by Lisa Kleypas
"Why have the lowest leaves of all the trees been clipped like that?"
Russell seemed pleased by her interest. "That's the browse line, honey. That's about as high as the livestock can reach when they browse over the land and chomp on the trees. When you see that, you know the land is being overgrazed. That's why Ben moved the herd further out to richer land. If he didn't, the grass would be so thin the cows'd have to eat on a dead run to get enough. "
"But how long can you keep moving the herd around before you run out of good land?"
"Run outta land?" Russell laughed uproariously.
"We got half a million acres. We're not gonna run out anytime soon. And if we did, there'll always be more land in Texas."
"I don't know if Texas is as big as you think. Sooner or later the land-"
"Texas not big? It covers practically the whole country, 'cept for the little bit we let the other states divide amongst themselves. "
They rode over miles of arid rangeland, past herds of longhorns whose heads were dipped low as they grazed lethargically. Russell's face was alight with an emotion beyond pride as he regarded the animals with their swishing tails and lethal horns. "Beautiful, ain't they?"
"There certainly are a lot of them."
"Not bad for a man who started out with nothin' but two dollars in cash and an empty belly. Feels good to a man, Adeline, to look over what he owns and know he's built somethin' that'll last forever. To know he'll go on forever. This'll never be anything but Warner land, and I was the one who took it for his own."
Addie stared at him and felt a rush of pity. But when you were killed it all fell to pieces. There was no one to take over, no one to hold it together. The herds were rustled or sold off, the ranch was ruined. Cade was too young to take over. And I guess Caroline's husband was too weak, not the kind of man that others would follow. It didn't last forever.
"This is all mine," Russell said, relishing the thought. His voice lowered a few notches. "And someday it'll be yours."
"Mine?" she repeated, startled.
"Now, honey, don't tell me you weren't listen in ' when I explained it to you the other day. "
Addie had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he'd explained something to Adeline Warner. But not to Addie Peck.
"I didn't really understand," she said carefully. Russell sighed. "Aw, doesn't really matter. Wills are men's business anyway. You don't have to understand anything, honey. Just-"
"Explain it again," Addie interrupted gently, watching him like a hawk. "Please. I'll try very hard this time. What is this about a will?"
Russell seemed to puff up with self-importance.
"No one around here has the kind of fancy will I'm gettin' drawed up. I had to send for a Philadelphia lawyer to come here and do it right. He'll get here in about a month."
"There aren't lawyers here who could draw up a good will for you?"
"Not like the young hustlers back east. When it comes to the law, they know every trick there is. And I don't want any chance of a mistake bein' made with this will."
"What's so special about it?"
"Well, I've been thinkin' a lot about what'Il happen when I pass on. I don't aim to for a while, mind you. But I got to thinkin'-who's gonna carry on after me? Who's gonna look after Sunrise? Caro and Pete don't care nothin' about ranching. They're talking about movin' east after the baby's born."
"To North Carolina?" Addie guessed. It was where her mother, Sarah, had grown up, married, and eventually died.
"That's right. Guess you've heard 'em mention it."
He snorted. "East. Pete would feel at home there, sure enough. He's not a cowman. I'd hoped we'd make something of him when he an' Caro came to live at Sunrise. But he couldn't rope a calf if it stood still for him."
"What about leaving the ranch to Cade?"
"Cade can do whatever he set his mind to, but his heart's not here. He already wants a taste of city life, and when he gets it, he won't want to leave it. Too much like your mama. And May will see to it that her son gets a college education and winds up in a fancy office with glasses settin' on his nose and a pile of books on his desk. I hate to say it, but Texas just ain't in him. So that leaves you. But you can't inherit Sunrise, honey. No matter how smart y'are, you're just a woman."
"And that's nothing I can change," she said wryly. "So I was plannin' to do like everyone else around here, have the ranch sold off when I go, and divide the money between the ones I leave behind. You'd be a rich woman if I did that. You'd have enough money to do whatever you wanted for the rest of your life. I had it all settled in my own mind. But then Ben came along. "
Addie looked at him sharply. "What does Ben have to do with it?"
