Free Bloody Sunday by William W. Johnstone

sadly. “If you’re as intelligent as you seem to be, you’ll get on your horse in the morning and head for El Paso as fast as you can get there. Forget about everything that’s going on here.”
    â€œI’m not sure I can do that,” Luke said.
    Glory’s face grew solemn as she said, “I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to you.”
    â€œYou won’t be. I make my own decisions.” He paused. “And right about now I’m not feeling any too kindly toward Mr. Harry Elston.”
    That was true, he reflected as he walked out to the bunkhouse. He didn’t like range hogs who hired vicious killers. He didn’t like men who tried to take advantage of women. And he sure as hell didn’t like being shot at and nearly trampled. He might have come here on business, but now he had a personal score to settle, too.
    It didn’t look like Glory planned to go anywhere anytime soon. He didn’t have to get in a hurry about taking her in. There was no reason he couldn’t afford to hang around for a while and see what happened with this brewing range war.
    With that decision made, he went into the bunkhouse, stretched out on an empty bunk that Ernie Frazier pointed out to him, and fell into his usual light but restful sleep.

    As was always the case on a ranch, the men were awakened well before dawn the next morning. A tall, skinny old-timer with a black patch over his left eye stalked into the bunkhouse when the eastern sky was barely touched with gray and held a lantern high over his head in his right hand. In his left hand he carried a cowbell that he started clanging in a raucous racket.
    â€œGet your butts outta them bunks ’fore I come around and kick ’em out!” the old man threatened in a leather-lunged bellow. “On your feet or I’ll flang a hydrophobia skunk in here and let him roust you good-for-nothin’ cow nurses!”
    One of the men groaned and pulled his thin pillow over his head.
    â€œShut up that caterwaulin’, you old pelican!” he yelled from under the pillow.
    â€œOld pelican, is it!” The man with the eye patch strode over to the bunk where the complaining cowboy huddled and started lambasting him with the bell, which made its strident clamor even louder. “Get outta there, or I’ll beat you within an inch o’ your worthless life!”
    Gabe Pendleton came out of the tiny private room that was his by right of being the foreman and said, “Take it easy, Kaintuck. If you kill him that’s one less waddy I’ve got to do the work today.”
    Kaintuck snorted disgustedly, but he stopped whaling away at the cowboy. He said, “I’m sick and tired of these varmints carryin’ on like it’s early. Ain’t I already been up for a couple o’ hours boilin’ coffee and cookin’ bacon and biscuits?”
    â€œIf you can call that stuff coffee,” came a voice from a corner of the bunkhouse. “It’s thick as axle grease and tastes about as good.”
    Another man said, “If you been up cookin’ that bacon for a couple hours, Kaintuck, shouldn’t it be, you know, actually cooked and not half raw?”
    â€œNot to mention those biscuits’d do for proppin’ up a wagon, they’re so danged hard!” somebody else jibed.
    Kaintuck glared around and snapped, “Keep it up, you smart-mouthed golliwogs! See if you like your own cookin’! I quit!”
    He stalked out of the bunkhouse, muttering curses as he disappeared into the predawn darkness.
    Luke had watched the byplay with a smile on his face as he sat up in his bunk. The camaraderie among these men was obvious. He had seen the same thing with his brother Smoke’s crew on the Sugarloaf Ranch in Colorado. Pearlie, Cal, and the rest of Smoke’s men were cut from the same cloth as these Texas cowboys. They were, in a very real sense, family.
    That