Beckett's Birthright

“Glad to hear it’s unusual,” Eli commented, not that he’d be here come another spring. Might not even make it to harvest time, if he got lucky. “Miss Jackson went out again today on the mare. I understand she has friends in that direction?” He nodded toward the lane that led through forty acres of second-growth timber to the woodlot and the hayfields beyond.

“The Randalls. Her paw don’t know, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let on.”

“Jackson doesn’t know what? That she has friends?”

“Truth to tell, he don’t know no more about her than he has to. Dang shame, if you ask me, but he ain’t about to change his spots just ’cause he’s a sick man.”

The conversation turned in another direction then. Burke Jackson’s health. It was Shem’s opinion—Eli wasn’t entirely sure he was joking—that the man was being slowly poisoned by that evil old woman’s foul cooking. From what Eli had seen and heard, Jackson’s housekeeper was a slovenly woman who should have been fired years ago.

“That woman can sour a pan o’ milk just by looking at it.”

“What about the daughter? Can’t she step in?”

The old man removed his hat and scratched his bald, freckled head. “Burke won’t listen to her. Never did, not since she was a little thing, sweet as cane and wantin’ to please. No, sir, that man’s miserable and he’s gonna make dang sure ever’body else is just as miserable.”

Eli had trouble picturing Lilah Jackson as a little thing fitting Shem’s description. Whatever she was up to, he didn’t have time to oversee her as well as the rest of Jackson’s operation, even if he’d been so inclined. Spring was a busy time. But then, so was fall. In fact, if there was a slack time on a farm, he had yet to discover it.

Right now there was the first haying and late planting to oversee, not to mention ongoing repairs and improvements. The new crop of calves should have been culled more than a month ago, but due to both the weather and a shortage of manpower, they were running considerably behind. Still to be done was castrating and hair-branding. It was a noisy, dirty business, one he wasn’t looking forward to. Streak, Mickey and a few more men would do the actual work, but Eli was responsible. He’d once worked briefly on a ranch where some numbskull had mistaken his orders, turned the culls out to pasture and made steers of what would have been five valuable bulls.

An hour later Eli interviewed the new men and hired all three. One was the youngest son of a dairy farmer—some experience there. Another was a trapper from up in the mountains, skills that might come in handy if the damned groundhogs didn’t stop digging holes in the pastures. He’d seen more than one horse lost that way.

It was the third man who interested him the most, however. Ace Glover claimed to be a professional gambler in a Midwestern casino before losing the three middle fingers on his card-dealing hand.

“Mind telling me why you applied for work on a cattle farm?”

“A man’s got to eat,” Ace Glover said with a shrug. “I tried dealing left-handed. Tried wearing a glove with plugged fingers.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t the same. Too distracting. Eventually I worked my way east, trying a number of different lines of work. I worked on a gambling boat out of Tampa for a couple of weeks. Big, fancy side-wheeler. Now there’s a line of work I’d be very good at. Trouble is, even tied up in port I got so sick I couldn’t look at a glass of water without wanting to throw up.”

Eli shook his head in commiseration. “You know anything at all about farming?”

“No, but I’m a quick study. I can learn.”

“Know anything about livestock?”

“Like I said, I can learn.”

Eli tipped back his chair, regarding the applicant with a measuring look. The man’s suit had once been expensive, but it was starting to take on the shine of too much wear. Eli had learned about such things from Lance—hell, he even knew how to take the shine off good serge, come to that. Not that he’d ever bothered.

Not that he even owned a serge suit. Levi’s and leather were good enough for the life he led.

Neither man spoke as each measured the other. Ace Glover might not know a damn thing about cattle, but Eli suspected he was shrewd, probably highly intelligent. Like most gamblers, he’d be a good judge of men, which could be a decided asset on a spread with as big a turnover as the Bar J.

Glover crossed his legs. To all appearances, he was totally relaxed, but Eli had had some experience when it came to reading men, too.

He waited, knowing he had the advantage.

Feeling almost ashamed to use that advantage when a man had had a long run of bad luck, as Glover obviously had.

The gambler broke first. “I’ve got a good brain, but there’s a limit on what I can do with my hands. I’ve heard farming’s not an easy job, but I was hoping…” With a wintry smile, he let it rest.

“You heard right. You sure you want to tackle it?”

“A man has to eat,” Ace repeated. “Of course, if I were a fisherman, that wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, the last thing in the world I felt like doing during my two weeks in the Gulf of Mexico was eating.” Both men chuckled, which gave Eli the opening he’d been looking for.

“I’ve heard it said that professional gambling can be almost as risky as farming. Maybe not as physically demanding, but I’ve heard it can turn a man’s hair white overnight. You ever hear of anything like that?”

Glover pursed his lips under a pencil-thin mustache. He looked down at shoes that were long past their prime, but still reflected a shine. “Matter of fact, there was this fellow I met once…” Eli’s fingers tightened around the pencil he held. “Man swore he’d turned white overnight when some hayseed—nothing personal, Mr. Chandler—pulled a gun on him and shot the cards right out of his hand.”

Eli’s body absorbed the jolt of excitement that streaked through him like a lightning bolt. He’d had leads before. Dozens of them, but no matter how promising they seemed in the beginning, few of them had panned out.

