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  YESTER’S RIDE

  YESTER’S RIDE

  C. K. CRIGGER

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, a Cengage Company

  Copyright © 2019 by C.K. Crigger

  Five Star Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Crigger, C. K., author.

  Title: Yester’s ride / C. K. Crigger.

  Description: First edition. | Farmington Hills, Mich. : Five Star Publishing, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018032029 (print) | LCCN 2018032087 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432849726 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432849719 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432849702 (hardcover)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-4972-6

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Western stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.R53 (ebook) | LCC PS3603.R53 Y47 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032029

  First Edition. First Printing: March 2019

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-4972-6

  Find us on Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website—http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 23 22 21 20 19

  I’m dedicating this book to anyone who’s ever felt the ravages of discrimination and had doubts about their self-worth. Buck up, you guys. Stay strong. Prevail.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to my friends in the Red Ink Fictioneers Crit group. Your advice and camaraderie are invaluable to me. Shall I name you all? First and foremost, my mentor and the leader of our group, Pat Pfeiffer, as well as Carrie Stuart Parks, Bruce and Carrie MacBride, Joyce Nowacki, Jesse Steven Hughes, Kathryn Robinson, Karen Parks, Fred Jessett, and Randy Haglund.

  CHAPTER ONE: YESTER

  Yester Noonan’s butt ached. Not much to wonder at considering he’d been in the saddle since morning, and now the day was wearing thin. Hoping to ease the hurt, he stood in his stirrups and stretched. He was sixteen years old and hungry, and he’d been missing his ma’s cooking. His gaze went toward the horizon and home, just one more hill away.

  Squinting against the lowering sun, he jerked his hat brim down and stared harder. Flint, his horse, stopped. Dog Pony, the packhorse trailing behind him, stopped, too.

  “Look ahead, Pa,” Yester said to his riding companion. “Is that smoke?”

  His pa only grunted. Big Joe Noonan, lulled by the smooth gait of his buckskin and the consumption of the better part of a fifth of whiskey, was about three-quarters asleep in the saddle. Drunk as an Irish lord, too, which made Yester nervous about waking him up. Liquor had an effect on Big Joe that made it tricky being around him.

  But there was that billowing plume of smoke rising into the western sky.

  “Pa, wake up.” Yester spoke louder. “I see smoke. It’s coming from our place.”

  His words had no apparent effect. Yester snatched up the reins lying slack on the buckskin’s neck and drew the horse to a halt when it would’ve walked past him.

  “Pa!” he shouted.

  Damn Big Joe for being a sot and a drunkard. Big Joe needed somebody to make sure he got home all right from his monthly toot in town and Yester was elected. Which meant Ma and Yester’s little sister, Ketta, were left at home to take care of chores.

  The situation had a routine. When she saw them coming over the hill, Ketta, being plenty smart, ran and hid. As soon as he got in the house, Pa would smack Ma a couple times to “teach her respect” and to pay her back for Ketta. Then Yester would protest and try to fight Pa, which meant he’d end up with bumps and bruises in the attempt. Never failed. Once he’d even gotten a cracked rib. That had been a while back, though, when he was just a kid.

  But meanwhile, in the here and now, smoke billowed into the sky where no smoke ought to be. The movement of air brought the odor of burned wood drifting toward them.

  “Joe!” Yester hollered into his pa’s ear.

  He finally got a reaction. Big Joe awakened enough to cuff him alongside the head and call him a foul name.

  Yester, being adept at ducking, wasn’t much bothered. “C’mon, Pa,” he said. “Get a move on. Looks like the barn is on fire. Or the house.”

  “Huh? Fire?” Straightening, Joe lifted bleary eyes and blinked. “Sonova . . . Smoke? Hope to Gawd it ain’t the barn.”

  Not one word of concern about Ma or Ketta, though that didn’t surprise Yester any. Setting heels to the buckskin, Big Joe crowded his horse to the front and, with a whoop, urged it into a dead run. Flint, being a small horse to begin with and old besides, didn’t have a lot of run in him. Yester followed at a steady but slower pace.

  When he topped the rise, his pa was already halfway to the buildings, flapping the loose ends of the reins against the buckskin’s neck. Not all the buildings were standing, Yester saw, squinting to see through the pall of smoke. Not everybody, either.

  “Ma.” He drummed his heels against ol’ Flint’s side, the horse responding gamely.

  Yester wasn’t far behind his father when they thundered into the dooryard. Wisps of smoke came from the barn, although the corner where the fire’d started had already burned itself out before doing much damage.

  The outhouse and the chicken coop had been overturned, both dragged a few yards off their rock foundations. Part of the outhouse’s roof had been torn off, the wooden shingles scattered.

  Over at the corral where the gate and the rails around it had been pulled down, the milk cow stood in misery, blood washing down from her hip as she dragged that leg. A few white Leghorn chickens ran loose, flapping their wings as they scooted from under the buckskin’s feet. Several of Ma’s prize laying hens lay dead.

  Yester swallowed and looked away, then wished he hadn’t as his gaze landed on the bundle of brown fur lying unmoving in the dust. Barney, Pa’s ol’ Airedale, appeared as dead as the chickens.

