Chapter 5

It had taken me four full days of work, but I finally got enough of the pipe laid out to reach down to the bottom of the hill in the reservation's direction. I got two of my new hands to help me after that first morning. Even with the help though, by the time my supper was eaten, I was ready for sleep. Juana turned out to be a fair cook. Her chicken and biscuits were tasty for sure. I had put away quite a bit of it, and was starting to feel heavy as well as tired. I told Juana that I was turning in, and quickly proceeded to shuck out of my clothes, before I just flopped down on the bed, face first. Since she was still working by the stove, frying chicken for the ranch hands, I figured that my laying down on my stomach would seem more modest like. I was fast asleep in mere seconds. I don't know how long I was asleep, but I do remember that it was a whole bunch of yelling and screaming, followed by the sound of someone being slapped that caused me to wake right up from my much needed rest.

"What in the hell is going on here?" I had my forty four forty in one hand and the edge of my bed covers in the other. Tired as I was, I'm glad that I didn't shoot my dick off and aim the covers at Danny Gomez. I missed his head with my shot, but it sure got his attention in a hurry. He dove out onto my porch almost before the sound of the gun shot had finished moving around that big room.

I saw him crab scooting off of the porch and running all bent over towards my main corral. I didn't know if he was finished with things as of now, or if he had gone to fetch that rifle that I'd given him. "Juana, what was all that about? Why'd he slap you?" She was sitting on the floor right by my stove, trying to keep the blood that was running from her nose contained inside her apron. She looked confused, maybe a little bit dazed by having so much happening so quick.

"You better tell me what's going on before your brother pokes his head out of my corral, because if he comes out with a rifle in his hands, I'm going to drop him right where he stands." She got up to her feet then and ran right out of the ranch house making straight for the corral. She could run pretty fast for a girl too. I got over to the door and kicked it closed, and threw the bar down. I went to each of the shutters and closed them and bolted them so they'd stay closed. They'd have to burn me out now, and I had a nice surprise for them if they tried that. Fifteen tense minutes passed with nothing new happening.

"Mr. Gardner, it's Danny Gomez. I'm unarmed, can I come in?" I didn't really trust him, but I also didn't want to seem afraid of anything to one of my own hands. I got over to the door and lifted up the bar. I opened the door some, and looked outside. "I'm over here Mr. Gardner, can I come in for a minute?" He was standing over by the side of the house, hiding, with only his head sticking out.

"Come on in boy, but don't make any sudden moves. I'm still cranky from being woken up from a sound sleep." I moved back, ready in case he tried anything. He walked real slow, his hands always in plain sight and came inside the ranch house. He shut the door behind him when he got himself all the way inside.

"I swear Mr. Gardner, I don't mean you no harm. Can you put your pistol down for a minute." I lowered the barrel to the floor and waited for him to speak. "I'm sorry for waking you, but you didn't have to try to kill me. I only slapped her for being sassy with me. She's my sister and she's supposed to do what I say."

"Boy, you don't come into a man's home when he's sleeping, and just start carrying on like you did. I only just recognized you at the last second and pulled my bead off of your eyes." I didn't like for the hands to think that I went around missing my targets unless they thought that I had done it on purpose. That boy would never know how close to dying he had come though. My nerves were still twitching whenever I thought about what I'd almost done. "What was it that was so important to you that you almost got killed for it?"

"Can you put your pants back on Mr. Gardner? It's hard for me to talk to you when you're standing there with everything hanging out and all." I reached down with my free hand and gave my ass an insolent scratch. Be damned if I was going to let one of my hands tell me what I could wear in my own ranch house.

"You one of them fellas gets himself all excited looking at men? If you are, no offense, but you can clear on off of my land right now."

"It ain't that, dammit. It just would be easier if you had your pants on when I'm talking about my sister."

"What in the hell does Juana have to do with me wearing pants or not? She isn't even here."

"She was, and you were laying on your bed all naked and in a lewd pose."

