Stampede

Book 3: Rocking R Ranch Western

by Tim Washburn

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Historical Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

One of the biggest land grabs in America’s history sets off a powderkeg of trouble for the Ridgeway family ranch—and ignites a deadly new fight for the fate of the nation.

THE OKLAHOMA LAND RUSH

At high noon on April 22, 1889, the US government offered up two million acres of free land to anyone brave enough to take it—first come, first served. The fact that it was in the heart of Indian Territory didn’t stop thousands of would-be settlers from trying to stake a claim. For them, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. But for the Ridgeway family—and the native tribes of the region—it’s a disaster waiting to happen. On top of warding off cattle rustlers, they now have to compete for everything they have just to hold their ground. Together they will face every battle head-on to keep their dream alive …

History would call it the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. But the Ridgeways—and thousands like them—would call it their last stand for justice, and a place to call home.

Release date: November 30, 2021

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

After a recent rash of cattle rustling at the Rocking R Ranch, Percy Ridgeway was aiming to put an end to it and if that meant a necktie party for the rustlers then so be it. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d administered some frontier justice and, deep down, he knew it probably wouldn’t be the last, either. Up before the roosters had even thought about crowing, he had rousted his son Chauncey and his brother-in-law Leander Hays out of their beds and after checking their weapons and saddling their horses they had departed shortly before daybreak. And it hadn’t taken long for them to catch their first break when they had found a cut fence and the rustlers’ trail.

Now midmorning, Percy was continuing to push the pace, having already covered nearly fifteen miles. Speed was essential if they were going to recover the six stolen steers before the rustlers could alter the brand or worse, slaughter them. Although the number of stolen cattle represented a tiny fraction of the Ridgeways’ enormous herd, Percy was a stickler for details, and he knew if he let one group get away with stealing cattle then the floodgates would be opened.

Fending off rustlers wasn’t a new problem for Percy and the rest of the crew on the Rocking R Ranch. The reasons were many, but the overriding problem was the ranch’s location. Situated hard against the Red River in northwest Texas, most of the problems stemmed from what was on the other side of that muddy stretch of water––Indian Territory. Dubbed the most dangerous place in the country, the Territory offered refuge to some of the most wicked and vile people to ever walk the earth. It was infested with killers, robbers, rapists, and thieves, a majority of whom had no legal right to be there. Those lands were reserved for the indigenous people who had been rooted out of their ancestral homes, making Indian Territory the endpoint of all the many Trails of Tears. So, in addition to the other two-legged vermin inhabiting those lands, there were thousands of Indians from dozens of different tribes, many of whom were only a generation or two removed from raping and killing at will.

Hitting a patch of rocky ground, Percy slowed his horse to a walk and the other two matched him as they tried to parse out the trail. Although they had covered a lot of ground, they wouldn’t officially leave ranch property until they crossed Holliday Creek, a little over a mile away. When you owned a ranch that sprawled across sixty-four thousand acres, long days in the saddle were the norm.

Leander Hays took off his Stetson, pulled a faded red paisley bandanna from his back pocket, and mopped his face. “If them rustlers had been smart, they’d have stitched the fence back together. We wouldn’ta been none the wiser till somebody made a count.”

“How many smart rustlers you met?” Chauncey asked, pulling his tobacco and rolling papers from his shirt pocket.

“Good point,” Leander said, stuffing the bandanna back into his pocket. A former Texas Ranger, he had hung or arrested more than a few cattle rustlers in his time. He scanned the ground as he rode, and they eventually picked up the trail again. “Where do you think they’re headed, Percy?”

“No idea,” Percy said. “I’m just glad they didn’t head north for once.” Having been on the trail for hours they now knew two things––they were after three men and they were headed east.

Once Chauncey had his cigarette rolled to his liking, he lit up and the three men rode in silence for a while. The trail eventually led them to a log house perched on a ridge overlooking the Little Wichita River, and Percy called a halt forty yards out. After nudging their horses into the trees, they climbed down to survey the scene.

“Don’t see no steers,” Leander said.

“Could be holed up in the timber somewhere,” Chauncey said. “Same with their horses.”

“Don’t make no sense, though,” Leander said.

“Why’s that?” Percy asked.

Leander pointed at the log house and said, “I just don’t see ’em hangin’ around knowin’ somebody was gonna come lookin’ for them stolen steers.”

