Where There's a Will by Aaron Elkins

slightly dazed expression that suggested he was always trying to remind himself not to forget something, and he seemed as if he would have been more at home with a green eyeshade and arm-garters than in a ten-gallon hat.
    John made the introductions. Gideon was warmly received and told that he and Julie were to consider the house, and indeed, the ranch, as their own. When Gideon had thanked them and expressed some interest in, and even some knowledge of, the history of cattle-ranching in Hawaii, Axel’s wrinkled brow smoothed. His pinched face seemed to fill out.
    “Actually, ranching is a totally different affair from what it was ten or twenty years ago-back when John was our number-one hand.”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” John said.
    Axel clapped John shyly on the shoulder and went on speaking to Gideon. “Of course, the paniolos -that’s what we call the cowboys here; it comes from the word espanol, because the first ones came from Mexico, but you probably already knew that-anyway, they still use lassoes, and they brand and castrate and all the rest, but nowadays it’s really about devising and maintaining a viable system of intensive range management because, if you think about it, a cattle ranch is first and foremost a grass farm. Today’s cattle-rancher has to understand that if he’s going to survive.”
    “I never thought about it before,” Gideon said, “but I can see how that would be.”
    Encouraged, Axel plowed ahead, his weak eyes blinking enthusiastically away. “See, you can’t just depend on the natural range grasses if you want to compete. You have to sow. But what do you sow? That’s the big question. Right now, I have experimental plots going of Natal red top, brome, cocksfoot… well, you name it. And then besides that, intensive range management means a whole lot of things they never heard of in the old days: symbiotic seeding, selective brush control, and, above all, above everything else, a strategy of long-range water-resource development and conservation. And today’s-”
    John was laughing. “I knew you guys would get along. You both talk in lectures.”
    “I most certainly do not,” said Axel.
    “You most certainly do,” Malani said, “but it’s hard to tell with Gideon. You haven’t given him the chance.”
    “Come on, honey, he said he was interested-”
    “I am interested-”
    “May I make a suggestion?” she said. “It’s a beautiful day. Why don’t you show our guest his room and let him freshen up, and then get some horses and take him out and show him around the ranch. Take Johnny, too. Wouldn’t you like that, Gideon?”
    Malani, a porcelain-doll-faced Hawaiian woman a few years older than her husband, had taught at the Kamehameha School on Oahu before she married Axel, and she still had something of the resolutely patient schoolmarm in her speech: a natural bossiness moderated by a precise, sugary, sing-song trill, as if she were explaining things to a not-particularly-swift class of fourth-graders, or maybe to a hard-of-hearing, not-quite-with-it group of oldsters. Heard occasionally, it was no doubt pleasant rather than otherwise, but Gideon wouldn’t have wanted to live with it day in and day out.
    “I’d love it, Malani,” he said dutifully.
    “So would I,” Axel said, “but I’m due at Inge’s at four-thirty. See,” he said to Gideon, “they just found my uncle’s bones in-”
    “I told him all about it, Axel.”
    “Oh, fine. Anyway, the thing is, there isn’t time to saddle up the horses and-”
    “Then don’t take the horses,” Malani said. “At least you can walk up along the side of Pu’u Nui. You can see half the ranch from there. A beautiful view.”
    “But what about the accounts?” Axel asked her, looking longingly at the columns of figures.
    “I can take care of the accounts, sweetie. Go. You can use some fresh air.”
    “Well, but-”
    “Go,” she said, hustling him away from the table with a fluttering of hands, as if