Part 29 (1/2)
”I'll do it,” Dan offered.
”The h.e.l.l you will!” Lantz shouted. ”I said my men would do it, and they will, by G.o.d.”
”Then please find them,” Melody said. ”I'm sure Belle is exhausted. I know I am.”
Lantz looked reluctant to leave, but he had no choice. Melody accepted the keys from a clerk who, agog with curiosity, had listened to every word of their exchange. She handed one to Belle. ”Let's go before Lantz gets back. I'm too tired to deal with him.”
”No lady should have to put up with such a display of bad manners,” Dan said. ”Just say the word, and Chet and I will get rid of him for you.”
”If you really want to do us a service, you'll disappear as well. Just seeing Chet makes Lantz irrational.”
”What have you been up to?” Dan asked, his glance s.h.i.+fting between Chet and Melody. ”It's more what Chet has kept Lantz from doing. You two can go to a saloon and catch up on old times. Belle and I are going to our rooms.”
”Don't forget, dinner at seven-thirty,” Dan called after Belle.
She turned and gave him a warm smile. ”I won't forget.”
”Belle Jordan,” Melody said with mock severity the moment they turned the corner on the stairs, ”I do believe you were flirting with that man.”
”Do you mind?” Belle said, looking a little conscience-stricken. ”Your father has been dead for nearly a year, and I have hardly spoken to a man since then. I don't count Lantz.”
”I don't mind at all,” Melody a.s.sured her. ”I think he's charming.”
”I do like men who say pretty things.”
”Then you must have had a dry run of it with my father.”
”Admittedly, he wasn't very good with compliments, but he was so good in so many other ways. He's very much like that young man of yours.”
”He's not my young man, but I'd give anything if he were.”
”He won't pay you compliments or bring you small gifts.”
”I wouldn't want them,” Melody said. ”Just seeing him across the table, being able to reach out and touch his hand, to hear his soft breathing while he's asleep would be more than enough.”
”Do you think you'll ever have that?”
”I don't know, but I mean to give it everything I've got. He's too big a prize for anything less.”
Melody couldn't believe Lantz would return so quickly with two foreman candidates for them to interview. She and Belle had barely managed to unpack their clothes before they were called back downstairs. Lantz expected his recommendation would be enough to secure the job for either candidate. Belle had shocked him when she insisted on inviting Dan Walters to be present.
”He built up his own ranch in a part of Texas infested with bandits and rustlers,” she explained to Lantz. ”I'm depending upon him to think of all the things that would never occur to me.”
Melody had angered him even more when she insisted that Chet be present. ”He knows the men and the ranch,” she said. ”It only makes sense to ask for his opinion.”
The partic.i.p.ant all of them had overlooked was Sydney. ”You keep telling me I've got to think of something besides guns all the time, so let me start learning how to run the ranch. If I'm going to do that, we've got to pick out somebody I can work with.”
”The boy's right,” Chet said, forestalling Lantz's explosive disagreement. ”Jake made me his foreman when I was pretty much Sydney's age.”
”And look how you turned out,” Lantz snapped.
”That was my decision,” Chet replied. ”But while I was foreman, only one bunch of rustlers got out of our valley with any Broken Circle cows. I brought them and the cows back inside a week.”
”If you have someone for us to see, bring him in,” Melody said, furious at Lantz for attacking Chet.
”I've got two men,” Lantz said to Melody. ”They're both perfect for the job. All you have to do is tell me which one you like best.”
Melody disliked Lantz's first choice on sight. The man did look the partbig, strong, and selfa.s.sured. Trouble came from an unexpected direction. Excited over being included with the adults, Sydney wanted to be the first to ask questions. It became apparent almost at once that the man didn't have any patience with Sydney or his questions. His answers were short and unhelpful, his att.i.tude brusque.
”Have you been a foreman before?” Chet asked. Melody though he entered the discussion to prevent an unwise outburst from Sydney.
”On two places,” the man replied, giving the names of the ranches and their owners.
”Have you ever worked for an owner of Sydney's age?” Chet asked.
”I don't work for boys,” the man said. ”I'll be the one making the decisions.”
”That's understood, but the boy has to learn. He'll soon be giving the orders.”
”I don't take orders from boys who still answer to their mothers.”
The man didn't appear to realize he'd cooked his goose. He'd not only made Sydney furious, he'd insulted Belle as well.
”I think that's all we need to ask you,” Melody said, refusing to waste any more time on this man. ”We'll now talk to your second candidate, Lantz.”
Both Lantz and the man seemed surprised at the shortness of the interview. Neither seemed to realize that as far as Melody, Belle, and Sydney were concerned, the ability to work with cows was rather far down on their list. They certainly didn't want a foreman as stubborn and willful as the ornery beasts themselves.
”I'm Orian Meeks,” the second man said as he introduced himself to Melody and Belle and shook hands with the men. ”Mr. Royal tells me you're in the market for someone to manage your place for you.”
”Yes, we are,” Belle said. ”My husband pa.s.sed away, and our foreman is no longer able to continue in his position.”
”I'm mighty sorry to hear that, ma'am. Are these handsome-looking young people your children? You don't look old enough to be their mama.”
Melody guessed she could forgive the man some flatteryafter all, he was trying to get a jobbut she would have preferred a man less glib of tongue.
Belle seemed quite taken with the man, and he was soon able to smooth Sydney's hackles. Melody decided she was just prejudiced against anyone who wanted to take Chet's place. She determined to be as objective as possible, but sitting next to Chet made that virtually impossible. There was no way she could look at this man, or any other, and not compare him to Chet. She had to admit Chet was just as stubborn and determined to do things his own way as the first man. But Chet didn't ignore others or make them feel they were in his way. He'd even let her ride with himonceand never afterward reminded her that even though she'd gotten herself out of trouble, her presence had nearly turned a carefully planned scheme into a disaster. He had been Sydney's severest critic from the first, but he'd also supported the boy's right to start being treated like a man. And he'd been kind to Belle even when she'd been acting her silliest.
Where else could you find a man who could do all that and still be the best foreman in Texas? Melody realized that she hadn't been paying attention when she felt Chet start to tense. She looked at him, but his attention was on Mr. Meeks. Sydney was asking his questions. Meeks was answering them, but Melody gradually detected an undercurrent of mockery.
”I'd like to ask a few questions, if I may,” Dan Walters said. Belle a.s.sured him he could ask anything he wanted. Meeks's att.i.tude changed immediately. Melody thought she might have misinterpreted him, until Belle asked a question. True, it wasn't the most intelligent question Belle could have askedBelle had to be forgiven for being more interested in the house than the cowsbut the mockery was back at once. Clearly this man didn't have any respect for women or boys, a recipe for disaster if he were to take over the job at Spring Water.
That impression was intensified when it came Melody's turn to ask questions.
”We've had some trouble with rustlers,” she said. ”Our old foreman insisted upon arming the cowhands, but I'm against the use of guns. How would you handle the situation?”
His smile grated on her nerves. ”All gentlewomen are afraid of firearms,” he said. ”I'd be surprised if it were otherwise. It's best to leave that sort of thing to the menfolk. We're not so high-strung, our sensibilities so refined.”
”It has nothing to do with sensibilities or being high-strung,” Melody snapped. ”It has to do with principle.”
”You're perfectly right,” Mr. Meeks a.s.sured her. ”I admire a woman who has principles and holds to them, but some things that need to be done are beyond a gentlewoman. Some things are beyond decent men, too. That's why we have a need for men like your foreman here. Mr. Royal explained why you don't want to keep him around any longer than you have to. Very wise, I might add.”