Authors: Isadora Montrose
Tags: #General Fiction
“Well, we’ve been shorthanded since Duane quit. Think he’ll stay, Daddy?”
“Now, that I don’t know, sweetheart,” Freddie said. “But I think he might be a keeper. He gave me a hand with Goose. Kept her calm while I looked at her hooves. She had knocked both her hind shoes off again.”
“I told you, she pecks at the floor,” Laura said. “We’ve tried adding an extra layer of rubber matting to her stall, but somehow, she’s knocking the nails out and losing her shoes.”
“Holden solved your mystery.” Freddie chuckled.
“How so?” she asked, helping herself to another of Rosa’s stuffed pork chops.
“Star has been kicking the concrete block on the back wall of her stall. Now don’t you fret, we’ve moved her to one with all wooden walls,” Freddie said.
“I’ve never seen her kicking,” Laura said worriedly, “Just pecking the floor. Do you think she’s bored?”
“We didn’t catch her doing it either,” Freddie acknowledged. “But Holden looked at the shoes. Put them under a light. They had smears of paint on them from where she’d been kicking. Handy sort of a feller to have in the stable.” He paused. “Said she was too calm and trusting for her to be kicking the wall without a good reason. And I know our horses get enough exercise and company that they don’t get bored. I took a scraping of her hoofs and cuticles. I’ll send it off to the lab tomorrow.”
Laura frowned. “She’s not showing signs of lameness is she?”
“Nope. But she could still have a subclinical fungal infection. I painted her hooves with an anti-fungal to be on the safe side. And I told Holden to disinfect her stall and the walkways before he knocked off,” Freddie added.
“Good idea.” She looked across at her father who was forking up his dinner with relish. “See, this is why we’re both single.” Her chuckle was hollow.
“What?”
“We talk about horse diseases at the table,” she said.
“Well, it’s just us,” Daddy protested looking hurt. “You know Holden puts me in mind of someone, but I can’t think who.”
Laura smiled. “Zeke. He puts you in mind of Zeke.” He certainly reminded her of favorite cousin. Except she had never ogled Zeke. Or wanted to. She loved Zeke like a sister.
“No,” Freddie’s pleasant face got stubborn. “Not Zeke. Has something of his bearing. And he’s military too. But it’s somebody else. I tell you, girl, I’m getting old. Forget my own name next.”
“You are the furthest thing from old, Daddy.”
* * *
The offices of the ranch operation were much fancier than those for the stud. Sometime in the ‘80s, Clive had had a new building constructed. Inside and out it reflected the prosperity of the Double B. Inside it was divided into spacious offices for the bookkeeping, records, clerical and veterinary departments. It even had a board room as well as a sitting area for entertaining clients.
As Clive had before her, Laura had her own office. The ranch foreman Gary Evans also had his own room, even though he spent most of his days in the saddle. But their weekly meetings were usually conducted in the boardroom, where there was plenty of space to spread out, and they could have anyone they needed come in and make a report.
Gary Evans was in his sixties, he had grown gray in Clive’s service, having started as just another cowboy when he was fresh out of the service. Laura dreaded the thought that he might retire, and leave her stuck with even more of the day-to-day running of the ranch. But so far his health was good, and he had never spoken about retirement. She worried that it would take two or three men to replace him if he did.
But today, Gary’s face was drawn and grave. He shuffled papers, and fiddled with the laptop he had brought to the meeting.
“What’s up, Gary?” Laura asked.
He drew in a deep breath, composed himself, and shattered her world. “I’ve lost two thousand head of cattle, Laura,” he said, turning his laptop so she could see the spreadsheet that tracked the disposition of the stock.
He had marked the discrepancies he had found in purple. Laura’s heart sank. “Run that past me again, Gary,” she said. Gary’s words made no sense. How could they have lost ten percent of the stock, over the winter? It had been years since they had lost even as much as one percent to rustlers.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me either, Laura,” he said. “I should’ve told you weeks ago, when I first noticed the discrepancies. But I didn’t want to look like a foolish, incompetent old man. I thought I’d screwed up the records, because I didn’t understand our new computer system properly.” He wiped his weathered face with a bandanna and stuffed it back in his pocket.
“Do you think that rustlers are responsible?” Laura scrolled through his spreadsheet. “Because it sure looks like somebody has scrambled these records.”