Percy wrapped the mare’s reins around the limb of a blackjack and said, “Guess we ain’t gonna know until we go for a look-see.”

Leander and Chauncey tied off their horses and the three men worked their way through the trees for a closer look. The timber petered out about twenty yards short of the house, so they squatted down behind the trunk of a large cottonwood and spent several minutes watching and listening. It was obvious the house hadn’t been there long, the cut end of the logs still oozing sap. Although the house wasn’t very big, it did have a nice view of the river.

Chauncey pulled out one of his two Colts and slipped a cartridge into the empty chamber. “How you wanna play it, Pa?”

“You two stay here,” Percy said, “and I’ll work my way around to the other side to make sure there ain’t no surprises.”

Chauncey reholstered that pistol, pulled out the second one, and repeated what he’d done with the first. He had worn a two-gun rig since the age of seventeen and Percy knew his son’s revolvers had put more than one man in the ground.

“Place looks empty to me,” Leander said.

Percy looked at Leander and said, “You got a better plan?”

“Save a lot of time if we was to go straight at it.”

Percy thought about that a moment and said, “Well, I reckon we can sneak up to the window for a peek.”

The three men stood and crept forward. When they reached the nearest corner, they snuggled up against the side of the house, waiting to see if they’d been spotted. After several moments with no response to their approach, Percy eased around the corner and snuck up to the first window, the other two following behind. Percy took off his hat and eased up for a quick look only to find a piece of furniture blocking his view. He ducked back down and looked at Chauncey and Leander and shook his head.

Leander tugged on his earlobe and Percy nodded. He could hear better out of his left ear, so he turned his head slightly and eased back up. After listening for a moment or two, he leaned forward and whispered, “Sounds like somebody’s moanin’.”

Leander must have heard it, too, because he pulled his pistol, stepped past Percy and Chauncey, and slowly pushed the door open before stepping inside. Percy and Chauncey followed him in, and once Percy’s eyes adjusted, he saw a young woman lying on the bed, her dress torn and spotted with blood and her right eye nearly swollen shut. Percy quickly holstered his pistol and held up his hands. “We ain’t gonna hurt you.” He saw her one good eye focus on him, and the woman curled up in a ball and began frantically pushing against the headboard, trying to make herself as small as possible.

“Easy,” Leander said. “You’re safe now.”

The three men held still, unsure how to proceed. The woman had obviously been traumatized and their first instinct was to comfort her, but they all knew that might be the one thing that might push her over the edge.

“It’s over now,” Percy said in a soft voice. He continued to talk to her, and the woman slowly relaxed enough to turn loose of the headboard. “Can you walk?” Percy asked.

The woman nodded and pushed herself up to a sitting position as fresh tears filled her eyes.

Percy offered her his hand and she took it and he pulled her up and helped her over to a chair. It took a long while to get her calmed enough to even find out her name which they learned was Molly Harris. She and her new husband of two weeks, Tommy, had moved into the cabin only a few days ago. Tommy had left before daybreak to pick up some supplies in town.

The other three men had arrived shortly after dawn.

Answering Percy’s questions, Molly said yes, the men had some cattle with them and no, they hadn’t been gone too long.

Glancing down, Percy saw a puddle of blood pooling around her feet. “We can take you to the doctor,” Percy said softly.

Molly shook her head as fresh tears began coursing down her cheeks.

“No one would have to know what happened here,” Percy said.

“No doctor,” Molly said.

A few minutes later, Percy, Chauncey, and Leander exited the house, now armed with a description of the three rustlers. Percy pulled his leather gloves out of his back pocket and began pulling them on. “They got more than a hangin’ comin’.”

“Agreed,” Leander said.

They stepped off the porch and went after their horses.

Spring at the Rocking R Ranch was a busy time of the year for Emma Turner. Having taken on the job of improving the ranch’s equine bloodlines several years ago, this spring she had thirty-one mares who were going to foal sometime in the next three months. Luckily, only a few of those mares would be foaling for the first time and those soon-to-be mommas would need to be watched closely. Now seated at her kitchen table and working on the endless paperwork the horse breeding business generated, Emma stood and walked over to the stove to warm up her coffee. She loved working with the horses but despised the administrative work even though she knew it was a necessity. Because of her detailed records of the sires and dams for every horse foaled on the ranch, she could trace a horse’s ancestral bloodlines through multiple generations. She added a spoonful of sugar to her coffee and reluctantly returned to her chair.

