Stands a Calder Man (47 page)

Her hand cupped his lean cheek. She felt the dampness of that tear and pressed her lips against his mouth, kissing him fiercely and loving him with a force equally ardent. For a man so powerful, he was amazingly gentle that night.

Water sloshed against the lids of the barrels as the horse-drawn wagons rattled into town close to noon the next day. The harsh light wasn't kind to the dusty, weather-beaten buildings. Most of them had been thrown up too quickly, responding to the land boom that had so suddenly stretched Blue Moon's capacity. Now it looked exhausted, teetering on its shaky foundations and aging fast. One small business was already boarded up, an Out of Business sign painted across its dusty window front. The deterioration was as inevitable as the boom had been, Webb realized, because it had been built on hope instead of the land's ability to support it.

There weren't many people in town, but all of them seemed to wear a dazed and vacant look, as if they were in the throes of a terrible nightmare that wouldn't end. Dust lay over the town in a haze, reddening the eyes and coating teeth with grit. A half-dozen wagons were parked around the well in front of the blacksmith's, the well that usually supplied water to the drylanders.

The worn and ragged collection of homesteaders blankly watched the two Triple C wagons and their accompanying outriders approaching them. The drought
had dried all expression from their features and the grasshoppers had taken the hope out of their eyes. It was purely survival instinct that carried them now.

The arrival of the wagons loaded with barrels of water brought people out of stores. It was as if they smelled it and came out to see the rare commodity. As Webb turned the black gelding into the hitching rail, he noticed the sheriff and Simon Bardolph make their way through the slowly growing crowd to reach him.

“You got my message.” A smile of relief broke across the physician's weary features as Webb dismounted.

“This was all we could carry on this trip.” They'd run out of barrels. His glance skimmed the dried-out group of homesteaders. “I'm glad you're here. I'll have the boys unload the wagons, and you and the sheriff can decide how to divide it up so everybody gets some.”

“The sheriff can do that.” Simon volunteered the man for the job. “How bad is it out your way?”

“We escaped the worst of the ‘hoppers, but this drought is still burning us up,” Webb admitted. “The rivers are running so low you can wade in and pick up all the trout you want.”

“How much longer can it last?” The doctor sighed, not expecting an answer.

Webb turned and signaled to his men to begin unloading the barrels. Sheriff Potter had stepped away and had tiredly lifted his arms to get the drylanders' attention. “There's going to be enough water for everybody, so let's keep this orderly. I want you to form a line—”

A voice from the back of the group broke in and demanded to be heard. “Where did this water come from?”

There was a slight pause before the sheriff resumed his instructions, ignoring the question. “Form a line over here.”

“How do we know this is good water?” The voice
insisted on an answer. Webb recognized it before Franz Kreuger forced his way to the front of the group.

“Mr. Calder brought it in from his place,” the sheriff responded with marked patience.

Kreuger spat at the ground and glared his loathing for the source. “Don't take any of this water,” he warned the others around him. “He has probably poisoned it.”

Webb shook his head, tipping it downward in exasperation and disgust. Beside him, Simon muttered something under his breath and moved away to stand with the sheriff.

“Kreuger, there is nothing wrong with this water,” he snapped.

“Did you give him the poison to put in it?” Kreuger challenged and lifted his hands that had been hanging at his sides. That's when Webb saw he was carrying a rifle.

“Don't be ridiculous—” Simon began angrily.

“I want nothing that comes from Calder or his whore—or the physician who treats them!” There was a madness in Kreuger's eyes as he turned to look at his fellow homesteaders. “Since we came, Calder has wanted to get rid of us. He has tried everything—burning our homes and trampling our wheat with his cattle. The grasshoppers would never have descended on our fields if his cattle hadn't been driven onto our lands by his men. The grasshoppers followed the cattle, landed on their backs to be carried into our fields. He didn't want them destroying his land, so he chased them onto ours.”

“That is a damned lie!” Simon bellowed, realizing Kreuger was playing on the superstitious ignorance of the drylanders. They wanted a scapegoat and Kreuger was giving them one.

