About an hour later, having seen to Pride’s needs, Riley stepped out of the barn. Cautiously. He wasn’t a man to make light of any confrontation. But a quick scan of the open yard between him and the main house showed him nothing out of the ordinary. Two men wrestled a heavy wooden wheel off a wagon axle, another one walked a horse from a corral, and the rest ambled slowly toward the dining hall attached to the cook shack. Not a one of them, so far as he could tell, paid him any mind. Good.
But after only a few steps, his name was again called out. This time, in a low hiss. Riley spun around, his hand gripping his Colt. Seeing who was there, he straightened up and exhaled. “Miss Biddy, you aiming to get yourself shot?”
Half hidden by the barn’s heavy door and peeking around it, Biddy clucked out, “And who would be shootin’ at the likes o’ me?”
Riley chuckled as he strode over to her. “You tell me. You’re the one hiding behind a door.”
“’Tis not hiding I am.” She frowned and cocked her head as if in thought. Then, “Well, perhaps I am. Not that I’m afraid, mind ye. I just wish a word in private. Can ye spare me a moment?”
Riley gestured his consent. “Sure. I was just heading for the house, anyway. What’s wrong, Biddy?”
She stepped out from the door’s shadows and stood before him, wringing her plump hands. “’Tis Glory, I’m afraid.”
Riley’s gut tightened. “What’s wrong with Glory?”
“She’s out to the graves again. She’s not herself when she’s there. Why, ye’d scarce recognize her as the same girl ye spoke with earlier.” Biddy put her hand to her mouth and stared past him for a long moment. Then she turned concerned, faded-blue eyes up to him. “I just don’t know what to do, Riley. She’d been coming along in her grief until she fussed yesterday with Jacey. An’ now ’tis no better than a month ago.”
“No better? In what ways?”
Biddy gestured helplessly. “In all ways. Oh, Riley, I just came from the hill, but there’s naught I can say or do to relieve her sorrow. She’s fair wallowin’ in it, an’ ’tis that afraid I am for her. ’Tis one of the reasons I sent for you.” Biddy gripped his arm. “Would ye go and see to her? Perhaps she’ll listen to ye. For sure, she’s not hearin’ a word I say today. She’s beyond angry at me.”
Riley frowned in uncertainty. “I don’t know, Biddy. She’s just as put out with me as she is with you. And it seems only fitting that she’d want to be alone with her departed ones. I’m not sure I should—”
Biddy’s grip on his arm tightened. “’Tis not alone she’s needin’ ta be, but with company. Now, go on with ye. The graves are out back of the house, up that first hill. Tell her I sent ye to fetch her in for a meal. I can barely get her to eat as it is. Take a good look at her, Riley. You’ll see what I mean.”
“I’ve seen.” Riley was quiet a moment, but then exhaled. “All right, I’ll go get her, Biddy. You just set up the vittles, and we’ll be along directly. A growing girl like her needs to eat.”
A sigh laden with relief escaped Biddy. She removed her hand from his sleeve and patted his arm. “Thank ye, Riley. Yer a good man. Just don’t let on that any of this was my idea.” Before Riley could protest that this whole thing was her idea, Biddy quick-stepped around him and lit out for the house.
Riley shook his head and started for the back of the big two-story main house. Walking beside it, he couldn’t help but compare its size and fineness to his family’s low, rough-wood dwelling. A spasm of anger shot through him. Pa’s right. Everything the Lawlesses have came as a result of J. C.’s stealing from his cattlemen neighbors more than twenty years ago.
But all thoughts of old feuds fled his mind when he rounded the house and spied the three white-crossed graves that capped the hill. Through the wide-spaced slats of the low fence that hugged the cemetery, Riley could make out the small figure kneeling between two graves.
Feeling grim and not up to this, he looked heavenward. What am I doing here? he wondered. Getting no answer, he tugged his hat down low on his brow. Taking long, determined strides across the yard, he was soon trudging up the sloping land to Glory.
