Only a few big trees grew in Kidro's lower meadow, those that found deep boulders to root around. The ground was otherwise too soft to support tall trees. Patches of brush hugged portions of the brook and tall grass covered the rest.
His young heifers and steers would be ready for market in another month. The remainder were breeders, sold out to canned goods companies when they got too old.
Every summer he allowed Basques to drive in herds of sheep to crop grass in both his upper and lower meadows. In return, each year, his family members had received a fresh young lamb and a fine, handmade sheepskin coat. The trade cost him nothing. The grass needed to be cut. His cattle preferred the feed corn he placed in bins near the brook. Corn produced better beef, anyway.
Yep.
Kidro Potter raised some of the finest table beef in California.
Hell, in the country.
In the world.
He poured his second glass of Canadian Club rye whiskey, recapped the bottle and sipped.
He enjoyed this time of day, sipping whiskey. With the sun long gone, the thin clouds over the western rim had turned pink, orange and gold. Some might call this a beautiful sunset, those who enjoyed such things.
J.J. had enjoyed these sunsets. So had Kisro's wife, before she'd been taken.
A little down from the rim and high up the slope, John Crow's house had already been shuttered, already dark. A thread of white smoke swirled and dissipated into the evergreen trees above the cliff. That stinking Indian had prepared for the night.
Damn squatter.
That stupid, superstitious Indian was Kidro's closest neighbor. Kidro had never had much use for Indians in general, and he'd never liked this one, a real know-it-all when it comes to horses.
Across the ravine from Crow's, above the waterfall, lamplight winked through the treetops from the Perch, Willis Donner's place. The glass reflected sunlight in the daytime and lamplight at night, a constant reminder of Willis's so-called right to be there.
God, I hate that bastard.
Kidro's parents had always treated Willis like a favored member of the family and Kidro had always resented him for it.
Hell, he'd never be able to do anything to get him and Crow out. That knowledge gnawed his gut near every night at this time, looking up at their two properties, both properly registered down in Sacramento. Kidro hated himself for hating both of them and doing nothing about it.
He squirmed on the cushioned bench and turned to look up River Road; still no sign of Nason. He drained the last of his whiskey and looked into the adoring stare of Scooter, his Springer Spaniel, sitting on the polished stone floor, waiting.
He knows.
"Nason's always late, isn't he?" Kidro smiled.
His dog's tail swept back and forth against the floor.
"You’re right.” Kidro set the glass next to the bottle and stood, feeling soreness in his left knee where Gilpin’s horse pinned him against the lower corral rail. At age sixty-eight, Kidro didn’t heal as quickly as he used to. He’d probably limp for a month, maybe for the rest of his empty life.
Stupid horse.
Kidro forced himself to walk through the pain to the kitchen door. He lifted his lightweight Levi jacket from a hook and put it on. He made it through the living room with only a slight limp and climbed three stone steps to the entry foyer. He dragged his heavy black Stetson hat from the deer antler rack Willis had mortared into the stone wall since before Kidro could remember and put it on. He opened his new factory-made entry door and followed Scooter outside.
As long as Kidro lived, Willis Donner would never hang another door here.
Scooter shot down the stone steps and rounded the corner of the garage before Kidro shut the door. Pain forced him to use his right leg, limping down the steps, keeping the left knee straight like some kind of cripple. Climbing down steps seemed worse than climbing up. Hell, he hated pain any way it came.
That stupid horse cost too much, five hundred bucks and a bull calf.
He wove his way up the rocky path through tall pine and limped out of the woods into his upper meadow where stubby grass mixed with sagebrush in rocky soil. He followed Scooter up the well worn trail, limping more instead of less.
“Stupid horse.”
Scooter reached that flat stone far ahead of Kidro, chasing those ever-present meadowlarks, howling and baying until the sky was filled with swirling, yellow-breasted birds. The dog almost never barked, earning Kidro’s constant gratitude, but he allowed it for chasing these stupid birds, always singing stupid bird songs.
Kidro never had liked noisy things, especially noisy people like Gilpin. He gritted his teeth, hating Gilpin more with each painful step. One good thing about this sore leg, another reason to hate Bruce Gilpin.
Always late.
Nason’s truck sped over the road-crest in a cloud of dust and slid to a stop near that flat rock with Kidro’s Angus bull calf in back, the one he’d just traded to Gilpin.
Broad shouldered and fit for forty, Sheriff Phil Nason stepped out of his four-door Ford pickup and walked to the back.
“Gilpin gave you that calf?”
Nason shook his head with a tired dip toward Kidro. “Pounded on his trailer for five minutes.” He dropped the tailgate, climbed into the back and untied the calf. “I know they were around. His truck was parked in front and I could smell refer, like walking into a hippy-house in Berkeley.” He lifted and carried the small calf to the back of his truck.
Kidro took and set it on the ground, gritting against the pain in his leg.
Nason climbed down and picked up the calf. “Found this one in the barn nursing from Gilpin’s milk cow. Idiot’s got pot hanging and drying everywhere. I don't think he's got a grower's permit. I should just arrest his ass. If not for his wife and kid, I would.”
“He’s probably got a grower’s permit. I
