Iris

by Greenwood, Leigh

  "Plus Carlos and Joe."

  Monty looked stubborn. "I don't trust them, especially Joe."

  "I don't trust Joe either, but Carlos is the only relative I have in the world. Right now I feel like he's the only friend I have as well. And don't look like I've just hurt your feelings," Iris said, irritably. "You've been most generous with your criticism of my conduct, motives, ability to think, just about every aspect of my character. Carlos is the only man in the entire group who doesn't treat me like an idiot."

  "He's out for what he can get from you."

  "He's got a right. He's my father's son as much as I'm his daughter." Iris broke the limb off the bush and began to skin off the bark.

  "You can give him everything you've got if you like, but I mean to see he doesn't take it."

  "I haven't made up my mind to give him anything, but he is my brother. How would it look if I let you fire him? How would he feel?"

  "I don't care how he feels."

  "You wouldn't fire your brothers."

  "The hell I wouldn't! The minute one of them starts slacking off, I'll send him back to the ranch, and they know it. Randolphs are expected to work harder than anybody else."

  "Well you're a family," Iris said, groping for another argument, "you know you love each other despite what happens on one cattle drive. Carlos doesn't know that. Nobody ever wanted him. If I fire him now, he probably won't ever come back."

  "I don't want him back."

  "You've got to let him stay."

  "He won't if I ride him every hour of the day, give him the worse jobs, and cuss him out no matter what he does."

  Iris got so mad she slashed the bush with her stripped twig. She could put up with Monty knowing more than she did about everything, with his always having an answer, but she wouldn't put up with him being a brute and a bully, especially when it meant he was driving off the only family she had.

  "You do that, and I swear I'll make your life hell from here to Wyoming. I'll stampede your herd every night. They'll be so skinny you won't be able to see them unless they turn sideways."

  Much to Iris's amazement, Monty's furious look vanished and he broke out laughing. "You're a little tiger when you're riled," he said. "Okay, Carlos can stay, but Joe has to leave."

  "Joe, too. Carlos won't stay without him."

  Monty's good humor vanished as quickly as it appeared. Maybe George had the authority to tell him what to do when it came to the ranch, but she would bet her last cent no women did, not even the perfect Rose.

  "There's no point in exchanging one thief for another."

  "You don't know he's a thief. He hasn't stolen anything." Iris broke the limb in half. Then into smaller pieces.

  "I know his type."

  "That's still no reason to fire him. George has given you a chance. Why can't you do the same for Carlos and Joe?"

  For a moment she was afraid she had made a mistake in mentioning George again. But though Monty looked furious enough to chew his way through a six-inch tree trunk, he controlled his temper.

  "Okay," Monty said. "You're wrong, but I guess that's fair enough. Besides, I need the hands. But they've both got to answer to me. The first time one of them goes behind my back, he gets his marching orders. They've also got to accept I'm the only one giving orders. I won't have Carlos expecting special treatment because he's your brother."

  "That seems fair."

  "They can't work together," Monty added. "I don't care if they've been inseparable since the cradle."

  "They won't like that."

  "I don't like having them here. Hen likes it even less."

  "What about me?" Iris asked. Iris tossed away the broken limb. "Do I have to take orders and acknowledge your supreme control and work when and where you tell me?"

  "I wasn't talking about you."

  "Then let's talk about me now. I want to know exactly where I stand. If I'm going to be treated like a hired hand in my own crew, I want to know."

  "You going to sabotage me if I don't tell you?"

  "I don't know. Maybe I'll slip Jimson weed into Tyler's coffee and take over the cooking."

  "I thought you said you couldn't cook."

  "I can't. You wouldn't have a single hand left after the first evening." Iris moved to a tangle of grape vines wound around the trunk of a dead tree.

  "Okay," Monty said, his smile once again banishing his thundercloud expression. "I promise to consult you before I make a decision. Mind you, I've never done it before, so I'm liable to forget more often than not, but I'll try."

