Mary Connealy (54 page)

Shorty shook his head as he sat up. “She must have figured out we weren’t taking her home.”

“So we took her another day’s ride farther from her village.” Buck stood from his bedroll.

“And now,” Roy added, “she’s alone out there.”

“With wolves. Both the two-legged and four-legged kind.” Wade felt sick. This was his fault. And now he had to make it right.

He should just let her go with his best wishes. She was probably better equipped to take this journey than he was. But he knew God wanted more from him than just wishing her well. He couldn’t live with himself not knowing if she made it to her village.

The worry for Belle rode him for some reason Wade couldn’t understand. God seemed to urge him to ride quickly to the cattle drive. He paused and opened his heart and mind to the still, small voice of God.

And he had an idea.

He turned to his three saddle companions. “I’m going after her. And this time I’m taking her home. I think you three oughta go on and help handle this drive.”

“You can’t do that. It ain’t right,” Roy fretted.

“I promise to ask her, Roy. I’ll keep at it until she understands. I’ll give her the choice to leave the tribe.”

Roy didn’t speak, but his jaw hardened in obvious dissatisfaction.

Shorty shrugged and pointed down the trail they’d followed. It was the only way over this mountain. “I reckon you can catch her. And if she doesn’t want any part of you, you can just tag along to make sure she gets home safe.”

“It’s settled then.” Wade saddled up while Shorty studied Glowing Sun’s tracks.

Buck explained where he’d seen the village as Wade strapped down his saddlebags.

Before he was done, Wade started to laugh out loud.

“What is it?” Roy asked. “What’s so funny?”

“That little maiden we’re all so worried about?”

“Yeah …” Roy looked down the trail. “Do you see her? Is she coming back so we can help her?”

“I doubt she’s coming back, Roy.”

“Why do you doubt it?”

Wade started laughing again. “Because I just noticed she’s stolen half my beef jerky.”

He laughed as he mounted up and struck out to help poor, helpless Glowing Sun. While he rode away, he hoped when he found her, she didn’t kill him.

S
ilas got to ride drag so much he was sorry he’d ever pushed for the job. He couldn’t decide if Belle was punishing him or if she’d had the tiniest of female reflexes spring to life and was looking on the hardest jobs as “men’s work.”

No sense hoping for the second, so he decided she was punishing him. Always best to put bad motives onto the way Belle treated him.

They pushed the herd on through another long day, with Silas eating dust and squinting against dirt in his eyes. It was late in the season. The daytime was hot, but the nights were frigid, and it snowed on them once. The women cuddled up together, and Silas resented that he was rejected from their little bevy of warmth while he shivered under his blanket alone.

They lost several head of cattle that slipped on washouts along the narrow pass and fell, bawling horribly for hundreds of feet. One steer skidded across a shale slide and broke its leg.

Silas saw Belle preparing to shoot it with hands that visibly trembled. He spurred his horse toward her and shouted, “Hold up!”

She lowered her gun so willingly Silas worried about her. He also knew she wouldn’t thank him for trying to take this tough job.

“Belle, let me drive him away so the girls don’t have to see.” Ah, he was beginning to know how to handle her. He almost patted himself on the back when her furrowed brow smoothed.

“Yes, that’s a good idea. The girls.” She made no word of protest.

That worried him some. She must be nearing the end of her strength. Belle argued over everything.

He came back with a haunch of beef. The fresh sizzling steaks for supper that night and again the next morning lifted all their spirits.

By the time they’d ridden through another day, the warm, encouraging meal was long forgotten. Silas hated to see how quiet and gaunt the girls were getting. When the two older ones stood side by side, their skin was as white with dust as their hair.

Silas rode ahead and found a trail that led to the best grass he’d seen in a week. He came back to find Belle holding her quiet little baby in front of her, talking to her. Probably whispering endless apologies for bringing Betsy into this bleak world of craggy points and smothering dirt.

At sunset they started coming down out of the high peaks. He worked the herd well away from Belle until Betsy was back in her sling; then he rode up. “Grass ahead. It’ll make a terrible long day, but once we’re there, let’s hold the cattle a day and let them eat.”
And let the girls rest.
Silas would say it if he had to.

