Where Eagles Fly

by Lisa Norato

  At first opportunity, she left the cookhouse to seek out her own breakfast. She walked Jorge back to the house. They had just stepped onto the porch when a voice called out behind them.

  “Wait up, Miss McCoy. I need to talk to you.”

  Shelby turned. Hugh waved his hat in greeting, and she returned his smile, waiting for him to join her. His long, sandy hair had been trimmed to a respectable length, making his resemblance to her brother-in-law even more uncanny. She still couldn’t get over how uncanny, and perhaps for that reason, his presence brought her comfort, the feeling she wasn’t as far from home as she felt.

  He climbed the porch steps, and while Jorge sniffed around his boots, he bowed his head to her respectfully and announced, “It’s like this, Miss McCoy. We’ve been trying to arrange this two-day calf roundup. Pa thinks we should wait till Cookie gets back, but Holden’s disinclined to put the work off till then. He says you’ve been handling things right well. The boys have taken to you.”

  Shelby had to wonder what Hugh was leading up to in the way he turned his hat round and round in his hands. She’d seen Michael do the same thing in his polite cowboy manner whenever he was about to broach a touchy subject. The time he informed Caitlin of the dent he’d put in her new red pickup, for instance.

  “Mind, you don’t need to feel obliged just because I’m asking, if you’re uncomfortable with the idea. It’s not often a woman goes along on a roundup—”

  “You want me to go on a roundup?”

  “—with a bunch of cowhands, but it’s just for one night. And we’d stretch a canvas over the wagon bows so you won’t have to sleep on the ground. You’d have your privacy, with Holden and Shorty outside, taking turns keeping watch.”

  Shelby remembered it had been Michael’s idea to put her to work and get her involved in the opening of the guest ranch.

  Hugh cleared his throat. “I’m asking if you wouldn’t be willing to accompany Holden and the boys on a two-day roundup as range cook. Shorty will drive the chuck wagon and set up camp. And with Wylie putting in as wrangler, you’ll have them both as your helpers. They can cut firewood, grind coffee, wash dishes. Whatever it is you need doing, Miss McCoy, they’ll be pleased to do it for you. I’m only asking because you don’t seem to be afraid of the work, and you don’t hold to rules that’d scare most women off. Out on the range, between the hard ground and a roof of stars, the chuck wagon is the only comfort a cowboy knows. It’ll be like having Cookie along on the trail. Almost. You’re a heap prettier to look at.”

  “Thank you. I think. And what about you, Hugh? Won’t you be coming along?”

  Hugh frowned, gave his head a shake. “I hate to miss the fun, but I am in fearful need of a rest. Besides, Holden’s trail boss, and rounding up calves is his specialty. If’n I were to come along, I expect I’d just be in his way, but I told him I’d do this one thing in being the one to ask you.”

  “You do realize I don’t know anything about cooking over a campfire?”

  “That’s where Shorty’ll come in. He knows the trick of building a good fire, then letting it burn down to a bed of coals. All you need concern yourself with is mixing the chuck. It’d just be one supper, breakfast the next morning, then later an afternoon meal. And there won’t be nearly as many men to cook for.”

  “Ooh, I don’t know. I’ll have to think it over. I hadn’t planned on going on a roundup.” Then again, Shelby hadn’t planned on any of the events of these past three days, so what difference would it really make?

  “That’s all I ask, ma’am. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. And Hugh, do me a favor? Don’t call me ma’am. It sounds weird coming from you. Call me Shelby.”

  He studied her, an amused, thoughtful look on his face, then grinned and said uncertainly, “All right, Shelby . . . ma’am.”

  Shelby rolled her eyes. “Do you know where I can find Ruckert?”

  “Yup. He’s yonder in the tack room in the back of the barn. If you’re so inclined, I’d be pleased to escort you.”

  “Thank you. That would be nice.”

  Hugh slapped his hat back on his head and gestured Shelby off the porch. Together with Jorge, they hiked along the dirt trail that wound through the ranch, heading towards the barn, then turning east to cut a path across a meadow with grass so deep, Shelby had to carry her little dog. Directly overhead, a flock of small birds flew towards the horizon, where the intense blue of the sky met a scattering of voluminous white clouds tucked behind the blue hills of the far range.

