by R. C. Ryan
Casey was grinning as they all gathered around the table. “You’re welcome.”
Bo looked over at his middle son. “Who’s taking over your practice while you’re in the hills?”
“I added Dr. Mercer’s number to my service. He said he’d be happy to call on any ranchers who need a vet for the next week or so.”
“Old Doc Mercer?” Jonah shared a grin with Brand. “Isn’t he as old as dirt?”
Ham’s head came up sharply and he fixed his great-grandsons with a piercing look. “Something wrong with being old?”
“No, sir.” Jonah struggled to hold back a grin.
“That’s right, boy. And don’t you forget it.” Ham turned to Casey. “I’m glad Will Mercer is still able to lend a hand.”
“So am I. Otherwise, I’d never be able to enjoy some time away.” Casey glanced at the sky outside the window. “Great send-off breakfast, Billy. But now I’m out of here.”
Bo entered the barn just as Casey was loading his final supplies into his saddlebags. “I wish you’d consider taking one of the trucks, son.”
“That was my plan.” Casey nodded toward the snowflakes drifting past the open barn door. “But if it’s snowing down here, it’ll be waist-deep up in the hills.”
Bo wrapped a muscled arm around his son’s shoulders. “I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, no matter what the weather throws at you. But please check in from time to time, so my mother doesn’t have to lose sleep.”
“I will.” Casey bit down on the grin that tugged at his lips. His father had been saying the same thing for years. And always, Bo Merrick pinned Gram Meg as the worrier. But in truth, the loss of Bo’s wife, Leigh, had marked him for life. He was only truly happy when all his chicks were safe in the nest.
Bo hugged his son, who stood several inches taller. “Stay safe.”
“You, too, Pa.” Casey pulled himself into the saddle and turned his mount, Solitaire, toward the door. “I’ll check in as often as I can get service. But if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you just have to believe I’ve taken shelter somewhere and can’t get word to you.”
“I understand, son.”
As horse and rider started past the house, Casey spotted the entire family on the back porch, huddled in parkas, waving and calling their goodbyes.
With a nod to all, he turned Solitaire across a pasture and started up toward the distant mountains high above, which were wreathed in dark, ominous clouds.
Kirby Regan drove her truck to a lookout in the foothills of the Tetons and texted her boss with her location before stepping out. The crisp air had a bite to it, but that was to be expected in late October. It was perfect hiking weather. Warm enough by day to make good time into the hills, and cool enough at night to be comfortable in her insulated sleeping bag.
She had a rifle for protection and enough provisions to last a week, and if the weather held and luck was on her side, she’d be home in half that time.
Hearing the ding of a text, she dug her phone out from her pocket to check it.
Bring an approximate count of the mustang herds, and that promotion is in the bag.
With a smile, she slid her arms through the straps of her backpack, shouldered her rifle, and started out at a brisk pace.
When she’d left Wyoming after college, she’d headed straight to Washington, DC, hoping to make her career in the big city. The minute she’d set foot in the nation’s capital, she could feel the power in the air. The atmosphere there, so different from the small towns of Wyoming where she’d been raised, was like a drug. A by-the-books overachiever, she’d worked her way up the ladder in the Association of Land Management, and she probably would have continued the climb if she hadn’t come home for her uncle’s funeral. That brief visit had changed everything, bringing back a flood of happy memories that made her hectic life in the city suddenly unbearable.
Now she was back in Wyoming, and the silence and beauty of the countryside seemed all the more spectacular after her long absence. Oh, how she’d missed all this.
A cut in pay and a much lower rank in the Wyoming branch of the company made her more than willing to take on whatever tasks were assigned to her, just to prove to her supervisors that she had what it took to work in the field.
When this assignment had presented itself, she was thrilled to accept. As an expert hiker, she welcomed the task of heading into the hills to catalog the numbers of mustang herds she encountered. Since she was the rookie in the field office, her boss had told her this would go a long way toward cementing her position as someone who could deliver. As a carrot, he’d dangled the offer of a promotion in front of her. Not that she’d needed it. The thought of hiking alone in the Tetons was, to her, the assignment of a lifetime.
As she climbed, she adjusted her backpack, looking forward to a good workout. After spending the last few years exercising in a crowded, sweaty gym, she was back where she’d started, and loving every minute of it.
“You can do this,” she muttered aloud. “Piece of cake.”
By noon the misty rain-snow mix that had begun earlier had turned to snow in the higher elevations.
Kirby adjusted the hood of her parka and shouldered her backpack before following a trail that led into a heavily forested area. She knew by the fresh droppings that the herd wasn’t too far ahead.
As she crested a hill and stepped out of the woods, she caught sight of the mustangs just disappearing over a rise. Kirby counted six or seven, and wondered how many more had already slipped away. The stallion, all black except for one white foreleg, stood watch as the last of the mares moved out of sight.
Quickening her pace, Kirby crossed the distance, noting idly that the snow had picked up and was beginning to form drifts. But she wasn’t about to let a little snow keep her from cataloging this herd.
When she reached the top of the rise she looked down at the mustangs, which were moving more slowly now as they pawed the snow to graze on the range grass underneath.
