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  “Well,” Dolores said a moment later as the breeze shredded the dust left behind by the buggy’s departure, “I seem to have been wrong about you, Mr. Morgan. You’re not working for Victor Magnusson after all.”

  Frank smiled. “Not unless he’s putting on a mighty good act.”

  Dolores shook her head and said, “That man couldn’t put on an act like that. That would require intelligence and subtlety, two things in which Victor Magnusson is sorely lacking!”

  She glared after the buggy, which was dwindling in the distance, for a moment, then went on. “Don’t take this to mean that anyone on this ranch has grown fond of you, Mr. Morgan. There’s still the matter of what happened to Lonnie.” She paused and shrugged. “But Jeff made it clear that Lonnie started the trouble. I’ll make sure Pete and the rest of the men understand that you’re not to be harmed while you’re on Montero range . . . at least not by anyone who works here. I can’t speak for interlopers such as Magnusson.”

  “I’ll take my chances with him,” Frank said.

  “We all take our chances with life, don’t we?” she mused. With a toss of her head, she turned toward the house. “Come along. Pilar should have lunch ready soon.”

  Chapter 10

  Frank and Dolores went back into the hacienda. She took his hat this time, since he was going to be staying for a while, and hung it on a set of antlers mounted on the wall near the door for that purpose.

  The servant woman Pilar appeared, and told Dolores in Spanish that the meal was ready in the dining room. “This way,” Dolores said to Frank.

  She led him into a large, airy room dominated by a long, heavy hardwood table. Tall windows looked out on a garden courtyard built in the center of the hacienda. Water trickled from a fountain into a pool in the middle of the courtyard. The pool was surrounded by bright flowers, and ivy climbed sinuously up the walls surrounding the courtyard.

  It was a beautiful setting, but it also had an air of barbarity and even decadence about it. The pool looked like it ought to have nymphs dancing naked in it, Frank thought. He had seen a few illustrations like that in books as well.

  Pilar already had the food on the table: warm tortillas, beans, strips of roasted beef, chilies . . . There was nothing fancy about the fare, but it looked good to Frank.

  Tasted good, too, he discovered as he and Dolores sat down and began to eat. Pilar appeared again and filled glasses with dark red wine.

  Frank enjoyed the food and enjoyed the company as well, although Dolores was still a bit cool and reserved. She wasn’t going to forget that he had killed one of her ranch hands, no matter what the circumstances had been.

  “Tell me about the trouble you’ve been having,” Frank prompted.

  “Why? Not to be rude, but our problems are no business of yours, Mr. Morgan.”

  He shrugged. “Call me curious, I guess.” He reserved judgment on whether or not to tell her about his connection with Stafford. He added with a smile, “And call me Frank, too.”

  “I think I prefer Mr. Morgan.”

  “As you will, Señora.”

  After a moment, she said, “Our troubles began even before my husband’s death. Victor Magnusson and other wildcatters approached Francisco and attempted to make arrangements to drill for oil on our range. He refused, of course, telling them the same thing I told you—this is a rancho, not an oil field. And then he threw them out.”

  “I reckon Magnusson didn’t want to take no for an answer. Probably didn’t care much for being tossed out on his ear either.”

  Dolores shook her head. “He was furious. He said that he was only trying to be polite, that he could drill wherever he wanted because much of the land that comprises Salida del Sol was granted to the Montero family by the King of Spain. The legality of those land grants as far as the American government is concerned is still a matter of some dispute.”

  “So Magnusson regards most of your ranch as open range?”

  “Sí. There is a smaller area here around the hacienda that Francisco filed on again, once California became part of the United States, but he saw no need to file such claims on land the Montero family had been using for generations.”

  Frank nodded. That sort of thinking had backfired on many a cattle baron and helped to start more than one range war across the West, he mused. Earlier generations had felt like the land was theirs by right of usage, and they didn’t need any pieces of paper from the government to back up those claims.

  The government saw things differently, though, and so did the opportunists who had swooped in to put an effective end to the open-range era.

  Victor Magnusson was a different sort of opportunist. He didn’t want to run his own cattle or sheep on Montero range. He wanted what was underneath that land.

  But maybe he was just as ruthless as the interlopers had been in other places. Maybe when it came to getting what he wanted, he was willing to do whatever it took.

  “Not long after that, Francisco died,” Dolores went on.

  “If you don’t mind talking about it, what happened to him?” Frank asked. “Was he sick?”

  She shook her head. “No, despite his age, he was still a vital, healthy man. But he was thrown from his horse and struck his head on a rock. Pete found him shortly after it happened, but there was nothing anyone could do.”

  A frown creased Frank’s forehead. “You’re sure it was an accident?”

  “You think someone might have killed him?”

  “He’d already had a run-in with Magnusson. I saw for myself what that hombre’s like when he’s got a burr under his saddle.”

  Dolores smiled sadly and shook her head. “In my grief over Francisco’s death, I would have gladly blamed Magnusson. But Francisco lived for a short time after Pete brought him back here, and he told me himself how the buzz of a rattlesnake in the brush had frightened his horse. Francisco was an excellent rider, but even he could be taken by surprise. When the horse leaped away from the snake, he was thrown off.”

