Badlanders Page 9

  “You sure as blazes did,” Stumpy insisted. “You just said I might lie to you when I’d never do any such thing.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Alexander said. “It was a figure of speech, nothing more.” He paused. “I’d like to ask you about Mr. Jericho. In your opinion, would you say he’s an asset or a detriment to the Diamond B?”

  “A detri-what?” Stumpy said.

  “Is it good or bad to have him work for me?” Alexander made it as plain as he could.

  “What could be bad about having Jericho ridin’ for your brand?” Stumpy rejoined. “That’s plumb ridiculous.”

  Now it was Alexander whose mouth curled. “Hear me out. And keep in mind I’m from the East. My sensibilities are undoubtedly different in certain respects than yours and the rest of the punchers. But I would very much like to know something, and I believe you can enlighten me.”

  “I’ll try,” Stumpy said, “but I ain’t ever enlightened anybody before.”

  On the other side of him, Isolda laughed.

  “It’s about Mr. Jericho,” Alexander said. “Even before I arrived, I was told about his reputation. That he’s a gun shark, I believe you call it.”

  “He’s that and then some.”

  “So my question is this.” Alexander paused. “Is it wise to have a man like that working for the Diamond B?”

  “Didn’t what happened with Scar Wratner teach you anything?”

  “I’m sure if it had come to blows, others would have come to our assistance,” Alexander said.

  “Blows?” Stumpy repeated, and snorted. “Mister, Scar Wratner doesn’t hit folks. He shoots them.”

  “But I was unarmed.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Heeled or not, if he takes a dislike to somebody, he’ll gun him without battin’ an eye.”

  Alexander considered that. “Let’s say that Mr. Wratner is as callous as you assert. Doesn’t having a man like Mr. Jericho on my payroll practically ensure that there will be more trouble?”

  “If there is, it won’t be Jericho who starts it. It’ll be Scar Wratner.”

  “But do you see my point? I did some asking around, and I know that many ranches do perfectly fine without someone like him on their payroll. Which makes me question why I should keep him on.”

  “You need Jericho for two reasons,” Stumpy said. “First, if you cut him loose, you lose Neal, too. They’re pards.”

  “That’s what Franklyn Wells told me.”

  “That little feller in the bowler? He was right. Pards stick. What one does, the other does. If one goes, the other goes.”

  “I admire their sense of friendship, but still.”

  “You’re not payin’ attention,” Stumpy said. “Neal and Jericho ain’t friends. They’re pards.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t see the distinction,” Alexander admitted.

  Stumpy flicked the reins. “How can I explain this? Do you have any really good friends, Mr. Jessup?”

  “Who doesn’t?” Alexander said. “There are a dozen or so, I suppose, I’d put in that category.”

  “Would you do anything for them for if they asked you?”

  “Within reason.”

  “Meanin’ there are things you’d do and things you wouldn’t?”

  “I’m not about to break the law for them. Or violate my own morals and ethics, no matter how good a friend they are.”

  “That’s the difference, right there. Friends have limits. Pards don’t.”

  “That’s carrying friendship a bit far, don’t you think?” Alexander said. “There’s such a thing as common sense. But very well. I’ll give this pard business more thought. In the meantime, what is the second reason I should keep Mr. Jericho on?”

  “To keep you and your gals safe. These here Badlands aren’t as tame as you’re used to. It’s not like back East where folks don’t pack hardware and there’s tin stars everywhere. Here it’s wild and wicked, and havin’ a gun-wise gent like Jericho to back your play is just some of that common sense you were talkin’ about.”

  Alexander sat back and thoughtfully regarded the Diamond B’s foreman, who was in conversation with Edana. She was the more animated of the pair, which mystified him. Normally she was reserved around men. “I’ll take your advice under advisement,” he said to the driver. “But I’ll also be honest and say I don’t see the great necessity you do.”

