When Zack rode into the moonlight, he didn't look back.
Chapter 21
Bailey dozed on and off through the night, sleeping little in the rocker by her open window. She kept hoping she'd hear Boss's hooves crunch on the drive or the ka-chink of Zack's spurs on the porch.
As the sun rose, stretching its amber fingers above the horizon, she was waked instead by the sleepy calls of the shearers and the rattle of their pans as they cooked breakfast.
Sighing heavily, she threw the blanket off her lap. Only then did she realize she'd fallen asleep with her doll in her arms.
Oh, Zack. Biting her lip to stave off the tears she'd sworn she wouldn't shed again, she gazed down at the sweetly painted smile and the bright blue eyes beneath the golden ringlets. The doll was like a part of her she'd never known, the little girl who'd tried so hard to please Daddy and Mama, and in the end had sacrificed a piece of herself.
Was it true, as Zack had claimed, that she was afraid of being what God had intended her to be? Perhaps it was.
But no one had ever valued her as a female. At least, no one had until she'd found Zack. When she was in his arms, she didn't feel like a misfit in her own body. For the first time in her life, she felt truly alive, accepted, and safe. The sensations were so new, she still wasn't sure she could trust them.
She wished she could tell him that. She wished she could explain to him he was teaching her how to be different—no, to be whole.
Becoming complete was scary, scarier than anything she'd ever had to face in her life. So many things could still go wrong with the process. Zack might not like the final product. Maybe that was what she should have told him last night.
If the words had occurred to her then, would they have been enough to make him stay?
Standing awkwardly before her armoire, she finally selected her daddy's faded workshirt, the one she liked to wear whenever she felt too alone, and pulled it over her head. Its denim tail flapped against the backs of her knees, and its sleeves dangled well below her fingertips. She took some consolation from the usual routine: rolling up the cuffs, fastening each button.
She was just about to close the armoire doors, when the shimmer of sapphire caught her eye. Her first dancing dress. She smiled ruefully, fingering its satin folds. The rigging she'd worn when Zack proposed.
On impulse, she tugged free the matching hair ribbon she'd used to weave the torn bodice closed. Instead of her usual leather thong, she used the ribbon to bind her hair in the style she knew that Zack would love.
If he comes home.
The morning crawled by. Vasquez arrived to escort four of the shearers out of the canyon to the nearest line shack, where the other pastores had gathered the small flocks of adult goats they tended in addition to their own sheep. Pancho stayed behind with Bailey and Jerky to finish clipping the yearlings.
As casually as she could, she asked her cook if he knew when Zack would return.
The old man grunted, scratching his grizzled chin with his shears. "Don't know. Didn't say." He shaded his eyes and scowled up at the flickering thundercloud heading toward the canyon. "Storm brewing. Wouldn't want to be caught in it."
"I hope you're right, Jerky." And I hope Zack feels the same way. She sighed. "But I wouldn't be surprised if that thundercloud's as dry as all the rest. It's probably carrying nothing more than heat lightning."
He fixed her with a portentous eye. "That ain't nuthin' to sneeze at."
"Yeah, well, a wildfire isn't what any of us ranchers need, that's for sure."
By high noon, sunbeams were punching holes through great purple clouds that flickered and rumbled, chugging relentlessly closer on the wind. Pancho took one look at the lowering eastern sky and announced it was siesta time. Jerky spanked his last buck into its pen and hung up his shears to start dinner for the men. Pris and Pokey raced ahead of him to the kitchen.
Bailey was left idle. She supposed she could continue shearing, but the idea didn't appeal to her much while she was by herself. Besides, she spent enough time alone. Clipping was backbreaking, tedious work. Without the camaraderie of the men, it was almost torture.
She decided to saddle Sassy and ride up to the line shack to see what progress was being made. Of course, her real motivation was to ask Vasquez and the rest if they'd seen or heard from Zack.
When she turned Sassy up the trail, she heard barking behind her. Twisting in the saddle, she spied Pokey galloping around the corner of the house, fleeing the kitchen, minus whatever food he'd been trying to mooch from Jerky. She shook her head when the rascal caught up with her mare.
