“Okay, but if any old Indian comes sneaking around the house, I’ll blow his head off.”
“You do that,” George said. “As for you,” he said turning to Rose, “I don’t want you to leave the house unless it’s necessary.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Rose assured him. “Today was enough to keep me quaking in my boots for months to come.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Monty said. “If any Indian was stupid enough to come after you, you’d have his clothes in the wash pot and him in the bathtub in five minutes. Wouldn’t any Indian ever come around here again.”
Rose laughed along with everyone else, but as far as she was concerned, the Indians could stay dirty.
Rose had a bad feeling about the six men the moment she spotted them through the kitchen window. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody out this way except rustlers, bandits, and ex-soldiers down on their luck. These men rode strong, well-fed horses and wore good clothes. Their eyes seemed to dart from one spot to another as though they were making a mental inventory of everything they saw.
She couldn’t believe they were thieves come to check out the ranch before they tried to rob it. There was nothing to steal. But they wanted something and probably weren’t too concerned about how they got it. They looked the type.
Whatever they wanted, George was here, in front of the house. He had seen them, too.
But the tension along the back of her neck twisted a few notches tighter when she saw George move toward a rifle he had leaned against the house. They were alone today. All the boys, including Salty, were working a little-used part of the range. Much too far away to hear gunshots.
Almost without thinking, Rose reached for the shotgun that George had made her keep in the kitchen since the Indians appeared.
“This your place?” the man who appeared to be the leader asked as they drew their horses to a stop in front of the house.
“It belongs to me and my brothers,” George told them. “Why do you ask?”
“We’re from the land office.”
“You got any proof?”
The man seemed shocked at George’s question. And annoyed.
“We don’t need no proof. We’re here to—”
“Either you show me proof or get off my land,” George said. He reached out to rest his hand on the barrel of his rifle.
The men stirred restlessly in their saddles, their hands not far from their guns. Rose knew that George wouldn’t have a chance if they started shooting. She eased the end of the shotgun through the open window.
“Show him the paper, Gabe,” the man next to the leader said. “Ain’t no use making a fuss unless we have to.”
The man’s cooperation didn’t allay Rose’s fears. She didn’t like his eyes. They looked tiny and mean. Worse still, he spoke with a more pronounced Yankee accent than the other.
Carpetbaggers.
“Dammit, Cato, ain’t nobody else asked for papers,” Gabe complained.
“They ought to,” George said. “Anybody could ride in here and pretend to be anybody they wanted to.”
“They look okay,” George said after he’d looked over the paper thrust at him, “but I’ll check when I go into Austin. Now what’s your business?”
Gabe looked disposed to argue, but Cato said, “Get on with it.”
“It’s our job to check on everybody who owns land in the county. And you seem to own a whole lot.”
“I told you, it belongs to me and my brothers. There are seven of us.”
“We don’t have no record of no brothers. All I see is one William Henry Randolph.”
“He’s dead.”
“Then I suppose we need to talk to Mrs. Randolph,” said Cato. “Could she be the young woman looking out the window there?”
Rose wanted to leap back into the shadows, but it was too late. She shouldn’t have been listening—George had every right to be angry with her—but it was too late to pretend she hadn’t been.
“No,” George answered. “My mother died three years ago.”
“Do you have any proof of your parents’ deaths?”
“I can show you my mother’s grave if you like. As for my father’s death, all I have is the word of witnesses. Written confirmation might be hard to get. He fought for the Confederacy.”
“You don’t have that long,” Gabe said. None of the men seemed anxious to get down from his horse. There was a strained feeling about them that made Rose uncomfortable.
“I don’t see none of these brothers of yours about.”
“They don’t happen to be here at the moment, but they’ll be back tonight if you want to meet them.”