Rafe

Now the boy was a man, still hugging kids' notions, still bound and determined every guy and his uncle was out of step but him. It made a pretty ugly picture.

'Well...' Spangler said when nobody else seemed minded to speak, 'I reckon that settles that.' He flashed Rafe a hard grin. 'You heard him. Git down.'

Rafe looked at his brother. 'We'll hear what Maw has to say on the subject.'

He'd been prepared for Duke's sneer but not for the venom, the cold slashing scorn that came out of Duke's voice like a whip when he said, 'If you was Rafe you'd of damn well knowed better'n that!'

'Maw...' Dread climbed into Rafe's throat. 'You—you means Maw's—' He couldn't bring the word out.

'Rafe,' Duke said, like it was purest gospel, 'put the coffin together and help me bury her!'

Rafe's jaw fell open. He sat there too shocked, too bewildered by so bald-faced a lie, to do more than goggle. And he was still hard at it when Duke in a kind of choked voice snarled, 'Get rid of him!' and, whirling his mount, spurred off like he couldn't get out of sight quick enough.

'All right, you,' Spangler said, crowding his horse up against Bathsheba. 'You comin' outa that saddle or hev I—'

Rafe, mild as milk and with his mind, by the look, caught up in some backwash of painful memories, pushed out his crippled paw in a kind of feeble protest. Being Rafe's right hand it naturally drew Spangler's notice, his sharpened interest showing in the relaxing of his muscles as his stare took in the uselessness of stiffened clawlike fingers.

'I reckon not,' Rafe murmured, his drawl gone cold as froglegs; and only then, too late, did the Bender range boss spy the swift-enlargening barrel of the gun coming at him like a bat out of Carlsbad in the stranger's other fist. Cursing, he tried, but there was no time left to get his head out of the way. He went out of the saddle like a shotgunned duck.

*****

Built in the days when the danger of Apaches was a very real and ever present pearl, the Ortega Grant headquarters looked not unlike a fort. Constructed of sun-baked adobes, the buildings were laid out in the form of a square, interconnecting, about a central court or patio. The name, Su Casa, was carved deep into the huge beam above the main gate, and the portals themselves were made of squared logs held together and hinged with straps of hand-hammered iron. The massive bastioned outer walls were three feet through and additionally strengthened by ramparts where the peons of the original owners could mount a withering defense. The old guard rooms, though crammed now with a dusty cobwebbed clutter of odds and ends, were still habitable at either side of the puerta, Rafe observed as he rode Bathsheba through the portals and came, not unnoticed, into the courtyard.

Here within the unpierced walls which had closed them off from the world outside, Ortega's family and retainers had lived a secluded life of their own. He could imagine dark faces curiously peering from the cell-like rooms lining the four sides of the patio and, almost, he could hear the pigs and goats foraging for scraps among the squawking flutter of scurrying hens that fled from beneath the skewbald's hoofs.

In the sun-laced shade of a giant pepper overhanging the stone-rimmed well, an old man sat in a wired- together rocker with a taffy haired girl, arrow straight, behind him. Between them and Rafe, caught frozen in midstride, Rafe saw the pulled-around darkening face of his brother.

'Evenin',' Rafe said, stepping out of the saddle, and saw the girl's hand come up and clutch at her throat.

'Who is it?' the old man called as Rafe came toward them; and Duke, pushing forward, said, 'I'll take care of this!'

One hand disappeared inside the green coat and Rafe, coldly grinning, not swerving by even the twitch of an eyebrow, walked right into him. Duke, cursing, fell back and then, with a kind of half-strangled scream, yanked the hand from his coat. Before he could bring the snub-nosed pistol into line Rafe's left hand closed like a vise around his wrist. Without visible effort Rafe dragged the arm up over Duke's head. Like a man with a possum up a tree he shook it, and the pistol flew into the well with a plop.

The old man, trying to get out of his chair, cried again, 'Who is it?' and Rafe, laughing into Duke's livid face, shoved him away. 'It's your son, Rafe,' he said, 'come back to take care of you.'

'Rafe?' the old man, brightening, got shakily up, the girl putting out her hands to help.

'He's not Rafe!' Duke snarled. 'Don't you remember? Rafe's dead!'

The light went out of old Bender's look. He stood there like a stricken oak, wide shoulders sagged, eyes dull, arms loose. 'Dead, you say? My son is dead....' A shiver ran through the wasted frame, then the head tipped up. 'Neath tufted brows the eyes reached out like groping hands to find Rafe's shape and search his face and bewilderedly stretch from him to the girl. 'Luce—Luce,' he sighed, 'who is this man?'

Her eyes quit Duke, moving back to Rafe. 'I don't know,' she said, chin coming up. 'I never saw him before.'

'He looks to me,' growled Duke, 'like one of the bunch that's been liftin' our cows! We lost another big jag last night, Spangler says. I think—'

'Be still!' Bender cried. 'Let him speak for himself. I want to hear his voice.'

Rafe looked from the sullen hate on Duke's face to the cool unwinking stare of the girl. This wasn't the spindle-legged, big-eyed child who'd run clean to Beckston's Four Corners after him that day he'd gone to join up with Jeb Stuart. She'd shot up and filled out, become a real looker—if a man didn't peer too long or too deep.

He shook his head tiredly. 'What's to say when a man's own kin look him straight in the eye and don't know him from Adam—'

'You still claiming you're Rafe?'

'What difference does it make? Eleven years ain't a lifetime. I haven't changed that much.'

Bender said, 'Come over here, boy. Put your hand in mine arid tell me you're Rafe—'

'Are you crazy?' Duke shouted. 'God damn it, Rafe's dead! We got a paper—'