B00DVWSNZ8 EBOK (6 page)

The three of them bowed their heads and closed their eyes, and Grandpa gave thanks in his gravelly drawl
. At the end, he asked the Lord to provide rain. None of them were regular churchgoers, but that didn't mean they were ungrateful for the bounty that had been bestowed upon them. Long ago, Jude's great-great-grandfather, Roslyn Shaffer Campbell, and his siblings had built the first church building in Lockett.

After the prayer, Windy and Irene brought out hot platters of sizzling sliced beef, grilled vegetables and condiments, including hot peppers and sliced jalapenos and they started filling their plates. Grandpa might be old, but he hadn't lost his taste for spicy food.

"I heard you hired a new man," Grandpa said to Daddy as they dug in to the meal.

Jude was constantly amazed that even at his age, Grandpa continued to concern himself with the ranch hands Daddy hired.
She was equally amazed that Daddy didn't allow the wagon boss to hire the help. Strayhorn Corp had all sorts of management types doing different things— a wagon boss in charge of the ranch work and the cattle, a wrangler in charge of the remuda, an accountant in charge of the money, a chuck wagon boss in charge of food and stores and a vet with a sophisticated clinic and lab to oversee the care and treatment of  sick livestock and insemination of horses. Yet for some reason, Daddy and Grandpa involved themselves in the hiring of every individual who worked at the ranch. She couldn't fault the policy. Many cowhands stayed with the Circle C for years, even lifetimes.

"Where'd you find him?" Grandpa asked, using his knife to arrange his meal in different sections instead of rolling it into a tortilla the way most people ate fajitas. Ever fascinating to Jude, Grandpa ate with his knife.

"Margie Wallace's nephew," Daddy answered.

Jude's stomach lurched and she dropped her fork. It clattered against her plate and fell to the floor. She
quickly scooted her chair back and picked it up.

Daddy held his fajita halfway between his plate and his mouth. "You okay, sweetheart?"

She got to her feet. "Yes, uh, I'm fine. I'll just go to the kitchen and get another fork."

Her heartbeat had kicked up, and she was glad to
leave the table. In the kitchen, Irene handed her a clean fork and she drew a quick deep breath before returning to the dining room. Typically, Jude listened only casually to the conversational back-and-forth between Daddy and Grandpa about the ranch's employees. Suddenly supper had become more interesting than usual. Tonight, she intended to take note of every word.

"He isn't going to work her place?" Grandpa was asking as Jude reclaimed her seat, the image of Brady Fallon's smile and perfect teeth vivid in her memory. Her earlier conversation in town with Jake jumped into her mind.

"Says he is," Daddy said. "Don't know how it's gonna work out. He's strapped for cash."

"He wouldn't be the one who was around here as a boy, always with Ike's boy—"

"Uh, yessir," Daddy said, laying his fajita on his plate and looking intently at Grandpa. "I didn't know if you'd remember him."

A loud silence at the table followed. A squiggle slipped through Jude’s stomach. She
waited, almost holding her breath, her gaze darting between Daddy and Grandpa. She couldn't recall ever hearing her father say his younger brother's name. She had rarely heard Grandpa say it. She had never heard a discussion of Ike Strayhorn and his family or of Daddy's second wife, Karen. Other than the scant information gleaned from Grammy Pen, Jude had no idea what kind of relationship Daddy and his brother might have had before the fatal accident that had altered life at the Circle C.

"We want to be sure to keep an eye on what happens there," Grandpa said
at last and Jude drew a breath. "Margie damn near let that place go to brush,” he continued” It'll take some doin' to clean it up."

Daddy nodded and
picked up his fajita again, prepared to go on with his meal.

Jude had the same opinion of the 6-0 pastures. Fighting back the insidious juniper and mesquite was a job the Circle C's brush-removal crew worked at year-round. But obviously Margie Wallace hadn't been able to stay on top of it.

"The old house ought to be torn down," Grandpa said.

"He's gonna live in it," Daddy replied.

"Is he a family man?"

"No, sir. Says he's divorced."

"Then why isn't he moving into the bunkhouse? It's more convenient, Jasper, if the unmarried hands live in the bunkhouse."

"I offered that
option to him," Daddy said, "but he says he'll drive over every day."

Grandpa shook his head, his eyes hard. Jude had seen the look many times when something displeased him. "Jasper, those hands get their breakfast, pick their mounts and are horseback before daylight. It'll be a bad situation if they have to wait for somebody to come to work."

Her grandfather's attitude struck Jude as odd and even more narrow-minded than usual. Most of the hands were married, with families. They didn't live in the bunkhouse. They either lived in one of the ranch's many houses or drove to work from some other home every day. Some even lived in town. Though breakfast was served at 4:45 a.m., she had rarely heard a complaint about someone being late and holding things up.

