A Lone Star Christmas

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

As Matt, Tom, Mo, and Dalton left the restaurant to take in the sights of the town, Duff, Falcon, Smoke and Sally, and Clay and Maria continued to visit over coffee around the dining table.

“I hope they do not get into any trouble,” Maria said. “Dalton is ...”

“The boss’s son,” Clay interrupted.

“Sí. But he is also—how do you say—persona enredadora?”

“Mischief maker,” Clay translated for her.

“Sí, mischief maker. Evil, no. Mischief, yes.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Clay said. “Tom will look out for him.”

“Tell me,” Dusty asked. “How is it that you fellas managed to avoid the great freeze and die-out?”

“I didn’t avoid it,” Smoke said. “Like all the other ranchers around me, I lost a lot of cows. That’s why I’m running Angus now. I had to replace my herd anyway, so I figured, why not? I knew that Duff was running Black Angus and had avoided the freeze out, so I got in contact with him and I did the same thing that Big Ben is doing now. I got some cows from Duff.”

“What kept you from freezing out?” Clay asked.

“My ranch, Sky Meadow, is in the Chugwater Valley,” Duff explained. “I am surrounded by mountain ranges that protect me from the worst of winter’s blows. I was very fortunate. While everyone else was losing cattle, my herd was increasing.”

“Why did Big Ben decide to get into Angus?” Smoke asked. “I know there was no big freeze-out down in Texas.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know how he got interested in Angus. After the price on Longhorns crashed, I thought for sure he would switch over to Herefords as all the ranchers are. But he’s been reading a lot about them lately,” Clay said. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if he chose Angus because he would be the only one in Tarrant County raising them. Big Ben is nothing if he is not a trailblazer.”

All the time they had been talking, Falcon had been studying Dusty McNally.

“Dusty McNally,” Falcon finally said. “Haven’t you and I met before?”

“You’ve got a good memory,” Dusty said. “Easy enough for me to remember you, you’re a famous man and you don’t forget meeting famous men. But I’m not famous, so I don’t know how it is that you remember me.”

“It was in Tombstone, wasn’t it?”

Dusty smiled. “Yes, sir, it was.”

“It was outside the Bird Cage Theater. As I recall, you put a load of buckshot into the belly of a man by the name of Otis Jefferson, as Jefferson was about to shoot me in the back.”

Dusty smiled. “Yes, sir, I did do that,” he said.

“It’s not hard to remember someone who once saved your life,” Falcon said. “I’m glad that you will be with us.”

The men continued their discussion over cigars, and in order to avoid the cigar smoke, Sally and Maria excused themselves. They walked out into the lobby, then found two large overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace.

“Oh, I’m glad you suggested we leave,” Maria said. “The cigar smoke was beginning to make me nauseous.”

“Is that the only thing that was making you nauseous?” Sally asked.

“What do you mean?”

Sally smiled, and leaned a bit closer to Maria. “Maria, are you pregnant?”

“Why do you ask that?” Maria asked, anxiously.

“Let’s just say that it is something I suspect, woman to woman. No, let me adjust that. It isn’t something I suspect, it is something I know. You are pregnant, aren’t you?”

Maria blushed, then looked around. “Yes,” she said. “But Clay and I have told no one.”

“When are you due?”

“In January, I think.”

“You are due in January, and you came on this drive? Maria, have you ever been on a cattle drive before? They are not easy. I find it hard to believe that Clay would let you come along, this close to delivery.”

“I begged him to bring me,” Maria said. “I did not want to take the chance of having this baby at home without him there. He thinks the baby is not due until February. Please do not tell him otherwise.”

“Maria, I know you are young and this is all very frightening to you,” Sally said. “But it was a very foolish thing for you to do. You have no business being here.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Maria replied. “Yes, I am sure you are right. So, I will go back home now. I will leave tomorrow.”

Sally laughed. “You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?”

“Si, Senora,” Maria said.

“I believe Clay said you had come along to cook,” Sally said.

“Si. I cook and I drive the chuck wagon.”

“Then this is what we will do. On the way down to Texas I will drive the chuck wagon and I will cook,” Sally offered.

“Please, I do want to pull my own weight,” Maria said.

“As long as the weight you pull does no harm to you or the baby,” Sally promised.

“You are a good woman, Senora Jensen.”

“My name is Sally.”

“You are a good woman, Sally,” Maria corrected with a broad smile.

