Page 58 of Wellspring
“WITH WHAT we acquired from the JR auction last month, we should be able to double the number of head we send to Abilene compared to what we sent to Sedalia last year.” Grace glanced at Erick, who nodded confirmation.
“Auction” was a bit of a misnomer, from what Erick had heard.
Once it was confirmed that Reichardt had not left a will and had no known relatives to inherit, Judge Morrison had called a meeting with all the ranchers whose land bordered the JR’s.
He rolled out a map Marshal Parnell had provided and turned to Grace.
“As the most aggrieved party, it’s only fitting to give you first choice of the property available. ”
Erick had helped Grace pore over Wellspring’s assets in the week after the trial, using what they estimated was a fair cost per acre to determine how much she could afford to offer.
It meant stripping the ranch’s savings, but it was a risk Grace and Payne were willing to take to ensure passage to Eldorado without leaving Wellspring property.
The cost per acre Judge Morrison quoted, though, was less than half what they had estimated.
Grace was able to almost double Wellspring’s total acreage.
After that, the judge turned to the two smaller ranchers who abutted the JR, each of whom purchased adjacent parcels.
Finally, he offered what was left to Ulrich.
Along with the land, Wellspring had acquired an equal proportion of the JR’s assets, including cattle, horses, and supplies. Wellspring’s hands had spent the past several weeks inspecting the new herd, replacing the JR brand with Wellspring’s, and culling the stock that was ready to sell.
“If we can get them there,” Payne grumbled, arms crossed in front of him in a gesture Erick had come to recognize during his convalescence.
“Twice as many cattle with no extra hands and my best set of eyes missing for three weeks now on some godforsaken errand he didn’t even bother to tell me about. ”
Not that Cade had told Erick any more. A week after their night together, a wonderful week in which they’d taken every opportunity they could steal to be together (and to make love whenever and wherever they could), word arrived that Judge Morrison had set a date for the auction of the JR’s property.
Erick didn’t know why, but the news left Cade uncharacteristically quiet and thoughtful.
The next day, he’d told Erick he had some personal business to attend to that would require him leaving the ranch.
It was clear from his demeanor that he hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and Erick hadn’t felt it was his place to push for answers Cade clearly didn’t want to give.
Cade had promised to return as soon as he could, but that had been three weeks ago, and Erick couldn’t help but worry as he lay in his lonely bed at night.
He’d seen for himself on the trip from Galveston the kind of dangers Cade might face, from weather to bad terrain to dangerous animals, not to mention JR hands looking for revenge. And Cade had no one to watch his back.
“And I don’t care what Marshal Parnell says,” Payne continued. “I ain’t convinced those JR fuckers are gone for good, so don’t give me any shit about how many hands I plan to leave behind.”
“Who’s left?” Grace countered. “Carter, Sanders, and Reichardt are all dead, and without them, the others are just leaderless cowpokes. Sure, maybe they bought into Reichardt’s bullshit, but they don’t have the brains or the resources to do anything without someone backing them up.
And most of those didn’t stick around, as you well know since you’ve been all over the old JR homestead. More than once.”
The survivors who’d taken part in the raid on Wellspring had managed to disappear after Reichardt’s conviction with the exception of Collier, who would be serving twenty years hard labor, despite his argument that he was only following orders.
Erick suspected few other JR hands wanted to work for a woman and a black man.
No loss, since he wouldn’t want to work alongside such bigots.
“Braddock and Freeman seem to be good, solid hands,” he said, though they could use another dozen like them.
“Becca Spencer has been talking with Michele,” Grace warned. “She grew up on a ranch, but Reichardt never let her work anywhere but the kitchen. You can expect her to be asking to ride the herd soon.”
“Annie Dawson also,” Erick added. “She is capable of much more than washing laundry.”
“When you get back from Abilene, you’ll need to build another bunkhouse for the women,” Grace told Payne with a smile.
“Four when I could use forty,” Payne retorted.
“Don’t exaggerate,” Grace scolded. “I’d settle for half that, male or female.”
“And a bunkhouse for women. What’s this world coming to?
” He grinned when he said it, or maybe it was a grimace.
