Montana Unbranded. Nadia Nichols
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vultures and two loyal dogs. She was on her own.
The dogs suddenly looked beyond her, ears cocked, and she heard the crashing of something in the thicker brush beyond the mare. She backed rapidly away, her heart in her throat. Bear? She saw a flash of pale color. Bears were dark. Was it another wounded horse? Please, God, no.
But it wasn’t a bear or another wounded horse. A cream-colored foal stepped out of the scrub on long wobbly legs that could barely support it. When it spotted her it made a noise, the sound of a frightened young thing that needed its mother. The foal was a newborn. Tiny. Scared. Dani looked again at the mare. The blood from her gunshot wounds had masked the blood from the birthing. This mare had been shot twice and then, lying near death, had somehow birthed this foal, and very recently. The foal’s coat was still damp. It staggered unsteadily toward its mother, who raised her head off the ground and made a noise in her throat that knifed into Dani’s heart. The foal responded and came to her side, but the mare could do no more. Her life was nearly gone, bled out into the grass.
“I’ll find out who did this and they’ll be punished for it,” Dani said in a choked voice to the dying mare. “I promise you.”
Tears ran down her cheeks as Dani watched the mare draw her final shuddering breath. The foal nuzzled its mother, seeking comfort that would never come. Thin, watery milk leaked from the mare’s teats, as if even in death she wanted to nurture her foal. The sun was setting and the night chill would kill the newborn quickly. It needed food and warmth. She couldn’t just leave it here and run for help. Somehow she had to get the newborn foal down to her car and to the Bow and Arrow. They’d know what to do.
Would it let her approach? Was she strong enough to carry it down the mountain?
Dani laid her gear on the ground. She moved toward the dead mare and the foal watched with wide eyes but stood its ground. She reached a hand toward it. Her fingers gently brushed the damp, curly coat and combed through the short wisp of mane. She stroked its neck and could feel the taut skin trembling beneath her fingers. She removed her jacket slowly and used it to rub the wetness from the foal’s coat. She rubbed gently at first, then with increasing vigor. The foal braced its legs, lowered its head and stood its ground. Then Dani dropped the jacket and tried to lift the animal. Heavy. Far too heavy for her to carry. She set it back down gently. “Easy now, easy,” she soothed as she reached for her camera, took a few quick shots of the foal near its mother and slung the camera over her shoulder. She draped her jacket over the foal’s back to keep it warm, tied the arms together under its neck, took hold of the makeshift collar and tugged gently. The foal took a step, then another. Wobbly steps, short steps, but it was walking.
Two steps later Dani had another thought. The foal hadn’t eaten since birth and the mare’s udder had been leaking milk. Would it be possible to retrieve some of the first milk from the dead mare? She had a stainless-steel water bottle in her day pack. Dani hesitated. She could try at least. The critically important first colostrum milk might save the foal’s life. She wasn’t sure how long a newborn foal could go without eating but surely mother’s milk was best. She shrugged out of her pack, retrieved her water bottle, dumped the contents and returned to the mare’s side, where she knelt and positioned the water bottle before trying to strip milk out of the mare’s teat. This is crazy, she told herself. Even crazier with a grizzly bear lurking in the vicinity. But crazy as the idea was, and as clumsy as she was acting on it, milk finally squirted out of the teat and into the bottle she held on its side. Thanking her dairy farm upbringing, Dani stripped the milk as swiftly as she could, first from one teat and then the other, until no more came. It took less than two minutes but felt like hours while ravens called and vultures circled and she scanned the edge of the nearby woods for bears. She stood, capped the bottle, returned it to the day pack and shouldered it. The foal didn’t try to escape when she reached for the dangling arms of her parka tied around its neck.
“You can do this,” she said, wrapping one arm around the foal’s neck to steady it. “You can do this. You have to, because I can’t carry you. And if you stay here, you’ll die.” She looked over her shoulder. “Win, Rem, come on, boys. We’re going down the mountain now.”
* * *
SATURDAY BARBECUE AT the Bow and Arrow was a tradition that Ramalda presided over with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned military commander. Joe was seated on the porch beside Pony. She’d already given him a house tour, showed him where the bathroom was, where his bedroom would be if he chose to stay and poured him a tall glass of water from a pitcher with lemon slices and ice. “Just relax and watch the show,” she told him with a smile. “I hope you are hungry, because if you don’t eat a lot, Ramalda will think you are sick, and if she thinks you are sick, you are doomed.”
Joe was content to sit and watch, and Pony was right—it was a show. Boys running every which way between the barn and corrals and ranch house. Stout, maternal Ramalda, blue bandanna tied over white hair, scolding them to no effect in nonstop heated Spanish while basting the ribs roasting over the coals with her special sauce, baking corn bread in cast-iron skillets in the reflector oven and stirring a huge pot of spiced chili beans. All of this was being cooked on a giant outside grill beneath a covered patio flanked by two picnic tables. Pony was in and out of the house constantly, setting the two picnic tables and helping Ramalda with the preparations. Joe sipped his water and enjoyed the aromas of mesquite smoke and barbecue. He marveled that in just one day he’d gone from lying in a Providence hospital room that smelled of rubbing alcohol and sickness to sitting on a Montana porch admiring a spectacular Rocky Mountain sunset and hearing the distant whinny of a real horse as the cool air sank into the river valley. His sister was smitten with the baby she still held in her arms as she interacted with the rest of the kids. She was clearly in her element here, among a pack of lively Crow children and some very good friends.
Steven Young Bear walked up from the corrals and dropped onto the bench beside Joe. “Do not let those young renegades talk you into any rodeo activities,” he advised, brushing some dirt off his jeans. “You will pay for it.”
“Don’t worry,” Joe said. “I’ve never ridden a horse and I’m not about to start now.”
“That is what I said when I first came here.”
Joe eased himself on the bench and took another swallow of water. “I can see why Molly likes this place.”
“It grows on you,” Steven agreed. “My sister has done a good job with the school. The boys were difficult at first, but two of them are about to graduate with their GEDs, and Roon is doing well enough that Pony thinks he might go on to college. She has made a big difference with these kids. Caleb has given her a good life here. She is happy but it is becoming too much. The buffalo herd is growing, the market for range-raised buffalo is getting bigger... Pony cannot do it all, especially with that little one to watch.”
“Maybe Caleb should hire more help.”
“When he gets here, you can tell him that. He’s tried to hire outsiders, but Pony won’t let him. She thinks the boys should be able to help keep the ranch running, but they are kids,” Steven said, settling back on the bench. “Caleb will be back shortly. He took two of the boys to a livestock auction. He gives them each a certain amount of money to bid. He says it is the best way to teach them about math and critical thinking at warp speed.”
“Huh,” Joe said. “What happens if they win what they bid on?”
“If they win, he brings it home and they have to take care of it. This teaches them responsibility.”
“And this is a livestock auction?”
Steven nodded. “Yes.”
Joe thought about that for a moment. “We grew up in the city and couldn’t even have a dog,” he said. “I wonder if Caleb would be interested in adopting me. I’m good at math, but I’m not so sure about the critical thinking at warp speed.”
Steven grinned. “You will have to ask him. He should be here soon. He just called Pony to warn her about the goats.”
“Goats?”
“It