The Cattleman (Sons of Texas Book 2)

by Anna Jeffrey

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “I love my name, but people mispronounce all the time.”

  “Well, it sounds real nice. I’ve just never heard it.”

  She turned back toward the windshield, her arms crossed under her breasts, deepening her cleavage. “No one has. Unless they’ve spent time in Mexico. It’s a lake and a town. It’s very old. My parents were vacationing there when I was conceived. My mother said it’s a romantic place. It actually isn’t Spanish. It’s an Indian name, like from maybe the Aztecs or someone.”

  That explanation sounded rehearsed. Pic suspected she had made it so many times it fell out her mouth robotically. “I see. Well, I don’t know much about the geography in Mexico. The only places I’ve been down there are the coastal areas when I’ve gone down for some game fishing.”

  Her head turned toward him again. “You kill fish, too?”

  He chuckled. “C’mon now. Let’s don’t go there today, darlin’.”

  She turned back to look out the windshield. “Please do not call me darling. That’s an Old World word with an unflattering meaning.”

  Pic did a mental eyeroll. He called all women “darlin’.” His dad and brothers did, too. “I don’t know its Old World meaning. All it is to me is a figure of speech I grew up with.”

  “Call me Zochimilka. Or you can call me Zochi if you want to. That’s what most of my friends….well, the people who know me call me.”

  That was an odd reply. She had no friends? Maybe not. He could already see she wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. “Thanks,” he said, giving her a grin. “My tongue’s already gotten tangled up with the long version.”

  “So has your maid’s,” she said sarcastically.

  “Johnnie Sue isn’t a maid, darlin’. She the ranch’s housekeeper. She manages the household and the bunkhouse. She hires people from town to be maids.”

  Zochi heaved a great sigh. “What. Ever.”

  More silence. More heat. More miles.

  “If this is a cattle ranch, why don’t we see any cattle?” she asked.

  “They’re around. We would’ve seen some yesterday if we’d ever gotten to the spring tank.”

  “I know some people who go fishing in Mexico,” she said. “They go to a resort at Cabo San Lucas. They say those big fish you catch down there aren’t good to eat.”

  “We don’t eat ’em.” Instantly, Pic wished he hadn’t said that.

  Her head jerked in his direction. “Then why kill them? At least you eat the pigs you kill.”

  He sighed and answered reluctantly. “It’s sport fishing. Mostly for marlin. I’ve got a couple of mounted trophies hanging on the wall in our office.”

  “That’s terrible,” she said, staring through the windshield again. “Killing something just to hang it on your wall.”

  “If the people you know who go fishing down there don’t think their catches are fit to eat, why do they fish for them?”

  Her head turned toward him again. “I don’t know.”

  “If they catch them and don’t eat them, most likely they have them mounted as trophies.”

  She snatched off her sunglasses and glared at him. “It’s not right.”

  “Yeah, I know. Marlin need love, too.”

  They continued to creep over hill and swale and arroyo in silence. She hung on to the roll bar overhead. The sun hurled balls of fire down on the Jeep, turning the interior to an oven. From out of the blue, she said, “I didn’t know it was legal to wear a gun unless you’re a cop or something.

  “I’ve got a CHL. That’s a license. It means I can carry concealed if I want to.” Why he felt a need to explain that, he didn’t know. “But I don’t worry about that here on the ranch. I just strap on the pistol. It’s the easiest way to dispatch a rattler if I run into one.”

  “A rattlesnake?” Half her face might be covered by sunglasses, but there was no mistaking the apprehension in her voice.

  “Don’t worry. Ever hear that old saying, ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat?’”

  “No, I haven’t heard that. I hate cats.”

  “It has nothing to do with cats. The point is there’s more than one way to kill a snake.”

  She yanked off her sunglasses again and looked at him blankly for a few seconds. He couldn’t imagine what might be going on in her head, but in case she was about to panic, he said, “Ma’am, rattlesnakes are solitary creatures. They’ll run from you before they’ll confront you. If you don’t corner one, most likely, you’re not in danger.”

  She shoved her sunglasses back on, crossed her arms under her breasts and stared out the passenger window.

  Trying to lighten the mood, Pic said, “Down in Austin, what would you do if you came face to face with a snake?”

  “There are no snakes in Austin.”

  Austin was the seat of Texas government, the home of the University of Texas and the most liberal county in Texas. Hoping for a laugh, Pic said, “Austin’s got snakes more dangerous than rattlesnakes.”

  When she didn’t seem to get his joke, he said, “But you could be right. With all the people that live down there, all the snakes have probably headed for the hills.”

  “I’m not cut out to live in the country,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Those coyotes howling were bad enough, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that poor pig.”

  Bewilderment tugged at Pic’s brow. “Why?”

  “Because. I told you, I don’t believe in killing things.”

  “You’ve never killed a mouse?”

