Blood on the Verde River Read Online Free PDF Page B

They’d done nothing in his town but sleep and eat. JD had no doubt sampled some local dove the night before, but that wasn’t law breaking. Perhaps the man was overprotective. Maybe it was nothing.
    They rode through St. David an hour or so later. A Mormon town with small acreage farms, the LDS Church was clustered in the middle. The plots were alfalfa, corn, beans, and gardens. The irrigation was extensive. Water from the river and some artesian wells poured out at the wellhead into the ditches.
    â€œThat kind of a well would be nice up our way,” Chet said, impressed by the fact that the liquid came free from the ground to the top of the well’s large faucet that could be shut off until one needed it again.
    â€œThese people are neat farmers, too,” JD added. He stood up in the stirrups and looked around. “Have these folks got several wives that live here?”
    â€œI don’t know. They say some of them do.” Chet saw no signs of polygamy but he didn’t doubt there could be some.
    â€œThere are Mormons with more than one wife up by us,” Jesus said.
    â€œI never knew that.” JD frowned. “You know of any, Chet?”
    â€œA woman who lives beyond the western boundary of the Quarter Circle Z has a ranch there. She runs some cows for her husband and grows most of her own food.” He’d sent Hampt there to check on her and learn if there were any rustlers working the area. Hampt had come back smiling, but Chet had never asked him anything about it.
    â€œI’ll be damned. Was she good looking?” JD asked.
    â€œShe’s not ugly. Heck and I met her when I was trailing Ryan after he shot my good horse.”
    â€œShe ever get lonely?”
    â€œHell, JD, I don’t know. She sure don’t see many faces in a year’s time.”
    â€œI just wondered. I’ll be damned.”
    Chet frowned. “You planning on becoming a Mormon?”
    â€œNo. What would a man do with five wives?”
    â€œFeed them, I guess.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t see any back there, but you find one, make sure you show her to me.”
    Chet laughed. “I will.”
    A few hours later, they rode up Boot Hill to look at the entire town of Tombstone spread across a mesa at the foot of some bare hills. The sounds of large mine machinery running full steam filled the air with a whine that one heard in industrial places. Clanging and banging, steam whistles, and sharp peeps. Huge ore wagons piled high with the loads pulled by six draft mules headed for a stamper mill south of town. Freight wagons with many yokes of oxen laying down, resting, and chewing their cuds, clogged the street. The railroad had not arrived in Arizona yet so there were no trains or tracks, but it would some day pass through Benson, thirty miles north. Big plans had already been made for a sidetrack to the queen city and a railroad bed was already under construction outside of town headed that way.
    They made their way down to the town. Saloon girls were sitting in open second story windows ready to talk to any potential customer on the boardwalks or striding in the street.
    â€œHey cowboys, come see me. The daytime appointments are always sweeter than the nighttime ones and cheaper.”
    JD kept his head down. Jesus swept off his hat and smiled at the Latin ones who spoke his lingo. He thanked them and then in Spanish said, “Not now.”
    â€œWhere should we land?” JD asked.
    â€œI guess the stables are on the next street or back at that O.K. Corral we passed earlier,” Chet said, busy taking in all the people. They crowded on the boardwalk going back and forth, crossing the street, dodging fresh cow pies plopped down by the last ox to go through.
    â€œHave you ever seen the like?” Jesus asked.
    â€œIn Fort Worth at the stockyards,” Chet said. “Same thing as this. But I never saw it out west. I see why it is called the biggest city