“And we won’t tell anyone else that you are pregnant,” Sally said. “But Maria, you must promise me, at the first pain, at the very first sign of trouble of any kind, you will tell me immediately.”

“I will.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Si, Sally, it is a promise.”

Rebecca had intended to return to Fort Worth right after Janie died, but when she came to tell Oscar, he was so inconsolable with grief that she decided she would stay just a little longer. And because she was still in Dodge, she was still working at the Lucky Chance Saloon.

Tonight, she was walking through the saloon, stopping at the various tables to chat with the customers.

“Becca, I want you to know how sorry all of us are about your Mama dying,” one of the customers said. “She was a good woman.”

Rebecca put her hand on the customer’s shoulder. “Thank you, Lonnie,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

Other customers were expressing their own condolences from time to time, but Rebecca, knowing that she had to change the mood—for Oscar if for no other reason—began smiling and joking with the customers until soon the mood had lifted.

Frank Lovejoy was at one of the tables, and as Rebecca stepped up to that table, smiling at the men there, Lovejoy unexpectedly stuck his hand up under her skirt then reached all the way up to grab her by the backside.

“You’re right, Doyle,” Lovejoy said. “It does feel just like Asa’s bald head.”

Doyle and the other men at the table laughed.

“Stop that!” Rebecca said loudly, stepping away from the table as quickly as she could.

“Look who is getting all huffy now,” Lovejoy said.

“Mr. Lovejoy, you got no right grabbing her like that,” Candy said. “She’s not like the rest of us.”

“The hell she ain’t. Ever’ body knows it’s only going to be a matter of time until she starts whorin’ just like her mama did,” Lovejoy said. He looked back at Rebecca. “Honey, if you’d let ole’ Frank be first, I could show you what it’s supposed to be like.”

“Hell, Frank,” Doyle said. “What makes you think you would be first?”

Again the men at the table laughed.

With her cheeks burning, Rebecca retreated to the bar and she stood there with her back to the bar, looking at the table where Lovejoy and the others were engaged in animated conversation interspersed with ribald laughter.

“Are you all right?” Stan asked. Stan was the bartender.

“I can’t believe he would do something like that and not one person at that table would say a thing to him,” Rebecca said.

“Why, Miss Becca, I’m sure you know how it is. All those men work out at Back Trail for Frank’s father. They aren’t going to say anything against him. Too bad Frank isn’t more like his brother.”

“I don’t care if his father has all the money in the world, that doesn’t give him the right to act like a lout. Well, I just won’t make the mistake of going near him again.”

“Miss Becca,” Lonnie called. “How about if you come over here and play a game of poker with us.”

“All right,” she said. “But no crying if I win.”

There were sixteen saloons in Dodge City, and because Mo and Dalton had announced their intention to visit every one of them, Matt and Tom had no choice but to follow along. The two older men were being very restrained with their drinking, but Mo and Dalton were not, and by the time they stepped into the Lucky Chance, which was only their fifth saloon of the night, Mo and Dalton were already unsteady on their feet.

“Whoa, hold it there, partner,” Matt said, reaching out to grab hold of Dalton to keep him from falling when they pushed in through the bat-wing doors.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been durnk,” Dalton said.

“Durnk?” Mo said, and he laughed. “Are you durnk?”

“I guess I am a little,” Dalton said. “You won’t tell Pa I got durnk—uh—drunk, will you?” Dalton laughed. “I said durnk, didn’t I? I said durnk and I meant to say... ,” Dalton stopped in mid-sentence and stared at one of the tables in the middle of the room. It wasn’t the table that got his attention as much as it was the woman sitting at the table.

“What the hell?” Dalton asked. He started across the room toward the table.

“What is it?” Matt asked. “What has he seen?”

“It isn’t what, it’s who,” Tom said.

Tom watched as Dalton approached Rebecca. He could not have been more shocked if he had seen his own mother sitting at that table. What was Rebecca doing here? He knew that she had run away from home to avoid him. But was becoming a prostitute in a place like this really the answer?

He had never heard the exact reason why Rebecca left, he knew only that it had come on the same night that he had told her that he couldn’t love her. What an idiot he had been not to have accepted the love she had so innocently given. He did love her, he loved her as he thought he would never be able to love anyone again after Martha, but he had spurned her. Had he driven her to this? Even in the gaudy dress she was wearing now, she was beautiful. But what had she done to her hair? It was much shorter than he remembered.

