One

Arizona Territory, Early Spring 1891

Trey Porterfield stood in the open doorway of the outbuilding that served as the ranch’s office. From there, he could see Juanita Mendez moving around the kitchen of the main house, a large rambling adobe structure that spoke well of the prosperity of the ranch and its owners. As usual, Juanita, who had been with the family for as long as Trey could remember, was gesturing to someone out of his view—her husband, Eduardo, no doubt. The evening was mild with a lingering hint of this year’s unusually cold winter. But a good deal more than the weather had brought hard times over the last several months. The trouble was not between man and nature, but between man and man—neighbor against neighbor.

“Hola, Jefe.” Javier, Trey’s best friend and Juanita’s younger son, crossed the yard, the smoke from his cigarette trailing after him.

“Better not let Nita catch you smoking,” Trey said.

Javier smiled. “I’m twenty-three, and Jefa still treats me like a kid.”

“I dare you to call your mother ‘boss woman’ to her face,” Trey teased, but then he sobered. “’Course Nita’s that way with me too—babying me and bossing me in turn. Especially since Mama died.”

The two men were quiet for a long moment. “I miss her—your mama,” Javier said as he blew out a long stream of smoke. “I miss them all—Maria and Chet, Amanda too. Seems awful quiet around here these days.”

Trey nodded. It was true. The family had scattered after his mother’s death. His sister Maria and her husband now lived in California with their three children. His sister Amanda had married an undercover Wells Fargo detective; he’d since left that job to become sheriff of the entire region. They lived in Tucson—close, but not close enough to Trey’s way of thinking.

“I miss Helen too,” Javier said quietly.

Helen Johnson had caught Javier’s eye a few years earlier when his older brother, Rico, had been courting Helen’s sister. But after her father died, Helen and her mother had gone back east where they had family.

“You still have Rico—and Louisa.”

Javier grunted. “It’s Rico’s fault that I never got my chance with Helen. Running off the way he did with Louisa? How was Mr. Johnson ever supposed to trust me to do the right thing by Helen?”

Old Man Johnson had disowned Louisa after she and Rico had eloped and announced if he so much as thought he saw Javier coming around his youngest daughter, he would shoot to kill.

“Rico and Mr. Johnson made their peace,” Trey reminded his friend.

“And then the old man up and dies, and Rico’s got his business to run, so he can’t take on running the ranch for Mrs. Johnson.”

“You could go east, find work closer to Helen there,” Trey reminded him, wanting to shift his friend’s focus to something more positive.

“I guess.” It was a grudging admission and one he would probably never act on. “Rico says I dodged a bullet. He never much cared for Helen, the way she didn’t stand with Louisa.”

“Tell you what. Let Addie know you’re looking for a wife, and my guess is she’ll have you matched up in no time.”

Trey’s older brother, Jess, was the marshal in the nearby town of Whitman Falls, and his wife, Addie, had taken over her father’s medical practice.

Javier snorted. “I doubt Jess would want her to get involved with the likes of me. I’m not exactly your brother’s favorite cowboy these days.”

When a sheep rancher bought the Johnson place after the old man’s death, Javier had turned all his frustration on herders in general, picking fights whenever he and any sheep rancher crossed paths. Trey had had to get him out of jail more than once, and Jess had warned them both that next time, Javier would be bound over for trial and sit in jail until the circuit judge reached town.

“But he’s my foreman—our foreman,” Trey had argued, reminding his brother that the ranch still belonged to the entire family. “We’re short-handed as it is.”

“You wouldn’t be if this cowpoke could keep his mouth shut. You should get Rico to come back.”

“Rico has no interest in working for us now that he’s taken over the livery and moved his family into town. Besides, Javier is family,” he had reminded Jess. “What we need is to find a way for herders and cattlemen to share the land.”

Jess had laughed. “Not likely in our lifetime.”

Arizona Territory still had a good deal of open range, acreage that now needed to accommodate both cattle and sheep. In the fight over land and water rights, the “herders,” as the sheep ranchers were known, were at a distinct disadvantage. It took only two or three men and some well-trained dogs to manage a couple thousand sheep, while the same number of cattle required a dozen or more cowhands. So right away, the herders were outnumbered four to one, and lately, that disparity had cost them dearly. Just six months earlier, a herder named Calvin Stokes and his shepherds had been murdered. Trey hadn’t known Calvin, but as a peace-loving man who treasured the land, Trey wanted no part of violence.

As if to underscore his thoughts, Trey heard the distant bleating of sheep.

Javier threw down his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with heel of his boot. “Them woolies sound closer than they ought to be, Trey. I’ll just get a couple of the boys from the bunkhouse and ride out there and…”

“You get some sleep. We need to get started on branding early tomorrow so we can move the herd to higher ground for the summer. I’ll take care of this.”

