The room erupted in laughter and applause.
“That’ll teach these two to go off and get married without inviting all of us to the wedding.”
All the help came to assist her unveil a top-down Lincoln convertible.
Sam reached inside, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and said, “I don’t have my glasses. You read it.”
She looked shaken, trying to read the small round tag on the key ring.
Someone gave Sam the mic. “Well, whose car is it?”
“It says, ‘To Julie of the Bar W’—oh, Sam, this is mine?”
“Damn right, little sister, this is your car.” Mark couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer.
Speechless, she covered her mouth, then smacked both Sam and Mark on the arm. She touched the rich leather seat with shaking fingers. She threw both arms around Sam, then turned to Mark. “You knew, didn’t you?”
He nodded and hugged her, then opened the door so she could get in.
In tears, she pulled the front of her dress up again. Mark chuckled. She’d never wear that outfit again.
Mark took her inside to get some repairs from Anna who came running with a mouth full of safety pins. Some women quickly pinned the dress tight enough so it wouldn’t try to fall down and she kissed the three who did it.
“You ready to go back out?”
“Yes.”
“Like the car?”
“Oh, I love it. You were in on it?”
Her eyes sparkling, she shook her head. “Does anyone mind if I go for a ride?”
Agreement came in a huge spattering of applause. She slid onto the front seat, then looked all around. “How did you get it in here?”
“Oops.” Sam beckoned to Dan, who opened one side of the glass enclosure of the pool. “Just drive right out here and don’t run over that bird bath.”
She kissed him again and was gone.
Laughing, Sam came over and put his arm on Mark’s shoulder. “Did I ever tell you I went one day to tell a man who worked for me not to use the tractor any more to cultivate the cotton? I never told him I was on my last days financially. If I spent another dime, I’d be broke and the banks would foreclose on me. He said that was stupid. The weeds would overtake the crop and cost us bales of my cotton. I went to town and raised the money. All my farms had good crops that year and if I’d done what I said I’d lost the whole thing. There was a man who worked for me. He only had one son and his wife looking—oh, not well. But I was poorer than they were that day. That man didn’t forgive me. He took his money that fall and pounded on my car fender. ‘Ain’t you glad now that you didn’t quit cultivating, you old son of a bitch?’
“He never would work for me again. I tried to talk to him at your momma’s funeral. He still won’t talk or take no money. I paid his grocery bill and he told the storekeeper he wasn’t having any of my charity. Made the man pay me back. The day you came to me in that uniform and told me about how we could buy a ranch and make money, I didn’t know who you were, but I knew I should. Then folks said to me, ‘He’s Carl’s boy, didn’t you know him?’ I didn’t. But I knew you’d fought hard and any man who can fight that hard was going to win.”
Mark wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “Thanks for telling me. I never asked. As a boy, I knew you and Dad had a falling out, but he never told me till years later. Dad’s moving out to my place next fall when the cotton’s in. They don’t need as many sharecroppers with these big rigs. He can take care of things on our place. We’re building him and his family a house out there.”
“Good.”
“Julie’s happy and I’m happy, Sam. Thanks to you.”
“You know, I don’t have any heirs. Oh, I’ve got cousins, but they scoffed all these years about my trading. My farmland is worth a hundred times what I scratched out to pay for it. I’m setting up my will. In a short while, this door is going to read Cline and Shaw Enterprises. Julie knows bookkeeping. I reckon she’ll come in and oversee this office, and anything happens to me, promise you’ll keep my help I’ve had for all these years?”
“Why, Sam, you aren’t going to die. Hell, you’re stout as a horse.”
“Good horses fall over and die. I had one do that down at Chandler one spring at planting time. I went all over looking for a replacement. Found a banker down at Eloy had a team he’d foreclosed on. He’d only sell both of them. Wanted two fifty and he’d finance them for a hundred percent interest. I would have to pay him five hundred for them the next March. He knew I’d lose them. The next March, I drove them down to Eloy, parked right in front of the bank, set the brake. Then I climbed down. He came to the front door and real smug-like said, ‘I see you’re bringing them horses back to me, huh?’
“I said, ‘No. I’ve got your damn money right here.’ And I paid him off with all the pennies I had in gunnysacks. I really hated that man. When things got bad in the banking business in the thirties, he hung himself.” He paused, looked around. “You two going home tonight?” Others were leaving and wishing them well.
Mark turned back to him. “No, we want to use that bed upstairs if Julie ever comes back with her new car.”
—
UNDRESSED, HE AND JULIE SAT on the edge of the big bed holding hands. He’d finished telling her about what Sam planned to do with his estate. She shook her head in disbelief.
“You know,” she said, “we’ve kinda talked like we didn’t need a family when we first got together. I was pretty selfish. I didn’t want to share you with anyone or anything. I didn’t figure you’d ever marry me, and who wanted little rugrats as baggage? But I’ve got this dream that I could coach another barrel-racer, roper, or bullrider.”
“I’ll go along with that, but I want the house finished and us settled down in it first.”
