"Lot of dust in the air." Murdoch kept his voice almost off-hand as he tossed another forkful of hay into the wagon.
"I coulda told you that an hour ago!" Jelly growled, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. The two men kept working side by side.
.
"I don't know what's got into Murdoch, offering to let that old flim-flammer stay at Lancer," Scott said to Teresa as they turned and walked towards the corral.
"He's got nowhere else to go, Scott," she pointed out.
"He'll be a liability to the ranch. Murdoch would have been better off just paying the fine as a gift and forgetting about it." Scott made an effort to hold down his annoyance but his words had a sharp edge.
"You never know, he might turn out a good, hard worker," Teresa offered hopefully.
"Well, we know he can work hard at cadging and stealing," said Scott.
"Oh, Scott, that was only so he could provide for his boys," the girl put forward the defence.
"He didn't seem to think of providing for them by getting an honest job," Scott returned but even as he said the words he knew he was wasting his time. Teresa would always see the good before the bad in anyone. And none of the Lancers would have had her any other way.
But Scott's irritation at all the trouble Jelly had caused at Lancer was still there. His dislike for the old man had faded – had dispersed in the space of a few moments, in fact, as he'd watched him cradling little Toogie in his arms and seen the expression on his face when Toogie finally spoke to him - but the impressions of those first few days had never quite gone away. Jelly was a thief and a liar – at any rate, he had been in the past and Scott wondered how confident they could be that he wouldn't keep on with his old ways. Yet Murdoch was apparently willing to take a chance on the old drifter, so there was little point in Scott starting an argument. His father called the tune and Scott acknowledged, deep down, his right to do so - the right of the man who had devoted half his lifetime to building Lancer.
As if reading his thoughts, Teresa said, "Anyhow, Murdoch seems happy for him to stay."
"I still don't know why." Scott shook his head, honestly baffled by his father's act.
"I think he admires Jelly for taking on those boys and looking after them," Teresa said. "And maybe…" she paused.
"Maybe what?" Scott prompted.
"Maybe he's thinking about Johnny," Teresa ventured. "Thinking about people who must have helped him, those years when he was alone like Jelly's boys. Perhaps Murdoch's letting Jelly stay is his way of saying thank you to them."
"You think so?" It was an idea Scott hadn't considered but he could see how, yes, those homeless boys would touch a chord with Murdoch Lancer.
"I think that's part of it." She smiled. "And part of it is just Murdoch not letting an old man go out into the world with nothing. You know how he is – caring of everybody."
Yes, he did know; he'd seen that side of his father in the months since coming to Lancer. Caring of the Lancer vaqueros and their families, caring of his orphaned ward, caring of an old man who had no home to go to – caring of everyone, Scott thought, except a little boy in Boston. And yet, caring now of his grown sons. Scott wondered if he'd ever understand the enigma that was his father, Murdoch Lancer.
"Here comes Johnny!" Teresa exclaimed as the rider on the palomino horse came into view, cantering under the Lancer arch. Scott and Teresa went to meet him as he rode into the corral and slid off Barranca.
"Everything settled?" Scott asked his brother.
"Yeah, they've all got families and homes." Relief and satisfaction mingled in Johnny's voice. "Every one of those boys has a family, now." Johnny Lancer might have been saying they now owned the moon and the stars.
He looked over to where his father and Jelly were working. "I see Jelly came back with Murdoch. Is he going to stay?"
"Yes, he'll be staying," Scott told him. Watching the broad grin that spread across Johnny's face at the news, Scott gave a rueful laugh and said, "I guess Jelly has a family now, too."
.
The sun was beating down and it was hot work, pitching hay. Too hot, thought the Lancer patrón as he continued working beside Jelly, but Murdoch wasn't going to leave him on his own, this old man whose boys were gone and who was wiping his eyes with his sleeve one more time.
Murdoch Lancer knew what it was like to have that sort of dust in the eyes.