by Jeanne Rose
"I'm not too good at patching up broken bones," he warned.
"I am not going to have any broken bones."
Well, all he could do was hope she'd use some sense now that he'd brought her out here. He ordered her to stay back while he and his son rode up a rocky incline to flush some strays out of the brush. Stephen was the first to find one, a bawling scared old cow who probably wanted nothing more than to join back up with a herd. She took kindly to the driving and Monte motioned for Stephen to prod her toward Iphigenia.
As expected, the dun mare kicked into motion all by herself, with Iphigenia guiding the cow toward a spoke-line of the big circle they'd mapped out.
So far, so good.
Monte next came onto a couple of half-grown steers. One of them bolted, but was turned back by Stephen. They drove the animals down the incline toward Iphigenia, who again had no trouble herding the cattle in the right direction.
Everything was working out fine. Too fine, Monte thought, wondering why they hadn't encountered any problems. Even as he thought that, a problem met them head-on.
The brush right behind him suddenly came alive, rattling and shaking as a big body burst through. The head that emerged was sporting at least six full feet of horns, proving their owner had lived long enough to know how to use them. The longhorn steer rolled his eyes when he saw Monte, twisting like a cat to take off in the opposite direction. Stephen's pony side-stepped, put his ears back and bared his teeth. Monte feared the steer was going to skewer his son and mount anyway, but the animal did a quick dash to the side at the last moment, crashing on down the incline.
Oh, Lord, Iphigenia!
"Watch out!" Monte yelled but saw it was already too late to send her riding in another direction.
The steer hurtled onward and the little dun mare took action. Monte caught his breath as the horse swung in a fast circle, nearly unseating her rider.
Flung back and forth, Iphigenia clung to the saddle for all she was worth, finally leaning over and gripping the saddlehorn as the mare darted forward, bullied the steer, swung from one side to the other, and nearly sat on her haunches. The steer bawled his frustration and tried to feint. The dun mare came on again, trying to catch him before he escaped. The steer's long horns came directly for her.
That's when Monte noticed that Iphigenia had her lariat in hand. Leaning toward the steer, she smacked him good and hard right in the head.
"Hellish beast!" she screamed at the animal. "How dare you threaten my poor little horse!"
Monte couldn't help grinning, especially when the steer actually turned and bounded in the right direction, Iphigenia's dun on its heels. He heard Stephen laughing full out as the boy rode up to join him.
"Guess those ornery old steers better not mess with her, huh, Pa?"
"Guess not."
"She kept her seat awful good, too, don't you think?"
"Uh, huh." Monte lowered his voice. "Don't be praising her too much, though, or God knows what she'll want to do."
Or how full of herself she would get. Though damned if the crazy city woman wouldn't make a real wrangler if she wanted to. Monte had to add another dollop of grudging admiration to the attraction he felt for the stunning blonde.
BY LUNCHTIME, Iphigenia was quite sore from the hard riding, though she wasn't going to admit such to Monte. Finding a blanket, she wadded it up to put under her behind while she ate a plate of beans and cornbread alongside Stephen.
Monte was busy talking to the other wranglers. A small herd of cattle milled near the remuda, proof of the morning's work.
"So, are you enjoying yourself, Miss Wentworth?" Stephen asked, digging the gentle, star-shaped rowel of his work spur into the dusty earth.
"I always like sharpening my skills." Now if only she could get through the afternoon.
Reuben, the chuckwagon cook, came up with a pot. "Anybody want the rest of these beans?"
Stephen held out his plate but Iphigenia shook her head.
"Oughta eat hearty. Might get a bit wet this afternoon." Reuben gazed at the sky. "Look at them clouds over west."
"We've had quite a bit of rain this spring," Stephen told Iphigenia. "Which is unusual. It's more likely to rain in the winter or summer here."
"When it rains a'tall." Reuben eased his creaky old frame down onto a barrel sitting nearby. His batwing chaps flapped out, the leather as old-looking as he was. He had a face so wrinkled, the lines resembled a map. "But this spring, them huecos are gonna be full up."