  “A gun is a needful thing in these parts,” Stumpy replied. “More so a gent who can use one.”

  “Everyone can shoot. It’s not that difficult. I’ve fired a rifle on a few occasions myself, back when I dabbled in pheasant hunting in my younger days. I must have gone out twenty to thirty times.”

  Stumpy tittered. “Did you, now? We don’t have pheasants where I come from, but I hear tell they’re big birds that hide in the high grass and you have to flush ’em. Is that how it works?”

  “Dropping a pheasant on the wing is considered great sport, yes.”

  “And how many of those pheasants did you drop?”

  “It was over twenty years ago.”

  “How many?”

  “They’re incredibly fast when flushed,” Alexander said. “It’s not uncommon for a hunter to miss more than he hits.”

  “Why, Mr. Jessup, I do declare. You’re ashamed to say.”

  Alexander took umbrage. “I am not. I just don’t see where it’s relevant. For your information, though, I seem to remember bagging three or four.”

  “Three or four out of twenty to thirty tries,” Stumpy said, and whistled. “Well, that’s another reason you need Jericho.”

  “How so?”

  “You miss too much,” Stumpy said. “He doesn’t.”

  12

  Edana Jessup had never had three hours fly by so fast in her life. It seemed to her she’d barely begun talking to Neal Bonner, and they arrived at their destination. She was genuinely surprised when he rose in his stirrups, peered head, and declared, “There’s your new home, ma’am.”

  “You don’t need to keep calling me that,” Edana said for what had to be the tenth time. She gazed up ahead. Somehow she’d gotten it into her head that there would be a house and a few outbuildings and that would be it. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The ranch house itself was a sprawling three-story structure with a porch that ran around the entire bottom and a balcony on the second floor at the front. The architecture involved a lot of peaks and sloped roofs that made Edana think of the houses she’d seen in Germantown, near Philadelphia. It was painted white with black trim around the windows and doors. An acre of yard was surrounded by a whitewashed picket fence.

  Another dozen buildings were arrayed around the house. The stable was obvious and had an attached corral. She wasn’t sure about the purpose of the other structures, so she asked Neal.

  There was a bunkhouse for the hands. Long and low, it had been fashioned from logs. There was the cookhouse, which Neal joked was the most popular place on the ranch. There was a shop for the ranch blacksmith, and a smaller shop for the man who did carpentry work. There was a chicken coop and a hog pen. There was a building for the buckboard and the cook’s wagon when he was out with the hands. There was a woodshed and a toolshed and sheds for other purposes. There was a windmill near the house, the vanes slowly spinning. There were outhouses. There were several corrals, not just the one by the stable.

  Men were everywhere, involved in a variety of tasks. A cowboy was working a horse in a corral. The blacksmith was hammering at something on his anvil. Another man worked a pump to draw water.

  “Why, it’s a like a small town,” Edana said, stirred by the picturesque scene.

  “There’s more to runnin’ a ranch than most folks think about,” Neal said in that slow Texas drawl of his.

  “There will certainly be a lot for me to learn,” Edana admi
tted. “I’d appreciate all the help you can give me.”

  “Anything you need, ma’am, anything at all, you just say the word.”

  Edana felt her cheeks grow warm. It annoyed her. She kept reacting to him in ways she shouldn’t. She told herself it was because he was so rugged-looking and so virile. That last insight upset her. She shouldn’t be thinking about him that way. Theirs was a business relationship, nothing more. She was acting like a smitten little girl, something she’d never done before.

  Neal drew rein and Edana followed suit.

  “So you can drink it in,” he said.

  Stumpy brought the buckboard to a stop alongside them, and her father stood up in the seat.

  “Mr. Bonner, I’m impressed. I truly am. Mr. Wells told me that he’d left the building of the ranch up to you, but I had no idea.”

  “Were you expectin’ a soddy and some lean-tos?” Neal joked.

  “I wasn’t expecting anything this remarkable.”

