Branding the Wrangler's Heart

by Davalynn Spencer

  She gathered the dishes and joined Buck in the kitchen. “Thank you. Set them on the counter there and find your fork. You can clean up the leftovers.”

  Buck grinned as if she’d given him an entire pie and sat down at the work table to finish off the remains of their meal.

  Livvy set the dishes in the pan, shaved in a soap curl and added hot kettle water. Three canteens lay on the counter.

  “You brought only three canteens, Buck. Didn’t you want to fill yours?”

  He swallowed a mouthful. “Them’s all there was. That one with the red stripe is mine. The other two must be your grandfather’s and Whit’s, unless Whit has one in his tack that I don’t know about.”

  A tingling burn raced down Livvy’s throat. How could she ask her grandfather to share his water? And she’d rather die of thirst than beg from Whit.

  Tomorrow might be more difficult than she anticipated.

  Chapter 10

  A faint glow edged the distant rimrock. Whit itched to scale its face, find the cougar he knew lurked there, but other work needed tending to. He filled his lungs, drank in the scent of piñon, juniper and damp earth. A brief rain had cleared the air, settled the dust. Hidden birds twittered their predawn songs.

  Oro snorted and tongued his bit, impatient to leave. Whit checked his cinch and stirrups, the oilcloth slicker he kept rolled behind his saddle, two ropes coiled and ready on the right side, a full canteen on the other.

  He repeated the routine for a sleek bay mare and Baker’s stout little gray gelding, Ranger. The man insisted that Livvy ride the gray. Whit shortened both stirrup straps a notch. Instead of a rope, the leather thong on her saddle snugged an old flour sack—Livvy’s provisions for their midday meal. Her efforts dulled the irritation that chafed like a splinter under his chaps. But only slightly.

  Buck should be checking his own mount, but he was probably still filling himself on Livvy’s bacon and biscuits.

  The kitchen door opened and pale yellow light spilled across the yard. Baker walked out followed by a slight-built boy. Had Jody Perkins wised up and returned in the night? His bunk had been empty this morning. Maybe he’d sneaked in before breakfast.

  Anger churned in Whit’s belly as he watched the pair move toward the hitching rail. Baker loosed the reins holding the sturdy bay and pulled himself into the saddle, stiff leg and all. The boy walked around to Ranger’s left side, gathered the reins, and swung himself up with surprising grace. The move drew Whit’s closer scrutiny. Livvy.

  He should have recognized the hat.

  Stifling a comment, he watched her set her booted feet in the stirrups. From his position on the ground, he could clearly see her eager eyes, her lips slightly parted as she settled in the seat, tested the stirrups. Her hair must be piled inside that toadstool she wore or else she’d whacked it off since last night.

  She caught him with a shadowed look. “Just right. Thank you.”

  He jerked a nod and turned away.

  “And for the gloves.”

  He stopped and spoke to his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

  He mounted Oro, waited for Buck to join them with the irons and then turned his back on the sunrise and headed toward the mountain. They’d ride to the top and work their way down. If everything went as he hoped, they’d be done in three days.

  Dawn lit the top of Eight Mile Mountain and melted down the sides and into the grassland like warm butter. Whit led the small party halfway up the rough side of the mountain toward a park where he expected to find a good number of cow-calf pairs. He looked back to find Baker and Livvy holding their own. Buck brought up the rear.

  An hour later at the edge of a long, low saddle, Whit rode through a thick timber stand and broke into a wide clearing. A flat park spread before them, eighty or ninety acres. More than fifty cows grazed with their calves beside them.

  If he had enough men, he’d set up a bunch ground, build a fire and brand the calves up here. But it would take at least one other hand to hold the herd together while he roped and the others held them down and branded. He could tie ’em, but those little critters’d kick the bottom out of daylight, and if one of the mamas got on the hook, somebody would get hurt.

  Baker insisted that Livvy brand, but Whit insisted she do it in a corral. He pulled up and whirled Oro to face his scraggly crew.

