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  “Is your brain sluggish today?” Charlie rejoined. “He already has one. We don’t know much about her other than she’s from Texas, of all places.”

  “She?” Willis said. He couldn’t take many more of these shocks. As it was, he had a hankering to crawl under his blankets and sleep a while and hope when he woke up he would find out it had all been a bad dream.

  Charlie was nodding. “You heard rightly. Laurella Hendershot. I guess her pa has a spread in Texas and she wanted one of her own, so she made an offer for the Bar T.”

  “Why doesn’t she buy a ranch in Texas?”

  “You’re askin’ me? How in hell would I know. I can’t explain Wyomin’ women, and Texas women are twice as female.”

  “That makes no kind of sense,” Willis said.

  “All I can tell you is that she made a more than fair offer and Elfie is interested even if Abe ain’t, and Elfie always gets her way.” Charlie speared a piece of potato with his fork.

  “What will I do?”

  “What will we all do? That’s the question.” Charlie rested his elbows on the table and grew uncharacteristically glum. “Some of the boys are for pullin’ up stakes. Sam says he won’t work for a woman. Hank says he won’t work for a Texan because Texans are naturally bossy.”

  “What does Reuben say?”

  “He’s for waitin’ and seein’ how the wind blows. It could be things will go on just as they are. Then again, this Laurella is female, and a Texan, so it could be she’ll shake the whole tree from top to bottom and maybe bring in her own outfit.”

  “There’s that,” Willis said. He almost wished Charlie had not come. His day has been ruined. Hell, his life had been ruined, and he had no idea what to do. “Abe’s been awful kind to me.”

  “Abe’s kind to everyone,” Charlie said. “It’s part of why we’ve all been so loyal to the brand. The Bar T won’t be the same without him.” He speared another piece of potato almost savagely. “Damn that Elfie, anyhow. She’ll drag him back to Saint Louis, I reckon, and turn him into a citified dandy who will wait on her hand and foot.”

  “He does that already.”

  Charlie chuckled, shoving the potato in his mouth. “Ain’t that the truth! That’s what he gets for pickin’ such a poor runnin’ mate.”

  “Abe loves her,” Willis said.

  “He probably thinks he does. But when it comes to women, a man can’t ever be sure how much is his heart and how much is below his belt.”

  “There you go again.”

  “What?” Charlie washed down the potato with coffee and sat back and patted his belly. “I’m halfway to full. The way you cook, if you were female, I’d marry you.”

  “Say that again and I’ll hit you.”

  Unflustered, Charlie said, “I figure to stay on long enough to see how the new owner stacks up. If Hendershot lets things go on as they are, maybe I’ll stick. If she puts curtains in the bunkhouse and makes us sweep the floor and make our beds, then I’ll light a shuck for other parts.”

  “Is she married?” Willis really didn’t care. He was making small talk while pondering the weightier issue of what he was going to do if the ranch indeed was sold.

  “Somethin’ strange there,” Charlie said. “Word is, she’s over thirty, but she doesn’t have a husband nor any kids. What do you suppose is wrong with her?”

  “Maybe she had a husband and he died before she could have any,” Willis guessed, “or maybe she’s a spinster.”

  “Lord, no,” Charlie said. “A man hater and female and from Texas. How could it get any worse?”

  “I didn’t say she hates men.”

  “She might as well. Half the boys hate her and they haven’t even set eyes on her yet.”

  Willis had lost his appetite but he forced himself to eat the rest of his flapjacks. He listened with half an ear as his friend prattled on about how each and every hand at the Bar T felt about the impending change.

  “When?” Willis interrupted.

  Breaking off in midsentence, Charlie glanced at him. “When what? When will the first snow fall? When will Armageddon come? When will horses speak English?”

  “You say the damnedest things,” Willis said. “When will Abe sell the Bar T?”

  “No one knows for sure. There’s talk that this Hendershot woman is comin’ to give the ranch a look-see sometime in the next couple of weeks and if she likes what she sees, the deal will go through.”

  “How did she find out it was for sale, anyhow?”

