Page 65 of Wellspring
Cade smothered a smile.At least Payne hadn’t started swearing yet.
“Mr.Payne, please tell the court what occurred on the evening of May twenty-eight of this year.”
“We had just finished feeding the hands when Webster”—he gestured to where Cade sat—”returned from town riding hell-bent for leather.He’d heard word from the JR’s foreman, Frank Sanders, that Reichardt had ordered his hands to take over Wellspring.We barely had time to arm everyone and take cover before the attack started.”
“I’ll speak with Mr.Webster later, but for now, why would the defendant try to take over Wellspring Ranch?He owns a much larger spread of his own, does he not?”
Payne snorted.“Water,” he replied succinctly.“Well, and greed.There’s a spring on Wellspring property.It feeds a creek that runs onto the JR ranch and eventually joins the bigger stream that runs through town.If we get a bad drought, the creek can run dry on JR land, but the spring itself never runs dry.Oh, it may not give a lot of water, but there’s always enough to get us through the summer.We don’t have any dams on the creek, no holding pens, nothing to divert it, just what nature provides, so it’s not like we’re hoarding water or keeping it from flowing downstream.But Reichardt wanted control of the spring.He tried years ago, before Miz Roarke married her husband—the land was her father’s, you see—-but old man Wells turned him down, and he’s been sniffing around her skirts again ever since Roarke died.If you want my opinion, he got tired of her telling him no and decided to try to take it by force.”
Reichardt scowled and looked as if he was about to speak, but a glare from the judge silenced him.
“So what happened when the JR hands arrived?”
“They expected to take us by surprise, so they rode straight in.The sun had gone down by then and there wasn’t much of a moon, and they were carrying torches.”Payne grinned.“Made it easy for us to know where to shoot.One of them tossed a torch into the barn, but by then we’d already brought most of them down.We had a few men injured, but no one killed, luckily.Can’t say the same for the JR hands.The rest hightailed it off like the cowards they were, but we did catch hold of one of them—Collier.Turned him over to the marshal when he came to look into what happened.”
The judge looked at the marshal, who nodded.“He’s in a jail cell for the moment, Your Honor.We’ll bring him over when you’re ready to speak to him.”
“Did you see Mr.Reichardt himself during the attack?”the judge asked Payne.
“No, that would require him to do his own dirty work,” Payne replied, “and as anyone in town will tell you, Reichardt won’t do anything he can pay or force someone else to do for him.Goddamn coward.But everyone in town heard Sanders say Reichardt had ordered the attack, so whether he was there or not, he’s the one behind it.”
“But you weren’t in town that night, so you didn’t hear it, is that correct?”the judge asked.
“No, I didn’t hear it, but I didn’t need to, not this time.I’ve seen and heard more than enough other threats to know how it all added up,” Payne replied.“And other people did, so you can ask them.”
“Don’t worry, I will.Thank you, Mr.Payne.”
Payne nodded and returned to his seat.“Mrs.Roarke,” Marshal Parnell said.
Miz Roarke rose and took the seat Payne had just vacated.“Mrs.Roarke is the owner of Wellspring Ranch,” Parnell told the judge.
“Rather unusual out here,” the judge observed.
“My grandfather settled here,” Miz Roarke said.“I grew up on the ranch, but my parents only had me, so when my father died, the ranch passed to me and my husband.He died last year, thrown from a horse.And so it came back to me.”
“My condolences, ma’am,” the judge said kindly.Cade kept his thoughts to himself.Roarke hadn’t been a bad sort in the way Reichardt was, but he knew Miz Roarke was happier now with Payne than she’d ever been before.“Tell me about your relationship with Mr.Reichardt.”
“He owns the neighboring ranch.Our families have known each other since he came to Eldorado.As my foreman told you, he approached my father years ago, but my father refused the match.A few months ago, after my husband died, he and his late foreman came to visit me and he offered marriage again.I refused as it hasn’t even been a year, and when I did so, he told me I’d regret turning him down.”
“Did anyone else hear him say that?”the judge asked.
“Two of my men were with me,” Miz Roarke replied.“Sgt.MacRae and Mr.Heller.Mr.Heller isn’t able to be here in person as he’s recovering from being shot in the back by Reichardt’s late foreman, Frank Sanders, after Heller defended me in the saloon here in town.But Heller’s written an account of everything he’s seen or heard that he thinks might be relevant to the proceedings, if you wish to look at it.Sgt.MacRae will be here tomorrow if you need to speak with him.We could only bring so many of the outfit at a time without leaving the herd untended.”
“Thank you, Mrs.Roarke.”The judge offered her a kindly smile as Parnell escorted her back to her seat.
Parnell called for Javier Trujillo next.Javier explained how they’d come into town for supplies and decided to wait in the saloon while the order was being pulled together.
“When we got there, Sheriff Lutz was drinking at a table with Frank Sanders.Webster told Lutz about the harassment we’d been experiencing from the JR crew—firing at our hands on Wellspring land, trying to stop us from crossing their land to get into town.Lutz said not to bother him unless somebody was dead.”
A murmur rose among the spectators, though Cade didn’t know why they seemed surprised.Everyone knew Reichardt had bought and paid for Lutz.
The judge brought his fist down on the desk.“Quiet!Please continue, Mr.Trujillo.”
“Lutz asked if Wellspring was too weak to take care of its own problems, and Sanders said we wouldn’t have to worry about that much longer.”When the judge raised a questioning eyebrow, Javier added, “Sanders said since Miz Roarke kept refusing Reichardt’s offer, he was going to take more direct action.By sending Adam Carter and a bunch of men to take over Wellspring.”
“And it was clear this was at Mr.Reichardt’s orders?”the judge prompted.
“Absolutely,” Javier confirmed.“Sanders said by the end of the night she would either agree to Reichardt’s proposal or—” He glanced apologetically at Miz Roarke.“—that she’d be passed around between the JR hands until no one would have her.”