"Huecos?" Iphigenia repeated.
"Waterholes." Stephen cleaned up his second serving of beans. "And some of the washes that run through this country are gonna be rivers, too."
Locating waterholes was one of Iphigenia's main problems in getting to Fort Davis. "Is there any way to locate water when you're traveling?"
"It's best to have a map," said Stephen. "Pa has most of the huecos for this part of the country charted on the wall in his office. Blue circles."
Iphigenia had wondered what the circles were. She would add them to the crude map she'd already made out. One more step to retrieving Hope.
Reuben rolled a cigarrillo. "You kin also figger out where water is if you have a good eye. Look for birds flockin' at dusk and dawn, critter tracks, grasses getting all green sudden-like." He asked, "Who's thinkin' of travelin' anyway? Somebody you know?"
"I was merely curious." Iphigenia thought it best to be careful about what she revealed around Stephen. "Being from the east, I can see that travel is quite different out here."
"You bet your da ...you bet," said Reuben, seeming to remember to watch his language around a lady. "Though travelin' today is a whole lot different than it was years ago. Nobody had maps with huecos marked out in them days." He took a big puff of the cigarrillo. "Why, I had a pardner who rode all the way across Texas through New Mexico Territory on his own. Shot his own game and found his own water. Now that was travelin'."
"All on his own?" Just as she would have to do, Iphigenia thought. "Safely?"
"As safe as you could git with Injuns and hostile Mexicans and outlaws. The trick was not to build a fire at night and draw any attention to hisself."
"No fire? What about wild animals?"
Reuben let out a cloud of smoke. "Aw, wolves or coyotes ain't gonna bother you none. And bears're mainly in the mountains. It's the two-legged variety of animal that's most dangerous, and a campfire tells 'em where you be."
"Though you shouldn't camp near a pile of rocks," Stephen added. "Too much chance of rattlesnakes."
"And you gotta shake out your bedroll and your boots afore you use 'em," said Reuben. "Make sure you ain't picked up any scorpions or poison centipedes."
Though busy storing away the tidbits of information, Iphigenia shivered at the last. The rattlesnake incident was still too close for comfort. She wouldn't mind avoiding anything that slithered or crawled for a long, long time.
"You gotta keep your hoss tethered nearby, in case he gets spooked," Reuben went on. "And keep your food wrapped and stored either in a tree or under a rock somewheres away from the camp. Don't want to attract any critters, if you don't have to. Now my pardner, he didn't carry any supplies a'tall. Ate light. Which is best for travelin' in the desert anyways. What you gotta have most of is water."
"Canteens?" asked Iphigenia.
"As many as you kin take. And fill 'em up at every hueco when you git the chance."
"As long as the water's good," said Stephen. "In the desert, there's a lot of alkali and minerals. Some waterholes go bad, turn to salt. Worse, some get polluted with arsenic."
A poison, Iphigenia knew. "How can you tell if water is bad?"
Reuben cackled. "If you see animal bones, that's how. Or if there ain't any plants growin' about."
There was so much to learn. Iphigenia only hoped she would remember everything or her own skeleton might become part of the desert landscape.
The older man was a font of information. With only a little prodding, he rambled
on, talking about how a person shouldn't camp too near a waterhole, since animals will come there and spook one's mount. He also explained flashfloods, how dry washes could become torrents after a big rain. And he said a traveler should have several layers of clothes, since deserts got cold at night.
Once started, however, the older man didn't want to stop. Iphigenia found herself politely listening to how to skin a jackrabbit, cut an armadillo out of its shell and suck eggs that one found in wild bird nests. Stomach queasy at the thought of gathering her own food, she swallowed hard, trying not to think of the stuff she just ate.
Stephen had already gotten up and left. Eyes wandering, Iphigenia noticed him talking to Monte. The two Ryersons were walking toward her when they were accosted by a Bill Harris, a wrangler who looked very upset.
