Last Chance Cowboys Read online

  Ira and Spud gave their grudging approval, and the two families entered the church together—passing Pete Collins on their way.

  Later, as the service progressed, Jess elbowed Trey and nodded toward a door at the side of the church. Collins was leaving.

  When the service ended, Jess kissed Addie and rode off. He would meet up with Seth and the soldiers and get into position to see if Collins and his men showed up at Lottie’s place. Trey suggested Josh ride with Lottie and her sons to be sure they found their way to his ranch. At least that was the excuse. The truth was, he wanted time alone with Nell.

  “With any luck at all, this thing will be over by sundown,” he said.

  “Did you see Addie? She’s more worried than she lets on, and I imagine Amanda is beside herself thinking about Seth. We should have invited them to be at the ranch while we wait.”

  “Jess and Seth are lawmen, Nellie. Addie and Amanda know that. They know the risks.”

  “Still, you said it yourself—Pete Collins is a desperate man. And that makes him especially dangerous. If he feels cornered, no telling what he might do.”

  He knew she was right. He also knew the plan was in motion and there was nothing to be done but wait. He let the silence simmer between them.

  Nell was the one to break it. “If this all works out the way you plan, Trey, what then?”

  “Either way, we get back to our original idea—combining your property and mine and raising both sheep and cattle, proving that they can coexist.”

  “Maybe we should take in Lottie’s sheep as well. After all, her land and mine combined aren’t a quarter of your ranch, so it wouldn’t be that much more to deal with. And with Ernest gone…”

  “We’ll see what Lottie wants to do. I’ll offer, but it’s her choice—hers and the boys’.”

  “Even if she refuses and insists on going it alone, we’ll still help out, won’t we?”

  Trey grinned and shook his head. “Woman, you do have this way of wanting to take care of the whole world, don’t you?” He wrapped his arm around her as he drove their wagon with the other hand. “Lottie and her boys are family, Nell, and we are always there for family.”

  As promised, Juanita had a spread waiting for them the likes of which even Trey had never seen. Sopapillas, empanadas, crusty bolillos, a pot of hominy posole covered with chocolate-infused mole, along with a pot of simmering frijoles, plenty of fresh tortillas, and buñuelos for dessert. Locally produced wine and sarsaparilla for the boys rounded out the feast.

  Afterward, while Nell and Lottie insisted on helping Juanita clear and clean up, Trey took the boys out to the yard, called for a couple of his cowhands to join them, and laid out bases and a pitcher’s mound. Trey put any remaining anger he was holding toward Ira aside. What was happening today was too important. He tossed Ira the ball. “You pitch,” he said.

  Ira nodded and strode to the makeshift pitcher’s mound.

  It didn’t take long for everyone to get into the game, whooping at hits and runs, sliding into the makeshift bases, and recording the score of each inning by scraping out the numbers in the sandy dirt with a stick.

  All the while, he kept watching for Jess. When he hadn’t come by late afternoon as the sun sank lower in the sky, he began to worry that something had gone wrong. If Collins had not shown up at all, Jess would have returned, signaled, and gone on back to town. But this late in the day, something had happened. To Trey’s way of thinking, it shouldn’t have taken this long for the soldiers to step in and take charge.

  Several times, he saw Juanita come to the door of the kitchen and study the horizon and trail that led down from the hills to their property. Trey had gotten Nell and Lottie involved in the ballgame to keep their minds off the passing of time. Still, there was no sign of Jess.

  “Cómelo! Supper!” Juanita shouted as she rang the bell hanging outside the kitchen.

  With most of his cow hands out on the range, Trey had handpicked the men who would stick around to play ball and share a meal with the Galway boys. He was gratified to see Ira and Spud talking easily to his men. Of course, they were replaying the game and not debating livestock, but still, it was progress.

  Because it would be dark before Lottie and the boys could make it home, Nell persuaded her it was too dangerous to make the trip at such a late hour. “Stay,” she pleaded.

