by Janet Dailey
At this point, it didn’t matter. But what was clear to Webb was how easily it could occur. Lord knew, the bunkhouses had plenty of hot-headed cowboys eager to fight over anything. If they bumped into an equally belligerent drylander, violence of some sort was bound to result.
Webb shifted his hat, bringing the front down on his forehead, while he subjected the man to his narrowed study. “What’s your name?” he demanded.
“Kreuger. Franz Kreuger.” It was issued with a combative pride that silently challenged Webb to make some disparaging remark about his nationality.
“Let me tell you something, Franz Kreuger.” Webb walked the dun horse along the fence until he drew even with the man. “Most of the ranchers around here are old-timers. They’ve shot it out with renegade Indians and rustlers—and sometimes with each other. They know which end the bullet comes out of. When they see a gun, they don’t regard it as a warning. They figure it’s going to get used. My advice to you, Mr. Kreuger, is to give that gun to your wife. You’ll all be safer if you do.”
With his piece said, Webb reined his horse away. This section of fenceline could wait to be checked another time, after he had cooled down. It was fool-talk like that said to the wrong man that started incidents.
As Webb pointed his horse toward the crest of the hollow’s ridge, he heard the homesteader slapping the reins and clicking to his team. He kicked the gelding into a lope, letting the pounding of its hooves block out the sounds of the draft horses straining against their collars.
Before he reached the top of the gentle incline, a trio of riders was skylined on the ridge to his right. Webb shifted his angle of ascent to join up with them. Since he wasn’t due to be relieved for two more days, his curiosity was aroused. Most of it dissipated when he recognized his father as one of the riders. They pulled in at the ridge crest and waited for him to ride up.
A space was made for Webb next to his father’s horse. Was he required to take the position beside him because he was the son or because the boss wanted to talk to one of his riders? Webb swung his horse behind the trio of riders and walked into the opening between his father’s mount and Ely Stanton’s. Judd Turner, a drifter who’d come to work for the outfit a year ago, was on the outside.
His father gave him a brief side glance that was never satisfied with what it saw. “Everything all right?”
It wasn’t a query about the condition of the fence in this sector. Benteen Calder wanted to know about the homesteader on the other side of the Triple C boundary. Webb looked down on the scene from the vantage point of the ridge. The homesteader was sending anxious glances at the men on horseback, but he kept the team of horses moving.
“Everything’s fine.” Webb didn’t mention the farmer’s challenging assertion that he had a gun. Talk like that would fly through the bunkhouse, and somebody was bound to harass the man out of sheer orneriness.
The sunlight angled off the plow just right, reflecting on a blade as it furrowed into the grass-matted sod and turned over dark earth. Webb sensed, rather than saw, the quiet rage that filled his father. It seemed to crackle through the air.
“Turner is here to relieve you,” his father stated, although Webb had guessed as much. The glance Benteen darted at the cowboy was a silent order to assume Webb’s duties.
The drifter urged his horse forward, flashing the three of them a smile, “Don’t forget you left me out here,” he joked.
When the cowboy was out of earshot, his father said, “Bull Giles is arriving by train the day after tomorrow. You’re coming with me to meet him.”
A part of Webb wanted to ask the reason behind Bull’s visit, but his father didn’t appear to be in an explaining mood. So he said what he thought instead. “The homesteaders are here. The army couldn’t get them out now. More are coming, and there’s nothing you or Bull Giles will be able to do to stop them.”
“So I shouldn’t try, is that it?” The full, cold fury of his father’s gaze was leveled at him. “Look down there, Webb—just ahead of that team of horses. Do you see the grass?”
“Yes.” It was a clipped answer as Webb looked where he was told, not seeing the point.
“Take a good, long look, because it’s the last time that earth will ever grow that grass again.” His voice was harsh. “It’s like the rape of a virgin. You can never put back what she’s lost. Maybe you can watch it happen and not try to stop it, but I can’t.”
