They called him Ridgewolf.
Jeb didn’t care about stories. He cared about the numbers that haunted him: the poker debt, the whiskey tab, the land lien that would swallow the ranch by the end of the month.
And he cared, perhaps most of all, about getting rid of the daughter no one in Dry Creek would marry.
“She’s strong,” Jeb said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he stepped toward Gideon. “Don’t let the face fool you. She can cook, clean, mend fences. Been milkin’ cows since she was twelve.”
Gideon didn’t respond.
Jeb’s smile twitched. “I ain’t askin’ much. You take her up the mountain, she works for you. We call my account with you settled. That forty I owe you for last season’s lumber? Gone. Clean.”
Still nothing.
Jeb lowered his voice, trying to make desperation sound like negotiation. “Look, Rusk, I got no other play. Sheriff won’t help me. Bank’s got my throat. I can’t feed her. No man in town will touch her.”
He glanced back at Eliza, as if she were a broken tool he was tired of tripping over.
“You’d be doing us both a kindness.”
