The Rancher (4 page)

Cole’s eyes stung from the last two sleepless nights on the trail. His ears were hot and his hands ached from gripping the reins of the gelding he’d chosen for the trip. His attitude matched. Hot and aching.

“If they don’t like the way I run things, well, then they can find another rancher to work for.”   Cole rubbed his neck and arched his back, his shoulders working to meet in the middle.

Raine opened his mouth to speak, but Cole cut in before the words could sound.

“Look Raine, I’ve been gone for nearly

three months.  I’m tired and sore.  We lost

a hundred head or so, and two of the hired hands quit before we even reached the Texas border.  Can we not do this right now?” Cole shoved his gloves into his back pocket and walked into the house.

“Welcome home, little brother,” Cole thought he’d heard Raine call after him.

The smell of rolls baking in the late afternoon wafted through the corridor in a trail of welcoming fog.  Cole followed his nose down the hallway.  One foot inside his mother’s kitchen and he was pulled into a vast array of heavenly aromas battling for his attention.  Fresh homemade stew bubbled on the stove. Two rather large chickens turned on the spit in the oversized adobe fireplace.   And, three

warm  baked   cobblers   sat   on   the windowsill, a seductive haze rising from their golden crusts as they cooled. It certainly was a welcome sight after the long drive with only Griff’s cookin’ to sustain a man.

Cole breathed deeply before crossing the newly swept wooden floor into the study.  He removed his hat and tossed it into his father’s oversized mahogany chair.  Moving to the desk he opened the top right hand drawer.  A brown leather bound ledger rested at the top, veiling a locked black metal box from immediate

view.  Reaching in, he pulled both items from their resting place and set them on top of the desk. He placed his hand inside his vest and retrieved a long, discolored envelope from the inner pocket.

“The herd looks good.”

Cole glanced up from his task to see his father standing casually in the doorway.  Jameson Redbourne had a commanding

presence.  Standing six feet two inches, he and Cole measured equal, but something in the way his father carried himself filled the room.  He lifted one foot to rest on the edge of a wooden table, his arm propped on his bent leg, his hat in hand.

“Lost near sixty at Red River and another thirty, or so, at Doan’s Pass.” The hardness in Cole’s voice surprised even him.   He averted his father’s searching eyes and focused on the lockbox.   He pulled the money Tag had given him and placed it in the metal container, careful to record the numbers accordingly in the ledger.

“It happens.”

“Not to me.” Cole’s jaw ached from grinding his teeth. He had never lost this many cattle in one drive and it ate at him.

“How’s   your   brother?”   Jameson interrupted his self-criticism.

“Tag’s fine.” Cole traced multiple times over the numbers he had written, the current entry now much darker than the last.  “Brenna’s having another baby and little Jamie says he misses his poppa.” He tried to appear casual.

A deep hearty laugh erupted from Jameson’s throat.  Surprised, Cole dared look up for a fleeting moment.  His father took great pride in his grandchildren and he loved being called Poppa.  His dimples carved happiness into his face, a trait Cole saw in his own reflection—the

dimples anyway.  When Jameson lowered his eyes to focus on his son and his lips returned to a simple smile, experience told Cole there was something else on his father’s mind.

“How many horses did you pick up from Taggert on this last drive?” Jameson asked.

“Twenty-eight.” Cole had handpicked each of the horses from Tag’s herd.  “Most are Morgans, but there are some Kentuckys and Appaloosas among the bunch.”

“How many can be bred?”

“Nine stallions.  Seven studs.  The rest have been gelded, but are of the highest quality work and trail horses.” Cole was anxious to be on his way.  The final leg of the drive to the Colorado territory would

be short in comparison to the trek from Texas, but with prairie wolves stalking the herd, Cole wanted to get on the trail as soon as possible.

Cole could feel his father’s eyes tracing every movement he made.

“So, McCallister wants me to be the foreman on his ranch there in Silver Falls.” Cole hated small talk, but he was tired and not at all sure he wanted to have a real conversation with the man next to

him. Jameson had a tendency to get a little personal and he didn’t want to talk about what ailed him.

“What about you?” His father asked, his

voice laced with concern.

“What about me?” Cole asked, careful not to roll his eyes.  He slammed the black box into the drawer and threw the ledger

over it.  His tone played at the verge of disrespect and he immediately regretted speaking   the   words   aloud.   He remembered well the time his father had

overheard him speak disrespectfully to his mother and never wanted to repeat the experience.

If Jameson was perturbed by his son, he hid it well.   However, there was something brimming just beneath the surface in his father’s eyes. Hurt? Anger? Disappointment? Pity?

“I’m told you drove the team pretty hard.” Jameson walked over to the desk

and set his hat at the corner.

“Raine needs to keep his mouth shut.”

“Wasn’t Raine.”

Cole wrapped his fingers around a

stone paperweight at the edge of the desk

and   gripped   it   until   his   knuckles whitened.  His other hand, balled into a fist, strained equally as hard against the desk top.

“I know the Chisholm is overrun and

there’s not lot of grazing left, but cutting your own trail? Crossing the Red in a rainstorm, especially two men down?”

Cole dropped his head.

Jameson placed an open hand on Cole’s stooped back. “I don’t have to tell you how dangerous that can be, son.”

“The Griffin Trail is not exactly new.” Cole pounded the rock against the thick stack of papers it held.  His father’s hand fell to his side.

“Some of the men say as long as you are

Trail Boss, they won’t ride.”

“So, we’ll find new men.”   Cole

released his grasp on the rock and massaged his now aching fingers.

“That’s not the point, Cole, and you know it.”

