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“What tipped the scale?”
“Hay,” Empty replied. “My cattle kept mysteriously getting into my hayfield. First time a gate was open; then a fence kept going down. One time it looked like a rotten fence post, and another rusted-out wire—the sort of things that could lead you to think you were having a streak of bad luck. Anyway, you add the drought in and I didn’t get enough hay out of the field to feed my cattle through the winter. When I started looking to buy some, there wasn’t any to be found within fifty miles. Seems the Slash R had bought it all up, claiming they needed it to winter-feed their cattle. The cost of importing hay from up north was more than I could afford. Which meant I had to sell off part of my herd. A lot of other ranchers were doing the same, driving the price down. There I sat without enough money to pay the note payment, and the bank refusing to give me an extension, when up walks Rutledge’s son Boone, offering to buy the place. That’s when I started seeing his hand in all that had gone on before.”
Quint couldn’t help observing, “That’s not much to hang your hat on.”
Empty released a contemptuous snort. “I told you Rutledge was cagey.”
“Just the same, that’s a stretch.”
“Think so, do you?” He threw Quint a look of disgust. “I guess I didn’t mention that I told him to take his offer and stick it where the sun don’t shine. That’s when the meanness started—the dog crawling off to die from a bullet wound, the sugar in the gas tank, places where I’d had credit for years suddenly demanding cash on the barrelhead, banks turning me down all over the place when I tried to refinance, wells getting poisoned, cattle rustled. I managed to hold out for another year—” His voice tightened up on him. He paused, dragging in a deep breath, and continued. “Rutledge bought it out of foreclosure. The Homestead law let me keep the house. It galled me to wake up every morning and see Slash R cattle out the window grazing on my grass. When I found out Rutledge wanted the house for one of his hired hands to live in, the strangest thing happened.” A dark light danced in his eyes. “The house caught on fire. Musta happened shortly after I left for town.”
“What did the insurance company say?”
“They wouldn’t pay up,” Empty admitted. “Called it suspicious. Naturally everybody figured Rutledge was to blame. Now folks around here are even more afraid to cross him.”
The pickup rattled to a halt alongside Quint’s rental car. The old man draped his left arm across the top of the steering wheel and angled around to face Quint.
“Understand, now, Rutledge isn’t what you’d call a greedy man,” Empty said. “He only wants land that butts up to his. And it looks like he’s after the Cee Bar. So you might want to let your boss in Montana know what he’s going to be coming up against. Right now all the squeezing is the subtle kind, aimed at making the operation too costly to keep going. Rutledge probably figures your boss won’t want to hang on to a ranch that’s a losing proposition, ’specially one located so far from the home spread.”
“I’ll pass the word.” Quint reached for the door handle and smiled crookedly. “Between you and me, though, if you push a Calder into a corner, he comes out swinging every time.”
The old man’s chin came up a notch, his gaze sharpening as he considered Quint’s words. “You know,” he began thoughtfully, “there isn’t anywhere I need to be for a while. If you want, I can give you a hand unloading that grain. Seeing how I’m the one who turned your horses out, I could catch them up for you, too.”
Quint accepted. “I’d appreciate the help.”
Chapter Four
A few minutes before five o’clock, Empty Garner swung the pickup into the feed store’s parking lot and pulled up in front of the door. The chalky white dust had barely settled to the ground when Dallas walked out of the metal building and climbed into the pickup. She flung herself against the backrest and pulled off the feed store cap that trapped her hair atop her head. She dropped the cap on the seat and dug her fingers into her scalp.
“I itch all over from that grain dust,” she muttered. “I can hardly wait to get in the shower.”
“Guess I don’t need to ask how your day was,” Empty surmised and pointed the truck at the highway.
“It wasn’t all that bad, I guess,” she replied.
But the minute Dallas let her thoughts drift over the day’s happenings, only one incident stood out from any others. The weariness that comes at the end of the day kept Dallas from considering the wisdom of relating it to her grandfather.
“Remember that cowboy I told you about,” she said, “the one that came into the café last night? Well, John Earl had to have been wrong. Evans must still be working at the Cee Bar, because that cowboy came into the feed store today. He’s working at the Cee Bar.”
“I know.” Gravel churned under the truck’s wheels as the pickup accelerated onto the highway.
It was a full second before his response penetrated her fatigue. When it did, Dallas sat up. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“I swung out by the Cee Bar this morning to make sure the stock had plenty of food and water. That’s when I met him.” Empty was careful to omit any mention of the business with the shotgun. “And Evans is gone. This new guy is from the Montana outfit that owns the place. His name is Echohawk. Part Indian, I guess.”
“I wonder how long he’ll last,” Dallas murmured absently, privately regarding the ultimate outcome as a foregone conclusion.
“This one’s not gonna be easy to scare off.”
Dallas slid her grandfather a dryly skeptical look. “You wish.”
“The cowboy’s got sand,” Empty stated, unswayed by her cynicism. “Must be why the Calders sent him down here. You know the Triple C has a huge spread up in Montana, covering over a million acres,” he added thoughtfully. “Could be Rutledge is trying to take a bite out of an outfit that’s too big for him.”
“But it’s up there. Down here, Rutledge calls the shots—or have you forgotten?” The instant the acerbic comment left her mouth, Dallas regretted opening old wounds. Still, the truth was the truth. “And how much is a big outfit like that going to care about a measly little spread a thousand miles away? Every rancher with any business sense at all knows that sometimes you have to cut your losses and sell.”
Empty chose to ignore her latter remark. “The Cee Bar isn’t as measly as it once was. It takes in close to five thousand acres now. And it’s got this big creek that curls right through it. It’s never been known to run dry either. It’s the water; I’ll bet that’s what Rutledge is coveting.”
“You’re full of information, aren’t you?” Dallas turned a suspicious look on him. “And you got all this from one brief meeting with this Echohawk?”
