Live Wire (Maggie #1)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  She laughs and jogs to Lily’s pen. She should have asked Hank for cookies. But when she checks her pocket, she finds one left over from earlier. She enters the corral, holds it out. “Cookie, Lily girl. Cookie.”

  The mare lowers her head and walks slowly to her. She lips the cookie from Maggie’s palm.

  “Look at that. You make me feel better without even trying.” Maggie loops the lead line around the horse’s neck. The halter end looks like the complicated rope puzzle she carried on tour with her one summer, one she never solved. “Nope. Not even trying.”

  She applies gentle pressure on the loop, still facing the big animal. Lily doesn’t budge.

  “Don’t make me look worse in front of Hank.”

  Lily swishes her tail.

  Maggie turns toward the barn, sighs, and leans against the rope, applying steady pressure. To her surprise, it goes slack so fast she nearly falls. She walks forward and hoofbeats clomp behind her. Lily keeps coming, even through a gate, until they reach grass, where she buries her nose and refuses to budge.

  “Give her a minute. She’s been cooped up staring at that all night.” Hank’s voice is close. Ten yards away, inside another paddock, he has haltered a gray horse. “And close the gate. Rules of the range. Always leave it like you find it.”

  Maggie salutes him as she closes the gate. When Lily’s mouth is stuffed with grass, she pulls. Lily pulls back, slightly, and keeps eating.

  “When you want her to stop eating, use rhythmic tugs. Fast. Or even just shake the lead rope. Like this.” He mimes shaking the lead.

  Maggie tries it.

  “Don’t be a pansy. Harder.”

  “Who are you calling a pansy, bucko?” She shakes more vigorously. Lily lifts her head.

  “Good. Turn away from her. Now you can pull steady, until she comes, then give her slack. Yeah, like that. Get her in line beside you, moving with you. And walk faster. That way she can’t eat.”

  When Hank’s suggestions work, Maggie beams. It’s like she’s learned a secret language.

  “The halter would make everything easier.”

  “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  “You don’t know how.”

  “Nope. I could do it if it had a buckle.”

  Hank and his horse fall in beside her. He hands the lead line to Maggie. “You take Wolf. I’ll tie her halter.”

  “Hi, Wolf.” Maggie stops with both horses. “No. Teach me.”

  Standing close with the horses and Hank creates a cocoon of warmth and intimacy. Maggie feels tingly. She watches Hank, listens, and emulates his motions when it’s her turn. She’s soaking him in until she catches a womanly scent. Yuck. He smells like perfume. Like Sheila. She takes a step back. It feels like a violation of her intimacy with Hank, which she knows is ridiculous. She has no claim to him. But she feels what she feels.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Maggie adjusts Lily’s halter to take up slack like Hank had shown her, then ties it off. “Nothing. I just needed room to work.”

  Her short-lived rebound from her funk over, Maggie is silent as they groom, saddle, and tack up the horses.

  Hank leads Lily to a mounting block. “You’ll want to use this.”

  Maggie nods, then climbs up the steps and into the saddle on the tall mare.

  Beside them, Hank mounts Wolf. He’s a foot shorter on his quarter horse than Maggie is on Lily. “How’s the weather up there?”

  Despite her mood, she’s awed by the difference in her perspective from Lily’s back, especially when Lily ambles out, rocking Maggie along with her. “Holy shit, it’s like I’m riding a freakin’ elephant. How tall is she?”

  “Eighteen hands.”

  “Which is what, in people terms?”

  “Four inches per hand. Seventy-two inches. That means she’s six feet tall at her shoulder.”

  “And your horse?”

  “Fifteen hands. Sixty inches or five feet.”

  “She seems so much bigger than him. More than just taller.”

  “That’s because she’s thicker, stronger. Wolf is a cow pony. He has a big ole quarter-horse butt, but he’s fairly slight elsewhere. She weighs two thousand pounds to his thousand fifty.”

  “Girl power.”

  “Mare power. Her foals are big, strong, and athletic. We breed her with a stallion that’s much more high-strung, so they’re not as laid back as she is. Lots of fire in ’em.”

