“Me, too. Not that it matters now.”
“Sure it does—it matters to you.”
Dude turned at some invisible signal and resumed his gentle jog. Rooster fell in beside him, and they rode stirrup to stirrup without speaking. Katie hadn’t known how tightly she’d been wound on her flight from Connecticut, but the soft clop of the horses’ hooves, the sun warm on her shoulders and a playful breeze laced with some scent like incense lulled her into almost boneless relaxation.
Luke’s soft “Whoa,” jerked her out of her trance. They had halted at the crest of a long ridge overlooking a wide valley showing hints of new grass in the winter brown. Brighter green and trees just coming into leaf marked a stream’s winding course in the middle distance. The vista stretched away in shades of tan and terra cotta to fade against the horizon.
“We always stop to breathe the horses at the top,” he said. “You can get a good lay of our land from here. The Ute Reservation starts beyond that fence yonder.” He pointed to a glint of wire in the middle distance. “A little higher and you’d be able to see clear down to the Navajo rez in New Mexico.”
He spoke to Dude, and the horses descended the gentle slope at a jog. After they’d ridden some minutes in silence, he said, “Maybe I should keep my mouth shut, but I’d hate to have Lucy pounce without giving you warning. I’m pretty sure she wants to recruit you for the Queen. If you’re really looking for work, you could take a big load off Shelby and Jo. Durango is a pretty nice place to hang out for a while.”
“I don’t know... I hadn’t considered...” But she had. Maybe because Durango had appeared as a haven after her harrowing trip over Wolf Creek Pass, maybe because of the Camerons’ warm welcome, but she already felt an unreasoning sense of homecoming.
“Here’s the deal,” Luke said. “Lucy has a commitment with some summer theater company in New Hampshire starting in June. No place I ever heard of, but she says it’s a real career builder. She’s not sure Marge Bowman will be fit enough by then to take the reins at the Queen.”
“Would that be the Peterborough Players? That’s professional-grade theater—sometimes they get reviewed in New York papers.”
“Yeah, that’s the place. So it’s the real deal?”
“It is—Lucy should grab it. I’ve seen her perform. She has real talent.”
“We think she’s good, but what do we know—we’re family,” Luke said. “Just don’t say I gave you the heads-up. I don’t want her going all redheaded on me. Shelby says she’s like a microburst—spins you around before you know what hit you.”
He looked up at the sun. “Still an hour shy of noon—let’s take a look at the east fence line before we break for lunch.” He led the way down the slope and across a roistering creek as deep as the horses’ knees.
Katie clung without shame to the saddle horn as Rooster picked his way over the rocky bottom and scrambled up the far bank. She noticed with envy that Luke sat his horse as casually as if rocking in a porch swing. Another fifteen minutes jogging beyond the creek brought them to a barb-wire fence broken by a heavy steel gate.
“This is the edge of Cameron’s Pride,” Luke said. “Other side is the Buck ranch on the Ute Reservation. We’re kin with the Bucks going back to Jacob Cameron, who came west from Virginia after the Civil War. He was headed for California, but this is as far as he got.”
“What stopped him?”
“A grizzly bear and a pretty Ute girl. My dad tells the story best—it’s like holy scripture to him. To all of us, I guess. I didn’t value it like I should till I spent three months away in rehab.”
He touched the side of his horse’s neck, and Dude turned to the left. “We’ll ride up to the top of that next ridge—we can check a couple miles from there. Dad plans to move the cow and calf pairs to this range as soon as calving is done, so the fence needs to be in good shape. Just lean forward and let Rooster take care of you.”
Rooster followed Dude up the steep trail, and Luke halted Dude at the top. He pulled a pair of binoculars from his saddlebag and began scanning the fence line with a slow sweep of the glasses. Suddenly he halted in his survey. “Dang it.”
“What’s wrong?” Katie squinted into the distance but could see only rocks, bushes and a single brown-and-white cow.
