The Gentrys: Abby

by Linda Conrad

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

  Epilogue

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  Society Bulletin

  Mr. & Mrs. T. A. Gentry, V, To Throw Texas-Size Bash

  Local ranchers and newlyweds Cinco and Meredith Gentry are hosting an old-fashioned down-home barbecue on the sixteenth of this month to celebrate the twenty-fourth birthday of Mr. Gentry's sister, Abigail Josephine Gentry.

  Abby Jo, as she's known to her friends, recently returned to Gentry Wells after earning her degree in Ranch Management at Texas A&M.

  The birthday barbecue is expected to be the social occasion of the season. The lucky party-goers will not only enjoy Texas-size portions of food and drink, but can expect a good ol' Texas-size heap of fun and dancing till dawn. Rumor even has it that one of Texas's favorite country-western bands, the Dixie Dudes, will be playing for guests' enjoyment.

  This writer, for one, will be polishing her silver buckles and trying on her new snakeskin dancing boots in anticipation of a good-time Texas shindig.

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  One

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  Abby Gentry winced as she climbed down from her saddle onto the scrub-filled, back-country dirt of Gentry Ranch. She grounded her horse under a mesquite tree, pulled her heavy rope from its ring and glanced over toward the dry-wash. Every bone and muscle in her body ached.

  She was young enough that riding out here on the range for the past ten or twelve hours should've been no big deal. In one week she would be just twenty-four, and her body ought to be able to withstand a lot more punishment than that. Heck, she was raised on the back of a horse. Sighing, she chalked the aches and pains up to sitting on her back end for too long while away at college.

  She pulled off her bandanna, pushed back the black felt Resistol, and wiped the sweat from her forehead and the back of her neck before plopping the hat back onto her head. Stomping around in her dusty riding boots, she kicked the kinks out of her legs. Abby had always thought that ranching chores were the most important part of life on the range, and these days she needed to be sure to take a more visible role in them. Her dream of becoming the Gentry Ranch foreman seemed to be almost within her reach.

  Abby twisted around to see if her trail partner, Billy Bob Jackson, had ridden into view. She didn't see any sign of the cranky old man she'd known for most of her life. He'd told her to go on ahead when he needed a little break.

  The plan was for her to ride along the fence line at a slow pace until he caught up. But as she'd guided her horse along the rim of this deep dry-wash, she'd spotted the dark shadow of a downed critter at the bottom.

  She figured the animal was another one of the dead or dying yearlings they'd been coming across as they checked the fences and windmills in this section of the ranch over the past three days. For several months now the Gentry Ranch had been losing calves to some kind of predator. Part of her job out here was to save the animals that could be saved and to find evidence of what had killed the others.

  If the critter in this wash was already gone and she couldn't help him, Abby at least hoped to make an educated guess as to what had killed him. She anchored her rope to the mesquite and, at the rim of the dry wash, she circled the free end of the rope and stepped into it, tightening the loop under her arms.

  Actually, she was relieved not to have to explain anything to Billy Bob before climbing down the jagged rocks lining the ravine. He would've wanted to be the one to go over the side and check out the carcass.

  While she slowly lowered herself over the rim, the blazing afternoon sun made waves of heat reflect off the white limestone boulders lying at the bottom of the wash. Abby felt the very blood in her veins begin to boil as she struggled to reach the floor of the wash fifteen feet below.

  When her boots hit the ground, she slipped on the loose gravel but quickly recovered. She dragged the rope up and over her head, freeing herself to turn and scramble back to the dark, still form lying in the shadow of a boulder a few feet away.

  Nearing the shadow, she saw the truth. She hissed a breath through her teeth when she realized this was no animal … but a man. A terribly injured and possibly dead man who hadn't moved or moaned the whole time she'd been climbing down the rock ravine.

  Abby squeezed past a couple of boulders and had just enough room to kneel beside him. She knew then why she'd thought this was some kind of animal. Everything about him exuded darkness and shadow: black hair, deeply bronzed skin, and he'd dressed in black jeans with an inky-colored, long-sleeved shirt.

