Sandy’s eyes widened with surprise as his meaning sunk in. “You’re going to put a fence on the other side of the creek? On my father’s land?”
“Pax range stops where the creek starts. That’s where the fence is gonna go.”
“But…but then our cattle can’t get to it!” Sandy protested. “What’ll they do for water?”
“You got a creek on your range,” Colton said with a nod in that direction.
“But it dries up half the year! It’s almost dry now! Our stock has always used
Colton shook his head. “Not any more.”
Jessie spoke up again, saying hotly, “Pa, this ain’t right—”
“Good Lord, gal!” her father exploded. “What kind o’ talk is that? Didn’t I send you to school so you could learn how to talk like a proper lady?”
“All right, then,” Jessie said through gritted teeth. “Father, this isn’t right. It isn’t proper behavior. And it certainly isn’t fair to Mr. Paxton.” She took a deep breath. “It’s a bunch o’ damn bullshit, that’s what it is!”
Colton flung a hand toward the Double C headquarters, several miles to the west. “Git!” he shouted at Jessie. “Go on home before I forget that you’re damned near growed and paddle you like the spoiled brat you’re actin’ like!”
Jessie folded her arms across her chest and glared coldly at him. “I’d like to see you try it,” she grated.
Father and daughter glowered at each other for a moment before Colton turned and bellowed at the hands who had accompanied him, “Get to work! I want a good stretch o’ that fence up before sundown today!” He swung his horse toward Sandy again and went on. “Sandy, gal, you got to go now. I’m sorry.”
“I’m going, Uncle Shad,” she said, “but I don’t believe you’re really sorry, or you wouldn’t be doing this. I’m going to see what my pa has to say about it. I can’t believe he’d ever agree to this!”
She heeled her horse into motion and splashed back across the creek. “So long, Sandy!” Jessie called after her, but Sandy didn’t acknowledge the farewell.
The Double C hands who had ridden out on the wagon hopped down, and the ones on horseback dismounted. They showed an obvious reluctance for working with the newfangled barbed wire, which had been introduced several years earlier but was still quite unpopular in Texas. The fact that Shad Colton would resort to using the devil wire was a sign of just how deep his ill feelings toward Esau Paxton really ran.
Jessie watched in dismay as the cowboys began sinking posts along the far bank of the creek and stringing wire between them. Shad Colton dismounted and worked alongside them. He had never been the sort of hombre to ask his men to do anything he wouldn’t do himself, which was one reason they felt such fierce loyalty to him.
The work was slow and hard, and it hadn’t progressed very far by late morning. That was when Jessie spotted the dust cloud in the distance to the east, on Pax range, and unbent from her anger long enough to say, “Riders comin’, Pa.”
Colton lowered the fence post he was holding and looked where Jessie was pointing. He grunted and took off the work gloves he had donned earlier. Then he came over to where Jessie still sat on her horse under the cottonwoods and put a hand on the animal’s shoulder.
“Jessie, I mean it now,” he said in a soft but urgent voice. “I want you to go home. There’s liable to be some trouble, and I don’t want you anywhere around here.”
“Gun trouble, you mean,” Jessie said, trying to keep her voice from trembling with the nervousness she felt. That tension had been growing ever since Sandy rode off. Jessie knew Esau Paxton well enough to be certain that he wouldn’t sit still for having his cattle fenced off from water. He would ride out here with some of his men to see for himself what was going on…and they would come armed.
Colton shook his head. “I don’t reckon it’ll come to that—”
“You know better, Pa.”
Stubbornly, Colton repeated, “I don’t reckon it’ll come to that, but if it does, I want you safe, girl.”
Jessie reached for the butt of the Winchester that stuck up from the sheath strapped to her saddle. She never went riding without a rifle. She would have felt naked out on the range without a gun.
“I’m a Colton, too,” she said as she drew the Winchester. A simple statement, but it spoke volumes.
“Jessie, Jessie,” Colton said, shaking his head. “What if Sandy’s with them?”
Jessie’s blood seemed to turn to ice water in her veins.
But it was too late to ponder what her father had said. With a rattle of hooves, the riders swept up on the other side of the creek and reined in. The air was thick with dust and a sense that all hell was about to break loose.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2008 William W. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
