“Who is there to marry in a god-forsaken country like this?” she said bitterly. “Nobody but you, and you won’t have me.”
“I’ll have you and I want you,” he said, “but this isn’t the time.”
“And it never will be,” she flung at him. “Let me go.”
She started to cry. He said—“Don’t.”—and kissed her, but she turned her head, so he caught only a corner of her mouth, and the instant she got her hands free, she ran into the house, stumbling over the threshold and almost falling.
When Mark turned, he saw that Jackson had crossed the yard to the corral. There, Jackson waited, saying nothing until Mark had saddled his sorrel. Then Mark held out his hand. He expected a lecture about holding his own standard of morality and not following Bronco’s, but Jackson said nothing. He simply gave Mark’s hand a firm shake and, dropping it, stepped back.
Mark swung into the saddle and looked down at Jackson, who was pushing his iron-rimmed spectacles back on his nose. He sensed that the man hated to see him go as much as Ruth did, or as much as he hated to go himself.
“You can’t thank people for saving your life,” Mark said, “but I’d like …”
“Don’t try,” Jackson said. “And don’t let what Ruth said keep you away, either.”
“I’ll be back,” Mark said, and rode away.
When he reached the Agency road and turned toward Cross Seven, he looked back once, but he did not see either Ruth or her father. He went on, his sense of loss almost as great as when his parents were killed. But there was a difference. This was something he had done himself.
Chapter Fifteen
Mark found it hard to believe his eyes as he rode through the meadows past the great stacks of hay toward the new Cross Seven buildings. Bronco had the big ranch house he had dreamed about, a long, two-story building that had been painted white. It stood downstream from the old cabin and farther back on the ridge. There was a bunkhouse and there was a cook shack, but no new barn. Andrews’s slab shed would have to do for another winter.
Mark unsaddled and let his sorrel into the corral, then he stood motionlessly, staring at the sprawling house, a strange, almost grotesque symbol of Bronco Curtis’s ambition. Mark wondered where the money had come from to build the house, if Jacob Smith had loaned him that much. Mark wondered, too, if Bronco was happy now that he had the buildings he wanted. Probably not, he thought, for Bronco was a man whose accomplishments would never catch up with his ambitions.
A lanky buckaroo appeared from the slab shed. He looked Mark over coldly, then he said arrogantly: “You’ve got a hell of a lot of gall, kid. Not many saddle tramps would throw their horses into a Cross Seven corral without opening their mugs about it.”
Mark moved toward the cowboy, anger touched off by the man’s words. It was too much to be jumped by a Johnny-come-lately after what he had gone through last winter. He said: “Go to hell.”
“Get that sorrel out of there,” the buckaroo said.
Mark stopped, watching the other man walk toward him on the balls of his feet, hands fisted at his sides, cocky and belligerent. Now that he was close, Mark saw that the fellow wasn’t much older than he was. Perhaps he had to prove something to Bronco and the crew, or maybe he thought Mark would be easy to handle. Whatever his motives were, he was bent on making trouble.
A step away, the cowboy said: “Get that horse out of there, or I’ll …”
Mark hit him in the stomach, a slamming blow that drove his breath out of him and doubled him up. For a moment he stood hugging his middle, completely helpless as he strained for breath. Mark hit him on the chin, knocking him flat on his back. He was out cold, his head in a fresh pile of horse manure.
Men rushed out of the bunkhouse, Gene Flagler in the lead. One of them yelled: “Hey, look what he done to Andy!”
“Tote him over to the horse trough and stick his head in,” Flagler said. He nodded at Mark. “Come on. Bronco will want to see you.”
“He ought to,” Mark said. “He sent for me, didn’t he?”
“Uhn-huh.” Flagler glanced sideways at Mark. “Know who you just tangled with?”
“No. I don’t care much, either. He was aiming to run me off the ranch.”
“He’s Andy Wheeling, Jacob Smith’s nephew.”
“I still don’t care. This is Bronco’s spread, and I’m supposed to be his partner.”
“Partner?” Flagler’s thin lips made a tight grin. “Well, kid, you oughta know one thing. There’s room for just one partner on Cross Seven, and his name is Jacob Smith.”