“How long a day?” Belle’s eyes rose to his as if it took all her energy just to lift her chin.

“I could barely see the grass through the next pass; I didn’t come close to riding all the way to it. We’ll be pushing them in full dark for a couple of hours. But the uphill side of the trail to get there is clear, no slides or drop-offs.”

Belle nodded silently for far too long. Then she squared her shoulders and lifted her reins.

“We’re going to make it, Belle.” Silas wanted to give her a hug for encouragement and to thank her for being so steady.

“I know.” Her eyes flashed. The first sign of spirit she’d shown, and Silas decided she needed him to pester her into having some gumption.

“You womenfolk have held up pretty well. I’m mighty proud of you.”

Those words might seem like a compliment to some. To Belle they were fighting words.

She rammed her gaze into him like the tip of a bullwhip. “Well, Silas, for a man, you’re holding up pretty well, too. I’m mighty proud of
you.
And may I say, surprised.”

He could set her off, all the way off. She’d be scolding and yelling and maybe threatening with about one more well-chosen word from him. Instead, he laughed. “That’s the spirit.”

Belle’s temper melted and she managed to smile. Then laugh. “We’re going to make it, Silas. No doubt about it. And…well…I will say …”

Silas waited. Yes, she could compliment him. She could thank him. She could even say she liked him a little.

“I will say you haven’t slowed us down overly.” She smirked.

Silas laughed out loud and decided he might make it through this cattle drive yet.

Still smiling, Belle reined her horse aside and rode down the trail.

Betsy waved bye-bye from her place on Belle’s back.

They kept the cattle moving well into the night. They had two more passes to go through before Helena. Both shorter, but also higher and more perilous. Bringing up the rear, Silas was long after the others getting to camp.

Belle was already on the first watch. Emma and Sarah were asleep, cuddled up next to Betsy on the far side of the fire.

He ate stew from a warm pot and tumbled straightaway into bed to get a couple of hours’ sleep before taking midnight watch. He knew, even as he collapsed, that just as he was trying to carry as much of the weight of this trip as possible, the womenfolk were trying to ease things for him. And for all their efforts, they were all almost dead. He knew he should insist on taking the first watch part of the time, but his eyes fell shut before he gathered the strength to stand.

The next time his eyes opened it was full daylight. He jumped up, alarmed to realize he’d slept through his shift. He immediately scanned the camp and saw all the girls sleeping soundly.

Except Belle. She’d been on the first watch last night. She couldn’t have done the whole night alone. Silas was moving toward the nearest saddle horse before he’d finished stepping into his boots.

God, what happened? Where is she?
His prayers were hard and desperate and laced with dread.

He rode out, afraid he’d find Belle trampled to death or thrown from her horse with her neck broken. He moved soundlessly, unwilling to wake the girls and have them go with him for fear of what they might find.

He had been riding half an hour through the wooded grazing land when he saw Belle’s saddled horse standing with its head down. Silas spurred his buckskin, scattering a few standing cattle, but the stock were tired and they didn’t pay him much mind beyond getting out of his way. He got through the herd and, with desperate eyes, scanned the ground around the horse.

A hundred yards away, in a notch between two trees, he saw Belle’s boots sticking out. He galloped toward her, his heart pounding. As he pulled up, Belle cried out softly and sat up.

“Belle, what happened? Were you thrown?” Silas leaped off his horse and knelt by her side. He ran his hands over her arms and legs, looking for bleeding or broken bones.

Belle looked at him, her eyes dazed. He ran his hands over her head, looking for the bump that must have knocked her cold.

Suddenly she swatted his hands away. “I’m fine. I…I guess I fell asleep. I remember getting off my horse to sit by that rock because I was getting so saddle sore. The next thing I knew you were waking me.”

She looked over Silas’s shoulder and seemed to register the rest of the world. “It’s morning! I slept all night?” She stood and pushed past him. “I fell asleep before midnight. I’ve got to check the cattle. They could have stampeded all the way back home by now. I’ve got to—”

“They’re fine, Belle.” Silas got off his knees and cut off her rising panic. He knew just how she felt. “I rode through most of them getting here. We’ll check on them in a minute, but I didn’t see any sign of trouble.”

