“No. I was told that, too. But Bailey Wilde is most certainly not a man. Bailey didn’t set that trap for you. Once she gave up on keeping cattle in my canyon, she and Tucker and Tucker’s wife spent every minute scouting new pastureland. Tucker’s been with her the whole time. Day and night. I wouldn’t necessarily take her word for it.”
Coulter turned to Bailey. “No offense, but I don’t know you that well. But Tucker is a good friend and a man I trust. I do take his word.” He turned back to Manny. “That means someone else is to blame for the rockslide, so be careful. Whoever did it is still running loose.”
Manny nodded, though he gave Bailey a narrow-eyed look. Then his eyes flickered back and forth between her and Gage a time or two. He glanced at her britches and hair, then back to her eyes. The look seemed to be less than completed satisfied with Gage’s explanation.
“Go on back and tell the others to be careful, too. And tell them that Bailey’s not who we’re looking for.”
“Sí, boss.” Manny turned and rode back the way he’d come. Only moments later, the first longhorn appeared on the trail.
Coulter directed his horse back uphill. “Let’s head to the top. You go first while I let a couple of cows get ahead of me. If they follow along easy, I’ll let more go. If they give me trouble, I’ll fall in and start pushing them and be right behind you.”
“I’m supposed to break the trail for your cattle?”
“Nope, we already did that when we rode down.”
“You’d never done it before? When we rode up and down the canyon, we were the first?”
“Yep. Doesn’t that make you feel like a trailblazer, Bailey?”
“It makes me feel like I’ve taken a hand in ruining my own ranch.”
Coulter laughed. “Unless you want to stay down here alone with my men, you go on ahead up that slope, Bailey.” He made it sound like a threat, even sitting there with a big smug grin on his face.
Bailey had no interest in what it took to get Coulter’s cattle into her canyon. Besides, the cattle were following along just fine. Coulter had held back to watch for a cow that didn’t want to cooperate, but there weren’t any of those.
Rather than stay and watch the invasion, she rode to her cabin and did her chores. That amounted to feeding the chickens and gathering eggs. She’d leave milking until later; she always put that off for as long as she could. She had ten horses she’d kept on a pasture close to her place. They were grazing, so there was nothing to do there.
Her herd was a long ride away and didn’t need anything until tomorrow.
When she was done, she went to the mouth of the canyon. She hadn’t been there long when the first critter skylined on that saddleback.
Bailey watched the invasion for a while. A mean part of her was hoping that when Coulter came over the hump, she’d get to watch a longhorn bull get testy enough to give Coulter a little poke in the backside. But no such thing happened, mainly because she couldn’t see him.
Instead, the cattle marched over the ridge in a perfect row, cooperating as if they were part of a grand Fourth of July parade.
It seemed there wasn’t anyone, man nor beast, who wasn’t eager to steal her grass.
7
Bailey stood outside at the back door—closed to keep out the cold—and leaned against it to watch the cattle march single file down into what was supposed to be hers. Longhorns mixed with a few red-and-white-faced Herefords, and plenty of cattle that looked to be a cross between the two.
Talk about walking through the valley of the shadow.
Bailey about had her share of that. Her little sisters had been her friends and she loved them, but protecting them from Pa and Jimmy had been a weight on her shoulders that nearly crushed her, especially since she’d failed more often than not.
And then came the war. They didn’t have a sheepskin diploma fancy enough for the hard schooling she’d earned fighting in the war.
The valley of the shadow of death.
I will fear no evil.
Was war what God had been thinking of in the psalm? That kind of fear? Or was He talking about the shadow of death of your spirit when you’re separated from faith?
Either . . . or both, depending on who was reading it and the message they needed from God at the time. Bailey thought right now she needed both. Not that Gage Coulter was evil. But fear. Well, right now it was taking everything she had to keep from fearing everything.
She watched the first cow tear up a bite of grass with a dull chomp. Gage Coulter was stealing the dream she’d had for this canyon. It barely even knocked her back. Oh, it was upsetting, but Bailey would just find another way to get her ranch. Gage couldn’t own the whole confounded Rockies.
