Deborah Camp (19 page)

“Sure,” she answered easily. “But not as much as I want to know. Late last night Drew spotted some cattle rustlers, but they had handkerchiefs tied across their faces, so he couldn’t identify them. Anyway, the cattle was from the Bar Q, like you heard.”

“What have you done with the cattle?” the sheriff asked.

“I imagine they’re almost home by now. Drew left with them early this morning. He’s taking them back where they belong and reporting the theft to Will Quentin.”

The sheriff glanced at his deputies. Cassie felt a ripple of surprise pass from one to another.

“Why didn’t he report the theft to me?” Sheriff Nelson asked.

“He wanted to be the one who told Quentin what he saw,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Drew has had trouble like this before, you know, and he’s rightly concerned. He knows Will Quentin, and he felt he should talk to him man to man about the theft. After all, Drew sure doesn’t want Quentin to think he had anything to do with it, although that’s what the thief certainly had in mind.” She paused, looking from one lawman to the next. “Doesn’t take a genius to see that somebody is trying to get Drew thrown back into prison.”

“That’s what you think, huh?” Sheriff Nelson peered down at her, his broad shoulders blocking the setting sun.

“That’s what I know,” she retorted, glad her tone was solid and without a quaver. “Ever since A.J. died, I’ve
had vultures circling around me. Everybody wants me to sell my land. Even Drew, at first. But now me and him are partners. That has somebody worried, and that somebody is trying to break up the partnership so I’ll be on my own again.” She didn’t like the word, but she spoke it through gritted teeth. “Vulnerable.”

Sheriff Nelson glanced from one of his deputies to the other, then shrugged. “As long as those cows are returned, I see no problem here.”

“Except that somebody took them and left them here on the Square D. I hope you sniff them out before they cause more grief for us,” Cassie said, moving back from the three men on horseback. “You’ll let me know if you catch them, won’t you?”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Dalton. If anything like this happens again, you be sure to get word to me.”

“I’ll do that,” she promised.

The lawmen reined their mounts and rode away at a trot, but Cassie figured they’d snoop around a bit more on her land before they headed for Abilene.

“You and Drew are partners, huh?” T-Bone asked, cutting his eyes sideways at her.

“Sort of. Yeah.” She shrugged. “No use fighting over the land when we both deserve stakes in it.”

“You trust him?”

She gave another shrug. “’Bout as much as I trust anybody.”

“That ain’t saying much.”

“You got that right,” she rejoined with a smirk.

“Y’all don’t think Drew stole them cows, do you?” Gabe asked, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

“No, we don’t,” Cassie answered for everyone concerned. “And if I hear otherwise, I’ll be as mad as a
wet hen. We’ve got to stick together on this.” She looked out at the shadows stretching across the grassy acres, like black stains. “Somebody wants this land mighty bad, and until we know who, we’ve got to watch our backs.” She turned and headed for the house. “I sure hope Drew watches his,” she murmured under her breath.

T
he next day Cassie worked with T-Bone in the branding pen. By midafternoon she was covered with dirt from head to foot as she wrestled a fat calf to the ground and held it while T-Bone pressed hot iron to its hip.

The stench of scorched hide choked her and her eyes watered as she let go of the bawling calf. The little doggie gave a kick that grazed Cassie’s chin before she could duck out of the way.

“Ow, damn it!” She covered her stinging skin and thought for a moment she might cry. Swatting at the galloping calf, she turned away from T-Bone so he wouldn’t see her discomfort.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice low and monotone.

“Yes. Dagburned cow kicked me.”

“Yeah, they do that if you don’t get out of their way. Can’t blame them.”

“I can if I want,” she said, hearing the petulance in her voice and hating it. She looked across the land, something she’d done countless times since yesterday after Drew had left for the Bar Q. She saw a rider and
her heart bucked, but in the next instant she recognized Gabe’s loose-limbed posture atop his stocky mustang. He was supposed to be herding more cattle to the pen, but there wasn’t a cow in sight. “Will you look at that pea-brain? Here he comes riding like he’s racing the Devil instead of working cattle, which is what I pay him to do.”

“Maybe something’s wrong.”

Cassie’s heart bucked again, this time with fear. As Gabe reined in his snorting horse, Cassie hurried to the fence.

“Is it Drew? What’s happened to him? Tell me!” she demanded, her voice pitched high with alarm. She grabbed Gabe’s boot in the stirrup and shook it.