"I ain't workin' for that bastard no longer!" the man said furiously. "He's got a mean streak a mile wide. He's gonna up and kill somebody if the rest of us don't kill him first!"
"Now, Bill," said Monte. "Let me talk to Jake. Maybe you misunderstood something."
So Jake O'Brian was causing problems again, Iphigenia thought.
"Misunderstood, hell. I thought he was gonna use that damned bullwhip on me. He already cut a few slices out of them cows. You're gonna have to doctor them wounds or they'll be drawin' flies."
Bill pulled a pouch of Bill Durham tobacco from his vest, but before he could put the tobacco into his mouth, Jake himself appeared. Iphigenia rose to get a clearer view. The man's face appeared florid, his eyes glittery.
"What's the matter with you?" Jake took hold of Bill and shook him until the pouch of tobacco dropped to the ground.
"Let go," Monte ordered, voice calm and low.
The foreman did so but he turned on his boss. "Look, you don't like what I'm doin', say so."
"All right. I don't like what you've been doing," said Monte straight out. "You were always pals with Bill here. You were friendly with most everybody else. What's eating you anyway?"
"Nothin'." Jake turned away. "I'm heading back to the ranch."
"Jake!" Monte shouted but the foreman didn't so much as look back. "Damn it all, anyway!"
Iphigenia watched as the man took his horse, mounted and rode off. In her opinion, Monte was better off without the troublemaker.
TROUBLE.
The rains Reuben predicted came early in the afternoon. The crew had staked out another ten mile circle to work, Iphigenia's small group being joined by a fourth wrangler. When the clouds opened, she and Monte had became separated from the other two. They found shelter beneath a rocky overhang.
Iphigenia would never admit it, but she was thrilled at the prospect of a rest. She'd ridden long at times, but never this hard. Her bottom felt like she'd slid down a hundred yard rocky hill, while her legs fairly quivered when she dismounted. She cleared a space in the gravel beneath the overhang and sat down gingerly, back against the rock.
"Ah-h."
Monte squatted beside her. "A little tired?"
She wouldn't give him any satisfaction. "A little."
"I'd be surprised if you weren't. You're not used to this."
"But I'm not doing too badly." She took off her hat and held it in her lap.
"To tell the truth, you're doing damned well. Must have been a tomboy when you were growing up."
"Not exactly." When he glanced at her, she explained, "I always liked to ride and go out to the country, but part of the reason I did so was to escape the presence of my father."
"Never got along, huh? What about your mother?"
"She died before I was five."
That fact caught his interest, she thought, noting the gleam in his eye. "And your old man never got married again?"
"No, though I am certain his position in society attracted the attention of many women. He was always the stern, strict banker," Iphigenia said, the memory depressing. "A difficult man, not one for small conversation."
"Or affection, either, I expect."
Now why was Monte bringing that up?
He stared out at the rain, heavy droplets that beat into the earth. "Have any brothers and sisters?"
"I am an only child."
"Musta been even tougher on you then." He moved back and slid down to sit against the rock himself. "Your pa had no wife and only a little girl to deal with. He probably didn't know what to do."
Iphigenia felt her father deserved no excuses. "He would not care to do what he should, even if he knew it. Horace Wenthworth is a mean-spirited man who expected me to take care of myself and stay out of his way. He only worried about appearances -- how and when I was to appear at the table, dressed as I should be. When I was older, he cared only that I did not dishonor the family name."
Monte gave her a wry look. "Musta clashed all right, with your kind of personality."
Iphigenia said simply, "When I became older, I yelled back." He nodded. "Shouting. Noticed that bothers you."
Somehow, she was getting the idea that Monte didn't have enough sympathy for her. Which hurt. But then, because of Ginnie, she'd begun to realize she'd carried quite a bit of anger as a child herself.