“But—”

Trey rested his hand on Javier’s shoulder. “Last thing we need around here is more trouble, Javier, and you know how some of the hands feel about the sheep ranchers.” He chose his words carefully, even though it was Javier’s constant harping on the damage sheep did to the land that had gotten the other hands riled up in the first place.

Javier snorted. “You’ve always been a dreamer, Trey. You still think we can all live in peace? After what’s happened these last months? There’s a war comin’, amigo.”

“A war with a price that’s too dear to pay, Javier. When neighbor turns on neighbor, it’s time to find another way.” Trey headed for the corral, lifting his saddle from the fence as he passed. “I’ll be back directly. You and the others get some sleep.”

Javier wasn’t easily dismissed. “Calvin Stokes was not our neighbor or friend,” he argued.

“He was a good man,” Trey said as he pulled the cinch tight on the saddle and patted his horse’s flanks. “A good man with a wife and a youngster. A good man who was the first of our neighbors to die because of this ruckus. We need to be sure nothing goes that far ever again, or he will surely not be the last.”

“If Stokes’s wife had the sense God gave her, she’d pack up and head back where she came from.” Javier stroked the horse’s muzzle while Trey mounted.

“Now there’s a thought. She just abandons that flock of woolies, leaves them to roam free and deliver the lambs they’re carrying all on their own while she hightails it back east or wherever she might have people. That’s your plan for her?”

“She’s got family here. Word is she’s no longer in charge. From what I hear, her brother and her husband’s cousin have been running things since the funeral.”

Trey frowned. “You think she signed everything over to them?”

“Don’t know details.” Javier shrugged. “There’s been some talk about her and the cousin marrying. Seems to me if the cousin is willing to take on the debt plus her and the boy, that might be her best choice.”

“That’s one option, I suppose.” Trey had noticed the family in passing when they started coming to his church. He had been vaguely aware of the woman and boy. She usually wore a sunbonnet that covered her features and did not stay after to visit with the other women, even wives of other herders. Calvin Stokes had made sure of that, hustling his wife and son away as soon as Reverend Moore spoke the benediction and took his place by the door to greet his congregation.

Once, Trey had found himself standing in the aisle next to Stokes. He had smiled and extended his hand in greeting. “I’m Trey Porterfield,” he’d said.

Stokes had stared at Trey’s outstretched hand for a moment, then ducked his head and ushered his family up the aisle. By the time Trey had reached the exit, they were walking briskly down the road. Herders rarely used horses. They traveled by burro or on foot. The Stokes woman had matched her husband stride for stride while the boy rode a burro.

Javier lit another cigarette. “You got something else in mind for the widow Stokes?”

“What if I was to buy her out, leaving her free to go back to her family? If that’s what she wants.”

“You’re saying you’d make the Double J part of this place and bring it back to cattle?”

“I’m saying maybe it’s time to explore what might happen if cows and sheep shared one ranch.” Trey was as surprised as Javier was to hear himself say this. But the more he considered the idea, the more he thought it was well worth contemplating. “Seems to me if we could make it work for the animals, we could make it work for the people,” he added as he gathered the reins.

“You’re joshing me, right?”

Trey shrugged. “Maybe.” He grinned down at his friend. “Maybe not.”

As he rode away, he heard Javier laughing and was pretty sure he heard the word loco echoing through the silence of the night.

Of course, Javier was right to ridicule him. The idea was absurd, and the truth was, he hadn’t been thinking anything beyond finding some way the sheepherders and cattlemen might work together. Still tonight, as he left the boundaries of his property and heard the distant bleats, he had to wonder: What if both sheep and cattle could share the land? There would have to be separate pastures to accommodate the differences in grazing, but with all this land, why wouldn’t it work?

As he crossed the open range where the sheep were settling in for the night, Trey tipped his hat when one of the shepherds keeping watch glanced his way. Joining forces might just work if he could persuade Mrs. Stokes to hear him out.

His best approach might be to take Addie’s advice. The Stokes boy was sickly, as Trey had been as a boy. Addie had been after him to stop by and visit.

“Especially now,” Addie had argued, “with his father dead and no siblings to lean on, Trey. Seeing you and all you’ve accomplished in spite of being so sick would maybe help them both see possibilities for the boy’s future.”

She made a good case. Maybe tomorrow, he would ride over there and pay a neighborly call on Mrs. Stokes and her son. For now, he would just enjoy the night ride over the range that lay between the two properties, the free range that was fast disappearing as more and more people discovered this land Trey loved so deeply.

* * *

Juanita saw Trey ride away and shook her head. He was the youngest of the four Porterfield children she and her husband had helped raise and, to her way of thinking, the least prepared to deal with the realities of life.

