Texas Fierce Read online

  The waitress, a shapely brunette in a pink uniform, gave Bull a look that only a blind man could’ve missed. Bull didn’t miss it—and he didn’t miss seeing the gold band on her finger.

  “Howdy, Jasper,” she said. “I see you brought in a new friend. How about an introduction?”

  “Sure,” Jasper said. “Bonnie, this here’s young Bull Tyler. Bull, this is Bonnie Treadwell, the best damn waitress this side of the Rio Grande.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Bull said, tipping an invisible hat.

  “Tyler?” Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Then this must be Williston’s boy. I’d know those blue eyes anywhere.”

  “That’s right,” Jasper said. “If you’re ready to take our order, we’ll have coffee and two breakfast specials.”

  “Comin’ up,” she said. “And I’m right sorry about your father, Bull.”

  Bull already had his wallet out to pay. He handed her a twenty. She brushed his hand as she took the bill. Up close she looked about thirty, but she was pretty enough to stir a tingle with her touch. His gaze caught the sway of her hips as she walked back toward the counter.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Jasper said. “She’s married and she’s trouble.”

  “Not to worry. Don’t get me wrong, I like the ladies. I’ve had my share of the kind that hang around rodeos waiting to give a bull bucker a different kind of ride. But I know better than to mess with other men’s wives.”

  “Smart.” Jasper glanced toward the counter where Bonnie was setting up their coffee mugs on a tray with cream and sugar. “Her husband’s a trucker. Good man. Loves her like crazy. But when he’s on the road she gets lonesome, and she’s got a powerful itch for young cowboys. Not that I know firsthand, mind you, but I’ve heard the other guys talk. Trust me, you don’t want to get involved with her.”

  “Got it. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Bonnie brought the coffee mugs and set them on the table along with change from the twenty. Her breast brushed Bull’s shoulder as she leaned over to pour the coffee. He willed himself to ignore the tug of arousal that tightened his jeans.

  “You haven’t said much about the ranch, Jasper,” he said as Bonnie sashayed back to the counter to greet an older couple. “If the news is bad, I might as well hear it now.”

  Jasper added two packets of sugar to his coffee, stirred it, and took a sip.

  “It is bad, isn’t it?” Bull said.

  Jasper nodded, pausing to take a breath. “You knew your dad was a drinker.”

  “Yeah. But he pretty much kept it under control, didn’t he?”

  “For the first few years I knew him, he did. But after you left home, it got worse. He stopped fixin’ up the place, let the sheds and fences fall to ruin, stopped clearin’ pasture, and quit workin’ on the house. He cleaned out whatever was in the bank to feed the stock and pay the men. When that was gone, he started sellin’ off the cattle and horses.”

  Bull felt a hollow burn below his ribs, as if the coffee in his stomach had turned to acid. The Rimrock had never been a showplace of good management, but at spring roundup, before he left, there’d been at least four hundred head of Hereford cattle on the range. It had never crossed his mind that conditions would go downhill—and so fast.

  “How many cattle are there now?” he forced himself to ask.

  “There’s Jupiter—your dad was savin’ him for last. And besides him there are about twenty cows and a dozen spring calves. The steers are all gone.”

  “What about horses?”

  “Four. All of ’em old.”

  “Lord Almighty.” Bull barely noticed when Bonnie set their plates on the table. At least his father had kept Jupiter, the aging Hereford bull. As long as the surly old boy could do his job, and the cows were healthy, there would be more calves. But the time and money it would take to get the ranch running at capacity was staggering. He had $7,000 in the bank, saved from his rodeo winnings toward a decent truck. That would barely make a dent in what he needed for the ranch.

  Maybe selling out to the Prescotts would be his only option.

  “Eat your breakfast. You’re gonna need it.” Jasper was already digging his fork into the heap of scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon, with a short stack of pancakes on the side. Bull gazed down at his plate. Jasper was right, but his appetite was gone. He forced himself to chew and swallow each bite.

  What if he’d stayed—taken his father’s abuse and worked to make the ranch a success? Would his father still be alive? Would the Rimrock be a profitable, working ranch?

