“Was it that good for you, too?” he taunted.
She could see his smile as if she had eyes on the back of her head.
Eight
With the terror of the snake incident behind her, Jacquelyn felt a deep embarrassment set in. Thanks to her own bumbling stupidity, she had placed herself once again—and this time literally—in the cowboy’s hands. Twice already he had rescued her from herself.
And to make matters worse, she wondered if she had actually enjoyed his humiliating groping of her—certainly her traitorous body had. A.J., no doubt, had noticed the sudden change in her breathing, her passive acceptance of his more-intimate-than-necessary touch.
The same traitorous body, she realized as she took her first steps of the new day, was also hopelessly saddlesore. Now that her fear was gone, she became aware of the throbbing ache in her legs and lower back. Her tailbone felt like someone had been beating on it with a hammer.
But when he saw her limping, he only flashed that scornful twist of his mouth.
“I’ve figured something out.” She flung the words at him as she ran a brush through her sleep-tangled thatch of platinum hair.
“Go tell.” He was using a stick to stir up the embers from last night’s fire.
“Yes, I see it very clearly now. The more miserable I am, the better your mood seems to be.”
He snorted.
“Hazel failed to mention the trial of being trapped in your company,” she fired at him. “As much as I’d love to stay and bathe myself in the glow of your brilliant wit, I’d rather bath myself in a nearby stream. May I ask where you caught those trout last night?”
A.J., busy crumbling kindling bark onto the embers, rolled his head over his left shoulder. “Little pool back yonder about a hundred yards or so. Think you can manage to fall in?”
Blushing again at the thought of how she had looked yesterday in the wet pink blouse, she walked off without a word, carrying a towel with a jar of cleansing cream, her compact and a few other items rolled up inside it.
“Watch out for bears,” he warned behind her. “There’s some in the area—that’s what you heard last night. I found tracks.”
She had no way of knowing when this difficult man was being truthful with her. But she thought about those noises she’d heard, and a little electric tingle of fear moved up her spine. She refused, however, to give him the pleasure of showing more fear than he’d already been privy to.
The pool he’d indicated was fed by a bubbling runoff spring, so the crystal-clear water was ice-cold. But it was bracing on her skin as she splashed herself awake, shivering at the contact.
She made a rueful frown as she studied her face in the compact mirror. That beautiful skin Hazel had complimented her on was starting to wind chafe. She cleaned and patted dry her face. Then she brushed it lightly with blush, wondering if Hazel would disapprove of such “fripperies” on the trail.
She had turned to gaze at her rippling reflection in the water when leaves rustled nearby. Barely conquering the urge to bolt in panic, she hurried back to camp.
It was then she realized her growing dependence on A.J. And she damn well resented it.
She eyed him balefully while he rolled up his sleeping bag and ground sheet.
“We ain’t got all morning while you paint your face,” he told her in a churlish tone. “You want any breakfast, better eat it now and eat it fast. I’m saddling up in five minutes.”
“Ja, mein herr!” she retorted with military precision. But then she realized from his comment that he must have been watching her at the stream, putting on her blush, and a small frisson passed through her.
Hazel’s detailed instructions included a request to also recreate Jake McCallum’s simple meals along the trail. While Jacquelyn was gone, A.J. had mixed cornmeal with water, then tossed the meal balls directly into the hot ashes to bake. Hot corn dodgers and unsweetened black coffee strong enough to “float horseshoes,” as Jake had described his repast, made a basic but adequate meal.
The sun was just barely over the eastern horizon by the time they resumed the upward trek. Once they’d cleared the trees, Jacquelyn turned to gaze behind them. Below, mattresses of fog still covered the valleys.
Her microrecorder had survived the spill into Crying Horse Creek. She started to describe the scene below them. However, A.J. gave her no time now to contemplate nature’s beauty. He began, once again, to lecture her about the dangers ahead. It soon became clear to her that he was really trying to scare the daylights out of her.
“Sometime tomorrow,” he informed her in ominous tones, “we’re going to reach Devil’s Slope.”
