A sequel to "The Man From the Brazos"
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"Call of the Brazos"
$18.00 each trade size - Personally Autographed
S&H included
Availability - Released Dec. 21, 2005
A BRIEF SYNOPSIS
When Matt Jorgensen met plantation owner,Ginny McBride, he knew that she would be the love of his life. Together, they would forge a lasting body, but a Yankee musket ball would tear their lives asunder. Matt searches but can not find Ginny.
He joins the confederacy and continues his search for her. Years later, while clinging desperately to life one wintry Montana night, he would once again have to face the demons of his dark past and answer the haunting call of the Brazos.
An action-filled adventure that transcends the events of the Civil War, "Call of the Brazos"
will captivate readers with its many surprising twists and turns in the third saga of Matt Jorgensen's adventures, a character from the John Wayne movie, The Cowboys.
Written in the style of Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey.
Readers Review:
Call of the Brazos
PROLOGUE
Ghosts
“Change” is a word not found in many a cowboy’s vocabulary, especially one Matt Jorgensen, a cowboy from Montana. A cowboy’s way of living can take many turns along life’s trail before he finds his ultimate calling. One never knows from where the calling comes or, in most instances, how to best answer it. A cowboy only knows that he’s got to trust what he’s got to trust, and some of the time it’s difficult to understand, especially when one is torn between right and wrong, place of birth, and color of skin, and then change becomes all important to get one’s perspectives in order.
Matt Jorgensen’s call was to a ranch in Texas, south of Waco, across the Brazos where he earned the nickname, “The Brazos Kid.” The reverberating echo of his calling and the continuing plague of his southern culture against his northern heritage was his birthplace in Montana. Although many Montanans were sympathetic to the South, Matt had been reared twenty-one years without being prejudiced, mostly because he had never encountered a race or slavery situation. He left Montana clean of any racial biases and came back a different man. His life had again changed and taken on a different perspective when he met beautiful but rugged Ginny McBride, whom he lost soon after the mortar struck at Fort Sumter. He vowed to the wind that he would never fall in love again.
Twenty-one years and a Civil War later, he returned to Montana following his mother’s funeral. He found himself about to make another major change in his life when he met Mary Beth Paterson, a refined attorney with many frills and laces, the complete opposite of Ginny. She preferred to be called by her middle name
From an eagle’s eye view, two figures silhouetted by the pale pink Montana sunset appeared on the Ruby River Ranch. It was late afternoon of Thanksgiving, 1882.
Matt’s arm cradled Beth’s back as they stood in the stillness of the evening. She was a lovely young woman, with long flowing brunette hair to match her sparkling brown eyes. She was thin, and to Matt’s liking, just a little too thin. She had come to Virginia City as an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, and in setting up her practice, took Matt’s mother on as a client to put her property in order in her last will and testament.
The cowboys on her ranch had laid Mrs. Andersen in her grave before Matt made it back from Texas, a place he called home for over twenty years. He was a cowboy in his forties who stood six-feet-four-inches tall with a rugged look and scars he earned through the Civil War and various battles in Texas. At his mother’s request, he had returned to his birthplace to see her before she died, but she succumbed before he could reach her. Being her only surviving heir, he was the new owner of the Ruby River Ranch.
The faint sound of a rifle echoed through the woods, causing the forest creatures to take shelter out of fright. Matt turned his face towards the sound, listened to the wind as it whistled through the treetops and, hearing nothing else, settled his eyes back on Beth.
“What was that?” Beth asked, turning her head quickly and looking into the tall timbers on the hillside.
Matt looked intently into the northern wind. “Monty cleanin’ out his rifle, I s’pose.” He knew different, but for the moment, he let it pass as he looked at Beth’s curious face.
The first snow of the season fell softly around them. Matt had not seen snow for some time having lived in Texas for so many years.
Beth looked around, and seeing nothing unusual, said, “You’re looking puzzled about something.”
Matt felt something evil in the wind, but the quietness of the moment and the excitement he felt being with Beth left him with the task of assuring her that nothing was wrong. He rationalized to himself that certainly Monty, the foreman of his ranch, or any of his cowboys riding the range could simply be shooting at something. But he thought, “Not likely, though, because they know thet the noise will disturb the cattle.” He sensed it, but as the herd remained undisturbed, he put it behind him, hoping that nothing was wrong.
He brushed the snow from Beth’s coat and said, “There’s white stuff all over us.”
