Aiming for Love

by Mary Connealy

  And that was a question worth asking.

  Because none of them had an answer.

  Quietly, like he always talked, Dave said, “There aren’t any women closer than Bucksnort. Not even native folks.” None he’d heard of anyway. Clearly there was one. He’d come up here scouting for pastureland and found a gold mine in prairie grass.

  And anyway, an Indian woman wouldn’t have white hair, and they sure as certain didn’t wear patched-up brown trousers.

  A foot pounded on his shin. But her shoes were soft, like moccasins. None of her twisting and kicking shook his grip.

  “Who are you?” Dave asked. “And if you wanted a cup, why didn’t you just ask for one?”

  With that, she stopped. Still as a hiding animal. Hiding animal? Now why in tarnation had that strange thought slid through his head? But it struck him that way.

  Then in a voice with the thickest mountain accent he’d ever heard, she said, “You’d gimme a cup?”

  She turned to face him, and, because he was angled so the fire was coming past his left arm, it cast light on her face. She had eyes so light blue it was like looking into stars shining in the night sky. Her hair white as moonlight. A moonlit rat’s nest, but still, a pretty color.

  “If you needed one.”

  There was a long silence, and the expression on her face reminded him of a friend of Alberto’s who’d drifted through a couple of years ago. He spoke little English. He’d listen intently and think awhile before he responded to anything. Dave figured it was because he had to sort out an unfamiliar language.

  “I need one.”

  And she said no more, but it was clear English, so that wasn’t her excuse.

  He waited, almost humming with confused irritation.

  So, did he just hand her the cup and let her go?

  That didn’t suit him. She couldn’t belong up here. Where were her people? Were there folks living around that he’d never seen during his days of scouting?

  “Before I give you the cup, I want you to tell me what’s going on.” From the way she looked at him, her eyes narrowed in confusion, it struck him that the question was too vague. He tried something simpler. “What’s your name?”

  “Um . . . Jo.”

  Joe? A man’s name. Strange business going on with this woman. But she’d answered, so simple questions were best.

  “Where do you live?”

  That animal stillness again. It reminded him of how a rabbit hid beneath a bush, hoping a big old wolf didn’t notice him—he wasn’t that thrilled with casting himself as the one who ate small critters.

  This time there was no answer.

  “Do you live up here?”

  Silence.

  Could she be in trouble with the law? Could she have a husband up here who was in hiding?

  Dave’s brain was starting to hurt from all the questions.

  He had a diabolical idea. “All right. Well, it doesn’t seem to me as if you have a home, certainly not a safe home. I can’t leave you up here. I’ll take you back down to my ranch. My ma and pa are there. Ma will take care of you. Find you some proper clothes. Let you drink right out of a tin cup anytime you want. It’s a long, long way, and I doubt you’ll ever get back up here.”

  Her gasp was so deep, so physical, she slipped through his fingers.

  He grabbed her before she could run. He leaned close, nose-to-nose, and said, “Do you live alone?”

  “N-no.”

  “Are you married?”

  “N-no.”

  “So, you live with your parents?”

  “N-no.”

  Dave fought to keep himself from shaking her. He wasn’t one to play guessing games.

  “Who do you live with?” There. A question without a yes or no answer.

  There was a stretch of silence, and Dave wondered if he’d ever get much out of her but yes and no.

  “My sisters.”

  That threw him like a lassoed calf at branding time. Sisters, more than one. But they would most likely be near her age. And she seemed only just full grown.

  Then she blinked at him with those big blue eyes with dark blond lashes so long they fluttered in the breeze. She was a little older than his first guess. Not a barely adult girl for sure.

  “Do you want to bring them down to my ma, too?”

  “No.”

  Dave almost punched himself in the head for asking another yes or no question.

  He watched her, and as he did, he realized he could see more than just what was lit up by the fire. Dawn was breaking. Should he just let her go? There was no doubt she was frightened and she’d run, vanish forever. And he just couldn’t in good conscience let her do that. Her fear would make her run when her best chance of survival was coming down off the mountain with him.

