Drew hid his loneliness well under a smile, a wink, and a joke. But Kirby often wondered what turned a Scottish lord into a wanderer, a man who would accept a pittance for backbreaking labor.
Kirby sighed. His friendship with Cameron scared his nephews. They had always expected to take over his spread and now they sensed a challenge to that natural assumption. That Drew Cameron wanted no part of it would never occur to them.
What did occur to Kirby was that the competition might be good for his nephews. He didn’t want to think that he was using a man who had saved his life.
So he thought of Laura instead. Pretty Laura whom he could never have.
Chapter Four
“Head ’em up and move ’em out!”
The call started at the front of the sprawling, brown mass of horned cattle and moved in two directions around the perimeter of the herd, until it reached the back.
Riding drag, the worst possible position on the drive, Drew received the call last, and by the time it reached him, the very earth rumbled with movement and the plain itself appeared to be moving. Great clouds of dust swirled from thousands of hooves, and all of it seemed aimed directly at his face. He pulled up his bandanna for protection, but he couldn’t cover his eyes. He knew his clothes would be brown with new dirt within an hour.
He didn’t know how his horse stood the unremitting assault, but the pinto seemed to take it in stride. They had been on the trail five days now, and he and the pinto, his horse of choice, had finally reached an understanding. At least, Drew thought they had.
His mind had been wandering a bit when a cow, straggling at the back of the herd, suddenly broke away and veered to the left. The pinto veered after it and Drew was nearly unseated. He gave his head a shake to clear it. No more daydreaming about the green fields and grouse-filled woods of Scotland. He had to pay attention every moment.
The horse turned sharply again, and this time Drew anticipated the move and flowed with it. Within seconds, the wayward cow had been driven back to the main herd, and the pinto settled back into an easy walk. Drew settled in for another long and grinding day.
By midmorning, he was shifting restlessly in the saddle, wishing to bloody hell he could dismount and walk awhile. Walking was a sacrilege to most cowboys, but his body had yet to resign itself entirely to sitting in a saddle eighteen hours a day. The eager anticipation that had rippled through him that first morning, when the drive commenced, had since drained away. His sense of adventure had dimmed as dust, dirt, and heat enveloped him like a malevolent cloud.
Heat. He felt it to the marrow of his bones. The Texas sun was nothing he’d ever experienced—big and bold and burning—and he wondered how anyone ever got used to it. Scotland had three temperatures: cool, cold, and freezing. Based on the past five days, he decided that the Texas counterpart was hot, hotter, and roasting. But today felt especially miserable; the heat was accompanied by a suffocating humidity that hadn’t been there yesterday.
His own discomfort made him wonder how Two-Bits was faring. Despite the temperature, the lad still clung to his preposterous garb. The other hands, who were all down to the minimum necessary to protect their bodies from occasional branches and brush, were taking bets on how many days it would be before the cook’s louse shed his layers of clothing.
Drew couldn’t help but feel sympathetic, as well as grateful, toward Gabe Lewis. The lad had saved him from being the cowhands’ favorite target, taking all the joshing and pranks upon himself. And, God knows, he gave the hands enough to tease him about. His own initial suspicion of Two-Bits had faded to almost nothing; no villain, no matter how young, could possibly be as inept. He’d have been in jail, or dead, with his first unlawful act.
Stories already abounded about the louse’s incompetence, and Two-Bits had been banished to the sole duty of collecting cow chips. No one was betting that he wouldn’t find a way to fail at that, too. The lad would have been fired on the first day if it weren’t for the fact that he tried so hard; even Pepper had to admit that he did.
The day wore on, seemingly endless, and sometime late in the afternoon, Drew noticed the temperature start to drop. The air became heavy, and the humidity went from oppressive to unbearable. It seemed to collect on Drew’s skin, and the reins, even through his gloves, felt like wet leather, limp and slippery. And yet he was aware of a peculiar energy in the still, moisture-laden air. A short time later, a sharp wind started to blow. The sky, clear that morning, began to grow thick with dark, ominous layers of clouds; they piled up like a chain of mountains, filling the sky.
