Double B, but now, as he concentrated, Blake realized the horsemen were arriving from the south . . . from town . . . and maybe from Henry Simpson.

  “He was never one to waste time,” Blake grumbled as he readied himself for the coming confrontation. As it happened, though, the lead rider was none other than Dix Stewart. With Dix rode a bewhiskered scarecrow whose scarred brow and fiery red hair betrayed him as Marty Cabot. A thin-faced man a dozen years younger trailed along behind.

  “Never thought I’d live to see the day!” Marty bellowed as he rolled off his saddle and clasped Blake’s hands. “Caulie, I tell you, you look fit, my friend.”

  “And you look like you haven’t eaten in a month,” Blake commented as he stepped a foot away and examined his old friend. “Ought t
o’ve married a cook instead of the prettiest hair in Wichita.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve got no complaints. Shoot, even Hannah’s ma had a hard time puttin’ meat on these old bones, and Emma Siler could cook the feathers off a goose.”

  Blake laughed as Marty tugged on a pair of suspenders. Dix interrupted then.

  “Caulie, this is the fellow I was tellin’ you all about,” Dix said, nodding toward the stranger. “Jeff Perry’s his name. He reads the law. He’s a fair man with a writ, and he’s the one to spell out what we’re up against.”

  “Mr. Blake,” Perry said, extending a hand. Blake shook it, then looked the young lawyer over.

  “Perry? Have a brother name of Patrick?”

  “Yes, sir,” Perry answered. “He wrote many a letter from Tennessee with your name on it. Swore by you, Captain.”

  “Or at him,” Marty remarked.

  “Either way, it got him through the campaigns,” young Perry commented.

  “And just where’d Pat be nowadays?” Blake asked.

  “Last I heard in the Dakotas, doing his best to get rich. You know Patrick. He never could settle down to a thing.”

  “Yes,” Blake mumbled, knowing the same thing had been said of others.

  “So, Jeff, tell it,” Dix said, taking a seat on the rickety porch and motioning for the others to do likewise. Blake sat between his two old friends and waited for Perry to begin. The young lawyer paced back and forth, then suddenly pointed to the west.

  “There’s the trouble in a nutshell,” Perry declared angrily. “It’s Henry Simpson. He thinks he owns Texas.”

  “He does own a pretty fair chunk of it,” Marty remarked.

  “Not all of it, at least not yet.” Perry paused long enough to brush the hair back from his forehead before continuing. “I read the deeds, even showed them to a judge in Austin. You’ve got clear rights to the water from Carpenter Creek. Simpson’s built a hindrance to that water.”

  “And here I thought he’d built a dam,” Marty said, laughing.

  “What it means is he can’t stop you from getting that water. It’s a kind of a rule in law. It’s the same as building a fence across a road to keep your neighbors in. He can’t do it.”