Buck and the Widow Rancher (2006) by Carlton Youngblood Read Free Book Online Page B

smoke. Buck felt ready for anything and gave some thought to what else he could do. Ride back to let Matilda know about the penned-up cattle he’d found was probably the first thing. Standing and stretching the kinks out of his back, he watched as a covered wagon came around the far end of the street and pulled up at the sheriff’s office. Another sheepherder’s wagon, he thought. Probably one of Navarro’s friends.
    Turning away, he started walking to the stable to saddle up but stopped when he heard his name called.
    ‘Wait just a minute, Mr Armstrong.’ Sheriff Holt’s voice sneered loud and strong. ‘You just stop right there.’
    Turning, Buck watched the stout lawman leading a group of people coming down the middle of the dirt street. Walking slightly in front of the group and setting the pace, was a young man. Buck almost laughed as the short-leggedsheriff nearly had to run to keep up. As the small crowd came closer he recognized the young stranger as the Basque sheepherder’s son, Jose Navarro. Tipping his Stetson back he waited.
    ‘Good morning, Sheriff,’ he said, as the out of breath man stopped a short distance away. Buck’s smile froze when Navarro, as angry as any man he’d ever seen, screamed at him.
    ‘You bastard,’ he shouted, his face dark and stiff with concealed fury. ‘My father treated you like a guest and you killed him!’

CHAPTER 7
    His smile faded as Buck settled back on his heels and shook his head. ‘Your father is dead?’ he asked.
    ‘It sounds like you,’ Sheriff Holt chimed in, obviously having caught his breath. For the first time Buck noticed the short barreled shotgun the lawman held along one leg. ‘It seems you’re nothing but a killer. Ambushing a defenseless old man is just about your style, isn’t it? You come into town with claims of leaving a dead man behind you, then last night push that cowboy into a gunfight, and now we hear how you’d already had your kill for the day.’
    ‘Navarro, I don’t know anything about your father being shot. Is he dead?’
    ‘No, not quite,’ he snarled, staring daggers at the big cowboy. ‘Your bullet is in his chest. It took me all of the night before last and yesterday to get him in to the doctor. He hasn’t regained consciousness yet. Your aim was a little off, but he is badly hurt. It doesn’t look like you’ll have to come back to shoot him again.’
    ‘Now why would I shoot your pa? He treated me—’
    ‘Yes,’ the young man interrupted, ‘he treated you as a guest in our camp and you paid him back by trying to kill him.’
    ‘What have we here, Sheriff,’ Hugh Hightower had ridden up unseen, stopping his horse slightly behind and toone side of where Buck stood.
    ‘This killer is about to get run out of town, Mr Hightower.’
    Buck, after glancing back at the horseman, returned his attention to Navarro. ‘Why do you think I was the one who shot your father? I rode out of your camp day before yesterday .’
    ‘You’re another of those cattlemen who don’t want sheep on the land, that’s why.’ He was no longer yelling, but his words came hard and fast. ‘First you or your men take shots at me and shoot into my flock, trying to scare me off. Now you’ve gone one step too far, trying to kill my father. But it won’t work. I have as much right to run my flocks on that land as anyone. You’ll have to shoot me too, to get rid of my sheep.’
    ‘What’s this about shooting into your flocks?’ the sheriff asked, his voice still loud enough to carry to the growing crowd of towns people. Election must be coming, Buck thought.
    ‘I was chased away by a bunch of cowboys a few days ago. When I got out of their range, the bastards started shooting my sheep.’
    ‘Because I was the next cowman you saw, you blamed me for that,’ Buck said disparagingly. ‘And now, because I was the last person in your camp you’re going to blame me for shooting your pa. Man, I don’t have any gang and if I did they