Russell smiled. "He runs the ranch as good as me. No dust settlin' on that one. When he says he'll do something, it gets done, one way or another. I like that. Man you can depend on. So I figured I'd make him trustee. That just means I'll leave Sunrise to you in trust, and he'll manage everything."
"You can't be serious!" Addie exclaimed, bug-eyed.
She was as outraged as if she were Russell's real daughter. "You're putting him in charge of your ranch, your money, and your family? He can do whatever he wants with us? Everything we have will be at his disposal? My Lord, he isn't even related to us!"
"I'm puttin' a few clauses in this will," Russell said, as if that was supposed to soothe her. "For one thing, Sunrise can't be sold off without the family's approval."
"What if Ben turns out to be a bad trustee? Can we fire him?"
"No, that's one thing y' can't change. He's trustee till he's dead and buried. But don't fret-he'll be damn good at it. I'll rest easy, knowin' I left things in his hands.
The very same hands that are going to strangle you! Addie's mind raced. Ben had the perfect motive to kill Russell. After the will was signed, he would be in control of the entire ranch and a large fortune, just as soon as Russell Warner was dead.
"Daddy, I know you trust him," she said, her voice wavering. "I know you depend on him and care for him. But it would be a mistake to put him in that position after you've gone."
"Aw, honey," Russell said soothingly, "I know you're prob'ly a mite disappointed at gettin' Sunrise in trust instead of all that money. But this is the only way the ranch won't go to pieces. Ben's my only insurance against it. I don't want my ranch to die just 'cause I have to. It's as simple as that."
"Have you told Ben yet?"
"Not yet. "
"It might be good to wait awhile," Addie murmured, and as she heard no reply from Russell, she fell silent. She tried to concentrate on the scene around them rather than go into a helpless tirade. That wouldn't do her cause any good. Later, she promised herself. There would be a chance to reason with Russell later, when she could pull some good arguments together.
The land was swarming with men and cattle, and the air was thick with dust and the smell of animals and sweat. Thousands of cattle were being treated for blowflies and screwworms, insects which settled in open wounds and fed on oozing flesh. The suffering longhorns were daubed with a mixture of grease and carbolic acid, which killed off the large maggots and relieved the animals' excruciating pain.
But the longhorns didn't know that the men were trying to help, and they reacted violently. Vicious curses sailed up the sky as the men danced out of the way of animals that had turned on them. There were clouds of dust curling, rising and settling around the moving figures, powdering the men's clothes, and sticking to their skin. All around them the cattle churned like a river of red-brown water.
Russell and Addie stopped to watch, keeping well out of the way.
"Hard work," Addie said, almost to herself. "Baking in the sun. Getting hurt so easily. No machines to help, no time to rest. Makes no sense for anyone to want to do this kind, of work. "
"Wait till the worst-tempered animals have to be dehorned," Russell said, and grinned.
"Why do they do this? What makes a man choose to be a cowboy?"
&
nbsp; "Don't know that a man ever asks himself that. He either does or he doesn't, that's all."
"There's no glamour in it. It's nothing at all like the novels and magazines describe it. And they certainly don't get a lot of money for what they do-"
"The hell they don't! I pay my boys forty dollars a month. That's nearly ten more than they could get anywhere else in the country for the same job. "
"I just don't understand what the attraction is for them."
Russell was not listening. "C'mon, honey. Ben's over there pullin' out a steer from a boghole."
She followed him reluctantly, riding further down the pasture to the site where two longhorns were stuck fast in a boghole, having tried to evade swarms of flies by wallowing in deep mud. One of the steers was making plaintive noises, while the other was silent and exhausted, making no protest as it was pulled out with ropes tied to the cowboys' saddle horns.
Addie's lips tightened with disdain as she looked at Ben, who had tied the ropes around the longhorn. His Levi's were black with mud all the way up to his knees and beyond. It looked like he'd been doing some wallowing right alongside the cattle. Sweat made streaks through the dirt on his face and the sides of his neck, and caused the ends of his black hair to curl damply against the back of his neck. That was where he belonged, in the dirt.
