“Nope,” J.D. said. “All together they don’t have the sense God gave a horse.” He patted the little mare and headed for the gate. She followed him like a dog. “Couple of them sure do resemble the back end of one, though.”

Tucker spat a stream of brown juice into the dirt and grinned his tight, shy grin, showing only a glimpse of discolored teeth. “That’s a fact, son. A bigger bunch of horse’s patoots I never did see.” He swung the gate open and stepped past J.D. to snap a lead to the mare’s halter. “I’ll cool her out. You better get a move on if you’re gonna make that meeting. Will already went up to the house.”

“Yeah, well, he spends an hour in front of the mirror. If he spent as much time with his wife as he does picking out his clothes-”

“Got that line of fence done up east of the blue rock.”

Tucker changed the subject as smoothly as an old cowhorse changing leads. J.D. didn’t miss the switch. Tucker had been on the Stars and Bars a lot of years. He’d been a pal of old Tom, had stood by faithfully and worked like a dog during all the years Sondra had made their life a misery. He’d been a surrogate father to J.D. when Tom had been caught up in the agony of heartbreak, and a mentor after Tom had died, leaving the ranch to J.D. and Will when J.D. was only twenty. His role these days as often as not was that of diplomat. He didn’t like dissention among the ranks, and did his best to smooth things between the brothers.

“You find Old Dinah?” J.D. asked as they walked across the hard-packed earth of the ranch yard, their battered boots kicking up puffs of dust.

Tucker chuckled. “Yep. In the back of beyond with a big good-looking bull calf at her side. She’s got a mind of her own, that old mama cow. Just like every female I ever knew.”

The little mare snorted as if in affront, blowing crud down the back of the old man’s shirt. He scowled at her, but kept on walking, grumbling, “Jeezo Pete.”

“That’s why you’re single,” J.D. joked, turning toward the house.

“Yeah, well, what’s your excuse, hotshot?”

“I’m too smart.”

“For your own good.”

J.D. thought about that as he climbed the broad steps to the old clapboard ranch house with its wide, welcoming front porch. He planned to dodge matrimony for as long as he could. He didn’t have time for courtship rituals and all the related nonsense. When he couldn’t put it off any longer, he supposed he would go find a sensible woman with a ranching background, a woman who understood that the land and the animals would always come first with him. They would marry out of a mutual desire to raise a family, and the next generation of Raffertys would grow up on the Stars and Bars, learning the duty and the joy of life here.

There was nothing romantic about his plan. Growing up he had seen firsthand the folly of romance. His father had lost his heart twice. First to J.D.’s mother, Ann, who died of cancer. J.D. had been only three at the time. He had no memories of the woman herself, only of sensations-comfort and safety, softness. But he remembered vividly her death and the way it devastated his father. Then along came Sondra Remick. Much too soon. Much too pretty. Much too spoiled. And Tom Rafferty lost his heart again to a woman. Totally. Utterly. Beyond all pride or reason.

In the end, he damn near lost everything. Sondra had eventually left him for a more exciting man. Because of her infidelities, Tom had had a strong case against her as an unfit mother, and might have ended up with full custody of her darling Will. That was the only thing that had stood in her way of suing him for divorce and taking away half of everything he owned, including the Stars and Bars. They fought bitterly over his refusal to release her from her marriage vows, but he was unrelenting. He would not let her go. His obsession for her went too deep. In retrospect, J.D. thought he probably could not have let go even if he had wanted.

They had stood right there on this porch, J.D. and his daddy, looking down across the ranch yard at the sturdy old buildings, the corrals, the horses, the valley and mountains beyond. Lines of strain were etched in Tom Rafferty’s face like scars, his eyes were bleak with hopelessness. He looked like a man waiting to die.

“Never love a woman, son,” he mumbled as if he were remembering words told to him by someone long ago. “Never love a woman. Love the land.”

Citizens for the Eden Valley ordinarily met in the community center-a kind euphemism for a room off the fire station garage filled with rickety folding chairs and mismatched card tables people had donated over the years. That this meeting was being held in the Mystic Moose Lodge was a bad sign as far as J.D. was concerned. The enemy had invited them into its camp. Some saw it as an overture of friendship, an invitation to work cooperatively with the newcomers. J.D. wasn’t so optimistic.

The meeting room was bright and clean with ruby carpeting on the floor and rustic beams across the ceiling. It smelled pleasantly of fresh coffee instead of diesel fuel and exhaust fumes like the community center. The tables were draped in hunter-green linen. The chairs were all new. J.D. chose to stand at the back of the room.

There were perhaps a hundred people in attendance, milling around, buzzing premeeting gossip. Most of them were lifelong citizens of New Eden. Businessmen and women from the community. Ranchers who had, like J.D., quit work hours early to clean up and put on freshly pressed western shirts, Sunday trousers, and good boots. Scattered among the common folk were new faces-Hollywood types, artists, environmental activists, Evan Bryce.

J.D.’s hackles went up at the sight of Bryce working the room. He made the rounds, singling out the mayor, the chairman of the citizens’ commission, the banker’s wife, dazzling them with his smile, undermining any wariness they might have had with a phony show of concern. As if he gave a damn about the people of New Eden.

What Bryce cared about was power. That had seemed glaringly apparent to J.D. the first time they had met-from the way Bryce threw money around to the way he surrounded himself with people who believed he was important. J.D. refused to be impressed by him, an affront that had set the tone for their acquaintance. Bryce wanted to be king of the mountain along the south face of the Absaroka range, but J.D. wouldn’t play the game. No Rafferty had ever bowed to a king-real or otherwise. No Rafferty ever would.

As if he sensed J.D.’s eyes on him, Bryce looked up and their gazes caught and held for one burning moment. A slow smile pulled across Bryce’s mouth. His pale eyes gleamed with amusement. The look clearly said I’ve got the keys to the kingdom within my grasp, Rafferty, and you can’t do a damn thing to stop me. Then he moved on to kiss another cheek and shake another hand.

“Hey, J.D.” Red Grusin stuck out a hand and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t see much of you these days.”

As owner of the Hell and Gone, Red had never seen much of him. J.D. had better things to do than sit around a honky-tonk and drink beer. “Will spends enough time with you all for the both of us,” he said with a half smile. For all he knew, that was where Will was at that very moment. His brother had yet to make an appearance in the meeting room.

Grusin chuckled. He was a big man with skinny legs and a thick chest and belly that made him look as if he were wearing an umpire’s padding beneath his shirt. He had the hair and freckles his name indicated. His cheeks and the end of his bulbous nose were perpetually pink. “That’s a fact. Why, just last night he hit the jackpot on the mouse races. ’Course, that didn’t hardly make up for what he lost downstairs in the poker game,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. His blue eyes twinkled. Just a little joke among friends-Will and his weakness for wagering. “But it’ll all come out in the wash, as my mama always said.”