He paused to let this sink in. His boss watched him owl-like, blinking at regular intervals. Randall sighed and released it through his lips, whistling.
“My god,” Wingate muttered.
Magnusson swept the ground with his eyes, as though he’d lost something. “Who … who—”
A thought struck him. His eyes ceased their restless quest and rose to Donnelly’s. The foreman had a knowing look. He’d had time to put it all together, was one page ahead of his boss.
“Gibbon,” Magnusson said flintily, with a savage curl of his lip. “And Thornberg, no doubt. Hell, it was probably all the nesters on the Bench.”
“Includin’ Talbot,” Donnelly added with a growl.
“You think?”
“Sure. Hell, they prob‘ly sent him up to the house last night to keep us occupied while the others rode over to Gutzman’s. He prob’ly joined their little ambush party after he left here.”
Magnusson’s eyes were searching the horizon now, thoughts, plans, strategies snapping this way and that. Finally, adrenaline-pumped, he swallowed hard and said to his foreman, voice shaking with controlled rage, “You and Del Toro take care of Talbot. We three will ride back to the ranch, organize the rest of the men, and head for town. We’ll see you back at the house.”
Randall said, “I’ll go with them, Pa.”
“No, you stay—”
“Come on, Pa. Please?”
Magnusson saw the kill lust in his son’s eyes. He thought a confrontation with a man like Talbot might be just what the lad needed to scrape some green off his horns, teach him that this was not just a game of cowboys and Indians. This was the real thing. This was the Magnusson name they were fighting for.
Behind him, Del Toro said calmly, “I work alone, señor.”
Magnusson turned. The Mexican had already retrieved his Big Fifty and his saddle, and stood in the cabin doorway looking rough and ready, holding the saddle by the horn in one hand, the rifle by the other.
He said, “But since I haven’t scouted this Talbot yet, your foreman and boy can be my scouts—as long as they don’t mind taking orders from a bean-eater.”
Randall’s lip curled at being called a boy.
The gunman strode past Magnusson and Donnelly, lugging his saddle and rifle and heading for the shelter and his black stallion. He shuttled Donnelly a bland glance and added, “But they stay out of my way, uh? Or I shoot their ears off.”
Donnelly snarled as Del Toro walked away, “Why, you fuckin’—”
“Easy, Rag,” Magnusson cut in. “Remember your ear, and save the hostility for Talbot.” He spurred his horse savagely and yelled, “I’m saving mine for Gibbon!”
CHAPTER 24
WHEN TALBOT LEFT the Double X the night before, he rode back to the Circle T, stabled the speckle-gray in the barn with fresh hay, and spent most of the night pacing the hollow shell of a cabin and feeding split cottonwood logs to the fire in the living room.
He fairly fumed with anger at Magnusson’s arrogance and nonchalance regarding Dave’s murder. If it hadn’t been for Randall Magnusson, Talbot and Dave would be laughing and playing cards and making plans for expanding their holdings, maybe building a big clapboard house on a hillock over Crow Creek.
Instead, Talbot was here alone in a derelict cabin, crushing frozen mouse turds under his boots, filling with hate, and hip-deep in another damn war.
Finally exhausted, he spread his saddle blanket and stretched out on the cold wood floor, near the breathy, popping fire, and propped his head on his saddle. He came awake with a start several hours later, reaching for his rifle and jacking a shell in the breech.
He’d heard something.
He got up, stiff with cold, and moved to a window and looked out. It was dawn; the eastern sky was scalloped pink and salmon. Just beyond the barn a horse and rider cantered around a hillock, disappeared behind another, then came out again on the trail curling through cottonwoods.
As the rider passed between the pumphouse and barn, Talbot saw from the hair bouncing on her shoulders it was Suzanne.
She rode the black thoroughbred like a true equestrian, back straight, mittened hands holding the reins up near her breasts. In spite of the store-bought fur coat hanging to her calves, she looked characteristically lithe.