The cattle became perceptibly restless. The wind and the wicked-looking sky made Drew nervous, too. For the last hour of the day, he and the other two cowhands riding drag—Ace, a black man, and Juan, a Mexican—were constantly moving, trying to keep the back of the herd together.
By the time the call came to stop for the day, about an hour before dusk, he was flat-out exhausted, and hunger gnawed at his stomach. Since breakfast at dawn, he’d had only jerky during the day, along with warm water from his canteen. He’d changed horses three times during the day and was now riding a black.
When he’d completed his share of work, getting the herd settled for the night, he rode with Juan and Ace to the temporary corral that had been set up for the remuda. There, he dismounted and unsaddled his horse, leaving it in the hands of the wrangler.
Grateful to be on his own feet, he walked toward the chuck wagon, which he knew would have arrived with the hoodlum wagon hours ago to set up camp. The wagons always moved out before the rest of the drive, camping early in order to fill the barrels with water before the cattle soiled it.
As he approached camp, Drew looked for Two-Bits but didn’t see him. The coffee was ready, though, and the stew smelled as good as an eight-course meal in a fine Edinburgh restaurant. He poured himself a cup of coffee and took a couple of swallows, using it to rinse the dust out of his mouth and throat.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Kirby told him as he sipped his own cup of coffee. “You have the first watch.”
Drew nodded, sighing inwardly. He’d told Kirby he didn’t want favors. It was obvious he wasn’t going to get any. Being the newest man, he was usually assigned to the meanest jobs, and that included first night watch as well as drag.
Pouring more coffee into his tin cup, he helped himself to a bowl of stew and a chunk of fresh bread, then ate as he paced slowly around the campsite. After so many hours in the saddle, sitting held little appeal. Most of the other hands had finished their meals and were drinking their coffee and talking. A couple were unrolling blankets preparing to sleep. Several were playing cards. As he watched, a couple of men wandered off, away from the campsite, to tend to private matters.
Drew’s stroll took him past the chuck wagon, where he stopped to talk to Pepper, who was working on a batch of biscuit dough. “Where’s the lad?” he asked Pepper.
“Gone after more wood for the fire,” Pepper said.
Drew took another drink of coffee. “He get rid of any of those clothes?”
“Hell no.” Pepper shook his head in disgust. “Damn fool kid. Almost like he’s afraid somebody’s gonna steal ’em.” The cook looked up at the sky. “On the other hand, could be he’s smarter than any of us. He might need them things he’s got on real soon.”
Drew’s gaze turned upward. Although it wasn’t yet dusk, the sky was even darker than it had been minutes earlier. Dark clouds churned ominously. And the wind had turned cold. All around the campsite, cowhands were putting on coats.
Seeing Kirby walking toward him, he looked to the trail boss for an explanation. “Is this sort of weather normal?”
Kirby shook his head. “Ain’t no such thing as ‘normal’ in this part of Texas. Weather can turn real strange out here. I’ve seen blizzards in May.” Looking at the sky, he shook his head again. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it one damn bit.” And with that, he walked away, striding across the campsite toward Damien.
&n
bsp; Drew gulped down the rest of his food, drank his coffee, rinsed his plate and cup, and left them in the barrel where they were stored. In the few minutes he’d been in camp, the temperature had fallen sharply. He shivered inside his light cotton shirt as he walked to the hoodlum wagon, where he kept his bedroll and extra clothes. He hesitated a moment, then pulled on a wool shirt and his slicker. He might well need it before his watch had finished.
As he started toward the remuda and a fresh horse, Kirby stopped him.
“Be real careful tonight,” the trail boss said. “Cattle are always a little spooked the first few nights, and this sky …” His gaze traveled heavenward again. “There’s a storm brewing. A bad one.” Offering Drew a twisted smile, Kirby added, “You might try one of those soothing Scottish melodies.”
Before Drew could reply, Damien interrupted. “Hell, that will spook them straight to Mexico,” he said nastily.
Kirby gave his nephew a long, warning glance, and Damien glared at Drew.
