by Janet Dailey
“Of course I do. How are you, Asa?” Frank Bulfert greeted him with a kind of back-slapping gusto.
Benteen turned his glance on the brutish-faced man in the chair, who hadn’t appeared to age since the last time he’d seen him. Theirs was a longtime acquaintance, dating back to his Texas days and those early years in Montana. Benteen didn’t regard Bull Giles as a rival anymore, but neither did he call him friend, yet he trusted Bull Giles as he trusted few men. The man had saved his life once, crippling his knee as a result. It was something Benteen had never forgotten.
Despite an appearance that suggested all brawn, Bull Giles was shrewdly intelligent. During the long years he’d spent in Washington as companion and associate to Lady Elaine Dunshill, he had enlarged upon her connections in political circles and exercised considerable influence behind the scenes.
“Hello, Bull.” There was a glint of respect as Benteen greeted him. “Don’t bother to get up.” He motioned him to stay in the chair. “How’s the leg?”
“Stiff, but I’ve still got it,” Bull Giles replied with a twisting smile. “How’s Lorna?”
“Fine.” He nodded briefly.
Then Bull turned his head to look at Webb. “It’s been a long time, Webb. I’d forgotten how long it had been until you walked through that door to remind me. You’re not a fresh-faced boy anymore.”
“No, sir.” Webb leaned down to shake the man’s hand, stirring vague memories of his childhood, of the way he used to trail after this bear of a man.
Frank Bulfert’s voice broke into their exchange. “Everybody, make yourselves comfortable. Percy”—he addressed the black servant—“pour these gentlemen a drink.”
There was a lull in the conversation as they settled into the chairs grouped around the brass-appointed heating stove. After the servant, Percy, had passed around the drinks, Frank Bulfert opened a box of cigars and offered them around. Smoke from the aromatic tobacco collected in the air above the select group.
An unwilling participant, Webb was impatient for the talk to get around to the purpose of the meeting, but he seemed to be the only one. He took a sip of imported whiskey and wished he’d kept silent ten days ago. He’d be back at the ranch instead of here in this private car, involved in a meeting that he didn’t think was necessary.
“The senator asked me to be sure to extend his regards to you, Benteen.” Frank Bulfert leaned back in the cowhide chair and hitched the waistband of his suit pants higher around his middle. “My instructions are to lend you any assistance I can. The senator knows the value of your support.” After this formal assurance was made, his serious expression took on a wry amusement. “I’ve heard stories about the way you ranchers get out the votes in this part of the country. It’s been reported that sometimes your cowboys vote twice to make sure the right candidate is elected.”
“They’ve been known to get too enthusiastic in their support,” Benteen admitted with a faint smile.
“Seems to me you have men who follow orders,” Frank Bulfert concluded.
“They’re loyal to the brand” was the only reply to that. “What about this new Homestead Bill?”
“I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I have to say,” the aide warned and closely watched Benteen’s reaction. “It’s getting strong support from several quarters.”
“The railroads being the most vigorous?” Benteen sought confirmation of his own opinion.
“Certainly they are looking at the substantial benefits to be derived from increased freight and passenger usage to bring new settlers out west. And I’m sure they are hoping to sell off their extensive landholdings. Yes.” Frank nodded. “They have a vested interest in the passage of this bill.”
“But it isn’t only the railroads that want it,” Bull Giles inserted. “You have to understand the situation in the East. The cities are filling with immigrants. The West has always been a safety valve to siphon these so-called dregs of other nations out of populated areas and prevent any social or political unrest. The slums are overcrowded; there’s complaints about cheap wages in factories and talk of unions and strikes for better working conditions. So all the big businesses are behind this bill to keep order by sending as many as they can to the frontier.”
Benteen grimly expelled a heavy breath, recognizing he was opposing a formidable group. “But this isn’t Kansas. They’ll starve out here the same way they’re starving in the cities.”
“Do you think any of the big companies care?” Bull scoffed. “If they die, it makes room for more.” He paused briefly. “The big-money men in the East aren’t interested in settling the West. They just want to get rid of a lot of poor, unwanted immigrants. They don’t give a damn where they go. The Indians were forced onto reservations on the poorest lands. If the immigrants wind up on the same, no one in the East is going to give a damn.”
“So far,” Asa Morgan spoke up, adding more gloom to the subject, “that new dryland method of farming has shown some impressive results. It’s difficult to argue against the kind of success they’ve been having with it.”
“Successful now, yes,” Benteen agreed. “With their method, they can raise a crop with only fifteen inches of rainfall a year. What happens if there’s successive dry years with less than that, like what happened twenty years ago?”
“Twenty years ago isn’t today.” Frank Bulfert dismissed that argument.
“It sounds like sour grapes coming from a cattleman.” Bull eased his stiff leg into a less cramped position. “You big ranchers are highly unpopular. Public opinion is against you. Most of the Europeans coming into the country look on ranchers as feudal lords. They came here to escape that system of large, single landholders. There you sit on a million-plus acres. They want to bust it up so everybody can have a chunk of it. They come to America filled with dreams about owning their own land.”
