Читать книгу The Wildcatter - Peggy Nicholson - Страница 8

Eleven Years Earlier

IT WAS A RITUAL, some thirty summers old. Joe Wiggly would meet the boss up at the Big House half an hour past sunrise. He’d bring Tankersly his mount for the day—something half a hand too tall or a tad too rank for a man in his seventies, but then, that was the only sort of horse the boss would ride.

Seated astride his own sensible cow pony, the foreman of Suntop would smoke his first cigarette of the morning while he waited for the old man to walk out his front door.

When at last the door opened, always Ben Tankersly would stop short on his porch, as if stunned by first sight of this high-mountain valley. And to be sure, it was the finest view on Suntop Ranch—the biggest, richest cattle spread in all Southwest Colorado.

King of his own small kingdom, Tankersly would sweep his dark hooded eyes along the rolling meadows that sloped south, toward the distant main valley, invisible beyond the green flank of Suntop Mountain. Then he’d swing on his boot heel to inspect his eastern ramparts—a ten-mile-distant spur of the Trueheart Hills, which were low mountains, really, with big forested shoulders gashed by slabs of gray granite. The rising sun would be backlighting their craggy peaks with raw copper light.

From there Tankersly would draw a deep breath and swing north, toward the best view of all. The wild canyons and plateaus of the summer range, stair-stepping toward peaks high enough to scrape heaven—the San Juans, some fifty miles beyond. Already catching the sun, the lingering snow at their summits would be burning rose and gold in the clear mountain air.

On days when he had one of his pretty ladies in residence, Ben Tankersly would bounce out that front door to confront his view. As he stopped to survey his world, he’d be trying to rein in a dog-in-the-henhouse grin that kept breaking loose.

Days when there was no visitor to keep the family on its company manners, when one of Ben’s three hellion daughters had been kicking the slats out of her stall and busting through fences, Tankersly would bang out the door, to stand with his big chest heaving and his gnarled hands clenched, glaring at his kingdom—but not seeing it. Then he’d stomp down the wide fieldstone steps to Joe and the waiting horses, looking ready to chew barbed wire or curdle the milk.

Today was one of those days. Ben swung up on his too-big gelding, gave a grunt that meant “Let’s go” and shot away downhill toward the barns and pastures of the main valley.

Joe touched spurs to his mare and followed. Once they were loping along the dirt road, he stole a glance at his boss. After thirty years, neither of them would have presumed to call their relationship a friendship, but they understood each other.

“Risa,” growled Tankersly by way of explanation.

His eldest, the one with hair like a sunset aflame and eyes like a fawn tangled in a fence. Sweet as wildflower honey till you rubbed her wrong, which Ben often did, then it was hang on to your hat, cowboy. Joe had always been mighty fond of Risa. He’d missed her this past year, when she’d been away in the East at college.

She hadn’t hurried back home to them, either, come summer. Here it was mid-July and she’d arrived at Suntop only last evening. Joe had yet to see her himself, but word had got around. “I hear tell she has herself a beau,” he observed mildly.

“Huh—fiancé, she calls him. She’s wearing his ring. Diamond the size of a jackrabbit turd.”

Ben had never taken kindly to men courting his daughters. Which was pretty laughable, considering he’d have given his left nut for a grandson. At seventy-two, the old man seemed to have finally outgrown the notion of siring his own son, but he sure wanted himself a boy to raise. A boy to be the next heir to Suntop.

No suitors, no boy. But a wise man didn’t try to reason with Ben Tankersly. He might be as crafty as a lame coyote, but the owner of Suntop led with his heart, not his head. “Somebody she found back East?” Joe hazarded.

“Yep. A smooth-talking, limp-handed, self-satisfied snake of a Yalie lawyer.” Tankersly reined his big buckskin to a sliding halt. Nodding bleak approval at the cloud of dust thus raised, he patted the gelding’s glossy neck, then kneed him into a long walk. “Risa thinks the smilin’ scumsucker hung the moon.”

Joe fell in beside his boss again. “A lawyer.” Cattlemen liked lawyers about as much as rattlesnakes, jimson weed or big government.

“Denver stock, though why any man’d send his son east to college…” Tankersly’s growl died away to a mutter, probably as he remembered he’d sent Risa east.

Because she’d wanted to go west, Joe recalled. She’d wanted in the worst way to study film in Los Angeles, at the University of California. But Ben didn’t approve of actors or acting, and considering the way Risa’s mother had met her end, maybe he had a point. So he’d sent Risa against her will to Yale, and surprise, surprise, she’d paid him back with a Yalie lawyer.

“Well, if he’s a Denver boy, that’s not so bad,” Joe soothed. “Likely they’ll settle somewhere in state.” Denver was only an eight-hour drive to the northeast of Trueheart. Keeping Risa close to home would be good.

“Huh! You know what his old man does for a living? He’s a developer! Chops up useful ranchland into five-acre ranchettes. Has made himself two or three fortunes doin’ it.”

