Shatto's Law (Perry County Frontier) Read online

  Ted looked up in amazement and moved away so Beth could see. "How the devil did you spot him, Chip?"

  "Don't know. I was scanning across and there he was. Just sittin' there lookin' out as though he was watching us."

  "No way he could see this far without a powerful glass."

  "A man can see an unbelievable distance in this clear air, but more likely he's up there talking to the Great Spirit."

  Beth said, "He doesn't move, maybe he's dead."

  Chip added, "The horse tribes bury their people on racks where their Sky Father can reach them."

  Ted was impatient. "We know that, Chip. You'd think you got out here all alone. Anyway, this is Apache country and they aren't horsemen. So, we don't know how they do their burying."

  Beth added, "If he's still there in the morning we'll know he's dead."

  Her husband was doubtful. "Don't think we'll be able to see any details on that mountain except when the sun is hitting it, just like it is now." He judged distances, "Must be eight or more miles, line of sight."

  Beth kept watching and Ted took up the valley talk again.

  "You see how grass and brush are growing where that water seep is? This valley could grow grass. Chip."

  "Oh, I understand what you're getting at, Ted. Divert the waterfall and irrigate the valley the way we did back home." He paused, "Or more like the Mormons are doing down at Great Salt Lake City."

  Ted laid on a little enthusiasm. "We could sow grass and give it a year or two. Then we could bring in the best bull and some good cows and begin a quality herd. Outside the valley we could run whatever other stock we could get."

  "Aren't you forgetting your neighbors, brother? The Apache will get fat on your cows and they might resent having your cattle droppings on their ancestors' bones."

  "Apaches will come and go, Chip. Just like all the other Indians. They'll raise the devil then disappear, reappear, and be gone again. After a while they'll be gone for good."

  "Or you'll be gone for good."

  The sun had left the mountain and evening chill settled in. Chip built the fire higher and Beth began polishing a piece of the greened-over armor. She scrubbed with wet sand and a piece of soft leather. As the good bronze color came through Chip got interested and began on the second piece. Ted preferred dreaming aloud.

  "We could put up an adobe house about where we're sitting. Make the walls bullet-stopping thick so it'd be like a fort."

  Looking innocent, Chip asked, "Didn't you point out that the wind blew up the valley, Ted? Now if I was an Apache, I'd just light that tall grass you plan on growing and watch all them cows cook while your 'dobe house got as hot as a brick kiln."

  He added, "'Course, I'm just a beginner at such mean stuff. No doubt an Apache'd think up something better."

  Ted was not deterred. "There's ways around that, Chip. The pass'd be fortified, and we could have firebreaks. Ever think that we might get a truce with the Apaches? Trade fair with 'em and they could grow friendly."

  "Uh huh, and you can feed rattlers and Gila monsters, too, Ted. They'll get friendly about as fast."

  They rode out in early morning, Beth wearing the shining armor. "In case Apaches are waiting." She was only joking, but they had their rifles ready and eyes searching. The valley had a deserved reputation and that old dog Apache they had seen through the telescope might be a lookout.

  The Shattos turned south and followed the land as it dropped into a greater plain. After a few miles the armor got heavy and Beth let a pack animal carry it.

  +++

  The morning sun glanced from the polished breastplate and struck the eye of Chinca. Except for the armor, the whites appeared no different than others who had come to the Valley of Bones. Chinca wondered if the howl of souls had tortured their sleep or if cold and long dead fingers had touched and wakened them from anguished night dreams?

  Yet, there was something about these that marked them in Chinca's mind. He tried to see deeper, but only a single memory stood clear.

  Before the valley had become shadowed, the smaller of the men had stood at the valley center. Hands fisted on hips, he had studied the land. He had still been there when the shadows came. The man seemed to look across land he alone possessed.

  After the three had ridden from sight, Chinca continued to think about them, and about the Valley of Bones, again silent and empty.