He nodded to Glover’s hand and lifted an eyebrow.

The gambler laughed and shook his head. “They weren’t shot off, if that’s what you mean. I tangled with one of these newfangled automobiles. Dangerous machines, I’m telling you. I’ll stick to horses.”

“Smart man. No point in going gray before your time.” The newcomer’s hair was patent-leather black, and just as shiny.

“The man I mentioned—I don’t recall his name, but he had a remarkable streak of snow-white hair. Just a streak, mind you.” He touched his head just to the left of the center part. “Put a man in mind of a skunk.”

Eli eased out the breath he’d been holding, not showing by so much as a twitch the excitement that was beginning to build. This was the first solid lead he’d had in months. There was always the possibility that the man he’d been trailing was playing games, sending Glover in to taunt him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like that. Once in Knoxville, when Eli had casually asked after a gambler with a streak of white hair, he’d been given an envelope.

“Man came through here day before yesterday. Said you might be wantin’ to know his whereabouts. Said to give you this here letter. Feels like they might be some money in it.”

He’d waited until he was outside to open the envelope. Cat and mouse wasn’t a game he’d ever liked, but when he played it, he’d always been the cat. The hunter.

When the poker chip with a white streak painted across the middle had fallen out into his palm, he’d gone cold with rage.

And then hot with determination.

Now he was neither.

But he was still the hunter.

Realistically, Eli no longer held out much hope for Rosemary. God alone knew what she’d been forced to endure. But he was on the right track, he was sure of it. When he’d first set out nearly two years ago he’d known nothing more about the man who had burned his home and kidnapped the woman he’d promised to marry other than that he had a streak of white hair. Now he knew that the man was sometimes called Chips. He knew how he dressed, what he liked to eat and drink, and how he made his living. Most of the information had been picked up in saloons, some in jailhouses and one gem—the bit that had sent him to this particular region, he’d overheard in a whorehouse in Tennessee where the ladies of the evening had been discussing a cheapskate with a polecat stripe, who had professed to being on his way to claim his stepfather’s estate in the city of Durham in North Carolina. The creep had escaped through a window without paying for services rendered.

The man called Chips might enjoy tweaking the lion’s tail, but he was a liar and a scoundrel. Sooner or later his luck would run out, and when it did, Eli would be there.

There was only one thing that bothered him. The crime of kidnapping didn’t seem to fit the image of a professional gambler. Not even a lying, cheating gambler. That was the part that had always puzzled him as he’d studied over all the old cases during his stints as a lawman.

But then, one thing he had learned from experience was that people rarely fit into a neat pattern. Who would have thought that a man who owned the biggest, most prosperous cattle operation in the state of North Carolina would hide out in his house like a hermit and put up with a slovenly female who couldn’t cook any better than she could clean house?

And who would have expected that the same man’s daughter, who was as tall and as tough as any man, would have a mole at one corner of her mouth that tempted a man to lick it off?

The down-on-his-luck gambler stirred, drawing Eli’s attention back to the task at hand. “You don’t know farming. You don’t know cattle. Tell me, why did you apply for work here? What does a man like you have to offer?”

“As I said, my brain. I’m good with numbers, I have a retentive memory, and I don’t mind sitting for long hours.” He grinned again, revealing a self-deprecating sense of humor. “I applied for work at a bank just yesterday. My resume didn’t appear to impress them.”

Tilting his chair, Eli studied the man before him. A seven-fingered gambler wouldn’t be worth a dip of snuff working cattle, but Eli could use a hand with the books.

Glover said, “You seem interested in this fellow I mentioned.”

“Call it a study of human nature. I guess you’ve heard there’s a pretty large turnover here. Jackson pays the lowest wages he can get by with, which means I have to check out any man applying for work to see why he wants to work at the Bar J instead of a place that pays better.”

“Makes sense. Although there’s not a whole lot of hiring going on these days unless a man wants to move to a mill town and work in a factory.” His expression made clear his opinion of that option.

Eli let it simmer. No point in pushing too hard. Glover struck him as a man who played them close to his vest.

The mental sparring continued. Eli had already made up his mind to hire the man, but it suited him to prolong the interview.

Glover said, “If you’re considering hiring me to work on the books, don’t you need to know if I’m honest?”

“Are you?”

“Would I tell you if I weren’t?” An odd moment of understanding seemed to pass between the two men. “But yeah, I am. When I can afford to be,” the newcomer replied.

“That’s honest enough for me,” Eli said dryly. He brought the front legs of his chair down with a quiet thump. “The job’s yours if you want it. We’ll start in the office and see what develops. Like I said, the pay’s not great, but the bunkhouse is clean and the food’s exceptional. Lead your horse around to the feedlot and come back by the office once you’re settled in.”

For several minutes after Glover left, Eli allowed his mind to range freely. Impressions, instinct and random thoughts all merged together. And then a rare smile lightened his eyes without ever touching his lips.

He’d picked up the scent again. Sooner or later something would connect, and when it did, he would need to be ready to move. He might not have a man in place to take over the management, but if Ace worked out, then with the help of Streak and Shem, Jackson wouldn’t be left in the lurch.

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