  The scenery, the tranquil nature sounds. Shelby soaked them in. She found her center and let her thoughts wind down to a more restful place in her mind in hopes the right words would come when she saw Ruckert.

  Hugh, studying her, remarked, “I hope you’re not thinking of talking to Ruckert about what happened last night.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I want to talk to him about. I’ve tried to apologize, but he wasn’t very receptive.”

  “Ruckert might be hard to figure, but from what I hear, you’re a regular conundrum yourself.” Hugh stopped short, forcing Shelby to an abrupt halt. “Allow me to offer a piece of advice. It would be right-down foolishness to comfort Ruckert or claim you understand how he feels or tell him he shouldn’t be ashamed of stuttering.”

  All the things Shelby had tried to say last night and hoped to convey today. “What’s foolish about an apology? I feel terrible.”

  “Aw, Shelby ma’am, terrible’s about the worst thing you can feel. You might just as well turn right around and hotfoot it back to the house before you go making things worse.”

  “Um, yeah. You know what, Hugh? I think I do prefer Miss McCoy. Okay, so if not an apology, what do you suggest I say to Ruckert?”

  “Well, if I were you, and I had a fondness for Ruckert—”

  He stopped at her gasp of protest, regarding her for a moment before he broke into a grin. Were her feelings for Ruckert that obvious? Feelings. What feelings? She’d be crazy to have feelings.

  “Holden told me,” Hugh explained. “Not that I couldn’t see so myself. There you were, sitting next to me at supper, but you were staring at Ruckert like your heart was a compass and he was the North Star.”

  Shame blazed up Shelby’s pale, freckled face to the roots of her color-enhanced hair. “All right, you have my attention. Go on.”

  “If I were you, I’d drill into that tack room and give Ruckert a piece of my mind for not being straight with me from the first.”

  He gestured up ahead to the huge, cavernous outbuilding. Its doors had been swung wide at either end, reminding Shelby of a big, dark tunnel, the end of which opened to a fenced pasture bathed in sunlight. The hound Monroe lay snoozing at the barn’s entrance.

  “Don’t let him see sympathy on your face,” Hugh instructed, “and the best way to do that is to get yourself worked up good and mad.”

  “You know, my brother-in-law volunteers advice about men, too. Not that I listen.”

  Maybe next time she should. Maybe that was the lesson in Hugh’s strange resemblance to her sister’s husband. If there ever was a next time.

  “You sure you’re not Michael?” she asked.

  “Let’s say for now I’m Hugh St. Cloud, and you’d do well to think of me as such.”

  The words set Shelby aback. She narrowed her gaze on his face, searching the soul behind those familiar brown eyes. “What’s going on? Why am I here? Is this a test? Am I dreaming?”

  “Now don’t start asking me a bunch of fool questions like I got answers. You’re here because the good Lord put you here. Same as we all are. All you need to know is, where you are is where you need to be. Not living for the future, waiting for something you want to happen. Or dwelling on the past, mourning what didn’t. There’s only now, so make the most of this time, Shelby McCoy, because you may not get another chance like this again. Every moment is a gift.”

  “Wow, Michael. When did you get so philosophical?�
��

  Something changed in his expression, and Shelby knew she had lost him. The familiarity behind those eyes was gone.

  “Aw, c’mon, Miss McCoy. I’m Hugh, remember? I don’t know anything about a Michael, and I reckon next time you see your kin and ask him, he won’t know nothing about me. You just think about that roundup and let me know. Holden leaves the day after tomorrow.”

  He turned and strode off, retreating down the path they had followed through the meadow. Shelby watched him go, puzzling over the moment when he seemed to have slipped into Michael’s skin, only to become Hugh again before she could determine whether or not it was her imagination playing tricks.

  Shelby suspected this was another puzzle piece to the whole experience of Nana Tinkler preparing her way here. Of stepping beyond her own physical existence, beyond what she knew as “real” into this ageless place. And it all had something to do with Ruckert.

  That was her theory.

  Perhaps she should take Hugh’s advice. Though to be honest, she wasn’t confident that venting her anger at Ruckert was the way to go.

