“I wasn’t telling you to do anything,” George said to Jeff. His quiet tone as much as his manner eased the tension in the room. “I just asked you if you wanted to go.”
Jeff ignored Rose. “You ought to go,” he said to George.
“I thought you might like a chance to get away, see some people, maybe even buy a few things for yourself.”
“Do we have enough money?”
“For the time being. While you’re there,” George continued, deciding it would be easier just to assume Jeff was going, “ask about bloodstock. The bull will make a big difference in our herd in a few years, but we could improve our stock a lot faster if we had twenty or thirty good heifers.”
“Are you looking for breeding stock?” Rose asked.
Jeff looked at her as though she were intruding in family business, but George answered readily. “We’ve been talking about it.”
“I’ve heard Richard King is doing exactly what you want to do. I don’t know if he’ll sell you any breeding stock, but if he won’t, maybe he’ll know somebody who will.”
“Where does he live?”
“Somewhere south of Corpus Christi.”
“How do you know so much?” Jeff asked. His tone implied he doubted that her information could be trusted.
“People in restaurants never pay any attention to who’s serving them. They’ll say anything.”
“See if you can find out anything about King when you’re in town,” George told Jeff. “We can sell some of our steers to get the money.”
“When should I leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
“We don’t have a mule or a wagon to bring back the lumber.”
“Then buy one.”
“Or a barn to put the mule in.”
“I expect we’ll have to build one sooner or later, for the bull if nothing else. He’s too valuable to leave out.”
“All of a sudden we’re doing a lot of buying and building,” Jeff said. He looked at Rose. It was clear he held her responsible for a situation he didn’t approve of.
“That’s normal, considering nothing’s been done for five years,” George pointed out, his temper getting rather short. “It’s my turn to sleep out. Anybody want game?”
“Venison,” Tyler suggested. “Hen says there’s plenty of deer eating our grass.”
“Don’t shoot anything until dawn,” Hen warned. “There’s panthers in some of those creek bottoms. You kill a deer at nightfall and you’ll have three or four panthers nosing about your camp before midnight.”
Rose shivered. “You didn’t say anything about panthers,” she said to George accusingly.
“They won’t come near the house. They don’t like the dogs.”
“Shouldn’t George take one of the dogs with him?” she asked. The idea of George sleeping out with panthers all around him upset her.
“They’re my dogs,” Monty said. “They won’t go with anybody except maybe Hen once in a while.”
“Maybe you should buy a dog, too,” Rose said to Jeff.
“I don’t need a dog to let me know if a panther is around,” George said, touched that Rose would worry about his safety. “My horse will do just as well.”
But Rose had never met a horse that inspired her with that kind of confidence. Something would have to be done about these bandits and rustlers, as well as the panthers. Preferably all three. She didn’t see why they should be allowed to terrorize people, especially at night when people couldn’t see to defend themselves.
“You’ve got to anticipate which way the calf will turn,” George told Zac. “He won’t stand still while you throw a rope on him.”
“It don’t make no difference,” Zac complained, disgusted with himself. “Nobody’s going to let me rope no old calf no way.”
Rose had been watching George try to teach Zac to ride and rope. Without too much success. Zac was much longer on wanting to ride than on desire to learn how to do it correctly.
“If you don’t start paying more attention to your grammar, you’ll stay home and practice your sentences with Rose.”
“I done…I already practiced them all week,” Zac argued. “I can’t do no more.”
George cast his little brother a stern glance.
“Any more,” Zac corrected himself.
“You can’t rope properly until you ride so well you don’t have to pay attention to anything except the calf you’re after. And you can’t ride through the rough parts of the range until I feel sure you can stay on your horse.”