“It’s my cousin’s—” His mouth clamped shut, editing his comments, she suspected. “His pet bull’s busted out again.” He jerked his cell phone from its belt holster and punched in a number with angry jabs. He waited, running his hand over his face, and then said, “Oscar, Buckshot’s on our side of the fence again. I can cut the fence and shove him back, but I can’t mend the break.”
Frustration spoke in every line of his face and body as he listened. “Yeah, I’ve got somebody with me, but you better come get him before I turn him into all-beef patties. Half a mile south of the gate, right by that little draw where he likes to sneak in.”
He stuck his phone into place without saying goodbye and turned to Katie. “I could use some help, if you feel like playing cowgirl.”
He had to be crazy; her consternation must have shown on her face.
“No rough stuff. Buckshot’s tame as a pet goat—he’s just got no respect for boundaries.”
She swallowed. “Tell me what to do.”
“Good girl. First we ride up to him real easy, a slow-speed chase. Rooster knows the drill—he was quite a cow pony in his day.”
“Does this happen often?”
“Too often. Buckshot’s a retired bucking bull. Nobody wanted him because supposedly he was sterile from an infection, so Oscar adopted him. Turns out he’s still got what it takes. Trouble is, he’s so big that any cow he covers has trouble calving. Oscar doesn’t have the heart to castrate him, so Buckshot has turned into the neighborhood pest.”
They rode toward the bull. As they got closer, he grew to the size of a brontosaurus in Katie’s eyes. Neither Dude nor Rooster appeared intimidated.
“Here’s what we do,” Luke said. “I’m going to cut the wire near him and then we’ll send him back where he belongs and stay in the gap till Oscar shows up to collect him.”
Sure. Of course. “Okay,” Katie said, chagrined that her voice emerged as a squeak.
“Just stay put.” Luke pulled wire cutters from his saddlebag. He reached down and snipped the strands so they sprang away from the post. Then he rode in a wide circle to position himself to one side as he shook out his rope. Buckshot watched with no sign of alarm.
“Okay,” Luke said. “Walk Rooster toward him at a forty-five-degree angle, but stop when I tell you.”
Katie’s mouth was too dry to answer, but she did as he directed.
“Stop,” Luke said as Buckshot pivoted to face Rooster. “Don’t worry—he won’t charge you. Okay, now five steps closer.”
Rooster seemed to be enjoying the game; his ears pricked sharply toward the bull. He stopped on his own after a few steps.
Buckshot snorted—in disgust, Katie thought—and ambled through the gap in the fence. Luke rode down to join her, coiling his rope. Together they blocked the bull’s return to Cameron’s Pride.
“Good work,” he said. “Lucy couldn’t have done any better.”
She ducked her head to hide her pleasure at his praise. “Why did the bull give up so easily? He could have rushed right past me.”
“That bull’s a smart old guy—he’s been worked dozens of times. Rooster was giving him the evil eye, moving in on his territory but not invading it. Buckshot decided to retreat with honor. He also saw I had my rope ready.”
“So you could have just roped him and dragged him through the opening?”
“I’d just as soon not try—he’s half again Dude’s weight. Better if he thinks it was his idea to go home.”
“How did he get in?”
“The fence line
crosses a little ravine with about three feet clearance under the wire. His size, you wouldn’t think it’s possible, but he crawls under—I’ve backtracked him. But drive him back? Good luck with that. Oscar dumped some logs to block the gap last fall, but the spring runoff must have washed them out.”
A few minutes later the mutter of an engine broke the quiet, and a battered green pickup lumbered over the rise to brake beside the damaged fence. A broad-shouldered man with a single long braid, his skin a few shades darker than Luke’s, climbed out.
He frowned. “Look what you did to my wire, you sorry-assed cowpoke. And you better hope my bull’s all right.” He walked over to Buckshot. “You okay, baby?”
The bull twitched one long ear and kept grazing.
“Mind your manners, Oscar—there’s a lady present. Katie, this is my cousin Oscar Buck.”
