Chapter 1

Boyd drew his gun with his left hand and fired. The roar of the exploding powder echoed through the saloon and momentarily deafened everybody in the room. The shotgun part of the LeMat pistol was always the most surprising to people the first time they realized what had happened. The six #00 buckshot balls roared down the line parallel to the bar and all hit Hanson.

Hanson was standing so close to Boyd that there was no chance of even one of the lead balls missing him. Five of the balls hit him in the chest and one caught him in the throat. Blood spurted everywhere as Hanson's heart continued to beat for a few more seconds before it gave up the effort. Boyd looked intently around the room as he thumbed back the hammer and reset it for firing the conventional rounds in the nine-shot cylinder. No one seemed interested in contesting the result of Boyd's shot, so Boyd holstered his gun and snarled out, "Any of you yahoos think that I was too harsh with that fucking cattleman?"

Not getting any answer, Boyd reached over and took the derringer from Hanson's dead hand. He dropped the little gun in his vest pocket and pulled Hanson's Army Colt from its holster and stuffed it behind his belt. He then used his bowie knife to cut open Hanson's shirt and lifted the man's moneybelt from around his waist. Boyd's last comment as he stalked from the saloon was to the bartender, "Have your swamper clean up this mess of shit. He can have whatever else he finds on the body that he might want."

Boyd could almost feel the wind from the sigh of relief from the rest of the saloon's patrons. There was no question that Boyd was pissed, and they weren't sure but what Boyd might decide to shoot anyone else who looked at him wrong. Boyd was known to be something of a hothead, so nobody wanted to get in his way when he was already worked up.

Boyd had shown up in the little town of Buzzard Flats about eight months ago. Since the War of Yankee Aggression, a lot of strange people had shown up in West Texas, and Boyd might be one of the strangest, according to the locals. His accent said that he was a Damyankee, but, if that was the case, why was he carrying a pair of LeMat pistols—a Confederate cavalry weapon. But the strangest thing of all about Jason Boyd was the fact was that he was running sheep instead of cattle!

Boyd had shown up just as the Watson place was about to be sold for back taxes. Bob Watson had been killed during the War, and Widow Watson was just not able to make a go of the little ranch. A couple of carpetbaggers were after the ranch, but Boyd cut them off by paying Widow Watson a fair price for the ranch and paying off the tax debt. Not only that, he had hired Widow Watson as his housekeeper. These actions won Boyd some friends and grudging respect from even more people, but that had all been shot down when he moved in his sheep.

No shots had been fired yet on the range, but there was a lot of harassment by the cattle faction against Boyd and his people. Tonight was a extreme case, but it was in the vein of what had been going on for the last few months. Hanson had made some disparaging remarks about Widow Watson's sex life since she had started working for Boyd. Boyd had told Hanson to shut up, since he did not know what he was talking about, but Hanson would not back down. Finally, Boyd had warned him either to shut up or to draw.

Hanson had palmed a derringer and was in the process of cocking it when Boyd saw him and drew his own pistol. Boyd was so fast that he had drawn, cocked, flipped his hammer to the shotgun position, and fired before Hanson could complete his action. Nobody had ever seen a faster draw that that from Boyd, and this was certain to insure that it would be a long time before anybody was stupid enough to brace Boyd. Boyd wore his guns in a crossdraw position, and that just added to the strangeness of Jason Boyd.

Ex-cavalrymen habitually wore their guns in the crossdraw position, but they rarely wore two guns. After tonight's demonstration, several of the men wondered if they could gain anything by changing to the crossdraw style. They also wondered if Boyd was left handed, but they did not know that Jason was ambidextrous. He had used his left hand simply because he had been standing with his right side toward the bar, so using his left hand had given him more freedom of movement.

Now that he had a few minutes to cool off, Jason realized that he had put his foot into a pile of shit by killing Hanson. Everybody who thought about it would concede that it had been a "fair" fight by the definition usually practiced in this neighborhood. Hanson already had his gun in his hand before Jason had drawn, so it was an example of legal self defense. However, the shooting would never go to court because the town of Buzzard Flats didn't have a marshal, so Jason would not be arrested unless somebody from the Sheriff's office took an official interest.

No, it was not the legal consequences of the shooting that bothered Jason Boyd. This was the first killing in the brewing range war, and Jason was fearful that it would escalate to a full scale shooting war. He was somewhat fatalistic regarding himself, but he did worry about what might happen to his employees. He was especially concerned about those shepherds out by themselves with the sheep. Three or four men could easily ride them down, even though the shepherds were armed. However, these shepherds were more accustomed to shooting at coyotes than they were to shooting at men. Jason may have to send his shepherds out in pairs just to keep them alive if the war became serious.

Jason paused before mounting to reload his used shotgun. When that was done, Jason rode back to his ranch. When he got in, the house was dark, so he assumed that Widow Watson had gone to bed. Jason couldn't help chuckling to himself every time he called her "Widow Watson." The woman was older than Jason, though only by one year. She had only been married three months when her husband had foolishly decided to ride off to war in the summer of 1863.

It was now 1872 and things had gone to hell in a hand basket for Janet Watson. During the War, she had managed to get by simply because there had been a market for beef and the ranch had been prosperous before her husband left. However, the the economy had gone to pot at the end of the War, and she had not been able to manage the ranch properly. It was not that she was stupid, it was just that with no money available and rustlers running wild, she lost money so fast that she could not keep her head above the economic waters. The arrival of Jason Boyd had been a God send as far as Janet was concerned. The offer of a job as housekeeper with no strings attached had just added to her salvation. She had nothing but gratitude for Jason, but she did long for some romance to return to her life.

Jason was now familiar enough with the house that he did not need added light as he made his way to his room and bed. The temperature was rather warm this night, so Jason simply stripped off all of his clothes and flopped down on his bed. He was awakened the next morning by the smell of coffee brewing. He smiled and got ready for breakfast.

Janet was in the kitchen preparing the usual breakfast of fried eggs, grits, ham, and biscuits. She had everything ready by the time Jason got there. She turned to look at him and was pleased to note that he had followed his usual habit of shaving before breakfast. She chided herself when she thought of the pleasure of rubbing her cheek against his. Her husband had been careless about shaving and had often scratched her face with his bristly beard.

They ate together just as they would if they had been married, and Janet especially enjoyed these occasions. When they finished eating, Jason thanked her for an enjoyable breakfast and told her that he would probably be on the north range most of the day, lasting through lunch. Janet said that she could fix him a couple of ham sandwiches with butter and her freshly baked bread. Jason's mouth began to water just thinking of the treat she was fixing for him.

He thanked her for the sandwiches and left for the north range. At the moment, Jason did not have enough sheep to put a heavy load on the range that had originally been part of the ranch. He wanted to expand his operation, so he hoped to buy one of the adjacent ranches within the next year or so. If he could time it right, he probably could pick up the property for the taxes at auction, but he would have to contend with the local carpetbaggers. Fortunately, they had more ambition than cash, so Jason stood a good chance of getting the property. He might have been reluctant to see the current owners lose everything that way, but they were the noisiest complainers about the sheep, and were constantly giving him a hard time.