by Janet Dailey
“Please go now,” she murmured in a voice that was almost emotionless. “And don’t come back.”
His mouth was grimly closed, a muscle flexing convulsively along his jaw. Webb was riddled with self-loathing as he picked up the hat he’d dropped and crossed to the door. His gaze slid off her face with its pale, composed lines. He’d never felt so low and contemptible in all his life as he did when he walked out that door to his horse.
He didn’t need to look to know Lilli was standing in the doorway. Some sixth sense had already relayed the knowledge. Grabbing the trailing reins to the bridle, Webb looped them over the black’s neck and hopped a foot into the stirrup, swinging into the saddle all in one motion. For a split second, Webb faced her. It seemed the die had been cast and his course set since the day he’d met her at the train station, only he hadn’t known it then. It was inevitable—just as it was inevitable that he had to ride away. There wasn’t anything lower than a wife-stealing man, and he’d sunk just about to the depths. He didn’t have much respect for himself, so she couldn’t have a very high opinion of him, either.
With a slight turn of his hand, Webb neck-reined the gelding away from the opened door and Lilli. As he was about to touch a spur to his horse, he heard the drum of cantering hooves and looked up to see three riders crossing the fallow ground to approach the homestead. All his senses came to a wary alert when he recognized Hobie Evans riding at the head. He lowered both hands to rest on the saddlehorn, not leaving until he found out what kind of business had brought Hobie Evans and two Snake M riders here.
As the three riders neared the shack, they slowed their horses to a snorting, head-tossing walk. There was a wide and wondering smile on Hobie’s expression, an interested and calculating gleam in his eye, as he advanced toward Webb.
“I sure never expected to run into you here, Webb,” he declared and ran an inspecting look over him. “What brings you this far off Triple C range?”
“I was about to ask you a similar question,” Webb returned smoothly, his gaze narrowing. He didn’t particularly like that knowing light in the man’s eyes or that laughing grin that was just an inch away from mockery.
“Were you, now?” Hobie glanced at his two accompanying riders. “Ain’t that interesting, boys?” Then he appeared to notice Lilli standing in the open doorway of the shack and removed his hat, holding it against his shoulder in a gesture of respect that didn’t ring true. “Well, howdy, ma’am.” He made an exaggerated show of sniffing the air. “That bread you’re baking sure does smell good.” She inclined her head in a brief and cautious acknowledgment, but remained silent. “Is your man home?” Hobie asked, yet seemed to know the answer.
Lilli flashed a short glance at Webb, her blue eyes clouded with apprehension, but her answer was simple and truthful. “No.”
Hobie urged his horse forward until he was alongside Webb, facing him almost knee to knee. The hat went back on his head, but it didn’t shade the glitter shining in his eyes. “What’s that white stuff all over your shirt, Webb?” he challenged mockingly. Webb’s muscles went all tense. “Damned if it doesn’t look like flour,” Hobie declared and eyed him with a knowing gleam. “I guess you been helping her make bread, huh?”
Webb’s hand curled around the saddlehorn. He didn’t look to confirm the observation that his shirt had flour smears from Lilli’s apron. He wanted to jam his fist down Hobie’s throat and blacken those damning eyes that saw too much.
“State your business, Hobie.” He pound out the order through his gritted teeth.
“You speak like you’re standing on your pa’s land, but you got no rights here, Calder,” Hobie reminded him, and took pleasure from it.
“I’m telling you to say what you came for,” Webb warned, ready to back it up if he had to.
“Now, Webb, there ain’t no call for you to get your back up.” Hobie laughed in unconcern and pushed his hat to the back of his head. His horse did a little reversing sidestep that put distance between his rider and Webb Calder and brought the auburn-haired girl into Hobie’s view. “An unfortunate thing happened over at the Snake M Ranch last night, ma’am. It seems something spooked some of our cattle and they stampeded, tearing down a section of fence. After that, they just scattered to the winds. A bunch of us boys are out looking for them right now. If you see any strays wandering around your place with a Snake M brand, we’d be obliged if you’d point them toward home. Sure would hate to see any of ’em get in your wheatfield.”