Talbot went out to the porch, holding the rifle in his right hand, barrel down, ready to bring it up if he needed to. You never know; someone could have followed her out from the Double X intending to use her as a decoy while laying a bead on him. Her brother or Rag. Maybe Magnusson himself.
“You’re up early,” he said conversationally.
She stopped her horse a few feet away. Her features were grim. “Is it true?” Her voice was hard and distant.
“Is what true?” he asked, though he knew what she meant.
“That you used me to get a job out of my father?”
He gazed at her silently.
Suddenly her eyes softened and she shook her head. “Mark, please tell me it’s not true.”
“Would your father lie to you?” he said, feeling his anger grow at her complete acceptance of everything her father said and did. “The noble King Magnusson?”
She studied him suspiciously, trying to read him. Finally he decided to make it easy for her to ride away and forget about him. “Why not? If you had a chance of working for Verlyn Thornberg or the great King Magnusson, which would you choose?”
She scowled. “So what—now you’re going to work for Thornberg? You’re going to cowboy for Thornberg?”
“Why not?”
The thoroughbred danced in a circle, wanting to keep going. Suzanne clutched her thighs to its ribs and held the reins taut. “Stop, damn you!” she cried. Returning her eyes to Talbot, she said, “So you’ll be riding against my father.”
“He killed my brother,” Talbot reminded her.
“Oh, Mark, don’t tell me you still believe that?” She said it like he was sharpening his horns over a mere insult or an unfortunate poker hand.
Talbot clutched a porch post, trying to subdue his anger. None of this was her fault. She was an innocent albeit spoiled coquette raised by a charming albeit evil man. “Go home, Suzanne. Pack your bags and hop the next train out of here. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“My father is a peaceful man, Mark.”
He gave a deep sigh and looked at her with frustration mixed with sympathy. “You believe what you want, Suzanne. But your father has to be stopped.”
“If he really were doing what you say, wouldn’t stopping him be up to the law?”
“You know there’s no law out here. We have to police ourselves. Besides, he killed my brother. It’s personal.”
She stared at him, the hate growing in her eyes. “You bastard,” she said tightly. “You’re just like the others on the Bench—jealous of my father’s money and power and spoiling for a fight.”
Talbot just looked at her. His eyes were flat.
Her own eyes sparked with outrage. “You simple bastard, you could have had me.”
Talbot laughed ruefully. “For a week maybe, until you got bored and went looking for some other stud to grease your wheels.”
She was outraged. The horse could sense it and danced around, agitated. “Most men … most men would give their eyeteeth to spend just one night in my good graces, you”—she pursed her lips and shook her head—“fool!”
“For your own good, Suzanne, get out of here. Stay out of the way.”
She gave an angry, frustrated cry, reined the black around, and spurred him back the way she had come. “What they say is true—brains and brawn really don’t go together!”
Talbot watched the horse pass through the cottonwoods and turn on the road behind the barn. She gave it the quirt and spurs and galloped away through the hogbacks.
Talbot swore and went back inside the cabin. He stomped around until he realized the fire had gone out. Then he went out behind the cabin, retrieved an armful of cottonwood logs, an
d got the fire going again. He’d forgotten how physically tiring the cold could be.
He sat brooding before the fire for another quarter of an hour. The rumbling in his stomach told him he needed to eat, so he scoured the kitchen for food. All he came up with was a can of peaches and a coffeepot with a small pouch of Arbuckle’s beans tucked inside.
He ground the beans with the butt of his revolver, filled the percolator with snow, dumped in the ground coffee, and set it on a grate in the fireplace. Later, drinking the coffee and eating the peaches with his fingers, it became clear to him that before he could go after Magnusson, he’d need to fill his larder. And because there were only about three or four more cottonwood logs left in the woodshed, he’d need to cut wood, as well.
The breaks of the Little Missouri would be the best place for getting wood and food. The only problem was he had no wagon with which to haul it all back to the ranch.
