‘We’ll see what they have,’ Flower said as if exasperated.
‘Hold on a bit. Let’s see to getting the horses hitched; then we can drive over to the store with the buckboard.’
‘Will they even let us take it?’ Flower asked.
‘Masters didn’t seem to be worried about that.’
‘Masters probably wasn’t thinking too straight just then,’ Flower reminded him.
But the man in charge of the stable gave them no problem. Emerson Masters had mentioned to him that he was expecting a couple to watch his ranch while he was gone. The stableman eyed them dubiously as if thinking this could not be the couple—he might have recognized Flower from the saloon—but he shrugged as if it made no difference to him, had the team of matched bay horses hitched, and sent them on their way after giving K. John directions on how to get to the ranch.
In the store, K. John changed into a new, very dark red shirt with black buttons, which he liked, and soon he was ready to leave. But Flower had changed her mind—or maybe it was that now she found herself in a store, and being a woman, she could not leave it without buying something. Before they managed to escape, K. John found himself loading a dozen packages into the wagon bed.
‘It would have been easier to go get your other clothes,’ K. John said, helping Flower on to the spring buckboard seat. She answered him very seriously.
‘Oh, no! They would certainly have killed you, K. John.’
Pondering on this, although it no longer mattered to him any more than the town of Crossroads did, he started the team eastward. Flower had bought—or borrowed—a yellow pencil from the store, and she sat beside him, totting up numbers. He glanced her way and, seeing his look, she explained, ‘I want to make sure that I don’t take anything from your half of the money.’
‘Mine when I get it,’ K. John said, with a slight edge in his voice.
‘When you get it.’ She sighed, tucked the pencil and paper away in her skirt pocket.
‘You see, K. John, I am quite careful with money and ultimately trustworthy.’
‘Whereas I … ?’
‘I barely know you—no, I don’t know you at all! What would have happened if I’d given you your money back in Crossroads? Who knows? You might have gotten drunk, bought a horse and I’d never have seen you again. Where would that have left me?’
‘I’m an untrustworthy fool,’ K. John said, coolly. All right, he knew now that the woman was insecure, afraid of being alone and penniless on the desert. He supposed he couldn’t really blame her, but they had made a bargain, and each had the obligation to fulfill it. Flower did not speak to him, but kept her eyes grimly on the trail ahead.
He nodded toward a trio of roadside cottonwood trees, which cast enough shade to cool them and the horses. There he drew in. The horses blew, poking around aimlessly for grass where there was none.
‘Flower, I want to have a little talk with you,’ he said. Sunlight filtered through the high reaches of the cottonwoods, dappling the earth around them, splashing moving shadows across her face.
‘Yes?’ she said innocently although she did not look at him.
‘Yes, and it’s about things that are more important than me buying a shirt.’ He took in a deep, slow breath, and tipped his hat back on his head.
‘Such as?’
‘Such as this whole enterprise. When Emerson Masters approached us back in Crossroads, we both jumped at the chance of getting ourselves a temporary position and having a few dollars given to us.
‘Now, I took it as an easy way to rest up, make enough to replace my horse and be fed for a few days for my troubles. Not a bad deal at all. You, on the other hand, are so dour, you’d think I was taking you to meet the executioner. Why, when all you have to do is watch a house for a while, and you’ve already been paid? It doesn’t have to be forever. Maybe after we’ve settled in you’ll come up with a thought on how to mend fences with your old employer and get your job back at the saloon.’
‘“Mend fences”!’ she echoed explosively in a voice that was partially muffled by sarcastic, snorting laughter. ‘“Mend fences” with Clyde Willit? Are you kidding? And as for ever entering the Double O Saloon again, I’d have to be out of my mind after—’
K. John waited for her to enlighten him farther, but she silently declined.
‘You see,’ she said, lifting those dark green eyes of hers, turning toward him on the buckboard’s seat, ‘you see this as a fine opportunity to rest up, be fed, get yourself another horse and ride off to find another cowboying job somewhere.’ She adjusted her dust-trailed skirt with a twitch of her hand. ‘To me, it’s the end of the road. Why do you think I hated to spend any of the money Masters gave us? It might be all the money I’ll see again—ever.’
