A Good Day To Kill A Byrnes Family Ranch Western

Book 0: Byrnes Family Ranch Novel

by Dusty Richards

Genres: Action & Adventure; Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

In the thrilling saga from the Western Heritage and Spur Award–winning author, Chet Byrnes stands his ground—with his courage, guns, and blood.
 
For Chet Byrnes, building a ranching empire means adding new land, hiring good men, finding water, and trying new breeds of cattle. But outlaws and Tucson’s idle rich want to take it all away—and Arizona just may be too lawless to stop it. So while the Byrnes family expands its reach, Chet must do his job hunting down outlaws on either side of the border.
 
Chet’s cowboys prove to be tireless fighters, going up against former Mexican military men, a powerful family with bad in their blood. Then Chet takes on the most dangerous risk of all: a bloody, all-out shooting war—with everything to lose, and one last enemy to kill . . .
 
“Dusty takes readers into the real west at full gallop.” —New York Times-bestselling author Jodi Thomas
 
“Dusty Richards writes . . . with the flavor of the real West.” —Elmer Kelton

Release date: February 1, 2015

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

The strong smell of chloroform saturated Chet Byrnes’s nostrils. He decided he must have been held hostage in some never-never land and was coming out with the worst hangover of his entire life. The medicinal smell surrounding him didn’t help soothe his fear that he’d been shipped off to some foreign place, but he strained to regain reality. Both of his fists opened and closed, and he could feel his toes wiggle under the sheet. His feet were still there. He’d been in a dream world for a long time. Whenever he moved, his left shoulder felt on fire, and he could see that bandages covered that side of his body where he’d been shot.

“You alright, señor?”

“Jesus? Yeah, I’m a little dry. How about some water?”

The sight of the tan face of his compadre was a relief to him. Jesus Martinez, along with Cole Emerson, rode everywhere with him, to protect him from the enemies he made as a lawman.

“Certainly. I am so glad you are alive, mi amigo. Your wife is coming.”

“She didn’t need to come, especially in her condition. I’ll be fine.”

“No way we could talk her out of doing that.” The pleasant-faced young man was one of his right arms in the border law enforcement unit he managed for the U.S. Marshal’s office in Tucson. The twenty-year-old youth smiled in the dimly lit room and held a dipper of water toward him.

Half raised up, he sipped from the cool metal cup. After a satisfying couple of swallows, he thanked Jesus and laid back down, shocked at how little strength he had. “Where have I been?”

“In bed, here at the doctor’s house, for several days. They gave you much medicine so you didn’t hurt.”

“You can stop that. I’ve been in a half-world and I wasn’t really sure of anything.”

“You better tell them about the medicine. They won’t listen to me. And we all wanted you alive.”

“Where are all the men now?”

“Roamer, Shawn, and Cole are down on the border checking on a stage robbery. Since you were alive, JD and Ortega Ninni went to check on the squatters and look at some of that ranch land. They took those squatter women more food, too.”

“Good, they only have us to feed them. But we need to get them moved out of there.”

“It would be a long drive by wagon to go down there and move all those women and small children. One wagon couldn’t move them.”

“But it must be done.”

The young man made a pained face. “I can’t believe their men just left them in such a hard place.”

“Me, either. But you took them food and never did learn anything.”

“I think they are Indians of some tribe from deep in Mexico. They don’t speak border Spanish that well.”

Chet agreed, already half-asleep. “No more pain medicine. . . .”

When he woke again, the lovely face of his wife, Marge, looked into his own. He started to raise up.

“Lay there, big man. I’m here. I sent Jesus off to get some sleep.”

His own voice from inside his head sounded so dry. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long. Jenn came with me. She left the two girls to run the café.”

His wife was very big with their baby and seated in the chair next to his bed. But she looked fresh faced even after her long coach ride from Preskitt.

“Everyone in Preskitt said for you to get well.” Jenn, a tall rawboned woman in her forties with thick blond braids wound on her head, smiled, then bent over and kissed his cheek. “You look good, buddy.”

“I feel weak as a pup, but I’ll whip that.”

