by Ari McKay
Forcing himself to keep his mind on work, Stone tapped on his paper. “Looks like we’re goin’ to need some more hands. How many do you want to hire? If we start out early, maybe we can get the better ones.”
“I’d say at least eight or ten,” Luke replied, glancing up from his work briefly. “Maybe as many as a dozen if we look to be busy. If we don’t need them to work with the cattle, we can ask them to help out at the mine.”
Stone nodded. “Sounds fine. We can send an ad to the Reno paper, if there ain’t enough men local.”
There was a knock on the kitchen door, and Stone looked up. “Wonder who that is?”
Luke shrugged, not looking up this time. “Must be one of the hands. Anyone else’d go to the front door.”
“True.” Stone rose and went to the door, opening it enough to look out without letting too much of the cold February air in. It was getting on toward evening, and since it was Sunday, the hands had been off all day, but it was always possible one of them needed something.
When Stone saw who stood on the back porch, he stared in utter surprise. “Little Sam? Is that really you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” The young man Stone had last seen on the Circle J Ranch in Texas grinned up at him. “Didn’t I tell you I was goin’ to come out here and ask you for a job?”
“Yeah, you did,” Stone acknowledged, shaking his head. Little Sam had been happy for Stone’s inheritance—as had the Stevensons, who were the only other people Stone had told—but Little Sam had been wistful, too, since he couldn’t afford to leave the Circle J and follow Stone on what Little Sam was convinced would be a grand adventure. He’d sworn he was going to come to Nevada as soon as he could, but Stone had been certain the day he left Yellow Knife was the last time he’d see Sam. Realizing he’d been staring, he stepped back and opened the door. “Come on in.”
“Only for a minute,” Sam said, stepping inside the warm kitchen. He glanced in Luke’s direction. “Sorry if I’m interruptin’, Stone, but I wanted to get here before you’d done all your hirin’ for the spring. You’re hirin’, ain’t you? Or know someone who might be?”
“Of course I’m hirin’.” Stone shook his head in exasperation. Trust someone as young as Sam to take off all the way from Texas to Nevada without knowing if he’d have a job when he got there. He clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Luke, this here’s Sam Thompson, but everyone calls him Little Sam. Little Sam, this is my foreman, Luke Reynolds.”
Luke had abandoned his work at last, apparently finding their conversation more interesting, and he was watching the two of them with a faint frown. “Howdy,” he said, although he sounded less friendly than he usually did to new folks.
“Mr. Reynolds, sir.” Little Sam flushed under Luke’s regard. “Pleased to meet you.”
Stone frowned as well, wondering if something was wrong. “Little Sam was workin’ on the Circle J when I got there and proceeded to make a nuisance of himself.”
“Aw….” Sam shook his head in embarrassment. “I wasn’t that bad! Besides, you needed a friend, didn’t you?” He looked at Luke, as if anxious to explain himself. “Stone barely talked to anyone, and folks said I never shut up, so I guess it made sense I talked to him.”
“I guess it did,” Luke replied, fixing Stone with an inscrutable look. “Sounds to me like you got yourself a habit of pickin’ up men who like to run their mouth at you, Mr. Harrison.”
“Yeah, maybe I do.” Stone still wasn’t certain what was going through Luke’s mind, but Luke sure didn’t run his mouth anymore. He looked at Sam and smiled slightly. “If you’re goin’ to work for me, there better be less talkin’ and plenty of workin’.”
“Oh! Yeah, sure!” Sam nodded vigorously. “I know you’re the boss now, Stone. But I guess I should call you Mr. Harrison?”
“We were hands together, so you can still call me Stone.” He wagged his finger under Sam’s nose. “But no tale tellin’, you got me? And I ain’t treatin’ you any different from the other hands. I won’t have no one sayin’ you get away with anything because you knew me before, understand?”
“Right! I’m awful glad to be here.” The irresistible grin Sam was known for split his face. “I always did want to see more than Texas, though so far all I’ve seen is a lot of snow. But the mountains look right pretty.” He paused and bit his lip, looking at Stone hopefully. “Are the girls in these parts pretty, too?”
