The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands?

by Janis Reams Hudson

  She was being ridiculous, she knew. She’d never known Caleb to sit still when there was work to be done, and he was the one who kept pointing out how much work needed to be done on the PR. So she would accept his help.

  “That was fast,” she said when the pickup drove away and Caleb came back inside.

  “Emily’s a godsend, and Hector drives fast.”

  “Hector, huh? A new hand?”

  “We took him on a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” She shrugged. “It’s just that there’s been a flood of illegal aliens around here lately. Is he local?”

  “I don’t believe you said that.” Caleb gaped at her.

  “What?”

  “I’d wager that a quarter of this county is of Mexican descent, or Indian.” Namely him and his family, part Cherokee, one and all. “Or both. Since when did that matter to you?”

  Melanie blinked. “You think I care that he’s got dark skin? I can’t believe you said that.”

  Caleb turned away and ran his fingers through his hair. He knew better. He knew she wasn’t prejudiced. Or, he thought he’d known. She had never seemed to care that his skin was so much darker than hers. And he knew she had friends from school who were Mexican Americans.

  “Then what did you mean about Hector?”

  “I just meant he didn’t look familiar.”

  “That’s not what you meant. Just because you don’t recognize him doesn’t mean he’s an illegal. That’s not a logical assumption, even for you.”

  “What do you mean, even for me?”

  “Don’t change the subject. What have you got against Mexicans?”

  “Nothing,” she cried, throwing her hands in the air. “Okay, look. There’s a rumor going around that somebody around here is helping illegal aliens hide from Immigration.”

  “And you think it’s us?”

  “I’m hoping it’s not.”

  Interesting, Caleb thought. Crazy, but interesting that she would think such a thing. “Would you care?” he asked.

  “Of course I would care,” she cried. “You think I want to see you and your family get in trouble? Hiding illegal aliens is against the law. Besides which,” she added with a quirk of her lips, “I’d think a Native American would be the last person who’d want to see more foreigners flooding into this country.”

  “Hey, I’m only half Indian. Half of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower.”

  “Yeah, yeah, and the other half met the boat. I’ve heard that one before. About a hundred times.”

  “So all this smoke about Hector and illegal aliens is because you’re worried about me?”

  “Oh, just go soak your head in the shower.”

  “Thanks.” He hefted his duffel bag. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  While Caleb was in the shower Melanie decided to head out to the barn and get started on what was shaping up to be a long day. She was halfway to the barn when her father sped up the driveway, a giant rooster tail of dust shooting up behind him. He came to a skidding halt a few feet away from Caleb’s pickup, got out and slammed the door. He eyed Caleb’s rig briefly, shot her a look and a short nod, then hurried into the house.

  “Daddy?”

  The slamming of the back door was the only answer she got.

  She stood in the dirt, fuming. He goes off for two days without a word, then comes home and ignores her? No way was she letting him get away with that. Plus, she had yet to tell him that she had canceled the ATM card.

  Of course, his inability to withdraw cash from the bank could explain his lack of a greeting. With a heavy sigh, she trudged back to the house.

  “Daddy?” He wasn’t in the kitchen, nor in his room. “Daddy?” His bathroom was empty. She crossed through the living room to the small den they used as an office and found him booting up the computer. The screen desktop appeared and he clicked on the icon for the bookkeeping software.

  Melanie’s surprise was complete. Her father never looked at their finances. That was Melanie’s area and had been for several years. As far as she knew, he’d never even used the accounting software before. “What are you doing?”

  “What is this?” He stared at the computer screen.

  “What is what?” She came and stood beside him to see what he was seeing. The pitifully low balance in their cash account. “It’s a disaster is what it is.”

  “Where the hell’s the rest of our money? And what nonsense is the bank spouting about us canceling our ATM card?”

  Melanie folded her arms across her chest. “It’s not nonsense. I canceled it yesterday. Along with our credit card.”

  He turned toward her as if in slow motion. His cheeks turned the color of fresh blood. “You what?”

  Grown men had been known to back away from that look on his face. Melanie stood her ground. “I had no choice.”

  “What are you talking about? What happened to our bank balance?”

  “What do you think happened to it?” she asked heatedly. “It went to pay off your damn bookie, and mother’s never-ending spending sprees.”

  “What spending sprees?”

  The entire subject made Melanie so angry her hands shook. She pulled out the credit card statement she’d received yesterday and tossed it at him. “Here’s the latest fiasco. She maxed out the card. In one month she maxed it out. We can’t pay it off. The interest charges alone are going to kill us. The two of you together are going to bankrupt us if you don’t stop.”

  Her father’s eyes bulged. “So you took it upon yourself to cancel our ATM and credit cards? Without consulting me?”

  “I did what I had to do to keep us from going under. Granddad didn’t build this ranch so we could put money in the pockets of bookies and boutiques.”

  “We just sold our calves. Where’s the money from that?”

  “It’s drawing interest, what’s left of it, so we can pay the light bill for the rest of the year. You might remember that except for the occasional stud fee for Big Angus, there won’t be any more income until we sell calves again next fall.”

