Again and again, the cows tried to break free. But the four cowboys kept them bunched. The lightning and rolling boom of the thunder ever growing closer.
Dusty thought of the horses. They’d been used hard. The extra mounts were staked out with the wagon team. Both Jack and Tom had shifted to new horses. He wondered if he should take Red in for a quick change.
No, he thought. If things went bad, he would prefer to have Red under him.
The air continued to tingle and a fresh breeze washed over them, sending a nervousness through him.
A cow suddenly jumped past him and Red. Desperate to get away from the coming storm. As he turned to chase him, another steer shot away from the crowd. Somehow Red got them both back to where they belonged.
A feeling of accomplishment flashed through Dusty until, without warning, the air exploded on the far side of the herd. His eyes slammed shut against the bolt of lightning that filled his world with a hot white light.
Before he could even process what had happened, the herd was up and running. Away from their range this time. All they knew was that danger had exploded from the sky behind them and they wanted to be anywhere but there. And he stood between them and safety.
“They're off,” Sam yelled from the far side.
Big Red turned on a dollar and jumped to a full gallop. The horse knew what was coming and was determined to get out of there before he was crushed beneath a thousand hooves.
Dusty leaned forward, he was preparing to guide Red off to the side when he caught sight of the distant campfire.
Rebecca!
His heart slammed shut. She and the wagon were directly in the path of the angry herd. No person on foot could get out of the way in time. Especially not a woman with no experience with stampedes. She’d have no idea just how fast a cow could move when it was crazed with fear.
He spurred Red and pulled him back in line with the herd’s rush. Dusty could feel the horse’s hesitation. Every instinct told him to get out of the way, but he submitted to Dusty’s command and raced for the campsite.
Looking over his shoulder, Dusty glanced back at the racing steers behind him. The thunder of their hooves mixed with the flashing lightning and rolling thunder in one large calamity of noise. His gut tightened as he held his breath.
Please be ready, he thought to himself. Please, he had to save her. His world would crash into nothingness if anything happened to her.
He held his breath as Red grew closer. Was she there? If she’d wandered off, he’d never find her in time. Even now, it was doubtful. Nothing was going to stop that herd from crashing through the campsite, killing and destroying anything in its path.
Swallowing hard, he ignored the terror behind him and focused forward. There, in the yellow firelight, Rebecca stood next to the wagon with eyes the size of the moon. Staring at the approaching herd like a deer caught in the glare of a torch.
He could see it in her eyes. She was watching her death approach.
At the last moment, she caught sight of him. He leaned over the side of his saddle, she reached for him, grasping for her only hope.
Reaching out, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her up next to him. The thundering herd growing closer with each second. Rebecca clung to him, her head buried in his shoulder.
Red stumbled. His gut froze. If the horse went down here, they were all dead. No one could live through what was chasing them. Squeezing with his knees he tried to steady the horse. Rebecca felt the horse falter and clung even tighter to him.
The big horse picked himself up and regained his balance before taking off. Dusty held Rebecca next to him with an iron grip, terrified he might drop her.
They continued to race for several hundred yards until they had gained enough distance to veer off to the right.
“Get up behind me,” he yelled over the raging herd. There was nowhere out here safe enough to put her down. He’d seen herds circle around and cover the same ground more than once. No, the safest place for her was with him.
As if she’d been born on a horse, she swung up behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle as if he were a rock in a raging river.
He sighed internally. A man could grow to love having this woman’s arms holding on to him.
She leaned forward to yell something. He thought for a moment that she was going to thank him, instead, she yelled over the pounding hooves.
“Save my herd.”
He laughed. God what a woman.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rebecca took a deep cleansing breath. She was going to live. All because this man had come for her. When everything was in chaos. He had thought of her. She had been his number one priority.
A warm feeling filled her. Even clinging to him for dear life, she realized he did care. At least a little. Leaning her head against his back, she held on, not caring that it was the middle of the night and they were racing with a herd of cattle. A herd that might turn towards them at any moment.
All that mattered was that he had come for her.
She had been woken by the exploding thunder. Her skin had tingled with energy and the air tasted of a strange sharp tang. Then she heard a new sound. A strange, unfamiliar sound that she could not place. Like a steady thunder, but different. Lower, more menacing.
Her heart had raced as she tried to understand what was going on. She had climbed down from the wagon only to realize what that strange pounding sound actually was. The herd was running.
Running towards her. And they were close. She had frozen as she stared into the blank darkness, unable to determine which way to go, terrified she’d move into their path instead of away from them. With each second her fear had grown until it threatened to overwhelm her much like the fast-approaching animals.
A flash of lightning sent a bolt of terror to her very soul. They were close. Slashing horns and terrified eyes highlighted in the white light.
Just as she realized that they were too close and she would never get free in time. Just as she realized she was about to die. Crushed into the ground by stampeding animals who didn’t even know she was there. It was then, in that exact moment when she saw him racing out of the darkness.