She stopped dead in her tracks at the soul-stirring sight. From the time she was a little girl and caught her first glimpse of wild horses, it had always been this way. Though the Association considered them little more than numbers to be managed, she couldn’t deny her love for these wild creatures. To see them living free, as their ancestors had, touched her deeply.
She counted the mares, logged the number into her phone, then took a photo. At the muted click, the skittish stallion, sensing something unknown, began herding his mares toward a line of trees in the distance. Within minutes they blended into the woods like ghosts and were no longer visible.
Kirby sat on a fallen log and allowed her backpack to drop to the ground.
By the time she’d finished eating her sandwich, she looked around and realized the snow had picked up considerably.
If this storm continued, she would have to readjust her thinking. Instead of getting home ahead of schedule, this little trip was liable to drag on for a week or more.
Not a problem, she assured herself. If her pace was slowed she could easily ration her supplies to stretch beyond her self-imposed deadline.
She drained her protein drink, stashed the empty bottle in her backpack, and set out at a hurried pace, keeping an eye out for shelter in the event the snow became impossible to traverse.
Chapter Two
Casey was in his element. As he rode across a high meadow, the fresh tracks of deer, mustangs, and even a big cat were proof that the animals in the higher elevations were healthy and active.
Rather than being a problem, the snow just added to his sense of freedom. This wild stretch of land, inhabited by all kinds of animals, was his own private paradise, since no sane human would risk traveling it in such weather.
From his youngest years he’d always loved the solitude of the wilderness. Maybe it was because he’d spent all his time with so many family members. Not that he minded. Years ago he’d stopped resenting the elders and all of their rules and regulations
. Like his brothers, he’d actually begun looking forward to his great-grandfather’s musings about his early life in Wyoming, when Hammond Merrick had carved out a place for himself while successfully building one of the most prosperous ranches in the territory.
And he loved, as well, the romantic tale of how his grandfather, Egan, had first locked eyes with Margaret Mary Finnegan, the love of his life, whom he affectionately called his Meggie. Those two were still as much in love today as when they’d met.
He loved the sprawling ranch and sharing the chores with his brothers and foreman Chet Doyle. He loved watching his aunt Liz, a couple years younger than his father, and still single, as she pursued the great love of her life, photography. Like all his family, she was an inspiration. His father, Bo, nearing fifty, was his hero. Though he would carry his grief at the loss of his Leigh to the grave, he bravely carried on, teaching his three sons by words and actions how to be a man.
But what gave Casey the most pleasure was the knowledge that he could slip away by himself from time to time to savor the solitude he always found in high country.
When he encountered a herd of mustangs his heart filled with quiet joy. He loved the fact that they could live wild and free.
Wild and free. The thought had him smiling. It was what he’d wanted always for them. And for himself.
His smile faded as he caught sight of something out of place on the far side of the meadow. He urged his mount forward and noticed the snow up here had begun drifting.
“Hold on, Solitaire.” He drew back on the reins, slowing his mount when he realized that the drifts were already as high as his horse’s belly.
As they reached the other side, Casey recognized that what he had seen was a mustang on its knees. The closer the horse and rider got, the more the poor animal struggled to escape. But though it thrashed about in the snow, it was unable to stand and run.
“Easy now.” Casey kept his tone low and his movements slow, knowing this wild horse had probably never seen a human.
He easily dropped a lasso over its head and coiled the rope around the saddle horn, to keep the frightened animal from charging. Solitaire, trained for just such things, stood his ground, holding the rope taut as Casey dismounted and moved slowly and easily toward the injured horse.
“Let’s see what’s wrong, little filly.” A quick exam revealed a deep, festering gash on its left foreleg. From the size of the wound and the amount of infection, this poor animal, which appeared to be not quite a yearling, was thoroughly drained of strength. No wonder she had given up and lay, panting and in pain, waiting to die.
Grateful that he never went anywhere without the tools of his trade, Casey retrieved a syringe from his black bag and injected an antibiotic into the filly’s hide. The animal’s ears flattened, and its sides were heaving, but it was clear she was too exhausted to do more than endure the touch of this human.
“We’ve got to get you to shelter.” Casey removed the lasso, knowing the mustang was too weak to move.
He pulled himself into the saddle. Urging Solitaire through the snow, he rode a good distance in each direction until he found a cave big enough to shelter two horses. Satisfied that it wasn’t inhabited by any predatory animals, he turned Solitaire back toward the place where the mustang lay, its breathing strained, eyes wide with panic.
Casey cut branches from the nearby trees and tied them in a crisscross pattern before covering them with his bedroll. It took all his strength to slide the helpless mustang onto the poor imitation of a travois. Then, walking alongside Solitaire, he guided him inside the cave before unfastening the straps he’d used to secure the conveyance to the stirrups.
He unsaddled his mount and led him toward the rear of the cave, where he set out food. After starting a fire, he placed a pan of snow over the flame and soon had water for both horses. While Solitaire noisily ate, Casey hand-fed the wounded mustang. When both animals were fed and watered, Casey opened a packet stashed in his saddlebag and silently thanked Billy for the container of beef stew. As the meal heated, Casey fashioned a bed for himself of evergreen branches to cushion his bedroll, which he slid out from under the mustang. Using his saddle for a pillow he leaned back, stretched out his long legs, and enjoyed his dinner, grateful to be snug and dry.
