by Taylor Lee
The Chinaman responded, “He could be just about anywhere: the dojo, his office, the stables – I don’t know. You might want to check with the men over in the training ring. They might have seen him.”
He pointed over to the training ring where Wyatt was.
Martin gave them both a dismissive nod and rode over to the enormous training ring, with Jesse following behind. Dismounting, Martin saw four ranch hands standing by the ring engaged in casual conversation. Two of them were Indians, one was a Mexican. The other looked like a half-breed.
Not caring if the cowboys heard him, he rolled his eyes at Jesse. With an exaggerated groan, he muttered, “My God, this is a real menagerie. They might want to think about adding a white person or two for variety.”
Martin tied his horse to one of the posts. He sauntered over to the tall good looking blue-eyed man leaning back against the fence smoking a cigarette.
“Excuse me. I am looking for your boss. Do you know where he is?”
The man looked him over and answered in a languorous voice. “Could be anywhere. Why do you want to see him?”
Martin drew himself up to his full height and leaned back to glare at the tall man towering over him. He responded coldly, making it clear that he wasn’t interested in talking with the help.
“I prefer to take it up with McManus personally. To put it succinctly…” then realizing the cowboy probably wouldn’t know what the word meant, he added, “I mean, to make the story as short and clear as possible, we need him to tell us if a horse needs to be put down.”
“Hmm, why?”
“What the hell do you mean, why?” Martin retorted, his irritation flashing, not liking the cocky half smile on this asshole’s face.
“Why do you think the horse needs to be put down?”
Martin gave an aggrieved sigh, acknowledging that the only way he was going to get to McManus was to go through these men. They must be part of his guard, he decided. They looked hard, strong. He noticed nervously they all were wearing guns. By the bulges under his vest, the one who answered him had several.
Martin took an inflated breath and looked the cowboy in the eye. He spoke slowly, carefully, as if he was explaining a complex narrative to a dim-witted child.
“We bought a horse. I guess you call it a mare -- last week – against my better judgment. But my wife liked the color. You know how women are when they want something. They never give up until they get their way.”
He glanced at the man expecting him to agree. When the cowboy raised an eyebrow and didn’t answer, Martin continued, his words coming in a rush.
“I know, I know. I should have been firmer, should have just said no. I knew the horse was bad. I should have put my foot down.”
“Hmm, you knew the mare was bad, but you still bought it?”
Turning away from Martin, the man squinted at Jesse through half closed eyes. His voice was a low, teasing rumble.
“You must be mighty persuasive. Do you always get your way?”
Jesse started at the question; her face flushed a rosy pink. Martin saw her confusion. He was stunned at the cowboy’s impertinence. The fucker was openly assessing his wife, sizing her up -- as if he could do anything he wanted to her.
Furious at the insolent way the man was ogling Jesse, Martin sputtered, “Excuse me, what did you say to my wife?”
The man didn’t move, just ignored the question. Taking a drag off his cigarette, he blew the smoke in Martin’s face then asked again, “Why do you think the horse – the mare -- needs to be put down?”
Martin was pulsating with emotion. He took several steps back. Crisply enunciating each word, he fought to contain his anger. He didn’t want to give the arrogant ranch hand the satisfaction of knowing he rattled him.
“My wife is an accomplished horsewoman. The horse threw Jesse, my wife, for no reason. Since the horse threw her, we cannot go near it.”
He took a breath, striving for calm, then added for further emphasis, “We have an Indian working for us. Even he can’t get near it.”
“Well, that is a serious problem,” the cowboy drawled, “if even your Indian can’t get near it. Sounds like it will need to be put down. You should have told me that earlier.”
Rage flooded over Martin. He was furious that Jesse was watching this embarrassing escapade. He knew the fucker was making fun of him, that all the assholes around him were laughing at him. This ignorant cowboy was making him look foolish. By God, he would not tolerate it.
He turned on him with an enraged glare. “Listen, you arrogant asshole, I am finished trying to explain to you what we need. Clearly, you are incapable of understanding. Go get your boss immediately. If he isn’t too busy scalping people or castrating them.”
Jesse put a restraining hand on his arm. “Martin, please.”
The cowboy took another long drag off his cigarette.
“I’m not sure he is available. Who can I say wants to see him?”
“You may tell him that a paying client would like to see him. If it isn’t too much trouble, given how busy you all are.”
The tall man sucked on his cigarette. He gave Jesse an impudent wink, smiling through the smoke when her cheeks flamed a brighter pink. He turned back to Martin and quirked an eyebrow.
“Should I tell him your wife is with you or is she just along for decoration?”
Martin thought his head might explode, he was so angry. Something about the tall, lean man smelled danger and kept Martin from moving closer to him. He puffed himself up like a banty rooster. In as strong a voice as he could muster, he snarled, “Who the hell are you?”
“Wyatt McManus. Who the hell are you?”
Wyatt tossed his cigarette, a wicked grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Oh, that’s right. You’re a paying client.”
Ignoring Martin, Wyatt nodded to Jesse. “If you need help with your mare, my trainers are in the barn.”
