Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Two Weeks Later
The barn was all but finished, and Caleb was feeling damn good about it.
The first person he wanted to show it to was Sheila Burnett. The thought arrived natural as water flowing downhill, and Caleb found himself glancing toward the road to town before returning to his work.
She'd seen the place when it was little more than a cabin, a corral, and a dream. Now there was a real barn standing beside the house. A ranch taking shape. He could almost hear her telling him that she was proud of what he'd built.
The building consisted of two separate stables large enough for six stalls in each and space for tack and assorted gear.
The two sides were connected by a roofed, fifteen-foot wide workspace, open to the front and back.
Having that, Caleb had decided, would allow them to pull a wagon straight through with hay or feed or whatever.
The only thing left to do on it now was to hang the two stable doors, and they’d been holding off until their helpers could come out from town and lend a hand with the chore.
“It ain’t straight.” Gabe Rogers, the livery man’s son, shook his head as he eyed the work Henry and Paddy were doing.
“Looks good to me,” the younger boy said.
“Lift your side higher,” Henry ordered.
Caleb hid his smile as Paddy threw his battered hat on the ground and ran a hand through his wild, ginger-colored hair. “It’s too dang heavy, Henry. You lift it up, I’ll jam the wedges in.”
Before Henry was released from jail, the fourteen-year-old Gabe and the twelve-year-old Paddy had been a good help to Caleb, keeping an eye on Bear and the cattle when he’d needed to chase down road agents…
and worse. Gabe’s father had fashioned the iron pintle and gudgeon hinges that would hold the barn doors with their upper and lower sections, and the boys had brought them out this morning.
Gabriel Rogers had his father’s dark skin and the developing strength that came with muscling horses at the stable. But he also had the amber eyes of his mother, and a softness to his face that would probably be gone in a year or so. The young fella was solid and dependable.
Paddy wasn’t lazy, but he was a kid. He was happier playing with Bear than he was doing chores.
From what Caleb could see, drifting with his no-account brother hadn’t helped him none either.
He had spunk, though. The first time he saw Paddy, the boy was aiming an ancient Colt Dragoon directly at Caleb’s heart.
It was revenge he was after that day. Paddy’s brother had been one of the fellas killed when they came looking to rustle Caleb’s cattle.
Luckily, the boy had been more upset than vengeful.
He had no one left and nowhere to go. After they talked it over, the old Dragoon had disappeared, and Paddy had ended up staying with Gabe’s family and working at Malachi Rogers’s livery stable.
He was a good boy, and he and Gabe had become good friends.
“I’ll give you wedges, lollygagger. You don’t lift that side and you’ll be wearing the dang wedges outta both ears,” Henry warned.
“You just go ahead and try. I’ll have Bear chewing off your right arm for his supper.”
At the mention of his name, the dog appeared in the doorway and sat himself next to Gabe, all the while eyeing Henry and Paddy.
“See,” Paddy crowed. “All it’ll take is one dang word.”
“That right?”
“Bear does look a mite hungry, Henry,” Gabe added.
“It’ll be Bear and me and Gabe. So whaddya think about that?”
Henry glanced from one to the next, and then looked at Caleb and laughed. “They’re ganging up on us, Marlowe.”
“Don’t go dragging me into it. I ain’t the one talking like old King Herod.”
Listening to the banter continue between the three of them, Caleb recalled when he was twelve.
His father ran an Indian training school in Indiana.
The Shawnee or Kickapoo students were more abused than he was.
There was no kidding one another, no friendships allowed by Elijah Starr.
Only hard work. Fear and gloom hung over everything, reinforced by his father’s hickory stick.
Caleb glanced off to the south, hearing his cattle lowing in the distance. There was still no sign of the herd coming up from Texas. And that worried him a little.
The ranch finally felt less like a place where he was hiding and more like a place he belonged. A future. A home. And lately, whenever he imagined that future, Sheila always found her way into the picture.
If he and Henry were to make a real and ongoing success of the ranch—supplying beef to Elkhorn and the surrounding area—they needed a larger herd of cattle.
Months ago, he’d sent a message and money south to a cow puncher he knew from his travels.
Duke Ortiz owned a spread about a day’s ride west of Fort Concho. And he had all the cattle they needed.
But here it was, the first week of October. Duke and that thousand head of longhorns still hadn’t arrived. Caleb shook off his concern. He just had to be patient. Never his strong suit, to be sure.
The sound of an explosion from some mining operation echoed along the bluffs and ridges bordering the valley.
