by Janet Dailey
"What can you expect? There isn't anything to stop them," Maddock replied in a dry dismissal of the effectiveness of the dividing fence.
"I am aware of that," Edie countered stiffly.
"Good. Because it's your fence and your problem." He was stating facts, neither taunting nor mocking, just smoothly pointing out where the responsibility rested.
And it was all the more infuriating. "It will soon be remedied." She was rigid.
"Let's go, dad," his daughter urged with undisguised boredom for the conversation taking place. "You promised we would go swimming when we got back," she reminded him, and explained to Alison with an upper-crust dryness, "We have a heated pool."
Will Maddock's response was to tighten the grip on the reins. The big, blue gray buckskin he was riding showed how well-trained it was by backing up in double-quick time and stopping the second the pressure on the bit was eased.
"You're looking tired after only two days, Mrs. Gibbs," he observed. "You should get some rest." His gloved hand touched the brim of his hat in a farewell gesture before he glanced at his daughter and reined his mount away.
As cantering hooves drummed the ground to sound their departure, Edie dug a heel in the bay's side to ride it through the gap in the fence. She was so choked with anger she couldn't speak. Once on their land they both turned their horses toward the distant ranch yard as if it had been previously agreed.
"Will you promise to go swimming with me when we get back, momma?" Alison queried in pseudocultured voice. "We have a heated pool." It was a deliberate and acid mockery of Felicia Maddock.
"Didn't you notice? I'm tired. I need my rest," Edie countered bitterly. She caught the glinting light in Alison's eye and unwillingly a laugh was pulled from her throat.
There was no sign of Jerry when they arrived at the ranch. They rubbed their horses down and grained all the stock. As they started toward the house, Jerry drove into the yard in his pickup.
"The next time someone has to go to town, it's going to be me," Alison stated. "It always turns into an all-day affair."
"Did you order the fencing?" Edie ignored her daughter's gibe that Jerry had been loafing all day. They both knew better.
"I ordered it, all right." He fell into step beside them. The grimness of his expression was echoed in his voice.
"What happened?" She knew there was more to that statement.
"I had to pay cash before they would even order it," he explained.
"What?" Edie stopped, stunned by his announcement.
"Same at the feed store, too, when I stopped to buy grain for the horses."
"Why? Didn't you open an account for us?" Edie demanded.
"I, tried," he admitted, "but it seems we don't have any credit established in this area. We either pay on the line or we don't get it. The lumber company did say that if we stayed here a year they would reconsider our application to open an account with them."
"If we stayed!" Edie repeated in anger.
"That's what they said." There was a wryly grim twist to his mouth. "The word is out—no credit. It's going to be the same with every supplier."
"And I can guess who put the word out," she muttered under her breath.
"Will Maddock," Alison supplied the name.
"He must have been laughing up his sleeve today." Edie jerked the front door open and stalked into the house.
"Today? Did you see him today?" Jerry held the door for Alison, then followed them both into the house.
"Yes." Alison explained about finding the cattle and running into Maddock and his daughter when they herded them back to Diamond D land. "If his wife is anything like his daughter, she must be a real pain," she concluded.
"She's dead," Jerry informed them.
"How do you know that?" Edie glanced at him in vague surprise.
"I heard somebody mention it—at the feed store, I think. Anyway, I had the impression he lost his wife some time ago." He shrugged.
Edie told herself she wasn't interested in Will Maddock's personal life. It had nothing to do with them. Their problems were more immediate.
"When will the fencing arrive?" she asked to change the subject.
"Part of it will be delivered tomorrow. The rest they are shipping in," Jerry replied.
THE TRUCK WITH THE POSTS AND WIRE came early the next morning. They elected to first replace the fence near the barns so they would have a place to turn the horses loose to graze. It was hard, monotonous labor—pulling out the old, rotten posts, putting in new ones and stringing the barbed wire. Jerry did the phases that called for brute strength, but all three of them were staggering with fatigue at the end of each day.