“Drew? What about him?” Gabe slid off his horse. “Did y’all hear something?”

“Nope.” T-Bone came to stand beside Cassie. He laid a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “We thought you might have heard something since you’re riding in here like your tail’s on fire when you’re supposed to be bringing us some more cows to brand.”

“Uh… oh, yeah.” Gabe removed his hat and scratched at his thatch of unruly hair. “I’ll go back and get them. I saw Monroe Hendrix and I forgot… Anyway, I guess the sheriff told Hendrix about the rustled cows from the Bar Q, ‘cause that’s all he had on his mind. Told me he’s hired a sharpshooter.”

Cassie felt T-Bone’s scrutiny, but she ignored him. She figured he suspected that she was having certain feelings for Drew Dalton. Her actions just now had given her away, and she wished she had exercised more restraint. Her two cowhands were terrible gossips, and
she cringed when she thought of what they might say to Drew about her panic on his behalf.

“A sharpshooter?” T-Bone repeated with a squint. “What the hell for?”

“To kill anybody who tries to take Star H cattle,” Gabe said, his eyes round with excitement.

“I wish the sheriff would keep his trap shut.” Cassie crossed her arms on the top fence rail and rested her smarting chin on them.

“He’s got to let other ranchers know what’s going on, so they can protect their herds,” T-Bone said, climbing up to sit on the rail and roll himself a smoke. “That’s what he’s hired to do.”

“I wonder if he knows about Roe hiring a sharpshooter and taking the law into his own hands,” Cassie said, looking to Gabe.

“Yeah, he knows. Hendrix said the sheriff thought it was a good idea.”

Cassie released a groan of exasperation. “A good idea? Well, if that don’t beat all. I think Drew and Roe are blustering bulls who should pull in their horns and set a trap instead of pawing and bellowing and shooting everything that moves.”

“What kind of trap?” Gabe asked.

“If we’d work together, we could patrol our borders and maybe catch the rustlers some night. Roe’s got… what, twenty hands?”

“More’n that,” T-Bone said, blowing blue smoke from his cigarette. “I’d say he’s hired thirty men. Wouldn’t you, Gabe?”

Gabe nodded. “He hired four new ones a couple of weeks ago. He’s looking for more and says he’s going
to add to his herd. Wants to be a real cattle baron, like them ones in Texas.”

Cassie nodded, recalling the ride home from the barn dance, when Monroe had told her about the wealth he’d seen while visiting a few ranchers in Texas last year.

“He’ll have to change his ways,” T-Bone said. “Problem with Hendrix is that he wants to be a cattle baron without raising good cattle. I reckon the past few years his herd has improved some, but they still don’t bring top dollar.”

“Yeah, they’re mostly scrawny,” Gabe agreed. “Comes from years and years of him not paying enough attention to the breeding program. I think that’s why he’s all lathered up about this rustling business. He’s afraid some of his improved herd will be taken and he’ll be back to where he started.”

“We’re all lathered up about the rustling,” Cassie said.

“Now, who’s that coming?” T-Bone asked, straightening his back as he stretched to look across the land at an approaching horse and buggy.

“I don’t recognize that rig,” Cassie said. “It’s not Roe.”

“Looks like a woman driver,” T-Bone said.

“A woman?” Cassie slipped through the rails in the fence and waited for the buggy to draw closer. She didn’t recognize the woman dressed in a light shade of purple until she was reining the old bay horse. “Oh, lord,” she whispered. “It’s Viola Danforth.”

“Lawrence Danforth’s widow?” Gabe asked.

“That’s her,” Cassie said. “Betcha she’s come here on a husband hunt.”

That made Gabe and T-Bone both hunch their shoulders
as if they were trying to make themselves less conspicuous. Cassie laughed at them.

“Don’t worry, fellas. I believe she’s here to impress Drew,” she said, still whispering, so as not to be heard by the woman who was now climbing down from the buggy. “The widow Danforth would be wanting herself a ranch
owner
, not a ranch
hand
.”

“Guess we’d better round up some more heifers,” Gabe said, already moving toward his horse.

“Yeah, guess so,” T-Bone said. “I’ll ride with you.”

“Y’all go on, slinking off with your tails between your legs,” Cassie hissed at them, then turned toward Viola and forced a smile of greeting to her stiff lips. “Howdy, there, Viola. What you got there?” she asked, eyeing the wicker basket covered with a checked cloth.