“There he goes, riding off to who knows where when he needs his rest,” she fussed, setting a plate of fresh churros on the kitchen table. The pastry was Trey’s favorite. “That niño has about as much business trying to run a ranch as I do.”

“That niño is a grown man, Nita,” Eduardo reminded her. “He is doing a fine job.”

“Pushes himself and he’ll pay a price.” Juanita poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down heavily in the chair next to her husband. She rubbed her swollen knees with one hand, held her cup in the other. “That boy is an artist more than a rancher or businessman. He needs to get back to that.”

“Trey is no longer a boy, Juanita, and thankfully, his health is no longer a question. If you insist on worrying about someone, I suggest it be our Javier.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, both knowing that Eduardo had a point. Their youngest son had changed a good deal over the last several months. These days, the boy Juanita remembered as so good-natured had become impatient and sullen, taking the most innocent question or comment as criticism. She frowned and sighed as she stared at the dark liquid in her cup. “He spends too much time at the Collins ranch,” she said.

Eduardo nodded. Pete Collins was not only antagonistic toward the herders, but as the area’s second-largest landowner, he had the power to persuade others to join in his fight. “Perhaps Trey could speak with Javier.”

Juanita shrugged and sipped her coffee. After a moment, she said, “I miss the old days. So much is changing.”

Eduardo covered his wife’s hand with his. “Remember the first day we came here?”

The memory could always pull Juanita out of a sour mood. They had driven their rickety wagon up the trail toward the small adobe house that now served as the ranch’s business office. Juanita had been pregnant with Javier. Their older son, Rico, had been nine. The sun was setting, and that thin line of smoke rising from the chimney was like a star they had been following for the last half hour.

Isaac Porterfield, Trey’s father, had stepped outside, and when he saw them, insisted they stay the night. Eduardo had accepted and offered to sleep in the barn. He would repair their wagon, and they would be on their way at dawn.

And that was when a woman with hair the color of a sunset burst through the door. She’d carried a frail-looking boy of about three or four—Trey. Three older children pushed forward as well.

“Absolutely not,” Trey’s mother, Constance, announced.

Juanita recalled how she had assumed the woman was objecting to the offer of hospitality, but how wrong she had been. Constance Porterfield had ushered them inside the small house, sent her children to fetch a wooden bench from outside to add sitting space at the table, dished up a meal, and started planning the rest of their lives. By dawn, Juanita and Eduardo had work at the ranch, she as housekeeper and cook and her husband in charge of the chuck wagon that traveled with the cowboys as they followed the herd.

And when the Porterfields completed the larger adobe house that became the hub of the ranch’s vast acreage, there were rooms for Juanita and Eduardo and their children. From that first night, the Porterfields had treated them as family, making it clear to their own children that if Juanita gave them a chore to do or reprimanded them, she was to be obeyed without question. When young Trey’s health had caused endless nights of worry for his mother, Juanita had prepared special broths to ease his breathing and poultices to treat his racking cough. She had sung him Spanish lullabies and, when he showed a talent for sketching, posted his work in the kitchen for all to admire. And no one had ever doubted—or objected—that of the four Porterfield children, he was her favorite.

That had been over twenty years earlier. Both Isaac and Constance were gone now. Juanita and Eduardo were not that young anymore. All either couple had wanted in life was to see their children well settled. Now only Trey and Javier had yet to find their ways. Trey would be all right, but her baby? Her Javier? Juanita had her doubts.

* * *

Nell Stokes was exhausted, but sleep was not a luxury she could afford. Calvin’s death—his murder—had left her with a bank note to pay off, a couple thousand sheep to manage, a large house, and acres of land surrounded mostly by cattle ranchers who hated sheep—and by association, her. There were lambs coming any day now, and most distressing of all, she had a ten-year-old son who had lost his father at a time when he spent a good many of his days sick in bed and needed constant care.

When some soldiers from nearby Fort Lowell had discovered her husband’s body and brought him home to her, Nell had at first been so consumed by grief and panic that she’d ignored the rage building within her. But as the months passed with no progress in catching Calvin’s killers, she felt a hardness growing at her very core. It was formed of anger at the unfairness of it all, how they’d been treated since Calvin had bought the ranch from the Johnson family, who had been cattle ranchers like many of her other neighbors.

After being assured that at least a couple of the cowboys who had worked for the Johnsons would stay on to help, she and Calvin had awoken one morning to find the bunkhouse in flames and no sign of the men who had once lived there. That was the first indication that life was not going to be easy. But Calvin had reminded her that there were other sheep ranches in the area, including one owned by her half brother, Henry Galway. Calvin had promised her that, in time, folks would come around.

He was wrong.

