Blood Valley Read Online Free Page B

roam around here.”
    â€œI heard of him.”
    â€œYou know Smoke Jensen?”
    â€œNot personal. But I seen him work one time. That’s the fastest man with a gun anywhere. Left hand or right hand.”
    â€œSo I heard. Anyways, Baker and Mills and Lawrence come in as young men. They all married at about the same time. All their kids is about the same age.”
    â€œThis Joy . . . she playin’ with a full deck?”
    Rusty laughed. “She’s just natural mean, Sheriff. Just like her brother, A.J. Junior. They’re spoiled and they’re cruel. They ain’t never wanted for nothin’. And Junior is fast with a gun, remember that. He’s good. But he likes to hurt people—’specially women. He’s raped more than one.”
    â€œWhy hasn’t someone hung the bastard?”
    â€œBetween the two ranches, Rockinghorse and Circle L, Sheriff, they can mount a hundred and fifty men.”
    â€œGuess that answers my question.”
    â€œMills and Lawrence had them kids tutored, the teachers brung in from overseas, French and English. Baker’s wife was a well-educated lady herself, with money of her own. She taught her own younguns, Pepper and Jeff. They right good kids.”
    â€œPepper’s a girl?”
    â€œAnd how! Just lookin’at her makes a man wanna go run rabbits and howl at the moon. I know, I done some howlin’ myself one night.”
    â€œShe must be a sight to behold.”
    â€œPurtiest thing you ever seen in all your life, Sheriff, and Big Mike wants her bad. Goes courtin’ her. But she won’t have nothin’ to do with him.”
    She come up a whole lot in my eyes with that statement.
    Rusty said, “Now then, right in the middle of that half circle I tole you about is the fly in the soup. Maggie Barnett and Jean Knight. Their husbands was kilt fightin’ the Circle L and Rockinghorse—nobody could prove it, but ever’body knew who done it. That happened some years ’fore I come down here. So them gals, they just up and joined spreads and formed the Arrow band. Little spread; ’bout seventy-five thousand acres. And them two gals is tougher than wang leather, let me tell you that right now. And cuss! Lord have mercy!”
    â€œHow do they ride?”
    Rusty rolled his eyes. “Astride. Plumb indecent. The Arrow hands ain’t young, by no means, but they’re salty ol’ boys. And Miss Maggie and Miss Jean can ride like men, work like men, and shoot just as good as any man.”
    I looked up and down the main street. At the far end was a church. At the other end, a schoolhouse. And in the middle, three saloons. The Wolf’s Den, the Dirty Dog, and stuck back, almost in an alley, was Juan’s Cantina.
    â€œOdd to find a Mex joint this far north.”
    â€œSheep to the south of us,” Rusty explained. “The sheepmen gather at the cantina. The crews from the Big Three gather at the Wolf’s Den. The smaller ranchers and nesters gather at the Dirty Dog. Small ranchers and farmers are bandin’ together for protection. First time I ever seen that.”
    I thought for a moment. “What is today?”
    â€œFriday, Sheriff. Box social night at the school. Dancin’ and all that, too.”
    â€œLike you bid on lady’s dinner boxes?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œLots of folks turn out?”
    â€œNear’bouts ever’body in the whole area. Some left at dawn just to get here. I’ve only been to a couple of them. Punchers is said to be too rowdy for the good folks.”
    â€œIs that a fact?”
    â€œYep.”
    We both grinned at that.
    â€œI just might make that social tonight, Rusty.”
    â€œShould be interestin’, Sheriff. Big Mike never misses one.”
    Â 
    Â 
    The buckboards started rattlin’ in about four-thirty that afternoon, a lot of them trailed by heavily armed outriders. I didn’t think they was