Emma hadn’t known the first thing about horse breeding when she had first started, but with the help of her uncle Eli and a few of his college buddies who were scattered across the country, she now had a library of horse-related material that was the envy of horse breeders all across the Southwest. But it wasn’t just the library that others envied. Early in the process, Emma had purchased a Thoroughbred stud and two Thoroughbred mares from a well-respected Kentucky breeder and now her carefully bred horses were highly coveted and often sold for exorbitant sums. At a time when a good saddle horse might sell for a hundred dollars, Emma’s horses often started at a thousand dollars and went up from there. Her highest sale to date was a three-year-old Thoroughbred stallion she’d sold last year for ten thousand dollars. And because the family allowed Emma to keep a generous portion of each sale, Emma, at the age of twenty-eight, had already banked thirty-six thousand dollars. Not bad for a single mother and a former Indian captive who had been kidnapped by the Comanches at the tender age of thirteen.

Not that she didn’t still have nightmares about her year of captivity, but something good had come from that time, too––her son, Simon. Emma had been fourteen when she had given birth to her son inside an Indian teepee, deep in the bowels of the Palo Duro Canyon out in the Texas Panhandle.

Now fifteen, Simon was an extremely intelligent and curious young man and Emma was very proud of him, even if his curiosity sometimes caused her heartache. Lately, Simon had been pestering her for the name of his father, but it was a question Emma couldn’t answer. It could have been any of a dozen Comanche men who had assaulted her and that wasn’t something a mother could tell her child. So, round and round they went, and the only respite was when Simon was at school, as he was today. Finishing the last of the paperwork, Emma gathered up all the papers and pushed to her feet. After dumping her cup into the washtub, she stashed the papers in one of the bookshelves and headed for the front door. It was time for her to check on the mares.

After pausing by the front door long enough to strap on her gun belt, she slipped outside and headed for the barn. Being kidnapped by Indians changes a person and Emma never strayed far from home without being well armed. It didn’t take her long to realize the north wind had a bite to it, and she returned to the house, grabbed a jacket, and slipped it on before exiting again. Predicting the weather in early April was always tricky. It could snow one day and be ninety degrees the next.

When Emma reached the barn, she slid the large door back and stepped inside. A large ranch required a large barn and the Rocking R’s was enormous. Sixty feet wide and over a hundred feet long, the interior was sectioned off with the tack room on the right, just inside the door, and the wagons and buggies parked on the left. Beyond that was a large workshop and blacksmithing area followed by four rows of stalls, two in the center and one each along the exterior walls. Everything had a place and, with her uncle Percy in charge, it was kept tidy and neat at all times.

Emma headed toward the stalls at the back of the barn. All the mares that were expected to foal soon had been cut out of the herd and were now either inside or in the large corral attached to the barn. For safety, Emma thought it important for the mares to foal in a stall and with more horses than stalls, she would have to rotate the horses through based on where they were in the foaling process. It sounded much easier than it actually was. There were signs to look for, such as the hollowness around a mare’s hips as her pelvic muscles relaxed, but each horse was different. After a careful look at the mares inside, Emma filled a couple of buckets with water and made sure she had a bar of soap handy. As ready as she could be, all she could do now was wait.

Despite hemming and hawing about going to school, Simon Turner actually enjoyed his time in the classroom, especially on the days when Nellie Hawkins was in attendance. Fifteen and with long, dark, curly hair and big, beautiful blue eyes, Nellie had a smile that could light up the room. It was a bit awkward that she was a head taller than he was, but his mother kept telling him he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he was hoping to catch up to her soon. As an added bonus Nellie happened to be best friends with Simon’s closest confidante and cousin, Autumn Hays. Both fifteen, he and Autumn had been close since birth.

Simon wasn’t sure how Nellie felt about him because he’d never asked her. Not that he exactly knew how he felt about her, either, although he could feel an undercurrent of something whenever he was around her. Occasionally, he would ask Autumn a question or two about Nellie, trying to gather some usable information, but it was like his cousin was wearing blinders and she could never seem to connect the dots that he might have an interest in Nellie. He didn’t have the courage to come right out and ask Nellie if she liked him, mainly because he feared what her answer might be.