Three weeks after the fire in the bunkhouse, Calvin had been out with the sheep and she’d been hanging laundry when a band of masked men had galloped into the yard, whooping like savages. They had torn down her wash lines, trampled the clothes, and circled her with their horses, brandishing their guns and firing into the air. Her son, Joshua, had stumbled from the house, his thin body dodging the hooves of the horses as he made his way to her. She had reached for him and folded him in the safety of her embrace, bowing her head and praying that the men would leave. They had finally ridden away, after what seemed an eternity, but not before shooting out the windows of the house. And they’d shouted a warning—either she persuade her husband to leave, or they would return.

Even if she’d intended to follow their orders, she had no chance. After her husband and the two shepherds were found brutally murdered, the soldiers had completed the drive to bring the sheep back to the lower grazing land. Because the winter had been so cold and harsh, there had been no further incidents.

Following Calvin’s funeral, Henry had told her he would manage both places until she could decide what she wanted to do. He was ten years older than Nell, the child of their mother’s first marriage. They were not close, but there was no other family she could rely upon.

In the meantime, Calvin’s family had gone back to Nebraska—all except his cousin, Ernest. It was Henry who had persuaded Ernest to stay. At first, Nell had been relieved. Allowing the two men to assume responsibility left her free to attend to Joshua and the house. Sheep ranchers were still something of a rarity in this part of Arizona, and those that had settled there were widely scattered—circumstances that left Nell with few women beyond Henry’s wife, Lottie, to rely on for support. When Henry and Ernest were away tending the combined flocks from the two ranches, often for weeks at a time, Henry insisted that Lottie and at least one of their twins, Ira and Spud, stay with Nell to be sure she and Joshua were safe.

In spite of everything, Nell had made one friend whom she trusted to listen and offer advice. The local doctor, Addie Porterfield, called on her a couple of times each month. She came to examine Joshua and told stories of her husband’s younger brother, who had also been ill as a boy. “Now he is a big, strong, healthy man, and one day, you will be as well,” the doctor assured Joshua.

But on the nights when the menfolk were away, Ira or Spud slipping off to town instead of sticking around on watch, Nell sat alone and held Joshua as he coughed and gagged. She wondered what the future might hold for them. Was she doing her best by staying? Would Joshua be better off if they moved back to Nebraska, closer to Calvin’s family? Her own family was scattered—her parents had died just before she and Calvin had headed West, and her siblings had hardships of their own. She had been discussing her options with Lottie when her sister-in-law had suggested perhaps it was time she consider a union with Ernest.

“It’s not yet six months since Cal died,” Nell had protested.

“Henry says you need to think past normal grieving.” Lottie had bitten off a thread on the shirt she was mending for her husband. “Henry says, come spring, with the lambing and all, we’ll have all we can do just managing our place, and you’re gonna need someone to take over here. Ernest is a good man and a hard worker. You could do worse.”

Nell had tried to convince herself that Lottie had a point, but the truth was that she barely knew her husband’s cousin. Ernest was nothing like Calvin, and it bothered her the way he had taken her late husband’s place at the table right away without asking her. He had taken liberties from the day he arrived, in fact—smoking Calvin’s tobacco, going through the papers in Calvin’s desk with Henry, even wearing Calvin’s yellow slicker when the weather turned cold and wet.

But none of that compared to the liberty Ernest had taken one bitterly cold winter night. Henry, Lottie, and the boys had gone back to their own ranch, leaving Ernest to keep watch. Someone had made an attempt to rimrock or stampede Henry’s flock over a cliff. Her brother had insisted that Ernest set up his bedroll downstairs in the kitchen and spend the night inside the house. “If there’s a gang out looking for trouble, they’ll not miss the opportunity to strike here if they think it’s a woman alone.”

Nell had agreed, recalling how frightened she had been when those men had attacked in broad daylight. But sometime during the night after she had finally gotten Joshua settled, she had heard the soft click of her bedroom door, a door she always left open so she would not miss Joshua calling out for her. Before she could come awake enough to react, Ernest had crawled into her bed. Without saying a word, he had pressed himself against her, and beneath the covers, he had run his hand up and under her nightgown. Tears had filled her eyes as she stiffened against his touch.

Blessedly, Joshua had started to choke, his racking coughs penetrating the closed door. Somehow, she had found the strength to push Ernest away and run to tend her child. Once she had gotten Joshua settled again and returned, she had found Ernest sound asleep and snoring in her bed. She had spent the remainder of the night sitting in the corner of the room in the rocking chair her husband had built for her. On her lap was Calvin’s loaded shotgun.

Just before dawn when Ernest began to stir, she had walked to the side of the bed and placed the barrel of the gun just even with his nose. “If you ever try something like that again,” she had said in a low, husky whisper to keep Joshua from possibly overhearing, “I will blow your brains out. Are we clear?”