“My lord, Chet, this town is big, isn’t it?” Jenn asked, and shook her head in amazement.

“Tombstone is still growing.”

“We have a hotel room,” Marge said. “So we’ll be close to you if you need anything. I spoke to your doctor a while ago. He says you’re healing well, but he doesn’t want you moved or that wound jarred for a while.”

He gazed at the copper ceiling tiles. That doctor would soon learn he had things to do that were better for him than to while away in bed on his back. “We’ll see.”

Then he reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’ll be up and running in a few days.”

He didn’t like how she nodded so condescendingly at him. He knew her well enough to know she hadn’t agreed with him. But he’d soon be stronger.

Marge and Jenn took turns sitting with him, and Jesus relieved them part of the time. Lucie, and his sister, Susie, wrote him long letters and they picked on him as well. You are finally getting some rest. Mind your nurses. The letters were cheerful from some great women. Lucie was his nephew Reg’s wife. JD’s brother had married a real cowgirl. After she became pregnant, they decided she should be house bound, but she could out rope any man and did.

Susie had been real close to him throughout their family’s Texas feud that forced him to move them to Arizona. Her first husband was killed in a horse wreck and she married one of his foremen, Sarge Polanski, who operated the monthly ranch cattle drives to the Navajo Agencies over in New Mexico.

The women in his life, including his wife, were due to deliver in the next few months. His nephew, JD, called it an approaching baby diaper occasion.

With each day, he felt himself grow stronger and the pain in his shoulder from the bullet wound became less and less. He was soon walking around the doctor’s house unassisted. Then he strolled around the block with Marge. He felt naked not wearing his Colt, but no one looked dangerous in the residential neighborhood. That first walk was long enough for him and he was glad to return to the house. When they came in sight of the house, he saw two jaded horses at the hitch rail, and that meant some of his men were there.

Seated on the porch waiting for him, JD and Roamer nodded and smiled at the sight of him.

“You two lost?” he asked, pausing before climbing the three steps up on the porch.

“Sort of,” Roamer said with his hat in hand for Marge. “Good to see you, ma’am.”

His twenty-year-old nephew, JD, added the same greeting.

“I’m warning you,” she said. “He can’t ride out with you today.” She smiled and went on inside.

Jesus came out with a straight-back chair for him.

After taking a seat on it, Chet asked, “What’s happening?”

“We’ve located another bunch of bandits hiding in the Mule Shoe Mountains, but there’s a bit of a problem,” Roamer said.

“What’s that?”

“One of them is Old Man Clanton’s nephew. His name is Israel.”

“He isn’t protected by law. Who else? Tell me about the rest of the gang.”

“Mostly Mexican thugs and a few gringos. They held up two stages we know about. Should we call in the Wells Fargo man?” Roamer asked.

Chet nodded. “That’s Dodge. I bet he’d like to be in on it. They pay nice rewards.”

“Damn right,” JD said.

“We’ve stayed out of Old Man Clanton’s way so far,” said Roamer, the freckle-faced, reddish-haired, thirty-year-old deputy sheriff he’d borrowed to help his task force. “I wanted to be sure about this with you. I know the old man has lots of political pull up here.”

“The old man stays in Mexico. But I figured since he supplies so much to the Army and Indian agencies we needed to keep our eye on him. But, yes. Clean them up.”

Roamer looked around. “We better not go look for Dodge. It might make someone suspicious. We need to be very quiet. Wells Fargo pays good for any arrests involved. But we need to slip into the area under cover.”

Chet agreed. “Right. This town is full of informers. Everyone alright?”

“Oh, yes, and we miss you,” JD said. “Any word on that Diablo Ranch deal?”

Chet looked at his nephew and shook his head. “No, I’m going to write Russell, my lawyer in Tucson, a letter and find out.”

Roamer was on his feet. “Well, with that resolved, we’re going to move on this gang.”

“Sorry I can’t attend the church picnic.”

They laughed.

“Is everyone’s wife alright?”

Both men nodded.

“Tell the others I’m thinking of them.”

“You look lots better than the last time I was here,” JD said, and started off the porch.

