Edward Lowe's ranch was a long ride from the Ponderosa, and Candy opted to take a fresh horse rather than the one he'd been riding all night. This horse was also a chestnut, but more golden than his preferred mount, with flaxen mane and a blaze. She was also stockier than his preferred horse, younger and a mare. None of that counted against her except for the inherent inexperience of youth which made her apt to spook, wander or get ideas that could get her or her rider into trouble.
Candy's regular horse had originated on the Ponderosa, but he'd made a deal with Mr. Cartwright for the animal not long after he arrived, and now he owned it free and clear. The mare was technically Mr. Cartwright's property still, but she'd been given to Candy to work with. She was broken to saddle and bridle, but what she lacked was field experience. He frequently rode her into town to collect the mail, and for other relatively predictable tasks, where there was a minimum chance of her encountering something that would upset her too badly. The idea was to gradually increase her exposure to things which were startling or frightening, so she would be less reactive and hopefully learn that those things weren't worth spooking over, and that she could trust her rider no matter what.
It wasn't the first time Candy had worked with a green horse, but it was the first time his employer had instructed him to be gentle and patient. Most of the people he'd worked for expected him to use any means necessary to control the horse, even if he broke the animal in the process. Force and respect went hand in hand. That was normal, it was how most horses were trained. But the Cartwrights preferred another method, one which left the horse's spirit and brains still intact, but its will bent towards the wishes of its rider. They did sometimes resort to force to get a horse to behave, but that was their last resort. They preferred to win a horse's confidence and willing cooperation. Candy liked the idea, though he didn't entirely understand how it worked just yet.
What he did know was that the chestnut he rode regularly was as gentle and cooperative and willing a horse as he'd ever been around. He also found that he was familiar with the Ponderosa brand. Mr. Cartwright had sold horses to the army more than once, and Candy had met some of those horses in his past. They were among the most reliable horses he'd ever seen, not merely patient and willing, but almost completely shock proof. An explosion could go off right next to those horses and there was a good chance that they would not only not try to unseat their rider, but would remain actively under their rider's control. But at the same time, if the horses saw that there was a threat ahead such as a rattlesnake on the ground, they would signal their rider with protest. They could be coerced into continuing forward, but would make a concentrated effort to make known their distress instead of blindly obeying their riders. Candy was definitely interested in learning how to teach horses to be like that. Getting a combination of more than adequate obedience and useful awareness of surroundings wasn't easy.
Candy found Edward Lowe out on the range with his cattle. Lowe had a very small spread in comparison to the Ponderosa, and regularly employed only his two eldest sons, Liam and John, along with James Winston, who had been his foreman for the last twenty years. It had been a bad year for Edward Lowe. A late frost in early spring had killed most of the calves in his small herd, and the rainfall this year had so far been inadequate. The grass on his property wasn't growing fast enough to fatten up the herd. The cattle were alive, certainly, but they weren't about to be ready to sell. As he approached the herd, Candy counted only five measly little calves, which all looked underweight, especially now Candy was used to being around the Ponderosa's thriving herd.
Candy reined his mare to a stop and let Edward Lowe come to him, as was only polite. When Lowe pulled up near Candy, his big black gelding reached out to sniff Candy's mare, but she withdrew her head slightly. Evidently annoyed by this, he took a nip at the nose of Candy's mare, who shied a little.
"Candy," Lowe nodded in greeting, "What brings you out here?"
Candy had met Lowe once before briefly, when the rancher came to visit the Cartwrights. He was rather surprised to find that Lowe remembered him.
"There's been some trouble over at the Ponderosa," Candy explained, "Something's been killing cattle."
"Yes, Randal told me about that," Lowe said slowly, "I'm sorry to hear it."
Candy nodded an acknowledgment, then continued, "I've been trying to track it. Since there wasn't an attack on the Ponderosa last night, I thought maybe whatever it was had headed this way."
While he was talking, his eye was drawn to two oncoming riders, whom he recognized as Liam and John. To be more precise, his eye was attracted to the two large, dark shapes gliding along behind them. Those shapes were a pair of curs, each the size of a large wolf. They were reddish brown with black muzzles, and there was a decidedly unfriendly look in their eyes that was reflected in the aspect of the two approaching riders. Both Liam and John had met Candy in the saloon before, and were well aware of their brother's feelings about him. They had also broken up more than one bar fight between Candy and Randal.
"James was out here most of the night," Lowe told Candy, ignoring the arrival of his two boys, "When you've got as few calves as I have this year, you keep a mighty close eye on 'em."