  “That’s a real shame. You have my sympathy and my condolences, Señora.”

  “Some time has passed,” Dolores said. “The pain is not as great as it once was. But I still miss Francisco, and I will every day for the rest of my life.”

  Frank nodded. He had lost loved ones, too, and not a day passed that he didn’t think about them. So he knew how Dolores felt.

  She took a deep breath and resumed the story. “As I said, things had begun to happen even before Francisco’s death. Magnusson moved one of his drilling machines onto Montero range, in one of the canyons northwest of here. When Pete and some of the men rode over there to tell him to get out, they were confronted by guards with rifles. That could have been a very bad day, a bloody day. Pete was cool-headed enough, though, to keep our men from going for their guns. Not long after that, our cattle began to disappear, and shots were taken at my men as they went about their business on the ranch.”

  “Anybody been killed?” Frank already knew from Stafford that wasn’t the case, but he wanted to hear all of it from Dolores, too.

  “No, Dios be praised. Several men have suffered wounds, though. It cannot be tolerated.”

  “Has anybody tried to track the bushwhackers?”

  “Of course. But they retreat into the foothills, where the canyons are rugged and a trail is easily lost.”

  “And Magnusson keeps moving in more and more drilling rigs.”

  Frank saw the sudden weariness in her eyes as she nodded. He could tell that she was getting tired of fighting.

  “Yes, he encroaches more and more on our land. I have complained to the sheriff, but he says that until the matter of ownership is settled in the courts, there is nothing he can do.”

  There might be some validity to that stance, Frank thought, but he would have been willing to bet that Magnusson and the other wildcatters had something to do with the sheriff’s decision not to get involved, too. He made a mental note to ask John J. Stafford how the court cases involving Spanish
land grants were coming along. Frank had always stayed away from lawyers and legal matters as much as he could, but he knew how these things could stretch out interminably.

  And while that was going on, Magnusson was sinking his claws deeper and deeper into Montero range.

  Frank took a sip of wine, then said, “I appreciate you indulging my curiosity this way, Señora.”

  “You are a guest in my home,” Dolores said, as if that explained everything. And to an extent, it did, Frank thought.

  “I hope you won’t think me rude if I ask you to tell me more about your husband.”

  A smile curved her full red lips. “You mean how a woman such as myself wound up married to a man more than thirty years older? Such things are common, you know. A rich old man, a young woman . . .”

  “I meant no offense, Señora, I assure you.”

  “And I take no offense, Mr. Morgan. You know nothing of us here in the valley. My family and Francisco’s family have been friends for many years. For generations.”

  Frank nodded, knowing that the old California families had a tendency to intermarry.

  “My name was Dolores Sandoval.”

  “Related to Jorge Sandoval?”

  “You know the name then?”

  “I’ve heard it,” Frank said with a shrug, not mentioning that it had been Stafford who told him about Jorge Sandoval.

  “Jorge is my brother.”

  “He owns a ranch here in the valley, too, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s right. And he believed that once Francisco was gone, Salida del Sol would belong to the Sandovals as well.” Dolores took a sip of her wine. “He was wrong.”

  “You didn’t want to merge the ranches?”

  “Why would I wish to do that? Salida del Sol is the largest, most prosperous ranch in the valley.”

  “It would be even bigger if it was joined with your brother’s ranch,” Frank pointed out.

  “I could not do that to Francisco,” she said with a shake of her head. “This is Montero range. It will always be Montero range.”

  “Even though Don Francisco is the last of the Monteros?”

  She set her wine glass down and gave Frank a cool stare. “A guest has responsibilities, too. One of them is not to pry too deeply in his host’s affairs.”

  “My apologies, Señora,” Frank said. “But when you married Don Francisco, surely your brother had in mind—”

  “You think my brother sold me to Francisco in exchange for Salida del Sol?” she asked with a flare of anger. “That would make me no better than a common whore!”

  “I’ve insulted you. That was not my intention. You have my sincere apologies—”

  “I care nothing for your apologies, Señor Morgan. Your opinion is meaningless to me. And I know nothing of any arrangements made between my brother and Francisco. All I know is that this is Montero range, and I am a Montero, and I intend to fight for it until my dying breath!”

  With her full breasts rising and falling and her eyes bright with anger, Frank thought she was lovelier than ever. Of course, he had no business thinking such things, he reminded himself. He was considerably older than her, too, although the gap between them was only about half of what it had been between Dolores and Francisco Montero.

  Given everything he had learned today, and the fact that Dolores was already aware of his name and reputation, Frank didn’t think there was any point in withholding the rest of the truth from her any longer. He said, “I’d like to help you fight for this range, Señora Montero.”

  “I have no need of a hired gunfighter!”

  Frank sighed. “I keep telling folks I don’t hire out my gun, but for some reason they don’t want to believe me.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I’m offering to help as a friend.”

  “A friend? I never met you until today.”

  “No, but I’m friends with a man named Claudius Turnbuckle,” Frank said.

  “Turnbuckle?” Understanding began to dawn on Dolores’s face as she repeated the name. “He is a lawyer?”