When the area near the barn was refenced, they turned their efforts to the west property line where Diamond D cattle were wandering onto their land. The weather mercifully held, turning springlike with pleasantly warm afternoons.
As the sun and work started the perspiration flowing, Edie removed her jacket and tossed it inside the cab of the pickup. Alison was farther up the fence row astride the buckskin gelding, roping the old fence posts, taking a dally around the saddle horn to pull them out of the ground and drag them back to the pickup to be returned to the house for firewood. She kept ahead of Jerry, who was setting new posts, and at the same time chased the curious cattle away from the fence line, herding any out that wandered in. It was Edie's task to string the barbed wire and nail it to the new posts. Dipping a gloved hand into a sack in the back end of the pickup, she scraped the bottom to come up with a handful of metal staples and slipped them into the pocket of the carpenter's apron around her waist.
"We're out of staples, Jerry!" She called in a tired voice.
Shirtless, Jerry's tough, sinewy back muscles glistened with sweat and dust that turned into rivulets of mud to streak his skin. He finished tamping a new post, paused to remove his hat and wipe his forehead with the back of his arm. With long, tired strides he started back toward the truck, stopping to take the shirt he had draped over the previous fence post. "I only have a half dozen posts left. I'll go back to the house for another load," he told Edie. "And staples for you. Have Alison help you."
"She's busy," Edie replied after a brief glance that saw her daughter spurring the buckskin toward some young steers racing with tails high through the downed fence line and toward a distant stand of branch-bare cottonwoods. "I'll manage."
With the slamming of the truck door, Edie picked up the trailing strand of the top wire. Even with the protection of leather gloves, she was careful to grip only the wire and avoid the pointed barbs spaced along the wire. Unwinding a long section from the reel, she strung it past one post and onto the second. There she tacked it to the far post and went back to stretch it tight to the first and hammer the staple to wood, holding it in place.
The pickup was bouncing over the uneven ground, disappearing in the direction of the ranch yard, when Edie remembered she had left the wire cutters in the pocket of her jacket. Shrugging, she decided she wouldn't need them before Jerry returned, anyway. With the top wire in place on the next pole, she strung the second and third strands, then went back to the top to repeat the procedure.
Tired and weary, her muscles hadn't quit aching for days. But Edie had learned to block out the discomfort and, robotlike, focus her concentration on the task. As she tacked the top wire to a second post, there was a prickling sensation of danger along the back of her neck. When she turned to walk to the middle post to stretch the wire taut, she saw Will Maddock sitting astride the big gray buckskin, relaxed in the saddle and watching her. Edie faltered for a second in mid stride, her pulse leaping in alarm that she hadn't heard him approach. Aware that his presence had been noticed, Maddock still didn't offer a greeting. Pressing her lips together, Edie decided if he could be rude, so could she, and she continued to the second post.
"That isn't the way it's done," he criticized with drawling indifference. "That wire can pull loose from the far pole and whip right back at you."
"It
's my fence and my problem?" Edie tugged at the top wire to pull it tight. "I can get along without any supervision from you."
There was a curl in the wire that resisted her efforts. Edie leaned against the loose section tacked to the far post to get some leverage. Irritated that she should have any difficulty when Maddock was watching, she carelessly put too much strain on the loosely secured section of wire.
"Look out!" The barked warning came too late.
Edie heard a pinging snap. Then there wasn't anything to lean against. She staggered for balance and heard the whine of recoiling wire. Sheer instinct raised her hands toward her face as the barbed wire circled her like a whip. A thousand needle-sharp points stabbed into her flesh, piercing her clothes to tear at her skin. She wasn't aware of crying out, but there was the echo of strangled screams in the air.
The wire had tangled at her feet, tripping her up and keeping her from regaining her balance. With each stumbling, staggering step, more flesh was ripped by constricting wire. Her attempts to unwind it only added to the agony. She couldn't even fall to the ground because the wire held her up. It seemed an eternity of time that she was trapped in the web of steel needles, writhing in pain, before a pair of hands held her motionless and gave her support. In actual fact it was only a matter of seconds.
