Fire and Ice

by Mary Connealy

  She crossed her arms and looked at him, as stubborn as any mule in the history of the West.

  He decided he had to spell it out for her. “In exchange, you can leave your herd in the canyon. I won’t crowd so many cows in there that yours won’t have their share of grass, and I won’t expect a dollar of rent.”

  He took another step toward her while knowing full well he should stay away. He was too close, and the reckless, primitive nonsense boiling inside him was goading him on. “We can be neighborly and you know it, Bailey. This is only war because you want war.”

  That shook a gasp out of her, and she backed up so fast she stumbled.

  Coulter’s hand shot out and caught her or she’d have probably fallen over her own two feet.

  “I don’t want war. I never, ever want war again.”

  “Again?” Coulter’s tanned brow knit into furrows. He was so dark, his skin, his hair. He wore a black Stetson and even had his back to the rising sun, casting his face in shadows. Those eyes glowed out of his face, gray and unnaturally light and almost hypnotic. “What do you mean by ‘again’?”

  “I mean I never want to go to war again. I had enough of that fighting in the Civil War. Enough to last a hundred lifetimes.”

  Coulter’s hand relaxed on her arm, but he didn’t let go. “You fought in the Civil War?”

  That pulled her up short. Coulter had been so intertwined with everything that had happened. He’d been friends with Tucker. He’d bought Kylie’s land. He’d helped catch the man who’d been after Shannon. He’d been around so much, he was practically family. Family she disliked and avoided like the plague. Which made him a lot like Pa.

  “I thought you knew.”

  “I . . . I did hear such a thing. I’ve talked to your pa.” Gage got a sour look on his face that told Bailey he had indeed talked to Pa. “He said his sons fought in the war. Once I realized you were a woman, I just figured that didn’t apply to you. Except he did say sons. And he only has—had one—Jimmy, the one who died.” His hand resting on her upper arm slid up and down from her elbow to near her shoulder, then back to her elbow again. “You mean it? You actually fought in the war?”

  Then his eyes softened. Instead of the sour look when he’d spoken of Pa, he looked kind, concerned. That strong hand of his went up and down again. This time it felt like a caress.

  “Is that why you’re dressed like this? You passed yourself off as a man so you could fight? And now you’re still dressing like you did then?”

  The touch was too much. The concern. She might even call it pity. Wrenching free, she considered just how close she’d come to buckling under to his slippery offer. He was a man used to getting what he wanted, but not from her.

  “Teach your cattle how to mountain-climb, Coulter. Not one hoof touches my property. Not one.” She whirled away and stomped up the trail.

  “Bailey, come back. We can figure something out.”

  She didn’t look, and he didn’t chase her. She was relieved because she didn’t want his hands on her again. Ever.

  It wasn’t long before she was almost on her hands and knees. Doing more climbing than walking. The last twenty feet at the top was sheer rock sticking straight up. No dynamite could make this passable. Coulter might think he was the king of this whole part of the Rockies, but no amount of power, money, and arrogance could make a cow climb a mountain.

  She’d gone over the lip of the canyon and was all the way to the floor of it, had found her hat and caught up her horse, and was most of the way home when the first blast shook the ground.

  Too bad Coulter was going to have to figure out the hard way that his cows weren’t mountain goats.

  Bailey waited until the last explosion of the day ended before she led Shannon and Tucker out to where Coulter was blowing up a mountain. The blasting usually lasted about half a day, then silence until the next morning when it started again. She’d done some spying and knew they spent the other half of the day moving rubble.

  She also knew Gage always took the toughest job and the most risks.

  “He’s building a trail up this slope?” Shannon looked over the canyon rim, then turned to Bailey, her eyes wide, her voice laced with doubt. “He’ll have to move half the mountain.”

  There was a small army of men working about halfway down on a dizzying stretch nearly a quarter mile long. Gage was in the middle of it, hoisting rocks and throwing them aside. He straightened. Shannon’s voice must have carried. He swiped his forearm across his brow and started toward them. He had his coat off and had tossed his Stetson aside, despite the cold October weather.

