Chapter 4

I took the two account books with me to the bunkhouse. I wanted to read them and as my bunk was nearest to the only window, I was anxious to see what was in them. One had all the purchases and debits written in an orderly fashion. Not much new there.

Cash on hand remained at either less or a little more than two hundred dollars. Turner was cheap and didn’t purchase much. He even paid his hands ten percent less than the usual salary. I’d ask Betty if she was involved in any of this or if he kept all of his accounts to himself.

He had sold cattle after the spring roundup. The only entry for the proceeds of the spring sale said, Steers and culls sold, did well! Under groceries he had, $17.13. And again, another, $15.47. Woman spends way too much. May have to get rid of her.”

That entry was months before she had informed him she was pregnant. He appeared to be happy at first with that knowledge. But a month before he died he had penciled in for groceries an entry, “$27.27. May have to find woman to replace wife. She’s too costly. Woman wants a cradle and lots of baby clothes. She should be sewing these up. Whines because she doesn’t have any cloth.

I was disgusted. I’m sure Betty didn’t know her husband’s true feelings, but it was something I had to look into. Damn and I thought she was perfect for me. Well she had money enough to buy ready-made clothes for the baby and I’d see she had a cradle.

Betty shouted that dinner was ready and we all rushed over. I had brought the two ledgers with me and said I wanted to discuss them with Betty because they concerned the ranch. Betty said she and I would go over them after supper.

She had the kitchen table set and was putting food on the table. The two birds were golden. And the wings would be crunchy just the way I liked them. I didn’t have to ask because Betty handed me the carving knife and I laid two wings on my plate from the first bird I cut. I did cut into the two birds so everyone had their preferred choice of white or dark. “Sorry I don’t have desert, but I do have biscuits and some honey.”

Everyone was stuffed, so everyone had only one biscuit. The men wanted to do dishes, but mostly got in the way. Sonny said hardly anything during the meal, but he was one happy boy. The men were treating him like a regular hand, something he had never enjoyed in this lifetime.

I announced that Betty and I were going to go over the ranch’s finances. So the men trooped back to the bunkhouse. When they had gone, Betty put two lamps on the table and I handed her the account book that had where Turner wasn’t happy with her. She began thumbing through it until she came to where Turner and she had made an arrangement for her to become a bride.

Her first comment when she began reading what he was thinking about her being so expensive to manage the household expenses. “That Bastard, he wanted me to cook beef everyday. He said it would make me fertile so I would get pregnant. How in hell was he going to support a child and have it live, feeding it so cheap? I would have nursed it a couple of years if I had to but what beyond that?”

She continued reading, “Here he says he was going to get rid of me, bitching about me wanting a cradle for his baby. Well, I’ll tell you Buck, I was about ready to leave just before I found him dead. He was pulling me into the bedroom and pounding me eight or nine times a week. I was beginning to think that would continue when I was ready to have the baby.

“Buck, you’re looking at me. You aren’t thinking it was me that killed him, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Well if people read this they might think I would. To tell the truth I was about ready to leave. That day he died, I was in town and when I came home and he wasn’t here, I saw the dray missing and knew he must be in the wood lot. I took a lantern walking all the way to the woodlot and that’s when I found him. I suspected it might be one of the hands at first, but why would they bother, they could just pick up and leave.

“I wanted to, but I thought people would surely think I maybe had something to do with his death. I looked in his wallet when I found it under the mattress and it had $200 hundred in it. I had a hundred in mad money that I had when I came here. So, I had $300 to live on until you came. I spent almost all of it on hay for the horses. What do I do now?”

“I’d say forget him and marry me when it is time. No one will ever now what a cheap, mean bastard he was. We’ll burn the book, you’ll forget him and he is gone, and I’m here. The baby will come and we’ll give the little one a good life that it would never have had if it was him who was its father. I would like to study the book before we do burn it, though.”

“That’s a good plan. I probably will read all of it before we do, too. But not tonight, though. I’m too mad.”

I’d seen Betty having all kinds of different emotions since I arrived. This was the first time I had seen her this way. I preferred the sadness, the loneliness, the depression and last, the happiness that she had exhibited at different times, to her being angry. I said all of this, adding “Yes and the love you feel for me.”

There was no stopping her. She jumped up, and came and kissed me. “Buck, I don’t get angry often. You didn’t mention despair in what you just said. All of those other things are leaving me and will be gone the day we wed, except for the love, of course.”

I was distracted by Betty describing her feelings, and only had a small chance at looking at the account book in my hands. Some of it seemed to be in a code. I would need to study it at my leisure.

“Betty, we’ll work on these papers sometime when there isn’t anyone around. I have a feeling you are going to find out more about Jim than you ever did while married to him.”

“I’m sure I will. I’d like to warn all the women out there who are contemplating answering ads for mail order brides to look hard for other alternatives. Buck, you have a good night’s sleep and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I will.” As I was going out the door, I wondered if Betty had slid that chest back over where Jim had hidden his money. She had so I went along to the bunkhouse.

