John Hard - Hard Cold & Harder Men: The Hard Ranch Series, #3

By George M. Goodwin

Gold being found in his mountains was bad enough but in his own ranch valley it was something John Hard wanted no part of. Then he's forced to kill a miner while trying to run him out of the valley and things go from bad to worse very quickly. He and the other men have just came through the toughest winter since his coming to the valley. Now it looks like they'll have to deal with the outlaw brothers of the man he killed and their gang. Nothing ever seems to come easy at the Hard Way.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pale Horse Publications
• Release date: May 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227866318

George M. Goodwin

George was born in 1960 in Jefferson County Alabama. The fifth of nine children, eight boys and one girl. The family was raised poor, but not poorly raised. At home, George was taught morals, ethics and respect. Reading, writing and arithmetic at school. Love, honor and obedience to God at church. He grew up on John Wayne movies, country music and the writings of Louis L' Amour, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.  

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

That in itself was more than most any two men could handle. It left them very little time to do anything else. With the Ames brothers being back with them and hiring Steve on full time, there was now nine of them at the Hard Way Ranch.

By popular vote, they had ask Estabon if he would take the job as ranch cook full time now that they were back. The arm broken when the Parkers had beaten him still caused him considerable pain. John believed he had done too much too soon afterward by going ahead on the drive and the bone had not healed right. Estabon was happy with his new job, but told John and Walter that he would still help with other things if he was needed.

If you’ll just keep that good food of yours on the table for us, I think we can handle it, John told him.

The remaining eight of them paired up to tackle the other jobs, like clearing and cleaning along the creek banks. In the months they had been gone on the drive, weeds had grown up quite a bit making it hard for the cattle to reach it in places.

Drawing straws, this job went to Amos and Jim. They needed to lay in a good supply of fire wood for both the cabin and the bunkhouse, that job went to Tom and Joe. Cutting the tall dead grass for winter hay fell to John and Steve, but Walter traded with John to allow him to go hunting with Bret because he was a better shot.

The smoke house is nearly empty, he said.

CHAPTER 2

W e need the two best shots we have to do the hunting and I ain’t one of ‘em.

Bret and John started their hunting that same evening. They rode to the top of the trail and went in opposite directions. When the others finished their task for the day they started fishing and drying the fish on makeshift racks they’d built near the fire. What game Bret and John brought back would be cleaned, cut and hung in the smoke house to cure. As cook, this was overseen by Estabon.

Walter and Amos had put in a small garden while the others were gone and had sun dried and canned quite a bit from it. Amos, it seems, had helped his ma with her canning when he was a boy and knew how it was done.

Those vegetables would be mighty good through the winter they all agreed. Between all of this, they still found time to fell some tall trees and put up a gateway over the trail leading into each of the valleys. When the ranch valley was once again in good shape they moved their work over to Joshua Valley. The lake was cleared around, hay was cut and a shed was built to cover the hay from rain or snow. The number one line shack, also, got some work done to it including putting in a small fireplace. It would be used for both heating and cooking. Up until now whoever was staying at Joshua Valley had just cooked over an open fire outdoors or depended on somebody to bring them cooked food from the ranch.

CHAPTER 3

After the rest of the boys had eaten supper one evening and went to the bunkhouse Walter and John sat and talked like they used to. He told John that the miners they had ran off, claimed they didn’t know anybody was in the valley or owned it.

Well maybe they didn’t, John told him, but now they’ll have no excuse.

Winter grew closer each day, but John felt like they were in pretty good shape and ready for it. They’d not seen any miners in the last week. Winter was hard on anybody in the mountains, but with no decent shelter and a good stockpile of food it would be nearly impossible to survive.

Then it started to snow. By Christmas morning of 1863, there was a foot of snow on the ground and it was so cold it was almost a constant fight to keep the ice broken from the edge of the creek. That was in the ranch valley. John knew that Amos and Bret would have it even worse in Joshua Valley. The very movement of the creek helped it not to freeze solid, but with Joshua Valley being roughly a thousand feet higher, he figured the lake there would probably freeze solid. Of course, both the horses and cattle would eat snow for their water if it became necessary. On January 4, the snow started falling early in the morning and seemed to grow heavier with each passing hour.

All day the men of the Hard Way worked their way up and down the valley trying to push every cow they saw closer toward the cabin.

CHAPTER 4

In Joshua Valley, John