Page 31 of Heart of Stone

“They were talkin’ about what’s been happenin’ lately,” Luke explained. “Like no one’s ever had a run of bad luck before.”

Stone didn’t believe in ghosts or curses or any of that nonsense, but he’d met plenty of people who did over the years. One cowboy swore that he had to put on his left boot before his right one to ward off scorpions, and another old hand said that the ghosts of cowboys who died on the trail could be seen riding across the sky at night, chasing falling stars like stray cattle. They wouldn’t listen to anyone talking sense, because they believed it was true, and that was all that mattered to them.

Superstitions like that were harmless, but talking about the ranch being haunted or cursed wasn’t; soon the hands would start getting spooked over the least little thing that went wrong and take it as a sign, and then they’d spend more time looking over their shoulders than doing their work. Some might even get scared enough to quit, and that could spell the end of the ranch. They needed hands to do the work; he and Luke couldn’t run the whole place by themselves, and if Copper Lake got a bad reputation, they wouldn’t be able to hire replacements.

“If I knew an Indian curse, I sure as hell wouldn’t curse my own damned ranch,” he snarled, scowling darkly. “Why do folks always have to find somethin’ or someone to blame things on? We can’t even tell them not to talk, because then they’d say we’re hidin’ somethin’.”

“Yeah.” Luke shook his head, looking glum. “I reckon all we can do is set a good example and show we ain’t worried or scared, and maybe it’ll die down if nothin’ else really bad happens for a while.”

Stone thought that over, frustrated by the situation, but he couldn’t see any other option either, and he nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess that’s all we can do.”

A horrid, loud groaning sound from outside made both of them whirl around, and alarm quickly turned to fear as the groan escalated into a high pitched shriek. Stone had heard it before in wind storms when trees were being bent beyond their limits, and before his mind caught up with his body, he ran outside, arriving just in time to watch as the massive wooden water tank that held all the water they used for the house and the stables leaned crazily on its fifteen foot wooden posts like a drunken man staggering on his legs. The wind was blowing hard and steady, and finally one of the posts snapped, sending the wooden tank crashing to the ground.

Thousands of gallons of water gushed out, washing over the ground like a flash flood and flowing downhill toward the lower pasture. Broken bits of wood and twisted pieces of the metal which had been used to lash the planks of the tank together were mixed in, and the hands who had been working outside scrambled to get out of the way before they were caught up in the rush of water.

Stone forced himself to move, running outside and heading toward the side of the stable that overlooked the pasture. Hopefully none of the cattle were grazing too close on that side, or they’d be swept up by the water or hit with the debris.

“Oh thank God.” He skidded to a stop when he saw that none of the hands or the cattle – especially the precious calves that would be going to market in the fall – were in the path of destruction. The water washed away into the dry earth, leaving the scattered bits of the tank in its path.

Luke came running up and stopped beside him, surveying the damage with visible dismay, and all he could say was, “Ohhell.”

Stone stood there, staring at the wreckage, a horrified sort of numbness washing over him. He didn’t know whether to scream or walk away from everything in defeat. If he was a different type of man, he might start believing that Priss really had come back to haunt him.

His pa would’ve given up, and that thought made him square his shoulders and turn to Luke. “I didn’t see nobody get caught in that, but we should round up the hands and make sure no one was hurt. Then I want to talk to every hand that saw it happen. I can’t believe it just went over in the wind like that.”

Luke stared at Stone blankly for a moment, but then he seemed to shake off the shocked daze he was in, and he nodded. “I’m on it. You’re right, it’s hard to believe. We check that tank at least once a year to make sure it’s holdin’ up all right. If it’d been showin’ signs of weakness or rot, we’d have caught it before it got to the point of blowin’ right over.”

“I’m sure you do.” Stone clapped Luke on the shoulder. He was sure Luke was feeling just as put upon as he was, if not more. Even though Stone owned the ranch, it had been Luke’s job to make sure everything on it was kept running and in good shape for the past ten years. Now things were suddenly going so wrong, making it look like Luke hadn’t been doing his job, but Stone had seen Luke work, and he knew that nothing could be farther from the truth. No, it wasn’t a reflection on Luke at all, but Stone was starting to feel like it couldn’t just be bad luck, either – not unless someone was helping that bad luck along.