“I’ll tell my husband to keep an eye out for your cattle,” Lilli said.
“You do that, ma’am.” He nodded, still smiling; then his glance cut to Webb. “See ya ‘round, Calder.”
“I was just leaving myself, Hobie. I’ll ride with you a ways,” Webb stated and eased his hands off the saddle-horn to put his horse in motion.
As they left the house yard, Webb rode on the outside next to Hobie Evans. They followed the tracks made by wagon wheels, dividing the fallow land from the field of ripening wheat. There was nothing Webb could say, no denial he dared make in defense of Lilli’s reputation. He had not intended to do her harm, but he had—irreparably.
“Webb, why do I get the feeling you’re escorting us off this land?” Hobie asked with an amused sidelong look.
“Couldn’t say,” he replied stiffly, then turned a slow, leveling glance at the lantern-jawed cowboy. “Maybe you’ve got a guilty conscience.’
“I don’t know what I’d be guilty of.” Hobie laughed shortly. For several long minutes, the silence was broken only by the shuffle of trotting hooves and the creaking groan of saddle leather. “She wasn’t a bad-lookin’ woman, for a squatter.”
Webb pulled in his horse, a white-hot anger threatening to erupt, as Hobie stopped, feigning surprise. “I wouldn’t say any more, Hobie,” he warned thickly.
“Hey, Webb, come on.” Hobie gestured with an upraised palm to indicate there was nothing to be upset about, and all the while, his eyes mocked. “A young thing like that probably gets lonely. It ain’t nothin’ to me if you wanta cheer her up now and then. I might be tempted myself.”
“I’m going to tell you this—and I’m only going to tell you this once.” His teeth were bared and the blackness in his eyes wasn’t to be ignored. “If anything happens here—if any cow strays into that wheatfield, or any fire accidentally starts—if there is so much as a hand raised against . . . these folks, even in so-called fun, I’ll take it personally. Do I make myself clear?”
“Clear as rainwater.” The amusement had left Hobie’s eyes, leaving them cold and brooding.
“Good. Because if anything happens, I’ll come looking for you.” Webb kept the restraining pressure on the bit. “I’ll leave you here.”
Hobie swept him with a sizing look, then reined in his horse in a slow semicircle to join the two riders waiting for him. Webb stayed where he was, watching them ride on until they began to grow small with the widening distance; then he turned his horse to cut across to the Triple C fenceline.
After they’d traveled another mile, Hobie Evans allowed his horse to drop out of the trot into a long-striding walk. The mounts of the two other riders matched the slower pace. Ace Rafferty sent an anxious look at Hobie.
“How do you s’pose Calder figured out we started that fire?” he asked.
“He didn’t,” Hobie stated. “It was just a shot in the dark. Nobody saw us.”
“Maybe they found the broken lantern,” Ace suggested.
“So?” Hobie challenged. “It was the farmer’s lantern. Who’s to say it didn’t fall and break during the fire?” His gaze made continuous sweeps of the deceptively flat-looking land, a restless and driven quality about his eyes.
The third rider, Bob Sheephead, a half-breed, drifted his horse closer to the other two. “Ain’t that gal the one that’s married to that old fella with the gray whiskers? The one that’s always hanging around with that Roosky?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s where I saw her,” Hobie agreed
without interest in the identity of either of them. They were honyockers, and in his prejudiced mind, that put then in a considerably lower order of life.
“No wonder Calder was prancin’ around her like some range stud.” The breed smiled. “I’ll bet she’s more than just lonely. Maybe we should pay a friendly call on her sometime.”
“You’re crazy.” Ace eyed him with a dubious took. “Sometimes I think you’re more than half Indian. You heard what Calder told Hobie.”
“I’m shakin’ in my boots.” Bob Sheephead grinned. “Ain’t you, Hobie?”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a dry, smiling look. “I’m quivering.”
“You boys do what you like,” Ace declared firmly. “But I ain’t aimin’ to cross a Calder.”