  “You watch your mouth, little girl. I’ve been ranching, running the PR since before you were born. I’m still your father and you’ll by God do what I tell you. I need cash, and I need it right now, today. Or else.”

  Melanie choked back the wail of misery and tears that threatened to burst from her. He was her father, and she loved him dearly. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t let him lose this ranch. If he was thinking straight, he would say she was right. As she saw it, it was her job to do what had to be done until this craziness that had a hold of him turned him loose.

  “Or else what?” she demanded, keeping her voice as hard and steady as she could. “Or else what, Daddy?”

  “You don’t understand,” he said earnestly. “I need cash, and I need it now. Just five grand, that’s all, I swear.”

  “We don’t have it to spare,” she protested. “You can see that for yourself. The ranch can’t afford any more of your gambling debts.”

  “I swear,” he said, “this is the last time, baby girl, the last time. I’ll never gamble again.”

  “How many times have you said that? How many times have I fallen for it? The last time, I let you talk me into selling a prized bull, and now, here we are again. We’ve got only one prized bull left, and we’re not selling him. If we sell Big Angus, we’re finished. If we sell off part of the herd, we’ll lose money—prices are way down right now. Even without this, we’re looking at maybe not being able to make the balloon payment next year. With this, we’re bankrupt, unless we want to sell land. Is that what you want us to do? Sell part of our land?”

  “Come on,” he protested. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “Can’t it? Look at these credit card bills from Mama’s latest spree. Look at them. If we don’t pay them, our credit is screwed.”

  He glanced irritably at the statement in his hand. Th
en his eyes widened as the figures jumped out at him. “Jeez, Louise, how could she have charged that much?”

  “I don’t know, but now you see what I mean. We can’t pay it off this month.” He obviously hadn’t noticed that the largest charge was to a clinic. Melanie started to point it out, so he would know her mother was sick or hurt, but she decided not to. She didn’t know for sure what was wrong with her mother. If it had been anything terrible, Aunt Karen would have called. Right now her dad was upset and under a great deal of stress. She would wait until she knew something definite about her mother before she told him.

  “We’re going to have to make payments and pay sky-high interest,” she said, “and winter’s coming on, which means we’re going to have a nice fat heating bill every month.”

  “I can’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet,” he said. “If I don’t pay off Bruno by tomorrow they’ll drill holes in my kneecaps—or worse—and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

  Melanie shook her head at his exaggeration. “No problem. We’ve still got medical insurance to cover that.”

  “You think I’m joking?” he cried.

  “I think that if you take five thousand dollars out of our account, medical insurance will be one of the first things to go. Then it’ll be the car insurance, the house insurance. Are you getting the picture yet? We spend an extra five thousand right now, we might as well hang it up, because we’ll be finished.”

  “Finished is right.” He swore. “If I don’t pay him off I’ll be finished.”

  Melanie did her best to ignore the knot in her stomach. Tough love, she was learning, was at least as hard on the person dispensing it as on the recipient. This was killing her.

  “You’ll just have to find some other way to do it,” she said. “We don’t have the money. I won’t let your gambling bankrupt this ranch. I hope you understand.”

  “Understand?” he cried. “I’m supposed to understand why my own flesh and blood is so selfish and tightfisted that she’d rather throw her own father to the wolves than turn loose of a few dollars?”

  “Five thousand is not a few, and I’m not responsible for your gambling. You are. You did it, you fix it.”

  “How? You’ve cut me off from my own money.”

  “Your money? What am I? Chopped liver? A hired hand? It was your idea to make me a partner. It was you and Mama together who decided I should have fifty percent while the two of you had a quarter each. You gave me the responsibility of keeping the PR solvent, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  His face turned from flushed to gray and back again. “My own daughter.” He shook his head and turned toward the door. “It’s not natural. It’s just not natural.”

  “Daddy?”

  He stopped just beyond the doorway but did not turn back. “I’m going out. I don’t know when I’ll be back. A day or two maybe.”

  Melanie swallowed hard. Her vision blurred. “Daddy?”

  He kept walking. A moment later she heard the back door shut. His pickup started up, and he was gone.

  “Oh, Daddy.” She turned around and kicked the ottoman in front of the easy chair next to the desk. “Dammit.”

  “Was that your dad who just left?”

  At the sound of Caleb’s voice from the doorway Melanie bit back a groan. “Yes.”

  She heard him move closer. “He didn’t stay long,” he said. “Is he coming back?”

  Melanie found that she couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t face her best friend. She hated family discord, hated even more that she had told Caleb about her father’s gambling, their financial troubles. It was too embarrassing. No, she couldn’t turn around.

  But she wanted to. Wanted to turn around and lean on him, let him prop her up until she felt steady enough to cope again. She wanted it so much that she steeled herself against even looking at him.

  “He said he’d be gone a day or two.”

  “Mel?” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Fine. Listen…” She forced herself to turn and smile. “Thanks for offering to stick around and help, but I’ll be fine. You can go on home.” And she could take a run out to the hay field and pound on a bale or two. If she didn’t get to hit something, and soon, she was going to explode. Or cry. Neither, as far as she was concerned, was acceptable in front of Caleb.