But the closer he got to the fenced-off graves, the slower he walked. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was intruding. He changed his mind about disturbing her there and started to move away. Then the sounds of soft crying carried to him on the almost cold breeze. Turning back to her, staring at Glory’s slender back, marking that she didn’t even have her shawl to warm her, and watching her shoulders wrench with each sob, Riley mouthed a curse.
Approaching with due respect, he opened the gate, grimaced at its rusty-hinge squeal, and swung it closed behind him. Glory had to have heard him, but she said or did nothing to acknowledge his presence. So he just stood there. It suddenly occurred to him that he should remove his hat. Jerking it off, he ran a hand through his hair and held his Stetson in front of himself.
Twice he started to say something, but didn’t. He then reached a hand out to Glory where she knelt between her parents’ graves and worked at pulling weeds from around them. She was still crying. Riley fisted his hand and dropped his arm to his side.
The scene was almost too painful for him to look at. Biddy was right. He barely recognized her. Everything inside him told him to grab her up and hold her as close to his heart as he could. He wanted to kiss away her tears and tell her everything would be okay. But most of all, he wanted to tell her he would never let anything or anyone hurt her ever again.
But he couldn’t do that. There was too much between them. Between their families. And even if there weren’t, she didn’t care for him in the way he did her. She’d said it plain enough earlier. And he had to respect that.
Just as he did her mourning. Giving her more time to be alone with her thoughts, Riley turned his attention to the third grave—Old Pete’s grave—and raised his eyebrows with surprise. A mongrel hound lay draped across it. The dog’s head rested atop his paws. His floppy ears and sagging jowls grazed the dirt. Big, dark, sad eyes stared up at Riley. Skeeter, wasn’t it?
Then he saw the bowl of water and a tin plate of dried-up scraps placed at the graveside, and considered what they meant. He looked from the food to the dog, seeing now the healed wound that grazed the hound’s shoulder. A bony shoulder. Riley frowned with his dawning awareness of the dog’s overall thinness and his dull coat. Apparently Glory wasn’t the only one not eating.
Stepping over to the dog and squatting down on his haunches, Riley rested his Stetson atop a thigh and scratched the big-boned dog between its ears. Skeeter thumped his tail halfheartedly. Petting the hound and staring at Glory’s back, Riley felt weighed down by the oppressive sadness of the place. A windswept hill. Three graves. Raw mounds of dirt. Whitewashed crosses. Glory kneeling between the first two, Skeeter draped over the third one, and himself squatting on the other side of that third grave. Completely separated.
Quite unexpectedly, Glory stilled her hands and spoke over her shoulder to him. “Skeeter was shot … that day. I guess he took off to nurse his wound. Anyway, we didn’t see him for the longest time. We thought he was dead. Then last week, he just showed up. He won’t eat. And he won’t leave Old Pete’s grave.”
A sob tore from her and ripped at Riley’s heart. He watched her swipe at her eyes with her wrists, heard her shuddering breath. And didn’t know what to do, how to help her. Surely, if he touched her, she’d shatter.
No small amount of anger and anguish laced her next words. “He’s going to die, Riley. Look at him. He’s just letting himself waste away. And I can’t do a thing to stop it. I’ve even picked him up, as big as he is, and carried him to the house. But he set up such a mournful howling that Biddy let him back out.”
Riley suspended thought as he watched her pull a tiny weed from beside her father’s grave. She then smoothed her hand lovingly over the mounded dirt itself. Without warning, she pivoted until she could look into his face. Riley noted that her eyes were red and raw, her brows drawn. She glared at him as if she held him responsible for all the bad things happening to her family. “Do you know Skeeter came right back up here, when Biddy let him out? And he hasn’t left since. Just what am I supposed to do, Riley?”
As if he were guilty somehow, Riley looked away from her face, from her trembling chin. He stared at the ground and said, “I don’t rightly know, Glory.” He then looked up at her, at the wild tangle of her hair, at her cheeks wet with tears and pale with grief. She looked so frail … like a sick, old woman. Fear for her lanced through him.
