“Yep. Chance ran the place right with the help of his foreman. That was Sarge. He was a good friend to Señor Frank, and the murder sent him into a rage. He was settled here. Rosita is his daughter. So he’d stay and work a while, then hear some rumor about the man who was believed to have shot Señor Frank, and off he’d go, hunting for the killer. Later he’d be back, reporting what he’d found, which wasn’t much. He’d work for a while and then off he’d go again. I liked working here, and Chance and I had become good friends before he got married and became my boss. It didn’t take me long to work my way up to foreman.”
John paused and cleared his throat. He stared at his coffee, and Heath could tell that the old-timer was remembering all that’d happened today. “A man that savvy . . . brought low by a rockslide.”
Heath asked, “How old is Chance anyway?”
“Sixty-eight last spring.”
The number surprised Heath; he figured Chance to be a whole lot younger. “You say he’s a knowing man, but maybe he’s not as sharp as he used to be.” Although he seemed plenty sharp to Heath. “He might’ve pushed himself too hard for someone that old. Maybe Chance doesn’t have the skills needed anymore.”
“My father,” a familiar voice broke in, snapping like a bullwhip, “has more skill than you’ll ever have.”
Heath whirled around and sprayed coffee out of his cup. He stared at the window that framed the furious face of Sadie Boden.
6
Sadie abandoned the window.
To find these two men gossiping about her father, at a time like this, when she’d come to John for comfort? John would need her just as much as she needed him.
Or so she’d thought.
Now they were both going to get a blistering piece of her mind.
The door slammed open, and Heath ran out. He was racing after her; she was racing toward him. They plowed right into each other. He stumbled and grabbed her arms and managed to keep them both upright.
“Sadie, I’m so sorry. We weren’t speaking ill of—”
The crack of her hand across his face shut him up. It satisfied her deeply to hit someone. She was starting to have some sympathy for Justin and Cole.
And Heath was handy and had it coming.
“My father has been badly hurt. He’s traveling when that will probably make him worse, to see a doctor we know nothing about, and I find you and John talking about him being a washed-up old man.”
No, not John. John had been listening, but he hadn’t said anything. He’d probably have thrown Heath out in a second if Sadie hadn’t come. She had to believe that. She couldn’t bear the betrayal if John was gossiping about her father.
“My pa is twice the man you are, Heath Kincaid. Ten times the man. You! Are! Fired!”
Sadie wrenched against Heath’s grip. He released her and raised his hands like a man surrendering. “Please, what you heard was—”
“Don’t you dare speak to me.” Sadie spun on her heel and stormed toward the house.
“You stop right there, young lady.”
Skidding to a halt, Sadie was disgusted at herself for obeying John. But he’d been around so long and she respected him so utterly. She whirled to face her old friend. She might just fire him, too.
John’s eyes were red, as if he’d been . . . but no. Cowboys didn’t cry.
“Sadie, I’m so sorry I hurt you.” Heath would just not stop talking, as if she ever wanted to hear his voice again.
Heath pivoted on his boot heel and strode away. Sadie watched him go and something twanged in her chest, a different kind of pain than the worry for her father.
“Sadie,” John said and drew her attention away from Heath, who was heading for the corral, probably for his horse. Probably leaving forever.
Good riddance.
“Your pa is about the finest man I’ve ever known, and I would never say a word against him. I would never sit by while someone else did. We were talking about today. Your pa is as skilled a rider as I’ve ever known, and he was on his big bay stallion and there’s no finer cow pony on this property.”
Sadie knew that to be true. That bay was Pa’s favorite and had been for years.
“Those two are a hard combination to beat, and they shouldn’t have been caught in that avalanche. That’s what we were talking about. I’m the one who mentioned it. Heath was just asking questions. We were trying to figure out how a man like your pa didn’t hear the first rock fall and get himself through the canyon pass.”
