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The sound of an approaching horse drew Shane around. His eyes wavered when he caught sight of Melanie riding toward him, her hair flying in the breeze, a question in her eyes as she looked at the circle of men, then at Shane.
Shane broke from the men and met her. As she drew rein beside him, Melanie's eyes locked with Shane's. Then she looked past him and saw the longhorn carcasses. Fear grabbed at her heart. If the cattle had been infected with a rare disease, it could run rampant through all of the animals on the adjoining farms. They could be wiped out.
"What's happened here?" Melanie asked, her voice sharp with worry.
Shane helped her from the horse and took her elbow as he guided her through the men. "Seems we lost a few head of cattle during the night," he said, his spine stiff. "But damned if I know why they died. There are no visible signs of illness."
"And they seemed to be all right yesterday," Melanie said, bending to a knee beside one of the longhorns. She had watched her father examine longhorns since she was old enough to be interested in them. She knew most signs of sickness, and close examination showed her nothing even remotely similar to any disease that her father had treated.
Then she grew cold inside when she opened one longhorn's mouth with her gloved hand. She had found something that her father had shown her only once during their years of owning cattle. A trapper who had happened by and who had been ordered from their property because of his crooked dealings had returned in the middle of the
night and killed a select few of her father's prized bulls.
Melanie saw the same evidence of poisoning in this longhorn.
The tongue, the roof of the mouth, the coating on the teeth all were the same.
"In a way it's good news, Shane," she said, rising to her feet. She wiped her gloves on her skirt, gazing up at him.
"What is it?" Shane asked, placing his hands on her shoulders. "What have you seen that no one else has seen? Why did the cattle die?"
"It isn't a disease," Melanie said, sighing. "That is the good news."
"Why do you hesitate to tell me?" Shane asked. The men stood around them, also awaiting answers.
"The bad news is that you have been sabotaged," Melanie said. "Someone poisoned your longhorns, Shane."
Shane's jaw tightened. He dropped his hands to his sides and doubled them into fists. Turning, he looked toward Melanie's house, then up at the butte that stretched out into the forest. One of his enemies had made his mark.
But which one?
He walked away from Melanie, then turned and faced his cowhands. "Take these carcasses away!" he shouted. "Burn them!"
The cowhands stepped back away from him, their eyes filled with defiance.
"Those of you who do not wish to do as you are
told can leave!" Shane said, emotionless, looking them in the eye, challenging them, one by one. "You may as well accept who gives the orders around here now. You know that it isn't Josh."
When the men did not make an effort to heed Shane's warning, he went to the cowhand closest to him. With a low, throaty growl, he grabbed the cowhand by the throat and lifted him bodily from the ground. "Are you ready to voice your objection?" he asked, leaning into the cowhand's face. Fear distorted the man's features.
"No, sir . . ." the cowhand managed in a raspy voice, gasping for breath. "I ain't complainin'. Let me go. I'll do what you ask."
Shane jerked his hand away from the cowhand's throat and went to the next man and repeated the same performance. "Are you working? Or leaving?" he asked, challenging the man with a set stare, his grip firm on the man's neck.
"Let me go, youyou damn Injun lover," the cowhand managed, his voice a strangled gurgle as Shane's fingers tightened around his throat.
Shane's anger swelled to almost uncontrollable proportions, enraged by the cowhand's obvious loathing of Indians. When anyone insulted Indians, they were also insulting Shane, for in his mind and heart, they were one in the same.
Feeling Melanie's eyes on him, Shane refrained from attacking the cowhand. Instead he gave the man a shove, causing him to awkwardly fall to the ground. Placing a foot on the man's abdomen, pinioning him to the ground, he glared down at him. "Get your things and get out of here," he ordered. "Don't let me ever see you near my farm again."
Wild-eyed, the cowhand waited for Shane to take his foot away, then scrambled to his feet and ran to his horse and left in a frenzied gallop.
A sob froze in Melanie's throat. She backed away as the men fell in around the carcasses and began dragging them off. After they were gone, she went to Shane and took his hand. "I'm sorry this had to happen to your cattle," she murmured. "Of course, you are wondering who did it."
"In time, the truth will out," Shane said, watching his cowhands prepare the carcasses for burning.
"I've come to show you how farm ledgers are kept," Melanie said, knowing that Shane did not want to discuss this morning's tragedy. He surely felt helpless. It was hard enough that everything was new to him, without someone doing something like this to him!
