Deadly Is the Night by Dusty Richards

asked.
    â€œYes. Bandits killed her family in Mexico. I found her.” He turned to her. “You were how old?”
    â€œThirteen. He really did save me or I would have died.”
    â€œI told her she could not live with me. She said marry me. I had no one. But I said I can’t I am old enough to be your father.”
    â€œI said he was not my father and had no family to stop him.”
    Frisco agreed with her story and continued, “So we went to a priest and told him to marry us. He said no she is too young.”
    She came back. “So I said, no problem. I would go on living with him as his wife anyway. So he married us.”
    â€œThat was a lie, but he married us. And we have been man and wife for fourteen years now.”
    â€œNo children?” Chet asked.
    â€œNot one ever lived.”
    â€œMy wife lost one before I left Preskitt. She was married before, but her husband was killed and they never had any children.”
    â€œThat is a shame but nothing you could do,” she said, motioning for them to sit at the table. “The frijoles are hot.”
    â€œAnd we’re hungry,” Jesus said, then bowed his head and crossed himself.
    â€œYou have a wife?”
    â€œA new one, Anita, yes, and she lives in Preskitt.”
    â€œI bet you men have pictures of them. After supper show me them.”
    â€œI don’t have one of mine but she is a nice lady,” Spencer said.
    Chet showed her his wife’s photo and she oh’d and ah’d. “My, such a beautiful woman. Where did you meet her?”
    â€œTubac. She came by our camp looking to buy a horse, and after that we were married.”
    â€œAnd your wife?” she asked Jesus.
    â€œAnita was her maid.”
    â€œWonderful stories. And yours?” she asked Spencer.
    â€œWe met on a stagecoach going to Preskitt.”
    â€œOh, my, not one she-lived-next-door stories among you three.” She laughed and took a seat.
    â€œSee, she has no one to talk to out here but me,” Frisco said. “And she knows all my stories.”
    â€œHey, she’s a great cook and a sweet lady, you better appreciate her while you have her,” Spencer said. “Good women are hard to find.”
    They all laughed.
    He offered them hammocks set up in the yard and they accepted. She promised she’d have breakfast ready at daylight.
    They woke early, saddled the horses, washed up, and ate her breakfast of oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar. Chet had a plan that three of Frisco’s vaqueros joined them.
    Chet told Frisco he wanted each of his men to ride with a ranch hand and see as much as they could. He and Frisco would go to the springs Rosa had talked about. She cheered at that announcement. The hands laughed.
    For a while, there was nothing but some hills. Chet and Frisco rode side by side until, all of a sudden, they rode up a canyon lined with huge gnarled cottonwoods. There were lots of places for a big house and a spring-fed lake in the middle. Most would’ve called it a cow tank, but it was natural and maybe covered an acre or more. The water spilled from the spring into a real long man-made rock and mortar trough that could be accessed from either side for animals to drink. The water went out the end of the structure and disappeared in the ground.
    Yes, this cove would make a great headquarters. It would need a road cut into it and some arranging, but it would be so much better than that dust bowl where they built the original, where Frisco’s jackal stood.
    â€œDid Nye ever see this?”
    Frisco shook his head. “He was not interested in spending a nickel more on this place.”
    â€œHow much to build a road into here from the current one?”
    â€œFive hundred dollars.”
    â€œDo it. Rosa will have her wish.”
    He shook his head. “She will be hard to live with until it is built.”
    Chet laughed and clapped him on the back, returning to their