Beth laughed. “Snow, silly. Pure, unadulterated snow.” She wiped the few drops from his face and kissed him. “Like it?”
He shrugged his shoulders, feeling like a kid as he watched her face beam with happiness.
The snow was wet and stuck to their faces and clothes until they soon became whitened with it. A Montana snow comes up suddenly and stays for a great while. The temperature having dropped into the single digits, this was the first one of the season.
“Don’t you remember what snow is?” she asked with a slight giggle as she pulled her woolen scarf tight around her neck, locking in her coat’s collar.
“Sure. Just haven’t seen it for awhile. Gotta get used to it agin.” He took his bandanna and wiped the snow from Beth’s face. “You sure do look pretty.”
She received his kiss with increased passion, sliding her arms through his jacket and around his back.
“Wanna go back inside?”
“Later. Let’s enjoy our first snow alone together.” Reflecting quietly, he added, “I’m glad Dan brought me back.”
The Wrisleys were long-standing friends and neighbors of the Andersens for many years. It was their son, Danny who had brought Matt back to Montana from Texas.
Beth looked at him lovingly, took her arms out of his coat and walked with him down the path to a clearing in the trees where they stood to watch the wind blow the snow around in gentle swirls. She knew she was in love and was waiting for him to give her the chance to show it.
A cow lay dead on the outlying slopes of the ranch from a bullet wound through its head.
“We got meat, boys!” a mean-looking cuss yelled out as he rode with his men down the side of the mountain to pick up their game, one of Matt’s cattle.
They were six of the worst-looking, worst-smelling men anyone could ever come up against. Men of no morals. Each of them looked mean and ornery enough to strangle a rattler with his bare hands.
Biggun was their leader, a large grizzly of a man who appeared to have never gone without a meal. He stood about six-foot seven inches tall and looked meaner than sin. His beard had the look of a mop dragged through a pigsty, gray like his long dirty curls and moustache. His clothing, with food stains up and down his vest, had never been cleaned. His coat was long and shabby-looking, torn at the hem.
“Cut it up and cook it now,” he barked at his men. “I don’t aim to go a day without good food, and I’m hungry.”
He let out a mountain yell that would send shivers down the gullets of the nearby coyotes and scared the hawks out of their tree nests. He pulled his Bowie out of his belt before the others, and slid it into the belly of the beast, carving it upwards.
Three of the men joined in with their knives while the other two started building a fire.
Matt watched the snow as it continued to fall, and tried to lick it as it stuck to his face. “Isn’t this kinda early for snow, even in Montana?” he asked. “I mean, this is Thanksgiving.”
“Looking at how it’s coming down, it’s good that the Wrisleys and I will be leaving for home in the morning.” Beth slipped her arm through his. “I’m happy you asked me to visit you here on the Double R. Having spent so much time with your mother before she passed on, it’s almost like home to me.”
Home to Beth was now a single-story dwelling behind her office in Virginia City, Montana, where she hung a shingle to advertise her services as an attorney-at-law.
“I’m glad you accepted my invitation. Out here with a bunch of rowdy boys is not my idea of a good Thanksgiving. Down in Texas, we had several ladies in the household who could cook up the finest dinner this side of heaven.”
They turned back and walked down the long trail leading to the main road and watched the sun become engulfed by a dark sky. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped a little. They made fresh tracks in the snow that painted the land and forest surrounding the Ruby River Ranch.
“The way the sky looks,” Beth said, “it wouldn’t surprise me any if an early blizzard might be moving in.”
“You lookin’ for a fight?”
“Hmm?”
“Bluster. Thet means someone lookin’ for a fight down in Texas.”
“Oh, no. I said, blizzard. It’s when the snow falls fast and furious like sand in a windstorm. We call that a blizzard.”
“Well, I’ve seen many of them up here when I was a kid. Never called them blizzards, though, jest snowstorms. New lingo, I ‘spose.”
The sun slipped silently behind the ridge of trees and darkness quickly engulfed the land, and yet, it was still early in the evening. The wind howled through the treetops, and the full moon lit upon the new fallen snow lighting the way as they walked down the gutted road.
“Don’t know if it’s safe for you to go anytime soon with a blizzard comin’.” Beth said. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with some of my other clients in Virginia City.”
“How many clients you ‘spose you have?”
“I’ve got some. Enough to keep me busy anyway.”
