Wicked Wyoming Nights Read Online Free PDF Page A

this?” The boys hung their heads knowing they didn’t have five dollars between them. “I didn’t think so. I’ll withhold your wages until it’s paid.”
    “That’ll take months!” Royce exclaimed, unable to restrain himself.
    “Almost until Christmas from the looks of this.”
    “We won’t get any money at all?”
    “I can lend you something along, but it’ll just take you longer to pay it off.” The depressing vision of Saturday nights in the bunkhouse with no cigarettes or whiskey took all the spirit out of Sturgis.
    “It won’t seem like living without no pleasures.”
    “Maybe next time you’ll be more careful” cautioned Cord, folding the bill and putting it in a drawer. “One day someone’s going to use a rifle on you, and that can’t be fixed by withholding wages. Now get along. Franklin’s waiting for you in the bunkhouse.” The boys shuffled toward the door, shoulders drooping and their youthful optimism utterly crushed. Cord watched with an unchanging expression until the door was just about to close behind them, then he called out, “Come back a minute.” As they retraced their steps, they wondered what further calamity could befall them.
    “I can’t allow you to take all the blame,” Cord told them. “You were protecting my property, and it’s my fault if you didn’t understand my orders.”
    “We should have known better, sir.”
    “You’re young yet,” Cord continued, “but you’ve got promise and I don’t want to discourage you.” He took out the bill. “I don’t think I should have to pay all this,” he said, grimacing at the total. “Let’s say you’ll get your wages, but not your bonus. Does that seem fair?”
    “Yes, sir!” the two replied in chorus, reviving miraculously.
    “Be off then and don’t keep Franklin waiting.” The boys stumbled over themselves in their haste to leave. They were afraid if Cord had to look at their ugly, stupid, guilty, vastly relieved faces a moment longer he would change his mind.
    “He never objected when Franklin turned that squatter’s wagon over and ran off his stock,” remembered Royce when they were well out of earshot.
    “Nor any other time,” allowed Sturgis, “but I’m not asking any questions.”
    “You’re lucky,” Franklin said when they reached the bunkhouse. “No other owner would have paid that bill.”
    “Or cared what happened to a squatter as long as they were gotten rid of,” added a veteran hand.
    “Mr. Stedman’s not like the other ranchers” Franklin informed them with a slightly scornful manner.
    “Just the same, I don’t think he would have replaced a single cup if it hadn’t been for that girl. He’s got some mighty gentlemanly notions about females.”
    “What did she look like?” asked Franklin.
    “Royce thinks she looked like an angel,” Sturgis laughed.
    “Married?”
    “No. The man was her uncle.”
    “That must account for it then, but I don’t understand it. Mr. Stedman never gives the time of day to those women in town.” No one was prepared to debate the point. Something had to account for Cord’s puzzling leniency toward the Smallwoods.
    Ira rolled a cigarette and lighted it with a quick flick of the match head on his rough pants. “I was lucky to get the chance to buy into a place like the Sweetwater”
    “I suppose,” Eliza answered mechanically, but the thought of serving liquor to dozens of strange men petrified her. Fatherly Ed Baylis made her edgy, while the bold men who had shamelessly eyed her that morning made her want to hide under the counter. A sharp knock at the door caused her to glance inquiringly at her uncle.
    “Don’t just stand there” he grumbled. “Open the door.”
    “But who would be wanting to see us at this time of night?” Eliza asked anxiously. “We just got here.”
    “If you’d open the door, we could both find out,” he said sarcastically. Eliza was even more unsettled by the man standing in the doorway.
    “Is this