"You stupid, little bitch." A familiar voice was savagely swearing in her face. "You were too damned stubborn to listen. You didn't want my supervision. Maybe you don't want my help, either. Where are your wire cutters? I told you this would happen, but damn fools like you know everything."
The barely controlled fury of his temper whipped at her, slicing into her pride the way the barbs cut her flesh. Yet all the while Maddock was berating her stupidity and stubbornness, he was supporting her with one hand and loosening the strands of wire circling her body. Each breath Edie took was a grunting cry as the straitjacket of wire was not permitting any movement without extracting a penalty of pain. Her eyes were tightly closed, trying to shut out the nightmare.
"Where are the damned wire cutters?" This time Maddock's voice demanded an answer.
"In…the pickup," Edie whispered and cringed in expectation for the barrage of abuse that would follow.
"Of all the—" The explosion stopped as the large hands on her arms tightened. "Don't move," his voice rumbled the order with thunderous warning. "I have some in my saddlebags. Just stand still and don't try to get free. Do you understand? Don't move."
Hysterical laughter started to rise in her throat, because it was so ludicrous to think she could move. "I…can't," she gulped down the bubbling sound.
When he released her, Edie felt a surge of panic. What if he left her? She fought it down as she opened her tear-blurred eyes to watch him eat the distance between her and his horse with long, running strides and return in equal haste with a pair of wire cutters in his hand.
"Have you had a tetanus shot lately?" With his powerful grip he began snipping through the wire strands as if they were pieces of string.
"No…I mean, yes. I have." Tremors of relief were quaking through her as strand after circling strand fell away.
When she was free he gripped her shoulders and lifted her out of the tangle of wire at her feet. Edie swayed unsteadily for a second, but his hands remained to solidly support her. His strength was a silent blessing. Edie tipped her head back to thank him.
"Maddock, I don't—" Before she could express the gratitude she was feeling, he was cutting her off with a hard shake, angry sparks glittering in his flint-gray eyes.
"You stupid, little female!" he raged again in a low growl. "Do you realize how lucky you were?"
"Because you were here? Yes," she nodded. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alison driving the steers toward the fence.
"No, not because I was here!" Maddock denied that above the noise of the approaching pickup truck. "That barbed wire went around your body. It could just as easily have wrapped itself around your face! It's a miracle you aren't scarred for life. It wouldn't have mattered who the hell was here! Do you understand?"
He shook her again and the blood drained from her face at his explanation. Knowing how easily the barbs had ripped through her clothes and into her skin, Edie closed her eyes at the thought of what might have happened if it had whipped across her unprotected face. Her fingers curled into the sleeves of his black shirt, feeling the iron-hard flesh it covered and gaining strength from him. Distantly she was aware of the slamming of the truck door, but it made no impact on her until she heard Jerry's voice.
"Take your hands off her, Maddock!" he ordered, and grabbed at his arm.
As Maddock loosened his grip to send a fiery glare at her stepson, Alison came running toward her. "Mom, are you all right?" Her eyes widened at the sight of the torn blouse and the blood oozing from the many cuts. She turned on Maddock with a vengeance. "What did you do to her?"
"I didn't do anything to her!" he snapped. "Tenderfeet like you can do it all by yourselves!" With that he was shaking off Jerry's arm as if ridding himself of a pesky fly and striding to his ground-hitched horse.
It was left to Edie to explain, somewhat shakily, all that had happened. While Jerry stayed to put up the fence, Alison drove Edie back to the house to clean the cuts and put some antiseptic on them. Only a few were at all serious, but all of them were painful. Her back, shoulders and arms had suffered the most, but none kept her from working.
