does the job pay?”
“Four bits a day and two meals.”
“Mister, you’ve just hired me. Uh, you want your dollar back?”
“Keep it, that’s your first two days’ pay.”
“Now, hop up on this wagon seat and drive this rig over to Jim Budgher’s store and load up my supplies, while I settle up.” Jeff paid Budgher for his supplies, while Ed went to his tent and collected his possibles.
Ed was sitting on the wagon seat when Jeff came out of the store. Where do we go from here, boss?” Ed asked.
Jeff leaned back in the seat next to Ed; he tilted his flat-crowned Stetson forward, closed his eyes, and replied to Ed, “Head the team east, old friend, until I tell you to whoa ’em.”
Ed parked the wagon and put the team into their barn stalls. He moved his possibles into the JN bunkhouse with the other boys and selected himself a nice dry bunk. The cowboys would teach Ed how to be a cowpoke soon enough. Ed enjoyed his above ground bunk and living in a draft free room. He especially loved the luxury of the freestanding outhouse behind the bunkhouse.
Smitty and Bo continued as the coramrods of the JN Brand. They and their cowboys delivered beef when the army wanted it, castrated and branded, and watched over Jeff’s cattle out on the range.
Chapter Twenty
Jeff began concentrating on building his ranch house. He hired an architect from Austin to come and put his ideas on paper. “This place will probably cost me another sack full of gold and silver coins,” he murmured.
Jeff wanted his ranch house to sit in front of the bunkhouse and corrals and Cookie’s shack and across the top of the broad mesa known as Gun Barrel Hill, so he could watch over most of his ranch in most directions clear down to the Saber River.
His architect suggested that he build for Jeff, a wide hallway running from the front doors to the back door of his house. Across the outside front and running down each side, he’d build a wide veranda, or porch, for sunrise and sunset viewing, with plenty of sitting chairs, then two beautiful front double doors would open into his formal parlor/music room so his guests could be welcomed and entertained. Next, on the left side of the house, he’d build a spacious dining room with doors connected the parlor and to the large spacious kitchen for his cooks, with a walk-in pantry, a freestanding fireplace, and a back door to the yet to be dug outside water well and the kitchen’s plentiful year-round vegetable garden.
On the right side of his house, he’d build Jeff four separate bedrooms with closets, a connected sewing room and sitting room adjoining the master bedroom, with two closets and another freestanding fireplace, plus a door leading outside to the mistress’s flower garden. Jeff would have access throughout his house so he could enjoy it while any guest had the privacy of their own bedroom. Jeff couldn’t keep from thinking of Sally while he was planning his house. Jeff was delighted with the architect’s ideas.
“Build it,” he commanded. The architect and his carpenters began construction immediately.
Jeff took Smitty with him when he rode into Jasper and got directions from the sheriff where Jorn Murphy’s ranch was located. Eight miles west of Jasper, they rode up to his front porch. Jorn was sitting in a chair. He was cleaning a rifle.
“I wondered when you’d come to see an old friend. How’ve you been, Jeff?”
“I suspect you already know the answer to that question, Jorn.”
“Whada you mean?”
“I suspect your foreman, Lester Willis, has kept you well informed. He’s killed one of my young cowboys and knifed him in the back, and then he hired eight men to rustle a few of my cattle. We caught ’em south of the Saber. We shot seven, one confessed Willis hired them before he died, and we hung the last one.”
“That man lied. Lester already told the sheriff and me that man had a grudge agin’ him over a card game. He’s lied to get Lester in trouble with the law. Far as that killing goes, Lester told me ’bout that too. Your man pulled a gun on my foreman. Lester wasn’t wearing his gun in town, and he was only defending himself.”
“My young cowboy didn’t pack a gun, Jorn. Fact is, he didn’t even own a gun. Your segundo and his sidekick had a grudge agin’ my cowboy for something that happened between ’em in Fort Davis. They ganged him in town and whipped him, and when they all three got out of jail the next day, Lester killed my cowboy in cold blood. Your man Lester Willis is a liar. Call ’em out here right now and I’ll call him a liar to his face.”
“He ain’t here. He and my men are out workin’ my cattle. You got your information all wrong and everwhich way, Jeff. Besides, you oughta know if I want somethin’ I just take it. You also know better than to get crossways with me, son. You know how mean I can git when I’m riled.”
“I ain’t afraid of you, Jorn Murphy. I mighta been once, when I was a kid, but I ain’t a kid anymore. You tell Lester Willis, he’d better stay shy of me and mine, ’cause if he don’t, the next time he crosses me, I’ll kill him.”
“You get your ass off my spread, Jeff Nelson, right now, or so help me, I’ll—”
“I’m going, gladly going, Jorn. You just relay my message to Willis. The next time he crosses sabers with one of my cowboys, he’s a dead man.”
Jeff and Smitty rode back to Jasper. “I’m gonna stop and tell Sheriff Sizemore about my conversation with Jorn Murphy. I’m sure he’ll hear a completely opposite version from Lester’s boss. Jorn will just tell the sheriff that I threatened both their lives.”
“And that’s the way it went, Sheriff. Next time Willis crosses horns with me I’m gonna kill him.”
“I won’t blame you, son, just make sure you’re within the law.”
“I will, Sheriff, you can be sure of that. I know the law.”
Back at the JN bunkhouse, Jeff told his cowboys about his meeting with Jorn Murphy, and he disciplined them to walk a wide circle around that bad man, Lester Willis. And if they were bullied by anyone in town, Jeff was to be told at once. Jeff told his men he’d rather not lose another cowboy, if he could prevent it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sundays had become Jeff’s church day. He was up early, and Cookie made his breakfast. He’d eaten, dressed, and saddled his bay gelding and was on the road to Jasper by 8:00 a.m. He liked attending the first service; there wasn’t near as many worshipers as the second service. Sally played the organ or the piano at both services, and everyone sang hymns. The pastor’s sermon was always long, windy, and most often difficult to understand. Jeff always stayed for the second service so he could look at Sally and admire her beauty as she sang the hymns. Sometimes she’d sing a hymn by herself. Jeff really enjoyed that.
Jeff finally got up enough nerve to ask Sally’s father, the Methodist church’s pastor, if Jeff might court his daughter, Sally. To Jeff’s surprise, Pastor Jones said yes. From that day forth, Jeff was completely enchanted by the lovely Sally Jones.
When his house was finished, he asked his architect to stay and help him furnish it. The architect was delighted and told Jeff he’d be glad to help select the furnishings. He did, and the furniture was shipped by train from Austin to Fort Davis. Jeff sent Bo and two cowboys with two wagons to bring his sight unseen furnishings back to the ranch, and he helped the architect set them in place in his ranch house.
Jeff continued to live in the bunkhouse with his men. Cookie fell in love with his new kitchen in the ranch house but was told to continue to cook all their meals in his cookshack. Jeff invited Parson Jones and Sally to come and see his new house. Sally fell in love with the layout of the spacious home and told Jeff so. Jeff introduced Sally to his cook, and Cookie fell in love with Sally. Ed White was already in love with Sally Jones and had been since the first moment he’d