Snake River Slaughter. William W. Johnstone

any means of measurement, Kitty Wellington was a beautiful woman. Tall and statuesque, she had blond hair and blue eyes, naturally long lashes, high cheekbones and full lips. She was a widow, still young, because when she married, she had been thirty years younger than her husband.

      After her husband died, Kitty inherited the ranch, a parcel of land that was bordered on the north by the Snake River and Castle Creek, on the east by the Bruneau, and on the west and south by a network of interconnecting creeks; the Blue, the Bottle, and the Mill. It was this ready availability of water as well as a plentiful supply of good grass that made Coventry on the Snake so valuable.

      It was not by mere coincidence that the name of the ranch, Coventry on the Snake, had an Old World flavor. Kitty’s husband, Sir Thomas Denbigh Wellington, the Seventh Earl of Buckinghamshire, had named it after his ancestral home, Coventry on the Wye, in Buckinghamshire, England.

      But Kitty was not just a beautiful woman who happened to inherit a lot of land. She had turned Coventry on the Snake into one of the finest horse ranches in the country, and she had done it all since the death of her husband.

      This morning Kitty was sitting in her study working on the books when someone knocked lightly on the door frame. The door to her study being open, when Kitty turned in her chair, she saw Tyrone Canfield standing there, holding his hat in his hand.

      “Yes, Tyrone,” Kitty said, greeting her foreman with a smile. “Did you want to see me?”

      Tyrone rolled his hat in his hand and cleared his throat, obviously not wanting to say what he had to say. The expression of concern on Tyrone’s face caused Kitty to give up her smile.

      “What is it, Tyrone?” she asked. “What is wrong?”

      “I hate to tell you this, Mrs. Wellington, but we’re missin’ seventy-five head of Arabians,” he said.

      “What? Are you sure?”

      “Yes, ma’am, I’m positive. We’ve been keepin’ a real good count of the Arabians, especially since they are the ones you are sellin’ to the army. Last count we had eight hundred and eighty-five. This mornin’ we only had eight hundred and ten. And we counted them twice, just to make sure.”

      “This is a big ranch, with a lot of range land,” Kitty said. “Maybe they just got out of the field where we were holding them.”

      “No, ma’am, we’ve looked all over the range,” Tyrone said. “The horses are gone.”

      “Stolen?”

      “Yes, ma’am. There’s no doubt in my mind, but that they were stolen.”

      “Seventy five horses?” Kitty sighed, and leaned back in her chair. “Oh, Tyrone, that seven thousand five hundred dollars,” she said.

      “Yes, ma’am, I know it is. Mrs. Wellington, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to put out night riders to keep watch from now on.”

      “No, I don’t mind at all. I think that’s a very good idea,” Kitty replied.

      Chapter Five

      A colt whinnied anxiously and a horse responded with a whicker. An owl hooted, while the night insects filled the air with their songs. There was no moon, but the night was alive with stars—from the brightest orbs in the heavens, all the way down to those stars which weren’t visible as individual bodies at all, but whose distant presence added to the ambient glow in the velvet vault of sky.

      Three young men rode around the milling shapes and shadows that made up the herd. It had been a week now since the seventy-five horses were stolen, and since that time, Tyrone had put out riders every night to keep watch over the horses. Though it would have been more efficient for them to separate, the boring aspects of the task caused the three nighthawks to ride together so they could visit. Prew was one of the riders, and he and another rider were teasing the youngest one.

      “What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me you’ve never been with a woman?” Prew asked the youngest one.

      The youngest cowboy, whose name was Hank, cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I ain’t never thought I was old enough. And comin’ from the orphanage like I done, I ain’t never really had the opportunity to be with no woman.”

      “Hell, you don’t need no opportunity. All you got to do is go into town and visit Flat Nose Sue,” Prew said.

      “Yeah,” the other added. He laughed. “And bein’ as you ain’t never been with a woman before, that makes you lucky.”

      “How does it make me lucky?”

      “Tell him, Prew. How does it make him lucky?”

      Prew laughed. “You the one that brought it up, Timmy. You tell him.”

      “All right,” Timmy said. “Here’s why it makes you lucky. If you go into Flat Nose Sue’s place and tell her you’re a virgin, why, she’s such a big hearted woman that on your first time, she will let you do it for free.”

      “I ain’t no virgin,” Hank insisted.

      “What do you mean you ain’t no virgin?” Timmy asked. “You just said you ain’t never been with a woman before.”

      “I ain’t never been with no woman before, but that don’t make me a virgin.”

      “Sure it does. If you ain’t never been with a woman before, then you are a virgin.”

      “Virgins is women, ain’t they?” Hank asked.

      Prew and Timmy laughed. “It ain’t only women that’s virgins. A woman that ain’t never had a man is a virgin, yeah, but a man that ain’t never had a woman, why, he is a virgin too.”

      “Are you sure about that? I ain’t never heard of no man virgin.”

      “And you know all about such things do you?” Timmy asked. “I mean, bein’ as you are so experienced and all.”

      “No, I don’t really. I just thought—that is—I didn’t know that men could be virgins too. All right, if that is the case then I guess I am a virgin.”

      “So, like I said, all you got to do is, you go into Flat Nose Sue’s place and tell her you’re a virgin.”

      “Then what?” Hank asked.

      “Then, you don’t have to do nothing. Flat Nose Sue will take care of that little situation for you,” Timmy said. “Right, Prew?”

      “Right.”

      “For sure?” Hank asked.

      “For sure,” Timmy answered. He laughed. “Flat Nose Sue, she’s the oldest one there and she runs the place. So she’ll break you in her ownself.”

      “Break me in her ownself? Wait, what do you mean? Are you saying I’d have to uh—do it—with Flat Nose Sue?” Hank asked in a voice that reflected the unattractiveness of the offer. “Didn’t you say she’s the oldest one there?”

      “That she is. How old you reckon she is, Prew? Fifty. Sixty, maybe?”

      “Yeah, maybe sixty,” Prew answered. “I don’t think she’s any older than than sixty, maybe sixty-five. And if she is any older than that, then it ain’t by all that much.”

      “But I’m only sixteen. I don’t want to do it with someone who is sixty, or maybe sixty-five years old. Couldn’t I do it with one of the younger ones?” Hank pleaded.

      “You don’t want a young one for your first time,” Prew said. “You want someone who knows what to do so they can break you in proper. Besides, why are you askin’ that? You wouldn’t turn her down, would you? That would hurt her feelings. You sure don’t want to hurt Flat Nose Sue’s feelin’s because if you do that, why, you’ll piss off all the women that’s in the whore house, and they won’t none of ’em have