Free Valley of the Gun (9781101607480) by Ralph W. Cotton Page A

blades.
    While they ate, Mattie looked at the Ranger from above her steaming cup of coffee.
    â€œWhen I told you I wanted to kill Dad Orwick, you didn’t have much to say about it,” she said.
    â€œThat’s right,” Sam said. He sipped his coffee, waiting.
    She shrugged and said, “I found that a little odd. You being a lawman, I thought you would have had something to say about it.”
    â€œYou mean try to talk you out of it?” Sam asked.
    â€œSome lawmen would have tried,” she said.
    â€œYep, some would,” Sam said. He gave her a curious second glance. “Is that what you want . . . someone to talk you out of killing him?”
    â€œNo,” she said firmly, “I’m just speculating.”
    The Ranger sipped his coffee.
    â€œWhatever happened between you and Dad Orwick happened a long time ago, the way you told it,” he said. “I figure you’ve had all the time you need to make up your mind whether or not to kill him.”
    â€œThat’s true. I have,” she said.
    Sam shrugged and said, “No point in me reopening the issue. If you’ve made it right in your mind, who am I to question it?”
    She cocked her head curiously.
    â€œSee?” she said. “That doesn’t sound like something a lawman would say.”
    â€œIf it was somebody besides a man like Orwick, I might try to talk you out of it—for
your
sake, not his,” he added. “But there’re lawmen, bankers, posses all out to kill him. They post bounties that anyone is free to claim. I can’t say much in his defense when so many have legally demanded his blood. Had you said you were after him for bounty, I wouldn’t have said anything to try to stop you. Because your reasons are personal, that makes them no less justified, in my book. Is what he’s done to others any worse than what he’s done to you?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “What he’s done to them is
nothing
compared to what he did to me. Not only to me, but to many other women.” Her expression turned dark. “We were none of us much more than children when he bought us, when he
married
us.”
    â€œBought you?” Sam asked, hoping she’d keep talking, get some of it out of her system.
    â€œBought, traded for . . . swapped back and forth like breeding stock,” she said. “That’s all any of us were to Dad Orwick and his disciples. All of it in the name of his self-concocted religion—his powerful ‘
mandates from God.
’”
    Sam listened as she acquainted him with her life as a child and as a young woman under the rule of a madman. He was determined he would listen for as long as it took.
    Yet, before she had spoken much further on her life with Dad Orwick, they both fell silent and swung around, guns up and ready to fire, as a strange horse peeped around the edge of the boulder and blew out a breath, giving them a curious look.
    â€œStay here,” Sam said to Mattie as he rose in a crouch, seeing no bit, bridle or reins on the horse’s muzzle. He stalked forward slowly until he saw the horse step into sight, bareback, and dusty from the trail.
    â€œWhat is it, Ranger?” Mattie whispered.
    â€œBeats me,” Sam said. He stepped forward and rubbed the horse’s muzzle. He looked toward the boulder and said, “Let’s climb up and take a look.”

Chapter 7
    The two climbed up to the top edge of the boulder and scooted forward on their bellies until they were able to get a good look out along the hillside to their right. Strewn out on a path, weaving toward them through rocks, brush and boulders, nine more bareback horses strolled along as if following the first horse, now standing over beside the Ranger’s dun and Mattie’s dapple gray.
    â€œWild horses? Mustangs?” Mattie whispered.
    â€œI don’t think so,” Sam whispered in reply. “They look too