  Joshua turned to his cousins. “If you stay the night, Ma sometimes lets me sleep down in the bunkhouse. We play cards and stuff, and the men even let me brush down the horses.” He turned to Nell. “We can spend the night in the bunkhouse, right?”

  Nell hesitated, glancing at the cowhands before answering.

  “It would be all right, ma’am,” one of them said.

  “Clearly, I’m outnumbered here,” she said with a smile. “Lottie? Is this all right with you?”

  “I suppose.” She hesitated and looked at her sons for confirmation.

  “Do you play cards for money?” Ira asked.

  “Matchsticks,” the cowboy replied.

  Ira shrugged. “Sure. I guess.” As always, Spud followed his lead.

  Once the boys had headed off to the bunkhouse and Nell and Lottie had gone to make up the guest room, Trey sought out Juanita. “I’m worried, Nita. Jess should have come back by now—that was the plan. No matter how this thing went down, he would have come here to let us know what happened.”

  She didn’t argue with what they both knew he needed to do. “Take one of the hands with you,” she said.

  “I’ll pick up a couple of men from the range as I go.” He strapped on his gun belt and pulled his hat tight over his forehead.

  Juanita handed him the medical kit they kept supplied in the event of a scorpion bite, broken bone, or worse. “Just in case,” she said.

  “Tell Nell I’ll be back as soon as possible, and keep Lottie and her boys here, no matter how long it takes me to get back.” He kissed Juanita’s forehead and left. He wanted to say goodbye to Nell, but she was in the library with Lottie, and Lottie would have questions he wasn’t ready to answer.

  As he saddled a horse from the corral, he could hear laughter from the bunkhouse and knew the card game had begun. The way his cowhands had done their part in including the Galway boys gave him hope that he was not being unrealistic in believing it was indeed possible for herders and ranchers to get along. Cowboys had a live-and-let-live philosophy that allowed them to fit into most any situation. They were a transient group, following the work as the seasons changed. But most were loyal to the man paying them—at least while they worked for him.

  He galloped toward the Galway ranch. His plan was to pick up a couple of his cowboys on the way, but as he rode, he saw that they were too far away. They were moving the herd to higher ground, headed in the opposite direction. If he made the detour necessary to reach them, he would lose valuable time, and his gut told him something had gone terribly wrong. There was no time to waste, so he chose to ride cross-country, taking the shortest route possible to reach his destination.

  Taking care not to be seen, Trey slid from his horse and crawled on his belly to a place among the boulders that would give him a clear view.

  Everything below was as it should be—no fire or damage visible. The property appeared deserted. If Collins had been there, he’d either left or been apprehended by Jess, Seth, and the militia. But if that were the case, why hadn’t Jess come to let him know it was over?

  He mounted his horse and rode slowly toward the deserted yard. A few sheep grazed unattended in a field behind the house. With all the times the flock had been raided, it had dwindled in numbers to a few hundred instead of thousands. He wondered if the flock he saw in the distance also included Nell’s sheep. If so, she and Lottie didn’t have much more than the land. It would take years to rebuild the livestock to the point where either woman would see any profit.

 
He reined in at the barn and, hand resting on the butt of his gun, he slowly approached the open double doors and looked around inside. In the middle of the barn floor, someone had piled up kindling and bales of hay. He smelled the fumes of kerosene and saw the cast-off can that had held it. Then he went to the house, checked the doors, and found them locked, and he saw no sign of occupancy—or intrusion. The only signs anyone had been there recently came in the form of a jumble of hoofprints in the yard and the mud and dirt on the porch that he suspected Lottie would have insisted on sweeping up before coming to town for church that morning. All was quiet, and for once, he found no comfort in the silence. He sat down on the front step and tried to figure out his next move. That’s when he saw the drops of blood. They ran from the lower step of the porch across the yard to the tangle of hoofprints.

  The way he figured it, someone had been shot and had made it to a horse and taken off. With the sun nearly set and all the different prints mingled together and obliterating each other, he was having trouble following the trail.