Glory narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you doing up here? You come to pay your respects?”
Riley looked at each grave in turn and then back at Glory. “I suppose so. But mostly, I came to get you. I talked to Biddy.” He looked pointedly at Skeeter and then back at her, raising an eyebrow. “She says you’re not eating.”
An unheeded tear rolled down her cheek as she glared at him. “I eat.”
“Yeah? When was the last time?”
She stared blankly at him for a long moment before blurting, “I forget.”
Riley stood up and jammed his Stetson on his head. He held his hand out to her. “Come on, you’re going inside. And you’re going to eat. Right now. And I’m going to see that you do.”
She shook her head, looked around wild-eyed. “I can’t. I have to … to…”
“To what, Glory? If you make me, I’ll pick you up like you did Skeeter and carry you to the house. I swear I will. And no one will let you back out.” To underscore his seriousness, Riley stepped over Old Pete’s grave. He now stood in the space between the old cowboy’s and J. C. Lawless’s final resting places.
Only to realize he didn’t have the heart to be rough with her. Especially when she clutched at her rumpled skirt and stared up at him with washed-out and pleading green eyes.
“Dammit, Glory,” he muttered as he squatted where he was. “I can’t stand to see you like this.” On an impulse, he held his hand out across the father’s grave to the daughter. Glory eyed his offer of help, but nothing more. Determined, Riley didn’t withdraw it. “Honey, I’m speaking as your friend now. You’re not doing anybody any good—especially yourself—by making yourself sick like this. You’ve got to eat and stay strong. There’re too many folks around here who need you.”
Glory stared at his hand, at him. Her chin quivered.
Riley smiled, hoping the tenderness he felt for her showed on his face. “I need you, Glory. These cowhands of yours aren’t about to listen to me. And Biddy … who’s going to take care of her? She’s getting on in years, you know. And what about your sisters? Are you going to let them come back to find you buried on this hill, too, and the Lawless spread dried up and blown away?”
Glory shook her head. Riley took a deep breath and found it to be painful. “Give me your hand, Glory. I’ll help you through this.”
Glory dropped her gaze to his hand. She then turned to study each of her parents’ graves. Finally, she focused on him, but only to shake her head. “No. You’ll leave me, too. Everyone else has left me.”
Riley’s heart wept for her injured soul. “Biddy hasn’t left you. And I won’t leave you, Glory. Not ever.”
She searched his face, apparently found what she sought, and then haltingly reached out a hand to his. At the last moment, just before her fingers touched his, she snatched them back. Her green eyes blazed with a dark intensity. “Promise me it’ll be all right, Riley. You promise me.”
Riley nodded, praying all the while that he wasn’t lying. “I promise you, Glory. Now take my hand.”
The light in her eyes faded. She stared at him as if she’d just now realized who he was. Then, almost shyly, she reached out across the empty space … and took Riley’s hand.
Relief weakened him. He clamped his fingers around hers before she could change her mind. Her skin was cold, her fingers long and thin and heartbreakingly fragile. But this was a good start. Riley pushed to his feet. With his help, Glory rose to hers. Together they turned to look at Skeeter.
The old dog’s eyes were closed. His bony chest rose and fell with each shallow breath. “We have to save him,” Glory said.
His gaze resting on her, Riley nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
Then, her hand still held in his, Glory turned to look out across the tallgrass prairie. A gust of wind ruffled her hair. “Can you feel it, Riley? This”—with her free hand she indicated the three graves—“This was only the beginning. There’s more trouble coming, isn’t there?”
Knowing what he knew about the other ranchers, what he suspected about the murders here, Riley eyed the treeless horizon with her. A cloud passed over the sun, turning the breeze colder, the day darker. “I don’t think the trouble ever left, Glory.”