"I was sleeping. I sleep like that all the time. You think I'm supposed to change my ways just so your dirty mind will rest easy? You know it wasn't my idea for your sister to sleep on my porch, or to cook on my stove either. She can just go back down the hill to Miguelito in the morning. She gets on my nerves anyway, sleeping out there on my porch and always looking at me. You better head down there with her too. I'm liable to shoot you now just because it's bad luck to let you hang around me after I've already given you two warning shots."

"That will be fine with me. I never asked to come up here and work for nothing anyway. I'll miss the horses though. You've got some nice horses." At least the boy recognized good horse flesh when he saw it. Gardner's Ranch had the best horses for a hundred miles around.

"Which one you figure's the best of the herd?" Hell, I wanted to find out if he knew what he was talking about. Most people think they know horses, but they don't.

"That's easy. The big grey with the front socks. If it was my herd, I'd sell off the sorrel and just let the grey stand all the mares." It so happened that I'd considered doing that very thing myself. I'd get better horses out of it, but I wanted to grow my herd to a hundred head, and that was too much for only a single stud and I'd have to breed new lines anyway. Still, he'd been with the horses less than a week and knew a lot already. I had been hoping to get another stud out of a good mare and the sorrel. I'd had him in with five of my best mares just for that reason.

"Why'd you slap your sister? Just because she's sassy?" I figured I'd let him explain it just to see if I saw any sense in what he'd done.

"I came up to get the chicken and biscuits, because we were hungry and had got tired of waiting for Juana to bring it down to us. We knew that you had eaten yours already, and we were hungry too. Juana was standing at the stove, letting our supper burn, while she was busy looking right at your naked ass. She saw me coming, and she still wasn't making any effort to hide what she was doing. I told her to turn back to what she was supposed to be doing, and she told me to mind my own damn business. I yelled at her, and she said something back, so I slapped her."

"What did she say?"

"I'd rather not tell you."

"Suit yourself then, you can clear out in the morning. I won't have a hand who keeps things from me."

"She said that she was hoping that you'd turn over because she wanted to see if your dick was as big as she remembered." Danny was not happy telling me that. I hope he didn't notice the little jump my dick had given when he'd told me what she had said.

"Well I guess it's good that she's leaving. I don't need another woman pestering me for attention. One is already plenty."

"So, I can stay?"

"I guess, but she has to clear out in the morning. You can tell Miguelito to send up an old ugly woman if he really needs a cook for you boys. She can sleep out there in the corral too, and cook out there. I won't be having people looking at me and gaping at my naked form. You better quit looking where you're looking too. Didn't your mama ever teach you not to stare at people?"

He got all flustered when I said that, and he quickly turned around and left. Five minutes later Juana came walking through my door, all angry and just spoiling for a fight. "How come I have to leave? I didn't do anything wrong. Why does Danny get to stay and I have to leave?"

"Because Danny doesn't spend all of his time trying to get himself a good look at my big old dick, that's why. Your smart mouth almost got your brother killed a few minutes ago. You don't say things like that to your brother." She started laughing at me while I was talking to her because my dick had risen up and was now pointed up at my rafters. "Get an eyeful while you're at it girl, because this is the last that you're ever going to see of it."

"Don't be so sure of that Mr. Gardner. I generally find a way to get what I want. Seeing you that way is making me all itchy. I think I need to leave now though, and let you get your rest. I'll see you in the morning."

I got up real early in the morning and took the bar down from my door and stepped outside. Juana had already picked up her things and was gone. I was going to miss her, but I didn't want anymore trouble because of her either. The hands and I were connecting the water pipe when we all heard a motor car approaching. I dropped what I was doing and started making good time back to my ranch house. Part of me was hoping that it was Dru coming up for another bath, but another part was hoping that it was her husband, coming up to offer me a whole fist full of money. It turned out that it was my Uncle Charlie, and the news wasn't good at all. Mrs. Franklin Lyons had lodged a complaint with the County Sheriff that accused me of having raped her. Uncle Charlie had come up, as an officer of the court, to get me to surrender to him and return to the County seat to await trial.