The Rancher Meets His Match

by Patricia McLinn

  June echoed his thoughts, though not his sentiments. “Mom, what are you doing home? Something wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong—not with me. Sylvia, who does my therapy, came down with the flu and had to leave. Irene Weston had stopped by the hospital with some supplies for the volunteers, and she brought me home.”

  “I gotta go. See you later.” Dax gave a nod and headed out past Sally Randall.

  “Dax—?” his mother said from behind him.

  He kept going.

  * * * *

  Dax didn’t feel much like conversation, but Will didn’t deserve to suffer for either the mood that had dogged him since this morning or the mess he’d gotten himself into with Hannah. So at supper Dax asked, as he always did, how things had gone that day at school.

  Will’s fork, which had been making round trips from his plate of June’s reheated lasagna to his mouth with enthusiastic regularity, stopped abruptly in midair. Dax counted himself lucky the fork was empty. Tomato sauce was one of those laundry mysteries neither he nor Will had ever solved.

  “Well, how’d it go?” he repeated.

  “Fine.”

  “What’s up, Will?”

  “Nothing’s up.”

  Dax sighed and put his own fork down. “How bad is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Expelled? Suspended? Flunking?”

  Will’s defensiveness evaporated under the heat of outrage. “No! Why would you think that? A stupid project is no big deal, and it’s all under control, so I don’t know how you can start thinking I’d get expelled or be flunking.”

  “I don’t think that. I’m just putting it in perspective. So what’s the project?”

  “It’s on the different flora and fauna in our region. You know how you’re saying that right around here we have near desert and grasslands and foothills and mountains and river bottoms and all that.”

  “Yeah. So what’s the problem?”

  “Each pair got assigned an area.”

  “What did you get?”

  “Shell Canyon.”

  The canyon cut into the Big Horn Mountains by Shell Creek on the other side of the range, feeding into the Big Horn Basin to the west. But it wasn’t that far beyond where they summer-grazed cattle, and he knew the area well. “Okay, I’ll drive you up.”

  “Not just me.” Will sent him a pleading look that Dax didn’t understand. “My partner, too.”

  “Partner?”

  Will colored up from the opening of his shirt to the top of his ears. “Theresa Wendlow.”

  Ah. Now Dax understood everything, including the pleading look. It had meant, please don’t tease me about this. I wouldn’t do that to you, Will, he silently pledged.

  “No problem, I’ll drive you both up.”

  “Having my father drive us up and hang around all the time, it’d be so lame.”

  “It’s too far to ride and unless you can wait until you’re old enough to drive to do this project, I don’t see how you’re going to get around it.”

  “I thought, uh, if you asked Hannah—Ms. Chalmers—we could all go up. Then you’d have somebody to hang around with while we took notes and stuff, and it wouldn’t be so weird. It’d be more like, you know, normal.”

  God help him, a double date. With his son. Taking out the woman who had him feeling like an edgy stallion, but swearing to behave like a twenty-year-old gelding.

  Only for Will.

  “I’ll ask her.”

  Chapter Nine

  At the sight of Dax at the bottom of the steps outside her cabin Tuesday morning, Hannah stopped dead at the edge of the porch.

  The cabin’s outer door slammed shut behind her, and she jumped. At least it got her moving again.

  “Good morning, Dax.”

  “Morning. Hope it’s not too early.”

  “No. I was going—” She gestured toward the Westons’ kitchen door. “I’m sure Irene would love to give you some breakfast.”

  “No. Thanks. I can’t stay. I wanted to catch you before you got tied up for the day. Are you okay? You sound kind of hoarse.”

  Lack of sleep or reaction to seeing him? Neither alternative would she confide to him. “I’m fine. What is it, Dax?”

  “I didn’t expect this to come up so soon.” He hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. He’d done that other times when he was uncomfortable, but she wished he’d break the habit. The pose unintentionally framed the region around his zipper—and that made her uncomfortable. “Will’s been assigned a school project and Theresa Wendlow’s his partner. He’s as skittery as a mother cat and thinks having you along would make things easier—for him.”

