junkyard ever since I can remember. They’re poor white trash who got rich with oil but still act like trash. Think about the Oakley cousin who turned his honky tonk into a sex club after he lost his liquor license.”
Bye hadn’t thought Four would have a clue about what went on at the Neon Lasso. He wasn’t exactly the type to flaunt his sexual exploits where the neighbors could watch. Apparently, though, the old man kept his ear open to neighborhood gossip. “I know Buck. He seems to be a pretty decent sort. As for him turning the Neon Lasso into a BDSM club, he wasn’t left with much of a choice when he came back from prison and found his means of making an honest living running a bar had disappeared. What goes on there now isn’t against the law.”
“True. Anyhow, you don’t need to venture off the Rocking O to find examples of why everybody considers them trash. Slade Oakley has an itchy trigger finger, not to mention he hasn’t spent a sober day in my lifetime. Look down there. See how he’s let his pasture go to rack and ruin. It’s a goddamn disgrace.”
Bye fought an inexplicable impulse to defend Karen’s father. Nobody, not even Karen, defended him, though he’d heard she got riled up when folks talked bad about Slade in her hearing. “Why do the Oakleys hate the Cadens specifically? From what I hear, the feud’s been going on since long before you or Slade Oakley were born, but nobody seems to know why it got started.” He stowed the tools in the back of the Jeep and crawled back in beside his old man.
“My grandpa—that would be Byron Two—died long before I was born, and neither my father nor my grandfather would talk about it. All I know is what I heard folks whispering about in town when I was a kid. They talked about the first Oakley being a gunfighter who won the Rocking O in a card game, a few years after Lucas Caden had come here and bought up a dozen or more homesteads to form the nucleus of the Bar C. That was around 1881. Lucas had two sons, Luke and the first Byron.
“One story I remember was that Luke, the older son, took up with the gunfighter’s daughter and got her pregnant before he married the daughter of another neighboring rancher. As that story goes, Oakley shot Luke dead after his daughter died birthing her kid. After that, Oakley supposedly took off for parts unknown and got killed in a gunfight a few years later, up in Kansas.” Four shrugged. “Luke’s buried in the old family cemetery over there. The gravestone says he died in 1883.” He gestured toward a small plot surrounded with a fence made from blocks of native limestone.
“What about the Oakley girl’s baby?”
“He was stillborn.”
Good. There was no Caden blood running through Karen’s veins. Since yesterday Bye had become pretty damn concerned about incest and its possibilities. He swallowed hard, and his gaze shifted toward the line shack where he’d done very not-brotherly things with Karen yesterday and the day before. “So who carried on with the Oakley homestead if the owner took off?”
“The girl had a younger brother who stayed and ran the place. I remember that crazy old man. He must have been at least a hundred years old when I was a boy. He’d get liquored up and barge in at the house, accusing everybody of killing his sister and running his daddy away. I guess I must have been around eight years old when the old guy finally died and left the place to his younger son, Slade. Slade was just as mean as his father, even though he was still a teenager when he inherited.” Four shook his head and then started up the Jeep. “Your grandfather tried to buy the old man out, and after he died we made several decent offers to Slade. I tried again just last year to buy the Rocking O, but he ran me off his property with a shotgun. I’m damn lucky he didn’t blow me away.”
Bye whistled. “I’ve heard he’s quick on the trigger with his guns.”
“Yeah. For whatever reason, the
Bye hadn’t thought Four would have a clue about what went on at the Neon Lasso. He wasn’t exactly the type to flaunt his sexual exploits where the neighbors could watch. Apparently, though, the old man kept his ear open to neighborhood gossip. “I know Buck. He seems to be a pretty decent sort. As for him turning the Neon Lasso into a BDSM club, he wasn’t left with much of a choice when he came back from prison and found his means of making an honest living running a bar had disappeared. What goes on there now isn’t against the law.”
“True. Anyhow, you don’t need to venture off the Rocking O to find examples of why everybody considers them trash. Slade Oakley has an itchy trigger finger, not to mention he hasn’t spent a sober day in my lifetime. Look down there. See how he’s let his pasture go to rack and ruin. It’s a goddamn disgrace.”
Bye fought an inexplicable impulse to defend Karen’s father. Nobody, not even Karen, defended him, though he’d heard she got riled up when folks talked bad about Slade in her hearing. “Why do the Oakleys hate the Cadens specifically? From what I hear, the feud’s been going on since long before you or Slade Oakley were born, but nobody seems to know why it got started.” He stowed the tools in the back of the Jeep and crawled back in beside his old man.
“My grandpa—that would be Byron Two—died long before I was born, and neither my father nor my grandfather would talk about it. All I know is what I heard folks whispering about in town when I was a kid. They talked about the first Oakley being a gunfighter who won the Rocking O in a card game, a few years after Lucas Caden had come here and bought up a dozen or more homesteads to form the nucleus of the Bar C. That was around 1881. Lucas had two sons, Luke and the first Byron.
“One story I remember was that Luke, the older son, took up with the gunfighter’s daughter and got her pregnant before he married the daughter of another neighboring rancher. As that story goes, Oakley shot Luke dead after his daughter died birthing her kid. After that, Oakley supposedly took off for parts unknown and got killed in a gunfight a few years later, up in Kansas.” Four shrugged. “Luke’s buried in the old family cemetery over there. The gravestone says he died in 1883.” He gestured toward a small plot surrounded with a fence made from blocks of native limestone.
“What about the Oakley girl’s baby?”
“He was stillborn.”
Good. There was no Caden blood running through Karen’s veins. Since yesterday Bye had become pretty damn concerned about incest and its possibilities. He swallowed hard, and his gaze shifted toward the line shack where he’d done very not-brotherly things with Karen yesterday and the day before. “So who carried on with the Oakley homestead if the owner took off?”
“The girl had a younger brother who stayed and ran the place. I remember that crazy old man. He must have been at least a hundred years old when I was a boy. He’d get liquored up and barge in at the house, accusing everybody of killing his sister and running his daddy away. I guess I must have been around eight years old when the old guy finally died and left the place to his younger son, Slade. Slade was just as mean as his father, even though he was still a teenager when he inherited.” Four shook his head and then started up the Jeep. “Your grandfather tried to buy the old man out, and after he died we made several decent offers to Slade. I tried again just last year to buy the Rocking O, but he ran me off his property with a shotgun. I’m damn lucky he didn’t blow me away.”
Bye whistled. “I’ve heard he’s quick on the trigger with his guns.”
“Yeah. For whatever reason, the
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