Maybe Jacy would lend him a wagon …
Thinking of her shoved back some of the hate he felt for Magnusson. She was the single bright spot in his returning home, and he felt a deep hankering to see her again. He knew, though, that his visit to the Double X had made him a villain in her eyes, and it was going to take some explaining to get himself back in her good graces.
When he finished the peaches and a second cup of coffee, he went out to the barn and saddled his speckle-gray, shoving the loaded Winchester into the saddle boot. A half hour later the corrals and outbuildings of Jacy’s Bar MK ranch rose from the frozen prairie a hundred yards ahead.
THE SUN PEEKED through high, thin clouds, spreading a washed-out, tawny glow over the hogbacks and hay stubble half covered in crusty snow. Ahead, the cabin was a black smudge beneath the blue mesa looming behind it.
From the corral, several horses watched Talbot approach, hanging their heads over the top rail and twitching their ears. Their manes hung limp; the lack of wind today was an unexpected treat. It was cold, but not the penetrating, stinging cold the wind whipped against your face like sand.
A rifle cracked, the squeaky bark rising in pitch as it echoed. Talbot flinched and brought his horse to a halt. Looking ahead, he saw a figure standing outside the cabin door. It was Jacy in her green mackinaw holding a rifle in her arms.
“Who are ya and what the hell you want!” she yelled, more than a touch of anger in her voice.
Talbot waved. “It’s me, Jacy. Mark Talbot.”
She said nothing, just looked at him with the rifle in her arms. Talbot was too far away to see the expression on her face, but the rest of her told him there wasn’t one. He was about to say something when she turned and walked back inside the cabin and closed the door.
Talbot spurred his horse ahead, dismounted, and looped the reins over the tie rail, then mounted the narrow porch and knocked on the door. She didn’t answer the knock.
“Can I come in?” he said, turning his head to hear through the door.
Nothing. He turned the knob. The door opened, and he stepped inside.
“What the hell do you want?” she said.
She was sitting at the kitchen table fronted by a whiskey bottle and a half-filled water glass. The rifle stood within easy reach to her right, propped against the table. Her tawny hair was mussed and her face was flushed.
“Looks like I’m late for the party,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Must’ve been a beaut.”
Thickly she said, “Nope. Drinkin’ alone today.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Life.”
“I see. In that case, mind if I join you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Then I suppose lending me a wagon for a couple days is out of the question.”
Frowning, she turned her head to look at him. “What for?”
“Need to haul firewood and game. It appears someone made off with all Dave’s implements.”
“Figured you’d be gone by now. Little Miss Queen of England entice you into staying?”
“No, her father did.” Remembering that he hadn’t seen smoke lifting from the bunkhouse chimney and hadn’t seen the old cowboy working outside, he asked where Gordon was. “Didn’t he ever show up?”
Jacy took a slug from her glass. “Yeah, he showed up. What was left of him.”
Talbot slid a chair out from the table and sat down next to her. “What happened?” he asked darkly.
She told him about finding Gordon and Mrs. Sanderson dead along the Little Missouri. Then she told him about joining Gibbon’s posse and the attack on the roadhouse. She’d barely finished the story when she convulsed in a sob, cupped her mouth in her hands, and lowered her head in tears.
“Jesus Christ,” Talbot muttered, absorbing the information. “Do you realize what this means? Magnusson’s going to pull out all the stops. He’s going to hunt each member of that posse down and hang him, or worse.”
“I know,” she said weakly.
Talbot’s mind was racing, trying to come up with a plan. “You need to lay low for a while. Visit your mother in Mandan. I’ll cable you when the dust settles.”
Jacy lifted her head and shook it defiantly. “It was a major fuck-up,” she said. “Innocent people died. We never should have done it. But I’m not running from it.” She added after a pause, “That poor Indian girl. Her life was hell, and then she died like hell. They all died like hell, like nothing means a goddamn thing.”
Talbot nodded. “Nothing means anything when it comes to war,” he said. “And that’s what we have here—a war.”
“We?”
“You heard me.”
“What about little Miss Queen of England?”
“You underestimate me, Jacy.”
