The Wrangler

by Pamela Britton

  “Is that what will happen? It’ll just start fading away.”

  She nodded. “For the most part, yes. I’ve already lost thirty percent of my peripheral vision. Not enough to lose my driver’s license, but enough that I can’t see things out of the corner of my eyes. Believe me, if that gets worse, I’ll tell you straight away.”

  He continued to stare down at her, his arms crossed. They stood on a small hill, one that overlooked the valley where his family’s ranch sat—correction—his ranch sat.

  “And when that does happen, Sam,” he said, “what then? Do we drive you to the airport? Put you on a plane? Slap you on the rear and wish you luck?”

  “It won’t happen that quickly,” she said. “This is a slow progression. Three months ago it was just a bothersome blind spot. Now it’s worse. At this rate I have two, maybe three more months before it gets really bad. I expect that by next year I’ll be blind.” But it could happen sooner…much sooner. They honestly couldn’t determine when it would happen, or how quickly. Things could change, they’d said. But she was banking on the fact that it wouldn’t happen fast. Of course, she didn’t tell Clint that.

  “And afterward,” he asked. “After you’ve gone…”

  Blind. Come on, Clint. Say the word. You can do it.

  “After it happens, what do you plan to do?”

  If she’d needed further proof that he was bothered, maybe even repulsed by what was going to happen to her, she had it.

  “I’ll go to the Delaware Center for the Blind. They’ll teach me how to get around, maybe even learn a new vocation. I’ll be okay.”

  “And what if you’re not?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, pushing a lock of short hair out of her eyes. It’d gotten breezy all of a sudden.

  “What if you have trouble…” He appeared to be searching for a word. “Adjusting.”

  “You mean what if I become suicidal?”

  He blanched. “That’s not what I meant. But what happens if you can’t cope?”

  She’d been asking herself that question ever since she’d been given her diagnosis. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I honestly don’t know.” She recognized in that moment that she was coming to grips with her future. Spending time with Clint and Gigi had given her unexpected strength. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

  She waited for him to say something, maybe something like, “I’ll be there…don’t you worry.”

  He had followed her gaze, his face in profile as he stared out at the ranch in front of them. He wore his cowboy hat, of course. The smell of earth and horse clung to him as if he were part of the Montana countryside—and it stirred her desire even after he’d ignored her for half the day.

  “I should check the horses’ girths,” he said.

  “Yeah, maybe you should do that,” Sam said sharper than she intended.

  “Be sure and eat.”

  He walked away, and with each step he took, he trod on Sam’s heart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He knew he was being an ass, knew it and yet couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, without paying attention to where he was going.

  “Watch out!” someone cried.

  Clint stopped just shy of knocking Gigi to the ground. His grandmother steadied herself against the side of the wagon, the twenty-pound sack of potatoes she carried nearly slipping from her gasp.

  “Geez, Clint.”

  “Sorry,” he said, quickly taking the sack from her. “Didn’t see you.”

  “Well,” she said, hands on her hips. “I’m not surprised judging by the look on that girl’s face while you were talking to her.”

  “What? What look?”

  “Did you tell her to gouge her eyes out with something? To go ahead and get it over with maybe?”

  “Gigi! What a thing to accuse me of.”

  “So then. What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing. I mean, we just talked.”

  “Yeah…for the first time all morning.”

  “I’ve been busy,” he said. But he made the mistake of glancing back. She still stood where he’d left her, still staring out over the valley.

  The sickness returned, that same stomach ache he’d felt when she’d told him what was in store for her. He couldn’t imagine…Couldn’t even begin to understand…Didn’t think he would ever want to know what it would be like to lose his sight.

  “Well, whatever you said to her, it’s hard to decide who looks worse—you or her.”

  He shook his head, shifted the potatoes to his other side. “She’s got a lot on her mind.”

  “So do you, if I don’t miss my guess.”

  “Where to?” he asked, ignoring what was very obviously a prompt.

  “Just set them over there, near where Cappie is cooking.”

  He nodded. Gigi always peeled potatoes the day before she and Cappie had to cook them up for breakfast. That way they weren’t peeling and chopping by firelight in the early morning.

  “You want me to get you a bag of onions, too?” he asked, after setting his load down. Cappie nodded before going back to the hamburger patties on his flat-iron skillet. Cappie kept to himself. Easily eighty years old with gray hair and dark, nearly black eyes, he made his living cooking for ranches on roundups. The man might not be much for conversation, but he sure could cook. Clint’s stomach growled when he caught a whiff of onion and garlic.

  “You looking for something else to do?” Gigi asked.

  “Actually, I was going to check the horses’ girths.”

  He needed to keep busy. Needed to find a way to stop thinking about her. Now that they were underway, there wasn’t much for him to do other than keep an eye on things. Most of the guys had been on the trail with them before and so they knew each other. Only Sam and Lorenzo were new to the group.

  Sam who was now talking to Lorenzo, he noticed, having looked her way without conscious thought.

  “You better keep an eye on that boy. He’s got the I-want-to-get-into-your-pants look written all over him.”

  “Lorenzo?” Clint asked. “Nah. He’ll leave her alone.”