  The valley would be forever a place of desolation where none would choose to dwell. Lifeless earth within walls of stone would entrap any who lingered. The litter of Spanish and Apache bones proved it so.

  +++

  Chapter 2

  Before they reached Santa Fe, Chip was tired of hearing about how a place with a future could be built in the Valley of Bones. A lot of what Ted said made sense, but to Chip, about an equal amount didn't.

  By the time Chip was ready to get hard about it, Teddy had Beth on his side. Then Chip recognized that his brother's dream didn't have to be his anyway. Still, he was duty bound to explain how he saw it. If Ted and Beth went ahead anyway—which was likely, Ted being mule stubborn most of the time—Chip could lend about as much help as he'd enjoy giving.

  The more he considered that aspect, the better Chip liked it. He could use Ted's ranch for a base and be able to ride out just as often or as far as it suited. When he needed resting, he'd have a place. Sitting in sun or shade alongside a splashing waterfall would be nice and, Ted was right, looking off his porch at a fine cattle herd could be comforting. Chip still figured his objections needed airing.

  Around their evening fire, with bellies full, and only occasional horse sounds breaking the quiet, Chip started in.

  "Now Ted, Beth . . . seeing all you want to talk about is building in that bone valley, I think you ought to go at it in an organized manner. A lot of comfortable dreaming doesn't face things square. There are serious problems and more than a few questions that should be talked out. After that you'll know and I'll know if the idea makes real sense or whether you ought to keep looking around."

  Ted was almost anxious to get to arguing. His mind was about set that was plain. Made a man wonder if he would listen, deep down where it counted, no matter what was brought out. Chip decided to start strong.

  "First of all, you shouldn't get too determined. The land may not be for sale. Most of these mountains are part of old Spanish land grants. Some of 'em our country honors, some we don't. A lot of old timers won't sell a half acre. Land is power. It's being somebody and, who knows, this owner might live in Spain and be almost impossible to deal with."

  Ted said, "There's some branded cattle around; we've seen 'em. Real wild stock, about like deer, but whoever runs that brand might own the land, or they'll know who does, we'll work from there."

  "Now let's suppose the land is buyable. Why bother? We've seen a thousand places where the grass is already chest high and where there is plenty of water and all the timber a man could ever need."

  Ted was slower answering this time. He had to search out just the right words. What he had to say came as much from emotion as it did from worked-over thinking.

  "Chip, I think back on all the land we've seen. Mountains with meadows so handsome a man could imagine himself near heaven. We've crossed grasslands so rich a cow living off it would get as wide as she was long. We must have considered dozens of places like that. But, till I saw the Valley of Bones, I never felt just right about planting our flag and saying, 'This is it.'

  "Maybe it's because the other places didn't hold the challenges the bone valley does." Ted cleared his throat and went on.

  "Look, Chip, since we got old Bogard's gold we've been well enough off to buy any spread we could want. We could head east and buy a plantation full of slaves and cotton fields. Or we could buy up a stack of farms in Perry County. But what would that amount to?"

  Ted got even more earnest. "It's not the having that's important, Chip, it's the doing that matters most. If it wasn't, we'd have picked something long ago.

&nbs
p; "Doing is why you go riding over every ridge you can find. You've got to see what's there—even when you know it's just like what you're standin' on.

  "That's some of the appeal of that desert valley. Imagine, taking a place as desolate as that and making it bloom."

  Ted's eyes gleamed and Chip could sense Beth warming to her husband's enthusiasm. Well, Chip could feel it too. It would be exciting; building something out of nothing but . . . Ted wasn't finished.

  "I see more than a house and cows, Chip. I see our family growing, with kids riding and later on staking out their own ranches, until the falling water is like the heart of a million acres of Shatto ranches, aswarm with people, cattle, and horses.

  "Then there'll be a town, Chip, a town with a church and a school. And, sitting right in the middle will be our ranch, carved out of a wilderness that nobody else even wanted."

  Chip sighed aloud and took time to poke at their fire. Ted was getting all dreamed up again and that didn't make for good reasoning.

