West Winds of Wyoming (15 page)

Her face turned a bright red right before his eyes, making him realize what he’d just said. He cleared his throat. “Or on a wall?” Feeling conspicuous, he went to the side of the black gelding and started unsaddling him.

He returned from the tack room with a brush and slipped his hand under the leather handle. He groomed the gelding, picked out his hooves, then turned him into a clean stall. Finished, he went over and looked in on Georgia. “So, when are we going to start breaking the horses we brought in yesterday?”

“Monday,” Seth answered. Turning, he gripped his side as he let go a long string of body-wracking coughs. When he was finally able to speak again he added, “We take a day of rest on Sunday.”

Nell still hugged the quilt to her chest. Her eyes narrowed. “When are you going to the doctor, Seth?”

Seth headed toward the barn doors. “Never you mind. I’m gettin’ better. I won’t go wasting good money just because I have a lingering cough.”

“What’s money for if you don’t spend it? I say you ride into town on Monday and see Doc Thorn. Charlie and I can handle the horses.”

Seth paused at the doorway, raising a brow and looking just like Nell did when she got piqued. “The day I take off work to see a doctor is the day you can push me over a buffalo jump.”

Nell watched in consternation as Seth disappeared out the barn door. “A crotchety ol’ mule isn’t as stubborn as my big brother. And it’s smarter, to boot,” she yelled, hoping he’d hear her. She went over to the bench and plopped down, dispirited, keeping the folded quilt in her lap. “I’ve got to get him into town. I know that’s why he didn’t go along today to Logan Meadows. The scaredy-cat was afraid I’d find the doctor and make him have an examination. He can be so irksome.”

Charlie nonchalantly leaned against a post and crossed his boots at the ankle. He took a toothpick from his pocket and stuck it into mouth. As if by magic, the tiny piece of wood rolled back and forth between his lips without him seeming to do a thing. She tried not to watch, but that was downright impossible.

“You have a buffalo jump around?” he asked.

“Yes. A good portion of our land used to be inhabited by Sioux. We actually have two jumps. A large one not far from where we gathered the horses, and a smaller one somewhat southwest of it.”

He made an interested sound in his throat. “I’d like to see them. I’ve had a fascination for years. Someday when there’s time. I don’t want going to interfere with my duties here on the ranch.”

Nell called Dog over to her side to have something else to concentrate on other than Charlie’s probing blue eyes and the interesting tilt to his lips. His bottom lip was just a tad fuller than the top, and they were angled just right, reminding her of—she jerked her thoughts away. And that darn toothpick. Was he doing that on purpose?

“Sure. Any time you’d like.” She stroked Dog’s scraggly neck. The dog had appeared on the porch a few years ago, all skin and bone. Right now, his wagging tail told her he was happy with the attention she was giving him.

Charlie glanced around the barn’s interior. “If everything’s done for today, how about right now?”

“It’s about an hour’s ride.” She stood, feeling uncertain. “You sure you want to do that this late in the day?”

“I don’t have anything else to do, unless you have some chores for me. Dark doesn’t fall until almost nine. We can be back before then.”

She shook her head. “No chores.”

“And Georgia needs some exercise. I don’t want her to get soft.”

Coyote certainly wasn’t tired from the easy ride into town and back. He might be grumpy being saddled again after being bedded down for the day, but it wouldn’t be the first time Nell had done it.

She glanced out the tall barn doors. The afternoon sun had painted the browning stalks of oats in the field golden and the warm Wyoming wind turned the windmill slowly. The house was quiet. They had several hours before the sun dipped behind the mountains. But when that happened darkness would fall and the temperature would drop. The stranger had appeared at dusk. Was he somewhere out there now? When doubt, followed by a pinprick of anxiety, made her mouth go dry, she angrily pushed the feeling away.

“All right.” He’d be sorry if he ever came back. He’d not make her a prisoner of fear. “I can show you the cattle along the way, since we haven’t had a chance to get out there yet. But first let me go in and fix Seth’s supper. He’s an able cook, but sometimes he gets lazy. I don’t want him skipping any meals.”

She should be more frightened of her growing attraction to Charlie than of some stranger who was likely never to appear again. Charlie was a hired hand. Besides, she still wasn’t sure about his reaction to Brenna. Whatever the reason, fostering romantic notions about him just because they chased away her loneliness was wrong. She’d not use him in that way. So what if the heartfelt, comfortable feeling that enveloped her whenever he was around was like sunshine to a new crop?

“Sure. While you’re inside, I’ll get the horses saddled. We’ll be ready when you are.”

Nell picked up the quilt and fingered the soft, colorful fabric. “You sure about this, Charlie Rose?” Seemed she always tacked on his second name when she was feeling particularly close to him.

She’d never received a gift of such magnitude. There’d been candy canes from Seth at Christmastime, and on her wedding day Ben had given her a bottle of lemon verbena. Other than that, she couldn’t remember any other gifts. “You may want to hang on to it for a while. It’s all right if you’ve changed your mind.”

He tipped his hat back and his smile reached all the way to his eyes, making the scar on his cheek move toward his ear. “I’m sure, Nell Page. And if I wasn’t sure before, I am now. I like the way that thing makes you smile.”