Slim and lanky with coal black hair and nut-brown skin, Simon brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes and looked up from his reading assignment, searching for Miss Abigail Thompson, their teacher. Deeply religious, Miss Thompson didn’t tolerate any intermingling of the males and females, so when he saw her on the other side of the room helping another student, he turned in his chair to look at Nellie. She was in the next row over and three seats back, the mandatory dividing line between boys and girls running between them. Tossing a piece of chalk, it ricocheted off the top of her desk and Nellie looked up and scanned the classroom to find the culprit. When her eyes landed on Simon, she smiled, and his heartbeat accelerated ever so slightly. Using the first two fingers of his right hand, he mimicked a walking motion and pointed at his chest then at her. Nellie nodded then scolded him by placing her finger against her lips. Simon smiled and turned back around. Sometimes she would let him walk her home and other times she wouldn’t. He didn’t know what the deciding factor might be, but he was glad he got the go-ahead for today.

Simon, Autumn, and Nellie had blown through the eighth-grade curriculum long ago and were now working their way through the secondary-education material, what the folks in Wichita Falls called high school. It was a relatively new concept that was sweeping across the country and it was far different from the old standard when a student’s education ended in the eighth grade. To install their new plan, the city fathers in Wichita Falls had moved the school to a larger building on the corner of Tenth and Scott streets and had separated the students, the younger ones in one room and the older ones in another. The new format meant the town had to hire two teachers and that was more than fine with Simon because he didn’t much care for Mrs. Agatha Whitehurst, the dried-up old prude who had taught them through eighth grade.

A voracious reader, Simon loved the challenge school presented and he fully intended to continue his education by attending college, hopefully as soon as the fall. And that thought saddened him some. He doubted Nellie had the same ambitions or if she did, it was highly unlikely they’d end up at the same school since most wouldn’t admit females. Still, that didn’t dampen his desire to spend some time with her.

He was still daydreaming about Nellie when he heard the floor creak a moment before someone punched him hard in the back of the head. Momentarily stunned, he looked up to see Crazy Eddie Miller shuffling past, a big, stupid grin on his face. A recent arrival to town, Eddie had started school this spring, and he’d been a thorn in Simon’s side since day one. Although he was only thirteen, Eddie was a head taller and probably forty pounds heavier than Simon and he was the typical bully, using his size to intimidate those around him.

Reading at maybe a fifth-grade level, Crazy Eddie was a dimwit who got a charge out of calling Simon names. Last week it had been Half Breed and this week he seemed to be stuck on Chief. It certainly wasn’t anything Simon hadn’t heard before and he mostly ignored it. But that punch to the back of the head escalated their feud to another level and it couldn’t go unanswered.

Simon began plotting his revenge.

Grace Ferguson looked up when the little bell above the front door dinged. A tall, thin man with muttonchop sideburns and a droopy mustache entered, took one look at her, and said, “Brandy?”

Grace froze at the name, but quickly recovered. “Excuse me?”

The man slowly approached her desk. “Is your name Brandy?”

“I’m sorry. I think you have me confused with someone else. Can I help you?”

The man gave her a long look and shook his head. “Just so you know, you’ve got a twin out there.”

Grace smiled and said, “Good to know. Now, how can I help?”

“Is Mr. Ferguson in?”

“He’s over at the courthouse but should be back after lunch.” Grace pulled a pencil from behind her ear. “Would you like to make an appointment?”

The man looked at the clock on the wall and thought about it a minute. “He handles divorces, don’t he?”

“Yes, he does, among other things. Will one o’clock work for you?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Your name, sir?”

The man gave her another long look and said, “You sure we’ve never met?”

“I’m certain. Do you live around here?”

“No, I live over in Fort Worth. Don’t trust any of them lawyers over there, though.”

“Do you want me to pencil you in for one?”

“Sure. Name’s Oliver Grigsby.”

Grace wrote his name in the appointment book. “We’ll see you at one, Mr. Grigsby.”

Grigsby’s eyes lingered on her for another moment before he turned and walked back to the door, the bell dinging again when he exited. Grace took a deep breath, held it a moment, and then let it out. Oliver Grigsby was a scoundrel who owned about half the buildings in Fort Worth’s red-light district, Hell’s Half Acre. It was an area Grace knew well because she’d once worked as a parlor house girl using the alias Brandy Bordeaux.

