“Nice to meet you, sir. I’d love to work on your fine ranch.”
“I’m sure Gene told you we’re not hiring full-timers right now, but that could change in the blink of an eye.”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
Gene nods. “You and Maggie better get going. I’m going to chat a little more with Michael while I give him a tour.”
Hank puts a hand on the blue-roan’s neck. “Nice to meet you, Michael.”
Gene escorts Michael back out of the barn.
To Maggie, Hank says, “You’ll take Don Juan. He was my mom’s last horse.” A shadow crosses his face. His mother’s riding days are over. She’s wheelchair-bound and has Alzheimer’s. She still lives at the ranch, with Hank and a live-in helper, although Hank still provides a great deal of her care. It’s a round-the-clock job bigger than any one person.
“So you’re not using me as a crash-test dummy on some up-and-comer—that’s good.”
The up-and-comers will get a road test at the rodeo that weekend. It will be Maggie’s first time seeing the Double S buckers in competition, and she’s looking forward to it. Like really, really looking forward to it, even though she was never much into rodeo before Hank.
“Last thing I’d ever want is to harm a single hair on your pretty head.” Hank hands her a brush and takes another to the buckskin’s coat. “Lily likes Don Juan best of all the riding horses. She likes sweet feed even better, so you’ll be carrying a feed bag full with you. I’ll take Tatonka here.” He bends to reach under the roan’s stomach, then catches himself with his hands on his knees, grimacing.
Maggie pauses, brush poised over Don Juan’s back. “What is it?”
“Another one of my damn headaches. They’re coming on fast with no warning.” He drops his brush and crouches on his boot heels, elbows on knees, head in hands.
Maggie tosses her brush into a bucket and hurries to him. Her fingers graze his shoulder. She knows he doesn’t want anyone in his space when a headache hits. “Where’s your prescription?”
Hank’s eyes are squeezed shut. “Back pocket.”
She pries the pill out of his tight jeans, retrieves a bottled water from a refrigerator that doubles as a holder of human drinks and of animal medications, and brings both back to him, first removing the pill from the wrapping he has trouble mastering when his head crashes. “Here.”
He opens his mouth for the pill, accepting it on his tongue. She puts the bottle to his lips. He drinks, swallows, grunts.
“You want a cold rag?”
“No.”
“Maybe I could help you into the office?”
He snaps at her. “Quit hovering.”
“What did I do?”
“Just leave me the hell alone.”
Normally Maggie has a smart comeback for any situation, but his volatile response short-circuits her system. She stands frozen for long seconds. Her eyes burn. Her breath comes out in little puffs of vapor cloud. His abrupt personality change stings. Feeling bad isn’t an excuse to act like a jerk, but now’s not the time to discuss it.
She picks up the brush he dropped and begins grooming Tatonka. When she’s finished, she continues with Don Juan. She’s unsure whether Hank will be able to ride, but she needs to do something. Slowly she curries their manes and tails, then picks their hooves. She scrapes botfly eggs off their legs. When the horses are both groomed to the nines and saddled, she gives them sweet-feed mash and hangs a bag of feed for Lily on Don Juan’s saddle horn. Half an hour has passed. She puts bridles on the horses. Snow begins to accumulate on the ground in the stable yard. Hank hasn’t moved. She’s run out of ways to stall with the horses.
“Hank?” she whispers.
He startles. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
“I musta dozed off.” He rolls his head, stretching his neck. “I’m feeling a little better. I think we caught it in time.”
“Amazing you can sleep in that position.”
He holds a hand up to her, and she takes it. “Thanks for helping me.”
“You didn’t seem to appreciate it much earlier.”
He puts a little weight into her hand as he lumbers to his feet. “What?”
“You weren’t all that nice.”
He looks confused, then he closes the blinds to his emotions with a snap, leaving only blankness. “I’m sorry. I was out of my head.”
She doesn’t know what worries her more, the fact that he’s being evasive and doesn’t seem to remember his behavior, or the pain and personality change. “Have you been to a doctor?”
