"I jus' want that you should let me alone," said Nettie.
"You'll be let alone soon enough now. I got to go to Barstairs, and I got to go on to the States. We're billed up at the fairs over there, and I got to go along with my bulls. I'd take you with me if it wasn't for that young buck at Barstairs. I ain't plannin' on sharing you with no one, do you get me? You belong to Bull Langdon. I got you at the sale, same's I got the rest of your dad's old truck, and what the Bull gets his hands on he keeps. It's up to yourself how you git treated. I'm free handed with them that treats me right. My old woman ain't strong. She'll croak one of these days and 'twon't be long before they'll be another Mrs. Langdon at Bar Q. You treat the Bull right and you'll be the second Mrs. Langdon."
Nettie twisted her hands in her apron. Her heart ached dully and at the mention of her mistress's name a fierce lump rose persistently in her throat.
"Well, what you got to say to that?"
She did not answer and he pursued wrathfully:
"You're sulking now and you're sore on me, but you'll get over that, gell. I'll knock it out of your system damn soon if you don't, and you'll find out that it'll pay you to be on the right side of the Bull rather than the wrong."
"I ain't aiming to make you mad," said Nettie piteously, shrinking under the implied threat. He chuckled, relishing his power.
"Well, I'll be off. If it weren't for them bulls nothing could take me from you now, gell, but I ain't fool enough to neglect my bulls for a gell. I'm goin' along with the herd far as St. Louis, and I'll be back to you before the month is out."
His big lips closed over hers. The loathsome embrace seemed to strangle her. Then she was alone again.
She sat in the kitchen for more than an hour after the departure of the Bull, still in that attitude of stupefied apathy, then limped upstairs, into her room, closed the battered door, and sat down on the edge of her bed, holding her head in her hands. She had no feeling save that of intense weariness and dead despair. Presently, still dressed, she fell sideways upon the bed and slept the long, unbroken sleep of one physically and mentally exhausted.