Grace’s legs were trembling when she stood. She’d had a few awkward encounters over the last few years, but this had been the first one in a long time. Grigsby had been a regular patron of The Belmont, the name of the parlor house, and she wasn’t at all surprised the old skinflint was getting divorced––again. But why here? she wondered. She stepped over to the front window of their small office and watched as Grigsby disappeared down the boardwalk.

If Grace had to guess, it had something to do with money. She had learned working in her husband’s law office that the root cause of most legal matters was money. She knew Grigsby had plenty of it, but she also knew he was so tightfisted he squeaked when he walked. She turned away from the window and walked back to her desk.

The office her husband, Seth, rented in Wichita Falls wasn’t much, maybe ten feet wide and twenty feet deep with a small apartment upstairs where he could sleep over if he got tied up and couldn’t make it home. Other than a couple of desks and a few chairs, the interior was sparse. But the best thing about the office was the cheap rent because the Ridgeway family, her in-laws, owned the entire block. Another plus for that particular office was the location, right across the street from the city marshal’s office and the jail.

She looked down at Grigsby’s name in the appointment book and thought about scratching it out. However, she resisted the urge, knowing Seth would be upset if he found out later, she’d turned away a client. Although Seth’s law practice was doing okay, most of it was just paperwork and she knew he was itching for something with a little more meat on the bone. And what could be better than a nasty divorce with a substantial sum of money involved? If Seth played his cards right, Grace thought, maybe he could gig the old miser for a large retainer.

Grace looked at the ceiling, unconsciously rubbing her sore, swollen breasts as her mind turned from Grigsby to the baby girl asleep upstairs. After having three kids, Grace thought her breasts would have been better conditioned, but no, that same fullness and pressure was there and the only way to relieve it was to nurse her daughter. She stepped over to the front door and turned the lock before making her way up the stairs.

Tiptoeing across the hardwood floor, she looked down at their daughter, Lizzie, sleeping in her crib. Warmed by a muted slash of sunlight shooting through the window, Grace bent down and gently lifted the six-month-old out, snuggling the baby against her swollen bosom. Seth and Grace also had two boys, Andrew, four, and Edgar, three, but they were too rambunctious to bring to the office on the days Grace worked. Instead, they remained at home under the watchful gaze of their babysitter, Alejandra Garcia, the seventeen-year-old daughter of two longtime ranch employees. Grace walked over to the rocking chair and sat. In addition to the crib and the rocking chair, they had wedged an old sofa into the small room, a place where Seth could lie down if he was staying over.

Lizzie began wailing before Grace could get her dress undone. She smiled and said, “You’re an impatient child, aren’t you?” She finally freed her left breast and Lizzie latched on like she hadn’t eaten in days.

Working two to three days a week, Grace spent most of her time keeping Seth organized. She loved her husband dearly and he was probably the smartest man she had ever met, but his desk often looked like a hurricane had passed through with papers and books frequently spilling onto the floor. But Grace didn’t mind, and she actually enjoyed her time puttering around the office. It was a world removed from where she had once worked.

Grace was burping Lizzie when she heard the doorbell ding. She assumed it was Seth, after having locked it, and her assumption proved correct a moment later when he came bounding up the stairs.

“My two favorite girls in the world,” he said. He leaned down and kissed Grace on the lips then gently picked up Lizzie and took over burping duties as they moved over to the sofa. “Did I miss anything?”

“You might have a new client. He’s comin’ back at one,” Grace said as she licked her fingers and smoothed down Lizzie’s hair.

“Who is it?”

“A man named Oliver Grigsby. He’s from Fort Worth.”

Seth gave Grace a long look and said, “You know him?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Did he recognize you?”

“He thought he did, but I assured him we had never met. I’ll be sure to make myself scarce when he comes back.”

“It’s been a long time, Grace. Does what you did in the past really matter anymore?”

“Probably not, but Grigsby probably owns half the buildings in the Acre. I don’t want him spreading nasty rumors around.”

“Well, I hope you’re not doing it for my benefit,” Seth said, “because I don’t give a damn about what people think. You’re a terrific wife and mother and that’s all that matters.”

