by Janet Dailey
A clod of dirt was kicked up in front of Webb’s horse, followed immediately by the crack of a rifle. The chestnut horse shied briefly, tossing back its head.
Webb swung his mount at right angles with the camp and halted it as the riders behind him crowded in and stopped.
“That damned fool just shot at us!” Ike exclaimed. “We’re out of range.” Webb had already gauged the distance.
Another clod of dirt and grass went flying two feet in front of them, and a pulsebeat later the sound of the shot came. This time he saw the puff of smoke from the rifle. The squatter was using the wagon wheel for a gunrest. Webb’s horse rolled an eye and chewed nervously on the bit.
“Do you suppose he knows we’re out of range?” Nate inquired. “Could be just a warning for us to keep our distance.”
“If he didn’t know it before, he knows it now.” Webb regarded it as unimportant as he reached to loosen the flap of his scabbard and drag out his rifle.
“If he’s out of range, we’re out of range.” Nate eyed the rifle as if Webb should have figured that out.
“Glad you mentioned that.” There was a trace of a smile on his mouth as Webb unknotted the kerchief around his throat and tied it to the end of his rifle. “You boys stay here while I see if I can’t ride down there and talk some sense to him before someone gets hurt.”
Nate reached down for his rifle. “I got the feeling that ole boy ain’t too interested in talking. We’ll keep you covered just in case.”
The kerchief wasn’t white, but the message was just the same. Webb reined the chestnut around, the rifle butt resting on his thigh and the muzzle aimed at the sky with the kerchief waving a truce banner. His mount was not too sure of this whole business and moved forward at a mincing walk. Webb kept his gaze fixed sharply on the man and boy as they were joined by the second boy, also carrying a rifle. He was just passing the area where the first two shots had ripped up clods of dirt when he saw the rifles being lifted to their shoulders.
“Don’t be damned fools,” Webb muttered under his breath and kept kneeing his reluctant horse forward. It might just be they wanted to keep him in their sights in case he tried anything.
A second later he saw the flash and recoil of the squatter’s rifle. In nearly the same instant, Webb sank his spurs into the chestnut and spun it to the right. The horse almost jumped out from under him, issuing a snorting squeal at the sting of a bullet grazing its rump. It bounded into a run, angling for the rounded rim. There was a burst of shots from both sides that left the smell of powder smoke in the air.
The short barrage from the riders had sent the squatter and his sons scurrying for cover behind the wagon, hitting no one but coming close enough to scare them. When Webb had safely rejoined them, the shooting stopped.
“I had a notion they weren’t going to be reasonable,” Nate declared.
“What now?” Ike looked at Webb. “It’d be a bit foolhardy to go chargin’ down there like we were the cavalry. They got the wagon for cover.”
“Do you want me to slip over there?” A new rider with the outfit by the name of Virg Haskell indicated the north rim of the hollow. “The camp would be within range from there. I could start slappin’ some shots around that wagon, keep them pinned down while the rest of you ride in.”
“No.” Webb rejected that suggestion. “There’s too much risk a stray shot might injure the woman and those two children in the tent. I’ve got a better idea. “Ike—” He turned in his saddle to face the rider as he gave his instructions. “You, Slim, Virgil, and Hank gather up a good-sized bunch of steers. Once you’ve got them together, we’ll stampede them through the camp and follow them in. The rest of us will stay here and keep an eye on things.”
After the four cowboys had pulled away from the knoll to begin rounding up some of the steers grazing this section of the range, Webb swung out of his saddle. Nate hooked a knee across his saddlehorn and began rolling a cigarette.
“That squatter is going to figure you’re sending for reinforcements.” Nate peered down at the camp while he licked at the paper. “He’s already acting nervous about where the boys went.”
“He just don’t know our reinforcements are the four-footed kind,” Webb said dryly as he examined the slight flesh wound that had laid a red track across the top of the chestnut’s rump. It shifted nervously under his touch, “You’ll live, fella,” Webb pronounced and absently stroked its neck.