  As they ride through pastures of tall grass, she watches Louise sprint through them in a crazy zigzag pattern. Sometimes only the tip of her erect tail is visible. Maggie realizes that the grass isn’t all dead and brown like it appears from a distance. The stalks are green. Only the tops are brown, where everything has gone to seed. It’s not all grass, either. There’s a fair amount of some blue-green plant. Maybe it’s what gives the hillsides the silvery sheen she’d noticed the day before.

  She points up into the foothills, to the tall cabin she’d noticed when she first arrived with Patrick. “Whose cabin is that?”

  Hank smiles. “Ours. We call it the summer cabin. It was my dad’s favorite place in the world. We’d have lived up there year-round if Mom would have agreed.”

  “Why didn’t she want to?”

  His voice is wry and affectionate. “Winter. It’s hard work getting up there. Worse getting down.”

  “You love it?”

  “I do. Just another way I’m like Dad, I guess. I get up there as often as I can. We had a fire up near there a few years back, too. Lightning in the middle of a rainstorm. It’s so dry here this time of year that it doesn’t take much. I guess I feel protective.”

  Hank hops down several times to open wire gates for them. Louise keeps them within sight, but constantly works the far edge of that range.

  To Maggie, it feels like they’ve ridden miles and miles. “Are we still on your ranch?”

  “My mom’s ranch. The Double S leases space. But yes, it’s five thousand acres, so we won’t leave it today.” He points to the north. “A ways past our northern boundary is the site of the Wagon Box Fight. It’s an interesting nugget of history.”

  Her voice is teasing. “Ah, my tour has started.”

  “Girl, you’re more lucky than you’ll ever know. A bona fide Cheyenne Frontier Days champion and local landowner is taking you on a personal tour of his ranch. And giving you a history lesson. I’m not even charging extra.”

  “I thought you said it was your mom’s ranch.”

  “I’m about to revoke your tour pass, woman.”

  “Just a stickler for facts.”

  He wags a finger at her. “As I was saying about the Wagon Box Fight before I was so rudely interrupted, about thirty soldiers and contractors from Fort Phil Kearney held off the Lakota Sioux by tipping the wagons on their sides in a circle for protection. They called the heavy back ends wagon boxes, hence the name of the fight. Of course, they also had breech-loading Springfield rifles, and the Sioux didn’t.”

  “Was that a good thing?”

  “Not for the Sioux. They fought hard for this land—so did the Cheyenne and Arapaho—when the US built forts along the Bozeman Trail.”

  She pats herself on the back for asking Gene about the Trail last night, so that she doesn’t have to ask Hank now. “What about the Crow?”

  “They aligned themselves with the US. Some say it was because the other tribes were their enemies, but others say it was more that they recognized the inevitability of defeat by the US troops.”

  Maggie had just learned more about the Crow in thirty seconds than she’d learned her entire life. It was weird to think her ancestors had fought with the US troops against other Indian nations. She suddenly had an itch to get her hands on books about the Crow. What was even stranger was she wanted to read them.

  They ride in silence for a while, except for intermittent riding tips from Hank. Maggie watches Lily’s ears swivel every time she hears a sound, whether it is Maggie’s voice, a bark from Louise, t
he wind, a bird, or the clank of Wolf’s shoe on stone.

  “See over there?” Hank now indicates something to the east.

  Maggie catches sight of movement. A bouncing motion. Horns, fast-moving white rumps. Louise chasing them. “Antelope. They’re beautiful.”

  “And if we were looking for them, we’d see white-tailed deer, pheasant, turkey, sage grouse, and a little farther into the mountains, elk, mule deer, and other game animals. Moose. Bighorn sheep. The Native Americans really prized this area for hunting and winter camps.”

  “So they fought for it. Along the Bozeman Trail.”

  “They did.” He smiles at her like a prize pupil, something she’s never, ever been. “And they had some great victories, too. But when the dust settled ten years later, they’d all been pushed onto reservations far, far inferior to this.” He sweeps his hand around them. “The Crow made out better than the others, but they still lost their way of life.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “To the victors go the spoils. And now my family owns this ranch. I can’t pretend I don’t love the place and want to keep it. But I get a twinge every now and then, and I see their spirits.”

