Iris reached the drag of the herd. As the last of the stragglers walked by, she couldn't resist looking back. Beyond those hills, across more than a hundred miles of brush, thorny vines, cactus, and rocky soil lay her home. A home that didn't belong to her any longer. Even though she had spent the first ten years of her life in Austin and the last four in St. Louis, she thought of the ranch as home. It was where she grew up. The stifling heat and the long dry summers, the cactus and the scrub oak were as familiar as the traffic and the heated parlors of St. Louis. Now she was leaving it behind for the unfamiliarity of the cold, barren plains of Wyoming.
A shiver of apprehension knifed though her. She was on her own. She was going alone.
For a moment Iris felt overwhelmed. She was surrounded by difficulties she had never experienced, about which she knew nothing. All that stood between her and destitution was a herd and the money she had hidden in her wagon.
Monty. She whispered his name even as she swore she would never ask his help again. He was a bully and a brute, but he was the only man she trusted. He would defend cowhand or rancher alike. He was just as ready to fight over a single maverick as over twenty thousand acres of grazing land. He would. . .
Iris's thoughts broke off when a young steer appeared on the trail a short distance away.
Monty. It had to be his herd.
Iris felt the muscles in her body tense. He would be enraged to have to stop to allow her herd to get a safe distance ahead. She had better be the one to meet him. If it was Frank, there'd probably be a fight. She couldn't get to Wyoming with her foreman laid up with a broken head.
But as Iris rode forward, she grew puzzled. The steer was coming at a very fast walk. One thing she had learned. You walked your stock at a comfortable pace so they could gain weight.
Was Monty trying to run them down? She knew he was angry at her, but she didn't think he was mad enough to do something like that. If his herd drove into hers, there would be trouble and she wouldn't be able to stop it.
It was Monty. She recognized him the instant he appeared. A half dozen steers accompanied him. Iris spurred her horse into a gallop. She had to stop him.
"Turn your herd aside!" she called out as soon as she was within shouting distance.
"What the hell are you hollering about?" Monty demanded, when he pulled his horse to a halt next to hers.
"We had a stampede last night. That's why we're in your way. If you'd just stop here a while, it won't take us long to get ahead of you."
"This is not my herd."
"You can't ram us. You . . . "
The lead steer drew abreast of Iris and her mouth dropped open. The steer bore the Double-D brand. That was her steer. A quick glance told her all the other longhorns belonged to her as well.
She had been right. They had lost cows, hundreds of them if she was any judge.
"Where did you find them?" she finally managed to ask.
"We heard the stampede. I started this way with a couple of the boys to see if you could use any help. We ran into this bunch heading south."
"South?" Iris explained. "But the herd was running somewhere between north and west."
"Somebody stampeded your herd so they could cut it. They took out when they saw me coming, but I recognized one of them. Quince Honeyman." He sounded impatient, irritated at being drawn into her trouble.
"I never heard of him." She expected him to tell her to go home, that she obviously couldn't handle the drive, that she was in his way.
Instead he said, "A swarthy man, half Irish, half Indian. Has a scraggly beard which he uses to try to cover up a bullet burn across his cheek. Have you ever seen him?"
Something inside Iris froze. She had never heard of Quince Honeyman, but she had a distinct feeling she had seen the man Monty described. She felt a strong urge to tell him, but she fought it down. He wouldn't do anything except tell her she should have listened to him and stayed home.
Iris shook her head.
"You don't have to worry about him. I put a bullet through his shoulder. He won't be cutting any herds for a while."
He almost sounded as if he had done it for her, to protect her from any future stampede. But he didn't act like a lover, at least not like any lover Iris had ever been around.
The cows reached the drag, and Iris's crew started feeding them back into the main herd.
"Thank you for bringing them back. Frank didn't think any were missing. He wasn't going to count them until we reached the river."
"That's four days away." Monty sounded incredulous, like she should have known that. "Quince would have been half the way to Mexico by then."
Iris opened her mouth to contradict him, then shut it again. She didn't know what creek or stream Frank had been talking about, but if Monty said the next river was four days away, it was four days away.
"You need to post extra guards for the next few nights. If you have another stampede before the herd settles down, you could get hurt."
No one could accuse Monty of sweet-talking, but he did have a way about him. He had been worried about her. Knowing that made Iris feel better than she had in weeks. Now if she could just get him to take a more active interest.
"Besides, they might stampede my herd next time."
That's what she got for getting foolishly sentimental about Monty. She should have known he wasn't interested in anything except his cows. He never had been. And while he had made it clear he found her very attractive, he had also made it clear his cows came before everything else. Especially her.
Before Iris could return the hot answer that came to mind, Frank rode up.
"What the hell are you doing here again?" he demanded, angrily. "Get your men away from this herd."
"He brought back the cows we lost last night," Iris said, speaking quickly before Monty would reply. "Monty says rustlers stampeded the herd so they could cut it."
"That's the craziest thing I ever heard," Frank snapped, furious.
Iris didn't understand why Frank was so angry. He knew he wasn't pleased to seen Monty again, but he'd been laughing last night like he'd forgotten all about their previous encounter. Obviously he was much angrier than she had suspected.
