Chapter 5: Down To Business

Jesse drove the wagon back into its place under the protective extended roof and unhooked the clevis. He refueled and drove the snow cat back to the barn. Just as Jesse closed the doors behind him, the wind came up again. Visibility dropped to inches as the soft powder snow swirled again into the air. He fumbled around to the nylon line tied between the house and the horse barn, then followed the line back to the front porch.

Once inside, he shucked the heavy outer clothing and made his way to the kitchen to put on another pot of coffee. He looked over at the couch. Marie Ford was still asleep. His lips made a half smiling grimace.

Jesse shook his head in wonder at all the trouble she had brought into his life. "Hell," he mumbled to himself, "And here I've only known her less than half a day. Damned pain in the ass women."

It felt good to relax for twenty minutes of rest. Then he suited back up for the cold and made his way to the milk barn. The milk cows were already waiting for him with heads through the stanchions. He locked the stanchions so the cattle could not walk away while he was milking them. He poured out the rations of grain and began the evening milking.

"Oh for the life of a rollicking cowboy," he sang softly under his breath. "I wonder what a cowboy does when he rollicks?" he asked himself half aloud. Several mental pictures of a ridiculous nature chased through his mind. "Damn, I'm growing crazier than ever from this weather."

As soon as the milk was separated and fed to the chickens and hogs, Jesse gathered the eggs, stored them in the waiting egg cases and then returned to the house. As he removed his clothing down to the thermal drawers he heard a woman's voice singing a show tune. She had a passable fair alto voice, untrained but fairly strong and even. The singing came from the bedroom.

He turned on the news and watched the stock report until, minutes later a rested Marie came out of the bedroom dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. It was obvious she had nothing on under the tee shirt. She was fresh bathed and had her hair tied back in a loose ponytail. She was barefoot. Jesse glanced at her, grabbed up the remote and turned off the television.

"You feeling any better?" he asked politely.

"Yes, thank you." She blushed and hesitated, searched for the words she wanted to say and finally blurted out, "I would like to apologize for the way I acted earlier today. I can't remember much of what I said, but what I do recall I am ashamed of. I'm sorry."

"That's okay, no problem. Sleep deprivation, coupled with intense emotional crises often causes aberrant behavior." He smiled and gestured for her to sit on the couch.

"You have medical training?" she asked, surprised.

"Well, not so's you would notice it. I just quoted what a shrink told me after they threw me in the guardhouse because I beat the crap out of a Muslim not-so-holy man. Who got his stinking breath up in my face." He grinned at the memory.

"Oh," she answered, at loss for words. Then she said, "I hope you aren't going to beat the crap out of me." Something in her demeanor suggested this had happened to her in the past, even though she tried to pass it off as a joke.

"Oh no, not unless you have a mouth full of rotting teeth and bad breath," he told her seriously. "Now your teeth look all right from here."

Not certain how to respond, she changed the subject slightly, "What happened after they locked you up?"

"I was court-martialed and given a reprimand. They didn't dare do much more because the rest of the company was damned near ready to mutiny. The only other time I ever saw my guys get that pissed was when the president came over to have his picture taken with some grateful troops. We all refused and they had to bring some supply personnel and office clerks over to get their picture taken with that ass hole."

She laughed and asked what happened to the holy man. "Now that was interesting. He came up to me again after I was released and started to get back in my face again. I yelled "Brother!" and hugged him. Then I released him and turned to his friends and told them I was sorry for the way I laid hands on him. I didn't realize he was working for the US government and was a Christian.

"Good grief, he was actually working for our side?" she asked, amazed.

"Nah, he was nowhere near working for us. But after the people who understood a little English translated what I said to the ones who didn't, they stoned him to death. I beat feet away before they started in on me." He smiled at the memory.

She looked at him, horrified, "You caused that man's death."

"No way. If he had left me alone he would probably still be alive today. He brought things on himself. I think hard, act with due deliberation and leave my mark behind. Life is too short for useless bull crap." Jesse stood and took his coffee cup into the kitchen. Just then the phone rang. "Get it, please," he told her.

As he poured a refill, she called from the front room, "It's somebody named Troy. He says it's important."

"Hell, what now?" he sighed. He accepted the kitchen phone from her phone, "What is it?"

"Two things, Jesse," Troy's voice came back to him. "First I wrecked your snowmobile and second we got a flier in the mail about the one you killed and the one you beat up. It's a notification from the FBI that those two and at least a half dozen others, all ex-cops, are wanted for interstate flight to avoid arrest and a few other minor charges, including murder. I notified the feds what happened up here and am now waiting for a reply.

"I'm real sorry about your snowmobile. It's totaled." Troy did sound contrite.

"What happened? I know you're a good driver." The loss of the snowmobile, even temporarily was a hard hit on his meager resources. But there was no reason to blame his friend. Troy was careful in everything he did.

"You know that rock fence just outside of town? Somehow I veered off the trail, hit the damned thing and tore your machine up bad. It was totaled. Only the engine was salvaged. I'm real sorry, Jesse. I'm real sorry."