John walked up and firmly pulled Sadie to him and hugged her tight. Quietly, he said, “You insult me by believing I’d’ve let Heath speak a word against him.”
Sadie let John hold her until the worst of her burning fury died. Then she eased back and met John’s wise gaze. His eyes gleamed against his weathered skin and white hair.
“I just, I need—”
She heard the clatter of hooves and turned to see Heath galloping out of the ranch yard.
Leaving.
Fired.
She’d never see those vivid blue eyes again.
“I shouldn’t have fired him. He should have stayed and made me see reason.”
“It’s all right, Sadie. It’s been a day of upheaval and your feelings are all stirred up. Heath was a top hand, but you’ll always mix him in with the memory of this awful day. You don’t want him around as a reminder, and he may not want to be around if he knows it hurts you. He’s too fine a man for that. Let him go. He’ll get a good job wherever he stops to hunt work.”
“John!” A shout from the barn shifted their attention, followed by the squeal of a furious horse and the dull thud of heels smashing boards. “We need help in here. Quick!”
John scowled at the man, then his eyes went to Sadie. “I won’t be long. Wait for me, Sadie. Go on into my cabin, and when I get back I’ll tell you more of what happened this morning. I’ll tell you how Heath helped save your pa’s life.”
As John strode away, Sadie watched and wondered.
She’d gone from looking for comfort, to fury, to terrible regret in the space of a few minutes. She knew John was right. It was a day of upheaval. She turned to the west, to watch Heath ride away. Her jaw suddenly clenched. He wasn’t going to pay for her irrational behavior. It was an injustice she couldn’t let stand.
She ran to the corral and had Pa’s big bay saddled and galloping down the trail after Heath within minutes. She might live in town, but she’d been raised a ranch girl and knew her way around.
And this bay was faster by far than the pretty palomino mare she kept in Skull Gulch. A horse, she realized, she’d left behind while she’d ridden in Heath’s strong arms.
Heath had gotten her home in time to have a few minutes with Ma and Pa before they left. She’d had time to tell Pa she loved him before he set out. The doctor had spoken of the care Heath gave in tending Pa’s leg. Heath had done well by Pa, and she wasn’t letting him be punished for her bad temper.
When she kicked the horse, it dug deep and stretched out in a long, powerful stride.
It all came down to Heath being owed an apology, and of course he should get his job back. Sadie had one chagrined moment to remember John’s words about Heath’s skill. Justin was going to be upset with her if she fired one of his best cowhands for no reason.
He’d definitely support her if she had a good reason.
She didn’t.
Which left it to her to chase Heath down and make him listen. As much as she deserved this new aggravation, it was taking all her energy. It’d been a long, hard day.
Heath heard the thundering hooves of pursuit. He turned to see Sadie coming. If she was chasing him down to shoot him, he almost felt like he oughta let her.
Almost.
As he watched her come . . . well, he had eyes as sharp as an Apache tomahawk, but that didn’t mean he could believe what he saw. Sadie Boden was riding hard on her pa’s stallion, coming right at him. At least that was what Heath suspected. There was nobody else out her
e.
He turned his horse and rode toward her. Maybe she wasn’t coming after him. Maybe she was just going for a wild ride to work out some of her grief.
Skull Mesa loomed behind Heath’s back to the west. It was a forbidding place, too rugged to climb. No cattle got up there so no cowpokes bothered to try. It stretched for well over a hundred yards, blocking the view to the west, except where the mountain peaks soared above it.
Maybe she picked this side of the ranch to be alone.
Maybe she thought her pa’s horse needed exercise.
Maybe the woman just liked to ride.
He kept his eye on her gun hand just the same, although he didn’t see a gun. As she drew near he saw her expression. She was definitely watching him with something other than murder in mind, so he didn’t make a break for it. Instead he trotted forward to meet her, and when she saw he was cooperating, she slowed Chance’s bay.
They met in the middle of the rugged New Mexico Territory grassland that had made Chance Boden and his whole family rich.
