Hazard Ranch

by Joan Johnston

  He had to find a way to make peace with the woman. This Hazard-Alistair feud had gone on long enough. There had to be a happy medium somewhere, some middle ground, neither his nor hers, on which they could meet.

  Nathan made up his mind to find it.

  CHAPTER 6

  How should you behave in a Woolly West bar?

  Answer: You don’t have to behave in a Woolly West bar.

  Over the next three weeks Nathan thought about all the ways he could end the Hazard-Alistair feud. And kept coming back to the same one: He could marry Harry-et Alistair. Of course, that solution raised its own set of problems. Not the least of which was how he was going to convince Harry-et Alistair to marry him.

  The way Nathan had it figured, marrying Harry-et would have all kinds of benefits. First of all, once they were married, there wouldn’t be any more Alistair land; it would all be Hazard land. Second, the feud would necessarily come to an end, since all future Hazards would also be Alistairs. And third—and Nathan found this argument for marriage both the most and the least compelling—he would have Harry-et Alistair for his wife.

  Although Nathan was undeniably attracted to Harry-et, he wasn’t convinced she was the right woman for him. Except every time he thought of a lifetime spent without her, it seemed a bleak existence, indeed. So maybe he was going to have to take care of her more than he would have liked. It wasn’t something he hadn’t done in the past. He could handle it. He’d finally admitted to himself that he was willing to pull ten times the normal load in order to spend his life with Harry-et Alistair.

  Only the last time he’d driven onto her place she’d met him at the end of her road with a Winchester. He’d had no choice except to leave. He hadn’t figured out a way yet to get past that rifle.

  Nathan was sitting at his regular booth at The Grand, aimlessly stirring his chicken noodle soup, when Slim Harley came running in looking for him.

  “She’s done it now!” Slim said, skidding to a stop at Nathan’s booth.

  “Done what?”

  “Lost Cyrus’s ranch for sure,” Slim said.

  Nathan grabbed Slim by his shirt at the throat. “Lost it how? You didn’t call in her bill, did you? I told you I was good for it if you needed the cash.”

  “Weren’t me,” Slim said, trying to free Nathan’s hold without success. “It’s John Wilkinson at the bank. Says he can’t loan her any money to pay the lease on her government land. Says she ain’t a good credit risk.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “At the bank. I just—” Slim found himself talking to thin air as Nathan shoved past him and took off out the door of The Grand, heading for the bank across the street.

  When Nathan entered the bank, he saw Harry-et sitting in front of John Wilkinson’s desk. He casually walked over to one of the tellers nearby and started filling out a deposit slip.

  “But I’ve told you I have a trust I can access when I’m thirty,” Harry was saying.

  “That’s still four years off.”

  Nathan folded the deposit slip in half and stuck it in his back pocket. He meandered over toward John’s desk and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing. Is there anything I can do to help, Harry-et?”

  She glared at him and stared down at her hands, which were threaded tightly together in the lap of her overalls.

  “So, John, what’s the problem?” Nathan asked, setting a hip on the corner of the banker’s oversize desk.

  “Don’t expect it’s any secret,” John said. “Mizz Alistair here doesn’t have the cash to renew her government lease. And I don’t think I can risk the bank’s money making her a loan.”

  “What if I cosign the note?” Nathan asked.

  “No!” Harry said, shooting to her feet to confront Nathan. “I don’t want to get the money that way. I’d rather lose the ranch first!”

  The banker stroked his whiskered chin with a bony hand. “Well, now, sounds like maybe we could work something out here, Mizz Alistair.”

  “I meant what I said,” Harry declared, her chin tilting up mulishly. “I don’t want your money if Nathan Hazard has to cosign the note. I’ll go to a bank in Billings or Bozeman. I’ll—”

  “Now hold on a minute. There’s no call to take your business elsewhere.” John Wilkinson hadn’t become president of the Big Timber First National Bank without being a good judge of human nature. What he had here was a man-woman problem, sure as wolves ate sheep. Only both the man and the woman were powerful prideful. The man wanted to help; the woman wanted to do it on her own.

