Chapter 8

Four days later another rider came out from town with a message. It was from the widow Barlough's lawyer and he wanted to talk to me about buying the place. I went into town and had a talk with him.

"I thought the widow Barlough hated my guts. Why does she want to sell her place to me?" I asked.

"As far as I know she does hate you. She blames you for the death of her husband," he said.

"Why, that's right, I asked him to come around my place trying to shoot it up and scare the shit out of my women folk. I guess it was my fault I made him stop." I said.

"Some women just can't find fault with their men." he said.

"You mean some women just won't open their eyes." I said.

"There is that too," he said.

"How much does she want for the place?" I asked.

"It's on eleven thousand acres, has two nice big barns, and twelve hundred head of cattle?" he said.

"How many acres does she have a legitimate deed to?" I asked.

"Well, only about five hundred?" he said.

"How much does she want?" I asked again.

"Twenty-seven thousand," he said, and he didn't even blink.

"Best of luck selling it then," I said, and got up to leave.

"Don't you even want to make a counter offer?" he asked.

"Not starting from that point. She's probably convinced she has title to all that acerage, but I know it's just conversation. How much does she even have fenced?" I asked.

"Only about eighty acres," he said.

That ain't even enough land to bother with," I said.

"But she's just a poor widow woman," he said.

"You feel sorry for her, you can buy the place. I don't feel a bit sorry for her and I ain't spending a dime on her fairy tale of a big ranch," I said, and left.

The way it turned out I probably should have made a lowball offer for the place. It sold four days later for nine thousand dollars and the one who moved in was nothing but a thug with a bunch of owlhoots for hands.

I'd hired all her former hands by then and kept them out watching my cattle. In fact I kept most of my stock on the other side of my place from hers but it didn't keep them from trying to steal what was close to them.

One of my outriders came in two hours after dark about a week after they'd moved in and said twelve men were riding among the stock we had over there and seemed to be making a gather.

I rousted out all my hands, loaded them down with the greeners and Sharp's rifles and all the ammunition we had for 'em. We caught up with the thieves still a quarter mile inside our property line, snuck around ahead of them and then opened the ball while they were still on my land. I had about twenty hands by now and we cleaned their plow.

I had two of the boys gather up their horses, and strip their bodies and then sent another one off to fetch the new sherrif.

He got there much more quickly than I'd have though and he was sure a change from the last one. He said it looked like cattle rustling plain and simple to him and he asked me if we could bury the bodies to save the county the trouble. I told him we would and as he rode off half my men started in on the holes and the other half drifted the cattle over on the other side of my place.

I had all the men scatter out in the house that night and we had barely eaten breakfast the next morning before ten men came riding up wanting to know where their friends had gotten off to.

I was standing on my front porch and I asked the one who was doing the talking.

"Oh, you mean the men you sent over her trying to steal my stock yesterday? We killed them and the sherrif told us to bury them where they lay," I said.

He took offense and started to pull his saddle gun but I let him have it right away with my Super Blackhawk. It really was impressive what a modern day .44 magnum could do to a fellow. My men cut loose from in the house on the ones with him and soon we had more to bury. I sent the same boy off for the sherrif again and we got the same out of him when he made it.

I was about to kick my own ass over letting this bunch of thieves take over so close to me, but about an hour later one of the men I'd just hired came up to the house with some news.

"That was Jeff Haskins you killed right off the bat," he said.

"Who is Jeff Haskins?" I asked.

"He was the one who bought the Barlough place. He was the owner of the place now, or until now," he said.

Well hell. I might as well ride into town and talk to my lawyer and see what this all meant.

I saddled up and rode into town and when I made it to the lawyers' office I had to wait while he was talking to a damned pretty blonde headed woman. I had lust somewhere all right when I saw her but I didn't think it was my heart bulging out the front of my jeans.

They seemed to finish and she came on back out and sat down. I smiled at her and she smiled back, but I was called into the lawyer's office before I could get anything started I shouldn't have.

"What's up today?" he asked me.

"I'm just wondering. We had a little dustup out at my place again and one of the boys told me I'd killed Jeff Haskins. He also told me he was the one who'd bought the Barlough place," I said.

"Well, damned. That was his wife just in here, I guess she's his widow now and she had come to make sure what his will said. I wrote it for him and he mostly took it as a joke, but he left everything to her."

"Do you think she'll sell it?" I asked.

"Don't be dumb son. She's now a woman alone with a ranch to run. She's also worried about what will happen if something happens to him. With good reason, I now know."

"She's a pretty young thing and I think you should go out there, give her the unhappy news, and take her out to your ranch so your wives can help her through this terrible time.

"You might as well try to slip in a little help of your own and move on up to three wives. There ain't no real law against it though there have been some noises about one going around. Better get her wrapped up quickly before any of that comes up."