Belle looked at the steers scattered in the woodlands around the stream and shook her head as if to knock away the last vestiges of sleep. “I can’t believe I did that. Anything could have happened. The whole herd could have been rustled. Someone could have come up to the camp and killed all of you in your sleep. The cattle could have trampled you all to death without—”

“Stop!” Silas grabbed her shoulders. “Stop making things up to panic about. None of that happened. We’re fine. And we all needed the rest. I haven’t slept a night through in probably twenty years. I wake up a couple of times an hour no matter where I am. I should have known something was wrong hours ago. But we got away with it, Belle. We’ll start making shorter days of it and resting up a day every chance we get. The drive will take a few days longer, but it won’t matter. You’re smart enough and
tough
enough to know we can’t go back and stay awake last night. So what’s the sense of getting all twisted up about it?”

“Tough.” Belle laughed. “I guess you could say I’m tough.”

“A woman would have to be to live the life you’ve lived, survive all you’ve survived.”

“And I’ve thrived with it.”

“You’ve done a lot better than your husbands, I’d say. How’d you find your way to this rugged place anyway?”

Chuckling, Belle rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “You want to know how I ended up here, way out in the wild, living alone.”

“Your husbands died. Your worthless husbands. Your girls told me too much about it that first night.”

“They didn’t tell you the half of it.” Belle smiled. “My ranch sits in the most beautiful mountain valley God ever put on this earth. William, my first husband, claimed one hundred and sixty acres of that valley. Gerald claimed another one hundred and sixty because I nagged him until he did it.”

“Gerald’s the one the girls said hit—”

“I don’t talk about Gerald much.” Belle cut Silas off and pulled away from him, crossing her arms tight. “Makes me want to grab for my shootin’ iron, but yeah, he’s the one.”

“I’d like to grab for my shootin’ iron myself.” His fingers itched with the wanting. Or maybe they itched because he missed holding on to Belle. “How many husbands are you up to now?”

“Anthony was third and last. I had to browbeat him until he claimed a hundred and sixty acres. I selected each claim, and they are sitting square on top of the richest grasslands and most reliable springs west of the Colorado River. Plus, now I’ve got use of thousands more acres because I’ve got the only water, making it useless to anyone else. All rugged mountainside, but there’s feed enough to keep my cows thriving. I’d say I control around twenty thousand acres all told.”

Staggered by the amount, Silas looked at the husky, lazy cattle—not as fat as when they started but a good, healthy herd. “Sure enough looks like they’re thriving.”

“I own three thousand head of fine longhorn cattle.” Belle’s arms relaxed, and she leaned against the tree she’d been sleeping beside. “I built the herd up from the fifty William and I herded into Montana along the Boseman Trail. We came out here a couple of years after the 1862 Gold Rush. I had the bright idea all those men hunting gold’d get almighty hungry. And there stood underpriced beef in Colorado just begging to be pushed into the mountains.”

“Pushed.” Silas laughed. “Probably as backbreaking as this drive.”

“It was tough and a lot longer, but with only fifty head it was nothing like this.”

“So William wasn’t so bad of a husband then?”

“None of this was his idea.” Belle snorted. “It was mine and mine alone. And with all the knowledge I’d gained growing up in Texas working alongside Pa, we prospered.”

“Why didn’t you just stay there with your family in Texas?”

Belle frowned, clearly annoyed by the question. “For the first fifteen years of my life, Pa made do without a son. My ma wasn’t well and spent most of her days ailing, so Pa let me tag after him. He shared all his know-how with me, figuring it would all be mine someday. When I was about thirteen, Ma up and died. Pa’s second wife was a spoiled, vain thing that didn’t know the kickin’ end of a horse from the bitin’ end. But she did manage to present Pa with a son. The boy was born about six months after William and I got married. We’d gone into it thinking William would step in for Pa and run his ranch. Now, with a son, William and I were just in the way.”

“Your pa threw you out?” Silas had never had a pa, not one he’d known and met, but the thought of a daughter being cast aside disgusted him.