Only 05 - Autumn Lover

S and the B Bar?” Hunter asked.
    “What makes you think there is?” Elyssa countered.
    “Two ranches cheek by jowl and no visiting between.”
    Elyssa thought of the last time she had seen Bill, when she had refused to sell him the Ladder S.
    “At least, no formal visiting,” Hunter added ironically, thinking of the web of ghost paths between the two ranches.
    Elyssa’s stomach clenched, for she thought Hunter was referring to the rustlers who came and went from both ranches. She didn’t like to think about all the small bunches of cattle tracks she had seen heading through Wind Gap.
    And no cow tracks returning.
    Not even one.
    Wind Gap led to Bill’s ranch, and from there to one of the passes over the Rubies.
    But despite all evidence, Elyssa simply couldn’t believe that Bill was part and parcel of the naked rustling of Ladder S livestock.
    He was like a father to me , she thought sadly.
    He can’t be destroying me. There must be another explanation .
    “It’s fall roundup,” Elyssa said tightly. “No one has the time for social visits.”
    “Damned strange.”
    “Why?”
    “Good old Bill hasn’t even sent a rep to make sure we don’t round up any of his cattle along with ours.”
    Hunter’s voice was as sarcastic as the thin white curve of his smile beneath his mustache.
    Elyssa closed her eyes.
    “Bill knows we won’t sell any cattle of his,” she said.
    “At this rate we won’t be selling any Ladder S cows either,” Hunter said bluntly.
    “What?”
    “They’ve all been driven onto B Bar land, and from there to market.”
    “No!”
    “Hell,” Hunter said in disgust. “You’ve got eyes, Sassy. Use them!”
    “I did. The first week after I came home, I back-tracked Ladder S cows from that damned whiskey peddler’s Dugout Saloon.”
    Hunter became still. “What?”
    “I knew from Mac that the peddler acted as an unofficial rendezvous point for people wanting to buy, sell, and swap animals,” Elyssa explained, “so I—”
    “You went into that thieves’ den alone?” Hunter interrupted harshly.
    “Not quite.”
    “Not. Quite.” He bit off each word. “What in hell does that mean?”
    “It means Mac told me to stay away from B Bar land. Period. He would handle whatever had to be done about stray cows.”
    “Thank God,” Hunter muttered.
    Elyssa ignored him.
    “But I kept seeing cow tracks going through Wind Gap,” she said. “So I went to the Dugout Saloon and backtracked a bunch of cows.”
    Hunter’s black eyebrows shot up in surprise at Elyssa’s ingenuity.
    “Bet you tracked them right back to the B Bar,” he said.
    “Wrong. The tracks came from the marsh northeast of here. It’s a dangerous maze of grassy hummocks surrounded by bogs and reeds.”
    Hunter was impressed despite himself that Elyssa had had the idea of backtracking rustled cattle.
    The fact that she also had the nerve to carry through her idea chilled him.
    Elyssa could easily have been killed. Rustlers and other felons were notoriously touchy about people dogging their trail.
    “The B Bar is north of here,” Hunter said.
    “The tracks didn’t come from B Bar land. They came from Ladder S land.”
    Hunter didn’t look convinced.
    “Besides,” Elyssa said, “when our cows wander ontoB Bar land, Bill just hazes them back toward our land. Under all that gruffness and whiskey, he’s a good man.”
    The affection in Elyssa’s voice when she spoke of Bill did nothing to improve Hunter’s temper. She might respond to Hunter the way dry grass responds to a torch, but every time she spoke of Bill Moreland it was clear that she was besotted with him.
    A man who was robbing her blind.
    “Well, Sassy,” Hunter drawled, “it sure seems that a whole lot of Ladder S cows have taken a notion to sift through the grasslands over onto B Bar land. And not one of those cows has wandered back.”
    “As Mac was so fond of saying, ‘Cows and wimmen is plumb notional critters.’”
    The tone of Elyssa’s voice plainly said that discussion of Bill Moreland and Ladder S cows was closed.
    Hunter kept on talking.
    “Bill was half-right,” he said. “They’re notional as all hell.”
    Elyssa didn’t ask whether Hunter was talking about cows or women. She knew she wouldn’t like the answer.
    “Not cows, though,” Hunter said. “Cows have more common sense than women.”
    “As women have more common sense than men, that means men—”
    “Ha!” Hunter interrupted.
    “Ha, yourself. Did you