"Dad,
I'm on top of it, okay? her father said, putting together another fajita. “Just let me handle it. If it becomes a problem, I'll simply tell Fallon he has to move on. But I think he'll make a good hand. He's been doing some cowboying off and on for a couple of years over in Stephenville, so he's not afraid of the work. And he's a college man. Graduated from Tarleton with a BBA. Got some smarts between his ears. He asked me for an opportunity and I gave him one." Daddy bit into his fajita.

"Just remember this, Jasper," Grandpa said. "If he decides to sell, we want to be the buyer.
I've already alerted Bob Anderson at the bank in Lubbock.That fifteen sections would square up our line on that south side. I tried to buy it from Margie after Harry died, but the cantankerous old woman wouldn't sell it to me."

A light came on in Jude's mind. Th
e land was the root of Grandpa's displeasure with Daddy's not insisting that Brady Fallon live in the bunkhouse, where Grandpa might be able to keep tabs on what he was doing. Land acquisition was so much a part of the Circle C's history, Jude supposed it had become almost like a gene. She felt the corner of her mouth quirk at Grandpa calling Margie Wallace an old woman. At her death, she was younger than Grandpa.

"I know, Dad," Daddy said.

"You keep on top of the situation, you hear, Jasper?" Grandpa tapped his forefinger on the table as he talked.

Good grief
!
Jude’s offer for the 6-0would have been a million dollars, a substantial chunk of her trust fund. It was a fair offer for neglected rangeland in Willard County. If shehad been the one to acquire it, a much bigger family explosion than she had imagined would have ensued. Nuclear, even. A part of her was glad the transaction had fallen on its face.

"I will, Dad. I understand
," Daddy said.

And what did that mean? Exactly what did Daddy understand? Did Grandpa want the 6-0's new owner to fail so he could get the land? The notion wasn't far-fetched. Time and again
, Jude had seen him prove his pragmatism. For all of his reputation for doing good works, contributing to the community and being a caring employer, she had seen him be downright ruthless when it came to something that affected the Circle C's holdings.

Daddy's assurance to Grandpa was unclear, but one thing Jude knew was that he and Grandpa were like-minded. She believed her father was a fair man, but if Grandpa wished it, Daddy did it, sometimes even before Grandpa made his wishes known
verbally. She also knew that Grandpa and Daddy, though they might appear to be low-key, were both powerful and influential men, with tentacles crawling into unlikely nooks and crannies. And not just in Texas.

What did her grandfather's attitude really mean? She felt an inexplicable concern for Brady Fallon. Anyone could see he had his hands full trying to put the old 6-0 ranch back together. But now he was facing another harsh reality without even knowing it and an adversary not of his own making.

Jude had lost her appetite. She picked at her food.

“What’s the matter, punkin,” Daddy asked. “You’re not feeling well?”

“I—I’m fine. I guess I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was.”

“You shouldn’t waste food, Judith Ann,” Grandpa said.

Chapter 5

At the end of supper, Daddy followed his routine by retiring to his suite for some reading, then
an early bedtime.

Grandpa invited Jude to accompany him on his evening stroll around the barns and the barn lots. She
usually liked walking with him. Often they walked with long but comfortable silences between them. But sometimes Grandpa would be in a talkative mood and their evening strolls would be rife with information. She traded her sandals for boots, he put on his Stetson and away they went.

He walked with his wrists crossed behind his back, his step slow and careful. She had noticed lately that he had become smaller in his old age. Once she had thought him as tall as a giant, but now his shoulders slumped and he was the same height as
she. She plucked a tall blade of summer grass and adjusted her own step to his, as together they ambled across the wide caliche driveway and on toward the barns.

The sinking sun had lost some of its heat and light. It painted the sky in slashes of purple and gold and cast the landscape in soft amber. A bank of deep blue clouds bloomed in great billows in the west. "Cloud's got a bellyful of rain," Grandpa said. "Looks like it's coming our way."

Spring and early summer often brought violent storms, but along with them came the precious rain that plains ranchers and farmers prayed for and cherished. Grandpa never relied on TV or radio for the weather forecast. He simply looked at the sky and smelled the air.

"I see that," Jude said, hoping to someday be able to look at the sky and sense the oncoming weather.

Beneath the clouds and off in the distance, long twin mesas rose from the flat plain, a deep gray silhouette at this time of day. Grandpa had told her many times that those tablelands had been sacred sites for the Comanche. Willard County was located well within what the Spanish explorers had called Comancheria and had been the home turf of the Quahadi, Quanah Parker's band.

