The Return of Caulfield Blake by G. Clifton Wisler Read Free Book Online Page B

cook the feathers off a goose.”
    Blake laughed as Marty tugged on a pair of suspenders. Dix interrupted then.
    â€œCaulie, this is the fellow I was tellin’ you all about,” Dix said, nodding toward the stranger. “Jeff Perry’s his name. He reads the law. He’s a fair man with a writ, and he’s the one to spell out what we’re up against.”
    â€œMr. Blake,” Perry said, extending a hand. Blake shook it, then looked the young lawyer over.
    â€œPerry? Have a brother name of Patrick?”
    â€œYes, sir,” Perry answered. “He wrote many a letter from Tennessee with your name on it. Swore by you, Captain.”
    â€œOr at him,” Marty remarked.
    â€œEither way, it got him through the campaigns,” young Perry commented.
    â€œAnd just where’d Pat be nowadays?” Blake asked.
    â€œLast I heard in the Dakotas, doing his best to get rich. You know Patrick. He never could settle down to a thing.”
    â€œYes,” Blake mumbled, knowing the same thing had been said of others.
    â€œSo, Jeff, tell it,” Dix said, taking a seat on the rickety porch and motioning for the others to do likewise. Blake sat between his two old friends and waited for Perry to begin. The young lawyer paced back and forth, then suddenly pointed to the west.
    â€œThere’s the trouble in a nutshell,” Perry declared angrily. “It’s Henry Simpson. He thinks he owns Texas.”
    â€œHe does own a pretty fair chunk of it,” Marty remarked.
    â€œNot all of it, at least not yet.” Perry paused long enough to brush the hair back from his forehead before continuing. “I read the deeds, even showed them to a judge in Austin. You’ve got clear rights to the water from Carpenter Creek. Simpson’s built a hindrance to that water.”
    â€œAnd here I thought he’d built a dam,” Marty said, laughing.
    â€œWhat it means is he can’t stop you from getting that water. It’s a kind of a rule in law. It’s the same as building a fence across a road to keep your neighbors in. He can’t do it.”
    â€œDoes seem like he has,” Blake said sourly. “Our problem is what to do about it.”
    â€œExactly,” Perry agreed. “Normally a county judge would issue an order of sorts, but there hasn’t been a county judge here for better than a year now.”
    â€œThe last one sort of disappeared,” Marty explained. “Some say he’s gone off to Tennessee or somewhere. Heard judges have a way of gettin’ shot when they go against Simpson’s wishes.”
    â€œSo what do we do about that?” Blake asked.
    â€œWe file papers at the state capital,” Perry replied. “I’ve been to Austin, and I did just that. But somehow or another those papers’ve disappeared. I can’t prove anything, of course, but it’s clearly Simpson’s work. He’s paid off a clerk somewhere. I filed a second time, but there’s no guarantee these papers won’t disappear, too. It’s best to do it through the courts, but...”
    â€œBy the time anybody does anythin’, Hannah’ll be long on parched corn and mighty short on cattle,” Caulie grumbled, shaking his head. “You, too, Dix. At least the Bar Double B’s got a fair stretch of the Colorado for its northern boundary.”
    â€œAnd my place has got no water to speak of,” Marty complained. “I always run my cattle over on Dix’s range in the dry season. Now what am I to do? A spring and a pond may provide for the family, but my stock’ll be dead inside a month.”
    â€œWell, I’ve got to give it to Simpson,” Caulie said, rising to his feet. “He’s come up with a fine notion of how to grab half a county. To think Hannah’s ma sold him his first acre, and my pa helped frame his barn! Well, any dam that can get built can also be blown to perdition.