The sun was almost directly overhead before Webb heard the lowing of moving cattle. There were about fifty steers in the bunch the riders had collected and were driving toward the hollow. Climbing into the saddle, Webb swung the chestnut around to join up with the small herd.
“That squatter is really going to be wonderin’ what’s up now.” Nate chuckled as he brought his horse alongside the chestnut.
“He won’t be wondering for long.”
Slim Trumbo and Ike Willis were riding the swing position at the front of the herd. Webb and the other riders doubled up in the flank and drag posts. When the steers crested the knoll, rifles were fired in the air to start them running. Slim and Ike raced alongside the leaders until they were assured the steers were heading directly for the wagon. Then they fell back with the other riders, using the herd as a protective shield to enter the squatters’ camp.
The running cattle avoided the flapping canvas of the tent and split in two groups to flow around the wagon, forcing the man and his sons to scramble under it or be run over by the range-wild steers. Before the last animal had charged past the wagon, the riders were peeling out of their saddles. There was a brief scuffle with the man and his sons before they were disarmed.
“Check the tent and be sure they’re all right.” Webb directed the order at Slim Trumbo, then confronted the squatter and his skinny, carrot-haired boys. They were a pitiful sight in their ragged clothes and underfed bodies. The man faced him, his eyes glaring with a pride that showed a fine mist of tears. “I don’t know who you are, mister, or what you thought you were doing, but somebody could have got hurt.” He had to harden himself against the sight of the hollow-cheeked woman and the two big-eyed children emerging from the tent ahead of Slim. “You should have had a care for them, if not yourself.”
“I have a care, and that’s to put food in their bellies,” the squatter retorted, showing no remorse under the circumstances.
“That fence you cut a mile back was the boundary line of the Triple C Ranch. You’re on private property, so I’ll ask you to pack up your wagon and leave the way you came.”
“Our horses, Pa,” one of the boys said.
“They took off with the cattle.” Nate explained the boy’s remark to Webb.
“Virg, catch up their plow ponies and bring them back,” Webb instructed.
“This is just a small patch of ground,” the squatter argued. “With all the land your boss owns, he ain’t gonna miss this little chunk. Why don’t you boys just ride away and tell him that you chased us off? He’ll never know we’re here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, because I happen to be Webb Calder. And if I let you stay, I’d be opening the floodgates for others like you to come in, and I have no intention of doing that,” he stated. “Pack up and move on.”
“But we ain’t got no place to go,” the older of the boys protested.
“That isn’t my problem. You should have given that a thought before you came here.” Webb refused to be swayed. “If you don’t start taking down that tent, I’ll have my men dismantle it for you.”
The squatter motioned to his sons. With a great deal of reluctance, they walked over to the tent and began pulling out the stakes, “What about our rifles?”
“I’ll leave them with the sheriff in Blue Moon.” Webb walked to his horse, taking the reins from Nate. “And the next time you plant yourself on a piece of ground, make sure nobody owns it.”
“You tell me where there is such a piece and I’ll go there. That railroad man said there was free land here, but
I ain’t seen none of it,” the man declared bitterly and turned to begin loading his wagon with the few possessions he had.
Nate grumbled to Webb under his breath. “The man’s a damned fool to bring his family out here. I hate to see little ones suffer like that. All Ike found in that tent for food was some potatoes and flour, and some rabbit bones.”
“Catch up a steer and tie it to the back of their wagon,” Webb said in a grim tone. “At least they’ll have something to eat until they find a place.”
By the time Virg Haskell returned with the pair of roman-nosed horses belonging to the squatter, the wagon was loaded. The woman cried when Nate tied the steer to their wagon, but the man didn’t say so much as a thank you.
After they had escorted the wagon off Triple C land, Webb sent Ike into town with the family’s rifles to report the incident to the sheriff. As soon as the fence was repaired, they turned their horses toward home.
