The Cattlemen 3 by Brian Garfield

Author:Brian Garfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ranch, death wish, action hero, land baron, zane grey, range wars, piccadilly publishing, wild west fiction, southwest usa, best western ebooks
Publisher: Piccadilly

Eight

With the first blue of dawn he was out of his blankets and at the well shaving. After a quiet breakfast at which every man, though he might have tried to disguise it, showed anxious concern, Sebastian stood before the bunkhouse with loose weariness, a tall and thin-flanked man with a lot on his mind. He moved with a tired swing of his shoulders, and tramped across the veranda to knock at the house door. Oddly, it occurred to him now for the first time that this house at whose door he knocked, was his own house, belonging to him. All this that he surveyed was half his own, if he only had the strength and wits to keep it. It was a strange new feeling, one that would probably take him a long time to get used to. Like all working cattlemen he had long harbored the dream of someday owning his own ranch. But for most like him the day never came; even at foreman’s wages a cowhand hardly earned enough to keep himself in clothing and gear.

Looking across the yard, he saw ’Sus, climbing stiffly down the barn roof where he had kept watch all night against the possibility that an enraged Buck DeSpain might make an open attack against Hat. He called across the yard at ’Sus, “Get some grub and some shut-eye.”

’Sus nodded and trudged into the cook shack. Frowning, Sebastian turned and knocked again at the heavy oak door. His door. It was still an unwelcome realization, a new relationship hard to get used to.

Presently the door swung open and Nora stepped aside to let him enter. Her eyes were tired and when she swept a half-listless hand back along the side of her head, smoothing her hair, he saw the lines of fatigue in her face. She said, “I was just feeding Ray some broth. Come in, Clay.”

He closed the door gently. “How is he?”

“Awake. He can’t see, though, and he has trouble talking.” She sounded as though the capacity for emotion had been washed out of her by a night of tears.

Sebastian said gently, “He’s lucky he has you, Nora. Stay by him.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, and when he thought about it, it was a strange thing for her to be saying to him. He looked at her more closely, and then in her eyes he saw a greater strength than he had thought was there. He was glad of that. She said simply, “He’s my man, Clay.”

“He’s a lucky one,” Sebastian answered, and tried to smile for her.

She went across the room to sit wearily in Jesse’s big chair. She looked very small against its high, carved back. She said, “What happened last night, Clay?”

“We stampeded Buck’s herd for him. It won’t do us much good, but at least it gives us a little time. Anyway, now he knows we weren’t bluffing.”

“Neither was he,” she said hollowly, and Sebastian knew she was thinking of what had been done to Queene. “Clay, no man should be allowed to do that and go on living.

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