  His chest swelled with the rightness of it. He felt like he was saving her life. A hero. He had to get her out of here, and her sisters, too. And he would. He wasn’t going to let her escape. Considering the terrified way she was watching him and the other men, he wondered if that might make him a kidnapper.

  They hung men for kidnapping in Colorado.

  But he decided then and there he was doing it anyway.

  He sure hoped she didn’t kick up a fuss about it.

  3

  Her fist landed hard enough on his eye that it started to swell shut.

  He fell backward but hung on to her, and they fell into a tangled heap. His men shouted . . . a couple might’ve laughed.

  “Hang on to her.” Dave wasn’t a yeller as a rule. He’d found he could get folks to listen just fine if he spoke quietly. But right now, he yelled. He didn’t want her slipping away. He figured if she ran off now, he’d never see her again.

  Jimmy Joe took a solid hold along with Parson Fred—that’s what the old-timer called himself, but Dave had never noticed the man preaching a sermon. It struck Dave just how wrong it was for this young woman to be alone with him and his six men.

  They had her on her feet, then he got boosted up. He touched his nose, and it wasn’t bleeding, but he had a fat lip.

  He took hold of her wrist and said, “I have her.”

  The other men let go so suddenly Dave wondered what he sounded like. His hand clamped on her, ready to dodge the next blow. She was going home with him to see his ma, even though it was a long ride through some wicked country, more up and down than flat, with stretches he’d had to force his cattle through. And that was after he’d spent the summer tearing the trail open, widening, chiseling, kicking off avalanches.

  They’d’ve never made if it they weren’t a tough bunch of mountain-born longhorns.

  Just as he was trying to convince himself it was all right to tie her to a saddle, thundering hooves turned his attention to that rattlesnake of a trail they’d taken four days ago. A trail they’d broken for cattle for the first time.

  And now, days after he’d been the first, what sounded like a second herd was coming at a dead run.

  There were trees thick along the far side of the valley from where Dave stood, right where that trail reached this mountaintop. He couldn’t see the trailhead, but he knew that’s where they were coming from.

  His gun filled his hand. He dragged the mystery woman with him behind a fall of rocks. The rest of his men spread out. They’d talked about defending themselves up here. The rumors about Bludgeon Pike were all over the range below. But honestly, he’d never thought he’d have to.

  And then a longhorn burst out of the trees, coming straight from the trailhead. Another and another. Ten then twenty. Dave’s grip on the woman was as tight as his grip on the gun, but he had no reason to fire at a bunch of cows.

  And then Ma burst out of the trees and into his high valley with . . . it looked like . . . a rooster in her arms. He was so startled he almost lost his grip on everything, including his mind.

  Isabelle Warden was a stout lady, but that had only happened in recent years. His ma had helped tear civilization out of this wild land. She
and Pa had been at it for thirty years. She was as polite and ladylike as any woman he knew—he paused at that thought since he barely knew any women. But she seemed plenty polite and ladylike. But for all that, she could ride hard, shoot straight, and make a decent fist.

  Dave put the gun back in his holster. Ma reminded him of this little spitfire he had, and suddenly, despite having no idea what Ma was doing here with cows galore, he was mighty glad to see her.

  As Ma rode across the meadow, more cows came behind her. She was on the far side of a huge swath of grass. Pa thought maybe near a thousand acres in all. Ma had never been up here, but following the trail left by about two hundred cattle wasn’t all that tough.

  She rode through the cattle that’d come up with her and a bunch of his own. His cattle stirred around, and a stream of more cows kept coming in from that trail. Calves kicked up their heels. A low song of mooing and running hooves broke the early morning silence.

  Not that Dave had been noticing the silence, what with questioning his little thief friend here.

  He saw a big black bull emerge into the pasture. Pa’s brand-new champion Angus. It looked like Pa had brought a big old chunk of his herd. Why would he do that? He knew even though there was a big pasture up here it wasn’t near big enough to keep all of these cows fed, and with winter coming on, they’d be dealing with hungry cows in just a few days.

