Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) (10 page)

She got Chester out of his pen, and I looked the colt over. He was light-boned for a rope horse, but everything was in proportion and he had the sort of flat muscling I liked. He was about fifteen-two hands, and Lisa said he was five years old. Glen wanted $6,000 for him.

"He's ready to campaign at the heels," Lisa told me. "And he's real good outside-got a good handle on him, watches a cow real well. You'll see." She was saddling the horse as she spoke and handed his reins to me when she was done.

"He's not cinchy or anything, is he?" I asked cautiously. The last thing I needed was to be bucked off.

"Chester? No way. He's never humped his back in his life. He's dead gentle."

Good. I climbed on and walked the colt around a little, getting the feel of him. Tim was saddling the roan mare he'd ridden yesterday, and Lisa got another blue roan mare who looked exactly like Smoke out of her stall.

"Did you raise all these?" I asked Glen, who had mounted his stallion and sat waiting.

"They're all by him," he said, looking down at Smoke. "And out of that good bay mare I used to rope on. Remember her? Annie Oakley was her name."

"Oh, yeah, Annie." I did remember. Annie was the horse Glen had roped on when I was young. "Is she still alive?"

"She's almost thirty," he said proudly, "but she still has a foal every year. She just foaled two days ago." He waved a hand at a small field off to the side of the bam.

I looked where he pointed and saw a bay mare I recognized as Annie. Her back was deeply swayed and there were hollows over her eyes and a lot of gray hairs in her forehead, but she looked healthy and in good flesh. Next to her stood a bay foal.

He was tiny and new and perfect, long-legged and bright-eyed, with a high curved neck like a seahorse. I smiled in delight at the sight of him.

"He's a clone of Chester," Lisa said. "I think he'll be a good one."

"These three," Glen indicated the two roan mares and Chester, "are all full brothers and sisters to him."

"That's Roany," Lisa said, pointing at the big mare Tim was sitting on. "She's the oldest. She's six. And this is Rosie." She patted the neck of the mare she was saddling. "She's four. We lost their three-year-old full brother just a month ago."

Silence followed that remark. I remembered Lisa telling me that Glen had lost his three-year-old when the colt had gotten into the gopher grain. Another accident.

I patted Chester's neck. How could anybody do that? Could anybody really do that? Surely not Tim.

Tim sat quietly on Roany, not taking part in the conversation. He held himself stiffly, for Tim, and it was easy to imagine that he hurt all over. Glen had not said one word about the condition of his son's face; in fact, he wouldn't look at Tim. What in the hell was going on here?

Lisa climbed on Rosie and Glen lifted his reins. "Let's go find 'em," he said.

ELEVEN

We started down a dirt road that led into the hills of the home pasture. Dust rose under the horses' hooves. The dogs trotted behind us. It was already hot. Pretty damn hot for May, or so I thought. I was sweating in a matter of minutes. So was Chester.

I could smell the dusty dry-grass smell, a midsummer smell. The grass was bleached gold on this south slope, and sparse at that.

"Not much feed left," I said to Glen.

"It's all gone," he agreed. "Been a bad year. The cattle have done all right so far, but I'll have to ship them now. There's nothing left for them to eat. I doubt I'll make any money on them. Any other year, I would have had another month for sure." Glen didn't sound particularly concerned. Money wasn't a worry for him, as far as I knew.

Chester walked along under me, quiet and relaxed. He was proving to be a pleasant, responsive horse to ride, with a light mouth and a long, swinging walk that covered the ground. I liked him.

I ran my eyes over the empty gold hills, looking for cattle. None in sight. I could hear quail in the brush. A little breeze rippled the grass, brushing it backward with a flash of silver. The sky was an even, hot, cloudless blue. And suddenly, without warning, I felt an intense longing for Lonny.

Normally I would have called him, we'd have come up together with our own horses, he'd be riding next to me now on Burt. Lonny would like nothing better than to help Glen gather cattle on a sunny morning. We would smile at each other, sharing our pleasure in the horses, the empty hills, the day.

Pain, like a rush of blood, poured through me. Maybe Lonny had spent the night with Sara. Maybe Lonny and I were over.

