Free Sweet Return by Anna Jeffrey Page A

eyes. “Hon, you don’t have to buy me supper. I ain’t that broke yet.”
    Joanna smiled. “I know. But look at all the times I’ve eaten Sunday dinner out here. If I tried to pay you back by cooking you a meal, you might not survive it. But I can buy you a steak.”
    “I guess we could do that. I still got on my good clothes and all.”
    They walked across the gravel driveway to the chicken yard. At the gate, they stepped over the two electric fence wires that surrounded the chicken yard and headed toward the first nest. Clova had let Joanna stretch the electrified wires around the area where the chickens lived. The wire didn’t carry a strong current, but it was strong enough to keep the chickens in and most small, four-legged predators out. Touching it would give a human an unforgettable zap. Unfortunately, the damn bobcats had figured how to avoid the charged fence, and electric wires near the ground did nothing to prevent an eagle or a hawk from having dinner on Joanna.
    “I’ve been thinkin’, Joanna,” Clova said. She began to help pick eggs from the nests. “You know this part here where you’ve got your chickens? It’s part of a section o’ land we’ve always called the peanut farm.”
    Joanna did know that. Peanuts had never grown here in her lifetime, but sometime in the past, they must have. It was a square section of land, with a mile of highway frontage and very few mesquite trees. The small pasture where her hens presently lived used a tiny corner of it. “Uh-huh.”
    “I’ve been thinkin’ ’bout going in to town to see Clyde and havin’ him draw up a deed to that section. I was thinkin’ ’bout just givin’ it to you, Joanna.”
    Joanna’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t stop a nervous twitter. “You can’t do that, Clova. You need the grazing. And your boys would die. It’s their inheritance. And I wouldn’t take it, anyway. It’s one of the best spots on your place. Why, it’s got a windmill on it.”
    Clova stopped, put her hand on Joanna’s forearm and looked up, her dark eyes soft with sincerity. “I’m serious. This last sick spell I had started me to thinkin’. I’m gettin’ old. I could catch somethin’ and pass away.”
    Her mind reeling, Joanna picked three eggs from a nest and frowned at seeing that one was cracked. “Clova, listen to me. In the first place, you’re not old. And in the second, I won’t take land from you for free. It’s more than enough you’re letting me use it without paying. Why would you want to give it to me when you have two sons to leave it to?”
    “Them boys ain’t never done for me what you have. Dalton don’t even come around ’cept ever’ two or three years. And I can’t depend on Lane for nothin’. He’s got his daddy’s weakness. Whatever he inherits, he’s gonna drink up. I don’t know what’ll happen to the place after I’m gone, but my grandpa and my daddy would stand at the Pearly Gates and shut me out if they saw I didn’t do my best to take care of the land and keep this place all together. My great-granddaddy had a hard time gettin’ to own it, bein’ Indian and all. And he had a even harder time a-keepin’ it. It meant ever’thin’ to him.”
    She looked across her shoulder at Joanna and smiled, the light of affection in her eyes. “But I don’t guess the elders would get upset at me givin’ a little piece of it to somebody that’s been good to me.”
    A fullness rising in her chest, Joanna focused her gaze on her egg basket. She might break into tears if she kept looking Clova in the face. “I haven’t been especially good to you, Clova. I haven’t done any more for you than I would have for anyone I call a friend.”
    Indeed, it wasn’t in Joanna to expect a gift in return for favors done for a friend, but a selfish part of her dared to acknowledge that six hundred forty acres would be enough land for expanding her egg business and even keeping a cow or two. “Tell you what. Maybe