by Ari McKay
Stone frowned and crouched next to the fallen post, lifting up the broken end. He ran his finger along the crosswise part of the break, which was smooth along one side before becoming the normal, jagged spikes one expected from broken wood. “Sort of looks like it was cut part way, don’t it?”
Luke nodded. “That’s what I thought, but I wanted another opinion. Question is, if we’re right, who would want to damage the fence? None of the other ranchers ’round here bear any grudges, so far as I know.”
“Maybe rustlers who want to make it look like ain’t nothin’ been rustled.” Stone dropped the post and moved to the next one, which looked the same. As he stood, Luke saw his expression was thunderous, and his brows were drawn together above eyes that held cold anger. “Cattle thieves think ranchers are stupid and lazy and won’t look past the ends of their noses. Well, if they tried it once, they’ll try it again. We need to send the men out to ride the fence and check for cuts elsewhere before we lose more cattle.”
“Maybe we ought to set a regular patrol,” Luke suggested. “Just in case they try again.”
“Good idea.” Stone nodded and looked at the hands, who were starting to unload new posts from the wagon. “Shorty! I want you to ride back and tell the rest of the hands to drop what they’re doin’. Send four to move the cattle into the lower pasture, and the rest can start ridin’ the fence line, looking for damage.”
“Right, boss.” Shorty touched the brim of his hat before mounting and heading off.
Stone turned back to Luke. “I need to tell the other ranchers in the area, too.” He frowned again, as he thought of something. “Unless whoever did this was goin’ after us in particular.”
“I don’t see why they would,” Luke replied, shaking his head. “It must be rustlers, like you said.”
“Yeah. Must be.” Stone rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I’m just feelin’ put upon, after spendin’ the mornin’ with my ‘cousin’.” He rolled his eyes as he said the word. “Seems like he brought bad luck with him as well as civilization.”
Luke tried to look properly sympathetic, but wasn’t sure how well he managed it. He didn’t envy Stone having to spend the whole morning with that annoying dandy, but he was very glad he had the excuse of work to get him out of the house.
“I don’t suppose he said anything about the duration of his visit?”
“No, damn it.” Stone looked disgusted. “I mentioned he might be more comfortable headin’ back to Boston, but that man can’t take a hint. He just said he rather liked roughin’ it.”
Luke grimaced, disheartened by that bad news. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier to put up with him if we knew when he was leavin’.”
“Yeah. But the women in town don’t feel the same way. You should have seen him smilin’ at the ladies and kissin’ hands like he was royalty. They ate it up with a spoon. The only good thing was he came away with enough dinner invites to last him two weeks.”
“That’s good!” Luke was willing to take any respite from Dandy Jim he could get, and if the ladies of Serenity could tolerate him better, well, Luke would be glad to chuck him in their midst without a qualm. “Maybe Mrs. Wilson’ll latch onto him.”
“Maybe, though I wouldn’t wish that man on sweet little Agnes. ’Course, she’s probably too smart to be taken in by his fancy talk.” He pushed his hat back on his head. “Well, I guess we should get to work mendin’ this fence. I’ll leave it with you to set up patrols. If we need to hire more hands to cover it until fall, that’s fine. We don’t want to lose any more head before we can get them to market.”
“No, we don’t.” Luke didn’t like big losses, especially not preventable ones. “I’ll get right on the patrol schedule. Remind me to tell you about an idea I had earlier,” he added, deciding he would bring up the horse breeding idea after all. He had practice with tracking bloodlines; he’d been doing it informally for the horses born and bred on the ranch since Priss realized he had an interest in such things. “It might be time to think about movin’ away from cattle.”
Stone gave him a questioning look. “Is that so? I’ll be interested in hearin’ what that’s all about. But let’s talk about it away from the city slicker. That man is about as nosy as Mrs. Wilson.”
“You won’t get no argument out of me. I don’t like the idea of him hearin’ anything either,” Luke agreed firmly. He wasn’t sure why he distrusted James Rivers as well as disliked him, but he’d learned to depend on his instincts. “He ain’t nothin’ like Priss, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t take them for family if I didn’t know different.”