  “That blamed Elfie,” Charlie said. “She went to Denver on another of her shoppin’ sprees and met the Hendershot woman somewhere or other and they got to jawin’, and the next thing, Elfie came back and told Abe she had a buyer lined up.”

  “Women!” Willis said.

  “Can’t live with the critters without goin’ loco and can’t shoot them dead without bein’ thrown in jail,” Charlie lamented. “It’s a cruel world.”

  Willis got up and stepped to the stove to refill his tin cup. “Now you’re talkin’ plumb nonsense.”

  “How do you feel about Arizona?” Charlie asked.

  “I’ve never given it enough thought to have feelin’s about,” Willis said. He liked Wyoming. He had been born and lived his whole life there, and he would die there, if he had his druthers.

  “Well, start thinkin’. You and me could make a heap of money. Or haven’t you heard about all the silver strikes and how folks are takin’ ore out of the ground like it was as common as dirt?”

  “I’ve heard there are Apaches in Arizona and that’s all I need to hear,” Willis said.

  “Apaches have you spooked? They ain’t any more fierce than the tribes we have hereabouts.”

  “You can say that with a straight face?” Willis marveled. “You should give up nursemaidin’ cows and be a gambler. You’re a natural.” He took a sip of the piping hot coffee. “For one thing, the Shoshones ain’t never been fierce. They’re the friendliest tribe this side of creation. For another, the Blackfeet and the Sioux can be right fierce when they want to but they can’t hold a candle to Apaches.”

  “Says the jasper who’s never set foot in Arizona.”

  “I don’t need to jump off a cliff to know it will hurt when I hit the bottom,” Willis observed.

  “All I ask is that you think about it, pard,” Charlie coaxed. “It’s no use worryin’ about how high a bronc will buck until you climb—” He suddenly stopped and frowned. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

  The coffee turned bitter in Willis’ mouth. “That’s all right,” he said. But it was not really all right. He did not like it when anyone made more of it than they should. Setting the tin cup on the table, he announced, “I need some fresh air.” He was angry even though it was stupid to be angry.

  “I really am sorry.”

  Willis almost slammed the door. He hated it when he got like this. Most times he could control himself but there were others when the bitterness rose in him like a river in flood, and it was all he could do not to throw back his head and curse the heavens. It was so unfair.

  Breathing deep of the brisk morning air, Willis limped a few yards from the shack and put his hands on his hips and hung his head. “I’m actin’ childish,” he said aloud. Talking to himself was a habit he could do without, but when he was alone for days and sometimes weeks on end, it helped to hear a human voice, even if the voice was his own.

  Shaking his head, Willis was about to turn and go back in when he saw the track. It was clear as clear could be in the soft earth near the stump where he split wood for the stove. Whistling softly, he bent down, stretched out his right hand, and held his fingers over the print. The track was larger. “He came back.”

  “Who did?”

  Willis had not heard his friend come out. “What did, you mean. Take a gander.” He stepped back.

  Charlie whistled softly. “That there has to be the biggest mountain lion since Hector was a pup. And you say he’s been payin’ you regular visits?” />
  “I think he’s interested in the horses. Last week one night they were actin’ up, and I came out with my rifle and the lantern and stayed with them until they quieted down. The next mornin’ I found a partial print at the far end of the corral.”

  “Drecker would pay good money for a cougar skin,” Charlie mentioned. “It’s the only animal whose hide he doesn’t have on his walls.”

  “All I care about are the horses,” Willis said. He was responsible for them and he would not let them come to harm.

  “Let’s hunt it,” Charlie proposed. “You and me, like in the old days when we did things together.”

  “I don’t know,” Willis hesitated. It would take a lot of riding and he could not ride like he used to.

  “Come on,” Charlie urged. “What can it hurt? You must be tired of bein’ cooped up in that old shack all damn day. Why not get out a little?”

  “What if the line rider shows up and I’m not here?” Willis argued. “I’d let Abe down, and he’s been powerful kind to me.”

