The Trailblazer

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “Never apologize for telling the truth, Freddy.” He finished his coffee and stretched gingerly out on the bedroll. “So you think I should change my name.”

  “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who goes by initials.”

  “What kind is that?”

  She hesitated. “A little on the pompous side.”

  To her relief, he glanced over at her and laughed. “It’s not easy being pompous around you. Maybe I’ve been heading in that direction, though. Is Ry a good name for a cowboy?”

  “An excellent name.”

  “Then maybe I’ll try it for a while.” He turned his head to look up into the sky. “I had no idea there were so many stars.”

  “City lights block them out.” Pleased that he’d accepted her nickname for him, she threw another stick on the fire and watched the sparks climb into the cool night air. Then she slipped off her boots and lay down on her own bedroll. “But then, I’ve never seen the lights of Times Square. I guess each place has its own kind of beauty.”

  He was quiet, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. A series of sharp yips drifted up from the valley. “Are those ranch dogs?” he asked.

  “Coyotes.”

  “I thought they were supposed to howl.”

  “Most Easterners think that. But they yip. Which makes the dogs go crazy. Can you hear them?”

  “Yeah. Noise really travels out here.”

  Her eyelids grew heavy. “Yes.”

  “I’m glad you brought me up here, even if your motives weren’t pure.”

  “You’ve been a good sport.”

  “Thanks. Good night, Freddy.” His voice seemed to caress her name, sending unexpected goose bumps over her skin.

  “Good night...” She hesitated. “Ry.”

  * * *

  SHE AWOKE to an unidentifiable scream. Bolting from her bedroll, she saw the man she’d recently dubbed Ry crouched against the cliff, a glowing stick he’d plucked from the fire brandished in one hand.

  “What is it?” she called.

  “I don’t know. Get over here.”

  She was halfway around the fire before she realized she was obeying his command on her territory. The scream came again, followed by the sound of wild snorting and stomping hooves. “It’s the horses!” she cried, hurrying back to her bedroll where she pulled on her boots before locating her flashlight and her Smith and Wesson. “Most likely a snake or cougar disturbing them.”

  “Damn, where are my boots?” he asked.

  “Stay put. I’ll handle it.”

  He grunted with pain. “The hell you will.”

  Ignoring him, she turned on the flashlight and shone it in the direction of the scream. “It’s okay, Maureen,” she called, setting out through the underbrush. “I’m coming, Mikey. Hang in there.” She was counting on the sound of a human voice to discourage whatever critter was after the horses. But if her voice didn’t work, her aim with the Smith and Wesson would. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use the gun. By coming up this canyon, she knew that she’d invaded the territory of several desert dwellers who had a right to protect themselves, but she had to safeguard her horses.

  She found Mikey and Maureen quivering in the clearing where she’d left them, yet a sweep of the flashlight revealed nothing in the area that might have spooked them.

  “See anything?” Ry said from behind her.

  Freddy sighed in irritation as she continued searching the bushes and overhead branches with the beam of her flashlight. “No, but go back to camp. I don’t want to have to worry about you, too.”

  “No dice.”

  “Look, you know nothing about the dangers out here. You—where do you think you’re going?”

  Ry pushed past her and limped over to Mickey. “Shine the light on his hind leg.”

  She did, and gasped. It was dripping with blood. “Oh, my God.” She hurried over and crouched beside the horse, whose flanks were heaving. “Easy, Mikey. Easy, boy. Ry, hold his head so I can check this out.”

  While Ry stroked Mikey’s nose and murmured to him, Freddy took a bandanna from her pocket and dabbed at the blood until she could see the wound, a jagged cut just above his fetlock. A little deeper and Mikey would have been crippled for life. As it was, he couldn’t be ridden back down the mountain. “I’m going to look Maureen over,” she said, moving carefully around the quivering Mikey to her own horse.