"Two of my best men were riding herd when it started," Frank said. "They'd have seen anybody trying to sneak up on 'em. It must have been a panther. Maybe a wolf."
Frank forced his horse between Iris and Monty. Maybe he thought he was protecting Iris, but all he did was make Monty furious.
"Either you've been sleeping on the job, or you're trying to cover for your men," Monty shot back.
"Why you yellow-bellied son of a--"
Frank never got to finish his sentence. Monty jumped his horse straight into Frank's mount. The big, rawboned gelding ran right over Frank's cow pony. Jumping from the saddle, Monty grabbed Frank as he struggled to his feet and hit him a powerful blow to the neck which sent him to the ground clutching his throat in agony and gasping for breath.
"Next time I won't be so easy on you."
Iris was shocked by the sudden fight. Acting purely on instinct, she jumped down from her horse and pulled the rifle from the scabbard on Frank's fallen pony.
"Monty Randolph, you stop this very minute, or I'll put a bullet in you."
She had the rifle pointed directly at him, but he didn't jump. He just turned and looked at her like she had lost her mind.
"You'd better put that away before someone gets hurt," he said, pointing to the rifle.
His complete lack of fear made her furious. She wished she had the courage to fire into the ground between his feet, but she had never fired a rifle and she was afraid she might hurt him.
"It wasn't enough that you refused to help me. It wasn't enough that you've kept my crew nervous as antelopes knowing you and your gunslinging brother are dogging our heels. Now you have to try to kill my foreman."
"You fire that rifle, and you're going to have another stampede," Monty said, pointing to the wide-eyed longhorns watching Iris.
"I hope everyone of them runs over you," Iris said. "I would love to see something pound you into the ground."
"It would never happen," Monty said, that irritating grin on his face once more. "I'd be astride Buster before you could take a deep breath. With you over my saddle," he added.
Iris's eyes flashed and her nostrils quivered. "No man, but most especially you, Mr. James Monroe Randolph, will ever carry me off over a saddle. I'd shoot you first."
"Not unless you take off the safety first," Monty said, brazenly taking the rifle from her grasp. "Now let's put this away before you hurt yourself."
"The only person I'm going to hurt is you."
"You'd be better advised to look to your foreman. He doesn't look too chipper to me."
"No thanks to you."
"Maybe he'll think next time before he calls me a coward."
Iris was too angry to give any thought to her words. She said the first thing that came to her mind. "Maybe you'll think before you act," she snapped in return. "If you don't, you're liable to beat somebody else to death."
Monty turned white. "I never beat anybody to death."
Iris wished she could have bitten her tongue. In all her life, she'd never seen Monty defenseless, never known he could be hurt. He had seemed beyond the influence of normal human emotions. Yet one thoughtless sentence had stripped him of all the strength and confidence that made him Monty Randolph.
"You should be more concerned about your herd than me," Monty said, recovering some of his color. "And don't worry that I'll disturb you again. Next time I see somebody stealing your cows, I'll write you a letter. It ought to reach you about the time you get to Indian Territory."
He talked like the old Monty, but as he mounted his horse, he still looked shaken. Iris's anger evaporated. Frank wasn't really hurt, and he'd brought it on himself. But her words had hurt Monty deeply. She'd flung the accusation at him without thinking, having only remembered something someone said. But his reaction told her it was very important. She would have to find out why.
"I do appreciate your bringing my cows back," Iris called after him. "I just don't want you attacking my foreman."
"Then keep him out of my way." Monty dug his heels into his mount's flanks. The gelding bounded away, leaving Iris to marvel at how good Monty looked on horseback. He rode tall in the saddle, his back straight, his broad shoulders thrown back, and his powerful thighs gripping his mount's side. She could easily remember how his strong hands had held her helpless against the wagon. She watched him until he disappeared. It wasn't difficult to remember why she had had such a terrible crush on him. The man still sent her blood racing and her pulses soaring. He was devastating to look at. It was a shame he was such a impossible person.
But even as Iris watched Frank pick himself up and get his pony back on its feet, she realized she didn't feel any animosity toward Monty. Irritation, yes. Anger, too, but apparently a lot of the teenage crush remained. Unfortunately his avoidance of respectable females was legendary. The only ones he was interested in were floozies and cows.
"Next time Monty shows up, let me handle him," she told Frank. "If you can't talk to him without getting into a fight, you'd better stay out of sight."
"That man gets my goat." Frank dusted himself off, but a grass stain remained on the seat of his pants.
"He gets mine, too, but it won't do you any good for the crew to see you lying in the dust at his feet. We've got a long way to go, and we can't do it unless the crew respects you."
"I've got everything under control," Frank said, looking ugly. "The crew and the herd. Now you should go back to your wagon."
"When do you plan to count the herd?"
Frank's expression darkened.
"I told you, a day from now."
"Monty said the river is four days away."
Iris thought Frank was going to explode. She'd never seen him so angry.
"The Brazos River is four or five days away, but Dogleg Creek is just ahead. Why do you want a count? You got your cows back."