  “Whose spirits?”

  “The warriors, I believe. And I’m not the only crusty old cowboy around here who’ll tell you the same. Especially around the battle sites. Once I was out hunting with Gene and another buddy, and we came into a mountain meadow. Up there.”

  Maggie pictures the cabin on the mountainside overlooking the ranch. “By the big cabin?”

  Again, he gives her a look that shows he is pleased with her answer and the attention to the area it shows. “That direction, but miles farther up. My horse spooked. I was looking around for what startled him, and on the other side of the meadow, I saw two warriors on ponies, everyone dressed and painted for battle, including the horses. Gene saw them, too. I raised my hand, and they raised theirs. I turned to show our other friend, and when I looked back, they were gone.”

  “I didn’t take you for a woo-woo type of person.”

  But as he told the story, Maggie got a woo-woo type of feeling. She can’t put her finger on why. Recognition, maybe? It’s almost like she’s seen a spirit herself, except she can’t remember it happening. Ever since Boyd told her about her Crow ancestors, she’s felt a closeness to the area that’s ridiculous, really. Like she’s romanticizing it. And she’s not a romantic person. If a spirit sighting happened at all, it was probably back in her drug days. Hallucinogenics had never been her friend.

  “You didn’t take me at all, as I recall.” He raises a hand. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have gone there.”

  “You shouldn’t have. But maybe that’s what made Fucker bark last night.”

  “Who?”

  She points to the black-and-white dog chasing a jackrabbit one hundred feet away. “Fucker. I guess her real name is Louise. She’s adopted me.”

  “Nice name.” He reins Wolf closer to Lily. The mare pins her ears back. Wolf dips a shoulder to move away, but Hank holds him close to Maggie and her horse. “It could have been a spirit. Or it could have been an animal. The rodents are attracted to our trash. And where there are prey animals, there are predators. We not only have the antelope and deer, we have cattle and horses. Lots to interest the meat eaters.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  He laughs. “Most likely it was just the wind. Which we have more of than anything.”

  It hadn’t sounded like the wind. More like scuffling. But maybe that was just something blowing across the porch? “If there are predators, then how come there are so many antelope and deer?”

  “The predator ranges are shrinking due to people but we still have this unbelievably nutritious grass. Thick, tall, and high protein. So we get a lot of grazers with too few predators for natural balance, then the grazers don’t leave enough forage in the winter for our livestock. Hunting has always been critical in this area, for survival, but it’s also an important part of our ranch management.”

  That explains the head mounts of the animals back in the ranch house, she thinks. “When is hunting season?”

  “Depends on the animal and the weapon. Right now is mostly bow hunting. And bear. I can’t wait to get out there.” He stops Wolf and looks around him appreciatively. “A hundred years ago this region was free-range—no fences. Can you imagine that?”

  Maggie scans the countryside around them all the way to the horizon. She sees fences, roads, houses. What would this place have been like before them? “I can’t.”

  “Hundreds of thousands of horses and cattle roamed here. Compare that to these little bands of ten to twenty horses per pasture you’re seeing now. The horse industry was huge.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “Automobiles. Trains. Airplanes. Tanks. Humvees. Back then, herds of horses ran wild, and the ranchers would round them up when it was time to break them or sell them. Mostly for war and transportation, but also some for racing, polo, showing, cowboying. Even for meat.”

  “What?”

  “Meat. Sadly, that was often the source for the US to fill the food commitments to the reservations.”

  “Sometimes I hate us.”

  “Me, too. And horses like Lily, or rather, draft horse stallions—Clydesdales, Shires, Percherons, Belgians—were turned loose in the herds to increase their size. Like we’re doing here. Except instead of breeding horses to be hardier for a job they love, the purpose was to put more pounds of meat on the hoof.”

  Maggie gasps and reaches down to pat Lily’s neck. “Oh my God. Don’t listen to him, Lily.”

  Three white-tailed deer explode from a stand of tall, thick buckbrush. Wolf whinnies and rears slightly as he whirls. Lily reverses direction with a snort, then does a funny four-footed dance in place.

