Chapter 3

Mrs. Belinda Roseberry was one of those modern women that grew up in an advantaged household with her every wish being fulfilled by both parents and servants.

She didn't hold much with the tomfoolery of the male establishment having witnessed countless middle-aged friends of her powerful father travel down the road of debauchery and decadent selfishness. Her mother was a woman that found consolation in her pet poodle and a young gentleman by the name of Bruce. He had a far more talented tongue than any brainless poodle and had shown Belinda his skills on a rainy afternoon which she held forever in her memory as a turning point in her life.

Belinda married her father's best friend and confidante, Colonel Augustus Merriweather at her father's request because the old fool was slowly drinking himself to death after the suicide of his young bride Alicia shortly after the merger of his railroad line with her father's vast holdings. Everything was arranged for Belinda to travel with the Colonel out west to some God forsaken place called Tucson, Arizona to incorporate the railhead into the newly established beef industry shipping livestock back East on a daily basis for the butchers in places like Saint Louis and Chicago.

Unfortunately, either the honeymoon or the travel turned the Colonel's health sour and he expired somewhere between Kansas and Texas on a siding claimed for his much-needed appointment with a doctor of dubious distinction known for taking perfectly good limbs from frightened soldiers in the American Civil War.

The young wife was already in a state of confused frustration from not even having the benefit of a willing tongue to take care of her spousal requirements and the good doctor spent more time attending to the wife instead of the failing husband suffering from a malady of uninteresting proportion.

They buried the Colonel with full honors near the side track noting that he was the original owner of that particular railroad. Since the siding was rarely used, it was soon forgotten and the wind eventually knocked down the wooden cross and the sand covered any sign of a grave.

His many distinguishing exploits on the field of battle were also forgotten because the country was no longer interested in stories of battlefields and suffering and shameful exhibits of men walking around minus a limb here and there. It was a time of Western expansion. It was the expression of a county yearning to fulfill its "Manifest Destiny" although most of the populace was unfamiliar with the term having failed to complete a solid education in any manner whatsoever.

It was not entirely a coincidence that the senior Mister Roseberry back east was also the owner of the Texas Cattle Consortium currently moving thousands of steers into the virtually empty lands of Arizona and New Mexico. His thought was to find better grazing than the played out range back in Texas. His plan was to fatten them up in places like Tucson Valley and then shove them into cattle cars for the long ride back to the cities in the East. The recent failure of the Cattleman's Association unable to turn back the tide of setters from the cities in the east left vast areas of open rangeland now without cattle to graze and not enough settlers to develop the land into farms and small homesteads. The sudden appearance of the sheep-men and the little white creatures had taken a lot of cowboys and ranchers by surprise and they just a natural dislike for them and their terrible stink which was far worse than the beloved steers. The excuse that they tore up the grazing topsoil was to the most part contrived but it was effective in putting public opinion on their side.

Now the widow of the Colonel Merriweather resumed her maiden name of Roseberry and prepared to take over the operation of the Texas Cattle Consortium in Tucson Valley. She was not one to be fearful of male interference because she knew full well her father's power was just as effective in Arizona as it was in Washington, D.C.

The first thing she did when she arrived in town was to call a meeting of the Texas cowboys and their foreman at the recently purchased ranch house only a short distance from the lively town. She saw all of the heavily armed cowboys looking mean and ready to push the sheep out of the valley no matter how much blood had to be shed to accomplish that fact.

Belinda had a short list of about a half dozen cowboys reputed to have a checkered past in the field of gun-slinging and reputed victims buried in various Boot Hills all the way back to Texas and the surrounding area.

Sam Chisholm was on the top of that short list and she was impressed at the list of gun-men that he had dished out his brand of lead to in the last ten years. She saw him sitting quietly at the back of the meeting listening intently but keep his mouth shut unlike his talkative brother who was telling everyone within hearing distance that he was the fastest gun west of the Pecos. The real hard-cases just looked at him with little humor on their faces and ignored his claims to fame as the supposed "Texas Kid". There had been so many phonies that claimed to be the legendary gun-hand that another one in Tucson Valley was no surprise.

The recent widow looked at the quiet cowboy with his almost shy demeanor and decided that he was just the one she wanted to head up the group she wanted to drive out the sheep-herders from the valley. After the meeting, her personal representative Blackie Barstow approached Sam cautiously and politely asked him if he would be agreeing to meet with "Mrs. Boss Lady" in her office right in front of the meeting room. Sam told Saul to wait for him at the saloon and to avoid any trouble until they knew exactly what was going on between the Cattlemen and the Sheep-herders.