  The house was still burning, flames shooting from the scorched roof and licking at the kitchen wall. That whole side of the house was charred, and only half of the porch remained.

  And on the porch—

  Pa dismounted before the buckskin even stopped. “Yester!” he yelled, like Yester was somewhere at a distance instead of only a few feet behind him. “Fetch some buckets of water. We gotta get this fire out.”

  Yester’s eyes bugged. Fire out? To hell with the fire. Ma was his only concern.

  “Fetch ’em yourself,” he muttered, although not quite loud enough for Pa to hear. Ignoring Big Joe, he slid from Flint’s back and dashed up the broken house steps. The smoldering fire was hot, searing his face as he dropped to his knees beside his mother.

  Ma lay on her belly, her dress rucked up and showing her legs from ankle to thigh. Yester pulled the skirt down, although not before he saw blood there, between her legs. He hoped Pa
hadn’t seen. It was just like before. That time almost twelve years ago. He’d been awful young, but he remembered.

  “Ma?” He didn’t think she was dead, because her eyes were closed. Closed tight. Dead creatures’ eyes almost always opened up because the muscles went slack, or so she’d told him once. Ma knew things like that. And for sure, as Yester put his hand on her shoulder, he felt her flinch.

  “C’mon, Ma,” he said to her, “it’s me, Yester. I gotta get you off this porch before you get burned up.”

  Yester, a good-sized boy for his age and as tall as his pa already, got one arm under her knees and the other under her back and lifted. Good thing Ma was a small woman, he thought, grunting.

  Still, he staggered under her weight as he started down the steps. With a crack of wood, the step collapsed. They both went rolling into the dusty yard. Ma cried out.

  “Sorry,” he said, near tears himself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Now that they were out of the worst of the smoke, his eyes cleared, and he saw somebody had beat her up bad. Way worse than Big Joe ever did. He usually stopped with a slap or two—or three. A knot the size of a puffball mushroomed on the side of her head; both eyes were blackened, her lips split. Blood dribbled from her ear, while bruises in the shape of fingertips purpled a bare arm where the sleeve had been ripped away.

  And on her legs. Blood on her legs. Fury ripped at him.

  “Yester,” she said, her voice a bare, raspy whisper. “Ketta. They took Ketta.”

  “Who did, Ma?”

  “Him.”

  Him? Him who? Yester was confused. “She didn’t run off and hide?”

  “No. She stayed . . . tried to fight. Had . . . old pistol.” She paused for breath. “Misfired. He laughed . . . took her. Find her, Yest—”

  Yester’s blood ran cold. “He?”

  But Ma had passed out again, her breathing ragged.

  Yester stood up, looking around for Big Joe. There he was, poking at the Airedale with the toe of his boot.

  The dog stirred, lifted his head, and struggled to get his feet under him. Wonder of wonder, Joe stooped and lifted him until Barney stood on his own, shaky but upright. Maybe he’d be okay. Yester sure hoped so. And the cow, maybe she would be all right, too. Maybe the two critters were a good omen saying that his little sister Ketta had got away to her hiding place after all.

  Big Joe’s attention being elsewhere, Yester dodged around the corner of the smoldering house and took off up the draw behind it at a run. He had to make sure.

  KETTA

  “They’ll be home today,” Ketta’s mother said, her mouth turned down at the corners. Ketta recognized the sad look. The look of dread. But then she should. Her own expression copied her mama’s.

  “Yes.” Ketta forced a smile to turn up the edges, trying to act like she wasn’t scared. Like Big Joe’s arrival didn’t mean she’d have to make herself scarce again. There’d be no hot supper for her tonight, that much was certain. She’d have to stay in her hideout until morning, hugging her arms around her knees to ward off the cold and shivering every time a coyote howled from the rocky ridge in back of the cave. Her cave. Yes, she’d be shivering, though it was summer, therefore warm even at night, and she knew the coyotes wouldn’t hurt her. At least she’d have Barney, the dog, to keep her company and scare off any predators. He was good about staying with her.

  Big Joe would’ve slept off the liquor by tomorrow morning. He’d be surly, but most of his mean would’ve gone away. Well, she amended to herself, Big Joe was always mean, but he’d keep his fists to himself. And he’d probably leave off turning his meanness and insulting words on Mama.

  “Best have your picnic ready so you can grab it up on your way out the door,” Mama added.

  Picnic! There’d be bread and butter and maybe a hardboiled egg seasoned with salt and pepper, all tied up in a scrap of cloth. Some picnic.

  Then, under her breath, Mama added something like, “. . . raging beast,” and “. . . a child,” and although Ketta heard very well, she didn’t catch all of it.

  Magdalene. That was her mother’s name. Ketta still wondered over the sound of it. Two days ago, she’d found it written in the bible alongside Joseph Lincoln Noonan’s on the page that had spaces for marriages, births, and deaths. Joseph Lincoln Noonan was Pa, she guessed, or at least the man she called Pa. To his face, anyway. In her mind she always called him Big Joe. Anyway, she saw Yester’s name written in the bible, too. Her strong, tall brother, a little more than four years older than she.