He called out over his shoulder to an Indian man standing by the entrance to the barn. “Alono, these are paying clients. At least one of them is. We don’t know much about the other one. They need help with a mare.”
He tipped his hat to Jesse and grinned at Martin who was shaking with impotent rage. “Pleased to meet you both. We’re always in need of paying clients, aren’t we, fellows?”
The other men smiled and chuckled in return.
Shaking his head in amusement, Wyatt turned and strode toward his cottage.
~~~
Wyatt sat in his office sorting the stack of telegrams on his desk. More telegraph traffic buzzed though his Wyoming ranch than any place outside of the east coast and California. In the last year, he made eighty percent of his purchases by telegraph. He bought horses from Australia, mining equipment from China, and financial instruments from England. The innovative system opened the world marketplace to him.
He heard a knock on the door and looked up to see Jesse standing in the doorway. For a half second he froze, then realized it was her hair. She wore a cowboy hat out at the training ring. He hadn’t seen her blond hair. It was darker than Vivian’s, not nearly as curly or wild. This woman’s hair was pulled back, tied neatly at the nape of her neck. Unlike Vivian’s, it appeared to stay in its place. But the color startled him. He pushed hard against the pain gripping his chest.
Jesse saw his expression change and thought he was angry.
She said, “I’m…I’m sorry to interrupt you. The woman outside told me I could come back here without being announced.”
Wyatt nodded. “Yeah, we’re informal here.”
He reached in the humidor on his desk, took out a cigar, clipped it with an opulent sliver clipping device and took his time lighting it. He puffed on it, the aromatic smoke masking his eyes as he continued to study Jesse without speaking.
She was taken back by his silence. When she realized he wasn’t going to say anything or invite her to sit down, she took a breath. “I …I came to apologize for my husband. For what happened out there. I k
now Martin can be insufferable.”
Wyatt’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Hey, you can’t help it if your husband is an asshole. But then you did marry him, right?”
Jesse felt her cheeks flame. She tried to recover by changing the subject. She glanced around the room. In a well-bred voice that would have been appropriate at a ladies tea, she said, “You have a most impressive operation here. Why, you even have telegraph service.”
Wyatt’s voice was curt. “Yes, we do. How can I help you, Mrs…?”
Jesse stammered, embarrassed at his cutting response. “Um, uh, Kendrick. Jesse Kendrick. My husband’s name is Martin.” Trying to recover her usual poise, she gushed, “But, please. Call me Jesse.”
Wyatt knew who they were when they first rode up to the ranch. Martin Kendrick was the asshole who thought he could come back from twenty years in Boston high society and convince a majority of the backwater idiots in Wyoming to vote for him. Not only did Wyatt recognize him, but he knew his real purpose in coming to see him. He knew Martin used the story about the mare as an excuse. What Martin didn’t know was that Wyatt wouldn’t give him two bits for his fucking campaign for governor. Moreover, he had pledged extensive resources to his opponent, including signing on to the executive committee.
What Wyatt didn’t know was if Mrs. Kendrick – Jesse -- was in on the real reason for their visit.
Cutting through her polite chit chat, his voice was steel. “Okay, Jesse, what can I do for you?”
Jesse couldn’t believe how nervous she felt. She was accustomed, trained, to make pleasant conversation. Here in front of this stern man with the hard eyes and firm jaw, she could barely put two sentences together.
“I …I came to ask you to reconsider. To…to ask you to come and look at my mare. To see if she can be saved.”
Wyatt nodded with more than a hint of distain. “I have several men who will be able to tell you if you need to put the mare down. We even have some non-Indians who could do it.”
She blushed again, not knowing when she had been as embarrassed. She struggled to answer. Finally she said, “I know Martin will kill the mare if you don’t come. He will never accept the word of an underling.”
His caustic smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Part of the menagerie?”
Jesse was mortified. This conversation was getting worse and worse. “I’m sorry you heard that. It was an inappropriate thing to say.”
Wyatt puffed on his cigar, his expression lightening somewhat. “I don’t know, Jesse. I think I fit the criteria for membership in the menagerie.”
“Yes, but you are wealthy.”
With a glimmer of a smile he said, “Must be all those paying clients.”
Jesse blushed again. Looking down at her hands, she didn’t answer.
Wyatt prodded, steepling his fingers thoughtfully in front of him. “So you need wealth to be taken seriously. Money trumps?”
Gaining her courage, she raised her chin. Mimicking his curt response, she said, “Usually.”
Wyatt smiled his first genuine smile. “That was honest.”
He took another puff off his cigar and looked at her through half closed eyes. Knocking the ash off the end of his cigar, a cross between a smile and a sneer caught his lip. “Which of Frank Kendrick’s ranches are you on?”
She stepped back, surprised and embarrassed that he knew their living arrangements. She tried to deflect his rude question with one of her own.
“How do you know Frank?”
“I’ve known him for years. He’s a friend. I don’t hold peoples’ relatives against them, no matter how full of shit they are. He can’t help the relatives he’s saddled with. Frank is my kind of guy. I’m especially attracted to people who make their own money, don’t just spend someone else’s.”
