Chapter 29

Things were fine and even better when I walked in. I was afraid they'd turn to shit soon though. Carolyn was excited and asked about her cattle.

"Oh, we got the cattle with no problem."

"That's good, but it will probably be hard to tell which were mine and which were Gorsham's. I'm sure they've altered the brands by now. Oh well, it won't be impossible to figure it out," she said.

"It won't be that hard. Jim is an expert, he's done it several times," Helen said.

"We don't have to figure it out at all. Gorsham had no heirs and no will. The court gave us all the cattle for our help capturing and disposing of the criminals," I said.

"That's wonderful," Sally said.

"Maybe, and maybe not. I went off half cocked and bought Gorsham's entire place from the county. It cost us two thousand dollars," I said.

"Oh, are you sure you can use all that land profitably?" Helen asked.

"It doesn't make any difference if we can or not. Gorsham had one of the best places for cattle anywhere around here. He hardly had to fence any of it. There are natural barriers to keep his cattle from wandering off. Not to mention the river always has plenty of water," Carolyn said.

"Yes, and the house is worth much more than two thousand dollars. Now we have plenty of space without adding on," Sally said.

"Yes, but our space is spread over three houses," Helen said.

"You haven't seen Gorsham's house dear, I have," Sally said.

"Is it nice?" Helen asked.

"It's very nice, but more important it's huge. I think it's probably twice as large as mine and Carolyn's if they were combined. Maybe even larger than that," Sally said.

"I remember hearing about it now, but I've never seen it. Don and I never visited him and I surely wouldn't after Don died. I've heard rumors about his bedroom though. I've heard it's enormous," Carolyn said.

"Well, we'll go over and take a good look tomorrow, tonight we'll celebrate," I said, thanking my lucky stars blind luck had caused me to do something right.

The celebration wasn't so much of one afterall, at least not in a public fashion. We had a big supper and then took to the entertainment room, our bedroom.

At breakfast the next morning I came to my senses and decided there was no way I could spare the time to go on the cattle drive. After I sucked down my last cup of coffee I went outside to find Remus and give him the news. He didn't seem a bit upset over it and even asked if I couldn't keep half the men here with me to use while he and the other were on the drive.

"I just don't need nearly that many men to go along Frank. They'll just end up getting into something foolish. I'll still have too many, but leaving half of them here will help me out."

"Give 'em the news Remus. I'm sure as hell not going to try and tell you how to drive cattle if I ain't even going on the trip."

"Good, we'll leave in the morning if it's ok with you."

"Go ahead, I've dragged my feet for too long already and we've got a lot more cattle to tend to now. I bought Gorsham's place from the county yesterday and we need some bodies down there to keep watch until we can get moved," I said.

Really it was a good thing Remus wanted to cut his crew back. We were going to need more cowhands around here. I left Remus to get his bunch organized for leaving and I rounded up five men to go with me and the women.

Wagons for taking the women were the only option. Some could ride, but some weren't good at it. I intended to cure that problem sooner or later, but for now they all loaded up in a couple of wagons and headed for Gorsham's place.

We pulled up about two hours later and we'd just unassed our rides when six cowboys came up driving about forty head of cattle. They stopped as soon as they noticed the big crowd. The apparent leader of the group rode over near me to find out what was going on.

"Where is everybody, and who are you?" he asked when he got close.

"Most of the hands are in jail in town, except for those the Sherrif hanged yesterday."

"But where's Mr Gorsham?"

"Oh him. My dog Buster tore him to pieces and he's still dead. We've got about twelve greeners covering your bunch, so if you don't want to be buried you can drop your guns and live until we can get the Sherrif out here."

He looked around and could see the others who'd come up with him dropping their weapons, but apparently he thought he could shoot his way out since the Greeners were pointed at his former buddies. As soon as his right hand moved toward his holster Buster let him know that wasn't going to work by pulling him off his mount by the arm he'd been trying to draw with.

I gave Buster about ten minutes to explain what dropping your gun means, but by the time the lesson was over it didn't make any difference since Buster had pretty much chewed the guy's right hand completely off.

I called for Buster to come over with me while I went to talk to the other five cattle thieves. We left the tough guy on the ground, trying to slow down his own blood loss and crying over his lost hand at the same time.

"Ok, men, it was nice of you to bring the cows in, but get your asses off my horses," I said.

One of them opened his yap saying someting about it being his horse, but he was probably lying so I shot him in the chest.

"Ok, any of you other fools want to try your hand at spreading bullshit fast enough to get you out of this. Me and Buster share the wealth and he'll tend to the next one who lets his lips get away from him. If you don't want to be in a dog fight get your asses off those horses."

They were paying closer attention now. I sent one of my hands into town to fetch the Sherrif and had another gather the boots our prisoners were removing.

"I'm pretty sure rustling cattle is still a hanging offence, so you boys had better see if you can remember how to pray before the law gets here. It's just your bad luck we killed Gorsham yesterday. He ain't around to help you out no more."

Funny, a couple of the youngest spent most of the time until the Sherrif arrived crying instead of praying. Maybe they could do both at the same time.

Some of my men had the cattle penned up by now and all the women were inside examining the house. From the looks of the outside and from the size I was pretty sure we'd be moving in here starting about an hour ago.

One of the best things I noticed was the place was well kept outside at least and there were plenty of barns and a nice big bunkhouse and even a big kitchen to feed the hands. There was even a big barn with stalls for horses and there were plenty of really nice mounts which were kept separate from the normal cow ponies. Jim was going to love this place. I sent another hand back to Sally's place to stop the construction there and send the carpenters down here.