Pete (The Cowboys) Read Online Free PDF

good and proper. “Guess.”
    “I think it started soon after Uncle Carl got hurt. He couldn’t ride anymore. He said the wolves always started to close in when the grizzly went down.”
    Sometimes they didn’t wait that long. “Have they taken much?”
    “Eddie says it’s hard to tell. He’s worried because the cows are thin this year. They can’t find enough grass because we didn’t get any rain the whole summer.”
    If he didn’t start worrying about the rustling, there might not be enough cattle left to worry about. “I’ll talk to him later. Anybody gotten hurt?”
    “No.”
    Then things couldn’t be too serious. At least not yet.
    He stripped the saddle and cloth off Sawbones. The horse trotted away, squealing with delight. He found a bare spot of ground and immediately knelt down and started to roll in the dust.
    “It’ll take a half hour of brushing to get him clean now.” But Pete didn’t mind. Sawbones was probably the only reason Pete was alive now. Which reminded him of why he’d come to the ranch in the first place. The killers’ trail had led him here, but he’d lost it before he reached the ranch buildings. The killers had probably come through here ten days ago. Lots of riders had used the trails since then.
    “I want to take a look around before supper,” he told Anne. “Do you know if these horses belong to anyone in particular?” He gestured to several horses in the large corral.
    “I don’t think so,” Anne said. “Uncle Carl always complained he had to provide everything for his men—horses and saddles as well as beds.”
    “Why do you call him uncle? You’re no relation.” He hoped he hadn’t put his foot in it again.
    “He said he’d always wanted to marry my ma, that he would have if my father hadn’t beaten him to it. He said since I couldn’t be his daughter, I could be his niece.”
    “He should have left the ranch to you.”
    “Uncle Carl would never leave anything to a woman,” she said, apparently shocked at the idea. “He said women didn’t know a thing about taking care of themselves, much less a ranch.”
    It was obvious Uncle Carl had never met women like Isabelle or Pearl. Not to mention Marina, Hannah, and Melody.
    “Then he could have left it to you and Peter together … I mean to you and me together.”
    “Uncle Carl said women didn’t have any sense when it came to property, that they’d waste it on the first handsome face they saw.”
    “Since you were already Pet—my wife, I don’t see how he could say that.”
    “Uncle Carl said what he wanted.”
    That’s what came from being set up as a king in a little bitty kingdom. Isabelle would have straightened him out in five minutes.
    “I’m going for a ride. Tell Dolores not to serve supper without me.”
    “She never would. It’s your table.”
    “That’s going to take some getting used to. Seeing as how all I had before was a hardware store,” he added.
    It wasn’t going to be as easy to be a property owner as he’d thought. Just remembering he was supposed to own a couple hundred thousand acres of grazing land was a bit staggering. It was a good thing this Peter fella whose shoes he’d stepped into was a real dunce. Pete had a whole lot to learn himself.
    But one thing he did know about was tracking. He’d gotten Hawk to teach him when they were both still living with Jake and Isabelle. Pete had himself two killers to find. After he did that, he’d figure out what to do about Anne, the ranch, Belser, and her miserable uncle. Then he’d get the hell out of Wyoming.
    “I can hardly worry about rustling for worrying about what we’re going to do to help the cattle we do have get through the winter,” Eddie was saying. “There isn’t any grass. It seems like every week I hear of somebody else bringing in a new herd.”
    Pete couldn’t figure out the man’s attitude. He seemed angry, confused, unable to concentrate. If he was like this all the time, Pete would have to