* * *
Over the next few days, while Riley settled in, Glory found more than one reason to believe what he’d said to her out at the cemetery hill. About the trouble not leaving. She now believed it had stayed on when his mother rode off without him.
Looking up from the ranch’s accounting ledger, she peered out the picture window in Papa’s office. Well, her office now, she supposed on a sad sigh. Twiddling the ink pen in her hand, distracted by the day’s bright sunshine, Glory caught sight of Riley approaching the house. A smile claimed her mouth. Without thinking too much about it, she ran her gaze from his Stetson-shaded face, to his broad shoulders and his flannel-shirt-covered chest, down his long, muscular, denim-clad legs to his booted feet.
A girlish sigh escaped her as she rested her chin in her palm. He is a most pleasing man to look at. A girl’d be lucky to have him look with favor on her. Glory jerked upright. She stared blankly at the cheerfully crackling flames in the small fireplace grate across the room. And reminded herself that both she and the Lawless spread would best be served if she kept her mind on her figures. And she meant the ones on the pages in front of her.
Clearing her throat, frowning, Glory bent again over the numbers and concentrated on reconciling them with the accounts due. In only a matter of moments, though, a knock sounded on the open door. Glory looked up. Her heart skipped a beat. “Riley. Come in.”
Nodding at her invitation, and slapping a leather glove against his other gloved hand, he approached her desk and stood in front of it. Looking up at him, Glory noted he was dusty and smelled of horse, hay, and sunshine. But when he just stood there, quietly staring, she began to fidget. Finally, she blurted, “What do you want? I’m busy with the account books.”
“You’re looking better.”
The unexpected thrill of his sharp, brown-eyed gaze roving over her person dropped Glory’s gaze to her lap. “I feel better.”
He was quiet a moment. No surprise there. Riley almost never spoke without first weighing every word he said, as if he only had a certain amount of words allowed him and so had to use them sparingly. “Good.”
She brushed an imaginary speck off the page in front of her. “Is that what you came to say?”
Another silence, then, “Yes and no. I checked on Skeeter.”
Her heart jumped. “How is he?”
“About the same. I carried some hay from an open bale up there for him to bed down on. The nights are getting colder.”
Glory swallowed the lump in her throat and finally looked up at this kind man in front of her. “Thank you. I haven’t been out there to check on him since you…” She took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m afraid I’ll find him … gone. I don’t think I could stand that.”
Riley nodded. “I know. No one faults you, Glory. You’ve had a tough time here.”
She nodded her thanks for his understanding. Then not knowing if she wanted him to stay or to leave, she straightened up in her chair, shot him a shy glance, and busied herself with moving the inkstand here, the blotter there. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
When he didn’t answer her right away, Glory looked up to see him making himself at home. He removed his Stetson, perched it on the desk’s edge, then removed his other glove and stuffed them both in a back pocket of his denims. Running a hand through his unkempt, almost-black hair, he nodded toward the open page in front of her. “Does the ciphering come out right?”
Glory frowned as she scanned the page and then looked up at him. “I don’t know. I’m not finished yet. Why?”
“I want you to ride out with me and look the ranch over, see some things.”
So, they were back to that again. Her moment of gratitude evaporated into Lawless stubbornness. Glory leaned back in her father’s worn leather chair. “There’s not a thing wrong with the way this place runs, Riley. It’s done well enough all these years without your direction, I’ll warrant.”
“That’s true enough. But your pa was here then. And you’re new at this, no more’n a girl who—”
“A girl who helped her mother with these same books. A girl whose own hand has done the writing in the ledgers for years.”
“With your mama directing every entry.”
In a sudden snit because he was right, Glory pushed the open ledger toward him. “Fine. Why don’t you show me some of these cutbacks that’ve occurred to you—in only two days of looking around—that haven’t occurred to anyone else living here for more than twenty years?”
Riley stared at her and then stepped around the desk, tugged the ledger back in front of her, and leaned over her shoulder. With his face right next to hers, he looked down at the page. “Winter’s coming on. You don’t need as many men now.”