In the morning, I decided to ride through the cattle that we had driven down out of the hills last week. I knew there were some cattle in with them that had different brands. I’d ask in town who they belonged to. I’d inform them to come get them or they could wait until spring round up. I wanted to get a rough count as well. How could a ranch plan having feed enough if you didn’t know how many you had to feed? I didn’t think the ranch was overstocked for the cattle all looked good. I had to decide also how to water them with out dirtying up the pond.

“Betty what are you going to do today?”

“Buck, Sonny is fitting in well here. I think I’ll take him to town and see a lawyer for one thing. Maybe we can be his guardian or something. I also want to ask the lawyer if everything that Jim owned is mine. I think the deed needs to be changed. I don’t know if Jim had a will because I haven’t found one yet.”

“Are you taking the buckboard?”

“No. I’ll ride my horse. Why?”

“Well, ask the liveryman about a gig he told me about. I’m hoping to get you one to ride in for your Christmas present.”

“That would be handy when I get too big to climb on a horse. If the winter gets too bad, there is a dismantled one horse sleigh hanging up on the walls of the barn, I needed it last year, but Jim wouldn’t bother getting it down and putting it together.”

“How did you go to town?”

“Most usually I stayed home and he went. There wasn’t much snow so he used the buckboard and left me here.” I didn’t comment.

I told Sonny that if Betty was going to ride, or drive, it was his chore to saddle her mount or harness the horses. He readily agreed. The men and I saddled up and started through the herd getting a rough count. We were also looking after their condition and anything else that struck us abnormal. We were through the cattle that had come down from the northern part of the ranch and stopped to talk.

“Have you men noticed anything unusual?”

“Yeah Buck, There are a lot less yearling heifers in the herd where there should be more.”

“How about steers?”

“Plenty of yearlings steers, and this years calves, but hardly any yearling heifers.”

“Joe, that’s about what I saw too. Seems like the cows with this years calves are all with older brood cows. That’s as it should be except, what? Many of these aren’t branded, which is normal if Turner didn’t do round up. You’d almost think that the heifers that would be branded in the spring roundup would still be in the herd but there aren’t hardly any. How about the cattle with brands that are not JT Boxed have you seen?”

“Quite a few, but there too, this years bull calves were cut, and those heifer calves are still in the herd. You’d think last year calves would have been still hanging with the mothers. Heifers much the same as ours are missing. We saw steers of that age. This is damned odd why Turner would be selling off his yearling heifers.”

“You men are cattlemen the same as I am. I’m getting an idea of what happened.”

“Buck, you’re thinking rustling, aren’t you? Somebody is just rustling yearling heifers, before they are branded, at roundup.” I nodded and sat there thinking. Making up my mind, I said, “Boys, I’m not far from the road to town. I think I’ll head there and talk to the deputy. I mean we killed one of the John’s men and the deputy killed Johns himself. It might look better with the sheriff if it became known we were dealing with rustlers.”

“Buck, that sounds about right. What do you want us to do?”

“Well, you might go through the rest of the cattle and see if it holds out about the same.”

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I was almost to town when I met Betty and Sonny. She was surprised to see me. “What’s wrong, Buck?”

“Nothing much. I wanted to talk to the deputy, that’s all.”

“You had better do it today. He’s heading for Tommy Johns home town with the bodies tomorrow morning. The town here doesn’t want to foot the bill for burying them. He’s going to inquire around down there about the man and what kind of outfit he ran. The lawyer, John Johnson, I hired wants the deputy to contact Johns’ lawyer, if he has one, about a will to see if there are any known relatives of Sonny. If there aren’t, I can become his guardian.”

“Boy Betty, you’ve been busy. I’ll be along home as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be looking for you.”

I found Sims in his office. “Hey. Buck. I saw your wife awhile ago.”

“I met her on the road. She told me you were going to take the bodies somewhere.”

“Yeah, Mountain Gap. This town doesn’t want to bury them. It’s eighteen miles, but Hell, I like to get out of town occasionally. What’s on your mind?”

“Didn’t know but what you would sniff around down there and find out what you can about the Johns’ outfit. He might be more than the smalltime rustler we took him to be. I went through our herd this morning and there are untold yearling heifers that should be there that are not. I’m not sure, but there are a couple of other brands that have this year’s calves by their side, but none of last years.”

“What’s strange about that?”

“Well I figure last years yearlings would have been branded before this year’s. Say, some of them were hidden from the spring roundup. Understand this is the heifers only. Take one of the other brands running with my herd, There are last year’s steers hanging around with the cow with this year’s calves.”

“I don’t understand the problem.”

“The problem still is the missing yearling heifers. There were none of Turner’s heifers, and none with the other brands, that are in with mine. Somewhere there are a whole lot of heifers, that should have been bred by now and for sale as bred heifers. It could be someone wants to build up a ranch herd the easy way by rustling. If he got them early without a brand, say before spring roundup, he could pretty much slap his brand on them and call them his own.”

“But anyone could steal them at their leisure.”

“Could, but say all these cattle were sold to someone who would pay a premium for unbranded yearlings before they would be found at this falls roundup. Turner decided he wouldn’t roundup this fall and wait for next spring. I saw a bit of Turner’s account book last night but didn’t have time to get into it much. I did see where he said that cattle were sold. I’d say all of his yearling steers are here. So what cattle did he sell in August if it wasn’t the missing heifers?”