Katie rode forward to shake his hand. “We didn’t lay a glove on Buckshot, I promise.”
Oscar whipped off his well-worn straw cowboy hat. “You must be visiting Cameron’s Pride from away, Katie. I know all the pretty girls in these parts.”
“All the way from Connecticut,” Luke said. “Mom and her mother were pen pals for years.”
“What’s with you Camerons? You keep importing women from back East—Shelby’s from Louisiana, Jo’s from New York...”
“Katie came to bring us a box of Mom’s letters. We’re hoping she’ll decide to hang around.”
“How come you’re strapped in today?” Oscar asked. “I thought you didn’t need the safety rig anymore.”
“I didn’t want to fall off in front of Katie and look like a fool,” Luke said.
“Still showing off for the ladies,” Oscar said and dropped the tailgate on his truck to reveal an open bag labeled Cattle Chow. Buckshot stuck his nose in the feed while his owner spliced new wire into the break.
Oscar dusted his hand on the seat of his jeans after he finished the repair and offered it to Katie again. “I’d apologize for Buckshot, but if he’d stayed home I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to say howdy. Enjoy your stay, and don’t believe half of what this cowboy tells you.”
He climbed in his truck and drove away at a crawl with the bull following, his nose still in the bag of feed.
CHAPTER NINE
“DO YOU FALL off very often?” Katie asked as they continued along the fence line.
“Not so much anymore, and Dude waits for me when I do. I didn’t want to take a chance today and scare you, flopping around on the ground like a fish on the riverbank.”
He leaned toward her and gave her a light punch on the shoulder. “I wasn’t kidding—you handled old Buckshot like a pro. I knew he isn’t dangerous, but he must have looked like a four-legged mountain to you.” Pretty gritty considering she’d likely never faced down anything bigger than a raccoon in the trash.
“I concentrated on following your directions,” she said. “Cowboy up, right?”
They rode in silence while Luke did some hard thinking. He would have handled Buckshot the same way if Shelby or Jo had been with him; neither of them was much of a roper. If Tom or his dad had been along, maybe he would have been the one to ride down on the bull as Katie had done.
If he had the nerve. He hadn’t been eyeball to eyeball with a bucking bull since that night in Oklahoma City.
“Is this as far as we go?”
Luke had been sunk so deep in thought that Katie’s question startled him. They had come to a corner where the fence turned at a sharp angle.
“Yep, this fence just separates two of our pastures. Not the end of the world if some cows drift over, but we try hard to keep the boundary fences tight so we aren’t chasing stock halfway across the Ute Reservation. Or kicking Buckshot out.”
He turned Dude toward a high ridge. “We’ll take a shortcut to the cabin and have lunch before we check in the other direction. Just lean forward and give Rooster plenty of rein—he’ll take you up safely.”
He rode behind Katie in case she faltered, but she took the steep trail without hesitation. The downgrade on the far side was an easy slope; in less than an hour they were back at the creek crossing.
“The cabin is just around that bluff,” Luke said. “We can water the horses and get out of the saddle while we have lunch.”
She wondered how he would manage that maneuver but didn’t ask. They rounded the bold sandstone outcropping and splashed through the creek again, stopping to let the horses drink.
“There it is, the Cameron shrine, the original homestead,” Luke said, pointing ahead. “Don’t be surprised when you go inside—Shelby’s turned it into a museum. She lived here a few weeks when she first came to the ranch, hiding out from a guy who’d been stalking her long-distance for years.”
“I don’t know Shelby that well,” Katie said, “but I can’t picture her hiding from anything.”
“She says Dad and this spot gave her the courage to fight back. They spent their honeymoon here.”
Luke eyed the cabin for any damage from the winter, but no windows were broken. The roof and the corral looked to be in good shape, although some shingles might need to be replaced.
“You can turn Rooster loose inside the gate,” he said and rode Dude alongside the porch stretching across the front of the little house. The horse lay down on cue and Luke eased from the saddle onto the stoop. He had lunch spread on the boards by the time Katie finished shutting Rooster in the corral.
