“Folks cut them wolves down,” Del spoke out of the darkness. “And I’ve shot my share of them when they was after beeves. But I ain’t got nothing really agin them. They’re just doing what God intended them to do. They ain’t like we’re supposed to be. They can’t think like nothin except what they is. And you can’t fault them for that. Take a human person now, that’s a different story. Dooley and them others, and I know that Dooley’s done lost his mind, but I think his greed brung that on. His jealousy and so forth. But them gunning over yonder. They coulda been anything but what they is. They turned to the outlaw trail’cause they wanted to. What am I tryin’ to say anyways?”
Silver Jim stood up and stretched. “It means we can go in smokin’ and not have no guilty conscience when we leave them bassards dead where we find them.”
Lujan smiled. “Not as eloquently put as might have been, but it certainly summed it up well.”
Cord stepped out on the porch just as Doc Adair’s buggy pulled up. The men could hear his words plain. “Max just died.”
Twenty-One
Max McCorkle, the oldest son of Cord and Alice, and brother to Rock, Troy, and Sandi, was buried the next day. He was twenty-five years old. He was buried in the cemetery on the ridge overlooking the ranch house. Half a dozen crosses were in the cemetery, crosses of men who had worked for the Circle Double C and who had died while in the employment of the spread.
Sandi stood leaning against Beans, softly weeping. Del stood with Fae. Ring stood with Hilda and Hans and Olga. Gage with Liz. Cord stood stony-faced with his wife, a black veil over her face. Parnell stood with Smoke and the other hands and gunfighters. And Smoke had noticed something: the schoolteacher had strapped on a gun.
The final words were spoken over Max, and the family left while the hands shoveled the dirt over the young man’s final resting place on this earth.
Parnell walked up to Smoke. “I would like for you to teach me the nomenclature of this weapon and the proper way to fire it. ”
A small smile touched Smoke’s lips, so faint he doubted Parnell even noticed it. “You plannin’ on ridin’ with us, Cousin?”
The man shook his head. “Regretfully, no. I am not that good a horseman. I would only be in the way. But someone needs to be here at the ranch with the women. I can serve in that manner.”
Smoke stuck out his hand and the schoolteacher, with a surprised look on his face, took it. “Glad to have you with us, Parnell.”
“Pleased to be here, Cousin.”
“We’ll start later on this afternoon. Right now, let’s wander on down to the house. Mrs. McCorkle and the others have been cookin’ all morning. Big crowd here. I ’spect the neighbors will be visitin’ and such all afternoon.”
“Funerals are barbaric. Nothing more than a throwback to primitive and pagan rites.”
“Is that right?
“Yes. And dreadfully hard on the family.”
Weddings and funerals were social events in the West, often drawing crowds from fifty to seventy-five miles away. It was a chance to catch up on the latest gossip, eat a lot of good food—everybody brought a covered dish- and see old friends.
“We got the same thing goin’ on up on the Missouri,” Smoke heard one man tell Cord. “Damn nesters are tryin’ to grab our land. Some of the ranchers have brung in some gunfighters. I don’t hold with that myself, but it may come to it. I writ the territorial governor, but he ain’t seen fit to reply as yet. Probably never even got the letter.”
Smoke moved around the lower part of the ranch house and listened. Few knew who he was, and that was just fine with him.
“Maybe we could get Dooley put in the crazy house,” a man suggested. “He’s sure enough nuts. All we got to do is find someone to sign the papers. ”
“No,” another said. “There’s one more thing: findin’ someone stupid enough to serve the papers when Dooley’s got hisself surrounded by fifty or sixty gunslicks.”
“I wish I could help Cord out, but I’m shorthanded as it is. The damn Army ought to come in. That’s what I think.”
Smoke heard the words “vigilante” and “regulators” several times. But they were not spoken with very much enthusiasm.
Smoke ate, but with little appetite. Cord was holding up well, but his two remaining sons, Rock and Troy, were geared up for trouble, and unless he could head them off, they would be riding into disaster. He moved to the boys’ side, where they stood backed up against a wall, keeping as far away from the crowd as possible.
“You boys best just snuff out your powder fuse,” Smoke told them. “Dooley and his bunch will get their due, but for right now, think about your mother. She s got enough grief on her shoulders without you two adding to it. Just settle down.”
The boys didn’t like it, but Smoke could tell by the looks on their faces his words about their mother had hit home. He felt they would check-rein their emotions for a time. For how long was another matter.
Having never liked the feel of large crowds, Smoke stayed a reasonable time, paid his respects to Cord and Alice, and took his leave, walking back to the bunkhouse to join the other hands.
“When do we ride?” Fitz asked as soon as Smoke had walked in.
“Don’t know. Just get that burr out from under your blanket and settle down. You can bet that Dooley is ready and waiting for us right this minute. Let’s don’t go riding into a trap. We’ll wait a few days and let the pot cool its boil. Then we’ll come up with something.”
Fine words, but Smoke didn’t have any plan at all.
They all worked cattle for a few days, riding loose but ready. In the afternoons, Smoke spent several hours each day with Parnell and his pistol.