  He strode along steadily until he got past the part that had been blasted. Then he had to climb, pulling himself along, scaling the mountain in a way no cow could manage.

  “You can’t get your cattle up this slope, not if you blast from now till kingdom come.” Tucker, pure mountain man, dressed in leather and fur, stepped up beside his wife, who was dressed in doeskin, wearing warm leggings. If Shannon had to give up on wearing britches, she’d chosen well.

  Coulter came around a boulder, reached a slightly less treacherous spot and stood upright. “I can and I will, Tucker.”

  Tucker looked down, shaking his head. “This slope would give a mountain goat the vapors.”

  Coulter walked the last few dozen yards before he stopped about twenty feet straight down. There was no way to get the rest of the way up without turning mountain climber.

  Bailey gritted her teeth. He had made it better. She could see that on the lower parts of the trail. But he had a long way to go. And what would he do about this last stretch?

  “I’ve got longhorns mostly, and they’re mighty good in rough country. All I’ve got to do is get the first one to climb up here and the others will follow. And I’ve got mountain-bred mustangs that will forge the trail, and the cattle will follow them, too. They’ll make this climb with only a couple more days of work. I think I could get your grulla up here now. At least to this spot where I’m standing.”

  Tucker’s gray mare was legendary. His horse, called a grulla, which Tucker pronounced grew-ya, a strange word Bailey had never heard before she’d come out here, had a black mane and tail on her gray coat. That horse had fought at Tucker’s side more than once. Bailey envied him the staunchly loyal critter.

  “If any animal can climb this steep trail, it’s Gru.” Shannon stared down the mountainside.

  Bailey couldn’t get over the change in her sister. Her hair was still short for most women, but it was definitely growing longer, and the cap of black curls was pinned back and looked female for sure. Even more so now that Shannon was wearing a dress.

  Sunrise, the Shoshone woman who’d raised Tucker, had helped Shannon make it along with the leggings. Her sister was dressed in a purely womanish fashion. The outfit also looked warm and fairly rational. Still, it wasn’t as safe and comfortable as britches. Bailey was the only one of the Wilde women who still wore them, and she was sorely disappointed in both her little sisters.

  “You’re tearing the heart out of this land, Gage.” Tucker crossed his arms and added with disgust, “It ain’t normal to blow up a whole mountain like this.”

  “You know why I’m doing it, Tucker, so don’t act like this is my fault. I need that canyon grass and”—he gave Bailey an explosive glare—“your sister-in-law won’t let me dirty up her pretty ranch yard with my cows. Well, I have to get in here somehow.”

  “No, you don’t.” Tucker loved these mountains, and his frustration at this blasting showed plain. “Cull your herd. Get along on less land. You’re rich enough to eat for six lifetimes. Leave the mountain alone. Be satisfied with what you have and let Bailey have the canyon. This isn’t about grass; this is about refusing to take no for an answer, refusing to stop fighting until you win. I can’t figure out why you didn’t go to war. You’d’ve been great at it.”

  “I own this canyon.” The cold in Coulter’s gray eyes was haunted, as if a ghost lived inside him.
Bailey had never noticed that until Tucker mentioned war. “It’s mine, and no one’s gonna tell me I can’t use what’s mine.”

  Coulter’s voice was just as frigid as his eyes. “You need anything else before I get back to work?”

  Tucker frowned at the damage being done. “My Gru could make it to where you stand if she wanted to.” Tucker paused, then added, “But how are you gonna make ’em want to, Gage? I don’t know as you can drive anything up here, but even if you could, what about these last twenty feet? This rim is impassable.” Since they were standing twenty feet overhead of Coulter, and they hadn’t climbed down and he hadn’t climbed up, those words seemed like the simple truth.

  “I’ll manage it,” Coulter replied flatly.

  Bailey heard such confidence in his voice, she had no doubt he’d somehow find a way.

  “Like I said, once I get a few of my best climbing critters up here, the others are sure to follow. And the inside of the canyon isn’t as bad. I don’t think I’m going to even need to blast on that side.”

