During the past seventeen years, Henry had used the same defense no fewer than nine times against “talkers” who tried to pick fights with him in the bars where he was drinking. Inevitably, some young kid would want to fight the old drunk cowboy sitting at the end of the bar, and would begin his talking. The last time it happened was only six months earlier when Henry was getting ready to leave the bar he’d been in for several hours. He stood up and staggered for the door when a kid in his twenties stepped in front of him and began telling him what a washed up old man he was. He made some off-color remark that Henry could no longer recall and turned toward his friend to laugh. When he turned back, Henry’s jackhammer-like right hand caught him between the eyes and he was unconscious before he hit the floor. The kid’s friends parted like the Red Sea, and let the washed up old drunk cowboy go along his way.

“You will do well not to try to ride roughshod over me, pard,” Henry growled. “That is something I will not tolerate.” The two men locked stares for several seconds, and Chad, understanding a real threat when he heard one, chuckled to relieve the tension, then turned and walked into the bunkhouse.

For the next three days, Chad kept Henry busy doing little more than scooping manure. It was a gross waste of Henry’s abilities, and the longer he was around the place, the more that had become evident to everyone that worked there, especially the wranglers. Henry’s easy way around the stock, and general knowledge of the operation after only a few days on the ranch made that very clear. Normally, having been relegated to such a menial task for such a long time would have been all it took for Henry to up and leave, particularly when it was a job he didn’t particularly like or want. But he didn’t leave. In fact, oddly enough, he found himself feeling more and more at home on the ranch with each passing day.

There was something about the place and the people that seemed to be slowly bringing life back to his existence. For years he had been emotionally numb, doing little more than sleep-walking through his days, without anything or anybody able to bring up any feeling, good or bad, in him whatsoever. Even when he would have to punch one of the “talkers” in a bar, it was always more business-like than anger- or fear-based. Still, in the week since he’d arrived at the Lazy K, he had felt two strong emotions that had been absent in him for as long as he could recall. The first one was the unabated anger that came over him when Jim took his saddle without asking, and the second was the absolute disdain he felt for Chad, the mealy-mouthed head wrangler who was obviously pretending to be more than he really was. There was just something about Chad that rubbed Henry real wrong, and oddly enough, it was that disdain that was keeping Henry from leaving.