Wet clothes flapped in the hot breeze, draped over the guy wires that kept the shanty from blowing away in a strong wind. Lilli stirred the clothes boiling in the big pot outside the shanty and glanced at Helga Kreuger scrubbing a shirt on the washboard. She wrung it out and tossed it in another bucket, then paused to press a hand against the small of her back. When she arched her back, it emphasized the protruding roundness of her stomach, indicating an advanced pregnancy.
“I’ll scrub the clothes for you, Mrs. Kreuger.” Lilli volunteered to take over the job, knowing it must be hard on the woman.
“The men are coming in from the fields. We will finish this later.” Helga Kreuger shielded her eyes with her hand and turned to look at her young daughter. “Anna, go put the dishes on the table so we can eat.”
Using the wooden stick, Lilli began removing the clothes from the hot wash water and depositing them in another large pail. Heat and steam spilled over her, beading her face and neck with perspiration. When she had finished, she mopped at her face with her apron and turned to meet the arriving men.
“Come into the house. Food is on the table,” Helga Kreuger greeted them hurriedly.
“Did you fix that stew today?” Stefan asked. “You must give to Lillian the recipe.”
Lilli had received barely a glance from her husband, but she was becoming resigned to that. Franz Kreuger came to a sudden stop and frowned darkly in her direction. Her head came up as she thought she was the object of his displeasure until she realized his gaze was directed beyond her. She turned to see a wagon coming up the lane.
“Who is that?” Franz asked, as if expecting someone to answer.
Food was forgotten as they waited for the wagon to reach the shack. Two red-haired boys were walking alongside it. In the wagon seat, there was a man driving the horse team and a woman with a child on her lap and a second on the seat beside her. A wild-eyed steer fought the rope that dragged him after the noisy wagon.
When the straggly-looking caravan was nearly level with them, the man pulled back on the reins, and the wagon rolled to a shuddering halt. The bitterness of disappointment was in the man’s face as he bobbed his head to Stefan and Franz.
“Could you spare some water for my horses?” he asked.
“Gustav!” Franz called to his young son. “Fetch the man a bucket of water from the cistern.”
“I’m obliged, sir.” He stepped down from the wagon and walked to his horses, rubbing their noses. “Would you know a place where a family could camp for the night?”
As Lilli watched, Franz Kreuger stiffened. There was veiled contempt in his look when he swept the dirty, ragtag boys and the poorness of the wagon and team. The man had not shaved and looked equally unkempt. She had suspected Franz Kreuger was guilty of having double standards, looking down on others and hating those who looked down on him.
“You might ask someone down the road,” he told the man. “They may know of a place.”
“There’s no reason why they can’t camp in that stand of cottonwoods at the corner of our property, is there, Stefan?” Lillian spoke up. She didn’t care whether Franz Kreuger thought a woman should leave such decisions to men or not.
“That sounds right nice, ma’am.” The man tipped his hat to her and missed the silencing look Stefan sent her. “We was just run off the last place.”
“Where were you?” Franz demanded with a cold look.
“We’d found an empty piece of ground north and west of here. Good ground, it was. There was a place for my wife to put in a garden, and the land would have grown wheat as tall as your belly.” His mouth twisted down in another display of bitterness. “Problem was a man named Calder already owned it.”
“Calder?” The look that had been on Franz Kreuger’s face vanished.
“Yeah, him and his men drove us off. Me and the boys tried to make a fight of it, but I had the wife and the little ones to think about. There wasn’t much I could do.” The man shook his head. “No man’s got a right to own that much land. I told him I just wanted a small place where I could grow food for my family, but he looked at me with those eyes black as the devil’s and told me to get out.”
Franz Kreuger’s attitude changed completely. “Stefan, didn’t you say you needed a good, hard-working man to help you with your farm?”
“Yeah.” Stefan took his lead from his friend. “I cannot pay much vages, but you vould have a place to stay and a little room for your vife to plant a garden.”
“My sons, maybe they could work, too.” The man brightened at the idea.
