Read Desert Angel for Free Online Page A

remainder of the can of Murdock’s Liquid Food into a bottle and capping it with the rubber nipple, he cursed at the necessity of dirtying one of the clean bottles.
    Before he left the kitchen, he remembered to remove the boiling diapers from the fire. The baby was squealing in rage by the time Jim entered the bedroom. His face was flushed and he had managed to wedge his head into the corner of the baby bed.
    “Hold on a minute, fella,” Jim mumbled, as he set the bottle down and reached for the infant. “If you aren’t the hungriest boy ever born, I’d sure hate to meet the winner.”
    He rolled the baby over and changed his dirty towel for a dry one. The baby squirmed and cried pitifully, tugging at his father’s heart.
    “It’s coming, boy.” In spite of the fatigue dragging at him, Jim smiled at the tiny infant. “If you’d hold still ‘til I get this on you, then you’d get your snack sooner.”
    As always, the crying ceased abruptly when Jim put the nipple into the child’s mouth. Leaning against the windowsill with the baby cradled in his arm, he looked out at the darkness. A crescent moon gave little light, but the display of stars was magnificent. Millions of tiny specks of light glittered in the night sky.
    It was at this time of night that he felt the guilt for Melanie crowd into his thoughts. Trying to take care of the ranch and his son at the same time, he had a better idea of what her life had been like.
    She had never herded cattle or taken care of an infant, but she had cooked, cleaned, and washed. Sometimes she had been alone for several days while he’d been on the range, seeing no one. She’d had no close friends to confide in, or other women to share her fears with.
    For a woman who had been raised in a city with maids to do her bidding and someone always within the sound of her voice, Jim realized that the ranch must have been hell on earth for her.
    Guilt ate at him relentlessly; it had taken her death for him to see her desperation. He wondered if he had paid more attention to her, or listened seriously to her complaints, if she might be alive now.
    With a sad shake of his head for all the things he should have done differently, Jim placed the baby against his shoulder and gently rubbed his back.
    He had to finish the feeding, wring out the wet towels, hang them over the porch railing, and wash some of the trail dirt from his body, before he could seek out his own bed. Five o’clock came early on any day, but lately it seemed to be coming hours too early for him.
     
     
    As Jim approached the line shack, he checked the Winchester rifle in the saddle scabbard and unclipped the Colt .45 on his thigh. He knew of more than one man who had met his death trying to convince nesters that it was time to move on.
    Breed had found the family in the line shack several months earlier in the dead of winter, but when he told Jim of the number of children, Jim hadn’t had the heart to chase them off. First one thing and then another had delayed his trip out here, but spring was well underway, and it was time for the family to move on. He’d use force if necessary, but he hoped it wouldn’t be.
    When he arrived at the shack, it was obvious that the family had moved in with the intent to stay. A garden spot had been scraped out of the dry soil and someone had constructed a chaparral brush corral. As he rode closer he counted at least nine people, adults and several children, wandering around the cabin that had been built as overnight shelter for one or two cowhands riding the lower range. He couldn’t imagine all of these people crammed into the tiny structure.
    Jim stopped beside the cabin, but didn’t dismount. He waited for someone to approach him and watched as a man turned in his direction, hitching up his pants as he crossed the sand.
    ” ‘Mornin’, what cain I do ya for?” the man asked, his eyes shaded by a straw hat.
    “I’m Jim Travis, owner of the Falling Creek Ranch.” Jim’s