  Then he heard gunfire. One shot. Another.

  He didn’t wait for the third but ran for his horse, mounted, and took off toward the sound.

  * * *

  Nell could barely sit still, much less listen to Lottie going on about how Henry used to always say this or that. She had hoped her sister-in-law would plead exhaustion and settle into her room, but instead, she seemed to be prepared to talk through the night. Nell took her cues from Lottie’s facial expressions and certain phrases such as “remember that time.” She limited her reactions to a smile, a shrug, or a sympathetic murmur. Not wanting to raise questions from Lottie about where he might be going at this late hour, Trey had waved to Nell from the kitchen as he kissed Nita’s cheek and left. And as the minutes and then hours ticked by, all she could think of was when her husband might return.

  Of course, Lottie knew nothing of the real reasons she and the boys had been invited to come to the ranch and stay over, but Nell was well aware of why Trey had wanted to bring her brother’s family to the safety of his ranch. What she didn’t know was where her husband had gone, why Jess had never come to tell them the results of the day, and whether either man was somewhere out of danger.

  The night Calvin died, she had been at home, not suspecting she would never see him again. These days, every time Trey left her at the ranch, she felt a tightening in her chest and a constant chant of what if drumming in her head.

  “Henry used to say—”

  “Lottie, what are we going to do about rebuilding the flock? So many of our breeding ewes have been slaughtered. Lambs are without their mothers, and what stock we do have to take to market in fall is pitiful.” She hoped the change in topic would give Lottie pause, providing Nell a respite from her sister-in-law’s chatter.

  Finally, her sister-in-law stopped chattering, bowed her head, and folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do, Nell. I’ve thought of selling out to that cattleman, Mr. Collins. He’s stopped by once or twice since Ernest left. Seems like a decent sort, and he made a good case for how the money he would give me for the land would set me and the boys up for some time—long enough for Ira and Spud to find work and get settled on their own.”

  “That’s not what Henry wanted for you or his sons, Lottie.”

  “I know.” She sniffed back tears, but then her head snapped up, and she glared at Nell. “But Henry’s not here, is he? And I don’t have some man with his own fortune wanting to marry me and take on my boys, do I?”

  “We’re family, Lottie. Nothing has changed about that.”

  Lottie stood and pressed the flats of her hands over her skirt. “Everything has changed, Nell, whether you want to admit it or not. I’m tired, and with Ernest gone, me and the boys need to get back to our place first thing tomorrow. The shepherds can handle things tonight, especially since there’s so little stock to watch. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  She walked stiff-backed down the hall, and a minute later, Nell heard the soft click of the guest room door. Relieved, she practically ran to the front door, tearing it open as she hurried into the courtyard and scanned the dark night for any sign of Trey.

  Where are you, my love?

  * * *

  There were two more shots as Trey rode hard toward the sound that ricocheted off the rocky terrain. And then silence. He pulled up, trying to decide which way to go. He studied the outline of the landscape silhouetted against the night sky. There! He saw a man move behind a cluster of boulders. It was his brother—and Jess was hurt.

  Trey slid from his horse, grabbed the medical kit, and followed the ledge until he was able to easily jump a narrow chasm and reach the other side. “Jess?” he hissed as he edged his way along the narrow path.

  Nothing.

  He moved higher. “Jess!” he said more loudly.

  This time, he heard a low moan—and it was close. He stepped carefully around a large rock that jutted out over the chasm below. His brother was on the other side, propped up against the rock and clutching his blood-soaked shoulder.

  “You want to stop that caterwauling and give me a hand here?” Jess grumbled. His voice was weak, and his head lolled to one side as if it were too much for him to hold it straight.

  Trey immediately opened the kit and took out a roll of bandages. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it. He wadded it up and pressed it against his brother’s shoulder like he’d seen Addie do once or twice. “Got to stop that bleeding,” he muttered. “Stay with me, Jess. I’ll get you to Addie, and she’ll fix you right up. You know how good she is with—”

  “She’s gonna be madder than all get-out,” Jess muttered. “She told me not to come. Maybe shoulda listened.”