Tall, strong, competent, leaning towards her, his arm outstretched. She had instinctively reached for him. Her hero. He’d whisked her up and away as if she were nothing more than a blade of grass. Pressing her to his side, his arms as tight as chains, holding her, never wavering.
She had known instantly that she would live. That Dusty would get her to safety. And as was usual, she had not been wrong.
Now, here she was, sitting behind him, her arms wrapped around his stomach as they raced next to the herd. She let out a long breath, thanking God for this man and for keeping her alive. It was then that the heavens opened up as a wave of rain washed across them and the herd.
The night grew instantly darker as the angry clouds blocked out the silver moon. It was like being lost in a cave with no light. A blackness that swallowed the world.
“We won’t turn them,” Dusty yelled as he pulled back on Red’s reins so that he could drop back. “Let ‘em run,” he yelled to Jack and Sam.
“They’re headed the way we want them to go,” Sam screamed back over the thundering herd.
“Keep it that way,” Dusty yelled as he swung behind them to the other side of the herd. Rebecca knew he was looking for Young Tom but the night was so dark it would only be via lightning flashes that the boy was ever located.
Her heart jumped when she thought of the boy being hurt. So many things could go wrong. A horse falling in the path of the herd. A crazed steer breaking free and charging. Even one of a hundred bolts of lightning ripping through the night. So many ways to die, all of them too terrible to imagine.
Dusty swung Red back towards the herd and yelled at them, hoping to keep them together and all running in the same direction.
Rebecca held her breath until a flash of lightning showed a hazy image of Tom at the front corner
of the herd, keeping them straight. The boy had instinctively known what to do.
“That boy is going to make quite a hand,” Dusty yelled over his shoulder to her with a shake of his head.
For the next mile, the wind whipped, the rain pounded, and the thunder rolled across the desert driving the cattle ever onward. The herd was thinning into a long line of running steers. Big Red dipped and dashed between cactus and breaks in the ground. Around rocks and through the brush. All the while keeping to the side of the herd. Fighting to keep them together.
Rebecca could feel the big horse beginning to falter. Carrying double over rough ground at these speeds would drain any horse. Especially after a long day of herding cattle.
“They’re tiring,” Dusty yelled to her over the wind. He kicked his heels urging his horse up to the front of the herd.
“Now,” he yelled to Tom and started pushing against the side of the herd. The cows refused to budge. Their wild eyes indicating they were determined to keep on their current crazed path. But Dusty and Red refused to back off and eventually, the wild steers started to turn. Just a little. Just enough to show progress.
“Yes,” Tom yelled as he waved his hat. A distant flash of lightning highlighted him with a large grin. A young man having the adventure of a lifetime.
Slowly, working together, the cowboys got the herd to turn, then tightened the turn until the cattle were pushing back on itself, forcing them to slow and eventually to stop. The rain continued to pound with a heavy rhythm.
Rebecca tried to force her racing heart to slow. The experience had been unbelievable. So close to death. The energy of the storm. The racing animals. Holding onto Dusty. All of it had filled her with a sense of awe and bewilderment. A sense of being alive like nothing she had ever known.
The four cowboys continued to circle the herd. Keeping them bunched tightly. Not giving them room to move.
Finally, Rebecca felt Dusty give a heavy sigh and she knew they would be alright. That the herd would no longer bolt. And with that realization, the rain stopped and the wind settled to a steady breeze as the storm passed on.
The moonlight slowly peaked out from behind the thinning clouds. Enough to show the herd mingling about in confusion. Their sides heaving as they tried to catch their breath.
Her insides tightened as she began to count. The herd was smaller. Enough so that even she could see the difference. Would they be able to find the stragglers? she wondered. And how much time would it take?
Everything rested on these cattle, she thought for the thousandth time. And if it were not for the four cowboys, they would have been strung out from here to Denver. The fact that she even had a herd after that stampede was truly miraculous.
Dusty waved over Jack Tanner. “I’m taking Miss Carson back to the wagon to see if anything is left.”
Jack nodded. “They’re too tired to run anymore tonight. We’ll be fine.”
Dusty nodded then urged Big Red to go back to the west. “You all right back there?” he asked her.
She nodded then realized he couldn’t see her in the dark. “Yes,” she said as a warm feeling of tenderness filled her. They were alive. He was alive. Her arms were wrapped around him. They were alone under the night sky. Of course, she was alright. In fact, she didn’t know if she had ever been righter.
As they traveled back towards the camp, she felt Red stumble, his head down. Dusty pulled him to a stop then turned back to her. “We should probably walk and give him a break.”
She nodded as she held onto his arm and slid off the horse’s back. When she had her feet firmly under her, he started to pull away but hesitated for a moment. She wondered what he was thinking about. But, before she could probe the thought, he swung down to join her.
