lucky if you have enough money to buy a ticket back to Missouri.”
“Yeah? Well, at least I’ll be my own boss,” Colby said. “Good-bye, gents.” He started toward the door.
“Colby?” Quentin called.
Colby turned back toward Quentin. “Yes?”
“Don’t take this personally. It’s pure business.”
“I’m sure it is,” Colby said.
“Gentlemen,” Quentin said after Colby left, “we have made good progress here, today. I will start buying Hereford cattle to build our new herd, and to strengthen that herd, I plan to acquire at least one champion Hereford bull. I thank you for your confidence and support.”
Chapter Three
The stagecoach rolling out of Big Rock, bound for the nearby town of Mitchell, met four riders who were just coming into town. The stage diver nodded at the riders, who nodded back. The riders passed by the WELCOME TO BIG ROCK sign, which was just before the blacksmith shop, where sparks were flying from the heated iron wheel- band the smithy was working with his hammer. As they came deeper into town, they rode on by the butcher shop where the butcher, Stan Virden, was sweeping his front porch; by the feed store, where a wagon was being loaded; and the apothecary, where a painter was touching up the mortar-and-pestle sign that was suspended from the porch overhang.
Just up the street from the riders was a building with a huge sign that was an oversized boot.
BIG
ROCK
BOOTS
& SADDLES
An outside set of stairs ran up the north wall of the leather goods store, and at the top of the stairs the printed sign on the door read:
STEVE WARREN
Smoke Jensen, owner of Sugarloaf Ranch, had come to see Steve, to arrange a sales contract for his beeves.
At six feet one inch, Smoke Jensen was an impressive man. He was broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, and his biceps were as thick as most men’s thighs. Though he was still a relatively young man, stories about him were legend, both true and false. The irony was that many of the true stories were even more dramatic than the myths that abounded.
Smoke had never really known his mother, and when he was barely in his teens, he went with his father into the mountains to follow the fur trade. The father and son teamed up with a legendary mountain man called Preacher. For some reason unknown even to Preacher, the mountain man took to the boy and began to teach him the ways of the mountains: how to live when others would die, how to be a man of your word, and how to fear no other living creature. On the first day they met, Preacher, whose real name was Art, gave Kirby Jensen a new name. For reasons known only to himself, Preacher began calling Kirby “Smoke.” Later, when Smoke’s father was killed by outlaws, young Kirby Jensen hunted them down and killed them. That action was the birth of the legend of Smoke Jensen.
Now, he was married and settled down as a rancher, and his Sugarloaf Ranch was known as one of the finest cattle spreads in the entire state of Colorado. And his ranch, as were many other ranches, was in the process of transition. Texas longhorns, a breed of cattle that had been the staple of Western beef production for many years now, were gradually being replaced by new breeds, such as the Angus and the Hereford.
“I hate to tell you this, Smoke, but it looks like about the best we can come up with is seven dollars a head,” the cattle broker said.
Smoke was standing at the window, looking down onto the street, watching as the four men came riding into town. There was nothing particularly unusual about them—it wasn’t even that unusual for four riders to arrive together. Nevertheless, there was something about them that triggered some deep-set instinct. He couldn’t put his finger on it—but something about them nagged at him. He turned away from the window when he heard Steve’s offer.
“Did you say seven dollars?” Smoke asked.
“That’s what it looks like.”
“That’s not very good. Last year, I got ten dollars a head,” Smoke replied. “And the year before that, I got fifteen. What’s happening to the market? Are people not eating beef anymore?”
“Oh, they’re still eating beef all right,” Steve said. “But they’ve gotten a lot more particular. Now, if we were talking Herefords instead of longhorns, I could offer you twenty-five dollars a head.”
“I have a few Herefords,” Smoke said, turning away from the window and coming back to sit across the desk from Steve. “But not enough to sell yet. I’m just beginning to build up a herd.”
“Smoke, I wish I could offer you more. As you know, I get ten percent of the contract, which means the higher the price I can get for you, the more money I make for myself. But no matter where you go—Omaha, Kansas City, Chicago—we are running into the same thing. The most any of the meatpacking houses will pay is seven dollars per head for longhorn cattle, and if they had a hard winter, they may pay as low as four or five dollars. I’ve seen your herd, your beeves are in good shape, so you’ll get top dollar. Unfortunately, top dollar is only seven dollars per head.”
“You don’t have to explain the situation. I’ve worked with you for a long time, Steve, and I know you are an honest man, doing the best you can. But these cattle cost me two dollars a head to raise, and at fifty dollars per cattle car, that means they are costing me a dollar a head to ship. That leaves four dollars a head,” Smoke said. ‘No, counting your fee, it leaves me three dollars and thirty cents a head.” He sighed. “I’ll ship twelve hundred head,