  “I might be willing to make that loan to you, Mizz Alistair, if Nathan here would agree to advise you on ranch management till your lamb crop got sold in the fall.”

  Nathan frowned. Teaching ranch management to Harry-et Alistair was a whole other can of worms from cosigning her note.

  “Done,” Harry said. She ignored Nathan and stuck out her hand to the banker, who shook it vigorously.

  “Now wait a minute,” Nathan objected. “I never said—”

  “Some problem, Nathan?” the banker asked.

  Nathan saw the glow of hope in Harry’s eyes, and didn’t have the heart to put it out. “Aw, hell, I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll expect you over later today,” Harry said, throwing a quick grin in Nathan’s direction. “I have a problem that needs solving right away.” She turned to the banker and added, “I’ll pick up that check on Monday, John.”

  Nathan stood with his mouth hanging open as Harry marched by him and out the door.

  “That’s quite a woman,” the banker said as he stared after her.

  “You can say that again,” Nathan muttered. “She’s Trouble with a capital T.”

  “Never saw trouble you couldn’t handle,” the banker said with a confident smile. “Anything else you need, Nathan?”

  “No thanks, John. I think you’ve done quite enough for me today.”

  “We aim to please, Nathan. We aim to please.”

  Nathan was still half stunned as he walked out of the bank door and headed back to The Grand. He found Slim sitting at his booth, finishing off his chicken noodle soup.

  “Didn’t know you was coming back, Nathan,” Slim said. “I’ll have Tillie Mae ladle you up another bowl.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “What happened?” Slim asked. “Mizz Alistair get her loan?”

  “She got it,” Nathan snapped. “But it’s going to cost me plenty.”

  “You loan her the money?” Slim asked, confused.

  “I loaned her me.” Nathan sat down and dropped his head into his hands. “I’m the new manager for Cyrus’s ranch.”

  Word spread fast in the Boulder River Valley, and by suppertime it was generally believed that Nathan Hazard must have lost his mind…or his heart. Nathan was sure it was both.

  Of course, on the good side, he had Harry-et Alistair exactly where he wanted her. She would have to see him, whether she wanted to or not. He would have a chance to woo her, to convince her they ought to become man and wife. Unfortunately, he still had a job to do—making her ranch profitable—which he took seriously. And Harry-et didn’t strike him as the sort of woman who was going to take well to the kind of orders he would necessarily have to give.

  Meanwhile, Harry was in hog heaven. She had what she’d always wanted—not someone to do it for her, but someone to teach her how to do it herself. Of course, having Nathan Hazard for her ranch manager wasn’t a perfect solution. She still had to put up with the man. But once she’d learned what she needed to know, she wouldn’t let him set foot on her place again.

  Harry was especially glad that she’d secured Nathan’s expertise today, because now that she had the funds to pay the lease on her mountain grazing land, she had another problem that needed to be resolved. So when Nathan arrived shortly after dark, Harry greeted him at her kitchen door with a smile of genuine welcome.

  “Come in,” she said, gesturing Nathan to a seat at the kitchen table. “I’ve got some coff
ee and I just baked a batch of cookies for you.”

  “They smell great,” Nathan said, finding himself suddenly sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a plateful of chocolate chip cookies in front of him.

  Harry fussed over him like a mother hen with one chick until he had no choice except to take a sip of coffee. He’d just taken his first bite of cookie, and was feeling pretty good about the way this was turning out, when Harry said, “Now, to get down to business.”

  With a mouthful of cookie it was difficult to protest.

  “The way I see it,” Harry began, “I haven’t been doing all that badly on my own. All I really need, what I expect from you, is someone I can turn to when I hit a snag.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nathan said through a mouthful of cookie he was trying desperately to swallow. “I think you’re underestimating what it takes to run a marginal spread like this in the black.”

