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And now? She had no choice but to ignore Terrance and order the Stanton cowhands to give Shane a hand
.
She sighed heavily and shook her head with disgust. "Terrance, you couldn't go another full day without drinking, could you?" she hissed. "And I bet you're quite smug about what's happened at Shane's, aren't you? Well, just take your whiskey and smugness and leave me be!"
She turned and faced the cowhands. "I have as much right to plead for your help as my brother has to order you not to help," she shouted. "I know that puts you all in a bad position, torn with what to do! But it boils down to this. If you have any compassion, you will do as I ask."
She gave Terrance a half smile over her shoulder, then looked back at the men. "And don't forget who keeps the ledgers here at Stanton farm and who dishes out the wages," she warned. "It's not my brother! He doesn't know the first thing about ledgers or who gets paid what. My father taught me, not Terrance! If you walk away from me and what I ask of you, you will be walking away from your job!"
The cowhands glanced at each other, then stepped forward and offered a handshake to Melanie, affirming their trust in her.
She smiled as she shook their hands, thanking them each as they passed by her. Then she again
explained what she wanted of them. They would sleep in their clothes and boots. They would keep a loaded pistol at their side. Their horses would be saddled and ready to ride.
As the lamps dimmed in Shane's house, the cowhands who remained moved from their assigned posts and met at the stable. They knelt down in a circle, facing one another.
"You know what this will mean to Shane," Ken argued. "You know what it will mean for you. You'll be out on your asses. It's mighty hard to find a job like this in these parts. There's not that many farms around who employ a good number of cowhands and who pay as good."
"You know damn well that if we wait around long enough in town, Josh'll be back in charge," another cowhand argued. "I'd say, let's leave this guy Shane to fight his own battles. He's the cause of the trouble here. Before he came, nothin' was goin' wrong. Now every night somethin' spooky happens." He looked toward the house. "I say it's because he was raised by Injuns. He's practically one of them!''
"Yeah, he even went and stole those damn horses like a savage would, from another savage," another cowhand grumbled. "There ain't no need in us waitin' around to have our scalps removed just because of somethin' that half-breed did. I say let's head out. We all have enough earnings to get us through a few weeks. I'm lookin' forward to havin' some fun with the wenches in town. Damn, just think of it. We can stay in bed humpin' all day
if we choose to. What more could you ask for than that?"
Ken frowned. He could not tell the men that he liked Shane Brennan and wanted to do right by him. He had to go along with the crowd. Shane Brennan was not worth the sort of ridicule that Ken could expect if he stayed behind while everyone else rode away.
"All right, let's get our gear and leave," Ken said, rising to his full height. "But we've got to be quiet about it. Shane Brennan has ears like a polecat. He'll hear us if we ride out. One by one we've got to walk our horses away from the farm. Do you understand? Once we get far enough away, only then will it be safe enough to ride."
"Yeah, that's best," the men agreed, nodding.
Before long, everything in the pasture was eerily quiet. Only the longhorns stood there, their tails swishing, their horns glistening against the dark sky.
Melanie could not sleep. Fully clothed, she rose from the bed. She peered from the window toward Shane's house, and then at the pasture. Everything seemed peaceful enough. Perhaps she had been too hasty in asking her men to be on guard in case they were needed tonight. Perhaps the person responsible for the havoc at Shane's farm would not be so brazen as to show up again so soon. Surely they would have to know that Shane was sitting shotgun again tonight, waiting. She had not gone to see him tonight because of this. She did not want to disturb his plans.
"I can't believe that some of his men actually left him," she said, stepping back from the window. She began nervously pacing. "How can they hate him so much?"
A figure stole stealthily through the dark. When he got close enough to the longhorns to smell them in the darkness, he watched for any sudden movement on their part. Familiar with them, the man knew that when a steer bedded down, he held his breath for a few seconds, then blew off. That noise showed that he was settling himself for comfort. But when he curled his nose and took long breaths, it was a sign that he was sniffing for something, and if anything crossed his wind that he didn't like, there was likely to be trouble.
There was to be trouble tonight.
The air was suddenly charged with tension. A dun steer awakened and lifted his head slowly, rose to his knees, and looked around. He got to his feet and raised his nose to smell.
Another steer rose and stood rigidly still, expectant, then others, until the whole herd of longhorns were on their feet, motionless.
Hurrying, knowing that his life was at stake, the man placed a grotesque scarecrow close to the longhornsa scarecrow with wings that moved up and down as the wind blew against them. The man scurried away, mounted a horse, and rode away from the scene of coming disaster.
A breeze caught in the wings of the scarecrow. They began to move up and down. A longhorn bull saw the wings moving. Frightened, it leapt into the
air, then back down to the ground with a thud. He gave a grunt that sounded more like that of a hog than of a cow. Others followed. The pounding hoofs popped and clicked while horns clacked upon horns in the longhorns' desperation to flee from the grotesque scarecrow.
A stampede had started with the swiftness of a lightning bolt!
The steers smashed into the fence. The leaders piled up, while the cattle behind, forming a gigantic battering ram, rushed over them and surged over the fence, then through it, tearing it down from the top.
As they raced across the land, the cattle stretched out so that their bellies seemed to scrape the roots of the grass.
Shane heard the first bellow. Still fully clothed, he bolted from his pallet of furs and ran from his room. Taking the steps two at a time, he raced outside, then looked wildly around him. His heart sank. There were no riders in sight trying to stop the stampede. There were no cowhands there to prevent it. They had all deserted him! Each and every one of them. Even Ken.