Pursing her lips, she nodded. “Sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“How ’bout that wagon?”
“You’re going hunting?”
He shrugged. “First things first. Without food and heat, I’m helpless.”
She pinned him with her green eyes. “Stay here.”
He thought about it and shook his head. “I don’t want that son of a bitch burning the Circle T, and that’s what he’ll do if he comes looking for me and I’m not there to stop him. The cabin has to be my base. Besides, he won’t harm you if you’re alone. Magnusson’s a bastard, but he’s a proper bastard. Just the same, you better cork that bottle. If he comes here, you’ll want to be ready for him.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What makes you think you can boss me? You haven’t even gotten in my pants yet.” She tipped back the last of the whiskey and slammed the glass on the table. “You’ll find a buckboard where they’re usually kept—in the wagon shed.”
He splashed a finger of whiskey into her glass and slammed it back. “Much obliged,” he said, and headed for the door.
“Mark?”
Her voice stopped him.
She said, “Will you stop again on your way back from the river?”
He looked at her thoughtfully, then smiled. “Be my pleasure.”
“Good luck hunting,” she said.
He touched his hat brim in a mock salute and left.
CHAPTER 25
AFTER TALBOT LEFT her cabin, Jacy lost her taste for the whiskey. His appearance had somehow quelled her loneliness and fear, and she no longer felt the need to numb herself.
Having found most men querulous and undependable at best, she didn’t like feeling dependent, but she sensed in Talbot a maturity based on a wry melancholy that went deeper than Dave’s death. No doubt his experiences in the War and his wandering in Mexico had seasoned him, and Jacy thought that, given time, she would find a sensitive, passionate man.
Regretting that she’d jumped the gun about his relationship with Suzanne Magnusson, she yearned to have his masculine arms around her now, to curl her naked body against his and sleep for a million years.
Lost in reverie, she’d scrubbed two iron skillets and several plates before it dawned on her that horses were nickering outside. She jumped, s
tartled, splashing soapy water on the floor, and reached for her rifle. She moved quickly to the window and saw a man creeping along the barn, holding a rifle out before him.
She ran to the front door and opened it.
“Oh!” she screamed.
Another, bigger man stood before her, nearly filling the doorway. He wore a sheepskin coat and a tan hat, and was holding a rifle level with her belly. When Jacy tried to bring her own carbine up to shoot him, he grabbed it.
She fought but his power was too great, and finally he jerked the rifle from her hands, throwing her to the floor. She jumped to her feet and went at him with her fists, but she could have been punching a brick wall for all the damage she did.
Casually, the man pushed her back into the kitchen. It wasn’t much of a shove, but there was enough force in the man’s arm that she fell backward, bouncing her head off the floor.
“Son of a bitch!” Jacy lay there a moment, stunned, then rose to her elbows.
The man took two steps into the cabin. He had a big slab of a face with cold eyes and an anvil jaw, the deep lines above his cheeks epitomizing belligerence. He had a pure, raw, gladiatorial demeanor, and Jacy knew she was face-to-face with one of Magnusson’s firebrands.
“Where’s Talbot?” he said with a growl.
“Who?” She’d been so certain they’d be coming for her, to extract payment for the part she’d played in the roadhouse debacle, that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“Mark Talbot,” he repeated, louder this time. “We know he’s been here. We tracked him from his cabin.”
Jacy climbed to her feet and put her hands on the counter behind her, cutting her eyes around for a weapon—a knife, a fork, anything.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said, reading her mind. “You don’t think I’d shoot a woman?”
“What do you want with Mark?”
A smaller, baby-faced man stepped into the cabin behind the big man. He had to take a long step to get around the big man’s muscle-bound girth. When he did, Jacy saw the grinning, pendulous-lipped features of Randall Magnusson, whom she’d seen occasionally before—in dry-goods stores and roadhouses. Once he’d pulled his horse up to hers as she stopped for water at Big John Creek. Openly staring at her breasts, he’d asked if she wanted to go to a dance sometime and she’d told him to go diddle himself.
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