When Love Comes by Leigh Greenwood Page B

wasn’t surprised Carruthers had been able to convince Tom Mercer he was innocent. Mercer had the makings of a good sheriff, but Carruthers was rich and powerful, and they couldn’t prove anything beyond ordinary rivalry between cowhands.
    “It doesn’t matter what Mr. Carruthers’s motives are,” her mother said. “They don’t change the fact that he’ll do anything to drive us away.”
    “It’s unfair to keep saying that when you can’t prove it,” Gary protested.
    “You’re only objecting because you like Priscilla and she doesn’t like you.” Eddie had a way of reducing things to their essentials.
    “She does like me,” Gary said, “but she’d like me more if my whole family wasn’t ready to point a finger at her father every time a cow got a pimple.”
    “What about the bull getting out all the time?” Amandaasked. “And what about the hundred cows and calves Leo tells me are missing?”
    “A hundred cows!” her mother gasped. “That man will ruin us.”
    Gary threw Leo an angry glance. “We don’t know how many are missing.”
    “Only because we haven’t counted,” Leo said.
    “Why haven’t you counted?” her mother asked.
    “Cows wander all over looking for water and better grass when they’re not fenced,” Broc explained. “They scatter worse during storms, especially if there’s lightning. They also tend to stay away from people.”
    “Why aren’t our cows in pens?” Mrs. Liscomb asked. “That’s what my father did.”
    It wasn’t the first time Amanda wondered why her mother had insisted that her husband buy a ranch when she knew nothing about ranching and couldn’t seem to remember anything she’d been told.
    “Nobody in Texas fences their cows,” Gary said, exasperated.
    “Wood or timber fences are too expensive and take too much time to build and maintain,” Broc explained. “A Frenchman has been experimenting with twisting sharp points around wire, but so far I haven’t heard of anything like that for sale.”
    “I never heard of such a thing.” It was obvious Gary thought Broc was lying.
    “You will if he succeeds in producing a commercial product. It will end the open range. Ranchers will have to own the land they graze, not merely control it.”
    “Is this true?” Leo asked.
    “Of course not,” Gary said. “Nothing like that will ever happen.”
    Both Amanda and her mother turned to Broc.
    “The cattle industry in Texas is exploding. A cow that used to sell for three dollars in Texas can bring twenty dollars in Abilene. One that carries more meat can bring thirty or even forty dollars. Every rancher will soon be trying to do what you’re trying to do with this bull. It will be a lot easier and faster with fences.”
    If Amanda had had any doubt that Broc was an experienced cowhand, she didn’t doubt now.
    Her mother looked slightly dazed by Broc’s knowledge, but she recovered quickly. “That’s all the more reason for Carruthers to want us to fail,” she said.
    “If Carruthers wants you to fail, it’s because you keep accusing him of everything that goes wrong here.” Gary turned to his sister. “Priscilla wouldn’t even talk to me after you went to the sheriff.”
    “You should have been the one to do that,” Amanda told her brother.
    “What we should do is sell this ranch and this damned bull and go back into partnership with Corby or start our own saloon.” Gary glowed with the enthusiasm of a zealot. “I know all we need to know. With Amanda singing and waiting tables, we’d soon have all the business we could handle.”
    “I’m not very good with figures,” her mother said, “but if this man—” she pointed to Broc rather than using his name—“is correct in asserting that we can get as much as forty dollars for one cow, we’ll make more money with the ranch.”
    “It depends on how many cows you have and whether you can get them to Abilene carrying a lot of weight, but a hundred cows at forty dollars each is four