Hundreds of cattle made their way down the trail. Bailey knew cattle often lined up and just followed the tail in front of them, and kept following with no thought to where they were going. Cows weren’t the smartest critters, and in a case like this, it was for the best.
At least if you were Gage Coulter.
Bailey could have found work to do, but she allowed herself to be hypnotized by the steady march of the cows. Finally, a man came over the rim, and she instantly recognized Gage. Her stomach twisted at the sight of him. She stepped inside and closed the door before he could catch her staring.
She’d have ridden off to her own cattle where he’d found her this morning, yet he’d probably just come after her. He seemed determined that she meet his cowhands. She had a couple of stalls in her barn that could use fresh straw. Work helped her get through anything.
The half-wild longhorn needed milking, and the critter didn’t care much for that, so Bailey was fully engaged with the effort. When she jumped away from the last lashing hoof, triumphant, her bucket half full, she turned to walk to the house and then stopped so suddenly she almost dropped the milk.
Gage started clapping, a smile like nothing she’d ever seen before on his face.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“That’s . . . that’s . . .” Gage burst out laughing. In all the times they’d talked, and honest it hadn’t been that many times, she’d barely seen him crack a smile. “That’s the meanest cow I’ve ever seen.” He stopped talking to laugh again.
Bailey took a threatening step toward him with the milk bucket.
He stumbled back, putting his hands up in self-defense, all without a break in the laughter. “I’m sorry. You did a great job of milking her. It’s just, I’ve never seen . . .”
He was off laughing again.
She wasn’t going to waste milk—not milk she’d worked this hard for, not even for the satisfaction of dumping it over Gage’s head. So she started for the house, and he must have thought she was going to attack because he jumped out of the way when she got near him. She just stomped right on by, heading straight out the door.
Without a look back, she knew he was following her, for she heard the occasional chuckle coming from him. She smiled as she walked, knowing what a sight she must have been, but glad her back was to him so he didn’t have to know she was enjoying the moment. And so he wouldn’t know she was proud of herself. She’d like to see him milk that wild critter of a longhorn.
She went inside and swung the door shut. It never closed. That earned him a glance. He was right on her heels, a hard man to discourage.
Knuckling a tear from the corner of one eye, still fighting laughter, he said, “My men are probably in the canyon by now. Leave the milk and come on. I want them to meet you. I’ve told them you aren’t responsible for the rockslide.”
“That’s good enough,” she replied. “I don’t need to meet them.”
“These men are used to reading the measure of others. They need to hear it from your own mouth and look you in the eye. And the word is out you’re a woman. I want to be standing right beside you to make it clear I won’t put up with a one of them treating you wrong.”
Put like that, Bailey didn’t see that she had much choice. She set the milk
bucket down with a metallic clank and pursed her lips in an unhappy scowl. “Let’s go then.” She yanked her gloves out from where she’d tucked them behind her belt buckle and stared at him.
He went to the back door, opened it, and swept a hand. “Ladies first.”
“Boy, I haven’t heard that much,” Bailey said.
“Well, it’s high time, Miss Wilde.”
She growled as she walked out of the cabin, then stumbled to a stop.
Ten men, lined up on horseback, waited just yards away from her door. She shuddered, found it near impossible to move another step. Men in groups like this . . . she hated it. She had no idea how to handle it. Why couldn’t people just leave her alone?
Gage came up beside her. She could swear that whatever reaction she’d had, she’d kept it inside. She’d stopped suddenly, but then there the men were. Of course she stopped.
And yet Gage rested his hand ever so gently on her back, and the warmth of it helped thaw the chill of fear. Then he moved his hand and stepped away, far enough that no one would get any improper ideas. She hoped.
“Men, I’d like you to meet Miss Bailey Wilde,” Gage said.
Every man except Manny reacted. Most in small ways, but she saw their surprise one and all.