“They ain’t blood kin, and I suppose he wasn’t around her enough for good sense to rub off on him.” Stone began to roll up his sleeves. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’m goin’ to stay until we get this done.”
Luke nodded and touched the brim of his hat. “Yes, sir. I’ll make sure the men start patrollin’ as soon as possible. If we need any extra hands, I’ll have an estimate about how many ready for you when you get back.”
He saw a flicker cross Stone’s face at the “sir,” but Stone simply nodded. “Right. And don’t wait dinner. I don’t want Dandy Jim to miss a meal and have cause to complain.”
“I’ll treat him as good as gold,” Luke said dryly.
“Don’t overdo it.” Stone turned and headed to the wagon, lifting a large fence post out of the back by himself and carrying it over to where a couple of hands were working the broken end of a post out of the ground.
Luke couldn’t help but watch, allowing himself the little luxury of admiring the display of strength and the play of muscles in Stone’s arms. He felt a flare of heat in response to the sight, and he turned away and headed quickly back to Mist. There wasn’t any point to looking when he couldn’t touch, and he wasn’t fool enough to torture himself over something he couldn’t have.
15
STONE was dead tired by the time he accompanied the rest of the hands back to the stable, but he took time to care for Raider and thank his men for their hard work before dragging himself to the house. It was well after dark, so he wasn’t surprised when he entered through the kitchen and found supper had already been cleaned up and put away.
He went to the sink and pumped the handle to set the water flowing, and then he dunked his head under it, gasping at the chill. Mary always left towels in reach, so he mopped himself up before going to the icebox to see what was left from supper.
“You’re safe.” Luke’s voice came from behind him, startling him. “Dandy Jim went upstairs to take a bath. Apparently, he don’t hold to our primitive ways, and he wants bath water heated up more’n once a week.”
“That’s a lot of bathin’ for a man who don’t look like he ever did a lick of work in his life,” Stone replied. He pulled out a piece of ham and carried it over to the counter to make himself a sandwich. “We got the fence patched. Shorty said there didn’t seem to be no more breaks.”
“Good.” Luke nodded, appearing satisfied with that news. “I got a patrol schedule written up and posted in the bunkhouse, and I went over it aloud, too, so those who can’t read know when it’s their turn to go out. If the rustlers try to hit the ranch again, we’ll catch them right quick.”
“Let’s just hope they’ve moved on.” Stone put his sandwich on a plate, poured a cup of coffee, and took a seat at the table with a weary sigh. “I’ll need to go into town tomorrow and report to the sheriff, so he can be on the lookout. The cattle were branded, but rustlers ain’t goin’ to sell to anybody who cares about that. We’ll have to write it off as a loss unless some miracle happens.”
“Yeah.” Luke sighed, and after a moment of visible hesitation, he sat down opposite Stone. “It may be time to cut back on sellin’ cattle anyway. Beef prices have been droppin’ the last few years, and it just ain’t as profitable as it used to be.”
Stone swallowed a bite of his sandwich and washed it down with coffee as he thought that over. “True enough. I even heard Mr. Steve
nson sayin’ last year he was worried about too many head on the market. So what is this idea you mentioned? But I warn you, if you say pig farmin’, I’m goin’ to pretend I didn’t hear it.”
Luke smiled a little at that, and he shook his head. “Nah, I ain’t much interested in that myself. I was thinkin’ more along the lines of breedin’ horses. Folks need them for pullin’ buggies and ridin’, and racin’s gettin’ real popular, too.”
“Horse breedin’?” Stone frowned in thought. Good horses did command a lot of money, but it took a lot more care in breeding and raising them than it did cattle, and you couldn’t raise as many. “Well, it’s a thought, but it’s not like we could switch overnight. How could we breed enough to match what we make on beef, even if the price drops?”
