Wild Country

blood.

The cowpoke hesitated, his hand on his sidearm.

'Fill my hand, damn you!'

Mul Garner, from the porch, only said, 'Cam,' and held out his hand. The foreman drew his old-fashioned peacemaker, held it by the barrel, tossed it to the rancher at the same moment Billy Ray handed his own handgun over to Jerome. Then, in a voice that had once ruled a million acres, the rancher called, 'That's not how I raised you, boy.'

A stream of ropy crimson spit whacked the ground from Jerome's mouth as he raised the pistol. Quantrill whirled, saw Longo menacing him from the side with a medium-caliber automatic, and waited. Jerome: 'I'm not anybody's boy. Not for a long time now.'

'No, I guess you're not. But you're dogmeat if you pull that trigger.' Mul Garner kept his elbow cocked so that the old Colt pointed aloft but did it in a practiced and familiar way. 'I taught you fairness. I never saw a sign of it tonight.'

Jerome's anguish was turning him into something half man, half child. Turning to face his father, the weapon pointing downward, staring up wet-faced onto the light, he all but bawled, 'You're protecting a goddamn enemy of mine, Daddy!'

'I had to. Maybe because I protected you too long.'

Jerome, chest heaving, stared at Quantrill. 'Daddy, you have to give him to me. You have to!'

'I promised him his walking papers, Jer. I'm backing it as far as I have to. That's final.'

His last phrase took something out of Jerome. 'It's the same as disowning me,' he snarled.

'Not you, son. But I'll always disown plain murder.' Mul Garner nodded toward the distant bunkhouse and lowered the handgun. 'Take your men. Come back alone and we can talk when you've calmed down in an hour. Or tomorrow.'

Jerome began to limp away, handing the weapon back to its owner, spitting again, speaking loudly without looking toward the porch. 'Tomorrow's too late. Goddamn you, old man, got in my way once too often. You and your lickspit Concannon.' he said, and spat again, flanked by his men.

Mulvihill Garner shaded his eyes, watching them retreat, the pistol hanging in his other hand. He seemed unaware of the tears that dampened his cheeks. 'I wonder if I could've done it. Cam take this little cougar off my land right now.' he said, and handed the weapon back to his foreman.

Concannon hurried off into the dark for a vehicle, and Quantrill sat down on the porch steps, holding a thumb against one nostril to stanch the blood that still flowed from his nose. 'I owe you a warning, Mr. Garner.' he said.

Garner tossed him a kerchief the size of a small parachute. 'As a man, or a deputy?'

Wiping his face: 'Same thing. I really was hunting that boar, but the Justice Department could send men after your son or some of your men. one of these days.'

'I'm not an idiot. Quantrill. But I've let Jerome pretty much take over this spread, and if he's abused my trust, this is no place for a deputy to flaunt a badge. Most of the men aren't as much my men as they are his. Now it's come to a head, no thanks to you. I came within an inch of turning you over to my son, you know.'

'Yessir.' Quantrill hawked and spat.

Pause. Then, 'You really serious about the Grange girl?'

Quantrill nodded and tried to smile. His face was numb. 'Maybe 'hopeless' would be a better word.'

'She's a good neighbor. Maybe you'll be one, in time. Just give Jerome plenty of room, it's all I ask.'

'I will, sir.' Quantrill turned, got up slowly as he heard the clatter of an old diesel four-wheel-drive vehicle. He placed the bloody kerchief on the steps.

'He just needs to grow up,' Mul Garner called as Quantrill walked toward the pickup. It was as near an apology as the old man could muster, and it was offered hopefully. He would not have harbored that hope if he had heard the muffled hovercycles moving out from his equipment barn without lights, moments before Concannon drove off with Ted Quantrill.

Chapter Forty-Three

The foreman had driven for ten minutes before either of the men spoke. 'We're heading east,' Quantrill said finally. 'To Barksdale?'

'No clinic there now,' Concannon grunted. 'This old road will get us to Leakey.' He pronounced it 'Lakey' in the old way.

The pickup's lights swept a crest in the road, and for a moment they were airborne, then slamming down an incline. 'You don't have to break an axle on my account,' Quantrill said. His head was hurting, the nosebleed starting up again.

'Your account, hell. I'm tryin' to get us to the stretch of blacktop ahead so we can outrun a cycle. The Longo brothers got motion sensors, Quantrill.' He powered the pickup through a sharp bend, expertly.

'Brothers?'

'Reeve and Clyde; Reeve was one of the two with Jer a while ago. He's a good hand. Clyde's not on the payroll; stays on the south end of the spread and don't show his face much where the old man can see him. Clyde ain't worth spit except where you get points for meanness. He's good with a gun. But so are some of the others. That's why I wanted better protection than a cycle,' he said, patting the doorsill of the sturdy old pickup as it thundered through the night.

'These guys have nightscopes, too?'

'Damn right. By the way, I stuck that rifle and kit of yours into the lockbox behind us. Some of Jer's boys was takin' that in. I think L. J was tryin' to give me a signal, but he ain't just awful long on guts. You got me between a rock an' a hard place now.'

'Sorry.'

'Whatthehell. I knew I'd have to make a choice one day.

Knew it the day Jer whupped me the second time in a row. Only thing that kept Jer in check was knowin' the quirt was ready, an' that he'd feel it the minute he took the bit in his teeth. None of this 'maybe' shit, either. Hold on,' he added. The pickup forded a brook in a great rush and splatter of gravel, then was scrambling up an incline again.

Concannon continued, 'If Jer thinks maybe he can get away with a thing, he'll do it for the fun of that maybe. Right now, he prob'ly thinks maybe his daddy won't jerk his bank credit even if he puts a hole in you. If anybody could afford to risk that, it's Jer.'

Quantrill spat blood out the window. 'Mul Garner won't call him to account?'

'Don't matter a lot if he does. Jer's put a pile of hard cash aside the past few years. He's still doin' it. An' the way he gets it, he was purely fuckin'-A bound to get the law on him.'

Quantrill grabbed for handholds as the pickup failed to stay on the road, but there was no shoulder and no ditch — and damned near no road, for that matter. Concannon seemed to know every step of the way and found the road again, headlights sweeping wildly across the range. 'Somebody should tell Jerome that if he does a stretch in Huntsville. the Justice Department might attach every cent he has in every bank account. They do that, these days.' Quantrill said.

'Bank? When I said hard cash. I meant it. Gold Mex coins. Krugerrands, them Mormon fifty-buck pieces the Navajos uprated with turquoise — hard money.' Another excursion into the brush and a near miss from a cedar. Concannon cursed, reversed, set out again. 'Jer's like a ole brown squirrel with a holler tree. Got a stash out here someplace, nobody knows where.' He laughed then and spat a gob that was half dust from his window. 'Says he couldn't leave a track to it if he wanted to.' Concannon bent forward over the wheel, squinting into the hostile dark.

Quantrill let the silence grow for a time, thinking, before he said. 'Sounds like he was right when he said he's not anybody's boy.'

'Well, he sure-God ain't yours; he's a thirty-year-old badass kid. You want some good advice? From here on out, watch your back.'