“When the Twins were born,” I reminded Dunkie, “you put the ranch here at Casa Grande in my name. Does that mean we lose our home?”
I was able to speak quietly, but I could hear the thud of my own heart-beats.
“That’s for you to decide,” he none too happily acknowledged. Then he added, with sudden decisiveness: “No, they can’t touch anything of yours! Not a thing!”
“But won’t that hold good with the Harris Ranch, as well?” I further inquired. “That was actually bought in my name. It was deeded to me from the first, and always has been in my name.”
“Of course it’s yours,” he said with a hesitation that was slightly puzzling to me.
“Then how about the cattle and things?”
“What cattle?”
“The cattle we’ve kept on it to escape the wild land tax? Aren’t those all legally mine?”
It sounded rapacious, I suppose, under the circumstances. It must have seemed like looting on a battlefield. But I wasn’t thinking entirely about myself, even though poor old Dinky-Dunk evidently assumed so, from the look of sudden questioning that came into his stricken eyes.
“Yes, they’re yours,” he almost listlessly responded.