Widow Woman (5 page)

"All right then. Shag will tell the others and it'll take effect with calf branding."

"Yes'm,” he said, with no attempt at meekness or gratitude, and the grin still in place as he turned Brujo and headed out.

Shag's exasperated grunt trailed after him. “Chell, what's got into you?"

Three mornings later, a note arrived from Thomas Dunn announcing his intention of stopping around noon on his way toward Cheyenne.

Shag had already ridden out, so he wouldn't be on hand as an ally. But Ruth had time to bake her special vinegar pie. Rachel changed from a split skirt into the riding skirt and bodice Ruth had remade from one of her mother's riding habits.

She raised her chin at the mirror as she brushed her hair out of its braid in order to pin it up. So, her dress was outmoded. The sapphire-blue wool was good and the fit adequate, especially considering the adjustments required to accommodate the extra half a foot height she had over her mother.

All in all, she looked quite presentable, Rachel told herself.

Dunn declared her lovely when he accepted her invitation to take midday dinner. But, then, that was his way. Slender and not quite eye to eye with Rachel, he had a reputation for smooth manners and sharp business.

The business purpose of this call—she'd figured there had to be one—was his interest in a two-year-old filly she had.

"Matt Sprewell speaks quite highly of her,” Dunn said.

Rachel didn't want to part with that filly, but if Dunn offered a good price, she'd be hard-pressed to say no.

"There's a three-year-old filly, Fanny we call her, you might want to look at instead, Mr. Dunn. She's saddlebroke and she's training real nice."

"I prefer to train my horses myself. I find your methods, Mrs. Terhune, produce a horse more suited to a pet than a tool. A lady-broke animal's not much use on the range."

He gave her a smile she felt disinclined to return. Gentling instead of breaking horses improved disposition and still made fine cow ponies. But try to persuade old-timers.

"And that being the case,” he went on, “it is the two-year-old I would care to see."

So, after the meal—Ruth saw to it he wouldn't get anything finer tasting at the KD, for all those tins he imported from back East—Rachel had the sidesaddle put on Dandy and they began at a sedate, proper pace toward the north corral. Conversation focused on water, weather, dealing with hands, railroads and stock prices. Rachel was aware Dunn asked more than he told, but her answers didn't lay open the Circle T's situation. Though this astute man surely guessed, she wouldn't hand over the certainty.

So intent was she on sidestepping any revealing answers that it was Dunn who pointed out the rider coming over a fold of hill toward them. Nick Dusaq.

"Stranger to me,” commented Dunn.

"One of our new hands."

Dunn gave her a long look, but she said no more until they all met near the pole fence of the north corral. Nick could have ridden by with a word or gesture of greeting, but he stopped, his eyes going from her to the man beside her with an apparent lazy disinterest that she'd wager didn't miss a detail.

She performed introductions and, to her surprise, Thomas Dunn offered a handshake. Nick returned it. Polite, but in no danger of being overly impressed. “Mr. Dunn owns the KD outfit east of here. You might've heard of it. It's the biggest in these parts."

"But doesn't yet produce the sort of horseflesh the Circle T does,” Dunn said with an ambiguous smile. “I'm here to look over a two-year-old I've heard about."

Nick slid a look at the sidesaddle rig on Dandy. Rachel was very much aware he'd seen her riding only astride before, and that he knew this bow to propriety was in Dunn's honor.

She tensed, followed by a wave of irritation—at herself and at Nick. Considering how little the man talked, she spent considerable time worrying what he might say.

"I'll get her,” was all he said now.

He'd started Brujo toward the fence before Rachel realized he meant the filly, who along with two mares had found the humans and horses just outside their fence too fascinating to ignore.

Rachel felt both grateful and irked that she had need to be grateful. What had she been thinking of, coming out so ill-prepared? She not only didn't have a prayer of roping from this sidesaddle, she hadn't brought a rope. She wouldn't have asked a guest—especially not this guest who hardly seemed to attract a speck of dust to his specially tailored clothes—to swing a rope, but she could have tried from the ground. Though then she would have faced how to remount short of asking Dunn's aid.

Belatedly, she nudged Dandy forward. “I'll get the pole,” she told Nick stiffly.