  All he’d ever wanted was to be free of this place. But what if he’d made a different choice back then? What would he be looking at today?

  * * *

  After they’d finished breakfast, they left a tip for Bonnie and went back outside to the truck. “I’ll drive,” Jasper said, climbing in. “That’ll give you a chance to look around.”

  Bull buckled his seat belt and rolled down the window as Jasper started the engine. The sun blazed in the cloudless sky. The morning was already hot. By afternoon, heat waves would be rippling off the molten asphalt streets.

  “Doesn’t look like much has changed,” Bull observed as they drove out of town. “Same old houses. Same dried-up lawns and dried-up people.”

  “Not much changes around here,” Jasper said. “Except that your dad’s in the ground and the ranch is within a gnat’s eyelash of goin’ under.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the ranch when you found me?”

  “Would you have come back if you’d known? Or would you have already decided to sell out to the Prescotts?”

  “Who’s to say I won’t do that, anyway? It might be the only choice.”

  Jasper pulled off the road and turned to give Bull a stern look. “So you’d let them dirty skunks win, without even puttin’ up a fight?”

  “Ask me again after I’ve had a look at the place.”

  Bull didn’t say any more. It would be wasted breath to argue with Jasper before he’d had time to weigh his options. He was the boss now, he reminded himself. Jasper, for all his value as a friend and mentor, was his employee. For both of them, that would take some getting used to.

  He waited until Jasper had pulled onto the road again and driven half a mile into the open country before he spoke.

  “Speaking of dirty skunks, how are the Prescotts? Is Ferg still around?”

  “Yup. I seen him last time I was in town. He was drivin’ around in a fancy red convertible with a couple of girls who looked young enough to still be in high school.”

  “I thought maybe he’d have gone off to college or something. His folks could afford to send him, that’s for sure.”

  “Can’t argue with that. But Ferg’s too lazy for college. Besides, why should he go when he’s set to inherit the biggest ranch in these parts?” Jasper gave Bull a knowing glance. “I take it you haven’t warmed any toward him.”

  “No way.” Ferguson Prescott, the neighbors’ only surviving son, had been Bull’s boyhood playmate. But years before he’d left home, an incident so horrific that they’d vowed never to mention it again had torn them apart. Distrust had made them rivals, then enemies.

  “Was my dad still feuding with the Prescotts?”

  “Not so much after the heavy drinkin’ started. But he always said they’d get their hands on the Rimrock over his dead body.”

  Jasper fell silent, as if realizing what his words had implied. Bull gazed out the window at the drought-yellowed pastureland and cedar-specked sagebrush flats. A loose cow grazed in the bar ditch where the grass, watered by spring runoff from the road, still bore sprouts of green. Jasper slowed down and swung across the painted line to avoid spooking the animal.

  “The sheriff called my father’s death an accident,” Bull said. “That’s what you told me. Do you believe it?”

  Jasper hesitated, as if weighing his reply. “I might . . . if I could figure out what he was doin’ on top of that cliff in the first
place.”

  “Did anybody look around up there?”

  “The sheriff did. So did I. The back slope of the ledge ain’t all that steep. It wouldn’t have been a hard climb. But it’s solid rock up there. No way to see tracks on it.”

  “So there’d be no way to tell if somebody pushed him off the top.”

  “No way to know if he was pushed, or if he stumbled over, or if . . .” Jasper let the words trail into silence.

  A shudder passed through Bull’s body. “You mean, he might’ve jumped? Good Lord, Jasper, was he that bad off?”

  Jasper hesitated, his eyes on the road. “Coulda been. But I don’t like to think so. He never gave any sign of it. Just like he never gave up hopin’ you’d come back.”

  “My dad wanted me back? After all the hateful things he said to me?”

  Jasper nodded. “You were Williston’s only flesh and blood—and all he had left of your mother. That’s why he wouldn’t sell. He was savin’ the ranch for you.”

  Bull gazed through the dusty windshield, eyes following the flight of a red-tailed hawk. He swallowed an unaccustomed tightness in his throat. “I’ll take a look at the ranch,” he said. “Then I want you to show me where my father died.”

