Chapter 10 — Ethan Burdock To the Northwest of Grantham was the Bar-D ranch, owned by Ethan Burdock. Burdock had carved a 28,000-acre ranch out of Indian territory long before anyone had thought to look for silver in this rough land. More than five thousand head of Longhorn cattle toughed it out across his range which stretched far north of the main house. Ethan had done well enough for himself that his house was made of stout logs instead of mud, a luxury in this dry land. But after he had almost drowned in the mud of his own house in the freak rainstorm of ’58 he decided he had lived in adobe houses for long enough. Ethan had outlasted or outfought everything that had tried to remove him from this place. He fought rustlers, Apaches, Comanche, flood, drought, and everything else Mother Nature had thrown at him. Along the way, he had buried his wife, son and a daughter, and a lot of good ranch hands. In addition to the main house, there were three barns, four large corrals, and two bunkhouses; one large, one small. All of the buildings formed up in a circle around a kind of dirt plaza in the center of which was a deep and steady well. It was a solid, durable place. And when he sat on the porch at the end of a day, Ethan found beauty in it. But the ranch he had sacrificed so much for didn’t hold much more comfort than that. It seemed like there was always something to do and always someone to fight. He was an angry man, rarely at ease. But tonight was different. Both his boys were away and Lupita had served supper just for him. After dinner, he threw another log on the fire and sipped a glass of mescal thinking of old feuds he had won the way some men thought of women that had once loved. He was old and his bones hurt at night and he needed glasses for reading, but his ears were still good. He heard the rider making hard for the house when he was still a long way off. Ethan took the hurricane lamp in hand and went to see what was the matter. He crossed the yard and went to the figure standing between the two bunkhouses. Most of the men were asleep, but a few had come out in long underwear in various states of undress. Ethan didn’t recognize the horse, but it sure was in a lather. Joseph, his oldest son, detached himself from the group of hands and met him halfway to the house. “What’s the commotion?” asked Ethan. “Charlie. He’s been arrested for murder.” Ethan gritted his teeth and stared off into the distance, thinking *damn that boy.* Ethan looked back at Joe. Joe continued, “He shot a man in a saloon in Grantham about three hours ago.” “You let him go to town?” Joe, a serious young man, saddle-wise and hard as a coffin nail, said, “He’s a grown man.” A grown man, thought Ethan. Grown maybe, Charlie was forever a boy, and forever getting in trouble. “Who brought the news?” “Mayhew.” “He one of ours?” “Rode with us for a couple of seasons, now breaks horses for Dumont.” “Hate to see a good hand go to town,” said Ethan, saying the word ‘town’ like a curse. “He came to be a friend to Charlie and us.” “I know.” Ethan nodded once, making up his mind. “Pay him something, feed him and we ride in the morning.” “You and me?” “Everyone.” “Everyone?” “What else are we gonna do? Hire a lawyer?” Ethan said in a loud voice and the hands noticed and stepped closer to hear what their boss would do. “That’s a start. He’s gonna stand trial,’ said Joe. “We don’t know what Charlie did. And maybe he did gun somebody down. I’ll tell you what I do know. Right now Dumont and the rest of those parasites from back east are trying to figure out how they can use Charlie’s scrape to cause us pain. And sure, they’ll call it justice. But they’ll use it for everything else. For profit, for revenge, for enjoyment. ‘Cause what they want is our land. They want to take these wide-open spaces and the sky at night. They wan