Texas Blood Feud by Dusty Richards Read Free Book Online

insurance of four hundred dollars on every hand I’ve lost, if they had an heir, plus their wages for the whole trip.”
    “Hell, I know you’ve been fair, but I need all I can get out of’em.”
    Chet clapped him on the shoulder. “So do I. And I can’t guarantee I can come back with a dime, but it won’t because I didn’t try.”
    “Mark me down for two hundred.”
    Chet took the logbook out and on the page marked “Drive of 1873” he wrote down, “Wade Morgan 200 head.” “We’ll be road-branding them in early March. The grass breaks loose, we’ll go north.”
    They shook hands on the deal.
    Morgan left him, headed back toward the building. Chet noticed Marla Porter drive by seated beside her husband on the buckboard. Porter’s fine team of matched horses were trotting along in step. Straight-backed, she sat head high, with a wide-brimmed hat and a tight-fitting jacket that emphasized her figure. Her posture drew a hidden grin from Chet. The sight of her also made his guts roil. She was like a bad habit that he needed to quit—but he couldn’t—damn her anyway.
    Louise came back looking stern-faced, and after looking around, talked to him from behind her hand. “The word is that Felton and Mitch Reynolds went north yesterday with a wagon for three bodies. One of them, they said, is Roy. The other was Luther Hines, Kathren’s husband. And the third was a Dab Stevens, some cowboy worked around here.”
    “So?”
    “Those were the men you hung?”
    He looked around, then hustled her aside. “Shut your gawdamn mouth. Now, I told you this was going to get volatile. Those men were common thieves. What they got they deserved.”
    “But they were men you knew—my boys went to school with Roy.”
    “Louise—”
    “Don’t threaten me.”
    “All right, but your damn mouth is going to get your boys killed. That’s not a threat, that’s a promise.”
    Her brown eyes flew open and she put her hand to her lips in pale-faced shock. Teary-eyed, she pushed past him for the wagon. “Damn you, Chester Byrnes. Damn you.”
    Shaking mad, Chet went to the fire ring and poured himself a cup of fresh coffee. Susie came from the fly on the wagon, her hands white with flour. “What did you tell her?”
    He looked off at the late afternoon sun shining through the high mare’s-tail clouds. “That her mouth would get her boys killed if she didn’t shut up.”
    “What set that off?”
    “She came back babbling about them going up north after three bodies.”
    “Who?”
    He blew on his coffee. “A couple of the Reynolds men.”
    “Who were they going after?”
    “Roy, Dab Stevens, and Luther Hines.”
    “Oh, my Gawd. That’s who was in on it?”
    He nodded.
    “I wonder how Kathren is taking it.”
    “I have no idea. I can say this. He never mentioned her or the girl. It was like he’d turned his back on them. Even the boys wondered about that.”
    “Bad deal. You know Louise may want to go home tonight after your confrontation.”
    “Sis, she’s been a thorn in my side for years. I didn’t send Mark to Mississippi to fight. But we’ve all had to bow to her wishes ever since. I am tired of it.”
    She wiped her hands on her apron and made a disappointed shake of her head at him. “Why don’t you go up to Mason and find you a nice plump little German girl who will raise you some kids and smile whenever you come home to her?”
    “How’s that going to help me?”
    “I don’t know, big brother. I don’t know, but you do need a wife.”
    “I don’t need one.”
    “All right, you say you don’t. I’ll have supper ready shortly. They’ll start dancing soon.”
    “Stanton going to be here?”
    She shrugged.
    “Maybe you need a husband?” He wondered how serious Ryan Thomas Stanton was about her anyway.
    “I have enough to say grace over now,” she said.
    “Try to have a good time.”
    “Why? Do you think it is our last chance to have any fun?” She frowned at him for an answer.
    “No,