  It hit her almost immediately that this man must be Native American, which seemed highly unusual for Castillo County. In fact, she could only think of one American Indian that she'd ever seen in these parts. Surely, this man couldn't be the same boy who'd taken her side against a bully in high school ten years ago. She'd dreamed about him occasionally since then, and maybe her imagination had taken over her good sense.

  Abby put aside the old dreams and the decidedly sexual images she'd kept in her heart for so long and forced herself to concentrate on saving the injured man. Could he be saved?

  The little gash on his temple and the small trickle of blood that had dried against his cheek shouldn't have caused him to be unconscious, she thought. He might have blacked out for a moment from such a head trauma, but to be so still for so long…

  Perhaps he'd fallen into the wash from above. She glanced up at the rim and shook her head. Well, if he had, he'd probably broken his neck.

  She checked for a pulse. He was alive! His heart rate was faint, and as she listened carefully, she heard him wheezing when he tried to breathe. But he was most assuredly alive.

  All her first-aid and emergency medical training nagged at her good sense and reminded her not to move him. No telling what injuries he had. Still, she was all the help he was likely to get. If he was going to make it out of this dry wash alive, she was his only hope.

  Abby propped open his mouth, trying to find any obstructions that might be causing those gurgling sounds. When her hand touched his chin, she nearly pulled it back with a jerk. His skin was so hot, her first thought was that she'd been burned. A fleeting image of smooth fire flashed in her head, but she forced herself to stay focused on keeping him alive.

  Not much blood and no other obvious wounds. What had befallen this man?

  When she reached to open the top button on his shirt to give him a little more air, Abby took a good look at his beautiful face. Even in his unconscious state she could see the pain written in his expression. But she also saw the dark and noble features she'd remembered all these years, older now but somehow even more compelling. Oh my God. This man really was the boy hero of her dreams.

  Trying her best to remain professional, she opened his shirt collar and immediately saw the telltale swelling at his neck. Uh-oh. She had a feeling she knew what had happened.

  Quickly, Abby checked his arms but didn't find what she was looking for. Her gaze quickly took in his long torso and grazed down his legs, halting when she saw that his left thigh was swollen and straining the stitching of his jeans. Exactly what she'd feared. Snakebite.

  Removing her knife from its sheath on her belt, she began slicing his pants leg. The material was so tough she had to rip and tear at it. At one point she even had to use her teeth, hands and the knife.

  Finally the chore was done, and she frantically searched his skin for the two telltale holes. By now his lower thigh was twice its size, bruised green, purple and yellow. Turning him on his side, she found the wounds on the back of his leg just above his knee. Looked as if a large rattler had done this job.

  She eased him all the way over and carefully arranged his head so that his breathing was a little quieter. As she did, the
images of broad shoulders and rippled muscles blasted her with memories and tender feelings. But there wasn't enough time for her to be gentle, let alone pay attention to much else. He might be running out of time.

  Abby left him for a few moments to dash back to her rope, still dangling over the side of the ravine. She climbed back up to the top of the ravine and found Billy Bob waiting there for her return.

  "What's going on down there?" he asked as she headed for her canteen and snakebite kit. "You fixin' to nurse a steer? You'd be better off using your rifle to take him out of his misery, missy."

  "No, it's not one of the yearlings," she gasped through the fear that made her voice raspy. "It's a man. And he's hurt bad."

  Abby gulped down a near-hysterical sob. She'd never helped anyone this gravely ill before. If he died…

  Back at the bottom of the wash, she thanked heaven for the rattlesnake antivenom. Abby did exactly as she'd been trained. First she'd used the Sawyer Pump extractor to draw out as much surface venom as possible. Next she'd injected the antivenom.

  The rest would be up to God.