“We don’t have to give up cattle completely,” Luke replied, seeming to grow more animated as he warmed up to the subject. “Just cut back so it ain’t our only source of income. We could make a plan and breed more horses and less cattle over the next few years so the change ain’t all sudden like. I’ve got bloodline records on the horses we already own. I’ve been in charge of the breedin’ for a while,” he added with obvious pride.
“Have you, now?” Stone was impressed with the work Luke had done. He’d known Priss had put an awful lot of trust in Luke, but apparently, she’d had even more confidence in him than he’d thought. “Was this somethin’ you and Priss had been plannin’ before she died?”
“Nah, it’s just somethin’ I’ve always had an interest in. She didn’t mind me takin’ over the breedin’ for the ranch ’cause I knew what I was doin’, and I got good results. Beef was sellin’ so well, though, so we never talked about breedin’ horses for more than just our own use. But that’s how we got Mist and the rest of the grays.”
Stone ate the rest of his sandwich as he mulled it over, weighing the pros and cons. He didn’t know near enough about raising horses for market, but what Luke said made a lot of sense. If the price of beef fell a lot, they’d have something to fall back on other than just the mine, which didn’t produce nearly enough to support the whole ranch and pay all the hands, plus the taxes.
“It seems like a good idea,” he said. More than that, he’d not seen Luke so pleased about anything since their quarrel, and he couldn’t bring himself to deny Luke something that made him happy and want to stay on the ranch. “Sure, go ahead and get started, so long as we don’t have to lay out a lot of money right at the start. We’re committed to the cattle this year, anyway, but we can see how much we make when we go to market and then figure out what to do by the time winter comes. And we’ll talk about how much more land we’d have to turn over to hayin’. That suit?”
“Yes, sir.” Luke’s smile widened, and an anticipatory light appeared in his eyes, as if he was already making plans.
Stone suppressed a sigh as Luke called him “sir” again, and he rose from the table to take his cup and plate to the sink. He was glad to have made Luke happy, but he knew there probably wasn’t anything he could do that would bring back the easy, carefree Luke he’d first met, and that gave him a pang every time he thought about it.
A loud clatter followed by a crash from outside startled Stone out of his morose train of thought.
“What in the hell?” Stone turned and ran for the door, yanking it open and jumping down the stairs as he ran in the direction of the noise.
Luke followed close on his heels, looking around wildly for the source. There were shouts from the bunkhouse as well, and several of the hands ran out, holding lanterns.
“Over here!” Stone heard the shout from behind the stable, and he veered in that direction, skidding to a halt and staring in dismay as the lanterns revealed what had happened.
A twisted mass of broken wood and metal lay at the foot of the windmill, where the bladed head had come off and crashed to the ground below. Stone stared at this fresh catastrophe in disbelief. “Now how in the hell did that happen?”
“Maybe somethin’ came loose.” Luke looked down at the wreckage with growing dismay. “Oh hell, this is goin’ to be expensive.”
“I take it we don’t have an extra one in the barn.”
Luke shook his head somberly, his expression letting Stone know exactly how serious the situation was. “No, we can’t even get a replacement in town. We’ll have to send someone to Reno.”
“Damn.” Stone wanted to grind his teeth in frustration. The last few days had been bad, and he hoped there were no more nasty surprises waiting to jump out at him. The hands were subdued, and he knew he had to act decisively to keep their spirits up, since they knew the fortunes of the ranch could affect their livelihood. “Well, I guess that means someone’s gettin’ a free trip to Reno.” He looked at the assembled men and made a quick decision, choosing two of the hands he knew could be trusted to resist the urge to drink and carouse. “Brent, Dave, I want you to take the buckboard and head to Reno tomorrow mornin’. You’ll need to stay the night, but I need you back the day after with that blade head.”
“Yes, boss,” Dave acknowledged, and Stone nodded, knowing he would do as he was told.
Stone looked at Luke. “Do you need to go with ’em? I almost hate to let you do it, just in case any other disasters crop up here. I can’t be in two places at once.”
“I probably should,” Luke replied. “I know what to get, and it’ll be easier for me to pay for it if we need to use credit at the bank.”
