The Sons of Grady Rourke by Douglas Savage

black shapes looked like a ghost herd of buffalo slipping silently away from the arrows of long-dead Apaches.
    â€œYo there, in the house!”
    Patrick was startled by the shout outside. He looked up from the little table in the single large room. He had been concentrating hard on sewing buttons to his salty shirts. His hands were so stiff and sore from field work that he could hardly steer his mother’s old needle. He looked over his shoulder toward the billowing curtains and the closed door. Silently, he cursed the voices which he imagined hearing even in his sleep.
    â€œIn the house!” the voice shouted again.
    For an instant, Patrick felt relieved. Then he forced his tight right hand around the walnut grip of his Peacemaker revolver. He stood, looked quickly at the weapon’s cylinder, and then eased over to the wall. He stood with his back pressed flat against the wood between the door and the open window. Patrick leaned toward the curtain.
    â€œCome on up slow,” the voice inside the house called into the night.
    â€œI’m coming up dismounted. It’s Dick Brewer, Mr. Rourke.”
    â€œTunstall’s man?”
    â€œYes, sir. Billy said he told you about me.”
    Dick Brewer was Tunstall’s ranch foreman.
    â€œYou come up.”
    When Patrick heard boots on the front porch, he opened the door a crack with his left hand. He kept the Peacemaker raised behind the door. In the red light of the blazing hearth, Patrick saw a snowman in trail duster. Ice crystals were white around the stranger’s mouth and hung like tiny icicles from his eyebrows.
    â€œLet me lay my gunbelt down.”
    The visitor dropped his belt to the porch floor. It landed at an unnatural angle where it rested on a fist-size brick of steer manure. With the door open wide to the bitter wind, Patrick could see that the cowboy-style saddle had no rifle in its scabbard.
    â€œI’m Dick Brewer.”
    Patrick studied the red face of a young man in his early twenties. The rancher lowered his handiron that had caught Brewer’s gaze. He watched Patrick ear down the hammer, which had been cocked.
    â€œBest put your animal in the barn so he don’t freeze.”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Rourke.” Brewer slowly picked up his gunbelt far from the single holster and handed it through the doorway. “So it don’t freeze neither, please.”
    Patrick took the weapon, closed the door, and returned to his chair by the fire. He laid the belted holster atop his ladies’ work of buttons and thread. The sidearm was an aged Remington, ’58 Old Army revolver refitted for cartridges from its Civil War original, cap and ball vintage. It was a poor man’s piece, Patrick thought. He was somewhat comforted by the notion.
    Brewer knocked on the door, although Patrick heard his spurs on the porch first.
    â€œIt’s open,” the rancher called from his rocking chair by the fire. “Come in and thaw. Hang your coat by mine there.”
    â€œThanks.” The cold man pushed his long coat against a wall peg.
    Dick Brewer walked on unsure legs, wobbly from a long ride. Wearing his stirrups cavalry long, at least his knees had not frozen in flexed position. He walked toward the fire, turned toward Patrick, and then backed up so close to the hearth that Patrick waited to see smoke rise from the standing man’s trousers. Brewer opened his palms wide and held them behind his back.
    â€œTake a seat, Dick.”
    â€œDon’t think I can just yet, Mr. Rourke.”
    â€œPlease, I’m Patrick.”
    â€œThanks. Billy called you Mr. Rourke. But he’s like that sometimes.”
    â€œYou want some coffee? It’s hot down there behind you. I’ll get a cup.”
    â€œNot yet. Don’t think I can bend my fingers around it just yet.”
    When his guest smiled, Patrick saw a strong, youthful face, clean-shaven except for a small, frost-covered goatee affair. His hair