“In other words, you are saying that we don’t have a chance of defeating this bill,” Benteen challenged.
“We can keep it in committee for a while,” Frank Bulfert said. “But it’s bound to pass once it gets out of there. It’s what the majority wants.”
There was a brief lull as everyone waited for Benteen to respond. He stared into his whiskey glass, idly swirling the liquor around the sides.
“They want it because they see it as a way of taking the land out of the hands of the rancher and putting it with a bunch of immigrants,” he stated finally. “But what if they become convinced that the bill won’t accomplish that objective?”
“How?” Frank Bulfert drew his head back to study Benteen with a curious but skeptical eye.
There was another short pause as Benteen glanced at his son. “Webb thinks the new bill would let cattlemen get free title to more land. What do you think would happen, Bull, if certain factions heard that stockmen were in favor of this proposal to enlarge the Homestead Act?”
The burly man chuckled under his breath. “I think they’d come to the same conclusion Webb did. They’d be afraid they weren’t breaking up the big beef trusts and worried that it would make them more secure instead.” He turned to the senator’s aide. “Benteen’s found their weakness.”
Frank nodded. “That just might be the tactic that will work.” He glanced at Asa, who also nodded his agreement. “It will take some fancy footwork.”
Later, after the meeting broke up in the early-evening hours, Webb and Benteen headed back to the hotel to clean up for dinner. They walked most of the distance in silence. “Did you learn anything?”
The challenging question drew Webb’s glance to his father. “What was I supposed to learn?”
“That you came up with the right answer for the wrong reason. You didn’t think the proposal all the way through. You have to see how a thing can work against you as well as for you.”
“After listening to Giles and Mr. Bulfert, I think it will be defeated,” Webb concluded.
“It isn’t as simple as that,” Benteen stated. “This is just the first skirmish. The railro
ads still want more people out here, and the eastern cities have thousands they’d like to ship out. All we’re going to accomplish right now is postponing what appears to be the inevitable.” He lifted his gaze to scan the reddening sunset. “Those damn farmers will come—like a horde of grasshoppers; only, instead of grass, their plows will be chewing up sod.”
There was a prophetic sound to his words that licked coldly down his spine. It didn’t sound possible.
Two and a half years later, on February 19, 1909, Congress responded to the public cry for more free land and passed the Enlarged Homestead Act. Claims could be filed on 320 acres of land, providing it was nonirrigable, unreserved, and unappropriated, and contained no marketable timber. That description fit almost twenty-six million acres of Montana land.
II
Stands a Calder man,
Flesh and blood is he,
Longing for a love
That can never be.
3
Wild flowers covered the long stretches of the broken plains, wide sweeps of yellow, red, and white dancing over the low, irregular hills. The black gelding cantered through a thick mass of them growing out of the tangle of tightly matted grass. A plume of dark smoke lay against the blue sky far in the distance. Webb saw it and traced it to the locomotive bearing down on the tiny collection of buildings that made up the settlement of Blue Moon.
It was officially a town now, with a general store to supply the local ranchers, a saloon to wet the throats of the cowboys, a blacksmith shop to repair their wagons, and a church to forgive them their sins. Since the railroad had laid tracks through it, they had a freight depot and regular mail delivery.
Off to the left, a horse-drawn buckboard rattled over the rutted track across the plains that served as a road. There were supplies to be picked up and some freight due at the depot that necessitated the trip into town. Neither would be done with any amount of haste, so there would be plenty of time to catch up on local happenings and trade information.
The shrill, lonely whistle of the train punctured the quiet of the starkly masculine landscape as it let off steam and signaled its imminent arrival at the small town. The black gelding shied beneath Webb, spooking at the sound, then settling back into its rocking gait.
The buildings were growing larger, becoming more discernible now in the vast plain as the contingent from the Triple C Ranch drew closer. Webb judged that they would arrive about the same time that the train pulled in.
When they reached the outskirts of Blue Moon, Webb reined the gelding alongside the buckboard and slowed it to a trot. There were more people in the streets than he was accustomed to seeing in the little cow community.
“Busy place,” Nate observed from his seat on the buckboard.
“Probably just more people out because of the train.” It was an event that brought folks out of their houses.
But there seemed to be a lot of unfamiliar faces on the street. Webb saw only a few people he knew. A frown began to gather on his face as he tried to figure out what had brought all these strangers to town, and where they’d come from.
“Shall we go to the depot?” Nate asked as they neared the general store.
“Might as well.” Nearly everyone was heading in that direction, so they let themselves be swept along with them. Two new buildings had sprung up on the street. Nate noticed them, too, and exchanged a questioning look with Webb.
The skittish gelding danced sideways under Webb, trying to see everything at once. Ahead, the depot was crowded with empty wagons hitched to teams of horses shifting nervously at the closeness of the “iron monster.” It chugged idly, hissing puffs of steam. Nate had to swing the buckboard to the far end of the depot platform where there was room to park it, Webb reined the fractious gelding around to the far side of it as Nate set the brake and wrapped the reins around the handle.