  She lowered Jorge to the ground as she approached the barn. He bounded up to Monroe, touching his petite black nose to Monroe’s large cocoa sniffer in greeting. The hound’s nostrils expanded to suck in Jorge’s scent. Without lifting his head, Monroe peered up at her with a look of longsuffering in his sighted brown eye.

  Shelby chuckled, then scooped up her little pom-pom pooch. Leaving Monroe to nap in peace, she entered the outbuilding.

  The smell of earth and animals drifted up her airways, along with a pungent undertone of manure, an odor Shelby was growing increasingly accustomed to the longer she remained here.

  High above, a flutter of wings echoed from the rafters, and Shelby glanced overhead into the darkness of the steeped roof, braced with thick pine beams. She walked the row of stalls, past the divided pens. She heard the soft snore of dozing animals; the shifting of hooves on the hard, earth-packed floor; a low, contended moo.

  The animals turned to look at her as she stepped gingerly past, feeling like an intruder, afraid they might give her away before she reached Ruckert. And with each step, she felt a bit less courageous.

  From the outside pasture came a nicker. Ruckert’s white-faced sorrel lifted her head, ears pricked forward as she watched Shelby approach. The filly had been groomed into a thing of beauty, her red coat shining as brightly as her eyes.

  Shelby continued past the partitioned section where the hay crop was stacked. Here, a sweet hay smell took over, mingled with that of leather and old wood. To her left, a doorway opened to a lighted room and she stepped towards it.

  Inside, Ruckert sat by a wooden horse, sleeves rolled, working a shine into his saddle with a soft cloth. He looked like a man who’d rather be left alone.

  “Hi,” she called from the entry.

  Jorge wriggled in her arms, struggling to get down and greet him, but Shelby held the Pomeranian tight. She saw Ruckert’s annoyance, but it wasn’t going to deter her. Behind that big bully look, Hoss Man was hurting.

  “Last night you didn’t give me the chance, but I have something more to say to you.”

  Lifting off his hat, Ruckert wiped his damp brow with his neckerchief and gave her his attention. He sighed. “Wh-what’s on your m-m-m-mind, Shelby? Seems you always have a heap to say, but as f-f-f-for wh-what’s r-really on your mind, I think you tend to k-k-k-keep that hidden from folks, and I have been c-c-c-curious to k-k-k-know myself.”

  Shelby frowned at his sarcasm. How best to handle him? she wondered. He was trying to turn the tables, to make this about her. She recalled Hugh’s advice and the things Rose had told her. Ruckert didn’t want a shoulder to cry on.

  “Fine, I’ll come right out with it, shall I?” she snapped back. “Why couldn’t you just tell me you had a speech problem instead of allowing me to believe you despised me, letting me go on, day after day, with all sorts of crazy insecurities screwing with my psyche? You let me make a fool of myself in front of your family. Thanks a lot, friend. Last night I tried to apologize, but the truth is, if I’m sorry at all, I’m sorry you’re so obsessed with what you believe is wrong with you, you can’t appreciate all the things that are right!”

  She swallowed, her voice hoarse from screeching.

  Ruckert stared at her, unmoved, then went back to polishing his saddle. “I’m n-n-not interested in a lecture about what it’s like t-to st-st-st-stutter,” he said quietly. “And I don’t need you c-c-c-coming here feeling sorry for m-me.”

  “I do not feel sorry for you. You have no idea how I feel, because you’re too blind and too self-absorbed to notice!”

  He dropped the cloth and rose to his feet. Finally, a reaction.

  “Oh, I notice p-p-plenty,” he countered. “I notice you’re a lot better at raising questions than you are answering them. You never did mean to come here to the Flying Eagle and be our ranch cook, did you? So w-w-why are you here?”

  If Shelby had an answer to that, she’d have blown this time warp days ago and would now be kicking back, probably in an Adirondack chair by the river, sipping Cosmos with her sister.

  She’d underestimated Ruckert. She’d called him on his deception. Now he was calling her on hers.

  Well, too bad. She couldn’t tell him the truth. He’d never believe her. And she wasn’t going to waste another minute feeling guilty. If he wanted to mope and hide, fine. That was his decision. She had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t her fault Ruckert stuttered.

