The Reluctant Cattleman


 
 The Reluctant Cattleman
 
 
 
 Colter Sons, Volume 1
 
 
 
 Karen Baney
 
 
 Published by Desert Life Media, 2023.
 
 
 
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
 
 
 
 THE RELUCTANT CATTLEMAN
 
 
 First edition. February 20, 2023.
 Copyright © 2023 Karen Baney.
 
 
 
 ISBN: 979-8985820263
 
 
 
 Written by Karen Baney.
 
 
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 Table of Contents
 Title Page
 Copyright Page
 The Reluctant Cattleman (Colter Sons, #1)
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Chapter 34
 Chapter 35
 Chapter 36
 Chapter 37
 Epilogue
 Author’s Note
 Dear Reader
 Excerpt: The Roaming Adventurer
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Also By Karen Baney
 About the Author
 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 
 –Colossians 3:17
 Chapter 1
 
 MY NAME IS SAM COLTER. Samuel when Mama is about to take me to task, which is hardly ever.
 I am the second to oldest of the Colter sons and I am the misfit. None of my brothers are like me. James, the oldest, wants to conquer the world with a new enterprise he has yet to discover. He’s two weeks shy of being an entire year older than me. James should be the one to take over the ranch, but he’s far too ambitious to be tied down. It’s just a matter of time before Papa realizes that me, the steady, predictable, and dependable one, will be the son that runs the place one day.
 Boone is the third son, the wildest of us all. His barometer for risk is broken. Old Grandpa Ben, he wasn’t really our grandpa, but that’s what we called him, used to say that Boone was just too stupid to know he was in trouble, or he was some darned fool.
 Then there’s Deacon, the fourth son. By the time he came along, Mama wondered if she had done something wrong to get saddled with four boys under the age of six. Deacon was the most resourceful of us all. He could build a fort with sticks, hay, and rope.
 Then there was the baby, Preston. He was quiet, like me, but only on the outside. Inside of that kid, there was some storm a raging. Someday it was gonna come out and shoot if I didn’t want to be there when it did.
 That brings me to my story. Like I said, I’m the misfit. The quiet one. Cautious. Dependable. Anxious as all get out on the inside. Smart. Leastwise, that’s what Mama always says. I looked more like a cross between my papa, with my dark hair and my mama with my bright blue eyes. 
 If you ask anyone in the family who Mama’s favorite was, they would all say it was me. None of us knew the reason she favored me until the year I turned twenty-one.
 That was the year where one letter from a journalist named E. M. Thatcher changed my life forever.
 Chapter 2
 Colter Ranch, Arizona Territory
 May 4, 1887
 Sam
 I RETURNED FROM PRESCOTT after a trip to pick up the mail and the ledgers from the butcher shop that my cousin, Eddie Colter, ran with his wife, Annabel. Eddie was roughly eight years older than me, so he was twenty-eight then.
 Eddie worked with Daniel Raulings, who we all called Snake, for several years at the ranch to learn to butcher. He also learned how to smoke bacon, brisket, and more. Eddie was ready to take over the butcher shop and meat company when he turned twenty. Snake still butchered and smoked some of the meat out at the ranch, but Eddie ran that business with Annabel’s help.
 I managed the finances of the meat company, the ranch, and Uncle Adam’s horse breeding and training business.
 When I arrived back home, I set the mail and the meat company’s bills and books on the table. Two of my brothers were still at school. James was off somewhere in northern Arizona with his railroad job, and Boone was apprenticing with a surveyor.
 “How are Eddie and Annabel?” Mama asked as she poured me a glass of lemonade.
 “Fine. Looks like they’ll have a new addition to their family soon.”
 “Oh, I should make them a blanket.”
 I thanked her for the lemonade and sat down at the table, sorting through the mail. A letter with a postmark from Chino Valley caught my eye. It was from E. M. Thatcher.
 I opened it right as the door flew open.
 “Clear the table!” Warren Cahill shouted.
 I jumped to my feet and grabbed the stack of mail and books. Mama swiped up my lemonade just before Warren and two of the cowboys brought Papa in and set him on the table.
 “What happened?” Mama asked as Papa groaned in pain.
 A trail of blood dotted the floor. My eyes searched for the source of the blood. It was Papa’s leg. I dropped my things on the desk when I felt woozy. It was where I should have put them, anyway. Sometimes I preferred working at the table because there was more room to spread out. Plus, Mama often sat and chatted with me for a bit.
 “He got gouged in the leg by that ornery bull,” Warren said.
 “I’m sorry, Hannah,” Papa said between groans.
 Mama walked over to the pantry and pulled out her medical bag. She always