Maybe the word was out that she was female, but each of those ten men must have doubted. Narrowed eyes, hands clenched on pommels, arched brows. One man dragged his hat off his head. Another shifted his eyes between Gage and her. A horse shifted under reins that must have tightened.
“Miss Wilde?” A white-haired man who had a bandage on his forehead sounded confused. “I thought Bailey Wilde was Tucker’s brother-in-law. I know for a fact I heard that.”
“Well, the facts are—”
“I’ll answer that, Coulter,” Bailey said, cutting Gage off. She refused to stand by and let these men talk about her as if she weren’t here. “I let my sisters say I was their brother, and I’ve lived as such because it suited me. I wanted to be on my own, and some folks have a problem with a woman doing that. I run my own spread and I fork my own broncs. You heard I was a man because I hoped that story would stand, but the truth is out now. And while I was willing to let folks believe what isn’t so, that’s not the same as telling a lie to a man’s face.”
“If Shannon said you were her brother, ain’t no way that’s anything but a lie.” The older man rubbed his bandage.
“Well, the lie is over.” Bailey thought of the rockslide. “I heard about that trap set for you this morning. I fight shy of people, but when I can’t, I face my troubles head on. I’d never set a trap like that. You don’t know me and you’ve no reason to trust me, and I’ve made no secret of wanting control of this canyon for myself, but I’ve spent the last three days and nights with my sisters and their husbands scouting pastureland. I need it to make up for losing this canyon.”
Bailey shoved her hands in the back pockets of her britches and looked every man in the eye, one by one. “I don’t blame you for doubting me, but Tucker will swear I’ve never been away from him until just before Gage found me this morning, over an hour’s ride from here. If you’ve been around long enough to know Tucker, and you believe his word is good, go talk to him.”
That swayed nearly every one of them. She saw it in the relaxed shoulders and a few faces that went from suspicious to confusion. It was clear to Bailey that they were now wondering the same thing she and Coulter were. If she wasn’t the one who’d set the trap, then who was?
“Bailey, let me introduce my men.” Gage started down the line. The old-timer was Rowdy, the man next to him Ike. The Mexican she’d met before, Manny, was next. The three of them looked the worse for wear, bandaged, blood on their clothes. They must’ve gotten caught in the rockslide.
Bailey took a hard look at each man, reading his eyes, looking for any sign of trouble, not that she believed she could see it coming every time. Besides, a perfectly decent man in the right situation could turn into a savage. The war had taught her that, too.
“Bailey hasn’t given us permission to cross on her land,” Gage went on. “The law is on her side, and unless she changes her mind, everyone riding in and out of this canyon will take the trail we just blasted. Like she said, she likes to keep to herself, and I expect each of you to remember that and not come onto her land, nor ask if you can.”
Bailey glanced quickly at Gage, then away. She wasn’t a pretty woman; she knew that. But there weren’t many women around, and she could already see a few of the younger men studying her in a friendly way. Nothing dangerous or threatening about it, and yet Bailey felt badly threatened.
“That’s it,” Gage said. “Let’s head home. Looks like snow tonight.” He turned to Bailey. “Once the heavy snow comes, we don’t get over here. One of the reasons I was so long in finding you was because this place is at the far end of my range. Between us, come winter, will be drifts deep enough to swallow a man on horseback.”
He tugged on his Stetson. She noticed someone had brought his big stallion over. Gage had ridden her horse to get his cattle and brought it back, then released it with her mustangs.
He untied his horse as the other men rode off. Bailey knew climbing that trail sent them miles out of their way to Gage’s spread. It wasn’t just the climb up and down, it was also that they’d end up on the far west side of the canyon with a couple of extra hours to ride around it in order to get back to this side before they could head for home.
And that extra time on a hard trail was all her fault. She opened her mouth to tell them to just go on through, and then her eyes lifted to that stupid bite taken out of the top of the canyon ridge. How many sticks of dynamite had it taken to blast that away? How much had it cost? How many man hours had they spent doing it? And now, only hours after they’d finished, she would cave like an old mine shaft and tell them she wasn’t serious about their trespassing?