“Right.” Stone raked his fingers through his hair. “Well, no sense worryin’ about this mess tonight. In the mornin’, before you go, we’ll check to make sure nothin’ in the gearbox was damaged,” He gave Luke a sour look. “If I were a suspicious man, I’d say you were goin’ just to get away from Dandy Jim for a couple of days.”
“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,” Luke said dryly.
“Sure it didn’t.” Stone gave him a dubious look, and then raised his voice. “Okay, everyone go on back inside. We had a hard day today, and looks like everyone’ll need their rest for tomorrow.”
With that, he turned and headed back toward the house. He was beginning to understand why some of the ranchers he’d worked for had looked old before their time.
16
AFTER the problems of the past couple of days, Luke counted himself lucky indeed that nothing went wrong on the trip to Reno. They didn’t get waylaid, the part was available, and neither Brent nor Dave made fools of themselves. Well, not fools enough that Luke had to bail them out of jail, at least. He let them have a night out, but he remained at the hotel; he didn’t much care what kind of entertainments the big city offered, and he didn’t want to put a damper on Dave and Brent’s good time.
The part was expensive enough, but Priss had set the example of always putting aside funds for emergencies, and Luke reckoned this counted as such. He was glad he’d carried on her habit and convinced Stone it was a good idea as well, because they’d already lost cattle, and it was just the beginning of the season; there would be more inevitable losses from disease and predators before the market.
In hindsight, he supposed he ought to have known something would happen the way their luck had been running at the ranch lately, and he felt a growing sense of foreboding as he regarded the somber faces of the men clustered just outside the barn as he, Dave, and Brent rode up. He dismounted quickly and handed Mist’s reins to the nearest stable hand, and he approached Shorty, dreading whatever bad news he was about to hear.
“What happened? Did more cattle get out?”
“If only that was it!” Shorty turned to Luke, and Luke could see the anxiety in his eyes. “It’s Mr. Harrison. We was goin’ to ride out to the mine to check on the shipment due to go out, and when he went to mount Raider, that horse went plumb crazy. Mr. Harrison only had one foot in the stirrups, and Raider reared back and threw him. It weren’t Raider’s fault, neither, because I found a burr under his blanket when I unsaddled him.” Burrs were a fact of life, and one under the saddle could cause
a horse a lot of pain. Shorty shook his head and swallowed hard. “It looked like a bad fall. We got him in the house, and Charlie rode to fetch Doc Wilson. The doc’s inside now, but he told us to wait out here. Can you find out what’s happenin’, Luke? We’re all worried.”
Luke felt like all of his insides were frozen, and he swallowed hard, trying not to let his rising panic show in front of the hands. For all his grumbling about Stone revealing too much, he was on the verge of doing the same thing, and he couldn’t afford that luxury. Instead, he nodded, trying to appear calm and reassuring for the men.
“I’ll do that.” He patted Shorty’s shoulder. And he meant it. No one was going to stand in the way of him finding out what had happened and more importantly, if Stone was all right.
His jaw set, he strode toward the big house and went inside, heading straight for the stairs. No doubt they’d taken Stone up to his bedroom, and Luke took the steps two at a time. The bedroom door was open, and Luke stopped on the threshold, peering inside anxiously.
“What’s goin’ on, Doc?” he asked in a hushed voice.
Doc Wilson was a solid, gray-haired man who’d birthed or buried many of the folks in Serenity. He glanced back over his shoulder and grunted when he recognized Luke. He was blocking Luke’s view of the bed, but he moved aside and beckoned Luke to come in.
Stone was lying beneath a sheet, looking paler than Luke had ever seen him. There was a bandage wrapped around his head and another around his bare chest. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be breathing more shallowly than Luke thought proper.
“He’s mighty lucky,” the doctor said, keeping his voice low. “I got him on laudanum right now to keep him still and dull the pain. He’s cracked a couple of ribs, but lucky for him, he’s got a head as hard as his name. That fall rang his bell pretty good, but I don’t think he’s broken his skull or scrambled his brains overmuch.”