"Then we'll carry them."
"How?"
Even as Iris started to say she didn't know, the answer popped into her head. She didn't like it at first, but after a moment's thought, she shrugged. It fitted with all the rest. She might as well accept that cows were more important than people, especially her.
"You can put them in my wagon."
"Are you crazy?" Billy exclaimed.
Iris laughed. "I must be to voluntarily give up my wagon to a couple of calves."
"Where are you going to sleep?"
"On the ground. Would you believe I’ve actually missed it?"
Billy followed her back, mumbling under his breath. Monty and Salty rode up a few minutes later while the men were unloading what was left of the wagon's furnishings.
"What's wrong now?" Monty asked.
"She won't let us shoot these calves," Frank explained. "She's going to carry them in her wagon until they get strong enough to keep up."
"I don't see any sense in killing a calf," Iris said. She felt nervous under Monty's penetrating gaze, but she felt determined as well. "It's not only wasteful, it's cruel."
Monty just stared at her like he was looking right through her. Iris didn't want to think of what he would say when they were alone. She just hoped he would hold his tongue while the men were listening.
"I need every cow and calf I have," Iris continued. "If we shoot two calves a day, that'll be nearly two hundred by the time we get to Wyoming. That's two thousand dollars. In three years, it'll be even more."
"Everybody get's rid of their calves," Frank said.
"And everybody's been stupid," Monty said as he dismounted. "That's the best idea I've heard of since the chuck wagon." He turned to Salty. "Get us one. Buy it from a farmer. Send to Fort Worth if you must, but I want a calf wagon in camp by tonight. Did you really think of that by yourself?" he asked, turning to Iris.
Iris nodded, too stunned to speak. For the first time in her life, she had done something Monty liked, something he thought was good enough to copy. She didn't know whether to collapse from shock or float from elation.
"You can put your calves in my wagon when I get it," Monty said. "No need for you to be pushed out of yours."
"I don't want it anymore. I felt uncomfortable, cooped up."
"That's a change. You used to--"
"I know, but I changed my mind."
Monty gave her an appraising look. "You're full of surprises."
"It surprised me, too. I never thought I'd give up a bed for a bedroll."
"I never thought you'd cut your nails," Monty said.
Iris tried to hide her hands behind her, but Monty grasped one and held it up. He opened her palm.
"You've got callouses," he said.
"So do you."
"They come with the job."
Iris raised her second hand, palm up. "So did these."
"Keep it up. You might turn into a rancher yet."
And with that stunning remark, Monty mounted up and rode off again leaving Iris staring after him with her mouth open.
* * * * *
Monty came wide awake. Almost in the same motion he threw aside his blanket. He shoved his feet into his boots, settled his hat on his head, and got to his feet. Dawn was still a good half hour away, but he always felt fully awake the moment he opened his eyes. There was no yawning and stretching and turning over to catch a few more minutes of sleep. He awoke full of energy, anxious to be up and doing.
The morning air was cool and still, the sky a slate grey. The cows rested quietly, a light dew adding a chill to the morning air. The men still slept, but moved restlessly in the last minutes before dawn. One man leaned on his elbow smoking a rolled cigarette. The faint smell of coffee and frying bacon mixed with the smell of tobacco.
Monty loved this time of day. It provided him with a small island of peace and quiet before the activity of the coming day. It was a time for making new plans, for anticipating success, of pleasurable anxiety. The problems of yesterday were forgotten. A new, unspoiled day lay ahead. It was a chance to start over with a clean slate.
The silence in Iris's camp was nearly complete. With the repair of Iris's chuck wagon, she had moved back with her own crew. Monty, saying he needed to be familiar with both groups of men, had started sleeping in Iris's camp on alternate nights.
"Coffee's hot," the cook said, taking time from his work to pour a cup of coffee and hand it to Monty. He was one of seven men on Iris's crew who had accepted Monty's authority.
