Jason jumped to his boots, one eye closing and his nose a bloody mess, and swung at Cord. Cord grabbed the wrist and threw Jason over his hip, slamming him to the ground. This time Jason was not as swift getting to his feet.
Cord was circling, grinning at Jason, but giving the man time to clear his head and stand and fight.
But this time Jason came up with a knife he’d pulled out of his boot.
“No way, Jason!” Lodi yelled from the knot of gunslingers. “And I don’t give a damn how many guns is on me. Drop that knife or I’ll shoot you personal.”
With a look of disgust on his face, Jason threw the knife to the ground.
Cord stepped in and smashed the man a blow to the jaw and followed that with a wicked slash to Jason’s belly, doubling him over. Then he hit him twice in the face, a left and right to both sides of the man’s jaw.
Jason hit the ground and did not move.
Cord walked to a water barrel by the side of the house and washed his face and soaked his aching hands for a moment. He turned and faced the gunslicks.
“I want Jason out of here within the hour. No man disobeys an order of mine. Any of you who want to stay, that’s fine with me. But you’ll take orders and you’ll work the spread, doing whatever Del tells you to do. Make up your mind.”
“Hell, Mister McCorkle ...” a gunhawk said. He looked at the ladies. “I mean, heck. We come here to fight, not work cattle. No disrespect meant.”
“None taken. But the war is over as far as I’m concerned. Any of you who want to ride out, there’ll be no hard feelings and I’ll have your money ready for you at the house.”
All of them elected to ride.
“See me on the porch for your pay,” Cord told them.
When the last gunslick had packed his warbag, collected his pay, and ridden out, Del sat down beside Cord on the front porch.
“Feels better around the place, Boss. But if them gunnies hire on with Hanks, we’re gonna be hard up agin it.”
“I know that, Del. Tell the men that from this day on, they’ll be receiving fighting wages.” He held up a warning finger. “We start nothing. Del. Nothing. We defend home range and no more. I won t ask that the men stay out of Gibson; only that they don’t go in there looking for trouble. Send Willie riding over to the Box T and tell Smoke what I’ve done. He needs to know.”
“Sure got the crap pounded out of you,” Lanny said, looking at the swollen and bruised face of Jason Bright.
Jason lay on a bed in the bunkhouse of the D-H spread. “It ain’t over,” he mush-mouthed the words past swollen lips. “Not by no long shot, it ain’t.”
Dooley Hanks had eagerly hired the gunslicks. He was already envisioning himself as king. And he wanted to kill Cord McCorkle personally. In his maddened mind, he blamed Cord for everything. He’d worked just as hard as Cord, but had never gained the respect that most people felt toward McCorkle. And this just wasn t right. King Hanks. He sure liked the way that sounded.
“It’s just going to make matters worse,” Hanks’s wife was telling their daughter.
Rita looked up from her packing. “Papa’s crazy, Mother. He’s crazy as a lizard. Haven’t you seen the way he slobbers on himself? The way he sits on the porch mumbling to himself? Now he’s gone and hired all those other gunfighters. Worse? For who? I’ll tell you who: everybody. Everything from the Hound to the Sixteenmile is going to explode.”
“And you think you’ll be safer over at the Box T?”
“I won’t be surrounded by crazy people. I won’t be under guard all the time. I’ll be able to walk out of the house without being watched. Are you gong to tell on me, Mother?”
She shook her head. ”No. You’re a grown woman, Rita. Your father has no right to keep you a prisoner here. But I don’t know how you’re going to pull this off.”
Rita smiled. “I ll make it, Mother.” She kissed her mother’s cheek and hugged her. “This can’t last forever. And I won’t be that far away.
“Have you considered that your father might try to bring you back by force?”
“He might if I was going to Sandi’s. I don’t think he’ll try with Smoke Jensen.”
The mother pressed some money into the daughter’s hand. “You’ll need this.”
“Thank you, Mother. I’ll pretend I’m going to bed early. Right after supper. Then I’ll be gone.”
After the mother had left the room, Rita laid out her clothes. Men’s jeans, boots, a man’s shirt. She had one of her brother’s old hats and a work jacket to wear against the cold night. She picked up the scissors. Right after supper she would whack her hair short.
She believed it would work. It had to work. If she stayed around this place, she would soon be as nutty as her father and her crazy brothers.
“Peaceful,” Cord said to Alice. “Like it used to be.”
They sat on the front porch, enjoying the welcome coolness of early evening after the warm day.
“If it will only last, Cord.”
“All we can do is try, honey. That’s all a mule can do, is try.”
“Tell me about this Smoke Jensen. I’ve met him, but never to talk with at length.”
“He’s a good man, I believe. A fair man. Not at all like I thought he d be. He’s one of those rare men that you look at and instantly know that this one won’t push. I found that out very quickly.” His last comment was dry, remembering that first day he’d yelled at Smoke, in Gibson, and the man had looked at him like he was a bug.