  “That’s right. He’s John J. Stafford’s partner. And I’m a client of Turnbuckle and Stafford, just like you.”

  “But you are . . .” She let her voice trail away, hospitality making it difficult for her to finish what she had started to say.

  Frank finished it for her. “A gunslinger and a saddle tramp?” he said. “Appearances can be deceiving, Señora. The important thing is, I’m here, and I’d like to help you put a stop to your troubles.”

  “You came here to California to help me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And yet you begin by killing one of my men. Shooting him down like a dog.”

  “Not hardly,” Frank said. “He had a gun in his hand and he was shooting at me. Like I told you—”

  This time she finished his sentence. “I know, you had no choice. And I think perhaps I believe you, Mr. Morgan. I know how rash and reckless Lonnie could be, how quick to anger. His friends know that, too, but they may not be able to forgive you anyway.” She shook her head. “I cannot hire you.”

  “I’m not looking for wages.”

  “I cannot even make a pretense of it. The men would never accept it. And there is enough trouble on Salida del Sol these days.”

  Frank thought it over and finally nodded. “All right. But can you use your influence to get all the ranchers in the valley together? I understand that Stafford represents most if not all of them.”

  “Why do you desire such a meeting?”

  “I’d like to talk to all of them, find out just what’s been happening on their ranches.” Frank rasped a thumbnail along his jaw. “I’m starting to get an idea of what’s going on around here, but I’d like to get all the information I can.”

  “If you truly want to help, I can tell you what you need to know. Victor Magnusson is to blame for the trouble. The other wildcatters may be involved in it with him, but he is the ringleader.”

  “You’re probably right,” Frank said, “but I’d still like to talk to the other ranchers.”

  “Very well. I will send word to them. Where should this meeting be held?”

  “How about here? Looks like you’ve got a nice big barn out there that would hold plenty of people.”

  She considered the suggestion for a moment and then shrugged. “’Sta bueno. When?”

  “The sooner the better. Tonight?”

  “I will see what I can do. Where can I get in touch with you if I’m not able to arrange the meeting?”

  “I’m staying at the Nadeau Hotel in Los Angeles. So is Stafford. You should be able to find one of us there.”

  “Very well. We have, as you Americans say, a deal.”

  “Shake on it?” Frank suggested with a smile.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied coolly. “I’m still not sure I fully trust you, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Maybe we can do something about that, too,” Frank said.

  Chapter 11

  Since he’d had a good meal and had made some progress of a sort with Dolores Montero, Frank didn’t see any reason not to head back to town until it was time to return to Salida del Sol for the meeting with the other ranchers that evening. Assuming, of course, that Dolores was able to set it up on such short notice.

  He thanked her for her hospitality and left the hacienda, heading out to the barn to pick up Stormy and Dog.

  Pete Linderman was the only one inside the cavernous structure when Frank entered. He sat on a keg, whittling. He glanced up at Frank, and gave The Drifter a curt nod as he folded the knife and put it away.

  “Morgan. Enjoy your dinner with the señora?”

  Frank suddenly wondered if Linderman was interested in Dolores Montero. Women who had inherited ranches had been known to wind up marrying their foremen. Dolores had probably leaned on Linderman a great deal in the days following her husband’s death. Likely, she still did.

  If not for the fact that Don Francisco had lived long enough to tell his wife what h
ad happened, Frank might have suspected that Linderman had had something to do with the ranchero’s death.

  “It was a fine meal,” Frank replied. “Pleasant company, too.”

  “Better than you have any right to expect, considerin’ what you did.” Linderman stood up. “I sent Jeff out onto the range with some of the other men and told them to keep an eye on him, not let him double back toward the ranch. Are you leavin’?”

  Frank nodded. “Heading back to Los Angeles.”

  “Probably be a good idea if you stayed there, or anywhere else except here.”

  “Well, now,” Frank said, “that’s going to be a problem, because I’m riding back out here this evening.”

  Linderman stared at him for a long moment without speaking. Then the foreman exploded, “Son of a bitch!”

  Frank’s face hardened and his hands wanted to clench into fists.

  “I don’t take kindly to be called that, Linderman,” he said.

  Linderman shook his head. “I’m not calling you that, Morgan. I’m just surprised, that’s all. I wondered if she might try to hire you. I reckon she did.”

  “Señora Montero, you mean?”

  “Who else?” Linderman looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “I don’t blame her for gettin’ a little desperate. If we keep on havin’ problems with Magnusson and his bunch, it might get bad enough so she has trouble hangin’ on to the ranch. This place means the world to her. But to hire a gunslingin’ killer . . .” Linderman shook his head. “It don’t set right with me.”

  “It doesn’t set right with me for folks to think they know the truth about me when they don’t,” Frank snapped. “For what it’s worth—and I don’t owe you any explanations, Linderman—Señora Montero didn’t hire me. Didn’t even try to.”

  Linderman looked a little relieved.

  “But that doesn’t mean I’m through with Salida del Sol,” Frank went on. “I offered to help her with her problems, and she accepted.”

  Linderman’s eyes widened with surprise. “What! I thought you said—”