Wayward Wind (16 page)

Volney looked pained and then a cold mask dropped over his features. His eyes, staring up at her, were hard and flat and completely
unreadable. “What else did I say?”

“Nothing else. You were concerned,” she said gently. “I’m sorry for prying.”

The gaunt old man lay there glaring up at Sylvia. All his life he had studiously avoided close association with all except
the Lightbody family. And now, for some reason that he couldn’t readily understand, he was actually beginning to like this
kind, pleasantly pretty woman. He’d never given a thought to whether he liked or disliked her son. He’d traded information
about wild horse herds to him for a grub bag. But somehow, he trusted him or he’d not have come here when he needed help.
He’d never asked a favor of a man in his life, but when Cooper Parnell came back, he was going to.

Sylvia lifted the cloth from the tray and moved the spoon around to the side of the bowl so he could reach it with his good
hand. “When I come back that bowl better be empty.”

“And if it ain’t?”

“I’ll do more than talk about men’s drawers and skinny limbs,” she threatened. “I’ll bring out a bottle of castor oil and
talk about… bowel movements.”

“Humph!” he snorted.

She waited to see if she could get a smile out of him and when she couldn’t, she moved toward the door and stepped out into
the sunlight. For the first time the old man had shown some spirit. It was an encouraging sign.

Sylvia’s eyes automatically went toward the direction from which Cooper would come. Nothing moved on the horizon; but an eagle
soared in the sky, glided on the wind currents, and then plunged out of sight behind the hills.

Back at the house she stooped to pull a few weeds growing among the morning glories she’d planted to run up the porch post.
She stood there for a long moment, almost dreading going back into the house. Adam’s demands and threats buzzed in her head
like hornets. She tried to not think about them, but it was only during the brief visit with the old mountain man that she
was able to push the dark warnings to the back of her mind.

Then her thoughts turned to Arnie Henderson. During the war he had fought with the Illinois Regulars. Logan had been his captain.
An unbreakable bond of friendship had developed between Logan and some of his men. After the war Arnie had gone home to find
his wife dead and his farm taken over by carpetbaggers, so he’d come west with other men who had served with Logan to work
for him on Morning Sun.

He was a quiet, home loving type of man, a couple of years younger than Sylvia’s own forty-two years, but he seemed older
and she allowed his maturity was due to his experiences during the war. She’d gotten to know him and enjoy his company when
he came to the ranch to get the horses Cooper had sold to Logan. Arnie had very little formal education, but he was well-read.
They discovered they both had a passion for reading, and soon he was bringing her books and newspapers with regularity.

Sylvia had endured considerable good-natured teasing from Cooper. Her son delighted in making her blush like a silly schoolgirl.
Regardless, she eagerly looked forward to Arnie’s visits. He would be out tomorrow or the next day. Should she tell him about
Adam’s threat or should she just discourage him from coming out for awhile? Cooper’s hatred for Adam Clayhill was even deeper
than her own. He’d sooner die than do as Adam suggested—and it was unthinkable that she would ask him to, even to protect
Arnie. So where did that leave things? She had to warn Arnie and she had to tell Cooper. They were levelheaded men and they
would know how to handle it.

“I’ve got to believe that,” she murmured aloud. “If I don’t, I’ll lose my mind.”

Adam Clayhill went back to Junction City and spent the night in the small house he used when he was in town. He was in a dark
mood. At times like this he needed release from the frustration of dealing with his son. He thought about Cecilia, the Mexican
girl he used at the ranch, and he thought about his stepdaughter, the beautiful Della. Despite his bad mood he had to grin
when he thought about Della. If he’d had a daughter, he was sure she would have been like Della. There was a woman who knew
what she wanted and went about getting it; just like him, he thought.

As far back as fifteen years ago he’d begun planning to be Territorial Governor. He’d gone back East, found a respectable
society matron, married her, and brought her ten-year-old Della and her fourteen-year-old son out to the ranch. He and the
boy never got along and it was a relief when, after a few years, he struck out on his own. The boy had kept in touch with
his mother until she died ten years ago. Nothing had been heard from him since.