"I suppose I pushed the limits with my father," she admitted. "But I don't think the majority of our problems were caused by me. He falsely accused me of misdeeds on many occasions." After which she'd decided to live up to his mistrust. But she'd been the child, her father the adult. "I cannot remember his ever trying to understand. He simply reacted and punished me in various ways ...locked me in my rooms, hired strict nannies, took away pets that I loved, sent me to the country ...until he discovered I liked it there. If he thought I might use it for something I enjoyed, he withheld money."
Monte shook his head. "Sounds like a real sad situation."
Sad situation? Iphigenia continued to long for more personal sympathy. But she tightened her jaw as Monte regarded her closely. If she broke down, she'd reveal everything.
"So now you've run away. Think your pa's looking for you?"
"I doubt that he cares enough to look very far," she hedged. "He told me he was sick of my annoying ways and would be only too happy to see me fend for myself."
"Think he wouldn't even worry that you're wandering around by yourself, without any money?"
Money?
Iphigenia started. Surely Monte wasn't fishing about to find out if she had claim to any. He didn't seem like the mercenary sort, though she knew his ranch was in trouble. But Monte had no more to say on the subject.
Iphigenia relaxed some when he finally turned his gaze out to the rain, his intriguing profile outlined against the gray, watery light. She liked the strength of his bold features, the way the tip of his nose hooked ever-so-slightly. He was definitely the most masculine and attractive man she had ever met.
"So you think your pa never wants to see you again?" he suddenly asked.
"I don't care if he wants to see me."
"Sure of that? He's your own blood. Don't think he has one good bone in his body?"
Why was he hinting at reconciliation?
He went on, "There can be misunderstandings between parents and kids, you know. I yell sometimes."
"Though you don't seem truly mean-spirited. I believe you love your children."
"I hope they believe so. Me and Ginnie had a round yesterday. I'm confining her to the house until further notice. That rattler thing was serious business. Don't know what got into the girl."
So that was the reason for talk of reconciliation. Monte was worried about his own family problems. Iphigenia could relax even more if they would stop concentrating on her entirely.
"I know the girl seems troubled but she will very likely grow out of it. Especially when she realizes she has a parent who is concerned for her well-being." She thought of how disheartened Monte had seemed after Ginnie's accusations. "Don't let her blame about your wife stop you. She is simply angry, and you were a target for her."
"That's generous, considering she had that snake earmarked for you."
>
"She was only acting out." Iphigenia knew what that was like. Though she would never admit it, Ginny was longing for a mother's love every bit as much as Cassie was, even if the dark twin showed it in an opposite -- and negative -- way. "You should try to talk to her, tell her you care."
A comfortable silence enveloped them as they watched the rain. The sky seemed to be clearing and the drops came more slowly. A fresh sandy smell rose from the land.
"You do a good job at trying to understand my family," Monte said finally. "And you're always real interested ...why?"
Truthfully, "I don't know." She ran a finger along the seam of her denim trousers. "You seem to be asking many questions that I cannot answer of late." She grew warm under his steady gaze. "I am interested in understanding a family that has lost its mother, I suppose." She sighed. "I also see some of my past in Ginnie. I feel I am learning about myself." While at the same time practicing skills for handling a wild land and encountering strengths she'd never known she had. "Sometimes I think fate demanded I come here."
Though did fate also demand that she use her skills and strengths to run away from the sometimes obliging, often vexing, yet always exciting man who sat beside her?
She couldn't help but grieve as she met his gaze, became mesmerized by the black depths of his eyes. She felt she would be losing something of importance before she even got to find out what it was. Then something imperceptible and instinctive passed between them, as if they were communicating without words.
Iphigenia caught her breath as Monte leaned closer, angling his head to take her mouth. His lips were soft, his chin roughened by beard. She touched his face, her fingers welcoming the prickly sensation, and kissed him in return.
He groaned, sliding one arm about her back and the other beneath her knees to lift her into his lap. Heat spiraled from her core at the close contact. Having known a man's touch -- as self-indulgent as Lamar's had been -- she'd missed the closeness. She wound her arms about his neck.
"So sweet," he murmured, running his hands through her hair, freeing some of the braids.
