Excerpt
Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring . . .
It took a minute for Joel to remember where he was. The
sun was up but other than that he didn’t even know what time it
was. Getting up from the chair where he had been sleeping to
answer the phone, he was immediately reminded of the previous
day’s events. His cry of pain was heard by no one.
Half crawling and half walking, Joel eventually made it to the
phone.
“Hello?” He hadn’t gotten many phone calls from anyone
other than people looking to collect their bills since he arrived on
the Circle H so Joel didn’t know why he was so eager to answer it.
Just conditioned, he thought. Scary stuff that conditioning.
“Hooper, it’s Buck Smith calling. Wanted to see what you had
decided. Are you ready to go ahead and accept my offer?”
Being caught off guard, it took Joel a moment to reply. He
really didn’t know what he was going to do. The money leftover
from the sale of the old mare could work both ways. On one
hand, it could make it easier to escape the Circle H for the second
time in his life, only this time he would be leaving with a tidy
bundle of cash. On the other hand, the windfall from the sale of
the mare could be the extra help he needed to get the Circle H
and himself back into shape.
Before he could reply, Buck Smith continued, “Heard you got
lucky over at the auction the other day….
Libros Libertad 