It crossed Webb’s mind to point out the many historical precedents to this moment when the farmer invaded what had previously been the rancher’s domain, but it was wasted breath on his father. The implication that he was a quitter rankled.
“Time changes places and people,” was his only reply.
“I’ve lived through a lot of them, son,” Benteen Calder reminded him. “But this is one I don’t want to live to see.” A grim despair cut through his voice as his gaze swung back to the homesteader. The short silence was followed by a slow shake of his head. “I don’t know whether I admire the fool guts it took that drylander to come out here—or to hate the stupid bastard for what he’s doing to this land.” His voice vibrated on the last with the deep intensity of his emotions.
The violence that Webb heard below the surface reminded him of the fighting stand the homesteader had been so ready to take. It seemed to reinforce how volatile the situation could become.
“If this dirt can grow grass, how can you be sure it won’t grow wheat just as thick?” It was a subtle challenge, a little open rebellion against his father’s black-and-white world that left no room for gray.
“For the same reason a rocky field won’t grow corn and there’s no rice growing in the desert.” The answer was swift and stabbing. “There’s certain things land can support. No matter what man does or tries, he can’t change it—not permanently. That man down there is a stranger to this country.” He motioned toward the homesteader. “His ignorance is at least a partial excuse for what he’s doing. But you should know better. I’ll never understand why people have to learn the hard way.” He gathered up the reins to his mount and turned its head away from Webb.
Yet no explanation had been given, no proof offered, that convinced Webb the rancher was right and the farmer was wrong. The last thing he wanted to see was the Triple C turned into a giant wheat farm, but that didn’t mean farmers weren’t potentially turning the land to its most profitable use. It was for sure there wasn’t any money in cattle—not this year or the last couple of years. Webb didn’t know what kind of shape the ranch was in financially, since he hadn’t inquired, but it couldn’t be good.
5
The single street of Blue Moon was a quagmire of sticky mud that clung to the wheels of the Reisner wagon, but Lillian was all smiles. Yesterday had provided the first good rain they’d seen since they had arrived in eastern Montana, except for a couple of brief showers that did little more than settle the dust. She had laughed and danced in it, and tried to coax Stefan out of their tar-paper cabin to join her, but he had stayed in the shelter of the doorway, content to watch her and the ground-soaking rain falling on their burgeoning wheatfields.
Since it was too muddy to work outside, they had hitched the team to the wagon and taken the opportunity to come to town for more supplies. As crowded as the street was, it seemed all the other homesteaders were doing the same thing. Lillian couldn’t help noticing the happiness in the people’s faces. She knew what they were thinking because it had to be the same as she was: This was supposed to be dryland—and it had rained!
What did it matter if the wet soil was like thick gumbo that clumped on your shoes and sucked at your feet? All that rain would make the wheat grow. Come autumn, they would harvest their first crop. The smell of success was in the air. Stefan had cautioned her about counting chickens before the eggs hatched, but she had seen the relief in his eyes and knew she was only expressing what he was inwardly feeling.
“Ve vill first fill the vater barrel,” Stefan declared as he pulled the team t
o a halt in front of the blacksmith’s shop.
Since the arrival of the drylanders in the Montana plains, the blacksmith’s well had become the source of water for the homesteaders who weren’t close to a river or hadn’t sunk a well on their own property, which was most of them. For a small fee, they filled the water barrels from the smithy’s well and hauled them home. Now that it had rained, it seemed a minor inconvenience—and only temporary.
Other wagons were clustered around the blacksmith’s with the same intent. Lillian searched the faces of the women on the wagon seats, but didn’t see anyone she remembered from the train. She smiled and nodded to the ones who looked her way and they did the same back, while their menfolk waited for their turn at the well, as Stefan was doing.
As her attention swung to the street, Lillian saw the half-dozen riders that were escorting a buggy into town. Two women were riding in it.
