They might’ve passed, that is, if it wasn’t for everything about them except their looks. Justin wore blue denim jeans, a Stetson, a gun on his hip, with his hair overlong. He kept it tied back with a thong during the stretches between haircuts, but not today. The night had been hard on him, and the thong was missing. Justin was smart as a whip, but he’d gone to school for only eight grades—and he’d skipped every day he could. He made his living with the strength of his back and his knowledge of ranching. He was in every way a western man.
Earlier this morning, Cole had gone to the cabin he kept here and washed up thoroughly. He had a change of clothes to put on. He wore a black suit with a narrow necktie. His hair was cut neat and short. He had a gun, but it was tucked in a shoulder holster inside his suit coat. He’d graduated from Harvard and had worked in business back in Boston and helped to manage his grandparents’ vast wealth. He knew stocks and investments, and he could reason things out when another man might need to throw a fist.
No one seeing them standing together would mistake one for the other.
Add to that, Cole had lived with his blue-blooded grandparents. . . . Cole and Justin had different mothers. Cole’s mother, Chance Boden’s first wife, had died when he was three.
Then Pa and Cole headed west, where Pa ended up married to Veronica Chastain, Justin and Sadie’s ma. Veronica had been—still was—a perfect mother to Cole. She always said she’d loved him before she had loved Pa.
Cole knew western ways just fine, yet he had city manners, at least most of the time, and Justin was as rough and tough as a cocklebur.
Justin looked past Cole’s shoulder, scanning the land, then came back to focus on Cole. “Is this connected to the ones who sent that avalanche down on Pa and the man who shot you?”
Cole noticed Justin didn’t mention that those same men had also kidnapped Angie, Justin’s wife. But it wasn’t because he forgot about it. That would never happen. Justin probably just got tired of making a list of all the wrong that’d been done to them.
They’d finally come to the reason Cole had asked Justin to come check the dynamite. Cole wanted to talk to his brother alone. He didn’t want to worry the women before they had some solid answers. And Heath, married to Sadie, was strong enough and a good man and plenty of help, but he told Sadie every thought in his head. The nitwit stubbornly insisted Sadie should know what was going on rather than let the men handle these things.
So Justin and Cole had come out here alone.
“We know all that trouble isn’t over. They attacked us at the ranch; they even attacked Pa in Denver.” Pa’s leg had been badly broken in an avalanche set off by their enemies. Afterward he was sent to a special doctor in Denver, who was a good hand at breaks where the bone tore through the skin. Months later, Pa was still in Denver healing up. There’d been an attack on Ma and Pa all the way up there while others harassed the Bodens here in New Mexico Territory. It all seemed aimed at taking control of their vast land grant near the Cimarron River. But all the trouble so far had focused on hurting the Bodens, attacking them personally. And the attacks had centered around the ranch.
No one had bothered the mines.
Until now.
Justin crossed his arms in the blustery wind. It was a chilly day, though early in February like this, the worst of the bitter weather was over. So while there was a bite to the wind, it wasn’t painfully cold.
“They attacked real soon after you came back to work,” Justin pointed out. “Maybe you just weren’t here. And if this was an attack meant to kill you, they picked a poor way. If you’d’ve died, it would’ve been a lucky hit. And that’s not the way they operated before. When Pa got hurt, they’d set up that avalanche well in advance and herded those cattle through the narrow canyon, knowing Pa would ride in there to get them out.”
Nodding, Cole thought back to how these varmints had acted before. “The day they shot me, they were waiting for us, not sneaking around to make it look like an accident like they did with the rockslide that hurt Pa.”
Justin shook his head slowly. “Were they trying to destroy the mines? Did they hope to bury every single one of the miners working inside those caves? If they’d succeeded, you might’ve lost a lot of men. And that would mean you’d lose a lot of leases.”
“Not a chance.” Cole studied the steep slope, dotted with mine entrances. “There’s no end to the number of men willing to risk their lives hunting gold. If every miner on our property died, there’d be new ones clamoring to take their places.”
“That might be true the first time there was a disaster, and maybe even the second.”
“But then the rumors would start.” Cole looked sharply at Justin and picked up on his idea. “The Boden mines on Mount Kebbel are cursed . . . or haunted.”
“And by then you might’ve gone a year without anyone finding gold, which is what keeps new men coming.”
“A long game.” Cole murmured it. “We’ve been saying these men are playing a long game.” They’d found out there was a connection to the death of their grandfather thirty years ago. Then they’d hurt Pa just a couple of months ago—a note left behind connected the two attacks. None of them had figured out what caused the long halt between the attacks.
“They’d be willing to spend a year crippling this mine, and in that year they could make sure one of their attacks kills you, Cole.”
“Which brings us right back to what we’ve been fighting all along. Someone wants to kill the Bodens and take our ranch.”
“And now it looks like that includes the mines,” Justin added.
Cole felt exhausted. Though he wasn’t about to admit it to anyone, the battering he’d taken yesterday was too much on top of his barely healed gunshot wound.
“So our troubles aren’t over.”
“We knew better than to hope they were,” Justin cut in.