He had pushed the barrel of the gun aside and stood. “You might want to check with your brother on that, you ungrateful bitch,” he had muttered. He had picked up his clothes and walked downstairs. Still carrying the shotgun, she had followed him and seen him go out to the porch, break the ice that had formed on the wash basin, and then splash water on his face. She had set the gun within reach while she stirred the embers of the fire in the cook stove. Moments later, Ernest had returned, snapping his suspenders over his shoulders. He had poured himself a cup of coffee and taken Calvin’s place at the table as if nothing had happened.

For weeks, she’d kept the incident to herself even as she served up meals for whoever was in residence with her. In the evenings, after she’d put Joshua to bed, she sat darning socks while whichever nephew was there for the night flipped playing cards into a hat. On the day before the men were to drive the flock to a ranch fifty miles away for a communal shearing and lambing, Lottie had fallen ill. Ira would stay with his mother, Henry had told Nell, but he needed at least one son to come with him. Therefore, Ernest would stay behind to make sure she and Joshua were safe.

“No. Take Ernest with you and let Spud stay here, or I’ll stay alone,” she had said. It was an order rather than a request.

“Not a chance. Leave you and your boy here on your own?”

“The soldiers will come by, and Doc Porterfield, and—”

“Ernest stays.”

She had seen no choice but to tell him what had happened. Fighting back tears at the memory of Ernest putting his hands on her and pressing himself against her, she had given her half brother the details. But instead of being outraged as she had expected, he had sighed heavily and said, “Calm down. If you’re so all fired determined to make more of this than it warrants, he’ll come with me. Maybe a few weeks on your own will bring you to your senses—if the cattlemen don’t get to you first.”

“He was in my bed, Henry.”

“We’ll sort this out after him and me get back. But, Nell, you need to come around to seeing Ernest as your best hope if you’re determined to stay on here. He may have gotten ahead of things, but a man has needs.”

She had stared up at him openmouthed with shock while he had instructed his sons to stay behind—Ira with Lottie and Spud with Nell—then climbed aboard the wagon and shouted for Ernest to grab his gear. “Change of plans,” he said before turning his attention back to her. “Do not fight me on this, Nell. You need a man to run things around here, and Ernest wants the job.”

Now, a few days later, Nell saw a single rider in the distance. Having sent Spud off with a basket of food she’d made for Lottie and Ira, she was alone in the yard with Joshua, and for the first time since pleading with Henry to take Ernest with him, she felt a shiver of fear.

“Go in the house, Son,” she said softly.

“Should I bring you Pa’s gun?” Joshua asked.

“No. Just go inside.”

Joshua did not argue.

Nell continued the repair work she’d begun on the chicken coop the raiders had destroyed.

As the man came closer, she saw that he was tall—taller than Calvin had been. He wore brown trousers, a faded blue shirt, a tan suede vest, and a battered Stetson that looked as if it had seen its fair share of bad weather and hard use. She thought of the hat she had saved up to buy for Calvin last Christmas, the hat she had placed on account at Miss McNew’s dry goods store in Whitman Falls, paying it off a little each time she went into town. The hat she had never gone back to pay off and collect. There seemed little reason to do so now.

She tightened her grip on the ax she was using to hammer the chicken wire into place, her mind racing. She needed to come up with a plan for protecting herself and Joshua should the man not be alone. She glanced around, searching for any sign of other riders who might plan to come at her from all directions.

This was a cowboy—that much was evident. He rode a large stallion, and there was a coil of rope fastened to the horn of his saddle and a holstered gun strapped onto his waist. The man was taking his time, and that frightened her more than if he had come riding into the yard at a full gallop.

“Can I help you, mister?” she shouted, shielding her eyes with one hand even as she kept a tight hold on the short-handled ax with the other.

He reined his horse to a stop and dismounted. To her surprise, he removed his hat as he approached her. “Mrs. Stokes?”

She planted her feet and faced him. “Who’s asking?”

His lips quirked into the beginning of a smile, but he squelched that by squinting into the sun behind her. “Name’s Trey Porterfield. My sister-in-law Addie’s the doctor in Whitman Falls.”

This was the man Addie had told Joshua about? This tall, robust cowboy who looked like he’d never been sick a day in his life?

“Doc Addie has been good to us,” she said. “Did she send you?”

He rolled his hat in his hands. “Not exactly. She has talked a good deal about your boy. Seems to think we might have something in common. I was pretty sickly as a kid myself.”

“So we’ve heard.” She waited.

“Then there’s the fact that my pa died when I wasn’t much older than your son.”

“Joshua’s father was murdered,” she replied in a low growl that did nothing to disguise her rage.

