by Arlene James
“Don’t count on it.”
“You can’t believe that you will always live alone.”
“Drop it, Shoes.”
“You tell the boy nothing to help him accept that one day another woman will enter both your lives.”
“I said, drop it.”
“You will not make him understand his mother’s faults, will not allow that she might love him as she could not love you.”
“That’s enough!”
Kanaka sat thoughtfully for a moment, then rose in that languorous, graceful way of his that made him seem so much larger than he actually was. “You must accept, Ryeland, that this drive will change everything. You made sure of that when you wrote to my uncle.”
“I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Rye said through his teeth.
“All right. But how and when will you deal with the rest?”
Rye turned on him. “There is no more, damn it! Except in that convoluted Indian mind of yours!”
Shoes Kanaka gave his friend a pitying look and said quietly, “She came to see you tonight. You, no one else. Oh, she was polite to the rest of us, but she was looking at you. There is more. Much more. And I don’t think you are unaware of it, whatever you say.”
He walked quietly from the room, his footsteps so light that they were silent. Rye put a hand into his hair and reflected bitterly that he’d get to clean up by himself. He wouldn’t think of anything else. He refused to help his son accept a possibility that he himself rejected utterly. No matter how attractive he found Kara Detmeyer.
Kara bent forward from the waist, pressed her hands against the top rail of the stall and arched her back until the muscles warmed. Next she placed one booted foot on the bottom rail and lunged forward, bending her knee. She lifted her foot even higher so she could stretch her groin muscles as well. Then she switched legs and went through the process again. Limber and strong, she belted on her heavy leather chaps, shrugged into a down vest, and settled her brown felt hat so that it rode in back just above the base of her ponytail and sat low over her eyes in front. Pulling on rough-out gloves made supple by long hours of use, she slung a coil of grass rope over one shoulder, canteen and bridle over the other, and hoisted her saddle from the middle rung of the gate where she’d perched it minutes before. She shuffled out into the corral, her saddle weighing heavy against one knee.
Her horse was waiting right where she’d told Bord to tether him. She tossed smiles at the cowboys in various stages of saddling their own mounts, heaved her saddle onto the top rail, and approached the head of the big bay that had been her grandfather’s favorite.
She scratched the horse’s chin, speaking directly into his nostrils. “Hey, Bets. How’s it been, hmm? Missing the old man, are you? Yeah, I know. I know.” The horse shifted restlessly, and a figure appeared at her elbow.
He offered a saddle blanket of bright scarlet. “You sure about this, ma’am?”
Kara smiled at the wrangler. “I’m sure, Bord. I helped my grandfather break this horse. We’re old friends, aren’t we, Bets.”
“That’s sure a strange name, All Bets Off.”
“Not so strange when you understand that my grandfather was the only one—of the many who tried—to tame this monster, and even he was by no means certain of success.”
“Ah, wasn’t covering any bets on this one, was he?”
“None.” She petted the gelding’s long, narrow nose. “But you fooled them all, didn’t you, boy? You weren’t as ornery as you were smart enough to pick the best master of the lot.”
“Need any help?” the wrangler asked solicitously, sparking Kara’s irritation.
“No.”
“Okay. Fine. Just thought I’d ask.”
She ignored him as he backed away, hands aloft. She told herself that she shouldn’t be so touchy. Men had been offering the “little woman” help as long as she could remember—until they discovered that in many ways she was a better hand than any of them—and she wasn’t exactly little, either. She should be used to it by now.
She dismissed the thought and quickly blanketed and saddled the horse. When she’d tightened the cinch sufficiently, leaning into the big bay with her shoulder while pulling with both hands, she secured the girth strap and lowered the stirrup. That done, she forced the bit between teeth the size of her thumbs, pushed the strap up over flicking ears and buckled the chin chain, despite snorts and an energetically wagging head. With her gear tied down, she took the reins firmly in hand and removed the halter, hanging it on the fence post. Then it was just a matter of mounting up. She noted that she was in the saddle sooner than most of the men, Rye the only exception.
