Yet Ben believed his father had left them the means to wealth and power. Here lay their great, deep-grass range, heavily stocked—even overstocked, since the turnaround of the year before. A year of booming markets was due, had to be due, for last year’s light buying might result in a national shortage. And the supply would be less, for many Texas cattlemen were discouraged, and more were in no position to drive. All winter long, Ben had made journey after journey, his pack mule loaded with tally books, this time. He had traded his own distant strays for cattle already on his range; when he had nothing to trade, he bought outright—on Zachary credit—hundreds upon hundreds of cows actually using the Dancing Bird grass. Their debts were sky-high again. Ben himself only had a loose general idea of how much they owed.
But this year they could put up a herd with more big feeder beeves in it, and more of them their own, than they had ever driven before. They would make back everything they owed five times over—if only they could make this year go right.
If the Zacharys took this year to move on, to some far-off new land—Nebraska, Dakota, Montana—much more than a great year would be lost. It was one thing for Old Zack to let go of things he had built up himself, and start again. It was another thing altogether for Ben to throw away a stake into which had gone eight years of his father’s life—and his life itself, at the end.
I can’t do it, Ben thought. I can’t run. Not now. Not yet. We’ve got to stand, now, here on this river Papa found. No matter what comes. No matter what.
Chapter Six
Sometimes Ben felt awkward, and a little bit embarrassed, as he came in sight of the house after being away for a while, for no more reason than that they were always so danged glad to see him. But he forgot that in the first moment he was there, for everything seemed natural, easy, and familiar. He never supposed he knew how to be homesick nor realized how much he missed the people whom he left behind, until he saw them again.
Tears were running down Matthilda’s cheeks, and Rachel’s eyes had a wet shine, as Ben stepped from the saddle to the stoop. They hung around his neck, asking stupid questions, and making all the fuss they knew how. “Did you bring—” Rachel started to ask, then dropped it. He had never yet failed to do the best he could, and now that he was here it didn’t even matter.
In the house, where everything was shined up fit to eat and sleep the Governor, the best they had was ready to go onto the table, as soon as the women could leave Ben alone long enough to get it on. It was Ben’s duty to say grace, now that he was home. They had always said grace once a day, and ordinarily Ben’s quick mumble didn’t put much into it. They had used the same few words all their lives, until nobody really listened any more, or felt any meaning. But tonight, perhaps because he had had a rest from it, Ben said the little prayer so that they heard it again.
“Dear merciful Father, we thank Thee for these vittles, and for all Thy blessings this day. Now guide us, and guard us, and shield us from evil, we pray in Jesus’ name….Amen.” The others made an inarticulate sound on the “Amen.”
At one time Rachel had secretly thought the first part should go, “We thank Ben, mostly, for beating his saddle to death catching up with these vittles—not helped much by all this frolicky weather we’re being booned with lately, either.” And that short list of chores, repeated daily on the evident theory that the Almighty could not retain, had seemed to Rachel to be failing of attention, to judge by general results. But conformity had shaped an attitude of piety by sheer habit, and she no longer remembered her childish heresies.
Tonight they were all together again, all there were left of them, safe, and snug, and fed; and Rachel was truly thankful. Ben saw how happy she was, seemingly in all ways trustful of her world. He felt a hard twinge of pity, of anger, seeing her so innocently un-aware of the black hostility that was hanging over her, ugly enough to darken the lives of them all.
But if any except Ben had a worry it didn’t show. Ben’s return with the corrida ended the long tyranny of winter for everybody. He brought the spring, and the rebirth of their world. Rachel and Matthilda had seen no women except each other for many long months on end. Now they would see the Rawlinses, at least, practically all the time, for the two families must work together closely, from here on. Or so they thought then; because it had always been that way before.
After supper Ben brought in the slim parcels he had fetched home for Rachel and Matthilda. He explained that he was sorry about not bringing more. Had to carry everything in his saddlebags with his gear, till be bought the wagon at Fort Griffin. They found he had brought a piece of blue-checked gingham, too short, and a piece of red-checked, extra long—had he thought they could use one to piece the other out? But there was also nine yards of a flower-sprigged muslin that they wanted to hug him for; only he was gone from there, down by the corrals with the rest, by then.
By ten o’clock, when the boys came in, Matthilda had sent Rachel to bed; and Andy, turning in at once, was soon asleep. After that, as the owls began to fly, Matthilda seemed older than she had before, and Ben let himself go tired. Only Cassius was still crisp as the three of them took a look at the trouble they shared.
Chapter Seven
“Cash and I talked to the hands,” Ben told their mother. “Didn’t use Kelsey’s name, of course. Just said a horse thief. Told ’em how he looks. And we put up a hundred dollars.”
“A hundred—?”
“Those ’ramuses can’t count over a hundred dollars. More would only scare ’em.”
Matthilda looked strangely vague, so that Ben wondered if she had followed him. These vague-nesses were appearing oftener, as her age advanced. But now she said, “What if they catch him?”
Ben and Cash exchanged a glance, and Ben said slowly, “Mama, we never told them to catch him.”
“What?”
“The hundred,” Cassius said plainly, “is for his scalp.”
Mama gave a little shuddering gasp. “But Abe couldn’t fight them. He wouldn’t even try. Why, they’d have to shoot him with his hands up!”
“Yes,” Cassius said.
The tears that came so easily nowadays sprang to Matthilda’s eyes. She said, “Poor old man,” in a sort of plaintive whimper, and sat staring into space. The boys waited in silence for the moment of emotion to pass.
“If somehow, in spite of us, he sneaks up near the house again,” Ben said, “I want you to fort up, same as if he had the Kiowa nation behind him. And he’s got to be fired on. If nobody else is here to do it, Rachel has to fire on him. And, Mama—for God’s sake will you believe me?—you mustn’t stop her!”
Matthilda said nothing, but seemed to accept it.
“Now,” Ben said to her gravely, “I’m going to ask you to think of something else. I don’t know if Kelsey has been around the Rawlinses, or any neighbor. I’ll warn Zeb, he’s a squaw man and a thief. But Kelsey has friends in Texas, even yet; and the old, black lie he started against us is still alive, just as much as ever it was. If Kelsey gets to the Rawlinses, they may listen to him, Mama—just as likely as not.”
“That,” Matthilda said, surprisingly matter-of-fact, “is something that will happen, or it won’t.”