“So was mine,” he said softly.

She realized he was focusing all his attention on her.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said and glanced toward the coop. “I’ve got work to do here, Mr. Porterfield. Thank you for stopping by. It was kind of you.”

“How ’bout I finish that coop for you?” He waited a beat, then grinned. “I don’t charge much—just a tall glass of water. That sun’s already hot enough for it to be July, and here it is not even May.”

Nell wrestled with the urge that came over her to return his smile, to lower her guard after months of always expecting the worst. But she had been through enough to know trusting a cattleman—trusting any man—was a dangerous business. “You can fill your canteen in the stream over there before you head back,” she said. “I can manage the coop.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Joshua had eased out onto the front stoop and was watching the exchange.

“That your boy there?” Instead of being insulted at the rejection and stalking off as she had expected, Trey Porterfield remained standing a few feet from her. He even raised his hand in greeting to Joshua.

A lump of fear hardened in her throat, and for the first time ever, she wished that Henry or one of his sons—or even Ernest—was around. “What is it you want, mister?” The words came out in a whisper. She could make no sense of his presence and therefore could only think that his taking notice of Joshua was somehow a threat.

Something in her expression must have revealed her distress, because he took a step back, holding up his hands as if to calm her, then he put on his hat and mounted his horse. “I mean you and your son no harm, Mrs. Stokes. Addie has… I was in the area and…”

“Thank you for coming by,” she managed as she forced herself to turn away and give the appearance of working to repair the coop again. But in reality, she gripped the ax handle and listened for his horse to retreat. If he rode toward her or the house, she would sling the ax at the horse. She imagined the horse injured and perhaps rolling over the rider, giving her time to make it to the house and Joshua—and Calvin’s shotgun.

When she heard the horse walk away, then break into a trot that faded with the distance between them, she let out a breath and with it some of the knot of fear that had threatened to paralyze her. Her eyes filled with tears, and for the thousandth time since Calvin’s death, she wondered what kind of future lay ahead for her and Joshua. Was she being foolhardy by insisting they stay and carry on Calvin’s dream? The ax fell from her trembling fingers, and she knew that her thought of throwing it at the horse had been nothing more than the fantasy of a desperate woman.

* * *

After leaving the Stokes place, Trey stopped at the top of a ridge overlooking that property. He sat for a moment, staring down at the sheep farm. He knew this place almost as well as his own ranch. The Johnsons and the Porterfields had been close—his sisters and Louisa Johnson had been the best of friends, and he had once sat at the big cypress table in that house sharing many a meal with his father and older brother and George Johnson while the men talked business.

Below him now, he could see the Stokes woman working to complete the repair of the coop. He dismounted, pulled out the sketchbook and pencil box he carried everywhere he went and hadn’t found the time to open in months. He’d picked up the habit as a boy, a way to help him think through any situation. Through the years, his art had continued to be a refuge for him, a place he retreated to when he needed to work out the challenges that came with being in charge of the largest spread in the region.

With a few quick strokes, he drew the outline of the house, the outbuildings, and the fenced pastures that surrounded the property—all subjects he had drawn many times in the past. He added the boy standing just outside the door of the house, and he drew the woman with her sunbonnet hanging down her back. The bonnet was of little use to her if she didn’t wear it properly. He recalled the way she had squinted up at him and shielded her eyes with one hand, even as she clung to the ax with the other.

He did not sketch the ax.

Nell Stokes had surprised him. He’d paid her little attention the few times he’d seen the family in church, more interested in her husband and how they might be able to relieve the tension between cow men and herders. Now he realized that she was young—younger than his twenty-seven years, to be sure. She was slender, almost fragile-looking. And yet he recalled the way she had walked alongside her husband as they left church services, and just now, when she had faced him, he had seen such strength in her. He’d also seen something else. Fear of him. It was the fear that had made him back away and leave.

He had hesitated before approaching the house when he saw a husky older boy walk away with a picnic basket tied to his burro’s saddle. It had occurred to him that it might be best to return when her brother was there to advise her. But he hadn’t been able to resist getting a closer look at a woman who had decided to stay in spite of her horrific loss and the hardships she must have known lay ahead.

If he were to be completely honest with himself, the single thing that had kept him from even hinting at the idea of buying her out was the fact that business was the last thing on his mind once he saw her. No, what he felt on meeting her was an attraction so unexpected and intense that the feeling had taken hold of him and muddled his thinking.

He turned the page of his sketchbook and began a more detailed drawing of Nell Stokes, beginning with her oval-shaped face. With quick, sure strokes, he added eyes—large and filled with questions, thin lines radiating from the corners hinting at a time when she had laughed freely and often. He moved on to her cheeks and the sprinkling of freckles that danced across them and the bridge of her nose. As he prepared to sketch her mouth, he hesitated. He closed his eyes to recapture the details—her lower lip full and a little chapped from the dry heat. Her upper lip a perfect bow. Her teeth when she spoke surprisingly straight and even.

