Free Deadly Is the Night by Dusty Richards

you one time said I should pick a man to learn my place. I have such a man now who could do that job. He is young but he will learn how. My bones are getting tired. I get up sore and maybe in my mind I forget some things. I feel it is time to start turning my job over to that man, but before I do, I want him to learn by riding for a time with you.”
    â€œWho is he?”
    â€œMiguel Costa who is married to the woman Lisa Foster that you brought back here. She already has settled enough to lead the other women. He and she make a good team together.”
    â€œWill it make the others unhappy? He is younger than most of them.”
    â€œSome but they are not foreman material. You have to tell them how to do it every time. That is not a foreman. They need to be helpers.”
    â€œProceed with your project. If you think he would be good, then I agree.”
    â€œ Gracias . I will prepare him for it and tell him he will be riding with you.”
    Good. With that matter settled, he went back to look at his books. They needed to be brought up to date. More money had shown up from the Navajo Cattle Sales script redemption. The government was shortening the time they must wait for their money. That was all right as well.
    He ate supper with Liz and then worked a few hours more. She filed the papers he recorded until she finally coaxed him to quit and go to bed.
    â€œEverything is fine so far.”
    â€œBiggest thing happening is the Diablo cattle sales that are covering their costs down there at last.”
    â€œSo now we will have a new ranch to drain us.”
    â€œNot drain but grow into another paying operation.”
    â€œI understand that, too. You do well at this business and all the traveling, but I like you home with me, too.”
    â€œI try.”
    â€œI know.”
    Now all he needed was to hear from Spencer and his decision, so he could move on it and get to cut out a real ranch down there.
    They went off to sleep in each other’s arms.

C HAPTER 5
    Spencer was on the porch waiting for Chet when he got up the next morning. Bundled up in a long tailcoat and more clothes on under that against the frosty morning, Spencer rose to his feet when Chet told him to get inside. Monica who’d overslept came hustling into the kitchen and looked hard at Spencer. “What’re you here for?”
    â€œTo tell the boss man I’m taking the job.”
    â€œWhat will Rebecca do?”
    He shook his head wearily. “I guess go back to Texas. She has not decided what she wants to do.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œI told her I had a job to build a ranch headquarters and we’d have to live down there until it was done, that we would be roughing it for a while but I’d get the bunkhouse done fast, for us to have a home. She said that wasn’t the way she wanted to live. Made me sad but I gave her the money for her fare back home and told her thanks.”
    â€œBut you are still going to build the ranch headquarters?” Chet asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou want anything out of that house in town hauled out here and stored?”
    â€œNo. The landlord can have it.”
    â€œWe need to notify him to find a new renter.”
    â€œI can do that,” Spencer said. “Some things don’t work is all there is to it.”
    â€œI have an account started at Nye’s bank for the new ranch. Write me your plans as you go.”
    â€œCan I talk to you alone?”
    â€œSure.”
    They went in the living room.
    â€œI want to know something. There is a widow woman named Lucinda Marcos down at the Diablo. Her husband got killed in a horse accident a year ago and she has two small kids. Would it be all right for me to go ask her to marry me and live on the new ranch while I build it?”
    â€œFine with me. Do what you have to do and explain it in your letter when you get started.”
    â€œI’ll buy a wagon and team in Tucson, get her and the