Texas Fierce (The Tylers of Texas 4)

The two murderers were unconscious but still breathing. Cocking the pistol, Bull stood over them, legs straddling the ditch. “For Carlos,” he muttered, and pulled the trigger twice.

Afterward he took a moment to find the brass casings, then he got back in his truck, turned around, and drove back toward the ranch. Eventually the bodies would be found and reported. But the sheriff would do nothing. Mexicans weren’t in his job description.

In the past, Bull had wondered how it would feel to kill a man. Now he knew. It was just business—nasty, dirty business. He could do it again if he had to. But he wasn’t looking forward to the next time.

The ranch was getting close. Jasper would be waiting to hear the whole story of what had happened. But Bull wasn’t ready to tell it. He needed time to settle his nerves. It was barely ten o’clock. On a Saturday night, the Burger Shack stayed open until eleven. He could use the pay phone outside to call Jasper and let him know he was all right.

He wasn’t hungry, but he could use a cold Bud Light. If Bonnie was working, she’d get him one without asking for ID.

As he turned onto the highway, the realization struck like a lightbulb going on. Bull shook his head in disbelief. In the turmoil of the day he’d forgotten that this was his birthday. He had just turned twenty-one.

Reeling between exhaustion and euphoria, he drove into town, parked at the Burger Shack, and gave Jasper a quick call from the pay phone before going inside. Bonnie was working. She gave him a smile and a wink as he walked in and took a booth.

She brought him the beer and a glass without being asked. He wondered if he should tell her he’d just come of age, then decided against it. Birthdays were a kid thing, and he wasn’t a kid anymore.

He sipped the beer and thought about his future plans. It would be reckless to leave his cows with the Prescott herd much longer. In the next few days he would take Jasper and separate his stock from the others. If Prescott’s men showed up, the broken fence would give him a good excuse for being there. When the fence was fixed and his cattle safely moved, he would face Ham Prescott and tell the old bastard to take his partnership offer to hell.

Within a few weeks, he should know which cows weren’t pregnant. With luck, they could be sold off for enough money to feed the others through the winter. If he could keep the ranch solvent till next spring’s grass sprouted, hopefully the worst times would be over.

“Hey, sugar.” Bonnie’s sexy voice broke into his thoughts. “You look like you’ve had a rough day. Want to talk about it?”

Bull glanced around the restaurant and realized that everyone else had gone. He and Bonnie were alone.

She slid into the booth next to him, smelling of jasmine and bacon grease. Her finger brushed a stray lock of hair back from his face. It would be tempting to unload his concerns into her sympathetic ear. But he remembered what Jasper had said about playing his cards close to his vest. “Nothin’ much to talk about,” he said. “I’m just tuckered out, that’s all.”

“I know a cure for that.” She ran a fingertip down his cheek. “Danny’s in Albuquerque, and I get off in fifteen minutes. You can wait around if you want.”

He hesitated, knowing it wasn’t a good idea. But what the hell, he’d just killed two men, and it was his birthday.

“I’ll wait,” he said.

CHAPTER 7

Summer 1972, two years later . . .

THE BARKING DOGS WOKE BULL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. HE flung himself out of bed, yanked on his pants, and reached for the loaded .44 he kept next to his pillow. From the yard outside, drunken whoops and laughter mingled with the roar of a heavy-duty truck engine. Bull cursed. He could guess what was happening, and he knew he’d be too late to stop it.

Barefoot, he charged out onto the porch to see the wooden windmill tower come crashing down, pulled by a rope tied to the rear of a black pickup. Through the clouds of dust that rose around the wreckage, he could make out a half dozen cowhands in the back. The driver gunned the engine. The truck roared away, amid hoots and catcalls, leaving the rope behind.

Bull fired a couple of shots at the rear tires. But between the dust and darkness, his aim was no more than a guess. Even if he hit his target, the truck wouldn’t stop. And shooting at the men would only escalate the guerrilla war that the Prescotts had been waging against him for the past two years. It might even put his own hired hands in danger.

No question, the bastards were acting on Ham Prescott’s orders. If pressed, Ham would deny any knowledge of the vandalism or dismiss it as a boyish prank. But Bull knew the score—and he knew that Ham would do anything to drive him out and get his hands on the Rimrock.

The windmill would need fixing at once. The well beneath it was the only reliable source of water on the ranch. In this hot, dry summer, even a day without water would be hard on both animals and men. Two days could be fatal for the smaller spring calves.

The commotion had awakened the two young cowboys who lived in the bunkhouse. They stumbled out the door, yawning and cussing. Bull hollered at them to get dressed and come help. They were good kids, but they were just out of high school, and they had a lot to learn. Bull did his best to teach them, though his patience sometimes had a short fuse.

What he wouldn’t give for Jasper’s calm wisdom at a time like this. But Jasper had gone home to the hill country two weeks ago, with plans to marry Sally, his pretty, patient

sweetheart. Bull had wished him well and given him the old pickup, with new tires and an overhaul, in lieu of the back pay he was owed. These days Bull was driving a newer-model red Ford Ranger he’d bought from a man in town.

The dogs—big, shaggy mutts—trotted up onto the porch, panting and wagging their tails. Bull had bought them for five dollars each from a farmer whose bitch had had a litter of pups. They were too friendly to make serious watchdogs, but they barked when strangers came around, and they were learning to be good cattle herders.

Bull spat over the porch rail, cursed, and went back inside to put on his boots and make some coffee for the boys. At least there was plenty of moonlight. If the pump rod had only come loose and wasn’t broken, and everything else was either intact or fixable, they could have the windmill up and working in time for morning chores. But if it needed parts, he might have to drive into Lubbock to get them. Just one more damned emergency in a season that was already draining his resources.

First chance he got, he would drive into town and buy enough concrete mix to anchor the legs of the tower into the ground, something his father had never done. Bull could only wish he’d thought of doing it sooner. For that matter, it would make sense to replace the old wooden tower with a sturdy metal one. The cost would be more than he could spare, but it would be better than pouring more money into something that was close to falling apart.

In this country, especially in the third year of a searing drought, everything was about water. And the Rimrock never seemed to have enough. By breeding the heifer offspring of the Prescott bull with his own yearling bulls, he had doubled the size of his herd in the past two years. But without adequate water, the land wouldn’t support any more animals. His dream of a prosperous ranch, running upward of a thousand head, was just that—a dream.