Dusty Britches

Dusty Britches
by Marcia Lynn McClure

www.marcialynnmcclure.com

All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, the contents of this
e-
book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed in any part or by any means without the prior written consent of the author and/or publisher.

Published by Distractions Ink

P.O. Box
15971
 

Rio
Rancho
,
NM
 
87174

©Copyright 1999, 2003, 2008, 2012 by M. L. Meyers

A.K.A. Marcia Lynn McClure

Cover Photography by ©
Robertplotz and
©
Olena Chyrko
/
Dreamstime.com
Cover Design by Sheri L. Brady/MightyPhoenixDesignStudio.com

Third Printed Edition: 2012

All character names and personalities in this work of fiction

are entirely fictional, created solely in the imagination of the author.

Any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.

McClure, Marcia Lynn, 1965—

Dusty Britches
: a novel/by Marcia Lynn McClure.

ISBN: 
978-0-9852807-6-5 

Library of Congress Control Number:
 
2012938853 

Printed in the
United States of America

To Rhonda…

For never having too many red sweaters
,

For basking in the autumn-ness of being brunette
,

And for being the perfect answer to my prayers…

With a flying package of paper plates!

Dusty Hunter looked up into nature
’
s painted splendor of
a
heavenly blue sky. Raising one hand to shade her eyes from the intensity of the late spring sun, she paused for a moment in her efforts to rid the vegetable garden of weeds. As she marveled at the soothing beauty of immense velvet clouds wandering slowly across the canvas of sapphire, their tranquil gra
ce gave her cause to smile. S
omehow the task at hand didn
’
t seem quite so tedious anymore.

Inhaling deeply of the dry western air
,
she wondered at how long the day seemed to be. She had been weeding the garden since the first rays of morning
sunlight
broke over the mountains. In addition to all the
troublesome
weeds
meeting
her
at dawn
, some rotten little varmint had nibbled the leaves of her cabbage plants during the night. She wasn
’
t sure she could save them now.

“
Rott
en ol’ skunks,” Dusty mumbled. R
esting her hands on her hips
, she glared
down to the seemingly endless task
before her
. Tossing a handful of ragweed into a nearby wooden bucket, she removed her well-worn leather gloves and carefully inspected the blisters in her palms. They weren
’
t as sore today as they had been yesterday, but sore e
nough all the same. Pulling the
gloves back on and sighing heavily, she dropped to her knees and returned to the monotony of maintaining the garden.

Dusty
’
s father, Hank Hunter, had been
away
on a cattle drive.
For weeks he’d been gone; it
was a long way from
Texas
to the Hunter ranch. Hank had lost nearly all of his calves during the early spring calving season. Mother Nature had been brutal
. Ev
en though several calves had been saved by bringing them right into the house at night, most were lost
when
their mothers suffocated from snow and
ice obstructing their nostrils. Others
died simpl
y from cold and exposure. N
ew cattle had to be purchased in
Texas
, and Hank had gone to drive them home
.

Dusty found hers
elf glancing up from her labors—toward the south. She knew
at any moment her father, whatever cowboys he
’
d hired to drive the cattle home
,
and at least
a
hundred head of cattle would be arriving in a cloud of
Colorado
dust.

“
They
’
ll never get that fence done in time,
”
Dusty
mumbled
.
Her daddy’s top ranch hand,
Feller Lance,
and the rest of the ranch hands were working from sunup to sundown on the fence and windbreaks needed
for
the
new cattle
.

Dusty wiped the perspiration from her brow. She began yanking
weeds out of the gro
und once more. S
he wished she hadn
’
t
sent Becca to gather the eggs. Having Becca’s company and help
would have been nice
. Yet
she immediately cast aside the useful
piece
of the idea
, for
Becca
would simply sit and ramble on endlessly—
on and on and on. Dusty had no patience for, and definitely no interest in, hearing about the shallow affairs of Becca
’
s young heart.

Dusty
Hunter
had no heart. Long ago it had been stomped on and ground into the dust
under the boot heel of a man. Dusty
had no interest in repeating such an experience. Therefore, she couldn
’
t see wh
y any woman would trust any man
or find anything attractive or redeeming about one. Her
younger sister’s
naive, lighthearted ways only served to irritate
Dusty
most of the time.
Therefore, a
fter thinki
ng about it again, Dusty was, as usual,
content in her lone misery.

Becca would
’
ve complained anyway.
T
he temperatur
e must be in the high eighties, and
Becca would only tell
Dusty
they
shouldn
’
t be out working in the heat. She would claim
“
heatstroke
”
and
end up back in the house, sitting
in the rocker with a nice glass of water
for company
.

Not Dusty. Hard work was good for the body and soul. And the mind! It kept one occupied and unable to linger on…on
the
frivolous things most young women
spent far too much time thinking about
. Besides, Dusty knew her limits. She
’
d only fainted from the heat once before
,
and tha
t was last year. Becca was just—
just…Dusty sighed and smiled at the though
t of her sister. Becca was simply
a very normal, ver
y sweet, very pretty young girl—t
he little blue-eyed bl
onde of the family. The jewel—w
ith
the
per
sonality befitting a jewel too!
No wonder all the
ranch
hands liked her. She was kind to them, witty
,
and didn
’
t mind someone finding humor in her misfortunes.

Dusty reflected on the day only a week before when Becca had
gone out to slop the hogs. There she’
d been
,
treading awkwar
dly through the muck in the pen. Never
mind that she could
’
ve gone around the outside of the pen and slung the slop into the trough that way. No! Becca had put on
a pair of
her daddy
’
s
old
boots, hitched up her skirts a
nd petticoats, and tucked their hems firmly in her waistband. She treaded out then—a bucket in each hand—
to feed the hogs. Naturally, anyone with any sense could see what was going to happen. Dusty had been watching from the back porch. She saw the
ranch
hands pause in their usual chores to watch wha
t promised to be no less than a
hysterical exhibition by Becca Hunter.

Sure enough, Becca had no sooner entered the pen than the hungry hogs began snorting around
her feet.

“Now, all you hogs
…you leave me be!
”
Becca ordered in her strongest voice. Becca
’
s strongest
voice more resembled that of an indentured servant
trying to timidly whisper an order to her mistress.

But the hogs, in their impatience to eat, began bumping against he
r legs, and before she could act—
before anyone could act
—
Becca lost her footing. The two buckets she was carrying
leapt
into the air, emptying their contents the length of Becc
a—
from the newest hair of her head to the tip of her
tiniest
toe. She found herself
promptly
, and not very gently, sitting in the mud and muck of the hog pen.

The way every
ranch
hand
anywhere near
flung himself into the pen to assist
Becca
caused Dusty to think for a moment that perhaps her sister
’
s dramati
c “
accident
”
had
actually
been intentional. The thought was only fleeting,
for Dusty knew Becca hated nothing more than getting dirty. And slop and hog manure surely were in the
“
dirty
”
group. Still, as Dusty
giggled
at her sister
’
s predicament, she noted Becca managed to laugh at herself as several of the men helped her escape her snorting captors.