  “On a school project?”

  “Yeah. About the plants and animals and geology and history and such of different local areas. They got assigned a spot on the west side of the Big Horns, so I’m going to drive them over. So, would you like to go to Shell Canyon this afternoon?”

  “Oh. I, uh—”

  “It’s a nice drive. The canyon’s interesting and there’s a waterfall. It’s worth seeing. You can ask Cambria or Irene.”

  “I’m sure it is. That’s not—” The issue. But did she really want to get into what the issue was? “This afternoon? But aren’t the kids in school?”

  “I wouldn’t be telling you they’d be going if they were going to be in school. I’m not lying, Hannah.”

  “I’m not saying—”

  “It’s Shakespeare Days Week.’’

  “Shakespeare Days Week?”

  “Yeah. This weekend is Shakespeare Days—for the county, you know? Shakespeare County. Celebrating the early days of the county. There’s a rodeo, a parade, a sort of fair and lots of other things.”

  “Oh, yes. Irene told me a little about it.”

  “Lot of the stuff’s this weekend, but it starts during the week. When I was a kid the teachers used to keep us in class, but not a lot got done. Now they’ve decided, since it’s so early in the school year, they can cut the kids some slack. Take the younger ones on field trips about county history. Give the older ones special projects and let ’em loose early. We’ll drive to Shell Canyon, let them get what they need for their project, then go for supper at a little place over there. Should be back before ten.”

  “I see.” She manufactured a bright smile. “Okay. I’d like to see Shell Canyon, thank you. I’ll be sure to bring my camera. Oh, and I’ll pay my own expenses.”

  “No.” He should have been at a disadvantage, still having to tip his head back because he stood below her. But that no carried no doubt.

  “Since this is as much for my benefit as yours, Dax, it only makes sense,” she said with exaggerated reasonableness.

  “How’s it to your benefit?”

  “Like I told you, it’s helping me get back into socializing.”

  He glared at her—no other word described the lowered brows, tight mouth and glinting eyes. “I asked, I’ll pay. And it’s mostly for Will’s benefit.”

  He didn’t have to remind her. “Then for Will’s benefit it’s important to show him that a woman can be independent and pay her own way.”

  “A woman can be independent and still be treated nice.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. It sure weakened her arguing stance when she agreed with him. “So can a man.”

  He grunted an acceptance.

  “Besides,” she added, picking up speed again. “Being treated nice doesn’t necessarily mean paying the bills. They’re separate issues.”

  “Maybe so, but when someone does the invitin’ he should do the payin’.”

  “All right,” she conceded after a moment. “But if I ask you to something, then I pay.”

  Silence.

  “All right?” she insisted.

  “All right. But today I’m paying.”

  * * * *

  The twisting road seemed oddly familiar, though she was certain she hadn’t seen these views before—the land dropping off sharply to the ea
st in vistas of rolling, rugged land dotted by the hand of man with threads of roads and flecks of fields and the mountains rising solidly to the west. Fir-tree mantles covered rock shoulders with aspens circling the lower edges like flame yellow fringe. From the top it must seem as if you could see forever.

  Of course.

  This was the road Dax had taken for the first part of their journey to his overlook the night they’d gone to Billings—just three days ago.

  Hurried whispers from the back seat produced Will’s request. “Dad, can you pull over at an overlook so we can get pictures?”

  “Sure.”

  They all piled out when he stopped his four-wheel drive in a parking area off one of the switchbacks cutting its way up the mountains. Will and Theresa walked over to read a sign describing the area’s geology; he took notes and she took pictures. Theresa was quite pretty, with shining light brown hair past her shoulders and bright blue eyes.

  Hannah saw Theresa slip in a shot or two of Will among the pictures she snapped of the area.

  Smiling, Hannah turned away to follow the twisting of the road back down the mountainside.

  “Is that the Westons’ barn?” She pointed to a speck of red.