"Thanks," Monty said, taking the cup. "Anything changed?" he asked, looking at the man over his cup.
"Something has, but I don't know what." The cook spoke in a low voice as he went about his work. "Something's up. I can feel it."
"Frank?"
"Can't say. He seems to talk to everybody the same, but some know something and some don't."
"Keep your eyes open," Monty said before moving away.
Monty walked to where Iris slept a short distance away. He hesitated to wake her. He wanted her to come back to his camp. She felt she ought to be with her own men, but she wasn't comfortable at her own campfire. She always stayed close to Carlos or himself.
He also noticed something else. She never let anyone touch her. And that included himself. After all the effort she had made to get him to notice her, he didn't understand that. He first thought that having attained the goal of getting him to take her to Wyoming, she had dropped her pretense of interest in him.
Though it hurt Monty's vanity to admit that might be one of the reasons, he knew it wasn't the only one. Something else was troubling Iris. Something he knew nothing about.
It certainly wasn't Carlos. Monty's duties kept him on the move, but it seemed every time he saw Iris, she and Carlos had their heads together. Monty found himself growing irritated that Iris could be so taken in by Carlos, even if he was her half brother.
It wasn't Reardon either. He didn't hang around camp. He disappeared as soon as he finished his meals. Monty didn't know what Reardon was doing here beyond trying to earn a little money, but he didn't like the man. Reardon wasn't the kind to hang around without a reason, and that reason wasn't likely to be to anybody's advantage but his own. He was dangerous and cruel. He could see that in his eyes.
No, despite Reardon, it was something else, and Monty meant to find out what it was.
* * * * *
"Why doesn't he separate the herds?" Carlos asked Iris. They had ridden together most of the day, talking while he did his work.
Nothing happened to ease the monotonous routine of keeping the cows moving. The herd had settled down after the last stampede and adapted to the trail with remarkable complacency. There was very little for Iris to do as the endless miles drifted by except worry about her future and complain about the heat.
"He lost too much time with the stampede," Iris said, "and he doesn't want to take the time just yet. It's been a terribly dry spring, and he wants to get as far north as he can before the real heat of summer sets in."
"Maybe he doesn't want to separate the herds," Carlos said.
"What do you mean?" Iris asked. She hadn't told Carlos of her suspicions about Frank. She didn't feel that comfortable yet.
"I don't know, but I never heard of anybody keeping two herds together. They're usually anxious to separate them as soon as possible."
"Why? It ought to be easier to drive one herd that two."
"Easier to steal it that way."
Iris laughed. "I'm not worried about Monty stealing my cows."
"Well you ought to be. Joe was talking about it last night. Said it looked queer the way Monty was lording it over your men."
Iris decided it was time she took Carlos into her confidence. It didn't make sense to say she wanted them to be a close-knit family, then keep secrets from him. Besides, she was tired of continually having to defend Monty. After what she'd put him through, he didn't deserve to be distrusted.
"It was my idea."
Carlos clea
rly hadn't expected that.
"To combine the herds and put him in charge over Frank," Iris said. "We can't have two leaders and--"
"But to put a stranger in charge of your crew!"
"Monty's no stranger. The Randolphs have been our neighbors since Daddy bought the ranch. Besides, he's already chased off rustlers after one stampede."
"Did you see him?"
"Do what?"
"Chase off rustlers?"
"No, but he told me about it when he brought the cows back."
"He could have made it up to gain your confidence, oil up to you, make you--"
Iris's peal of laugher made several of the cattle eye her uneasily.
"You don't know Monty very well if you think he'd bother to oil up to me," Iris said. "He's more likely to tell me I'm nothing but trouble and order me to turn around and go back home."
"Well, you have to admit it got him control of your herd."
"No, it didn't. I had to practically beg."
"Why?"
"Because something is going on, and I don't know what it is," Iris told her brother, finally willing to reach the nub of the truth. "Somebody was rustling back home. No matter what trap we laid or how cleverly we covered our trail, they always found out and struck somewhere else."