They turned and walked back to the ranch in a slow rhythmic pace.
The cowboys’ singing and guitar strumming drifted from the wranglers’ quarters, but the lovers were oblivious of everything except each other.
When they reached the corral just past the bunkhouse, Matt climbed the orchestra seat and pulled Beth up alongside him. In the full light of the moon, they viewed the mountains surrounding them.
“I’ll be all right. We’ll stop at the Wrisleys’ along the way before they take me to Virginia City. They’ll see to it that I’m looked after.” Matt was shivering. “Didn’t Texas ever get this cold?”
“If it did, I wasn’t there to feel it. I plumb forgot how cold it could get here in the mountains.”
They caught the sound of the animals of the forest scattering through the brush.
“The animals running is a sign that a winter storm is heading our way,” Beth said, looking into the hills.
As a hired gun from Texas, Matt knew the smell of death and sensed that their running was caused by something far more serious than merely a winter storm.
As they watched the windblown snow drop against the north side of the trees and fence posts, they continued to listen to the gentle music playing from the bunkhouse behind them. For a long time, neither said anything. Unaware of the gunshot that Matt and Beth had heard, the cowboys continued talking, singing, and playing cards within the close confined of the bunkhouse.
“I’m supposing you’re thinking about Texas, aren’t you, Matt?”
Matt said nothing but looked out into the hills.
“She must have been a real pretty girl,” Beth continued.
Matt reflected, showing he was a little amused, then began reminiscing. “My pa and the others fought Injuns on thet hill there as they’d come whoopin’ down upon us. The fightin’ didn’t seem to last long. We’d shoot some, I remember thet. Later, most of them were jest young bucks seeking some fun, scarin’ us and stealin’ one of our cows to take back with ’em. Pa’d let ‘em jest to keep the peace. He knew they needed food.”
“Was she real pretty?”
He ignored her question, although not intentionally. He was just completely lost in thought about his youth. “Lukas and I came ridin’ bareback down that slope yonder, chased by a couple of Sioux right about there.” He pointed to a wide trail leading from the top of the hill to the bottom that had become a natural trail over the years leading to Bozeman. “We were ridin’ bareback, jest like them. Never thought my horse could run so fast. I looked back at Lukas, who was right on my heels, when a stupid branch stood out and swatted me in the face. Knocked me off Skeeter and I tumbled all the way down. See? The tree is still a standin’. Busted my arm up. Had to write left-handed in school for awhile.”
“You got away, naturally?”
“Wull, I’m here, ain’t I?”
“How do you know it’s the same tree?” She watched him for awhile as he stared out into the distance.
“Are you thinking of going back to Texas?”
Matt sat silent for the moment and then turned to look at her. “Looking at you just now reminds me of how little I really know about you.”
“A lot about you I don’t yet know either.”
“You will, my darlin’,” he answered. “It’ll just take time.”
He climbed down and stood for a moment, looking out to the hills as he closed his coat tighter.
“Lukas was wild, but I was a hell of a lot wilder. I could out drink him, out cuss him and out shoot him anytime. But he had a crazy way about him I couldn’t tame. He was like a mustang. You know what I mean?”
“Well, mister,” Beth said. “Are you going to give a lady a hand?”
He reached up and brought her gently down.
She clasped his hand in hers as they walked into the night, away from the ranch house and the singing of the cowboys. “As openers, I’m a graduate of William and Mary College, received my law degree there. I have a family of two brothers and a sister living in Virginia. Mom and Dad passed away. I left home and came to Virginia City to set up practice. I’m single, never been married. Not that I haven’t had the opportunity. There have been plenty, I must tell you. Just never met a man I could love, or really liked, for that matter. Been here for almost a whole year, and then your mother came in one day and hired me. And, now. . .”
“Now?”
She let go his hand and ran away, then stopped and bent down to roll a snowball and throw it at Matt. She laughed as it splattered in his face.
Wiping it away, he scooped up a handful of snow and ran after her. Their shadows moved in the moonlight as they ran toward the hill where his parents were buried.
Matt caught up with Beth and brought her down laughing in his arms.
He rose just as quickly and helped her up. Looking back at the hills he began to reminisce again.
“He’s like a ghost up there, Beth.”
“Your brother?” She followed his gaze. “Then let him be a ghost. You’re not.”
“I feel like I don’t belong here.”
Beth slipped her arms around Matt to console him. “Don't think about it.”