Luke flicked his gaze to Sam, his eyes widening, and then he leaned back in his chair, seeming to relax a little. “I reckon we’ve got our share of pretty gals in Serenity,” he said. “I can introduce you around after church some time, if you want. I know who’s single and who’s got a steady beau already.”
Sam smiled at Luke as though he’d just been offered a thousand dollars. “That’s mighty nice of you, Mr. Reynolds! There weren’t so many girls in Yellow Knife as would look at a cowboy like me.”
Stone couldn’t help snorting. “You mean there weren’t so many girls who hadn’t heard all your nonsense already.” He ruffled Little Sam’s hair. It was good to see the young man, if for no other reason than it helped him feel like he hadn’t messed up every friendship in his life. “Go on, then. You can take your horse to the barn and get it settled, and the bunkhouse is out back. If you ain’t had supper, I know Charlie keeps soup on for the hands all day on Sunday.”
“Thanks, Stone! And it was nice to meet you, Mr. Reynolds.” Little Sam nodded, and then took off out the door like an eager puppy ready to explore.
Stone walked to the back door and closed it, shaking his head. “Durn fool kid,” he muttered.
“Looks like he likes you well enough,” Luke said, turning back to his paperwork.
“Never did understand why.” Stone returned to the table and took his seat. He didn’t look down at his papers, however, taking a moment to study Luke, who had been uncharacteristically aloof until Sam had asked about girls. Stone was pretty sure he knew what Luke had been thinking, and he felt he owed Luke some reassurance, no matter how uncomfortable it made him to give it.
“There ain’t goin’ to be no one from my past showin’ up. Least not in the way you were obviously thinkin’ about Sam. I don’t want you thinkin’ I won’t take up with you, but I’d take up with someone else. There ain’t never been anyone like that except for one man who was kind to me, a long time ago, and he was relieved to see the last of me when I left.”
Luke went still for a moment before responding quietly. “You don’t owe me no explanations. Your business is your business, not mine.”
Stone’s heart sank at the way Luke was continuing to shut him out. There was a gulf between them he didn’t know how to get across except for the one way that would surely mean the ruin of them both. He just wished he could make Luke understand.
“Maybe I feel like I do owe you somethin’, like respect of your feelin’s. Maybe my respect ain’t much, and maybe it ain’t what you want, but I ain’t plannin’ to treat you like what you think don’t matter.” Stone rose, feeling like the walls were closing in on him. “I’ll go introduce Sam to the others.”
Luke pressed his lips together, as if to keep himself from saying more; instead he nodded curtly. “All right. I’ll stay here and get some more work done.”
Stone looked at him once more and then turned away, putting on his coat and hat. He wasn’t good with words, and he didn’t know what to say to make things better. So instead, he fell back into the silence he knew and trusted, and he left the warm kitchen, which seemed colder than the night outside without the warmth of Luke’s smile.
13
“YEAH, boss, get ’em! Show ’em how it’s done!”
Stone grinned at Shorty, who was waving his hat as Stone and Raider went after a calf who seemed determined to avoid being caught. Stone barely had to tell his horse what to do; after so many years together, he and Raider were in tune with each other and with the job they were doing.
The lasso was in his hand, and as Raider gained
on the calf, Stone whipped it around his head and neatly tossed it over the young steer’s neck. Raider stopped at once, and Stone secured the rope, dismounted, and hurried to flip the protesting calf onto its side, swiftly binding its legs with the slack of the rope.
“Not rodeo-pretty, but that’ll do.” Another hand, Brent Fields, came over with the branding iron. He marked the bawling calf on its flank and nodded to Stone. “That’s about it for this batch, boss.”
“Good.” Stone clapped the cowboy on his shoulder, and then he released the calf, which ran off at once toward the rest of the herd, bawling in protest. Stone began to coil his rope in neat circles. “Let’s finish up and get home, then.” He started back toward Raider, pausing as he caught sight of Luke standing off to one side, looking far more handsome than any man had a right to be.
