When they rode into the ranch yard, Jesse gave the reins a tug and slowed the mare to a bouncing trot. Time had made him a stranger to this place. Hard to believe this was once again to be his home. Where was the porch rocker Ma had always enjoyed when he was a boy? Even with Pa buried six feet under, Jesse didn’t feel welcome there and had no desire to go into the cabin. He was a man who had chopped off his roots long ago.
“Where to?” Sheriff Crosson roused Jesse from his thoughts.
He turned his horse and led them around the corral. They skirted the pond, then rode across a long stretch of flat pasture. In a single line, they weaved their way through the trees for about three miles. A deep glen opened up before them. Everywhere they looked, there were brown, black, and a scatter of white cattle.
Jesse knew from years back that this warm pocket of grass stayed green longer than most. When he’d worked the ranch as a boy with his brothers, this spot was where he remembered the herd migrated when the weather turned chilly.
No one spoke to him as the day dragged on, and he worked alongside the others, separating out small groups of ten or twenty head from the larger herd. Shorty and Jim then looked those cows over. If they found any steers branded with Shorty’s mark, Jesse had no problem with the cattleman taking back what was rightfully his.
Jesse threw his rope and caught the horns of a thick-chested bull with a brown face. His horse stepped back and tugged the line taut around the saddle horn. Jesse’s eyes were fixed on the maddened beast, throwing its flat head and pawing at the dirt.
The mare fell, and Jesse tumbled across the ground. What just happened? He rolled over and looked. His horse stumbled out of a gopher hole, fell again, and Jesse scrambled to his feet. The bull snorted. Thirteen hundred pounds of pure meanness had worked free from Jesse’s rope, and those black eyes that were set between that pair of long horns stared Jesse down. He took a step back, praying the bull didn’t come at him. The beast charged fast. Jesse ran full-length strides toward the nearest anything and threw himself deep into some prickly brush.
That damn hateful critter swung its pointy horns, bursting through the thicket, just missing tearing him wide open. The bull suddenly dropped to the ground. The sheriff sat astride his bay, rope looped around the bull’s back heels, and he dragged the animal out of the bushes. Jesse gave a wave that he was in one piece—barely. His face and hands were scratched up and bleeding. He was ready to put a bullet between the eyes of that ornery beast and serve him up for supper.
Jesse’s horse lifted its head and blew. He pulled his rifle, having no choice but to end the poor thing’s suffering. That had been the best cow horse he’d ever owned. Jesse picked up his saddle and threw it over his shoulder. It would be a hell of a long hike back to the ranch, carrying all his heavy tack.
It was hard to believe that everything within ten miles of that spot was now his. He still wasn’t feeling good about it. This was his pa’s place, and it just left Jesse with a creepy crawling over the back of his neck. No good would come of being in this place. Here not even five minutes, and he had nearly been gored. If that wasn’t proof enough to get out, he didn’t know what else would be. Jesse was ready to walk off and never come back. Sell the place and go where the Adams name meant nothing to anybody.
Sheriff Crosson loped the bay up and silently offered a hand. Jesse swung a leg up, sitting double behind him. He held to his gear as they rode toward the ranch, and he didn’t have to see the horses in the corral up close to know that not one of them would be as sturdy or sure-footed as the animal he’d just put down. Pa had possessed a good eye for young, fat, healthy cattle, but he’d been blind to fine horseflesh.
Jesse stepped down next to the corral and shook his head. The gray-faced mare Pa had always ridden was swaybacked and didn’t hold much wind for running. For some stupid reason, Pa had always favored that dumb horse. His brothers’ horses weren’t any sturdier built. Jesse could hear the laughter now when he got back to the herd and Shorty’s men saw him riding that old gray nag. As if the unfriendly looks he’d been getting all morning weren’t enough ridicule.
Sheriff Crosson sat the bay and shook his head the same as Jesse had. Sadly, the gray mare was the best of the stock. Jesse threw his saddle over the back of Pa’s old mount.
Crosson coughed several times, his chuckle unstilted.
A flush rose to Jesse’s cheeks. “I know she ain’t much, but she beats walking.” He stepped into the saddle. Shorty and Jim were a short distance off, near the pond, moving twenty head by Jesse’s count.
Jesse’s stomach rumbled. If Shorty now had his stock, then Jesse’s work must be done for the day. Thank God. He hadn’t eaten any more than a piece of jerky and coffee in two long days. Looking west toward the sun, he could see the time was close to the supper hour. Was he free to go? What else could the sheriff want from him?
Jesse gave the house another long look. His gaze lingered in the direction where Ma had been buried. Leaving this place meant leaving her, and it had been hard enough to do that when he was fourteen. But he couldn’t hold on to the property, couldn’t tend the cattle by himself. There wasn’t a lot of time for thinking about it either. Those cattle wouldn’t keep themselves corralled.
Jesse spurred the mare toward the Seven-C ranch. What he needed was something to eat and a night of restful sleep to be able to think. Besides, he needed to explain his absence to Mr. Wallace.
“Where do ya think you’re goin’?” Sheriff Crosson raised a brow.
Jesse reined in. “I’ve done more than most would have to make up for thievin’ kin.”
“You ain’t done yet, son. You will help push those cattle back onto Shorty’s land. Then you’re coming to town with me.” There was an authority in Sheriff Crosson’s tone that insinuated Jesse wasn’t getting out of this even if he tried.