“I can wait that long.” She slapped her forehead. “I haven’t even called my folks to tell them about the car and our big party. Mom would love to hear it. Dad, well, he’s coming around I think.”
“It’s ten o’clock. They’re in bed.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “They won’t mind being woke up for this.”
He handed her the phone and she gave the operator their number in Sonata.
“Hello, Mom. Sorry to wake you.” She spent the next ten minutes telling her all about what they’d been doing—the party and the car and how the house would soon be finished.
“Will I drive it? Mother, of course—”
“Yes, it’s beautiful—”
“Yes, yes we will drive it down there—hello Dad—”
“Yes, Mark and I are doing great.”
“Oh, when we get our new house finished and he catches the blue roan colt.”
“Yes, we love you. Goodnight. We’ll be down to visit soon. Yes, we will.”
She hung up the phone.
The next morning, they drove the new car home and left the one Mark had borrowed from Sam so many years earlier. They stopped just north of the canal in Scottsdale and he helped her put up the top. Then they rolled up the windows. She had no intention of getting her pretty car floured in road dust.
He kissed her and they went home.
Rosita met them when they came up the drive. “This is such a beautiful car. He is a generous man. You are so lucky. I came to tell you Mister Jones and his wife borrowed four of your horses and said they were going after that mare and colt. They left yesterday after you had gone to town and had bedrolls. See? They parked that old truck over behind the barn.”
“Thanks, Rosita. I’ll go find them and help them tomorrow.”
They went to the trailer and he paced the floor. She fed him some ice cream and kept saying, “Those two know how to camp. They know how to chase horses, too. Hell, Jones is half horse himself. Damn it, you can’t do anything out there in the dark. Take me to bed and worry about me. I need you!”
He collapsed on the kitchen chair. “I’d damn sure take a drink.”
“No, you never drink. Get up and take me to bed.�
�
He finished off the last of the ice cream and headed that way. “I’m coming.”
“Good. You’re so upset over nothing.” She looked at the ceiling for celestial help. He crowded her and he laughed. “You’re lots better than whiskey.”
—
THE NEXT MORNING, SO EARLY he could barely see anything by starry skies, Mark loaded food, supplies, and field glasses in his old International truck that came from the movie ranch. Julie went with him. They prowled the dim dirt roads that bisected Paradise Valley from Cave Creek to as far east as the roads that went toward the Fort McDowell reservation. On every high place, he climbed on top of the cab and searched with his glasses for any sign of the two.
When sunset closed off the light, they bounced around in the rattling truck all the way home. He was worn out, steering the stiff thing around ruts and over the rough country.
“We didn’t find them,” he said in defeat.
Sitting beside him in the hard riding truck, coming down the road to their place, she put her hand on his shoulder. “You did all you could to find them today. “
“Tomorrow we’ll take your truck and pull the two-horse. They must be over on the reservation side.”
“Why didn’t we take it today? I feel like I’ve been rolled off a mountain in a fifty-gallon fuel barrel.”
“All right. I didn’t want to bang up your nice truck out here.”
“I know, but you’re working yourself up into a fury. Those two are full bloods. They’re not lost and are not going to be eaten by wild cats or die for not having water.”
“I guess you’re right. I hated I didn’t go with him—to help is all.”
“No, you want to win. You set out to capture that colt the first day you saw him. And you’ll just hate it if anyone else gets him. Even Jones. Confess it.”
“I’ve loved that colt since he raced my bob truck.”
Still he couldn’t admit what she said. He settled down in the seat, the headlamps going up and down and sideways as he headed the old rig for home. “You know this old piece of shit is a sorry excuse for a truck.”
“You know what you can do, don’t you?”
“Fetch that old dozer and grade this road.”
“That’s for starters.”
He slammed on the gritty brakes, put the truck out of gear, and took her in his arms. “Baby, I guess I’ve been a wild man over this horse deal. You’re right. I’ve been running things that were around me. Had them all under my thumb. This horse deal got away and I guess I felt so insecure I wanted it back in place— or at least me being there to help.”
They hugged each other, and he took a deep breath. Settled down, he drove the last mile slowly.
“I guess that I got too pressured. I did that before when I found my wife in bed with another man. I went a little nuts. I thought I was back in Europe that night and ordered some guy I thought was a soldier to kill that woman as a Nazi spy. Sound crazy enough?”
“You never did anything like that at the ranch up in Bloody Basin, did you?”
“No, no. I’ve been on level ground for a decade.”
“Maybe I’m the cause.”
“God, no. You’ve made me see I was going crazy. That stopped it.”
She slumped down in the seat and the stiff suspension rocked her around until she was forced to sit up. “What are you going to do with that blue roan colt?”
He didn’t say much. But when he got out of the truck, he smelled smoke. There was a fire down by the barn.
“What’s wrong?” She took off running with him
He stopped dead in his tracks and caught her arm. “Who the hell is roasting wieners in my barnyard?”
“Oh, no.” She began to laugh. “It’s Lupe and Jones.”
Then he heard the sharp whinny of a colt.
But he had no colts....
Mark ran to the tall rail fence. On the other side, the yellow mare waited under the starlight.
