THE TALL, BLOND, barrel-chested visage of King Magnusson burst through the open glass doors like a bull through a chute. He was puffing a stogie and holding a delicate sherry glass in each ham-sized hand.
Talbot was happy to see he didn’t have a pistol and wondered vaguely about his own.
Stentorian voice booming, Magnusson said, “Suzanne, your guests are starting to wonder where the birthday girl has drifted off to, and Dr. Long is growing tiresome. Maybe you should make an appearance?”
Suzanne scowled. She’d just thrown herself onto the sofa, a prudent, ladylike distance from her guest, and brushed the hair back from her face, on which she’d managed an impossible expression of cool innocence.
“But they’re all so dull compared to Mr. Talbot,” she protested, folding her arms like an overly indulged twelve-year-old.
“Suzanne,” King scolded.
“Oh, all right.” She gazed at Talbot and smiled. “We’ll continue this conversation a little later … all right, Mr. Talbot?”
He cleared the frog in his throat, gaining his tongue. “Of course.” He wondered if he’d gotten all his fly buttons closed.
Suzanne stood and kissed her father’s cheek. “Be good,” she whispered in King’s ear.
She turned a parting smile to Talbot, who’d risen from the couch, then left the room in a swish of skirts.
Magnusson watched her, smiling. When she was gone, he gave Talbot a sherry and closed the door. He gestured at the couch. Talbot sat down and regained his composure.
He didn’t say anything. He wanted Magnusson to make the first move.
Unbuttoning his coat, Magnusson sat across from him in one of the damask-covered chairs. He stretched his long legs across an ottoman and crossed his calfskin boots at the ankles. Rolling his shoulders and wiggling his butt to get comfortable, he spat into the cuspidor at his left, then rubbed his bushy mustaches down with his thumb and forefinger.
“That girl is my pride and joy.”
“I can see why,” Talbot said with more exuberance than intended. “She’s reason enough to have a man killed, I suppose. Was she the reason you tried to have me killed?”
Ignoring the question, Magnusson dug around in his coat for a cigarillo, offered it to Talbot. “Cigar?”
“No thanks.”
“Addicted to the damn things,” Magnusson said, staring at the coal of the one he was smoking. He lifted his chin and offered a stiff smile. “So we’re neighbors.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“You won’t be offended if I ask what your intentions are, will you?”
“Regarding … ?”
“Let’s start with Suzanne.”
Talbot planted an elbow on the arm of the couch and rubbed his lower lip with his index finger, pondering. “What if I said they were serious?”
“Then I’d have to tell you that anything more than friendship is simply out of the question.”
“Why?”
Magnusson kept his eyes on Talbot, trying to be as direct as possible. As threatening as possible, too, Talbot thought, without actually drawing a pistol. “Because my daughter belongs to a certain … class, shall we say? She is accustomed to certain amenities, creature comforts a man of your station couldn’t possibly provide.” He grinned coldly and added without a trace of sincerity, “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but if you were a father, you’d understand.”
Talbot said nothing.
Magnusson surveyed him critically. At length he squinted and inclined his head, genuinely puzzled. “Have I misjudged you, Talbot?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone I run into wants something from me—my daughter, my money, or both. But in you I sense”—he scowled, shook his head—“I don’t know; I sense something else.”
Talbot stood, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked to the end of the room. He turned slowly around. He studied Magnusson coolly, then smiled sarcastically. “You’re right. I do want something else from you, Magnusson. I want to know who killed my brother.”
“Brother?”
Talbot nodded. “I went off to fight in the Apache wars about seven years ago, left my older brother, Dave, home to ranch by himself. About a year ago I decided to start making my way back to Dakota. Decided it was time to settle down, help out on the ranch. Well, I got back last week and learned my brother was dead.”
Magnusson dropped his eyes, studied his boots. “Sorry to hear that.”
“He was shot twice in the back of the head.”
Magnusson kept his eyes on his boots.
Talbot said, “Someone apparently wanted him off the Bench—wanted our land for theirs—so they killed him. You have any idea who would do such a thing?”
King lifted his head slowly, arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been listening to the nesters around Canaan.”
“Who started the bloodshed?”
Magnusson shrugged. “Who fired the first shot at Fort Sumter?” He looked at Talbot as if awaiting an answer. He got none. “They were stealing cattle.”
“Before or after you started stealing their land?”
“I’m not going to argue about land rights. I have the law on my side.”
“Legally?”
“Does it matter?”
Talbot sat on the sofa and cut to the chase. “The day my brother was killed, your son and another rider were seen heading toward our headquarters.”
A muscle beneath Magnusson’s right eye twitched. “Did anyone see Randall kill your brother?”
Talbot said nothing.
“Did anyone see Randall kill your brother?” Magnusson repeated, more forcefully this time, as though reproaching a dim-witted schoolboy.
Talbot stared into Magnusson’s eyes, his own eyes dark with fury.