“You know your mother-in-law is here?”

“Oh, we’ve talked already. She’s a great lady. Bonnie’s doing fine.”

“Good. Keep your heads down.”

The two men left and he stood up. The walk had drained his strength. He went inside to lie on his bed for a while.

“You alright?” Jesus asked, accompanying him.

“I’m fine. They want you to go with them?”

“I told them that I was here for you first.”

“Can you meet them tonight?”

Jesus nodded. “Yes. They told me where to go.”

“Good. I won’t get into any trouble with those two women here. You’d feel better joining them to get those outlaws.”

A relieved smile crossed his man’s face. “Gracias, I would like to be there. I can join them when they gather there.”

“Do that.”

“More trouble?” Marge asked, coming in the room.

“No, just everyday business in this game. Big secret. Tonight, Jesus is going with the team to get those outlaws. He needs to be there. They’ll be stronger with him, and you two can watch after me.”

Marge laughed. “I won’t tell a soul. You be careful, Jesus.”

“I won’t leave until dark.”

“Good. Jenn and I will load our guns then.”

“And,” Chet swung his legs off the bed and fit his feet into felt slippers, “next week, we’re going to Preskitt. It’s getting too damn hot down here.”

“Just like Texas is in the summer,” Marge teased.

“I sold that ranch, dear. No, I want to recover at home. Besides, the baby can be born up there. These men can handle this business for a few weeks. Then I’ll relieve the three married men for them to take a week off.”

“Maybe.” She stood studying him as he started for the facility out back. “You aren’t looking that tough to me.”

He stopped in the doorway and turned. “I will be. Trust me.”

“Alright. I hope you aren’t going too fast.”

“I’m not.”

At sundown, before he left, Jesus came to see him. “See you in a day or so. I am ready to do some real work. Thanks for letting me go.”

“God be with you, pard. Tell the men I’m thinking about all of them.”

“I will.”

Jesus left on horseback and Chet settled back in the rocker. Jenn and Marge joined him a bit after sunset, as the air cooled off.

“Will they get these men?” Jenn asked.

Rocking lightly, he nodded. “They’re some of the greatest lawmen in the territory. They’ve rounded up more felons than any half-dozen county sheriff offices have in the same time. Of course, more bad guys drift this way as the law in Texas and New Mexico tightens the noose on them, so this is the place to go and try to commit crimes.”

“What will Roamer do when this is over?”

“I hope someone puts him to work for them. Maybe I can talk to the Wells Fargo man, Dodge, about hiring him. Roamer doesn’t really want to run a ranch or a business.”

“What about him being chief deputy at home?”

“Sheriff Simms won’t ever make him his chief deputy, because Roamer knows more about the job than Simms does.”

Jenn agreed. “Plus Roamer doesn’t like bookkeeping, and a chief deputy has to do all that for the sheriff.”

“Well, good luck. Now tell us about this Rancho Diablo business,” Marge said.

“That’s what JD calls it.”

“Why?”

“It’s a pretty dry country. Lots of grass and maybe water can be developed on it.”

Marge threw her hands up. “Another ranch that requires a lot of attention. All you need.”

“We’re doing respectable with our other places. If JD will put his shoulder in it, it’ll be a helluva ranch.”

“JD is the least stick-to-it person you have.”

“He acts very serious about his marriage. And he’s not dumb, a little too sarcastic, but he’ll outgrow that. He knows what work is, although he’s avoided it since he and Kay broke up. But since he got here, he’s rode and worked damn hard on this job. Not a man out there that works with him would complain.”

“What was that all about?” Jenn asked. “I never heard the whole story.”

“Kay’s husband was avoiding her and she wanted out of her marriage,” Marge said. “Chet knew her. He danced with her and felt sorry for her. I felt the same. When her husband left, JD took up with her. She needed someone to run the ranch. He was working his backside off down there. Chet offered to help them get going. The place had problems—machinery was broke down—horses were, too. She had a fit. We heard she said they didn’t need any help from anyone. JD left her after that and never said why.”

