Lone Star 01 (10 page)

Jessica studied the coffee in her cup. She finally answered, “Hiring gunhands isn't a solution. It'd only mean we'd have two packs of wolves to get rid of, instead of one.”

Mrs. Waldemar sat down heavily. “Of course. Two wrongs never made a right. I'm ashamed of myself for even thinking such a thing.”

After a few more minutes of small talk, Mrs. Waldemar ushered Jessica into her late husband's study, and showed her where the books were kept. Spreading the books and related papers out on the study's battered rolltop desk, Jessica began a cursory investigation of the ranch's financial status, and almost immediately found it to be deeply in the red, bordering on collapse.

Beef receipts from the last co-op gather had been spent before Starbuck had paid off, the Flying W's income going to back wages, supply and feed credit chits, and an overdue mortgage payment. Current expenses were not being met, other than a few of the worst bills, which apparently had been paid through withdrawals from Mrs. Waldemar's savings account back in Boston. Rustlers had whittled at the Flying W stock until the latest tally recorded by Nealon revealed less than two hundred three-year-olds, yearlings, and heifers. Even if Starbuck accepted them at top market quotations, Jessica realized that it would barely pay the crew what they were owed.

Squaring her shoulders, Jessica replaced the books and rolled down the top of the old desk. She returned to the parlor, where Ki and Daryl were standing by the sofa, watching Toby and Mrs. Waldemar play cribbage, the score-board and cards on the cushion between them.

“I know, it's as bad as I've been told,” Mrs. Waldemar sighed dejectedly, glancing up. “The Flying W is finished, beyond recovery, and I should resign myself to losing it to Captain Ryker.”

“I'll admit it can't continue as it is,” Jessica replied. “But we're here to try to save it, not bury it, and before anything's decided, I want to take a quick tour of the property with Ki.”

Daryl grinned. “Well, I'm your guide. Dad?”

Toby shook his head, fuming. “Go ahead, son. Am‘belle's just skunked me with pairs royal, but she ain't going to get away with it.”

Leaving the ranch house, Jessica, Ki, and Daryl spent the rest of the day in their saddles. The unfenced range of the Flying W took in the valley and some of the broken hills that surrounded it, much of the land having a short, tough grass cover that was not the best, but was adequate for grazing. The hands they encountered appeared to know more or less what they were doing, though the lack of supervision was evident in their choice of tasks. The spread would never be a gold mine, Jessica concluded, but it had once been healthy—and with a lot of luck, leadership, and hard labor, it could be again.

Their inspection took longer than expected, and dusk had fallen by the time they returned to the ranch yard. Dismounting, Daryl asked, “Well, shall we go report to Mrs. Waldemar?”

Jessica, glancing at the lighted windows of the cookshack, said, “Not yet. There's one more thing I want to get straight.”

She led the way to the cookshack, noting, as they went, the littered, unkempt appearance of the barn, sheds, and bunkhouse. It shocked and angered her to think how, in just the few short months since Uriah Waldemar's death, the Flying W had declined through indifference and neglect. Amabelle Waldemar was a fine, decent lady who had no experience in running a ranch and, not knowing any better, had placed her trust in the wrong men. If Jessica did no more than turn the ranch around and keep Ryker from grabbing it, it would be adequate reason for having come to Eucher Butte.

Inside the smoky cookshack, the Flying W crew lined both sides of a long plank table, demolishing platters of meat and potatoes, and steaming pots of coffee. At the head of the table was the empty chair of the foreman; Jessica sat down in it and reached for the coffee, while Ki and Daryl stood flanking the door.

The crewmen studiously ignored their presence, other than to dart surly glances in their direction while they ate. Finishing their meal, the men shoved their plates aside and rose to leave.

“Sit tight,” Jessica snapped. “You're not through yet.”

The crew hesitated, giving her hard, belligerent looks, then slowly settled back on the benches. In the tense hush that followed, Jessica sipped her coffee and thought how they all must be silently wishing she'd go away, preferably straight to hell. Well, she wasn't about to go; she was going to stay and find out how many of
them
were going to go.

Draining her cup, she returned their harsh glares and said, “But in another sense, you're through. Through for good.”

One of the feistier hands protested, “Lady, it's not—”

“Miss Starbuck, if you please. And yes, it is.”