She clamped her mouth shut and turned to Gage, who paused before swinging up on his horse.
“We’re just a few days, maybe a few weeks, away from being shut down for the whole winter, Bailey. Once that happens, you won’t get out until spring. How are you going to ride all that way to check your cattle?”
Bailey narrowed her eyes and refused to answer.
Gage looked at her, then at his cattle. “Listen, the canyon isn’t that full. There’s room for fifty more cows. Bring them on back and keep them here with mine.”
Bailey thought of her scouting and the fence she’d worked so hard to build. “Thanks, but I don’t want any favors from you, Coulter. I’ll manage my own herd without any handouts from you.”
“You mean you were willing to steal my canyon from me fair and square, but you won’t share it with me. Is that your idea of managing on your own?”
Bailey almost smiled at that. In fact, she must have quirked her lips, because Gage let go of his horse and took a couple of steps closer to her.
“Don’t you get lonely out here?” he asked.
The question stunned her into silence. All she heard was the whipping of the autumn wind and the steady in and out of Coulter’s breathing as he looked at her with those gray eyes.
“Your sisters are both leaving, aren’t they? I thought they’d be gone already. Masterson has been waiting, worrying about his friend, but Nev is settled in with Myra, and they seem to be all right. Tucker, well, I can see him looking to the mountaintops. It’s a wonder he hasn’t headed up to his cabin before now. It’s because of Shannon worrying about you, I think, but make no mistake about it, they will go. Are you really going to live here and not see another human being for six months? Because that’s how long it’ll be.”
Bailey’s throat closed as she thought of it. She lived a ways from Shannon and Kylie. Once the snow came down heavy, they didn’t see each other until the spring thaw. And Pa’s claim was higher up the mountain than hers. He might be snowed in already. He wasn’t one to waste energy seeing his daughters, and Bailey had no interest in risking life and limb to go
see him. She liked being alone, but she’d never been quite this alone before.
And the battle she faced this winter to get to her cattle didn’t even bear thinking about. She’d do her best, and that was all any woman could do. Finally, because she wasn’t about to show how upset she was, she sniffed and said, “Get along with you, Coulter. I like living alone. It suits me.”
Coulter kept looking right into her eyes for a long stretch. He made no secret of showing his doubts, yet he said nothing more about it.
“Goodbye, Bailey.” He swung up on horseback and faced her again. “Maybe I’ll see you again. If not tomorrow or in the next few days, then maybe in May.” He tugged on the brim of his Stetson and wheeled his horse to ride after his men.
Watching him go was the loneliest moment of Bailey’s life.
8
Then Bailey found a new definition of lonely.
She rode in a new layer of snow to Shannon’s. Tucker stood in the corral, yanking on a rope to secure a big bundle to a horse’s back. They were leaving.
Swallowing hard, Bailey looked at the other fully packed horse. Shannon’s favorite mare stood saddled alongside Gru. Tucker’s gray mare wore no saddle, and she had a bridle with no bit. The horse stayed with Tucker because it wanted to. Tucker didn’t try to tame the strange half-wild critter.
Shannon came out of the cabin pulling on her gloves. She wore a doeskin dress. Sunrise was showing Shannon how to survive in the mountains, as if they weren’t high enough right here. Shannon also wore leggings and knee-high moccasins, so the dress didn’t leave her legs bare and cold. Tucker was his usual buckskin-clad self.
Tucker noticed Bailey with a glance and a smile, then went back to work. Bailey figured he’d known she was coming for a long time. Tucker didn’t miss much.
Pausing, Shannon turned to Bailey, who rode up and dismounted. They’d both known this was coming.
“We were going to ride by your place and say goodbye.” Tears filled Shannon’s eyes, and she swiped at them with the back of her wrist. “Tucker says if we don’t go right now, we’ll be snowed away from his cabin all winter.”
Fire and Ice Page 6