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  “Shit, Earl, that’s a damned job for an army.”

  Throckmorton waved the hundred-dollar bill in front of his face as if were swatting at an insect. “Look, Concho, you know cattle and you know Nebraska. Don’t you hail from there?”

  “Wahoo. But it ain’t much of a town and I ain’t been back in a long while.”

  “I’ve been studying the map and you have about four hundred and ninety miles to turn back that herd. Likely, Kramer will go up along the Missouri so he’s got plenty of prairie grass and water. And he has to stop off in Kansas City to pick up nearly another nine hundred head or so. If you have good men, you can do what I ask.”

  “You want Circle K bad, don’t you, Earl?”

  “Yes. Kramer has some ten thousand acres of land and he’s planted it in good grass. And he has around five thousand head of cattle at last count, plus a bunch of calves dropped recently.”

  “Grass ain’t growed tall enough for a cattle drive just now.”

  “It’s already started and the rains will make the grass grow fast. Another week or so and he’ll have plenty of fodder for those cattle.”

  “I reckon,” Concho said, without enthusiasm.

  “Study his actions out at the ranch. Don’t let him see you or your men. You’ll know when he’s ready. Study the map I’m going to give you and pick some places where you can bushwhack Kramer and his hands. Take your time and strike when you think you’ve got him where you want him.”

  “From what I hear, Kramer’s a tough chunk of leather.”

  “Oh, he’s good with a gun and he fought in the war. But he was just a kid then.”

  “Kids grow up,” Concho said.

  “You can handle him. You’re tough as a boot yourself.”

  “It’s gonna cost you dear, Earl. The men I get to help on this job don’t come cheap.”

  “I know, Concho. You just tell me how many men you will need and I’ll take care of the payroll.”

  Throckmorton leaned back in his leather baronial chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. His piglike eyes narrowed as if he had been injected with a brain-numbing drug, and his facial features tightened over his skull so that he wore a mask Concho had never seen on him before.

  “I was an orphan, Concho. Not just an orphan. I was abandoned by my mother, who never wanted me, never cared for me. My father owned a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania. He was left with five of us and we all had to work the farm. After my mother left us, he started trying to sell off his land because the farm wasn’t paying for itself. We were all little kids and we worked until we dropped at night. One day, a banker, a constable, and another man came out and served my father with papers that said he no longer owned any of the land. The court put all of us in orphanages. I never saw my two sisters or my two brothers again, and I finally ran away and got a job selling newspapers in New York City.

  “I saved my money,” Throckmorton went on, “and when I heard about the West opening up, about the land rush out here, I packed up and came to Oklahoma.”

  “So, you was one of them Sooners yourself,” Concho said.

  “No, I wasn’t that stupid. I watched the covered wagons and the homesteaders on horseback and mules all run out hither and thither to stake their claims. Then I followed after them and bought up cheap land around the Mission here. I built this bank and offered loans to hard-up people who needed cash to buy plows, mules, seed, and feed. I vowed that I wasn’t going to end up like my father, Waylon Throckmorton, flat broke and deep in debt.”

  “Well, you did it, Earl. I got to hand it to you.”

  “Not quite. My father walked in one day and asked for a loan. He didn’t recognize me, and he didn’t even remember my name or the names of my brothers and sisters. He didn’t have a dime and when I told him who I was, he turned around and walked out.”

  “Did he say anything?” Concho asked.

  “Yes. He said that I and his other children had been the cause of him losing his farm. He said we hadn’t worked hard enough and there were too many of us. He also said we were the reason our mother ran off with a drummer from North Carolina.”

  “What happened to your ma?” Concho asked.

  “She killed herself, I found out. Had another child and her husband left her. So she hanged herself in a cheap hotel room and was buried in a potter’s field somewhere.”

  “So, why do you want Kramer’s ranch and his cattle?”

