Showdown at Buffalo Jump by Gary D. Svee Page B

voice. “One, I’ve got money, a little over five thousand dollars. Never told anybody but you about that. Second thing is that you aren’t leaving tomorrow morning. You aren’t leaving until the priest comes back in three months, and only then if I say so.
    â€œYou ask anybody around here, ma’am. I’m one to soft break a horse, but I break ’em. Never had a horse I couldn’t handle.”
    â€œA horse!” Catherine hissed. “You are comparing me to a horse! Mr. Bass, I didn’t know the true meaning of son of a bitch until I met you. There is only one way to handle someone of your caliber and that is with something of this caliber.”
    The next moment Max was looking down the barrel of his .44-40 Colt. Damn! He had spent months working on every detail of his plan, but he hadn’t counted on her looking into his trunk, finding his pistol, and turning it on him. Who the hell would ever think a woman—a woman from Boston—would get the jump on him like that?
    The old pistol’s bore looked big as a silver dollar, and it was unwaveringly trained on the bridge of Max’s nose. Max was working very hard to appear calm. Was it loaded? He had put it away so long ago, he couldn’t remember, and held low the way it was in the shadow under the table, Max couldn’t look into the cylinder for the glint of lead. Damn!
    Max’s mind was racing, trying to find some solution to this mess, but it was coming up empty. “Ma’am, I didn’t tell you the whole story. If you will just hold on for a minute …” The hammer went back with an ugly click. Damn! That Colt had a hair trigger. Just bumping it against the table would touch it off. Max’s back straightened, and he braced himself for the bullet.
    â€œMa’am,” Max said, the strain poking through his voice. “One of the reasons that I … uh … lied to you is that I wanted a woman with spirit. I wanted a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it.…”
    â€œSon of a bitch!”
    Max jerked at the sound of Catherine’s voice as though it were the tread of the hangman on his gallows.
    â€œWhat did you think you were doing,” she sneered, “buying a horse? Do you think that you had the right to shop for a wife, looking for just the right pedigree to share your den?”
    â€œMa’am, it wasn’t like that. Now you aren’t going to use that pistol. I know you aren’t the kind of person to pull the trigger. But somebody could be hurt by accident, and I know you wouldn’t like that to happen. So maybe you better give it to me, and I’ll put it away for you.”
    Max reached for the pistol, and Catherine pulled the trigger.… CLICK!
    The click cut off sound and thought and movement, almost as though the pistol had fired, and when Max realized that he wasn’t dead, his breath escaped in one long sigh.
    â€œSee, it wasn’t even loaded,” he squeaked. “Uh, just so you don’t think I’m trying to pull anything funny, maybe I’d better sleep outside tonight. I’ll bed down with the chickens so the coyotes won’t bother them.”
    Max gathered his bedroll in one swoop of his arms and carried it outside. He stopped there, taking deep breaths of the cool night air. A shiver passed over him, and it had nothing to do with the chill moving across the land. He looked up at the stars that calmed him most nights, his problems and aspirations insignificant when measured against heaven’s depth and breadth and beauty. But he saw no peace there tonight, only emptiness.
    She actually had pulled the trigger. Catherine O’Dowd Bass pointed a pistol at her husband on their wedding night and pulled the trigger. What the hell had he gotten himself into? Max would spend the remainder of the night pondering that question.

6
    Max awoke with a noseful of chicken. He had bedded