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“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…
CHAPTER TWO
HE’D HAVE TO EAT some crow, Miguel Heydt reflected as he turned his dusty old pickup off the county road. Serious crow. Driving under the arching name board, he glanced up. Suntop Ranch was emblazoned between two rising suns, both the letters and suns shining gold in the morning light—gilded to perfection. It was that kind of outfit.
With pride to match, he didn’t doubt. The biggest, richest spreads always had the best jobs—and didn’t they know it. He’d made a bad mistake rejecting that old man’s offer last night.
Then to show up today, hat in hand and crow feathers all over his mouth? He’d be lucky if they didn’t run him off the place.
But how was I to know? The one map he had, marking the Badwater Flats, was eighty years old. It located the plateau on Kristopherson land.
Last night at the Lone Star he’d learned that the Kristopherson Ranch was still in existence, still lying east-northeast of Trueheart. So he’d been looking for Kristopherson cowboys, not Suntop men. Buying them drinks when he found them, pumping them casually, discreetly. Making up stories, then seeing what stories he got in return.
He’d told his tale about a water hole that poisoned cattle back on a ranch in Texas where he used to work—and heard tales about locoweed poisoning in return.
He’d tried again, spinning that yarn about an old mud pit on the home ranch—greasy thick mud, black as tar, that would suck down deer, stock ay, Dios!, even unwary children.
His listeners came back with stories of quicksand, of bad river crossings on trail drives. He laughed softly. That hilarious story the old-timer had spun about a pig wallow and helping the boss’s pretty daughter feed the sows, and his punch line that even after that fiasco she’d forgiven him, married him—and forty years later they were still happily married…
Miguel rubbed the smile off his face. Wonderful stories, but not the story he wanted to hear. Not one of those cow-hands would admit to bad water on Kristopherson land.
By midnight he’d been ready to give up in frustration. Badwater. The name could have come from most anything—a dog fell down somebody’s well. Or some early traveler had tapped a new keg on his wagon while passing through here and found his drinking water had gone scummy, so he named the flats to mark the occasion. Maybe it was a corruption of an Indian word and had nothing to do with water at all.
Then another geezer had wandered over to the table where Miguel had sat drinking and swapping yarns. Willy, a Suntop man. Smiling insults had been traded—the Kristopherson crew had apparently bested the Suntop cowboys in a local rodeo a few weeks back.
Fighting hard for his outfit’s honor, Willy had dredged up an ancient triumph. Let the Kristophersons sneer, but Ben Tankersly’s father had beaten old Will Kristopherson decisively in the thirties, and they were still laughing about it. Sam Tankersly had won the Badwater Flats in a game of stud poker. He’d bluffed Kristopherson out of ten square miles with a pair of threes and a pair of jacks, and what do you think of that?
Miguel thought he’d better not kiss the old man, but he was tempted. Instead he’d bought him a round, then teased him, apparently defending his Kristopherson pals. Yes, Sam Tankersly had won the Badwater Flats, old man, but so what? Of what earthly use was a patch of range with bad water?
It was worth plenty, Willy had insisted. Since the creek made the cattle sick, Suntop had drilled wells. Put in windmills to pump up tanks of good, clear water. Nowadays that section was a treasure, with some of the best graze anywhere around Trueheart. It had been rechristened Sweetwater Flats, as the Kristopherson hands well knew. And weren’t they sorry their boss’s granddaddy had been such a blind fool at the card table back in ’34?
Miguel was a lot sorrier than any of the Kristopherson crew, who shrugged amiably and ambled off into the star-filled night shortly thereafter. A bunch of hired hands, what did they care? It was Miguel who’d played his cards wrong, turning down the job at Suntop.
Because one look at the map told him the flats—Badwater, Sweetwater, by whatever name—were remote. Not to be inspected on foot from any public road. He’d need to ride in five miles through Suntop land to reach them. And from what he’d heard around the Lone Star, Suntop’s owner didn’t take kindly to trespassers.
He needed a job on the ranch as his cover.
But haying?
Only as a last—his very last—resort.