He was thinking about the day his pa made him leave his father’s ranch, the Double O. He never liked the name, so, when he inherited it, he renamed it the Ruby River Ranch, then shortened it to the Double R.
“Your father had that boy removed and buried somewhere else,” Beth said. Matt looked at her. “I never thought about telling you until now.”
Matt gazed into her eyes as if searching for something deep within his spirit. Looking at her made him search deeper.
“I spent the better part of my life in the South running from my past. Those ghosts made me fight a war against my own people.” He said, referring to the part he had played in the Civil War when he served as a captain with Terry’s Rangers.
Beth put her head on his chest.
“Just before that,” he said, almost inaudibly, “I fell in love for the first time.”
Beth looked up into his eyes and saw the pain.
“My people took her from me.” A long pause stretched seemingly throughout the night while she waited for him to continue. “She was lovely.”
Beth bit her lip, closed her eyes, and buried her face deep into Matt’s coat. She wanted to hear, but was afraid to listen.
“My land here, these hills, this ranch, these people were taken from me.” He pulled away and gazed off into the distance as if looking beyond the hills.
“I came back, and it’s like I’m a stranger. The townsfolk remembered. They remembered that I was a murderer who killed their minister in a botched-up robbery.”
“You proved you weren’t involved. They believed you.”
“But they were waiting, Beth. They were waiting. It was like the ghosts from twenty-four years ago were all waiting for me to come back.”
“Are you going to let the ghosts beat you, now that you’ve won your freedom and proven yourself?”
“They ‘spected who I was, Wil and Anne Andersen’s surviving son, the one who ran away.”
“You did not run away, Mr. Jorgensen.” Beth stood firm before him, her fists clenched at her side. “You weren't going to run. Your father made you leave. The townsfolk would have lynched you had they known you were at the robbery. Instead, the law gunned down one Jeff Manning, mistaking him for you. You had to run to stay alive.”
“And now I’m supposed to accept this ranch as if I had never left?”
“You’re home.” She caressed him again. The snow fell harder and the wind picked up.
“Want to talk about her?” she asked, pulling away and looking him straight on.
“Someday, maybe,” Matt answered, grabbing her hands and holding them gently. “You’ve no cause to worry.”
“Oh, hell, Mr. Jorgensen, I know that. I only want you to know that you don’t have to worry.”
He felt an aching disturbance, much like one feels without any apparent explanation for it. He couldn’t put a finger on why he felt that way. It had nothing to do with his first love. He just knew something was gnawing at him, and that he had to get a grip on it.
When looking at the cemetery, the hills, the ranch house, the corral, and even in Beth’s eyes. He could only see ghosts.
Matt turned, faced the cemetery, and pulled his coat tighter for warmth. He gripped her hand, and they walked toward the cemetery on the north side of the ranch. “There’s no one in my grave?”
They stopped by the fence and stared at the crosses.
“It’s just an empty grave.” She looked at his face and saw a curled smile appear. “Feel better?”
Matt stared at the markers and affixed his eyes on one that read
Charlie Nightlinger
? – 1882
Trail Cook
“Charlie’s a nigger, ain’t he?” Matt asked without taking his eyes from the marker.
A couple of wranglers, Danny Wrisley and Cookie Benson, walked out of the bunkhouse after having watched the couple walk up to the gravesite. Danny was a young cowboy, barely twenty, lean, clean, and good-looking. Cookie was the oldest man on the ranch with a set of store-bought teeth and a bald head that he kept covered with a well-seasoned Stetson. He looked underfed, in the face as well as his belly, and wore a rope around his pants to keep them up. His beard was long enough to catch snow and make it appear white, though most of it was still black. He had been with the ranch ever since Nightlinger passed away.
“Mr. Nightlinger?” Beth asked.
“Mr. Nightlinger,” Matt answered, with his hands on his hips, almost defensively.
“He’s a Negro,” Beth answered. “You knew that from the moment you arrived on the ranch.”
“Point I’m makin’ is, shouldn’t he be buried in another field somewhere?” Matt looked around at the men staring at him, and then at Beth. “Just askin’, mind ya.”
“Ordinarily, yes,” Beth replied. “But your mother and the boys saw it fittin’ to bury him here.”
“Thet’s what’s been botherin’ me all day yesterday and last night.”
“Surely you aren’t having second thoughts about Mr. Nightlinger? He was a kindly old man.”
