Matt threw the left again, an underhand blow to the pit of Voss’s soft belly. Voss doubled over and Matt clubbed him behind the ear, driving Voss to his knees with a trickle of blood running out of his ear. The big man clutched his middle and began to vomit into the dirt. It took no special abilities to see that he was done with this fight.
“Stop! Stop this.”
Matt spun around. His right hand was still virtually useless as feeling had not yet begun to return to his arm, but neither James Trudell nor the handsomely dressed man who was running toward them would likely know that.
Matt splayed his fingers wide and pumped his right hand into fists over and over, trying to encourage feeling. Trudell was little threat with his fancy pistol rig at the bottom of the well, but the newcomer was armed.
“Stop.”
“Watch yourself, Mr. Dwight. This is that Matt Bodine fella. He’s faster than a snake with that gun, and he just whipped Ben and only used his left hand to do it.”
Dwight skittered to a halt and gave his two employees a dirty look, then shifted his attention to Matt. “I want you to work for me, Bodine. I can use a man like you.”
“Oh, I kind of doubt that, Mr. Dwight. I kind of think you and I come down on the opposite sides of the fence here.”
“We don’t have to. . . .”
“Oh, but we do,” Matt corrected him. He nodded toward Delia Borden, who with her boys in tow was coming to join them now that Dwight was on the scene. “You see, Mrs. Borden and I are going into business together.”
The idea caught the lady as much by surprise as it did Dwight. Both parties looked confused.
“You want something that the lady here doesn’t want to sell,” Matt said. He smiled. “As it happens, I already owe her a little money. So I think what I am gonna do here is get her to sell me whatever it is that she doesn’t want you to have. And I will hire her back to, um, run it for me.”
“You don’t even know what it is but you want to buy it?” Dwight asked incredulously.
“Exactly,” Matt told him. “In fact, Mrs. Borden and I can walk right over there to the post office and get a bill of sale notarized and mailed off to the clerk of whatever county this is. That will make me an official partner in the deal and you won’t be able to get hold of it, or put her off of it, without my signature on the deal.” Matt’s smile became even wider. “And mister, if you thought you were having trouble getting her to knuckle under, just wait until you try and force me into something.”
“I just want . . .”
Matt stopped him with an upraised palm. “Mister, I don’t even want to know about it. But Mrs. Borden and I can discuss any propositions you might make. Maybe she would want to offer a deal where you could sort of rent whatever it is you’re wanting. If it wouldn’t interfere with her. And if it brought it a tiny flow of income. Which she would also administer on my behalf.” The smile turned into a grin. He turned to Delia Borden. “How are we doing with this, ma’am?”
“I . . . he wants to own the rights to a spring on my property. I can’t let it go. I depend on it to water my garden and help keep my chickens. I need that water.”
“But do you need all of it?”
“Well . . . no. Perhaps not.”
Matt turned to Dwight. “Make the lady . . . I mean, make me . . . an offer if you want the use of some of that water.”
“I suppose, um, I suppose I could run a cross-fence that would allow my stock to drink from one side of the pond there.”
“What do you think that would be worth to you?”
“As it is, my cattle have to walk mighty far to water. It keeps them from gaining like they should. With water closer to hand, I would think”—he paused to consider for a moment—“I could pay ten dollars a month for the privilege.”
“Twenty,” Matt countered.
“The added weight gains wouldn’t be worth that,” Dwight said. “Could we compromise? Would she . . . that is to say, would you . . . accept fifteen dollars each month?”
“Year round?”
Dwight nodded. “All right. Winter and summer alike.”
Matt turned to Mrs. Borden and lifted an eyebrow. The lady began to cry. “You don’t know, Mr. Bodine. You don’t know what you have done for us here.”
Matt looked back to Dwight. “I’d say you got yourself a deal. You can pay the first month’s rent now. Mrs. Borden will be collecting it for me, you understand. And mister . . . it wouldn’t set well with me if I had to come back here and sort things out a second time. Like if I ever hear that you aren’t living up to your end of the bargain. Do we understand each other?”
“I, uh, I believe that we do, Bodine.”
“Good. Now if you will excuse me, sir, the lady and I have to go conduct some business so’s I can get on about my own affairs.”
Matt stepped over beside the wide-eyed and obviously adoring little boys and guided them toward their mother’s buckboard.
Nice family, he was thinking. He wondered just how much he ought to pay them for the ride in to town. And for the property he seemed to be buying this afternoon.
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