“Miz Starbuck, okay, but it's not right to fire us now. We came back and worked all day, like you wanted. It's not fair.”

“I don't have to fire you. You're firing yourselves, with all your hurrawing on the ranch's time and money. And the rustlers are firing you too, by raiding and looting till the Flying W is stone broke, and Ryker can take it over as a favor.” She leaned forward, sternly eyeing the shaken crew. “Ryker says he's planning to form a combine out of the ranches he buys, and you know what that'll mean? It'll mean most of you'll be canned, and those who aren't will have to work twice as hard for half the wages.”

Another puncher shrugged. “Nothing we can do to change it.”

“That's where you're wrong, dead wrong. You're going to start tomorrow dawn, by weeding out the stock of everything four years and older, and shipping them to Starbuck. We need them like the plague, but it'll help pay your wages, help keep you
hired.
And I want a couple of you to take some Giant powder to the west end of the valley, where the stream flows down out of that long canyon. I found plenty of tracks heading up it, and the cows didn't get there by straying.”

The second puncher nodded, brightening. “Not a bad idea. A little blasting up in the rocks oughta close that gap to rustlers.”

“It'll also dam the stream,” Jessica continued. “It'll form a reservoir to provide extra water for the herd, and for crop irrigation.”

That startled a third hand. “Crops? We're not sod-busters.”

Jessica favored him with a flinty smile. “It's not hard to learn. And you'd better, because that whole section by the canyon will be fenced off for native hay and maybe some igar beets. What you don't use for the ranch will be sold as another source of income.”

By now the entire Flying W crew was gaping at her. Daryl, as well, was studying her in wonderment. She was moving fast and decisively, this Jessica Starbuck. She was ramrodding hard—which, though unsettling, was also generating fresh enthusiasm.

And then she dropped the bomb. “You're going to need a foreman, what with Nealon gone—and from what I've seen so far, good riddance—so I'm going to ask Toby Melville to stay on awhile, as guest of Mrs. Waldemar. From now on, you'll take your orders from him.”

There was an outburst of voices, including Daryl's: “But Jessi—”

She shushed them with a wave of her hand. “Listen, Toby Melville's forgotten more about ranching than most of us will ever learn. And you all get along with the Spraddled M crew, don't you?” When she wasn't contradicted, she forged on: “The two spreads will remain separate. I'm only talking about banding together till we've licked the rustling. A common herd can be defended by fewer men, freeing others for nighthawking—and fighting.”

A fifth hand balked at this. “Fighting, like in shooting? Not me. I was hired to nurse cows, not toss lead.”

Jessica nailed him with steel-cold eyes. “You're hired to side the Flying W, a fact you've managed to ignore.” Surveying the others, she added, “You're bogged down and sinking fast, and if you hope to save your ranch and your jobs, you're going to have to lay your brains and guts and, by God, all your loyalty on the line.”

“By damn, I've heard all the manure I plan to,” a puncher way in the back sneered, “and the only reason I say ‘manure' is on account of a female's present. Leastwise, she looks like a female.”

Daryl stiffened. “Hold on, watch your tongue there.”

The third Flying W hand who'd spoken now chimed in, “Yeah, Wylie, ain't no call to—”

“Shut up, Croft,” the man called Wylie snarled. “Maybe your spine is made outta smoke, but as for me, I've had my fill of bein' lectured at by strange wimmen.” He got up from the table, a dark, squat man with a barrel chest and black, beady eyes. “I'm doin' nothin' till Miz Waldemar tosses these troublemakin' talkers offen the ranch. If anybody else feels the same, come with me.”

The two burly punchers who'd been flanking him on the bench rose and fell in, swaggering behind Wylie as he began shouldering his way toward the door. Apparently his close buddies, they laughed when he glared at Jessica and taunted, “Yeah, if I craved preacherin‘, lady, I'd go to Sunday school.” Then, turning to Daryl and Ki, he added, growling, “Step aside, 'lessen you wish to get busted apart.”