“About a mile,” he told her as he started walking. She hurried to catch up so that she could walk next to him. As they made their way back to camp, she became amazed to discover the ground was not a quagmire. After a racing herd and buckets of rain. She would have expected liquid mud.
But the gravely sandy ground had absorbed it all as if it were nothing but an afterthought and returned to the hard rocky surface she was familiar with.
She was stepping around a prickly pear cactus when she saw Dusty stop. The clouds had disappeared, returning the desert to a black and gray shadowy landscape. She looked up and her heart fell.
The wagon was nothing more than sticks and twisted pieces of iron. The ground around it was littered with empty bags and scattered dishware.
The horses were gone, obviously breaking their tethers to avoid the raging herd.
“It’s gone,” she whispered.
“We’ll save what we can and use the team as pack animals for the rest of the trip,” Dusty said without taking his eyes off the scene before him.
“If we can find them,” she said, referring to the wagon team and the other horses that had been staked out.
Dusty let out a long breath as he turned and removed the saddle from Big Red then started down to the cottonwoods with the saddle over his shoulder.
She could only stand and admire him. One more disaster and he took it in stride. Developed a solution and carried on. The man was like a granite cliff impervious to the challenges the universe threw at him.
It took the rest of the night for them to gather enough to justify the effort. A corner of a flour sack with enough for a breakfast of flapjacks. Dried beans scattered across the sand. Enough to be salvaged for a meal or two.
Blankets, pots, and saddlebags were gathered until there was nothing left to be salvaged.
As they looked at what they had collected a cool wind blew across her wet clothes making her shiver. He noticed and pulled off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.
She was tempted to refuse his kind gesture but then felt the warmth of him mixed with that strong leathery smell she would always associate with Dusty Rhodes and sank into his coat with a feeling of joy and rightness.
Pulling it tight around her shoulders and dipping her face into the collar soaking up the essence of the man she loved.
Dusty gathered some semi-dry wood from under the cottonwoods and started a fire. The two of them stood next to each other staring down into the flames.
“Thank you,” she said without looking at him. “For saving me. I didn’t know what to do.”
He didn’t respond, just continued to stare into the flames. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he said with a tight voice as if he really meant it. Without really thinking it through, she reached out and wrapped him in a tight hug. Resting her head on his chest as she let the emotions flow through her.
She felt him stiffen, then soften as he wrapped his strong arms around her and held away all the terrors of the night.
As she stood there in his jacket, surrounded by his strength, she thought about what would never happen. She realized how much she was going to miss him when he moved on. Her heart would break and she doubted it would ever truly heal.
Finally, he broke away. “Stay here, keep warm. I’m going to see if I can find those other horses.”
She swallowed hard, already missing his strong arms. All she could do was stand there and watch him walk off into the darkness.
Get used to it, she thought. This wouldn’t be the last time she watched him walk away. And eventually, he would leave and never come back. A sadness filled her. A sadness that threatened to never leave.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to turn back to the fire. As she stared into the flames, she thought about how much her life had changed. If she had known Dusty back east, she might never have found him so enticing. No, she realized. She would have found him enticing, but she would never have dreamed of doing anything about it.
Now, here she was in this strange land and it was not the difference in their status that tore at her. It really didn’t matter. No, it was the realization that he didn’t care enough to sacrifice his chosen lifestyle. His wandering feet would always urge him to cross the next mo
untain or ford the next river just to see what was on the other side.
It was enough to make a woman cry with frustration. Enough to make her question everything she had thought about herself. What was it about her that wasn’t enough?
Just as she felt a tear start to fall down her cheek, a noise behind her made her jump.
She twisted to find Dusty walking out of the shadows leading three horses.
“They didn’t wander far,” he told her.
She recognized the two wagon horses and Jack’s spare horse.
“We’ll get the rest in the morning,” he added.
Rebecca took a deep breath to try and push the anguish back down where it could be ignored. There were things to do.
Dusty swung his saddle up onto Jacks extra horse then used broken pieces of the wagon, spare pieces of rope, and eventually his lariat, to build a pack on one of the wagon horses.
“You take Jack’s,” he told her as he held a stirrup for her. “I’ll ride bareback and lead the other one. Red will follow along. But he’s too done in for anything more. At least for the next day or so.”
“Can you ride bareback?” she asked after stepping up into the saddle.
He laughed and shook his head but didn’t say anything as he grabbed a hunk of the horse’s mane and swung his leg over the horse’s back like he’d been doing it all his life.
She sighed heavily as she followed him back towards the herd. Their moment was over, she realized. That quiet time by the fire when it had been just the two of them. It was gone. One more memory for her to cry over when he left her.
The sky was that faint pink when they got back to the herd. The three others were dragging. She could see it in the sloping shoulders and the way the horse's heads were lower than normal. It had been a long day and a terrifying night. These men needed rest.
As they drew closer her heart began to falter as she examined the herd in the faint morning light. It was worse than she’d thought.
High Desert Cowboy (High Sierra Book 2) Page 15
