Widow Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

anything. It wasn't. I don't want you misunderstanding or thinking things that aren't so. I'm the boss at the Circle T. And I don't want there to be any confusion on that. Not with you and not with any of the other boys, if you should go talking about, um, about things."
    She glared at him, ready to battle on whatever front he might choose. He raised his hand, and for a slice of an instant she had the wild image of him cupping her cheek in his palm. Instead, he tugged the brim of his hat, perhaps from politeness, or perhaps simply to adjust its angle.
    "As I said, ma'am, some things don't need saying.” Before she could respond, he was gone, and she stood alone in the darkened barn with the touch of cool night air and a jumble of dissatisfying thoughts for company.
    * * * *
    Nick settled in to the Circle T's routine. As much a routine as any ranch had, especially one carrying a dozen hands when it needed a score.
    For days at a time, he'd be gone riding the herd and learning the Circle T range. Most often Shag paired him with Andresson. That meant teaching the boy, as well as meeting his own duties, providing plenty to occupy a man.
    Considering how accustomed he was to being alone, he didn't much mind.
    Davis worked hard, didn't talk his ear off and learned no slower than most. To start, the Iowa farm boy didn't know cattle from pigs, but his riding was better than adequate, and animals took to him. The bunkhouse dog shadowed the skinny figure, and even difficult horses minded their manners better with the towhead aboard. To Nick's surprise, that extended to his black, Brujo, who often seemed to only tolerate Nick and came nowhere near that comfortable with anyone else.
    The boys from the second drive from roundup straggled in looking worse than the lowest drags of a mangy herd. Smelled worse, too. Hands and horses alike settled in for a week of eating heavy and working light.
    So, when word came of cattle in trouble. Shag sent Nick and Davis along with Joe-Max Nelson and red-headed Tommy Hodge. They found about a hundred half-dead head in a canyon closed off by a rock slide. They dug out a path, and started trailing the head a day-and-a-half up-country. At first the cattle were docile, but Nick warned that with food and water they'd revive quick enough.
    The second afternoon, the small herd bolted.
    "Turn ‘em!” Nick shouted above the hammering of hooves on the hard ground and the bellowing of the beasts. A glance showed Joe-Max behind him and Tommy, his red head bobbing in and out of sight as he waved his hat, on the other side, moving to circle the leaders into the herd, to form a living pinwheel that would wind itself to a stop.
    But Andresson didn't seem to hear or to remember what he'd been told. Instead of turning the leaders then letting the next rider turn them more, he went head-on with the run-crazed steers.
    "Andresson! Goddammit! Turn ‘em!” Against the bellows and pounding, Nick's shout was a feather in a tornado. He could only watch and grimly hope Andresson hadn't used up his share of luck.
    Horse and cattle charged headlong at each other. At the last second, Davis swerved his mount just out of danger from the first steer's horns. But the herd came right behind, seeming to swallow horse and rider in a sea of dust.
    If his horse stumbled, or reared, if Andresson slid out of the saddle...
    But rather than running over him, as maddened cattle could, they split around the lone rider, and kept running.
    "Which saved your hide, but meant a sight more work for the rest of us and ran off meat from head that couldn't spare any to start,” Nick snapped at Davis hours later, after they had the animals under control and could break for water and food.
    "I'm real sorry, Nick. I know you told me. I forgot."
    "Forgot?"
    The blistering word produced a glowing red beneath the dust-dimmed gray of Andresson's face.
    "You might be too stupid to be worth anything, but these cows are worth something. And you don't have the