The Stranger from Abilene

Chapter 43

“Eighty dollars a month, Mr. Clayton, and there’s my best offer,” Angus McLean said.

“I was paying my top hand that much,” Clayton said.

“Aye, and look what happened to you.”

“Add a twenty to the wage.”

“A hundred a month? Are ye daft, man?”

“You won’t find a better ranch manager, not around these parts or in Boston either.”

McLean rocked back and forth on the hotel porch, nursing a hangover, his mood as sour as curdled cream.

“Ye’re a robber, so ye are,” he said.

“A hundred a month. I’ll have a wife to support, remember.”

“Marrying that lassie the constable was talking aboot?”

“If she’ll have me.”

The Scotsman turned and looked at Clayton. After a while he said, “Aye, weel, she might. There’s no accounting for some lassies’ tastes.”

Again McLean lapsed into silence; then, “Ninety dollars a month, and another ten if ye prove to be satisfactory after a calendar year.”

The Scotsman’s eyes hardened. “I’ll only accept your best work, mind. If ye shirk your duties, then out ye go.”

“Agreed.”

McLean leaned out of his rocker. “Then here’s my hand on it. You’re hired. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers who’ll draw up a contract.”

“I appreciate it, Mr. McLean,” Clayton said.

“Your best work. I want that ranch to make a profit.”

“It will.”

“Aye, weel, I’ll take you at your word.”

McLean’s eyes drifted down the street where shadows angled in the morning sun. “Ah, here’s Moses coming. He’s taking me out to see more of the range I just bought. Sharp as a tack, that laddie.”

When Anderson stopped the rig at the porch, McLean yelled, “Did you bring a bottle, ye damned heathen?”

The black man grinned and held up a bottle of Old Crow. “And I brung some fried chicken an’ sourdough biscuits my woman cooked,” Anderson said.

McLean rose to his feet. “And you’ll charge me for it, nae doubt.”

“No, it’s all included in the price, Mr. McLean.”

“Aye, and the price is high enough as it is, I’ll be bound. Ye’re a robbing Hindoo and there’s the case stated plain and square.”

McLean climbed into the gig, then turned to Clayton.

“I’ll be back this evening and we’ll talk some more,” he said. “Bring the lassie with you.”

“I’ll do that,” Clayton said.

But would Emma agree to come?