“We sell some cows to the Army. And wait.”
The buyer for the Army had already looked over the cattle and agreed to a price. When he returned, a couple of days after Smoke’s misunderstanding with the sniper, he brought drovers with him. Smoke and the buyer settled up the paperwork and the bank draft was handed over to Fae. The two men leaned up against a corral railing and talked.
“You know about the battle looking at us in the face, don’t you?” Smoke asked.
“Uh-huh. And from all indications it’s gonna be a real cutter.”
“What would it take to get the Army involved?”
“Not a chance, Jensen. The Army’s done looked this situation over and, unofficially, and I didn’t say this, they decided to stay out of it. It’d take a presidential order to get them to move in here.”
It was as Smoke had guessed. All over the fast-settling West little wars were flaring up; too many for the authorities or the Army to put down, so they were letting them burn themselves out. Here, they would be on their own, whichever way it went.
The buyer and his men moved the cattle out and the range was silent.
Smoke wondered for how long?
Twelve
“You tellin’ me you’re not gonna work cattle?” Cord faced the gunslick.
“I’m paid to fight, not herd cattle,” Jason Bright told him.
“You re not being paid to do either one after this moment. Pack your kit and clear out. Pick up your money at the house.”
Jason’s eyes became cloudy with hate. “And if I don’t go?”
“Then one of us is going to be on the ground.”
Jason laughed. “Are you challengin’ me, old man?”
Cord was far from being an old man. At forty-five he was bull-strong and leather-tough. And while he was no fast gun, there was one thing he was good at. He showed Jason a hard right fist to the jaw.
Flat on his back, his mouth leaking blood, Jason grabbed for his gun, forgetting that the hammer thong was still on it. Cord stomped the gunfighter in the belly, reached down while Jason was gasping for breath, and jerked the gun out of leather, tossing it to one side. He backed up, his big hands balled into fists.
“Catch your breath and then get up, you yellow-bellied pup. Let’s see how good you are without your gun.”
A dozen gunhawks ran from the bunkhouse, stopping abruptly as Cord’s sons, his daughter, his wife, and four regular hands appeared from both sides of the house and on the porch, rifles and sawed-off shotguns in their hands.
“It’s going to be a fair fight, boys,” Alice McCorkle said, her voice strong and calm. She held a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. “Between two men; and my husband is giving Mr. Bright a good ten or fifteen years in age difference. Boys, I was nineteen when I killed my first Indian. With this very shotgun. I’ve killed half a dozen Indians and two outlaws in my day, and anytime any of you want to try me, just reach for a gun or try to break up this fight—whichever way it’s going—and I’ll spread your guts all over this yard. Then I’ll make your gunslinging buddies clean up the mess.”
She lifted the shotgun, pointing the twin muzzles straight at Pooch Matthews.
“Lord, lady!” Pooch hollered. “I ain’t gonna interfere.”
“And you’ll stop anyone who does, right, Mr. Matthews?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!”
Jason was on his feet, his eyes shiny with hate as he faced Cord.
“Clean his plow, honey,” Alice told her husband.
Cord stepped in and knocked Jason spinning, the gunfighter’s mouth suddenly a bloody smear. Like so many men who lived by the gun and depended on a six-shooter to get them out of any problem, Jason had never learned how to use his fists.
Cord gave him a very short and very brutal lesson in fistfighting.
Cord gave him two short hard straight rights to the stomach then followed through with a crashing left hook that knocked the gunfighter to the ground. Normally, Cord would have kicked the man in the face and ended it. No truly tough man, who fights only when hard-pushed, does not consider that “dirty” or unfair fighting, but merely a way to get the fight over with and get back to work. In reality, there is no such thing as a “fair fight.” There is a winner and a loser. Period.
But in this case, Cord just wanted the fight to last a while. He was enjoying himself. And really, rather enjoying showing off for his wife a little bit.
Cord dropped his guard while so pleased with himself and Jason busted him in the mouth.
Shaking his head to clear away the sparkling confusion, for Jason was no little man, Cord settled down to a good ol’fashioned rough-and-tumble, kick-and-gouge brawl.
The two men stood boot to boot for a moment, hammering away at each other until finally Jason had to give ground and back up from Cord’s bull strength. Jason was younger and in good shape, but he had not spent a lifetime doing brutally hard work, twelve months a year, wrestling steers and digging postholes and roping and branding and breaking horses.
Jason tried to kick Cord. Cord grabbed the boot and dumped the gunhawk on the ground, on his butt. That brought several laughs from Jason’s friends, all standing and watching and being very careful not to let their hands get too close to the butts of their guns.
