Ryan's Hand (10 page)

The next day passed too rapidly for Cara. Between serving meals, packing the vans, and watching what was going on outside the ranch kitchen with horses and men in preparation for departure to the campsite, Cara could hardly believe it when Leon said, “That's it for today, li'l lady. You go on up to the big house 'fore it gets too dark to see. I imagine you still have yore own packin' to do. Get plenty of rest tonight, now. Yore gonna need it.”

Tiredly Cara removed the big white apron that Leon had let her use. “You won't have to tell me that twice,” she said. “Good night, Leon. I'll see you in the morning.” But as she stepped out of the swinging back doors, she collided with the tall man who had nodded pleasantly to her yesterday.

“Whoa there,” he said in a friendly voice, steadying her. “You okay?”

“Of course.” Cara smiled up at him. “How about you?”

“No harm done.” He grinned. “This gives me a chance to introduce myself. I'm Jim Foster.” With obvious reluctance he removed his arms from around her to hold out a hand.

“Cara Martin,” she said, feeling her hand swallowed as he took it. “You're the foreman, aren't you?”

“That's right. I run things when Jeth's not around. You must be sure and let me know if there's anything I can do for you when we're out there.”

Leon was at the sink still tidying up, his back to them, but Cara sensed he was taking great interest in the conversation. “I'll remember that, Mr. Foster. Thank you very much.”

“Jim,” he corrected with a smile, and Leon turned from the sink.

“Time you were goin', Miss Martin. Daylight be gone soon.”

With a polite nod to the men, Cara left, buttoning her new jean jacket against the stiff night wind as she walked across the ranch yard. There had been some sort of unfriendly undercurrent back there between the foreman and Leon. She was sure of it. She must be careful not to become inadvertently drawn into ranch politics.

Cara had glimpsed Jeth only once during the busy day. He had not eaten either breakfast or lunch in the Feedtrough. Now she looked back at the saddling pens that skirted the big central corral. In the pens were all the horses, the remuda, that Jim had assigned to each man for the roundup. Leon had said that each ranch hand would need a change of five horses a day for the work he must do. All day the riders had been shoeing them as well as preparing their own range gear for a month's stay on the open plains. Tomorrow there would be a giant exodus of men and horses, trailers, and vans to the first roundup site fifty miles away. In spite of herself, Cara felt a thrill of excitement about the coming adventure.

When she entered her room, Cara found neatly folded on the bed the new jeans and shirts laundered to an old-clothes softness and fragrance. She picked up the flannel shirts and buried her nose in them, inhaling the freshness with appreciation after a day of smelling horses, sweat, and manure. There was no way of knowing how many times these clothes had been washed to acquire the comfortable texture they had now. She must find a way to express her thanks to Fiona.

A knock came on the door. “Come in,” she called, but it was Jeth Langston, not Fiona, who entered her bedroom. The hard light in his eyes warned her that he was in an irritable mood, possibly because he was as bone-tired as she was. A deep brim crease around his head suggested that he had not taken his hat off until a few minutes ago, and dust caked his clothes. Without preamble he said abruptly, “Here is a list of things you'll need. Have everything packed and ready outside your door no later than six o'clock in the morning, earlier if you can manage it. Do you have any questions?”

“Why—I haven't had time to think of any—”

“Too late now,” he said curtly, turning to leave.

“That's all right,” Cara said to the broad-shouldered back. “Jim Foster can answer any questions I might have.”

Slowly Jeth turned back around to face her, and Cara could have kicked herself for the remark. Why had she said such a thing? she scolded herself. The rancher's eyes glinted like sun off metal as he walked back to her. “What do you mean by that, Cara?” he asked softly.

“Why, nothing!” Cara said, wide-eyed. She pressed the clothes protectively against her. “What else could I have meant?”

“You tell me,” Jeth said, so near to her now that she could see the stubble on his face, smell the rough male scents of him. “You wouldn't be thinking of playing your little games out there with any of my men, would you?”

“I don't know what you mean—” Jeth stopped her protest by grasping her jaw in a firm hold.