  “Buck, you take the left. Mr. Baker, you go with him, and Livvy and I will take the right. We’ll ease ’em out into the middle and drive ’em nice and slow through this break in the timber. Don’t let them get in the trees. Any runaways on your side, Buck, you take ’em. I’ll take any on mine. We’ll push them all down into the upper corrals.”

  He looked at each person, waiting for agreement. Baker nodded and tugged his hat brim. Buck grinned and spun his horse around. Livvy swallowed and set her jaw.

  Whit screwed his hat down and heeled Oro into an easy lope.

  He skirted the park, drawing uplifted looks from a dozen cows that switched their tails and called their calves. Three maverick two-year-olds tossed their heads and broke from the herd. He hoped Buck would let them be. They didn’t need a rodeo out here on the back of the mountain. He and Buck could always find those big fellas come fall, and if they didn’t carry a brand, they’d build a fire and use the rings on them.

  The wind in his face, Oro’s strong rhythmic gait, the thrill of being part of something bigger—it all welled inside him. How could book learning ever replace this? He’d die if he had to work in a store or bank or anywhere but in this open country as a cowboy.

  He looked back for Livvy. She was a length behind him, the gray keeping pace with Whit but no lust in its eye to race. Guess ol’ Baker knew what he was doing putting his granddaughter on a horse that wasn’t out to take the leader. He prayed she had as much horse sense as she claimed. Otherwise, they’d all be in for a Wyoming rodeo whether he wanted one or not.

  He reined in next to Livvy and they slowed to a walk. “When we get behind them, we’ll walk ’em toward that gap we just came through. You take the back and I’ll ride ahead in case any try to break out through the trees.”

  Livvy met his gaze and nodded, her mouth clamped tight. No smile, no words, all business. But her eyes betrayed her excitement and burned like blue embers. How could he get her to look at him like that when riding wasn’t involved?

  He tightened his fingers on the reins and motioned for her to go on ahead. She touched her heels to the gray and loped ahead. She could ride, that was for certain. No daylight showed beneath her—well, no daylight showed where it shouldn’t.

  * * *

  It just kept getting better.

  Livvy tried not to lean into the wind, tried not to encourage Pop’s cow pony to pick up speed, but she couldn’t help it. Life surged through her veins with the beat of the gray’s hooves, the scent of grass and pine and cattle—had she died and gone to heaven?

  She longed to pull off her hat and let the wind whip through her hair. She laughed aloud and the sound fell away with visions of Whit Hutton set back on his heels, madder than a wet hen. She laughed again.

  He resented her presence and she resented him for resenting her. How was that for a tune? She’d show him how much horsewoman she was. She’d show him that Pop’s faith was not ill put.

  The cattle began to bunch and move as a herd, away from her and toward the opening in the timber. She pulled up when she reached the end of the park, turned to face them, and leaned down to rub the gray’s neck.

  “You’re a good one, Ranger. Good and even tempered and truehearted. Unlike a certain cowboy I could mention.” She scanned the park for Whit and found him where he said he’d be—riding flank, slowly pushing the herd toward the break. To her right, Pop and Buck were doing the same. If they kept out of the trees, they might make the corrals by midday.

  She gl
anced toward the sun, not yet straight overhead but hot as a skillet. She wiped her sleeve across her brow, grateful for the hat, regardless of Whit’s mockery. She reached back to feel his gloves still tucked behind her waist. He wasn’t all bad. Just bad enough to keep her guessing.

  She’d never been so hot and cold over anyone in all her life. Well, not really hot and cold, more like hot and cool. Cold had never applied where Whit Hutton was concerned, and life would no doubt be easier if it had. He could set her blood to boiling with his arrogance and her heart to purring with his tenderness. What a maddening man.

  Her eyes wandered to Pop riding easy on the big bay, his gray hat pulled low. He looked like any cowboy trailing a herd, not a man well up in years with a bad leg. What had he been like when he first met Mama Ruth? Had he been a striking cattleman who filled the young Englishwoman with spit and fire the way Whit did Livvy?

