CHAPTER 11

The hill’s western slope is coated with a thin layer of icy snow. The big man grimaces, then drops awkwardly to his knees. The mangy bearskin poncho has twisted as he knelt. He yanks it flat over his chest and drops belly-first onto the freezing slope. Then he pushes himself up onto his elbows, fumbles for his spyglass, peers over the top of the hill.

Not much chance the men in the cabin yard will notice a flash of light from this direction. They’re hell bent on whatever it is they’re doing, hauling timber and armloads of leather binding from the half-mud barn to the shanty.

The sun’s coming up over the Cimarrons behind the cabin, it’s making his eyes water. He pulls the spyglass away and swipes the lens with a dirty sleeve. Even without it he can see that Locke and the greaser are moving between the barn and the cabin again. They’re lugging some kind of gate-like wooden contraption between ’em. The wood’s got that pale mealy look aspen gets when it been pealed.

What’re they gonna do with a gate inside the house? A few minutes later, they return to the barn and haul the same kind of thing across the yard. The big man grunts. A bed, maybe. Or somethin’ to help with the birthing.

He swings the glass, studying the little farmstead. The little bitch must be about ready to whelp. She’s made no effort to hide her belly. Standing in the middle of the corn patch, rubbin’ at her stomach like a damn cow. She sure ain’t no lady, for all her airs and her father’s pamperin’.

He grunts. Can’t cook, but she does seem to know how to breed. Bound to happen. Two men, and one of them with a dead sweetheart.

He scratches his scraggly beard. “Wonder which of ’em the brat belongs to?” Then he chuckles. “Bet she don’t even know.”

His groin twitches and he rolls over and sits up. He reaches under the poncho and yanks his buckskin trousers into a more comfortable position. Baby’ll keep her closer to home. And her men can’t always be watchin’ for passing strangers. He grins, then pushes himself to his feet and moves down the slope, careful to stay out of sight of the cabin.

Give it a little more time, after the brat comes, and she’ll be easy enough to take.

Just like that piece in Taos. He chuckles, remembering the pleasure of that thrust, the satisfaction of giving that devil-tongued little whore what she deserved.

You’ve just read the eleventh chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.