Catching the eye of the wrangler, who waited expectantly at the gate, she nodded to indicate that he should open. He paused long enough to look questioningly at Rye before swinging the iron gate out, putting his back to it and hitching his elbows over the top to hold it there. Rye moved his big blue-gray Morgan through it at a canter. Kara lightly flicked the end of her reins against the bay’s shoulder and walked it out of the corral. Drawing alongside the wrangler, she sidestepped the horse until her leg brushed the wrangler’s chest. Then very casually she brought her face down to his, hat brims brushing.
“Mr. Harris,” she said softly, enunciating each word crisply, “you second-guess me again, and I’ll ride your face into the dirt. Rye’s the top on this operation, just as he’s been here on the ranch, but I’m the Detmeyer, and don’t you forget it.”
The wrangler shut his gaping mouth and finally managed, “Yes, ma’am,” though a host of unhappy emotions flitted across his long, lean face
She straightened in the saddle and wheeled the horse away, reasonably certain that she’d made herself understood. Cantering after Rye, she turned her mind to the task ahead.
Kara quickly tired of the sun’s glare and dug out her shades. Rye seemed to bristle at her every word, but she ignored him and went on about the business of rounding up the cattle and culling them. They had decided to take along three hundred and twenty-five head. Just in case anything happened, they didn’t want to risk arriving at the end of the trail with fewer than the three hundred cattle specified in Plummier’s will. That in mind, she was determined to take along only the strongest, healthiest stock, which meant personally inspecting every heifer and calf.
No steers or bulls would be making this trip. They didn’t need the headaches that moving bulls in company with heifers would involve, and the steers were good only for the meat packers. It made no sense to drive such animals across three states, walking all the meat off of them, just to sell them at depressed prices after they got them there. Better to take along principal breeding stock and future sellers. The bulls could come later. Besides, if they didn’t reach the New Mexico holding in the time allotted and with the herd stipulated, they wouldn’t be needing those bulls, anyway. It would be relatively simple to have the more aggressive critters shipped out to the ranch after the drive, but culling them from the gathering herd would make the present work more difficult. The drovers could count on spending a good deal of time driving off unwanted cattle rather than merely rounding up the desirable ones.
And there was more work ahead. Once the herd was assembled, it would be necessary to inoculate every head and treat them for parasites, as well as any obvious health problems. Branding would be foregone in favor of tagging because it would be faster.
Meanwhile, those cows had to be driven, dragged and enticed out of rocky ravines, shrubby rills and hidden vales and moved to the eastern flat where sizable holding pens and a strong chute would aid the work of culling, inspecting and treating the herd. When the crew was assembled at the eastern flat, Rye assigned partners before dispatching them to select areas. Shoes went with George Marshal, Borden with Pogo Smith. Rye took Kara and Dean Schuster with him. Oboe appeared like magic and padded along to one side of the three-rider group, well away from the hooves of the horses.
Dean, obviously, was the least experienced. K
ara knew that Rye either put her in that category with Dean or considered her a downright menace. Well, live and learn, she thought wryly. It didn’t take long for the first lesson to present itself.
In a deep gully not a half mile from the holding pens, they found two heifers being nosed proprietorially by a big bull. He did not take kindly to their interference, especially when they spooked the nervous young heifer in which he seemed most interested, causing her to pull herself out of the ravine by her front legs and scamper for a covering of brush about two hundred yards away. Kara dropped a loop around her neck on first throw, then dragged her a safe distance away in the opposite direction of the brush, while ordering Oboe to cut out that bawling bull. Rye recovered from his surprise quickly enough to get on the bull and drive him away, dog nipping at its heels. Dean managed to keep the older cow in the ravine by simply riding his horse into the breach.