“That’s how I get the magic pills.”
“I mean recently.”
He checks the cinch on his horse. “Yep. Every three months.”
“Wait, what? How long has this been going on?”
With his back to her and voice matter-of-fact, he says, “Nearly fifteen years.”
Maggie feels as confused as Hank had looked moments before. “Why am I just now learning about it?”
“You’ve seen me have headaches before.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Whining like a child isn’t the bull rider way.”
“Would you stop fiddling with that horse and talk to me?”
He turns and meets her eyes. “Let’s ride out. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Two
They mount up. Maggie’s not an expert rider, but Don Juan feels solid underneath her as she adjusts her reins. Louise runs down from the hayloft and follows them into the stable yard. Maggie’s Texas goats, Omaha and Nebraska, are visiting Wyoming, too, and they bleat at her.
“Lawn mowers, do your thing,” Hank had said after breakfast, and staked them in the yard on the barn-facing side of the main house, a white two-story wooden structure, where Maggie is staying with him.
Apparently they don’t want to do their thing without Maggie anymore. Or maybe they’re nervous with the change in weather. Fuss buckets. She makes a mental note to put them up when she and Hank get back with Lily.
Hank clucks and Tatonka takes off at a trot. Man and horse lead the way through several gates, heading south, until they—and Louise—are riding across a pasture so large there’s no opposite fence in sight. Theirs is not a long-term partnership. Hank’s go-to gelding, Wolf, had died a month before. But Tatonka moves like he’s reading Hank’s mind, which Maggie knows is partly training and partly Hank’s clear body cues and leg pressure.
Hank gestures at the monochrome before them in shades of white varying from marshmallow on the ground to ash in the sky. “Lily has a few favorite spots. We’ll check those first.”
Don Juan is a slow-goer. Maggie fans her legs at his sides as he falls behind Tatonka. Big flakes swirl around Hank’s body, and snow puffs explode from Tatonka’s hooves. With ten yards separating them from Maggie, they look like a scene in a snow globe.
Hank swivels his head back toward her. “Smack your thighs with the reins. That usually does the trick.”
She smacks, but Don Juan doesn’t so much as flinch. She tries again. Once, twice, three times, with increasing velocity. Her thighs sting from the smacks, and the last time she does it, she catches the saddle’s pommel. It makes a sharp sound. Don Juan snorts and speeds up to a reluctant trot.
In the distance, she sees the black silhouettes of cattle, all facing the same direction, huddled together. Their backs are dusted white. Louise cavorts like a puppy, snapping at falling snow. The wind is gusty, but not ferocious, and it’s strangely less cold than she’d expected. If she wasn’t worried about Hank and Lily, in fact, the ride would be lovely. She can even make out the Sibleys’ tall, rustic cabin on the mountain and the road winding up to it. Austere. Beautiful. Mysterious. Hank has promised to take her up to see it soon.
“Okay, cowboy, we’re riding. Time to talk,” she says as Don Juan catches up to Tatonka.
Hank shifts his weight back in his saddle. Tatonka slows to match pace with Don Juan. “You remember me telling you I retire
d from bull riding because I got hurt?”
“Yes.” She glances at him.
“I came here to recover.”
“Right.”
He nods.
She does a mini eye-roll. “Thanks. That clears it all up for me.”
He twists in the saddle, stretching his lower back one direction and then the other. “Bull riders get hurt. Often. I was always too tall for it, really, and prone to whiplash.”
“Okay. And?”
“I went down at NFR.”
It takes her a second to remember that NFR is the abbreviation for the National Finals Rodeo. “After winning in Cheyenne?”
“Yes. A few months after that. I hurt my head pretty bad, along with some other parts. Another in a long line of head injuries, to tell the truth. It took a long time to heal. Never did completely. I’ve been on meds and seeing doctors pretty much ever since.”
She reaches toward him, trying to touch him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He lifts his hand and brushes hers, then their horses skitter too far apart for them to maintain contact. “It’s called traumatic brain injury. Although we didn’t have a name for it back when I was riding. Like football players, boxers, and soldiers get.”