Satisfied he’d gotten his answer, Magnusson nodded. He struggled out of his chair and strode about the room glancing at book spines and straightening picture frames. Finally he turned on his heel, adjusted his paper collar and tie, and regarded Talbot with a look of ceremonial gravity.
“I am sorry about your brother. I offered him good money
for his land and he turned me down, but I did not kill him. Nor did I order him killed.”
“Maybe your son and a Mr. Shelby Green are doing some independent work out on the range. Homer Rinski thinks it was they who killed his hired man and raped his daughter.”
“Nonsense.”
Talbot shrugged. “They have quite the reputation for shenanigans, those two.”
“An unearned reputation, I assure you. They’re … boys.” Something in his eyes told Talbot the old man wasn’t giving his son the credit he deserved.
When Talbot said nothing in reply, Magnusson went back to his chair and sat down. He planted his elbows on his knees, took his sherry in his hands, and regarded Talbot directly. “What do you say we forget about the past? Come to work for me.”
Talbot gave a caustic laugh. “What?”
“I’ll buy you out. Give you top dollar for your ranch and two hundred dollars a month for your work.”
“What kind of work?”
Magnusson sat back in his chair, eyes furtive. “I saw what you did to Donnelly. No one does that to Donnelly. Consider his job yours.”
Talbot laughed again. “What makes you think I’d accept such an offer?”
“Because you can’t run your own beef on the Bench. I won’t allow it.”
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em—that it?”
“Makes sense.”
“Go fuck yourself, King.”
Magnusson’s face fell like a wet sheet. His ears turned red. His voice came tight and even. “You just made the biggest mistake of your life.”
Talbot matched the rancher’s composure. “And you made
the biggest mistake of yours when you declared war on the Bench and killed my brother.”
“Get out.”
“My pleasure. But we’ll meet again—you, me, and your son.”
Magnusson looked at the doors. “Rag!”
Rag Donnelly walked in carrying Talbot’s coat, hat, gun-belt, and a rifle. There was a bloodstained bandage over the ear Talbot had smashed. Donnelly studied Talbot with cool malevolence—a big, hard-looking man in an old sheepskin coat and a curled Stetson, strategically tipped away from the injured ear.
“Escort Mr. Talbot out the back,” Magnusson ordered.
“My pleasure, Mr. Magnusson.”
“I don’t want him shot—unless he provokes it, that is.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know there’s a debt to be paid, Rag, but I don’t want any trouble tonight.”
Donnelly nodded reluctantly, his cold eyes on Talbot.
“Very well, then,” Magnusson said.
Talbot had slipped into his coat and hat, buckled the gun-belt around his waist.
“Don’t worry—there ain’t no loads in your iron,” Donnelly told him. “So don’t embarrass yourself.”
“’Preciate the advice,” Talbot said. Turning to Magnusson, he asked, “What are you going to tell your daughter?”
Glancing at Donnelly, Magnusson said with a shrug, “The truth. That you were using her to finagle a job out of me—Rag’s job. When I turned you down, you threatened to join the other small ranchers in rustling me blind.” He smiled. “So I had you thrown out.”
Talbot returned the smile, said dryly, “Thanks for the lovely evening.”
“Until we meet again, Talbot.”
Talbot nodded and walked out the door. Donnelly followed him with his Winchester aimed at his spine.
They went down the back stairs and out the back door. From the sting in his cheeks, Talbot guessed the temperature had dropped ten degrees. The sky was very clear, hard white stars scattering in all directions. A faint luminosity shone in the east, where the moon was about to rise.
“Your horse is in the corral,” Donnelly growled. He jabbed the rifle in Talbot’s back. “Get movin’, slick.”
“How’s your ear? It looks sore,” Talbot said.
“Fuck you.”
Inside the corral, Talbot untied his horse’s reins from a slat and prepared to mount up. “Well, thanks for everything, Rag.”
“Oh, there’s just one more thing,” Donnelly said.
Talbot had sensed it coming long before he saw the shadow on the snow. He ducked, heard the smack of the rifle butt against his saddle. The horse started and jumped sideways.
Before Donnelly knew what had happened, Talbot had his revolver out. He flipped it, clutched the barrel, and swung the butt hard against Donnelly’s bandaged ear.
“God-damn,” the foreman said in a pinched, breathy voice. Both legs buckled and he dropped to his knees, then to his hands. In the light cast by the distant mansion, Talbot saw the bandage turn dark.
“Fuck,” the foreman cursed again.
Talbot reached under Donnelly’s coat for his pistol and tossed it over the corral. Then he picked up the rifle and jacked it empty, tossed it down. He grabbed his reins and mounted his horse.
Surveying Donnelly, who was fighting to stay conscious, Talbot said, “Sorry again, Rag. But like you said, you’ll have another chance to even things up. Real soon.”
Then he spurred the speckled gray and galloped off into the night.