Three miles north of the ranch, Elkhorn was pretty much run by Judge Patterson.
Being a prime spot to view the eclipse that occurred at the end of July, the town had grown fast. Hotels, saloons, boarding houses, and restaurants.
This all played into the plans of the judge, who was building himself a kingdom here in the mountains of Colorado.
What interested Caleb was the demand for beef, which was strong. Elkhorn was a boomtown with big plans for a big future. Might just make it, too, so long as the silver held out.
If anyone could keep Elkhorn on the map, it was the judge.
Horace D. Patterson was a force. A man of lofty ambition with a killer’s instinct.
Caleb recalled the first time he met him, the judge struck him as a man who’d always be willing to stomp a fella into the ground if it put one more dollar in his own pocket.
And if his business required that he kill you before breakfast, Judge Patterson wouldn’t remember you at all come suppertime.
At the same time, he was a master deal maker. Twice he’d used Henry’s release from jail to convince Caleb to work for him.
“You two ain’t getting any closer to hanging that door,” Gabe was saying. He’d sat himself down with his back to the door he and Caleb had finished hanging a half hour earlier.
Henry cocked his head toward an open end of the barn. “Ain’t that your old man calling you? Yep, I hear him. Gabe, come here. Your mother needs you to put some laundry out on the line.”
“You can’t hear nobody from Elkhorn way out here,” Paddy scoffed.
“That ain’t true,” Gabe corrected with a side look at Caleb. “I’m thinking Henry hears Miss Mariah calling him from the Belle Saloon pretty clear out here.”
Caleb's partner had been riding into town every other night or so to play cards at the Belle Hotel and eat somebody else's cooking. Henry claimed it was for the cards. Caleb had reckoned Belle Callahan's roast beef and apple pie were doing the attracting.
The ginger-haired boy stepped back from the door, a look of disgust on his face. “Shoot, Henry, you ain’t sweet on Miss Mariah, are you? She’s always shooing me and the other boys away from the door of the Belle.”
“I ain't sweet on nobody, street rat,” Henry retorted.
Gabe snorted. “Miss Belle says that's exactly what a sweet-on fella always says.”
“Miss Belle tells you too much.” He shook his head. “And Miss Mariah’s right in shooing you away. You’re twelve years old. You got no call sticking your nose in at the Belle.”
Paddy planted his fists on his hips. “Why? I been in plenty of saloons. Bigger ones than that one too.”
“Be that as it may, you might be handling horses for customers outside that place, but I’m thinking Malachi Rogers would tan your hide if he knew you were doing any more than that.”
Gabe was smiling at the exchange. “My pa ain’t one for tanning nobody’s hide, Henry. But tell him, Paddy.”
“Tell him what?”
The livery man’s son shook his head. “Paddy likes hearing the music when that piano fella gets going in there. Ain’t that right?”
“Well, who don’t?” the younger boy groused. “I sure don’t have no hankering to mix with Miss Mariah nor none of them other women.”
Gabe turned to Caleb. “The only woman Paddy will give the time of day to—except for my ma and sometimes Miss Belle—is Miss Sheila.”
“That right?” Henry asked in a teasing tone.
Paddy’s face flushed crimson from his ragged shirt collar to the roots of his spiky red hair. His eyes flashed. “That’s right. There ain’t nobody like her in that old town. She’s always nice to us. Ain’t she, Gabe?”
“That’s a fact.”
Henry laughed. “I don’t blame you none for that, young fella. Miss Sheila’s as fine a woman as you’ll find anywhere.”
Caleb kept his expression carefully neutral. The effort was wasted. Gabe grinned. Henry grinned. Even Bear seemed to be looking at him funny.
“Don't start,” Caleb warned.
“Didn't say nothing,” Henry replied.
“You was thinking it.”
“That's because everybody else already was.”
Caleb eyed his partner closely, trying to decide if he should get angry at him or not. Henry did enjoy needling him about her.
Then Henry reached out and squeezed Paddy’s shoulder. “I’m just joshing ya, fella.”
“Well, all right.” The boy smiled, clearly thinking he’d won a major battle. “But let’s get this dang door up. I’m getting hungry, and Bear is a dog that needs to be rassled with.”
Caleb and Gabe exchanged a look. They were both itching to get in there and do Henry and Paddy’s door.
“If you two fellas need a hand—” Caleb started.
“No!” they both barked at once.
Henry shot a look at him. “Why don’t you two go work on something else, since you got nothing to do here? Ain’t you always grousing about that half-dug well and that chicken coop you want?”