  “We’ve already had this argument, and you lost. I’m staying.”

  On the other hand, she thought, there were an awful lot of bales to be loaded and stored in the hay barn. Twenty acres’ worth. It was normally a three-person job. With Caleb’s help, the two of them should be able to get the work done today. Alone it would take her two or three days, if she didn’t kill herself in the process. It was a nasty, dirty job, almost as bad as cutting the hay in the first place, with bits of hay finding their way inside a person’s clothes and making you itch to high heaven.

  “All right.” She gave him a nod. “But we’re loading and hauling hay and there’s only two of us, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Caleb was just glad she’d given in, since he’d had no intention of leaving her alone to fend for herself. He was only sorry he hadn’t caught Ralph before the man had disappeared again. That man needed his butt kicked.

  Chapter Four

  Caleb and Melanie had worked together many times over the years, helping out at each other’s ranch, or on someone else’s ranch. They worked together now with few words, as few were necessary. Each knew what needed to be done.

  They started in the kitchen, making lunch to take with them. They pulled everything they wanted from the refrigerator and spread it on the table, then walked around it building sandwiches. A regular assembly line of sandwich production. They had bread, mustard and mayonnaise, lettuce and tomatoes and sliced cheese. Roast beef and bologna, peanut butter and jelly.

  “You got enough mayo there?”

  Caleb looked up from where he was spreading mayonnaise on a slice of bread. “I like mayo.”

  “I do, too, but I still want to taste the meat when I bite in.”

  “Who’s doing this, you or me?”

  “You, but I have to eat it.”

  “Wimp.” He scraped a thick layer of mayo from the slice before him. “Is that better?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “And don’t skimp on the peanut butter.”

  “I’m not,” she protested.

  “Are too.”

  She slathered it on as thick as she could. “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “The fine art of compromise,” she said.

  With half a dozen sandwiches stacked on the table, Melanie turned back toward the refrigerator and found Caleb doing the same. He reached the door first and pulled it open. He went for the apples while she retrieved two bananas.

  Melanie stepped to the pantry and tossed him a roll of plastic wrap for the sandwiches. While he wrapped, she found a big bag of potato chips to add to their lunch. As he wrapped the last sandwich she hauled out the small cooler from the floor of the pantry and they started piling everything in, except the bag of chips, which wouldn’t fit. They packed a second cooler with ice and cans of soft drinks, and grabbed two tall plastic tumblers for drinking water from the jug on the truck.

  On their way out the door Melanie grabbed her old leather work gloves and a ball cap to keep her hair from blowing in her face.

  “Do you need anything?” she asked him.

  “Gloves and hat in my rig.”

  While he retrieved those items she carried the coolers and chips to the big equipment shed. She set her load down on a bench and opened the wide doors. “Hello, Sister.”

  Caleb was just coming up behind her and laughed. “I’d forgotten you call that old truck Sister.”

  “Old being the operative word. Daddy brought her home brand spanking new about three years before I was born. Which is how she came to be his first baby. That makes her my sister.
”

  The old truck had been manufactured specifically for hauling hay. Basically, it was a wooden bed, twenty-five-feet long by eight-and-a-half wide, on wheels. The engine, instead of being under a hood in the front, was mounted dead center beneath the bed, mere inches above the ground. Woe be unto the driver who hit a deep hole or rut.

  Been there, done that, Melanie thought. Still had the memory of her daddy’s cussing to prove it.

  Rather than a cab like on a regular truck or pickup, Sister had a driver’s station on the left front corner of the bed, complete with seat, steering wheel, gearshift, pedals, and control panel. When Melanie was a baby her dad built an enclosure—only a cover, really, with open sides—to offer a modicum of shade and protection for the driver. He had also mounted a large, insulated water jug, which had to be replaced every five years or so, as the sun and weather broke it down, on the right front corner of the bed. It made a handy passenger seat.

  When Melanie had started driving the truck for her dad she’d barely been twelve. Her mother had insisted that Ralph install a seat belt for her. The belt was still there.

  Whoever sat on the water jug, however, was on his own.

  A loading conveyor extended off the front of the truck, with another conveyor running down the middle of the truck bed. As the truck was driven through the field, one bale at a time would be scooped up by the front conveyor, carried up to the second conveyor, which took it down the bed toward the rear guard that kept it from falling off the back.

  Ordinarily two people worked together picking the bales off the second belt and stacking them on the bed, from back to front, until the load was full. The truck could carry one-hundred-fifty square bales of approximately sixty-five pounds each. Nine-thousand-sevenhundred and fifty pounds of dry grass.

  Today, instead of one to drive and two to do the toting and stacking, there would be one to drive, one to stack. And it would probably take them two loads to clear the field. Scoop it up, stack it, haul it to the hay barn, unload it, restack it. Go back to the field and do it all again. Melanie would make sure they traded off several times. No way was she going to have Caleb doing all that work himself. Especially after she had clobbered him in the shoulder that morning.