Suddenly she found herself staring at a familiar face. A little rush of pleasure tingled through her at the sight of that cowboy she had spoken to the day they’d arrived here. He seemed taller than she remembered, but maybe it was the added height of the horse that created that impression.
When his slowly roving gaze wandered her way, Lillian unconsciously held her breath. She was sure that he looked right at her, but he gave no sign that he recognized her. She felt crazily deflated when his eyes failed to linger on her.
Then his head suddenly jerked around to look in her direction. She could almost feel the probing search of his gaze. Hard, male features that appeared cast in bronze took on a warm, gentle quality of recognition. Her pulse seemed to pick up its tempo, beating a little faster.
There was a hint of a smile about his mouth as he raised his hand and touched the rolled point of his hat brim. It was the same gesture he’d made when they’d first met. With a small nod of her head, Lillian acknowledged the greeting. Then he was past her and the eye contact was broken as he continued with the group of riders escorting the buggy, apparently to the train depot.
She darted a quick glance toward the well, picking out Stefan from the other homesteaders, then looked back to the entourage of cowboys. They were all riding horses, marked with three C’s on their left hips. Lillian remembered the marks were called brands. She wondered what the three C’s meant, but it was simply another way of wondering about the cowboy.
“Did you see that?” A homesteader in a billed cap had also noticed the passing of the riders. He offered the question to anyone who would listen, and immediately captured Lillian’s attention. He turned his head and spat at the ground. “They ride into town like they own it.”
The man talked as if he knew who they were, what ranch they were from. Lillian leaned forward in her seat, a question forming even while she bit at the inside of her lip to hold it back.
But it came out anyway. “Who was that?”
“Calder.” Dislike shimmered in the man’s blue eyes as he said the name. “He owns the biggest ranch in this area. There are lords in America just like in Russia.”
Others were listening, some of them craning their necks to see the band of riders that had passed. Lillian’s gaze traveled after them and lingered on the wide-shouldered cowboy.
When her attention returned to the well, she looked around at the other homesteading families. These were proud, working people with backgrounds of poverty and struggle very similar to hers. She didn’t think the cowboy had suffered as they had.
“How do you know them, Kreuger?” another homesteader questioned the Russian.
“My place touches his land. One of his men comes by when I was plowing my field and warns that harm might come to my family.” He paused to inspect the hushed reaction around him and stood a little straighter, adopting a swaggering pose. “I told him I have rifle and I would shoot it.”
A voice rose above the hum of whispers that followed. “What happened then?”
“He made more threats, then rode off.” He addressed his words to the men. “We must stick together, all of us. These ranchers think because they were here first that they own everything. We must show them we can’t be frightened.”
The phrases seemed echoes from the past. Lillian’s gaze drifted downward to the blue gumbo of wet earth around the well. It was caked on Stefan’s high-topped shoes. In the New York tenement where they had lived, she’d heard that kind of men-talk before—the angry grumblings to organize so they could stand united against the robber barons. Despair always seemed to give birth to violence.
This was a new land. It should be the place for a new beginning, where a person could build something with the pure sweat of labor—without hostility or fear. But this empty-looking land wasn’t as serene as it appeared.
At the train depot, Webb dismounted with the other riders and tied the horse’s reins to an upright post. Stepping up to the wooden floor of the roofed platform, he stamped the sticky mud off his boots. Restless surgings were creating a tension inside him, putting him on edge. The other riders shifted around him, making way for Benteen Calder as he joined them.
“Curley, check with the agent and find out when the train’s due,” Benteen ordered.
“Right, boss.” The rider angled toward the depot office with the typical rolling gait of a cowboy.
Then Benteen’s cool glance fell on Webb. “Give your mother and Ruth a hand over that mud.”
With a nod, Webb turned to the horse and buggy parked within a couple feet of the platform. There was a split-second hesitation when he caught the warmth of Ruth’s gaze directed at him. A ripple of unease flowed through his muscles as he approached the buggy, but it didn’t show in his face.
