Beckett's Birthright

Not that she’d exactly been sneaking. She’d headed off down the lane in broad daylight, both saddlebags full to busting. He’d ridden on past to check the condition of a section they been clearing. Jackson had been using it for a woodlot. Once they cleared out the stumps, he planned to turn it into another pasture unless Jackson had other plans.

When he’d ridden past the cabin on his way back, she’d still been inside. Sensing his distraction, Demon had started acting up and it had been all Eli could do to stay aboard.

Dammit, he’d been hired to oversee the operation of Jackson’s cow farm, not to keep his daughter out of trouble. God help the man who signed on for that duty.

For the next three days in a row Eli watched her ride off down the back lane. It was none of his business where she went or who she met up with. He hadn’t bothered to ask Shem, maybe because he didn’t want to know. He’d sooner come between a hawk and a three-legged rabbit than try to run interference between a hardheaded man and his headstrong daughter.

While Mickey was rounding up strays, getting ready for weaning and castrating last fall’s crop of calves, the driest of the cornfields was being seeded by a couple of the newer hands. It was hard, monotonous work, but it was what farmers did. If they’d signed on thinking they were going to be cowboys, they wouldn’t last long. The men who worked with the herd had to do more than wear the right hat. Mickey was experienced. His helper, another of the other new hires, had worked briefly on a Florida cattle ranch.

And then there was Streak, the herd boss, who was slow, deliberate and methodical. He kept records in his head, which was a problem for anyone trying to maintain an overall view of the operation, but Streak was a good man. And like Shem, he thought the sun rose and set on Miss Lilah’s head.

Eli made the rounds each day, checking on the work in progress. Repairs on the damaged chute and the shed roof they were extending weren’t finished yet, but until the corn was in and he had manpower to spare, they’d hold. He’d sent a man out at first light to check the fences. That was a mandatory daily patrol. Now he lingered to look over the new crop of calves, and then rode out to see how the planting was coming along.

One thing he hadn’t quite figured out yet was the difference between Carolina and Oklahoma when it came to crops and seasons. Back home he’d barely got started on his plan to fence and stock the land he’d inherited from his grandfather. Having left his fortune with Lance Beckett, he’d had to start all over again. He’d got as far as running a few lines of fence and had made plans to buy out a cattleman whose wife insisted on going back to Baltimore when everything had come apart.

Eli was still musing on the unlikely train of events that had brought him east again when Shem rode up, spat a wad of tobacco and said, “Three new men just turned up. Word o’ mouth, I reck’n. I thought we took down the hirin’ sign at the feed and seed.”

“Did it last week. Farmers or cowhands?”

“Bit o’ both, I reckon, ‘pending on what we need. Right now I’d say we need this weather to hold long enough to finish getting them seeds in the ground. Time we wind up there, we’ll have us another crop of hay to get in. I ‘clare, if this ain’t been the wettest spring since Noah went into the boat-building business.”

“Glad to hear it’s unusual,” Eli commented, not that he’d be here come another spring. Might not even make it to harvest time, if he got lucky. “Miss Jackson went out again today on the mare. I understand she has friends in that direction?” He nodded toward the lane that led through forty acres of second-growth timber to the woodlot and the hayfields beyond.

“The Randalls. Her paw don’t know, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let on.”

“Jackson doesn’t know what? That she has friends?”

“Truth to tell, he don’t know no more about her than he has to. Dang shame, if you ask me, but he ain’t about to change his spots just ’cause he’s a sick man.”

The conversation turned in another direction then. Burke Jackson’s health. It was Shem’s opinion—Eli wasn’t entirely sure he was joking—that the man was being slowly poisoned by that evil old woman’s foul cooking. From what Eli had seen and heard, Jackson’s housekeeper was a slovenly woman who should have been fired years ago.

“That woman can sour a pan o’ milk just by looking at it.”

“What about the daughter? Can’t she step in?”

The old man removed his hat and scratched his bald, freckled head. “Burke won’t listen to her. Never did, not since she was a little thing, sweet as cane and wantin’ to please. No, sir, that man’s miserable and he’s gonna make dang sure ever’body else is just as miserable.”

Eli had trouble picturing Lilah Jackson as a little thing fitting Shem’s description. Whatever she was up to, he didn’t have time to oversee her as well as the rest of Jackson’s operation, even if he’d been so inclined. Spring was a busy time. But then, so was fall. In fact, if there was a slack time on a farm, he had yet to discover it.

Right now there was the first haying and late planting to oversee, not to mention ongoing repairs and improvements. The new crop of calves should have been culled more than a month ago, but due to both the weather and a shortage of manpower, they were running considerably behind. Still to be done was castrating and hair-branding. It was a noisy, dirty business, one he wasn’t looking forward to. Streak, Mickey and a few more men would do the actual work, but Eli was responsible. He’d once worked briefly on a ranch where some numbskull had mistaken his orders, turned the culls out to pasture and made steers of what would have been five valuable bulls.

