Blaze of Glory (Long, Tall Texans #55)

Chapter 1

One

John Everett didn’t usually speed on the ranch. His dad, Cole Everett, who owned the Big Spur ranch in Texas, emphasized careful

driving. He didn’t want his prize cattle upset by loud noises. But John was out to save a life. His eyes slid sideways quickly

to the king-size pillowcase he’d hurriedly peeled off his bed. Mercedes was going to give him hell when he got home with it.

He didn’t care.

The love of his life, Stasia, had reconciled with her ex-husband, John’s older brother, and he was more miserable than he’d

ever been in his life. All the long five years that they’d been divorced, John had hoped and hoped that Stasia would look

at him and see somebody besides a cuddly big brother-in-law. It had never happened. Now Tanner was back in her life and John’s

hopes had evaporated. He didn’t much care what happened to him now. He was just too miserable. He was also too reckless to

reconsider what he was about to do.

He was on the hands-free smartphone as he drove. “I don’t give a damn what Collins says,” he said angrily. “You tell him I said if he fires that gun, he’s history! And I’ll sue him to the back teeth even after he’s fired!”

There was an apologetic voice that could be heard pleading in the background. Evidently, his foreman had his own smartphone

on speaker.

“He’s not going to shoot, Mr. Everett,” he was quickly assured. “But what if one of us gets bitten?”

“You’ll make the world records book,” John snapped.

“But, sir . . .”

“It does no damned good to argue with me. Haven’t you learned that already?” John replied.

There was a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll get everybody to a safe distance. How far away are you?”

He didn’t answer, because he could already see the small circle of cowboys in the near distance. He hung up the phone and

stepped on the accelerator. Heads turned quickly. He parked, threw the truck out of gear, cut off the engine and got out,

tucking his phone into his jeans pocket as he pulled the pillowcase out of the truck. He was over six feet tall, with blond

hair and his father’s pale gray eyes. He was the kind of man other men didn’t like to pick fights with. John was easygoing,

usually. Right now, he was anything but easygoing.

“Okay. Where is he?” John asked.

They pointed toward a small patch of grass and moved back a little farther. John approached the thing on the ground easily.

There was a sound like sizzling bacon.

John just smiled. “It’s okay, old fellow. You’re safe now. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

There were muffled grumbles in the background. John shot a speaking look at them and they hushed up at once.

He turned back to the victim of all the excitement. The sizzling bacon sound stopped. The animal on the ground lifted its head and sniffed. It relaxed quickly and spread out, moving slowly toward the new scent.

John put the pillowcase on the ground and opened it. He had a hook and he used it. Even the tamest animal was unpredictable

when upset. The animal hesitated. “Come on. I’m taking you to the safest place I know,” he said softly. “It’s going to be

all right now. Trust me.”

There was another long pause. Slowly, John moved the hook toward the sack, and the animal allowed himself to be eased into

the pillowcase. John tied it up and lifted it. He looked at his men with pure disdain, pale blue eyes glittering like summer

lightning as they swept among the surrounding faces.

“He doesn’t have any fangs!” he grumbled. “So how’s he going to bite anybody? Poor old thing’s about blind as well. Did you

see the rattlers on it? If they really are a measure of age, he’s ancient!”

“Mr. Everett, it’s a rattlesnake,” one of the older hands protested.

“It’s not a rattlesnake. It’s Precious,” John said belligerently.

The cowboy blinked. “Sir?”

“Precious. That’s his name. I’ve already got Sim and Ed building him a room of his own that connects to mine. He’ll never

be threatened again.”

“Mercedes has a hatchet in the kitchen,” the foreman said audibly.

“Mercedes isn’t afraid of snakes,” John replied. “She never minded Charlie, my albino python, and he was ten feet long!”

“Pythons and rattlesnakes aren’t the same thing,” someone scoffed.

“They’re both snakes. And they have memory.”

“Memory?”

John stared at the man. “He smelled my breath and recognized me, didn’t he? Otherwise, why would he let me put him right into

the bag I was holding?”

Nobody had an answer to that.

John glared at Collins, the cowboy who’d tried to shoot Precious.

Collins narrowed his dark eyes and glared right back. “It’s a rattlesnake. They bite people. People die.”

“It’s a defanged rattlesnake, almost blind and very old,” John huffed. “Old people should be taken care of, not threatened!”