Hobie stood up in his stirrups, looking off to the left. “Would ya look at there?” he murmured. “That’s a bunch of Snake cattle, isn’t it? They’re grazin’ awful close to that drylander’s wheatfield. It’d be a shame if they got into it.”
“It sure would,” Bob Sheephead agreed with a widening grin. “We’d better hurry on down there and stop them.”
“Yeah, we’d better.” Hobie nodded.
The breed let out a whoop and all three riders dug in their spurs to send their horses charging to the left. The cattle spooked and took off running, straight into the tall stand of heavy-headed wheat. The cowboys gave chase with deliberate ineptitude and stampeded the cattle all over the field. The churning, pounding hooves, both cloven and shod, trampled down the wheat stalks, ruining wide swaths of the grain. Every time a cow veered off to escape to the range country, a rider raced alongside to turn it back into the field, damaging more wheat.
The frantic homesteader came running through the field, waving his arms to stop the destruction of his crop. Neither the cattle nor the riders paid any attention to him. In desperation, he grabbed at the bridle on the shaggy buckskin Hobie Evans was riding, violating range etiquette that forbids any interference in a rider’s control of his mount. The buckskin reared, lifting the man off his feet and nearly unseating his rider. But the homesteader hung on.
“You must stop!” he insisted. “You’re trampling my wheat.”
“Let go of my horse, you damned honyocker!” Hobie whipped at him with his rope loop and laid a track across the man’s eyes. With a pained cry, the homesteader let go and the plunging buckskin shouldered him to the ground. Hobie indifferently watched the squirming man blindly trying to avoid the horse’s sharp hooves, and didn’t try to rein his horse away from the man. “Can’t you see we’re trying to round up these strays?” Hobie declared in derisive scorn. “We tried to head ’em off before they got into your wheat. You just stay out of the way, nester. We know what we’re doin’.”
With a silent laugh at the drylander’s stupidity, Hobie took off again after a turning cow. This time, he shook out his loop and sailed it around the animal’s neck. He threw out plenty of slack as he set the buckskin to throw its weight in opposition to the rope. The cow was flipped on its back and dragged a half-dozen yards over more wheat before its flailing legs found footing so it could begin fighting and bucking the strangling loop around its neck.
When the three riders finally tired of their fun and herded the small but destructive bunch of cattle out of the wheatfield, there wasn’t much left standing. The homesteader looked about him, his crop virtually ruined. So little of it was salvageable. There was a stark, broken look in his expression as he stumbled toward his family waiting by their sod home. Blood trickled from the ropecut that had nearly blinded him.
Word of the disaster spread through the homesteaders like wildfire. The following day, more than a dozen converged on the stricken homestead to see the extent of the damage for themselves and offer what aid they could. From the group present, Stefan Reisner was among the contingent of four selected to go to the Snake M Ranch owned by Ed Mace and demand reparation. Franz Kreuger was unanimously chosen spokesman for the group. They all piled into one wagon and headed for the ranch.
Since Snake M planned to send its outfit out on roundup the following day, nearly all its riders except those at line camps were at the ranch’s headquarters checking gear and equipment and selecting the remuda string when the wagonload of drylanders rolled in. It headed straight for the five-room log house. Ed Mace was on the porch to meet them before they got out of the wagon.
All the hands had noted the arrival and were dawdling at their various chores while keeping an eye on the group of drylanders talking to their boss at the main house. The half-breed Bob Sheephead sauntered over to where Hobie Evans was repairing a weak cinch strap. He squatted down beside him and turned a piece of rotting leather from a bridle over in his hand, as if it were the object of interest.
“What do ya s’pose they want here?” the crow-haired cowboy asked Hobie. “Reckon they come cryin’ about their wheat?”
“I reckon.” Hobie pulled on the cinch to test its strength and shot a glance through the tops of his lashes at the ranch house. “Looks like we’re gonna find out.”
Ed Mace was striding toward the barn area where most of the riders were idling. The four homesteaders in their odd-looking farmers’ garb followed in his wake. Hobie noticed the dislike in his boss’s expression when he glanced impatiently over his shoulder at the trailing drylanders, and smiled to himself.