At that, Luke ambled over, touching the brim of his hat as he approached. “Didn’t want to interrupt a man with rope in his hand and a hot brand nearby,” he said, which was about as close to the kind of teasing he’d once plagued Stone with as he got these days. Unfortunately, the image of throwing a lasso around Luke and pulling him to the ground was not doing much to help Stone get on with his responsibilities.
Brent grinned at the two of them. “Yeah, Luke, the boss gets caught up in his work. Never seen a man so driven. Sometimes we think he’s tryin’ to work himself to death.”
“Quit jawin’ and get home to your dinner,” Stone ordered gruffly, but not unkindly, and Brent chuckled and trotted over to the other cowboys, who were gathering the brands and dousing the fire. Stone raised one eyebrow at Luke. “You done for the day?”
“Yep. Mary sent me to make sure y’all didn’t work too long and miss supper. You know how she is when you let her fried chicken get cold.”
“I sure don’t want to get her riled up.” Stone tied his lariat onto his saddle and took Raider’s reins, walking beside Luke as they made their way to where Mist was quietly grazing beneath a tree. Dusk was falling, but fortunately, the days were getting longer as they headed deeper into March. It had turned into a warm spring after the short but bitterly cold winter, and Stone was enjoying working outdoors again.
He waited while Luke mounted, and they rode in silence toward home. For all the awkwardness between them at times, Stone counted it a good thing Luke hadn’t moved out of the ranch house. That would have been simply too much for Stone to take.
When they arrived, there was a strange buggy with a pair of matched black horses sitting in front of the house. It was a fancy rig, but Stone didn’t recognize it as belonging to anyone from town.
He glanced at Luke. “Seems we have company. Any idea who it could be?”
Luke shook his head, looking as puzzled as Stone felt. “I ain’t never seen a rig as fancy as that around here.”
“Huh.” Stone frowned as he dismounted and led Raider toward the stable. “Let’s get one of the hands to take care of the horses, and we’ll go find out what’s going on.”
After Mist and Raider were turned over to one of the wranglers, Stone and Luke made their way to the house. “Let’s go in through the kitchen,” Stone said, heading to the door. “I want to find out from Mary what’s goin’ on before we meet whoever it is.”
Luke nodded and followed Stone inside. “Good idea.”
Mary rushed over as soon as they entered. “Mr. Harrison, you have a visitor,” she said, keeping her voice low, but Stone could hear the anxiousness in her tone. “I didn’t know what to do, so I put him in the parlor to wait. I hope that’s all right.”
Stone smiled reassuringly at her. “That’s fine, Mary. Don’t worry. Who is it?”
Mary smoothed her hands down the front of her apron, and Stone noticed suddenly that her cheeks were pink. “He said he’s your cousin, James. He’s quite the fancy gentleman, ain’t he? And so handsome!”
“Oh.” Stone blinked at that, and then he looked at Luke, not sure what to think. “I ain’t never heard of a cousin James. Did Priss have some other nephew I don’t know about?”
“Not that I know of,” Luke replied, his brows snapping together in a frown. “Not on the Harrison side, anyway. I don’t know much about the Rivers side. Mr. Rivers had already passed on by the time I started workin’ here, and she didn’t talk much about his folks.”
“Huh.” Stone shrugged and hung his hat on the peg by the door. He didn’t bother to wash up; he hadn’t asked for a visitor, and he’d just worked a full day and expected to come home for his supper. Whoever this James person was could take Stone as he was or turn right around and go back to wherever he’d come from. “Well, let’s see what this is all about.” He looked at Luke hopefully. “Mind comin’ with me? You know I’m no good with meetin’ new folks.”
“If you want me to.” Luke glanced down at himself, and Stone imagined he was thinking he was unfit to meet new folks as well.
“If he expected to take supper with the president, he should have said he was comin’. This is our place. Hold your head up and be proud.” He patted Luke’s shoulder and headed toward the parlor.
“Your place,” Luke muttered from behind him, but there wasn’t time to debate the issue before they reached the parlor and this James fellow spotted them, dropping whatever he’d been looking at on the rolltop desk and smiling broadly at them.
