CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Nearly a month had passed since the rodeo and Drum’s death. During that time, Dulcinea gave Hayward the running of his grandfather’s ranch and Graver the running of J.B.’s. Late September was the first time the cattle would run together without splitting them afterward. With such a huge herd, it meant dark-to-dark days for everyone on the two ranches as they collected and pastured them for winter near the two houses.
Dulcinea fed the branding fires for late calves and yearlings they’d missed and handled the chuck wagon and water. She was bone tired and relieved it was the last day. They only had ten head to go, but the hands had to change horses and eat. The break would help settle the herd, though. Right now, they were dangerously close to stampeding, and any little thing could set them off. The men withdrew carefully, skirting the edges, avoiding those cows searching for their calves. Dulcinea admired the natural rhythm between Rose and Some Horses as they worked the cattle.
She watched Graver, too, a man whose body moved with the horse as he roped a yearling and dragged it unwillingly to the cowboys waiting by the fire with hot branding irons. The stench of burning hide rode the dust churned under hooves and drifted to the chuck wagon. Dulcinea tried to breathe through her mouth, but it sat on her tongue, so she gave up and let it soak her clothes, hair, and skin. If she was to stay here, she’d better get used to every inconvenience. A horse loped by with an empty saddle, stirrups banging wildly at its sides. She shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted in search of its rider. Sure enough, a figure trudged toward the camp. She felt relief at recognizing Hayward, still so angry he barely spoke, and God only knew when he’d forgive her. But she did it for him, she protested during the daily argument in her head. It was all for her son. She never questioned the rationale, though she felt the hairline cracks in it.
When Hayward caught the dun gelding that had once been Cullen’s, Graver and the other hands clapped and cheered him on. Hayward bowed and shook his head. She wanted to join them, but thought he would misinterpret her intentions. She turned her back and stirred the beans and beef in the big pot on the fire.
“Some damn prospector spooked him,” Hayward said as she handed him a plate.
“Prospector?” Her hands stilled. She gazed at the top of his head as he sat on the ground and tucked into his food.
He looked up and nodded behind her. “That’s him.”
The stranger wore khaki-colored trousers and shirt, and a wide-brimmed plantation hat over a nondescript face. Dismounting, he gazed at the camp and loosened the saddle girth. A pick and shovel and metal sample box hung from his saddle. He slipped a halter and rope over the bridle and let the horse drop its head to graze.
“Ma’am.” He touched his hat brim and eyed the hot food.
Dulcinea wanted to drive him off her land, but knew the hospitality laws of the West demanded she offer him a meal first.
After he’d eaten two platefuls, he pushed back his hat and gazed at her. “You’d be Dulcinea Bennett.” Without waiting for a reply, he continued, “Name’s Pittcairn, from Western Oil and Gas.”
“I know who you are, and the answer is still no,” she said. Folding her arms across her chest, she pushed back her shoulders and lifted her chin.
“You sure? Last opportunity. All this sand, usually find something. Can’t say there’s oil for sure, but what do you have to lose? Get money for exploration, much more if we find something.” He paused and watched a calf struggle against the branding iron, then it kicked a cowboy’s thigh so hard the man fell down. “Beats this.” He spread his hand to include the roiling cattle and distant hills.
“My mother said no. As co-owner, I back her.” Hayward stood over him. “You’ve had your fill, now ride.” He stepped back. “Don’t let me catch you here again.” He hooked his thumbs on the twin holsters he still wore.
The man shrugged. “Missing an opportunity. Were me, I’d much rather see derricks pumping black gold than cattle slopping up the place with green crap. You folks will die poor. What about your children? Don’t you owe them something?”
Hayward shook his head. “Ride three hours north, you’ll get to a railroad.” He moved to Dulcinea’s side and put his arm around her. She nearly broke down with relief, but knew better and stood straight, biting her lip to keep the tears from springing to her eyes. It didn’t matter that he dropped his arm the moment the man was out of sight.
“Have to keep them off the land. More coming and we can’t tolerate it. I’ll march them off at gunpoint if I have to.” He sounded so grown, she smiled.
“That’s good, son,” she said and bent to stir the beans and beef again as the cowhands drifted in for their meal.
Without Chance to advise her, Dulcinea realized she wasn’t sure of her legal rights to deny the exploration of her land. She hoped the other ranchers would lend their support. Tookie would. They had spoken briefly at Drum’s burial in the graveyard next to J.B. and Cullen. No one had much to say about the old man, and most were too embarrassed by the quickie wedding to stick around and talk to Dulcinea or Hayward. Tookie did mention the lawyer’s face was so battered by the runaway horses that he had to be identified by his clothes and the papers in his pocket.
They were down to the last five calves and despite the odd haziness of the sky, Dulcinea thought the weather would hold long enough for her to ride to the line shack that had been Cullen’s while the others finished the work. The boundary between the two ranches was nearby, and she could follow the barbed wire fence to the cabin. Over the past few weeks she’d started to piece together the fragments of his life after he was taken by Drum. Everything she found made her feel closer to her son. When she reached the windmill, she stopped to allow the stallion a drink. Soon she would have her men tear down the fence dividing the land. A breeze from the north pushed the windmill blades around with an uneven squeal that ground in her ears like she was chewing sand. She and J.B. had always laughed about this one. The memory brought tears to her eyes, and she vowed never to replace it no matter how much it irritated.
She thought back to the moment she finally understood what the ranch meant to J.B. and what it had cost them all.
It was early spring after Drum took Cullen, and before she left. She couldn’t eat or sleep, paced days and nights, searching for the reason J.B. allowed this to happen, and why he wouldn’t do a thing to bring back her son. She took to getting up in the night once she heard his light snoring, and thought nothing could allow her to sleep as naturally as he did. One night she hoped a glass of brandy would help close her eyes, and went to his office. She never sat in his chair, it hadn’t seemed right, but she did that night. She sat too low to command the desk the way he did, and poured a glass of their wedding brandy. The thick, sweet bite threatened to turn her stomach. She clenched her teeth, drank until her throat grew numb, her head light, and her body unsteady. She decided that night that she would leave in two weeks as Drum had ordered.
She had married Drum to secure the ranches for Hayward, but she also did it to save herself, to save something for herself—these hills, this dream, when for a short, lovely time she believed that her life, their life, meant this place and what they did here, what they learned by living and loving each other. It was because she still felt him here, J.B., he touched her, and nothing could change this place, this land, lest he and Cullen were left alone in their separate graves.
It was how she understood the Indians like Rose and Some Horses who mourned the land, not as wealth but as the place where all was alive, all living, in one form or another. The whites took it but the dead still walked it, the spirits, whatever they were. Her faith had removed God, dispersed him like seed or gravel. It was not that God didn’t exist. It was that he wasn’t alone, but in pieces, parts, always whole, sufficient, always multiple. So like the ancient Greeks she trod lightly, carefully, tried to give no offense to the land, the sacred grass her feet crushed, the ants hurriedly preparing caverns for the winter, pushing tiny yellow boulders out of a hole the size of a bee’s leg. Oh the offense, to walk so clumsily through the world, to crush and bring havoc, that they couldn’t help. But to give no recognition to the cost of their being alive, to the price paid for their dreams by everything else? J.B., Cullen, now Drum.