“We know many people,” Franz stated. “We will tell them about your sons. Always someone is needing help for a short time. If they are good workers, they will be hired.”
“They’re good workers, all right,” the man said as he took the bucket of water from the tow-headed Kreuger boy and offered it to his horses. “I was countin’ on them helpin’ me when we got a place of our own, but I guess that’s not to be.”
“Next year Stefan and I will help you find some good land,” Franz promised. “We must all of us stick together, help each other; then we are all stronger.”
When the horses had drunk their fill, the man handed the bucket back to the boy and turned to Stefan. “Where is that place your daughter described?” Lilli winced, knowing how sensitive her husband had become to their age difference.
Stefan pulled his slightly stooped frame to its full height, his expression cold and forbidding. “She is my vife.”
The man reddened and cast a vaguely stunned glance at Lilli, then quickly dropped it. “Beggin’ your pardon,” he apologized immediately, mumbling his embarrassment over the mistake.
After Stefan had given directions to their place, he said, “You vait at our house. My vife and I vill be home soon. I vill show the place for you to camp.”
The wagon made a tight circle as the family headed down the lane to the road. Lilli was transfixed by the brand on the steer’s flank. Her gaze ran to the family who had seen Webb Calder. A wretching envy tore through her, filling every part of her body until she thought she would burst.
“Come. Let us eat before the food grows cold,” Helga Kreuger urged them.
Slowly Lilli turned to accompany the others into the small shack, no larger than theirs although it accommodated three times as many people. Nothing showed on her face. She, who had always let her thoughts and feelings run free, now kept them contained and secret. Sometimes she wondered if she weren’t becoming more like Stefan every day. It had been so long since either of them had smiled.
After the meal was finished, they set out for home in their wagon. Stefan sat hunched over the reins, swaying with the rocking motion as the wagon jolted over the hard ruts in the road. Lilli was beside him, sitting stiffly erect and resisting the rough motion. Her sightless gaze was fixed on the distant horizon while Stefan watched the trotting horses.
“Mrs. Kreuger’s baby should come before the harvest.” Stefan made a rare attempt at conversation, “That is good.”
“Yes.” Lilli had a cynical moment when she
thought how inconvenient the men would find it if Helga Kreuger went into labor when the threshers arrived.
“This is her second baby since they come here,” he said, drawing a glance from Lilli as she puzzled over his reason for this subject.
“Yes, it is,” she replied.
For the space of several minutes, there was only the clopping of trotting hooves and the creaking of the wagon to fill the silence. Stefan adjusted his grip on the team’s reins.
“Vhen ve go to town again, you go to the doctor and find out vhy you have not had any babies,” he stated tersely.
“Oh, Stefan.” She breathed out his name in irritation and looked anywhere but at him. “It isn’t necessary to father a child to prove to the world—or to Franz Kreuger—that you’re a man.”
An hour ago she had been priding herself on how well she kept her thoughts and feelings to herself, and here they’d just burst through. It didn’t matter that what she had said was true. Her careless remark had hurt Stefan. He was angry with her. She was learning a lot about men, and how sensitive they were about this thing called manliness. Her problem was she had never really thought of Stefan as a man such as Webb Calder. Stefan was her friend, her uncle, her father. She hadn’t realized there was this other side of him.
“Is it vrong for a man to vant a child?” His voice was thick in its angry demand.
“No, it isn’t wrong.” Lilli frowned in helpless frustration, ashamed to discover she did not want Stefan’s child. “But this is not the time to have one—not now when we are barely able to feed ourselves.” She’d said the wrong thing again. But it was true. The additional wheatland had only put them further in debt. They sold more wheat, but more money was spent for plow horses, equipment, hired help, and seed. It seemed they had less and less money, instead of more.
“Stefan, I didn’t mean that you haven’t done everything you could to provide for us.” Lilli attempted to take the sting out of her previous remark. “You have. It’s just that things haven’t worked out quite the way you thought they would.”