  “Shucks. With enough money you can do most anything, and those consortium fellers said to spare no expense. I took them at their word.” Neal swept at arm at the bustling ranch grounds. “This here is pretty much like the ranches I worked at down to Texas, only grander. Mr. Wells said he wanted everything ready to go when you got here, and we had to work like the dickens to get ready.”

  “You’ve done fine, truly fine.” Alexander sat back down. “I’m eager to get started. Edana, as soon as we unpack, you and your sister will accompany me on a tour. I want to meet everyone and get a feel for the place. Mr. Bonner, be at the house in half an hour, if you would. Stumpy, let’s go.”

  The buckboard rattled on, and Edana went with it. She was tempted to look back at their foreman but didn’t. She had a ranch to assist her father in running and must start acting the part.

  • • •

  Neal Bonner leaned on his saddle horn and watched the buckboard, and Edana Jessup, move off. He was thinking that he’d never spent a pleasanter time in his life than his ride out with Edana. The clomp of a hoof as a horse came up next to his reminded him he wasn’t alone.

  “Well,” Jericho said.

  “‘Well,’ yourself,” Neal said.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you jaw so much.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “You think you know a fella, and he turns out to have a leaky mouth.”

  “I was bein’ polite.”

  “Is that what they call it these days?”

  “I swear,” Neal said, and gigged his buttermilk.

  Chuckling, Jericho clucked to his zebra dun. “Is it me, pard, or are you a mite prickly today?”

  “You can go to hell.”

  Jericho laughed.

  “She’s the boss’s daughter. I had to fill her in on things.”

  “She’s easy on the eyes, too. If she takes to you, you might have found your runnin’ mate.”

  “We’ve hardly just met and you have me married off.”

  “All I’m sayin’ is that for a long-haired partner, you could do worse.”

  “Says the expert. When you’ve said ‘I do,’ then you can talk. Until then, I’ll thank you to keep your matrimonial insights to yourself.”

  “You haven’t been around her half a day and already you’re talkin’ like she does.”

  “I swear,” Neal said, but he grinned.

  They made for the stable.

  “What do you make of the other one?” Jericho asked.

  “Why?” Neal saw a chance to tease him back. “Are you interested?”

  “You know better. Didn’t you see her on the way out? She doesn’t seem all that happy.”

  “Maybe she’d rather be back East. It’s a big step, comin’ out here. Give her a while. The ranch will grow on her.”

  “Someone might.”

  “Meanin’?”

  “The looks she was givin’ that gambler and the looks he was givin’ her.”

  Neal shook his head in amusement. “First you have me practically hitched, and now you have Isolda and Beaumont Adams makin’ cow eyes at each other. You should give up throwin’ a rope for a livin’ and become a parson so you can marry folks off to your heart’s content.”

  “If parsons wore a gun I could be one,” Jericho said. “But there’s somethin’ eatin’ at that gal. Watch her close and you’ll see.”

  “I have too much work to do to indulge in your romances. Besides, she’s a grown woman. She can do as she pleases.”

  Neal thought he might spend the half hour treating himself to a cup of coffee. But the blacksmith came to let him know they were running low on horseshoe nails. The cook reported that he could use molasses and flour the next time someone went into Whiskey Flats. Then the bronc buster ambled over to inform him that three new horses had been broken and added to the string.

  Before Neal knew it, the half hour was almost up. He spent a few minutes out in back of the bunkhouse, sprucing up. After taking off his hat, he filled the basin with water, dipped his face in, then scrubbed dry with a towel that had already seen considerable use. He combed his hair, slapped dust from his clothes, and was ready.

  Alexander Jessup and his daughters were waiting on the front porch, the women in rocking chairs, Jessup pacing.

  “There you are. We were ready sooner than I expected, but no matter. We’re eager to have you show us around.”