“Fact is,” Cole said, “considering they showed a willingness to harm so many people, our trouble looks to be worse than ever.”
“Justin and Cole are planning something,” Heath called over his shoulder without looking away from the window.
Mel almost smiled at the little brother spying on his big brothers, then telling on them. Of course, the “little brother” was a full-grown man. But the rest was about right.
She rose from where she knelt by a wounded man and looked around the damaged building almost destroyed by the multiple dynamite explosions yesterday. She knew exactly what those two brothers were talking about.
“You know they’re planning how to handle what happened,” Sadie said, the corner of her mouth curling up in sarcastic amusement.
“I could have helped.” Heath sounded a little hurt.
“They knew you’d tell me every word they said.” Sadie rose, then looked down at her patient with the newly plastered leg. “The doc will fashion a pair of crutches for you and then we’ll get you moved back to your cabin.”
They’d all tidied up after the day of mayhem and a long night of hard work. No one had a change of clothes, but Sadie had her blond hair pulled back in a neat bun, and the few hours of rest had made her hazel eyes sparkle again. Yesterday had taken the sparkle out of everyone.
“Thanks, Miss Sadie.” The man sounded as though he was glad enough to have a broken leg if it got him a minute of Sadie’s attention.
Sadie seemed to calmly accept it. But Mel had been treated the same, like the men reveled in the soft touch of a woman’s hand. They didn’t care whose hand it was. Angie, a gentler soul than Sadie and Mel, thanks to city living, was over in the corner applying a clean bandage to a man’s head. Her hair was a lighter shade of blond than Sadie’s, and her eyes were blue.
There were five men left, the most seriously injured. They needed to be still until the doctor decided they could go. But whether minutes or hours, however long the doctor held them, soon enough they’d be back in their cabins.
Mel thought the men should be kept there for a few more days. She was no woman
to coddle a man if he didn’t need it, but resting up for a couple of days after an explosion broke your bones didn’t seem too much like coddling.
Only two of the injured would be staying. Their injuries had left them dazed and seeing two of everything, besides a broken bone or two, and they just weren’t up to being transferred yet. The other three were sharing their cabins with mining partners so they wouldn’t be completely alone. Yet despite the tragedy of yesterday, today most of the men were back digging for gold.
Mel was glad enough to watch a while longer these few who needed the most care.
“Let’s go talk to the Boden brothers.” Heath headed for the door.
Angie said, “I think if Justin and Cole want to protect us, that’s sweet.”
“Spoken like a newlywed who’s madly in love.” Sadie smiled at her new sister-in-law with true affection—and maybe just a tiny bit of pity. “Not like a sister who has been handling two overbearing big brothers all her life.”
Mel felt a pang of being left out. She’d known Sadie from some of her earliest memories. And because she had worked with Angie at the Safe Haven Orphanage in Skull Gulch, she knew Angie well.
Now that Angie had been married to Justin for two weeks and was living under the same roof as Sadie, the two of them were close in a way that left her out.
Then Mel remembered who she was and how tough she was and decided she didn’t care worth spit—and if she did, she wasn’t going to admit it, not even to herself.
But she did agree with tormenting the Boden brothers. That was just plain fun.
“I’ll watch over the patients. I’m sure Justin will tell me what I need to know later.” Angie turned back to one of the wounded men.
Mel considered how she could get Angie away from Justin long enough to toughen her up. She’d shown Angie a few tricks already, and they’d helped when Angie was kidnapped. But the woman needed a lot more work. She could especially use some practice shooting.
And the woman seemed to think a gun being loud was a good enough reason to avoid them.
Mel followed Sadie and Heath outside. By the time she came out, bringing up the rear, Cole and Justin had already seen them. Both looked irritated at the sight of company. They stood side by side, turned slightly away from where they’d been talking face-to-face.
Mel was struck by the similarities. Same height, same general weight, same dark hair, same blue eyes that flashed with intelligence and strength of will.
And also the huge differences.
But right now she just saw the look in their matching eyes. It was as good as a confession.
4
“Don’t get started nagging me. We aren’t keeping secrets.” Cole glared at Heath, who grinned and then glanced at Sadie, whose pretty hazel eyes shot sparks at him as she crossed her arms.
“Just planning exactly what to do.” Mel jumped in.
Too bad about Mel. Sadie looked too annoyed to talk—but that probably wasn’t true. Not much stopped Sadie from talking. But he’d hoped to get a chance to tell them a few things before the yelling started. And Heath seemed inclined to just laugh at them. But Mel’s mouth was working just fine.
“And debating all the options.” Mel plunked her fists on her hips. It was a second before Cole realized he’d let his eyes rest on her . . . fists for a bit too long.
“Comparing what you’ve learned and deciding how to handle it before you tell us.”
Cole shrugged and managed to meet her eyes. Tarnation, what was wrong with him? He’d never given a second thought to it being hard to take his eyes off his cowboy-ish neighbor girl before. Well, maybe a couple of times. Maybe more than a couple.
“You’ve known Justin and me for a long time, haven’t you, Mel?”
“Since birth. Not a whole lot of surprises.”