“Need some help to keep your skirts out of the mud?” He smiled at the quiet, blond-haired woman standing in the buggy with one foot resting on the outside step.
“Please.” Ruth returned his smile, but in her own reserved way.
His gloved hands gripped her slim waist and lifted her in a gentle, swinging motion that spanned the two feet of muddy ground and deposited her on the wooden floor of the platform. He felt the lightness of her hands on his shoulders for balance and the slow way they were withdrawn. Then he was turning away to help his mother out of the buggy.
“I can’t recall when I’ve seen so many people in town,” his mother declared as she straightened the fall of her caramel skirt.
“They’re mostly drylanders,” Webb stated. “The rain’s driven them out of the fields into town, I imagine.”
“This sun is going to dry the ground in a hurry,” she said with a frown. “They’ll need a chisel instead of a plow to get back into their fields tomorrow.”
Webb smiled in response to her observation. Montana mud did become rock-solid when it dried. The rains came so seldom that he tended to forget that.
“I pity those poor people,” Ruth murmured, drawing Webb’s eyes to her with the comment.
“They seem determined to make it,” he said.
But he was noticing the rose-colored dress Ruth was wearing and the smoothness of her skin, like a white pearl. A picture flashed in his mind of the homesteader girl, Lillian, in her cheap gingham dress and skin that was already browning from the sun. He’d passed right over her when he’d first seen the group of wagons around the well. This raw land was already having its effect on her.
It was strange how he hadn’t recognized her. He hadn’t caught the flash of red in her hair until the second time he looked. Something else had triggered his recognition. Maybe it had been the coiled eagerness of her—that vitality of body and spirit.
“It will take more than determination, I’m afraid,” his mother said. Her lips widened into a smile. “But I like seeing all these people in town, even if a certain Mr. Calder thinks that is a traitorous remark.” She boldly lifted her gaze to the man just joining them, teasing him in a loving fashion.
If anyone else had said that, they would have received a steely glare, but Benteen merely gave his wife an indulgent smile. “The train’s a half-hour late,�
�� he advised them. “The agent told Curly there’s two cars full of drylanders on it. I hope that makes you happy, Lorna.”
She took a breath and said nothing in reply. “Since we have to wait for the train, we might as well find a comfortable place to sit.” She looked to Ruth. “Would you like to come inside the depot with me, or stay out here on the platform with Webb?”
“I think—” Ruth paused and looked at Webb, reluctant to voice her approval of Lorna Calder’s maneuvering to put the two of them together.
This nonassertiveness was nothing new to Webb. She never presumed anything in their relationship, always letting it be his initiative and never showing dissatisfaction over his snail’s pace. Webb himself wasn’t sure why he held back and avoided courting her outright.
“Ruth needs some fresh air after being shut up in the schoolhouse so much.” He made the decision for her and noticed the pleased look in his mother’s eye.
“Are you coming with me, Benteen?” She tucked her hand under the inside curve of his arm, not waiting for his answer.
Webb reached into his shirt pocket for a tailor-made cigarette and watched his parents walk arm in arm to the depot office. Since Ruth had never objected to his smoking, he didn’t bother to ask her permission before lighting up. An Indian woman had her wares on display and approached Webb, offering a pair of moccasins for his inspection. He shook his head and she moved back to her blanket to wait for the train.
“I hope those primers I ordered for the children have arrived,” Ruth said, uncomfortable with the silence.
He squinted his eyes against the curling smoke. Maybe he was like Nate claimed to be, not the marrying kind. There were others on the ranch, his age or younger, with children in Ruth’s school. His life was too aimless. A wife and family meant settling down and becoming his father’s man, which Webb flatly rejected. Instead of just drifting along, it was time to decide whether he wanted to stay at the Triple C or strike out on his own.