  More laughter bubbled up from her insides like a mountain spring. What would her gentle mother say of such a phrase as spit and fire? Not at all ladylike, but altogether true. Her mother was proper, a real lady, but she could ride as well as any man and had been doing so long before Robert Hartman turned her head one Sunday morning in Cañon City. Sixteen, she’d been, but she’d known the man of her heart when she saw him. Why, Whit’s father had married the two of them in an odd ceremony with three brides and three grooms.

  With the deep pull of a strong current, Livvy realized that her connection to Whit—if she dared call it that—went back to before she was born.

  A holler drew her attention. Buck leaned forward and slapped his coiled rope against his chaps, shouting at the cow that took to the timber. No wonder Whit had warned them all. In a moment Buck had vanished, swallowed by the thick woods, but whooping and hollering. Lord, don’t let him hit a tree or a low-hanging branch.

  Pop loped toward the leaders. Whit held his side and Livvy tightened her hands on the reins. A little bit farther and they’d be through to the other side and headed downslope toward the corrals.

  The opening narrowed at the end, and Livvy heard Buck and the cow crashing through the underbrush. Several cows turned their heads toward the noise and suddenly the stray and her calf broke through the timber ahead of the herd with Buck hard on her tail. With a smooth, even motion he built a loop, swung it above his head and dropped it around the cow’s horns. He turned his horse and dallied the rope around his saddle horn, jerking the cow around. The calf followed, its tongue hanging out from the hard run.

  At an easy trot, Buck led the cow toward the open corral gate and in no time the others followed her through in a lowing stream of mottled brown and white and black. Pop and Whit rode through with them and Livvy shut the gate behind the milling cattle.

  Buck ran his cow up against the fence, threw slack into his rope and popped the loop off her head. Then he opened another gate as Whit cut several calves from the herd. Buck and Pop steered them into the next pen and followed them through. Livvy rode around the outside. After twenty calves funneled into the second pen, Whit shut the middle gate.

  Buck started a fire and laid in the irons. Livvy looped Ranger’s reins around a corral pole, climbed to the top and waved her arms. Whit rode over.

  “We can eat while the fire’s building.”

  Whit looked at Buck and back to Livvy. He nodded curtly and dismounted, draping his reins on the top pole. Pop did the same and all three men squeezed between the poles to the outside.

  Livvy took down her bag and set it on a rock a little ways from the corral. Using the sack as a tablecloth, she laid out the sliced bread and beef, a smaller bag of ginger cookies and what biscuits were left from breakfast. Pop leaned against the rock and Buck and Whit squatted nearby. Pop removed his hat, sleeved his brow and bowed his head.

  “Thank You, Lord, for Your good help and this food. Amen.”

  Livvy smiled to herself. Pop had always been short on words, but he was long on heart. Certain that everyone else had enough to eat, she stacked bread and beef and made quick work of it, amazed at how hungry she was. She ate two cookies before remembering she had no water.

  “Thank you, Livvy.” Pop laid a hand on her shoulder and gave it a pat. “That hit the spot.”

  Buck raised his hat and grinned. “Thank you, ma’am. ’Specially for them cookies.”

  Whit stood and wiped his hands on his chaps. “You ready to get started?”

  Ungrateful beast. “As soon as I clean up here.” Livvy stashed the remainder and tied it on her saddle. She glanced around the clearing for a stream and found none. She’d have to wait.

  All three men had returned to the corral and Whit was mounted, swinging his rope at a mottled calf.

  She squeezed through the poles and pulled on the leather gloves. They fit perfectly, as if made for her. Had they been Whit’s when he was younger and smaller? She grimaced at the thought. In order to follow her heart and be herself, she had to don the trappings of others—her grandmother’s britches, Pop’s hat and Whit’s gloves.

  The calf bawled when Whit’s loop snagged its back legs and he dragged it to the fire. Her grandfather hop-skipped to the calf and pinned it to the ground with one knee, his stiff leg sticking out to the side.

  Whit dallied and stepped off Oro, who stood stock-still, holding the rope taut on the calf. He grabbed an iron, returned to the calf and pressed the iron to its right hip. The hair sizzled and white smoke billowed around Whit, wrapping him in its cloud.

