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Unfazed by the heat in Lute’s voice, Sky slipped into the stall,to the buckskin’s side “Bull would have been the first to tell you that there’s never a day off fro chores”

“Maybe not, but it seerumbled “When you hired me on last ured I’d be doing I figured I’d be out working cattle, learning the ranch business Dammit, you’re my cousin, Sky You know this isn’t fit work for a Comanche”

“It’s how I started,” Sky replied, never losing his air of caller, and now assistant foreman”

“And how long did that take?” Lute challenged

“Does it matter?” Sky countered

“Hell, yes! I’ the next howeverthis shovel”

“That’s your job for now” Sky gave the mare a final pat on the neck and let hiet to clean the stallion barn when you finish up here”

“Yeah, and after I finish that, I’ll be taking a shower and headin’ into town, so don’t be looking for me around here,” Lute shouted at Sky’s back as he exited the barn

With the closing of the barn door, Lute resurip of the wheelbarrow handles and used the built-up anger inside to propel the wheelbarrow out the back of the barn, where he dulared at the growingthat his next job was likely to be loading it up and hauling it off to be spread over the lower pastures for fertilizer while the cattle were grazing up on the caprock

He wondered what the chances were that Slade Haskell would be at the Blue Coyote tonight Lute had heard so for drivers for his trucking company But when he’d cornered Haskell about a job a couple weeks ago, Haskell hadn’t been hiring

Rig

ht now there was nothing that would give Lute more pleasure than to find work somewhere else and tell Sky where he could put this shovel

By the tiht had turned chilly A blaze crackled in the parlor’s great stone fireplace, casting its war it rise to the open-bea

Will lounged in one of the four overstuffed chairs and let his gaze slide to the occupants of the other three—his brother Beau, the ranch’s aging foreman Jasper Platt, and Sky Fletcher He watched as his brother took a swig from the bottle of Mexican beer in his hand

“It was a fine service, Will,” Beau said with a nod, and absently used the back of his hand to wipe away the bit of foa I’ve wondered about all afternoon Why in hell’s nauson Prescott his whole life, and I can’t iine that he felt much different about Prescott’s son I could al over in his coffin when the esteeressman took the pulpit”