Lone Calder Star (28 page)

Filled with a high sense of ease, Quint pulled in a long contented breath as he lay in a loose-limbed sprawl on the bed, one arm hooked around Dallas. She was curled against him, using his chest for a pillow. The heat and the weight of her along his length felt right, the way a night in bed should be.

He idly studied the shadow patterns on the ceiling, slow to absorb anything beyond feeling Dallas against him and remembering the satisfaction they had shared. Even as he listened to the steadying sound of her breathing, he noticed the absence of that annoying drip of water from the eaves.

"I think the rain's stopped," he murmured.

She stirred, her head lifting fractionally as if to listen, then settled back against him, snuggling closer, a soft sound of agreement coming from her throat.

His arm tightened to keep her close while his hand made slow strokes over the firm flesh along her waist and hip.

Quint had lived too close to the land for too many years for his mind not to wander to the rain, so crucial to all ranchers.

"I wonder how much we got," he mused idly.

"However much it was, it isn't enough," she replied, echoing his absent tone.

A smile burst across his face, and he rolled toward her, the movement shifting her head onto the pillow.

"Are you sure you're talking about the rain?" he asked, a provocative amusement dancing in his eyes.

Her answering laugh was low and breathy. "That's definitely a leading question."

"I know." Quint bent his head to nuzzle at the already kiss swollen curves of her mouth.

Her hand came up, fingers brushing his jaw and tunneling in the thickness of his black hair. "I know I didn't actually say the words before, Quint," she murmured, their breaths mingeling

"But I do love you."

It was the note of regret in her voice that prompted Quint to tease her. "You almost sound sorry about that."

Her head moved in denial. "I'm sorry about a lot of things, but loving you isn't one of them ...

no matter what happens."

"There you go-borrowing trouble again," Quint said in light reproval. "Don't we have troubles enough right now?"

She drew back from his kiss, a wariness in her expression. "like what?"

"Like getting enough of you."

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A glow softened her whole face. It was a look that told Quint everything he needed to know. He covered her mouth in a long drugging kiss that ignited more flames.

Quint made love to her again, but this time with all the finese and tenderness that had been lacking in the first.

Quint forced his eyes open, not at all sure what had awakened him. Before he could identify it, his attention became riveted on the woman's shape pressed spoon-fashion along his length, the round breast that his hand familiarly cupped, and the stray strands of her hair tickling his chin.

From the hallway came the muffled sound of a door closing.Quint stole a glance at the alarm clock. With regret, he drew his hand away from her breast and levered himself onto an elbow.

Tempted by the bare curve of her shoulder, he nibbled lightly on it and murmured, "I hate to tell you this, but it's morning. Time to wake up."

There was a sleepy lift of her lashes, accompanied by a faint sound of protest. Then awareness sank in, and she shifted onto her back, one hand making an idle cruise up his arm, her mouth curving in a drowsy smile of remembrance and contentment.

"lt can't be morning already." Her voice was husky and low,slurring a little with leftover sleepiness.

"I'm afraid it is," Quint confirmed with reluctance.

Her smile faded and her gaze drifted down to his chest. "There's something I need to tell you, Quint."

" I think it'll have to wait. Empty's up and stirring about," Quint explained. "In another few minutes he'll discover the coffee isn't made and check to see why you aren't up."

Alarm skittered through her expression, the look reinforced by the sound of water running in the bathroom. "I've got to get up."

Lending impetus to her words, Dallas rolled away from him and scrambled out of bed. A scouring search quickly located her sleep shirt. She scooped it up and hurriedly pulled it over her head, but not before Quint had a chance to enjoy the unobstructed view of her.

She threw a last smiling and somewhat self-conscious look at him before crossing to the door.

But any thought Dallas had of dipping into her bedroom unobserved vanished when she stepped into the hall and encountered her grandfather exiting the bath room.

There was an instant narrowing of his eyes, first on her, then on the door to Quint's room before they fastened on her. A certain grimness claimed his expression.