"Inside information?"
"It had to be. Then there was the episode of the stampede and rustlers."
"You don't know . . . "
"Monty described one of the men he drove off. I saw that man talking to Bill Lovell back on the ranch. And since then I've seen Frank and Bill in deep conversation."
"You think Frank is involved?"
"I don't know. That's why I was so glad to see you. Finally I had somebody I could trust."
"If you trust me, take my advice and don't trust Monty too far."
"But why?"
"Those people got too rich too fast to have made their money honestly. There's a rumor floating around their old man stole an army payroll. I also heard that one of those brothers made a killing by tying up with some fancy lawyers back East. Everybody knows they're crooked as a cow's hind leg."
"I'd trust Monty with my life."
"If you trust him with your herd, that's exactly what you've done."
Carlos spurred his horse to chase down a steer that had broken from the trail leaving Iris to mull over what he had said. She didn't believe Monty was trying to steal her herd, but Carlos had planted a seed of doubt in her mind.
Why had Monty changed his mind about helping her? It certainly wasn't because he had fallen in love with her. He hadn't been near her all day. While she didn't understand Monty, she did know enough about love-smitten young men to know they didn't studiously ignore the object of their affections.
Especially not preferring cows to her.
* * * * *
Iris had asked Carlos and Joe to meet her at the Circle-7 chuck wagon. She had been thinking about asking Carlos to be her foreman, and she wanted Monty to let him work with Salty so he could learn the job. She also wanted him to let Joe work with Carlos. She knew Monty wouldn't like the idea, and she was dreading having talk to him.
Monty scowled when he saw Iris, Carlos, and Joe together. "I've got some new assignments for you two." He forestalled Iris by speaking before he dismounted. He dropped to the ground and reached for a cup of coffee. He kept his back to them. "Joe will have the drag, Carlos the point. Iris, you'll ride swing with me."
He had put them as far apart as possible.
"I'll have new night duty assignments at supper. Now you'd better get going. Your partners are waiting."
"I wanted to talk with you about the duty assignments," Iris said, incensed that Monty still wouldn't face them. "I want you to change--"
"I can't change anybody without changing everybody." Monty took a last swallow, tossed the rest of the coffee away, and handed the cup to Tyler. He turned to Carlos and Joe. "What are you two waiting for?"
"Nothing," said Carlos, and the two of them walked off.
Monty turned to Iris. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready by then?"
"Sure, but--"
"I don't have time now. We'll talk about it later." Then he walked off leaving Iris fuming.
"Is he always like that?" she demanded of Tyler.
"No. Usually he's full of jokes and good humor. So much so he sometimes gets on everybody's nerves. He's been too serious this trip."
"You mean he's been mean as a snake," Zac said, bringing up the oxen to be hitched to the chuck wagon.
"It's not like him," Tyler added. He packed away the last of his cooking pots and dutch ovens in the boot beneath the wagon in preparation for heading out to the next camp site. He took the coffee pot off the fire, poured the remaining coffee in a cup and set it aside, stowed the pot in its cubbyhole. Then he folded the hinged lid over the back of the wagon, secured it with a lock, and prepared to depart for the site Hen would choose for dinner.
"I'm surprised one of you hasn't murdered him," Iris said.
"Might have tried," Zac said, backing the oxen into the traces, "but nobody can beat him."
"Your brother must have the patience of a saint to put up with him."
"Monty argues with George, but he doesn't mouth off to him," Tyler said.
"I can't believe that," Iris said.
"None of us does."
"But Monty would defy God."
"Maybe, but he doesn't defy George."
"I can't believe it. I never in my life saw anybody who was so certain he was always right."
"You don't know George," Zac said, adding his pittance.
"No, I don't," Iris agreed, "but maybe I should."
