Widow Woman (9 page)

"I'd think that would be obvious,” she said stiffly. “I need the money. The Circle T needs the money."

"How much?"

"Wh-what?"

He stepped forward, closing within easy arm's length. She had a sudden vision of his hands going around her neck, only they didn't choke her. They caressed her skin, drawing her closer to him, to that harsh line of his mouth.

"How much do you need?"

His demand freed her from the vision as abruptly as he had released Hams. “That isn't the issue. I don't—"

"I'll give you the damn money."

Shocked, she stared at him for three long heartbeats. Then she found her voice, though it sounded stiff. “That's very generous of you, but I can't accept. It wouldn't—"

"Pride?” He made the word a sneer. “You can't afford pride."

Each word struck a stinging blow, but even as she felt them, she had the impression that the lashes of his words fell with much greater weight on his own soul. He was punishing himself, even as he spoke the words to her, she was certain of that. Though why he inflicted this punishment on either one of them she had no idea.

"I won't accept money from you, Nick,” she repeated, slightly dazed by the ferocity of his cold anger.

"Your pride will be your downfall. You can't breed good horses if you sell your stock."

"I have to sell some to keep going with the others.” The logical, reasonable words clearly had no impact on the man standing so close she could see the throb of his pulse under the bronze skin at his temple, could feel the heat of his anger, could hear the rasp of his breath as a word she couldn't make out slid over his lips. His dark eyes were flat and lifeless. It was as if his mind had left her and dwelled somewhere distant and chilling.

"How could you leave anything you cared for in the hands of a man like that?"

Such seething accusation swelled beneath the words that she recoiled.

"I didn't know what he'd do to Fanny. How could I?"

"You should have. Goddammit, you should have known."

He pushed past her, one arm easily sweeping her aside, and left her to recover her footing on her own.

He knew what he had to do before he made a damn fool offer like that again.

The widow woman might take him up on his loan, and then where'd he be, besides tied to the Circle T and its owner for a good long while? Maybe forever.

He shoved open Armstrong's office door at the rear of the frame bank building without knocking and, without greeting or preamble, he announced, “I'm offering ten thousand for the old Wallace place."

"Wh—Oh, Mr. Dusaq. Good day. What can I do for you today?"

"You heard me."

"But, uh, I haven't yet received Mr. Wallace's answer to your previous offer.” Armstrong looked genuinely perplexed. “Surely you want to wait to hear."

"Ten thousand. Right now. Take it or leave it."

Take it, before he offered it again to the Widow Terhune, and she accepted it. That was too great a risk for either of them.

"Of course,” Armstrong said as if to a child. “I'll write to Mr. Wallace with your new offer, but—"

"Telegram. Now."

"All right. As soon as—"

"Now. We're going to the telegraph office now. And we're waiting for Wallace's answer."

So Nick watched the operator taking the message when the answer came back that he'd be the proud owner of the old Wallace place as soon as papers were drawn up.

"Do it fast,” Nick ordered when they'd returned to Armstrong's office. “Before the heavy snows."

"I'll handle the transaction as expeditiously as possible, of course, but I can't guarantee—"

"Before the heavy snows,” he repeated implacably as he headed to the door. There he paused long enough to look back at Armstrong. “I don't like people talking about my business. Not to anyone. You understand?"

"Of course. It's my policy—"

Nick closed the door on the other man's protestations. He'd already seen what he wanted in the pale blue eyes—Armstrong might want to curry favor with Thomas Dunn, but not as much as he wanted to protect his own hide. And he was now convinced that crossing Nick Dusaq would put his hide in jeopardy.

Every last soul on the Circle T had worked all season to get to fall roundup. Now it was here.

It was a farewell for most hands before they settled into a well-earned but decidedly dull winter's hibernation.

It was the culmination of strain and struggle to baby a herd spread over territory big enough to swallow a county back East, and to baby it so well they lost none of the thousand-pound persnickety bundles of beef on the hoof.

It was the time they would judge how well they had succeeded. It was the time they would put the weight of their labors on one side of the scale and discover how much gold would balance it.