  "Well, Ted, a man might also say that what you're doing is delivering your children into an unnecessarily hard and dangerous life that could get them killed or just dead from overwork. Will they miss out on what we think of as the finer things? Who and what will they marry out here? Their educations will be puny. Our Pap's dream left us room to leave it. Yours seems to tie all the knots for all of them."

  "Maybe our kids won't take to ranching, Chip. We didn't jump at horse raising on the Little Buffalo—that's plain enough—but this is big country. Room for about anything a man might choose to do. Maybe we'll build the first hotel and maybe one of our children will run it. That's the main point. Out here anything is possible."

  Chip shook his head, perhaps in disgust. "Ted, that valley isn't on the way to or from anywhere. You build a town out there and you'll be the only occupants.

  "Another thing is, all this talk of raising cattle. What will you do with them? There isn't a market for one cow within five hundred miles, and you couldn't sell a herd if you drove it to the Mississippi—and that's about a thousand miles. Only people who want cows out here are the Apaches and they don't pay for 'em.

  "Ted, the facts are, this land is empty because it's poor ground in the middle of nowhere. In summer it's hotter than the hubs of hell, and as cold as a witch's heart in winter. It's so dry snakes hunt water. Everything you see has its guard up just trying to stay alive. Plants have thorns and every living thing bites poisonous. Friendliest creature around is an Apache buck hoping to stick a point into your soft spots."

  Ted was grinning at him. "Well, like I told you, Chip. It's a challenge."

  "And that isn't any answer, Teddy."

  Ted shrugged a little helplessly. "What can I tell you, Chip? Maybe it's just a thing I want to do.

  "Part of it is that I'm looking further down the road than you are. I'm thinking twenty years or so from now, not just the next few seasons."

  Ted looked thoughtful then began squinting his eyes and leaning toward Chip in earnest. "In twenty years we will have bred special cows, Chip. Just like Pap did our mountain horses. The Apaches? They'll be but a memory. Markets? The east is growing like mushrooms in a cave, buyers will come looking for beef—and we'll have the best.'

  He leaned back against his saddle as though satisfied with his arguments and ended strong. "We'll tame this land. We'll improve what we can and live with what we can't. It'll be hard and exciting living, brother, but we'll be able to measure our progress just by looking and counting." Ted grinned again, "Tell you what, Chip. You help out enough and we'll consider letting you invest some of your gold in our venture."

  +++

  Santa Fe was still Spanish. The town was old, hundreds of years old if you counted the Pueblo it was built around. Behind their high adobe walls, the grandee life hung on, doing its best to ignore the raw hustle of Yankee intruders.

  Yankee businesses were encroaching and the official flag had become the stars and stripes, but the pace remained slow and Spanish was the language of the streets.

  Since their defeat in war, Santa Fe's Mexican population had seen their power and wealth diminish. Their every right might now be questioned and especially their ancient grants to vast land areas, some a hundred miles long or across.

  North American ambition had arrived. Opportunities were pressed and personal greed was often abetted by a general disdain of those who had lost in the fighting.

  Proud Latin men stifled their resentments and sought to ignore their new neighbors' cruder ways. They did not always succeed. Shots were fired and blades reddened, but always more Americans arrived. No one still believed the tide would be stemmed. Wiser Mexicans chose to ride the currents and some were succeeding.

  Don Mano De Castella was counted among those able to harvest from both sides. Literate, multi-lingual, and widely traveled, De Castella might prefer Spanish style late night suppers or midday siestas, but he also understood Yankee impatience and sense of purpose. To the American, material gain spoke more loudly than family tradition. With North Americans, Don Mano attended to business. Only among those of his blood could he return to the less intense and more gracious ways of his forefathers.

  Don Mano De Castella owned immense land areas. From the less fortunate or less vigorous he purchased ancient grants and his Washington agent struggled to gain their official recognition. If successful, De Castella would hold vast potential wealth. While the federal bureaucracy vacillated, Don Mano's coffers were lined through the more common, if less genteel, mercantile endeavors of freighting, mining, and storekeeping. Don Mano was always short of cash because he immediately invested any money received in further land ventures. Don Mano De Castella claimed the Valley of Bones and all that surrounded it.