“Dare I hope one of you fine gentlemen is my cousin Stone?” he asked, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. Stone noticed his skin was lily white, and there were no callouses on his slender fingers.
Stone frowned. “Fine gentleman” was a better description of this man with his fancy clothes and neatly combed hair. He was almost as tall as Stone but with a slender build, and Stone could see what had Mary’s knickers all knotted up. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, James had the type of elegant good looks that practically shouted “city slicker” to Stone. Still, he couldn’t be rude, since a man couldn’t help where he came from, and Stone nodded as he stepped forward.
“I’m Stone Harrison.” Stone clasped the man’s hand and shook it firmly, unsurprised to find James’ grip was weak and his skin as soft as it looked. “And you are?”
“James Rivers,” the man replied, flashing another charming smile. “I’m your cousin, albeit by marriage. My father and your aunt’s husband were brothers.”
“I see.” Stone frowned, not quite seeing how that made them related any more than any other two strangers, but city folk had different thoughts on things. “This is my foreman, Luke Reynolds. Luke ran the ranch for my aunt the last few years.”
“Nice to meet you.” Luke offered his hand, and James took it with less charm and enthusiasm.
“A pleasure,” James said tersely, before turning his attention back to Stone. “I apologize for not contacting you sooner. I would have written to inform you of my arrival, but you know how unreliable the post can be. Besides, family doesn’t stand on ceremony.”
Stone frowned, not caring for the way this James fellow seemed to dismiss Luke as though he wasn’t anyone important. “I wouldn’t know.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Ain’t had no family for a long time. What can I do for you, Mr. Rivers?”
“We’re family!” James spread his hands and smiled widely. “It’s a sad fact of life that the number of surviving family members dwindles as one grows older, and I’ve suffered too many losses of late. I’d like to cultivate strong relationships with those who remain, and that includes you, of course.”
“Me?” Stone wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He’d never had anyone seek him out to claim kinship with him before. Well, other than Priss leaving him the ranch, but that was different. “Oh. Well. That’s nice of you.” He glanced sidelong at Luke, looking for a clue as to how to react to this fine speech.
“Have you found a place to stay yet, Mr. Rivers?” Luke asked, sounding polite, but not the least bit warm and welcoming.
“Indeed I have not,” James replied, still looking at Stone. “I was hoping I might prevail upon my cousin to let
me stay here. It would make getting to know one another so much easier, don’t you think?”
Frankly, Stone would rather have let his “cousin” stay in town with everyone else who wasn’t a part of the ranch, but it would be powerfully rude to send him packing, and since Luke had asked the question, Stone felt like he had no choice at all.
“I suppose so. I’ll have Mary make up the front room and move Priss’s stuff to the housekeeper’s room.” He had no doubt Mary would be ecstatic about their unexpected guest, but Stone was certain she’d be the only one.
James gave him a quizzical look at that. “I remember there being a guest room. That’s where I stayed before. Has that changed?”
“I took that room when I moved in, since I felt wrong disturbin’ my aunt’s things.” Stone shrugged, refusing to elaborate. “Luke has the other room on the front, so unless you want Sarah’s old room by the kitchen, that’s about all we got.” He didn’t mention the foreman’s house, because he wasn’t going to say anything that might send Luke packing.
“Your foreman stays here?” James appeared on the verge of being scandalized. “Well, I hope you have him paying rent for the privilege, at least.”
“’Scuse me?” Stone’s jaw dropped as he stared at his supposed cousin, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Now look here, Mr. Rivers, I am willin’ to give you a chance on account of you claimin’ kinship, but you best be understandin’ how it works ’round here. A man who’s proved himself don’t have to pay for nothin’ in my book, and if it weren’t for Luke, there wouldn’t be a ranch. If you’re so keen on family, where were you when Priss was sick and needed help? I feel bad enough not bein’ here for her, and I didn’t even know I had an aunt. So you best be showin’ Luke the respect he deserves for doin’ more for Priss than her kin by blood or marriage ever did, or I’ll be takin’ back that invitation.” He stared at James, not blinking. He wasn’t going to listen to anyone badmouth Luke.