  Bailey looked behind her. The first twenty feet were the same sheer, vertical rock. After that it was a much gentler slope. The inside of the canyon looked like a huge bowl. The walls were covered with aspens and were very steep, but nothing a cow couldn’t handle.

  Coulter turned those gray eyes on her. “I’ve built most of the trails in this area, Bailey. Most of the nice, easy roads you ride between here and Aspen Ridge weren’t here five years ago. I wasn’t afraid to throw the strength in my back into tearing civilization out of wilderness. And I’ve still got plenty of strength left. So this is the next road. It won’t be my last.”

  She had thought his eyes were cold before. Now they turned to chips of ice. At least the ghosts had gone, replaced by cold confidence. She knew going to war had cost her terribly. Was it possible not going to war could cost a man something?

  From somewhere he’d grown a spine as hard as this granite he was blasting. There was no back up in the man. She had no idea how to stop him, short of sending an avalanche right down on his head, and she didn’t have the ruthless streak in her to do such a thing.

  So, if she couldn’t keep him out, that left her with only one thing she could do.

  “I need to get back. I got chores.” She turned, picked her way past the first ugly stretch, then stalked down. Good luck to his cattle.

  As she wove between the clumps of slender aspen with their spinning yellow leaves, already falling in the autumn weather, she knew Coulter was right in that once his cattle were up, they wouldn’t have trouble coming down into the lush grass of the canyon.

  She was about to be invaded.

  4

  One more day and we’re going to invade that canyon.” Gage looked at the three men who’d ridden over with him. At the start, he’d been doing the blasting himself, but these three had pestered until he let them help. And they were good—better than him if he cared to admit it, and he didn’t.

  His foreman, Rowdy, and these other two, Manny and Ike, had proven their skill and now helped him to lay the charges.

  Most days they faced a new layer of snow, but so far it hadn’t been deep. One of these mornings it’d be heavy enough that Gage would face another barrier to getting his cattle up this trail. Winter coming was like a ticking clock counting down the moments until his cattle starved.

  It’d taken him longer than he’d expected, but they’d finish today and drive the cattle in tomorrow or his name wasn’t Gage Coulter.

  Looking up, up, up the twisting, mean, Rocky Mountain rattler of a trail, he knew that if his cows didn’t faint dead away on the climb, he was going to get into his canyon without needing the cooperation of that stubborn little filly.

  “Let me take over the blasting today, boss,” Rowdy said, the oldest of Gage’s hired hands. A white-haired old-timer, he was the talker of the bunch. “The last few charges have to be set just right.”

  Gage felt his jaw tighten. “I don’t like it. Blasting that last stretch is mighty dangerous, and I can’t ask a man to do a job I won’t do myself. The risk is mine.”

  Rowdy nodded. “It’s dangerous for a fact, Gage. That’s why you need someone who knows what he’s doing, and I’ve shown you I’m better than you. And these two”—he jerked his head toward Manny and Ike—“are better than you, too. For most of this blasting we’ve all been good enough, yet this last part is tricky. I’ve done this enough to make it a lot safer for me than it’d be for you.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Manny said. The skinny Mexican who didn’t look much older than a kid flashed an easy smile. Manny showed up one day out of the clear blue and talked his way into a job, and since then he’d taught them all a thing or two about roping and riding.

  Ike tugged on the brim of his Stetson. “Let us do it, Gage.” Ike, thin and wiry, was the best hand with gentling a green-broke mustang Gage had ever seen, and the smartest man of the bunch. Trail-savvy, quick-witted. A man Gage liked having along on any job.

  Rowdy went on, “It won’t take us long to be ready to blast, and you need to tell Wilde so he gets his cattle out of there, if he hasn’t already. Once we start blasting the rim, rocks might fly in. We don’t want to kill one of his cows by accident. Reckon he don’t need any more reasons to hate us.”