  "I've never been ignored," Iris responded, experiencing a foolishly giddy feeling at his smile, "but I'll promise to try not to get so upset."

  "Helena always did."

  "I know my mother's behavior wasn't always what it should have been," Iris said, some of her good humor seeping away, "but I'd appreciate it if you'd stop criticizing her at every turn. You wouldn't like it if I did the same with your parents." Iris plucked a green grape and tossed into the river.

  "You're welcome to say what you please about Pa," Monty said. "No matter what you say, you're bound to be wide of the mark."

  "You know what I mean," Iris said, irritated Monty always seemed to have an answer for everything.

  "Okay, I'll lay off Helena. Now let's get back. I want Frank and his men as far away as possible before they make camp. That's why I'm not offering to feed them. I'm hoping that'll make them keep riding until they get out of Indian territory."

  "You think they might come back?" She found a bird's nest, but it was empty.

  "I think they might try to stampede the herd to get even," Monty said. "It would punish me and give them a chance to cut out a few cows for themselves."

  "You don't think they would--"

  "I certainly do. Hen and I don't mean to go to bed tonight. If the herd does stampede, you stay with Tyler. Salty and the boys will take care of the cows. Hen and I will be out looking for whoever caused it."

  It seemed to Iris that every time she thought she was beginning to learn what to do, something else cropped up to make her realize how ill-prepared she was to undertake this trip. In frustration she pitched green grapes at Monty.

  He ignored her.

  "Carlos, you and Joe come here a minute," Monty said, when he reached camp. "The rest of you, finish collecting your gear."

  Monty turned and walked back the way he came without waiting to see whether the men followed. Iris felt an urge to hang back and let Monty handle it by himself, but she knew she couldn't. She had forced him to do something he didn't want to do. She had to make sure Carlos and Joe wouldn't cause trouble

  "I ain't doing that," Joe said when the terms had been explained to him. "I'm no thief, and you ain't treating me like one."

  "Monty doesn't think you're a thief," Iris said, trying to make the conditions sound more palatable. "You'll know that once you've worked together for a while."

  "These are the terms," Monty said, not making any effort to placate the two men. "They're the only ones I'm offering."

  For a moment Iris thought Carlos was going to leave with Frank.

  "I'll stay," he said at last. "I've been trying to get Iris to cut out on you, but she won't. Now that you fired her crew I can't leave her with nobody but you to look after her."

  "I don't want either of you here," Monty said with equal candor, "but Iris seems to think you have as much right to be here as she does. As long as she feels like that, I'll try to go along with you."

  "Did you really say that?" Carlos asked, clearly surprised.

  "Of course I did. I always thought Dad ought to have left you something. I've been thinking that--"

  "You can talk about that later," Monty interrupted. "Are you staying or not?"

  Carlos turned to Joe.

  "Okay," Joe said, "but the first time anybody starts acting like I stole something, there's going to be trouble."

  "Don't start anything you don't plan to finish," Monty said.

  He said it
quietly, almost as if it were unimportant, but Iris would see Carlos and Reardon stiffen. Joe had tossed out a threat and Monty had accepted his challenge. Iris knew that could mean trouble.

  "Get back to the herd." Monty dismissed Joe and Carlos and turning to Iris. "You might as well get the bank draft ready."

  "What do you mean?" Iris asked. He had caught her by surprise.

  "You've got to give them a draft on your bank. They'll never leave without one."

  She didn't have a bank. Every cent she possessed was in the form of one hundred and sixty-two gold pieces strapped around her waist or in her saddlebags

  "Could you do it for me and let me pay you later?"

  "No. I'd have to use the family's money."

  She really hadn't expected him to agree, but his blunt refusal surprised and hurt her. If he had to refuse her, why couldn't he at least try to sound sorry about it?

  "You can pay them, can't you?" Monty asked when Iris didn't answer.

  "What would happen if I couldn't?"

