Buck and the Widow Rancher (2006) Read Free Page A

was a gambling debt. He claimed Virgil had lost in a poker game and didn’t have enough money to cover his losses. Virgil never played poker that I knew of.’ She stopped and brushed at her cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, getting up to get the coffee pot.
    ‘That’s OK. A person has a right to mourn for a loved one and I don’t think there’s a time limit on how long that mourning can last. Probably as long as it has to, I’d say.’
    ‘The thing that makes me mad,’ she said, filling both Buck’s cup and her own, ‘is that I’m not sure whether I’m crying over losing Virgil, or because I’m so damn mad that no one would do anything to find out who shot him.’
    Buck sipped at the hot coffee and let a few minutes pass before asking her what kind of man her husband had been.
    ‘He was a good man, well educated, but for all that still good at making this ranch profitable. Anyway, he worked hard and had some plans for expanding the irrigation ditches my pa had put in. There’s a lot of land over to the east that would produce better beef if we could get morewater to it. Virgil wanted to upgrade the kind of beef we raise, too. Get in a couple of white-face Herefords.’
    ‘Tell me about this ranch and the surrounding country.’
    ‘Well, the Rocking C property runs from about halfway up that hillside back there by the falls and then all along the rimrock to the east. The boundary to the west is the river and the southern end is where the river bends around and crosses the valley. There is a bridge across the river there that my father, Jim Coulter, had built a few years before he died. The town, Coulter’s Landing, was named after him. It’s about five miles on down the road from our boundary.’
    ‘What’s on the other side of the river up here?’
    ‘The Hightower place. Hugh Hightower’s the man who was here when you rode in. The other man was Frank, Hugh’s oldest son. He has three sons and they run horses over there. His land is long and narrow. Just as this ranch, it starts up at the foothills and is bordered by the rimrock on one side and the river on the other. His place runs further south than this, though.’
    ‘And what’s down below the river?’
    ‘There’re a handful of small spreads. Squatters, Hugh calls them. There are a couple of pretty good sized farms down there and below town on both sides of the river. A few Basque sheepherders run their flocks in the dry country to the east. Away from the river it gets pretty dry and that makes it just about right for sheep. Beyond there’s a long wide stretch of sand blow. No water until you get across to the Red River. A lot of people have died trying to ride across without carrying enough water.
    ‘Anyway, Pa was the first one in the valley. The Hightowers came in a few years later and took up their land, Hugh and his first wife, Kathleen, and the two oldest boys. We were all good friends then. I remember growing up and having Kathleen Hightower and her boys, Frank and Hughie coming over to visit my ma every so often. We’d play all dayin the barn or riding our ponies. Then Ma died, caught the flux, the town doctor said. It wasn’t but a year or so after that Kathleen passed away. A while later Hugh remarried and his third son was born. I don’t remember her name. I never met her. She died when the boy came. His name is Paul.
    ‘Pa said that having the farmers taking up land south of town helped make the valley strong. Hugh didn’t agree. I remember he always said that land should be used for raising livestock. Putting a plow to the ground was destroying it, he claimed. Pa only laughed and said he had enough and someone else could use the rest. Until my husband was killed this valley was a wonderful place to live.’
    ‘What did your Mr Hightower mean about you missing some cattle?’
    ‘I don’t know. Hugh came by a few days ago saying his son Frank was coming back from a horse-buying trip and found sign over along the east