Cole stood straight and faced his fathersquarely.  The two men locked stares.

“Now we’ll need a setting for twelve.”  A woman’s voice carried through thekitchen and into the study, interruptingtheir brief standoff.

Cole was the first to break away.  Heducked around his father to stand in theshadows of the study door where he couldobserve the scene in the other room.

While his mother was a great cook, Cole could only remember twice beforewhen his mother had taken control in thekitchen. Once, when she’d haphazardlyinvited two of his brothers’ new brides to

dinner while Lottie, the family cook, had gone to visit her dying mother in Baltimore, and the second time when Granddad   Redbourne   showed   up unannounced.

“Lottie, put the eggs on to boil,” his mother delegated with authority no one questioned.   The gray-haired Mexican woman, however, did not look at all like she   appreciated   her   kitchen   being usurped.  Her hands were on her hips and if her eyes rolled any farther back into her head, they would disappear completely.

“And Hannah dear, will you go down and retrieve two jars of peaches from the cellar?” Cole mused at how his mother’s

voice turned soft and coaxing when she

addressed her daughter.

“I’ll do that.” A male baritone voice

interjected when Hannah pushed away from the table, revealing her round, protruding belly.

“Hannah and Eli are here?” Cole turned to his father, speaking in an accusatorily incredulous whisper.

Jameson cleared his throat.  He picked his hat up off the desk and walked toward Cole.   “Prepare yourself,” he warned, both eyebrows raised as he brushed past him.   “We’ll finish this conversation

later.”

Trouble was coming and Cole wasn’t sure he wanted to be there to greet it.

The sound of the back door clacking against its wooden frame as Eli left for the cellar was Cole’s cue. He spoke a silent prayer and stepped out from the darkened study into the now busy kitchen.

“Cole,” his little sister squealed.

Hannah waddled over to him and lifted

her nose, waiting for him to brush his own nose back and forth across hers. They had done the ritual since they were children, but now it seemed outgrown. Cole hadn’t seen her since their fight the day Alaric died. Their relationship wasn’t the same.  He didn’t know if it ever would be.

Hannah stood a good foot shorter thanhe.  When he grasped her by the shouldersand gently set her away from him, withouteven so much as a smile, her lips pursedtogether in an injured pout. Tears formedat the corners of her eyes.

“Hannah,” he greeted her with a stiffnod of his head.

She looked around the room from their

father to Raine to their mother and back at

Cole.  Then, she picked up the hem of herdress and ran out the back door, her blondcurls bobbing behind her.

Damn.

“Cole Alexander Redbourne.  You’ll go apologize to your sister,” his mother chastised, wiping her hands on her favorite white broadcloth apron, “but, first you come over here and kiss your mother.”

Cole   dutifully   embraced   Leah Redbourne and bent low to place a kiss on the side of her face.  She squeezed him

tighter.

“It’s good to have you home, son,” she whispered into his ear, patting him on the back.

Cole closed his eyes, tightened his hold around her motherly frame, and lifted her

a foot off the ground, enticing a giggle from her lips.

When she released him, she turned him by his shoulders and swatted his rear end.  “Now, git. That was no way to greet your sister.”

A scowl formed as he tramped to the doorway.

“Cole,” his mother called after him.

He paused and slowly turned to look at her, unsmiling.

“Wash up before supper, son.” She grinned at him in a way that confirmed she was up to something.

His groan was covered up by the sound of the opening door.

“And shave,” she added.

The door slammed shut behind him.

“Shave?”  Cole took one large step off

the back porch, running his hand over his now full beard and mustache.  The trail

had been long and arduous, but a large majority of the cattle still had to be transported to the McCallister ranch in Colorado. Whatever his mother had planned, he would only be home another week or so.  He could endure.  He hoped.

The sound of ducks quacking drew Cole to the pond behind the ranch house. When he rounded the corner, he spotted the large maple tree that had been the staple for enjoyment at the Redbourne ranch for all eight children.   There he saw Hannah, sitting on the swing that dangled from one of the lower, sturdier branches.   She stared out across the pond, one arm clutched around the side rope, her head resting against it.

Cole moved closer, but he wasn’t readyto face Hannah. Not quite yet.   He satdown some distance behind the swing andquietly nestled himself into the tall grassesgrowing there.

His forearms rested around his knees,his hands woven together in front of him.  He gazed out over the deep blue of thewater reflecting the hues from the sky.

A family of ducks, a mother and fivelittle ducklings, waddled down the bankand into the water where they glidedtoward the other side, blissfully unawareof the turmoil wrenching Cole’s mind andheart.  The gentle lowing of cattle and thesweet song of a lark laid background tothe stillness of the meadow surroundingthem.

He sat, legs bent in front of him. His

mind, unable to settle into the quiet serenity the land offered, screamed with impatience. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a carefully folded picture he’d torn from one of Brenna’s magazines on his visit to Tag’s ranch in Texas.

His   fingers   gently   caressed   the illustration of a homestead in the center of a flourishing valley.  Towering mountains outlined the image and a herd of horses dotted the land.  The artist had depicted Cole’s dream with clarity and vision.
 
Soon,
 
he told himself.
 
I’ll have enough for it, soon.
 
He gingerly refolded the paper and placed it back into his inside pocket.

“You’ve changed big brother,” Hannah said after a while, pulling him away from his thoughts.  She did not turn around, but,

somehow she’d sensed his presence. There was no tearful catch in her voice, just sadness.

Cole pushed himself up from the ground and removed his hat. “I’m sorry, Hannah.” His voice still sounded harsh, forced.

She didn’t turn around.  Didn’t speak.