Page 92 of The Outlaw and the Heir

It was the best plan I could come up with, and I wish I'd had more time to consult with Samuel before we had to separate. I didn't know how much he knew about fighting fires, especially this far west, but the man was educatedandclever. If there were anyone who could string the random knowledge in his head into something that had a damn good chance of working, it would be him.

For now, though, I had to trust that my plan would at least slow the spread enough to figure something else out. And if I were lucky, maybe it would give us a chance to fight the fire so it would burn itself out. There wasn't nearly enough to stop it right now. It had gained too much strength. I had no idea how the damn thing even started, but I doubted there was a single person on the ranch who didn't know what was happening and was on the move.

Of course, my plan required more than just slinging wet things all over the place. Walter and I had to get the men collectively in control so they would think about what they were using instead of just flinging water wastefully. Our wells were good this year because of the snowfall, but that wasn't going to matter much if we wasted it. It was important to stop the fire, but it wouldn't matter if we threw any future water supply away hastily. That could kill the ranch just as well as the fire.

"You three," I said, pointing toward three random men who looked lost as they looked around for a bucket or...hell, their boots for all I knew. "Go wrangle the horses out of the barn and get them as far from here as ya can without settin' ‘em free, got it? Good, go."

With something more solid than vague orders, the three quickly moved. The entire place must have been woken up to the presence of the fire, and it must have been large from the beginning for there to be so much chaos. All the long-timers had been trained to put out fires because of how dangerous they could be in the desert. That so many people were confused meant pretty much everyone had been caught off guard and had reacted in sleepy panic.

A question persisted in my head as I found more men to round up and give jobs to so they weren't simply wandering around in aimless panic. Just how had the fire started? There had been no storm for lightning to strike something dry and no wind to knock a lantern into dry brush. Everyone knew better than to leave lanterns near the animals because we couldn't afford to have them kick one and start a fire.

Even then, when we'd had fires of that sort in the past, they hadneverbeen this bad. The worst had been when I was a boy, and a storm struck a pile of brush we’d gathered to prevent exactly what happened. The brush hadn't been nearly wet enough when it was struck, and the heat had quickly sizzled away the moisture. It had spread through a decent chunk of the southern part of the ranch and caused a few deaths and quite a few injuries. I had no idea how much monetary damage had been done.

After that, there had been zero tolerance for stupid mistakes that could cause something like that again. More than one ranch hand had been sent off with their belongings for being foolish enough to set a lantern down in the barn or the paddock withthe goats. Those who smoked were warned repeatedly that they needed to make sure every bit was extinguished when they were done, and if, on cooler nights, there was a fire, then they were to grind every ember into the dirt and coat it with water. Plenty had received a similar punishment for not following through on the orders.

So, just how had a fire of this size happened so quickly? We were supposed to have a few people every night who patrolled on the lookout for trouble. Just how had something like this gone unnoticed before it had reached the inferno it had become?

"Ambrose!" a gruff voice barked, and I turned from the sheets I was soaking in a trough.

"What?" I asked, trying to remember who it was other than Samuel's nickname for him, ‘Grumpy.’

"Samuel sent me," he said, sounding a little annoyed that he’d been reduced to a messenger. "He said to tell you that we need to use mules."

"Mules?"

"Mules."

"For what?"

"For moving stuff around. Said they're not as scared as horses, too stubborn by all accounts. They'll get water around, and he also said to use anything you can to get soaked, but, uh... it looks like you got that bit covered."

The mules, of course. The damned creatures were the only ones on the ranch that vexed me and just about everyone else. It wasn't like the beasts weren't known for being spiteful, cantankerous, and stubborn creatures, but the ones on our ranch were something else entirely. Still, one thing they didn't fight us on was being put to work. The damned things despised when they were woken up, even when they were sleeping in a dangerous spot, being fed at the wrong time, hated being touched unless it was certain people at certain times, but strapthose bastards into a harness and put them to work and they were the happiest creatures in existence.

"Good idea," I said, standing up and looking around to find some men to put to the task. "How's it goin' on y’all’s end?"

"Everything's on fire," he said in a mostly bland but still sarcastic voice. "Not sure if you noticed that or not."

"Don't be cute," I told him.

He sighed. “It's Hell, what do you expect?"

"Samuel gettin' people to listen to him?"

"Yeah. Asshole is rounding people up and quickly figuring out who can move fastest and who can lift the most. He just had a few of 'em gather up the mules, and the rest he has pushing the animals to the other side of the ranch."

Amusing that Samuel, a man with little experience on a ranch, had come to the same plan I had, with a few alterations and new ideas thrown in. If we got through this without the ranch burning down and our hides intact, I was going to need to find a better way to use him on the ranch. Well, that was if he wanted to be used. It was long past time for me to stop treating him as just a prisoner when it was obvious to everyone that he was a lot more than that.

"We'll do that," I told him. "Anythin' else?"

"Uh," he began, face screwing up in confusion. "He also said that after we manage to fix this mess, we're gonna need a helluva lot more gun oil."

"What?"

"Wait, that y'all are gonna need it. That's it. Didn't know you let 'em shoot."

"I..." ThankGodthe fire was orange because it did wonders for obscuring the heat that rose to my cheeks at the message.

Why, oh why, in the midst of all ofthis,did Samuel decide it was a good time to use someone else to deliver his...loaded message? How was he even thinking aboutthatwhile we werefighting for our lives? And what was worse, why was it affecting me?

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