He’d have smiled at her, as Mel had always been a friend and a decent match for a couple of roughhousing boys like Cole and Justin. She was Justin’s age, so she hadn’t spent much time with the much younger Sadie until they were closer to grown up. She could outride both of them if he cared to admit it, and he didn’t.
She was lightning fast with her pistol and deadly accurate with a rifle. They’d done plenty of hunting together, so Cole knew.
He’d seen her bust and hog-tie a thousand-pound steer, handle a branding iron, stick a bucking bronco, and shoe an ornery horse. She knew cattle better than Cole and just as good as Justin. Cole decided right then he was glad he ran a mine. Maybe he could beat her at mining, so long as she didn’t turn her attention to it, and why should she?
Mel was the only child of a rancher with a mighty big spread. Not as big as the Cimarron, but still a prosperous, well-run property. Her pa, Jack Blake, who’d headed back to his ranch after everyone was patched up last night, had raised her to know how to take care of what would one day be hers.
Cole had wondered many times during his growing-up years whether or not Mel and Justin would suit each other. But there’d never been the least spark between them. And for some reason—some reason to do with those sassy fists propped on her slender hips—Cole was glad his little brother was all nicely and happily married.
Then Cole tore his gaze away from Mel, and it landed on the men digging graves at the base of Mount Kebbel. Six of them. Mining was a dangerous business, and these men went into it knowing that—but this was different.
There was only the thinnest thread of relief that these men hadn’t been among the handful who had families. There were cabins tucked here and there in the heavily wooded lower levels of the mountain where no gold had yet been found, though not for lack of trying. Some of the men lived there with their wives and children. Some sent money to family members back east.
But these six were bachelors, including two brothers who lived and mined together. None left wives and children behind. If they had, that would’ve deepened the tragedy. But Cole knew them. They were hardworking men. He didn’t rent to the kind of madmen who usually followed gold strikes. This strike was old, which helped. Gold fever seemed to follow new discoveries, not modest but long-working gold fields.
His miners were good and decent men or they didn’t get a claim. This land was on the Cimarron Ranch, part of the old Spanish land grant Ma’s father had been given, back when this land was part of Mexico. And back then the grazing land had the value. Rugged mountains stood just west of the ranch, and while they had some pockets of grassland, they hadn’t been considered valuable.
Now Cole considered the land his.
True, his pa owned it. One day it’d be an inheritance split three ways between himself, Justin, and Sadie. But his name wouldn’t be on the third of the ranch under the mines, because the CR would not be divided. Instead it’d remain one piece but with three equal owners.
Still, no matter what some deed said, the Boden mine operation was his. He ran it. He set the rules. It almost filled the void left from the company he’d run back in Boston. He’d loved doing that, and it still called to him at times . . . in fact too often. And now, with a sick twist of his stomach, he was going to have to admit that gold might’ve been behind their troubles all along.
Forcing himself to speak, he said, “Justin and I have to assume this is connected to the attacks on us. Those were meant to kill us all and leave the CR without any heirs.”
They’d found a notebook carried by the man who seemed to be the leader, now dead, which had listed each of the Bodens by name. A checklist of people he’d been hired to murder.
Heath’s eyes, a wild blue color that often flashed with good humor, were somber now. “It might be about the mines, Cole. I’ve seen men run mad over gold, and this is madness if ever I saw it.”
“We’ll have to assume for now that the attacks are connected. I’d hoped the men after us would accept defeat. They’ve come with force five times and been driven back each time.” Cole rubbed his right thumb across his bottom lip as he considered that.
They’d come once for Pa with the avalanche.
Once for all of them when Heath earned himself a bullet wound.
Once for all of them when Cole ended up shot.
Once for Justin when Miss Maria from the orphanage died.
Once for Sadie when they tried to kidnap her and got Angie instead. They’d done that to lure the rest of the Bodens into a trap.
“And those who’ve come after us are all in jail . . . or dead,” Justin added. “At least I thought they’d need to hire more men or take time to make a new plan to reach their goal. That should’ve taken more time.”
“That’s only true if this is a new plan,” Mel said. “Maybe this has been part of things from the beginning. They just started out centering the trouble nearer your ranch house. After all, none of you come out here except Cole.”
Cole almost flinched. His eyes locked on hers. “You’re right, Mel. They’re moving this war to the far west edge of our property and focusing on the mines. And they probably always planned to.”
“What are we going to do?” Heath looked at Cole as if to say, since he and Justin had been out here sneaking around and plotting, they ought to have some answers.
Justin stepped in. “First thing is, the women are going home and they’re riding with you, Heath.”
“You’re not going to move me away from trouble,” Sadie snapped, “and then face it on your own.”
“Somehow, I knew you’d say that.” Cole braced himself to start in hollering at Sadie, but before he said a word he saw Heath step up close enough to wrap his arm around her waist and whisper something in her ear.
A look crossed Sadie’s face that Cole couldn’t make any sense out of. But for all the stress and worry and danger, Sadie looked deeply happy.
She nodded. “Heath and I will go back and take Angie and Mel with us.”
What had made her change her mind like that? Cole was stunned. If he ever got a chance, he was going to take Heath aside and ask how he’d managed a fractious little filly like Sadie without any screaming.
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