  The Shattos intrigued Don Mano. They offered to pay in gold, which caught his attention. Their interest lay in distant land, the sale of which would allow him to invest in closer and more profitable ground. That exchange was worthy of his interest, and their respectful if forthright approach was refreshing. Too many English speakers weasled about, lying blatantly, and bargaining so closely that all pleasure left the transaction.

  The Shattos had sent a messenger requesting an appointment for a matter of business. It was a courteous gesture, unlike most Yankees who rode up unannounced and beat upon his door.

  Quite correctly, the woman remained on the porch with ladies in attendance, while the men conducted their affairs. The Shatto brothers tasted Don Mano's wine, and did not toss it down their throats as though it were bar whiskey, also a sign of innate dignity, Don Mano thought.

  The younger Shatto spoke for them. His words were rapier straight. It took only moments to know his wishes and understand his plan. Such directness made Don Mano's part equally simple. He would sell or he would not. They would agree on a price or they would not. If not, the Shattos would ride on. If they reached agreement, they would pay in full and Don Mano would sign.

  The Castilian in De Castella hungered for lengthy discussion comfortable with sociability. His business sensitivities preferred careful evaluating and step through step negotiating until a fair price, satisfactory to both, fell into place. Ted Shatto severed those formalities.

  He said, "Don Mano, I am interested in purchasing the place called the Valley of Bones. I also wish to purchase land to the east. In total, my interest lies in some twenty thousand acres in and around the valley." He unfolded a map with the area clearly marked, then went on.

  "I have been told that one of your grants includes this land. It has also been said that your real interests lie closer to Santa Fe and that a fair offer might be accepted.

  "I wish to offer a fair price and I will pay immediately in gold."

  Don Mano sought delay while he weighed the unexpected directness of Ted Shatto.

  "Ah, Senor Shatto. You speak of the Valley of Bones. A place known to many. A place mined for precious metals. Have you found gold or silver on my land?"

  It was maneuvering conversation, meant to al
low time for consideration. If wealth had been located it would not be admitted of course. Ted Shatto crossed with giant steps.

  "We have found nothing, nor have we searched for anything. We do not believe there is valuable metal. To demonstrate our disinterest we will agree that sixty percent of any mineral wealth found will belong to you."

  Ted moved his chair a half step closer, as though really settling to business.

  "Don Mano, I wish to raise cattle. I wish to build a ranch in a wilderness now fit for nothing. Mine is not a close vision. I speak of years of planting feed and raising buildings." Ted gestured toward the ladies gathered outside. "We will raise children and enjoy their children on this ranch. For now, I will sell few cows, for who would want them? I will improve my herds and develop my land.

  "Our markets will appear from the east. In a dozen years, perhaps twenty years, the American east will hunger for our beef. Even the railroad will come. They will bring people and open other markets. They will bring prosperity to those who are ready."

  Chip slouched against a window seat listening to Teddy run on. He was aware of a mild astonishment, only belatedly recognizing his younger brother's intensity in this thing.

  Ted continued, "I am a young man, Don Mano. Through good fortune I am able to buy the land I desire. Because of my good fortune I will not struggle to provide. I can build as I wish, I can hire the men I will need, and I can buy the cattle I prefer. I have time and opportunity to build my ranch. We would like to buy the land that includes the Valley of Bones. If we cannot, we will move on of course. There are other places."

  Ted leaned back, finished for the moment and prepared to listen to his host.

  It was powerful talk filled with strong vision. Don Mano De Castella wondered how it would be if the land all around him were claimed by such hard driven North Americans? Most would be poor men, struggling to survive. Men without resources other than stubborn will. The United States was awash with them and shiploads of land hungry newcomers touched Atlantic ports daily. Don Mano had seen them.