They reached the front porch, Flagler calling: “Bronco, the kid’s here!”
Bronco stepped through the door, his hand extended. “By God, Mark, it’s good to see you.” He pumped Mark’s hand, then slapped him on the back. “I thought you’d moved in with the Jacksons.”
Bronco was thinner than he’d been the last time Mark had seen him, his cheek bones threatening to break through the skin of his face, which had more of a hawk-like look about it than ever. Mark said: “I was pretty sick.”
“You look all right now. We can use another good man, eh, Gene?”
“A good man,” Flagler agreed, “but I ain’t sure about this hairpin. He just knocked Andy colder’n a side of bacon.”
“That so?”
Bronco’s questioning eyes met Mark’s, and suddenly Mark was aware that he stood as tall as Bronco. The knowledge filled him with a heady kind of satisfaction. He lacked Bronco’s breadth of shoulders, but that would come with time.
“He didn’t ask who I was,” Mark said. “He just told me to get my horse out of the corral. Who’s got a better right to be here than I have, Bronco?”
“Nobody,” Bronco said quickly. “You savvy that, Gene?”
Flagler shrugged. “Sure, I savvy. I likewise savvy that Jacob Smith ain’t gonna cotton to the idea of having his nephew kicked around.”
“I don’t care if Andy’s Jacob Smith’s grandma,” Bronco said hotly. “I ain’t gonna baby him no more’n anybody else. You savvy that?” Flagler shrugged again and was silent. “Come on, Mark, I want you to meet the crew. You’ll sleep here in the house and eat with me, but you’d best get acquainted with the boys.”
He led the way to the bunkhouse, Mark keeping step with him, Flagler having to trot to keep up, his ugly face turned uglier by the scowl that lined his forehead and laid his lips thinly against his yellow teeth and curled his mouth downward at the corners. Mark had a hunch what the crew would be like before he met them, and he was right. They were a salty bunch, not at all like the buckaroos Mark had met at the fort who rode for Runyan or Nolan or Matt Ardell.
They shook hands with Mark because they had to, greeting him sullenly and making it plain that he was an outsider and would remain an outsider. Andy Wheeling, sitting on his bunk with his left hand held to his chin where Mark had hit him, shook hands without getting up, his eyes not meeting Mark’s.
“This boy’s my partner,” Bronco said, his hand on Mark’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. He beefed three Paiutes last June. Laid two of ’em out right in front of the cabin and the other one by the corral.” He threw a glance at Andy Wheeling. “Don’t none of you make the mistake of trying to make him think he ain’t welcome on Cross Seven.”
He went out, Mark following. Bronco took him to the cook shack and introduced him to the Chinese cook, Lee Sam, who bowed and grinned blandly and said: “Belly good.”
Outside Bronco laughed. “That’s about all the English he knows. If the boys holler about what’s on the table, he just grins and says … ‘Belly good glub.’ It usually is, too.”
Bronco was silent until they were inside the house. Then he pointed at the cavernous stone fireplace at one end of the living room, the Cross Seven brand burned into the mantle. “The carpenters from Triangle R built the house, but Jacob Smith sent up a rock man to build the fireplace. He done a hell of a good job, too. I’ve ordered some furniture from The Dalles,
which ought to be in before snow flies. After I get back from Winnemucca, I’m going to have a house warming and invite Runyan, Nolan, and Ardell. They’ll come, all right.” He laughed. “They’d be afraid not to, with Jacob Smith backing me.”
Bronco motioned at the furniture in the room. “Not much, is it? Hell, I couldn’t find nothing for sale at the fort or in Scott City. I got some beds and a couple of pine bureaus. The old leather couch over yonder and a chair. That’s about all. I even had to move up the stove from the cabin until I can get a new one.”
From the back of the house a woman called: “Supper’s ready, Bronco!”
“I didn’t tell you I had a woman, did I?” Bronco asked. “Well, I have, and she’s a good one. Looks after me like a wife would. Better’n a wife, the way I see it. I can send her packing when I get tired of her and get me a new one.”
Bronco led the way into the dining room. He nodded at the woman standing at the end of the table. “Sharon, meet Mark Kelton. He’ll be living with us from now on. Mark, this is Sharon Sanders.”
