Rose gave a happy cry and ran to her best friend, and they hugged and laughed and set to crying.
Women,Will thought,what strange and wonderful creatures.
Mama caught Will’s eye and smiled, nodding, letting him know she approved of the union. Then, after giving the two girls a moment, she rose and went to Maggie and embraced her and said, “I couldn’t be happier—or prouder—to call you my daughter, Maggie. May God bless you both.”
“Oh, thank you, Mama,” Maggie said, hugging Mama tight.
Will stood there with his hat in his hands, feeling a little out of place.
Then the women turned on him and pretty near hugged the stuffing out of him.
After that, the women were all talking at the same time.
Will nudged Maggie. “Let’s take them next door.”
“Next door?” Rose said.
“Oh!” Maggie said. “We forgot to tell you. Will bought the Kitner place.”
This kicked off another happy round of questions and hugging.
After that, they gathered their things from the bunkhouse and put them in the wagon and got the horses and Will’s mules and tethered the mules to the wagon and headed next door,with Mama and Rose driving the wagon and Will and Maggie on horseback.
They left a good deal of stuff in the stable, things Mama and Rose had saved from the farm when they were kicked out. It would be easy enough to come back later and get it all.
At the new house, the women went from room to room, looking everything over and chattering with delight and talking excitedly about where everything would go and all the work that needed done.
Will left them to it and went outside and took care of the animals then started unloading the wagon. His hands hurt from the fight. They were bruised and swollen, but they worked all right, and that’s what mattered. Usually, as long as you don’t punch somebody high up or in the back of the skull, you were all right.
Of course, hitting them in the teeth isn’t so great, either,he thought, examining his lacerated knuckles.
Oh well. He’d heal.
Things were good now. Better than good. Better than he could have ever imagined.
Yes, Texas was still a mess. Yes, he had a heap of trouble coming his way. Yes, there was a bunch of work to do. And yes, his hands were all cut up, but he and Maggie now owned this ranch, and they were going to be married and start a life together.
He just had to work hard and stay alert and wait for Texas to rise again. And, he thought, staring out across the creek toward his former family farm, someday, he would get the old homeplace back, and then he and Maggie would own it, this place, and her old place, which amounted, all in, to over two thousand well-watered acres with plenty of grass.
As he’d told Maggie, they needed pigs and chickens and a milk cow. With those things, crops, a good rifle, and plenty of ammo, a family could get by.
But Will wanted to do more than merely survive. He wanted to provide for his family and provide amply, wanted to?—
His thoughts broke off abruptly when he saw the lone, dark rider cutting across the field, coming this way.
The squatter was coming back.
CHAPTER 19
The rider lifted a hand in the air.
Will waved back, and the man kept coming.
He was a small, tough-looking black man riding a small, tough-looking bay.
“Howdy,” the man said, drawing rein a short distance away.
“Howdy,” Will said. The man was young and looked vaguely familiar. “You the one who’s been staying here?”