“Yes, I saw it marked on Hazel’s map. Is it steep?”
“Is Paris a city? But steep ain’t the half of it. It’s several hundred yards of trail littered with loose shale and volcanic scree. Straight cliffs on both sides. Even mountain goats have been known to slip and go over them cliffs. I’m serious—you might want to make out a will before we cross it. Maybe scrawl down some last sweet nothings for your boyfriend back in Georgia.”
“I ain’t got no boyfriend in Jaw-juh,” she shot back, mimicking him mimicking her.
He seemed inexplicably pleased.
Rather than play further into his game, she abruptly changed the subject.
“How do you know Hazel, anyway? I mean, it’s obvious you feel intensely loyal to her.”
He took a long moment to answer her, as if he was deciding her worthiness of his rare—and then almost always acerbic—words.
Finally he said, “When the Clayburns came out here right after the Great Depression, they were so dirt poor their babies had to wear flour-sack diapers. But see, the McCallums never measure how deep a person’s pockets are. They only care about the depth of their character. Hazel’s daddy gave my grandpa a homestead. A whole quarter section.”
“A quarter section?”
“A hundred and sixty acres. That’s tiny, for a Western ranch. Not even a ranch, really. Graze being what it is out here, a typical spread might have forty thousand head roaming a few hundred thousand acres. But see, our section was river bottom and covered with timber. Right when the Burlington and Northern Railroad was desperate for ties. That money got us started.”
Started toward what, she wondered. A rattletrap pickup truck? Some dynasty.
“Anyhow,” he resumed, still eyeing the trail ahead, “it’s a point of honor with my family never to refuse a request by a McCallum.”
“I see. So when Hazel called, you were ready. Even though you’d rather pull your own jaw teeth out than spend time with a snotty rich bitch like me?”
He glanced around at her and flashed that sarcastic grin, his metallic eyes piercing her like a pair of bullets.
“The way you say,” he confessed. “And some day my kids’ll be doing the same. If not for Hazel herself, then for the town of Mystery. Because it’s our home, a home she and her kin built alongside mine.”
She lapsed into a pensive silence, mulling over all he’d told her. Despite her antipathy toward A.J., she envied him. Like Hazel, he had experienced a sense of permanence, a sense of belonging and place, in Mystery.
She contrasted that to her own “privileged” upbringing. But when you’re rich, with a half dozen houses to the family name, you end up with no real home to speak of. Especially when neither of your parents ever felt obligated to provide any sense of family. Just unrelenting criticism from her father and alcohol-induced cynicism from her mother.
“Hazel,” he summed up, “is one of those rare folks who can live her dream and get others to dream right alongside her.”
For some reason she couldn’t name, his words struck her with the force of physical blows. Rare, unexpected tears stung in her eyes. Unlike you, Little Miss Freeze, she’s got a warm and beating heart—not a chunk of cold stone.
Blinking back the tears, she turned silent, and asked no more questions.
As the morning heated up, huge blow flies began to hara
ss both horses and riders. But Jacquelyn noted that she and the cowboy had ascended high. Not only were the trees thinning, but she could spot beautiful gorges below them, white water frothing through.
A.J. seemed to be studying the sky a lot, his eyes slitted in a vague frown. She couldn’t see why—no dark clouds showed anywhere.
The slope had steepened, and they stopped more often to let the horses blow. Twice he called a halt to spread their sweaty saddle blankets in the sun, drying them.
He is careful of the horses, she thought. And though she would be damned if she’d admit it out loud, she approved. Unlike his views of her, A.J. seemed to see himself as the horse’s partner, not its master. His respect surprised her, especially in light of his bronco riding, a profession known for dominating the horse’s will.
“Right now,” he called back to her late in the morning, “we’re passing an old Indian meeting place called Council Rock. The Sioux and their Cheyenne cousins used to meet here and plan their battle strategy against the bluecoat invaders.”
She studied the huge, table-shaped slab of metamorphic rock. It wasn’t marked on Hazel’s map.
