Cowboy Accomplice. B.J. Daniels
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up to the corral fence.
A mountain of a man, large, gruff and more capable than any hand J.T. had ever known, Buck had been with the Sundown Ranch since before J.T. was born. Buck was family and family meant everything to a McCall.
But J.T. swore that if Buck hadn’t found a cook he’d shoot him.
“What makes you think somethin’s wrong?” Buck asked, taking the defensive, another bad sign.
J.T. wished he didn’t know Buck so well as he studied the older man in the dim light that spilled through the trees from the campfire. He would have sworn that the men over by the fire were straining to hear what was being said. Oh yeah, J.T. didn’t like this at all.
He stepped closer to Buck, not wanting to be overheard, and realized he’d been mistaken. The look on the foreman’s face wasn’t worry. Nor guilt. Buck looked sheepish.
J.T. swore. He couldn’t help but remember Buck’s cockiness a few days earlier: “I’ll find you a camp cook or eat my hat.”
“Tell me you found a cook,” J.T. demanded, trying to keep his voice down.
“Well, I need to talk to you about that,” Buck said.
If it came down to a choice, he’d rather eat Buck’s hat than Buck’s cooking. “What’s to talk about? You either hired a cook or you didn’t.”
“Have I ever not done something I said I would?” Buck demanded.
J.T. shot him a let’s-not-go-there look and counted heads around the campfire. Six men sitting on up-ended logs around the fire, all as silent as falling snow. An owl hooted in a treetop close by. Behind him, one of the horses in the corral whinnied in answer.
“Do I know any of the men you hired?” he asked Buck, that earlier uneasiness turning to dread as he let his horse loose in the corral with the others.
“A couple. I was lucky to find any. Hell, I had one lined up but he got hurt in a bar fight and another one—”
“I wish I hadn’t asked.” He could tell by the foreman’s excuses that he’d had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get six hands together for this roundup. He hated to think how bad the six might be.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said, hefting his saddle and saddlebag with his gear in it, as he headed for the campfire.
The men all got to their feet as J.T. approached with Buck trailing along behind him.
“Evenin’,” he said to the assortment of men standing around the campfire resting his saddle and saddlebag on a log by the fire. “I’m J. T. McCall.” At a glance, he’d seen the men ranged from late twenties to late thirties. They seemed to study him with interest.
“Luke Adams.” A thirty-something, slim cowboy held out his hand.
J.T. took it, feeling that he knew the man. At thirty-six, J.T. had been doing roundups for thirty years so the faces of past cowhands sometimes blurred in his memory as did most of the cattle drives. But something about this man…. “You worked for us before?”
Luke seemed surprised he would remember. “Almost ten years ago.”
The memory fell into place, dropping like his heart in his chest. Luke Adams had been one of the cowhands who’d left camp after the first trouble nine years ago. Luke had been one of the smart ones.
While J.T. had never been superstitious, it still gave him an odd feeling that one of the cowhands from that tragic cattle roundup had signed on for this year’s.
“I haven’t seen you around Antelope Flats,” J.T. said, wondering where Luke had been all these years.
Luke shook his head. “Went down to New Mexico for a while.”
He nodded, feeling uneasy as he studied him in the firelight before moving to the next man.
“Roy Shields,” the man next to Luke said quietly, then awkwardly pulled off his hat before sticking out his hand. Roy was slim and wiry-looking with thin red hair, early to late thirties, one of those people it was hard to tell his age.
His grip was strong but not callused. He looked like a cowhand, one of the quiet ones that seldom gave him any trouble. But how did the saying go, still waters run deep? Roy could have been familiar. The man hurriedly shook his hand, keeping his eyes downcast. J.T. made a note to watch him.
“Cotton Heywood,” the next man said eagerly reaching to shake J.T.’s hand. He was one of the local ranch hands who worked in the area. He had a full head of white-blond hair, which explained his nickname.
“Good to see you again, Cotton,” J.T. said, trying to remember the latest scuttlebutt he’d heard about the man. Cotton had gotten into some kind of trouble at another rancher’s cow camp, but for the life of him, J.T. couldn’t remember what. He seldom paid any attention to rancher gossip, but now he wished he had.
J.T. looked to the next man.
“Nevada Black,” said a strong-looking man with dark hair and eyes. His hand wasn’t callused either. He gave J.T. a knowing smirk. “That’s my real name. I was born at a blackjack table.”
“You have any experience on cattle roundups?” J.T. asked.
“I took a few years off, but I’ve been rounding up cattle since I was a boy,” Nevada said. He rattled off a series of ranches in Nevada and northern California where he’d worked.
J.T. nodded and looked to the next man.
“Slim Walker,” said the gangly cowboy. He held out his hand and when J.T. took it, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling back. Slim nodded, then stretched out both hands in the firelight for everyone to see. “Burned them. Got knocked into a campfire at a kegger.” He shrugged. “Gave up drinking after that.”
J.T. barely heard the man over his thundering pulse. He tried to hide his embarrassment and quickly looked to the last man.
The sixth cowhand stood back a little from the fire as if he’d been watching J.T. make his way around to him and waiting.
“Will Jarvis,” he said slowly stepping forward, removing his hat. He had thin brown hair and was the oldest of the bunch, late thirties like J.T. himself.
J.T. studied the man’s face as he shook his hand. Something about him was familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The man’s hand was smooth and cool. He was no ranch hand. Buck really had been desperate.
“Glad you’re all here,” J.T. said, not sure of that at all as he tried to shake the bad feeling that had been with him from the moment Bob Humphries told him about the dead, burned cow. “We have a lot of cattle to round up over the next few days. I suggest you turn in right after supper. We start at first light.”
As he glanced toward the cabin, he realized he didn’t smell food cooking, just smoke, and shot a look at Buck before picking up his saddle and gear and heading in that direction.
Behind him, he had the strangest feeling that the men around the fire were not only watching him, but also waiting for something to happen.
“Maybe we should talk for a minute before you go into the cabin,” Buck said as he caught up to him.
“Why is that, Buck?” he asked without slowing his stride. J.T. had always liked to get whatever was waiting for him over with as quickly as possible. “If you got a cook, then what—” The rest of his words died on his lips as he saw the camp cook through the cabin window. “What the—”
“Now, boss—”
J.T. shoved his saddle and gear at Buck without a word and, with long purposeful strides, stormed across the porch and into the line shack. “What are you doing here?”
It was a stupid question since Reggie whatever-her-name-was stood at the cookstove with a pan in her hand. She was dressed in fancy western wear, all spanking new and all