Muttering a curse, he spurred the gelding over the broken fence line and began following the trail of hoofprints. About a hundred yards along, the path began to fan out in every direction but back toward home. Tristan held to the center, moving toward the high meadow that lay ahead and above. He was out in the open, leaning into the climb with the horse, and he would have preferred not to be so vulnerable. The cattle hadn’t been accommodating enough to choose a way that would have suited him better.
He sensed the riders before he saw them, drew the .45 and let it rest easily in his hand. There were two of them, one on a black and white paint, one on a bay stallion, and they’d probably been watching him for a while, because they carried their rifles across the pommels of their saddles, instead of in the scabbards, as peaceable men might do.
“This is private land,” one of them said. His tone was neither neighborly nor threatening, and he had a long, solemn face, like an undertaker or a preacher fond of hellfire.
Tristan sighed. He supposed the prudent thing would have been to stop where he was, but they were on top of the rise, and he was damned if he’d let them have that advantage. Reaching the top of the hill, he nodded a greeting, the .45 resting loose in his hand.
“I guess you don’t hear too good,” said the man on the paint. He was hefty, and not without vanity, if his waxed mustache and slicked-down hair were any indication. The ruddy flush under his skin vouched for an uncertain disposition. “My partner here said this is private land.”
Tristan repressed a sigh. Even though he was practically lounging in the saddle, he could have dropped both men before they managed to raise their rifles, and he felt the old, not-unpleasant quiver of excitement in the pit of his belly at the prospect. It was not a thing he liked knowing about himself.
“Some of my cattle’ve strayed onto the Powder Creek spread. But I expect you know that.” He paused. “I’ve come to fetch them back. I expect you know that, too.”
The ranch hands looked at each other. By tacit agreement, or perhaps long habit, Handlebar sat there choking on his tongue, while his companion did the talking. “You ain’t got no cattle here,” he said, with a slight motion of the rifle.
Get out,
the gesture said, clear as rainwater.
Undaunted, Tristan cocked the .45 and swung the barrel forward in a motion as natural to him as turning over in his sleep. “I’m not looking for trouble,” he said evenly. “On the other hand, I don’t mind a lively skirmish now and again, and I’m a pretty fair shot. Wouldn’t it be simpler—not to mention safer—to let me look for my stock and ride out again?”
“Shoot him for trespassin’,” said Handlebar. Evidently, he just couldn’t withhold his opinion.
“His brother’s the marshal,” the other man pointed out.
“And this here’s the fella that shot off half the boss’s ear and got him sent away to the state penitentiary.” Handlebar regarded Tristan with genuine hatred.
“Now, don’t give me all the credit,” Tristan protested affably. “Shay did his part, along with twelve good men and a sensible judge.”
Veins bulged at the heavy man’s temples, but his companion, having the cooler head, prevailed. “We’ve got a score to settle with you, Saint-Laurent, and with your brother, too. Billy’s dead on account of you, and the boss is doin’ hard time—an old man like him—and we ain’t gonna forget that. But we’ll have our day, right enough. Meantime, we’ll check our herds for your brand, and cut out any that might have strayed.”
“I’d like to go along,” Tristan said. It wasn’t a request, of course, even though it might have sounded like one, but a statement of intent. A man who didn’t protect his stock, whatever the risks, would soon be out of business.
The other riders lowered their rifles, but Tristan waited until both guns were tucked into their respective scabbards before putting away the .45. He was watchful, but in his long career he’d learned to predict what a man meant to do next, and he was fairly certain these two didn’t intend to put him to the test. At least, the smart one didn’t.
He rode between them, and a little behind, the three horses moving at an easy trot. For some reason he couldn’t put a finger on, Emily Starbuck came to mind, and he reflected that predicting a man’s actions was one thing, and divining a woman’s was quite another. He’d explained to her that the land south of Powder Creek was his, and showed her the proof, but that didn’t mean she’d take her square mile of squalling mutton and strike out for new horizons. Even though he would have willed those sheep to perdition if he could have, he half hoped Miss Starbuck would stand toe-to-toe and fight.
He had no doubt that he’d come out the winner, in the
long run, but in the meantime the competition would be a spirited one, and thus very entertaining.