Della was another matter. She was beautiful and knew how to use that beauty; a born courtesan with a sexual appetite to go
with it. She and Adam had
discovered
each other several years ago and it had been good… for awhile. She was a hot little piece of tail, Adam mused, too hot to
be satisfied with any one man. Her weakness had been her passion for the forbidden. She had been determined to seduce the
Indian, Logan Horn, and had failed. When that happened Adam had realized she was far too open in her activities for Junction
City and had set her up in a house in Denver. She had opened a gentlemen’s club where the rich and influential could drink,
play cards, gamble, and in secret rooms upstairs indulge in all kinds of carnality. Secretly, Adam was kind of proud of her,
and since she used her father’s name, her business cast no unfavorable reflection on the Clayhill name.

Adam ate a meal brought to him from the restaurant and went to bed. He lay with his arms folded over his head and wondered
how the crew, headed by Dunbar, was doing. He’d sent them to get the nesters off the west range. He was buying that land as
soon as he got some money out of government bonds he held. In the meanwhile he couldn’t take the chance that some of them
might file on the land. The method that always worked was to hang a few of them so the others would get scared and leave.
Adam was aware that Dunbar was a stupid man, and had no more brains than to stick his head in the fire if he told him to.
He was just the right man for the purpose he was now serving.

Adam’s thoughts turned, with resentment, to his brother, Henry. Henry had left his fortune to the
Indian,
giving him the means to buy up land equal to Adam’s own. Why hadn’t the bastard gone to Texas or Arizona? Why did he have
to come here? Because of that sonofabitch things hadn’t gone well for him the last couple of years. His status in the territory
wasn’t what it once had been. He had to do something about it, something to establish his respectability once and for all.
Cooper was the answer. There was a son any man could be proud of. Not only did he resemble his father in size and coloring,
he had an air of authority about him, didn’t back down in a fight and was a natural born leader of men.

“By God, he came from my seed,” Adam muttered aloud. “There’s got to be something of me in him somewhere. Things would change
damn fast with Cooper by my side, running Clayhill Ranch, meeting with the Republicans down in Denver, courting their daughters.”

Adam’s thoughts spiraled. Goddamn! He’d worked too hard for what he wanted to get sidelined now.

Adam was still in a bad mood when he left Junction City at noon. His nerves were jumping. He sat in the buggy beside his driver,
rigid as rock. He’d taken to using the buggy for trips to town. He thought it commanded more respect; was more appropriate
for a man of his position. He’d ridden horseback to the Parnells’ yesterday because it was faster. Today his sore joints tormented
him and he was as prickly as a cactus.

The southwest road meandered along the dry creek bed before turning toward the foothills. The country around them lay utterly
still. The only sound to disturb the eerie peace of the road was the jingle of the harness and the thump of horses’ hooves.
Adam sat scowling, his brow silhouetted in bold profile against the horizon. He’d not moved since he sat down in the corner
of the soft, leather seat and propped one booted foot upon the guard rail. The trail was full of holes and jagged pieces of
sandstone, which Jacob, the black servant, skillfully avoided lest he incur the wrath of the big, brooding man beside him.

The road passed within hailing distance of a large, white frame house with flowers growing beside the door and a white wash
flapping on the clothes line. The place was simply known as The House. It was the only whorehouse within a hundred miles and
possibly one of the most
respectable
ones in the territory. It was run by Bessie Wilhite who had, at one time, worked at the saloon as a singer. Every man in
the northwest territory knew about The House. It was not only a whorehouse, but a place where a man could go, sick or hurt,
and be taken care of regardless of whether or not he could pay. To say anything disrespectful about Bessie or The House was
almost like cursing a man’s own mother. It just wasn’t done.

Adam had long since decided that it was to his best interest to ignore The House, its proprietor, Bessie, and its most popular
whore, a mouthy, skinny broad by the name of Minnie Wilson. He knew he didn’t have a man who didn’t visit The House, and it
was all right with him. It kept them from taking off every so often and going farther afield to get their itch scratched.