‘I can’t believe that,’ K. John Landis said.
‘Believe it. I’m just terrible at roping and branding,’ she said.
‘But there will be other opportunities,’ K. John persisted, trying to smile for Flower.
‘Oh, yeah? Where? The Double O was my last chance to save myself from poverty.’
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ K. John said, but the look on Flower’s face said she was not. ‘All right, then,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘When we reach this Oxhead Ranch, we don’t present ourselves as any kind of a couple—Masters didn’t seem to think that mattered anyway. I can sleep in the barn, anywhere. I’m used to no better. We’ll have to settle in a little to see what the situation is there, why Masters believed so strongly that he needed someone to watch the place. But you’ll have to smile for the people,’ K. John added, ‘even if you won’t for me.’
‘Have I been looking that sour?’ she asked. K. John nodded.
‘You’ve been looking that sour.’ He started the team again and they wound their way down into a long dry valley, following the instructions as he remembered them. It wasn’t that much of a puzzle: the trail was there, and it showed the recent passing of shod horses and a wagon—probably the very one they were now using.
He wondered, ‘Why did Clyde Willit name his saloon the Double O? It. has nothing to do with his initials or anything else that comes to mind.’
‘Did you ever play the game of roulette?’ Flower asked as they splashed across a wide, shallow creek. Ahead now, K. John thought he could make out several low structures. He crinkled his eyes and shrugged at Flower’s question.
‘A time or two,’ he admitted.
‘Well, you’ve got about as much of a chance at winning in any game at that saloon as you do of hitting the green 00 on a roulette wheel.’
‘I see,’ K. John said, thoughtfully.
‘No, you don’t,’ said Flower, stiffly. She was bent forward now, looking into the distance at the buildings up ahead. ‘You won’t know anything about Clyde Willit until you’ve had dealings with him—and then it will be too late.’
They pulled into the Oxhead Ranch. The buildings were nicely situated near the base of the surrounding foothills in the shade of a grove of mammoth oak trees. A yellow yard dog came out to meet them, but did not even bark, just slunk away, tail between its legs. It was well into the afternoon now. The shadows were long and the air was cooling. The gusting, dusty wind seemed not to reach here, or else the windstorm had finally blown itself out.
‘What do we do now?’ Flower asked with a touch of nervousness.
‘Pull up and go in. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not sure why I even came here,’ Flower muttered.
‘Because you had no place else, remember? Now start practicing that smile.’
Her lips twitched into a smile that seemed shy but genuine. K. John halted the rig in front of the house. The porch was wide and white. Six round upright posts supported the awning. K. John was the one who now looked concerned as Flower asked him:
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know—where are the working men? I haven’t seen another soul.’
‘There’s probably a si
mple explanation. We’ll find out.’
‘Yeah,’ K. John muttered. He looped the reins to the team around the brake handle and crossed behind the buckboard to help Flower, hampered by her long skirts, get down from the wagon. Now a slight breeze touched them, teasing the leaves in the upper reaches of the oak trees. The old trees rustled dryly. Inside the house there was not a sound that they could hear.
Stepping up on to the porch, K. John dusted off his new red shirt, straightened his hat and knocked at the large, arched front door, smiling at Flower. ‘Home for the Holidays,’ he said, not getting the amused response he was after. He gestured with his fingers on his own mouth for Flower to smile, and she obliged—sort of. She was obviously worried.
As for K. John Landis, he was feeling fine. The day was already ending better than it had any right to after the morning he had endured. If not flush with cash, they at least had a little. If no one ever answered the door, they were better off than they had been before. He knocked again, hat in hand now.
Suddenly, the door banged open and an almost-pretty blonde glared at them. Wearing a dark-blue dress and her hair pinned up, her face was a mask of tight disapproval.