  Throckmorton leaned forward in his chair. He unclasped his hands and looked at the plaque over the door before he set his gaze back on Larabee and huffed in a deep breath. “Because Dane’s father, Thorvald Kramer, was the man who ran off with my mother. He never married her, but left her for another woman after she gave birth to another child. My mother not only took her own life, but she killed the child she had with Thor Kramer. He married a woman named Olga, who was rich and gave him the money to buy the Circle K. She died after the money ran out. Dane bought the ranch from Thor and came to me for a loan in ’seventy-six so that he could buy cattle in Texas.”

  “Dane had nothin’ to do with your troubles, Earl.”

  “No, but his father did, and when he became the biggest landowner in this territory, I vowed that I would one day own the land he sold to his son.”

  “What happened to your pa?” Concho asked.

  “He died in Virginia City while he was prospecting for gold in Alder Gulch. He had consumption and just strangled to death, from lung disease.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “A man came to me with a letter from my father, written just before he died.”

  “What did he say? Was he sorry for what he done to you and your kin?”

  “No, he didn’t say he was sorry. He just wrote and told me to hold on to the land no matter what. So, in a sense, he gave me that gift. I never worked land again, for myself or anyone else. Instead, I buy it up and rent it out. Let others break their backs like my father did and we children did. It’s just the land I want.”

  “So, what will you do when you have all of Kramer’s cattle and his land?”

  “I’ll sell the cattle in Texas or Kansas and divide the land up into smaller sections and lease them. I’ll keep the ranch house and the acres around it for myself.”

  “That’s a mighty big cud to chew,” Concho said.

  “I think big, Concho. Now, are you going to take on this job or not? If not, I can seek help for the task somewhere else. I have connections all over the territory.”

  Throckmorton picked up the hundred-dollar bill and held it out for Concho.

  “I reckon me and some friends can tangle with Kramer, drive his herd back here in a month or so.”

  Concho stood up and snatched the bill from Throckmorton’s hand. He folded it in half and slid it in a front pocket.

  “Remember, Concho, you have to do all this far away from Shawnee Mission.”

  “I know. Get me a map and I’ll study on it.”

  “When you get back with the cattle, I will have another job for you. That’s dependent on your killing Dane Kramer of course, somewhere along the trail to Omaha.”

  “What’s the job pay?” Concho asked.

  “One thousand dollars.”

  Concho looked down at Throckmorton. He whistled. “What’s the job?”

  “I want you to kill Thorvald Kramer,” he said.

  “That old man? Hell, he ain’t long for this world no-how.”

  “I want him to know why he’s being killed when you do it. I want you to tell him my mother, Earlene Throckmorton, wants him dead.”

  Concho took in a deep breath. “Boy, you carry a grudge a long time, Earl, don’t you?”

  “A long time, Concho,” Throckmorton said. “All the way to the grave.”

  Chapter 9

  Paddy, Joe Eagle, and Dane looked at all the branding irons hanging on the stable wall of the tack room. Paddy took one down and examined it.

  The brand was a crooked S that could be used to alter any number o
f brands. Joe took one down that was a half crescent. Dane picked out one that was a straight bar.

  “This might work,” Dane said. “Make an X with it.”

  “So many trail brands use an X,” Paddy said. “Even regular cattle brands, like the XO down in Texas.”

  “So we have a Circle K and next to it a Bar X,” Dane said.

  Paddy looked closely at the iron in Dane’s hand.

  “Three burns would do it,” he said. “Should work.”

  “So we go with a Bar X,” Dane said. He pulled down three more running irons that had a bar on the hot end. “That do you?”

  “Be fine, Dane,” Paddy said. “I’ll get right on it. Joe, you willin’ to do either some brandin’ or some ropin’?”

  Joe nodded. “Me do both,” he said.

  Paddy slapped him on the back.

  “One more thing, Paddy,” Dane said. “The chuck wagon.”

  “What about it?”

  “I want to ask Barney Gooch if the wagon can make the trip to Omaha. Tell him we can resupply along the way. I don’t really want to haul an extra wagon. Be hard enough just to lug the chuck wagon over rough prairie.”