The Clayhill ranch house was a big, square, two-storied frame building with a wide, railed veranda on three sides. It was
surrounded by a white picket fence that no ranch hand dared to step within without being invited. Long windows opened up onto
the verandas on both the upper and lower floors. Stained glass panes adorned the upper part of the windows as well as the
double doors. The elegant house looked as if it belonged on a shaded street in Denver rather than in the wilds of the northern
part of Colorado Territory.

A cluster of outbuildings and a network of pole corrals were set far back from the house, partially screened by a thick grove
of junipers. They had been built of stone, log and roughly hewn plank. Compared to the house, they were a mishmash of ramshackle
structures.

The horse pulling the buggy stepped briskly up the circled drive and stopped beside the gate. Adam stepped down and the buggy
moved on. It was good to be home. He liked the quiet elegance of the house, but of late it had been lonely. He wanted his
son to come here, marry a woman of good breeding and have children to carry on the Clayhill name. He would be the beloved
patriarch of the first family of Colorado Territory, the natural choice for the highest office of the land—

“Mr. Clayhill.”

The voice broke into Adam’s daydream and he turned with a scowl to see Dunbar, favoring his right leg, hurrying toward him.
The man had made an attempt to make himself presentable by scraping off his whiskers and wetting down his hair. The sleeve
of his shirt was rolled up, showing a bloody bandage.

“Did you do what I sent you to do?” Adam demanded without preamble.

“Yes, sir. Ain’t nobody living on that range now.”

“Good. Did you hang that nester?”

Dunbar’s eyes shifted from Adam’s steady gaze and he leaned against the fence to take the weight off his sore leg.

“Wal, we hung him, but—”

“But what?” Adam asked curtly. “You did or you didn’t.”

“We did, but a feller cut ’im down afore he was done in.”

“Cut him down? What were
you
doin’? Standing around with your finger up your butt?” Adam roared.

“No, sir. We gone on off. When we went alookin’ fer his horse, we saw he’d been cut down. We trailed ’im to that place down
on Blue where we run off that nester last year.”

“Well?”

“Cooper Parnell was there. ’Twas Cooper that cut ’im down,” Dunbar blurted. He wanted to hurry and get the unpleasantness
over with. “He sided with the nester.”

“Cooper? What was he doing over there? Did you have a run-in with him?” Adam spit out the questions through lips suddenly
tight with anger.

“No, sir,” Dunbar lied. “No siree! We know how ya feel ’bout that.”

“Then what happened to your arm?”

“The nester cut me up some when we caught up with ’im to hang ’im.” He winced and shifted his weight, hoping for a little
sympathy. He hoped to hell Fisher and Barrett would keep their mouths shut about the girl.

Adam didn’t so much as glance at the injuries. “You didn’t say anything to Cooper about me telling you to hang the nester?”

“Oh, no, sir. I said we was after a horse thief.”

“Good, good… you were. The bastard stole them from somebody. Did you bring them back?”

“Wal, you see… we’d left ’em in a boxed canyon while we was trackin’ the nester, ’n they was took—”

“You dumb ass!” Adam bellowed. “The nester led you off on purpose. Can’t you do anything right? Your bungling’s cost us several
thousand dollars worth of horseflesh!”

“We’ll get a hold a the nester ’n he’ll tell us where they is, by Gawd, afore he swings.”

“What was Cooper doing there?”

Dunbar saw a way to make things look a little better and grabbed at it. “It shore did look like he’d come to do some horse
tradin’, ’n we had to back off.”

Adam’s mind clicked into gear. He wanted those horses. If Cooper paid out hard money for them, so much the better. The sooner
Cooper went broke the sooner he’d come to him.

“I want that horse herd and I don’t want Clayhill riders suspected of having anything to do with taking them. Understand?
Hire a couple of drifters to do the job, then get rid of them.”

“I’ll get ’em, Mr. Clayhill. Yes siree, I shore will. I won’t have no trouble afindin’ somebody to do the job.”

“It’s what I’m paying you for. You say that range is bare?”

“Bare as a babe’s butt.” Dunbar grinned.

“Any Indian sign over there?”

“Nothin’ to speak of.”

“Take six men and drive the herd on Baldy Flats out there. Set up headquarters in that place on Blue. I want it made clear
that I’m taking over that range. Cooper’ll be gone from there by now, but if you see him, don’t tangle with him.”