Though the legend of Quanah Parker's Anglo mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, and his Comanche chief father, Peta Nocona, was a tragic one, Jude loved it. She thought it a true love story that had produced a mighty leader. She might teach high school science rather than history, but if her students hadn't heard
how Cynthia Ann Parker had been kidnapped as a child by the Comanche, then later fallen deeply in love with Peta Nocona, and how she had starved herself to death after the army's rescue separated her from him and their son Quanah, Jude always told them the story. People should know and respect those who had lived here before them.

The storm cloud chased a cool breeze toward them that brushed Jude's cheeks, ruffling her skirt and swirling her hair across her face. It carried the scent of summer grass and unsullied air and the hoped-for rain. With a pop and a screech, the windmill fan shifted, catching the wind. The fan began to race, driving the well's sucker rod
rapidly up and down, pumping a gush of water from deep within the earth.

A fierce love of all that surrounded her filled Jude's chest, like nothing else ever had. She drew a deep breath, as if she could take every sight
, sound and smell into her body and brain and save them forever.

"It's a good time of year," Grandpa said, a dramatic pronouncement from a man of few words.

The love of the land was in Jude’s blood. It had come from her grandfather and all of the Scots-Irish ancestors preceding him. She looked over at him, realizing he would soon leave them and she felt bereft.

As they neared the fenced pasture behind the barn, the longhorn cows he kept as pets stood near the fence. The waning sunlight showed the wide spans of their horns as golden. Two of the cows thrust their noses through the fence rails in curiosity. Grandpa walked over and talked to them in a low voice as he gave their faces a good rub with his gnarled fingers, his affection for them palpable. "Cattle like these were the beginning of everything, Judith Ann."

"I know, Grandpa." Jude, too, rubbed their faces. The cows and their three-and four-foot racks of horns looked frightening, but these were gentler than pet dogs.

"Without their strength and toughness, there might've been no such thing as a cattle industry and our family wouldn't be blessed with all
that we have."

Jude had heard him say this many times. "I know, Grandpa."

But longhorn cattle and their contribution to the cattle industry and the Strayhorn coffers were of little interest to Jude this evening. After visiting Jake in town earlier and hearing the exchange between her grandfather and father at the supper table, Jude had Brady Fallon on her mind, and Jake and her cousin Cable and the days of their childhood. The urge to say what she was thinking overcame her. usual reticence in her grandfather’s presence. "Grandpa, did you not want Daddy to hire Brady Fallon?"

"Jasper has been hiring our hands for years, Judith Ann. He can hire anyone he wants to. Why do you ask?"

"I just got the impression at supper that you were unhappy that Daddy hired Mrs. Wallace's nephew."

"No. I have nothing against young Fallon."

"But you said you wanted the 6-0 land to square up the Circle C. Were you mad because he got the land?"

"No. The 6-0 was Margie's to do with as she saw fit. But not selling it to me at the market price when she had the chance was poor judgment on her part.
It’s so rundown her young nephew would've been better off inheriting the money we would have paid her. He can't do what he's set out to do with that old ranch. No man without resources could."

Resources.
Code word for money.
Grandpa thought in terms of dollars most of the time. The million dollars she would have paid for the 6-0 was probably too much. And after the sale, after she had depleted her trust fund, Daddy and Grandpa would have been so mad at her they would have offered her no help. She would have been in the same position as Brady Fallon—no resources.

"But no matter,"
Grandpa said. "He'll figure out he has to sell. We'll be ready to buy him out when the time comes. Strike while the iron is hot, Judith Ann. I learned that from my father, who was a brilliant businessman."

Jude angled a startled look at her grandfather, thinking of what she had heard of
his father, her great-grandfather, from people outside the family. Many in Willard County viewed Franklin Bennett Strayhorn as something less than a brilliant businessman. Greedy ruthless shyster was the more common opinion. A few said his early demise from heart failure had been a blessing. "I thought Grandpa Frank was a lawyer."

"He was that, too. And he eventually became a stockman."

By marrying lucky
, Jude thought. That was what the local old-timers said and she believed them, even if Frank Strayhorn was a blood relative. She knew the story of how he came into the Campbell family.

Grandpa's mother, Penelope Ann Campbell, had met Frank Strayhorn when she went away to school in Dallas. She was a sheltered young woman who left a devoutly religious home. Handsome and persuasive, Frank Strayhorn swept an unsophisticated girl off her feet and married her. Eventually he persuaded her God-fearing father, Roslyn Shaffer Campbell, to tell the only other living Campbell heir, Grammy Pen's aunt
, Martha Alice, who had married a Dallas doctor and rarely returned to Willard County, that the family's West Texas land was worthless.

Frank Strayhorn
had then brokered a deal whereby Roslyn Campbell purchased Martha Alice's interest in the land and cattle for pennies. If Martha Alice had ever realized the fraud that had fostered the dispossession of her hereditary right, she never acknowledged it. After the sale, she never returned to West Texas again in her life.