“I won’t let any men go. They’d starve.”
Riley shook his head. “No, they won’t. They’re grub-line riders. They don’t stay in one place long because they don’t want to. They know where to find work and food.”
Glory poked out her bottom lip. “Yes, they do. Right here.”
Riley met her gaze. “All right. Then, look at this. And this.” He pointed to item after item on the page. Glory’s darkening gaze followed his finger’s trail. “Don’t order any more salt pork and coffee before next spring. You have plenty. But see that? You’re low on oats for your horses. If you keep the men, you’ve got to have more horses. More horses mean more feed. Then you’ll have to spare some men to go up to Kansas to the feed stores for that.” He withdrew his hand and frowned at her. “Smiley didn’t tell you any of this?”
Glory turned her face up to the big prickly Thorne at her side. “I’m sure he would, given half a chance. But mostly he’s in here complaining about you interfering with him.” Having thus accused him, Glory pressed her lips together and glared.
Riley’s perfectly calm expression never changed. “If the man was doing his job, there’d be no need for interfering.” With that, he concentrated again on the columns of numbers, running that long finger down them and frowning.
Her teeth gritted, Glory slammed her hands down atop the pages, spreading her fingers out to block as much as she could from Riley’s view.
He straightened up and stared at her. “That’s not helpful, Glory.”
Bending protectively over the pages now, Glory fought for control and spoke in her normal tone of voice—normal for when she was furious. “I thank you for your efforts, Riley. Truly, I do. But I really wish you wouldn’t trouble yourself with my business.”
Riley settled his hands at his waist. “Then you trouble yourself with your business. Get out of this office and ride over your land. See what it is those numbers stand for.”
Glory’s muscles were beginning to ache. “Why do I need to?”
Riley quirked his mouth. “Do you have any idea what’s going on under your nose?”
“How can I? Everywhere I turn, I keep bumping into you.”
Riley’s frown deepened. “I thought you wanted my help.”
Glory slowly, deliberately fisted her hands, crumpling the pages and her hours of work into so much rubbish. “Whatever made you think that?”
“You did.” He reached behind himself to pull up a slat-backed chair and turn it so that, when he sat, he straddled the seat and rested his arms atop the chair’s wooden back. “For the last two days I’ve been looking your place over and telling you where changes need to be made.”
Glory nodded. “I know.”
“You’re not going to make any of the changes I suggested, are you?”
Glory shook her head. “No, I’m not.”
Riley’s jaw set. A muscle jerked in his cheek. “Because they’re not good changes? Or because it was me who told you about them?”
Glory released the green and crumpled pages, made a great show of straightening them, and then closed the ledger. She turned a sincere expression to Riley. “Both.”
Riley sat still and unblinking. His gaze bored into hers. Heavy with warring wills, the minutes ticked by. “Fine,” he blurted, jumping up and dismounting his chair, much as he would a horse. He placed it back where he’d found it, snatched his Stetson off the desk, jammed it on his head, turned his back on her, and strode toward the office door. The dull thud of his boots across the polished floor marked his retreat.
Shrinking back into the soft leather of her chair, her hands gripping the padded armrests, Glory watched Riley’s denim-covered behind a moment longer than her surprised state warranted. Rousing herself, she jumped up and called out to him. “Wait, Riley. Where are you going?”
Without slowing down, he exited the room and called out, “Straight to hell for trying to help you.” He then turned to his left and disappeared from sight.
Glory gritted her teeth in mounting anger and frustration. He’d most likely tattle to Biddy, who’d come give her yet another long and Irish lecture on manners. “Darn him to heck,” Glory muttered, already on her way around the big oak desk. With her striped cotton skirt slowing her strides, she stalked across the room and turned left into the hallway.
Only to stop short to avoid running into Riley, who was leaning up against the white-painted wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Glaring at her, he shrugged away from the wall, pulled his riding gloves out of his back pocket and began pulling them on. “I see you’re out of the office, boss lady. Care to take a ride over your property to see what exactly it is you own?”