“Is it?” Kreuger jeered, then addressed the others. “Is it not true that everywhere his cattle were, there were also grasshoppers?” Heads nodded and looks were exchanged even by some of the more skeptical
ones. “The insects ate our crops and our food, and ruined our wells. Now Calder brings us water—water that will probably make us sick. He thinks we are so thirsty—so desperate—that we will take water even from the man who has always been our enemy.”

Simon swung away, lifting his hands in a wild gesture of disgust. “The man's crazy,” he muttered to Webb. “There's no reasoning with him.”

Doyle Pettit had seen the gathering of people and wagons around the community well as he left the bank for lunch. He angled over to see what all the commotion was about, and caught the tail end of Kreuger's speech, enough to piece together with the evidence of the Triple C wagons and men.

A smile made a slow curve across his mouth, his eyes gleaming with a way to use this situation to his advantage. Without drawing attention to himself, he circled the crowd and approached Webb from the livery side, using Webb's horse to shield him from the view of the main party of drylanders.

“Webb.” He kept his voice low. “Even if any of them wanted it, Kreuger isn't going to let them take any of your water. The man's got a blind spot when it comes to you. You and the boys might as well take your wagons and water and head back for the ranch.”

“But what are they going to do for water?” Webb muttered, agreeing with Doyle Pettit's conclusion and knowing the problem remained.

A boyish grin flashed across Doyle's features, revealing a pride in his own clever thinking. “I said ‘head' back to the ranch, but don't ‘go' to the ranch. About five miles outside of town, there's a draw. Wait for me there. It'll take me a couple of hours to round up wagons and some drivers. We'll transfer your water onto my wagons and I'll bring it back into town. These drylanders think I'm one of them, so they won't ask twice where I got it.” He looked at Webb, “Is it a deal?”

It was a simple and highly workable solution. Webb
nodded. “We'll meet you at Simmons' Wash in two hours.”

“I'd stay around to chat, but Kreuger might spot me talking to you and decide I've been contaminated.” Doyle backed away as unobtrusively as he'd come, silently congratulating himself. It was his ability to size up a situation and turn it to his advantage that was going to enable him to own half the state someday. A man had to think on his feet, and not let any opportunity slip by him.

Potter was still trying to convince the drylanders the water was safe when Webb stepped into his saddle and rode his horse over to the sheriff. “Never mind, Potter,” he said. “We're pulling out. If they don't want the water, we'll use it ourselves.”

The sheriffs surprised expression objected to his decision, but Webb didn't wait for him to put it into words as he reined his horse toward the wagons and signaled his men to leave. Their confusion and disbelief were understandable, since they didn't know about the planned switch with Doyle Pettit's wagons. He explained it to them when they were outside of town.

It was better than two hours before Doyle met them at the appointed place with his wagons. He had changed from his spiffy eastern suit and tie into range clothes. It was a trick Doyle had learned, changing his attire to suit the people and surroundings, rather like a chameleon.

In town, he was the businessman. When he called on the drylanders at their homesteads, he'd take off his jacket, loosen his tie, and roll up his sleeves. For ranchers like Webb, he kept a set of worn jeans, a work-stained hat, and a sheepskin-lined jacket to remind them he was one of them—Tom Pettit's son.

None of them looked beyond his facade and good-natured demeanor to see the driving ambition and shrewdness in his eyes. It was common knowledge that he owned the bank, the lumberyard, the granary, and a couple other businesses in town, plus his law practice.

Hell, he owned nearly the whole damned town. But Doyle was sure that few were aware that his holdings were so extensive they rivaled the Calder spread. It wasn't the time for them to know, but it amused him to think about it, especially now in his meeting with Webb Calder.

“It's good of you to give these homesteaders your water,” he told Webb. “I'd have the boys haul some from the TeePee,” he said, referring to the ranch he'd inherited from his father. “But we're just about bone-dry out there.”