  Monty looked as though he'd never been asked such a stupefying question. "They'd be justified in taking every head of cattle you owned."

  "Oh," Iris said, her worst fears confirmed. "Well I have the money, but there's a slight problem."

  "There's always a slight problem with you. Why can't you do things like everybody else?"

  "Because I'm a woman," Iris flashed back, "and you men won't let me."

  "You can't blame it on me. Seems about all I do is let you do whatever you want."

  Iris felt a pang of guilt at the trouble she had caused, but she didn't have time to worry about Monty just now.

  "Could we go back down to the river?"

  "What do you want to do that for?"

  "I'll tell you when we get there."

  "Okay, but it had better not take long."

  "You need to bring your horse. I'll get mine"

  Monty looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "You hoping to talk me into running away?"

  "Be serious. Will you bring your horse?"

  "Oh hell, why not."

  * * * * *

  "Okay," Monty said when they were well away from the camp. "What now?"

  "I don't have a bank account."

  Monty looked at her like a roof had just caved in on him.

  "I didn't trust them, not after what that miserable man did to me. Besides, he said he wouldn't be surprised if there were other people who'd come demanding payment for debts we didn't yet know about."

  "What has this got to do with--"

  "You couldn't expect me to leave my money with a man like that," Iris exclaimed. "How did I know he wouldn't give it away to anybody who asked? He'd have been happy to see me reduced to begging."

  "So what did you do?"

  "I hid it."

  "Great. But the bush you buried it under is five hundred miles away. You need it here, not it south Texas."

  "I didn't bury it, and it's not in south Texas."

  Suspicion sharpened Monty's expression. Why did he do this? He didn't even know what she was going to tell him and he was ready to tell her she was wrong. She didn't suppose she'd would ever earn his approval. She wondered if he realized that he treated her far worse than George had ever treated him.

  Probably not. She was a woman. He would never see the parallel.

  "There's a secret panel in the wagon. Mother used it to hide her jewelry."

  Monty looked thunderstruck. "So when you said you wanted to be private--"

  "I removed the money from the secret panel."

  "And put it in your saddle bags. That's why you wanted me to bring your horse."

  "It's not there now," Iris confessed. "But I wanted everybody to think it was."

  "Either I've been working too hard, or I'm having a sunstroke," Monty said. "I don't understand a thing you're saying."

  "The money's in a belt around my waist," Iris confessed at last, "but I didn't want anybody to know that."

  "You mean you've been riding over two hundred miles of wilderness carrying a fortune around your middle?"

  "It's far from a fortune," Iris said. "I barely have three thousand dollars."

  Monty looked dumbfounded. "Don't you realize some of those men I just fired would kill you and throw your body in the river for three hundred dollars? If they knew you had three thousand dollars, I wouldn't have time to worry about cows for protecting you."

  "I didn't have any other choice."

  "You did, but that's beside the point now. What do you want me to do?"

  "I want to give you the money, and you pay the men."

  "Then everybody will think I'm carrying a fortune and come gunning for me."

  "Everybody knows you're rich. They won't think anything of it."

  "They will, but I don't think six weeks wages is going to arouse too much curiosity. Certainly not as much as knowing you've got nearly ten times that much. Give it to me. I'll take care of it until you can put it in a bank."

  Monty held out his hand. Involuntarily, Iris took a step back.

  "I want to keep it."

  Monty reacted as though she had slapped him. "Don't you trust me?"

  "Of course I do. I've trusted you with everything I own, including my life."

  "But you don't trust me with your money."

  "It isn't that. I don't know if I can explain it."

  "Try." It was a command, not a request.

  Iris hadn't known until just now she couldn't rest easy if she handed over her money. How could she possibly explain it to Monty so he wouldn't feel hurt or angry?

  "The herd and this money are all I have in the world. I can't tell you how it terrifies me to know I could lose them both quite easily. If I weren't so tired after being in the saddle all day, I don't think I could sleep for worrying about it. I can't let either of them out of my sight. That's why I couldn't send the herd off with some drover I'd never seen before. That's why I can't hand my money over to anybody, even you."