Jesse froze, then asked in a strained voice, “Are you talking about me?”
He leaned back in his chair and looked her over appraisingly. “Don’t know. Have you made any money lately?”
She didn’t answer for a minute, then said coolly, “We live at the Shadow Falls Ranch.”
Wyatt puffed on his cigar and nodded. “Okay. I need to go to Cheyenne tomorrow. I’ll stop on my way.”
When she continued to stand in the doorway, he glanced at her and jerked his head dismissively at the door. “We don’t announce people here; we don’t show them out, either. Good day.”
He turned back to his stack of telegrams. Her face hot with embarrassment, Jesse turned and left the room.
After she left, Wyatt tipped back in his chair and put his feet up on the corner of the desk. He puffed on his cigar and thought about Jesse Kendrick. She was quite a woman. Her blond hair caught him off guard. Conjuring up her wide blue eyes, flawless pale skin, and slender body, he concluded she had one hell of an enticing package. Christ, he thought, shaking his head, how can anyone have skin like that in Wyoming?
Leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head, he mused thoughtfully. Jesse had the classic beauty men like Martin gravitated to. Nothing exotic or wild, just serene, unruffled beauty. If Darwin was right and they kept up their inbreeding, Martin and his fellow patricians would always have their pick of women who met their exacting specifications.
Wyatt bred horses. He knew it took years of careful breeding to produce the Jesse Kendricks. He shook his head with a wry smile. “No half breeds allowed.”
~~~
Chapter 4
Jesse was sitting on the porch the next morning with Frank Kendrick, Martin’s grand uncle. Frank was the last of the generation of Kendrick men who created the fortune that countless offspring were ploughing through like fields of the finest loam. Frank stopped by last evening to visit. When Jesse told him Wyatt planned to come the next day to check her mare, Frank decided to stay over to see Wyatt.
Frank’s face was stained with bright red splotches. Eighty years of whiskey, cigarettes, and harsh Wyoming weather had lined his face with wrinkles so deep dirt stuck in the cracks. Everything about Frank embarrassed Martin. He stunk like horses and manure, he never changed his clothes more than once a week, and his colorful cursing left ranch hands blushing. His eyes were fierce and calculating, with a raw intelligence that Martin and his pure-bred relatives never understood or appreciated. What Martin hated most about Frank was that he wouldn’t die.
Martin left earlier, having as much of Frank as he could handle. He also wanted to avoid Wyatt. He was still smarting from the debacle at Blue Canyon. To make matters worse, he learned from one of his financial backers that Wyatt knew who he was before he went to his ranch. He was furious that Wyatt made an even bigger fool of him than he first thought. He also learned that Wyatt had signed on to finance his opponent’s campaign, so there was no reason to suck up to him.
God, can you imagine how insufferable Frank and Wyatt would be together, he thought? He and Frank lasted about thirty minutes before they were trading insults and slamming doors. They argued about everything from politics to what to have for dinner. The crux of their arguments was money. Frank continued to view the Kendrick fortune as his and wanted to parcel it out to his family as he saw fit. Fortunately, all the other family members were as dependent on Frank’s money as Martin was. Together they formed a solid phalanx determined to browbeat the old man out of every cent they could. They all lived for the day when the old coot popped off, giving them access to what was left without all Frank’s annoying restrictions.
~~~
Jesse saw them first, six men on horseback riding up to the ranch. Wyatt was in the lead on a massive black stallion. At his side was the older Indian man she and Martin met briefly yesterday. Three of the other men were the ones who had been with Wyatt in the training ring. The fifth was the Indian man Wyatt called Alono. Frank jerked to his feet as the men rode up. His face cracked in a huge grin.
Wyatt eased off his horse in a single fluid movement. He tipped his hat to Jesse, quickly striding past her to Frank.
He thrust out his
hand with a chuckle. “My God, Frank, are you still alive? Christ, what do you eat for breakfast? Raw wolf meat? You look better than I do.”
Frank grabbed Wyatt’s hand and hugged him close, clamping a friendly arm around his shoulder.
“You lying son of a bitch. You know that I look like hell and am likely to die any minute. The only reason I’m still alive is that I’ll be god damned if I am going to let the thieving bastards in my family live any higher off my hog than they already do. Jesse here is an exception. She lives off my money like the rest of them, but at least she treats me nice, don’t you, honey?”
Jesse looked down, mortified. Frank just confirmed what Wyatt already knew -- that she was a parasite like the rest of them. But being the tornado that he was, Frank moved on to greet the older Indian man Frank introduced simply as Chief. From their conversation it was clear Frank had known Chief as long as he had Wyatt. Jesse breathed a sigh of relief when the conversation blessedly moved away from her.
Frank insisted they sit for a few minutes on the porch and have a cup of coffee before they dealt with the mare. Wyatt and the others pulled up chairs. Wyatt and Frank traded affectionate insults along with serious questions about their respective businesses. Watching them, Jesse thought how lonely Frank must be. No one talked to him the way Wyatt and Chief were. The whole family treated him the way Martin did – as a burden they bore to get access to his money. Frank was right, she thought. She was the only family member who ever invited him over or visited with him.
