Mrs. Little Joe (Romancing the Ponderosa Book 1)

Chapter 1

Reining in Cochise, I look out at the field in front of me. Patting Cochise on the neck I'm about to turn and head back to the house, when I see a man stumbling along in the field not quite 100 yards away from me. Drawing my gun, I turn Cochise with my knees and trot out to meet the man. But before I'm halfway to him, he collapses hard into a heap. Snapping my reins on Cochise's flank, I gallop the rest of the way, hurriedly holstering my gun and leaping to the ground before Cochise has even stopped.

Turning the man over, I gasp. The man is apparently young, his face smooth and soft looking. But his youth isn't what makes me gasp. The man's face is battered, black and blue, with blood oozing from gaping wounds. Wounds that weren't made from a hand, but something else, like the butt of a pistol or a small horse whip. Feeling wet warmth on my hand, where it lays on the man's arm, I look down to see it covered in blood. Pulling back the man's sleeve, I can't help but cringe. His arm is torn to shreds, and from the looks of it by some sort of whip.

I bend and pick the man up. Since the whole situation doesn't seem right and has me a little spooked, I talk to the unconscious man while I remount Cochise, "Well, you ain't that big of a man, that's for sure. You seem mighty thin, you hardly weigh a thing!"

Riding back to the house as fast as I can without dropping the little man in my arms, I can't help but wonder who this man is and why he's on the Ponderosa. It also seems a little funny that during this whole time, with the man's fall, getting picked up, and now bouncing along on Cochise, that his hat hasn't moved a bit. It's like his hat's glued to his head or something.

"Cooch, I know it's silly of me to be thinking of this man's hat and all, but it just doesn't want to fall off. If I went through all that, my hat would of already been off and gone!" I comment to my horse, trying to settle my nerves.

Coming up to the front of the house, I yell, "Pa, come quick!"

The front door opens and Pa comes out, Hoss and Adam following. Seeing the man, all three rush over and take him from me. Dismounting, I answer Pa's questions while Hoss carries the man into the house.

"Joseph, where'd you find that boy?"

"In the west pasture, Pa. I don't know who he is, he collapsed before I got to him."

"He looks badly beaten!"

"Not just his face either, but his arms. I'm not sure about his back or chest, I didn't stay around long enough to look that far, but tried to get heim here as fast as possible."

Walking into the house with Pa, I see Hoss and Adam bending over the man, gently wiping the blood from his face. Hanging up my hat, I take off my jacket. Throwing it down on the table, I roll up the sleeves of my creamy tan shirt, ready to help.

"Hoss, take off the poor boy's hat! You can't bathe his face with it in the way!"

"Yes, Pa!" Adam answers for him.

"Dadburn it, Pa! This dang hat won't come off!"

"What do you mean, won't come off? It's not like it's glued on or something, it's a hat!"

"Pa, that hat hasn't come off the whole time the boy's been with me." I comment.

"Well, ladies use hat pins to keep their hats in place, maybe this boy has some sort of pin holding his in place." Adam says as he runs his fingers along the inner edge of the hat. When he runs his fingers along the right side of the hat, he freezes for a second, and then slowly pulls a long black hat pin out of the hat's brim. "Just what I thought, a hat pin."

"But why would a boy..." Hoss's words stammer to a stop as Adam pulls the hat off of the boy's head, and a long dark brown braid slowly untwists itself from where it's been coiled on top of the boy's head.