When Love Comes by Leigh Greenwood

Author:Leigh Greenwood [Leigh Greenwood]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781428508385
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

“Do you think these are some of the one hundred cows you said we’re missing?” Amanda asked Leo.

“I don’t know,” the boy replied.

“What do you think?” she asked Broc.

After two days’ hard work, they’d finished the rough tally of the cows on their range. When they came across cows belonging to Carruthers or Sandoval, they’d hazed the cows back to their own range. They’d been in the process of returning a cow to Carruthers’s range when they noticed a Lazy T cow and calf. When they went to chase that cow back to their range, they found another. That had led to another until they had found five, two of them with calves by the stud bull.

“It’s hard to say,” Broc said. “We’re still fairly close to your range. They could have wandered this far on their own. If you really have lost over a hundred cows with calves by your stud bull, then my guess would be that they were stolen. It sounds like someone was choosing which cows he wanted.”

That’s what she thought, but she’d hoped Broc would tell her something different.

“I don’t see how there could be rustlers around,” Leo said. “Sandoval or Carruthers would have lost enough cows to be suspicious.”

“It’s hard to know when you have so much land to cover,” Broc said.

The glance he sent Amanda’s way told her he was thinking what she was thinking: this was no common rustling operation. Whoever had taken the cows had concentrated on the Lazy T herd, with special attention to calves by the stud bull.

“What do you think we ought to do?” she asked Broc.

He took a moment to survey the prairie that stretched before them. “There are so many trees on Carruthers’s land, it’s hard to tell if there might be more Lazy T stock there. Why don’t you and the boys take these cows back while I look around?”

“If Carruthers finds you, he’ll kill you,” Andy said.

“He’s in town interviewing drovers to take his herd to Abilene. Sandoval, too. I heard them talking about it last night.”

Amanda was feeling exhausted from working on the ranch during the day and in the saloon every night, but the men had responded well to her performing with Broc. Every time Corby saw a man who usually went to another saloon, he rushed over to tell her. She suggested that he add a dollar to her night’s pay instead, but he wasn’t that grateful.

“Andy and Leo can take the cows back,” Amanda said. “I’ll go with you.”

Broc tried to talk her into going with the boys, but she refused. She didn’t think it was good leadership to ask people to take risks she wouldn’t take herself. That was no way to build loyalty or respect, and being a woman in a man’s world, she needed a lot of both.

“Be careful,” Leo said as he and Andy were getting ready to leave. “Even if Carruthers is in town, his men could cause trouble.”

“We’ll be okay,” Amanda assured him. “I’ve got Broc to watch out for me.

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