Montana Sky

quarter mile.”
    “Damned if I won’t.” Pickles stomped over for his coat, muttering about women.
    “Sure it couldn’t have been a cat?” Jim asked the minute the door slammed.
    “Yeah, I’m sure. Get me some coffee, would you, Jim? I’m going to radio the ranch. I want Ham to know we’re heading down.”
    “McKinnon’s men are up here, but—”
    “No.” She shook her head, pulled out a chair. “No cowboy I know does that.”
    She contacted the ranch, listening to static, waiting for it to clear. The coffee and the crackling fire chased the worst of the chill away as she made arrangements for the drive. She was on her second cup when she finished passing the information along to the McKinnon ranch.
    Pickles slammed back in. “Son of a bitching bastard.”
    Accepting this as the only apology she’d get, Willa moved to the stove and filled her plate. “I rode up with Ben McKinnon. He’s following some tracks. We’re going to help get his herd down with our own. Has either of you seen anyone around here? Campers, hunters, eastern assholes?”
    “Came across a campsite yesterday when we were tracking the cat.” Jim sat again with his plate. “But it was cold. Two or three days cold.”
    “Left goddamn beer cans.” Pickles ate standing up. “Like it was their own backyard. Oughta be shot for it.”
    “Sure that cow wasn’t shot?” Jim looked to Pickles for confirmation, a fact that Willa struggled not to resent. “You know how some of those city boys are—shoot at anything that moves.”
    “Wasn’t shot. Ain’t no tourist done that.” Pickles shoved beans into his mouth. “Fucking teenagers what it is. Fucking crazy teenagers all doped up.”
    “Maybe. If it was, Ben’ll find them easy enough.” But she didn’t think it had been teenagers. It seemed to Willa it took a lot more years to work up that kind of rage.
    Jim pushed the barely warm beans around on his plate. “Ah, we heard about how things are.” He cleared his throat. “We radioed in last night, and Ham, he figured he should, you know, tell us how things are.”
    She pushed her plate away and stood. “Then I’ll tell you just how things are.” Her voice was very cool, very quiet. “Mercy Ranch runs the way it always has. The old man’s in the ground, and now I’m operator. You take your orders from me.”
    Jim exchanged a quick look with Pickles, then scratched his cheek. “I didn’t mean to say different, Will. We were just sorta wondering how you were going to keep the others, your sisters, on the ranch.”
    “They’ll take their orders from me too.” She jerked her coat off the hook. “Now, if you’ve finished your meal, let’s get saddled up.”
    “Goddamn women,” Pickles muttered as soon as thedoor was safely closed behind her. “Don’t know one that isn’t a bossy bitch.”
    “That’s ’cause you don’t know enough women.” Jim strolled over for his coat. “And that one is the boss.”
    “For the time being.”
    “She’s the boss today.” Jim shrugged into his coat, pulled out his gloves. “And today’s what we’ve got.”

FOUR
    I N DEALINGS WITH HER MOTHER — AND TESS ALWAYS thought of contacts with Louella as dealings—Tess prepped herself with a dose of extra-strength Excedrin. There would be a headache, she knew, so why chase the pain?
    She chose mid-morning, knowing it was the only time of day she would be likely to find Louella at home in her Bel Air condo. By noon she would be out and about, having her hair done, or her nails, indulging in a facial or a shopping spree.
    By four, Louella would be at her club, Louella’s, joking with the bartender or regaling the waitresses with tales of her life and loves as a Vegas showgirl.
    Tess did her very best to avoid Louella’s. Though the condo didn’t make her much happier.
    It was a lovely little stucco in California Spanish with a tiled roof, graceful shrubbery. It could, and should, have been a small showplace. But as Tess had said on more than one occasion, Louella Mercy could make Buckingham Palace tacky.
    When she arrived, promptly at eleven, she tried to ignorewhat Louella cheerfully called her lawn art. The lawn jockey with the big, stupid grin, the rearing plaster lions, the glowing blue moonball on its concrete pedestal, and the fountain of the serene-faced girl pouring water from the mouth of a rather startled-looking carp.
    Flowers grew in profusion, in wild, clashing colors that seared the eyes. There was no