  CHAPTER 2

  TWENTY MILES OUT OF BLANCO SPRINGS THE PICKUP SWUNG OFF THE paved highway and onto a rutted dirt road. The tires raised clouds of dust that filtered through the vents and drifted in through the open side windows. Bull could feel the grit when he ran his tongue across his teeth. The beating sun was hotter than a forge, and the old truck had no air-conditioning.

  Still at the wheel, Jasper gave him a cheerful grin. “That’s Rimrock dust you’re eatin’. Welcome home, Bull Tyler.”

  Bull spat his chew out the window. It was still sinking in that the place was his—every dusty, rocky, snake-infested, mesquite-clogged inch of it. Given the value of ranchland these days, he was a rich man. But nothing above ground looked to be worth fighting for.

  As the truck neared the heart of the ranch, he spotted the old wooden windmill that pumped well water to supply the house and the tanks for the stock. Missing several vanes, with others hanging loose, it turned sluggishly in the hot summer breeze. Off to one side sat the house that had been grandly planned but never finished. Its plywood exterior had weathered to match the blowing dust. The corrals were empty, the barn roof sagging. Bull couldn’t see into the machine shed beyond the house, but he’d already guessed that anything usable would’ve been sold.

  Jasper cursed as they pulled into the yard and drove up to the house. “Carlos’s car isn’t here. The bastard must’ve given up on us and lit out. Come on, we’ve got to see to the stock. In this heat they could all be dead of thirst by now.”

  He flung himself out of the truck and raced for the hose connection next to the barn. Bull sprinted after him, falling into the old routine as if he’d never left. While Jasper cranked on the spigot, Bull followed the long hose line around the barn to where it ended at the horse paddock.

  The four horses were on their feet, thank heaven, but their heads were drooping, and the outline of their ribs showed like the tines of a pitchfork through their hides. The grass in their paddock was eaten down to bare dirt, and the watering trough was bone dry.

  Bull directed the thin stream of water into the trough. At the sound of it, the horses came shuffling toward him. They were old animals—he’d ridden them all, growing up. There was Bess, the gentle bay mare, Pete, the roan stallion, and the two dun geldings, Cap and Chuck. Bull had long since learned not to show his emotions, but they almost broke his heart.

  As the water rose, the horses pushed their way around the trough and lowered their heads to drink. He would need to find them some hay or turn them into fresh pasture. But first he needed to help Jasper see to the cattle.

  The cows and spring calves had been herded into the winter pasture to keep them close for feeding. Bull could see Jasper standing over a downed calf. It wasn’t moving, probably dead. And the others looked close to it. He broke into a run, dragging the long hose behind him to fill the three water troughs through the fence.

  At the sound of water, the cows and calves moved in, the stronger ones drinking it up almost as soon as it poured out of the hose. Bull kept running water into the troughs until there was enough for all of them. So far they’d lost only one calf, but some of the others looked almost too far gone to survive.

  Jupiter, the massive bull, waited at the fence. He was gaunt but still rock solid. Williston Tyler had won the calf in a poker game and raised him to be a giant. He’d long since proven his worth, siring a good crop of calves every season. But unlike most Hereford bulls, a breed that tended to be easygoing, Jupiter was mean to the bone.

  Wasted as the huge animal was, the white-rimmed eyes that watched Bull fill his trough gleamed with malevolence. There was good reason for the stout metal fence that confined him to his pasture.

  “Damn that Carlos to hell!” Jasper swore as he closed the gate of the cow pasture. “I can’t believe he’d go and leave these animals to die of thirst. If I ever catch up with the bastard—”

  He paused to pick up a rock and fling it at a buzzard that had settled on the dead calf. His aim was true. The bird squawked and flapped away. “Nothin’ we can do now except bury the dead one and try to keep the rest of these poor critters alive. Williston sold the backhoe last year, but there should be a couple of shovels in the barn. While you’re getting them, see if there’s any hay. If it’s all gone, one of us will have to make a run to the feed store and load a few bales in the pickup. Hopefully they’ll let us have them on credit.”