  “Stop talkin’ and lean on me so I can get you bandaged up here,” Trey said.

  Jess chuckled. “Well, listen to you, little brother, ordering me around like you’re in charge.”

  “I am in charge, at least for now.” He tied off the ends of the bandages. “Okay, wrap your good arm around me, and let’s get you on your feet. Where’s your horse?”

  “Collins shot it—and me. His own horse slid on the path and threw him, so he shot it as well. That man’s got no respect for man or beast.”

  Typical Jess, Trey thought. Making light of something serious.

  Together, they hobbled away from the ledge, back toward the chasm Trey knew he could easily span, even carrying the weight of his brother. Finally, they reached the flat of a mesa on the other side, and Trey eased his brother down. “Wait here while I round up my horse.”

  “Horse can’t take both of us,” Jess called out as Trey walked away.

  “He’s only takin’ you. He knows the way back to the ranch, and once he gets there, Nita will take over. You tell a couple of our cowhands where to find me and Collins and send them back. I’ll wait.”

  Trey could hear Jess still muttering his objections once he led his horse to the spot where he’d left his brother.

  “This is a bad idea,” Jess argued. “You against Collins? He’ll kill you, Trey. Wait for the militia. They took off to round up Collins’s men.”

  “I can get the jump on him,” Trey said as he hoisted his brother into the saddle and used the reins to anchor him. “Just in case you pass out along the way,” he explained. “Don’t want you falling and breaking that hard head of yours.” Then he gave a whoop and slapped the horse’s hindquarters, and it took off, headed hell-bent for home.

  He could hear Jess yelling at him as he watched to be sure his brother was well on his way. Then he followed the ledge, protected by a wall of boulders, back to where he’d found Jess, knowing Pete had to be nearby.

  He pulled his gun from its holster. Trey was not a man of violence. The truth was, he understood guns and rifles only as necessary evils for living on the range, but surely
those days of men taking the law into their own hands were coming to their end. And yet out there somewhere was a desperate man who had nothing to lose.

  Above him, he heard a trickle of loose gravel and waited. He inched himself to a place between two boulders where he could see the path that led to the top of the cliff. Pete Collins was dragging himself along the edge of the cliff. The man was clearly wounded, his one leg useless.

  Trey crept closer, saw that Pete was focused intently on the spot across the narrow gap where Trey had found Jess.

  “You’re a dead man, Jess Porterfield,” Pete shouted as he steadied a rifle on a flat rock and took aim.

  Knowing he had the drop on Pete, Trey holstered his gun and moved quickly to the top of a large boulder. He leaped and landed on the rancher’s wounded leg, twisting it hard as he came down. As he had hoped, Pete lost control of his rifle. Better yet, the rifle went clattering over the cliff. In seconds, he had Pete on his stomach and pinned to the ground. “Shut up,” he ordered when the rancher kept whining about his leg.

  Trey stood, pulled out his gun, and aimed it at Pete. “Don’t move.” From his back pocket, he pulled the piggin’ strings every cowhand carried when out on the range. He straddled Pete, set the gun out of reach, and prepared to hog-tie the rancher.

  But Pete was strong, and in spite of his injured leg, he used both hands to push Trey off balance and grab the pistol. “Back off, Porterfield, or I’ll blow your face clean off.” He scooted himself into a sitting position and leveled the gun with both hands.

  Trey did as the man instructed. “Come on, Pete. Give up. It’s over. The soldiers will be here any time now and—”

  “Just shut up. For once in your miserable life, stop talkin’.”

  The gun wavered, and Trey saw Pete was sweating and having trouble keeping his eyes open. The earth around them was soft and sandy. Slowly, subtly, Trey scraped dirt into a small pile with the toe of his boot. “Shoot me, Pete, and you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail—if they don’t hang you first.”