He nodded. From Dandy's back, she lifted an end of the loose top pole from its crossed supports and slid it aside. Brujo sailed over the remaining rails.

The filly and mares scattered, but Brujo was too fast and he—or his rider—was too smart. The filly's escape route closed in a second. It was impossible to tell if Nick gave his horse orders, or if the animal just knew. They seemed to move as one, with a flow and balance that made her draw in her breath. She'd seen good horsemen—her pa included—and she'd seen good cow ponies. This combination went beyond that.

The filly's feint to the right was anticipated beautifully. When she pivoted to try the left. Nick's rope looped out in a swoop of movement, and the open circle settled over her head.

Dunn urged his compact gray over the lower two rails to get nearer the filly, and Rachel followed on Dandy.

Nick handed her the filly's lead rope. “Thank you,” she said.

"Welcome."

Dunn apparently thought something more was called for beyond this terse exchange. “Nice work. Nick,"

Nick nodded an acknowledgment “And that's a nice piece of horseflesh,” Dunn added, his gray eyes running over Brujo's sleek, powerful lines.

Nick nodded again. With some men, Rachel might have figured it as a case of being tongue-tied in the presence of the most important man in the territory. Not Nick Dusaq.

"Where'd you get him?"

"Texas."

"A lot of good cow ponies from down that way,” the older man said with a faint smile. Texans were notorious for bragging on their horses. He seemed certain that would start the talk flowing.

Nick sat easily in the saddle, the unshadowed portion of his face showing nothing, and remained silent.

If Thomas Dunn was surprised, he didn't show it. But he became more direct. “You're from Texas?"

"Yes."

"I've done a good bit of business in that part of the world. Who are your people?"

Nick shifted, and Rachel could see his dark eyes leveled on the other man. With no emotion, he answered. “Take your pick."

"Not sure what you mean.” For the first time a ripple disturbed the placid confidence of Dunn's voice.

"If you're wanting to know if I've got some Indian in me, the answer's yes. And Mexican. And Irish, Polish and Italian. Could be more."

Under the evenness of his tone, Rachel thought she heard a note of bitterness. Nick had named nearly every group she'd heard derided in these parts; Texas couldn't be that different.

"Surely you've left one off? French,” Dunn prompted when Nick didn't answer. He smiled again. Rachel wondered if she imagined a bite behind it. “With a name like Dusaq you must have some French."

"French Canadian,” Nick said.

"Ah. Well, I claim nothing so exotic. I come of straight, solid English stock. My father brought the family over when I was barely out of short pants. His father ran horses, and I like to think I've inherited his horse sense. I like what I see there.” He nodded toward Brujo. “What would you take for him?"

"He's not for sale."

"I can see you're not hawking the animal. And I'm sure you're quite comfortable on the wage Mrs. Terhune can pay you, but I'm still willing to make you an offer on this beast.” Rachel's cheeks stung at the reference to Nick's wage. Not only didn't she pay most of her hands as much as Dunn or Gordon Wood paid theirs, but she paid Nick considerably less than he was worth, and they both knew it.

She was looking straight between Dandy's ears when the cowhand's voice came, as even as ever.

"He's not for sale no matter what the offer, so I'll say good-day to you and get about earning that wage Mrs. Terhune pays me. I'll get my rope later, ma'am."

With a nod, he was gone.

Dunn's eyes followed horse and rider. “That's a nice animal,” he murmured. He turned to Rachel with a rather pitying smile. “I'm not so sure about the man, Mrs. Terhune. It can be hard to tell with a man like that. You'd best be careful."

Anger spurred at her, but she gave her blandest smile. “His work's satisfactory, though I'll be sure to pass on your thoughts to Shag."

As Dunn dismounted and moved in for a closer look at the filly, jumbled reactions kept Rachel's insides jumping. With a low-heat anger that he had tried, as he so often did, to put Nick in his place. And with a reluctant admiration for how the cowhand dealt with it. But mostly with a surprisingly vehement relief. Because one thing was certain: Thomas Dunn wouldn't try to hire away Nick Dusaq.

Dunn didn't take the filly.

That didn't surprise Nick any.