Rye returned, leaving Oboe to harry the frustrated bull a little longer. He rode right up to Kara, who had retrieved her loop and driven the heifer back down into the ravine with the one Dean was holding. Rye pushed his hat to the back of his head and took off his sunshades. He didn’t compliment her work, didn’t even acknowledge it. He did something better. He asked, “What do you think? Should we leave Dean to keep ’em bunched or pull some scrub down into the ravine to block it?”
She considered. “Why don’t we block the ravine and leave Oboe? That way, the cows won’t wander and if the bull returns, Oboe can drive him away again.”
He turned his horse toward the bushes. “I’ll get to work on the scrub.”
She called her dog with a sharp whistle, then ordered him to keep the cows before sending Dean off to help Rye cut scrub. While the two cowboys did the hacking and dragging of dry brush, Kara consulted a contour map of the area. By the time the men had blocked the ravine, she had decided where to head next. She couched her decision as a suggestion; Rye agreed without comment.
They drove twenty-two head into the holding pen before lunch. Kara got down and took care of her horse without complaint, though her backside was screaming from the long hours in the saddle. Dayna and Meryl came out in Dayna’s old truck to dispense lunch. Thick sandwiches, potato chips and pieces of fruit were wolfed down with cans of cola and bottles of tea. No one went away hungry, but no one exactly ran for a horse afterward, either.
They had intended to work the same horses all day, but it was evident that the horses were suffering at least as much as their riders. Rye sent Bord and his tack back to the house with Dayna and Meryl to gather another string, while everyone else lay down in the dirt for some rest, saddles as pillows, hats as shades. Kara knew she needed the respite and settled down to it gratefully. In about a second Rye was shaking her awake.
“Up and at ’em, cowgirl.”
She got up and stretched, uncaring what the others did. When she was sufficiently limbered, she went to saddle her horse—and was the first one mounted. Since Borden, as wrangler, had to take responsibility for the extra horses, he was excused from round-up for the afternoon. Rye sent Dean in his place as partner to Pogo, leaving Kara teamed with him.
An hour later they were driving a balky bunch of cows out of a narrow box canyon. The wall on the left was a tall stair step of shallow shelves that crumbled away whenever one of the cows tried to escape that way, while the wall to their right was a sheer cliff of rock about thirty feet high. Not liking the way the sand and shale crumbled and slid around on that left canyon wall, they rode close to the cliff wall on their right, venturing out from it only to ride around large boulders and other debris that blocked the narrow natural path.
Kara could never say just what alerted her. They’d been hearing the trickle and thump of small falling stones since they’d ridden into the place known as Spear Canyon. She’d almost blocked out the nerve-racking sound, but something fairly screamed “Watch out!” at her, and she looked up. Two stones were falling toward them, one about the size of a five-gallon bucket. The other looked like it could crush a sports car, not to mention a man on horseback. Kara saw it and understood the danger, all in a split second. She reacted instinctively, grabbing the cheek piece of Rye’s roan’s bridle and spurring her own in the same instant. Wheeling about, they were well up the opposite wall, slipping and sliding, when the boulders crashed down onto the path, raising a cloud of dust and scattering the cattle so that they bolted in different directions.
Rye spat curses, first at those boulders and then the cattle, one of which actually retreated back down the canyon the way they’d come, while the others galloped ahead. When they could both breathe normally again, they looked at each other with mutual relief.
“How the hell did you know?” Rye asked.
Kara shrugged and shook her head. “Couldn’t tell you. I just suddenly knew something was wrong and where to look for it.”
Rye removed his hat and lightly whacked it against his thigh, causing his horse to shift and sidestep. “I’d be dead now if you hadn’t known and reacted.”
Kara looked at the big boulder in the sand. “Maybe both of us.”
Rye followed her line of sight and said flatly, “Me definitely.” He put his hat on his head and tugged it into place before looking her square in the eye. “You can ride my elbow any time,” he told her with a grin.
She laughed. “Okay.”
He put a hand to the back of his neck and shuddered as if shaking off the willies. Then he glanced over his shoulder and wheeled his horse. “Well, I’m after that stupid hide bag that ran back up the canyon. You get on out of here and see if you can gather up any of the others.”