Trey worked quickly, his mind a blur of detail as it always was when he sketched. Art and reading were the two activities he had used as a child to fight off the boredom that came with spending weeks in bed. He’d challenged himself to remember tiny details, minor facts. At the moment, it was the details of the widow Stokes’s lovely face that found their way onto the page.

He paused in midstroke and stared at the image he’d created. Something was missing. This was not the face that had set his heart racing. Trey frowned. He was known for his ability to capture the very essence of a person. Family and friends had come alive on paper because of his gift. But this was different—she was different.

Of course, he didn’t know her. Maybe that was the problem. He stood at the edge of the mesa so that he had a better view of the ranch below. She was just walking back to the house. By her gestures, he figured she was saying something to the boy. He continued to watch and saw her glance back, raise her hand to shield her eyes once again as she focused her gaze on him before hurrying into the house with her son.

The last thing he wanted was for her to be afraid of him, to consider him just another cattleman determined to run her off her land. What if, instead of buying her out, he proposed a merger of their properties? Under such an arrangement, they could pool their resources and work together. More to the point, they could set an example for others and perhaps stop this madness that had changed the region from a bucolic, peace-loving community to one where mischief and vandalism had escalated to outright murder and mayhem.

As he packed up his sketchbook, he realized she’d been repairing a chicken coop—but there were no chickens. He wondered why, but then another thought pushed that from his mind. Maybe if he sent Nell Stokes a peace offering—some new residents for that coop—she would understand she had nothing to fear from him.

* * *

The fact that Trey Porterfield had stopped at the top of the mesa and stood there for some time worried Nell. She could feel him watching her as surely as she felt the hot noonday sun beating into her back. She continued working on the coop, banging her thumb twice for her trouble. What could he be planning?

His polite—almost courtly—manners had unnerved her. His half smile and the way he had made sure to keep his distance were not what she might expect from a cowboy. In her experience, such men were more likely to bully and threaten. Their smiles, offered at church or in town, were derisive and mocking. The truth was that she feared Trey Porterfield a good deal more than she did any cowboy she had met, precisely because he was well-spoken and clearly intelligent. In her experience, men like that could be awfully cunning when it came to getting what they wanted.

So the following morning, after a night spent lying awake listening for sounds that would alert her to any danger, she was relieved to see Dr. Addie Porterfield driving a buckboard wagon up the lane. At Nell’s insistence, Spud had ridden to town to get Doc Addie to check in on Lottie.

“I just sent my nephew to get you,” Nell said.

“Saw him on the road. Told him I’d just stop here and make this delivery, then be along directly. I sent him off to let his mother know I was coming.” She hopped down from the buggy and went around to its rear. “Got a present for you.”

Joshua came running at the sound of her voice. “A present?”

“Mind your manners, young man,” Nell said, although she doubted her son could hear her above the squawking of half a dozen hens and the crow of a rooster coming from the back of Addie’s cart. “What on earth?” she asked as Addie wrestled a cage filled with chickens to the ground next to the mostly repaired coop and opened the latch.

“A gift from my brother-in-law,” Addie replied, grinning as hens and the lone rooster shook themselves off and strutted across the yard.

“I don’t…I can’t…”

“Trey said he stopped by yesterday and you were working on the coop, but he didn’t see any sign of chickens, so…” She shrugged and grinned. Then she glanced toward the empty coop and frowned. “What happened to your hens, anyway?”

Before Nell could think what to say, Joshua blurted out the truth. “They got killed one night when my cousin snuck off to town and we was alone here. A bunch of bad cowboys came riding through our land, and you shoulda seen how Ma…”

“That’s enough, Joshua. Dr. Porterfield doesn’t need to concern herself with something that’s over and done with.”

Addie placed her hand on Nell’s forearm. “I’m truly sorry for the troubles you’ve had to endure, Nell. Hopefully now that your brother and…”

“Half brother.” Nell’s correction came automatically. Henry had never truly felt like family even when Nell was growing up. The age difference was certainly a factor, and these days, the way he had reacted to Ernest’s unwanted advances only added to her reluctance to claim him as her kin.

Addie started to say something but then seemed to think better of it as she turned her attention to Joshua. “You’re looking a little flushed, young man. How about we go inside and let me take a listen to that heart of yours?” She wrapped her arm around Joshua’s shoulders as they headed for the house. “There’s a sack of feed in the back there for the chickens,” she called out when they reached the porch.

“There’s coffee on the stove,” Nell replied, giving Addie a wave.