It was Judgment Day spread over a fortnight.

For a week, they'd been cutting out market beef from cows and their calves, yearlings or animals too old to bring top dollar, and gathering a sizable and impressive herd to trail to the railhead over the border in Nebraska.

"You figure another day, Shag?” Nick asked as they sat their horses, side by side, watching the quiet herd.

A line of clouds near the horizon wore night's colors, but around them the sinking sun proclaimed its strength by shooting rays of brilliance even as it retreated.

Smells from Fred's fire rose tantalizingly, but neither moved from this vantage point, both weary, dusty and content from a long day's work. Nick had another cause to delay going to camp—Mrs. Terhune.

It seemed he couldn't come near the woman without the rein on his tongue fraying like a rope in a fire. He'd done his best to stay away. That hadn't been easy with her working roundup alongside the hands, but encounters during their predawn-to-dusk workdays didn't ruffle him overmuch.

At night, though, when she slipped away from the crowd around the fire, he fought to curb his eyes from noting her path, and his feet from following. So far, he'd succeeded. Still, sleep didn't come easy, despite the long days.

"Two days,” Shag said. “We could push it, but that'd tire the men and the horses more. Weather looks to hold. We'll finish here tomorrow, sweep that last area morning after next, then start the trail the day after that."

Nick grunted. The foreman was right about the weariness of the men and horses. He hoped Shag had the right of it with the weather, too.

Certainly today had been exceptionally fine, with the sky bright and blue, and the air with a crisp bite.

Shag tipped his head and considered the sky.

"The sun don't reach down to these old bones the way it used to.” He shook his head in bemusement. “Maybe Ruth's got the right of it. When I start to feeling the cold when the sun's shining and the first snow ain't come, maybe I am getting to be an old man."

Nick knew better than to disagree with Ruth Shagwell in her husband's hearing—or in this case to agree with her, either. He held silent.

"Ruth's niece in Chelico wants us to come live with her and her brood.” Shag grimaced. “Well, a man can get used to anything, I suppose. But I'm not leaving the Circle T the way things stand now. Rachel Terhune's a strong woman, but she needs someone to rely on. Someone who's not after her land, not after getting her to marry up. Someone willing to work hard and do what's right."

Nick felt his face go rigid. Brujo shifted restively, the saddle creaking with the movement.

But the foreman continued to stare straight ahead.

Like a fool. Nick had listened to a bartender's tale and let himself feel sorry for a poor widow woman caught between two big spreads. He would help her while he waited to buy his land and before he had to get to Texas to buy a herd, and then he'd be on his way. That's the way he'd planned it. That's the way it would be.

When they put the last steer in the boxcar in Hammer Butte, he'd pull himself free of the bog hole he'd stepped into the first time he set eyes on Rachel Terhune—and she'd set eyes on him—and he'd walk away. Because he'd be damned if he'd sign on long-term to look after her with the fatherly concern Shag described. Nick Dusaq was no damn father, and he was no damn gelding.

But she wasn't the sort of woman you could roll in the hay a time or two, then ride away from without a thought. Especially not since he wouldn't be riding all that far when he left the Circle T. Surely not far enough to escape Shag's wrath if the foreman ever thought Rachel Terhune had been wronged. And not far enough, either, to outrun his own yen for this woman. Better never to give in to the itch than to risk bleeding to death from the scratching of it.

Giving no indication he sensed anything besides lack of interest in Nick's continued silence. Shag scanned the herd, and gave a deep, satisfied sigh.

"Good-looking beef,” he said. “We'll trail ‘em easy to the railroad—I've got a route with water every camp and good grazing along the way, so they should arrive looking as rested and well-fed as a bunch of politicians."

Nick gave a grunt of amusement, mixed with relief at the change in topic.

"Looks like we'll do all right this year,” Shag went on. “A damn sight better than we thought after the losses last winter. And if nature's a mite kinder this winter, we'll be headed the right way."

"You think it was all nature responsible for Circle T losses last winter?"

Nick felt Shag's look but didn't return it.

"What're you thinking, Nick?"