  The whites of Maureen’s eyes showed, and she tossed her head when Freddy reached for her, but after a few moments, the mare settled down. She was unhurt, which meant Ry could ride her down while Freddy led Mikey. “Let’s take them back to camp and tether them to a tree,” she suggested. “I’ll lead Mikey if you’ll take Maureen.”

  “I’ve got Mikey.” Ry coaxed the horse forward and the animal complied with an air of trust that astonished Freddy. Both man and horse limped back to camp.

  He just might make a cowboy, at that, Freddy thought. He was stubborn enough. And gutsy. After a few hours of being immobilized in sleep, he must have stiffened up considerably, yet he’d torn himself from his bedroll and snatched a weapon before she was fully awake. She had a gun; he had nothing but a stick, and he’d assumed the role of protector without thinking. Definitely the sort of thing a cowboy would do.

  After they secured the horses to an oak tree, she cleaned Mickey’s wound with water and applied an antiseptic ointment from her first-aid kit while Ry soothed the horse.

  “What do you think happened?” Ry asked after they’d built up the fire and were sitting across from each other on their bedrolls, both too keyed up to sleep.

  “I’m not sure. I suppose a snake or a cougar could have spooked them, and Mikey might have ripped his leg open on a jagged rock or broken tree limb lying on the ground.”

  “Another rogue cougar, maybe?”

  Freddy shook her head. “A rogue would have killed at least one of the horses. We’ll probably never know what happened.”

  “Is the injury serious?”

  “It could have been. As it is, I’ll have to lead him down and you’ll have to ride Maureen.”

  “I’ll lead him down.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. You will not.”

  “Yes, I will. It can’t be any worse to walk that trail than to ride it again.”

  Freddy chuckled. “And here I was beginning to think you were turning into a cowboy.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “A real cowboy will saddle up to ride from one side of his front yard to the other, rather than walk it.”

  “That may be true, but if he has to walk so his woman can ride, I’ll bet he’d do that.”

  His woman. She was certain he’d only used the expression to make a point, and it was a chauvinistic thing to say, anyway. So why did she feel a little glow of pleasure? Why did she turn the phrase over in her mind, listening to it again as if it were a refrain from a favorite song? The pressure of the impending sale must be getting to her. Perhaps, deep in her heart, she longed for a white knight to rescue her and give her back the True Love. Maybe she longed for a white knight, period. Being alone all night with an attractive man reminded her of a seldom-acknowledged emptiness in her life. But if she imagined a commodities trader from New York was the answer to her prayers, she must have accidentally dropped a sprig of locoweed into tonight’s supper.

  5

  T.R. DOZED FITFULLY while leaning against the granite face of the cliff. The rock retained heat from the sun that had bathed it during the day, and the warmth soothed his stiff shoulders. An owl hooting in the gray light of dawn brought him awake, and he glanced across the embers of the camp fire to where Freddy lay with her boots still on, her gun within reach. The owl hadn’t disturbed her sleep, probably because she was used to the sounds of wildlife in the desert.

  Her hair had come free of the clip and lay spread over her outstretched arm; her lips were parted, her expression relaxed and open. He used to love watching Linda sleep, because it was one of the mome
nts when he glimpsed her soft, vulnerable side. The other was when they were making love.

  Linda. She would have hated this trail ride, he realized with a smile. Born and bred to big-city life, she’d barely tolerated outdoor cafés, let alone picnics. Freddy, on the other hand, would feel imprisoned in an office, flail her wings against the walls of a hotel room. In that way, the two women were total opposites, and yet Freddy had that same iron will that had drawn him to Linda. And rarer still, the same sense of fair play. She hadn’t been able to pull off her diabolical scheme without confessing, without trying to right the wrong she’d done. She could have pushed her plan to the limit, and without the whiskey and horse liniment, he might have checked out of the True Love today and never looked back.

  He was still tempted to give up the whole crazy idea. God, he hurt. He’d become used to the smell of the liniment, but even the slightest movement was agony. Walking the entire trail sounded like torture, but the prospect of riding down wasn’t much of an improvement. Freddy deserved every pang of conscience that pricked her, he decided.