  “I’ll ask him,” Paddy said.

  “Tell him he’ll have to feed maybe a dozen hands three times a day. He’ll meet us at our stopping points with a hot kettle and clean plates.”

  “Barney ain’t gonna like it none,” Paddy said. “He gripes about flies and skeeters and prairie dog holes, not to mention our appetites.”

  “Tell Barney I’ll find him a helper,” Dane said.

  “You ain’t gonna get no volunteers from among the hands,” Paddy said.

  He looked hard at Joe Eagle. Joe shook his head.

  “See what I mean?” Paddy said.

  “Well, you tell him that anyway. Likely he won’t have a helper.”

  “He probably don’t want one anyways,” Paddy said. “Barney’s what we used to call a loner. He’s an ornery one at that.”

  “Barney good cook,” Joe Eagle said.

  Paddy snorted.

  “Yeah, if you like rock-hard biscuits and thin gravy,” Paddy said.

  “Bear claws,” Joe said.

  They all laughed.

  “Yeah,” Dane said, “Barney’s bear claws are world-famous, I reckon. I’ve seen hands from other ranches ride miles to bribe Barney into cooking up a batch of bear claws.”

  “Hmmm,” Joe murmured, and rubbed his belly, smacked his lips.

  “Let’s ride out, then, and start the gather,” Paddy said to Joe.

  He divided up the running irons and gave two to Joe and kept two for himself.

  “I’ll ride out to see you in a day or two,” Dane said.

  “I’m going to run the trail herd down to the East Ninety. Got plenty of chutes and small corrals, and the grass ain’t been touched.”

  “Good idea,” Dane said. “Land’s free of a lot of brush and no prairie dog towns.”

  “We call that Ninety Sunnyland,” Paddy said. “Wide-open prairie, barely a tree on the section.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Dane said. “We call it that too.”

  Dane watched them ride off. It would take them a week or more to make the gather from several of his pastures. He trusted Paddy to assemble the biggest and best cattle for the long drive north. He wished he were out there with them, but he had to wait out the day for Otto Himmel to return from town with the notarized documents.

  He did not have long to wait. He saw the rider break the horizon line and become gradually larger.

  When Himmel got close, Dane saw that the man had changed clothes. He was now wearing a fringed buckskin jacket and he saw a yellow slicker covering his bedroll behind the cantle. He noticed too a rifle sticking out of a scabbard and a holster just below the hem of his buckskin shirt. He wore sturdy duck pants, coal black, and a wide-brimmed Stetson, which shaded his face.

  His respect for Himmel raised itself several notches.

  “Howdy, Otto,” Dane said when the Omaha man rode up. “Got the papers?”

  “Yes, all notarized.” Himmel swung down out of the saddle and untied his satchel.

  The two walked toward the house after Himmel wrapped the reins around a long hitch rail out front.

  “Saw that boy Randy when I rode into town,” he said.

  “That must have been a big thrill, Otto.”

  “He was coming out of the Prairie Land Bank. Walked over to the general store. I spoke to him.”

  Dane stopped walking. Himmel halted beside him.

  “You did? What did you say to him?”

  Otto looked down at Dane with a mischievous grin on his face. “I asked him if he’d had a good talk with Throckmorton at the bank.”

  Dane jerked his head back in surprise.

  “He did what you just did, Dane. He jerked his head back as if he’d been struck by a lightning bolt.”

  “You caught him by surprise, then.”

  “I’ll say. The look of shock on his face was something to see.”

  “Did he admit to anything about Throckmorton?” Dane asked.

  “He mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand what he said.”

  “So that was it,” Dane said.

  “Before I let him go, I asked him if he had found his quarter.”

  “And?”

  “He looked at me as if I’d mentioned sleeping with his mother and shook his head. Then he ran off toward the general store and I saw him go in.”

  “I think he worked there once. Before he became a spy for Throckmorton.”

  Himmel laughed.

  The two entered the house and Himmel spread all the notarized papers on the desk.