  “You think so?” Gigi asked. She sat on one of three logs near the fire, bent and picked up the potato peeler she’d set down on a cutting board. “Handsome girl like Sam,” she said, using the sharp end of the utensil to rip into the bag of potatoes. “Of course he’s making eyes at her.”

  “Does he know she’s going blind?”

  The words were out before he could call them back, and his grandmother’s head jerked up. She narrowed her eyes, the peeler frozen in her hands. “So that’s what this is all about,” she said. “I had a feeling.”

  “A feeling about what?” he asked, glancing back at Sam and Lorenzo. The cowboy was smiling into Sam’s face, and Sam was doing her best to smile back, but Clint could tell she wasn’t in the mood.

  “You’re freaked out.”

  “Freaked out about what?” he huffed.

  “Her going blind,” Gigi said, exasperated.

  “Of course I’m upset about that,” Clint said. “I would have to have a heart of coal not to feel bad for her.”

  “You’re falling in love with her.”

  “What?” he cried. “Don’t be absurd. I just met the girl.”

  “Didn’t stop you from jumping into her bed.”

  “I didn’t jump into her bed.”

  Gigi raised her eyebrows before going back to her potato.

  “All right, fine. Maybe I kissed her.”

  Her eyebrows swooped up again.

  “A couple times,” he added, but that was all he was going to admit. “That doesn’t mean I’m in love with her.”

  Gigi scraped off a long strip of brown skin, one that she flicked into the fire. It hissed as it hit the flames. “I didn’t say you were about to propose,” she said, starting on another strip. “I said you were starting to care for her…before.”

 
He wasn’t going to ask “before” what because he got it. “I hardly know her, Gigi.”

  “Then why’d you give me the go-ahead to buy her expensive horse?”

  “Because you were going to do it anyway, with or without me.”

  “True,” she said, another peel going up in flames. “But you could have left me to my own devices. Instead you handed the lead rope to that horse over like a man handing his princess the keys to the castle.”

  “I did not,” he said. “The transportation service guy did that.”

  Gigi stopped what she was doing. Her hands rested in her lap. “You wanted to do something nice for her,” she said. “Not because it was the right thing to do—which it was, and we could afford it—but because you crossed the line. You went from feeling sorry for her to really, truly caring.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders. “So what.”

  “And it scares the peanuts out of you that she’s going blind.”

  He lifted his hat, swept his hair back with his hand. “No, it doesn’t. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Look how she’s pulled through everything so far.”

  “Clinton, you lying sack of horse manure.”

  Cappie glanced up. Clint had a feeling the old army captain was listening to every word.

  “You aren’t just shrugging this off,” Gigi said. “You’re terrified for her. I can see it in your eyes, terrified because you’d started to fall in love with her.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Clint said. “This isn’t some damn Nicholas Sparks movie. People don’t meet and fall in love in a matter of days. It takes months. If I look upset it’s because now that I know she’s going blind, I’m worried about how she’s going to pay us back for Coaster.”

  His grandmother leaned back. “Wow,” she said softly. “You really are in denial.”

  “I’m going to go check the horses.”

  “Just remember, Clinton,” Gigi said, “Your grandfather used to bulldog cattle.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “He used to remind himself of something as he stared down the length of the arena. It wasn’t the horse or the steer or his own damn head that would be responsible for him missing the horns, it was what was right here.” She tapped her chest. “You gotta have heart. And you’ve got to let your heart lead you. If you do that, there isn’t anything you can’t do.”

  Terrific. She’d gone Obi-Wan Kenobi on him. Never a good sign.

  “After I check the horses I’ll go and get that bag of onions,” he said. He’d noticed that Sam hadn’t tied her horse up with the other ones. Probably smart. He was new to the barn and might get beat up being low in the pecking order.

  He busied himself, checking saddles. Making sure all the packs were secure on the pack horses. Getting Gigi her bag of onions, then eating lunch when the time came. He noticed that Sam didn’t eat, fought the urge to go over to her. Gigi would’ve beat him to it anyway. His grandmother brought Sam a plate, despite her protests.

  Clint eyed the group. They were eight riders strong, each of the men necessary for the roundup. Four of them would herd the horses into the corrals. Another two would be left behind to work the gates of the corral. Another couple could ride the hills, searching for strays—although horses were herd animals and rarely left the pack. Still, a mare and foal could get lost, and they took great care to make sure no horse was left behind. After the animals had been vetted, sorted, microchipped and the males castrated, the wranglers would move them to higher pasture. Come summer, the lower hills would turn brown, but not the higher elevations.

  The next day they’d do it all over again.

  Point of fact it would take them a day to gather and work with the animals, and then another to move them to the higher pastures. The whole system was a matter of moving through one parcel, closing the gates, then moving them to another. Sort of like the Panama Canal.

  Someone laughed.

  Clint looked up. Lorenzo I-Want-to-Get-in-Your-Pants Villanueva was chuckling at something Sam was saying. This was his first year working with Clint and he could already tell it’d be his last. He didn’t like the guy.

  “Lorenzo,” he called, “if you’ve got nothing better to do, maybe you can help Cappie pack up.”