Her glittering blue eyes searched them judgmentally and found them lacking.
‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Who are you and what do you want here?’
Flower let K. John do the talking. ‘Miss Masters?’ he tried. Emerson Masters had said he had a daughter living on the ranch. The woman’s frown grew deeper, something K. John would have thought impossible if he hadn’t seen it for himself. She answered in a brittle voice.
‘Yes, I am Justine Masters—but I asked you who you were.’
‘Miss Masters,’ K. John replied, trying for politeness. ‘Your father hired us to come out to the Oxhead to kind of look after things while he’s in Albuquerque.’
‘To “look after things”? What “things”?’ Justine Masters demanded.
‘Well, the house and the yard, I suppose,’ K. John said, looking around with a weak shrug.
‘We have people to take care of those,’ Justine said, her voice growing haughty and then derisive. ‘I don’t think you even know why you’re here.’
That was the truth, although K. John wouldn’t have admitted that out loud to a woman, particularly this one. Justine continued after a moment’s pause for breath.
‘My father!’ she said with unconcealed disgust. ‘Look what he sends to help out around here! A broken-down cowboy and a—’ Justine’s eyes raked Flower’s clothing, down to the torn lace hem and little purple boots. ‘I don’t know what you are,’ she said to Flower—whose green eyes momentarily sparked with an anger that she managed to contain—‘but I could guess,’ Justine added, unkindly.
Justine sighed as if she were being forced to carry the weight of the world. ‘Are you two even married?’ she asked and got negative shakes of the head in response. ‘I thought not. Get your luggage—or boxes, it seems,’ she said, looking past them toward the buckboard, ‘and the lady’—she made the word sound like a mockery—‘can have a room in the house. I’ll have the maid show her the way. You,’ she turned to K. John, ‘can find a place in the bunkhouse—it’s empty—or sleep in the barn. Whatever you’re used to.’
‘Yes, miss,’ K. John said with a small nod, the sarcasm of which must have eluded Justine Masters. ‘Very good, miss.’ Abruptly his tone changed, surprising Flower no less than Justine. ‘Your father did tell us that we’re in charge here until he returns.’
Justine’s mouth opened slightly, silently. She stared at K. John, but he proved to have the harder stare. She spun back toward the house, calling out, ‘Olive! Olive, where are you?’
Flower watched K. John with astonishment still in her eyes. ‘You could have ruined everything,’ she said in a lowered voice.
‘I had to shut her up. I was tired of the woman. Let’s get your boxes from the buckboard. Here’s your guide,’ he said, nodding toward the short, stout woman who waited nervously in the doorway, wiping her hands on her white apron.
‘Let’s get those things to your room, then I’m going to put the buckboard away and take care of the horses. By then it should be time for dinner. Let’s not forget to tell Olive that the boss promised us a roast beef dinner.’
They went to the rear of the buckboard and Flower began stacking the boxes in K. John’s arms. She said quietly, her eyes going to the house:
‘I feel like such a fool, K. John. We don’t even know why we’re here, what we’re supposed to watch over.’
‘Oh, I think we do,’ K. John said over the tops of the boxes. ‘I think we’ve already met her.’
Chapter Three
K. John was completely content. After supper, Flower had gone off to her room looking concerned, but for K. John Landis this was a small bit of paradise. He had made himself a bed of straw in the loft of the barn. Supper had been a nice cut of roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy, which had filled his empty stomach with a pleasant warmth and a sense of well-being. The night was cool and quiet. He lay back with a pleasurable relief which only a weary body can find. Below, the yellow yard dog looked up at him hopefully and, if possible, K. John would have assisted the dog up the wooden ladder to share his comfort.
Justine Masters had not joined them at the table and neither had asked after her. They received precious little information from the stout Olive, who worked hastily, fussily, in her kitchen. They did not try to pry into affairs; tomorrow was soon enough.