An hour later Eli interviewed the new men and hired all three. One was the youngest son of a dairy farmer—some experience there. Another was a trapper from up in the mountains, skills that might come in handy if the damned groundhogs didn’t stop digging holes in the pastures. He’d seen more than one horse lost that way.

It was the third man who interested him the most, however. Ace Glover claimed to be a professional gambler in a Midwestern casino before losing the three middle fingers on his card-dealing hand.

“Mind telling me why you applied for work on a cattle farm?”

“A man’s got to eat,” Ace Glover said with a shrug. “I tried dealing left-handed. Tried wearing a glove with plugged fingers.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t the same. Too distracting. Eventually I worked my way east, trying a number of different lines of work. I worked on a gambling boat out of Tampa for a couple of weeks. Big, fancy side-wheeler. Now there’s a line of work I’d be very good at. Trouble is, even tied up in port I got so sick I couldn’t look at a glass of water without wanting to throw up.”

Eli shook his head in commiseration. “You know anything at all about farming?”

“No, but I’m a quick study. I can learn.”

“Know anything about livestock?”

“Like I said, I can learn.”

Eli tipped back his chair, regarding the applicant with a measuring look. The man’s suit had once been expensive, but it was starting to take on the shine of too much wear. Eli had learned about such things from Lance—hell, he even knew how to take the shine off good serge, come to that. Not that he’d ever bothered.

Not that he even owned a serge suit. Levi’s and leather were good enough for the life he led.

Neither man spoke as each measured the other. Ace Glover might not know a damn thing about cattle, but Eli suspected he was shrewd, probably highly intelligent. Like most gamblers, he’d be a good judge of men, which could be a decided asset on a spread with as big a turnover as the Bar J.

Glover crossed his legs. To all appearances, he was totally relaxed, but Eli had had some experience when it came to reading men, too.

He waited, knowing he had the advantage.

Feeling almost ashamed to use that advantage when a man had had a long run of bad luck, as Glover obviously had.

The gambler broke first. “I’ve got a good brain, but there’s a limit on what I can do with my hands. I’ve heard farming’s not an easy job, but I was hoping…” With a wintry smile, he let it rest.

“You heard right. You sure you want to tackle it?”

“A man has to eat,” Ace repeated. “Of course, if I were a fisherman, that wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, the last thing in the world I felt like doing during my two weeks in the Gulf of Mexico was eating.” Both men chuckled, which gave Eli the opening he’d been looking for.

“I’ve heard it said that professional gambling can be almost as risky as farming. Maybe not as physically demanding, but I’ve heard it can turn a man’s hair white overnight. You ever hear of anything like that?”

Glover pursed his lips under a pencil-thin mustache. He looked down at shoes that were long past their prime, but still reflected a shine. “Matter of fact, there was this fellow I met once…” Eli’s fingers tightened around the pencil he held. “Man swore he’d turned white overnight when some hayseed—nothing personal, Mr. Chandler—pulled a gun on him and shot the cards right out of his hand.”

Eli’s body absorbed the jolt of excitement that streaked through him like a lightning bolt. He’d had leads before. Dozens of them, but no matter how promising they seemed in the beginning, few of them had panned out.

He nodded to Glover’s hand and lifted an eyebrow.

The gambler laughed and shook his head. “They weren’t shot off, if that’s what you mean. I tangled with one of these newfangled automobiles. Dangerous machines, I’m telling you. I’ll stick to horses.”

“Smart man. No point in going gray before your time.” The newcomer’s hair was patent-leather black, and just as shiny.

“The man I mentioned—I don’t recall his name, but he had a remarkable streak of snow-white hair. Just a streak, mind you.” He touched his head just to the left of the center part. “Put a man in mind of a skunk.”

Eli eased out the breath he’d been holding, not showing by so much as a twitch the excitement that was beginning to build. This was the first solid lead he’d had in months. There was always the possibility that the man he’d been trailing was playing games, sending Glover in to taunt him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that. Once in Knoxville, when Eli had casually asked after a gambler with a streak of white hair, he’d been given an envelope.

“Man came through here day before yesterday. Said you might be wantin’ to know his whereabouts. Said to give you this here letter. Feels like they might be some money in it.”

He’d waited until he was outside to open the envelope. Cat and mouse wasn’t a game he’d ever liked, but when he played it, he’d always been the cat. The hunter.

When the poker chip with a white streak painted across the middle had fallen out into his palm, he’d gone cold with rage.

And then hot with determination.