“There’s spring water to drink, but you’ll have to fetch it,” he said. “You can grab a jug from inside and then follow the path out back—you’ll see where to fill it.”
“Is the door locked?”
“Wouldn’t do any good if someone wanted to break in. Nobody comes this way except the Bucks, and they’re welcome if they need shelter from the weather.”
Katie went inside, coming out several minutes later with a plastic jug. “I could spend an hour looking around in there,” she said. “It’s like stepping back in time.”
“Yeah, Shelby has fun finding that old stuff while she’s on horse-training trips.”
Katie disappeared around the corner of the cabin and returned with the full jug. “And there’s a spa. I wanted to jump right in.”
“Feel free—a hundred and five degrees winter and summer.” He’d taken girls skinny-dipping in the hot spring when he was in high school, but he’d never brought a woman here since he’d started working as a bullfighter. Now he might never be able to climb the path again and relax in the warm water. Another piece of his life taken from him.
They sat with their legs hanging off the porch and ate lunch washed down with icy water in agate-ware mugs Katie had found inside. Dude left his grazing by the creek and wandered over to beg chunks of cookie from Luke’s lunch.
“I think I could live here forever,” Katie said. “Why did your family leave this location?”
“Probably the womenfolk wanted to be closer to the road when it came through between Durango and Cortez farther west,” Luke said. “And it was easier to drive the cattle to the railhead back then and truck them out nowadays. We’ve always used the cabin for hunting and keeping an eye on the herd in their summer pasture, so it never fell apart like a lot of old buildings like this.”
He broke the last cookie in two and handed half to her. “You’re not ready to go back to your husband? He must be missing you considerably.”
“I doubt it.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Why do you ask?”
“My line of work, you have to read body language. How likely a rider is to buck off before the buzzer. Or if a bull plans to trot out with no bother or try to nail someone. I noticed you were fine till I mentioned your pretty hair, then you started rubbing your ring finger. I’m guessing you have a lot of unfinished business back East.”
“I do, but I’m not ready to deal with it. Not yet.”
A shadow flashed across the sun accompanied by a high keening cry.
Katie jumped. “What was that?”
“One of our eagles—a pair nests up behind the cabin.”
“You have your own eagles? I feel like I’ve stumbled into some kind of fairy tale.”
“Not really,” he said. “Bad stuff happens here, just like anywhere else.”
Katie’s lips trembled. “I know. Bad stuff happens everywhere.” Tears overflowed as she let the whole story spill out—the long months nursing her mother, meeting Britt Cavendish at the funeral luncheon, the whiff of perfume on Brad’s jacket after he left her alone that evening, the shattering discovery in her own home, in her own bed. And her parting display left for him at the site of his betrayal.
Luke wished he could comfort her but was afraid to interrupt. He sat running his fingers through Dude’s forelock until she fell silent at last and then handed her his bandana.
“I was so stupid,” she said, mopping her face. “I never suspected a thing, but now I’m sure she wasn’t the first. The perfume trick was too clever. I’d read about that stunt in a novel, but I never dreamed it would happen to me. You must think I’m a real coward for running away. I’d have done things differently if we’d had children, but since we don’t...”
“I don’t think you’re any kind of coward. It took real grit to break loose like you did. And you really put the spurs to him before you left.”
She sniffled a last time and folded his bandana. “I’ll wash this when we get back. And thanks for not patting me on the head and saying ‘there, there.’”
“Never occurred to me. I was admiring your gumption—we Camerons set great store by gumption.”
He stuffed debris from their lunch into the bag. “Time to hit the trail. Mount up in the corral and I’ll get the gate for you.”
He transferred to his saddle and slid back the heavy bar on the corral gate for Katie to ride out. They retraced their path to the gate between Cameron’s Pride and the Bucks’ spread, checking the rest of the fence line before heading to the home ranch.
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