“A few of the CR ranch hands already headed back,” Heath said. “But there’s enough left we’ll have a good solid escort for the ride home.”
“We’re not ready for you to head back yet.” Justin clenched his jaw and fell silent for a moment, then added, “There’s time. The cowhands are busy helping open up the collapsed mine, knocking down loose rocks from its roof. A couple of others from our place are helping dig graves.”
Cole turned to look at their progress. “I didn’t even talk to anyone yet about how those men died.”
Justin patted Cole on the back. “Do you need to, Cole? I’m sure they got hit with flying rocks.”
Nodding, Cole said, “Even so, I want to know who found them and where. I didn’t see men outside, except for one man who was caught out close to headquarters. Of course, in the madness I probably just didn’t see the others, but someone had to find the bodies. I’d like to thank whoever helped with that. I know Murray was paying more attention, so I’ll ask him how they died and where. It’s too easy for a man to just disappear in the West. If anyone comes looking for these men, I want to be able to tell them how they died. I owe them that much.”
Cole saw the solemn agreement from everyone.
A crash of rocks spun Cole around and swept him back to the day before. He braced himself to rush toward whatever new disaster was happening. Four men came running out of the mine Cole had helped pull men from just yesterday.
Before Cole could take a step, Gully emerged. He saw Cole and waved at him. “We’re all right. We’re bringing down some loose rocks on the walls and ceilings, making sure it’s all braced up and safe.”
“Good work, Gully.” Cole did his best not to act like a man whose heart was pounding out of his chest.
Justin took over as if he knew Cole needed a minute to calm down. “Now, we all know Pa is adamant that we live at the ranch.”
Cole smirked. “Adamant . . . that’s a mighty nice way of putting it. He threatened to leave the whole ranch to our worthless cousin Mike and his no-account sons if we didn’t move home.”
Cole had built himself a nice house in Skull Gulch, and he ran a lot of the business of the mines from there. Sadie had lived there with him because she’d worked at the orphanage in town, which was operated by Angie’s aunt, Sister Margaret. When Pa had been hurt in the avalanche and was near death, he’d warned them about the change in his will and said he was counting his orders as being in effect from that moment on. He wasn’t waiting to die to enforce his wishes.
All three of his children were to live for one year on the Cimarron Ranch. He wanted them to understand and respect the legacy that had been left to them. If they refused, or if even one of them left before the year was up, that would lose the ranch for all three of them.
So they’d all moved back home—except for Justin, who already lived there.
That left the orphanage short of help, so Mel had started spending time there with the children after Sadie left. Though she’d done her best, no one pretended Mel was a natural teacher. She was more comfortable hog-tying steers than making children tend to their studies. In fact, she treated the children about the same way as she handled the cattle, though she’d never gotten her lasso out. Or, to be perfectly honest, no one had ever actually caught her with it out, and the children weren’t talking.
Then Sister Margaret had brought Angie, a widow, here from Omaha to take Mel’s place. But before she’d even been fully settled, Angie had up and married Justin.
Mel was volunteering again, though Sister Margaret was looking for permanent help. Some might say she was desperately looking.
“We talked to your pa, Mel.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“Whoever’s behind this knows us. Your pa headed home already, but he swears by the loyalty of his men, especially a group of them who have been with him for years.”
Mel nodded. “I know you had a couple of men who were hired by you and ended up spying and working with your enemies. And we have men come and go, too. But we’ve got a good band of longtime hired men, and my uncle is our foreman. Do you want to hire some of them? Bring them to the CR until the trouble’s over?”
Cole tipped his head sideways. “What I want is to bring a group here to fill the cabins of the men who were killed yesterday. That would give me a tough, loyal bunch of men on the place. Your pa said he’s going to ask very carefully so no one realizes what he’s done. I’m hoping whoever is after us doesn’t know all the hired men from the surrounding ranches. I talked about the danger with your pa, but I swore to him the dynamite would be locked up, so we hope that stops something this dangerous from happening again. Still, they needed to be warned.”
“I know just who he’s going to pick,” Mel said. “There are three longtime cowpokes on our payroll who are former soldiers and aren’t afraid of much. He’ll probably include Uncle Walt, who ain’t afraid of nuthin’. They’d be good men to have fighting at your side. And in the winter, we can spare them.”
Cole said, “I know a lot of these miners. We’ve been leasing land to them for years before I came home and started working here. I trust the ones already here, and we have every claim leased right now—not including the men we lost. Now’s no time to let newcomers in. I want men out here I can depend on. I’m still supposed to sleep at home every night, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Pa would agree I have to stay out here. So I’m moving to the mines. We lost six men, but there are only five cabins—the sixth man shared a cabin with his brother. And the mines and the empty cabins are all together, so we can meet at night and see if we’ve found any evidence.”
“They’re all right together?” Mel asked. “What are the chances of that?”
Pretty slim now that he thought about it. “Well—”
Sadie’s gasp cut him off. “I don’t think you should stay here overnight, Cole.”
“You don’t really believe Pa’s gonna make Mike his heir, do you?”
“I don’t think he would now that we’re living at home.” Sadie hesitated too long. “But there’s more to it than that.”