Tom stepped up to the bar and ordered a whiskey, whereas at the other saloons he had been drinking only beer.

“Who is that woman?” Matt asked. “What’s this all about?”

“That woman is his sister,” Tom said as he tossed the whiskey down.

“Rebecca!” Dalton said, shouting the word so loudly that it stopped most of the other conversation in the saloon.

Recognizing Dalton’s voice, Rebecca gasped, then turned around. “Dalton! What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” Dalton replied.

“Please, Dalton, it’s not what you think,” Rebecca said.

“It’s not what I think? What am I supposed to think when I see my sister in a place like this—dressed,” he held his hand out then made a dismissive move with it, “like you are dressed.”

“Sonny, you need to go on about your business and let her be,” Lovejoy said, standing then. “Your sister is a whore, and she don’t need your interference.”

“I am not a whore!” Rebecca said, resolutely.

Lovejoy walked over to Rebecca and put his arm around her, pulling her up against his side as he faced Dalton. “Go on, Sonny. Can’t you see you aren’t wanted here?” Lovejoy asked.

“Let me go!” Rebecca said, twisting away from him. Lovejoy reached for her again, but this time Dalton stepped up to him and pushed him away.

“Leave my sister alone!” he said.

“Well, now,” Lovejoy said. He smiled, but rather than displaying joy or humor, the smile merely stretched his lips and tightened the skin on his face so that it looked just like the skull, in the black “Jolly Roger” flag that pirates once flew.

“You’ve sort of moved this one up a peg or two, haven’t you, sonny? If you had just gone on and minded your own business like I told you to, nothing more would have happened. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? Well, I see that you are wearing a gun. How about we settle this now? Draw.”

“What?” Dalton asked. “Are you crazy? What do you mean, draw? I’m not getting into a gunfight with you.”

“You already have, and I’m goin’ to kill you for it,” Lovejoy said. “Draw.”

“If you want my friend you’re going to have to come through me!” Mo shouted.

Without another word, or even the hint that he had heard Mo, Lovejoy drew his pistol. Mo was quick, and he prided himself on his fast draw and marksmanship, but his reflexes had been greatly slowed by the whiskey, and he hadn’t expected Lovejoy to draw against him without the slightest recognition. By the time he realized Lovejoy was drawing, it was too late. To Mo it looked as if his pistol had just magically appeared in his hand. Mo managed to draw his pistol, but not fast enough. Reflexively, he pulled the trigger on his own pistol, firing a slug into the floor, even as he was falling face down.

“Mo!” Dalton and Rebecca yelled at the same time. Dalton started toward his fallen friend, but Lovejoy called out to him.

“Hold it right there, Sonny,” Lovejoy said. His pistol was back in his holster. “Your friend had his chance.”

“He wasn’t just my friend,” Dalton said with tears streaming down his face. “He was my brother.”

“Yeah? Well, then when you get to hell, you can tell him that Frank Lovejoy said hello. ’Cause now it’s your turn.”

Rebecca stepped in front of Dalton and held her arms out, facing Lovejoy.

“If you shoot him, you are going to have to shoot me first,” she said.

“Well, hell, honey. Shootin’ you ain’t goin’ to be all that hard to do. It’s not like if I don’t shoot you, you are goin’ to warm my bed. You’ve already let me know how you feel. But me and your brother have some unfinished business, so either you step out of the way, or I’ll come through you to get to him.”

Tom started toward Lovejoy, but Matt reached out toward him and pulled him back.

“No, Tom, wait,” Matt said.

“I’m not going to just stand here and watch him kill the woman I love,” Tom said with quiet anger.

Matt reached down and snatched Tom’s pistol from its holster.

“What are you doing?” Tom asked, angrily.

“Let me take care of this,” Matt said. “I expect I’ve had more experience.”

“I’m not going to tell you again, Becca. Get out of the way,” Lovejoy said.

“Lovejoy!” Matt called.

“Who the hell are you?” Lovejoy asked.

“Let’s say I’m a friend to the boy,” Matt said. “And I was a friend to the man you killed.”

“And so now, like the avenging angel, you want to take me on,” Lovejoy said. “Is that it?”

“Something like that,” Matt said.

Lovejoy didn’t call the move. Instead, just as he had done with Mo, he made a lightning draw. Only now, by the time Lovejoy’s pistol cleared the holster, Matt’s gun was already in his hand, and a little finger of flame erupted from the end of the barrel.

