Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,267

his whole life. Only a week after receiving Pearl's letter about her own baby, Leena had also given birth, another son, named James Little Crow.

Don't panic, Lettie told herself. Remember the good things. They had nine healthy grandchildren now, three girls and six boys. Nathan and his family had moved back into the cabin built for them when they first came; and Ty and Alice lived in the main house, so in spite of the wicked winter, the house had not been empty and quiet. Elsie and her husband still lived in Luke and Lettie's old cabin, and Elsie now taught the grandchildren. In one more year Robbie would come home, and according to newspapers, Montana was almost sure to be designated as part of the United States by next spring. Luke was going to run for governor.

The sad part was that the past winter might have damaged Montana's economy almost beyond repair. And there had been another article in the newspaper that spoke of another tragedy. "Chloris Greene Bentley, daughter of Attorney Sydney and Helen Greene, wife of English rancher, Nial Bentley, passed away in January of pneumonia," the article had read. "Due to our inclement weather, news of Mrs. Bentley's death did not arrive in Billings until April." So Nial's young wife had died, without ever having given him a child.

She heard Luke come inside. "We'd better go into the parlor," she told Alice. Both women left the kitchen, and Leena was already in the hallway greeting Nathan. Alice ran to Tyler, embracing him.

"I've never seen anything like it," he told her, almost choking up.

Lettie looked at Luke. "It's worse than you thought, isn't it?" She ached at the look in his eyes. "A lot worse," he answered.

Lettie glanced at leather boots that sat in the entrance-way, covered with snow and mud. Today the sun was bright and the day was calm. The air was warm, and a few plants were already beginning to poke up through the lingering snow, as though there had never been a winter.

"I thought last year's blizzards were the worst ever, but this is drastic. There will be dead cattle by the thousands from here into Wyoming and God only knows how far north and west and east," Luke added. He ran a hand through his hair, looking weary.

"How's the baby?" Ty asked Alice, kissing her cheek.

"He's fine. He's taking a nap right now." She touched his face. "Oh, Ty, we were so worried."

He sighed deeply. "The losses are going to be staggering," he told her, his voice strained. "For everybody. Some ranchers will never survive this."

They all walked into the parlor, and Luke poured himself a shot of whiskey, then handed the bottle out to Ty and Nathan. He downed the shot and walked to the fireplace to take a cigar from a silver box on the mantle and light it. "Brad lost a lot of sheep, but he'll be okay," he told the women. "He and Katie and the kids are all doing fine. It's the cattlemen who will fare the worst, especially the bigger ones like myself. We're going to have to call a meeting soon to decide how to survive our losses."

He sat down in a leather chair and rested his elbows on his knees, holding the cigar in one hand. All waited quietly for him to continue. "All of you should know I'm going to have to pare down the size of the Double L," he finally said after much thought. "We've gotten so big that it's impossible even to know how many cattle we have anymore. You get a winter like this, and you can't get them all in close enough, can't afford to buy enough feed for them all, even when you own a wholesale house as we do. Even with enough feed, with snow such as we had this year, it's impossible to get the feed to all the cattle.

"I once thought that bigger was better," he continued, "but not any more. If we tighten our belts, we'll be all right financially, thanks to the mines and our other investments, but we have a lot of cattle to replace. Most of the other ranchers won't hold up as well as we will. The only benefit from all of this is that the price of beef will probably go up because of a short supply. It just makes me sick to see so many good head of cattle suffer and die like that. I'll never let