  But whenever he started plotting revenge, he reminded himself that she’d done him a favor without realizing it. Tough though the journey had been, he treasured his first view of the valley, a view he wouldn’t have enjoyed without Freddy’s scheming. He wouldn’t have slept outside and seen the stars spread over the night sky like fairy dust, or been given a new name, a name that seemed to fit as well and give him as much confidence as Duane’s boots.

  If Freddy hadn’t tricked him, he wouldn’t have awakened to the hoot of an owl and breathed cool morning air, a mixture of evergreen and charred cedar smoke that stirred him more than the most exotic perfume sold on Fifth Avenue. He wanted a piece of this land, the right to gaze up at a sky so clear it hurt his eyes, to sit by a smoldering camp fire and watch the pink glow of dawn creep over the valley, his valley. And Joe’s, of course. Maybe even Lavette’s.

  They would sell the True Love eventually because it would be stupid not to. But maybe he’d use the money to buy another piece of the West and play the game all over again.

  The owl hooted again. Ry looked up through the twisted branches of a cedar and saw the almond glow of a pair of eyes. For a few seconds, he met the owl’s unblinking gaze. Then, with a heavy flap of wings, the bird lifted above the tree line and soared out over the valley.

  “Are you superstitious?”

  Ry glanced across the dying fire and saw Freddy lying on her bedroll watching him. “No.”

  “Some people think owls are a bad omen.”

  “Too bad for the owls.”

  “Have you heard about the curse on the True Love?”

  He groaned. “Is this phase two of Get the Greenhorn?”

  “I suppose you could say that. But if you’re considering buying the place, you should know about all the skeletons in the closet, don’t you think?”

  “Are you making it up as you go, or is this a genuine, certified curse?”

  She propped herself up on one elbow. “Okay, I deserved that. But the story has been told around camp fires since Thaddeus homesteaded the ranch. Do you want to hear it or not?”

  “Guess I’d better.”

  Freddy lay back on her bedroll and gazed up at the pink sky. “The story goes that a small tribe of Indians was massacred on the site where the corrals now stand. A unit of cavalry swept in and killed a village of unarmed women and children when the braves were off hunting. Afterward, when the men of the tribe returned, they put a curse on the land and said no white man would ever profit from it.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t stage a little massacre of their own.”

  “They tried, but the cavalry handled them easily. It wasn’t one of our finer moments in history.”

  Ry decided he’d keep that story away from any potential buyers, including his partners. It wasn’t a pretty tale, and besides, investors became uneasy when you talked about loss of profit, even if it was connected to something as goofy as a century-old curse. “Seems to me Thaddeus knocked the heck out of that prediction.”

  “Not really.” Freddy laced her hands behind her head, a movement that lifted and defined her breasts.

  Ry noticed and chastised himself. Freddy would be his foreman, and he’d known too many businessmen who’d ruined an employer-employee relationship by bringing personal attraction into it. “I thought you said Thaddeus owned three hundred and twenty acres before he died.”

  “Owned is a relative term. He controlled three hundred and twenty acres, but he was in debt. That’s been the story all down the line. In terms of having money left over, making what I would call a profit, nobody’s done it yet.”

  “Not even your father?”

  “Especially not my father. After my mother died, he spent more time rodeoing than running the ranch. If it hadn’t been for Belinda and Dexter, who knows what would have happened to the place.”

  Ry heard a familiar note in her voice, the same note of frustration he’d felt when his parents divorced and his world had been torn apart. “When did she die?”

  “I was fourteen, Leigh was ten.”

  “That’s rough.”

  She looked over at him. “Lots of kids have it worse. At least I had a horse of my own and plenty of space to ride. Dexter let me go on the roundups, and I could ride a bronc as well as any of the hands.”

  “I’ll bet you still can.”

  She grinned. “There’s nothing like a good bucking horse to put life into proper perspective.” Then her smile faded as she gazed at him. “The True Love is great for making you forget your troubles, but I wouldn’t say it’s a financial gold mine. That’s why West ridge is selling, and all they’re after is what they put into it. I could get in trouble for telling you that, but I could get in trouble for this whole stunt, I suppose.”