Matt’s bullet hit Lovejoy in the heart, giving him just enough time before he died to register his shock over having been beaten in a gunfight by a simple cowboy.

Lovejoy wasn’t the only one awestruck. Nearly everyone in the saloon had seen Lovejoy in action before. They were convinced that there was no one alive who could beat him, and yet they had just seen it done.

Before the smoke cleared, Sheriff Hamilton Bell was pushing through the front door with pistol in hand. Seeing two men lying on the floor, one of them Lovejoy, he used the barrel of his pistol to push his hat back on his head.

“What happened here?” he asked.

Everyone began to talk and shout at once.

“Hold it, hold it!” Bell said. “One at a time.” He pointed to Rebecca. “Becca, did you see this?”

“Yes,” Rebecca said in a small, choked voice.

“Tell me what happened.”

Rebecca described the events in detail, then Bell looked over at Matt and Dalton.

“What’s your name, Mister?”

“Jensen. Matt Jensen.”

“I’ll be damn. I’ve heard of you, Mr. Jensen. I reckon if there was anyone who could beat Lovejoy in a fair fight, it would be you. And I’ve never heard anything that would make me think any the worse of you, so I’m inclined to believe the young lady’s report. But just to keep things on the up and up, I’d like to hold a hearing tomorrow morning. Can I have your word that you will be there?”

“I’ll be there,” Matt promised.

During the entire conversation among the deputy, the witnesses, and the man who had actually shot Frank Lovejoy, Rebecca had been aware of Tom’s eyes on her. What did she see in those eyes? Hurt? Anger? Hate? For a moment she was confused by his reaction, then in a moment of clarity she knew exactly what it was.

Frank Lovejoy had called her a whore, and being here, in this place, dressed as she was, interacting with the customers, how could it appear any other way? Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears, and she turned her face away. How could this have happened? How? She saw Dalton standing over Mo’s body, looking down at him, and saw that, like her, he was crying. And she knew at that moment that she was responsible for Mo’s death!

Oh, God help me, the thought. How did I get myself into such a mess?

“Dalton, I’m sorry about Mo,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Mo was my best friend,” Dalton said.

“I know he was, sweetheart. And, it’s my fault that he is dead. It is all my fault.”

Rebecca was sure that Dalton was going to turn on her, and he had every right to do so. But he didn’t.

“Don’t be ridiculous, it wasn’t your fault,” Dalton said. “It just—it just happened, that’s all.”

“How did you find me? How did you know I was here?”

Dalton shook his head. “I didn’t know you were here. We came here to buy a herd of special cattle, and when we came into the saloon, here you were.”

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “Here I am.”

“Come on, sis, we’re getting out of here,” Dalton said.

“No,” Rebecca said, shaking her head.

“Rebecca, I’m not taking no for an answer,” Dalton said, showing more maturity and strength than she had ever seen him exhibit before.

“Dalton, I ...”

“Clay and Dusty are here. So is Maria. You are coming with us,” Dalton said.

Rebecca knew that Dalton was right, and she knew, too, that more than anything she wanted to leave this place, once and for all.

She looked over at Tom again, but this time he looked away.

The Dodge House

Clay and the others, having finished dinner, were now sitting in the lobby near the big fireplace, enjoying the warmth as they continued the conversations they had started in the dining room. Dusty is the one who saw her first.

“I’ll be damned,” Dusty said. Then, with a quick nod of his head to Maria and Sally, he apologized. “Excuse the language, ladies, but I never expected to see her here.”

“Who?” Clay asked, turning in his seat to look toward the front door. He saw Tom, Dalton, Matt, and Rebecca coming in. He was so surprised to see Rebecca that he didn’t even notice, right away, that Mo wasn’t with them.

“Rebecca!” Clay said, standing as she came toward them. The other men stood as well. That was when they noticed that Rebecca was crying. Dalton’s eyes were also red. Seeing both of them crying preempted what would normally have been a question as to what she was doing here in Dodge City.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why are you crying?”

“It’s Mo,” Rebecca replied in a choked voice.

“Mo?” Clay noticed then that Mo was not with them. “What about Mo? Where is he?”

“Mo is dead, Clay,” Tom said. “He was killed by a man named Frank Lovejoy.”

“Lovejoy? Wait, I’ve heard that name. He’s a big rancher up here, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Dusty said. “We had a run-in with him a couple of years ago, if you remember. He wasn’t going to let any Texas cows come into Dodge because of the Texas fever, even though there weren’t any cases that year.”

