For Bruce everything was a blur. His father’s funeral, the ride home from the cemetery where they had laid Grady to rest beside Bruce’s mother, to the will being read. Reba was worried about him. He hadn’t showed any emotion, not since he was told of Grady’s death. He had wept that day, while in Reba’s arms. She knew the pain of losing your parents. The hurt never really goes away but time makes it alittle easier. You never forget them or the love you had for them. Time will help Bruce, Reba knew this.

         Grady had been dead for 4 months before Bruce would move into the house that had been willed to him. Everything, the land, cattle, horses, the house, was left to Bruce with the stipulation that the ranch be handed down to any children that Bruce fathered. Reba was beginning to wonder if that would ever happen. She and Bruce have been married almost six years now. They just keep saying if it’s God’s will for them to have children, then it will happen. It took sometime to get settled in the new house. Reba was exhaused by the end of everyday. Bruce had the ranch to take care of, he didn’t have time to help Reba. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the way she went right to sleep when she got into bed and she wasn’t eating much of anything lately. He finally told her to make a doctor appointment, but she just brushed it off saying she would be fine once the house was in order.

     The cattle count was coming up short again. There should have been 5,500 headbut they counted only 5,400. A hundred head couldn’t be accounted for. Bruce with five ranch hands had looked for the missing cattle for a week, they found nothing. It was time to catch whatever or whoever was getting his cattle. The cattle was the life of this ranch. Without cattle the ranch would die. So it was time to take action or watch everything his family had worked for go under.