Laura had the shotgun aimed directly at Deutsch and Coker. The sound of the hammers clicking back to full cock was followed by a thick silence.
“I killed a copperhead this morning,” Laura said.
Deutsch swallowed hard and Coker’s mouth opened as his jaw dropped down.
“We were not going to shoot your husband, Laura,” Deutsch said.
“You looked like you were, Adolph,” she said.
“No, no, no,” Deutsch said. “To beat him, only, I was wanting, eh? For to pay what to me he has done.”
“Felix didn’t do anything to you,” she said.
“Laura, put the shotgun down,” Dag said. “Deuce, you and Coker back off. Sit down and let’s talk this out.”
“I’ll put it down when they sit down, Felix,” Laura said, a muscle moving along her jawline, her eyes narrowed, a look of determination on her face. Deutsch blanched and sat down quickly. Coker sucked in a breath, but kept his mouth shut. He too sat back down on the divan.
Laura lowered the barrel of the shotgun and snicked the hammers back down to half-cock.
“Now,” Dag said, “why in hell do you blame me for your hands quitting, Adolph? I swear I had nothing to do with it.”
“Jubal Flagg you have hired, no?”
“He’s going to be my trail boss, yes. But he’s not due to ride in until tomorrow.”
“Well, this morning, he was at my ranch. And to my men, he was talking. And then my two best hands—they did leave with him. From me this is stealing.”
Dag sat back in his chair. Laura moved around the end of the divan and stood next to Dag’s chair, both hands still gripping the shotgun.
“So you see,” she said, “my husband didn’t have anything to do with those men leaving, Adolph. You shouldn’t accuse someone without proof.”
“Then you will send my men back?” Deutsch asked.
Dag sat there, staring at Deutsch, mulling over this new situation. He knew how valuable both Manny and Don were; both were exceptional cowhands. Manny was a top-notch vaquero who had grown up with the wily longhorn, and Don knew cattle so well, he could almost read their thoughts. Both men seemed to have a rare kinship with the longhorn. They treated the animals with respect, but they also commanded obedience and trust from their charges when herding, branding, doctoring, and everything else they did with cows.
“I’ll tell you, Adolph, at another time maybe, or another place, I might have sent Manny and Don packing the minute Flagg brought them up to me. But you went back on your word with me. You broke a promise. Whatever’s happened since then, you’ve brought on yourself. I can use those two men, and evidently Flagg and I think alike. Flagg is the best cow-man who ever forked a horse, and if he picked those men to come with us on our drive north, I trust his judgment. You, I don’t trust. In fact, I don’t even like you. So you and Coker get your asses out of my house right now, or I may tell Laura to dust you off with that scattergun, after all.”
“You son of a bitch,” Coker said, and started to rise from the divan.
Laura lifted the shotgun, aimed it at Coker from the hip, and pulled back both hammers to full cock.
Click. Click.
“We go now,” Deutsch said, his face paling beneath the bruises. “Sam, you come.”
Both men got up slowly.
Dag stood up.
“First, I give you a little something, Felix. Maybe you think you won this one battle, eh? But the good cards I still hold.”
As the two men passed by Laura and Dag, Deutsch reached into the inside pocket of his coat and drew out an envelope. He handed it to Dag. Then he and Coker marched out through the front door, leaving it open behind them.
Laura walked to the door; she watched the two men mount up and ride away. She closed the door and latched it tight. She lowered the hammers on the shotgun and breathed a sigh of relief.
“What did Deutsch give you?” she asked, as she came up to her husband, the shotgun pointed at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Dag opened the envelope. There were papers inside, which he drew out and glanced at hurriedly. He riffled through the first three and then came to the last, which was written in a different hand and very short.
“What is it?” Laura craned her neck to look at the papers in Dag’s hand.
Dag swore and handed her the sheaf of papers.
“Oh, my,” she said. “That devil.”
“He’s got me over a barrel now,” Dag said, “that damned Deutsch.”
“You? Us,” she said. “We’d better talk this over, Felix.”
“Yeah. That makes the drive even more important now.”
She leaned the shotgun against the wall and took Dag’s hand. She led him to the divan, where they both sat down. She reached over and turned up the wick on the lamp.
“You know what happened, don’t you?” he said.
“It looks as if Adolph bought our mortgage from Elmer McGee. This morning. Elmer’s always been fine if we’ve been a little short on the mortgage payments, or late.”
The first three pages contained a reference to Dagstaff’s original contract with McGee, a description of the property, and terms of the mortgage. It also divulged that, for a certain sum, McGee transferred ownership of the mortgage over to Adolph Deutsch. To the Dagstaffs, it was a devastating document.
“I know. Did you read Adolph’s note?”
“Glanced at it.”
She held the last page up to the lamp, leaned over, and read it.
“Adolph says that if we miss next year’s payment, or if we are short, he will foreclose on our property,” she said, her tone sober, laden with a deep sadness.
“He means it too, sugar,” Dag said. “Deutsch will be all over us like ugly on a bear if we’re a minute late.”
“Can we do it?” she asked, her voice soft, pleading.
Dag sighed as he drew in a breath and let it out. “I don’t know. It all depends on how the drive goes, how soon we get back. It depends on a lot of things.”
“Why would Elmer do such a thing? He’s always been the nicest man, ever since we bought this land from him.”
“Elmer’s a businessman. He’s got holdings in Amarillo, San Antonio. He was a banker, you know. Before he went into dairy ranching, raising cotton. Lord knows, he’s rich as Croesus.”
“But why would he sell our mortgage to Adolph? He must have had a reason.”
Dag tried to summon up all that he knew about Elmer McGee. Just before the war, he had bought up a lot of old Spanish land grants all along Palo Duro Canyon. Like Dag, he had ridden with Colonel John Salmon Ford, old Rip Ford, in the Cavalry of the West. Elmer had been wounded before the last battle at Palmito Hill and had gone back to Amarillo. While in the cavalry, he told Dag that he’d sell him land for a good price after the war and he had done just that.
“All I can think of is that Adolph has something on Elmer, and he forced the sale of that mortgage. You know Adolph is a very shrewd businessman. He’s got that trading post, which he took over after the one at Quitaque went under. He sells mercantile and other goods to all the ranchers around here. Adolph’s probably richer than Elmer by now.”
“I still think Elmer should have told us first.”
“I would have thought so, hon,” Dag said, “which makes me think that Adolph has something on Elmer.”
“Blackmail?”
“Maybe. You know Adolph sold cotton during the war, and Elmer raised a hell of a lot of cotton. Maybe Elmer sold to the wrong side a time or two.”
“No, Elmer wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Dag looked at Laura, a tenderness in his eyes. He could see that she was on the brink of tears, almost ready to break down and cry on his shoulder. She was good with the money, but she took disappointments pretty hard.
“He might,” Dag said. “If he was pushed hard enough—or, if he had something else at stake, something that Deutsch knew about. A lever that Deutsch knew how to operate for his own benefit.”