  Neal saw Isolda stifle a yawn. He began to wonder if Jericho might be onto something but put it from his mind for the time being. The sun was roosting on the horizon and he’d like to complete the tour before they lost the light.

  Alexander and Edana listened to everything he said with intent interest. Isolda, not so much.

  Neal explained that the most important essential for a ranch to thrive was water. So far the Diamond B had two workings wells; he hoped to eventually have four. In reply to a question from Edana, he related why it was a benefit to a ranch that size to have its own blacksmith. “Otherwise the ranch has to have all its smithin’ done by a town blacksmith, which takes up a lot of time goin’ back and forth, and those town smiths don’t work cheap.”

  Alexander wanted to know how many horses the ranch owned and was shocked by Neal’s answer of “Pretty near five hundred.”

  “Why in the world do we have so many?”

  “Necessity,” Neal said, using the word to impress Edana. “Especially during the roundups.” He went on to enlighten them to the fact that each cowboy was allotted a string of eight horses. The cowboy rode the animals in turns so that he always had a fresh mount. He also was expected to become familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of each particular horse, and use them accordingly. A good circler, for instance, was mainly put to that job. A horse that had a knack for the demands of roping became the cowhand’s chief roper. And so on.

  “The hands take pride in their animals,” Neal mentioned. “No one is allowed to ride another puncher’s horses or they’re liable to come to blows.”

  “Is it possible I can select one for myself?” Edana said. “I like to ride, and I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot more of it than ever before.”

  “You can do what you want, ma’am. I’ll help you pick one out my own self,” Neal offered.

  “I’d be ever so grateful.”

  Alexander raised his voice a little. “Let’s continue with the tour, shall we?”

  Neal would swear he blushed, but he hid his embarrassment and led them to the stable to show them the Diamond B’s prize bull. A gorgeous golden brown, the bull stood five feet high at the shoulders. His horns measured over eighty inches from tip to tip and swept up on either side, increasing his height by another two and a half feet.

  “My word,” Alexander blurted when they stopped at the stall. “Where did we acquire that monster?”

  “The same place we got the rest
of the herd. Texas. His name is Bocephus. He’s two thousand pounds of bovine magnificence.”

  Isolda, who had hardly said a word since they began, rolled her eyes and remarked, “Honestly, now. A cow is a lot of things, but that isn’t one of them.”

  “Bocephus is a bull, ma’am,” Neal corrected her. “And he’ll do more for our herd than all of us put together.”

  Alexander boldly stepped to the rail. “Why is he in here instead of out on the range with the rest of the longhorns?”

  “We let him loose, he’ll turn wild. Every time we want him to sire with a cow, we’ll have to find him and rope him and tame him down.”

  “Better herd management, in other words,” Alexander said, nodding in approval.

  Isolda still wasn’t impressed, apparently. “What difference does it make which cows he mates with?”

  “Cows are like people,” Neal said. “No two are the same. Some have good qualities. Good coats, good horns, a gentle disposition, and the like. Others are too skittish or they’ll try to gore you if you go near their young or they have some other trait we’d like to weed out of the herd.”

  “So you play matchmaker?” Edana said with a grin.

  “Daughter, please,” Alexander said.

  This time Neal didn’t blush, but he noticed that Edana’s cheeks flared a nice shade of pink. Isolda, on the other hand, still appeared bored. As they left the stable he sought to remedy that by asking, “What part of ranchin’ interests you the most, ma’am? You haven’t said.”

  “Probably because there isn’t any,” Isolda replied.

  Alexander turned on her. “All right. That’s enough. I don’t know why you’re being so ill-mannered, but it stops here and now. Is that understood?”

  “Whatever you say, Father,” Isolda said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling all that well.” She veered off toward the ranch house.

  “What in the world has gotten into her?” Alexander said.

  “It’s been a long trip,” Edana replied. “She’s tired, is all.”

  “You were at her side the entire way,” Alexander said, “yet I don’t see you acting so atrociously.”