Almost to the front of the table now, he drew abreast of Croft. Foolishly, Croft shifted on the bench and reached out to place a cautioning hand lightly on Wylie's arm. “Simmer down, Wylie,” he said. “Hear them out. Maybe these folks've got something to—”

“Leggo!” Wylie wrenched away from Croft's hand as though it were a snake biting his arm, then pivoted and shoved his palm flat into Croft's face. “I'll learn you to shut up!” he snarled, and mashed Croft's head down into his dinner plate with a dull, meaty crunch. Dazed and half-blinded, Croft reeled to one side and began falling off the bench, and Wylie drew back his right foot to kick his boot into Croft's unprotected belly. “I'll learn you good!”

Ki reacted before the kick could land. With an odd smile that masked his anger, he launched himself at Wylie, who immediately turned to meet him with clenched fists. Ki ducked Wylie's first and last punch, catching the puncher's outflung arm and angling to drop to one knee, swinging him into
seoi otoshi,
the kneeling shoulder-throw.

Wylie arched through the air, over the heads of the seated men, and came down on the table, atop the meat platter and the bowl of mashed potatoes. He sprawled there, dazed and breathless.

Even before Wylie hit, Ki was swinging around in the cramped space between the bench and the wall, to check whatever Wylie's two friends might be up to. The nearer one was charging him with outstretched arms, as if he were tackling a drunk in a barroom brawl. Ki chopped the edge of his hand down at the fellow's nose. He purposely held back a little so he would not break it, but it struck forcefully enough to hurt like hell, and tears of pain sprang into the man's eyes. Ki followed through by kicking the man in the side of his knee, collapsing him to one side. He caught his right arm, crunched down on it with his elbow, and then brought his own knee into his hip.

The man dropped to the floor, leaving the way clear for Wylie's second pal to lash out at Ki with his wide leather belt. Ki had already seen this second one slide off his belt and fold it double, which was one of the reasons he'd had to dump the first man, for now he was able to step over the first man and catch hold of the second one's right arm and left shoulder with his hands. At the same time, Ki moved his right foot slightly in back of the man so that as the fellow began tumbling sideways, Ki was able to dip to his right knee and yank viciously. His
hizi otoshi,
or elbow-drop, worked perfectly; the second man catapulted upside-down and collapsed jarringly on top of the first man, flattening them both to the floor.

And Wylie, face purpling with rage, launched himself off the table, a well-honed bowie knife clutched in his right hand. “I'm gonna carve you apart!” he bellowed, slashing at Ki.

Ki calmly stepped aside and then kicked up with his callused foot. His heel caught Wylie smack on his chin, so hard that Wylie flew backwards onto the table again. This time he sprawled cold on his back, staring sightlessly up at the rafters and cobwebbed ceiling of the cookshack.

The rest of the Flying W crew gaped at Wylie, his two moaning pals, and then at Ki with stunned disbelief. They said nothing.

Jessica broke the silence. “If these three want to quit, then they can quit. If any of you others want to quit, you can. Or you can stay. It's up to you, but make up your minds. As I said last night, I don't have the time—and the Flying W doesn't have the time—for you to sit on your butts. Either start kicking or packing.”

The feisty hand who'd first spoken, now spoke up again. “Well, boys, I reckon Miz Starbuck might have something. She sure has a powerful persuader, and she's got me convinced. We gotta pitch in and stop the raidin‘, else we'll all be grub-lining. 'Sides, none of us is safe from a bush-whack bullet ‘lessen we do rare up and fight back.”

“Okay, count me in.”

“We gotta do something, I see that now.”

“Sure, we couldn't face Miz Waldemar if we didn't.”

A consensus of agreement quickly swelled from the crew, including the one who'd refused to fight. “Might as well,” he growled, moodily building a smoke. “Guess it don't make no difference how I bleed, fast or slow. I'll be dead here anyways.”

Diplomatically thanking the men for their splendid cooperation, Jessica rose and left the cookshack. Ki followed, amused as ever by how much she was her father's child, equally as competent as Alex Starbuck had been in defusing and mastering tricky negotiations.

Daryl stood momentarily by the shack's open door, staring in bewildered at the sudden and complete change in the crewmen. Then he turned and swiftly caught up with Jessica and Ki, as they were walking toward the ranch house. “Jessie, that was great, but ...” He faltered, still stunned by her volunteering of his father. “But Dad can't do it, you know how he drinks. He won't want to.”