Beckett's Birthright. Bronwyn Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ christened Thomas O’Neal some twenty-nine years ago and called Streak o’ Lean for as long as anyone could remember, had been here longer than any other member of the crew except for Shem.

      The day was Wednesday, unless Eli had missed a few days on his calendar. He always reported on Fridays. Searching his mind, he tried to think of anything he’d done lately that might have warranted the peremptory summons.

      The corn was finally in the ground. Late, but that was hardly his fault. The haying was well underway and the tally-branding was scheduled to start early next week, probably on Monday if they got the chute repaired by then.

      Eli took his time crossing the yard. The housekeeper, Pearly May, yanked open the door and glared at him. Without thinking, he wiped his feet off on the filthy scrap of rug on the front porch. Not that it would have made much difference if he’d tracked in half the mud in Orange County. He didn’t know what the woman did to earn her keep, but it sure as hell wasn’t floor scrubbing. As for her cooking, the less said, the better. He’d had the dubious privilege of taking supper at the Jackson’s table. They’d been served underboiled chicken, over-boiled cabbage and biscuits that might’ve won the war for the South if they’d been used as ammunition.

      “In there,” the housekeeper snapped, jerking her head in the general direction of the big walnut-paneled front room.

      “Thank you, ma’am.”

      She snorted. Eli grinned and entered the lion’s den. “You don’t want nothing to drink, do you?” she growled.

      He was tempted to say yes, just to see how she would react. “Thank you kindly, Miss Pearly May, I just finished supper.”

      Without another word she stalked off down the wide hall, smelling of sweat, onions and vanilla extract. God knows why Jackson kept her around. She was probably the only woman who could put up with his cantankerousness. He might be a smart man, but when it came to charm, Burke Jackson couldn’t charm his way out of a gopher hole.

      Of Lilah Jackson, there was no sign. Evidently, her duty was finished once she’d delivered the message. Eli entered the room and nodded to his employer, aware once again of the overpowering smell composed of liniment and something that smelled a lot like tobacco. Jackson had been told to throw away his cigars. Whether or not he had remained to be seen.

      If the quick grimace could be interpreted as a smile, Jackson was in an unusually genial mood. “Heard you put a new man onto the books.” The smile disappeared as he leveled the charge at point-blank range. “What you got to say about that?”

      Since he hadn’t been invited to sit, Eli leaned against a dusty credenza. “You heard right.”

      “That’s what I hired you for. You ain’t up to the job, say so.”

      “Ace is better with numbers than I am. I’m starting him on the monthly accounts, under my supervision. If things work well enough I’ll extend his responsibilities. We’re shorthanded, Jackson. I can’t be in the office and out checking up on the new hands at the same time. Maybe if we increased the pay a few dollars, we’d get some competent men and I wouldn’t have to spend so much time keeping behind them.”

      “I pay ’em what they’re worth.”

      “And get what you pay for.”

      “Shem did all that and still kept the books.”

      “Shem’s eyesight has been bothering him.” Eli wouldn’t say more than that. Jackson had to know that the old man had allowed things to slide for so long that it had taken Eli weeks to sort things out. In some cases, all he could do was cut his losses and start fresh. “Most operations this size hire a bookkeeper, a herd manager and a general manager.”

      “How many spreads you worked on?”

      “I believe we went over this before I was hired.”

      “Wild West cattle. Spanish stock, all bones, horns and gristle. What d’you think of my herd?”

      Eli banked the coals of anger. Jackson was working toward a point. He would get there in his own time. Eli could afford to be patient. He had a new lead; he could move on anytime, but it suited him better to wait until he’d picked up a bit more information. It would be best if he could do it without arousing too much interest, but if weeks passed and he learned nothing more, he might just have to lean on Glover a bit to improve his memory.

      First, though, he needed to know whether or not he could trust him. Giving him a set of books to work on was a test. Eli fully intended to go over every single entry and keep his own tally.

      The older man, swallowed up by a king-size chair and ottoman, studied him from beneath bushy white brows. Burke Jackson couldn’t be much more than fifty, yet he looked to be at least twenty years older.

      “Well? I asked you a question, boy. Speak up.”

      “It’s good stock. It’ll bring top prices, especially as you can freight it to market directly instead of having to drive it a hundred or so miles to the nearest railhead.”

      “What d’you think o’ my daughter?”

      Eli cleared his throat. Talk about coming out of left field. “Your daughter? Well, uh—” Definitely more than bones, horns and gristle, although he didn’t think the old man would appreciate the comparison. “She rides well.”

      “Ha! Rides like a damned man. I spent a fortune sending her to that fancy girls’ school and what do I get back? A bossy female that dresses like a man and sneaks around behind my back, stealing food out of the kitchen to feed a pack of poachers!”

      That one, he wasn’t about to touch. Poachers? Shem evidently knew where she went several times a week. If there was a problem he’d have reported it, either to Eli or to Jackson himself.

      “As to that, I couldn’t say.” He was wondering how to end the conversation and escape. Wondering why he’d been summoned in the first place. He’d actually taken a step toward the door when the man seated in the leather-covered chair, a lap robe spread over his short legs even though the weather felt more like June than early May—spoke again.

      “I’m dying, you know.”

      Eli dropped his hat. As Pearly May hadn’t offered to take it and hang it up for him, he’d been holding it ever since he’d arrived. He cleared his throat again. What the hell did a man say to something like that?

      “I guess we all are.” A philosopher he wasn’t, but some truths, he’d heard tell, were self-evident.

      Jackson uttered a short nasty laugh, which turned into a fit of coughing. Before Eli could decide whether to whack the man on the back or summon help, Lilah burst into the room and demanded to know what in hell’s name he had said to her father to set him off.

      “Ma’am, I didn’t—”

      “Don’t you ma’am me, you scoundrel, or I’ll tell my father—”

      The look on her face was priceless. Eli had no trouble finishing the rest of her accusation. She would tell his father that Eli had followed her when she’d gone out riding?

      But then she would have to admit what she’d been up to. Whoever lived in that cabin, poachers or not, he СКАЧАТЬ