“Listen up, all of you.” Ed Mace called for the attention of his men while the drylanders made a short arc behind him. “These . . . gentlemen”—he deliberately hesitated over the polite term—“have come to inform me that some of the cattle that strayed off our range the other day got into one of their wheatfields. They also claim that three of you chased the cattle around that field, doing even more damage.”
Dropping the cinch strap, Hobie Evans rolled to his feet and pushed his way to the front of the riders. “I think, boss, that they’re talkin’ about me an’ Ace an’ the breed. We rounded up a bunch of cattle that got into somebody’s wheatfield.”
“He’s the one.” The owner of the wheatfield confirmed it and pressed a hand to the gash along his cheekbone in bitter memory.
“And you’re the one that came runnin’ out there, flapping your arms like some damned crow.” Hobie flung a pointing arm back at the man, then looked at his boss. “We could have gotten those cattle out of there with hardly any damage to the wheat at all if he hadn’t interfered. You know what those range cows are like. They’re wilder than a jackrabbit. He comes out there and waves his arms, and they took off in all directions.”
“He struck me with a rope and tried to run me down with his horse,” the owner charged.
“You jumped in front of my horse,” Hobie countered. “If I hadn’t slapped you out of the way with my rope, he’d have trampled you.”
“That is a lie.” Franz Kreuger stepped up. “But we did not come here because Otto was struck. We are here because your cattle damaged a wheatfield. Your own men have confirmed it. We demand that you pay for the wheat your animals destroyed.”
“It seems to me that my cattle wouldn’t have laid waste to so much wheat if it hadn’t been for the actions of this . . . gentleman.” He indicated the owner with a derisive flick of his hand. “He claims he lost his entire crop. I’m willing to settle damages with him, but I won’t pay for the whole field.” He named a figure well below what the group had petitioned to receive.
“But I spent more than that for the seed,” the homesteader protested and turned to the other three for support.
“It is not enough!” Franz Kreuger asserted angrily. “It is not fair.”
“That’s my offer.” Ed Mace challenged them without wavering. “If you don’t like it, take your case to the judge and wait for him to set a trial date—and wait for the verdict.” He stressed the verb to indicate the time that would pass. “That’s your choice. Either wait and see if the judge agrees, or take my settlement—in cash, right now.”
The homesteader looked to Franz Kreuger for guidance, as did the other
two, including Stefan. Franz eyed his opponent with a cold, measuring look.
“This judge, do you know him?” he demanded.
A smile broke across Ed Mace’s expression. “Judge Paulson? Why, we grew up together.”
Franz Kreuger breathed in hard and turned to the homesteader. “Take his offer. If he doesn’t give it to you, he will use it to buy the judge.”
13
The morning side of the roundup was spent combing the coulees and hollows for cattle. The cowboys fanned to the far corners of a given section of range and drifted any cattle they found toward the center in an ever-tightening circle for the afternoon sorting and occasional branding of any beasts they’d missed in the spring gather.
The air was crisp and clear, with a little bite to it, as if warning of winter’s advent and attempting to hurry riders about their chores. Webs hazed his last bunch of cows toward the bellowing herd, composed mostly of Hereford cattle and crossbreds, milling under a dust pall. A quarter-mile from the noon holding ground, an antisocial cow decided to quit the bunch.
As it bolted for open country, the weary but game bay horse under him made a lightning pivot to give chase and turn it back. But it stumbled on the second stride, nearly unseating Webb, and pulled up fame, favoring its right front leg. With no chance of turning the animal now, Webb figured the tail-high cow was waving good-bye to him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of gray and focused on it. A big, iron-gray horse was flattened out in a run to intercept the cow before it reached freedom. Its rider was none other than his father. As Webb dismounted his lame horse, he watched the rider first check the animal’s flight, then block any attempt to proceed until the cow finally gave up and turned to join the herd. There was a lot of cow-savvy evident in the work of both horse and rider, but Webb didn’t remark on it when his father rode over. A man did his job, and if he was good, people noticed. If he wasn’t, they noticed that, too.
