Her Holiday Rancher. Cathy McDavid
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her weight into her forequarters and plowed up the mountainside. With each powerful step, dirt and small rocks exploded from beneath her hooves, tumbling downward like a miniature landslide.
Gabriel Dempsey rode the mare hard to the top of the rise. Once there, they stopped to rest, both of them breathing hard, their legs trembling. Despite her exertion, the mare would keep going if he asked. She wasn’t just young and strong. The blood from generations of wild mustangs ran in her veins, infusing her with a spirit and unbreakable will unmatched by any other breed of horse.
No, it was Gabe who couldn’t go on. He was spent. Utterly and completely exhausted. Not from the trail ride, but from the emotional events of the past four days.
Exactly seventeen months and twenty-three days after the doctor’s initial prognosis, cancer had taken his father’s life.
Today, the family had memorialized him in a service that had brought out half the town of Mustang Valley, along with a hundred other mourners from all over Arizona. Tomorrow Gabe and his family would spread August Dempsey’s ashes in the flower garden behind the house.
His father would spend eternity where he, Gabe’s grandfather and great-grandfather had lived and toiled their entire lives, on the three-thousand-acre Dos Estrellas Ranch.
Shading his eyes against the glaring afternoon sun, Gabe stared at the ranch nestled in the valley below. From this distance, the house, barns and outbuildings appeared deceptively small, like a painting hanging on a wall. Adding to the illusion were horses in the back pastures and sixteen hundred head of cattle dotting the extensive grazing lands beyond the pastures.
Grief suddenly gripped Gabe’s chest like a giant metal vise, colder than the November wind ripping across the rise from the slopes of the nearby McDowell Mountains.
He sat straight in the saddle, refusing to succumb to emotion or show the slightest sign of weakness. Even out here, where there wasn’t another living soul for two miles in any direction. The battle facing him at home promised to be a difficult one. This was only the beginning.
Among all the mourners gathered at the ranch to pay their final respects to one of Mustang Valley’s greatest citizens were two strangers. Gabe’s half brothers. August Dempsey’s legitimate sons. Rumor had it, they’d come to claim their share of the Dos Estrellas Ranch, left to them by the father they barely knew. Gabe would know for sure tomorrow afternoon at the reading of the will.
If they did inherit, he intended to fight them tooth and nail, regardless if he had a legal right to the ranch or not. He was the son who’d worked side by side with their father for over two decades. The son who was proud of his heritage and treasured it. Who loved the ranch with the same fervor and devotion as any Dempsey before him. He hadn’t left as a kid and never returned.
Giving the mare a nudge, Gabe followed the narrow deer trail south as it alternately dipped, climbed and snaked. Not far below him, a line of barbed wire fencing ran parallel to the trail.
The fence separated Dos Estrellas from its nearest neighbor and longtime cattle-ranching rival, the Small Change, though small was a misnomer. The ranch was twice the size of Dos Estrellas and these days, owner Theo McGraw ran close to thirty-five hundred head of fat, sassy cattle.
Cancer was a greedy disease and had taken more than Gabe’s father. Astronomical medical bills continued to pour in daily, many of which weren’t covered by health insurance. With no choice, Gabe and his mother had sold off what they could, depleting Dos Estrellas’s resources. It wasn’t enough, and the wolves continued to prowl outside their door. Gabe and his half brothers might well wind up fighting over a pile of scraps.
The trail abruptly veered west. Gabe and the mare dropped down into the mouth of a ravine thick with creosote, sage and cacti. Last month’s heavy rains had resulted in abundant desert foliage that had survived the recent cold snap and remained a vibrant green.
At the bottom of the ravine, the mare halted. Lifting her head, she smelled the air, her ears pricked forward.
“What do you see, Bonita?”
Gabe had been raised around horses and trusted their instincts, especially those of a mustang born in the wild. Something was amiss.
He sat still and listened, his eyes scanning the uneven horizon. Coyotes and bobcats regularly traveled this ravine, along with the occasional mountain lion. None were an immediate threat. Desert predators usually avoided humans. The mare’s survival instincts, however, were powerful, and she might attempt to flee.
She didn’t, which Gabe found interesting. Whatever lurked in the bush clearly wasn’t a predator. What, then—
A sharp, shrill screech pierced the air followed by a faint cry of distress. Pausing long enough to choose the best course, he set off in the direction of the sounds, taking the steep trail at a brisk trot, the fastest he dare go without endangering himself or Bonita.
At the top of the rise, his heart stopped cold. The entire back half of a horse was submerged in a sinkhole, nearly up to the saddle horn. The horse’s head and front legs stuck out of the narrow opening at a painful and impossible angle, almost as if he were standing up. Covered with mud and wide-eyed with fright, the horse flailed helplessly.
On the ground in front of the horse, beyond the reach of the sinkhole, a woman attempted to free him by jerking on the reins and calling out encouragements. Both woman and horse were clearly done in from the struggle. Without help, the horse would eventually die. Every moment counted.
Gabe dug his boot heels into Bonita’s sides. The mare didn’t hesitate and carried them down the steep slope. More than once she nearly lost her footing, slipping and sliding over the rocky terrain. At the bottom, Gabe tugged hard on the reins, slowing Bonita and bringing her under control.
“Are you okay?” he called to the woman, covering the remaining distance at a lope.
“I need help.” She spared him the briefest of glances, paused for a fraction of a second, then went right back to pulling on the reins.
Gabe’s brain registered two things simultaneously. First, there was no way in hell she was ever going to save that horse by herself. Maybe no one could. Second, he’d seen the woman a mere four hours earlier at the funeral. She’d sat in the rear pew of the crowded church next to her father, Theo McGraw, Gabe’s father’s rival.
“Hang on.” Gabe jumped off Bonita and, leading the mare, approached Reese McGraw. “Got yourself in a fix here.”
“I missed the hole. It was covered with twigs and dead leaves.”
Sinkholes weren’t uncommon in the desert, especially after heavy rains, though they were generally larger. This particular hazard was deceptively small, measuring three and a half feet at its widest point, and easy to miss.
“It happens,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Can you help me get him out?”
“I’ll try.”
She swallowed, and Gabe noticed the dried streaks on her cheeks. Had she been crying or was the cold wind responsible for her tears?
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” She shook her head, and a hank of shoulder-length strawberry blond hair loosened from its clip. As if sensing his gaze, she said, “I lost my hat when I bailed off.”
“We’ll find it later.” The hat didn’t matter. He was simply trying to calm her. She’d need all her strength for the ordeal ahead, along with her concentration.
She continued tugging on the reins, which the confused horse fought, jerking his big head to the side rather than using the added momentum to hoist himself out of the hole.
“Take it easy,” Gabe said.
“I can’t. If I do, he’ll sink deeper.”
“No, he won’t. Trust me.” Gabe put up a restraining hand. “Hold steady, but don’t pull. Not yet. Wait until I tell you to.”