Blood Bond 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked.
    â€œPretty much so. We come into this area at about the same time. Back in ’55. We fought Indians and outlaws and comancheros while we built our spreads. I got along with my neighbors, he didn’t. John thrived on other folks’ misfortune. Drought would come and he wouldn’t share his water or graze when he had it to spare. Bought people out for a nickel or dime on the dollar. Burned a few out, too; although that couldn’t never be proved up in a court of law.”
    â€œMarried?”
    â€œWas. His wife died and he raised the boy himself. Mean kid. Same age as our boy Gene. But that’s where the resemblance ends. Nick is worse than his dad, if that’s possible. Quick with a short gun and likes to use it. He used to try courtin’ Lisa here. She wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with him. I finally run him off ’bout two years ago and he swore he’d kill me someday.”
    â€œWhere is your son?” Sam asked.
    â€œGone down to the settlement on the Pecos ’bout thirty miles south of here for supplies. Little place is called Pecos, but it isn’t a real town yet. I can’t buy nothin’ at the Crossing. John Lee owns it all. Lock, stock, and horse troughs. He’s run off or killed most of my hands. I’m down to five punchers, not countin’ Dodge. Hell, you boys know you can’t run a spread this size with five hands. It’s impossible.”
    â€œThe law?” Matt asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
    â€œThere ain’t no law west of the Pecos, boys. It’s gun law out here. Survival of the fittest . . . or the meanest.”
    â€œWhat are you planning on doing?” Sam asked. “I mean—”
    â€œI know what you mean,” Jeff said. “I don’t see that I got a choice. I’m not a poor man, and I can afford to hire guns. I don’t hold with that. But . . .” He lifted his shoulders in a gesture of “what else can I do?”
    â€œWho has more money?” Matt asked. “You or John Lee?”
    â€œOh, John does. After his wife died he come into a wad of money; she was from a wealthy family in Louisiana. French. Just the nicest person a body would ever want to meet. I don’t know how in the hell she ever got tied up with John.”
    â€œShe fell in love,” Nancy said simply.
    â€œThen she must have had a taste for horse crap,” Jeff summed up.
    The girls giggled.
    Matt and Sam exchanged glances. Sam shrugged. “Show us the boundaries of your spread,” Matt said. “It’s time me and Sam did some honest labor for a change.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Jeff asked, a puzzled look on his face.
    â€œWhy, you just hired yourself a couple of new hands, Mr. Sparks.”
    Matt and Sam met the other Circle S hands that evening over supper. From now on, unless invited to do so, they would take their meals in the bunkhouse with the crew—it was all prepared by Conchita anyway and the hands took turns going to the big house and bringing it back.
    All the remaining hands, except one, were men in their forties. Solid hard-working cowboys. Not fast gunhands, but men who had handled guns all their life and usually hit what they were shooting at with the first shot. They met Lomax, Tate, Bell, Red, and Jimmy. Jimmy was maybe nineteen, and that was iffy. If he was nineteen, he was a young nineteen.
    â€œHis pa was one John Lee’s men kilt,” Tate told them. “His ma died shortly after that—heart attack. Bein’ a only child, Jimmy was pampered as much as that can be out here. He wears a gun, but he ain’t much good with it. Crack shot with a rifle though, and he’ll do what you tell him to do.”
    â€œJimmy’s a good boy,” Lomax said. “But he’s swore to kill John Lee. We can’t keep nursemaidin’ him, Matt. He’s a man growed. You know well as me—probably