  “You’re in luck, pard. I happen to know that Hank drew the short straw this month and he’s busy down near Dutch Creek roundin’ up strays. He won’t make it up this way for a week or more.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “As God is my witness. May a rhino run up and poke me in the backside if I’m fibbin’.”

  “A what?”

  “A critter from Africa. Lou the barber told me about them. He read about it in one of those periodicals he gets. A rhino is as big as a horse with a horn growin’ out of the middle of its head.”

  To Willis it sounded suspiciously like the unicorn in a story his grandmother used to read to him when he was knee-high to a calf, and he said so.

  “Could be. They also have antelopes with necks as tall as trees and snakes that can swallow a man whole and lions as big as buffalo.” Charlie nodded at the track. “What do you say? Are you up for some big-game huntin’, as they call it in Africa?”

  “Why not?” Willis said.

  Charlie laughed and said, “It will be just like old times. All we have to do is make it back alive.”

  Chapter 2

  Willis hated to climb on a horse anymore. He hated it because more than anything else it reminded him of his stupidity. It threw his affliction, as Elfie once called it, smack in his face. Worst of all, it reminded him that he was no longer the man he once was, and would never again be.

  But with Charlie Weaver looking on and waiting to head out, Willis had to swallow his shame. He gripped the saddle horn with both hands, tensed his good leg, and swung up and over the saddle in one smooth motion so that his right boot slid into the stirrup as he straightened. As for his left leg, he had to help it a little. He had to bend and slide his hand under the brace and lift the leg enough to insert his boot into the left stirrup.

  “Ready, pard?”

  Willis nodded. He did not like it that Charlie was watching him like a mother hen. He patted the Winchester in its saddle scabbard and replied, “Ready and rarin’ to kill me that cat.” He touched his right spur to the zebra dun.

  “He won’t have gone far,” Charlie predicted. “He’ll be holed up somewhere above.”

  “Let’s hope,” Willis said. They only had until sunset. Charlie was heading back in the morning and would need his sleep.

  They followed the tracks to the top of the ridge, and drew rein. Below, wisps of smoke curled from the line shack. It would be a while before the stove went out. The two horses in the corral were staring up as if they yearned to go along.

  “I envy you,” Charlie unexpectedly said.

  “What on earth for?” Willis didn’t see where being a cripple was anything worth envying.

  Encompassing the Tetons with a sweep of an arm, Charlie said, “It’s beautiful up here. The forest, the snow on the peaks, the wildlife. And you don’t have anyone lookin’ over your shoulder sayin’ as how you should do this, that, or the other.”

  “There’s never anyone to talk to, though.”

  “Peace and quiet,” Charlie said. “Go to bed when you want, get up when you want, do what you want. Yes, sir. This is the life.”

  “If it’s so damn wonderful, why don’t you ask to take my place?” Willis asked, more harshly than he had intended.

  “Whoa there, pard. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bunk this mornin’?” Charlie grinned his most amiable grin. “I didn’t mean to rile you. I honestly and truly think you have it great here.”

  “What’s so great about being banished?” Willis asked, and gigged the zebra dun on up the mountain.

  “How do you reckon?” Charlie asked.

  “Do you think I don’t know? Abe gave me this job because there’s nothin’ else I can do. I can’t break the wild ones anymore. I’m useless at the thing I loved most in this world. Hell, I can’t even cowboy.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “Am I? How can I handle a brandin’ iron when I can’t hardly bend? What good would it do me to rope a cow when it would take me a month of Sundays to climb down and undo the rope?” Willis shook his head. “I’m useless except for mindin’ a line shack that doesn’t need mindin’ and cookin’ meals for line riders who don’t need anyone to cook for them.”

  “Still, it was nice of Abe.”

  “It was nice of Abe,” Willis echoed, but his bitterness worsened.

  After that, they did not talk for a while. Willis concentrated on finding tracks. It was a challenge. Cougars were almost as crafty as foxes when it came to leaving no sign.

  Then Charlie asked another unexpected question. “Ever had a hankerin’ to have your own cow bunny?”