  “No. They’re south of here.” Dax gestured past a rib of the mountain chain that extended into the valley. “Beyond that. Kearny Canyon, where we rode, is tucked back in there.”

  “So this is a different angle from your spot?”

  He cut a look at her and for a second she thought he might say he didn’t know what she meant. In a way she wouldn’t blame him. Only three days ago, but another time.

  He pointed to a knob of land jutting from a second, taller rib of mountain beyond the one he’d first indicated. “Farther south.”

  Back in the four-wheel drive, they continued up until they reached a relatively level area, then turned south.

  “That’s the road to where we graze cattle summers,” Will commented as they passed tire tracks worn into the hard ground.

  “I read that most of the early grazing up here was sheep,” Theresa said. “One of the books I checked out for this assignment said cattlemen came up here first, after farmers started planting more of the grazing land. But before the turn of the century, there were one hundred and fifty sheep for every cow.”

  “You know about Copman’s Tomb?” Dax asked her, glancing in the rearview mirror.

  “Of course. I’ve lived here all my life, Mr. Randall.”

  Dax seemed inclined to grin at Theresa’s indignation. He sent Hannah a look that invited her to share his amusement, then turned away immediately. Perhaps to pay attention to the winding road, but Hannah thought more because he’d remembered they were on different terms now.

  It was a good thing he broke the eye contact, because another heartbeat and she’d have forgotten their changed status, too.

  “Why don’t you tell Hannah about it, Theresa?”

  “It’s a huge yellow rock. It was named after Jack Copman—one of the first cattlemen to bring a herd up here in the summer, back in the 1880s.”

  “He was a sheepman, too,” said Dax. “His real name was Wolfgang Robert Copman, and he brought a herd from Oregon. Then Copman stuck here. Old-timers’ story is he built a model airplane.”

  “A model airplane?” Will sounded surprised and interested.

  “Uh-huh. Kind of a glider, according to the story. He said if he built a full-size one, he’d take it to the top of what we call Copman’s Tomb and try it out. If his airplane worked, he’d fly. If it didn’t, then that pile of rock would be his tomb—that’s how it got its name. That was in the early 1880s.

  “It might have been Wolfgang Robert Copman in the Big Horns instead of Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk if things had gone different.”

  “What happened to his plane?” Will asked.

  “Nobody knows. Some articles quote old-timers swearing they saw it fly, but nobody knows what happened to his design.”

  “We can use this in our report,” Theresa said. “What happened to him?”

  “He got his own ranch eventually—over on the basin side of the Big Horns. Got married, had some daughters and died. Story is he wanted his ashes scattered up here, but his widow didn’t do it.”

  Was that a trace of bitterness Hannah heard in Dax’s voice? Was he thinking this was another woman who failed her man? Or was she reading much too much into a recounting of local lore?

  “How do you know all that, Dad?”

  “You two aren’t the first ones to have Mrs. Plankeski assign you a project, you know. I had to find out all about Copman’s Tomb when I was your age.”

  “And you still remember it?”

  “Yeah, I still remember it,” Dax said with indignation. “I’m not ready to be put out to pasture yet.” He cut a look at her then that Hannah couldn’t interpret. But she forgot it when he announced, “And there it is.”

  Out the windshield, Hannah saw a flat-topped rock bluff rising abruptly above the craggy ground, its golden surface striated with red and tan and beige. It was nearly bare except for a cluster of stubborn fir trees on its stair-stepped back slope. She focused her camera through the glass and shot several pictures.

  Not long after, Dax pulled into a parking area and announced they’d arrived.

  Off the main path, signs described some of the plants that dotted the rock-strewn landscape with the green of scrub pine, the silver of fading sagebrush and the gold, crimson and lemon of deciduous bushes and trees. Hannah recognized juniper but not the orange-flecked bush identified as curlleaf mountain mahogany.

  “And they use the wood for roller-skate wheels,” Theresa finished reading. “This is great. We’ll have to take notes on these for our paper, but let’s go see the falls first.”