“Because if you are,” he went on as if she had not spoken, “just remember that I would take a dim view of such a fool-hardy idea. That should dampen your enthusiasm considerably.” He gave her jaw a stern little shake. “Those men will be without women for over a month. They don't need you to remind them of what they're missing.”

“Then why am I going?” Cara demanded angrily, clutching his wrist.

“I told you why.” He released her and she retreated against the writing desk. Something fluttered to the floor, and he reached down and picked it up. “What's this?” he asked, frowning.

“It's my check to you for these clothes,” Cara said, rubbing where his fingers had been. What a beast he was!

Jeth looked at it with contempt. “Written on money that Ryan transferred to your account?” His scorn was as cutting as a scalpel. So he knew about that, too, did he? thought Cara. As he pocketed the check, she said in a futile, childish attempt at some revenge, “You are such a dreadful man.”

“That is an opinion shared by a number of my enemies. Fiona will bring your meal. I suggest you turn in early. Now no doubt you will excuse me. I'm going for a swim.”

The next morning was a virtual beehive of activity in the ranch yard as men gathered with their equipment to be stowed in the caravan of vehicles leaving for the campsite. The remuda had been assembled, and Cara overheard Jeth giving instructions to Jim about which men were to ride in the trucks and which were to drive the remuda to a canyon close to where the cattle would be gathered.

The atmosphere crackled with excitement. Cara could feel the eagerness in horses and men to get started. “I should be frightened, I suppose,” Cara told Leon, “but actually, this is all very thrilling.”

“The novelty will wear off for you after a day or two,” Leon told her, “but for most of those men out there, this 'n' the fall roundups are the best times on a ranch.”

What, Cara wanted to know, was the purpose of a roundup?

“To gather up for brandin' and inoculation all the new calves born this spring,” Leon answered. “On a ranch the size of this one, roundin' up the cattle is about the only way to count 'em. At the same time we do that, we drive 'em up to the high country for the summer where the grass is more plentiful. Jeth believes in modernization, but there ain't nothin' like men on horseback to gather cattle. Some ranches have gone to usin' helicopters for roundin' up their herds. It wouldn't work for us. We got too many cattle. Them helicopters 'ud just start a stampede.”

By eight o'clock the kitchen had once again been cleaned after breakfast, and Leon told Cara to climb into the pickup truck that would lead the two customized, refrigerated vans that made up the chuckwagon. Leon tooted the horn and yelled out of his window, “We'll have the chow waitin'!” as the three-vehicle cavalcade pulled out of the ranch yard. The cowhands cheered and waved their hats and lariats. Cara laughed, caught up in the excitement of the new adventure, and searched among the group for Jeth. She caught instead the eye of Bill, who couldn't suppress a grin when she waved at him, and then the rather stern, speculative gaze of Jim Foster. The foreman nodded to her without smiling and touched the brim of his hat. Puzzled, Cara gave him a brief smile before settling back to experience her second ride across the open range of La Tierra Conquistada.

Fifty miles later, in a high clearing fringed by scrub oak and mesquite trees, Leon drew up beside a great blackened pit dug in the earth. Beside it was stacked an enormous supply of firewood, cut and piled, Leon explained, before the roundup began. “This is where the first campsite was last year,” he told Cara as they climbed out of the truck. “We'll have to get the fire goin' so we can get the coffee on and the steak fried 'fore the men get here.”

Cara took a minute to stretch and take stock of her surroundings. Her eyes swept acres of rolling, semiarid dun hills and mountain slopes, still under the last dull wash of winter. With a trick of the mind's eye, Cara thought, you could almost imagine you were looking at the Atlantic; the land had the same unbroken endlessness. She took a deep breath of the snappy morning air, letting some of the tense excitement ease out of her shoulders. If she could manage to keep from incurring Jeth Langston's wrath, maybe this wouldn't be such an unpleasant month after all.