For now the night was pleasant, the air cool, the bed soft if a little scratchy, his stomach well fed. K. John yawned—yes, tomorrow was soon enough to get to the bottom of things. Just the night before he had been hungry, thirsty with no place to make his bed but on the desert floor; he felt he was making remarkable progress, even if Flower did not feel the same way about things.
And he could not blame her. Yesterday, she, in contrast to K. John, had been a girl with a job, a room in town of her own, money in her purse, a closet filled with clothes. Tonight, she had been relegated to some sort of housekeeping job with undefined duties and no firm promise of future wages. Flower must have felt as if her life were plummeting into the depths of misfortune.
All of which seemed to have something to do with the saloonkeeper, Clyde Willit. Flower had never told K. John precisely what their dispute had been about. Imagination could provide dozens of answers to that, some of them quite unsavory, but K. John was too tired right now to guess. He rolled over, looked down once, said ‘Goodnight, dog,’ and drifted off to a comfortable sleep.
Sometime after midnight the dog yipped—only once, but it was enough to wake K. John. Someone was moving about in the barn below. At this time of night?
It could have been some of the Oxhead hands going about their regular, if unusual, business, but K. John did not think so. Their movements seemed furtive; their voices, ragged whispers. The cowhands that K. John had known would not be whispering at their work. They would be grumbling, joking, perhaps cursing if summoned from their beds for night duty of some kind, but never would they be silent in the way these men below were.
There were three of them, K. John could just make out, peering over the edge of the loft. One other thing he noticed was the yellow dog cowering in the corner of an empty stall. Now, the dog might not have been the boldest defender of the ranch, but he would certainly know the men who worked on the Oxhead and would come forward to greet them, not fear them. K. John decided to take a closer look. After all, that was his job—or he thought it might be. The Oxhead was his to run until Emerson Masters returned: that was a large assumption, but he had made it.
Reaching for his Stetson, K. John started toward the ladder, clambering down to the dark floor of the barn. A single lantern had been lit near the open double doors, and by its light K. John could mark his men. They could also see him very well as he walked toward where they stood gathered together, talking.
He could not make out the men’s expressions in the darkness, bu
t he saw no smiling teeth, and could only assume the dark looks he must be getting from them.
‘Hello, boys!’ K. John nodded. ‘A little late to be riding, isn’t it?’
He half-expected the men to provide some sort of mocking explanation at that. Something along the lines of, ‘When do you expect the night-riders for the herd to start out—at noon?’ Something—anything—that would explain all simply. But the men said nothing, which worried K. John.
He had not been able to make out their expressions before now, but nearing them he could now see they were wearing unanimous deep scowls.
‘Who the hell are you?’ the bulkiest of the three demanded. He wore all dark clothes, a low-riding Colt revolver and stood hunched forward as he stared darkly at K. John.
‘I’m the ranch manager,’ K. John said easily, keeping his eyes on the thick man’s hand, which had settled near his holster.
‘What do you mean?’ one of the others—a younger, narrower lad—asked. ‘There ain’t no such a thing as a ranch manager for the Oxhead.’
‘That’s not what Emerson Masters thinks,’ K. John said, keeping his tone neutral, his body loose and unchallenging. He didn’t want to fight these men; he just wanted to know who they were, what they wanted.
‘You mean Mr. Masters hired you,’ the thicker man asked in a taunting voice, ‘and then sent you out to sleep in the barn?’
‘Pretty much,’ K. John answered. ‘He hired me—it was my own idea to sleep in the barn.’
‘Have you got a name?’ the third man, the one who had not spoken before, asked. He had a broad forehead and squinty eyes.
‘Yes. Have you?’ K. John asked, not liking the responses he was getting from these men, whoever they were. He no longer assumed they were Oxhead hands. Their manner was too furtive, and when they glanced at each other, their eyes were secretive. He thought about ordering them off the place, but he would be acting on shaky authority—and there were three of them and only one of him.
Crossroads (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Book 8) Page 2