Chapter 3 - The Wife Who Fired a Cowboy
Tillett entered without removing his hat.
He was a narrow man with a narrow mouth and the comfortable confidence of someone accustomed to being welcomed.
His gaze landed on Margaret.
“So this is the new wife.”
Margaret remained seated.
Nathan stood.
“What are you doing with my loan papers?”
Tillett smiled.
“Trying to help.”
Margaret had already learned that men who announced they were helping before being asked rarely were.
Tillett explained that the bank had spoken to several creditors.
He suggested Nathan sell cattle immediately.
He even offered to buy them.
At a discount.
Margaret understood.
“Convenient.”
Tillett looked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“You sell him overpriced hay. Then when he can't make his bank payment, you offer to buy his breeding stock cheaply.”
Tillett's smile disappeared.
Nathan stared at him.
Tillett stood.
“You should control your wife.”
Margaret closed the loan packet.
Nathan's answer came quietly.
“My wife appears to be controlling my ranch better than I have.”
Tillett left angry.
That afternoon Margaret showed Nathan the clause.
A borrower with an uninterrupted payment history could request one ninety-day extension.
January.
After the winter beef shipment.
Nathan read it repeatedly.
“I've read this note a hundred times.”
“No,” Margaret said. “You've been afraid of it a hundred times.”
The extension wasn't automatic.
Nathan had to request it.
The bank could verify his father's payment history.
They rode to town the next morning.
The banker looked unhappy when Margaret pointed out the clause.
That told her everything.
He eventually approved it.
Brooks Ranch had ninety more days.
They returned to cheering ranch hands.
But not everyone celebrated.
One man named Wade Harlan muttered loudly enough for Margaret to hear.
“Pretty soon we'll all be wearing aprons.”
Several men laughed.
Margaret walked toward him.
Wade smirked.
“I didn't sign on to take orders from some fat kitchen wife.”
Margaret stopped.
“You're right.”
His smile widened.
“You didn't.”
She pointed toward the gate.
“You can leave.”
Silence.
Wade's smile disappeared.
“You can't fire me.”
Margaret looked at Nathan.
Nathan said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Margaret turned back.
“The men who stay and change this ranch may have wages next spring. The ones who laugh while it goes bankrupt can laugh somewhere else.”
She pointed toward a coil of wire.
“So decide.”
Wade stared at Nathan.
Nathan folded his arms.
Wade looked at Margaret.
Then at the gate.
Finally he picked up the wire.
“Where?”
“South fence.”
The men returned to work.
That evening Nathan found Margaret behind the barn salting beef.
“You knew he wouldn't leave.”
“No.”
“What if he had?”
“I'd have helped string the fence.”
Nathan smiled.
Margaret kept working.
“You enjoy this.”
“Salting beef?”
“Winning.”
She looked up.
“I enjoy problems becoming smaller.”
Nathan leaned against the post.
“What about people?”
“People aren't problems.”
“Cyrus might disagree.”
Margaret glanced toward the older foreman.
Cyrus had been colder since Nathan accepted her grazing plan.
“He thinks I'm erasing your father.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Then why doesn't he understand?”
“Because grief doesn't care about arithmetic.”
Nathan studied her.
“You understand him.”
“I understand losing somebody and confusing their mistakes with their memory.”
Nathan's smile disappeared.
That was the closest Margaret had come to speaking about Thomas voluntarily.
Nathan didn't press.
Instead, he helped her carry the beef into the curing shed.
The repaired roof no longer leaked.
New shelves kept meat away from damp walls.
Margaret recorded every cut.
Nathan watched her write.
“Do you record everything?”
“Everything that costs money.”
“And things that don't?”
Margaret paused.
“Those are usually the things people remember.”
Their eyes met.
For one awkward second, neither moved.
Then Pete burst inside.
“Mrs. Brooks!”
Margaret turned.
“What?”
“You better come.”
He led them behind the shed.
A sack lay open in the dirt.
Inside was spoiled grain.
Margaret smelled it.
Mold.
Pete pointed toward the feed barn.
“Found it mixed into tomorrow's cattle feed.”
Nathan's face darkened.
“Who did this?”
Nobody knew.
Cyrus arrived.
He examined the sack.
“This isn't accidental.”
Margaret agreed.
Nathan looked toward the ranch yard.
First the cut fence.
Then kerosene.
Now contaminated feed.
Someone was trying to undo their recovery.
Cyrus said what everyone was thinking.
“Tillett.”
Margaret wasn't convinced.
Tillett wanted money.
Dead cattle couldn't buy hay.
“Check every feed sack,” she ordered.
Cyrus didn't argue.
That surprised her.
By midnight, they found three more contaminated sacks.
They also found tracks behind the feed barn.
A horse had been tied there.
Nathan followed the prints toward the northern road.
Then he stopped.
Something was hanging from a nail on the fence.
A strip of cloth.
Blue wool.
Nathan took it down.
Cyrus's face drained of color.
Margaret noticed.
“You recognize it.”
Cyrus didn't answer.
“Cyrus?”
The old foreman stared at the cloth.
Then toward the bunkhouse.
Nathan followed his gaze.
Only one ranch hand wore a blue wool coat.
Wade Harlan.
May you like
Nathan reached for the bunkhouse door.
Before he could open it, a gunshot exploded from inside.
