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peaked, but just before I snuck off I seen that Ramalda was pouring a big slug of her medicinal brandy into his coffee. Now, boss, I got to warn you, just in case you don’t know,” Badger said, his gravelly voice ominous. “She speaks Spanish.”

      “Pony?”

      Badger nodded, taking another sip. “Yep. She and Ramalda were chattering away like two jaybirds in that kitchen. Laughin’ and everything!”

      “Ramalda was laughing?”

      “Yep.” Badger looked grim. He took another sip. “Laughin’.”

      “What about the boys?”

      “Them boys is downright determined not to show anything of themselves.”

      “Mmm.” Caleb raised his glass, gazing at the darkening bulk of the big bull standing broadside to them across the creek. “I’ve been thinking about those kids. There isn’t really anything for them to do here, once the working day is done. I mean, when supper is over, what then? It seems to me they’re going to need something.”

      “Like what?”

      “Like maybe a television.”

      Badger snorted. “That jabber box was the ruination of this nation’s youth, and if them boys put in a hard day’s work like you seem to think they will, all they’ll be needin’ after supper is a mattress to flop onto and about eight hours of solid shut-eye.”

      “But they could watch things if we had a television.”

      “What kind of things? The news? You ever seen anything good on the news?”

      “Movies, then.”

      “Them movies they show are pure violence! Trust me. Those kids don’t need to be learnin’ that stuff.”

      Caleb took another sip of whiskey. “There are a lot of good movies out there that aren’t mindless or violent. I could buy a few and they could watch them once in a while, for a special treat.”

      “Just what the hell would you power that useless thing with?”

      “The same setup we use for the water pump in the bathroom and the computer we enter all the ranch data into,” McCutcheon said. “Guthrie rigged it up. Same as he did in his own cabin. Two seventy-five-watt solar panels, four six-volt batteries, a cheap inverter. It works great and it would easily power one of those TV/VCR combos for a couple hours a week.”

      Badger shook his head. “Maybe, but a movie ain’t gonna make ’em happy if they don’t want to be here.”

      The buffalo shook his head suddenly, and Caleb leaned forward, his keen eyes narrowing. “True. But I want this thing to work. I want them to like it here.” He watched as the bull took two steps and then lowered his massive head to graze. “I want them to stay,” he said with conviction.

      Badger drained the last of his glass and felt the whiskey burn deep. “Well, boss, you keep tellin’ yourself that and you might just come to believe it. Meantime, you best finish off your drink. It’ll give you the courage to face that silent tribe at supper. I don’t know about you, but I ain’t lookin’ forward to it one little bit, much as I admire Ramalda’s cookin’.”

      “Maybe we have time for another,” Caleb said, lifting the bottle from the floor beside him with the expression of a condemned man.

      Badger examined his glass. “That ain’t the worst offer I ever had,” he said, holding it out for a refill. “No point rushin’ into things.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      PONY WAS STANDING at the kitchen counter when he came into the room, just as Ramalda was running through yet another string of heated rants about Caleb McCutcheon always being late, always late! And then quite suddenly the tall lean broad-shouldered rancher was there, and just as suddenly Pony felt all confused inside, turning quickly back to the task she had set herself—sliding the hot biscuits out of the pan and into a deep basket lined with a clean kitchen towel.

      The boys were already seated at the table, washed and silent, watching this next culinary performance with a kind of suspicious anticipation. McCutcheon stopped just inside the kitchen door and glanced around the room, nodding almost imperceptibly when his eyes met hers, and then again at Guthrie Sloane, who stood in the back hallway as if hiding from the moment. “Sorry we’re late,” Caleb said to Ramalda, removing his hat as if he were in the presence of royalty. “It’s my fault. I hope you aren’t too angry.”

      Ramalda paused in mid-waddle from stove to sink, holding a pot with something delicious-smelling in it. “Lavate las manos!” she said, nodding her head curtly toward the sink and glaring at them. She wrinkled her nose as if smelling something bad. “Hueles a vaca. You wash!”

      “Yes, ma’am.” McCutcheon nodded humbly. He and Badger hung their hats on pegs beside the door and made for the sink, standing politely to one side until Ramalda had finished with it.

      Pony had discovered that beneath that gruff and scowling exterior, Ramalda had an exceptionally soft heart. From speaking with her during supper preparations, Pony had also learned that the Mexican woman had worked for Jessie Weaver’s family back in the ranch’s glory days, before the fall of cattle prices, before Jessie’s father had gotten cancer. Ramalda had been like a mother to Jessie, whose own mother had died when she was just a child. When hard times had come to the ranch, both Ramalda and her cowboy husband, Drew Long, had been laid off, and Ramalda had confided that it had been a kind of miracle when Caleb McCutcheon had bought the ranch and hired her back—at Jessie’s prompting—shortly after Drew’s death.

      Having washed up, both McCutcheon and Badger approached the table, where they stood awkwardly for a few moments before claiming chairs together at one end of the table. Guthrie joined them, and the three sat down and rested their elbows on the table, glancing around the room. McCutcheon’s eyes touched hers again briefly and Pony felt her cheeks warm. He cleared his throat.

      “That bull buffalo is standing right across the creek from my cabin,” he said, reaching for the coffeepot that Ramalda had plunked in the center of the table and filling his cup. He did the same for Guthrie and Badger.

      “I’ll be damned. Guess he traveled some today, didn’t he?” Guthrie said, raising his cup for a swallow. “Maybe in the morning he’ll be standing on your porch, lookin’ in the window.”

      “That big buff’s like a mountain on hooves,” Badger said. “I’ve never seen any bigger. Kind of spooky, if you ask me. I’ll take beef cattle any day.”

      “That’s because you don’t know what from wherefore,” Guthrie said. “Buffalo are the wave of the future. The meat is healthier, tastier, and since when could you sell a beef cow’s skull and hide for nearly a thousand dollars?”

      “Since when could you throw a rope around a buffalo and slap your brand on it?” Badger challenged, adding three heaping spoonfuls of sugar to his coffee.

      “Speaking of which,” McCutcheon interrupted, “Badger, weren’t you and Charlie supposed to give me a roping lesson yesterday? Charlie mentioned something about it when I ran into him at the Longhorn Cafe.”

      Badger’s eyebrows raised and he rubbed his whiskery chin. “That’s the first I heard of it.” He shook his head in disgust. “Charlie’s a senile old coot.”

      Pony helped Ramalda with the final preparations while listening to the conversation, and the boys’ heads turned solemnly from one speaker to another as if watching a tennis match.

      Guthrie reached for the coffeepot. “Charlie and Badger can’t throw a rope anyhow,” he said, topping off his mug. “Between the two of them, I doubt they could rope a stump and tie it to a tree. Why’d you want to take lessons from them?”

      “I was throwin’ a rope long before you hit the ground, son,” Badger said, adding another spoonful of sugar to his cup. “And I expect I can still throw one better’n

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