"I'm thinking there's two big outfits sitting alongside the Circle T and both would benefit from seeing it go under, especially the one who succeeded in grabbing hold of the range, the good water and—” He'd almost said the owner. “The rest. And I'm thinking nature wasn't nearly so hard on the Lazy W and KD brands last winter as it was on the Circle T."

Shag said nothing for a long time. “Is there anything more to this than just your thinking?"

"Not much,” Nick acknowledged. “Except some rumblings from men who worked spring roundup for you and stuck."

"What'd they say?"

"Nothing direct. Nothing I'd ask them to repeat. A word here and there that adds up to having some cattle that carried Circle T brand before roundup having a different mark after."

"You didn't ask the boys outright?” Shag's frown betrayed concern.

"No. If they'd known for sure, they'd have gone to you. They were blowing off steam about suspicions. No need to call them to account on that"

"Good, good. Because I don't see how those suspicions could be right. Round here, Nick, there're men from a lot of outfits mixed together at a general roundup come spring, with reps from other outfits all on hand. They'd all have to look away, every last one. I just can't see it."

"Not if you worked it right. Not if you had the right men cooperating.” Nick faced Shag, and saw that the idea had occurred to the foreman. “Not if the Circle T's representative was paid to work it that way. Somebody brings in a cow, says this brand's not real clear, could be Circle T. All the rep does is say, ‘No, that's Lazy W or KD,’ and the Circle T's lost a cow and calf. Wouldn't take many to make it seem you'd had a real bad winter."

"Damn hard to prove,” the older man said with some regret.

"Those men you hired this spring that went over to Dunn after roundup, what were their names?"

"Bert Overton and Matthew Sprewell."

"You ever see them before this spring?"

"No."

"Where'd they come from?"

"They had a letter from a rancher down in Colorado."

"Thomas Dunn has holdings in Colorado, doesn't he?"

The heavy silence was an answer of a kind.

Nick knew Shag had argued long and loud over a letter Rachel Terhune drafted to Dunn about his visitor's abuse of Fanny. In the end, her temper cooled and Shag prevailed, getting the letter torn up and coaching her into a more restrained protest. That drew a response expressing Dunn's sorrow that his visitor's more manly approach to animals perturbed her womanly sensibilities. And neatly suggesting she was entirely too sensitive to participate in such a rough business.

Every hand heard her reaction, since she'd read the letter in the office while they ate supper. They'd also heard Shag argue that venting her anger in a return letter could be a costly indulgence.

"Yeah, Dunn has holdings there,” the foreman confirmed. He shook his head. “There's suspicion, and there's proof."

"There're things you can know without having to prove them."

"Can't argue that. But then what do you do? It can be right dangerous to act on something you know without being able to prove it. Especially dealing with a certain kind of man."

Nick looked to the golden glow of the horizon. “Sometimes a man's got to live dangerously."

Shag sighed. “Sometimes a man can't afford to."

The critical first day of trailing the beef herd was nearly over and it had gone well. Rachel was pleased.

Getting cattle into the habit of going along placidly won half the battle. But it took vigilance. Because a few of the more cantankerous steers would take any excuse to start running—a loud sound, a stray leaf scudding across the ground, a jackrabbit popping out of the sagebrush—and once started, the running could become an epidemic, with outbreaks all along the trail.

So far there'd been no symptoms.

They eased toward the grazing ground Shag had set for the first night's camp. Rachel rode along the herd telling the men where to head. She'd reached the rear of the herd where Nick took his turn with the drags.

It was the least desirable job on the trail, with the cowhand sifting through the dust of several thousand hooves. Top hands could insist on not taking that duty. But Nick hadn't done that

At least with the slow pace, the dust didn't churn its worst. A strong crosswind helped, too, though the hands riding leeward of the herd might disagree. Plus, a beef herd like this didn't have the old, sick, weak animals that could make riding the drags like herding turtles.

But as she spotted Nick astride the gray named Marley, Rachel was reminded that a beef herd's drags could include ornery and sly steers. Nick and Marley faced one right now.