Erick could never be sure. His expression turned grim when he continued, “I’ll need at least ten hands to wrangle that many cattle if we have any hope of holding them together on the trail to Abilene.
And that won’t leave you enough to work the herd that’s left. ”
“We’ve done more with less before,” Grace said with a philosophical shrug that didn’t seem to mollify Payne in the least.
“Oh, and still no Webster. You really don’t know where he went or when he’ll be back, Heller?
I don’t like the idea of doing the drive without him.
He reads the land better than any cowboy I ever seen, which I need with the new route.
I wanted to leave August 1st, and we’ve already missed that by more than a week.
We can’t afford to leave any later than August 15th.
We got to make it to Abilene before the weather turns up north. ”
Erick suppressed a sigh and shook his head.
Payne had made it clear it would take at least three months to drive the herd the six hundred miles to the railhead in Kansas, where the cattle would be shipped to the slaughterhouses and packing plants in St. Louis and Chicago.
“He said he had business to attend to and would be back as soon as he could.” Three weeks didn’t feel like “soon” to Erick, but if Cade’s business was in Austin or, worse yet, back in Galveston, it could easily take him that long or more.
Even without the wagon slowing him down, he and Nahnia could only cover so much distance in a day.
Their one week together, with the rest of the hands doing their best to announce their presence before walking in on them in the barn or the shower or the bunkhouse as Cade had once laughingly told him they’d done for Kit and Mac, only made Erick’s loneliness worse, since now he had more than just his hopes and imagination to reinforce what he was missing.
Michele did her best to keep him company when he wasn’t working with Grace, reassuring him that whatever Cade’s business was, it must be important if he was willing to leave Erick to deal with it.
Still, Erick couldn’t help feeling as if he’d been abandoned.
Zephyr was as strong and swift as any mustang.
Surely Erick could have accompanied Cade, whatever his errand.
“He has another week,” Payne said. “Then we leave without him and he’ll have to hold down the fort here instead of leading the drive to Abilene.”
Erick wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with that information. He had no way of contacting Cade or affecting his return in any other way. “He’ll be back when he can” was the only thing he had to offer.
Payne looked like he wanted to argue more, but Grace silenced him with a glance. Erick tried to convey his appreciation through his smile. He was worried enough for all of them. He didn’t need Payne’s harangues to remind him of how long Cade had been gone and all the things that could go wrong.
TWO DAYS later, Erick had just sat down to lunch with Grace when he spotted a cloud of dust down the road leading to Wellspring.
(He’d spent every moment he was outside watching the road, hoping to see Cade riding back.) As it drew nearer, it resolved into three riders, one of them Marshal Parnell, accompanied by two strangers, women from the looks of their apparel.
“Mrs. Roarke,” Parnell greeted when they came to a halt. “These women rode into town asking for directions to Wellspring, so I offered to show them the way.”
“We are looking for Jesse Beaufort,” the older of the two added.
“He’s out with the herd,” Grace answered. “I can send someone to fetch him.” She nodded to Luke Quinn, who took off for the stables. “We were just about to have lunch, if you’d like to join us.”
The three dismounted and hitched their mounts to the porch rail before sitting down at the table. “My name is Li Mei Zhou, and this is my… ward, Alice Smith. Beaufort wrote to us some time ago describing Wellspring in such glowing terms that we hoped you might be in need of hands.”
Grace looked as if one of her prayers had been answered. “You’ll have to pass muster with our foreman, but if he agrees, we can definitely find a place for you.” She gestured to Javier, who dished up three more bowls of chili and set them before the newcomers. “Can I ask how you know Beaufort?”
Alice giggled, and Li Mei shot her a stern glance. “We met in San Francisco. My husband and I emigrated from China to purchase land to start a ranch. Beaufort had wandered into an area of town that was… less than hospitable for strangers.”
“Anyone not Chinese, she means.” Beaufort strode to the table and pulled Li Mei into a quick hug. “I was looking for a drink and stumbled into the middle of some kind of gang tussle. She saved my ass. You wouldn’t think it to look at her, but she’s quite a fighter.”
“And Beaufort proved to be quite a good ranch hand, until his wanderlust grew to be too much for him.”
“What brings you to Wellspring?” Beaufort straddled the bench next to her.