The Cattleman (Sons of Texas Book 2) (18 page)

“C’mon, Pic. Any win looks good on his resume.”

Little Boy Blue was an example of Kate choosing to inseminate her highbred mare with semen from a beautiful blue roan stud that had no standing in the cutting horse world. Little Boy Blue, still to be tested in the performance arena where it counted, was the result. “Well, you’re right. He needs some gravitas.”

“So why’re you calling me?” Troy asked. “What’s going on?”

“I talked to Blake on Friday. Tell Kate they took her name off their persons-of-interest list. But not yours. Why is that, Troy?”

“Hell, I don’t know, Pic. All of a sudden, every time I turn around, one of those friggin’ SUVs is hanging out with me. I’m not even drinking much these days. My nose is so clean my life is boring. I’m not doing a damn thing.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you oughtta do something. Like tell
ing them what you’re not telling them.”

“And what is that? I’ve already spilled my guts.”

“They know you’ve still got a romance going on with Dorinda Fisk. Or whatever you’re doing with her. I’m guessing that some of her friends are who they really want to know about.”

“Romance? Are you kidding? I guaran-damn-tee you we’re not having pillow talk where she’s sharing her deep dark secrets,” Troy said firmly. “We’re just having a good time. That’s all.”

Pic had no idea what Troy considered “a good time” with a female, but it was probably something different from how Pic interpreted that phrase. More than once, Troy had let comments slip about three-ways and group sex. In Pic’s old fashioned thinking, that was an orgy. He liked sex hot and raw himself, but with only one woman.

“If you want to get on the good side of the law, maybe you oughtta give up that activity,” he said. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “And maybe you oughtta make an appointment with a doctor for a check-up.”

“What? What the hell does
that
mean?”

“Never mind. Troy, what I’m trying to tell you is I believe Blake and Jack know a helluva lot about Dorinda Fisk and her boys. Stuff they’re not telling me. They’re trying to find out who’s harassing our family and their leads keep taking them back to her. And ultimately you, since they think you’re one of her boys.”

“But they’re wrong, Pic. They’re just wrong. And I’ve already told them that five or six times.”

“If they want to question you about her and her friends, you should cooperate. In the first place, you shouldn’t be fucking around with a married woman. Especially one whose husband is a big-shot politician who hates our dad. That right there, plus the fact that she’s cheating on her husband, wipes out her credibility and yours, too. There’s no way you can respect her for that. I can’t believe you can’t find another place to dip you wick. I wish you’d step back and take a good look at the people you’re hanging out with and think about what you’re doing.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe the family oughtta think about what
it’s
doing.”

Pic didn’t know what that meant. This was how every conversation with Troy went these days. Pic couldn’t figure out what had happened to give him such a negative opinion of the family. “Look, I’m not trying to pick a fight with you. When you get home, let’s sit down, just the two of us, and see if we can talk some things out, okay?”

“I don’t want to fight with you either, Pic. Listen, it’ll probably be late afternoon before Kate finishes up. There’s gonna be a get-together after the show and if Little Boy wins, Kate will want to go to it. She’s hooked up with some local yokel who owns the TV station and—”

“She’s what?”

“They’re talking about breeding Little Boy to one of his mares,” Troy answered, cleverly sliding past Pic’s question. Troy was well aware of Pic’s disapproval of Kate’s loose behavior among the horse crowd. “But we’ll get our shit together tomorrow and head home,” he said.

Pic gave up. This was no time for a conversation about his little sister’s morality. He was in no position to pass judgment anyway. One thing he tried not to be was a hypocrite. “Okay. See you when you get back. And Troy? Tell Kate I said good luck. I’ve always liked that horse.”

He passed over the cattle guard and between the limestone rock stanchions at the Double-Barrel’s entrance, satisfied he had met his promise to Drake to try to talk to Troy.