“This is goin’ to to cost us, but we’ll get through it,” he continued, as much to reassure himself as Luke. “I just want to make sure that all this bad luck is really ours, and not someone else wishin’ bad things on us.”

Luke looked startled, as if the thought of sabotage hadn’t occurred to him yet, and then his expression turned dark. “If itissomeone else doin’ this, they’ll have hell to pay when they get caught,” he muttered, confirming Stone’s suspicions that he was taking this personally.

“Yeah, if we can catch them.” Stone nodded grimly. “I ain’t goin’ to go hurlin’ accusations all over the place, neither. Let’s just keep the thought between me and you. If it is someone else, I don’t want them to think we’re on to them. In fact, don’t say a word to the men about it not bein’ Priss’s ghost or a curse. Let them think that way, at least for now. If it’s someone makin’ trouble for us, they might get careless if they think they’re gettin’ away with it.”

Luke nodded, appearing satisfied with the plan. “Good idea. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, and my mouth shut.”

“That works. So let’s get goin’. Don’t want the men to think we’re lettin’ the ghosts win.”

By the time the sun set that night, Stone had talked to every hand on the place, but he wasn’t one bit closer to determining if there was anything suspicious going on. None of the hands who’d been close enough to see the water tank topple had noticed anything unusual, and no one had apparently been anywhere near it when it fell. That was a blessing in one sense, because it meant that they’d only lost the tank, not hands or livestock, but then again, Stone wished someone had seen something that would help him figure out if there was more than coincidence behind this run of back luck they were having.

One thing he did find out was that several of the hands really were worried about a ghost that was out to get Stone, and a couple of them had seemed nervous about talking with him, almost as if they expected him to put a curse on them. Stone had held his temper, even though he’d wanted to smack some sense into some of them.

He hadn’t sent for the sheriff, since he didn’t have proof that anything untoward was happening, but he’d told Luke to have the hands stack all the debris they could find in the stable until he and Luke could take a good look at it. If it wasn’t just an accident, maybe something in all the scraps of wood and metal would help them figure out what had happened.

Tired in both mind and body, he’d finally called a halt to things when it had gotten too dark to see. He and Luke went back to the ranch house for supper, and Stone was relieved to learn that James was spending the evening with Agnes and her folks, according to Mary, who had seemed amazed and a little envious that James had chosen to spend time with a girl far less pretty than she, but Stone wouldn’t have wished his cousin on either of the girls. In his opinion, Agnes was definitely getting the worse end of the bargain.

He and Luke had discussed what had happened, but they hadn’t been able to come up with any thoughts about who would go to such extremes to mess with the ranch, much less why. Stone had gone to bed still worrying over the question, but nothing made any sense. Who could hate him so much that they’d wreck the ranch to get at him? In some ways, he wished if therewassomeone after him, they’d just challenge him to a gunfight. Stone far preferred an enemy he could see, to one that seemed to stalk the shadows like a ghost – especially if by some horrible twist of fate, there really was one.

CHAPTER20

The ranch appeared quiet and peaceful in the early morning light, but Luke knew appearances were deceiving. Although construction of a new water tank had already begun, it would take a lot of time and effort to build it and then refill it, and in the meantime, life was a lot more difficult and inconvenient.

Standing in the yard and looking around at the ranch he’d called home for over a decade, Luke felt as if he hardly knew the place any longer. No, that wasn’t quite right, he thought. Everything looked more or less the same, but it allfeltdifferent. When Priss was alive and Sarah was still here, Luke had been pretending, but in a passive way. He hadn’t been interested in anyone, and being their decoy hadn’t required much effort on his part. Hiding what he felt for Stone was a different matter altogether, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up the pretense.

Part of his frustration was due to all the problems that had sprung up lately, and he knew that was coloring everything else and making the situation seem bleaker than it was. Still, he couldn’t help it. The ranch had seen hard times before, but this was different. Stone thought someone was sabotaging them, and Luke was inclined to agree. He didn’t believe in ghosts or curses, but he did believe in deliberate meanness, having seen it in folks more often than he’d like, and the “coincidences” were starting to pile up a bit too high for him to see anything but meanness at work.

All of it was starting to make the ranch feel less like home to Luke. He was willing to work hard and help the ranch recover from its recent losses, because those were problems that could be fixed. It might be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult, but the ranch’s bank account was healthy enough to ride out a bad year. Luke still had no idea what to do about the problems with Stone, however.

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