The powerful rancher left with slick compliments for the horseflesh he'd seen and smiling promises that with visitors from the East coming to the KD Ranch in the next few months, he'd send any looking to purchase quality horses Rachel's way.

Rachel said thank you, pretty as you please. But Nick didn't believe for a second she had cause for gratitude, not now and not in the future.

He didn't figure the man had come to look at horseflesh at all. He'd come to see the outfit's condition. And maybe to look over another kind of flesh.

That last thought left Nick so edgy that two days after Dunn's visit he volunteered to go to town for mail and to fill a supply list that had grown long since spring's outfitting in Cheyenne.

"Could use you here,” Shag protested.

"I got business."

The foreman studied him, then gave a curt nod of acceptance, without asking what business.

Nick would have told if he'd asked, and that likely would have ended his stay at the Circle T. Because what he did in town was talk to the banker handling the estate of a certain Enoch Wallace.

Nick had seen it his first time through Wyoming. Even then the buildings hadn't counted for much more than piles of logs. But there'd been something in the sweep of land toward the grand, brave mountains of the Big Horn range that pumped into his lungs. He'd ignored that, and methodically checked the water and grass. Both were good.

It was the kind of place a man, with a little help, could run some cattle and get a start. A safe place to bring his sister for now. Maybe over time and a lot of hard work, a place to build up to the size of the Circle T or even the Lazy W or KD.

But a man working cattle for someone else wasn't supposed to own any of his own. It was cattle-country law—some places unwritten, some places on the books. He'd heard owners say it kept the hands from a temptation to turn an owner's calf into their own. He'd heard hands say it was the owners’ way to keep anybody else from getting rich. Some cowhands broke the rule and kept meticulous count. Some broke the rule and weren't so meticulous. Either way, a hand caught was near sure of being fired.

Even with no cattle yet. Nick figured buying this land would end his working for the Circle T. That might be for the best.

The Widow Terhune needed him on the Circle T, but she didn't enjoy having him around. She made that clear enough.

Between not being wanted, and the itch under his skin he'd carried since first seeing her, it sure as hell would be easier to get on with his own business.

The land Enoch Wallace had claimed and searched for gold never brought him the riches he'd sought, and all the son he'd left back in Baltimore wanted from it was cash. Nick had made an offer right before he'd walked into the Texas Rose the first time.

Now he'd hear what answer the banker had gotten.

"May I ask to what use you intend to put the land?” Carter Armstrong asked after leading Nick to his office.

"No."

The banker's protuberant pale eyes stared. “I simply ask because some might think there are prospects for gold in the higher elevations, and if you are entertaining such hopes, Mr. Wallace does not want you to be disappointed."

Nick didn't believe Mr. Wallace—or Mr. Armstrong—gave a damn for his disappointments. The banker wanted to know what he wanted the land for. And that likely had more to do with Thomas Dunn than Mr. Wallace of Baltimore.

"I'll take my chances. Wallace take my offer?"

"No. He wrote that your offer of eight thousand—Where are you going?"

"You answered. I'm leaving."

"But don't you want to hear what Mr. Wallace wrote?"

"I heard. He said no."

"But there's more.” Armstrong held up two sheets of closely written paper. He met Nick's look and let the papers drop to his desk. “All right, the sum of it is, he's made a counteroffer."

"How much?"

"Twelve thousand."

"Nine."

"Oh, I don't think—"

"You write and tell him I'll pay nine thousand for a parcel of land he's never seen and doesn't want."

He walked out, leaving the banker's expostulations behind.

In the Texas Rose, he placed his coin on the bar and ordered with a single word. The barkeep poured and pushed the glass toward him, all the while studying his face.

"Well, I'll be. You're that hand that came through here near a month ago, ain't you?” He didn't await an answer. “You went and hired on with the Widow Terhune just like I told you, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"I knew it. I said to myself, Simon Hooper, that's got to be the one he's talking about. Couldn't be no other dark Texan with a dangerous look, had to be the same one, I said to myself.” A smile creased his round face. “Didn't know your name. So when he asked, casual like, if I knowed someone named Nick Dusaq, I just said no. But when he described you, I said to myself—"