Luther touched his bow tie and cleared his throat. “What is your fee, Mr. Frisco?”
“I want the steers. Win or lose, whatever those longhorns sell for goes in my pocket.”
“What do longhorns sell for?” Alex inquired.
“At current market prices, the cattle should bring roughly thirty dollars a head, depending on delivery weight and condition. That’s my fee.”
Freddy did the math then joined her sisters in a gasp. Even Luther sucked in a hard breath. “That’s sixty thousand dollars!”
“That is outrageous, sir,” Luther snapped. “That is not the usual boss’s fee.”
Dal Frisco nodded. “There’s nothing ‘usual’ about this drive, Mr. Moreland. If we’re successful, everyone gets a second chance, everyone gets what they want. The ladies here get their father’s estate, I get a ranch in Montana. Everyone wins except the widow.”
“But if we’re not successful, if we only manage to get a thousand cattle to Abilene,” Alex said through white lips, “then Lola wins Father’s estate. And you want to profit even if you turn us into paupers. That is absolutely not acceptable.”
Frisco shrugged. “My fee is not negotiable. Take it or leave it.”
“I’m afraid the Roark sisters will have to ‘leave it,’ ” Luther said tightly. “These ladies don’t own the cattle and won’t own them unless they win Joe Roark’s estate. Therefore, they cannot pledge them as your fee. According to the conditions set forth in the will, I’m authorized to pay you fifty dollars a month out of the funds allocated for this drive.”
Frisco placed his hat on his head and stood. “Then we’re through talking.”
“Wait.” Freddy’s mind raced. “If we win, we’ll own the longhorns.” She thought a minute. “If you’re as good as you claim you are, then you’ll agree to tie your money to the same conditions we’re bound to. If we win, you can have the damned cows; we’ll give them to you as your fee. But if you can’t get two thousand head to Abilene and we lose, then so do you. You don’t get the cows, you don’t get fifty dollars a month for your time and work, you get nothing. Just like us.” Her chin rose and her eyes flashed a challenge. “That’s a fair offer, Mr. Frisco.”
“I agree,” Alex said in a strained voice. “If you’re unwilling to tie your fortune to ours, then good day to you, sir.”
“You have one hell of a nerve,” Freddy couldn’t resist adding.
He laughed, revealing a flash of white teeth. “I expect I do.” He smiled at all of them. “I’m as good as I claim. I’ll run two thousand steers into the Abilene yard.” He glanced at Luther. “Draw up the contract, Mr. Moreland. If we take in two thousand steers or more, I get the entire sales price. If we bring in one beeve less, you don’t owe me a cent. We all walk away with nothing.” He tipped his hat. “I’ll be in touch.” After a minute they heard the front door bang shut.
Freddy sagged against the sofa back. A rush of confusing emotions pulsed at the base of her throat. “That arrogant so-and-so has forgotten who is working for whom!”
“No, he hasn’t,” Alex said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. “From now on Dal Frisco is the boss. We work in his outfit and do as he says.” She drew a deep breath. “You had a good idea, Freddy. I feel marginally better that you tied his ridiculous fee to his performance.”
Surprise lifted her eyebrows, and Freddy felt an embarrassing rush of gratitude. She didn’t remember the last time Alex had paid her a compliment, assuming that Alex ever had.
“He’s a tyrant.” Les slapped at her skirt as if something unpleasant had settled in the folds. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Ward that we entrusted our future into the hands of a drunk who thinks he’s some kind of royalty. And his fee!” A worried line settled between her eyebrows.
Luther stood and began gathering his papers. “Well. He seems to know what he’s doing.”
“For what we’re paying him, he’d better know what he’s doing.” The odd thing was that Freddy had emerged from the interview believing that he did. She couldn’t sort out why he irritated her, which only added to her annoyance. “We are actually going to take part in a cattle drive,” she said in a wondering voice. It hadn’t seemed possible. It still didn’t.
The part of a cowhand would be challenging and physically demanding, but after a minute’s thought, she saw how she would play it. The heroine needed to display courage and endurance, needed to be what scripts described as plucky. And learning to rope a steer didn’t seem so overwhelmingly daunting when she reduced it to stage business.
Suddenly it occurred to her that Dal Frisco made an unlikely hero for the scenes she was imagining. In fact, this entire cattle drive was stunningly miscast. If the miscasting hadn’t been so worrisome and potentially dangerous, she would have laughed out loud.