Such talk.
She could feel the blush creeping up her face—again. Did he know what he was doing to her? She better not forget how Brenna had rendered him speechless. He sure wasn’t speechless with her—a plenty good reason not to let her imagination run off into the wild blue yonder. “Fine, then” was all she could muster. “I’ll be back in a little while.” As enticing as an evening ride with Charlie sounded, she hoped she didn’t live to regret it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

C
harlie and Nell eased into a slow lope, crossing the large horse pasture out back and fording a shallow stream. The evening air on his face made his qualms and concerns about Maddie evaporate into thin air.

He glanced over at Nell sitting in her saddle as if she’d been born on the back of a horse. Her hair, the color of the shimmery-gold sky now that the sun was moving toward the mountains, flew out behind in wild abandon, set free of the braid she’d worn at the picnic. As always, she had her gun strapped on her leg like a man.

“What about the horses in the pasture we just crossed?” he called to her. “You don’t sell those to the army?” He watched Nell take a deep breath, as if happy to be out in the wide-open space.

“Most are broodmares.” She lifted her voice over the sound of hooves pounding the earth. They loped along side by side so close he could reach out and touch her if he’d wanted.

“The ones with good conformation and that have the traits we want them to pass on, like intelligence and a good, willing spirit, stay for breeding. The rest are either injured or just plain not ready to be started. When they’re sound again, and broke, they’ll go to the . . . good captain for soldier mounts.”

He glanced at the trail wondering at the animosity in Nell’s tone when she spoke of the army captain. “How do you know when they’re ready to be started?”

She reined up to a walk and he followed suit. “For one, they have to be physically ready. Big of bone. Confident.” She gave him a smile.

“Confident?” That was the first time Charlie had ever heard that.

“It’s just a feeling I get when I’m working them. If they trust they’re not going to be hurt, and they’re inquisitive, I know they’re ready. Getting the first ride right is important. You don’t get a second shot at that. And, knowing when to quit.”

He mulled that over as they climbed to the top of a small rise and crested the summit. He pulled up when Nell stopped.

“There’s part of our herd.” Nell pointed at the cattle. It wasn’t as many as he’d expected. “We sell some of our steers in town to families who don’t raise their own beef, then send the rest to market once a year.”

He was surprised. “You drive them to Cheyenne?”

“No, we don’t. Our neighbors”—she pointed to her left—“the Broken Horn ranch, take them for us when they drive theirs in the spring. They have a much larger herd than ours. It’s neighborly of them to do so.”

“That would be the Logans?” he asked, remembering the couple they’d eaten dinner with. The love humming between the two was impossible to miss, as well as their love for their boy.

“That’s right. You’re catching on fast.”

He shrugged. It had been years since he’d ranched for a living, but everything was coming back quicker than he’d thought.

“Spring is when the grass is best, and there’s plenty to feed on along the way. We round up the ones we intend to sell and let the strays mother up slowly. Then when we’re ready, Chase and his men swing this way to pick them up.”

“Mother up?” That was a term he didn’t know.

She let a small laugh slip through her lips. She nodded, looking at the cattle. “It never fails that a few heifers and their calves get all mixed up in the roundup. Even as calm as we try to take it, it’s impossible not to end up with a calf or two and no mama claiming them. It’s a little heartbreaking but if we leave the calf out by itself, bawling its head off, mama and baby will eventually plod back to the last place they nursed. Much like two magnets.” She smiled at the cattle and he could tell she was revisiting a memory. “Works every time.”

She nudged her horse forward and they rode down the trail and through a thick stand of trees. They rode on for a good three miles in silence before Nell turned in the saddle, watching him over the chestnut-and-white rump of her paint gelding. “Almost there.”

“In all these trees?”

“We’re coming in from the side. They’ll clear in a minute.”

When they emerged, open land stretched for as far as the eye could see to the east, and then a hundred feet or so in the other direction, the land fell away sharply. From where they sat, he couldn’t see what was over the cliff. The ground was barren, almost worn down to rock.

“Follow me,” Nell said.

The drop, with the rugged terrain blending into the mountains way off in the distance, made the sky seem even larger and more spectacular than normal. A feeling of awe filled him.

They rode right up to the edge. At the bottom a sea of buffalo bones littered the land.

Charlie gave a long, low whistle. “How far down?”

“I’d say about two hundred feet.”

He looked over his shoulder, back to the trailhead they’d exited, and then far beyond. “It’s amazing to think of the Indians running hundreds of animals off at one time.”

“The hides and meat kept them alive through a long, cold winter,” she replied, looking thoughtful.

“Oh, I’m not criticizing. Not at all. You see any buffalo around anymore?”

“You mean besides in town?” She laughed but the sound wasn’t happy. “Rarely. And that makes me sad. At least when the Indians herded them off the jump, it was to feed themselves and their children. I can’t stand what the buffalo hunters have done. It’s sickening.”

“You’re damn right.” A hot, unsettled feeling took him by surprise when the image of men shooting the animals by the thousands, just for their skins, flitted through his mind. “So, all this land is yours and Seth’s?”

“Just to here. Enough to keep us working hard.”

Coyote dropped his head and looked deep into the canyon. Charlie chuckled. “I think your horse is thinking of jumping off,” he teased.

She shook her head. “No. He’s been here many times. He likes it. I can feel his spirits lift when he gazes out over the distance. Maybe he feels the blood of his ancestors as they galloped down this grade toward the jump wondering if their riders were going to ask them to go over. The paints on our ranch came from the Indians’ stock that we caught wild.”