  Everything about this invasion screamed trouble. What had happened down at the ranch for Pa to do this?

  Ma galloped straight for them. Yep, that was definitely a chicken.

  Another man emerged into Dave’s valley. One of Pa’s steady cowpokes. Of course, Pa only had steady ones around. He was a good judge of a man. Were all his cowhands coming up here? It wasn’t just the cattle that’d go hungry. Dave didn’t have food for all these people . . . except on the hoof.

  “You men ride toward that trail, see if anyone needs help. Watch for Pa.”

  All his men moved fast. They were running by the time they reached their horses. He’d broken them out of a trance . . . and he’d done it just as fast as he’d broken out of his.

  “What in the world is going on?” He glanced at Jo in the full light of early dawn. As if she had some answers. That almost made him snort. Nothing about the words yes and no would be much help.

  “They had to be riding all night in the pitch dark to get here,” Dave thought out loud. “That trail is just barely passable with great care in full daylight.”

  And then he saw snow on the backs of some of the cattle. He added, “In full daylight in perfect weather. It must be snowing down below.”

  Then Ma reached them, pulled her horse to a fast stop. Dave grabbed her reins, slapped them into the hand that still held Jo, and took the chicken.

  Ma swung down with the skill of a woman who’d been riding all her life.

  The chicken squawked and flapped, and Ma took the bird back as soon as her feet were on the ground. Her horse shied, and she got the wings under control and put one hand on the bird’s beak.

  “Trouble coming, Dave, and we abandoned the ranch until things are settled.”

  Abandoned the ranch? Those were words that near to knocked Dave onto his backside. Pa would never do that. But all the trouble in the area was coming from one place.

  “Bludgeon Pike?” The man had been pushing people off their land all year, but he went after nesters, not an established ranch like the Circle Dash.

  “Yep, Pike. We heard he’s coming after our land with all his men. Your pa didn’t like it, but we had to get out. Maybe if you and the hands that came up here had been with us, we’d’ve stood and fought, but Pike has a lot of men, and hired gunmen at that. We figured he’d draw plenty of blood even if we beat him back. Pa had enough warning that we could have sent someone up here to fetch all of you, but instead we gathered the herd and came up.” Ma scowled and glared back at the trail that still spilled cattle into Dave’s pristine valley.

  More of the hired hands showed up. Pa had kept six, and Dave had taken the same number. Pa had a bigger herd down in the lowlands, but Dave needed help getting a cabin and bunkhouse up, and a barn if there was time before the worst of the winter slammed down. Corrals, getting the herd used to new land. He needed every man he could get.

  Pa’s hands led strings of horses, heavily packed. Some had big wiggling gunnysacks on their backs. More chickens, Dave hoped that was what wiggled. What else could his folks have put in there?

  “I had my own little war with him to convince him to fall back. He agreed to come only if he could bring his cows. We stripped the whole ranch, which is how I ended up with a chicken riding on my lap. Now we’re up here, and we need to build a chicken coop. Scout more pastureland.”

  Dave had done a lot of scouting, there wasn’t any more.

  “Get a cabin and bunkhouses up fast.” Ma had got the bit in her teeth and was yammering away.

  “First thing we need is to build a chicken coop so I can put this stupid rooster down. We’ll get—”

  Dave figured she’d say it all twice more so he didn’t bother to listen.

  “—snowing down below, and I can’t believe it’s not snowing clear up—”

  Dave did switch hands so he could hold the reins separate from Jo’s wrist. He felt her tug now and then, no doubt still interested in escaping. Well, there was no escape for Dave, so why should she get away?

  “Unpack those loaded horses and use a tarp—”

  It was a waste of time to try and talk over Ma, so Dave ignored her and watched hundreds of cows fill up his valley and go to grazing on the only grass he had.

  “And why do you seem to have permanent hold of a woman, son?”

  He heard that.

