Jeanette’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry about the jackhammers. You’ll get ’em.” She turned and climbed down the hill without another word.
“That is some woman,” Pick muttered and I could tell he was shaken by his encounter with the queen of the prairie.
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said and followed Jeanette down the hill. Pick stayed behind, I guess to study the horizon or maybe wonder what he’d got himself into.
I saw Laura climb up and confer with him, then she followed us. “If you’ll give me a minute, Mrs. Coulter,” she said, “I’ll get you that list.”
Jeanette was willing to give her the minute and together we waited for her. Jeanette said, “These women—what do you think of them, Mike?”
“Very smart. Hard workers.”
“Have they been friendly toward you?”
“Yes. Tanya even shares her vodka.”
“I don’t trust them. I don’t trust Pick, either.” I had nothing to say about that so she said, “Keep an eye on them for me. Will you do that, Mike?”
“You’re the boss,” I said.
Her hand had been absently stroking Nick’s neck but at my comment, it stopped. She leveled her gaze at me. “You think I’m wrong for wanting to get something for the Square C? Every year we just squeak by. I can’t allow something like this to just be given away.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “there are things more important than money, Jeanette. This might be one of them.”
She gave me one of her dirty looks that, as I looked her in the eye, turned thoughtful. “I am who I am,” she said at length. “The Square C, it’s all I’ve got.”
“It’s all I’ve got, too,” I said before I could stop myself.
“That certainly is not true,” Jeanette replied, then held out her hand, not for me, but for the list that Laura had brought.
“This is most of it,” Laura said.
Jeanette glanced at the list, then handed it to me. “Mike, you know where the credit card is. You and Ray get on down to Miles City and buy the heavy stuff, then come back to Jericho and buy the food. I like to support the local folks where I can. The water for the plaster, you can get from our pump. Use those old drums behind the barn to put it in. Be sure to mark them non-potable. For drinking water, see if you can find a suitable container and fill it up in Miles City. I think our Square C water would give some of these folks the runs. Get going on this right away. That suit you, Miss Wilson?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jeanette swung up into the saddle with fluid grace. “Ho, Nick,” she said when the stallion stamped a little. Jeanette looked toward the top of the hill where Pick was still posed. She frowned up at him, then clicked her tongue and aimed Nick toward home. I sought out Ray, told him our orders, and we got on our four-wheelers and headed after her.
15
Ray and I stopped off at our respective domiciles long enough to take showers, then got Bob and headed for Miles City where we bought out the place, pretty much. As I suspected, the heavy equipment we needed couldn’t be found so we drove on down to Billings where, after some searching around, we located some used jackhammers, compressors, and tools. Luck was on our side as to a water tank as well. In a Billings junk yard, we found an old army water tank on wheels. We scoured it out, filled it with Billings water, and drove back to Jericho where I needed to stop for a cold one at the Hell Creek Bar. There, to my surprise, I found parked outside a shiny silver hybrid SUV and, within the bar, the Marsh brothers, sitting at a table looking forlorn. They brightened up at the sight of me and Ray, and invited us to sit.
“Can we help you dig?” Brian asked after I told them we were working on a different site.
“Why would you want to do that?” Ray asked. “I thought you just wanted to count cow pies and cause us trouble.”
The brothers looked at each other, then shrugged. “We think we’d rather be paleontologists than environmentalists,” Philip said.
“Yeah. It’s more fun,” Brian added.
“Besides, we got fired by Green Planet,” Philip went on. “They said we weren’t sufficiently motivated.”
I gave it some thought, then said, “Follow me.” The worst that could happen, I figured, was Pick would send them back. They didn’t look particularly strong but I guessed digging could fix that.
We headed to the Square C. By then, the day was over and we spent the night at home, the brothers sleeping in the living room on the floor. Somebody knocked on my door after I’d gone to bed and I got up, pulled on a terry cloth robe, and found Jeanette standing outside. I opened the screen door for her.