  Thor had fallen asleep in his chair and did not stir. The men spoke in whispers to keep from arousing him.

  “I got a change to make,” Dane said. “The trail brand won’t be a Box D, but a Bar X. Can we change it?”

  “Yes, make the changes and write your initials next to them and I’ll add mine.”

  Dane read the papers and made the changes. Himmel countersigned the changes.

  “Here’s a copy for you, Dane,” Himmel said. “And I’ll have a copy to take with me. Carry it along in your kit in case anyone wonders what you’re up to with that many cattle. And I’m giving you two bank drafts. One is for you to cash in Kansas City. The other is for the feedlot charges. I left the amount blank and you can fill it in when you get the bill.”

  “All right,” Dane said. He put the papers together and the bank drafts on top.”

  “I’ll be on my way, then. I’ll stop off in Kansas City to tell my man there that you’ll pick up those nine hundred head in a month or so.”

  “I’ll walk out with you. Looks like you got a mighty fine roan there.”

  “He’s long-legged and got a good deep chest. I call him Raspberry.”

  “The gelding’s a strawberry roan,” Dane said as the two walked out of the house and toward the hitch rail.

  “I didn’t like the straw part. For short, I call the horse Razz.”

  “Makes sense,” Dane said.

  The two men shook hands. Himmel tied his satchel with thongs dangling from midsaddle and stepped into a stirrup.

  “See you in Omaha,” he said as he looked down at Dane.

  “Lookin’ forward to it, Otto,” Dane said.

  He watched the big man ride off. He looked like a mountain man, a fur trapper, in his buckskin shirt. All that was lacking was a fox or coonskin hat.

  Dane liked Otto Himmel. The man knew where to find good cattle and size up a man to make the long drive. He gave him a lot of credit for that. He was sure that Otto had looked over his herd before riding to the ranch house. He was smart, not too talkative, and knew where to go to get things done. Otto was the kind of man Dane admired. Honest and true, but sharp and experienced in business. He hoped the drive would open up a steady market for his beef, either in Omaha or in Kansas City.

  He walked back into the house.

 
His father was just waking up. The old man rubbed his eyes and looked at his son.

  “I heard some of it,” Thor said. “So, Otto’s on his way, and you got the contracts.”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Dane said.

  “When you hit the trail, son, you better have an extry man or two watchin’ for bushwhackers and Injuns.”

  “I’m takin’ drovers with me, not gunfighters,” he said.

  “A gunfighter or two wouldn’t hurt none. I don’t trust Throckmorton when he finds out you’re drivin’ cattle to market.”

  “I think he already knows,” Dane said. “Otto ran into the kid comin’ out of the bank.”

  “Randy?”

  “Yeah. He ain’t lookin’ for his two bits no more. He likely told Throckmorton how many head we were driving and where we were takin’ them.”

  “Throckmorton, for all his puny size and greedy appetite for land, is a dangerous hombre, Dane.”

  “He can’t do much settin’ behind that big old desk of his in the bank.”

  “No, maybe not, but he knows gunslingers in town and my hunch he’s used some of ’em to grab up land from sodbusters. Ora Lee tells me all the stories she hears in town.”

  “Nothing’s ever been proved, Pa.”

  “He’s slick too.”

  “How come you know so much about Throckmorton? You never talk about him much.”

  “Him and me go back a long ways, son. I don’t like to talk about it too much because I’m ashamed of some of the things I’ve done when I was a young sprout.”

  “You knew Throckmorton before he came to Shawnee Mission?”

  “I knowed who he was. I didn’t know him. But he was on my back trail and I think he wants this ranch as much as he wants to see me suffer.”

  “You never said anything like this before.”

  “Didn’t want to drag you into my little pile of troubles,” Thor said.

  “Did it involve my mother?”

  “No. Scarlet knew nothing about any of this. Someday, maybe soon, I’ll tell you all about it. You get your drive goin’ and when you come back from Omaha and pay off the mortgage, I’ll tell you the whole ugly story.”