Caught chasing after him, and prepared to die before she’d admit it, Glory looked everywhere but at his smug self. “I thought you were leaving.”
He eyed her from under his lowered lids. “I thought you didn’t care.”
Glory narrowed her eyes as he stretched his fingers inside the glove he was pulling on. “I don’t. I just—”
“You just what?”
“Well, let me finish.” She looked all around the hall, searching for something, anything. Like an answer to a prayer, Biddy rounded the corner behind Riley. “Aha. I was looking for Biddy.” Glory swept past him, ignoring his warm closeness as he turned with her. “There you are, Biddy. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Biddy frowned. “Ye have, child? Why, I’ve been in the kitchen all this time. Ye knew that—”
“Well, I guess I forgot.” Glory glared at Biddy and, with a nod of her head, indicated Riley.
Biddy looked from her to Riley and then back to Glory. Her eyes widened with dawning understanding. “Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t in the kitchen—”
“You were just now when I came through there,” Riley reminded her. He stood now beside Glory.
Biddy nodded vigorously, putting her upswept gray hair in jeopardy of coming undone. Already, wispy strands framed her reddening face. “You’re right, of course. I was just in there. But before that, I wasn’t. Then I went back in there and left again. I had to … had to … Oh, dear.”
Glory waved a hand at her. “Oh, never mind, Biddy. You’re a terrible liar.” She turned to Riley. “Let’s take that ride. I’ll just change my clothes.”
Riley’s expression never changed. “Whatever you say, boss lady.”
* * *
The front door closed. Slammed. In the kitchen, Biddy exhaled. The children had left the house for that ride. She dusted her hands on her apron and looked around, trying to remember what she’d been doing when Glory’d stopped her. Fresh loaves of bread cooled on the sideboard, filling the sunlit room with a warm yeasty scent. The makings of a midday meal awaited her on the chopping block.
Aha, that was it! Meat scraps for Skeeter, the poor thing. Biddy grabbed her shawl off a peg, wrapped it around herself, knotting it over her bosom. She then grabbed up the tin plate of scraps she’d put together earlier and headed out the kitchen door. Outside, stark-blue skies, not a cloud to be seen, and bright-yellow sunshine greeted her. ’Tis a good day to be alive, she grinned while breathing in deeply of the Indian-summer air.
Stepping off the small wooden landing and down the two steps to the yard, Biddy looked off to her left, spying Riley and Glory riding side-by-side toward the arched entry to the Lawless spread. She shook her head and muttered a prayer for young people today as she ambled out to the cross-topped hill. Thinking of Skeeter, she clutched the tin plate fiercely. Like as not, I’ll find that poor critter wasted away.
But at the end of her trudging steps up the hill, Biddy had reason to smile when Skeeter sat up and thumped his tail at her approach. “Well then, sir, is it better yer feelin’? Look what Biddy’s brought ye—yer favorite.”
She opened the wooden gate and stepped through, allowing it to swing closed behind her as she offered the dog the plate. Letting him smell it first, she then placed it on the ground in front of him. Skeeter lowered his head, sniffed it again, and then turned away, resettling himself atop Old Pete’s grave.
Biddy frowned at this behavior, as much as she did the hay strewn about. Who’d done that? she wondered. Again addressing the old hound, she put her hands on her hips and fussed, “Is it that ungrateful ye are, then, to turn yer nose up so?” She bent over and picked up a fatty meat scrap, holding it under the disinterested dog’s nose. “Here now, don’t ye be insultin’ me like this. There’s naught wrong with me cookin’.”
Skeeter dutifully sniffed the meat. He then turned mournful eyes on Biddy and licked her hand. But that was all. He lowered his big brown head to rest it atop his paws, and blinked up at her. Biddy’s heart melted. She tossed the meat chunk back into the dish and looked around. Plenty of water in his bowl. Perhaps a bite or two of last night’s supper gone. Some hay for his bed. Biddy picked up yesterday’s plate and tossed the remaining scraps over the fence. “May as well let the other animals have it, eh, Skeeter?”