I tried to shut my mind to the feelings. Looked down at Chester, felt of his smooth walk, brushed a strand of his black mane back on the right side of his neck.

I wanted to go back in time. Less than six months ago, Lonny and I had been solidly together, had been happy. Now everything had changed. I wanted to break the unreasonable law that had dragged me to the present state of affairs. I wanted it to be last year again, when Sara lived with her doctor and Lonny still loved me.

Lonny, Lonny, Lonny. Chester's hooves seemed to tap it out. Lisa and Glen and Tim rode in silence. Except for the occasional circling hawk above, we were the only living things in sight. The quiet seemed to stretch out, reaching up to the sky. The hooves clopped softly in the dirt; saddles squeaked; bits and spurs jingled. Chester snorted softly.

Slowly Lonny seeped back out of my mind. For right now it was these empty hills, these horses, this last remnant of the Old West. I reached down to pat Chester's neck. I'd be OK, I told myself. I'd be OK.

We rode down a gully. The road made a turn and there was an old concrete water trough with some thirty steers around it. The cattle stared at us, heads raised in mild alarm. They were Brahma-cross cattle, leggy, with long ears and an alert, wild look, different in some essential, basic way from the quiet, short-legged, round-headed Herefords and black baldies Glen had kept when I was young. These cattle had, in their dark eyes, some of the force and power of wild animals. We stood there quietly, watching them.

"They look pretty good," I said to Glen.

He nodded. "These crossbred cattle do well in this country."

Lisa's blue dog trotted up to the water trough, put his front paws on the rim, and jumped in. It was a deep trough, and he disappeared completely, with a splash. It didn't seem to disconcert him. His head bobbed up, wet and sleek as a seal, and he swam around a minute before putting his paws on the edge and dragging himself ungracefully out. He shook the water from his coat happily, as the cattle watched him with suspicion.

"They're sixty steers in this field," Glen said. "About half of them are here. I think the rest will be up this canyon." He waved an arm off to the right. "Tim and I will go up there. Lisa, why don't you and Gail ride up to the back side in case there're a few at the water hole. We'll pick this group up on the way back."

"OK." Lisa turned her mare and I followed. The two dogs went with us.

We rode along the side of the gully for a while. I peered into the shadows under the oak trees, looking for the shapes or the movement of cattle. I didn't see anything.

The gully began to peter out. It headed more and more steeply uphill, got shallower and shallower. In places it was little more than a ditch. There were no more trees. The sun beat relentlessly down. Chester's neck was wet with sweat; the dogs trotted in our shadows, tongues hanging out, panting steadily. If I remembered right, we were nearing the back of the pasture.

We rode up a short, steep rise, Chester scrambling a little, and stood on the rim of a small basin. Ten steers were gathered around the pond in the bottom. It was just a hollow right near the ridgeline, bare and treeless. I could see the back fence of the pasture on the ridge beyond.

Lisa and I stared down at the steers. They stared up at us, looking ready to run at the slightest encouragement.

"This is all that we'll find back here," Lisa said softly. "If they're not at this water hole, they won't be up here."

"So, what do you want to do?"

"Sneak around 'em. Get 'em headed downhill. At a walk, if we can. They'll follow the gully back to where we saw the other cattle. The main problem is not letting any get off in the brush. These Brahma cattle are pretty wiley. We need to keep them in sight."

Lisa turned her mare and began to walk quietly around the basin, meaning to ease the cattle off in the direction we had come from. I followed her, keeping my head turned away from the cattle, as if I weren't interested in them. Eye contact alone can start a spooky steer into a run.

I'd only taken a few steps when I saw two small blurred streaks out of the comer of my eye. I jerked my head around in time to see Joey and Rita barrel into the middle of the steers, full tilt, snapping at heels and noses indiscriminately. There was a second of confused dust and motion, a bawl from a startled steer, and then the cattle vanished over the rim of the hollow, heads and tails up, going downhill at a dead run.