The two dogs trotted past where the boys had stopped their horses, and approached Candy's mare. They split up on either side of her, investigating the stranger with their noses. Candy's mare shifted uneasily, trying to watch both dogs at once. She wasn't accustomed to dogs, and she tried to turn and face them, though she seemed unable to make up her mind about which dog needed facing. Candy repeatedly nudged her just to get her to stand still, and tried not to worry about the dogs himself. They were soon behind him, where he couldn't see them or tell what they were doing, moving as silently as ghosts.
"If any wolves had come sniffing around the cattle," Lowe continued, ignoring his dogs, "James woulda seen it. An' so would Liam's dogs."
Liam decided to chime in, "Any wolf comes snoopin' around here, my dogs'll tear it to pieces."
Since the subject of dogs had come up, Candy took the opportunity to look at them to see what they were doing. One dog was keeping back, but the other was circling uncomfortably close to the mare's hocks. One snap from those jaws could cut the tendons in her leg and bring the mare down, but one kick from her hind leg could break the dog's jaw, or even kill it. But Candy was more worried about the dog pressuring the mare and her bolting in fright.
Evidently, Liam didn't like how close the dog was getting to the mare's legs either.
He whistled, and commanded, "Duke, get back," and the dog leaped away from the horse as though it had been shot. Candy sighed inwardly with relief, even though the sudden whistle had startled his mare and made her toss her head. It wasn't difficult to sooth her down once the dogs backed off and began to lose interest.
"Well I'm sorry to have bothered you," Candy said, tipping his hat politely, "Guess I'll be on my way."
"You do that," Liam suggested with narrowed eyes.
Candy turned his mare around and kicked her into an easy trot. She wanted to go faster, to flee the area inhabited by the dogs as quickly as possible, but Candy held her in. She'd only hurt herself if she galloped, and like as not her going into flight would have the dogs chasing after her in a heartbeat.
Though domesticated long ago, dogs had never forgotten that they were predators. Especially not curs, who served the dual purpose of livestock herders and guardians, and also of hunting dogs. They were useful in tracking, treeing and holding animals at bay. Cur dogs of that type were also very successful killers of wolves and coyotes, particularly if you had a pair or pack of them.
He was willing to bet that they were also more than capable of bringing down a calf and killing it with terrifying efficiency if they had a mind to. Candy had been hoping not to find dogs on the Lowe ranch. Instead, he had found a pair large enough to have left the tracks he'd seen. His intention in visiting the Lowe ranch was to lay aside his instinctive suspicion of Randal. Instead, he now found himself wondering if it might not just be Randal. The dogs belonged to Liam, and might only respond to him. But it had also been a bad year for Edward Lowe's cattle, which was motive enough to steal meat from the calves and try to conceal doing so with dogs. It could be any of the Lowes, or perhaps all of them together.
Any such speculation on Candy's part was dangerous.
Not only was he the outsider here, but he had a long-established animosity towards Randal. If he wanted to come to the Cartwrights with his suspicions, he'd need a heckuva lot more to go on than the mere fact that they had two dogs and few calves. This was dangerous ground he was treading on, and pursuing this angle was very likely to land him in trouble. Even if he was right and managed to prove it, it was still entirely possible that the blow-back would result in him losing his job on the Ponderosa.
Lots of people had large dogs, many had pairs or packs of them. Beyond that, Candy still had no proof that it was dogs and not wolves. Even if it was dogs, there was as yet no evidence to suggest that humans were involved. He'd so far seen no human tracks around the kill sites. Nor horses either. Just cattle, and some form of canid that was bigger than a coyote; wolf or dog he couldn't be entirely sure.
Candy had already made one mistake recently that had cost the Cartwrights three calves, along with a rider and one of their favorite horses. Admittedly both horse and rider were very much alive and would recover, but neither of them would be doing any work for quite some time. It was a costly error on Candy's part, whatever Hoss said. He could not afford to make another. If he was going to accuse someone specific, or even someone's dogs, he had to be damned sure he was right.
Even if he was, depending on who he accused, the Cartwrights might not want to hear it, and could choose not to believe him. If they didn't, he could easily find himself fired for his accusations.
But instinct and experience both told him that it wasn't wolves, even though everyone else seemed convinced that it was. If he didn't pursue this angle, nobody would, and the Cartwrights would continue losing cattle. If it was intentional and their cattle specifically were being targeted, it was very possible that it might escalate to something far worse. For the sake of the Cartwrights, Candy was bound to continue his investigation.
Randal must have heard Candy returning, because he came out of the bunkhouse while Candy was unsaddling his horse and attempted to corner him.
"Where have you been?" Randal asked, stepping into Candy's way after he'd removed the saddle from the mare, forcing him to stand there holding it while he answered.
"I don't see that it's any business of yours where I've been," Candy replied coolly, "Last I checked, you aren't my boss or my keeper," he stepped around Randal and put the saddle down, then turned to find Randal in the way of his returning to the mare.
