Maggie glance
d at the wall clock to check the time. It was almost eleven-thirty. If she hurried, she’d be able to finish the dusting before she had to fix lunch. Lifting an ashtray, she ran the oiled cloth over the top of a magazine stand moved onto the desk. It was an old thing, badly scratched and scarred. The top of it was strewn with papers, mostly advertisements, which Maggie shuffled into a pile. As she lifted the cigar box of bills, she accidentally bumped the decorative stein. It teetered on the edge of the desk and fell to the hard floor—her saving grab missing it. The stein broke into three pieces.
“Damn!” She cursed her clumsiness as she knelt to pick up the pieces.
A section of the handle was broken, and the hinged lid to the stein had snapped off the mug. There was a vee-shaped chip broken from the body of the stein. As Maggie picked up the main body of the stein to see if the chip could be glued into place, she noticed something inside. She reached in, careful to avoid the broken points on the lip, and took out the roll of dark paper.
Only it wasn’t paper. It was money. She sat back on her heels in stunned disbelief. She had never seen so much money in all her life. She fingered the bills, all crisp and green. They didn’t look like counterfeits; the money looked real. Maggie started to count it with trembling, eager fingers. Too dazed by her find, she didn’t hear the footsteps on the porch. She wasn’t aware of anything until she heard the screen door slam. Then she looked up to see her father and brother had entered the house.
“Look what I found!” Maggie lifted her hand to show them the money, laughing and excited. “There’s hundreds here and more!”
“What are you doing with that?” The angry demand from her father was followed with action as he strode quickly over to take it from her hands.
“It was in the beer stein. When it fell—” Maggie stopped when she realized that neither of them was surprised. Culley looked uncomfortable—worried, almost. The sparkling excitement of discovery faded from her green eyes. A sharp-edged tension claimed her, running tautly through her nerve ends. “Where did you get this money, Pa?”
“It’s none of your affair.” He avoided her gaze and shoved the roll of money into his pocket.
Maggie pushed to her feet, an unknown fear gnawing at the pit of her stomach. “Yes, it is. I want to know how you got that much money.”
Her father glanced at Culley, a secretive gleam dancing in his dark eyes. “We’ve been doing a little moonlighting,” he said, sounding deliberately mysterious. A smile didn’t quite make it onto her brother’s face, but Maggie could tell they were sharing a private joke. It increased her suspicions.
“Are you trying to tell me you earned that much money working for someone else?” She didn’t believe them. “Who? When? You’ve been here all the time.”
“It’s night work,” Culley said and grinned at his father.
“Night work? Doing what?” Her uneasiness grew as she looked from one to the other.
“Now just what do you think we’ve been doing, little girl?” her father challenged with a cocky look.
A cold, sinking feeling chilled her. The one thought her mind had been avoiding became the only one left. The clues were all there—night work, a large sum of money, and the widely known fact that someone had been stealing Calder cattle. That was all anyone had talked about for the last two weeks. And her father had smirked with satisfaction each time the subject was discussed in front of him.
“Have you … had anything to do with the cattle that have been stolen?” Maggie had to force the question out, her voice flat and hard in its accusation.
A smugness came over her father’s face. “You’re looking at the brains behind it.”
“You fools! You crazy fools!” Maggie stormed. “Do you think you’re going to get away with it?”
“We haven’t been caught the last three times—and we aren’t ever going to be caught!” Her father stretched his short body to attain every inch of his height and pushed out his chest.
“Three?” Maggie frowned. “But I only heard about—”
“Yeah.” There was a malicious grin on his face. “Calder hasn’t discovered the last one yet. That’s the problem with owning so much. It takes a while to find out if something is missing.”
“We’re just like two pesky mosquitoes,” Culley inserted, “buzzing around and stinging him where he ain’t expecting it, taking little bites here and little bites there—until pretty soon he’s all ate up.” He laughed and her father joined in with him.
Maggie stared at them, chilled to the bone and frightened, although she didn’t let it show. “What happens when he gets mad, Pa? What happens when you sting him so much that he comes after you?”
“How’s he going to know which mosquito to swat at?” he retorted. “He’ll go stomping around, swiping at everyone, but he’ll never be able to prove nothing.”
Maggie shook her head slowly, not believing that. “You’ve just been lucky.”
“Lucky, hell! We’ve been smart! Tucker and me have worked this thing out to where it’s foolproof!” he bragged. “Not even the guy we’re selling the beef to knows who we are. We can’t be traced. Even the semi changes drivers so the guy making the delivery doesn’t know any names on the other end.”
“Why are you doing this, Pa?” she demanded. “Because of Chase? Because of—”
“Calder’s had everything his way in this part of the country for too long. It’s got to the point where he thinks him and his can do anything without being touched—without being made to pay for it. He’s squeezed us little guys out, taking the best land and water, controlling the market so we don’t get decent prices for our beef, and lording it over us like he was some damned king!” Angus towered in his role as champion of the oppressed, David rising up to smite Goliath. “We’re going to get even with Calder for everybody! And we’ve only started!”
“You have to stop!” Maggie insisted, and she vibrated with an anger that came from an inner fear. “Quit while you’re ahead, Pa. You’ve got all that money. It’s more than we’ve ever had. It’s enough. You’ve showed Calder—now quit while you can.”