Upon Frank Strayhorn's death, Penelope Ann Campbell Strayhorn stood as the sole heir to the
300,000-acre Campbell ranching empire and its thousands of cattle and horses.

And now, as Grammy Pen's only offspring, Grandpa had inherited all of it.

This story had been told to Jude by none other than their cook, Windy Arbuckle, and embellished by a few of the other older hands who had worked on the ranch for years. Not holding herself above the people who were loyal to her brought benefits and one of those benefits was that they felt free to talk to her.

"But Grandpa, how can you know Brady Fallon has no resources?"

"I know his mother and his father, Judith Ann."

At some point in the course of this conversation, a dawning had crept up on Jude. Now she realized why the
Lubbock banker had been so nervous about her attempting to buy the 6-0. His anxiety had nothing to do with fearing she might make a financial blunder with her trust fund money. It had everything to do with the fact that Grandpa intended to acquire the 6-0 himself and the banker knew it. How could she have been so naive as to not figure that out before now?

I
f Brady Fallon found himself in financial straits—and Jude didn't question Daddy and Grandpa’s qualifications to make that determination—those two would be waiting to pounce like cougars. To get what they wanted at the price they wanted to pay, all they had to do was wait—wait and patiently watch Brady Fallon twist in the wind until the rope that held him broke.

Who had spoken to her more often of the virtues of patience than the two men who had raised her?

A sour taste formed in Jude's mouth and like a prowling cat, a slow anger began to crawl around within her. It wasn't fair. Brady Fallon had to be a good person or Jake wouldn't call him a friend. Sympathy for the 6-0's new owner planted itself within Jude, warring with family loyalty. And she couldn't explain those conflicting emotions even to herself.

"I know the Fal
lon family," Grandpa went on. "Never forget, Judith Ann, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

She leveled an assessing look at her grandfather.
Brady’s family aside, remembering the many stories of Frank Strayhorn's underhanded shenanigans, she wondered just how true that old saying might be.

The longhorns moved away from the fence and began to snu
ffle through hay on the ground. She and Grandpa circled the small pasture in silence, then started back toward the house.

Her mood had changed. She no longer felt like biting her tongue so as not to offend him.

The way Daddy had cut off the conversation at supper when Grandpa mentioned her Uncle Ike nagged at her. Curiosity about him had pricked her for years. If not for Grammy Pen, she wouldn’t even know what he looked like. No photographs of him existed anywhere in the house, but Grammy Pen kept some in a locked box. He was, after all, one of her grandsons.

If not for her great-grandmother, Jude
would have precious little knowledge of the affair between her stepmother and Daddy's brother. It was possible she wouldn't even have known the circumstances of their deaths. The locals might blather on about Frank Strayhorn, who had been dead for thirty years, but when it came to Grandpa and his three sons, they talked less freely.

"I wish I could remember more about my uncle Ike," she said, lifting her hand and letting the breeze take the blade of grass she had been toying with from her fingers. "And my stepmother."

Long moments passed before Grandpa spoke. "When it came to the work, when he set his mind to it, Ike was as good as there was. But he could be as bad as there was if he wanted to. He had a wildness to him. He wasn't a steady hand like your daddy."

Jude waited for him to speak of her stepmother, Karen. Or of Jude's mother, Vanessa. Or of someone. But he kept his silence.

"Did Daddy and Uncle Ike get along before...you know, before the—"

"Not well," her grandfather answered before she could finish asking her question.

No one ever answered a question or finished a sentence when it came to conversation about her uncle and stepmother.

"They were too different," Grandpa added.

She waited again, but he said no more.

Dark had descended by the time they returned to the house, and the sounds of crickets had risen in a steady rhythm in the nighttime emptiness. Grandpa said good night and shuffled to his ground-floor suite. Jude checked the
locks on the doors and windows, preparing for the coming storm.

She made her way upstairs, her thoughts continuing to trouble her.
What must it have been like for Daddy and Grandpa living in the same house for the past twenty-four years. Neither of them was great at communicating feelings. The death of Daddy’s wife and Grandpa’s son, occurring while they engaged in an illicit tryst, had to have caused some kind of schism between her father and grandfather. But if so, they kept it well hidden.

No doubt
they succeeded in getting along so well due to having a mutual interest in the ranch and the Campbell-Strayhorn legacy—and the fact that the family history was more powerful than they were. From what she had seen, the history had usually proved to be more enduring than any mere mortals.

By the time she reached her room, thunder
had begun to rumble in the distance. She typically spent quiet evenings reading or watching TV. This evening, she changed into her pajamas and selected a book published in the forties about the great old ranches of the rolling plains of the West Texas Panhandle.