Sam smiled at her as Irene as she reminisced about her earlier life where it snowed.  She looked happy and content as she spoke of it.  He was set to get her back to somewhere like what she remembered and away from this place that had so many hard qualities to her life here and painful memories for her.  Besides, she’d gotten him thinking about how much he missed the green of the plains and the East.  He’d migrated from there to the Texas territory after the war having joined the Texas rangers after a stint with the U.S. Marshal’s service.  It had been the money and the fact that he’d never been to that part of the country which had appealed to him.  Now with a wife and thinking about retiring from law enforcement, and having a family . . . moving away from the desert had some appeal to it.<br/><br/>“I know you think of it as Tim’s place . . . but Darlin’ I’ve got it in my head that it should be your place as his widow.  Then you can decide what’s to be done with the place.  But I’d like to see it with my own eyes . . . maybe it will help me conjure up a motive for why they killed him and how that is connected to who’s living there now.  Something seems awfully fishy to me about the whole thing . . . considering how it was the family homestead for all those years before it went to him and then conveniently there was enough debt liened against it that required it all to be sold and not just a parcel here and there.”<br/><br/>He looked off to where she had pointed.  There was some green out in that direction which in the territory they were in was a sure sign of water.  He wondered for a moment if the water was what it had been about.<br/><br/>“Irene . . . once we get this settled for you . . . let’s give some serious thought to moving away from here.  If we’re going to have young uns, I think I’d like ‘em to grow up somewhere more hospitable to them.”<br/><br/>He clucked to Diablo and pulled on the reins in the direction of Irene’s ranch and the big horse set off at a walk in that direction.  As hot as it was Sam saw no need to push the horse for some unnecessary speed.