She stepped around the table to shake hands with him. “I’ve often heard Bronco speak of you, Mark,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ll set another plate for you. I didn’t know you were coming, but there’s plenty.”
She brought a plate and silverware from the kitchen, and motioned for him to pull up one of the benches that Andrews had left in the cabin. “We ain’t real fancy yet, Mark,” she said, “but Bronco says we will be before winter.”
Bronco had sat down and was already eating with his usual noise and gusto. Sharon sighed and grimaced at Mark. “I don’t guess that fancy dining-room furniture will change Bronco’s eating habits.”
“You do your eating and I’ll do mine,” Bronco said harshly.
“Yes, Bronco,” she said, and sat down at the opposite end of the table from him.
She was about twenty-five, Mark judged, a blonde woman with blue eyes, a little too plump, but good-looking enough. Her features were far from regular; her nose was fat, her lips full, her chin square, but Mark, glancing at her as she ate, could not deny that she was a lusty, attractive woman.
Several times during the meal Mark’s eyes met Sharon’s, and she always smiled as if wanting to make him feel at home. Presently he realized she was measuring him just as he was measuring her. There was a quality about her, perhaps the bold way her eyes met his, that made him feel she was as predatory in her way as Bronco was in his.
Bronco finished eating, belched loudly, and taking a cigar from his vest pocket, bit off the end, and lit it. “A little different from the way it was last June, ain’t it, Mark?” he asked.
“Quite a little different,” Mark said. “At least the cooking’s improved.”
Sharon smiled appreciatively. “Thank you, Mark. The only compliment I ever get from Bronco is the way he gobbles up everything I set in front of him.”
Bronco rose, his cigar tucked into one corner of his mouth. “I pay you to keep house. Compliments wasn’t part of the bargain.”
Bronco stalked into the front room. Sharon rose, frowning. “It’s a short ride from the time you’re born to the time you die, Mark. I figure a person’s entitled to enjoy the ride.”
Sharon wouldn’t last the winter, Mark thought as he left the dining room. He sensed a discord between her and Bronco. In fact, it seemed there was no harmony anywhere on Cross Seven. There was an end to even Bronco’s talents for shaping other people to serve his needs.
Bronco stood with his back to the fireplace, pulling hard on his cigar. He said: “Mark, I’m sure glad to have you home. A lot of work to be done this fall. You see the hay we got stacked?”
Mark nodded. “Looked like a good crop.”
“You bet it’s a good crop,” Bronco said. “We’ll get through any kind of a winter. Last spring you said we couldn’t do as good with a big herd of cows at calving time as we did with the shirt tailful we had?”
“I remember,” Mark said.
“Well, we will. You’ll see. I aim to satisfy Jacob Smith so he’ll send another herd north. That Gene Flagler has got more cow savvy than any man I ever met.”
“Bronco,” Mark said, “you’re making a mistake.”
Bronco bristled. “What are you driving at?”
“That’s Jacob Smith’s crew out there, isn’t it? And Smith’s cook.” Mark motioned toward the dining room. “Even Sharon Sanders was Smith’s woman, wasn’t she?”
Bronco took the cigar out of his mouth. “Still sharp as a tack, ain’t you?” He grinned. “You’re right, but it ain’t a mistake. They’ll work for me, every damned one of ’em, and that includes Sharon. I had to lick hell out of two of the boys, but now they know who’s boss. No, it ain’t no mistake. We’re on our way, Mark. Don’t you ever doubt it.”
Mark sat down on the leather couch. “Flagler offered to buy Herb Jackson out. He said you’d be pushing over the hills next summer.”
“We will,” Bronco said. “Jackson can sell this fall and get something out of his place, or nothing when we need his grass. It’s up to him.” Bronco turned the cigar with his fingers, staring at it. “I’m sorry if Ruth gets hurt, but as far as Jackson’s concerned, I’ll be happy to bust him flat, and you know why.”
“Bronco.” Mark leaned forward. “I’m going to marry Ruth.”