Jenn nodded. “I knew when he left her.”

“Neither of us knows the details. But he hasn’t been JD since,” Chet said.

“Maybe someday we’ll learn the facts.” Jenn acted satisfied and sat back to rock. “I think my daughter and him can make it together. I deeply hope so. Both of them can get stormy, but if they love each other that will pass like a thunderstorm—lots of noise and then it’s over.”

“Your Bonnie and our JD,” Marge said, shaking her head. “Some matchup. But, I agree, that match will work if they want it to last.”

“Well, big man,” Jenn began. “Has it eaten your guts out yet, not being up in those mountains with your men on this business tomorrow?”

He smiled. “You know it has. But, like I said, they’re the best lawmen around. Before I shut my eyes tonight I’ll pray for God to take care of them.”

Later in the evening in his bed, he shut his eyes and prayed for them . . . since I can’t be there, Lord, take care of them . . . amen.

Seated on the front porch in the rocker in the early morning, Chet heard a horse snorting dirt coming down the street. An hour earlier, the sun had swung up over the Chiricahuas and there was still some coolness in the air. The mine hammer mills were rumbling the ground and the giant pumps roared in the distance. Sounds of shod horse hooves on the caliche street brought him to his feet, and he leaned on a white four-by-four porch post to observe. Roamer, aboard one of his good roan horses, came at a swinging walk in the lead. One by one, he counted them, and his men were all there with their Winchesters resting across their saddle horns, guarding their captives on horseback. Several belly-down corpses strapped across their saddles came behind, led by Shawn.

“They all here?” his wife asked, squeezing his good arm when she joined him.

“Every last one of them. Yes, they did good. Like I said, best damn lawmen in the territory.”

“Well, bust your buttons then,” she said, and laughed.

“Morning, ma’am,” Roamer said, removing his hat for Marge and Jenn who’d joined them by then. “I’m sending a taxi out here for you. We want you at the courthouse when we turn the prisoners over to Behan.”

“You ladies come with him, too.”

He turned back to Chet. “Jesus said they were your new guards.”

They laughed.

“I don’t—” Chet started to protest.

“Yes, you do. Trust me, you don’t need to walk down there. And this posse is your posse. You gathered us and have done a great job teaching us. You’ll be there at the exchange. Israel Clanton is one of those dead. He chose that way himself. That may raise a stink, but he was involved in those two stage robberies and ranch raids.”

“No problem for me. Send the taxi. Send a boy to tell the Epithet and get word to the Wells Fargo man as well. Dodge may be in one of the saloons by this hour. He likes to play poker. Between you and Cole, send Marshal Blevins in Tucson a telegram about this at once. We can all meet at the Cochise County Jail by then.”

“Now you’re talking, boss man,” Cole shouted.

A cheer from the rest of the men followed his words, and they and their prisoners rode on down the street.

Marge kissed him. “Did you see Jesus’s face? You did well to send him with them. He’s sure part of your Force.”

“Oh, yes. Ladies, get ready. We’re having a public gathering down there. Behan will be wearing his best suit accepting them. How many outlaws were there?”

“I counted four dead and the same alive,” Jenn said.

“Those boys have earned four thousand dollars right there, plus the outlaws’ horses, gear, and guns. There may be other rewards as well.”

“Wow, they’ll be well off when this is over,” Marge said.

“It’s counting up. Let me get some better clothes on.”

“Yes, you need to do that. But don’t you overdo things today.”

“I won’t.”

“You heard him, Jenn—‘I won’t’?”

“Hey, this will be fun. I have never been to one of these things before. Oh, Marge, he’ll be fine,” Jenn said to his worried wife.

“Keep telling her that. Keep telling her that,” Chet said, going inside.

When the taxi man came by, both women had on new dresses and straw hats to shade their faces. Chet wore a brown suit coat, pressed pants, and his dusted off hat. He also wore his six-gun for the first time. Not that he figured he’d need it, but it felt better strapped on than without it.

