Buck and the Widow Rancher (2006)

  Buck and the Widow Rancher

  Carlton Youngblood

  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  The big cowboy came awake instantly conscious that something wasn’t right. Not moving, he looked up through the limbs of the big pine tree at the stars. Still an hour or so until the sun faded them out. Even when he got to sleep inside in a bed, as infrequent as that was, he was awake before the sun made its appearance. This time, out here in the middle of nowhere, something else had disturbed his sleep. Lying still in his bedroll he listened and heard nothing.

  Until his horse blew. Not a snort, but the sharp release of air that indicated something was moving out in the darkness. The big black stud was a better watchdog than any dog could be and more than once, by a snort or a twitch of his ears, the cowboy had been warned of something he couldn’t yet see or hear. Over the years, he had learned to pay attention to the big black. This time, not giving it any more thought, with his gunbelt in one hand he slipped out of the blankets and rolled silently further into the darkness of the trees. And waited.

  He had found the campsite just as the sun was nearing the far mountain range. A good place with water and grass for his horse, he’d built a small fire, fixed coffee and cooked a supper of thick slices of bacon. Frying potato slices in the bacon grease and topping the meal off with a tin of peaches, the man was quite satisfied with himself and the world. Now he was trying to see if what was disturbing his horse was a danger.

  Slowly, as his eyes adjusted and the stars began to grow fainter the outlines of the surrounding trees started to become more distinct. There, just about where he expected to see where he’d tied his horse on the long lead, he could make out the big black’s head against the lighter background. That gave the watching man an indication of where the possible danger was coming from. Watching that area carefully, he thought he spotted some movement. Aiming his revolver at that point, he slowly and gently pulled back the hammer and waited.

  Another movement in the waning darkness and he was sure; there was a man standing half hidden behind another big pine tree. Just as the weak starlight gave over to the only slightly more light of the false sunrise, the man behind the tree fired at the bedroll. Instantly two other rifles opened up, putting bullet after bullet into the twisted roll of empty blankets.

  With the first shot, the hidden cowboy eased on the trigger and fired and thought he heard a grunt. Quickly he swung the long barrel in the direction of one and then the other of the attackers. A loud squeal from further out in the trees told him that a horse had been hit. Moving a few feet to the left and behind another tree, the cowboy swiftly reloaded and waited.

  ‘Damn!’ someone across the way said, his voice a weak moan. ‘You’ve shot me. Damn.’

  Except for the blubbering of the wounded horse, a quiet made more silent after the quick flurry of gunfire settled over the little glade.

  For a time nothing moved. Looking toward where he’d tied the big black horse, he saw that his trusty watchdog had gone back to chomping at the grass. Whoever had been out there had left.

  Waiting patiently for the sun to come up, he settled with his back against a pine and relaxed. Over in the trees he could hear the thrashing of the wounded horse. As much as he wanted to help the poor beast, he didn’t trust that the wounded man wasn’t still a danger. He’d wait a bit longer.

  In the full of the morning’s light finding the man’s body was easy; he was the one who had been standing behind the pine tree and he was very dead. With that he relaxed and went to take care of the horse. A bay gelding, the animal stood some distance away with his head down and a pool of blood on the ground glistening in the morning sunshine. The bullet had gone in the animal’s chest, tearing a nasty gash coming out on the other side. The blubbering he had heard was from the red froth coming from the exit wound. A lung shot. Saddened, he drew the Colt and placed the barrel against the horse’s head.

  ‘Sorry, old man,’ he said quietly. ‘Too bad you got caught in the mix up, but we won’t let you suffer,’ and he pulled the trigger.

  Going through the pockets of the dead man turned up little and nothing to show his name, or why he was lying in ambush of a sleeping stranger. A small pouch with a few coins and a clasp knife with one broken blade was the sum total of the man’s existence. Taking a dirty handkerchief from the man’s back pocket, Buck placed the belongings in the middle and tied the ends into a knot. Leaving the body on its back, he put the dead man’s hat over his face and, after breaking camp, saddled his big black horse and rode on. He’d inform the law in town and let them take care of the body.

  All he knew was three men had lain in wait for first light and then tried to kill him. Whether the idea had been to rob him or something else there was no way of knowing. Maybe someone in town would recognize the body, or the brand on the dead horse. An old brand, the scar was easy to read, the H bar H. Maybe he could learn something from that.

  A little later and a few miles down the trail, the horseman sat comfortably in the saddle, listening to the late morning silence and enjoying the view of the world below. Without taking his eyes off the landscape, he took a thin tobacco sack from a shirt pocket and poured a quantity of cut tobacco into a fold of paper. Still without looking to see what his supple fingers had done, he twisted the ends and, striking a wooden match on a denim-clad pants leg, put flame to the quirley.

  The view that held his attention was worth taking in. From his vantage point on the rimrock above he could see the layout of the grassland below. Off to his right, a river fell in a series of cascades down to the bottomland and then flowed almost straight away far down the valley. Cattle, seen in the distance only as slow grazing brown blobs, were scattered over the near end of the basin and further out in the haze the outline of corrals and structures could just be made out. To any cattleman, this sight was a vision of heaven.