She swung down. “Can I please talk to you?”
Somehow, standing on the ground like that, it was almost like she was looking up and begging—which Heath didn’t want.
He dismounted. “Let’s walk the horses. I was running mine too, and he could use a breather.” Heath held his buckskin’s reins. They were facing the ranch, away from the mesa, away from the west. He walked right up to this beautiful woman. Soon enough he’d have to go on and start over . . . again.
Before they’d gone far, she caught his arm and he turned. They stood facing each other, both horses blowing hard, slowly catching their breath after their fierce gallop.
She’d been chasing after him.
It warmed his heart to think of it.
Finally, as if she’d been gathering her thoughts, she said, “You’re not fired. Please don’t let my rash words make you move on. John is very unhappy with me for the way I acted.”
“You’ve had a hard day. I don’t want to stay around and make it worse.”
“Please, can we just forget I fired you? John made me listen to him and I know I acted foolishly.”
“Sadie, I think . . .” Heath wasn’t sure how to say it. He’d never been much good at talking. Too much of his young life spent alone, he reckoned. “Um . . . I think it might help you if I left.”
“No! Why would it help?”
Heath remembered his own anger when his ma died. It only deepened when he learned of his father’s betrayal. He’d aimed all that anger on the brothers he’d discovered, even though they did their best to make him family. That wasn’t easy when his very existence proved their father a liar and a cheat.
They’d been good to him. They’d taken in a ragamuffin boy and given him a stake in their land because he was as much an heir as they were. But to Heath it’d all felt stolen, and he’d carried anger in his heart that they didn’t deserve. In the end he’d left.
“If I stay, I think, deep down inside, you’ll always see me as the man who brought you terrible news about your pa.”
“And you think I want to kill the messenger?”
Heath reached up, unable to stop himself, and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I think I’d rather leave than live with your low opinion of me. Maybe leaving is the one way I could help.”
Sadie shook her head. “That’s not true.”
Heath watched her closely, lost in her sparkling hazel eyes and the riot of curls that had escaped during her wild ride from Skull Gulch hours ago and now was worse . . . and still she was beautiful. She’d never taken a moment to tidy up.
“I won’t remember you with anger. I will remember the hero who knew how to tend Pa’s leg and helped save his life. I’ll remember the man who held me in his arms while he rode like the wind. I’ll remember that you pushed yourself and your horse to the limit to get me to the ranch, and those minutes I had with Pa before he was carried away to the train are precious to me. I will remember you as a good, decent part of one of the hardest days of my life.”
And just like that she was crying again.
She should be with her family or somewhere private, give herself peace and quiet and a time to weep.
Instead, after a long, painful day, she’d gone to John. Heath had spoken unwisely, and now she wept and he didn’t dare touch her . . . mainly because he wanted to so badly.
He should pull her into his arms, give her shelter and comfort. A woman needed a shoulder to cry on. But a lowly cowhand didn’t hug the lady of the manor. He patted her awkwardly until her tears were spent, then dropped his hand. He had a hanky in his pocket, rumpled but clean. He handed it to her, and she wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“I was rude and you didn’t deserve that. John says you’re a top hand.” Sadie managed a watery smile. “Justin is going to kill me if you ride off.”
Heath almost smiled back. He doubted Justin would touch a hair on her head. “I’ll stay until the day I see pain in your eyes at the sight of me.”
New tears surfaced and fell on her cheeks. He couldn’t resist reaching a hand up and wiping his thumb across the tracks running down her face.
As he looked at her, the mesa rose high behind her. Absently he said, “I feel like that mountain is hovering over our heads.” Heath studied the mountain to keep from pulling Sadie into his arms. It stood alone, but beyond it a ways, an entire mountain range stretched. Mount Kebbel was one of them, though Heath wasn’t sure which.
Gold found there had made a lot of people rich, the Bodens included.