“May we stop here for a few minutes?”
He nodded and swung down from the saddle. “Horses could use a break, anyway.”
So could I, she fumed to herself. But then, I’ve only got two legs, so I don’t count.
She dismounted and began searching the stony ground in this oval-shaped hollow. Within minutes she felt a surge of excitement when her toe unearthed an arrowhead of flaked flint.
“I got a cigar box full of them,” he scoffed, bored when she showed it to him. “Plus one my great-great-granddaddy dug out of his own thigh back in Iowa.”
“Well, we can’t all be as world wise and grizzled as the great A. J. Clayburn,” she pointed out. “I’m excited.”
“That makes twice today,” he returned, his shadowed gaze raking her.
She felt the blood flush her cheeks, unable to stop thinking about the sleeping-bag incident.
“You assume an awful lot,” she quipped lightly. But she turned away from his mocking gaze, thumbing on her pocket recorder.
“I’m looking down on the low country from a spot along McCallum’s Trace known as Council Rock. As I hold an arrow point in my hand, I am reminded of the Indian legend that says the spirit of Manitou rules all these mountains. Anyone who looks at them once, claims the legend, will always be called back.”
Behind her, he made whooping sounds like a Hollywood redskin. He hoisted himself into the saddle again.
“Paleface girl named Snake in Pants make heap big noise,” he shouted.
Heat surged into her face at his deep-chested laugh. She untied Roman Nose’s hobbles and mounted, suddenly too angry to care about striking vistas or Indian history.
However, the steeping trail had reached a stretch littered with shale and loose talus. A.J. had jogged slightly to the right to avoid it. But Jacquelyn, still ruminating over her thoughts about her “guide,” rode right into the unstable slope.
“Look out!” she heard him shout. “Wake the hell up, you little fool!”
But he was too late. Even as she realized her mistake, Roman Nose planted a foreleg on a piece of unstable shale. It gave way with a skittering scrape, and suddenly she and her horse were literally sliding backward.
With the instinct of a show rider, she started to tighten the reins.
“Don’t try to control it!” he shouted. “Just grab your pommel and hold on!”
She followed orders. The sturdy little mountain horse had turned into a virtual sled. She wasn’t sure how many yards they slid backward with Roman Nose fighting to stay on his feet, but the mustang finally won his battle with gravity—they came to a jolting stop with no harm done.
No harm, but she knew her face was still as pale as moonstone when she reached A.J. above. He clearly relished the terror in her eyes.
“You best nerve up,” he goaded her as they started upward again. “Devil’s Slope ain’t that far ahead. Only, you’ll have cliffs to worry about, too.”
“Well, if I do go over,” she retorted tightly, “I’ll have the consolation of being rid of you, won’t I?”
“Actually,” he corrected her, trying to suppress his grin, “since I’d be the one still alive, technically I’d be rid of you.”
Late on Wednesday afternoon, the second day of A.J. and Jacquelyn’s journey through Eagle Pass, Hazel called the park ranger station at Cheyenne Mountain. Last night, checking the TV Weather Channel as ranchers habitually did, Hazel had learned of the severe blizzard approaching the high country.
“National Park Service, Cheyenne Mountain,” a booming basso profundo voice answered.
“Bob, that you? This is Hazel McCallum calling from Mystery.”
“Hazel, how you doing, young lady?” replied Bob Johannson. “Kinda high jinks you up to now?”
“Bob, I’ve heard the storm warning. You got any weather up there yet?”
“Nah. But some signs it’s coming. The high-country animals are heading to lower ground. But if it’s your summer pastures you’re worried about, Hazel, don’t fret your cattle. Won’t be any snow or freeze below the tree line.”
“Oh, my herds are fine, Bob. It’s a young couple I’m a little worried about. A. J. Clayburn and my neighbor, Jacquelyn Rousseaux. They just set out yesterday morning on a horseback trip from the foothills. They’re heading up to the pass along McCallum’s Trace.”