  Within a few minutes she could see the swelling begin to subside. He'd started to breath easier and his eyelids fluttered as he seemed to fight for consciousness.

  Perhaps he was in shock. She poured canteen water on her red bandanna and wiped his forehead, eventually leaving the wet cloth lightly covering his face to keep the sun off. Abby knew she had to get him to the hospital. He needed professional medical attention.

  The cell phones were worthless out here, and they would need to ride for hours to find help. But first he had to be moved out of this harsh sun. How on earth would she manage that?

  She screwed up her mouth and looked around at the walls of the wash. Well, there was nothing to do but try the best she could. A man's life hung on her efforts.

  Fortunately, Billy Bob had known what to do. He had rigged up a makeshift stretcher, made from a few sturdy mesquite branches, some rope and a couple of vines that grew alongside the rim of the wash. In the meantime, she'd used the elastic bandage from the first-aid kit to keep pressure on the wound.

  After a couple of trips up and down the walls of the ravine, she and Billy Bob used their ropes and horses to pull the stretcher up past the sharp rocks along the sides of the dry wash. She was breathing hard and nearly ready to pass out by the time she'd finished guiding the man's inert form as he lay tied firmly between the branches. Her long-sleeved denim shirt was soaked through, and the sweat poured from every inch of her body.

  Billy Bob handed his trail canteen over to her.

  Abby put a few drops of water on the unconscious man's cracked lips and took a couple of swallows of the metallic-tasting water herself. Then Billy Bob did the same.

  Abby finished packing her saddlebags. "We'd better figure a way to get him out of the sun," she told Billy Bob. "Line shack twenty-three isn't far away, is it?"

  "'Bout a half mile back up the fence line," Billy Bob answered over his shoulder. He was rigging up the stretcher behind her horse, Patsy, in the old Indian-squaw style.

  "Good thing, too," he said. "Don't rightly think those branches will hold together for much farther than that."

  Abby agreed wholeheartedly. Their lashing ability left a lot to be desired. But the makeshift rig should remain in one piece just long enough. She hoped.

  The line shack turned out to be only a quarter mile away, but it took them much longer than she'd thought to reach it. By the time she dismounted and opened up the shack, the harsh, late-spring sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows from every tree and rock. The stretcher, which had surprisingly held together until now, began to unravel and would soon be in tatters.

  The heat in the little cabin was intense. She quickly threw open the front door and all the windows except the one that had been broken and boarded up. A dry, dusty breeze finally blew through the one room and dropped the temperature, but not nearly enough to make it comfortable.

  While Billy Bob struggled to untie the stretcher from Patsy, Abby unpacked the blanket rolls that served as bedding for the cabin's one cot and one bunk. Then, despite the extreme temperature in the cabin, she started a fire in the cookstove. She wanted to heat some water so she could clean the man's wounds first thing.

  "Well, ain't that a kick in the britches." Billy Bob elbowed open the door that had blown shut in the hot breeze. He half carried, half dragged the injured man inside and lowered him onto the cot.

  It was the first time that Billy Bob had stopped long enough to get a good look at the man he'd helped save. The sight of an American Indian in this part of Texas was pretty rare these days. Rarer still to see one on Gentry Ranch land. Billy Bob just stood and stared down at him.

  The injured man groaned once and opened his eyes, trying to come out of his groggy fog. Abby got only a momentary glance at the deep, black eyes. But that was enough.

  For sure, it was her high school heartthrob. She'd all but forgotten.

  No, that wasn't quite right. She'd never forgotten those mesmerizing eyes. Put them out of her mind maybe. Buried the uneasy sensual feelings way down, deep enough not to be consciously remembered. But never totally forgotten.

  "That there's the Injun who lives on the Skaggs Ranch, ain't it?" Billy Bob scratched his stubbled chin and squinted up his eyes in thought.

  Indeed. He most certainly was the "Injun" who was the stepson of the man who owned the ranch next door. Abby searched her subconscious for shreds of memories.

