Page 5 of Texas Glory
“I’ve got nothing but dry creek beds.”
Dallas shook his head in sympathy. “I can’t help that Nature chose to dry up your water supply and left mine flowing, but I don’t part with anything of mine freely.”
McQueen’s face turned a mottled shade of red. It occurred to Dallas that the man might have an apoplexy fit right here in his office. Then Dallas would never get what he wanted.
“Freely,” Angus muttered. “You won’t part with your water freely, but you will part with it for a price. Is that what this meeting is about? Is that why you fenced in the river? So you could get something for the water? Isn’t it enough that you stole my land?”
“I’ve owned that stretch of land since 1868.”
Angus snorted. “So you say.”
“The law backs my claim,” Dallas reminded him.
Angus released a harsh breath. “Then name your price for the water, and I’ll pay it. What do you want? Money? Cattle? More land?”
Dallas lowered his hands to his lap, the fingers of his right hand stroking the ivory handle of the gun strapped to his thigh. He should have insisted this meeting be held without weapons in tow.
“I have money. I have cattle. I have land. I want something that I don’t have. Something aspreciousas the cool water. Something asbeautifulas the flowing river.” Giving his words a moment to echo inside McQueen’s head, he tightened his hand around the gun. “Something aspureas the sun-glistened water.”
Angus shook his head. “You’re talking in riddles. I don’t have anything that’s pure or precious or beautiful.”
“I’ve heard you have a daughter,” Dallas said, wishing he hadn’t needed to be quite so blunt.
The furrows that ran across McQueen’s brow deepened. “Yes, I have a daughter, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
Dallas was beginning to question the wisdom of holding his meeting with Angus, wondering if it might have been better to discuss the particulars of his compromise with Boyd. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but women are scarce. I need a w—”
“My God! You can’t be serious!” McQueen yelled, his eyes bulging from their sockets.
“I’m dead serious.”
Angus slumped in his chair. “You’ll give me access to your water if I give you access to my daughter?”
With a speed Dallas never would have expected of the rotund man, Angus lunged across the desk and grabbed Dallas’s shirt. Dallas brought the gun from his holster and jabbed it into the folds of Angus’s neck, but the man was apparently too angry to notice. Spittle spewed into Dallas’s face.
“I’ll see you dead first,” Angus growled.
“That won’t get you the water,” Dallas said in an even voice.
“I won’t give you my daughter as a whore!” “I don’t want her as a whore. I want her as my wife.”
Angus McQueen blinked. “You want to marry her?”
“Is there a reason that I shouldn’t?”
Angus dropped into the chair. “You want to marry Cordelia?”
Cordelia? He was going to pull his fence back for a woman named Cordelia? Where in the hell had McQueen come up with that name?
“You don’t even know her,” McQueen said.
Dallas leaned forward. “Look, McQueen, we’ve been arguing over that strip of land for three years now. The law says it’s mine and gives me the right to fence in and protect what’s mine. Your sons killed my cattle—”
“You can’t prove it—”
“Two nights ago, they damn near killed my brother. I went to war when I was fourteen. I’ve fought Yankees, Indians, renegades, outlaws, and now I’m fighting my neighbors.” Dallas sank into his chair. “I’m tired of fighting. Angus, I need a son to whom I can pass my legacy. I need a wife to give me a legitimate heir. The pickin’s around here are slim—”
Angus came out of the chair and pounded a fist on the desk. “The pickin’s? If I were ten years younger I’d pound you into the dirt for thinking so lowly of my daughter.”