  As they started down the steep, occasionally spray-slickened steps to the main observation deck, Dax went first. He reached back to take Hannah’s arm a couple times to make sure her footing was steady. Hannah noticed Will did the same thing for Theresa, so she knew Dax’s gesture was done as an example for his son.

  Hannah went immediately to the railing to watch the water tumble seventy-five feet to a steep rock cavern where it churned and foamed before continuing on its way.

  Behind her Theresa and Will moved around, talking about points to make in their paper. Dax remained some three feet behind her and to her right, moving nearer only when she leaned over the railing to take a picture of the water. He stepped back when she straightened.

  She kept busy with the camera, pleased by the rich color of the vegetation and the angles and lines of the rocks. She marveled at the tenacity and ingenuity of nature. A wall of rock presented itself, yet out of a crevice grew a tree. A tree with roots clinging to an apparently impossible spot that still grew straight and proud, reaching toward the sky and celebrating with a blaze of yellow-orange.

  She took many pictures, but she kept coming back to that tree, zooming in on it until it filled her lens.

  “We’re going back to check out those signs, okay, Dad?”

  “Sure. We’ll be there in a while.”

  Hannah glanced at Dax, who gave a slight shrug. She supposed he was right—the two kids probably wanted some time on their own. She just wished it didn’t leave her and Dax alone, too.

  For something to do, she followed them with the camera.

  “Theresa? Will?”

  She snapped a picture as they turned back at her call. It would be a good picture, their youth and zest caught against this humbling, stark beauty.

  They laughed and kept going. She tracked them with the camera, but the curves of the path masked them from view. Instead, she found herself contemplating the jagged wall of rock rising behind them. She wondered how many people turned away from the falls to this side of the canyon.

  The lowering sun caught the jutting rock formations and cast dramatic shadows into the crevices. That’s how Dax’s face looked sometimes. In firelight, like that first night. Or when he tried to dam
p down a strong emotion. It would look more and more like that as he aged, she thought. She wouldn’t see it then. But she could remember.

  She swung the camera around, hoping to catch Dax unaware. His brown eyes stared directly back at her through the lens. She lowered the camera. But that was worse. Now she no longer had the protection of the lens. Her breath came shorter and shallower.

  “Oh, look, Thomas! Now, aren’t you glad we stopped?”

  A high-pitched voice and heavy footsteps descending the path above them broke the moment. Hannah moved to the far comer of the observation deck, and Dax stood nearby as “Thomas,” a stout man with grizzled hair and heavy jowls, stumped down the final steps, followed by a woman about the same age with a barrel-shaped body over shapely legs. The men exchanged nods and Hannah and the woman smiled at each other.

  “Isn’t this pretty? Why, my word, do you see that tree growing over there just like it wasn’t solid rock? Isn’t that something? It would have been a shame to miss this.”

  Thomas harrumphed. “Ain’t what I’d call pretty.”

  But Hannah noticed he didn’t argue that it would have been a shame to miss it and smiled to herself.

  Side by side, but with a foot of space between them, she and Dax gazed at the water rolling, dashing and cascading down the rocks in silence while Thomas and Mrs. Thomas shared the platform with them. When the older couple started the climb back up the stairs, Hannah searched for an innocuous subject.

  “Theresa seems like a really nice girl.”

  Dax grunted without moving from his position—bent forward, forearms resting on the railing, one hand cupped over the other, staring at the water.

  “Do you know her parents?”

  “Everybody in the county knows the Wendlows. They’ve got money. Came into the county in the fifties already having money and they haven’t lost it. He runs a trucking company that does okay, but family money is how they go to Europe and such.”

  “What kind of people are they?”

  “Nice enough. They’re country club. She’s always raising money for the library or school trips to Denver to hear a symphony and such. She started giving art supplies to the high school years before Theresa got there for kids who couldn’t afford their own. Does it quiet, too. They do most of their spending in town and Sheridan, and when a range fire threatened some houses in Bardville—rundown places, but all those people had—he was out there with the rest of us fighting it.”