In The Beginning by Gail Daley (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

One of the captives peered at McCaffey. "Hey, ain't you Alec McCaffey?"

"Some people call me that."

"How come he called you his Son-in-Law?"

"Because he's marrying my daughter Bethany come Sunday," St. Vyr announced with satisfaction.

One of the men looked at McCaffey. "I'd sure hate to be in your shoes when Emory Johnson hears about that. He's done got that little filly picked out for himself."

McCaffey backhanded the man across the face, knocking him down. "That's Miss St. Vyr to you. If I hear you refer to my future wife in such a disrespectful manner again, I'll put a bullet where your mouth is. Understand?"

"Geeze, you're touchy! Sure, I understand," the prone man said hastily.

Trouble Brewing

THE NEXT DAY, IRIS, as was her usual custom, was up early to tend to her goats. Dawn was just breaking when Iris entered the dairy goat barn, greeted by eager bleats of welcome. She had a small dairy herd, only about twenty grown nanny goats and King George. There was a larger herd kept for meat and wool up in the hills during the summer's heat. But these were hers. The spiced cheeses she made from the milk her goats produced was highly prized. She knew every one of her goats by name, their quirks and behaviors. Although St. Antoni's goats resembled earthly goats, Iris’s goats were three times the size of their namesakes. Both sexes carried heavy horns curving alongside their faces. She braced herself when King George butted her playfully as she went by. Despite her fragile appearance, she was sturdy enough not to stagger when the six hundred-pound Billy goat knocked against her. She opened the milking stalls as she moved into the barn and each nanny goat went to her favorite one. King George followed her up to the gate that separated the milking stations from the feed bins, bleating at her imperatively. She loaded several buckets with feed made from native grass seeds and walked along the line scooping some into each bin. When she reached the end, she sat the bucket down and allowed the King of The Barn to scarf up what remained in the pail. She dumped an armful of hay made from native grasses in each bin.

By this time, her head milkmaid Patrice, and her assistants had arrived to help milk. Tim Griggs, who did the heavy work in the barn, checked the separation tank to make sure it was clean and that all the drains leading into the other two tanks were shut. Another dairyman added water to the Bluestones in the pan under the small homogenizing tank below the separation tank and rising steam heated the tank in preparation for the milk. The milk produced from her goats would be run through a sieve tank to pull out most of the butterfat, and through the homogenizer tank to remove bacteria before being poured into glass bottles, sealed and sent down to the cold cellars under the house where she kept the cheeses. This evening when it was cool enough to travel, cold milk and butter products, along with eggs from Jeanne's geese, would be loaded into a wagon and taken into the town icehouse to be stored for sale to the town or loaded onto a steamer and taken into one of the larger city-states for the same purpose.

As soon as each goat finished being milked, Iris let her loose to run back out to the enclosure that opened into a pasture near the house. She had just approved the scrubbing of the tank for tomorrows milking when she heard Paco scream a welcome.

She experienced a sharp stab of excitement and took a deep breath before she turned to face the new arrival. Paco’s cousin, Carlos Madonna was a figure out of the romances she liked to read, and she had spent many secret hours dreaming of him as the hero in those books. He was a tall, well-built man with a shock of curly dark hair, golden brown skin and melting brown eyes. Although Carlos spent much of his days inside the Lucky Strike in his role of supervisor, he worked outdoors a lot checking the progress of the miners who share-panned for gold and gemstone on the St. Vyr claims along the river and streams in the mountains above the ranch.

Carlos set Paco down and moved towards Iris who was drying her hands on her apron.

"Good morning," he said, filling his eyes with her.

"Good morning," she responded, willing her voice not to squeak. "Did Margo know you were coming?"

"Probably, since Mike sent for me," he said. "Do you know what he wants?"

King George, tired of being ignored, butted Iris in the behind. Surprised, she stumbled and would have fallen if Carlos hadn’t stepped forward and caught her. For just an instant, she rested against him, feeling that strong lithe body against hers. With a gasp, she caught her breath and pushed away from him.

"Thanks," she said. She turned and smacked King George smartly on his nose in retaliation before opening the gate to the goat pasture just outside the walls. All the dairy goats except George streamed out into the pasture where they would spend the rest of the day.

Iris pointed a stern finger at the pasture. "Go," she told George firmly. Sulking, the Billy goat did as he was told.

"I suppose Papa just wants a report," she answered hesitantly in response to his question as she closed off the indoor gate. George bleated in protest at being left behind.

"Hush up," she told the goat. "You know you aren’t allowed in here until the flowers have quit blooming!"

In fact, Iris was almost sure a general report wasn’t all Michael St. Vyr wanted, but she wasn’t about to say so. "Have you had breakfast?" she asked.

"No, I left too early for the cooks to be up," he admitted. "Come and join me in the kitchen, I’m sure Tia Margo will be awake and cooking."

She lifted her hands. "After