Passengers were streaming out of the cars onto the depot, mostly men, but a few women with children, too. None of the men were dressed like cowboys or traveling salesmen. On hand apparently to greet the arrivals was a short, fox-faced man in a spanking white suit and a white straw hat. Taking it off, he waved it over his head to get the attention of the passengers.
“This is it, folks! Your journey’s end!” He sounded like a preacher announcing to his flock that they had reached the Promised Land. “These wagons are going to give you a close-up look at America’s new Eden! Now, I know you all are tired from your long ride and want to stretch your legs a bit. While you take a few minutes to get the stiffness out of your bones, I want you to look around. Take a gander out there at that grass.” He gestured to the expanse of plains beyond the railroad tracks leading into town. “It’s purty nigh belly-deep to a tall horse. You look at that grass—and picture wheat in your mind!”
Nate slid a sharp glance at Webb from the wagon seat. “What the hell is he talking about?” he muttered under his breath, but clearly didn’t expect an answer as he swung off the seat to the trampled and packed ground.
Webb took another look at the empty wagons lined up in front of the small train station. On both sides of the wagon beds, planks were laid, forming two benches to accommodate human freight. The new wood contrasted with the weathered-gray boards of the rest of the wagon and revealed how recently they had been converted to accommodate a passenger load.
As he dismounted and tied the gelding’s reins to the back of the buckboard, he sized up the milling group of people. There were a scant few who looked like farmers, the ones with permanently sun-reddened faces. The vast majority of the group had the paleness of the city about them, but their tired faces were alive with hope. Webb realized their expression was more positive than hope. The belief was shining in their eyes that they had now been led to the Promised Land.
My God, he thought with a mixture of amusement and anger. The poor fools don’t know what they’re gettin’ into.
Nate was already heading for the small building that housed the office of the station agent to check on the freight for the Triple C. A handful of the newly arrived passengers had wandered to the end of the train where the buckboard was parked, providing Webb with a closer study of them.
His dark gaze moved over the young girl at the vanguard of the little group, then came back to her. She stood poised on the edge of the limitless plains, facing the benchland of tall grass with its hidden coulees and flat buttes. Her chin was lifted to the wind blowing in from the land as if she were drinking in the air’s freshness, free from the city stench of smoke and congestion.
Wisps of dark auburn hair were whipped loose from a coiled knot at the back of her head while the sun’s direct rays highlighted the fiery sheen in her dark tresses. A limp blue hat dangled by a ribboned string held in her hand and the black shawl had fallen off her shoulders. The wind flattened the faded gingham material of her dress against her slim body, showing Webb the swelling curve of high, youthful breasts and the outline of slender hips and legs.
Vitality and excitement seemed to flow through every line of her. It was more than just her young female form that drew and held his eye. There was something else that pulled his interest and wouldn’t let it go. Without conscious direction, Webb let his course to the depot widen so he would pass closer to the girl.
Her motionless stance was broken as she turned to took over her shoulder and search the milling group of passengers for someone, her parents more than likely, since Webb doubted that a young girl would come out here alone. Evidently she spied them, because she started to glance back at the rolling grassland, sweeping aside strands of hair that the wind blew across her face. But when she did, she noticed his approach.
With bold curiosity, she stared at him. Her eyes seemed to take in every detail from the dusty crown of his cowboy hat to the heavy denim material of his Levi pants and the spurs riding low on his boots. Then her gaze swung upward to linger on the rough cut of his features. Montana born and raised, he unknowingly carried the print of the land on him, big and strong, with a certain har
shness in the uncompromising lines of his face. His flatly sinewed chest was broad and strong, throwing an impressive shadow on the ground.
Webb was indifferent to the impression he created. He was caught up in the blue of her eyes—as blue as the Montana sky overhead. Just like looking into the sky, he seemed able to see forever. The sensation gripped him, unnerving him a little.
His attention had been so obvious that his sense of propriety demanded a greeting. He touched a finger to his hat brim as he came within two feet of her, his easy stride slowing. “Good morning, miss.”
“Morning.” Her head dipped slightly in response, her eyes never leaving his. “Are you a cowboy?” The question rushed from her, followed by a smile that seemed to laugh at her own impetuousness.
“Yes.” His mouth quirked in a humorous line. It didn’t seem necessary to explain that he was a rancher’s son. By profession, he was a cowboy.
“I thought so.” Her smile widened at his affirmation. “You’re dressed like the cowboys that were in Mr. Cody’s parade.”
There was a second when he didn’t understand the reference to the man; then the confusion cleared. “You mean Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show,” he realized, amused by the falsely exaggerated impression it had created for thousands about the West. “Have you seen it?”
“No.” She shook her head, laughing softly as if such a possibility were out of her reach. It prompted Webb to notice again the dress she was wearing, guessing it was probably her best, yet it was faded except where the seams had been let out to compensate for her maturing figure. It was wrinkled from traveling, but clean. It was obvious that her family didn’t have the money to spend on such frivolities as a Wild West Show, and her next statement confirmed it. “We couldn’t afford the admission price, but they had a parade with Indians and everything.”
“Where was this?” Webb asked, curious to know where she was from—this innocent woman-child who couldn’t be more than seventeen.