The following week it was decided that they had sufficient land fenced and could begin to acquire stock cows to build their herd. Jerry began attending the livestock auctions in the area. It slowed their progress in refencing since Edie and Alison had to work at something else on the days he went to the sale barns.
After three weeks of regular attendance, Jerry didn't have a single cow for his efforts. His story was one of frustration. Every time he made a bid on a pen of cattle, the price went sky-high. Jerry dropped out of the bidding whenever the price exceeded the cattle's market worth.
The day of the next sale it was decided unanimously that all three of them would take a break from their grueling work schedule to attend. It was a grimly silent trio that left their truck and trailer parked with the other ranch vehicles and walked to the sale barn. While Jerry registered and got his number, Edie and Alison went to the snack bar for coffee before the auction started.
The area was a hive of activity. Boisterous male voices hailed one another above the ring of the cash register and orders being given to a harried waitress behind the counter. The smell of cattle and manure permeated the room to make an incongruous mixture with the aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls and apple pie. Edie was standing to one side while Alison debated whether she was hungry enough for two rolls instead of just one. For a brief moment Edie considered the fact that neither one of them had to watch their weight, not the way they had been working lately.
"Hey, Cully!" Someone hailed the heavyset man at the cash register. Edie glanced around in idle curiosity. "You're in luck again today. That kid is here. I just saw him registering."
The man took his change and turned to face the stocky cowboy, pushing his way through the crowd of hats and boots and Levi's-clad men. "That kid is slow to catch on, isn't he?" The man gestured to Jerry as Cully grinned and pushed his hat back. "Hasn't he figured out yet that Maddock ain't about to let him buy anything?"
Edie stiffened. To suspect this was what was happening was one thing, but to have it confirmed was quite another. She pretended to be interested in a sign over the counter, but every bit of her attention was centered on the two men, anger making her senses twice as keen.
"Sometimes I wonder how high Maddock would drive the prices," the cowboy was saying. "I wish the kid wouldn't drop out so soon."
"Don't wonder too much," the rancher, Cully, warned. "Hank Farber wondered that last week and started bidding. He wound up owning a pen of expensive stock cattle. Maddock shuts off his bidding the minute the kid does."
"There's no question about it. Maddoc
k wants that ranch. "
"Hell! I don't blame him. It sits damned near square in the middle of his place," Cully declared. Alison started to say something to Edie, but she shushed her with a look and sent a glance toward the two men to indicate the reason. "It's got some of the best grassland and hay around here."
"After all Maddock did for Carver, I sure expected that old man to sell the place to him." The cowboy shook his head in absent bewilderment. "Carver never would have hung onto the ranch as long as he did if Maddock hadn't helped him out as much as he did. I know for a fact that Maddock made Carver a standing offer to pay a hundred dollars an acre over the market price. He could have squeezed the old man out of that place a long time ago, but he played fair."
"Maddock is fair, I'll give him that," Cully conceded, and grinned. "Course he can afford to be. That old man, Carver, though, has a streak of cussedness a mile wide. His idea of a practical joke gets a little twisted sometimes. Knowing how much Maddock wanted his ranch, he probably thought it was funny to sell to the widow instead."
"That bothers me. I mean, her being a widow and all." The cowboy frowned and shuffled his feet in discomfort. "I've heard she's quite a looker. She's sunk her money into that ranch, trying to make a home for her and her kids. They sure as hell are working hard trying to fix the place up. I saw them putting in new fence last week, all three of them. Maddock's kinda rough on her."
There was grim satisfaction in knowing someone agreed that they were getting a raw deal. But the rancher Cully was laughing at the statement.
"Hell! Maddock isn't trying to cheat her in the first place," he declared. "He's just trying to force her into selling to him. As for her being a widow, these females have been screaming for equal rights. Now they got them. If they want to play with the boys, they can't expect any special favors. If she can't handle the rough stuff, she'd better go back to the kitchen."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," the cowboy agreed reluctantly, and looked toward the door. "There's Tom Haven. I've been wanting to see him. See ya, Cully."