He went out, slamming the door. Hazel made haste to run around the table and drop the bar in place. Then she went to the window and watched the man cross to the cottonwoods where he had tied his horse.
She uttered a sharp "Oh!" of disgust as he jerked at the horse's mouth and made the animal rear. He brought it down by kicking it in the stomach.
"What a beast!" muttered she, with a shudder. "What a cruel beast that man is."
Not till Rafe rode away, quirting his mount into a wild gallop, did she return to her churning. She found the butter had come, and she removed the elmwood dasher and poured off the buttermilk. She put the butter into a long bowl full of water and began to wash and knead it, but not with her accustomed briskness. She was thinking of what Rafe Tuckleton had said. He would come again, the brute. She did not want him to. He had made her afraid.
She shivered a little as she poured off the water in the bowl and refilled it from the water bucket behind the door. She had no desire to marry anybody yet. She supposed she would some time, of course. All girls did eventually. But he would have to be some nice boy she loved. She guessed yes.
At that very moment a certain nice boy was riding up the draw toward the Walton ranch. He met Rafe Tuckleton riding away. Rafe gave him a nasty look. The nice boy smiled sweetly and pulled his horse across the trail. "Why all the hurry-scurry this bright and summer day?"
It was not a bright and summer day. It was late fall, the clouds were lowering darkly and there was more than a hint of winter in the air.
Rafe Tuckleton pulled up with a jerk and a slide. "What do you want?"
"I don't know yet," was the reply, delivered with still smiling lips but accompanied by a look as chilling as the day. "You been at Walton's?"
"Yep, I have. Not that it's any of your business."