"Dammit!" Lisa yelled at the top of her voice. She also yelled, "Come back here!," but she didn't waste any time waiting for the dogs to obey. She yelled as she started Rosie down the hill at a gallop, following the cloud of dust that was the cattle. I gave Chester his head and clucked to him.

Hills and sky seemed to blend in a rushing blur. Chester scrambled beneath me on the steep ground, clever as a cat, keeping his footing easily, even while running downhill. I tried to stay balanced and in the middle of him, my weight back, focusing on guiding him around rocks, holes, and major obstacles. I let him take care of the minor ones.

I could see Lisa and the cattle ahead of us. Hot wind whipped my face as I felt the horse grunting, the sudden shift and roll of his body. Going hard in a flat place, keeping the cattle in sight, checking down for a steep spot, a sliding, slithering trot, then back at the run where the ground leveled out. I felt drunk on the wind and the rhythm of the chase. If Chester went down and killed me now, I wouldn't care. I clucked to him and leaned forward and felt him stretch out a little harder.

It had taken us half an hour to ride up the gully; it took us about ten minutes to come back down it. Chester was gasping for air as we neared the water trough. Even the long-legged Brahma steers were loping, rather than running, looking for a place to stop. The dogs loped behind them, tongues almost touching the ground.

"Joey, Rita, come here," Lisa ordered, pulling her mare up.

They looked over their shoulders, appeared to consider the matter, and then trotted wearily back in our direction. They sat down next to Lisa's horse and looked up at her. "Good dogs," she said.

The cattle broke into a walk immediately. We trailed after them in a leisurely fashion until they met up with the group around the water trough. They all milled a little, but they looked like they were planning to stay put. Tim and Glen weren't around. Lisa and I parked our horses under a shade tree. I patted Chester's wet neck. "You're a good boy," I told him. "I'll ride you on a gather any old day."

Five minutes later, Glen appeared, pushing another twenty or so steers. Glen counted heads and announced we had everything. We began trailing them down the dirt road toward the corrals.

Lisa gave me a crooked smile. "A little dusty, huh?" She seemed relaxed and happy, despite the cloud of dirt that was billowing around us, filling our eyes and noses and coating our hair.

We got the cattle in the corral without any trouble. They were tired. Both Joey and Rita jumped in the water trough and swam around. I unsaddled Chester. Glen got beers out of the refrigerator in the bam and passed them around. I took a long, cold swallow. Nothing, I thought, tasted better than ice-cold beer when you were hot and tired and dusty.

I had Chester hosed and scraped and was almost done with my beer when Lisa came running around the comer of the bam, her eyes wide and frantic. "The colt!" she almost screamed. "The colt!"

TWELVE

The foal lay on the ground, flat on his side, a few feet from the wall of the bam. From a distance he appeared merely asleep. But the old mare stood over him, nosing him and nickering anxiously. Clenching my jaw, I approached his carcass.

There was a small pool of blood on the ground next to him; most of it had already soaked into the dust, leaving only a dark stain. Flies buzzed greedily over what was left. I stared at the jagged tear in his neck, then bent down and examined it closely.

After a minute I stood and met Glen's eyes. "He bled to death," I said evenly. "His jugular vein is torn open."

I stared down at the little corpse, which only a few hours ago had been a living baby horse-a minor miracle. Now he was dead. An accident?

As if reading my mind, Glen said, "He must have gotten cut on a nail or something." Turning, he began to examine the bam wall nearest to where the colt lay. In a minute he pointed at a large nail that was sticking out of a split board. "Like this," he said. "Goddamn old buildings."

I walked over and looked at the nail. Maybe, I thought, maybe. I'd seen horses hurt themselves this badly on sticks and broken boards and the insignificant-looking prongs of barbed wire. Only last week I'd been called out to treat a mare who had bled to death before I'd gotten there; she'd caught her foot in a barbed-wire fence and ripped an artery wide open.

Glen's voice brought me to myself. "Poor little guy," he said sadly. "I guess I better go get the tractor. It won't take much of a hole to bury him."

Lisa stood ten steps away, not looking at the colt, hugging herself with both arms. "This wasn't an accident," she said dully. "Somebody killed that colt."