And circling her on his toes was the blue roan.
Mark climbed over the fence. Holding out his hand, he walked slowly toward the pair, clicking his tongue. The mare stood blinking at him. The colt stopped its prancing and turned to look him over with those big, brown eyes. Neither seemed afraid, only curious.
Head bowed, the foal approached warily—inquisitive, yet cautious.
God. Up close, they were even more beautiful than he’d imagined. “Hey, there. Look at you, partner. Aren’t you a big, handsome man?”
The colt gave his hand a tentative sniff, leaned forward and gave it a nudge. Slowly, gently, Mark touched the horse’s muzzle, stroked the velvet-soft rim around the delicate nostrils.
And in that long, silent moment between man and horse, Mark Shaw felt his first sense of peace in many long years.
He blinked the tears suddenly welling in his eyes and rubbed the horse’s muzzle again. “We’re going to be together for a long time, you and me. Once you grow a bit more, you and me are gonna ride to the end of the world and back.”
The colt winnied in answer, tossed his head, and broke, prancing back off toward the mare.
Mark laughed. “That’s the spirit, big man.”
From behind him, Julie’s voice called in the bright night. “Come back on back over, Mark. Lupe has supper fixed.”
“Tell them I’ll be right there,” he called back over his shoulder.
He wanted to see the colt break and run just one more time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DUSTY RICHARDS GREW UP RIDING horses and watching his western heroes on the big screen. He even wrote book reports for his classmates, making up westerns since English teachers didn’t read that kind of book. His mother, though, didn’t want him to be a cowboy, so he went to college, then worked for Tyson Foods and auctioned cattle when he wasn’t an anchor on television.
His lifelong dream, though, was to write the novels he loved. He sat on the stoop of Zane Grey’s cabin and promised he’d one day get published, as well. In 1992, that promise became a reality when his first book, Noble’s Way, hit the shelves. In the years since, he’s published over 160 more, winning nearly every major award for western literature along the way. His 150th novel, The Mustanger and the Lady, was adapted for the silver screen and released as the motion picture Painted Woman in 2017.
Sadly, Dusty passed away in early 2018, leaving behind a legion of fans and a legacy of great western writing that will live on for generations.
Facebook: westernauthordustyrichards
www.dustyrichards.com
It's Easy to be Brave from a Safe Distance.
WHEN ZEKIAL BROOME STOPS A sadistic slave chaser, Grissum McCord, from whipping his captive, he and the girl have no choice but to flee west into the untamed lands of the wild frontier. If they can make it to the Green River country, no one will ever find them.
What they don't count on is McCord. With a five-hundred-dollar bounty at stake and revenge in his heart, he'll follow them to hell and back, for as long as it takes. He’s murdered before, but the revenge he plans for the buckskin-clad Broome would make a strong man quail.
Zekial and Tilly are forced to keep running, always looking over their shoulders, until they have no choice but to find a place to make their stand. No matter what happens, they'll both be changed forever... but will they find the peace they seek to get on with their lives?
Non-stop action, life and death struggles, triumph and despair fill the pages of what may very well be the best yarn yet from the pen of legendary author Dusty Richards.
EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT OF ZEKIAL
“DICK!” ZEKIAL REINED UP IN front of the store. Tilly was gone, and he was beside himself with concern. Nothing needed to happen to his woman.
Hogan’s wide-brimmed hat appeared in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s taken Tilly. Come help me sort out the tracks.” He booted the red horse up close and gave him the reins to his bay.
Hogan ran out the door and vaulted up on his
saddle. “Who did it?”
“What’s wrong?” The storekeeper came outside to see what was wrong.
“Someone stole his woman.” Dick wheeled his horse hard, and punched his spurs, starting off after Broome at a run. He rode up close behind his friend and trotting his animal. “No sign of her?”
“No sign. I figured you could see something in the mud that I missed.”
“She run off?”
“She’s pregnant with our child. No, she didn’t run away.”
The pack animals tugged on their leads as they approached. Impatient he glanced back. Dick moved in and waved his arms to make them go. They reigned in to a stop at the place where he’d found the horses grazing. Dick dismounted and began to circle the area in a widening ring while Zekial rolled his chapped lower lip under his sharp upper teeth.
“Two men in moccasins took her.”
“White or red?”
“Can’t tell. They weren’t big men.” Dick leaned over and studied the ground.
“Where did they go?”
“West.”
Zekial knew one thing. It wasn’t Grissum McCord. He had big feet. “Let’s get these animals undone and go after them.”
—
A DEEP-ROOTED NAUSEA SET in as he followed Dick through the tall cane breaks. Irritated at the horses, he realized that she’d been the one to handle or drive them in the past weeks. He’d forgotten how stubborn they could be.
They reached a wide beach with several canoes sitting on the high ground above the river. Dick rode to the water’s edge and came back. He studied the far side. Smoke rose in the sycamores from cooking fires across the Arkansas. “They took her by canoe from right here.”
“Wonder where they took her?” Zekial asked, filled with a new urgency. Water didn’t leave any tracks.
Blue Roan Colt Page 20