“Was hoping there might be.”

Addie’s voice trailed off as she and Joshua entered the house, but her comment made Nell smile. She always felt so much better whenever Addie came to visit.

As she scattered feed for the new arrivals, Nell realized that smiling was not something that came naturally to her these days. Most of the time, she was so tied up in knots of worry and nerves that it was all she could do to put three words together. But Addie had a way of making things seem like they could work out. Nell stood for a long moment, watching the hens peck at the feed and squawk at each other. They seemed content, and that meant perhaps by morning, she’d have eggs. And that meant she could make something special for Joshua.

She brushed the chaff of the feed from her hands and walked toward the house. Of course she would insist on paying Addie’s brother-in-law. They might be neighbors, but they really didn’t know each other, and besides, there was the matter of the range war. They were on opposite sides of that issue, and she could not afford to be beholden to the man.

When she entered the house, Addie was leaning close to Joshua, her stethoscope pressed to his bony chest. “Deep breath,” she said softly. “And again…”

Nell clenched her hands as her son followed the doctor’s instructions. There was no reason to believe anything had changed. There was no magic potion that Joshua could take. Addie had told her time and rest were the only possible remedies.

“Sounds to me like maybe somebody has been overdoing things a bit,” Addie said as she put away her stethoscope.

“Uncle Henry don’t believe in coddling,” Joshua said, glancing at his mother.

“Well, unless your uncle can show me a medical degree, I think it best he stick to tending sheep and let me do the doctoring.”

“He won’t like that. He says I need regular chores.”

Addie smiled. “Then maybe he can tend the sheep while you care for those hens I brought today.”

“Ma?”

“I think that sounds like a very good compromise.” Nell pulled Joshua’s shirt closed and ruffled his hair. “But for now, I want you to go to your room and write Mr. Porterfield a note of thanks.” She took down a tin can she kept hidden among the crockery on the shelf and opened it. She pulled out a single coin and handed it to him. “And tell him that this is the first payment and you intend to pay for the hens and rooster over time by selling eggs at the market in town if that’s agreeable.”

Joshua stared at the money. Addie took a sip of her coffee.

“Trey sent you a gift, Nell. Don’t insult him by turning it into some kind of business deal.”

“I just want to make sure he knows we appreciate his kindness.”

“Then use some of the eggs you’ll be getting and bake him a cake. You can bring it when you and Joshua come to the church social next Friday.”

Joshua’s eyes went wide with surprise. “We’re going to the social?”

“Yes,” Addie said at the same time that Nell said, “No.”

While she and Calvin had attended church whenever possible along with other sheep ranchers and their families, she had not been back since Calvin’s funeral. Nell sighed. “Joshua, go write that note, then lie down until lunch. We’ll sort this out later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Addie wandered outside, taking her coffee with her. Nell filled a tin cup and followed her.

“Addie, I appreciate everything you do for Joshua—and for me. Your friendship means more to us than I can say.”

“Here’s the thing, Nell. This business between the cattlemen and you and your kind has got to stop sometime. Either the two sides are going to find some way to work together, or more good people are going to die. On the other hand, if you and some of the other wives come to the social…”

“I haven’t even been back to church since last fall. Seeing me there, everyone will be whispering about Calvin and how he died and—”

“Exactly. The thing that needs to happen here, in my opinion, is to get folks talking instead of shooting.”

“I don’t want pity.”

“Why on earth not? Seeing you there is gonna make people squirm a little, and it’s gonna make them think, and I reckon that’s a big first step toward maybe finding ways to talk this thing out.”

“I just want to be left alone, Addie.”

“No, you want to be left to live in peace. There’s a difference.”

The two of them sipped their coffee in silence. Nell watched the chickens. Addie stared at the horizon. After a moment, she dumped the dregs of her coffee on the ground and handed Nell the cup. “Sorry for pushing you. Joshua needs to take things easy with the hot weather coming on. Keep him inside during the middle of the day, and no heavy lifting or exerting himself at any hour.”

“Is he worse?”

“No. He’s just not better.” She went inside and emerged seconds later with her black leather bag. “I hope to see you both next Friday, but it’s your choice. So if you decide to stay holed up here, I’ll see you the following week. But in the meantime, if there’s any more trouble, just send word.”

Nell followed her friend out to the wagon and watched as Addie settled herself and picked up the reins. “Thank you,” she said.

“We’re friends, Nell. Heaven knows, out here, that’s a blessing. You take care now.” She snapped the reins, and the horse started forward.

“Hey, Addie? About that cake…”

Addie’s laugh was like a burst of welcome rain on a tin roof. “His mama used to make a cake flavored with vanilla and a hint of cinnamon,” she called out as she rode away. “Bring it to the church social Friday.”