“Why? You know he’d want me here defending our property.”
“Yes, but Pa’s not here, and that will is legal and in good order. So long as it’s written up as it is, if something happens to Pa before he can change it, you’re risking the ranch by staying here.”
Cole froze where he stood. The weather wasn’t cold. New Mexico Territory had its winter, but there were often stretches even in the middle of winter that were fine days. Cool but not cold. He was frozen because he knew Sadie was right and he hadn’t thought of it himself.
He looked from Justin to Sadie and back again.
Justin shoved his hands in his back pockets. “I understand why you want to stay out here, but she’s right, Cole. We can’t risk it. In fact, we already stayed away one night, every one of us.”
“Pa said he’s being treated carefully with his broken leg. In Ma’s last letter, she said he’s out of the plaster, and now the doctor wants to make his leg regain its full strength. He’s not going to die.” But even as he protested, Cole knew the law would be on the side of that will, however good the reason was for their not sleeping at home.
“Sometimes bad things happen, Cole.” Sadie came right up to him and hugged him tight. Another hug so soon after Mel’s. He couldn’t help but glance at Mel, and the memory of the early morning closeness was there between them.
He was stunned at how good it felt. He was glad he and Sadie had moved back to the ranch. Justin irked him, but living with him and Sadie had reminded Cole of how much he loved them, how much he loved his parents. How much he respected the legacy that was handed down with the Cimarron Ranch.
But this was a bad situation. He needed all his cabins filled so he had a solid reason not to lease to a new miner. “So I’ve got five cabins, five abandoned claims, but we’ve got four of them covered now. If one is open and someone comes in asking—I can and do
take the measure of whoever wants a lease—but now, instead of just judging if he’s going to be a troublemaker, I have to figure out if he’s a traitor, too. And we’ve just cleared the ranch of them. I don’t want to let a stranger on the place.” He turned to Mel. “Can you think of another man your pa trusts? Can I take another of his cowhands and not leave him too short of men?”
Mel was slow to respond, and Cole suspected it was because she didn’t want to make things worse. Finally she said, “That’ll really leave us short. It’s not a busy time of year so we can get by, but the four who’ll come are the heart of the ranch. Besides that, we always have a lot of cowpokes move on after the busy time of year, roundup and the cattle drive. You know how rootless wranglers can be. They’re always wanting to see new land, so they go wandering and hire on somewhere else come spring.”
“That’s how it is at the CR, too. We keep a skeleton crew through the winter.”
“Pa’s going to be working extra hard with his cowpokes gone. He wants to help you any way he can to clear up all this trouble. But the other men he has around haven’t been here as long. He’s not going to vouch for them. I sure enough wouldn’t.”
There was another long silence. “Short of burning down a cabin, I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.”
Everyone turned to look at Mel. Cole knew she was a tough frontierswoman, and if she had a plan, he was willing to listen. “What’ve you got in mind?”
“The person who moves into that empty cabin is going to be . . . me.”
5
Mel enjoyed watching Justin’s eyes spark with rage. It felt good to see Sadie staggering backward. Heath caught her before she collapsed in a heap.
And it was just plain entertaining to watch Cole nearly choke.
Mel went and started slapping him on the back. She noticed Heath didn’t get all worked up. The man was too quick with a grin in Mel’s opinion, and someone probably ought to slug him until he took this whole mess seriously.
Instead he made sure Sadie was steady on her feet, then said, “I’m going to do some tracking, see if I can figure out anything about the man who set those charges yesterday.”
“Not man . . . men,” Mel said. “All those explosives set so far apart. He could’ve done it with increasingly long fuses, but that would’ve taken hours and it was early in the day. If he’d done it overnight, the miners would have noticed. He started after they went to work. And they were spread all over that hillside. Some of the fuses would’ve had to be yards long. One man couldn’t have done all that.”
Cole started breathing again, and he shoved her hand aside. She’d forgotten she was still pounding on his back. He’d been through a lot lately. She didn’t need to go beating on him.
“Why would you waste time saying such a harebrained thing?” Cole stepped right up to her until his nose almost touched hers.
“You mean there might be more than one outlaw involved? It’s because there were so many fuses. One man alone—”
“I’m not talking about that!” Cole leaned even closer. “I mean you moving into one of my miner’s cabins.”
This reminded her of when she’d gone to his house after he was just barely moving while he was still healing from being shot. He’d been fractious then, too. In fact, Cole had always shown a cranky side of himself around her. Not like Justin. She’d always gotten on with Justin in such a friendly way it was almost like talking with Sadie.
Mel realized that the cool morning was starting to burrow into her skin, even wearing a buckskin coat. “You know I fork my own broncs. You know there’s not a thing a man can do that I can’t. You know—”
“I’ll let you two fight it out.” Heath glanced at his wife. “You want to come hunting tracks with me, Sadie girl?”
“I don’t think Mel should—”
Heath grabbed her hand and dragged her away, whispering something in her ear.
She looked over her shoulder at Mel and grinned. Then the two left to track down a killer as if it were a romantic walk.
