Miss Murray On The Cattle Trail. Lynna Banning
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* * *
Zach kicked a hot coal back into the fire pit and surveyed the camp. Roberto had long since splashed water on the canvas-wrapped carcass of the calf he’d slaughtered and hung on a hook in the chuck wagon, washed up the supper plates and crawled under the wagon to sleep. All but two of the cowhands had rolled out their bedrolls. Curly and Cassidy, the new man, were night-herding, riding around and around the steers bedded down in the meadow, moving in opposite directions and singing songs to keep them calm. The kind of songs a mother would sing.
He’d always liked night-herding. It gave him a chance to talk to Dancer, reflect on the day’s events and plan for tomorrow’s, at least as much as anyone driving a thousand head of prime beef could plan. Usually, whatever could go wrong, did.
In spite of all the problems, Zach liked this life. When he’d come West as a boy, right away he’d liked the freewheeling, easy existence of a cowboy, and later, when he’d risen to be Charlie Kingman’s top hand, he liked the admiration working for the Rocking K brought him. He liked being in charge, doing his job and doing it well. I’m responsible only to myself, my cattle and my ranch hands.
A successful drive brought him the gratitude and respect of people he cared about, Charlie and Alice Kingman. And this drive would bring him something else, something he’d dreamed about ever since he was a scrawny kid with no home; it would bring him enough money to buy a spread of his own and start his own ranch.
He sucked in a lungful of sagebrush-scented air and surveyed the camp. Dusty sat as close to the chuck wagon as she could get without nuzzling right up to Roberto. He guessed Dusty didn’t trust his cowhands. Zach did, though. Had to, on a long drive like this.
After supper he’d watched her limp off behind the chuck wagon with the bottle of Roberto’s liniment clutched in her hand. When she returned, her gait had evened out some and she was walking easier, at least easier enough to let her climb back on her horse tomorrow. He knew she’d be sleeping in wet jeans; by morning they’d still be pretty clammy. That ought to hurry things up a bit for her deciding she ought to hightail it back to the Rocking K.
He’d sure hate to take that silver dollar off her, but he guessed that by tomorrow she’d yell uncle and turn back, and then he’d be a buck richer.
* * *
Alex huddled by the campfire, sipping from a mug of coffee Roberto kept refilling from the blackened metal coffeepot and staring into the flames. What have I gotten myself into? She could never, never admit it to Mister Know-It-All Strickland, but she was starting to feel just the tiniest bit uneasy. The night was so dark out here in the middle of nowhere.
All around the fire pit were sprawled-out cowboys shrouded in their blankets—a lump here, and one over there, and there. They lay without moving, probably too tired to even twitch.
The trail boss was tramping around out there in the dark somewhere, and while she could hear him, she couldn’t see anything beyond the circle of dying firelight where she sat.
She pulled out her notebook and began writing.
First she described the camp and the dwindling campfire, the dark shapes of the sleeping cowhands, even how the camp smelled after their supper of tortillas and beans. But she did not write about how frightened she felt at the huge expanse of black, black sky overhead. Or the stinging mosquitos. Or her aching muscles.
Finally she admitted she was exhausted and she needed to sleep. She tiptoed to the chuck wagon, scrabbled around in the back and pulled out her roll of blankets. Just one other unclaimed bedroll remained. Roberto had long since crawled under the wagon to sleep, so this one had to belong to Zach Strickland.
She stood uncertainly near the remains of the campfire, wondering where to spread out her blankets. It would be most improper to curl up next to one of the cowhands, even one who was sound asleep, but out beyond the haphazard sprinkling of bedrolls it was pitch black. Wild animals could be lurking out there. Wolves, even.
Or... She caught her breath. Even wild Indians.
She crept forward to an unoccupied space and spread out her blue wool blanket. The other, a forest green one Aunt Alice said wouldn’t show the dirt, she wrapped around her body. Then she lay down on the hard ground and pulled the edges of the blue blanket over herself.
She couldn’t close her eyes for a long time, and when she did they popped open at the slightest sound. Never in her life had she realized nighttime could be so noisy!
She listened to the faint hoofbeats of the horses ridden by the two night-herders Mr. Strickland had assigned. One of them was singing something; she couldn’t identify the song, but it was soothing. Which was no doubt what that herd of cows out there somewhere was feeling. She, however, was feeling anything but soothed.
Something made a whoohing sound off in the dark. An owl. She hoped. Indians made wolf calls, didn’t they? Not owl calls. At least that’s what she’d read once in a dime novel she’d found in Uncle Charlie’s bookcase.
Something rustled out beyond the fire pit. Oh, mercy! What was that? A... What did they call them? A mountain lion? She tugged her blankets more securely around her.
Suddenly she became aware of another sound, a crunching noise. She lay still, listening. Footsteps, that was it! They came closer, and then she was startled by a low voice at her back.
“Dusty?”
“Y-yes?”
“Everything all right?”
“N-no. I mean, yes. Everything is just fine.”
She heard him chuckle. “I mean, did Roberto’s liniment help your sore backsi—your sore muscles?”
“Of course,” she answered.
“Good. Just checking whether you’re ready to throw in the towel tomorrow and hightail it back to a hot bath and a soft bed.”
She refused to dignify that remark with an acknowledgment of any kind. Instead, she wrapped her blankets more securely around her and purposefully closed her eyes.
* * *
Before the sun rose the next morning, the hands were lined up at the chuck wagon for Roberto’s thick-sliced bacon, fried potatoes and sourdough biscuits. Zach studied them as they lounged bleary-eyed around the campfire, warming their behinds and shoveling in their breakfasts. All nine men and one stubborn woman.
He watched Dusty more closely than anyone else. She’d tamed her long, wavy hair into one thick, glossy-looking braid that hung down her back and swung enticingly when she moved. She was wearing a form-fitting blue plaid shirt that hinted at lush breasts beneath the light cotton material, and he swallowed hard.
Didn’t help. After her half hour in the stream yesterday, her jeans had shrunk so tight across her butt that watching her move made his mouth go dry.
He couldn’t help wondering all kinds of things about her. What made her tick? What made a woman who looked the way she did, all soft and desirable, want to pal around with a hardened bunch of cowboys instead of staying home with a husband and a dozen children? What made Dusty prickly as a desert cactus with a spine stiff as a railroad tie?
She tucked into her fried spuds, crunched up the bacon slices like a hungry kid and carefully slipped two of Roberto’s float-off-your-plate biscuits into her shirt pocket. He tried not to smile. Looked like she’d learned something yesterday.
He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire and stood up. “Time to roll.”
Twenty minutes later, the chuck wagon lumbered off after Wally, the scout, to set up ten or fifteen miles farther on, somewhere with good grass and enough water for the herd. His wrangler, Cherry, followed with the rest of the horses in the remuda, and the two point men, José and Skip, uncovered the bell clapper on the lead steer and set off. A muddle of lowing animals thundered after the clanging bell.
Zach let out a satisfied breath and studied the pinkening sky over the mountains in the distance.