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“I’ve had lots of visitors,” Barnie said. “Word’s gotten around about this free grass. A bunch of outfits have been up lookin’ it over.”
“I figured that.” Benteen wasn’t surprised.
“You’re gonna have some big boys for neighbors—XIT, the Turkey Track. Kohrs and some of the ranchers in western Montana are headin’ this way now that the goldfields are playin’ out an’ they won’t be selling as much beef to the miners. It’s gonna get crowded.”
All the while Barnie relayed the information, his glance kept straying to Lorna. With her long hair tucked under her hat and the loose-fitting shirt and snug pants, she looked like a smooth-cheeked boy, but she had long ago stopped being conscious of her appearance in men’s clothes.
“Who’s the kid?” Barnie bobbed his head in Lorna’s direction.
Laughter glinted in Benteen’s glance to her. “This is my wife. We’ve been shorthanded, so she’s been helping out with the drive.” Barnie tried very hard to disguise his shock and not stare. Benteen helped by suggesting, “The herd’s about five miles back. Why don’t you show them the way while Lorna and I ride ahead?”
Barnie tugged at the brim of his hat and mumbled to Lorna, “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am”; then he swung his horse out of their way.
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Moore.” She smiled.
Benteen continued to hold his horse in after Barnie rode off. His glance ran sideways to Lorna, bright with a knowing light.
“You never told me we were this close.” But she knew he had kept it from her deliberately. “How far is it?”
“About two miles. Are you impatient to get there?” A brow was arched with the mocking query, fully aware of her answer.
“You know I am.” Her smiled widened.
“Let’s go.” He pricked his horse with the spurs to send it bounding into a gallop.
Lorna’s horse was a stride behind and stretching out to run. Chunks of grass and sod were torn up by the pounding hooves as they raced the last two miles. It brought a wild exhilaration to the moment of journey’s end. Lorna was breathless, her dark eyes shining with excitement when she pulled her horse to a halt beside Benteen.
“This is it.” His voice rang proud with possession as he gazed upon the land.
There was a crude log shack sitting close to the river, with a small corral built out of cottonwood. She tried not to feel lost, but there should have been some invisible banner proclaiming this to be their new home. All she saw was a muscular landscape, so big and commanding that it stretched out her stare until her eyes hurt.
Under a summer sun, the harsh land rolled out in uneven waves, an endless sea of dull yellow grass with miles and miles of hazy blue sky overhead. Beyond the treeless ridges, a flat-topped butte poked its dark head above the horizon. Lorna thought back on the long trail they’d traveled to get here—and the price they had paid in lives, in tears, and sweat. For this.
Her jaw hardened. This land wasn’t going to beat her with its loneliness. She was going to stand up to it, and turn it into a home. Pulling her gaze from the overpowering breadth of the land, Lorna concentrated her attention on the green trees growing solid along the riverbanks. There would be wood for a cabin. She wasn’t going to live in a sod house like that woman in Kansas.
She followed when Benteen walked his blowing horse the last hundred yards to the shack. All his attention was on their destination, his gaze sweeping the surrounding range with proud satisfaction. It gave Lorna time to adjust to the vastness she saw, and attempt to visualize how it could look with a house and some buildings—anything to make it look civilized.
Under the cottonwood trees along the riverbank, Benteen halted his horse and swung out of the saddle with lazy ease. Lorna dismounted to let her horse drink, too. She watched Sandman’s black muzzle nose at the water, the bit clanking against his teeth before the buckskin began sucking in the cold river water.
“With this water, we control the range for twenty miles on either side,” Benteen began to explain the significance of the location. “As far as you can see, Lorna, and beyond, belongs to us.”
“All of it?” She was struck by the immensity of it.
“Yes.” He leveled his steady gaze on her, but the burning fire in his eyes was for the land. “And it’s just the beginning.”
“But Barnie—Mr. Moore—said there were other cattle outfits moving in,” she remembere
d.
“Not onto this range, they won’t.” He let the reins trail the ground and walked a few steps from the river. Reaching down, he tore off a handful of grass and held it out to Lorna. “This is like gold to a cattleman. And the water is silver. There’s always going to be somebody who will want it for himself. Because we got here first and claimed the best, others will try to crowd us out. I won’t be crowded.”
“Do you really think they’ll try?” Her head was tipped slightly back to study him without the obstruction of the hat brim.
“It’s the nature of man to want what someone else has.” Benteen showed tolerance for her attempt to cling to a belief in the goodness of people. “Call it envy or greed. Some control it. A few are open about it. And others try to disguise it. The few that are big always want more, and the ones that are little want to be big. Those that are in the middle, neither big nor small, try to pretend that’s the way they want to be.”
“Which one are you?” Lorna asked, and watched his mouth crook in a smile that held little humor.
“I’ve always been the one that was little who wanted to be big. I’m going to be big,” he stated. “The Calder Cattle Company will be an outfit anyone in these parts will have to reckon with.”
