Chapter One
Casey got to the round up just in time, he figured. Sure, he shoulda waited for the auction, but he wanted a look at the stock first, and the holding pen adjoined his land, didn't it? So he had to make sure none of his strays had ended up in the corral.
He wandered over to old Eddie Frame, leaning on the top rail and propping one booted foot on the bottom. "Hey, old timer. No bleeding heart camera crew this time?"
"Nope. And a good thing, too, the rate they've been cuttin' them colts." Eddie spat a stream of tobacco juice, nodding over to where Doc Hayden had a castration station set up. Out here in the middle of nowhere they still did it the hard way, even if they did have a modern crimper.
'Bout the time he looked over, the wranglers cut the stallion out of the herd, roping him good and solid with no less than three ropes and pulling him out of the pen toward the station.
"They're doing the stallion, too?"
Eddie nodded, staring at the horse, who was damned big for a mustang. "Yessir. He's not purebred. Got some domestic in him, so they don't figure on needing him for breeding."
Damn. And damned if about that time that stallion didn't go crazy, just a' buckin' and a' kickin'.
The red roan was about sixteen hands high with a wild, white mane and it knew what was coming all right. Casey could see the whites of the stallion's eyes as he shivered and kicked and tried to get away from the men who were going to turn him into a gelding.
It was the bucking that got him. That damned fool stallion sent Jimmy O'Donnel winding, eating a mud pie good and proper: put on a damned fine show. Casey tipped his hat at Eddie and headed over, wanting to stop them before they damaged his new breeding stud.
"Hey now, boys! Ho!" Waving his hat, he headed the guys off from the smaller pen where the doc was set up. "Don't be cutting this one up now."
Jimmy hopped up, spitting dirt. "Case, he's dangerous as all hell."
He nodded, watching the horse stomp and dance. "Yessir. And he'll make a fine bucking horse stud. That's all I lack to get the business up and running. I'll adopt him, but only intact."
The horse actually seemed to calm some at that, feet still kicking up the dirt. He could have sworn the beast looked him in the eye before snorting and kicking some more.
"Lemme get the crew boss then."
Jimmy trotted off and Casey headed over to grab the trailing rope that Jimmy'd dropped, walking along it until he was about four feet from the stud's shoulder. Then he started crooning. "Hey, big boy. Not gonna hurt you at all. No, sir. Gonna take good care of you, I surely am."
The stallion settled a little, just quivering.
He didn't get too much closer, just moving in on the rope another foot or so, moving around closer to the stallion's head, enough to control him, but not to get bit.
"So you want this bag of glue, Sutton?"
Casey grinned at Mark Garcia, who was just as brown as a nut and all toothy smiles. "Yessir. I'll wait until the adoption auction if need be, but I want him, and I don't want him cut."
Mark looked the stallion over and shook his head. "Your funeral, buddy. Come on and we can do the paperwork right now. Boys, just hitch that pony to a rail. Casey, you can either come on with your trailer or ride on over this afternoon and lead him home."
He grinned hugely. Well. Looked like that was that.
He'd got him a new stud.
He could only hope the damned horse would live up to his high hopes.
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