  “No,” Willis lied, and when his friend did not go on, he asked, “Why? What brought that up?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said. They were ascending a steep slope but Charlie rode as if he and his bay were one, with the natural ease of a master horseman. “I’m not gettin’ any younger, and it occurs to me that maybe I ought to find me one before I’m too old for a woman to take any interest.”

  “What are you talkin’ about? You’re younger than me.”

  “It’s that Gerty,” Charlie said. “She sure is easy on the eyes. And I like how she hums. At night I’ll lie in bed and hum to myself like she does. That shows me somethin’.”

  “It shows what can happen when a person thinks too much,” Willis said.

  “Thinkin’ ain’t got nothin’ to do with it,” Charlie disagreed. “A man can go on bein’ a boy only so long before he has to hitch up his belt and be a man whether he wants to be a man or not.”

  “If that made any kind of sense, it did so without me noticin’ ” was Willis’ assessment. “You could go ten years yet without gettin’ hitched.”

  “You’re missin’ the point,” Charlie said. “You’re not the only one who gets lonely. I like the notion of comin’ home to a woman every night. Of havin’ warm meals waitin’ and someone to hold close under the covers.”

  “That’s enough,” Willis said sternly.

  “You should think about it,” Charlie suggested.

  “When I say that’s enough, I mean it.” Willis refused to think about women. There was no point to it.

  “You know, you’re gettin’ to be a grump. Time was, you would joke and laugh with the best of us.”

  “Time was, I had the use of both my legs,” Willis stated flat-out, and regretted the words the instant they were out of his mouth.

  “I never took you for the kind to wallow in pity,” Charlie said. “The Willis Lander of old had more fire.”

  “I’m not the man I used to be.” Willis would have said more but a lump formed in his throat and his eyes moistened, and he mentally cursed himself for being so weak. Sometimes it felt like there was no bottom to the well.

  “Who of us is?” Charlie’s plump frame was stooped forward to better distribute his weight. “There are days when I suspect the Almighty made us the way we are just so He can laugh at our antics
.”

  “You come up with the most preposterous notions.”

  “Think about it. Why are we born just to die? Why have us be young just so we grow old?”

  “Hellfire, where do you get this stuff?”

  Charlie wasn’t done. “Why give us teeth if all they’re goin’ to do one day is fall out? Why give us hair just so we can grow bald? What’s the purpose in all this, if there even is one?”

  Willis shook his head. “You’re askin’ the wrong person. If you really want to know, see the parson.”

  “All he’d do is quote Scripture. Which is fine for a sermon but doesn’t always apply to real life.”

  “That’s blasphemy.”

  “Since when did you go and get religion?” Charlie countered. “As I recollect, until your accident, you were the wildest and wooliest of the bunch.”

  “That was then and this is now,” Willis said, skirting a deadfall. “I don’t make a habit of livin’ in the past.”

  “That’s good,” Charlie said as insincerely as was humanly possible.

  Now Willis was mad. Fortunately, he spied another clear track and reined over to examine it from the saddle. The cat had headed almost due west from the line shack and was steadily climbing toward the peaks that gave the rugged range its name. In the distance reared the Grand Teton, flanked to the north by Mount Owen and Teewinot. To the south was the snowcapped knob of Middle Teton. At that time of year the snow was sparse but in a couple of months it would be deeper than the line shack was tall. South of Middle Teton reared Nez Percé and South Teton. Five peaks, five towering ramparts of stone and earth thrusting skyward as if to tear at the fabric of heaven.

  “He wasn’t in much of a hurry,” Charlie commented.

  Willis grunted. The length of the mountain lion’s strides showed as much. It must have fed before it visited the shack, he reasoned, and now was looking for a spot to lay up during the day. Or more than likely, it had a den it used whenever it was in the area. An old hunter once told him that a male mountain lion’s range could cover as much as seventy-five miles, a female’s as much as fifty.

  On they rode, the hooves of their mounts ringing on rock and now and then sending pebbles and loose dirt rattling down the slope. A raven flew overhead, the rhythmic beat of its wings unnaturally loud in the quiet of the high country.