After administering a second injection of antibiotic into the mustang, Casey covered the animal with a blanket, pulled his hat over his head, and closed his eyes.
He was asleep almost at once.
Kirby trekked past the place where she’d seen her first herd of mustangs and climbed to the higher elevations. As daylight began to fade, she paused in a stand of evergreens. Assured that their branches provided enough cover from the snow to form a rough campsite, she dropped the heavy backpack and began to unload her supplies. With a campfire, a hot meal, and her insulated sleeping bag, she figured she would be more than comfortable for the night.
As she circled the area collecting tree branches for a fire, she reveled in the extreme silence. It was as though the snowfall had covered the whole world in a thick blanket, and all creatures in the universe had gone to sleep. She was alone in her own private winter wonderland.
She realized that this unexpected snowfall wasn’t so much a hardship as a gift to be savored. After all, this was what she’d dreamed of after leaving the frantic pace of life in the city.
Hearing the ping of a text, she set the branches in a neat pile before retrieving her phone from an inner pocket.
Seeing that it came from her supervisor, Dan Morgan, she was smiling as she began to read. Her smile faded quickly at the words.
Authorities hunting an escaped convict in area. Be advised to cancel all plans and return to civilization asap.
An escaped convict? Here in the middle of nowhere?
Alarmed, she took up her rifle and stared around, her ears attuned to every sound. Now, instead of silence, she was aware of the howling of a coyote, the chorus of yips from a distant pack of wolves, and then a sudden, shocking crack, like a gunshot, as a tree limb broke under the weight of the heavy snow and fell to the ground with a shudder.
She couldn’t stay here, out in the open, in plain sight of a man on the run. What he wouldn’t do to get hold of her rifle, as well as her supplies. To a convict caught in these rough elements it could mean the difference between survival and surrender.
The isolation she had cherished just moments ago had now become a real danger. She was alone in the wilderness, with no one but herself to count on, if she were to encounter a dangerous criminal.
With a sense of urgency, she began repacking her supplies. Shouldering the backpack, she kept her rifle at the ready as she trudged through the waist-high drifts and began her descent.
In her haste she stumbled over a boulder buried in the snow and fell face-first. Her rifle slipped from her hands and slid halfway down an incline. She heaved herself to her feet and stumbled as a knife’s edge of pain shot through her ankle with such force, she dropped to her knees. On a hiss of breath she grasped at a tree limb to regain her footing and was forced to limp through the snow to retrieve her weapon. Her hands, she noted, were none too steady as she picked up the fallen rifle and continued inching along, fighting pain.
That tumble had taught her a valuable lesson. With darkness descending, she ran the risk of another, more serious fall. Despite her need to put safety first, her greater need was to find a safe shelter until morning, when she could return to the lower elevations where she’d left her truck.
She had a high-powered flashlight in her backpack but resisted using it. Though it would light her way, it would also make her an easy target for anyone hiding out in the darkness. Since she was forced to move slowly and carefully, she kept watch for any outcropping of rock that offered shelter for the night. She hoped that by morning this pain would ease enough to allow her an easy descent from these hills.
Casey lay still for a moment, wondering what had just wakened him from a sound sleep.
Concerned t
hat it might have been the mustang, he slid from his sleeping bag and crossed the cave to kneel beside the animal. Its breathing was labored, and though Casey kept his touch gentle, the mustang’s nostrils flared, its eyes wide with fear.
He returned to his bag and was just removing a syringe when he sensed something at the entrance to the cave. A blinding light suddenly flashed on his face and he lifted his hand to shade his eyes.
“Don’t move. I have a weapon, and I know how to use it.”
At the distinctly feminine voice he got to his feet to see a figure at the mouth of the cave holding a rifle.
Solitaire whinnied, and the stranger turned toward the animal.
Casey used that moment of distraction to move quickly, striking out with his arm, sending the rifle flying across the cave. The flashlight fell and went rolling, its light still beaming. In that single moment Casey pounced, pinning the stranger’s arms from behind, completely immobilizing her.
“You’ve got one minute to tell me who you are and what the hell you’re doing pointing that rifle at me.”
She sucked in a breath. “My name is Kirby Regan. I was warned about you.”
“Warned about me?”
“I know of your escape. The authorities are on your trail. It’s only a matter of time until they find you.”
“What the hell?” With a muttered oath he released his hold on her and retrieved her rifle and flashlight, which he now trained on her. “Turn around. Slow and easy.”
Kirby turned, facing her worst nightmare. Though she was tall, this man towered over her. The sleeves of his flannel shirt couldn’t hide the ripple of muscle. A dark stubble covered his cheeks and chin, adding to his look of danger. His eyes, she noted, were hot and fierce, and narrowed on her with a look of absolute fury.
His voice was low with anger. “I’m warning you. I don’t suffer fools. You have one minute to explain yourself. And it had better be the truth, or you won’t get a second chance to talk.”