****

At the end of the two-mile driveway, he pulled his truck into the detached garage behind the house. The Lockhart ranch house had been built before houses had attached garages, so a separate two-car garage had been added later. Then, after Dad had four kids, all driving separate vehicles, he had expanded it to accommodate six cars and trucks. Now, with no rigs parked in it except his and Dad’s trucks and the Cadillac SUV Dad drove occasionally when he went to Fort Worth or Dallas, the cavernous building reminded Pic of a gymnasium.

Stepping out of the truck, the aroma of searing meat filled the air. Johnnie Sue cooking something. His stomach made a growl. Toaster pastries did not a he-man breakfast make.

Frissy and Fancy were waiting for him. Frissy had a stick in her mouth. He bent over, scruffed her ears
and took hold of the stick. “Give it to me, girl. Give it to me.”

The dog released the stick, Pic walked out of the garage and threw it across the yard. Frissy raced after it, picked it up and raced back.

As he walked to the back door, the dogs busily trotted and bounced beside him. The searing meat aroma wafting through the air intensified. “What’s cooking, girls?” he asked them, stooped, again, took the stick from Frissy and threw it for her. She could do this all day long.

He left the dogs at the back door, entered the house through the utility room and laid his hat on the long stainless steel counter.
He saw Johnnie Sue in the kitchen. Two big pots steamed on the six-burner cooktop. He was starved.

“Hey,” he said to the housekeeper.

“Hey, youself. About time you got home.” She came to him, stopped in front of him and looked up into his face. “Your eye’s looking a lot better.”

“It’s okay. Just needed a little time.”

“How’s Mandy?”

Mandy was liked by ever
ybody. Whenever she came to the ranch, she always offered a hand in the kitchen and she and Johnnie Sue had become pals. Sort of. “She’s fine,” Pic said. “Already getting into shape for school starting.”

“Drinkwell’s lucky to have her. If I had teenage girls, I’m make sure they were in Mandy’s swimming class.”

Pic walked over to the stovetop and lifted a lid on a bubbling pot. Tex-Mex spices met his nose. “What’s cooking? I thought I smelled barbecue.”

“I’ve got a brisket going outside on the smoker. Your dad asked the new vet and his wife to supper. Smoky and his wife and Silas Morgan are coming, too.”

The foreman and the horse wrangler. With them being key people in the ranch’s operation, they were invited for a meal often. “Ah. What’s in the pots?”

“Beans to go with the brisket for supper tonight and chile verde for dinner.”

Johnnie Sue made the best cowboy beans he had ever eaten. She refused to divulge her recipe. Her chile verde was good, too. Since she had come to work for the ranch, he and Dad were eating very well. “Awesome. You making some cornbread to go with it?” He replaced the lid, ambled across the kitchen to the coffee pot that was always on and poured himself a mug.

“That’s the plan,” she answered.

“Great.” He leaned a hip against the counter edge and sipped. “Did Dad get the woman with the flat tire taken care of?”

“Smoky got one of the mechanic’s helpers to fix her tire.”

The Double-Barrel had three employees who did nothing but keep all of the ranch’s mechanical equipment running and in top shape. Having some needed piece of equipment broken down and static for a week was too expensive time wise.

“I put her up out in one of the guesthouses,” Johnnie Sue added.

Pic’s pulse rate made a little bump. “She’s really staying here?”

The housekeeper shrugged. “That’s what your dad told me to do.”

“Is he in the den?”

“As usual.”

Spending Sunday morning in the den reading the Fort Worth Star Telegram from cover to cover had been Bill Lockhart Junior’s ritual for as long as Pic could remember, despite the fact that the slant of most of its content conflicted with his philosophy of life. Pic started toward the doorway.

“Before you go in there,” Johnnie Sue said, “I think I oughtta tell you something you might want to talk to him about.”

Uh-oh.
Her tone had a serious note. Pic stopped and turned back to her. “What?”

“I took a batch of brownies over to the bunkhouse late yesterday. I got there just after our guest had left.”

“Left where? The bunkhouse?”