"George doesn't pull rank often," Tyler said as he sat down to wait for Hen, "but what he says goes. Monty might puff up like a toad, but he'll take it out on one of us. He wouldn't lay a finger on George."
"Why?" Iris asked, unable to believe Monty respected anybody that much.
"For one thing, George is stronger than he is. For another, Rose wouldn't let him."
"Rose!" Iris squeaked. "She hardly comes up to his chest."
"Rose won't let anybody annoy George," Zac said. "She'd shoot Monty if he tried to fight him."
"Not with a rifle," Tyler explained. "Probably use a shotgun. Monty'd be picking buckshot out of his backside for the better part of a year."
Iris didn't know whether the whole Randolph family, including Rose, was crazy or if she was, but she made up her mind not to allow Monty to make any more remarks about her own family. Helena had been a remarkably selfish woman, her father foolishly indulgent, but at least they were sane.
She was just about to launch into another line of questioning when Hen rode up. He slid from the saddle. Zac left Tyler to finish hitching up the oxen by himself and ran to catch up Hen's horse.
Hen picked up the lukewarm coffee, took a couple of hasty swallows and tossed the rest away.
"Fill your water barrel before you leave," he said to Tyler. "There's not another decent stream in the next hundred miles."
"Why?" Iris asked.
"No rain," Hen replied, accepting the horse Zac brought to him. "There's not enough water for our herd. There won't be any for them that follow."
"What are we going to do?" Iris asked.
"Go ask Monty," Hen said, his tightly controlled voice letting Iris know how much he disliked having her in their camp. "He's ramrodding this outfit."
Chapter Fourteen
The noonday sun beat down on the prairie with cruel ferocity. A skeleton crew kept the herd grazing north while everyone else gathered in the middle of the grassy expanse. A sluggish breeze barely rippled grass which was becoming brittle and less succulent with each hot, rainless day.
When the last of the men arrived, Monty said to Hen, "Tell us what you found."
Monty seemed like a different person when he was acting like the boss, and Iris didn't like the change. He listened without comment, without emotion, without a single glance in her
direction. He seemed totally absorbed by the problem. She didn't want her cattle to die of thirst in the middle of Indian territory, but neither did she enjoy being completely ignored.
"Is there at least one stream with enough water for the whole herd?" Monty asked Hen.
"No."
"Can they survive without water?" Iris asked.
"Not for a hundred miles," Frank told her.
"Do the streams have enough water for half our herd?" Monty asked.
"Maybe."
"Enough flow to fill up again in twenty-four hours?"
"Possibly."
"Who cares about the herds following us?" Frank asked.
Monty ignored Frank. "We'll divide the herd and keep them at least a day apart. Two if necessary."
Hen uttered a curse which caused Iris's ears to turn pink then stalked off.
"How will that help?" Reardon asked.
"It'll give the creeks time to fill back up by the time the second half of the herd reaches them," Iris said, pleased she understood something about the drive before one of the men.
"If we're lucky," Monty added. "Frank and I will be in charge of the first herd. Salty and Carlos will handle the second. Hen will ride ahead each day to find the places with the most water."
"This will give us time to discuss our plans for the ranch," Carlos said, clearly looking forward to the chance to be with his sister without Monty looking over his shoulder.
"Iris and Reardon go with me," Monty told Carlos.
"Why?" Carlos demanded, his eyes bright with anger.
"Because I've got to look after Iris, and I don't trust Reardon."
"I trust Joe, and I--" Carlos began.
"They go with me anyway," Monty said and turned to go after his brother.
"Don't!" Iris pleaded urgently, when Carlos started toward Monty. "He's given you joint responsibility for the herd. You'll do better without me to worry about or Reardon to distract you."
"But--"
"If you want to learn about cows, this is the best chance you're going to get. You won't find better teachers than Monty and Salty." Iris hesitated, then plunged ahead. "I've been meaning to ask if you would like to be my foreman when we get to Wyoming."
"Me? When did you decide that? Why?"
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