Ask No Tomorrows Read Online Free Page A

he’d been courtin’ me or anything.” Riley
shrugged with indignation. “I had no relations with the man other
than as my foreman, so I found the proposal a little stunning. He’d
never mentioned an interest to my father, when he was alive. Dad
always said I was pretty plain so I sure didn’t expect him to
propose, although I realize that would be one way of takin’ the
place over. He didn’t take too kindly to the turn down, though. But
I never expected him to turn violent on me, either. I got along
good with the boys on the ranch, most of them.”
    “ You mean he didn’t love ya?” Sam asked, his face screwing up
with confusion. “You sayin’ in one breath he asked you to marry and
in another to kill ya?”
    “ No, of course he didn’t love me. I guess they wanted the
ranch, and decided to take it from me,” she huffed indignantly. “I
guess they figured it would be easy, and so far, they are
right.”
    “ They? There’s more than one? I mean, you are sure the other
hands are in on it too?”
    “ It
would seem so; most of the hands were takin’ his orders and lookin’
for me. Dead or alive, it didn’t matter to Harry.”
    “ Did they chase after you?” Sam asked.
    “ For a while, then they just sorta gave up. They figured I’d be
dead before I got anywhere. Sometimes I think because I’m not that
big, they thought I couldn’t hold up to things, like ranchin’,” she
explained. “Harry never thought much of women anyway, except for
his own purpose if you know what I mean.”
    “ Well, they can’t just take over your land, like that. I mean,
it’s yours. So what you gonna do now?” Sam asked as he stood up
once more and began digging again.
    “ I
don’t rightly know. I was figurin’ to catch the stage,” she
answered. “Get as far away as I could and then figure it
out.”
    “ That’s a good idea, but if I was you, I’d get to a town, where
someone can help you.” Sam added, “You can tell the Sheriff. You
livin’ around here, people are bound to know you. With a spread
that big, everyone would be familiar with you runnin’ the place,
seems like.”
    “ No…I can’t do that.” She pet Nodog behind the ears and Nodog
waged his tail. “Everybody knows me, but don’t many care about me.
You see out here, men don’t think women can do things like runnin’
a ranch, and that’s pretty common thinkin’. Besides, there isn’t a
Sheriff around these parts. No real law unless you go to Ft. Worth,
Dallas or Waco. No towns either. Just ranches mostly.”
    Sam sent her a
scowl. “You tellin’ me you’re the daughter of one of the richest
men in the state and no one cares about you? That’s a little hard
to swallow.”
    “ Well…when I wouldn’t go back east like my pa wanted, some of
the folks, mostly ladies thought kinda ill of me. And the men too
because I put britches on and worked my ranch along with my pa,
like a man. So everyone sorta marked me as Morgan’s wayward child.
It didn’t matter to me at first, but as time goes on…it sorta does.
So today, when they started shooting at me, I was just gonna keep
on going. You see, Harry and most the ranchers around here are
pretty good friends. And now that I put it all together, I reckon
they been plannin’ this take-over for some time. It’s kinda easy to
figure lookin’ back at it all. Especially the way Harry was
talkin’. Because of the way most the ranchers treat me, I don’t
socialize much with them, knowin’ their attitude. Oh, I try to be
friendly, but they think I’m what’s the word…”
    “ Eccentric?”
    “ Yeah, that’s it. Oh maybe they seen me a time or two, but as
for socializing, I just don’t have the time. My pa, he never put
too many hands on, just enough to take care of the place so there
has always been a lot of work to do. Everyone knows me, but not
many paid me no mind. ‘Cause I’m a woman, doin’ a man’s job. It’s
an unspoken law around here that women don’t have no