  "So you're going to let everybody think I have the money so I can be in danger."

  "I seem to be doing that a lot, don't I?"

  "Yes."

  "Will you do it?" She didn't know how she got the nerve to ask, but she did. She couldn't think of anything else.

  "I might as well," Monty said, heaving a sigh. "After this trip, George is going to think I have no common sense. If he ever finds out about this, he'll be certain of it. Count it out. I hope you don't have big bills."

  "It's in gold."

  Monty actually groaned. "Nobody carries gold. You might as well put a gun to your head."

  "Nobody knows about it."

  "They will."

  "How?"

  "I don't know, but somehow they always find out. Never mind. It's too late to do anything about it now. Count out the money, and let's get back."

  Having Monty glare at her made it hard for Iris to remember her sums. She made a mistake. That got her so upset she made another."

  "Here, let me do it," Monty said.

  "No, it's my money, and I'll count it. But it would be easier if you'd go watch the river or something. You make me nervous glaring at me like that."

  It only took her a few moments once Monty had turned his back.

  "I still think you ought to let me keep it for you," Monty said as he put the gold pieces into his saddlebags. "At least divide it up. That way you can't lose it all at once."

  "That way I can't watch it all at once."

  "All right, you might as well do it your way. You going to anyway."

  * * * * *

  Carlos and Joe should have returned to work, but Carlos waited to see Monty didn't bully Iris. He stood discreetly to one side drinking coffee. Joe rolled a cigarette.

  "I never saw anybody pay off in gold," Joe Reardon whispered to Carlos as they watched Monty count out the gold pieces to Frank and the other fired cowhands.

  "Why not? The Randolphs are so rich they can do anything they please."

  "But doe
sn't it strike you funny," Joe said, "bringing gold on a trip like this. Even for the Randolphs."

  "No. Why should it?"

  "Well, for one thing, nobody does it. They pay off in town at the bank, or they have somebody bring the money out when the drive's over." Joe struck a match on the side of his pants, lighted up, and took a drag.

  "What are you getting at?" Carlos asked.

  Joe exhaled smoke through his nostrils. "I just remembered that rumor about old man Randolph stealing a Union payroll during the war. There was quite a flap about it at one time. Some old coot even attacked the ranch and dug up half the yard, but it died down when there was no flood of gold pieces around south Texas."

  "If they had that gold, and I don't believe they did, there's hundreds of ways they could have got rid of it."

  "Sure there are, but maybe they didn't. Maybe they were content to keep it, just spending a little bit here and there."

  "What are you getting at?"

  "There ain't no banks where we're going. Maybe they thought it would be easier to bring gold."

  "God, I hate the smell of that tobacco. Can't you smoke something else?"

  Joe ignored him. "They'd need enough to run the ranch for years. They could have a fortune with them. The old man was supposed to have stolen a half a million."

  "Even if they got two and a half million, they ain't going to give you any of it for the asking."

  "No, but that Monty fella is getting rather sweet on your sister. Suppose he was to want to marry her and we was to say we wouldn't hand her over unless he gave us a couple of saddlebags of those shinny gold pieces."

  "I don't want Iris to marry him. She's going to make me her foreman. She might even make me a partner in the ranch."

  "Don't be a fool," Joe hissed. "You could buy a dozen ranches with the gold he must have. Then we wouldn't have to live on no ranch. We could live anywhere we wanted, pay somebody else to ride out in the snow when it's below zero."

  "I don't like it."

  Joe blew a smoke ring. "You ain't in love with her yourself, are you?"

  "Of course not, but--"

  "Then there ain't no buts."

  "What if he don't want to marry her?"

  "Then you can be her foreman, and I can marry her."

  Carlos shook his head. "I don't like that either."

  "Would you rather I tell her what you was doing these last years? You think Randolph is going to keep us on once he knows you're a wanted man?"