She nodded. “See you up on top.”
He glanced once more at the boulder then back at her before giving her a nod. She knew as he cantered away that she’d seen the glint of admiration in those gray eyes. What surprised her was how glad she was to have finally seen it—and how upset she’d have been if he hadn’t gotten out of that rock’s way.
Chapter Five
Dayna Detmeyer laid a mighty fine table. Tired as he was. Rye felt a spurt of enthusiasm at the sight of chickens roasted to a rich brown, fluffy whipped potatoes and a whole sideboard covered with an amazing variety of green and yellow vegetables. She set freshly baked yeast rolls on the table and announced two kinds of pie for dessert. The men waded into the bounty like hungry bears. Kara ate well, too, but Rye was aware of an undercurrent of worry there. He shared it...even, he hoped, surpassed it.
The day had not been as productive as he’d hoped. He and Kara had brought in the most cattle, and he judged at first glance that a fourth, maybe a third, of them would have to be culled. They’d have left most of them on the range if not for the fear that the others would just spend more time dragging them in. Seasoned cowhands could be expected to do the culling before driving the select head to round-up, but a volunteer crew of mostly nonworking cowboys could not be expected to recognize at a glance which cattle to drag in and which to drive off, with the exception of the few bulls. So the most efficient way to go about it was to drag in everything, cull them at one time, and drive off the undesirables. That, unfortunately, slowed down things, but not as much as having every crew drag in the same rejected cows over and over again. Still, he’d hoped to have at least half the herd by the end of the day, and they hadn’t met that goal. At this rate, it would take an extra day just to assemble the herd, never mind culling and treating them. Time was not the only problem on Rye’s mind, however.
That had been no natural rock slide that had nearly squashed him like a bug today. He’d been riding this country long enough to know that rock and earth slides were a constant threat in some places, and he’d witnessed his share. He’d never seen a really big rock fall all on its lonesome. Boulders that big just didn’t roll off some ledge. Instead, the ground gradually gave way beneath them, raining down a shower of small rocks and a slide of dirt alongside the monster. And yet, today one big rock and one monster boulder fell straight out of the sky and nearly pulverized
him—and Kara, too, except... It had felt like someone had targeted him specifically. He tried to tell himself that he was being paranoid, but he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. So how had those rocks tumbled? He decided to take a little drive before he turned in for the night.
Naturally, circumstances conspired against him. He’d barely cleaned his dessert plate before Kara appeared at his shoulder.
“I think we’d better take another look at our projections,” she said, rolling her shoulders and working at her neck muscles with both hands. He knew just how she felt. He was beginning to tighten up, too, and she was right about those projections, but tonight was not the time. He shook his head.
“Not tonight, Kara. I’ve got something to do.”
She didn’t take being rebuffed easily. “It couldn’t be more important than being sure we meet our deadline.”
“Tell you what,” he said, rising gingerly. “You take a look at the projections tonight, and I’ll go over them with you first thing in the morning. How about we meet in the kitchen for coffee?”
She wasn’t pleased. Her frown left little doubt. Nevertheless, she reluctantly nodded. “If that’s the best you can do.”
“I’m afraid so. See you in the morning.” He shoved his chair up under the table and caught the eye of the one friend he knew could be of service to him in this circumstance. “Shoes, could I have a word with you?”
The other man nodded once and went back to his pie with his customary concentration. Anyone but Rye might have taken it as the surliest of reluctant compliance, but Rye knew his friend well. He took a moment to thank Dayna Detmeyer for the meal, praising her abilities. The handsome woman smiled.
“Thank you, Rye. I thought I’d treat you boys tonight. Even with the convenience of a modern kitchen in the mobile home, I won’t be able to do yeast rolls and pies on the trail. We’ll have to settle for biscuits and cobblers then.”
“I’m betting you’ll get no complaints from anyone, least of all me,” Rye told her.