“What I know is a woman isn’t going to live out here, in a cabin alone, surrounded by dozens of rough men.”
“You said there were women and children down there in those cabins. You said the men were all decent.”
“I’m not discussing this with you. No. You can’t be one of the men.” Cole said the word loud and strong and that made her mad. “I’m just going to have to risk staying here. Pa will be fine about it as far as the will goes.”
“He will be,” Justin said. “But the law’s the law. Just because Pa says it’s okay doesn’t mean—”
“Or I can send John.” Cole glared at Justin.
Mel knew John Hightree, the Bodens’ foreman, would be a great one to rely on. But . . . “You’re trying to pick men who aren’t connected to you. Whoever’s doing this has been focusing on you and your ranch and your family. If they see your foreman out here, they’ll know something’s going on and they’ll probably fade back into the woods and wait a few months before they strike again.”
“Oh, that’s just perfect,” Cole said through gritted teeth. “So you want to get attacked. You want to risk your life. Besides being here with all these men, which is as improper as anything any woman has ever done.”
Mel had heard a few things in her life, and she knew there were plenty of things less proper. “I ride with these men all the time. They would protect me with their lives, just as I would protect them. And as for that fool nonsense about properness, one of them is my uncle Walt. Pa’s brother. So that’s a respected family member, and we’ll move into the two cabins closest together. It’ll be as proper as Sadie living with you in your house in Skull Gulch.”
“Walt Blake? He’s a mighty good man to have at your side.” Justin sounded like he was on her side now that he considered Walt.
“No.” Cole jabbed her in the shoulder. Then he jabbed her again for every word that followed: “It. Wouldn’t. Be. Proper.”
She swatted his rude finger aside.
“The men out here are a lot more dangerous than the men in town.”
“You told me you make a point of hiring only decent men.”
“I do my best, but I can’t vouch for every single one of ’em.”
“Miss Maria was killed right in town, right near the orphanage I’ve been working at. How is that safe?”
“Mel, it’s not a good idea.” Cole changed from being bossy to acting like an understanding father.
She considered swatting him again, this time in the head. She’d always enjoyed fighting with good old Cole—another thing she had in common with Justin. But this wasn’t fun; it was just annoying. The stitches in his head were the only thing that saved him from getting hit.
“Listen, I’ll make it known I’m working with Uncle Walt. Anyone with a lick of sense won’t bother me.”
“A lot of outlaws are famous for not having a lick of sense.”
Mel ignored that, even though it was a mighty good point. “We’ll stick together. I’m sure my pa wouldn’t even consider allowing this under any other circumstances. And if there is anyone these men are apt to talk to, it’d be a woman. They might’ve seen something and not even realized it. Even more, maybe their wives or children saw something. And I’m good at ghosting around in the woods. You want any tracking done, or a guard posted? I can do all of that as well as any man.”
Cole didn’t respond. Mel knew she was right. She saw it on Cole’s face that he was realizing just how right she was.
And she knew he still wanted to absolutely forbid it. Right now he was cursing himself for being so reasonable—something he was really proud of in the normal course of things.
“But will you be safe, Mel?” Justin stepped up beside Cole and rested his solid hand on her shoulder. Justin was her friend. They’d been in the same grade in school. Cole was too old, too good-looking, too perfect. He’d always bothered her in some way she couldn’t define. And yes, she was good friends with Sadie
, but only since they’d been grown. Sadie was years younger than Mel.
Now Justin was looking at her with real concern. She had to dig around for her stubbornness to stand up to him.
“I’ll make sure to have a cabin close enough to Uncle Walt’s that he can hear me call out.” She turned to Cole. “Do you have cabins that close?”
He shoved his suit coat back and stuck his hands in his pants pockets, looking disgruntled. “Yes. There are two so close we could almost build a big room and connect them.” That brought his head up, and his eyes flashed as if he planned to rush off and do just that.
“The extra room won’t be necessary. We’ll use those two cabins and say I’m here with my uncle, but we both have our own claims. If the doors don’t have sturdy locks, I’ll get that changed right away.”
“The locks are all good.” Cole sounded insulted by her question about door locks. “These are gold mines, for heaven’s sake. Men with gold in their cabins want to lock their doors.”
“I’ll let you two argue over it, but Walt Blake is a mighty good chaperone.” Justin looked back and forth between Mel and Cole in a way that seemed odd. “I’ll go check the locks on your cabins right now.”
She wondered what he was thinking. He asked which of the cabins he needed to check. Cole told him, and Justin headed off down the mountain.
Mel bit back a grin. Cole might not be aware of it, but letting Justin go inspect the cabin was as good as giving her permission to stay. Now if she could just convince Pa and then, just as important, convince herself that this wasn’t an idea cooked up by a half-wit.
Cole turned back, probably to take up the fight he’d already lost when Gully, the man Mel had met yesterday who ran the mines, came up the hill, walking mighty fast for an old man.
“Cole, I need you down there.” He pointed at the graves being dug. Six men wrapped in blankets lay together on the ground, waiting for a resting place.
Mel wondered what Gully needed. Maybe someone to speak a few words over the graves? Then why did Gully look as though he wanted to shoot somebody?
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