Montana (Modern Mail Order Bride Book 2) (20 page)

A
very was so excited to be on a private plane that she could barely contain herself.  Each question she pelted Zachary with, he patiently answered, enjoying the naïveté.  It was actually refreshing from his dating history of so many women who believed after one night he owed them something.  Even worse, before the night began, he would have to request their cell phones or avoid nefarious attempts to make him an unwilling father.  He liked Avery because there were no pretenses with her. She didn’t even have a cell phone.

“Zachary Peters, is this your plane?”

“I told you to call me Zach, Avery,” he said softly to her. The plane wasn’t very large. It only comfortably seated six people and had a small table in the rear next to the restroom. It also came with one stewardess.

“Zach,” she asked, “do you have a lot of money?”

This question pulled the attention of Pecola and Billy Joe, who kept his eyes trained on Zachary’s face, trying to gauge his reaction to Avery’s question.

“I do,” he said.

Avery bit on her bottom lip. Placing her request in the right frame was important to her. The last thing she wanted was for Zach to think she was a gold digger, but this was possibly the most important question she would ever ask him.

“Zach, can I have some?”

“Some what?  Some money?” Zach responded with his eyebrows arched in surprise. Billy Joe leaned forward, but Pecola placed her hand on his shirt sleeve to hold him back. She patted his arm, then began to rub it in a soothing manner.

Avery was wringing her hands together.

“Yes.  I hate to ask and all, but I am really going to need some new paint brushes, paints, canvases, and most definitely an easel.  The one I have I made out of a few scraps of wood lyin’ about.  I mean I’m pretty good with the lathe and made most of my frames, but I won’t have access to all of my tools in New York, so a lot of that stuff I’ll have to buy,” she said softly.

“Sure,” Zach said.

“Just like that?  You are going to give me some money to buy that stuff?” Avery asked in disbelief.

“Of course,” he said.

“Wow!  Gosh!  I didn’t want to ask, but I don’t want to show up to class all furaggedy,” she told him.  She leaned over and squeezed Zachary like he was an oversized stuffed animal.

“Furaggedy is not a word,” Zach mumbled.  “What does it supposed to mean?”

“It means raggedy as fu...,” she was about to say, but Zach silenced her with a kiss.

Billy Joe really didn’t like the man now. Envious was not a word in his vocabulary; however, Zachary was forcing him to come to terms with something very real. He was land rich and pocket poor. The sale of the cattle was the keystone to his success.  If the cattle didn’t make it to market for sale, everything would fall apart.  A balloon payment was due on the last mortgage and one wrong thing could unravel his life.  He knew for the next few years as they built the writer’s retreat he would never have loose capital like Zachary to spend on his wife. In time, if all went well, he would be able to take Pecola shopping to buy her pretty panties.

“William,” she whispered to him.

“Yes, Honey,” he responded.

“As man and wife we must focus on the long haul, what is important to us, to our children,” she said, slipping her hand into his.

“I know,” he responded. “I just worry that I won’t be able to charter you a plane to go anywhere, at least no time soon,” he said.

“Big things are important, William, but what really matters are the smaller things that will make up our everyday life,” she told him.

“I will never be too big of a man to help you with the smaller things,” he told her.

“Right, wrong, or indifferent, I am at your side to care for you and help bring your dream to life,” she told him.

“I know, Honey,” he said. It still made him worry.  The call that came in from Pap didn’t help.  Something was horribly wrong.  He felt it yesterday.

Today, the only thing he was feeling was sick to his stomach.

T
he stomach nausea turned to violent hurling when they arrived at the ranch. Half of the herd was sick, several hundred of the cows had died, and the vet only held up his hands.

“It’s the durnest thing, Billy Joe.  I ain’t never seent anything like this.  It started Thursday afternoon, with some mucus on the nostrils and leaking eyes; then they got sick and starting dropping.  I administered antibiotics, but as I got to one set, the other set went down on their knees and didn’t get back up.  Then they started to die,” Doc Ellington told him.