"It's insured, don't worry about it. I'm more concerned about those ex-cops. If they show up looking for me or Marie Ford, you just go all Barney Fife on them, tell them aw shucks and call me. I'll handle it out here."

"I hope you know what you are doing, man. Those guys are supposed to be real bad medicine. You shouldn't have a woman out there with you because she might get mixed up in this trouble with you. I'll call you if anything happens out this way. Bye." He hung up.

Jesse turned away from the phone and said, "We need to sit down and get our heads working. You have brought a whole ton of trouble to me and I am not quite certain I am up to dealing with it."

He sat in his usual place at the table and motioned for her to join him. "This is come to Jesus time. I don't want any lies, evasions or half-truths from you. If I get the hint of a lie, I'll take you into Walden and dump your butt off at the sheriff's office for him to deal with. Do you understand?" His face seemed carved out of granite.

"Yes," she said weakly. She realized this was a man who was hard in ways she never expected a man to be. "What do you want to know?" Inside Marie was quivering with fear. She looked closer at this big harsh man who held her life in his hands. She was completely helpless. Her future depended on the whims of Jesse Morgan. However, right then she was too scared to be resentful.

"First off, are you the captain's daughter?" he stared straight into her eyes, never blinking. His eyes seemed to bore straight into her skull.

"Yes. I never even knew about this place until he was released from prison to die. He had terminal lung cancer. He asked me to take him in, so I did. A year after he moved into my house he died. I had already quit college to care for him. He always had money, though. No matter how much was needed for food, medicine, whatever, he just wrote a check and that check was always good.

"He showed me the nugget and the map and told me how he had loaned you ten thousand dollars start up money when your loans and savings were all used up. He bragged how he had it set up for someone to ease you out, as he put it, when the time was right. He said you were sitting on a fortune and didn't even realize it. I thought it was so much talk. Then the attaché case disappeared and I never saw it again until today.

"Then just before he died I went through his file cabinet and found his bank book. The money was nearly all gone. The other papers were for some junk bonds and penny stocks, also a mining claim that turned out to be worthless. Then I found a copy of the agreement you two signed and his lawyer's address. The agreement had been preassigned to me so there were no inheritance tax to worry about. The next day after Daddy died his lawyer tried to buy the agreement from me for half its ten thousand dollar face value. I refused. Daddy died and then Barry moved in. There you have the whole sordid story."

Jesse told her, "I don't know how legal that agreement is, considering the circumstances, but to me a deal is a deal. I keep my word. This is a working ranch that means we work. One thing though, if you want to share in the profits, you have to work to do it. Agreed?"

"Yes," she was fast to answer. In front of her was a type of man she had never met before, an honest one. She was not certain how to respond to him. "I don't know anything about ranching so you will have to teach me. But I'll try my best to learn. I do know how to ride horses, though. I had a boyfriend in high school who took me riding with him in Central Park every Sunday."

Jesse smiled at the mental image of Marie riding to the post, bouncing mechanically up and down at a canter, all stiff and proper. "Ah, yeah. This is a little different from some postage stamp saddle and clopping around a bridle path. You ever ride a western saddle?" He worked hard to keep the smirk of his lips and did not quite succeed.

Damn him! He just put her on the defensive. Marie swallowed her anger and answered, "Well, no. But I did canter and even galloped a few times." She hated the way he made her feel so inadequate.

"I'm sure you'll do fine," he told her in a kindly voice. "Well there is one thing, you don't have any bad habits to break."

"You heard me when I said I would do my best," she snapped at him. "You had to learn at one time." She dared him to deny this.

"Look, I said you would do fine. Now get the chip off your shoulder and let's see if we can get you outfitted for the cold. The people who owned this place before me left everything behind except the clothes on their backs. When they sold out, they both swore they would never need work clothes again.

"She was a little larger than you but her stuff might work until we can go into town and get you outfitted all proper like. I laundered everything and boxed it up." He led the way into the bedroom closet, pulled out two boxes marked "Winter clothes" and placed them on the bed.

"I feel kind of funny pawing through another person's clothing," she told him, embarrassed. "I mean, well, it's sort of personal."

"You have your choice, paw through or freeze. I checked when I came back in from the chores. Right now it's twenty-three below outside with wind chill. You won't last long at that temperature without proper clothes to keep you warm. I'll bring those two suitcases in from your Jeep so you have underwear and whatever. As for the rest you need warm clothing and this is all there is. You wear hand me downs or freeze. There is no room for squeamishness when you are a cattle rancher." He turned and left the room.

His words echoed inside her after he left the room. Yes, that was what she was to become, a cattle rancher. She smiled a proud, self conscious, foolish smile. Then Marie was scared again. The future suddenly seemed impossible. At first, all she had wanted to do was get as much money as she could from him and keep running as far away as she could from that insane Barry. The whole mess ... She shook her head and concentrated on the clothes on the bed.