  James Buckley Armstrong, called by those who knew him simply as Buck, was a cattleman, born and bred. A cattleman, he smiled at the thought, without even one head to call his own. He was, he realized a long time ago, a happy cattleman because without the troubles and tribulations that owning land or cattle brought, he was able to see life as simply one adventure after another. A big man, even sitting astride his horse, anyone could see he was bigger than average. Standing slightly over six feet tall in his stockinged feet, when he could afford stockings, his erect posture in the saddle made it obvious that somewhere in his thirty years there had been military training. In the course of his adult years he’d traveled far and had done many things, many of which involved using what he’d learned while wearing a uniform. Now, in his trail-worn denim pants, faded red shirt and scarred boots with rundown heels, it was clear he was a cattleman.


  Still with a smile lighting his face he finished his smoke and taking a last long look at the valley below, nudged his black horse with the blunt end of a spur and headed on down the trail. Coming into the valley by this back country route rather than along the stage line was no accident. His plan was to arrive unnoticed and unknown. Now, with a dead man back there, that might not be possible. The trail was not a well-used track and from the lack of fresh horse prints, not used often. Taking his time and moving carefully, Buck held his horse back.

  ‘There ain’t much of a reason to go barreling down this hill, horse,’ he told the stallion. ‘Let’s plan on getting to the bottom without busting a leg, yours or mine,’ Buck said in a quiet voice. Long used to hearing comments from the man on his back, the big black stallion didn’t even acknowledge the words by so much as a twitch of its ears. The horse was not a great beauty, hard-mouthed, strong-willed and pigheaded with what appeared to be a bad temper and able to show only a tolerant respect for the man on his back. The two had been partners for a long time, though, and were rarely far from each other.

  Once on the more level plain, and still not in any hurry, Buck took his time riding along the fast-moving river, stopping every so often to inspect the deep slower moving pools at the head of stretches of rapids. This, he decided, would be a good place to come back to for a spot of fishing. Lazing in the morning sun, he tried to remember the last time he’d had the time to simply spend fishing and daydreaming. Far too long, he concluded. Well, maybe this is the time to change that … once he took care of whatever the Professor had asked him to do.

  With a final shake of his head, he turned his back on the rushing water and directed his big black mount out into the wild grass-covered prairie. There, nudging the horse into a distance-eating canter, he started passing small bunches of cattle. The mounted rider offered no danger to these grazing herds and only when he got too close did any even notice his existence. Other than the sound of his horse’s hoofs hitting the grass, the day remained nearly as quiet as when he was back up on the rim. Relaxed in the saddle, Buck soon reached the well-maintained outbuildings of a working cattle ranch. Slowing at the corner of a large pole corral, he sat his horse for a moment and looked over the big house, barns, bunkhouse and other smaller structures.

  A fly-screen-covered door in one of the smaller buildings close to one end of the veranda flew open and a pan of water was thrown out. This, he decided, would be the cookhouse. Other than that quick movement and the flicking tails of a pair of horses that stood hipshot at a hitch rail in front of the veranda that ran the entire length of the house, nothing moved. After taking in the peaceful scene, Buck nudged his horse with a heel and rode across to the hitching rail.

  He was about halfway across the empty yard when the front door opened and two men walked across the porch followed by a slightly built woman. Seeing the horseman all three stopped and stared. Reaching up slowly with his left hand, Buck tipped his hat.

  ‘Afternoon, ma’am,’ he smiled, and looking the two men over, nodded.

  ‘You see, Matilda?’ the bigger of the two said, not taking his eyes off the mounted man. ‘This is just what I was talking about. Here’s a day when all your hands are out on the ranch and in comes a stranger. You can never know what might happen. You,’ he raised his voice and called to Buck. ‘What might you want, creeping up like that?’

  It was easy to see the two men were related. Both were wearing the same type of working clothes, black denim pants tucked into shotgun boots. Worn boots that made clear neither were wearing their Sunday-go-to-meeting outfits. Tall, both were close to Buck’s six feet but he’d guess that the younger of the two was a little heavier, his body carrying a little more weight with the extra looking soft. Cleanshaven, the older man’s mustaches reached below the ends of his mouth. Neither man looked happy, but from where he was sitting, Buck guessed that happiness was uncommon with them.

  Buck’s smile, if anything, got wider but he didn’t respond to the question. After reaching up to touch his hat he had let his left hand fall naturally to rest on the saddle horn. His right hand was hanging easily from his thumb that was stuck in his wide leather gunbelt just inches from the butt of his .44 Colt Dragoon. Buck had already taken in the gunbelts on the two, what looked to be a Colt Peacemaker on the young man’s hip, an older revolver holstered on the other.

