Peery’s face went purple.
“What I don’t like,” he bellowed at the boy, “is a yellow puppy that’ll throw down the men he rides with!”
Milk River’s dark face flushed, but his voice was still a purring drawl.
“Mister jigger, what you don’t like and what you do like are so damned similar to me that I can’t tell ’em apart. And you don’t want to forget that I ain’t one of your rannies. I got a contract to gentle some horses for you at ten dollars per gentle. Outside of that, you and yours are strangers to me.”
The excitement was over. The action that had been brewing had been talked to death by now.
“Your contract expired just about a minute and a half ago,” Peery was telling Milk River. “You can show up at the Circle H.A.R. just once more—that’s when you come for whatever stuff you left behind you. You’re through!”
He pushed his square-jawed face at me.
“And you needn’t think all the bets are in!”
He spun on his heel, and his hands trailed him out to their horses.