  She was really feeling her anger now, and it was liberating, like a weight had lifted off her chest.

  “Jerk!” she called him. It had been a long time coming, and even at that, she was being kind.

  “Yesterday I was a weirdo. Today I’m a j-jerk?”

  “That’s right. And I won’t be sticking around to see what you’re like tomorrow, because I’ll be too busy getting ready to go on Holden’s roundup. Rustling grub for a dozen men, sleeping in a hard wagon bed, using the woods for a toilet. And you won’t be there. It’ll be just like a vacation!”

  “A r-r-r-round-up?” he half-stuttered, half-laughed, both mockingly. “You’re a woman. You can’t go on a roundup.”

  “Just watch me.” It was her queue to exit, which she did.

  His footsteps and the tinkle of his jinglebobs followed. Halfway through the barn, she glanced over her shoulder to see his tall, dark silhouette standing before the rear opening, shadowed by the bright sunshine behind him.

  “Don’t think you can d-dodge me forever,” he threatened. “I intend to make it my business to keep an eye on you until I get some answers.”

  The more irritated he got, she noticed, the less he stuttered.

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” she taunted, continuing out. Before she exited, she had another thought and turned back. “Oh, one more thing.” She gestured to the sorrel filly grazing in the pasture beyond him. “Cameo!”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s the first thing I see when I look at her. That beautiful white face reminds me of a cameo.”

  She couldn’t see his reaction across the expanse of dark interior, so she left him with those last words and departed.

  This time he didn’t call out or attempt to follow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cookie’s wagon was rolled from its shed the following morning. The hands readied the bows and the wagon sheet. They greased the axles; they scrubbed and filled the water barrels.

  Charley restocked supplies, while Rose washed empty flour sacks to use as dish towels and aprons. Shorty cleaned the chuck box, a sturdy cupboard fitted at the rear of the wagon bed to face outward. Inside were shelves, drawers and cubbyholes to stock foodstuffs, utensils and spices, a kitchen cabinet for the trail.

  As for Shelby, she struggled to wrap her head around the fact she had agreed to hit the trail with Holden and the Flying Eagle punchers. Was she nuts? That much was obvious. Nuts over Ruckert, because in her beyond-frustrated desi
re to crack that thick, prideful skull of his, she thought that maybe, just maybe, if she disappeared for a day or two, he might miss her. And that would serve what purpose exactly? Teach him a lesson?

  Ha! Shame on her. Forty years old and still a foolish romantic. And what business did she have going on a roundup? She was a high school music teacher, not a chuck wagon cook. She should be out on the county road searching for clues, something, anything, that might lead her back to present day Highway WYO 130.

  Instead, she seemed to be spending less energy trying to figure her way home and more time obsessing over a guy she could never have in a hundred years. Quite literally.

  He was a virus corrupting her hard drive. Shelby couldn’t see past the beating of her heart when Hoss Man was near. She couldn’t keep her priorities straight, couldn’t expel his kiss from her thoughts. He sucked her emotions dry and left an aching hollow in her gut. He filled her with longing till it hurt.

  But he wouldn’t let her in. And why should he? She hadn’t let him in. How could she? How could she tell anyone the truth? Her situation was absurd. She failed to see a way out, and now, in her desperation, she had made the decision to be separated from Ruckert.

  Smart, really smart.

  On a saner note, Shelby told herself going on this roundup was the only way to escape his probing questions, but at some point between scraping the gunk off a Dutch oven and rinsing her last tin cup, she began to wish Ruckert would wear her down. She’d give anything to share the burden of her bizarre little secret.

  The rest of the St. Cloud clan dismissed her idiosyncrasies as quirky personality traits, but Ruckert saw past the pretense. With those sage eyes and his silent perceptivity, he’d peered into her soul and found the lost, frightened woman inside.

  All day she’d been looking over her shoulder, but when the family gathered for supper, and Ruckert still hadn’t made an appearance, Shelby began to wonder whether his threats to force information from her weren’t just another ploy to keep her away.

  If so, he’d succeeded. Tomorrow she’d be gone.