When they reached the courthouse, a crowd had already gathered around his men and their captives. A funeral home hearse parked close by was, no doubt, there for the bodies. The Wells Fargo representative was a burly man in a tan suit—fortyish, and his name was Tom Dodge. At first, Chet couldn’t recall his given name—but he did when he saw his face and was satisfied that the man would handle getting the rewards for his men.

No sign of Behan. Chet helped the women down and they moved to the boardwalk to stand aside. In irons, the four live gang members sat on their butts in the dirt. The dead ones rested on the ground in a row. A photographer was there taking photos of them. A puff of smoke and a flash and he would have a negative to print, a grim picture of the dead outlaws with their arms folded on their chest and their eyelids closed.

Chet wondered which one was Clanton’s kin. The blond curly-headed one must be him; the others were Mexicans. He didn’t know any of the men seated in the dust. Roamer brought him a paper with their names on it.

“That’s who they are.”

“Thanks. Is Behan coming?” Chet glanced around for him.

“They sent for him.”

“Good.” Chet felt put out that Sheriff Behan was late, but Dodge did join him and shook his hand.

“Great work. You’re healing?”

“Yes, I’m doing fine. They brought in a large part of the outlaws operating around here.”

“Yes. Your men have quite a stack of rewards coming.”

“My men get that money. They’re the ones taking the risks.”

“Oh, yeah, I know, but I’d say you took a big one in the shoulder getting the last bunch.” Dodge scowled at him as if still concerned about him.

“Part of the job. This is my wife, Marge, and our friend, Jenn Allen, from Preskitt.”

He swept off his hat. “My pleasure, ladies. I understand you two came down here to take care of him.”

“He says he’s about well,” Marge said.

“Well, he does look better than when I first saw him last week.”

About that time, the sheriff made a grand entry. “Well, ladies. What a bright glorious morning to be in Tombstone. Nice to have you here. And may I have your names?”

They introduced themselves and he turned to Chet. “What a lovely wife you have.”

“Yes, I am blessed. But I need to get our business concluded so I can take her home. Here’s a list of the outlaws my men apprehended in the Mule Shoe Mountains last night. They robbed two stages and made various raids on small ranches that my men will elaborate on for you.”

“Is that dead boy Israel Clanton?”

“Yes, he was part of this gang and involved in the crimes that the gang committed. He could have surrendered last night. He didn’t.”

“Oh, such a waste. Has his mother been notified?”

“No. I guess she can read about it in the paper.”

“His mother is Iris Clanton. She’s a sister-in-law to the old man.”

“Behan, these men are to be held not only on these charges, but others that will surface now that they have been captured by order of the federal court. I expect you to keep them here in your jail.”

“Why, of course.”

“Several men have walked out of this jail because a cell door was not locked. Be damn sure they’re all locked in, and that’s an order from a federal officer.”

“Of course. My deputies will jail them. I need to go tell that poor boy’s mother about her son’s death. Excuse me?”

Behan left.

A deep voice cut the air. “You tell him something bad?”

Chet turned and shook hands with the Earp brother he liked so well. “How are you, Virgil?”

“Better than you are.” He chuckled deep in his throat. “Glad you’re recovering. I meant to drop by but got busy. I see your bunch has got another gang rounded up.”

“They did well. Now if the sheriff can contain them.”

“When I walked up, I heard you set him straight there. He will have to, after that.”

“Is Iris Clanton pretty?”

Virgil shook his head. “But she does have some money.”

“Behan sounded upset she had not been notified.”

“Between you and me”—he dropped his voice to a whisper—“that might be worth a toss in the hay for him.”

Chet agreed and thanked him. Virgil smiled, winked at him, and shook his hand to leave.

“Have a nice day, ladies.” Earp tipped his hat to them.

Dodge was talking to the news reporter—good, that should suffice his part. They tossed the outlaws’ bodies in the hearse like cordwood. He reckoned the county would pay the usual seven dollars and fifty cents for burying them in Boot Hill, but the Clanton boy, no doubt, would have a funeral. The funeral home would make some money on his services.

“Ready, ladies?”

“Yes, we are,” Marge said. They held their hems out of the dust and headed for the taxi.