That wasn't precisely true. The ranch had some water to spare, but there wasn't any point in giving it away as Calder was doing. In time, those drylanders would be buying water, and that's when Doyle planned to dip into his supply. In the meantime, he could take advantage of Webb's largesse and take the credit for being the homesteaders' savior. It was going to be good public relations.

“I've got a couple of good-flowing rivers.” Webb hadn't needed to mention that, since Doyle was well aware of the fact. “As long as they keep running, we'll have some water to spare.”

“The way Kreuger's got those folks set against you, I think it'd be best if I send my wagons to your place and let them believe it's coming from me,” Doyle suggested.

“That's fine.” Webb didn't care what form the ruse took as long as those who needed water got it.

“After we get this load into town, I'll have wagons go to your place and bring more water tomorrow. These barrels aren't going to go very far.” The last barrel was rolled onto a TeePee wagon, and Doyle firmly shook Webb's hand. “Give my regards to your wife. You sure never gave me a chance to give you a little competition for her.”

As he climbed onto the wagon seat, Doyle knew he hadn't been seriously interested in the widow Webb had married, but it had been the right thing to say to Calder. Marriage was down the road for him, and he
was going to choose carefully—maybe pick a rich eastern bride. An alliance, that's what he wanted- A marriage that would better his position.

Before returning to town, he took the precaution of circling the wagons around it and entering from another direction so Kreuger and his drylanders wouldn't suspect he was actually bringing them Calder water. When the drivers stopped the wagons in front of the dry community well, the crowd of homesteaders gathered around them and readily lined up to get their share.

When someone thanked him, Doyle smiled and modestly shrugged it off. “I'm just glad I could help.” His arcing glance caught Franz Kreuger watching him. “We all have to stick together in hard times like these.” He knew it was a doctrine Kreuger often preached, and he deliberately voiced it now. He saw the faint nod of approval Kreuger unconsciously made and knew he had the ringleader of these drylanders in his pocket. “If there's anything any of you need, I'll be at the bank.”

In the group, there were at least four homesteaders that he knew were in dire straits. They'd be coming to him for a loan, since he already held mortgages on their land. This time he'd have their animals and equipment. Next spring, Doyle Pettit, the landowner, would pay them a tenth of what their homesteads and possessions were worth and they'd get down on their knees and thank him for it. All of them believed he loaned them money to help them, and later bought them out, out of the goodness of his heart, wiping away their debts and giving them just enough money to get them out of the state. As he made his way through the gathering to return to the bank, he saw the gratitude in their faces and nearly laughed out loud.

With a definite pride, he looked at all the businesses that carried his name. They'd brought him a handy bit of cash, the prices on the goods sold marked up two and three times what he'd paid for them. Since the drought came, most of them had been operating at a loss, but Doyle was convinced it was only a temporary setback. There was a side benefit to the town's present poor
economic situation. Businesses that had gone into competition with his were now starting to close their doors. It wouldn't be long before he had the whole town sewn up.

Three riders were tying their horses to the hitch rail in front of the bank. Doyle's interest sharpened when he recognized the old and heavyset man approaching the bank entrance. It was Ed Mace from the Snake M Ranch. There was something tired and defeated about the way the aging rancher carried himself. Doyle wondered how much of that was attributable to his sixty-plus years. Doyle couldn't think of any reason Mace would be coming to his bank unless he needed money. That started him thinking. There just might be a way he could get his hands on the Snake M Ranch.

Before the rancher reached the bank door, Doyle Pettit hailed him, chatted with him on the sidewalk for a few minutes, then invited him inside as if he hadn't known it was Mace's destination all along. In the privacy of his office, Doyle kept the talk away from the bank and loans, discussing instead ranching and range conditions. Slowly he worked his way around to the hardships of the drought and the effects it was having on the area ranchers.

“There isn't a cattleman around that hasn't been hurt by this drought—men like you, for instance,” Doyle said. “Ever since I went on the first roundup with my daddy, I've looked up to ranchers like you. You're solid people, and your word is good as gold. I want you to know, Ed, if you ever need a loan to help you over
a
hump, just tell me and you've got it.”