He smiled in anticipation as he and the cowpunchers rode through a stand of birch and aspen trees, still climbing, though the slope was gentler now. When they reached the crest of the hill, the high meadow was visible, and William Kyle’s sprawling stone house loomed, with the mountains and the sky for a backdrop.
Tristan did admire that house, and where before he’d tormented himself with impossible images, in which Aislinn was its mistress, and he its master, that day he couldn’t think beyond Emily. She was the one he envisioned, presiding over the place, wearing a fancy dress, her hair pinned loosely at her nape. He could even picture her carrying a child, his child, her face glowing with health and pride.
He’d made inquiries in town, with Kyle’s lawyer, where the property was concerned—the old man wasn’t likely to need the place again, and he’d left no heirs—but it didn’t seem prudent to mention the subject in the presence of his escorts, them being so prickly and all.
An Indian woman, beautiful despite her barrel body and moon-shaped face, stepped onto the porch to shake out a rug. She looked at Tristan with bland curiosity, then went back inside the house. By then his presence had drawn notice from other quarters, and he thought it judicious to pay closer attention to the men watching him from the corral fence. That there were other eyes looking on as well, he did not doubt, but there was no fear in him. His adoptive father had always said he could have done with a few more qualms, where confrontations were concerned, but there had been something reckless in him in those days, and he hadn’t mellowed overmuch in the interim.
He had no conscious wish to die, but he’d done a few things in the past that made him wonder if some part of him wasn’t courting death. While he was ruminating on that possibility, he kept an eye on the men around him, prepared to summon the .45 if the need arose.
“Our good neighbor here claims some of his cattle have found their way onto Mr. Kyle’s land,” said the lean-faced man, to the half-dozen cowboys who drew nigh, all of them mounted and armed. Tristan had already figured out that he’d been at Powder Creek for a long while and, given his air of authority, he was almost surely the foreman. “You boys look after him, and make sure he don’t meet with calamity whilst he’s in our care.”
The ranch hands didn’t respond. They were sizing Tristan up, which was fair enough, because he was taking their measure, too. They looked like no-accounts to him, collecting wages, passing through, but having no particular loyalty to Kyle himself. He was always careful not to put too much stock in hasty judgments, but he trusted his gut far more than his eyes and ears, and so far, it hadn’t offered an opinion. Which probably meant they weren’t dangerous, unless you were stupid enough to turn your back on them, of course. Tristan admitted to a fair number of shortfalls in his nature, but stupidity was not among them. As before, he rode a pace or two behind, and presently found himself overlooking a considerable herd.
There were three riders to his left, three to his right. The youngest, a doe-eyed kid barely out of knickers, wheeled his horse around and approached, taking visible care not to make any sudden moves.
Tristan bit back a smile. He supposed the boy valued those shell-like ears of his, and didn’t want their shape altered.
“What’s your brand?” the kid asked. He sounded testy.
The mark was a crescent moon, and Tristan said as much, though he was sure it was common knowledge. Prominence wasn’t all that big a place, and there were no more than a dozen ranches within a fifty-mile radius.
“You just stay right here,” said the lad, “and we’ll cut out your cattle.”
“Like I said before,” Tristan replied dryly, “I plan to take an active part in that process, thanks all the same.”
There was no further argument, though the boy was
plainly simmering with opinions to which he didn’t quite dare give utterance. He swept off his hat, dragged a forearm across his brow, and spurred his horse toward the cattle grazing placidly below. The other riders followed at a slower pace, and Tristan fell in behind them.
They cut out forty-odd head of beef over the course of two hours, and while Tristan suspected there were more, he decided to content himself with what he’d recovered, for the moment at least. The boy, who grudgingly admitted that he was called Fletcher—he didn’t say if it was his first name or his last—was nominated by the others to help Tristan drive the cattle back over the broken fence line onto his own land.
“You like working for that outfit?” Tristan inquired. He was setting up the posts Emily had pulled out by that time, using a flat rock to pound them into the ground. Fletcher lingered, without saying why, still mounted and looking fretful.
The boy shrugged. “It pays a decent wage,” he answered. “I get my grub and a place to sleep.”
Tristan spoke calming words to the gelding, who’d grown fitful from the pounding, before pausing to look up into Fletcher’s face. “I could use a good hand around here, if you’re interested.”