"That's the way it is, is it?" It was more of an accusation than a question.

Dallas answered it just the same. "1'cs." She made no attemp to defend or justify her actions.

He studied her for a long, assessing second, then turned and gave a short and sharp decisive nod of his head. "It's time I had a talk with that boy."

She caught hold of his arm. "Grandpa, don't."

Empty turned in surprise, unable to recall the last time she had called him that. He was even more surprised to see that her eyes had the anxious and uncertain look of a little girl.

"What's wrong, Dallas?" he asked in concern.

"Nothing," she said quickly. "It's just that ... I'd like to get a couple of things straight with Quint first. When I do, there may not be any reason for you to talk to him."

Empty was old-fashioned enough in his ways that there was some things that he plain didn't want to know. Even though her explanation was far from informative, he didn't press for specifics.

"I'll wait," he said and continued across the hall to his bedroom door.

The microwave beeped, signaling the end of its timed cycle. A quick check of the pancakes on the griddle confirmed they wern't ready to flip. Leaving them, Dallas crossed to the microwave
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and removed a jug of maple syrup, careful not to glance in Quint's direction.

She already knew he was talking on the phone to Jessy. This was one time when she refused to listen and glean what information she could from his side of the conversation. It was a matter of tuning out the sound of his voice and tuning in the chirp of the hirds outside the window and the noisy clumpings coming from the porch, noises that her grandfather made removing boots muddy from morning chores. For the most part she succeeded.

Back at the stove, Dallas turned the pancakes and transferred the sausage patties onto a plate covered with a paper towel to absorb their excess grease. As she carried the plate to the table, her grandfather walked in his stocking feet, toting the egg bucket.

He set the bucket on the floor and sliced a glance at Quint as he paused to shed his hat and coat.

"Who's he talking to?" As usual Empty made no attempt to lower his voice.

"Jessy'" Dallas told him. "Better wash up. Breakfast is ready. Will two pancakes be enough?"

"Should do it," Empty agreed and went to the sink to wash up.

But the running water failed to drown out the sound of Quint voice. "I'll give you a call tomorrow after the semi pulls out. Let me know if he runs into any delays."

The response was obviously in the affirmative. After a last parting word, Quint hung up and walked over to the kitchen table, arriving just as Empty did.

"Sounds like you found an outfit to haul the cattle," Empty surmised, taking a seat. "Who'd you end up hiring?"

As she retrieved the platter of pancakes, kept warm in the oven, Dallas longed to cover her ears to shut out Quint's answer, then smiled, realizing it no longer mattered if she heard it.

"The same company who ships most of the cattle for the Triple C," Quint replied.

"A Montana outfit," Empty said in approval. "Rutledge will have a hard time getting to them.

Are you going to sell the cows up there, too?"

Free of inner tension, Dallas brought the pancakes and sausage, to the table and set them near her grandfather. Returning the smiling glance Quint directed her way suddenly became easy.

"We won't be selling them," Quint announced. "We'll ship them up to the Triple C instead."

"That's bound to get old Rutledge's goat when he hears about it," Empty declared. "It's for dang sure that it won't sit well with him. If you'd tried selling the cattle, you know he would have been looking for a way to make that sale hurt your pocket."

Dallas was briefly tempted to relay this information to Boone, just for the pleasure of knowing this was one move they couldn't use against Quint.

With an utterly free conscience, she asked, "When will the truck arrive?"

"Around midday tomorrow." Quint forked a stack of pancakes onto his plate. "Which means we'll make our gather and sort today..That way the ones we are shipping north will only have to be penned overnight. Thanks to Rutlrdge we have enough hay to feed them." he added, his gray eyes twinkling with the irony of that.

Empty grinned. "I never quite looked at it that way, but you know you're right." Empty picked up the jug of syrup and drowned his pancakes in it. "Where are you figuring on starting this gather ?"

" We'll start with the south pasture and sort as we go. Much of that area was burned so we should make short work of it." He slid a warmly intimate glance at Dallas. "Think you're up to a day in the saddle?"

