Montana Sky

followed its banks, riding east into the night where the first stars were already gleaming and the only sounds were the rush of water and the thunder of hooves. Cattle grazed and nighthawks circled. As they topped a rise, Will could see mile after mile of silhouette and shadow, trees spearing up, the waving grass of a meadow, the endless line of fence. And in the distance in the clear night air the faint glint of lights from a neighboring ranch.
    McKinnon land.
    The mare tossed her head, snorted, when Will reined in. “We didn’t run it out, did we?”
    No, the anger was still simmering inside her just as the energy simmered inside her mount. Willa wanted it gone, this tearing, bitter fury and the grief that boiled under it. It wouldn’t help her get through the next year. It wouldn’t help her get through the next hour, she thought, and squeezed her eyes tight.
    Tears would not be shed, she promised herself. Not for Jack Mercy, or his youngest daughter.
    She breathed deep, drew in the scent of grass and night and horse. It was control she needed now, calculated, unbending control. She would find a way to handle the two sisters who had been pushed on her, to keep them in line and on the ranch. Whatever it took, she would make certain that they saw this through.
    She would find a way to deal with the overseers who had been pushed on her. Nate was an irritant but not a particular problem, she decided as she set Moon into an easy walk. He would do no more and no less than what he considered his legal duty. Which meant, in Willa’s opinion, that he would stay out of the day-to-day business of Mercy Ranch and play his part in broad strokes.
    She could even find it in her heart to feel sorry for him. She’d known him too long and too well to think even for an instant that he would enjoy the position he’d been put in. Nate was fair, honest, and content to mind his own business.
    Ben McKinnon, Will thought, and that bitter anger began to stir again. That was a different matter. She had no doubt that he would enjoy every minute. He’d push his nose in at every opportunity, and she’d have to take it. But, she thought with a grim smile, she wouldn’t have to take it well and she wouldn’t have to make it easy for him.
    Oh, she knew what Jack Mercy had been about, and it made her blood boil. She could feel the heat rise to her skin and all but steam off into the cool night air as she looked down at the lights and silhouettes of Three Rocks Ranch.
    McKinnon and Mercy land had marched side by side forgenerations. Some years after the Sioux had dealt with Custer, two men who’d hunted the mountains and taken their stake to Texas bought cattle on the cheap and drove them back north into Montana as partners. But the partnership had severed, and each had claimed his own land, his own cattle, and built his own ranch.
    So there had been Mercy Ranch and Three Rocks Ranch, each expanding, prospering, struggling, surviving.
    And Jack Mercy had lusted after McKinnon land. Land that couldn’t be bought or stolen or finessed. But it could be merged, Willa thought now. If Mercy and McKinnon lands were joined, the result would be one of the largest, certainly the most important, ranches in the West.
    All he had to do was sell his daughter. What else was a female good for? Willa thought now. Trade her, as you would a nice plump heifer. Put her in front of the bull often enough and nature would handle the rest.
    So, since he’d had no son, he was doing the next best thing. He was putting his daughter in front of Ben McKinnon. And everyone would know it, Will thought as she forced her hands to relax on the reins. He hadn’t been able to work the deal while he lived, so he was working the angles from the grave.
    And if the daughter who had stood beside him her entire life, had worked beside him, had sweated and bled into the land wasn’t lure enough—well, he had two more.
    “Goddamn you, Pa.” With unsteady hands, she settled her hat back onto her head. “The ranch is mine, and it’s going to stay mine. Damned if I’ll spread my legs for Ben McKinnon or anyone else.”
    She caught the flash of headlights, murmured to her mare to settle her. She couldn’t make out the vehicle, but noted the direction. A thin smile spread as she watched the lights veer toward the main house at Three Rocks.
    “Back from Bozeman, is he?” Instinctively she straightened in the saddle, brought her chin up. The air was clear enough that she