"I don't know that. You didn't think we were missing any before. Maybe we still are."
"It'll slow us down even more."
"It doesn't matter. Monty can't be any more angry at us than he is already."
As Iris rode back to her wagon, she realized she didn't want Monty to be angry with her. He was the only person she could really trust. As she got farther and farther away from civilization, that became more and more important. Especially if the rustlers were still after her.
She thought she had left them behind in Guadalupe County, but obviously someone was still trying to steal her cows. She didn't know if they wanted just a few hundred or if they intended to take the whole herd.
That thought caused the blood to run cold.
Iris racked her brain, but she couldn't remember where she had seen Quince Honeyman. But she must. He could to be the key to the men trying to rob her.
* * * * *
For the second time in less than a week, Monty cursed himself as he rode back to his camp, but there was something different this time. They were no longer the good-natured curses of a man momentarily out of temper, or curses of resignation aimed at someone else because they had forced him to change his plans.
These were bitter, despairing curses aimed at Monty himself.
One of the conditions George imposed before he agreed to give Monty control of the ranch was that Salty would be his foreman. Monty had no objection. Salty was his first choice. What made him angry was that he knew Salty was here to watch him, to exercise the same kind of control George did. But what made Monty maddest of all was that he deserved it. He had just proved it again.
He pushed aside the memory of that fight in Mexico. He hadn't known Iris knew about it. Her flinging it in his face so unexpectedly had been a terrible shock, but one he needed. He needed something to remind him that he was becoming more like his father every day.
He would have been tempted to strangle anybody who said that, but he was as honest with himself as he was brutally direct with others. He had his father's temper, a cruel, vicious streak of senselessness fury that stuck with the unexpectedness and speed of a panther. And it was just as deadly.
He could remember when he had first talked to George about Wyoming. He had been so sure George would be as excited as he was. They needed more land. Their herds had grown too large. Wyoming land would mean a shorter distance to the new markets opening up around the mines. It also meant gaining new land for virtually nothing. Monty was the logical choice to head up the new ranch.
But George had said he was immature, too hasty with his judgments, too quick to act to be trusted with such a large operation. George didn't mention it, but the fight in Mexico was fresh in everyone's mind. Monty could remember the anger that had made him shout at his brother until Hen had dragged him away and pushed him in the creek.
After cooling off, and enduring a good talking to from Hen, Rose, and Zac, the presumptuous sprout, he had set himself the task of proving himself matured enough to be entrusted with the new ranch.
He had succeeded for a whole year only to lose his temper twice with Iris's foreman.
But it wasn't Frank. It was Iris.
He rode up to the crest of a ridge and looked back at Iris's herd. The men had them under tight control now, but it wouldn't last long. Lax management and poor control were Frank Cain's hallmark.
But more than that, Monty didn't trust Frank, and it made him furious to see Iris depending on him. She didn't know a thing about men like Frank. Monty couldn't expect her to, not spoiled and protected like she was. Besides, she was used to having men do anything she wanted. It probably never crossed her mind that a man she knew would actually set out to steal from her.
Maybe he'd send Salty over to talk to her. He'd rather send Hen, but he doubted Hen would go. Come to think of it, Salty wouldn't be a good choice either. He became tongued tied around beautiful women. Rose was about the only women who didn't
send him scurrying for his horse.
Somebody had to keep an eye on her. They had already tried to steal her herd once, and they would try again. They might not mean to harm her, but you never could tell what would happened when bullets started flying.
She could be killed.
An odd feeling skittered along his nerve endings. Iris was a bother and a worry and too ignorant to be turned loose, but he liked her. He didn't know why, but then he'd been a perverse creature all his life. If he took after his father in one way, he was bound to take after him in others. According to George, their pa had once pursued a woman all the way from Virginia to Charleston.
Monty wasn't going to chase after Iris over three states. He just wanted to make sure nothing happened to her. He might even take her up on her invitation to dinner. Nothing she served could be any worse than what Tyler was dishing up.
Tyler had become a good cook. Monty had to give him that. But when Tyler got through with the food, a man couldn't make out what he was eating. And Monty hated to eat anything when he couldn't tell what it was.
* * * * *
During the remainder of the day, Monty's description of the rustler nagged at Iris's mind. She tried to remember where she had seen the man, but nothing jogged her memory. Once she almost decided to ride over and ask Monty if he could remember anything else, but she decided against it. Considering his mood when he left, he was liable to send her back to her own camp tied across her saddle.
In spite of their sharp words, she was touched that Monty would leave his own herd to see if she needed help. He could have let them go or kept them himself. Instead, he had risked being shot at to drive off the rustlers and return the cows.
On the other hand, if Monty had really wanted to be helpful, he could have taken her with him. That would have been easier than chasing after her cows and fighting off rustlers. No rustler would mess with a herd when they knew Monty and Hen were around.
Iris was starved by dinner time, but a single glance at the plate of bacon and beans the cook handed her caused her to lose her appetite. She had never eaten food like this. Nevertheless, she took the plate. She had to eat something, and she might as well learn to eat what the men ate. She wouldn't be able to dine on French cuisine in Wyoming.
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