They’d rounded the base of Suntop, and now they paused on the crest of the ranch road to its south, overlooking the lower valley. Lush and green, the pastures spread out below them. The river rippled shallow and silver in the early light, then darkened where it deepened, plunging into a lacy line of cottonwoods that followed its meandering course down the valley. Beyond the foreman’s house, men and horses were stirring, moving between the corrals and the barns and the bunkhouse. A couple of dusty cars were climbing up from the distant county road—the hay crews assembling.

“Used to be a man measured himself by what he built,” Tankersly said softly, nodding at his world below. “Or if he didn’t build it himself—” Ben, after all, was the third of his line to hold Suntop; since the early 1880s this had been Tankersly land “—then he prided himself on holding something precious together. On expanding his holdings, improving his land, his stock. But nowadays seems a man measures himself by what he can tear down—a corporation…a ranch…a way of life.

“Ranchettes!” Tankersly spat into the long grass and rode on. “Risa’s brought us home a wrecker. A limp-wristed, stab-you-in-the-back-and-smile wrecker. I don’t call that breeding stock.”

Joe sighed to himself. Not a cloud in all the clear blue sky, but it was gonna be a stormy summer. Two mule-headed Tankerslys with opposing notions…

“You find a replacement for that boy?” Tankersly demanded, changing the subject abruptly. One of their haying crew had gashed his leg from knee to toe cutting hay yesterday. Joe had driven down into Trueheart last night, seeking a replacement.

“Nope.” Haying was sweat-soaked, backbreaking drudgery. And hardly the safest of jobs, with all that whirling machinery. He’d tried the bars in town, the general store, Mo’s Truckstop—and he’d come up dry. Only real prospect had been that young drifter in the Star, and he’d turned the job down flat. Which was probably just as well. A foreman got so he could smell trouble. Knew better than to invite it home.

“You tried the Lone Star?” growled Tankersly.

A roadhouse out on the highway to the south of Trueheart, the Lone Star was dear to the thirsty hearts of local cowboys, passing truckers and in-town rowdies. Surest place to find a cold brew, a hot woman or a knuckle-busting debate. Or a bum broke enough to consider haying till he’d made the price of his next bottle. “Did. There was one Tex-Mex kid…” Big enough to buck bales and old enough to hold his own with a rough haying crew.

Watching him from across the smoky room, Joe had figured the kid was trolling for a job, the way he struck up casual conversations with this group of cowboys or that. He handled himself well among strangers, casual but confident, neither cocky nor shy. He’d do, Joe had decided after sizing him up for a while. So he’d approached and asked the drifter if he was looking for work.

“Might be,” the kid had agreed pleasantly, with just the trace of a Texas drawl. “Where?”

Not doing what, but where. Now, that seemed sort of odd. “Ranch north of town,” Joe allowed, playing his cards close to his vest. “We’re one short on our haying crew. Just a summer job, but it pays pretty well. Plus bunk and board if you want it.”

“Haying.” The young man’s excellent teeth flashed for a second; he knew about haying. His chin jerked in the start of a “No,” then he paused. “On what ranch?”

“Suntop.” Really no reason not to tell him. Still, something wasn’t ringing true here.

“The biggest outfit in these parts.”

So the stranger had made it his business to learn that much. “And the best.”

“So I hear. But no, thank you.”

Something just a little too polite and formal for a Texan in his manner, and he cut his o’s short and soft. Mexican somewhere in his background? He was a big, rawboned, good-looking kid, maybe mid twenties, maybe older than Joe had first thought. But seen close up, this one had the eyes of a seasoned man and poise to match. He smiled now as Joe stood perplexed; tipping his head in the faintest of farewells, he swung away.

Joe covered his dismissal by ambling off to the men’s. When he came back to the room, the kid was standing a round of drinks for some of the Kristopherson crew. Trolling for a date instead of a job? Somehow Joe didn’t think so. The ledge of rock under the manners suggested far otherwise.

But then, what the Sam Hill’s he after? Whatever, Joe was still one down on the haying crew. Settling his hat to a determined angle, he’d walked out the door, bound for Mo’s.

“Didn’t find a soul,” the foreman repeated now glumly as they rode into the ranch yard and reined in to sit watching. Eyes shifted their way, then skated on by. A few hat brims dipped half an inch in laconic salute, but everyone went on about his business, as good hands should. Down at the horse barn a brawny young cowboy strode out of the tack room, toting a saddle toward a hipshot gray tied to the hitching rack. “So I reckon I’ll tap Jake there for the hay fields ’fore he rides out.” Joe shot a sly sideways glance at Tankersly. “’Less you want to loan me Risa’s new sweetheart? Maybe he’d like to try his hand bucking bales.”

Tankersly snorted. “The way a pig loves to tap-dance, he would!” He looked automatically back toward the Big House, then stiffened. “And speak of the devil, here he—they come. Didn’t figure that one would roll out of bed before noon.”