  “I don’t think I am,” Harry countered. “I’ll admit I’ve made some mistakes, like the one I wanted to see you about tonight.” Harry paused and caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I just never thought he’d do such a thing.”

  “Who would do what thing?” Nathan demanded.

  “My shepherd. I never thought he’d take his wages and go get drunk.”

  “You paid your shepherd his wages? Before the summer’s even begun? Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”

  “He said he needed money for food and supplies,” Harry said. “How was I supposed to know—”

  “Any idiot could figure out—”

  “Maybe an idiot could, but I’m quite intelligent myself. So it never occurred to me!” Harry finished.

  “Aw, hell.” Nathan slumped back into the chair he hadn’t been aware he’d jumped out of.

  Harry remained standing across from him, not relaxing an inch.

  “So what do you want me to do?” Nathan asked when he thought he could speak without shouting.

  “I want you to go down to Whitey’s Bar in Big Timber and get him out, then sober him up so he can go to work for me.”

  “I don’t think this is what John Wilkinson had in mind when he suggested I manage your ranch,” Nathan said, rubbing a hand across his forehead.

  “I would have gone and done it myself if I’d known you were going to make such a big deal out of it,” Harry muttered.

  Suddenly Nathan was on his feet again. “You stay out of Whitey’s. That’s no place for a woman.”

  “I’m not just a woman. I’m a rancher. And I’ll go where I have to go.”

  “Not to Whitey’s, you won’t.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she said. “Who’s going to stop me?”

  “I am.”

  Harry found herself in Nathan’s grasp so quickly that she didn’t have a chance to escape. She stared up into his blue eyes and saw he’d made up his mind she wasn’t going anywhere. She hadn’t intended to force a confrontation, yet that was exactly what she’d done. She didn’t want Nathan doing things for her; she wanted him doing things with her. So she made herself relax in his hold, and even put her hands on his upper arms and let them rest there.

  “All right,” she said. “I won’t go there alone. But I ought to be perfectly safe if I go there with you.”

  “Harry-et—”

  “Please, Nathan.” Nathan’s hands had relaxed their hold on her shoulders, and when Harry stepped closer, they curved around her into an embrace. Her hands slid up to his shoulders and behind his neck. He seemed a little unsure of what she intended. Which was understandable, since Harry wasn’t sure what she intended herself—other than persuading Nathan to make her a partner rather than a mere petitioner. “I really want to help,” she said, her big brown eyes locked on Nathan’s.

  “But you—”

  She put her fingertips on his lips to quiet him, then rested one hand against his chest, so she could feel the heavy beat of his heart, while she let the other drift up to play with the hair at his nape. “This is important to me, Nathan. Let me help.”

  Harry felt Nathan’s body tense beneath her touch, and thought for sure he was going to say no. A second later she was sure he was going to kiss her.

  She was wrong on both counts.

  Nathan determinedly put his hands back on her shoulders and separated them by a good foot. Then he looked her right in the eye. “Just stay behind me and let me do the talking.”

  “You’ve got a deal. When are we going?”

  A long-suffering sigh slipped through Nathan’s lips. “I suppose there’s no time like the present. If we can get your shepherd dried out, we can move those sheep up into the mountains over the weekend.”

  Whitey’s Bar in Big Timber was about what you would expect a Western bar to be: rough, tough and no holds barred. It was a relic from the past, with everything from bat-wing doors to a twenty-foot-long bar with a brass rail at the foot, sawdust on the floor and a well-used spittoon in the corner. The room was thick with cigarette smoke—no filter tips to be found here—and raucous with the wail of fiddles from a country tune playing on the old jukebox in the corner.

  Some serious whiskey-drinking hombres sat at the small wooden tables scattered around the room. Harry was amazed that both cowboys and sheepmen caroused in the same bar, but Nathan explained that they relished the opportunity to argue the merits of their particular calling, with the inevitable brawl allowing them all an opportunity to vent the violence that civilization forced them to keep under control the rest of the time.