“And bull riders.”
“Yep.” His face is stony.
Maggie sees a long-legged mating pair of sandhill cranes alight from the snow. The big birds don’t appear flight-worthy, but they surge skyward where their awkward size turns into effortless grace. They’re headed south, it appears, but behind schedule. It makes her feel restless. For a brief moment, a flicker of worry about the wreck of her professional life distracts her. Then another flicker pushes it away. An image of Hank, riding at Frontier Days. Wearing a cowboy hat. “Wait, didn’t you wear a helmet?”
“No. And don’t ever mention that in front of my mother.”
“Why?”
“It was always a point of contention. And arguing about it again doesn’t fix anything now.”
The horses lean into a climb. By the time they crest the rise, they’re both breathing hard.
“But it’s under control, right?”
“As much as it can be.” He cuts into a stand of aspen trees.
“What’s that mean?”
“It gets worse over time. Makes me more susceptible to things.”
“What things?”
He looks straight ahead, his jaw tight. “Darkness. Mood swings. Confusion. Forgetfulness.”
The gnawing in Maggie’s stomach from earlier restarts with intensity. This sounds serious. And Hank has a history of neurological issues in his family anyway. Father dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mother with Alzheimer’s. She wants to crawl into his saddle and hold him to her. If she’s scared, how must he feel? But she knows the last thing he wants is to be coddled.
“Okay, then. Good thing you told me so I can help.”
He shrugs. “I appreciate you wanting to, but I don’t see how you can.”
“Don’t underestimate me.”
Truth be told, she doesn’t see how she can yet either, but she’s always believed her refusal to give up when the odds are against her is one of her best traits. They break from the aspen grove. Before she can think of a response, Hank points.
“There she is.”
Maggie doesn’t see anything but white on white. “Where?”
“Take your sunglasses off. You’ll see better.”
“It’s glary.”
But Maggie tucks them down the front of her jacket. She blinks away the glare and the falling flakes. When her eyes adjust, she sees steam rising from an irregular shape in the snow. A black tail swishes and snow scatters. Lily.
“Why isn’t she moving?”
“My guess is she’s got a halter and lead tangled in something.”
“Why would she have them on?” Maggie’s voice holds a note of rising panic. She knows the Double S horses are left bare to prevent exactly this.
“Someone probably left her tied up after feeding her. It’s good for her. Teaches her patience.”
“Teaches her she can break lead lines, too, looks like.”
“I imagine she pulled it loose, and we’re running shorthanded with Paco on vacation, so no one had been by to put her up yet. We don’t tie her off with hard knots. She’s broken a hitching post or two before. Damn mare is strong as a freight train.”
“And obviously clever.”
Don Juan nickers at Lily. Lily is watching them, but she doesn’t answer the gelding. Maggie jumps off her horse when they’re twenty feet away.
“Wait, Maggie. I’ll get her untangled.”
“No. Let me, please.”
Hank unsnaps a belt scabbard. “Take this. You’ll probably need to cut the end of the line to get her loose.”
“Thanks.” Maggie hands Don Juan’s reins to Hank. She attaches the scabbard to her own belt, then unties the feed bag and slings it over her shoulder.
“You always need to carry a knife out here. To deal with whatever comes your way, in case help doesn’t.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Keep that one for now.” Hank tosses her an extra halter and lead rope he’d coiled on his saddle horn. “And if all else fails, just take off her halter and put this one on.”
Maggie trudges toward Lily. The snow isn’t deep, but it’s wet. Don Juan tries to follow the feed bag, but Hank holds him back.
Lily’s line is tangled in tall, thick brush. She strains toward the feed bag, tossing her head and ignoring Maggie altogether. “Buh-buh-buh, buh-buh-buh, buh-buh.”
Maggie laughs at her eager sounds. “Lily, you’re a mess.” She slips the feed bag over Lily’s ears and pats her muscular neck.