No smile. “I might be. How many men you got workin’ for you now?”
Tristan grinned. “Just you, I’m afraid. You’d have the bunkhouse all to yourself.”
Fletcher glanced back over one shoulder as if to see if he’d been trailed from the Powder Creek spread, then met Tristan’s gaze straight on. “What makes you think you can trust me?” he asked.
“I didn’t say I trusted you,” Tristan answered and, tossing aside the rock, he gripped one of the fence posts in both hands and gave it a good wrench, to make sure it was stable. It was. “I said I needed help. Either you want the job, or you don’t. That’s all we have to discuss right now.”
“I’d have to have a horse. This one belongs to Kyle.”
“I’ll provide a cow pony.”
“I can shoot, too.”
Tristan suppressed a grin. “That’s fine,” he said, “but I hope you won’t have use for that skill.” He murmured a few soothing words to the gelding and mounted, anxious to be gone. Miss Emily Starbuck was very much in his mind; he wanted to see her. Find out what mischief she’d made in his absence. He tugged affably at the brim of his hat. “We start at dawn. I’ll see you then.”
Fletcher swallowed, nodded, then turned and rode away. Tristan headed in the opposite direction, driving those knotheaded cattle ahead of him, toward his own herd. The noon hour had come and gone by the time he’d ridden back to the house, splashed himself relatively clean, brushed his hair and put on a fresh shirt. He set out for the hills in a hurry he didn’t want to consider too carefully, and found Emily there, with her sheep. She was sitting on a grassy knoll, watching them clip the grass to the roots, the dog resting beside her. Polymarr and Walter the mare were nowhere in sight.
“Still here?” he said, as though surprised. But he’d taken his hat off, and he was conscious that his hair was still damp from washing, and bore ridges from his comb.
The dog growled and sprang to his feet, and his dusty ruff stood out around his neck.
“Hush,” Emily said, stroking the animal’s head, and Spud made a whimpering sound and lay down again, muzzle on paws. Her attention turned, belatedly he thought, back to Tristan, and he felt a sweet sizzle somewhere behind his navel, just to look at her. “I live here,” she told him, as though that settled all disagreement.
He sat down beside her, letting her remark pass, and set his hat on the grass beside him. “This must be the sorriest way to make a living I’ve ever seen.”
The corner of her mouth quivered, but she didn’t smile. “I don’t mind it,” she said, after an interval of consideration. “It’s an easy job.”
Tristan rubbed his lower lip with the back of one hand. He sat cross-legged on the soft ground, enjoying the sweet, mingled scents of Miss Emily and the summer grass. “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, with a brief glance at Spud. “If a dog can do it, I reckon it is.”
A slight flush climbed Emily’s slender neck, and she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue, a gesture that was vengeance enough in its own right, if only she’d known it, but she didn’t rise to the bait. “Spud,” she said, “is a very smart animal.”
He laughed, then looked around, squinting. “Where’s Polymarr?”
“I sent him down to get his things out of the line shack. He’s moving into the bunkhouse at the ranch.”
“Is he, now? And here I told young Fletcher he’d have the place to himself.”
Her flush deepened prettily and she cleared her throat in a delicate fashion. “I suppose it seems audacious, my hiring Mr. Polymarr away from you—” She fell silent, wretchedly embarrassed and, at the same time, determined to press for what she wanted.
Tristan was utterly charmed, though not ready to show it. “Listen, Miss Starbuck. If you want to live on the ranch and spoil whatever reputation you might have made for yourself, that’s your business. Quite frankly, I would enjoy your company, but if you think I’m going to pack up and leave on your say-so, you are woefully mistaken.”
“I could pay you something—some sort of compensation, I mean—after the shearing next spring.”
Tristan barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “Even if I were willing to put up with those miserable sheep of yours—which I’m not—the other ranchers won’t be. Once the word gets out that they’re here, and that won’t be long, believe me, the place will be under siege.”
She blinked back tears, quickly, but not quickly enough. “We have to be somewhere,” she said, evidently referring to herself and the sheep, and Tristan wanted to put his arms
around her, though for the sake of her pride, he refrained.
“Somewhere,”
she repeated, so softly that she might have been talking to herself, or to God.