  The horse Ma rode was a good one, so Dave dropped the reins. Not all horses were well-behaved enough to ground-hitch, but this one was. It went to chomping on more of Dave’s grass.

  “I caught her stealing a tin cup from me this morning.”

  “I didn’t steal it.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I forgot to let go of it.”

  “That’s stealing.”

  “You are a liar, like the Bible story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’”

  Dave froze and turned to look at her. Ma stopped fussing and pivoted to face Jo.

  Ma said, “Um . . . ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ isn’t a Bible story.”

  Jo narrowed her eyes. “You accuse me of theft and make it worse with heresy.”

  “I accused you of theft because you snuck into my camp and took a cup,” Dave stated matter-of-factly.

  “I ran. It was in my hand, and I forgot to let it go. That is not stealing.”

  “That is exactly stealing.”

  Dave glanced at Ma, who arched one brow. “Who did you say this woman is?”

  With a small shrug, Dave said, “She claims to live up here with some sisters. I don’t know if her family died or if she’s a little loco. She ain’t answering many questions.”

  Jo kicked him in the shins again. But he could put up with her moccasins all day.

  Ma’s eyes narrowed as she looked closely at Dave for the first time in the light of dawn. “You seem to have a fat lip and an eye that’s swelling shut.”

  “She hit me with the tin cup she stole.” Dave shrugged, feeling pretty comfortable just hanging on to her. “Her name’s Joe. She wants me to let loose of her, but it don’t feel right to leave her up here alone with only sisters and so scared she might not think of nothing but getting away. She’s a sneaky little thing and has been in our camp three nights in a row. I don’t know what to do. I’m glad you’re here, Ma.”

  Then, wary of the chicken, he managed to hug his ma. He really was glad to see her.

  Ma’s eyes shifted between Dave’s black eye, the little sneak thief, and the grip he had on her wrist.

  She finally settled on Jo. “I have to agree with my son, Joe.” She paused. “Joe is no proper name for a girl. Is it JoAnne? Joan? Jolene?”
>
  Jo shrugged. “No.”

  Dave’s shoulders slumped. “That’s mostly all she says. Though she did mention sisters at one point. I hope you enjoy questions because it’ll take a powerful lot of them to get much information from little Jo here.”

  Ma nodded and turned to Jo. “Are you hungry? I can make something to eat. We’ve been working and riding all night since word reached us Pike was sending men to attack us at dawn.”

  Ma glanced at Dave. “Your pa is coming fast, driving all the cattle he could round up yesterday, and that’s a lot of them. He’s hoping the snow falls hard enough to cover the trail. But he’s bringing near onto a thousand head and everything that’s close to the ranch—and he’d moved most everything in. Anyone who wants to find the trail bad enough can follow a thousand cows.”

  Nodding, he silently watched Ma find canteens and get a pot of coffee boiling. It was breakfast time after all. Then she began pulling supplies off her horse. Cowhands led packhorses over and started unloading.

  “We’ll need shelter. We can put up a tent for now, but where did you plan to build a cabin, Dave? The men might as well get going on it.”

  A few cows darted into the dense forest that surrounded the open glade.

  “That’ll take days. For now, comb those cattle out of the woods and ride herd till they’re settled. We’ll pitch a tent before nightfall.” The cowpokes nodded and rode toward the milling herd.

  “I’ll holler when there’s food,” Ma called after them. Before long Ma had bacon sizzling.

  “How far behind you is Pa?”

  Ma shook her head and started a griddle heating, then whipped up flapjacks. She glanced at Dave, and he could see his steady ma looked near tears. “I just don’t know, son. He was packing everything he could load on horseback. The old fool may get himself killed if he is determined to save too much. And if he waits long enough tracks will show in the snow, then he’ll give us all away. But abandoning the ranch was like a knife in the gut. I couldn’t convince him to abandon anything else.”

  Shaking his head, Dave said, “The pass—that mean, winding, tight pass about halfway up—has a good overlook. We can hold off a hundred men with a few armed sentries. I’ll post two men, and if we hear gunfire, the rest of us can come a-runnin’.”