“One bit old Harry three years ago and he died,” Collins pointed out.

“Yes, a poisonous one,” John clarified. “Precious doesn’t have any fangs. Besides that, I can pick him up and he doesn’t even

rattle.” He looked around. “This spot is one we don’t even run cattle on, so what the hell were you guys doing here in the

first place?”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Collins looked hunted. John homed in on that expression.

“Collins?” John addressed him belligerently.

“Harry said there was a tame rattler over here. We didn’t believe him.” He felt the tirade coming and interrupted before it

could begin. “Well, the minute we got here, it started striking and rattling! We thought it was going to attack us!”

“With what?” John asked, exasperated. “He’s got no fangs! It’s like being attacked by a senior citizen with no teeth!” He

glared. “You think he might gum you to death?” he added, dripping sarcasm.

“Elderly people don’t crawl on the ground and rattle at people.” Collins’s arguments were getting weaker by the minute.

“Well, from now on, Precious will be in my room, in my house,” he pointed out. “And anybody who comes in there with a gun

will meet Mercedes with a hatchet.”

There was shuffling of feet. Collins cleared his throat. “Nobody’s coming in with a gun. Ever. We haven’t forgotten what happened to Henry Watts.” He looked at John hopefully. This was a story most of the men had heard, but nobody inside Big Spur’s ranch house would ever speak of it.

“That story,” Collins added. “Is it true?”

John just smiled. “Come in the house with a gun sometime and see,” he invited.

Collins actually backed up a step. “Uh, we’d better get back to work.”

“Good idea for those who still have jobs!”

They all moved quickly to the trucks and Collins’s horse.

“I should look into cowboy robots,” John huffed as he put Precious lovingly in the seat next to him.

He looked after his men and shook his head. “Afraid of a defanged rattler. Precious, I think maybe I need to ask my dad for

some help when I hire the next batch of ranch hands!”

They wandered off, muttering. He sighed. He’d probably gone overboard about the poor old reptile, but he’d had a rough few

days and his heart was aching. He hoped he could adjust somehow to seeing Stasia with Tanner all the time. But he doubted

it.

John drove around the long way to the ranch house. There had been some attempts on the cattle. Rustling still went on in the

twenty-first century, although it was done with tractor trailers instead of horses these days. They’d lost several pedigree

young bulls the year before. The culprits had been skillfully tracked by a Texas Ranger whose job it had been to deal with

cattle thefts. The thieves were apprehended. And they learned that there was no slap on the wrist for cattle rustling, despite

the modern age. They went to prison for a very long time.

He turned down one of the ranch roads past a derelict building.

There were a few mesquite trees here giving shelter to a handful of heifers that John had bred to his purebred bulls the past year.

The heifers, pregnant and due to deliver in the spring, were replacements for cows he’d had to cull.

These would produce their first calves in the early spring; and hopefully some of them would turn into champion bulls.

Big Spur’s Santa Gertrudis stock was known far and wide for its heritability traits.

Cole Everett had moved into the space age with scientific analysis of what traits to breed for and the best way to obtain them.

Straws of bull semen from his most coveted bulls were sold internationally, and they commanded a high price.

Big Spur also did artificial insemination when it was warranted, although Cole still liked the old-fashioned way of breeding, despite the hit-and-miss efficiency of it.

So he had one whole section of the ranch where he let his bulls and cows, and the young unbred heifers, do what came naturally.

John smiled. He loved his dad. The elder Everett was a third-generation cattle baron, although breeding purebred stock was

fairly new on the Big Spur. Cole had been influenced by his softhearted youngest son into thinking it was far and away more

profitable than running slaughter cattle. And it had been. John had helped diversify the ranch properties into investments

that were slow, but steady, and found a truly gifted investment counselor to assist them. Then they’d bought stock in successful

businesses and branched out into real estate. These days, Big Spur was a multimillion-dollar conglomerate, with Cole and John

at its head. Although the eldest son, Tanner, had rejoined the family with his wife, Stasia, and was now administrating his

own ranch, he often joined with the others in investment schemes. He had a bankroll in foreign banks from his days as a mercenary,

and he used it to not only improve his own property, but to invest in others as well. Like the Big Spur, Tanner’s ranch was

beginning to show real growth.