Chapter 1

Sweethome Valley Ranch never looked prettier as I sat easy in the saddle and looked down at the houses of my brothers, sisters, cousins, and way up to the north, I could just barely make out the old homeplace where mom was probably sitting in her rocker and reading her bible this time of day.

It was just sunup and my stomach was growling powerful loud for some attention. I decided to head for my cousin Burl's house and see if he would feed a friendly saddle tramp, namely me. Besides, my little sister was there helping Burl's wife Janice with the new baby. Coretta; the baby of the original family was near to making babies herself, provided she could find someone dumb enough for her to break to her saddle.

I tolerated her because she made the best jowl gravy in three counties and believe me when I say a county covered a lot of territory and a considerable number of jowl bacon gravy makers in this part of the country.

I suppose I should be brutally honest and say she was damned easy on the eyes and purty as a speckled pup which helped to make the task of toleration somewhat more tolerable...

I had just turned thirty-five and as usual I was ganged up on at my birthday dinner and verbally hosswhipped cause I refused to get married. I enjoyed a woman's company but the right woman hadn't showed yet. Coretta turned nineteen a few weeks before my birthday so I said, "Tell you what folks, after Coretta ties the knot and a woman comes along as purty as she is, I'll take to the yoke true enough."

Coretta giggled and gave me a hug, "I love you too brother mine!"

I reined in and stepped down to throw the reins over the rail by Burl's back door. I could smell biscuits, bacon, and eggs wafting in the air which made my stomach go ape shit crazy with growling.

Burl looked up as I staggered weakly through the kitchen door and grinned then turned to pick up the coffee pot and pour me a cup. Coretta grabbed my Stetson and gave it a pitch for a ringer on the hat tree down the hall.

Two big gulps and three mouthfuls later I croaked, "How's the new kid?" Burl barked a laugh, "Loud Wes... real loud, I slept in the tack room last night. I damned near fell out of the saddle yesterday from lack of sleep."

Coretta looked like she had just stepped out of one of those country living magazines. I asked, "How come you look so fresh and frisky?" She gave me one of those saccharine sweet smiles and shot back, "We ladies have an image to maintain... we don't allow lack of sleep to interfere with getting the job done."

Janice came dragging in and quipped, "Yeah and he ain't gnawing on your tit either... The kid is brutal, truly brutal to his tired mommy." Burl blinked, "I thought breastfeeding felt good! What's the deal with Junior?" Janice snarled, "The kid is half mountain lion and half Billy goat... Geeeze he can bite hard for having no teeth."

Without thinking, (or being asked), I said "why for is he biting anyway, hell he should be sucking?" Burl piped up and said, "Now when a calf bites, it's a sign they got the colic or they're... " he stopped and looked at me and said to Janice, "call the pediatrician this morning and get that baby in to see him. He's got a serious problem and don't argue with me, you hear?"

That's another thing, when I marry, I want a woman that's a notch smarter than I am, dad always said I was a notch less smarter than I should be but I think he was confusing stupidity with being lazy which is what I was when he was alive.

Anyway, Burl Junior was found to have a bowel blockage, some kind of birth defect that kept him from emptying his bowel like he should. Sort of like a big polyp he was born with and took about thirty minutes to fix. Poor little feller wasn't pooping good. Like most men, as soon as he was able to take that satisfying shit after every meal he got tamer and didn't bite his momma's tit no more.

When Janice didn't need Coretta any more, she mentioned to mom one evening I was the one that saw Burl Junior had something wrong with him. I didn't know what it meant but she looked at me funny when she was telling mom so I asked her, "What?" She shook her head and just smiled then.

When I graduated from high school the summer before I left for college, dad loaned me out to a widow lady in the next valley that was having trouble with her foreman being uppity and cussing her the way it was told to me.

I was a strapping lad six foot five tall and weighed two forty-five or there abouts without my boots on. Except for dad and two of my older bigger meaner brothers, I hadn't backed down from any man or beast for far longer than I could remember. Mom and my older sister Eve regularly opened cans of whupass on me but only because I allowed it.

I had no idea what Mrs. Bowmonte looked like when I saddled up and rode off to her rescue. I pictured her either being overweight and disheveled or underweight and scrawny with a voice like a fish monger's wife whatever that is. Sort of like one of those Italian women with a screechy voice that could penetrate concrete over a foot thick.

When I arrived, the foreman curled his lip and began on me right away. I gave him a few seconds and dozens of meaningless words then stepped down to look down at him and say 'boo'. Dad had told me I was Mrs. Bowmonte's guest and to act like one. I figured a good guest would clear the air of any misunderstandings with her hired help and if necessary, pass out a few forehead adjustments.

He was a slow learner. He whipped out a butterfly knife and commenced to threaten me with it. I was polite and reminded him if he wasn't careful, he might accidentally injure himself. He mentioned I would bear the brunt of the injuries and proceeded to try and carve me.

Well the silly fool, it was easy to remove his knife from his possession then prepare him for the sheriffs' deputies to haul his ass off on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. Besides, I wasn't twenty-one yet and he was over twenty-one so he had that problem to contend with also.

A much nicer man I liked a lot better replaced the troublesome foreman and things got much better for Mrs. Bowmonte. Her husband of fifteen years had lost his life when he was trying to pull a tree stump and managed to flip his tractor over on him self.

They had four children, three girls, two in grade school, and one a sophomore that I knew already. The boy was just a toddler and a few years away from taking over the family ranch.

I kind of got ahead of myself and didn't mention Mrs. Bowmonte wasn't skinny or overweight. She was a very attractive thirty something woman, (her words relative to her age), with about a 38D, 28, 38 figure and a very purty face framed by unbelievably long black wavy hair that never seemed to need a comb ran through it.

Her sparkling blue eyes never failed to capture my imagination and the soothing and often sultry tone of her voice kept me in a constant state of rut. I was a virgin when I went to help out but she made sure I was adequately relieved of that burden. Her hubby had been gone for nearly a year and a half when I arrived.

The first few days, I flirted with the girl named Lilly who was a sophomore. I also flirted with her younger sisters and they ate it up. Lilly pretended I was gross but secretly liked it one of her sisters told me.

It was my habit on dad's advice, to take a ride each evening after dinner and just make my presence felt. The hands were friendly and invited me to play cards or watch movies on tape with them but they knew I was there to protect Mrs. Bowmonte's interests and I was quick to break asses if someone got silly.

The foreman I disarmed the day I arrived was nearly my size and so was a couple of the hands. However, I had only one other occasion to lay hands on someone after that and the foreman fired the idiot when he heard from the other hands what happened. He had frightened a mare with a colt and she bit him. He became crazy and took a two by four to her just as I rode up.