"Ben seems to have gotten the worst of it today," she commented with a trace of satisfaction.
"He's not afraid of work." Russell regarded his foreman fondly. "The men respect him for it. And they know he won't ask them to do somethin' he wouldn't do himself. Hardest thing in the world, Adeline, is to work for a man you know is lazier than you are, just like it's easy to work hard for someone you respect. "
It didn't fit conveniently into her picture of Ben Hunter. After all, he would murder Russell for his own personal gain. Money the easy way. That kind of man didn't take to hard work… wasn't that true? She wasn't pleased by the discovery that Ben might have a few good qualities to complicate her vision of him as an unscrupulous criminal. She wanted it all to be cutand-dried.
If only there were someone she could talk to about him, someone to help relieve her burden of silence! Everyone was so maddeningly pleased with Ben. They admired and respected him, not knowing what kind of man he really was.
As if he could feel her stare, Ben turned his head to look at her. She was amazed by the intense color of his eyes, emerald fringed with thick black lashes, set deeply in his dark face. For a second she couldn't move, trapped by his intent gaze. Despite the distance between them, it seemed as if he could read her mind, and she felt heat rising in her cheeks. She was relieved when he finally returned his attention to the steer struggling out of the boghole.
The animal stumbled forward on unsteady legs and collapsed at the edge, having lost the will to do anything but lie there and die. Swearing, the men went to the quivering longhorn and strained to lift it to its feet. After a long struggle the men succeeded in their task, and the longhorn staggered away to find a place to graze. Leaving the others to pull the second steer out, Ben walked over to Russell and Addie, wiping his hands on the back of his pants. Addie noticed the way his smile turned cool when he looked at her, and something inside her shifted uneasily.
"Miss Adeline. Hope you aren't offended by the cussing. " He tilted his head back and squinted up at her. As he had intended, the remark served to remind her that she was out of her depth in this, a scene that belonged so utterly to the men. The language, the work, the clothes-every detail was a complete contrast to the feminine surroundings women were usually relegated to. According to the dictates of this world, she was supposed to be in the kitchen or bending over needlework, not riding around the range with her father.
"I've heard language worse than this," she said.
"It's nothing less than what I'd expected."
Ben kept his thoughts well-hidden as he looked at her. He couldn't explain to himself why his feelings for her had started to change. They had disliked each other from the first moment they met, and with each of her visits home during vacations, their mutual intolerance had increased.
It had been a long-dreaded day when she'd returned from the girls' academy for good. He couldn't stand the games she liked to play, her capricious moods, her ability to shake everyone up and wrap anyone she wanted around her finger. She had always been haughty to him, until she became intrigued with his lack of interest in her, and that had resulted in the scene in the bam when she'd tried to seduce him. After he turned her down coldly, she decided to treat him with simple loathing, which had suited him just fine.
And then… it seemed incredible, but she had changed in the twinkling of an eye. There was no way of knowing whether it was permanent or temporary, but this new Adeline had a different effect on him than the old one. Ben had never noticed how beautiful she was, how vulnerable and disarming she could be. He almost wished he'd taken her up on her offer in the bam. At least that way he wouldn't be wondering now what it would be like to feel her body underneath his. Now he would never know, and although that was just as well, he was still unwillingly fascinated by her.
Addie looked around the pasture at the dirty, unshaven men, their clothes dark with perspiration, their faces adorned with unkempt mustaches or overlong sideburns. They kept on looking at her covertly. Without Russell nearby, she wouldn't have felt safe.
Ben noticed her uncertain expression and grinned.
"Diamonds in the rough, every one of us. You'll never come across a group of gentlemen with higher regard for a lady. Some of them have ridden hundreds of miles just to catch a glimpse of a woman of good character. "
"Including you, Mr. Hunter?" she asked, her voice soft and lethal.
"I've never been particularly interested in women of good character, Miss Adeline."