A buck jumps out of the brush not fifteen feet from Maggie and Lily. Maggie jumps. Lily doesn’t. Maggie checks the mare carefully for injuries, but doesn’t find so much as a scratch. Lily’s round belly looks warm and inviting, so Maggie presses her cheek against it. Inside, a hoof strikes out and thumps her.
Maggie laughs delightedly. “I felt the foal kick.”
Hank grunts, but he smiles. “Cut her loose and let’s shake a leg. We have to pony her back, and she’s going to want to slow us down.”
“Pony?”
“Lead her along while we’re riding.”
Maggie examines the line. “She’s wrapped it up tight.”
“Can you salvage some of it?”
Maggie loosens the upper coils of the rope, making her way to the bottom. “All but about two or three feet.”
“That’s worth saving, but we’ll have to use the longer line to pony her.”
Maggie pulls the knife from the scabbard. It’s black, with the Double S brand. “Cool knife.”
“We used to have a bunch like that. I think it’s the only one left now.”
She saws through the lead. It’s harder than it looks, what with bad footing and prickly bushes. When the line and horse are freed, she exchanges the old line for the new line and leads Lily to Hank, then removes the feed bag, but not without a tussle.
Hank takes the rope and hands Don Juan’s reins back to her. “Let’s get out of here.”
Maggie clips the old lead line to a ring on her saddle and puts the feed bag over the horn. As she mounts, she catches a glimpse of sun through breaking clouds. In the near distance, she sees big, dark birds circling. “Are those golden eagles?”
Hank glances up, then turns his attention back to Lily, who’s trying to bite Tatonka. He twirls the end of her line between the two horses. She quits her attack, but she doesn’t back away. “Nope. Buzzards.”
Maggie points at a large snowy hump with a few trees to one side. “Is that another animal out there?”
“Probably.”
“Should we go help it?”
“Take a closer look.”
Maggie squints. “Oh. Is it dead?”
“It, and about ten others.”
“What the hell?”
“It’s our
dead pile.”
“Your what?”
“Where we put the livestock that die.”
Maggie is drawn to the pile of carcasses like a fly to manure in August. She leads Don Juan toward it.
“Where are you going?”
“I just want a closer look.”
“Be careful. There’s a buffalo jump on the other side of it. Rock at the bottom.”
Maggie knows what a buffalo jump is from reading about Pretty-shield and other Crow, who chased buffalo to low cliffs, where some of the fleeing beasts would fall over. Women would wait at the bottom, knives ready, to finish them off. “Okay.”
“When our pile gets too big, we burn it. Then we push what’s left over the jump with the tractor.”
As Maggie draws nearer to the pile, Louise joins her and bounds up to it. “Oh no, bad idea.”
The dog ignores her. She dives in, and soon her head completely disappears. Maggie looks away. Louise barks. Her wagging tail is about the only thing visible when Maggie turns back to her, reluctantly. “Come on out now.”
Louise growls and tugs, growls and tugs. The top of the pile shifts on one side. The dog falls backward, a cowboy boot in her mouth. A bright red one with hand-tooling and high heels.
“Hank, Louise has found something, and it’s not a cow.”
“Could be a horse,” Hank hollers. “Everything dies eventually.”
“Horses don’t wear cowboy boots.”
“What?” Hank gives Tatonka a firm “Yah,” and they canter to the pile, reaching it just as Maggie does.
The horses stop as one, unwilling to go any closer. Louise wags her tail beside them, the boot still in her mouth.
“Hank, what the hell is going on?”
But she doesn’t have to ask. Thanks to their closer perspective and to Louise and her tunneling and tugging, they can both see another distinctive red high-heeled boot in the pile, as well as the back of a dead man’s belt that’s easily readable even upside down: PACO.
Hank pulls out a satellite phone.
“What are you doing? Shouldn’t we help him?” she asks, even though the rational part of her knows Paco’s past saving.
Hank is already speaking into the phone. “We’ve got a suspicious death out at Piney Bottoms Ranch. I think it’s our top hand. Paco Lopez. And he’s frozen in our dead pile.”
Maggie Box Set Page 51