HE’D BEEN DRIVING as he replayed last night’s happenings. Following what seemed to be the main private road, though smaller dirt roads branched off to left and right. He’d come more than three miles west across the wide, rolling valley. There was no sign of a house or barn yet; only the neat barbed-wire fences marching along either side of the road. A herd of twenty or so horses grazing on a distant hilltop, miles north. Two tiny cowboys riding a fence line, as far south. Hard to get a grasp on a place this big, and the mountains threw everything out of perspective. That big humped one up ahead might have been two miles distant—or twenty. The jagged peaks to the north, maybe fifty?
It wasn’t just the scale of the place that was making him edgy. This land was too rich, too lush. Green as money. He was used to the red dusty plains of West Texas. Hardscrabble land, where a man had to scratch for his luck—scratch hard and deep. Here luck seemed to be served up on a wide, green plate with a golden rim.
A plate set on some other man’s table, not one where a poor boy from Dos Duraznos, Mexico, would be welcome.
But then, Miguel needed no invitation. No scraps from another’s table. He’d been making his own luck for years.
Still, when he reached the river at last, it was a welcome change. The trees along it rose like a shaggy wall, cutting off the eastern valley from what lay beyond. His truck rumbled out onto a low concrete bridge that spanned dark pools, a yellow leaf drifting fast. With no car in sight, Miguel braked in the middle, to sit staring at the steep bank ahead.
He swung to study the one behind him. As he’d hoped, the valley floor was limestone and shale, not granite. Sedimentary rock. The blood tingled in his fingertips, his palms…the same way all his hunches started—as if he’d scooped up a double handful of luck. He nodded to himself and drove on.
On the west side of the river, the land rose abruptly in a series of wide benches, with the road winding to find the shallowest grade between them. His truck heaved over a rise and Miguel saw the ranch house on a hill ahead, with a clutter of barns and corrals intervening. Nearly there.
But again the road switched back on itself, entering a narrow pass cut in a ledge of rock. Miguel turned to glare at the cut as he drove by—granite, at this elevation—not so promising.
A horn blared out and he jumped violently. He whirled back toward his road, and stood on the brakes. Tires rumbled and skidded on the gravel. The pickup lurched to a halt. Its massive front bumper, with its greasy hydraulic winch, loomed only inches above the hood of the low, sleek convertible that faced it. A red Mercedes-Benz two-seater, top down. The dust his wheels had raised drifted over its glossy wax job, over its windshield, obscuring Miguel’s view of the person or persons within. He blew out a soundless whistle. Now, that would have made a fine first impression—squashing this pretty toy.
His shoulders twitched as the Mercedes’ horn blared again—too soon, too long, much too loud. On a particularly insolent note. Out of my way, peón! it yelled.
Miguel’s back teeth came together with a click. Yes, he should have had his eyes on the road, but then the rich boy that he could now make out behind the Mercedes’ wheel had been coming too fast. They both shared in the blame, but so what? No harm had been done.
Yet, he told himself as the horn blared for the third time. He drummed his fingertips on the wheel and schooled his frown to an expressionless mask. This cut was too narrow for the vehicles to pass each other. Somebody would have to back down.
Since Miguel was the one who needed a job—this scowling princeling with the golden hair clearly needed no job; that car had cost fifty thousand easily—it made sense that Miguel should humble himself and give way. This was somebody of importance. Possibly the ranch owner himself, or the rancher’s son. To offend him…
The horn blared yet again. The driver leaned out his window. “Hey! Get that heap out of my way!” His voice matched his horn—an arrogant tenor, bursting with pride.
Una lástima—a pity—to start out like this. But some things a man could not do. Miguel sighed and reached for the pack that sat on the seat beside him. After unzipping the top compartment, he pulled out an apple. He fished his knife from his jeans pocket, unclasped it and commenced to leisurely peel the fragrant red globe. Turning to prop his back against his door, he focused on his task. With care, it could be done in one continuous spiral—much more satisfying that way.
The horn blared again—a series of impotent, outraged squawks. Miguel pursed his lips and whistled “The Wichita Lineman.” Something his old friend Harry used to sing when he was feeling soulful.
He caught a movement in the corner of his eye and turned to look. The convertible’s passenger door was opening. Someone—a girl—with windblown hair the color of raw copper, of forest fires and wild honey, was getting out. She touched one foot to the ground—but the driver lunged her way, gesturing. He caught her arm, shook his head emphatically.
She hesitated, shrugged…closed her door again.