"It's my business when you rode off in the direction of my father's ranch."
"There are a lot of places in that direction," Candy said, stepping around Randal again in order to reach the horse, "What would I want with your father?"
Randal stepped close to the mare's head to prevent Candy from entirely turning his back on him, and said, "That's exactly what I want to know. I know you weren't tracking the wolves, so why would you head that way? Exactly what did you and my father talk about?"
"What makes you think I talked to your father?" Candy asked mildly.
He wasn't about to admit to Randal or anybody else what his true motivations for visiting the Lowe ranch were. But he had to admit to himself that the real reason he wasn't giving Randal the same explanation he'd given Randal's father was that he was enjoying the frustrated anger of the younger man. Randal liked to needle him constantly, and Candy figured turnabout was fair play. It was also fun.
Randal apparently didn't see it that way, because he grabbed hold of Candy and shoved him roughly against the mare's side, and demanded, "Tell me what you went to see my father about!"
"Get off me!" Candy snarled, shoving Randal back.
He struggled to keep his anger in check.
He didn't like being pushed around, and usually took the first shove personally. Normally, he took someone grabbing onto him as license to fight, but he knew that this was neither the time nor the place. Besides which, the mare was getting spooky because of the sudden movements and raised voices, and it was pure foolishness to fight near a frightened horse. That was a good way to get kicked or trampled, and Candy was rather fond of his bones being in their usual unbroken state.
"Tell me!" Randal all but shouted, oblivious of the mare's agitation, or possibly hoping that the distraction of that would make Candy answer him.
The sound of raised voices had attracted attention, not just from the bunkhouse, but also the ranch house. Hired hands and Cartwrights alike were emerging to see what was going on.
"You want to know so bad?" Candy growled quietly, "Go and ask him yourself."
With that, he jerked on the mare's led rope, breaking the tie to the hitching post and led her away, not daring to look back to see what Randal or any of the others watching would do.
It was his only recourse; if he had stayed to argue with Randal, they would have fought for sure. Though it had not been explicitly stated, Candy could sense he was on thin ice with the Cartwrights, and that it had specifically to do with his conflict with Randal, which was interfering with the abilities of the both of them to do their work. It was disrupting the customary peace of the Ponderosa, and that was something the Cartwrights could not abide for long.
He knew he should not have provoked Randal, even though Randal had started it, but he couldn't seem to help himself. The best he could do was leave the scene before things escalated further. It was pure reflex to push back when someone pushed him, and to irritate them if they irritated him, it had heretofore been his main form of self-defense; meeting any and all forms of challenge with equal challenge had been his means of survival. But that wasn't the right answer here. He knew it, but he couldn't stop reacting the way he did, perhaps it was just not in his nature to be any other way.
Even so, he had to try, if he had any hope of staying.
Watching Candy retreat, Hoss said, "Pa, we gotta do somethin', 'fore those two kill each other."
Turning to go back into the house, Ben said, "Well what do you suggest? So far they haven't really done anything wrong. At least, not that I've heard about," he cast a sidelong look at his boys, who said nothing to that.
"I don't know," Hoss admitted, "But somehow we've got to get 'em to see eye to eye on somethin'."
"Yeah, or else let one or both of them go," Joe put in.
"I'm not prepared to do that," Ben said firmly, "Not yet anyway."
"Well we can't let things set as they are now," Hoss insisted, "We've tried givin' 'em time to work it out themselves, and it's only led to more of the same."
"Hoss is right about that," Joe said, "It seems like the more time they spend near each other, the worse it gets. And now with nobody getting enough sleep and things so tense, it's gotten a lot worse."
"I've noticed," Ben said, not adding that he'd also noticed his sons bringing the problem to his attention with ever greater frequency, probably because they were getting nowhere on the wolf problem and saw this as something they could potentially tackle, if their father would just tell them how.
Candy's largely unsubstantiated assertion that it was dogs and not wolves killing the cattle had only worsened matters. Not only was Randal openly mocking him for the notion, the fact was that his persistence on the matter was a distraction. The argument about wolves versus dogs had preceded the ultimately disastrous suggestion of leaving the slain calf where it was in the hopes of catching the predators returning to their kill, and the suggestion initiating a lull in the Randal/Candy conflict had made them more inclined to take it without considering the risk just so they could have a little peace.
Things could not continue as they had been. Something had to be done.
"Alright," Ben sighed, taking a seat behind his desk, "Joe, tell Candy I want to speak with him when he's done with the mare."
"Are you going to have a talk with Randal later?" Joe asked.
"Probably," Ben answered, "But I want to talk to Candy first."
Joe nodded and went out to find Candy and deliver the message.
"What are you gonna say, Pa?" Hoss asked.
"I wish I knew," Ben admitted, "I wish... I knew."