“All I know Laura, is that every time I send the boys out to bring in stock from a section, they either come back with the wrong animals, or they come back with none. If somebody’s doing this as some kind of weird practical joke, they’ve sure spent a lot of money doing it.”
“What beats me,” said Laura, “is how they been doing it at all. You’d think if somebody was playing musical chairs with the cattle, we’d have noticed a bunch of strangers. Or cut fences.”
“That’s what made me think at first that it was just me screwing up. I didn’t come to you straight off, like I should have, because I thought it would all come out in the wash. That those animals would turn up. But we’re down ten or twelve percent, and I haven’t the foggiest idea where they’ve gotten to. I guess I am just a foolish old man.”
“Tell me why you think it’s not the records?” Laura asked
Gary’s red face got redder. “Because the animals didn’t turn up in the wrong field. They haven’t turned up at all. If I’d been doing my job right, the way I’m supposed to, none of this would be happening. If you want my job, I guess you got a right to fire me.”
Laura shook her head. “We’ll get to the bottom of this together, Gary. I don’t see how it can be your fault.”
“I’ve been the foreman on this ranch for thirty years,” he said stubbornly. “If rustlers have taken ten percent of the stock on my watch, it sure is my fault for not noticing.”
“Can you ever remember something like this happening?” She asked. “Because it’s a new one on me.”
“I can’t. Not to us. Not to anyone. But it’s like they’re doing it right under my eyes. I guess you need a younger man.”
“If I had all of Colorado to choose from,” Laura said, “I couldn’t find anyone who would do as good a job for me as you do. You have forty years of experience – not just of ranching, but with the Double B. If you walked out on me, I’m not sure that this place would function anymore.”
“Well, it’s good of you to say so, Laura,” Gary said. There was relief on his face. “But I surely don’t know what we should do next.”
“Well, the first thing I’m going to do,” Laura said firmly, “Is make sure that it isn’t some virus making mincemeat of our records. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to keep your eyes peeled for signs of rustlers.”
* * *
Now that the mucking out was over, Steve was mopping down the central stable block with disinfectant. He had pulled up the mats and mopped down the stall that Goose had been using. It could be difficult to kill spores, and if those cultures came back positive, the window of opportunity to stop the spread of infection might have passed.
The horses didn’t care for the smell of his bucket and mop any more than he did and were expressing their disapproval in their different ways. He had already had a nip taken from his shoulder. That protest had come from the Boss’s own ride, Dakota. The handsome russet gelding had snorted down his nose when Steve reproached him, and he had refused the horse treats he was offered. Apparently Steve’s hands were also contaminated.
Most the other horses had retreated to the backs of their stalls, trying to get away as far away from the smell as they could. Steve had propped the outer doors open to help with the ventilation. The smell wasn’t that strong, but if it made people wrinkle their noses, horses would consider it an assault.
Heels clicked angrily on the concrete floors. Steve straightened up and eyed the slender girl mincing towards him in knee-high, black stiletto boots. She appeared to find the smell of the barn as disagreeable as the horses did, for she sniffed disapprovingly.
“I want to go riding,” she announced without introducing herself. “Saddle me a horse.”
Not in those boots. But this kid had the look of privilege from her silly boots to her skin tight blue jeans – with the strategic rips at thigh and knee – to her skimpy coat. He didn’t expect her to accept his decree quietly.
“Didn’t you hear me?” The girl’s voice became shriller as she worked herself into a fury.
“You’ll frighten the horses,” Steve said. He advanced toward her with his bucket and mop, slopping the milky liquid from side to side.
The girl retreated squealing. “You’ll get that stuff on me.”
“Yeah. I intend to mop all the aisles,” Steve said calmly. He concentrated on poking the stuff into all the crevices.
“You’re fired,” announced the brat.
He kept right on swabbing the floors, moving his bucket and mop forward with every stroke. She squealed and backed up. He reviewed the gossip he had picked up in the coffee shop. He was willing to bet his DSO that this spoiled brat was Piper Belington.
“I said, ‘You’re fired,’” she repeated.
“Um. Mind moving. I have to do that alley next,” he said.
“No, you don’t.” She stamped her foot. “You don’t have a job!”
He wheeled the bucket right up to those ridiculous leather boots and sloshed the mop around. “Last chance,” he said pleasantly. Ordinarily he didn’t give second chances, but it was likely little Princess Piper had never learned any manners.