“I’m still confused.”

“I can understand that. Think of Turner as the rustler more than Johns buying a few head of cattle for meat. Johns knew Turner was dead and could save some money by picking up a head or two without getting caught. We know because we caught him.”

“Buck, haven’t you got anything to add to make it clearer?”

“Yeah some. The date that Turner sold the cattle was approximately a week before the accident that killed him. He had the money. When we tackled Johns Saturday, he had full-grown steers four years old on ropes. What if he came back, saw we had moved the herd to the flats, didn’t want to get caught with unbranded stock so grabbed three steers. I mean this year’s calves would go all winter unbranded until spring round up and with Turner being dead he could nibble away at the whole herd.”

“What makes you sure Johns would do that?”

“Well, all over the hills on the south end of the ranch are what I would say were branding fire circles.”

“Do you think Turner was in on this?”

“Definitely. I think Johns would pay Turner near top price for yearling heifers and he wouldn’t need to feed and grow them for two or three years. I also think those two other brands on the older cows are some that belong to Turners neighbors. That would be pure profit for Turner if he was selling the neighbor’s critters. That also would make him as much a rustler as Johns was.”

“I guess. So, Buck spell out just what you want me to do?”

“Deputy, now, we are getting somewhere. I want you to find out if Johns has a ranch stocked with mostly heifers for sale. Probably all of them are with calf by now. The age would be right to have them calve in the spring.

“I have no idea what brand they will be under. Probably, one that is registered to Johns. By the time you get back with some information, I’ll have the account book figured out. I’ll even let you be the one to go tell the neighbors that you found some of their cattle that they didn’t know they had lost. That ought to boost your image a little.”

“Buck, I think we should go have a beer.”

“Not yet. I have one other thing for you to look into. Betty talked to a lawyer about being a guardian for Sonny, the boy who was with Johns. He says she can’t be guardian if Johns has another living relative. Would you check to see if Johns has a lawyer and find out if there is a will? You won’t have to go into details, but you are bringing in Johns’ body. Betty would be very happy if you would do that.”

“It might at that. Sure, I guess I could. God, you should hear the townspeople rave about her. They can’t believe they didn’t know her before the other night.”

“Turner kept her under wraps. Honestly, she was abused in more than one way. She lets out a little bit off and on. I’ll know how bad it was eventually. Hey, I think I’ll head home. I’ve been sitting a horse all day except for the time talking with you”

“Alright, I guess I better go to bed early. I’m riding a wagon eighteen miles tomorrow and all I’ll have for company are two dead men.”

“By the time I got back to the ranch, everyone in the bunkhouse was asleep. Betty waited up for me and put out food. “Betty, I’m going to look over that account book for awhile. I’ll be quiet and you can go to bed.”

“No, I’ll sit up with you. Tell me what you talked to the deputy about?”

“Well, what the men and I found when we went through the herd this morning, makes me suspicious that your husband may have been involved with John in some kind of rustling scheme. I don’t know as you would have been aware.”

“Maybe not, but explain.”

“Betty, did Jim keep all of his cows branded even though he didn’t go to roundup this fall.?”

“I’d say yes, he and the men did.”

“How about the spring roundup, you said he went to that?

“Buck, he did, but he did a lot of branding up in the hills before the roundup. The neighboring ranches pretty much rounded up on their own ranches, the same as Jim did here.”

I sat and thought for a few minutes. Then I got up and retrieved the account book I had only had a chance to flip through. Turner had a good hand and easy to read. I looked back to where I had seen he had stated his cattle were sold.

He sold 871 yearlings for 15 dollars a head in September and received $13,065 dollars for them. On the opposite page, he had listed the number 67 with an (O) after it. Under that, he had 40 with an (M) after the number. There was a total of $1,605 and a comment of, “Pure Profit.” So, he had made two sales and I hadn’t caught that when I first looked.

I kept looking and found where he had shipped 742 of four year old steers after the spring round up in a herd made up with his and the neighbors. This a herd of 2,000 some odd head of steers from the three ranches combined. Thinking on this, that made some sense, if he was reducing the amount of cattle he was running.

“Betty, did Turner say anything about reducing his herd?”

“Not to me, he didn’t. I left the cattle to him because I don’t know much about it. I still don’t.” I kept going back through the journal.

Turner’s sales of steers, had increased year to year, but was fairly stable at around 700 head. I did run onto a comment where he said he was sick of ranching. That was just before he had noted he had found a woman from one of the ads he had bought in one of the newspapers. That must be when Betty had answered his ad?

Another comment last March said he was thinking of selling the ranch. “Guess, I like using the houses I used to frequent rather than putting up with a wife. I told her I didn’t want kids and so far no problem there.”

I looked across the table at Betty, “Betty, did Turner want kids. You told me he did.”

“What is he saying?”

“He says here he told you not to get pregnant.”

“Buck, I held true to that until July of this year and then I decided I needed some love in this house. It would have to be a child because there was no love from Jim.”