“I got it now.”
“Tell me about fishing.”
“There’s not much to tell. Gideon and Jack were fooling around by the lake, snapping their rods and casting long and wide. One of them, and I swear I don’t remember who, snagged me with his line. Hook caught me in the mouth because I was yelling at them to watch what they were doing. Zetta Lee stitched it up, and Ham whupped them both with his belt. I was crying, carrying on, begging him not to do it. I think he figured out what I was really trying to tell him because after Zetta Lee finished her stitch work, he whupped me, too.”
“And that put you back in your brothers’ good graces?”
“Sure did. For a time.”
Jane chuckled quietly. “Fishing.” She leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Most of the time it gives your smile a wry twist.”
“And the times that it doesn’t?”
“It gives your smile youth.”
That made him grin. He drew her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
Jane repeated the question she had asked him earlier. “Are you satisfied with how things turned out today?”
Morgan did not make the question less important than it was with a flippant answer. “Yes,” he said. “I’m satisfied. Going to see Cobb was the right thing to do.”
“I feel better knowing that he will be watching for Gideon’s return, and when we get back to Morning Star you’ll tell the others what they can expect.”
“They know most of it. And Jem’s already had a knock-down-drag-out with three of the men running with Gideon.”
“But now you have remarkable likenesses of all of them except for Jack, and you will know him immediately. I think it was good of Marshal Bridger to make sketches for us to take back.”
“It was.”
Jane slipped her hand under the covers and rested it on Morgan’s chest, just above his heart. “How did you come by the money to buy Morning Star?”
“Did you put your hand there because it’s comforting or because you think my heartbeat might tell you if I’m lying?”
“Because it’s comforting, although the other sounds as if it might have some merit. Are you going to lie to me, Morgan? And by lie, I mean evade the truth, omit the truth, turn the truth on its head, or otherwise prevaricate.”
“I rustled cattle and saddle horses. That is about as straight as I can say it.”
Jane’s lips puffed as she blew out a breath. “I tried to imagine what you might say and how I would feel about it before I asked.”
“How are you doing with that?”
“My conscience is pinching me.”
“Like your boots were.”
“Yes, about like that.”
“Maybe this will help some. I stole the cattle and horses from Zetta Lee.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. It was a spell after I got out before I could go up to Lander. I wasn’t even sure that she would still have the place, and I wasn’t going there to see her anyway. I wanted to pay my respects to Ham, see his grave again, and more or less apologize for what became of that legacy he was so keen to have.
“I had been thinking on the problem of what I was going to do when I got out. Mrs. Sterling had written to me about the old Burdick place, and I had some ideas about what I could do with a spread like that. No money, though. I had to work for a rancher in Unita County until I had enough to buy one of his old saddle horses. I left for Lander that same day.
“When I got there, I did what I set out to do. Ham’s gravesite needed a bit of tending, so I did that, then I looked around at what had become of Welling & Sons, and the only thing I decided that would keep me from putting my hands on Zetta Lee was to steal her cattle.”
“Welling & Sons,” Jane repeated quietly.