Skeeter’s only response was the polite raising of an ear a fraction of an inch. Biddy tsk-tsked and shook her head. She turned to address Catherine Lawless’s grave. “An’ will ye look at him, Catherine? Here’s food and water and warm hay for him. ’Twas good enough for the Baby Jesus, but not for Skeeter. What am I goin’ to do with him? I can’t let him die. ’Twould kill Glory. How I wish ye were here, me baby, to help us—”
“’Scuse me, Miss Biddy?”
Squawking her startlement as she wrenched around, Biddy saw Smiley Rankin standing outside the gate. The man, as tall and thin as he was balding, held his sweat-banded slouch hat in front of himself and twisted it around by its brim. “Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean ta scare you so.”
Her plump and brown-spotted hand to her chest, Biddy felt the rising heat of embarrassment on her face. Had he been standing there long, listening to her talk to a dog and then to a grave? “Well, ye did. Ye came near to stoppin’ me heart, Mr. Rankin.”
Smiley ducked his head, showing a long string or two of dark hair combed over his tanned scalp. He then turned an apologetic brown-eyed gaze on her. “I’m right sorry. I reckon my gettin’ close enough to scare you is a sign of how far gone ole Skeeter is, though. Before, he would’ve raised the dead—uh, sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean no disrespect.”
“None taken.” Biddy settled her speculative gaze on the foreman. A sudden girlish shyness overcame her at the way the man reddened whenever she looked at him. Despite her surroundings, Biddy smiled encouragingly. “An’ what is it yer needin’ with me, Mr. Rankin?”
Smiley choked on his first attempt to speak. Then, clearing his throat, he started over. “I’m needin’ ta speak with you about Riley Thorne. I hate cuttin’ into yer visitin’ time up here, but I seen him ridin’ out with Miz Glory just now and figgered this might be the best chance I had.”
Biddy sobered as she stared at Smiley Rankin. “Riley, is it? Then, let’s go where we can talk without bein’ seen by the entire territory.” Patting Skeeter’s head in parting, she pushed through the cemetery’s gate and approached the foreman. Pointing downhill to the wooden swing in the backyard, she instructed, “Walk with me down there, Mr. Rankin.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he entoned, stuffing his hat on his head and falling in step beside her.
Down the hill they walked. The windmill’s creaking turns in the breeze, a ranch hand’s distant laughter, and the bawl of a calf accompanied their silence. Despite her awareness of the man’s physical closeness—and how pleasing it was, too—Biddy felt her motherly defensiveness stir to life. She could remain quiet no longer. Holding her skirt up out of the dusty dirt, she stopped and turned to Smiley. “An’ what is it about Riley Thorne that yer needin’ to say?”
Smiley squinted down at her. “Me an’ the boys don’t think it’s a good idea for him ta be on the property like this, him bein’ a Thorne an’ all.”
Biddy pursed her lips. “I see. I’m not surprised. I know yer reasons why—the feud and all. But his bein’ here is a family matter, nothing more.”
Smiley’s features pinched in disapproval. “Well, ma’am, it ain’t just the family he’s concernin’ himself with. He’s stickin’ his nose in all our affairs. Askin’ questions about the cattle, about the runnin’ of the place, questionin’ how many men we got, how many horses, things like that. Some think he’s spyin’ on us. Seems the boys have heard tell of some talk—”
“Talk, Mr. Rankin? Of what?” Having asked him, Biddy wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his answer, and so braced herself for bad news.
“Well, ma’am—an’ this ain’t easy for me to say, carin’ like I do for ya … uh, for the Lawless girls, I mean. But there’s a feeling out in the bunkhouse that the men what shot Old Pete and J. C. and the missus wasn’t … well, wasn’t only strangers, ma’am. Nor no kin from back east.”