"Pokey dog, you're too big for me to carry and too stubby-legged to keep up with a pony. Go home."
The puppy pricked his ears, his tail wagging and his eyes bright with anticipation. Clearly, he was ready for adventure.
"Home," she repeated more sternly.
He woofed in agreement and kept right on trotting at Sassy's heels.
Disgruntled, Bailey faced forward again. Insubordinate, flop-eared little cuss. The least Zack could have done was teach him the meaning of "home" before riding off and saddling her with the mongrel.
"Pokey, do you know any words yet? Besides dinner, I mean."
He grinned up at her, smacking his nose with his tongue.
"Yeah, well, I think you're a whole lot smarter than you let on. Do you know where Zack is? Go find Zack."
Pokey lowered his snout, and Bailey slowed Sassy so the hound could surge ahead. If nothing else, she could start Pokey on those hunting lessons he needed so badly. Cute wore off pretty fast in her eyes if a dog didn't work for its supper.
They cleared the rise with Pokey snuffling ahead. She watched his bobbing tail idly, wondering what scent he was really tracking as he led her northwest, in the general direction of the line shack. A grasshopper sprang up, and Pokey quailed, jumping about two feet himself. He charged eastward after the elusive bug, belly-flopping over the knee-high daisies and growling ferocious threats. A smile quirked the corner of Bailey's mouth.
"Silly cowpoke's dog. Pokey! Come." She whistled, and he swung his head around, finally realizing she was leaving him behind. He bounded after Sassy.
As they continued northwest, angling away from the storm, Bailey scanned the clouds to the east with an uneasy eye. She wasn't particularly worried about a downpour overtaking her, but she was starting to wonder if she would have been wiser to wait out the racing thunderheads. The sky sizzled and crackled over Hank's spread, eerily lavender where the lightning jabbed and ominously violet where plump shadows scuttled. There was a deadly beauty in the electrical show, one that made the flesh on Bailey's neck prickle. She began to welcome the pugnacious booming of the cannon, even though the noise had probably helped to drive One Toe onto her spread. As long as Hank's rainmaker was firing, she knew she wasn't the only fool outside in this weather.
Deciding that the shack was closer than the canyon, Bailey encouraged Pokey with calls and whistles to keep up as she turned Sassy toward what was now a dry creek, thanks to the drought. The thought of her pastores and the shearers struggling to keep three hundred goats under control lent her patience each time Pokey's curiosity got the better of him and he charged off after some invisible prey. At least in the ravine, growths of shin oak, scrub mesquite, and juniper would shelter her. She could ride beside the creek bed most of the way to the shack, and if the heat lightning did outrun her, she'd be relatively safe.
She just hoped Zack was safe.
Her throat constricted as she recalled how he'd ridden off without so much as a backward glance. Since he'd packed his saddlebags and bedroll, she figured he'd intended either one of two things: to avenge her thousand-dollar loss, as she'd asked, or to leave her and the ranch for good.
She would have liked to think he was hunting One Toe, that he wasn't so bullheaded that he'd call an end to their affair just because she'd stood her ground, demanding the freedom and respect that were her due. After all, she wasn't asking any more
of him than he would have asked of her. No man wanted a master. Why, then, would a man presume a woman wanted one?
She sighed as Pokey charged ahead, scrambling so recklessly over the loose rocks that he started skidding on his haunches down the creek bank.
"Pokey, heel."
She might as well have shouted an order at the clouds.
A particularly loud boom rattled the earth. Sassy snorted, her ears swiveling forward, and pranced skittishly. For some reason, she refused to descend the slope to the creek bed.
Bailey struggled with her recalcitrant mare as Pokey dashed off on another wild-goose chase. After struggling across the sucking mud—which was all that was left of one of Bailey's finer watering holes—he halted abruptly on the other side and started sniffing in circles around the trunk of a shin oak.
Suddenly he loosed an adolescent baying and headed straight up the other slope toward a dense growth of scrub.