“Never gave it first thoughts, I guess.” He rubbed his gloved hand under his chin, looked around, then pointed to the north. “What about the other side of the hill?”
“You mean to dig him up, boss?” Cookie asked, handing Matt a tin of coffee.
“And move him?” Danny looked sternly into Matt’s face, then took his hat and brushed it on his pants.
“Thet don’t make sense.”
“It does if you’re a Reb,” Beth reminded him. “You can send four men to their graves and not bat an eye. Now you intend to dig up a dead man and inter him in a piece of ground away from his friends. What is it about you that makes you so callous?”
“Callous? Yeah, guess I am.” Matt nodded to the hill behind the ranch. “Right about over there would do nicely.”
Other wranglers gathered around them with their plates in their hands, enjoying leftovers from the dinner.
“We havin’ a meetin’ or sumpin’?” one of them asked, smiling broadly from ear to ear, thinking nothing was wrong.
“Gentlemen,” Beth addressed them, holding back her anger. “Your boss wants Mr. Nightlinger dug up and interred behind the ranch house.”
The men looked at one another and chattered amongst themselves.
“Thet’s right,” Matt assured them. “I looked out back and saw a nice place where he would be all by himself. Cozy and warm, so to speak.”
Danny spoke up, “You talk like he’s still alive,”.
“No. No, just dead. But he needs a new home, away from my parents.”
“Why?” Beth asked annoyingly.
“Jest because I said so, Miss Paterson.”
The men sensed a little orneriness in Matt’s tone.
“‘Spose he’s right,” one of the older wranglers said, picking pieces of food out of his teeth. “His land, and he’s the boss.”
“He’s the boss?” Beth repeated. “Yes. Do what he says.”
“Wait a minute,” Matt interrupted. “You don’t have to tell ‘em again. I already told ‘em.”
“Yes, you did. I’m sorry,” Beth replied and stomped away, packing the snow hard with her boots.
“You don’t have to do it this very minute,” Matt said.
Beth stopped, turned, and asked, “Just when do you want the men to do this?”
“They’re my men. I’ll tell ‘em.”
“Well, Mr. Jorgensen. Tell them!”
“He’s a nigger,” Matt yelled out to her. “He’s no right to be by my parents in their restin’ place.”
“Oh!” Beth walked back and stopped within a few feet of Matt. With a stern look of seriousness about her, she said smartly, “He’s a Negro. And just because you came from Texas and fought on the side of the South doesn’t cut it with me, Mister.”
“Thet’s right,” Matt came back angrily, swinging his fist into empty space. “I fought, and now I demand my rights--I want him removed!”
“I was born and raised in the South,” Beth retorted.
The wranglers were enjoying this argument. Some sat down in the snow to watch, while others leaned up against a tree or sat on a nearby stump.
Beth noticed the group and gathered her senses about her. In a more calm fashion, she continued. “If anyone has a prejudicial right to hate the Negroes, it could be me, but I don’t. I take pride in living here in Montana, and in helping you get back your ranch. But I don’t take pride, Mr. Jorgensen, in watching a mean man take vengeance against someone who never did anything but good for your folks.”
Matt also sensed the group watching them but went ahead and stuck his chin out. “You through?”
Beth turned and continued her trod to the house without looking back. Once in the house, she slammed the door hard enough to cause snow to fall from the roof.
Matt cringed and said, “What bee’s up her bloomers?”
“She’s got a good point,” Danny said.
“But it’s my land, and I’ll damn well do as I please with it.”
“When?” Danny asked, watching the house for Beth to return.
“Why not wait ‘til spring, I’m thinkin’,” Monty said with a smile. Monty was a man who always obeyed orders without putting much thought to it, but he pondered well this time. “The sod will have been thawed by then,” he thought aloud to himself. He took out his makings and rolled himself a cigarette.
“Damn if she don’t remind me of someone,” Matt said, gritting his teeth.
Monty smiled and said, “Yeah. You.”
Matt looked at Monty, took the rolled cigarette from him, and said, “Thanks.”
“No bother,” Monty said, throwing an empty tobacco sac away and licking his lips. “Want a match?”
“Yeah,” Matt answered. He lit his cigarette, and stared at the house. He took a drag and then, as Monty watched in consternation, threw the cigarette to the wind. “You ever want something so bad you hurt deep down inside?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the warm-lit ranch house. Monty reached down for the cigarette and said, “Yep. Know jest whatcha mean.”
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