But Tankersly’s eldest daughter would not have graced the lawyer’s bed, Joe figured privately. Not by chance was Ben’s master bedroom situated between the wing of the Big House that housed his family and the wing that held guests—welcome or otherwise. To tiptoe past the boss’s door on the way to one of his cherished daughters would take balls of clanging brass. So, likely Risa and her man were up early, seeking a safer place for canoodling.

The little red sports convertible—Joe didn’t bother with the names of cars—stopped as it reached the yard. Its top was down, but the foreman didn’t waste a glance on the driver. With a wide grin, he sidestepped his mare over to the passenger side.

Risa threw off her seat belt and stood, hanging on to the top of the windshield. “Joe! Oh, Joe, you look wonderful!” She laid a smacking kiss on his leathery cheek as he swept off his straw hat and leaned in close to collect it. “Lord, I missed you!” Her big golden eyes were starry with tears, though she was smiling to beat the band.

Joe blinked frantically and jammed his hat down over his nose to hide his own swimming eyes. “It’s you that was missed,” he said gruffly. And she’d come back prettier than ever, it seemed, though thinner than he cared to see. “Didn’t even visit us for Christmas!”

“By December I was just getting over being homesick,” she protested, laughing as she patted his wiry forearm. “I didn’t dare risk stirring it up again. Another round would have killed me. That was before I met— Oh!”

She glanced around at her driver, then knelt on the edge of her seat so he could see past her. “Joe, this is Eric Foster, my…” The color rose in her heart-shaped face and she tipped up her chin as if she expected resistance—and likely she’d had a wagonload of that already. “My fiancé. We’re engaged.” She presented her left hand for Joe’s inspection, slender fingers arching in one of those graceful girly gestures that a man couldn’t have made in a thousand years.

The stone was not quite as big as Ben had described, but twice as gaudy. Still, Joe would leave disapproval to her daddy. “Very nice. And pleased t’meet you.” He nodded graciously to Risa’s young man.

“And you,” agreed the blond, movie-star-handsome youngster—without a trace of real warmth. His hands were fixed firmly to the steering wheel; though with a bit of a reach, he could have shaken Joe’s hand. “Risa, could you please sit down,” he added coolly. “Unless you want everyone staring at you.”

“I…” She slid abruptly into her seat, her smile fading for a moment before it rallied. “Sorry.”

She was taking that from this puffed-up young rooster? Their Risa of a year ago would have tweaked his long, haughty nose and bounded out of that fancy car without bothering to open the door. So this was what they taught a girl back East? Polished the grit right out of her? Joe’s gaze met Ben’s over the width of the convertible.

The boss man had ridden up close on the lawyer’s side. “You’ve just arrived and you’re off again already?” he demanded of Risa.

She had spunk enough to spare for her daddy, if not the fiancé. “We’re driving down to Mesaverde. Just for the day.”

“I’m fascinated by Anasazi ruins,” added the boyfriend, putting the shine on for Ben that he hadn’t for the hired man. “And with Risa to give me the tour, how could I resist?”

“I was thinking you might like to help us out ’round Suntop, today,” Ben said, poker-faced, though his eyes were as intent as a coyote’s at a gopher hole. “Seems we’ve lost one of our haying crew. Could sure use a hand. And it’d give you a taste of real ranch work.” That is, if you plan to be part of the family, was the unspoken challenge.

The lawyer’s wide, slick smile didn’t waver. “Gee, I’d really enjoy that, Ben!” He shook his head regretfully. “But I’m a martyr to hay fever. Once I start sneezing… That’s one of the reasons I thought it might be wise to spend the day off-ranch. Give my nose a break.”

“Huh.” Ben straightened in his saddle and fixed his shrewd eyes on his daughter. “Then you two be back by suppertime, princess, you hear me?”

Foster laid a hand on her knee as he cut in smoothly, “We’ll certainly try.”

Speaking for her, as if she had no mind of her own. Joe didn’t like it a bit, as he tipped his brim to Risa and smiled her on her way. She brushed her blowing, sunset hair from her cheeks and waved back at him, then to her father. Then she turned forward to call a greeting to this hand or that as the convertible threaded through the bustling yard.

“Hay fever,” Joe said quietly, looking after them.

“See what I mean?” Ben spat in the dirt again. “Can the girl pick ’em or what? You know what he asked me at dinner last night? How much land I have here!”

“He did?” That was the worst kind of manners. You knew how much land a man owned you knew his worth close to the penny. Might as well ask to see his bank book.

“Let a bad ’un like that into your breeding stock,” Tankersly fumed, “and you’ll be culling out his knock-kneed, greedy get for the next four generations!”

But try to tell a woman what to do. Joe had never had any luck at that, and neither, for all his land and wealth and sheer cussedness, had Ben Tankersly. Risa would follow her wistful heart, even if it led her straight on to heartbreak.

And ain’t it a cryin’ shame? Joe jammed his old straw down over his nose and rode off to spoil somebody else’s day—Jake’s, he decided. And if he heard one peep about hay fever…