Thankfully, Greta was a smart girl and hadn’t needed him to instruct her on what to do. She’d scurried away, unwound the lead ropes of their horses already laden with the berry sacks, and was climbing on top of her steed by the time he’d fired his third shot.

Only then did he take a closer look at the scallywags, zeroing in on the tallest and scraggliest one with the eye patch who was picking himself and his hat up off the ground. “Roper Brawley, you oughta know better than to touch a woman without her permission.”

Brawley’s curses faded, and he squinted up the hill in Wyatt’s direction. “McQuaid? That you?”

“Yep. And that there is my wife.”

Brawley’s homestead was north of Wyatt’s and was near the foothills too. At first, Brawley had tried to file a claim for the same one hundred sixty acres as Wyatt. It was a prime piece of grassland because of the river winding through it, which would not only make watering a herd easy, but provide irrigation for crops.

Wyatt had gotten to the land office, finished the paperwork, and paid his fee, all in the same afternoon. Brawley had ridden in the next day, complaining that the homestead was his and that Wyatt had stolen it from him.

The surveyor hadn’t budged on his decision, and Brawley had been forced to place a claim on the acreage north of Wyatt. It wasn’t a bad parcel, even had a little creek flowing into Wyatt’s bigger river. But they both knew Wyatt had gotten the far better place, and Brawley hadn’t been able to forget it.

Brawley held up his hat and cursed again. “Look what you done to my hat, McQuaid.” He poked a finger through the hole that went through one side of his crown and out the other. “You’re gonna have to buy me a new hat now.”

“I ain’t buying you a new hat.” Wyatt aimed his revolver on the second fella, who was reaching for his gun. “I’m thinking it’ll serve as a reminder that next time you so much as blow a breath on my wife, I’ll be blowing off your head instead of your hat.”

From his periphery, he glimpsed Greta circling wide with the horses and heading up the hill toward him. Most women would have frozen up and acted all helpless, but she was doing everything just right.

“Didn’t hear nothin’ about you getting married.” Brawley situated his hat on his head.