Page 12 of Wyoming Homecoming


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Charlie and Don thought that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. Horace went around town telling people that he was the cattle foreman at the Circle B and that he was going to be showing Mr. Butler’s pedigree bulls at the big upcoming convention in Denver.

That was the last straw. Charlie called his attorney and had him inform the erstwhile former employee that there were severe penalties for people who told deliberate lies about other people. Horace just smiled at the man. Charlie had hired him, he insisted. It was all just a misunderstanding. The attorney, who had no sense of humor and a bad temper to boot, told the little man what he could expect if he didn’t shut his mouth.

Horace had stopped making that claim, but he was still in town, still insisting that he had some great ideas about how to improve pedigree herds, and that he was going to find work doing that very soon.

Charlie and his attorney thought the man had mental health issues. It hadn’t been checked out, because Charlie died soon after and nobody knew where Horace had gone. Now the poor, demented soul was hinting again that he was going to be working on the Circle B Ranch very soon.

That would put Abigail and Lucy on the firing line, if the man tried to get a job there. Don Blalock would warn her, Cody was sure, but it would be easier to tell her himself. Or have Don do it.

He decided to do some more checking on the misguided Mr. Whatley. He started making telephone calls.

One local man knew Whatley: Bart Riddle, Cody’s distant cousin.

“What can you tell me about him?” Cody asked over the phone.

“He’s got problems,” Bart said simply. “I’m sorry Charlie didn’t see through him. If he’d been himself, and not so sick from the chemotherapy, he’d have spotted that lie right off the bat. I certainly did. I checked his damned references and discovered he didn’t have any.”

“Charlie discovered that as well, finally,” he replied. “Do you know where Whatley’s from?”

“Sadly, I do,” he replied. “He belongs to the Whatleys of Miami. The family is filthy rich and their aim, apparently, is to keep their troublesome relative as far away from them as they possibly can. His parents are long dead, but there’s a sister who can’t stand the thought of having to be responsible for him. She gives him an obscene allowance and lets him follow his delusions around the world. The last one, I heard, was that he was a famous chef who’d worked for billionaires as a cook on their yachts. So this fancy restaurant in New York hired him.”

“And?” Cody was mesmerized.

“He burned down the kitchen his first night on the job,” Bart replied. “Then he saw an episode of that old TV seriesHigh Chaparraland came out here to help run a ranch.”

“Good Lord,” Cody said with feeling. “Does he have some kind of mental illness?”

“Severe, but he’s no longer under treatment and has, in fact, gone to court to make sure he isn’t medicated against his will,” Bart added. “Damned shame. I actually talked to his sister. She said that when he’s taking his meds, he’s the sweetest, kindest man you’d ever meet. Off them, he’s an accident looking for a place to happen. He has delusions, and they’re getting worse. And we’re stuck with him for the present, it seems, because he likes it here. A lot.”

“Well, damn,” Cody muttered. “That, on top of Anyu, is enough to depress even a strong man.”

“What’s wrong with Anyu?” Bart asked, because he knew what the dog meant to Cody.

“She was limping. I didn’t even notice, but that little niece of Abigail’s saw it and pointed it out to me. I took Anyu to the vet. I haven’t heard back about the test results yet.”

“Probably a thorn in her paw or some simple thing like that,” Bart said bracingly. He paused. “How did you meet the child?”

“She’d gone after a mother cat who was spooked into the woods. She got stuck in a berry thicket by all the thorns and couldn’t get loose. I found her when Anyu and I went for a walk.”

“Well!” That was interesting. Bart knew how afraid Abby and Lucy had been of him. “I’ll bet Abby was frantic. She loves that child.”

He laughed softly. “Yes, she does. She looked ready to drop when she rode up to us.” He sighed. “I didn’t think a city girl like her would know what to do with a horse.”

“She used to ride in rodeos when she first moved to Denver to live with her brother,” Bart reminded him. “She was good, too. She has a way with horses. With most animals. They love her.”

“I noticed that.” He sighed. “Well, I’ll get back to my paperwork. If you hear anything more about our vicarious cowhand, let me know, will you?”

“Sure thing. Maybe he’ll get hooked on science fiction and go down to NASA to teach them a better way of building spaceships.”

Cody chuckled. “They’ve got Elon Musk as a partner, with Starship priming to be an interplanetary spaceship. What a guy!”

“He’s a phenomenon, all right.”

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

“So long.”

ITHADBEENa long day at the office for Abby. Nothing went wrong, but her work was tedious. She had to double-check all the references in law that she cited for Mr. Owens so that he could hold his own in court. It was a good job, and she enjoyed it. But it was a whole new life, here where she was born. It took a little getting used to, after living in a city the size of Denver.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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