Still talking to the reporter, Dodge waved to him. “I’ll be by later to talk to you, Byrnes.”

“Me, too,” Roamer said, and smiled.

He acknowledged both of them and climbed in the taxi for the ride back. Seated beside his wife, she asked, “Did that wear you out?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Tell me about this Dodge,” Jenn said. “Is he married?”

“Not that I know about. They say he has a good-paying job.”

She sat back, facing them, with her arms folded and a smug set on her lips. “I want to meet him.”

“You have a deal, my friend.”

“You know those two girls have husbands now. I don’t have to slave in that café anymore to make work for them two if—well, if I had a good man to support me.”

“It might work, Jenn,” Marge said with a grin.

“Best thing is what Marshal Virgil Earp told me. The big man who came by to talk to me,” said Chet.

“Yes, we figured he was law, too.” Both women agreed with nods to each other.

“Virgil is a town marshal. Behan had a real problem with me that Israel Clanton’s mother had not been notified of his death.”

“We saw the hassle he gave you.”

“Anyway, I asked Virgil about Behan being so anxious to notify Mrs. Clanton about her son’s death. He said the information might be worth a toss in the hay with her.”

The women shook their heads in disapproval and then laughed.

“Behan is a real peacock,” Marge said, and Jenn agreed.

Chet had made some plans he intended to tell them about later. He wanted to go home, rest some at the ranch, and in two weeks go back to Tubac to let some of his married men run home for a week. That should work.

Back at the Doc’s house, he sent word by messenger to Dodge to meet the three of them at Nellie Cashman’s Restaurant for supper at six thirty. Jenn smiled, pleased, when he told her his plans. Marge agreed. Blevins’s telegram came after the light lunch the women fixed.

Later that afternoon, they took a taxi downtown to supper. Tombstone’s boardwalks were loaded with prostitutes, drunks, filthy dust-coated miners, and muleskinners. It was no place for his two ladies to tramp through to get to supper.

He told the taxi man to be back around eight thirty to take them home. The man agreed, and he told him he’d pay him then for both ways.

They had not heard from Dodge before they left the house, but, all dressed up, he met them in the lobby. He was very attentive to both women, and they were shown to their table. Chet had a notion the tall blond-headed Jenn had intrigued him some. This could be interesting.

The evening went fine and the two of them—Jenn and Dodge—were talking almost in private the last half of the meal. Dodge finally pulled himself away a little from her to tell them, “I plan to be in Preskitt in a week. I have some work to do up there.”

“You must stay at our house,” Marge said.

“The company pays all my expenses. I’ll take a room at the hotel.”

“Then you must come out to the ranch one evening and have supper with us. I can send my driver, and Jenn can tell you all about the countryside coming out there.”

“What do you think of that?” Dodge asked Jenn.

“Sounds like I have already been appointed as your tour guide.”

“Wonderful. I accept.”

Chet had to admit, though Jenn was a rather buxom lady, she still had lots of appeal. The fire had been lit. Might work. He sure hoped so. Onward, he must go. It would sure be good to smell those pines up there again. And be home.

Marshal Blevins arrived in Tombstone the next day by stage. They met on the porch and spoke in low voices. “I know you knew that Clanton boy who was killed was the old man’s nephew. And when we delivered them, Behan complained that we hadn’t notified his mother.”

Blevins nodded. “You know the old man has lots of political sway in the territory.”

“I have no doubt. Are you telling me we have to step around him?”

“No.”

“Good, ’cause I was about to tell you to stick this job in your ass. I haven’t challenged him, because he was in Mexico. But I have some good information that the Skeleton Canyon murders and robbery were carried off by his men. If I had a worthy witness, I’d press it.”

“I have to warn you, there will be some public complaints coming forth over these arrests.”

“Let them come. Those men we arrested were stage robbers and had raided several small ranchers to rape and rob folks.”

“Easy, easy, Chet. I came to tell you what I expected.”

“Words won’t kill me.”

“Good. I’m proud of your success. I’m certain it will blow over.”

“Tell me, who is this that thinks our efforts weren’t right?”

“Oh, I. . .