Grace leaned in and kissed Seth on the cheek. “Thank you for that. If it was anybody else, I’d agree with you, but Grigsby’s got a bad habit of runnin’ his mouth.”

Lizzie finally burped and a couple of seconds later both parents heard her fill her diaper. Seth tried to hand her back and Grace laughed and said, “The holder’s the changer. There’s clean diapers in the bag.”

Seth scowled, but he stood and laid Lizzie in the crib while he wet a rag and grabbed a clean diaper. He removed the safety pins, cleaned up his daughter, and put on a clean diaper. As he worked, he looked back over his shoulder and said, “What does Grigsby want?”

“A divorce. And I don’t think it’s his first, either.”

“Well, it sounds like he has some assets. Maybe we’ll actually get paid.”

“Better get it up front,” Grace said. “He’s a real skinflint.”

“Duly noted.” Seth picked up his daughter and handed her to Grace. “I’m not sure the old diaper is salvageable.”

“Throw it out, then. I think your mother orders them by the gross.”

Seth chuckled as he wadded up the dirty diaper and set it aside to take outside later. After washing his hands, he plopped back down next to his wife. “You find us a tent?”

“Had to order one through the hardware store. Should be here next week sometime. When are we heading up?”

“The Land Run is Monday, April twenty-second, so we probably ought to head up a couple of days before then. I need to familiarize myself with the land claim process and get all that ironed out.”

“How many people you think will show up?”

Seth shrugged. “A bunch, that’s for sure. News of the opening spread like wildfire. And people are crazy for land, especially free land. So, they’ll be coming out of the woodwork and the way the rules are laid out, I’m predicting absolute chaos.”

Little did Seth know how prophetic that statement would turn out to be.

The rustlers’ trail eventually disappeared into a dense stand of trees along the Little Wichita River, a couple of miles west of Henrietta, Texas. Percy called a halt and the three men nudged their horses close so they could talk without being overheard.

“I’m gonna cross here,” Percy said in a quiet voice, “and ride a big circle to see if I can pick up their trail on the other side.”

“What do you want us to do?” Chauncey asked.

“Might do a little snoopin’ around to see if they’re holed up in the trees,” Percy replied.

“And if we find ’em?” Leander asked.

“You wait for me.” Percy spurred his horse into motion, and he crossed a small creek then the larger river and, as he rode up the far bank, his nostrils picked up the first hint of smoke. With all the trees it was impossible to see where the smoke originated, so Percy kept on riding. The area was cut through with small creeks and dry washes and it took him a while to work his way through the mess. He eventually broke into the clear and he scanned the ground as he rode, searching for any trace of the rustlers’ trail. A half an hour later, after riding a large circle, he arrived back where he had started and found Leander and Chauncey sitting on a downed tree.

“Their trail dead-ends here, so they gotta be in there somewhere,” Percy said as he climbed down from his horse. He wrapped the mare’s reins around a low-hanging limb and turned around. “You two see any sign of them?”

Leander nodded and said, “I reckon that’s the good news.”

“What’s the bad news?” Percy asked.

“Looks like they’s joined up with some of their buddies,” Chauncey said. “Not that it matters all that much to me.”

“How many men we talkin’ about?” Percy asked.

“Seven,” Leander said. “And they done butchered one of the steers. They’re all sittin’ around the fire fillin’ their gullets.”

Percy pushed his Stetson back off his forehead. “Well, that complicates things, don’t it?”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Chauncey said, “if they’s all eatin’ it, they’s all guilty.”

“There’s a difference,” Percy said, “between a man ridin’ onto our property and stealin’ cattle and a man eatin’ some meat if it’s offered.”

“Why?” Chauncey asked. “They all know them steers was stolen.”

Percy gave Chauncey a hard look and said, “I got no trouble stringin’ up a rustler but I ain’t gonna hang a man ’cause he was eatin’.”

“From the descriptions Molly gave us,” Leander said, “we can cut out them three rustlers and turn the rest loose.”

“The other four men armed?” Percy asked.

“Yep, they’s all wearin’ side irons like they’s a bunch of gunfighters,” Chauncey said.

“I can’t see them others sittin’ by the wayside while we give their three buddies a necktie party or whatever we decide to do,” Percy said. He looked at Leander