“I’m glad,” Bronco said. “Damned glad. I told you before. Fetch her here. She’ll be queen of the place. Cross Seven needs a woman. A good woman, not that whore I’ve got in the kitchen. Hell, I don’t know why I ever fetched her from Winnemucca.”
“Ruth won’t come,” Mark said. “Not with you and Herb feeling like you do.”
“Well, that’s up to her. I’d do anything for Ruth and you, but nothing for her father.”
“I’d like my wages,” Mark said. “I’ve got some coming from the time we started here until June.”
“Wages?” Bronco was affronted. “What the hell’s the matter with you? You know we’re partners. I don’t have money for wages. You stick with me, and one of these days we’ll split the biggest damned melon you ever seen.”
“You’ve got money to buy furniture,” Mark said. “And to throw away gambling and drinking at the fort. I figure you’ve got it for me, too.”
“I need furniture to make a show,” Bronco said patiently. “It’s important. You know that. I told you I’ll be having an open house. What would it be like this way? As for drinking and gambling, I was always ahead of the game. I never lost a cent. I don’t pay myself wages, so you can’t expect any.”
Herb Jackson and Ruth had been right, Mark thought bitterly. He had worked for nothing. When the time came to split the melon, there wouldn’t be any melon.
Bronco was done talking. He picked up a lamp and walked toward the stairs, saying: “We’d best roll in. Got a lot of work to do. I’m gonna drain the tulle swamp and burn it off. Got to have more hay land.”
Mark followed him up the stairs, the strong smell of new pine lumber a pleasant fragrance. Bronco opened a door and, going into the room, set the lamp on a box. The bed was the only other piece of furniture in the room. “You can see for yourself what we need.” Mark nodded. Bronco stepped back into the hall and closed the door.
Mark pulled off his boots and stretched out on the bed. He asked himself if he should go on working for Bronco for nothing? Did he still owe Bronco anything, or had he paid whatever debt he had once owed? If he left, what would he do? There would be no work in the valley after fall roundup. The big outfits to the south would be cutting down the size of their crews instead of taking on new hands.
As he thought about it, he became angry. What did Bronco expect of him? When you got right down to it, Bronco owed him a hell of a lot more than he owed Bronco. But that didn’t make any difference. Not to Bronco. It boiled down to a proposition of having a place to work for his keep, no more and no less.
He got up and took off his shirt and pants, then paced around the room, too restless to sleep. Pr
esently he sat down on the bed again, his head in his hands. He heard the door open and looked up as Sharon slipped into the room, wearing a lacey robe over her nightgown.
She put a finger to her lips, came to the bed, and sat down beside him and slipped an arm around him. He felt the pressure of her breasts as she put her face close to his. She said softly: “I can’t stay long. If Bronco knew I was in here, he’d cut my heart out. You’re a good, decent kid, Mark, too decent to throw in with Bronco. Get out while you can. You’ll only have trouble if you stay.”
She turned his face to her and kissed him on the lips, then rose and left the room. Staring at the closed door, he knew she was right. He’d have to leave on her account if for no other reason.
That night he had trouble sleeping.
Chapter Sixteen
Apparently it never occurred to Bronco that Mark might not have fully recovered from his wound or that his side still could be bothering him. He got Mark up at dawn the first morning he was back on Cross Seven. They ate breakfast together in the kitchen, with Sharon serving them and looking, Mark thought, as bright and shiny as a newly minted dollar.
Sharon didn’t miss a chance to touch him when she brought something to the table, or to lean over him when she poured his coffee so that he felt the pressure of her big breasts. Mark was stirred by her, but he was uneasy, too. He refused to look at her, although she smiled warmly at him. He rose and went out through the back door as soon as he finished eating, but Bronco didn’t come for a time.
Pausing on the porch, Mark heard Bronco say: “You try getting into bed with that kid and I’ll run you back to Nevada and slap your butt every jump you make.”
She laughed at him. “You’ll slap my butt, all right. I guess you like the feel of it. You sure never miss a chance.”
“I’m not joshing. You let him alone.”
“He’s a nice-looking boy, and I like him,” Sharon said. “In case you’ve forgot, our deal didn’t include you telling me who I can get in bed with and who I can’t. As far as Mark’s concerned, that’s between him and me.”
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