  “I never see mice and I could never kill one if I did. They’re too cute and they have sweet little faces.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, you might make a note that while they’re being cute and sweet, they’re also carrying all kinds of vermin, including tics and viruses. In this part of the country, they can carry the Hanta virus. That one is about fifty percent fatal to humans. So the next time you see a cute and sweet little mouse, you might think about that. We kill them at every opportunity. The last thing we want is them nesting and having babies or leaving their droppings in our barns and outbuildings. Or eating our feed.”

  Her shoulders lifted on a great breath. “Whatever. It’s still different from killing something like a pig.”

  Pic’s patience was being tested again. “Let me give you some information, darling. These days, feral hogs are the worst predators on the Texas range. They give all farmers and ranchers grief and cost them a lot of money. They do serious damage. They run in groups that can tear up a hundred yards of fence and root up a whole hayfield in a night.

  “They eat everything in sight, including lambs and baby calves. They’ll even eat their own young. I could introduce you to half a dozen sheep growers who’ve lost whole lamb crops to the damned things. I’m waiting for the day when we hear they’ve eaten some little kid. So you see, they’re pretty nasty varmints. And they’re multiplying faster than fleas. They don’t have any natural enemies and they always birth big litters. Like I told you yesterday, if you’re in agriculture, you don’t have much choice but to kill ’em.”

  “I don’t know anything about them. I didn’t even know they existed.”

  “They were a menace down by where you live a long time before they migrated up here. How is it you’ve never heard of them?”

  “I don’t know any”—her shoulders lifted and fell on a great breath—“any people who kill things.”

  “You mean you don’t know any hunters.”

  “I have no occasion to.” Her head turned in his direction again. “I presume you’re one.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am. And proud of it. Managed hunting controls the animal populations and puts meat on the table for a lot of folks. As for those hogs, if you wanted some reality shots of the true picture in Texas agriculture, you should’ve taken some pictures of that ol’ boar I shot yesterday. That sucker probably weighed five or six hundred pounds. Wild hogs just like him are everywhere now. That’s why the state has
declared open season on ’em.”

  She gave him another look. “I don’t know what that means.”

  He couldn’t stop a great sigh. She was the last person he wanted to try to explain hunting regulations to. He said nothing else. It appeared they no common ground for communication and he was in no mood to try to find one.

  Chapter 15

  The sun was high in the sky when Pic and Xochi reached the mesa. He was sweating like a race horse. The final leg of the trip had been a body-lurching climb uphill over deep erosion cuts in the rugged road. Zochi, too, was sweating, moisture glistening on the cushiony slope of her breasts. Every time Pic glanced in her direction, his tongue itched to touch that smooth soft-looking flesh.

  “Here we are,” he said, coming to a stop and killing the engine. He stepped out of the Jeep and turned in a circle, drinking in the view and wanting to take advantage of the ever-present breeze. Today, it felt as if came from a furnace.

  He hadn’t been up here since the fall. Emotion always filled his chest when he came to this spot. Sometimes the immensity of the responsibility Dad and his family had bestowed on him became vague and lost in the minutiae of the daily grind, but this location, like no other on the ranch, brought it home to him.

  He rounded the Jeep’s frontend and opened the passenger door. Zochi, too, stepped out, cautiously looking around.

  “I don’t think you’re gonna see a snake, if that’s worrying you,” he said. “I sent a message up here last night for all of them to leave.” He gave her grin and a wink.

  She yanked off her sunglasses and glared up at him.

  He raised his palms in a calming gesture. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Where’s your sense of humor? Seriously? If there were any, we made so much noise getting up here, they probably all left for the next county.” He walked back and opened the Wrangler’s back gate.

  Zochi came beside him and dragged her backpack out. “You said this is scenic. I don’t see anything scenic. What am I supposed to take pictures of?”

  The flat-topped mesa was a rocky, treeless no-man’s-land of hard clay and stones, but from Pic’s perspective, it offered plenty of subjects to photograph. From here, in all directions, he looked down on rolling hills that lay like pillows of variable shades of green and deep blue for miles, the panorama ever-changing by shadows from passing clouds.

  A couple of months back, blankets of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush had spread over the landscape like paint on an artist’s palette. Far below, the Brazos River and a two of its larger tributaries curled and curved like silver ribbons unfurling in the breeze. Years back, when he’d had more free time, he had come here with his colored pencils and spent afternoons or mornings drawing the raw landscape and the rugged denizens.

  “Take pictures of the vista,” he said, making a wide arc with his arm. “This is the highest point on the whole ranch. You asked about the cattle? Look down in the nearer pastures.”

  She walked closer to the edge. “Those dark spots are cattle?”

  He sighed inwardly. “Just take a picture of the view. Or if you don’t like that”—he turned and pointed at a lone yucca plant—“See that lonesome yucca over there. It’s almost perfectly symmetrical. You don’t see many that well-shaped. It takes a lot for it to survive in this spot. Makes you wonder why and how it does. I check on it every time I come up here. It’s one of God’s miracles.”

  “I don’t believe in God,” she said.

  His brow tugged into a frown. “Sure you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “If you don’t believe in God, why believe in life? You have to believe. There’s no other explanation for all of this.” He made another sweeping gesture of the panoramic view.

