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Ty nodded at that. “I told Arch to cut the Shamrock stock out and throw them back across his fence as soon as this bunch gets branded.” Automatically, his gaze swung northward in the direction of his uncle’s ranch, then lingered on the pair of riders trotting toward them. “We have company.”
Turning in his saddle, Chase studied the lead rider, a short, wiry man with a narrow face and a full mustache as dark as his hair was white. “Looks like Dode Hensen.” He could think of only one reason his neighbor to the north would be paying them a visit. In the years since he’d had his run-in with the owner of the Circle Six Ranch, the two men hadn’t exchanged two dozen words. This was definitely not a social call.
That thought was confirmed moments later when Dode Hensen rode up to the lip of the grassy bowl and reined in a few yards from them.
“Calder.” He gave Chase a brisk nod of greeting, his eyes cool, a wad of chewing tobacco making a bulge in his leathered cheek.
“Hensen.” Chase nodded back. “What can we do for you?”
“I’m missing a couple cows. Registered Angus. Thought they might have gotten mixed in with your stuff,” he said, then added, by way of explanation in the event Chase thought it may have been deliberate, “Snow drifted kinda high a time or two this winter. Gets packed hard enough and it’s like a bridge over a fence.”
“That’s been known to happen,” Chase agreed.
“As far as I know, Mr. Hensen,” Ty put in, “we haven’t come across any stock carrying the Circle Six, but you’re welcome to cut the herd and look for yourself.”
“Obliged.” He flicked a hand toward his companion, a boy who looked to be in his late teens. “Junior, take a ride down there and see if my cows are there.”
The boy bobbed his head in quick acknowledgment, then touched a spur to his horse and rode down the slope toward the herd. Ty went with him. Dode Hensen continued to sit his horse, his gaze following the boy. Chase let the silence ride. If there was to be any talking done, he had decided Hensen would start it. But it was clear the man had something on his mind.
Below, the teenager quietly walked his stocky gray gelding into the herd. Hensen turned his head and spat a stream of yellow juice into the grass, his gaze never leaving the rider.
“Don’t want you thinking, Calder, that I threw my cows on your grass,” he said after a long minute.
“That was a long time ago, Hensen,” Chase replied. “A different time, different circumstance.”
“Gotten older, that’s for damned sure.” He shifted in his saddle as if to ease a stiffening ache in his bones. “That’s MacGruder’s youngest boy down there.”
“He’s got his stamp.” Chase took in the boy’s big, muscled chest, dark hair, and blunted, pugnacious features.
“Same as your son’s got yours,” Hensen observed, shifting the tobacco wad in his cheek. “My daughter married herself a lawyer over in Billings a few years back. Got herself a couple kids now. Ma’s been agitating to sell out, move closer so she can spend more time in town, with the grandkids. Don’t know what I’d do with myself in town, though.”
“It’s a hard decision,” Chase agreed.
“Don’t reckon it’s one I have to make just yet.” He turned and spat again. “Got a few more years of work left in this body.”
Chase nodded, then made a neighborly gesture. “The coffeepot at the cookshack is always full, if you got time for a cup.”
“Another time, maybe.” The old man gathered up the reins to his horse as the MacGruder boy left the herd and rode back toward them. “Don’t look like my cows is in your gather. Reckon I’ll check with O’Rourke, see if they strayed onto the Shamrock. Can’t afford to lose registered stock.”
“Luck to you,” Chase said, fully aware that on a small ranch like the Circle Six, the loss of two cows and their offspring could mean the difference between a good year and a poor one.
“Hope I don’t need it.” The rancher backed his horse a few steps, then swung it away from the bowl and waited for the boy to come alongside him.
Together they set off, heading toward O’Rourke’s place. Chase watched them a moment, then turned his horse toward the cookshack and rode over to get himself a cup of coffee and a much-needed break from the saddle.
At noontime, the clang of the cook’s triangle rang like a clarion above the din of lowing cattle and creaking saddle leather, a welcome sound to Cat. She was more tired from the morning’s work than she wanted to admit, tired enough that she didn’t argue when Ty ordered her to eat with the first shift of riders.
Cat walked her horse to the picket line and dismounted, careful to keep her face expressionless and hide her fatigue, but there was nothing she could do about the smudges under her eyes. A line had already formed at the washbasins. Cat joined it to wait her turn and unconsciously pressed both hands to the small of her back, arching a little in effort to ease the dull and persistent ache that seemed to be centered there. The action pushed out her small, rounded belly, making its shape clearly visible beneath the loose shirt she wore.
Arch Goodman noticed it as he wiped his wet hands on a towel. His eyes narrowed on her in blatant disapproval. “This is no place for a woman in your condition. You belong t’home.”
Her newly acquired control allowed her to smile in a chiding manner. “And deprive my son of the chance to claim he went on his first roundup before he was even born?” Cat spread a hand over her belly, the gesture at once loving and protective. “I don’t think so, Arch.”
Startled by her response, he blinked. There was a warm glint in his eye when he turned away, a glint that silently hinted he rather liked that idea.
“Good answer,” Jessy murmured near her ear, coming up to join her in line. “It’s the kind of brag they like to make about a Calder.”
“It will be a true one,” Cat responded in the same soft undertone that wouldn’t reach beyond her sister-in-law’s hearing.