“She didn’t have anything to do yesterday,” Johnnie Sue continued, “so she sashayed around the barns with her camera, taking pictures of everything in sight. She ended up at the bunkhouse.”

Generally, the bunkhouse was off limits to women. No end of trouble could come from a lone female presence in the all-male environment, sort of like having a female wander into an athletic team’s locker room. “Did Dad give her permission to do that?”

“I dunno. You’ll have to ask him. Most of those
kids had their tongues hangin’ out over her little bikini top and shorts. They didn’t notice what she was doing. But a couple of them complained to me about her taking their pictures.”

The bunkhouse didn’t afford much privacy, but Pic and his dad respected what there was. “She was taking pictures of the hands?”

“I don’t know if Bill Junior saw how she was dressed,” Johnnie Sue continued. “That girl’s got them big tits and that top barely holds ’em. She might as well be naked.”

Pic had learned not to be surprised by the housekeeper’s frank talk. His brow arched as a visual came to him of What’s-Her-Name’s full breasts and prominent nipples in a bikini top. Thinking about her in the bunkhouse almost sent a shiver up his spine. Dealing with the young cowhands who lived there, most of them having more testosterone than brains, was challenging enough without Dad making it harder. Pic made his way to the den.

****

Pic found his dad sitting in one of the big recliners with the newspaper sections scattered on the floor around him, his half-glasses perched on his nose. “Hey, Dad. What’s going on?”

Dad shook his head. “Same ol’ shit. Commodities prices spiking. Feed prices through the roof. All the damn corn’s going to ethanol. Glad we don’t raise pigs.”

Pic snickered. “Well, in a way, we do. They just don’t happen to eat corn.” He was speaking of feral hogs. The bane of existence of every farmer and rancher in Texas.

“What they eat too damn often is beef, as in a baby calf. Smoky said one of the hands shot
one of the bastards yesterday.” He tilted his head toward the sofa. “Sit down. How’s Mandy. You two have a good time?”

Dad looked at Mandy like family. “She’s doing good.” Pic took a seat on one end of the sofa and placed his coffee mug on the coffee table. “Listen, Dad, did you give that photographer permission to take pictures in the bunkhouse?”

Dad put down his newspaper and gave him a direct look over the top of his half-glasses. “I told her she could take some pictures of the barns and the horses.”

“Johnnie Sue said she was in the bunkhouse with her camera.”

Dad’s brows climbed up his forehead. “You’d better clear that up.”

“You’re right about that,” Pic said. “We don’t need crap going on in the bunkhouse. She’s staying in the guesthouse?”

“Where else would she stay? Sounds like her visit is open-ended. The nearest motel is in Camden or Stephenville. Besides, your mother told her you’d take her around and help her get some pictures of the ranch.”

“Aww, Dad, you know what my schedule’s like. When do I have the time to escort some tourist around the ranch? And July Fourth is coming up.”

“Now don’t be inhospitable, Son. Smoky and I’ve got the picnic handled. How much time can it take you to show her around? And you know a lot about photography. You took those classes when you were Tarleton. You could be a big help to her.”

“Dad. A professional photographer doesn’t need my help.”

“Son, she sat around here most of yesterday with nothing to do.” His tone held a flicker of impatience. “I guess that’s why she was wandering around the place. I didn’t have time to take her out myself. I started to tell her to just take one of the Jeeps, but I was afraid she’d get lost. Besides, your mother promised her. You might as well get started on it today. The sooner she gets her pictures, the sooner she’ll go back to Austin.”

So much for kicking back and enjoying a day off.

“Just drive her over to the mesa and let her get some pictures of the valley,” Dad went on, as if that were a short easy trip. “It’s pretty over there.”

Going up to the mesa would require a four-wheel-drive rig, which usually meant one of the work Jeeps, and would take several hours. “That’d take the rest of the day. I’ve got to—”

“Okay, then show her the old homestead house down on Little Salt Fork and let her take some pictures of it. That’s historical.”