  “I’ll do it,” Bull said, “after I see how much hay’s left in the barn.”

  Leaving Jasper to refill the troughs, Bull sprinted back toward the barn. For now, he willed himself to focus on the task at hand. If he took time to think about what it would take to get the ranch up and running again, the worry would paralyze him.

  At times like this, selling out to the Prescotts didn’t strike him as a bad idea.

  He remembered Carlos, the longtime ranch cook, who’d promised to stay and take care of the stock. He was a good-hearted old man, not the sort who’d drive off and leave helpless animals to die of thirst. Something about his absence didn’t feel right.

  The barn door stood open, light falling in shafts through the sagging roof. An owl, slumbering on a rafter, screeched an alarm and flashed upward to vanish into the shadows above the loft. Bull could see the shovels propped against the side of an empty stall. Toward the back of the barn, he could make out a wheelbarrow, a pitchfork, one rectangular bale of hay, and scattered pieces of another—barely enough to keep the precious stock alive.

  Leaving the shovels for a second trip, he strode to the hay, hefted the bale into the wheelbarrow, and gathered up the rest. He was pushing the wheelbarrow through the barn door when a metallic glint in the dust caught his eye.

  Bending, he picked up a silver crucifix dangling from a broken chain. His pulse slammed. Carlos, a devout Catholic, had worn that crucifix day and night, as his father had worn it before him. He would never willingly take it off.

  A chill passed through Bull’s body. Something had happened to the old man—maybe the same thing that had happened to his father.

  After dropping the crucifix into his shirt pocket, he pushed the loaded wheelbarrow out to the paddock. Sharing his discovery would have to wait until the starving animals were fed.

  The horses crowded in as he forked the precious hay over the fence. There was barely enough for a few bites, but for now it would have to do.

  Jasper was still running water into the cow troughs. Leaving the hose, he helped Bull pitch hay over the fence for the cows and calves and for Jupiter.

  “That’ll have to do till we get more,” Bull said. “But right now I’ve got something else to show you. I found this coming out of the barn.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crucifix on its broken silver chain.
Jasper’s breath sucked in as he recognized it.

  “Damn!” He took the crucifix from Bull’s hand and clenched his fist around it. “I should’ve known Carlos wouldn’t go off on his own. Now I’m wishin’ he had. Anything would be better than that poor old man lyin’ dead somewhere.”

  And the old man would be dead for sure by now, Bull thought. If Carlos had been gone long enough for the animals to run out of hay and water, he wasn’t coming back.

  “Maybe he caught somebody tryin’ to steal his car,” Jasper said. “It’s gone, same as Carlos. He loved that old Buick, restored it himself, paint and all. It was his baby.”

  “Or this could be the Prescotts’ way of spooking us into selling,” Bull said. “I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

  Jasper’s eyes narrowed. “Watch what you say and who you say it to, Bull. Placin’ blame where there ain’t no proof will only get you in trouble. Anybody could’ve stole that car—teenage thugs, wetbacks cuttin’ through the property—anybody. Carlos would’ve tried to stop them, but he couldn’t have put up much of a fight. Poor old man didn’t even own a gun.”

  Bull nodded. Jasper was right. The Prescotts might be looking to take over the ranch, but that didn’t mean they’d commit murder to get it. That sort of thing only happened in the movies. Unless he could find solid proof, he’d be smart to keep his mouth shut.

  “We should at least call the sheriff and have him put out an alert on the car,” he said. “That old Buick should be easy to spot.”

  “Good idea.” Jasper dropped the crucifix into his pocket. “Trouble is, the phone company shut us down a couple of months ago on account of not gettin’ paid. If you want to talk to the sheriff, you’ll have to drive into town.”

  “Give me the keys. I’ll pick up some hay and a few groceries while I’m there. Is Sam Handley still sheriff?”

  “Sam keeled over from a heart attack last year. Vern Mossberg is sheriff now.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “Not likely. He’s new in town. That’s just one of the things that’ve changed since you left. While you’re still settlin’ in, you might want to play your cards close to your vest.”