“Pap, did you use the new feed or the old meal bone?” Billy Joe asked him.

“I used the new feed,” he said.

“Doc, take a sample of that new feed and have it tested,” Billy Joe said.  “There are a lot of us that bought that feed.  If it decimates our herds, we’re all in a lot of trouble.”

Zachary stood still, his eyes focused on the pile of dead animals being forklifted over to a deep pit where wood was being added to the hole along with gasoline.  Vehicles began to arrive one after the other pulling up to a large hole in the ground.

Pecola touched his arm. “If the herds die, William, what happens?”

“I, and all the farmers here, will be bankrupt.  The banks can foreclose since we have no inventory or collateral, and we lose our land,” he said.  His thick fingers ran through the dark hair as he looked at the pile of rotting flesh.  The gentle gray eyes appeared sunken with worry as they scanned the plains, seeing the teetering animals.

“Are the animals delirious, William?” she asked.

“Yes, and at this point, Honey, so am I.  Even if we can save ‘em, the meat will not be fit for human consumption.  It won’t even be worthy to feed to other animals,” he said.

Billy Joe gnawed on his bottom lip.  Pap stood back, watching the man’s rigid back as Billy Joe walked away from the fray to meeting the arriving vehicles. His two uncles arrived along with several other ranchers in the area, followed by the Reverend Moss and his brother in law, Duncan Steadler, the loan shark of a banker. Part of the financial mess Billy Joe was in was in part due to the predatory lending practices of the local bank.

His father, unknowingly in opening up the second and third mortgages in an effort to pay off the first one, only increased the debts. Billy Joe worked diligently to pay off the second and third mortgages, but the primary one was the monster with an adjustable rate mortgage that Duncan Steadler liked to constantly adjust. The sale of the cattle would have settled the loan, making the Rocking J completely his.

Pap stood by Pecola, his leathery face gazing at her profile. “Lawd, I tell ya.  That boy has been through some things, and it worries me that this will be the final feather to break down the chicken feather truck,” Pap said with a nod of his head.

Zachary stared at the weathered old cow puncher, uncertain how to interpret his analogy.

“I garunbetcha those two snakes have slithered together to make some sort of plan,” he said to her.

“Pap?” Pecola asked. “What happens if Billy Joe were to die?”

“With the ink being barely dry on your wedding, the bank would contest his death, especially if it is under suspicious circumstances, allowing the bank to foreclose and get the land,” Pap said.

“How would it be avoided, I mean, contesting the inheritance since Chad is not on the deed?” she wanted to know.

“Unless you were carrying an heir to the Johnson land or personally able to pay off the mortgage out of your own money, you wouldn’t be able to do anything, like with his insurance money and such.  Besides, I don’t even think he’s had a chance to change any of that over yet,” Pap told her.

“Currently, whose name is on the paperwork?” she wanted to know.

“I think Avery Jean.  It was a hard lesson learned from Billy Joe’s dad when his father died, so instead of leaving anything to his brothers, he instead left to their kids. Since all of their kids are dead, with the exception of Avery Jean, I think Avery Jean will inherit everything if there is anything left,” he told her.

“Good to know,” she said as she walked out towards the crowd of gathered people. The conversation was heating up, the crowd was getting larger, and by the looks of things, whatever was being said, no one liked the words.

Least of all her husband.

Z
achary didn’t quite know what to make of his brother-in-law. Thus far, his interactions with the man had been trying. In less than 48 hours, they had nearly come to blows twice and more than anything, it was still unclear what type of man his sister had married.  In less than 15 minutes, he not only learned to like Billy Joe Johnson, he also gained a great deal of respect for him.

The crowd, composed of local farmers and ranchers, had gotten word about Billy Joe’s cattle. The same fate was befalling other farmers with the loss of sheep, livestock, and even some bison. In the center of all of it was Duncan Steadler.