  Planting her hands on her hips, she looked out and into the distance. “I don’t know. Maybe. Are you religious or something?”

  Her name wasn’t Zochi; it was “contrary.” She might not be a religious zealot, but she believed in something. Every human being he had ever met believed in something. “I’m not in church every time the doors open, but I’m a frequent witness to the beginning and ending of life. I marvel at that and how the earth replenishes itself every spring or after some disaster like the fires we had last summer. So yeah, I guess you could say I’m religious.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean. You haven’t demonstrated—”

  “Forget religion,” he barked, his words blurting more sharply than he meant them to. He didn’t want to have this conversation baking in the hundred-degree sun on the bald mesa. “Look, just take a picture of the yucca,” he said, no longer trying to mask his frustration. “It’s a dramatic shot, especially in black and white.”

  “Are you a photographer?” she asked.

  “No, but I know how to take a picture.”

  She walked back to the backpack she had placed on the ground beside the Jeep, dug out a camera. Pic saw instantly that it was very nice Nikon digital with a highly sophisticated lens that was not cheap. She began fumbling with it. He leaned his butt on the Jeep’s hot fender, crossed his ankles, crossed his arms over his chest and watched, willing himself to wait without comment for whatever length of time it took for her to get the shots she wanted.

  Between wrestling to keep the wind from blowing her hat off and struggling with her sunglasses and her plastic fingernails getting in the way of dealing with the camera settings, she snapped no more than a few pictures. He tried to be objective, but she was having so much trouble, he couldn’t keep from wondering just how much experience she had as a photographer.

  He owned a good camera himself, had bought it from a buddy in town and paid twice what he could have bought it for in a store because the guy needed the money. At the time, he couldn’t imagine what he would use it for, but he discovered it was good for photographing scenes and images he wanted to draw. Over time, he had accumulated several boxes of photographs. Enough to last his lifetime. Maybe he should just give some of them to her and solve both their problems.

  Sweat trailed down his spine. His hair and T-shirt were soaked through in spots. Hell, he knew as much about photography as she did. He walked over to her, holding out a hand. “Ma’am, let me help you. I know a little bit about cameras.”

  She passed him the camera and stood beside him while he studied it. After he had acquainted himself with it, he leaned down toward her and pointed out some of the sophisticated features. “See this little thing right here? This is an aperture. On a bright sunny day like today, this is where you want it set. He changed the setting, then handed the camera back to her.

  “Now I’m gonna show you a picture that would probably look good in a magazine.” He pointed toward an image so far away it was almost un-seeable. To the naked eye, it looked like a faint vertical line extending from the top of one of the distant hills. “See that vertical line way over there?”

  She craned her neck. “No.”

  Still pointing, he placed his other hand on her shoulder and turned her to directly face what he was trying to show her. He leaned down, his cheek near hers and pointed. “Look at where I’m pointing.”

  His face was no more than an inch from hers. The scent of her heated body mixed with her perfume shot straight to his groin, leaving him taken aback. He barely stayed focused on the subject of the conversation. “That’s a radio tower,” he said, willing his tone to neutral. “If you set up your shot so that all of these rolling hills and their shadows show between your camera lens and that tower, it speaks to distance. Seems to me that if you’re gonna write anything about this ranch in your article, you’d show that everything between where you’re standing and on beyond that tower belongs to the Double-Barrel. That fact would be true if you took the same shot in the four directions.”

  She raised the camera and snapped a picture. Her hands were shaking. Had she, too, been affected by their closeness?

  “How far away is it?” she asked.

  He looked at her. They stood no more than a foot apart.
He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew they were focused on his. He heard her little breaths, saw the rise and fall of her chest, little beads of perspiration lying between her breasts along with the bauble that looked like glittering glass. “I dunno,” he forced out. “Eight or nine miles maybe. There’s no haze today, so it’s more visible than it usually is.”

  She stepped back and turned her head away. Even more nervous, he walked away from her and went to the yucca. On the ground near its base, he spotted an arrowhead. A distraction to what was going on inside him and a relief.

  He had found many of the small arrowheads at this site. He picked today’s find up and carried it over to her. “See this?”

  She stared at the arrowhead. “What is it?”

  “It’s an arrowhead.”

  She took it from him, her fingers touching his and sending a little charge through him. “You mean Indians?”

  “Comanches. My Grandpa used to bring me up here when I was a kid. He believed this was sacred ground to them and they had ceremonies and rituals here.”

  She stood close, her breast almost touching his arm, turning the arrowhead over in her own fingers. “What’s it made of?”

  “We’ve never had any of them analyzed, but my granddad thought it was slate.” He took it back and examined it more closely, then held it out on his flattened palm. “Here, take a picture of it. This is evidence of more history of this ranch that you can write about. There’s not any slate around here naturally. They probably would’ve gotten it trading.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I know a little about the history of the area.”

  “You studied history somewhere?”

  “No. I studied range management and business ag. What I learned about history I learned on my own and from my dad. He told us every day to learn history so we don’t repeat mistakes.”