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As she angled across camp, the two men stopped to talk about something. Lorna could tell by Benteen’s expression that the subject was a serious one.
“Is something wrong?” she asked when she reached them.
When Benteen opened his mouth to speak, she knew he was about to deny it. He held her gaze for a second; then the shutters came down.
“So far, the tally is running about five thousand head short,” he admitted.
The number staggered her. She knew the Indians had run off some cattle, but this was more than “some.” “Do you think the Indians are responsible?” She was incredulous. “But what would they do with that many? I thought they only stole what they needed to eat.”
“That’s what they’ve done in the past,” Benteen said.
“It’s for sure if they’re stealin’ to sell or trade for goods, somebody’s puttin’ ’em up to it.” Ely shook his head. “It isn’t like ’em to do things on this kind of scale. A dozen head of cattle would keep them supplied with firewater all winter, and probably a couple of warm blankets, too.”
“Maybe it isn’t the Indians,” Lorna suggested.
“It’s Indian sign we’ve been cuttin’,” Ely said.
“Remember when Shorty was delirious from the fever?” Lorna turned to Benteen. “He mumbled something about a white man.”
“I asked him about it later,” he admitted. “When he was blacking out, he thought he sa
w a white man riding with the Indians, but he was sure he had just imagined it.”
“What if he didn’t?” she asked.
“What white man would be riding with Indians?” Ely didn’t put much stock in the idea. “For that matter, what white man would the Indians let ride with them?”
For a long minute his questions went unanswered. “There might be one,” Benteen offered finally with a thoughtful look.
“Who?” Ely frowned.
“That ex-buffalo hunter up on the Missouri that’s been trading with the Indians. His name’s Sallie. Bull Giles knows him.” The last was added absently, his mind already running ahead.
“Bull knows him?” she repeated. Benteen had said it as if it meant something, but she didn’t see any significance in it.
It was possible there wasn’t any, but Benteen was recalling the scene in Fat Frank’s place when the renegade’s name had first been mentioned. Bull Giles had been there with Loman Janes. Janes was the Ten Bar foreman. The Ten Bar needed water and range. In Texas, Judd Boston’s tactics had been to overstock and drift off a few head of his father’s cattle. The aim had been to put his father in a financial bind, which had ultimately worked. Was he making a similar but more subtle play here in Montana for part of the Triple C range?
Benteen tried to dismiss the thought with a vague shake of his head. It wouldn’t work—not with the Canadian beef contract he had. This five thousand head was a substantial loss, but he could financially weather twice that number. It would merely set back his timetable of expansion. Besides, Bull Giles was working for his mother.
“Is that coffee any good?” His arm curved naturally around Lorna’s waist. “I could use a cup.”
“It’s Rusty’s coffee, if that answers your question.” She wasn’t concerned that he hadn’t told her what he was thinking or explained the reference to Bull Giles. The situation had changed. She was confident that, in time, he would tell her. It was Ely’s presence that had kept him silent, not hers.
As they walked to the fire, Woolie was playing a melancholy version of “Shenandoah” to show Webb how the harmonica was supposed to sound when it was played right. When the last note wavered into the night, Webb eagerly wanted his turn. Lorna couldn’t help smiling at the way he tried so hard to copy Woolie, right down to wiggling his hand, but he was either sharp or flat and never on key.
“Why don’t you give it up?” Zeke protested. “You said you was gonna make a first-rate roper out of him, Woolie. He sure can’t hurt a man’s ears with a rope.”
“Wanta bet?” Woolie laughed. “Go get the rope I made ya, kid, and rope that critter over there.”
The plaited rope was shorter and narrower than what the cowboys used. It was little-boy-sized, especially for Webb. The cowboys had been instructing him in the rudiments of the art of roping for over a year. He had the idea, although most of the time his coordination was not all that good.
Encouraged by the rest of the cowboys, Webb got his rope and set out in pursuit of an unusually slow-running Zeke. The quiet scene was destroyed by shouts and laughter and misthrown loops. Arthur tried to join in the fun, but he kept tripping over cowboys’ legs.
So much attention was focused on the little boy chasing the bowlegged cowboy that the restless stirrings from the remuda went unnoticed. With coffeecups in hand, Lorna and Benteen were standing to one side of the fire, laughing with everyone else at the antics of their sons.
The vaquero Ramon shouted a warning, breaking across the laughter to bring the camp alert. Benteen heard the pounding of hooves and the snorting whicker of panicked horses an instant before the remuda plunged out of the gloaming and charged into camp. He felt Lorna’s instinctive movement toward the children and grabbed her, throwing her out of the path of the stampeding horses. Whipping off his hat, he waved it wildly at the herd and whistled shrilly between his teeth to divert them. The ones in front shied from him, but they were crowded by the others. It was a churning mass of horseflesh and dodging cowboys.
“Indians!” someone shouted. “They’re running off the cattle!”