  “Is there a fight every night?” Harry asked as they edged along the wall of the bar, hunting for her shepherd.

  “Every night I’ve been here,” he answered.

  Harry gave him a sideways look, wondering how often that was. But her attention was distracted by what was happening on the stairs. Two men were arguing over a woman. Nathan hadn’t exactly been honest when he’d said no women ever went to Whitey’s. There were women here, all right, but they were working in an age-old profession. Twice in the few minutes they’d been in the bar, Harry had seen a woman head upstairs with a man.

  The argument over the female at the foot of the stairs was escalating, and Harry noticed for the first time that one man appeared to be a cowboy, the other a sheepman.

  Then she spotted her shepherd. “There he is,” she said to Nathan, pointing at a white-bearded old man slumped at a table not too far from the stairs.

  Nathan swore under his breath. In order to get to the shepherd, he had to get past the two men at the foot of the stairs. He turned to Harry-et. “Wait for me outside.”

  Harry started to object, but the fierce look in Nathan’s eyes brooked no refusal. Reluctantly she turned and edged back along the wall toward the door. She never made it.

  “Why, hello there, little lady. What brings you here tonight?”

  The cowboy had put one hand, which held a beer bottle, up along the wall to stop her. When she turned to face him, he braced his palm on the other side of her, effectively trapping her.

  “I was just leaving,” Harry said, trying to duck under his arm.

  He grabbed her sleeve, and she heard a seam rip as he pushed her back against the wall. “Not so fast, darlin’.”

  Harry’s eyes darted toward Nathan. He had just slipped his hands under the drunken shepherd’s arms and was lifting him out of his chair. She couldn’t bear the thought of shouting for help, drawing the attention of everyone in the bar. So she tried again to handle the cowboy by herself. “Look,” she said, “I just came here to find someone—”

  “Hell, little lady, you found me. Here I am.”

  Before Harry realized what he was going to do, the cowboy had pressed the full length of his body against her to hold her to the wall and sought her mouth with his.

  She jerked her face from side to side to avoid his slobbering kisses. “Stop! Don’t! I—”

  An instant later the cowboy was decorating the floor and Nathan was standing beside her, eyes dark, nostrils flared, a vision of outrage. “The lady d
oesn’t care for your attentions,” he said to the burly cowboy. “I suggest you find someone who does.”

  The cowboy dragged himself up off the ground, still holding the neck of the beer bottle, which had broken off when he’d fallen. He recognized Nathan for a sheepman, which magnified the insult to his dignity. With all eyes on him there was no way he could back down. “Find your own woman,” he blustered. “I saw her first.”

  “Nathan, please, don’t start anything,” Harry begged.

  Nathan took his eyes off the other man for a second to glance at Harry, and the cowboy charged.

  “Nathan!” Harry screamed.

  Nathan’s hand came up to stop the downward arc of the hand holding the broken bottle, while his fist found the cowboy’s gut. The cowboy bent over double, and Nathan straightened him with a fist to the chin. The man crumpled to the floor, out cold.

  Nathan looked up to find that pandemonium had broken out in the bar. He grabbed Harry’s wrist. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Not without my shepherd.”

  “Are you crazy, woman? There’s a fight going on.”

  “I’m not leaving without my shepherd!”

  Nathan dodged a flying chair to reach the drunken man he’d left sitting against the wall. He picked the man up, threw him over his shoulder fireman-style and marched back through the melee to Harry. “Are you satisfied?”

  Harry grinned. “Now I am.”

  Nathan grabbed her wrist with his free hand, and glaring at anyone foolish enough to get in his way, was soon standing outside in front of Whitey’s. He dumped the shepherd none too gently into the back of his pickup and ordered Harry to get in.

  She hurried to obey him.

  Nathan took out his fury at Harry-et on the truck, gunning the engine, only to have to slam on the brakes when he caught the red light at the corner. He raced the engine several times and made the tires squeal when he took off as the light turned green.