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

wall of a couple small bunches being pushed south. We decided to start gathering a herd of older stuff for a drive later to the railhead. That’s where the hands are now, out pushing everything into a holding ground. We’ll pick out the young stuff to keep over the winter and sell off the older beeves. I asked Hank to take a look and let me know. He won’t be back to the ranch for another two or three days.’
    Buck finished his coffee and pushed away from the table. ‘Well, I don’t know what I can do to help, but I can start by checking out those IOUs and maybe stop in and talk with the sheriff.’
    Picking up his hat, she followed him back out to the front porch. For a few minutes they stood looking out over the spread, taking in the late afternoon silence. Other than the soft clucking coming from a chicken coop somewhere out of sight and the random call of a calf for his mama, the place was peacefully quiet.
    ‘Why are you doing this?’ she enquired. ‘Are you here justbecause Uncle Fish asked you to be?’
    ‘Yeah. I owe the Professor a lot, a lot more than I can ever repay, to tell the truth. And then I didn’t have any reason to be where I was at the time, so when I got his letter, well, I guess it gave me a direction to ride. A new place to see and new people to meet.’
    ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful, but I just want to know what you’re getting out of it. Hugh thinks you and every other man is just trying to move in on the ranch and me. If he had his way I’d become his third wife,’ she smiled. ‘But that’s not likely. Why, I’m only a little older than his oldest son. He’s almost as old as my pa was. No, it’s not likely. But he does think I need protecting. You should know that.’

CHAPTER 3
    Matilda suggested that she fix an early supper and then she’d ride in with Buck. Tired of his own cooking, which usually meant something cooked over an open fire, and then, five out of six times being burnt, he quickly agreed. Shooed out of the kitchen, he found comfort in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch and rolled a smoke.
     
    The ride into town was a pure delight for Buck. After pinching out his cigarette and before being called in to the meal, he’d gone down to the creek that ran behind the barn and, finding the pool, stripped out of his dusty clothes and soaked for a few minutes in the cold water. Clean and refreshed with a shave, and with a clean shirt, he felt pretty good. Supper was another enjoyable time. Matilda had poured him a glass of amber-colored whiskey that went down so smooth he wondered how the liquid could be contained in the bottle. After the meal, made even better by having such an attractive woman on the other side of the table, they sat for a time on the front porch. Buck savoring another shot of the liquor with a hand-rolled cigarette.
    After saddling a dun-colored horse for Matilda and tightening the cinches on his own saddle, they rode away from the ranch. As they slowly rode south, the ranch-owner pointed out various aspects of the property – where her father hadfenced off a section and dug the irrigation ditches to take water to a large garden, and later the bridge over the river.
    ‘This is my property line,’ she said. Then pointing to a rutted wagon road angling off to the west, she explained that was the edge of the Hightower ranch. ‘Hugh was younger than my pa when they came into the valley. Pa got here a little before him and had marked out the boundaries he wanted. Hugh looked the rest of the basin over and decided, rather than take up land south of the river, he would take the western strip. It’s a lot less land that he could’ve had, but he told Pa it would be better for raising horses. Guess he knew what he was talking about. He and his boys work hard, and they’ve got a good spread.’
    After crossing the river, talk between them died out until they reached the outer edges of town. Typical of small towns throughout the state,