By noon the chuckwagon was in operation. Tiered shelves had been unfolded from the back end of the covered pickup truck, and the earthen pit was crackling with red coals. A ten-by-ten-foot tarpaulin, in the gray and yellow colors of La Tierra, had been stretched over four metal posts anchored in the earth. Kettles of beans, chili, and stew hung from an iron bar over the campfire, simmering for the evening meal. Their spicy smells blended richly in the pure mountain air with those of coffee and fried steak. Lunch was a catch-as-catch-can kind of meal. As their work permitted, the men came in twos and threes to eat quickly the huge slabs of fried steak served between thick slices of bread. They washed the food down with scalding cups of coffee before mounting up to ride back to the draws and mountain passes to flush the cattle and lead them to a holding pen.

In midafternoon, when no kettle needed stirring or seasoning, Cara strolled over to an enclosure where three young calves were penned. They had healthy, russet-colored bodies and white faces, and the sun shone pinkly through their short, perky ears. One of the calves ambled up to Cara and let out a plaintive bawl. “What are you doing here, little fella?” she soothed. “Sounds like you need your mother.” The calf seemed mollified by Cara's attention and let her continue to stroke it, batting tender brown eyes that she found endearing.

After a while she went in search of a place where she could wash and dress privately away from the hub of the campsite, and found an outcropping of brushy rocks that screened a shallow hollow. There were several flat boulders in the depression, perfect for holding a mirror and a pan of water. Cara returned to the pen and patted her new friend, then carried water and her clothes satchel to the depression to freshen up before she had to help with the final preparations for supper. She was able to manage a thorough wash, she'd like Jeth Langston to know, and after a change of clothes she felt as clean and refreshed as if she'd had a soaking bath. She applied fresh makeup and brushed her hair until it shone, securing it away from her face with a blue ribbon that matched the blue in her eyes.

Leon surveyed her over the top of his glasses when she rejoined him under the tarpaulin, but she could not tell from his permanent scowl if he approved her appearance or not. Busy ladling out flour into a huge bowl for sourdough biscuits, he remarked, “Put on that big white apron there and wrap it around ya two, three times, Miss Martin—that's a good girl.” Cara did as he instructed, smiling to herself. In his own gruff way he was trying to protect her from the too-curious eyes of the men.

She was rolling out biscuits when the men began returning to camp. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw for the first time that day Jeth's tall figure astride the big bay. He dismounted without glancing toward the chuckwagon and strode quickly to a gray pickup that Cara knew contained a telephone for communicating with his office at the ranch.

Busy with her chores, Cara barely noticed Leon leave her to join a group of two Mexican cowboys,
vaqueros
, and a plump, merry-faced man who earlier in the day had arrived bumping over the plains in a white van. “Harry's Meat Market” was emblazoned in red on the door of the van, and Cara had thought the man had come to dicuss an order for beef. Leon had greeted him jovially, and the two had enjoyed a gossip session over steaming cups of coffee.

Now it was obvious they were discussing the calves in the pen, and Cara began to get uneasy. What could be of such interest about them? She watched one of the
vaqueros
walk cautiously toward the pen, twirling his rope. He threw the noose over the head of one of the calves—her calf—which immediately set up a bawling protest and tugged at the rope.

“What's he doing?” Cara demanded of Leon, but he didn't answer her. Intent on the calf, Leon pursed his lips to whistle. Cara saw the other
vaquero
raise a rifle to his shoulder. “No!” she screamed, just as Leon's whistle split the air. The calf turned its head inquiringly in their direction, and in that second a bullet slammed into its white forehead between the dark brown eyes.

In shock Cara whirled to avoid seeing what happened next and staggered into a pair of arms that held her comfortingly against a rough-vested chest. Jeth, she thought, but the voice she heard bent low to her was that of Jim Foster.

“Easy now, Miss Martin, no need to carry on so over a little old dogie like that. He's only good for eating. Come on, now. Let's walk a bit. Leon can do without you for a few minutes.”

Trying to shut out of her mind the picture of the young calf crumpling into the dust, surprise still in its eyes as blood spread over its white face, Cara let herself be led away from the campsite. “This is no place for you,” Jim said as they paused behind a small bluff that shielded them from the camp. “Jeth ought to have his head examined for making you come out here.”

“I should have known why those calves were penned,” Cara said numbly. “It was stupid of me not to realize—”