This time, he wasn't so lucky. He lost his footing on the limestone gravel and started yiking, tumbling end over end in the midst of a tiny avalanche. Landing with a whimper and a thud, he thrashed around, his panic growing more pronounced when he couldn't heave himself out of the pile of rocks and mud that had buried him up to his shoulders. Bailey rolled her eyes to the heavens.
"Stupid cowpoke's dog."
Dismounting, she tethered Sassy, gave her nervous mare a pat, and picked her way across some strategically placed stones to get to Pokey's potential grave.
"You know, Pokey, if I were Zack, I would have given you away too."
Big, anxious eyes rolled toward the sound of her voice, and the puppy whined, struggling even more frantically than before.
"All right, all right, shh." She squatted, grabbing the fur at the nape of his neck with one hand and pushing away stones with the other. Within moments, he popped free. He whined, trying to lick her face. When that failed, he planted his paws and shook off a spray of sludge.
Bailey coughed, wiping splotches of mud from her cheek. "Thanks a lot, Pokey."
He twisted artfully, trying to free himself.
"Oh, no, you don't. This time, you're coming with me."
She hauled him up onto her rock, goopy paws and all, and yanked off her bandanna, thinking to rub off the worst of the mud before she carried him back to Sassy.
That's when she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. Every nerve in her body jolted in warning, and she froze instinctively, her senses straining to pinpoint the cause of her unease.
Pokey bristled, his lips curling back from baby fangs. Bailey swallowed to see his reaction. She turned to stare in the direction of his twitching nose.
A large male cougar was stalking them.
A dried patch of blood stained the cat's shoulder. The wound, little more than a powder burn, looked fresh enough to have been inflicted the night before.
One Toe. Great God in heaven.
Pokey began barking like a mad wolf, and One Toe loosed an answering growl. Judging by the tracks he'd made so silently in the mud, he'd come down the creek bank from the growth of scrub that Pokey had been flushing. No doubt the cat had been dozing away the heat of the day, as was the cougar custom, until the puppy had blundered along to sacrifice itself as a snack.
Bailey's gut clenched. One glance at her horse, rearing and thrashing against her tether about fifty yards away, told her there was no way she'd be able to race back across the muddy creek bottom and grab her rifle from its saddle boot before the cat ran her down.
She was vulnerable. All but defenseless. Her worst fears had risen from their grave.
She reached a shaking hand for her Peacemaker. With its range limited to fifty paces, the Colt didn't leave much room for error when a cougar was making a forty-foot leap for one's throat. The Winchester would have been the better choice, since it was accurate up to two hundred yards. Why, oh, why hadn't she chased after Pokey with her rifle?
Because one doesn't need rifles to rescue puppies from the mud, her logical side answered.
She clung desperately to that thought, to that logic, as the cat prowled ever nearer. She wanted to scream and run; she fought fear back with all the tenacity her twenty-two years of training could muster. How many times had she told Zack and Mac, Hank and Nick, even her daddy, that she could fend for herself? That she didn't need anyone else, that she could stand alone? Only last night, she'd driven Zack out of her bed and her house with her protestations.
Dear God, what she wouldn't give for his helping hand now.
Sixty yards, fifty-five yards, the cat slinked closer, its ears back, its throat rumbling. Bailey tried to dredge up facts to occupy her frantic mind. Pumas hunted alone. They were rarely seen by day. Their diets consisted of deer, some porcupine, rabbits. Sheep, goats, cattle, man—these were not preferred prey. But some cats grew accustomed to the taste.
She swallowed bile, easing back her gun hammer with a little prayer. Slowly, carefully, she straightened, and One Toe halted, his tail twitching. He was close enough now for her to glimpse the silver whiskers on his muzzle. He was a mature cat, an elder to be reckoned with. To her frightened eyes, his taut, quivering body appeared much longer than the average fifty inches. With a full belly, he shouldn't have the desire to attack her. But he was wounded. Angry. And he'd learned to kill for sport.
As if she were somebody else watching from afar, she saw the lightning flicker around him. Thunder mingled with his throaty growls as he drew in his legs, preparing for the pounce.