“I’m from the mountains up north in Colorado. One of the reasons I stopped here to hunt for a job was because”—Heath shrugged, feeling awkward at the emotion welling up in him—“it felt a little like home. I like rugged places. It’s beautiful here. I want to go up to the top of Skull Mesa and look across this valley sometime. What’s the view like from up there?”
Sadie looked startled. “It’s not climbable.”
Heath stared at the mesa. “It looks like the sides are sheer, but don’t tell me there’s no way up. I could get myself up there.”
Shaking her head, Sadie said, “I know my brothers and I never got up, and we all tried.” She smiled. “None of them knows how many times I tried, and I got higher than any of them. Pa and Sarge tried. John too. Plenty of others have tried. I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never heard of anyone who made it to the top.”
“No one? Most mountains call out for someone to scale them just to prove it can be done.”
Some of the deep lines eased from her face, and Heath thought he had done right to speak of other things. Normal things.
“I’m a dab hand at climbing.” He looked back at Skull Mesa. “Yep. I can get to the top.”
“If I’m going to be living at home, with no job and lots of free time, practically in the shadow of that thing, maybe I’ll go with you.” Sadie turned to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, crossed her arms and looked up at the looming mesa. Heath felt like they were in accord.
“Skull Mesa always makes me think of my family.”
Heath grinned. “How is a big old hill like your family?”
“Because the mesa is a fortress, and my pa always preached family sticking together. He liked to think it was the Bodens against the world, a ranch handed down from generation to generation. He called our land the ‘Cimarron legacy’ and never stopped respecting Grandfather Chastain’s efforts to begin it, and that Grandfather’s blood had seeped into the soil of this ranch. That’s why he hated it so much when Cole came back but didn’t live out here at the CR. Pa could never see that Cole coming as close to home as he did was a sign of his love and loyalty. Nope, for Pa it had to be under his roof. Then when I was working long hours at the orphanage and it was just too much effort for me to ride home every night, he didn’t like that either. In fact, I think he’d’ve put up with Cole living in town, but my moving was too much. I’ve been living in town for less than a year. I’ll bet it was when I m
oved out that Pa started stewing over it, and finally he came up with his plan and changed the will.”
“And that’s like a mesa?”
“A huge, imposing, beautiful, difficult fortress.”
With a laugh, Heath said, “That almost describes my family, too. Especially the huge part, as all my big brothers seem to have a new baby every few years.”
“Tell me about your family, Heath. Heaven knows you’ve heard more than you want to about mine.”
Heath felt more relaxed about his past and all he’d ridden away from than ever before. He could tell Sadie and she’d understand. He opened his mouth and saw a glint on the flat-topped mountain. He stopped and focused on that glint.
“You say no one has ever been up there?” he asked.
“No. It’s the stuff of legends that Skull Mesa can’t be climbed.”
What it really looked like, what his instincts told him it was . . . “Then who’s watching us with a spyglass from up there?”
Sadie peered again at the mesa top. She must have seen it because she asked, “Is that a spyglass or a rifle scope?”
Heath shifted his hold on his horse and dragged Sadie forward so that both horses blocked a direct line to the shiny reflection.
The reflection then vanished. Heath estimated that the top of the mesa was around 150 yards up. And sharp-eyed as he was, he didn’t see any movement. Yet there were some rough edges on the mesa and a patch of underbrush, so someone could hide up there. The sides of the mesa, while sheer, twisted in and out like the folds in a heavy curtain. A man could almost step inside the walls at some points. If someone got up there, he could slip his gun through the brush, take careful aim, and be well within rifle range without anyone seeing him.
Heath was a man who trusted his instincts, and that looked like a scope of some kind. A rifle? Spyglass? Whichever it was, someone had found a way to the top of Skull Mesa.
“Let’s move out. We’re in rifle range.” Heath urged her forward, careful where the horses stepped so no one could get a clean shot at them. It didn’t take much urging. Sadie hurried forward, as eager as Heath to gain some distance.
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