“It wasn’t him, it was his son,” Rebecca said.

“Well where is Lovejoy now? Has he been arrested?”

“Better than that,” Dalton said. “He’s been killed. Matt killed him.”

“Are you in trouble, Matt?” Smoke asked.

“Not exactly,” Matt replied.

“What do you mean, not exactly?”

“The sheriff does want to hold a hearing tomorrow. I promised him I would be there.”

“It’s all right,” Dalton said. “Lovejoy drew first, and everyone in the saloon saw it.”

“What happened?” Clay asked. “What I mean is, how did this fracas get started in the first place?”

“It was all my fault,” Rebecca said. “Lovejoy tried to force himself on me, Dalton pushed him away, and Lovejoy started demanding that Dalton draw his gun. When he saw what was happening, Mo came over and Lovejoy drew on him and shot him without so much as a fare-thee-well.”

“Where is Mo, now?”

“The undertaker called for him,” Tom said.

“I expect I had better get my coat on, then go down there and make the arrangements,” Clay said.

“Clay?” Rebecca said, calling to Clay as he started toward the stairs to go up to his room.

Clay stopped and turned toward her.

“I would like to go back home with you,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Clay said. “I expect your Pa is going to be real pleased about that.”

“Rebecca,” Maria said, going to her and embracing her. “Let me introduce you to a good friend.”

Maria introduced Rebecca to Sally Jensen, and then to Smoke, Falcon, and Duff.

As Dalton began to elaborate on the events of the night to Clay, Dusty, Smoke, Falcon, and Duff, Tom leaned up against the marble fireplace with his arms folded across his chest.

He watched Rebecca as she conversed easily with Maria and the others, trying to get out of his mind the thought of that beautiful body pressed up against his.

And how many others, since she came up here?

Back Trail Ranch, Ford County, Kansas

“Boss? Boss?” Doyle was in Seth Lovejoy’s bedroom, shaking him awake.

Lovejoy woke up, and startled to see Doyle in his bedroom, sat up quickly.

“What the hell? What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“Sorry, Boss, but I got some bad news for you.”

“Bad news? What kind of bad news?”

“Maybe you better come outside. We’ve got him lyin’ on your front porch.”

“You’ve got who lying on my front porch?”

“Frank, Mr. Lovejoy. He got hisself shot tonight. He’s dead.”

Still in his nightgown, Lovejoy pulled on his boots, then put on his coat and hurried out onto the front porch. Frank was lying on the porch. Someone had folded his arms across his chest.

“The undertaker wanted him, but we figured you’d rather see him first,” Doyle said.

“What happened?” Seth asked in a choked voice.

“It was some cowboy by the name of Matt Jensen,” Doyle said. “Ain’t none of us ever seen him before. He drawed on Frank and kilt him when Frank wasn’t expecting it.”

“Where is Jensen now?”

“I don’t know exactly where he is now, but tomorrow mornin’, Sheriff Bell is holdin’ a hearing, and this fella Jensen promised the sheriff that he will be there then.”

“I want you to make sure that we have that hearing packed with people who will tell the same story you just told me.”

“Yes, sir, well, ever’one who was sittin’ at the table with us will tell that story,” Doyle said. “We’ve done discussed it.”

“What about anyone else in the saloon?”

Doyle cleared his throat. “Well, sir, here’s the thing. It could be that the others didn’t see it exactly like we seen it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Seth Lovejoy said. “We need to make sure that our story is told. Morrell?”

“Yeah, Boss?”

“I want you to go back in town, and take at least ten men with you. You’ll find all the building materials you need at my building and lumber store. I want you to build something for me, tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. It has to be finished before the hearing starts tomorrow.”

“All right, what do you want built?”

“I’ll tell you when you have your men together,” Lovejoy said.

The Dodge House

“I know you are planning on starting the drive tomorrow,” Matt said. “So you can go ahead if you want to. If I get through this hearing all right, I’ll catch up with you.”

“We won’t be going tomorrow because we need to see to burying Mo. Also, I need to send a telegram to Big Ben to tell him what happened. But, what do you mean if you get through the hearing all right?” Clay asked. “You said the sheriff believed you, didn’t you? And didn’t all the others in the saloon back you up?”

“Yes,” Matt said.

“Don’t worry, Matt. We aren’t going to leave until this is resolved.”