He smiled at his ever so subtle reference to the previous night.

" I can handle it as easy as you."

Quint chose not to comment on that. "We won't be breaking for lunch so you'd better throw together some cold sandwiches after breakfast. Empty and I will get the horses saddled and ready."

Last night's rain had softened the parched ground, making it muddy in the low areas where the
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runoff had collected. No clouds lingered to mar the blue of the wide sky, but there was a touch of coolness in the fresh-smelling breeze.

Quint noticed little of it, his attention focused on the eight head of cattle, mostly heifers, trotting through the open gate into the west pasture. Dallas waited for them at a discreet distance from the gate, her presence on horseback applying an oblique pressure to turn them north.

When the last cow showed signs of balking, Quint pushed his horse forward to drive the animal through the gate, then rode through himself, preceded by his shadow. He glanced back at Empty and waited for him to draw abreast.

"I'll ride over and see what I can find on the other side of the river," Quint told him with a nod toward the tree-lined banks a hundred yards from them. "You check out this side."

Empty responded with an acknowledging nod, and Quint split away from him, pointing his horse toward the river and lifting into an easy lope. He noted with approval that Dallas had already moved her horse after the loosely bunched cattle, maintaining their northward drift.

Ahead of him, the river made a sweeping curve. Quint followed it until he came to a place where the bank sloped gently to the water's edge and a well-worn path identified it as a favored crossing point of the cattle. Reining in, he slowed his horse to a walk and swung it onto the cattle trail.

An earsplitting whistle pierced the morning air. Instantly Quint turned his horse away from the river, a frown gathering on his face. Empty Garner was the only one Quint had ever heard make a sound that shrill. And it wasn't a signal the canny old rancher would issue without cause.

Quickly he rode clear of the obstructing trees and spotted Empty some distance away. The old man motioned for him to come, thenn he dismounted to inspect something on the ground.

It wasn't until Quint rode closer that he saw the dead cow. Empty knelt on one knee beside the bloated carcass. When Quint halted up next to Empty's ground-hitched horse, the old man straightened up.

"What happened? Was it struck by lighting?" Quint asked, voicing his first thought.

"I wish," Empty replied grimly and continued his visual study of the dead animal.

"What do you mean?" Quint frowned and walked his horse closer.

"Take a look at that crusty discharge around the nose and the scoury look to the rump," he directed. "There's a dark bloody look to both. If I'm right about what killed it, you won't be shipping cattle anywhere for a while."

Quint immediately grasped the significance of the two symptoms. "You think it could be anthrax?"

Every cattleman had knowledge of it, although in Quint's case it wasn't firsthand. While the disease wasn't as common as it once had been, nearly every year isolated cases were reported Somewhere in the country.

" It look like anthrax to me." There was a certain gravity to Emptys expression. "Fifteen or twenty years back, the Barlow plot lost nearly a dozen head of cattle to anthrax. He told me one day they were fine, and the next they were dead. And I know for sure that I never noticed any sick cows except those fence-cut ones....when we checked this area the other day."

" I've heard anthrax can take them quick." Automatically Quint's attention shifted to the handful of cows within his range of vision, his mind already considering the possibility that others in the herd might have contracted it. "We'd better get the vet out here."

Dallas rode into view, pulling up a good distance from them.

What's wrong?" she called.

"Dead cow," Quint answered. "Ride back to the house and phone the vet, have him come out as soon as he can."

"Do you want me to call the rendering truck, too?" She had the horse on the bit, ready to ride away.

"No." Quint gave a firm shake of his head, recalling that care had to be taken in disposal of an infected carcass. "But tell the vet it looks like anthrax."

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"Anthrax." Like Quint, an instant after she assimilated the word, Dallas shot a look at the trio of cows grazing near the tree line, alert for any sign of illness or distress, leaving little doubt she had been raised on a cattle ranch.

"You might as well stay at the house and bring the vet out when he comes," Quint told her.