Her companion put his hand down on the horn and held it there in an ear-splitting, nerve-grating protest. Miguel sighed and cut a wedge of apple, ate it thoughtfully. Looked as if he’d have to go over there and offer to flatten Mr. Mercedes’ nose for him. Not something he wanted to do with a lady present.
On the other hand, maybe it was time she learned her man was not only rude but gutless.
None of your business to teach her, he reminded himself. A rich gringa like that could buy all the lessons in life she needed—or buy her way out of them.
He was saved from choosing. The Mercedes jerked into reverse and roared backward at a reckless speed, its driver taking out his temper on his machine—and his startled passenger, who’d braced herself against the dashboard. What some women put up with. Smiling wryly to himself, Miguel put his truck in gear and followed.
After mounting a final rise, he turned into a wide, dusty barnyard. Several men on horse and afoot gazed off to where the red convertible had reversed all the way to a lone horseman, sitting a big buckskin horse at the far side of the yard. The rider leaned down from his saddle, listened as the driver of the Mercedes gestured wildly—then jabbed his finger at Miguel’s truck.
So that was the man in charge. Not a good beginning, Miguel told himself as he parked alongside a corral and stepped out. But play it as it lays.
“NOPE,” Ben Tankersly drawled, gazing across at the man who’d climbed out of the dusty old pickup. “He’s not one of mine. ’Fraid I can’t fire him for you.” He swallowed his smile and glanced at his daughter. You see what you’ve got here, princess? You want a man who can’t settle his own fights?
Risa’s eyes touched his, then skated away. She stared off into the distance, arms tightly crossed, teeth buried in her lower lip, her cheeks the color of roses. Embarrassed, Tankersly hoped. She damn sure ought to be.
“Fine! Okay! Forget it, then!” Foster stomped on the gas and roared off the way he’d come, raising a cloud of dust.
Moving much too fast for the crowded yard. Ben’s eyes narrowed—the damn fool—then widened as he realized. The car was aimed straight for the stranger, who’d paused halfway across the open space. “You idiot!”
No doubt Foster meant to shame his target, forcing him to scramble for cover. Instead the young man stood, apparently paralyzed. Tankersly sucked in a harsh breath, bracing himself for the impact.
But the stranger took one long graceful stride to the side, whirled—and landed a thumping mule-kick on the driver’s door as the Mercedes shot past.
One of the hands let out a blissful whoop. Tankersly’s pent breath burst out in a guffaw. Stove in his slats for him! Dented his door a good one! The vanquished Mercedes roared out of the yard and off down the hill.
Tankersly’s grin faded. That cowardly fool had his daughter aboard and there he was, trying to sprout wings, running away from his own humiliation. The rancher put the heel of his hand to his heart, rubbed it, then shrugged. Not a thing in the world he could do about it. If Foster didn’t kill her in the next mile or so, maybe Risa would finally see. “That’s not breeding stock,” he muttered, then switched his attention to the oncoming stranger.
He blinked—and felt the dice teeter, then tip over, the way they sometimes did. One final roll and your life turned from empty pockets to can’t lose. Foster was not breeding stock, but this one… Maybe…just maybe… Ben sat and let him come on, sizing him up as he would have any yearling colt, deciding whether to keep or sell him.
And this one looked like a keeper. On his mettle after he’d faced down that attack, his color was high, his eyes direct, fastened on Tankersly. He had that top-stallion strut—good spirits, good body and well-proven pride, combining to give a soft bounce to each stride, though you couldn’t hear his feet hit the ground. With guts, good bone and reflexes. The young man halted beside Ben’s stirrup. “They call me Heydt,” he said, holding out a big brown hand. “Miguel Heydt.”
Something south of the border in his deep voice—just a hint. And in his black Spanish eyes, though his hair was the same bronzy shade as the dark buckskin Ben rode. “Tankersly,” Ben declared himself, squinting down as they shook. Maybe five years older than Risa’s nineteen, he estimated, though Heydt’s eyes made him seem twice her age. Eyes that had seen trouble and sorrow and come through it with just a trace of cool amusement at their corners. Eyes that said, Come what may, I can handle it.
Not like Risa’s pretty boy, whose eyes said, Come what may, I can buy my way free—or talk my way out of it.
Heydt endured another minute of Ben’s appraisal, then he spoke again. “I told him—” he tipped his head toward Joe Wiggly, who was riding up on them “—that I wasn’t interested in haying. I’m looking to cowboy.”