Viola Danforth was a comely woman with her raven-black hair with one large streak of white right down the center of her head. She had green eyes and an aristocratic air. Everyone knew that she’d married Lawrence Danforth for money, not love, just like everyone knew that Cassie had married A.J. because he’d advertised for a wife. Viola’s marriage hadn’t lasted long and had produced no children when Lawrence was kicked in the head by a bull and died instantly, leaving his ranch to his brother, George, much to Viola’s aggravation.

“Oh, I cooked up a little something.” Viola glanced around, obviously looking for someone in particular. “Fried chicken, apple pie, honey nut bread.”

“Somebody sick around here? Somebody have a baby?” Cassie asked, pretending not to understand Viola’s intention.

“What?” Viola focused on Cassie for the first time. “Oh, no. I was … This is to welcome home Mr. Dalton.”

“Mr. Datlon!”
Cassie arched her brows and gave Viola a speculative look. “He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

“He isn’t here?” Viola glanced in the direction T-Bone and Gabe had ridden. “Is he out on the range? I can wait—”

“He’s gone on business. Won’t be back until late tonight or tomorrow morning.”

Viola’s face fell like unleavened bread. “Oh.” She stared at the basket she held, shrugged, and shoved it at Cassie. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Cassie took the offering. “I’ll tell him you brought him some food. Of course, we feed him regular around here, you know.”

“Yes, but… well, my fried chicken is legendary.” Viola’s green gaze moved slowly over Cassie, and her lips thinned in distaste. “What
have
you been doing?”

Suddenly Cassie felt like mule droppings. Looking down at her dirty clothes and knowing that her face was probably grimy, she wished for a tub of water to jump into. Her chin throbbed where the calf had kicked her, and she wondered if it might be turning blue or even swelling. She didn’t dare touch the spot, not wanting to draw Viola’s attention to it.

“I’ve been… that is, we … branding,” she finally said, the words sticking to the roof of her mouth. “We’re branding today.”

“I see.” Viola flicked a dandelion tuft from her sleeve. “My ranch hands see to that.”

Cassie bristled, resenting Viola’s air. “Our situations are different. George runs the Danforth spread, and
I’m
the boss of this one.” She tucked her thumbs under her belt as she’d seen men do hundreds of times. “I
wouldn’t ask my ranch hands to do anything I’m not willing to do myself.”

“Now that Mr. Dalton’s home, I should think he’d be running things around here.”

“Him being here hasn’t changed anything,” Cassie said, but the lie was too bitter on her tongue, and she had to sweeten it with truth. “Except that we’re partners.”

“Partners?” Viola arched her perfectly shaped brows. “That’s generous of him.”

“What’s that mean?”

“This ranch is his.” Viola made a grand gesture, her gloved hand graceful and sweeping. “It’s generous of him to share it with you.”

“The way I have it figured, this ranch belongs as much to my son as it does to Drew. They’re both offspring of A. J. Dalton.”

Viola gave a sniff, dismissing Cassie’s reasoning. “I don’t approve of how Mr. Dalton is being viewed now that he’s home. I say if the court has found him innocent, then he is innocent. I wanted to let him know that he has a friend in me.”

Cassie forced a smile. “I’ll be sure to tell him.”

“And tell him I will call again.” She moved to the buggy. “I believe in being a good neighbor.”

Cassie pressed her lips together to keep from reminding Viola that she hadn’t been interested in being such a good neighbor until Drew Dalton had showed up again.

“Did you know Drew before he was packed off to prison?” she asked as Viola settled herself on the padded buggy seat.

“No. I wasn’t raised around here. I lived in Maryland before I came to Kansas to visit my aunt and uncle in the next county. I met Lawrence at a dance during that visit and decided to marry him.”

Cassie was struck by a devilish idea that made her fight back a face-splitting grin. “Viola, you should pay a neighborly visit to Monroe Hendrix. He would surely appreciate getting a basket of chicken from you.”

From her perch Viola gazed down her nose at Cassie. “Mr. Hendrix doesn’t need my attentions when he has yours. Everyone is wondering when you two will marry.”

Cassie felt every drop of blood drain from her face. “You can tell everyone that there won’t be a marriage. Monroe is a neighbor and a friend. That’s all.”

Viola’s smile was indulgent. “You don’t have to get huffy, Cassie. I would think you’d be flattered to have a fine man like Mr. Hendrix sweet on you.”