Free Soiled Dove by Brenda Adcock

straight ahead into the faces of the men ahead of her, firing rapidly. Instead of stopping to join her men she galloped toward the second line of attackers. Two of the men ahead of her fell, wounded, as she flew through their line.
    Out of the line of fire, she stopped, breathing heavily and reloading her Henry repeating rifle. It was old, but had served her father well, until that tragic day nearly twenty years before. The sight of her father and mother lying on the ground, dying, filled Clare with rage again and she spurred her horse forward. As a single unmarried woman, the law did not support her claim to her father’s land, but she would never give it up without a fight. By the time she approached the group attacking her men from the west again, she could see they were beginning to retreat. She kept up a withering fire in their direction, barely allowing them to mount their horses unscathed and ride away.
    Clare watched the dust rise beneath the horses’
    hooves and stared after them while her own horse pranced and circled around beneath her.
    “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” a Spanish-accented voiced yelled.
    Clare turned her head to see her friend and ranch foreman Ino Valdez hurrying toward her. He ran up to her and began checking her horse.
    “He’s fine,” Clare said, still looking in the direction the men had fled. “Garner’s men, right?”
    “Who else? We caught them driving a few head over the boundary and they disagreed where the line was,” Ino shrugged. He pointed toward the property line where a fire smoldered.
    Clare pulled her horse’s reins to the side and rode him across the cut barrier between her property and Garner’s. She stopped next to the remnants of the small fire, leaned off her saddle, and wrapped her gloved hand around a branding iron. It sizzled slightly when she spit on the metal. “Still hot,” she muttered.
    She returned to her side of the fence line, the Garner brand in her hand. “It’s about time Thad Garner and I had another chat,” Clare said. “Then we need to go into town. I ordered enough barbed wire to fence this whole damn place if necessary.”
    Ino looked worried. “That’s not going to make you a popular woman around here. Never been any barbed wire out here. Once an animal gets tangled up it’s nasty.”
    “It’s Garner’s fault,” Clare snapped. “Ever since he moved in here he hasn’t been satisfied with his own damn spread and thinks he can steal mine!
    It…will….never…happen,” she said with emphasis on each word. She turned to the other hands. “I left a few head halfway to the upper meadow. Get them up there. Ino come with me. You might need to stop me from killing someone.”
    CLARE REINED HER horse to a halt in front of the main entrance to Thaddeus Garner’s house and swung off the saddle. She took the steps onto the front porch two at a time and pounded on the heavy wooden door. A petite, fragile-looking woman in her forties opened the front door. Virginia Garner reminded Clare of an out-of-place southern belle.
    “Thaddeus home?” Clare blurted, gripping her rifle tightly in one hand.
    “Why, no. He and a few of the men went into town. I don’t expect him home for a day or two. Is there something I can help you with?”
    “No, ma’am. I’ll find him. We need to talk,” Clare said. She nodded at the woman and turned to rejoin Ino.She bounced up into the saddle and squirmed a little to sit comfortably. “Son of a bitch is in Trinidad.
    Probably setting up an alibi,” she mumbled.
    “If he was here, he’d of already shot you off that horse,” Ino said.
    “First thing tomorrow morning we’ll take the last of the stragglers to the upper meadow. I want the Burress boys to spend the rest of the day riding the boundary between our place and Garner’s while we go into town to pick up the wire. After the herd is settled in I want everyone to make that fence their numero uno job.”
    “Garner’s just gonna tear it