“You shoulda seen us chasing it,” Zac said, excited to tell Rose all the details, impervious to the tension all about him.
“You can tell Rose later,” George said. “I’m talking to these men on business.”
Gabe and Cato didn’t look very happy to find themselves suddenly facing six men, all of them armed and fearless.
“What are they doing here?” Jeff demanded, coming to stand next to George. “I saw them hanging around Austin.”
“They’re from the land office,” George said. “They’re here about our taxes.”
“They’ve been paid,” Monty said.
“We settled that. Rose is trying to help them figure out the new tax figures.”
“Rose?” Jeff said, surprised. “What can she know?”
“Apparently quite a bit,” George said.
“We still haven’t settled on the tax value,” Gabe stated.
“What is it?” George asked, turning to Rose.
She had been prepared to step back inside and leave the rest of the negotiations to the men. But she couldn’t refuse George’s invitation.
“If the land’s worth a dollar an acre—and that’s about twice as high as it ought to be, check when you go into Austin—you’ve got six hundred one-hundred-dollar values. At twenty cents per hundred, that comes out to something over a hundred dollars.”
“One hundred and twenty,” Jeff said.
“Cut that in half,” Rose finished.
“Sixty dollars,” George said.
The men looked angry at the small sum mentioned, but they didn’t leave.
“There’s another problem,” Gabe said to George.
He looked belligerent now, his telltale New England accent stronger than ever. Having had his game spoiled, Rose figured he was going to cause as much trouble as possible.
“Did you fight in the Confederate Army?”
“Yes.”
“Did any of your brothers?”
“I did,” Jeff volunteered.
“Then you can’t vote or hold any public office. You’re also subject to a special tax.”
“You’re lying,” Rose said. She had thrown down a challenge. There would be no easy way out now.
“You’re obviously here for no other reason than to see how much trouble you can cause,” George said. “Get off my land.”
“I don’t think we ought to let them go,” Hen said.
“If you so much as lay a finger on us,” Gabe warned, “I’ll send the army in here.”
“You can’t let the army come here,” Rose whispered to George. “They burned down Brenham, and not a single person was arrested. They even attacked Brownsville.”
“Couldn’t nobody do anything about it,” Gabe bragged. “In fact, I think I’ll notify General Charles Griffin as soon as I get back. He ain’t been at all friendly with ex-Confederates.”
The Randolph men stood in a line with George flanked by Rose and Salty. Zac had been pushed to the rear.
“General Griffin won’t be coming if there’s nobody to send him a message,” Monty said.
“There’s a lot of open prairie between here and Austin,” Hen added.
“They know where we are,” Gabe said. Rose could tell that the line of seven stern faces had shaken his courage.
“I say we shoot them right here,” Monty said.
“You’d hang,” Gabe replied, a little desperately, Rose thought.
“If anybody ever found your bodies, they’d believe it was Cortina’s bandits,” Hen said.
That was no idle statement, and the men knew it.
“There are too many of us. You’d never kill us all.”
“There’s something I think you ought to see,” Hen said. He drew his gun so fast it seemed to materialize in his hand. The men just stared at him.
“See that wasp’s nest hanging from that eave?” Hen asked, pointing to a two-inch nest about fifty feet away.
The men nodded. In the next instant Hen shot. The nest vanished. And the wasps with it.
“I would advise you to go back to Austin and forget you were ever here,” Rose said.
“We can’t let them go,” Monty objected as he drew his gun. “We got to kill all of them.”
“General Griffin will be here before the week’s out,” Gabe threatened. “There won’t be a stick left standing on this place when his men get through.”
Rose knew she couldn’t hold back any longer. She had seen what the army could do. Everything the boys had worked for, everything George had sacrificed for, could be destroyed forever. She took a deep breath.
“Then General Grant will have every one of them court-martialed and hanged.”