  He stepped back and looked at Livvy. “That’s how it’s done. You up to it?”

  She took the iron, walked to the fire and shoved it in the glowing coals. Whit mounted Oro, signaled him forward, and Pop loosed the slack rope and let the calf up. It bawled and raced to a corner with the others. Whit built another loop and dropped it beneath a second calf that stepped right in. The process repeated and Livvy prepared for the next victim.

  No—not victim. She refused to see it that way. This was their livelihood, the very food for their table and the tables of miners in mountain camps and people in Cañon City and elsewhere. This was life, and she chose to partake.

  Buck handed her the hot iron. He should be holding the calves, not Pop, but she suspected her grandfather’s pride had played into the arrangement. She glanced at Whit and found him watching her with squinted eyes. Taking a deep breath, she stepped to the calf, rotated the iron so the Bar-HB was upright and pressed it into the calf’s right hip.

  Instantly the hair singed and curled away to cinders. White smoke swirled up, enveloping her in the smell of scorched hide. She coughed from the acrid odor but pressed firmly with the iron.

  “Good,” Whit shouted.

  She lifted the iron and stepped back.

  “You don’t need to cook ’em.” A crooked grin flashed beneath his hat brim as he loosened his dally. Pop let the calf up.

  Whit coiled his rope and built a loop for the next one. “Well, don’t just stand there. Get the iron hot.”

  Livvy gritted her teeth. What had she expected? A pat on the back?

  Her throat screamed for water and she looked at the other calves huddling in the corner. Were they as parched as she? At least she didn’t have a stinging brand on her hip.

  Chapter 11

  Whit had to admit, Olivia Hartman could handle the branding just fine. He snarled, careful not to let her hear him. She’d be after his hide with that hot iron.

  The next calf was a bull and Buck stepped in to hold a leg. Baker straddled the calf, pulled out his stock knife and with a quick grab and slice set the little fella’s mind on other things. Whit glanced at Livvy, who stood watching, horrified. Obviously, she hadn’t seen the cutting side of branding.

  “Run and grab that cookie sack and bring it over. We’ll have calf fries tonight,” Whit said.

  Livvy stood motionless, staring at him as if she were deaf.


  “Go on, Livvy.” Baker motioned toward her horse. “We can’t hold him all day.”

  At her grandfather’s word she squeezed through the pole corral and found the small sack. When she returned, Baker took it, dropped the tenders inside and snugged the mouth of the sack in his waist. By then Buck had the iron hot, and Livvy laid the Bar-HB against the bawling animal’s hip.

  She had grit, he’d give her that.

  By day’s end, they’d branded seventy calves and had enough fries for a feast tonight. Whit chose to let Baker explain to his granddaughter how to cook them.

  While Buck kicked out the fire, Whit opened the inside gate and let the calves return to their mothers. Pop was back on his horse and rode through the herd to open the outside gate. With little encouragement, the lead cow saw her opportunity and dashed through. The others followed.

  The taint of singed hair and hide hung in the air, and deep satisfaction coursed through Whit’s veins. A good day. With what he and the Perkins brothers had accomplished earlier, they were more than a third of the way through the stock. If the cattle hadn’t scattered too far, they might have this done in three days after all.

  Whit brought up the rear on the ride home. From the way Baker and Livvy sat their horses, it looked as though they’d nearly worn themselves out. He worried more about Baker with his bum leg than Livvy. She’d held her own. But Baker’s leg might not last. How could he get the man to take the fire and let Buck work the calves?

  Livvy rode a few yards ahead and a sudden coughing fit drew her up. Whit leaned forward, setting Oro to a trot. He reined in beside her and looked for her canteen. She didn’t have one.

  He unlashed his own and held it out.

  She scowled over the hand across her mouth.

  Had she gone loco? “Here, take a drink.” He pushed the canteen toward her chest. With a final stabbing glare, she took it, removed the top and drank like a drunkard.

  “Did you really think you could go all day and breathe all that smoke and not need water?”