  “Whoa, girl.” Maggie is terrified she will fall off. Her hand shoots down to grip the saddle horn. But the centrifugal force of Lily’s roll-back surprises Maggie. She stays mostly centered in the saddle. “Just deer. We’re okay.”

  The bigger horse calms and gets back on course while Hank is still dealing with Wolf’s excitement.

  “And that’s the difference between a hot-blooded cow pony and a cold-blooded draft horse,” Hank says, when he catches up with them. “Hey, see that cabin across the creek there?” He says creek as if it is spelled c-r-i-c-k. Crick.

  The creek in question looks almost as big as a river to Maggie. It’s tumbling at a good clip down a rocky bed. The water is mesmerizing. Once she’d seen it, her eyes hadn’t strayed beyond it. Now she lifts her gaze and sees a ramshackle building. From this distance, she would have called it a shack instead of a cabin and wonders what the difference is.

  “Yeah. Is it yours?”

  “No. Our property ends just on the other side of the creek. See the fence?”

  She squints. “I do now.”

  “The cabin belongs to our crazy neighbor. Electrician by day and fence destroyer by night.”

  “What?”

  “He has a bad habit of taking the fence down so his cattle can get to our water. Water is life up here. Water rights are wealth. And, there’s a section down. Again.” Hank lifts a hand in greeting. “That’s him, watching us.”

  Maggie sees a short, wide man near a camo panel van with SIMON ELECTRIC painted in neon yellow block letters on the side with a phone number below it. What is it with camo vehicles in Wyoming? Wasn’t there one in the Bison Inn parking lot, when she was there with Chet? She sees it in her mind’s eye. No, it was an army-green truck. Close cousin to camo. It had belonged to the awful woman who slapped Chet.

  Chet. Ugh. She doesn’t want to keep remembering Chet. But how can she forget him? She was naked with him less than two days ago, and now he’s dead. Hank hasn’t brought up the murder, and she’s not about to, but she wonders if he knows about it. And, if he does, whether he remembers Maggie with him at the Occidental. God, she hopes not.

  Lily huffs and shifts, responsive to Maggie�
��s slightest signals, intentional or otherwise.

  The crazy neighbor either doesn’t see them or is ignoring Hank.

  “Whatever.” Hank lowers his hand. “This is our turnaround point. If we had time, I’d take you on the dime tour.” He points up into the rugged foothills. “Gene got his antelope up there last year.”

  “Thanks for the nickel tour anyway.”

  “No problem.”

  As they turn around, Maggie says, “Hopefully when we get back, I’ll have good news from the dealership.”

  “Sorry to tell you this, but I have signal out here. They haven’t called.”

  “It’s suddenly not so urgent that I get back.” She gazes into the foothills. They tug at her, call to her. She’s never been a mountain person, and Hank’s told her about the predators that roam up there. But the longing is stronger than her fear of them and the unknown.

  “I need to get back. Gotta get some work done before I have to knock off early.” Hank urges Wolf in front of Lily.

  Maggie has a bad feeling she knows why. “Oh? Something fun?” Her voice is brittle.

  “Um, dinner with Sheila.”

  “The Sunday school teachers again?”

  “No.”

  “My next guess is Mommy and Daddy, because I’ll bet she still lives at home.”

  He gives her the side-eye. “Half-right. Dinner with the parents and Sheila’s baby sister.”

  Half-right is twice as bad. If Sheila doesn’t live with her parents, that means Hank can shack up with her all he wants. Maggie can’t compete with a young, pretty woman who is sexually available. She’s just been fooling herself. Going riding with Hank isn’t stolen time. It’s just opening up the wound so there’s more surface area for the salt to sting when it’s poured on.

  “Yah, Lily.” Maggie squeezes the horse’s sides with her legs and presses gently with her heels. The mare is sluggish to respond, so Maggie repeats her command with firm intention. She needs to get away from this pain, and the quickest path back to Texas is on the back of the big black horse. Louise, excited, yips and snaps at Lily’s heels.

  “Hey, wait up,” Hank calls.

  Maggie whispers to Lily. “There are more cookies for you if you lose him.” She knows Wolf can catch them, but right now, she needs a Hank-free moment.