  That meant he had to go see Bailey again. He hadn’t seen her since the day she’d brought Shannon and Tucker over to try to convince Gage this was impossible. It was all he could do not to climb that canyon wall right now and rush over to her house. There was a tug of war going on inside him when he thought about seeing her. A big pull in one direction was his desire to gloat, to just plain throw it in her face that he’d gotten hold of his own land despite her best efforts to keep him out. Even stronger than that was the need to apologize, to offer again to let her keep her cows in the canyon. Try and wheedle a friendship out of the stubborn woman with the outsized ranching skills. Mixed in with all that was a small but strong urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

  That shocked him clear to his bones. And since she was likely to loosen his teeth if he tried, it was a pure waste of time thinking of it. His bad intentions would only make her hate him even more. His good intentions, well, he was sorely afraid they wouldn’t make her hate him any less.

  All and all, he probably ought to just send Manny to talk to her and avoid her for the rest of his life.

  But he’d promised to keep his men away.

  “I’ll go talk to h—” Gage almost said her. He did his best never to talk about Bailey for this very reason. No possible way could he think of Bailey as a man. Not anymore. And lying didn’t suit him, which made him think of the huge lie he’d just included in a letter to his ma.

  “I’ll try to widen the trail down here,” Gage said, shouldering his pickax. “Once the charges are set and you’re ready to blow it, go ahead and holler, and then I’ll run into the canyon and move the Wilde cattle to the far end. I don’t need to talk to . . . Wilde. I just have to make sure no cows are too close to the blast site.”

  All three headed for the top. Gage saw where they slipped and struggled to stay upright. He hurried after them to the spot giving them trouble, to make it more passable. Where a man couldn’t walk, a cow was going to have trouble.

  Hammer blows overhead told him his men had started work. Gage swung his ax.

  “Look out!” Ike, in the middle of the three, shoved Manny backward, then dove forward and tackled Rowdy. The two of them rolled to the side. A rumble drew Gage’s head up. In horror he watched a rockslide tumble straight for his men.

  The rocks pelted Ike and Rowdy as they scrambled along the face of the mountain.

  Manny came tumbling head over heels downhill, only yards ahead of the avalanche. Gage dropped the pickax and sprinted straight into the teeth of the rockslide.

  Manny got control of his fall, gained his feet, and ran several paces, then staggered and went back to rolling. Gage had one chance to catch Manny and yank him out of the path of t
he heavy boulders.

  Gage ran faster, not easy going uphill on the treacherous slope, judging what was to his left and right, trying to pick a spot, watching the stones bounce, knock more rocks loose, grow and spread and spin straight for him.

  “Get ready to jump!” Gage only hoped that Manny saw him, let alone heard him or read his mind about what he planned to do. There was no time to say more. A gap to Gage’s right opened just ahead. He reached it, braced himself. Manny slammed into him, but the man must’ve heard Gage yell, because Gage felt the young Mexican bunch his muscles and heave himself to the side just as Gage did.

  The force of Manny’s fall knocked them backward. Gage slid on shattered rock, tearing his clothes. Clawing toward the sheltering stones, he kept an iron grip on Manny’s shirt. His knees rammed into jagged rocks and tore his skin, even though he wore sturdy clothing. They managed to heave themselves behind a rock shelf just as the avalanche approached. Gage looked behind him to see boulders tumbling and bouncing like man-sized hailstones.

  Gage dragged Manny beneath an overhang of rocks as the avalanche went on and began raining past their shelter like a curtain of dirt and stone being pulled shut. Grit and gravel blinded them. The impacts of some massive stone shook the rocks over Gage’s head and caved in. What had been protection became a crumbling tomb.

  Gage grabbed Manny to pull him from harm’s way. Manny was moving on his own. Gage took that as a good sign. Gage threw up his arm to ward off the pelting stones as they scrambled away from the collapsing shelter. They ducked behind another group of boulders to watch more rocks collapse and join the avalanche and sweep their way down the mountainside.

  This refuge held.

  Gage forced himself to wait as a few more rocks tumbled past. He didn’t emerge, afraid more rocks might come raining down and start a new slide. Manny was bleeding but awake and alert.

  Finally, Gage’s control broke. “I’ve got to check on Rowdy and Ike. Stay here.”