  “You’re right, you could,” he said with a straight face. “You should never have admitted a thing, Miss Singleton. I probably have the power to get you fired.”

  She didn’t flinch. He imagined she wore the same look that gunslingers used in the Old West to face down their opponents. “I reckon you have that power,” she said evenly. “And probably the right, too.”

  “You’re a fearless woman, Freddy Singleton.”

  A corner of her mouth turned up. “Just what I wanted you to think.”

  Damn, but he liked her. “I won’t turn you in. For one thing, it’s no secret that the property’s price can be negotiated downward. I’ve studied the profit and loss statements. The resorts built recently in Tucson have hurt business and I know West ridge has a cash-flow problem and is eager to sell. By the way, do they know about this so-called curse?”

  “No, not really. They just think the ranch is falling apart from age, which it probably is.”

  “Do you think it’s cursed?”

  She shook her head. “I’d planned to tell you I did, to help scare you off, but I think we’ve just had a run of bad luck.”

  “If it reduces the asking price, it’s good luck for me. All I have to offer is enough to squeeze out Whitlock.”

  “I see.” Her gaze hardened. “Somehow, when you’re hobbling around a camp fire without your pants, I forget that you’re a shark in the business world.”

  She was quick. He liked that, too. “I wouldn’t be name-calling after the trick you pulled on me yesterday,” he said. “Shall we just agree that we’re fighters, and we can both be ruthless when it comes to getting what we want?”

  She studied him, seeming to take his measure as he was taking hers. “Ruthless is a harsh word. How about determined?”

  “Determined works.”

  The smile she gave him, fresh as the morning, made his heart ratchet in his chest. “It’s a beautiful day,” she said. “The birds are singing and the sky is clear. What do you say we call a truce?”

  He’d never been at war, but she did seem to perceive him as the enemy. “Okay. Truce.”

  * * *

  BREAKFAST WAS coffee and b
iscuits, which Ry wolfed down with an appetite that astounded him. Somehow he pulled on his jeans and boots without help from Freddy. With luck, they wouldn’t have any more intimate encounters like the one with the Bag Balm. He suspected there was some powerful chemistry at work if he could get aroused in the midst of all that pain. Once he’d looked down and seen her head practically in his lap and caught a glimpse of her supple fingers at work, the power of suggestion had made him instantly hard as a rock. Since then, he’d had stirrings in that direction, but he’d kept a rein on his imagination.

  He gave her as much help as he could breaking up camp. Moving around was painful, but exercise helped work the stiffness out of his legs. They used the last of their water on the fire and smothered any remaining embers in sand. Freddy paid more attention to putting out the fire than any of the other leave-taking chores.

  “No hydrants up here,” she said. “Lightning starts enough fires without people adding to the danger.”

  “Have you had many fires?”

  “More than I cared to.” Freddy pointed up above the cliff face. “See that grassy area? Lightning started a fire a few years ago, wiped out all the trees on that slope. Seen from the ranch at night, it was almost pretty, with the mountain glowing like a Christmas decoration, until you realized that the decoration was destroying acres of trees, and that if the wind changed, the fire could sweep down and take the ranch.”

  “What can you do if the wind changes?”

  Her expression clouded. “Everything possible, of course. A few times, we’ve hosed the perimeter when a fire came too close for comfort. But in the end, if you can’t stop it, you take your animals and get out.”

  “Is that what happened to the old ranch house?”

  “No, that was a kitchen fire, which was bad enough. A runaway brushfire is our worst nightmare.”

  Ry gazed down into the valley at the cluster of buildings and corrals, which seemed suddenly small and defenseless against the devastation he could imagine overtaking it. Fire protection might be an issue with developers. But then he thought of all the fires in the canyons outside Los Angeles, of the multimillion-dollar homes that had succumbed to the flames; people still clamored to live at the edge of wilderness, despite the danger.