Blue Bonnet Read Free

This was her home. She loved it here. He could
hear her voice now. She'd be putting a heavy hand to her broom and
scolding him, “Cleanliness is next to godliness, Bat Kayhill.
Remember that next time ya forget to scrape yer boots off in the
yard.”
    In the old days, she fought just
as hard as he did to keep the ranch from being destroyed when
Indians and Comancheros raided. Side by side, they fired
Winchesters stuck out the shutter holes as fast as they could jack
another shell into the chambers.
    It got so that Indians and
Comancheros gave the ranch a wide berth. Word passed in a hurry
that Kayhill was a tough hombre with a fast draw. The red headed
woman living with him was too good a shot to pull anything on
unless they were smart enough to stay out of rifle
range.
    Bat sat down in one of the two
rocker in front of the fireplace. As he studied Hannah smiling at
him, he contemplated what it had been like in the old days, living
in this house with his wife.
    Hannah had always been full of
Irish fire and feisty fierceness. That disposition was what made
her so well suited to live in this wild land. That's part of why he
loved her so much.
    Bat remembered some of Hannah's
traits he wasn't so fond about. When Hannah set her head to
something, there was no changing her mind. Wooee, was she the most
stubborn woman he had ever met. That temper of hers seemed down
right dangerous sometimes. He tried awful hard not to get her
dander up. She was a Texas twister when she was mad.
    On the other hand, she was the
bravest woman he'd ever seen. She didn't have a drop of fear in her
bones. Probably because she was such a good shot, she saw no reason
to be fearful of anything or anyone. She was good at defending
herself and was confident she could take care of
herself.
    Bat laid his head back against the
rocker and tried to remember all the details of one of the times
early on when Indian territory was a wild place in Oklahoma. It was
the story Hannah told when anyone asked how she managed to stay
alive in this dangerous place all those years ago.
    Of course, he noticed she did
change the story here and there as the years went by. Not that it
hurt anything. Her story always got better and more exciting with
the telling.
    It helped back then that Bat's
younger sister, Billie, lived with them. Billie was good company
for Hannah, and he sure enjoyed having her around.
    Right after they moved to the
ranch one fall, they lived in the log cabin all winter. In April,
Hannah and Billie had to stay alone for the month. Bat took five
pack mules to get supplies for the winter from Stillwater. He
needed to hire cowhands and drive back a herd of breeding stock for
the ranch. That was going to take some time, traveling
slow.
    Bat twisted around on his saddle
and waved at Hannah and Billie. He was branding his memory with a
picture of home and the women he loved. From the log cabin porch,
they waved at him as they watched him disappear from
sight.
    The lean to attached to the cabin
was stacked full of fire wood for cooking and heating water. Bat
made sure of that. The tawny colored milk cow paced in the corral
attached to the log barn. She rested her head on the top log rail
and gave a plaintive, dolorous moo, wanting to be milk. Bat told
Hannah to keep Clara Belle penned up until he got back. He didn't
want Hannah wondering around on the prairie looking for that cow.
Between copperheads, rattlers and Indians, the prairie was too
dangerous.
    The best Bat remembered how
Hannah's story went after he left was like this. One morning about
two weeks later, Hannah poured herself a second cup of coffee from
the pot always kept simmering on the back of the wood
cookstove.
    She sat down at the roughly hewed
table across from Bat's sister, Billie, and pushed her dirty
breakfast dishes out of the way. Bat had been gone two weeks, and
she was mopy from missing the fire out of him.
    Practical Billie brought her back
to reality. “It took the last of the water to