  They were too far away for Clint to hear what Lorenzo said to Sam, but he would bet it was something sarcastic because Sam smiled. It set Clint’s teeth on edge.

  “Boys,” he called, turning away from the two of them, “let’s mount up.”

  He watched as the cowboys lounging on the ground scrambled up, plates in hand as they headed over to the chuckwagon. They looked like a posse of U.S. Marshalls, Clint thought. Something from the Old West. Most wore brown work shirts, all had chinks on, the leather fringe hanging down to just past their knees. Most had pocketknives tucked into the back of their jeans. The rifles they had were on their saddles, in a leather holder, but cowboy attire hadn’t changed much in the past one hundred years or so.

  “I want to make base camp tonight, so let’s put a move on it.”

  Clint looked at Sam, about to offer to help her up, but Lorenzo—the little weasel—was already there. Hadn’t he just told the guy to go help Cappie?

  His mood didn’t improve as they rode, Clint at the head of the pack. Their pace was slow because of the wagon they had to follow, but it was the perfect speed for chatting—which Lorenzo did. The kid kept trying to tease smiles out of Sam. Occasionally he’d succeed.

  You’re falling in love with her.

  Damn, fool thing to say. As if he could fall in love with someone so quickly. Yeah, he felt sorry for her. Who wouldn’t? But fall in love?

  The idea made him so angry, he aimed his horse toward the chuckwagon, saying to Cappie and Gigi, “I’m going to ride ahead…make sure the trail’s clear.” Although he knew perfectly well it was. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  By tonight they’d be at base camp. If they were lucky, they might be able to spot one of the herds of mustangs, the ones that lived closest to the base camp.

  Sam would like that.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. Sam again. He couldn’t get the woman off his mind. At least that horse of hers was behaving. So far, the big gelding hadn’t given anything a look. Not even the chuckwagon. But from what he knew of show animals, that shouldn’t come as a shock. At the bigger shows, horses could see any number of things outside the arena because most of the time they were held at fairgrounds where just about anything could be going on at the same time. Car races, carnival rides, home improvement shows. More than likely, her horse was bombproof by now.

  Maybe he was worth the twenty grand they’d paid for him.

  And there he was, thinking about her blindness again. Gigi was right. It killed him. No one should have to face such a thing, least of all someone who’d already been through so much.

  He rode as far as he could without losing sight of their group. It wasn’t very far. Along the way he’d open and close gates for the crew. They’d hit the tree line. Tall oaks, aspens and cottonwood trees began to sprout up in more abundance. He stopped occasionally to glance back. Buttercup would toss his head as if contemplating a strafing run back to the others. Clint wouldn’t let him. He’d turn and ride farther, the ten-foot wide path they followed marked by twin ruts. Evidence of their twice yearly trek into the hills.

  During one of his stops, he noticed that Sam had broken away from the group. It was nearly the end of the ride, the sun having started to sink behind the trees. They were traversing some steep terrain now. Not so tight that they had to worry about the wagon sliding back down the hill, but tight enough that it was obvious they were at a new elevation. Sam continued to make her way toward him. Clint thought about riding ahead again. He’d leave her behind if he spurred his horse into a lope. But that would be irresponsible. He needed to keep an eye on the group. Plus, there was no reason to hide. And at least she was away from that damn Lorenzo.

  “Hey,” she said softly as she brought Coas
ter even with his horse.

  “Hey,” he said right back.

  They were less than a half hour out from base camp and, frankly, she’d picked a good time to ride ahead. There was a spot farther up where the trees parted, they might be able to catch their first glimpse of the mustangs. This time of year, they liked to graze in a small valley.

  “Gigi said I might be able to see the horses shortly.”

  Ah. That explained why she’d ridden up. Not to see him. Or to get away from Lorenzo. She wanted to see the horses.

  Do you blame her, Clint? She’ll never get to see them again.

  “Yeah,” he said, his throat tight all of a sudden.

  “If we catch sight of them,” she asked, her face more animated than it’d been all day, “will they be able to see us?”

  He nodded. “A lot of times horses in our group will neigh to them. But they’re used to our comings and goings. Sometimes in a dry summer even the upper pastures get low on grass and we have to supplement with hay. They don’t consider us a threat, not once they realize we’re not predators.”

  Sam nodded, her face in profile as she looked straight ahead—almost as if she was trying to catch an early glimpse of the break in the trees.

  That’s exactly what she’s doing, moron. She probably doesn’t want to miss a second.

  “And if they’re not in this valley, then what? Will we see them when we get to base camp?”

  He shook his head. “If they’re not in the valley it means they’re on the other side of yet another mountain. We’ll have to ride over tomorrow. But it’s not a long ride. Maybe an hour or so. We’ll set off early.”

  She nodded again.

  “You should see the valley we’ll be camping in,” he said. “It’s—”

  He couldn’t talk. Abruptly, his throat tightened so that he couldn’t force a word out of his mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he choked out. “As I was saying, it’s really something else.”

  “You okay?” she asked, leaning forward so she could see beneath his cowboy hat. Aboard that monster horse of hers she was at least a foot above him.