  Her own name, Ketta, wasn’t in the book at all.

  Born, get married, and die, Mama had said, and she hadn’t been smiling. Then she’d said she’d almost forgotten she had a name. A real name besides Mama, that is. Or Woman. Pa usually just called her Woman, like she was a dog or a horse.

  Even Pa’s dog had a real name, Ketta had thought.

  That was Ketta’s fault, though, because Big Joe hated her, which somehow meant that after she got born, he hated Mama, too. Tears prickled behind Ketta’s eyelids, so she closed them, just for a second, until they went away.

  Ketta dawdled in making up her “picnic,” first washing her hands, then taking out bread she’d baked this morning—she was a good baker, better than her mother, truth to tell—and cutting the heel off the end. She liked that piece best, although she seldom got it. Usually only if Yester, who liked it, too, would trade with her. Sometimes he did. As long as Big Joe wasn’t paying attention, anyway.

  With her supper packed up, Ketta went outside, where she found her mother standing on the porch. She was gazing off to the west. That was wrong, though. Big Joe and Yester, they’d ride in from the north.

  “What is it, Mama?” Ketta asked. Her mother’s shoulders were stiff and hunched, as if she was worried. Squinting a little, Ketta saw her mother’s gaze fixed on a cloud of dust rising into the sky. In front of the dust were four horses with riders. “Is company coming?”

  “Bring me the shotgun, Ketta.” Mama’s pretty face was pinched up tight. Her mouth, usually soft and relaxed when it was just she and Ketta at home, had drawn into a tight, straight line.

  They kept the shotgun propped inside the house, just behind the door. Everyone in the family always said they wanted it handy in case of varmints getting after the hens, but a few years back, Ketta had figured out the varmints they talked about might just be of the human kind. And they had something to do with her.

  With her and the reason Big Joe hated her.

  “Hurry, child.” Mama’s voice was taut as a tightly strung wire fence. “And bring the box of shells. You know where it is.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Ketta hastened to obey. But Big Joe stored the shells on a deep ledge above the dry sink, and she had to drag up a chair to reach them. Ketta was small for an almost twelve year old. Fine-boned and tiny.

  “Typical for a Chink,” according to Big Joe.

  Whatever a Chink was.

  Once up on the chair, she found Pa’s old pistol at the back of the shelf alongside the shotgun shells. She spotted it only because she stood on tiptoe. The pistol was loaded, too, the cartridges visible in the revolving chamber. Not even thinking twice, she grabbed it down.

  She didn’t bother to put the chair back but raced out onto the porch, lugging the shotgun and shells and the pistol.

  Mama and Barney were side by side in the yard, the dog baying his head off.

  The men, strangers, were closer now. Close enough she could make out their faces. They did not look like nice men, unlike Mr. Fontaine, their neighbor, who, with his family, lived an hour’s ride to the south. These men looked dirty, scowling, and evil. Even the one with eyes shaped like hers, except his were narrower and more slanted at the corners. One man had a raised scar over the bridge of his mountain of a nose. One had black skin, something she’d never seen before, and the other—Well, she’d never seen an uglier person.

  Ketta shuddered as she handed her mother the box of shells. Her ha
nds unsteady, Magdalene shoved shells into the shotgun’s chambers and snapped it closed.

  The men kept coming, spreading out as if to surround Ketta and Magdalene.

  “Are they bad men?” Ketta whispered. “Are they outlaws?”

  “Yes. They are. Get back to the porch.” Mama spoke from the side of her mouth. “I’m going to shoot this gun. When I do, you run fast as you can, around the house and up the draw to your hideout. Can you do that?”

  Ketta nodded, although her mother’s instructions buzzed in her head like a lost colony of bees.

  “Do you hear me?” Mama said, very soft but fierce. “Run, Ketta. No matter what.”

  No matter what?

  “Ketta! Do you hear me?”

  Ketta found her voice. “Yes, Mama. All right.”

  They walked backward together, Ketta keeping her eyes on the men as she went. One of them pointed and laughed. The others laughed, too. All except the one with slanted eyes. His gaze was fixed on her.

  Time froze. As if blown in on a gust of wind, the men were right there, not a dozen feet away. Their horses were worn looking, lathered and breathing hard.

  Barney snarled, his teeth showing, sensing danger beyond the human’s ken. He ran out, biting at a horse’s ankles, until a shot rang out. The dog squealed once and fell. Ketta let out a little screech and lifted the pistol.

  Then Magdalene’s shotgun bellowed, too. Once, twice.

  Almost blind with tears, Ketta pointed the pistol at the man who’d shot Barney. Using all her strength, she yanked on the trigger.

  Nothing happened. A dry click and nothing more.

  “Run, Ketta, run!” Mama screamed.

  Ketta tried to obey—she really did—but then the man with slanted eyes stopped her. He’d dismounted and gotten behind her somehow, and he grabbed her up in a bone-crushing grip, squeezing her chest until she hardly had any breath left.

  The useless pistol dropped from her fingers.