  "Yep. His name is Gray Wolf Parker and he's Skaggs's stepson. Abby hadn't seen him since she'd been a high school freshman and he was the new senior. But the rest of her memories had to wait for a moment alone.

  "Billy Bob, you know the cell phone won't work out here, don't you?" she asked the old man.

  Billy Bob looked her way and nodded.

  "You think you can watch Gray while I ride back toward the big house?" she asked shortly. "I figure it's only twenty miles or so to where the cell phone will be in range. I'll give the helicopter paramedics aerial directions to the line shack when I can reach them."

  Billy Bob frowned at her, shuffled his feet and tried to knock the accumulated dust off his work hat by slapping it against the side of his even dustier chaps-covered thigh. Maybe she shouldn't have sounded so demanding with her request. After all, her goal was to become his boss soon. She really needed him, as well as the rest of the men, to be on her side and start seeing her as the new foreman.

  Billy Bob shook his head. "Look, missy. You already went down that wash when it was too dangerous. I wasn't there to stop you, but Jake and Cinco would have my hide if I let you go riding off across the ranch alone in the dark of night. Cinco gave me strict orders to keep you safe." Before she could make any reply, he'd stepped outside the door, and she heard him spitting out the chewing tobacco.

  Dang. Several thoughts flashed through her head at once. In the first place, he'd called her missy again. She hated that little-girl term. When would she ever make it to just plain ol' Abby? Even the old-lady term "ma'am" would sit easier with her.

  And secondly, why had her brother been talking to the men about her safety? He had no right to meddle in her business.

  "I'll ride back toward the ranch," Billy Bob mumbled when he reentered the room. "I know this part of the ranch better 'n you. The man's out cold and you're a better nurse 'n me, anyhow. You stay here with him."

  Fighting with all kinds of emotions, she hesitated. She wanted to be the decision maker now. But it was too soon to force the issue. Yes, she was a Gentry. And yes, technically she owned a third of the ranch. But she still hadn't proven she was worthy of the respect it would take to make the hands, young and old alike, follow her lead.

  She swallowed her pride and realized Billy Bob was probably right. He did know this part of the ranch better than she did. He had the best chance of getting within phone range in the fastest time. He was the logical choice to go.

  But she surely didn't want to be t
he one stuck here alone with the sexy and potent Gray Parker.

  Whew! Where did that silliness come from? Her injured neighbor was probably in shock and should remain out cold for most of the night. She really had nothing to fear except her own uncalled-for lusting. Besides, he needed her to finish the job she'd started and see to it that he got home alive.

  Handing Billy Bob the phone, she gave him instructions and kept reminding herself she had nothing to worry about.

  Billy Bob mounted his mare and stared down at her.

  "You done a right fair job of saving Parker's life today. Your father would've been mighty proud of you, Abby Jo. But I'm reserving judgment on whether you'll survive as foreman when the time comes."

  It was the longest speech she'd ever heard from the man.

  Billy Bob nudged his horse, turning to head up the fence line toward home. "Take care of yourself and the young buck. The chopper'll be here by dawn." He tipped his hat toward her. "You have my word, ma'am."

  Ma'am? He'd actually called her ma'am. Well, that was at least a beginning.

  When Abby returned to the cabin, she discovered the cool shadows of nightfall had finally reached them, relieving the oppressive heat. It was already so dark that she had to light a couple of kerosene lanterns.

  The water pot she'd set on the stove had begun to boil, so she started getting down to work. She put a little of the hot water in the sink and washed her hands and face. It felt so good to scrape off the trail dust and sweat that she nearly cried. Next, she wanted to clean up her patient and make him more comfortable.

  Patient. Now wouldn't that be an excellent way for her to treat him—as well as to think of him?

  Abby stepped to his side and looked down. Uh-oh. She suddenly realized she'd actually have to look at him—touch him—in order to treat him. The teenage crush, the nervous shyness whenever he'd been around, all of that came back to irritate her now.