She backed up and he chased her with his mop and bucket until she backed into an empty stall and stood glaring at him from under a heavy canopy of false eyelashes. Carlos Diego popped his head around the corner frowning. Steve kept mopping.
The girl turned her wrath on the foreman. “Carlos,” she cried. “Make him saddle me a horse.”
“And a good morning it is, Miss Piper,” Carlos drawled back. “Good morning, Steve. What all are you up to?”
Steve straightened up and smiled down at the foreman. “Good morning, sir. Last night, Dr. Bascom decided Goose probably had a fungal infection in her hind hooves. He told me to disinfect the stable after we moved her. I thought another round this morning wouldn’t hurt a bit. I’m just about done.”
“Did Barbie have her foal okay?” Carlos ignored the sulking girl.
“Like she’d done it twenty times, sir. Pretty colt. Black as coal. Dr. Bascom named him Jet.”
Carlos smiled and stroked his mustache. “Barbie eating yet?”
The girl stamped her foot again. But of course the padded floor of the stall she was standing in did not make a satisfying noise. Instead her heel broke through the rubber matting and stuck. She hopped on one foot trying to get her boot free. Diego watched her but made no move to help.
Steve laid down more disinfectant and addressed himself to the foreman’s question as if Piper were invisible. “She’s eaten her postpartum ration, sir, and is working on some hay now. Foal is suckling well.”
Piper was squealing louder as she wrenched about trying to release her boot.
“You go help Lance with the grooming, Steve,” the foreman ordered softly.
“Yes, sir.” Steve picked up the wheeled bucket in one hand and carried it off whistling to the sink to wash up. He was sorry to miss the rest of the comedy act, but Diego was welcome to Princess Snippety. Maybe he could to sort her out.
Lance Prescott was second in command to the foreman. He was mucking out the Boss’s gelding. Prescott was a whipcord tough Marine veteran, battle scarred, and hard working. They had introduced themselves yesterday.
“You get started in Lane Four,” he said to Steve. “They all should’ve been fed, but check the clipboard just in case.” Each stall had a clipboard that listed feed schedules and work done. “When you’ve checked both sides, you can start grooming.”
“Got it,” said Steve. He began as far down Lane Four as he could. But as he brushed down Buddha, he could still hear the argument raging between Piper and Diego. Buddha was fussing and moving around anxiously. He didn’t like the ruckus.
“This isn’t a riding stable,” the older man said in the soft murmur that soothed restless mares. “And even if it was, you can’t ride in those boots.”
“Laura rides!” Piper screeched. Apparently she wasn’t a mare.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Diego asked in the same patient voice. “Miss Piper, you best go home. And don’t you come back until you’re prepared to behave yourself around the horses.”
“You can’t talk to me like that,” she shouted. “I’m as much an owner as Laura is.”
“Piper Belington.” Laura’s calm, pleasant voice cut through Paper’s tantrum and brought welcome silence. The Boss paused a beat. “I thought I told you to stay out of the stud? You have two minutes to get in your car or I will put you in mine and take you home.”
“I have as much right to be here as you,” insisted Piper. Steve noticed her voice had dropped several decibels and a couple of pitches too.
“When I’m dead,” said Laura. “One minute.”
“That could be arranged!” Piper’s heels made a defiant clatter as she stomped away. A car door slammed and a powerful motor roared off.
“What was she doing here?” Laura’s voice was expressionless.
“She wanted to go riding.” There was a laugh in Carlos Diego’s gruff voice.
There was a long moment of silence before Laura spoke. “Keep her away from the horses, will you, Carlos.” Her boots walked away.
“Good morning, Holden,” she said as she went past.
Steve thought there was something in her voice, but he couldn’t place it. Laura was crooning to Dakota before he had time to do more than murmur, “Morning, Miss Laura.”
Even so, the sound of her voice made every cell in his body vibrate. Her personal fragrance lingered in the air, it was delicate and yet somehow it overwhelmed the reek of disinfectant. He sure had it bad.
Unfortunately, he had no more idea than the man in the moon of how to get her to pay attention to him. He kept on working, while he listened to the low hum of Laura’s contralto as she talked to Lance. He couldn’t really make out the words, but it was as though she was singing some potent song just for his heart.