33

“IDON’T UNDERSTAND.”

“What are you? Stupid? I told you twice now. The answer is no. We don’t want you here. If I had ten jobs open and cattle dying for lack of care, I wouldn’t want you here. Now get the hell off this place before I turn the dogs on you.”

Jug couldn’t believe his ears. Or rather he could believe it. He just . . . didn’t understand it. He’d known Paul Darrow for eight, ten years. They’d played cards together. Drank together. Once took a very memorable beef shipping journey to Kansas City together.

Now this.

The coldness of Paul’s rejection probably would have hurt like hell except Jug was too damn mad to feel hurt.

At the F R Bar, Ross the foreman had been polite in his refusal and Jug believed the man when he said he’d already hired on all the help he needed for the season.

But here at the Rocker J, Darrow hadn’t bothered pouring any syrup on to sweeten the bitterness. Paul laid it on hard and straight. Just didn’t say why, dammit.

Jug didn’t even think about taking a wide swing past the cookhouse on his way off the Rocker J. He was hungry. It was too early to eat when he left the F R Bar and now was somewhat past noon—as the rumbling in Jug’s belly kept reminding him—but he’d be double-dip damned if he would ask for a handout off Paul Darrow’s lousy Rocker J after this kind of reception.

He mounted the hard-mouthed gelding Suzy had loaned him and put the horse into a lope to get the hell out of there. Paul wanted him off the place? Absolutely. Right now.

As for food, he could . . . Where could he go? He wouldn’t get back to Bonner until past sundown even if he started back straightaway, and he didn’t particularly want to wait that long before he put something between his belt buckle and his backbone. He’d ridden hungry many and many a time before but it wasn’t a state of affairs he’d ever come to enjoy and for sure wasn’t one that he liked to repeat.

“You just better think of something quick, horse, or I’ll build me a little fire an’ roast your ears. You wouldn’t hardly miss ’em.”

The horse didn’t comment, but Jug decided Suzy might not appreciate him making a meal off her animal and not offering to share.

The next best thing, he supposed, would be to swing west, over toward the Sheephorns, and show up on the doorstep of the Circle G. That would take him the opposite direction from town, but if he could get a mouthful or three that wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like he had anything to get back to right off, and Suzy might like a little relief from having him underfoot all the dang time.

And while he was in the neighborhood he might just as well ask about a job, too. Abe was off east with the spring gather of beeves, but Leon would have authority to hire or fire while Goodrun was away.

“Looks like you got a reprieve, horse. Must be your lucky day.” Which put the horse a leg up on him in that category, Jug thought as he reined the animal toward the distant Circle G outfit just north of his old haunts on the M Bar C.