“I wouldn’t trust him with those cattle,” Damien said to his uncle.
“I would,” Kirby said quietly. “And you’ll take the second shift, Damien, so you’d better get some sleep.”
Drew felt the enmity practically ooze from Damien before the younger man turned and walked over to flop down on his bedroll. Kirby gave him a nod, then headed over to talk to Pepper, and Drew was left to wonder—not for the first time—how seriously he ought to take Damien’s blatant anger toward him. Would Kirby’s nephew actually do him harm? He didn’t know, and that being the case, he reminded himself to watch his own back.
He saddled a fresh horse from the remuda and mounted. As he rode off toward the herd, he caught a glimpse of a small, semibent silhouette—Two-Bits, hunched over an armful of cow chips, heading toward the chuck wagon.
Relieved, Drew smiled. He hadn’t even been aware that he was worrying about the lad. Didn’t know why he cared enough to worry. Yet he couldn’t seem to keep Gabe Lewis out of his thoughts for long, and he found it comforting in a way he didn’t begin to understand that the lad was still with the drive.
He didn’t understand his concern for Gabe Lewis any better than he understood why he had let himself get involved with Kirby Kingsley. He usually went out of his way not to get involved. Yet here he was, dead tired and filthy and longing for a good snifter of brandy, riding off into what promised to be one hell of a bloody storm. And for what purpose? To tend a bunch of cattle.
Stupid beasts, cows. Didn’t possess a grain of sense, nor any redeeming qualities he could name. So, why was he killing himself on this damn drive in exchange for fifty of the cursed beasts? One game of chance in town, and he’d have enough money for a clean room, a good meal, and a lusty woman.
Pride, he thought. It had to be. There simply was no other explanation. He’d accepted Kirby’s offer out of curiosity and adventure and now was stuck with a decision too readily made. He’d never been a quitter, no matter what else he’d been—or hadn’t been.
As he began his first long circle of the sleeping herd, Drew started to sing softly—a Scottish lullaby that one of his nurses had sung to him long, long ago, in another lifetime.
Gabrielle was on her way back to camp with her latest load of cow chips when she saw Drew Cameron ride back toward the herd. She wondered whether he’d heard about her latest debacle. Embarrassment ripped through her as she remembered each humiliating moment.
Stew had been a last-minute replacement for supper tonight. The planned menu had been beans, which she’d put on the fire as soon as they’d stopped at midafternoon, far ahead of the herd. Pepper had been busy making bread and had told her to put beans into a pot with water.
She’d done exactly that, pleased that he had trusted her with that small chore. But then Terry Kingsley had arrived, telling them that the herd was an hour behind, and he’d taken a taste of the beans, immediately spitting them out. The younger Kingsley had sworn first at Pepper, who’d then turned on her.
“What’s the matter now?” Pepper asked sharply, and when Terry held up his tooth for the cook’s inspection, Pepper let out a single explicit oath.
Gabrielle still hadn’t been quite sure what she’d done wrong. Pepper had told her to put five pounds of beans in a pot and she’d followed his instructions precisely.
But Pepper had fixed her with his blue pale eyes. “Sonofabitch,” he said. “What did I do so bad in my life that a vengeful god saddled me with you?”
Gabrielle had stared at him, uncomprehendingly.
“Any fool could see gravel was mixed with the beans,” he said. “Anyone with a lick of sense.”
She still must have looked puzzled because the cook went into another spasm of creative oaths, then explained disgustedly. “Sellers mix gravel in with beans to add to their weight. You always have to sort it.”
“I didn’t know,” she said.
“Any jackass knows that,” Pepper muttered balefully. “I ain’t gonna let you anywhere near this wagon again.”
Gabrielle had wanted to sink into the ground. Nothing she did was right. Nothing. She’d tried to swallow, but a huge lump of embarrassment had clogged her throat. She had seen some grit toward the bottom, but hadn’t seen any in the scoopfuls she’d measured. Minutes later, she’d been banished back to collecting cow chips. At least she was out of sight of Pepper, and hopefully out of mind. She winced as she remembered the outraged barrage of insults.