Addie fumed inwardly. Oh, how he loved to give just the right amount of disrespectful emphasis to her name! How could Russell just sit there without realizing Ben was subtly insulting her?
"It's a relief to know decent women are safe from your attentions, Mr. Hunter."
He grinned lazily, looking her up and down. "I should warn you, I make an exception every now and then."
Russell chuckled richly. "The key to my Adeline's heart is to give her compliments, Ben, lots of 'em. They do a lot to sweeten her disposition. "
"Only if they're sincere," Addie corrected. She glanced meaningfully at Ben. "And I see through most people who are wearing false fronts."
"I never knew you put much store by sincerity, Miss Adeline. "
"Then you don't know as much about me as you suppose, Mr. Hunter."
"Enough to have formed an accurate opinion."
"That's just fine. Form all the opinions about me you want, as long as I don't have to hear them. Your opinions bore me."
Ben's eyes narrowed.
Russell laughed in the silence that followed. "Don't you two ever quit?"
"I've got to get back to work," Ben said, looking at Addie and touching the brim of his hat in a gesture that contained only a modicum of politeness.
"He's het up, all right," Russell said with enjoyment, as Addie watched the foreman stride back to the boghole. "
"Why do you seem so pleased about it?" she asked, tight-lipped. "And why do you let him say such things to your daughter?"
"For one thing, when it comes to Ben Hunter, you take up for yourself better than I could. For another, you'd turn on me like a tornado if I broke in. You like to trade words with him. Hell, I like to trade words with him too. Difference is, you can get him mad and I can't. I like to see him mad every once in a while. Good for a man to have a flare-up every now and again. Not easy to get a rise outta him. Fact is, you're the only one who can do it right. He's as short as a pie crust around you."
"I don't do it on purpose," she muttered. God knew there was no reason for her to provoke Ben. It didn't help her cause any. If only she could swallow the sharp words that came to the tip of her tongue when Ben spoke to her. How much of a
n advantage she would have if she could stay cool and calm while he was angry! But she couldn't keep silent or cool, not when his mere presence filled her with such tension. She couldn't control her feelings when Ben was near. She found herself saying things she couldn't hold in. He brought out the worst in her, and it seemed she brought out the worst in him.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an urgent shout from Russell, who had leaned forward in his saddle "Hey! That steer's turned on em-someone dump him!"
Addie's eyes widened with alarm as she saw what had happened. As soon as the steer had struggled out of the boghole, it angrily turned its horns against its rescuers, enraged and ready to do battle. The huge horns shook threateningly at the man closest by. Quickly the steer lunged, powerful muscles bunching under the mud-encrusted hide, and all Addie could see was a flurry of motion. There was a short scream from the cowboy as he was wounded. Ropes were swung to catch the steer and hold him fast, but in the dust and frenzy the lassos missed their mark. Addie cried out as she saw the red gleam of blood and the rag-doll limpness of the boy as he fell.
Maddened by the snap of whirling ropes, the steer twisted sideways. Ben dived at the crumpled figure on the ground, catching at the leg of his chaps and pulling him away from the animal. The steer followed the movement quickly, his head bent to plunge forward in pursuit of the body sliding through the dust.
"Dump him!" Ben shouted hoarsely, but another rope failed to catch one of the longhorn's legs. His voice pierced the air. "Oh, shit. " Someone threw Ben a rifle, which smacked heavily in to his palms. Holding it by the barrel, he raised it in the air. Addie's heart stopped as she understood what he intended.
"Daddy," she whispered, wondering why no one was going to shoot the steer. She heard no sound from Russell.
Ben's body arched as he raised the makeshift club higher, and with a sharp, vicious movement he brought it down on the longhorn's forehead. The animal dropped without a sound, crashing to the ground, momentum causing it to slide forward until Ben was forced to scuttle backward. The point of a horn came to rest near his booted foot. Then Ben was motionless, staring at the twitching longhorn. There was silence in the pasture. "Couldn't anyone around here manage a head catch?" Ben finally asked of no one in particular, sighing as he went to the boy on the ground.