There was a slight pause on Bob’s end, and Hazel felt a little quickening of apprehension. Even a good plan could go bad.
“Not the best place to be right now,” Bob allowed. “That is, if this storm turns out like some’re saying it might. Those two wouldn’t happen to have a two-way radio or a cell phone with them?”
“No, and that’s my stubborn fault. This trip is to commemorate Jake McCallum’s ride for the sesquicentennial. Jacquelyn is a reporter for our local newspaper. I made a big stirring and to-do over how this trip had to be authentic and historical. Bob, I hope this time I wasn’t too clever for my own good. I don’t suppose you could send a man over their way? Maybe use your helicopter?”
“Hazel, for you? That chopper would be on its way now if I had it. But you know about the forest fires down in the Powder River Valley, right? The governor ordered our bird down there to drop fire retardant. Without a chopper, we’d never get up near the trace in time to warn them.”
“No,” Hazel agreed, “no way you could do it. But at least I tried.”
“Buck up, Hazel. No bad weather yet. Maybe it’ll blow over. Besides, if it’s A. J. Clayburn with that gal, they should be all right. A.J. could follow you into a revolving door and come out ahead, he’s that sharp.”
Hazel laughed, seeing the truth of this. After she hung up, she went out into the side yard and gazed toward the distant mountain peaks. Bob was right, of course, about A.J. Common men did not win the World Cup in any rodeo event, most certainly not saddle-bronc riding. That same competence and tenacity gave those a strong survival edge.
But a high-country blizzard was its own kind of cruel master. Even Jake, all grit and a yard wide, admitted he only survived because no blizzards caught him in the mountains.
“Lord,” Hazel said softly, “my intention was to save Mystery with some new blood settling in. I did not mean to place an inexperienced, scared little slip of a girl smack in the middle of a natural disaster.”
Then again, Hazel thought with a devious little smile tugging at her lips, if nature marooned them together and took her course, so be it. She suspected one thing for sure: knowing those two, they would not be coming down out of those mountains as “just friends.”
No middle way for this cowboy and belle. Either they’d return madly in love or at each other’s throats.
Nine
About an hour before dark, A.J. selected the spot for their second trail camp. It was a little bench of rocky ground beside a small spring that frothed up from a clu
ster of boulders.
They were well above the tree line now, although, according to Hazel’s map, still well below Eagle Pass. The air had become noticeably thinner—all afternoon they had been forced to spell the horses more and more often.
Perhaps that thin air, in part, accounted for Jacquelyn’s present splitting headache. It hammered the back of her eyeballs with a vengeance as she wearily stripped the saddle and bridle from Roman Nose, preparing to curry the dried sweat off him.
“Damn! I ain’t even believing this!” A.J.’s angry voice, right behind her, made her start and drop the currycomb.
“Lookit that saddle sore you’ve rubbed into his flank! Can’t you see that? Now you’re keeping the cinch too damn tight. Loosen the girth, you little fool.”
He strode over to his pile of gear, returned and practically threw a jar of gall salve at her.
“Out here,” he told her, his jaw tightening, “no better word can be spoken of a person than to say he’s careful with horses.”
“All fine and noble. But even if he isn’t careful with people?”
The hurt and accusation in her tone didn’t seem to faze him one bit.
“In my experience,” he replied, “a man careless with one is careless with the other.”
“Oh, really? I beg to differ. My experience shows that a man is quite capable of treating horses better than he treats people.”
“Ain’t you persecuted, huh? Well, spare me the violins. I told you once already about the horses. You ain’t back at the country club now with somebody to do all the hard work for you. Roman Nose is your responsibility. And so far you’re doing a pretty poor job. I’m damned if I know why Hazel sent some sniveling miss on a trip like this, anyhow.”
The resentment in his tone made it clear that the saddle sore was only a pretext for unloading on her. But she was in no mood to endure more of his abuse. She had an aching head, an aching behind, and she was sick of being jerked around by this conceited rodeo pimp.
The Cowboy Meets His Match Page 7