At least this hadn’t been quite as bad as the coffee calamity. Having lived with her parents in rooming houses and hotels, she had never made coffee in her life. So when Pepper had told her to make it “strong enough to float a horseshoe,” she had taken him seriously. After searching the compartments and finding coffee beans, she’d hesitantly asked him how much to use. After he’d hollered for a while about how any simpleton knew how to make coffee, his growled instructions had been to “take a pound of coffee, wet it good with water, boil it over a fire for thirty minutes, pitch in a horseshoe and if it sinks, put in more coffee.”
It hadn’t sounded right to her, but she was hesitant to ask any more questions. They always drew spiked contempt and exasperation. He obviously thought anyone should know how to make coffee. So she’d followed the directions—except for putting in the horseshoe—and she still didn’t consider it her fault that nobody had told her that she had to grind the coffee beans.
Unfortunately, Kingsley had been the first person to pour himself a cup of the stuff she’d made. He’d taken a sip without looking at it. The reaction was immediate. He spat it out instantly, and his face had gone beet red. She’d been extremely thankful that the words he’d muttered under his breath were incomprehensible.
Pepper’s comments, however, had been very plain. Gabrielle had heard inventive swearing in the theater, but everything she’d ever heard paled in the face of the old cook’s creative use of the language. And his comments over the coffee were nothing compared to the pinnacle he’d reached when he discovered she’d thrown out his sourdough starter. It had looked—and smelled—like something spoiled to her. How was she supposed to know what it was?
For the following three nights she had been exiled from the chuck wagon, and only today had she been given another chance.
So much for second—and third—chances. She’d lost them. And she only wished she could figure out why she even cared. She wasn’t here to learn how to cook or make anyone like her. She was here to find some kind of justice.
She bit her lip, torn between amusement at the beleaguered Pepper and chagrin at her own incompetence and the likely result. If only there had been a cookbook. Or if Pepper had explained something. But neither had happened, and she’d placed far too much faith in her own reasoning ability. Cooking, apparently, was not one of her God-given talents.
She sat down on a dead log, and she couldn’t help herself. She started laughing. That coffee had been rather strange, and the look on Pepper’s face when he’d discovered his treasured starter missing would foreve
r be in her memory. Pure disbelief. Absolute horror. If she hadn’t wanted to stay so badly, to complete her mission one way or another, she would have smiled then and there.
The reminder of her goal sobered her. Nothing had changed her conviction that Kingsley had hired a gun to kill her father. And she was still suspicious that Drew Cameron might be that hired gun. But she wasn’t sure, and she hadn’t figured out how to confirm her suspicion.
She saw so little of the Scotsman. And when she did see him, he confused her so badly she couldn’t think. When he was around the campsite, he watched her constantly, watched her with those intense, piercing golden eyes. And when he wasn’t watching her, he was doing or saying something kind—at least on the surface his words and deeds appeared kind—which only made her more confused.
She didn’t want Drew Cameron’s kindness. She didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to like him. And she most definitely did not want to feel the butterflies that fluttered inside her every time she looked at him. She didn’t understand how she could feel any pleasant sensation over a man she believed might be a murderer—her father’s murderer.
In fact, she decided, it was her suspicions about the Scotsman that were keeping her from acting on the overwhelming impulse she felt every time she saw Kirby Kingsley—that and the fact she was never alone with Kingsley. She wanted to use the pistol she kept in the saddlebags, force him to tell the truth, even … kill him if necessary. It wasn’t rational, that impulse. In some dark corner of her mind, she knew that. But when she saw Kingsley, or thought about him, all rational thought fled. Rage and grief overpowered all else. She wanted to hurt him, to do damage to him as he had done to her and those she loved.
It didn’t matter what happened next. She couldn’t think past that moment. In slightly more rational moments, she knew that if she shot Kingsley, the likely outcome would be that she, too, would die. But at the moment, she simply didn’t care. She had no one. Nothing. Except … if she were killed, she would miss her chance at finding the man who’d actually pulled the trigger.
Scotsman Wore Spurs Page 5