  ‘Hugh, this is nothing for you to question about. Remember, this is my ranch and I’ll decide if this rider is my guest or what. And I’ll have you know I am not alone. If you’ll get off your high horse and look over there, you’ll see that Cookie and his helper are there if needed.’ All three men glanced in the direction of the woman’s nod to find two men, one no more than a boy, facing them, both with double-barreled guns. From that angle it was clear that the woman would be the only one standing if a trigger was pulled.

  ‘Don’t mean no harm, ma’am,’ Buck said, moving his right hand to cover his left on the saddle horn. ‘Certainly not with half an army facing me.’

  ‘Damn it, Matilda, it just ain’t safe you being here by yourself. I’m only trying to do the neighborly thing and make sure you’re not in harm’s way.’

  ‘Hugh, I grew up on this ranch and with Cookie and Freddie looking out for me, I am safe. Thank you for worrying, but I can take care of myself.’

  The man, after returning his look at Buck, motioned for the other to follow and untied his horse. ‘All right, I see you’re going to be stubborn. Just remember, I’m there if you need me. And think about what I said inside. The sign is clear; you’ve been losing cattle. You can’t run a place this size by yourself and, well, I’m there for you. C’mon, Frank,’ he said, reining his horse around, touching a spur to the animal and leading the other man out of the ranch yard at a gallop.

  The woman watched them go and then turned to study Buck. After a minute she turned back to the pair of guards. ‘It’s OK, Cookie, Freddie. This is the man I told you about. Thank you for being ready, though. I do believe Mr Hightower thinks too much of himself and your being here helped take a bit of wind out of his hat.’ The last said with a little chuckle.

  ‘Welcome,’ she went on, motioning him to tie up at the rail. ‘Come on in and have a cup of coffee. The pot is fresh made.’

  CHAPTER 2

  Before dropping the reins over the hitch rail, Buck led his horse to a nearby water trough and let him drink. Matilda watched.

  A few minutes later, seated comfortably around the big kitchen table, she smiled. ‘I would hazard a guess that you’re the friend Uncle Fish told me to look out for,’ she allowed, pouring him a mug of black strong-looking coffee. ‘There was a letter from him telling me to watch out for a big, rangy man riding a big black horse that looks even rougher. That’d be you. My name is Matilda Randle.’

  ‘Yep,’ Buck smiled, and introduced himself.

  Following her into the house, he had been led through the front room down a short hall and into a sun-washed kitchen. The big room at the front, with its huge stuffed buffalo head mounted over a rock fireplace, each of the river-smoothed stones being bigger than a man’s head, was clearly a man’s room. This was a comfortable room full of worn oversized leather and polished wood furniture. The kitchen, on the other hand, was a woman’s domain.

  A large black Peninsular woodstove, its silver trim around the fire box and big oven gleaming in the sunlight, took up nearly all one wall. A stone dry sink and thick plank-topped work counter lined another. Windows, each with bright yellow and white curtains, framed the windows on three walls, letting the bright late morning sunshine fill the room. Seated at the table that was big enough to sit six or eight comfortably, Buck blew some of the steam off the cup and watched the woman as she returned the big fire-blackened pot to the back of the stove.

  A young woman, he judged, probably five years or so younger that he was. Somewhere in her mid to late twenties, he’d say. A proud woman, one who would not take lightly to being ordered around by any man, unless he was
her man. A ranch woman, she was probably a strong and capable person, he thought. The kind of woman that, having grown up on a ranch, was able to handle herself well and not faint away at the first hint of trouble. Just the kind of woman, he said to himself, that he would marry. But then, he completed the thought: he just wasn’t the marrying kind.

  Buck watched her, noting the smoothness of the dress over her upper body. He didn’t know much about dresses and dress material, but had noticed time and again how some women seemed to fill out a dress better than others. This dress, at least to the point just below her waist where the bottom flared out, fitted this woman’s body as if it had been sewn on. A wonderful sight, he thought, all smooth and full of curves. Shoulder-length hair, light brown and wavy, was held in place by a wide band of ribbon. Her eyes were of a light blue color that was almost the pale shade of the sky just before sundown.

  ‘Tell me, how well do you know Professor Fish?’ Buck leaned back in the big chair, deciding it was best not to look too far into her eyes or he might get lost.

  ‘I know him as Uncle Fish. And I’ve known him pretty much all my life,’ she smiled.

  ‘Uncle Fish? That’s a new one on me. I’ve only ever heard him called the Professor or Professor Fish. Is he your uncle?’

  ‘He was almost my father,’ she answered, laughing. ‘I grew up knowing him. He and my father were great friends and at one time both the men courted my mother. Father won out, and Uncle Fish stayed around, helping turn this end of the valley into the Rocking C. He was here until I was at least ten years old. I think he stayed around just in case my mother ever changed her mind. He really isn’t my uncle, you know, but he’s about the closest thing I have to any relatives. My husband Virgil was an orphan, so there’s just been him and me.’

  ‘Do tell. I’ve known the Professor for ten years or so and somehow I just can’t see him courting a woman. But yes, I did get a letter from him asking if I was to ride in this direction would I stop by and see what kind of trouble was coming your way.’