“If you think for one second you’re calling in all of our loans, Steadler, you are mistaken,” one red-faced rancher bellowed.

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before you get you grubby hands on Juniper lands, you sidewinding sod belly,” a snaggle-toothed woman bellowed.

“Now, now,” Duncan called out over the crowd. “No one is calling in any loans.  I came out here to see Billy Joe, one, to congratulate him on his nuptials and two, to bring a wedding gift.”

“Yeah, that works just fine if your gift is death,” Brooks Johnson yelled.

Brooks, always the hot-headed irrational Johnson, was never allowed to speak for the Johnson family. Elwood, who had been injured as a young man by a bucking bronco, never had any children and lost much of his speech capability.  He did, however, have a large stick, which he often used to clobber people anytime anyone disagreed with him.

Or stared at him too long.

Or frustrated him when he was trying to write his letters, which is what he called any and everything which required the formation of a sentence. The responsibility of the family sat heavily on Billy Joe’s shoulders, who raised his hand, and everyone got quiet.

“First, allow me to thank you for coming out to wish me and Pecola well.  We just got back from New York and we haven’t had a chance to sort through anything yet,” he said with a straight face.  Pecola, standing at his side, slipped her fingers through his.

She smiled at the banker, “We will be in next week to settle up our accounts with you and get back the deed to the land,” she said with a straight face.  Billy Joe knew nothing about this but figured she had a plan.

He addressed the crowd. “Everyone, there was something wrong with that last batch of feed.  I have sent it off to the lab to be tested, and if any wrongdoing has transpired, we will get to the bottom of it. Right now, we need to tend to our lands,” he told the group.

The banker, attempting to say something, was interrupted when Billy Joe pulled back his arm and landed a punch in the man’s face.  Another blow landed on Reverend Moss’s nose. “The next time either of you men set foot onto Johnson land, I’m gonna put a bullet in you first, then ask you what the hell you want,” he said.

He turned his back to the men, walking over to the pit of carcasses. Pap handed him a book of matches that he lit tossed over into the hole.  The loud whoosh of gasoline sucked the air and methane from the dead bodies as the flames rose high, wafting up scents of roasted beef.

Brooks was encouraging people to get in their vehicles and go home to do the same. Ellwood was banging bodies that were moving too slow with his stick.  Zachary’s eyes remained fixed on his brother-in-law.  The moment the last truck turned through the main gate, Billy Joe’s knees buckled.

He landed hard as his body folded over next to the smoky pit.  His uncles came running as Chad’s truck barreled down the back path from the lake. He was laying on the horn, but Billy Joe was done. There was no more fight left in him. The only thing he had left was 500 head of sick cattle and a beautiful wife who had just lied to save his face.  The balloon payment was nearly ten grand, he had another 20 grand in the bank to make payroll for a few more months, then that was it.  Duncan knew this as well. It was also the reason Billy Joe punched him in the mouth.

“I need you to get up, man.  I need you on your feet,” Zachary whispered in his ear.

“I’m ruined.” Billy Joe told him.  “I have nothing left.”

The truck barely stopped when Chad bounded out of the vehicle.  “I caught one of the bastards!” he yelled.  “I caught one!”

In the back of the pick-up truck was a scrawny man, hog tied. The thin man squirmed, trying to remove himself from the proximity of the canvas sack; besides him was another bag that was also wiggling.

Brooks asked, “Who is that man, Chad?”

“The guy I caught with the bag of poisonous snakes as well as the container of whatever this stuff is that probably killed the cattle, Chad said holding up the can.

Billy Joe got to feet. “Who sent him?”

“Duncan and the Reverend,” Chad said. “They were in on it together.  Based on what this guy told me, they have a plan with one of them fracking companies.  There was some oil found in between ours and the Gibbons place.  The vein of it runs all across the basin, so their plan was to get all the land, then sell it to the oil company,” he said.