Then Pokey shattered her trancelike state.
With a fearless puppy cry, he launched himself off the rock, racing in a circle, feinting to the left.
"Pokey, no!"
Horrified, she watched the age-old battle between canine and feline. One Toe snarled. He swiped with four deadly claws, but Pokey dodged, dancing backward, barking shrilly. One Toe rose from his crouch, his attention focused on the annoying little morsel that had dared to provoke him. Pokey backed farther away from Bailey's rock.
The stupid dog. The stupid cowpoke's dog is trying to save me!
She scooped up a stone and threw it with all her might. It glanced off the cat's ribs. One Toe yowled, his head swinging her way.
"Over here, you coward! Leave the baby alone!"
Pokey charged back to her defense, and the cougar swiped again.
Bailey bit her lip. As much as she feared for Pokey, there was nothing she could do short of getting herself killed to stop his idiotic bravery. Their only chance was the Winchester.
She jumped back over the rocks, her boots precariously slippery from Pokey's mud. She scrambled and cursed, thrown off balance, flailing wildly with her gun hand. She managed to reach the next rock, the last rock, but her foot slid, and she went down hard. The stone gouged her gut, knocking the wind from her lungs. Her .45 discharged. It slipped from her fingers, and panic seized her as she watched the mud swallow her Colt whole.
Mother of mercy, help! Send lightning, send Zack. Please, please, send help!
The cat was bounding after her now. Maybe it was bored with Pokey. Or maybe the gunshot had reminded it of its shoulder and the wound it wanted to avenge. Bailey churned frantically, trying to regain her footing, trying to find her Colt in the mire.
"Bailey!"
"Zack?" she half sobbed, trying to dash the mud from her eyes. She heard three rifle blasts, and she cringed, cowering, waiting for death.
It never came. A raspy wheeze trailed into silence somewhere behind her. Peeking between her fingers, she saw One Toe had fallen no more than five feet from her boot.
As the rifle reports rolled back from the hills, harmonizing with the thunder, she dared to look up the creek bank. Her savior was silhouetted on a jet-black steed against the purple sky. Electrical currents hissed and sizzled behind them, chasing stark light patterns across man and mount in an almost otherworldly effect. Never in her life had she seen anything so magnificent. She wanted to cry.
"Bailey."
She blinked, and he
was beside her, dismounting in the mud. Strong fingers closed over her arms lifting her to her feet. She choked on the lump of words that had lodged in her throat.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
She shook her head, gazing gratefully at him—her love, her man—and tried to work up the courage to speak.
"I've been tracking all day. I heard the gunshot."
She nodded.
"I saw dog prints and horse tracks," he added hoarsely. "I figured it had to be you."
She opened her mouth to speak, but something guarded entered his eyes, belying the strain on his features and the tremor of his hands. She hesitated.
He released her.
Her opportunity was lost.
Deflated, she watched as Pokey trotted up to his dead foe. With a snort that could have been a sigh, he sniffed the carcass. Zack knelt beside him. He patted the dog's head before pushing the cougar over. His movements were so stilted, so unnatural, that uneasiness slithered back into Bailey's chest. Her limbs still quaked from her ordeal, and her heart was racing so fast, she felt dizzy.
She wanted to ask him to hold her, but she didn't feel comfortable asking for something that until last night, he used to give so freely. Strangely, she didn't feel comfortable with him at all.
"One Toe must have had a little fox in him," he said. "I finally figured out he was backtracking to throw me off his trail." He shook his head and rose. "He hopped a couple of fence posts too."
Their eyes met.
He was the first to look away. "Reckon the contest is over. Between the sheepherders and the cattlemen, anyway."
Her bottom lip trembled. Of all the things she wanted to hear from him at that minute, after everything they'd been through in the past sixteen hours, the cougar-bagging contest wasn't even on her list.
"I—I'm sorry, Zack. About shutting you out last night. Thank you for coming back for me. I guess..." She swallowed. "I guess I'm not good at protecting myself, after all."
Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] Page 35
