Laughing, she dismounted and plopped down in the water. How good that felt after the grit and sweat her skin had accumulated during the long morning’s ride. James Lee shouted at her from the bank.
“Girl, what’re you doing?”
“Cooling off. Come on in. It feels wonderful.”
“Think I’ll pass. We’re gonna eat a bite, if you’re hungry. Just some jerky and those cold biscuits I snatched from the kitchen back at Fairhaven after we ate breakfast.”
She waded out, leading Morgan, and joined James and Renner while the cattle milled about in the water, quite content. As was she. Why couldn’t James Lee turn loose and enjoy himself? She shrugged. This was all she’d imagined and more, and she could not let him put a damper on her enjoyment. At last she was doing what she’d always dreamed of.
After the first few days, they hit the Texas Trail and swung south. As far as the eye could see in both directions, the passage of thousands of animals had beaten a wide swath till not a blade of grass survived.
Tyra stood in her stirrups and took in the sight. “Good heavens, James Lee. The ground’s near stomped to pieces. Looks like a tornado’s cut a path through here. What happened?”
“Was the Chisholm Trail first, then all those ranchers settled in Montana and Wyoming. First thing you know, they were demanding cattle, and lots of ’em. So drovers by the droves…” He paused and chuckled at his little pun, then went on. “Well, they started herding them longhorns up from Texas. Montana’s a big place. It’ll take a lot of cattle to fill up those ranches. Renner’s gonna take point. He’ll see our smaller animals don’t get tromped.”
Soon enough they met a herd of Texas cows on their way to Montana. Looking them over, she understood what James Lee meant. The rangy, near-wild longhorns kept right on coming, forcing the Aberdeens aside. It took a lot of know-how to steer clear of accidents. Good thing Renner was with them. Sometimes cattle would spread half a mile wide or more, the wicked horns bobbing above the herd like curved lances. The sound of their bawling mingled with dust to clog the air. She pulled a bandana over her mouth and nose to keep from choking. Grit gathered in her hair and clung to her skin and clothing. Still, she rode on, happy in her misery.
Only thing she could think might be worse was mud belly deep on the animals, but soon she prayed for just that—a long, cleansing rain to wash herself clean.
As conditions worsened and wranglers pushing the enormous herds grew more rude, she began to doubt that James Lee knew what he was doing. He made one heck of a good lawyer and had saved Blair Prescott from going to prison, but a talented lawyer didn’t make a drover. They spent more time getting out of the way than moving forward.
To her surprise, there were some women on the trail. Girls and young women helping out on family drives were common. For the most part they wore dresses and boots with spurs, and some wore wide-brimmed beaver-skin hats in the new style with a high crown. Accustomed to wearing britches like her idol, Calamity Jane, she fared better than most women under such conditions. In her britches, hair tucked under a sloppy hat, she appeared to be a man and was often treated as such. She learned to push when pushed.
On the fifth day out, they settled for the night well off the main trail, near a stream soon turned muddy by the thirsty cattle. Renner lay down to grab some sleep so he could take night watch, and James Lee remained in the saddle, corralling the bawling herd till they settled after the long day on the trail. He told her to get some rest, and rode around the herd, singing “Sweet Mollie Malone,” a song she had heard in England years earlier. Wonder where James learned that? She’d have to ask.
Lonely for company, she was attracted to laughter and strolled to a nearby campfire, where two young women sat on a log chattering. The smell of coffee drifted in the smoke. Maybe they’d offer her a cup.
“Good evening,” she called.
They both quieted, then rose, cautious expressions reflected in the firelight. Probably mistook her for a man.
They both wore traditional long riding skirts, full but split up the middle for riding. Boots much like her own peeked from the hems. Their white blouses had feminine ruffles at the throat and long full sleeves gathered at the cuffs.
She swept off her hat to turn her curls loose and held out her hand to the taller of the two. “Name’s Tyra Duncan. Thought I’d come over and introduce myself. Haven’t had a woman to talk to in a while.” Truthfully, she had never cottoned much to female yakking, but these two should have interesting tales to tell about their trip so far, not the usual female gossip.
The smaller of the two stepped forward and offered a hand. “Sorry, we didn’t see you were a woman. I’m Linda Paladin, and this is my sister Dorothy. Our ranch, the Crooked P, is on the Brazos. Where you from?”
“Victoria, Kansas. We’re on our way to Cuero, where my fiancé has the J Bar T. Do you know it?”
“No, but that’s near Victoria, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, she continued. “We never been very far from home till this drive. Begged our dad to let us come along. We help out on the ranch all the time, figured we could handle a little ol’ trail drive.”
Tyra couldn’t help laughing with them. “So, how do you like it so far?”
“It beats keeping the house clean and cooking for hands. Our mother died last summer, and it’s hard doing all that stuff alone. So Dad hired a Mexican woman to take care of the house and said we could come along.” Clearly the talkative one, Linda poked at the fire with a stick.
“He’s lonely,” Dorothy murmured.
Ignoring the remark, Linda gestured toward the enameled pot sitting on a rock in the edge of the fire. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, I would, thank you.”
Three cups were filled, thick cream added, and she settled with the two girls on the log near the fire.
“Are you going all the way to Montana?” Tyra sipped at the hot, strong coffee.
“Yes. Near Helena,” Linda piped before her older sister could speak.
“I can’t imagine being on the trail so long.”
Linda openly gazed at Tyra’s outfit. “Your fiancé care if you wear britches?”
Dorothy stuck her elbow in Linda’s side. “Hush. That’s not polite.”
Tyra laughed. “He has some trouble with it. But I was dressed this way the first day he met me, and he’s hung around ever since, so it’s a little late for him to say much.”
They joined each other in another round of laughter. Both girls were having a good time on the trail; that was evident from their behavior.
Linda went on with her questions, despite Dorothy’s earlier warning. “We couldn’t help noticing your cattle. Where’d you get them? They’re so fat and short-legged compared to the longhorns. You really gonna raise them on your Texas ranch?”
“They’re Aberdeen Angus. Brought over from England and Scotland. James Lee wants to breed them to some longhorns already at the ranch. Says they’ll produce better, more tender meat. The English are already cross-breeding.”
“Wolves liable to take to ’em, seeing they don’t have horns to fight back with.”
Tyra studied Dorothy. Odd she’d say that after her warning to her sister about being rude. She couldn’t help but wonder if James Lee had any inkling of wolves killing off his Aberdeen.
Linda jumped back into the conversation. “Oh, my. I can’t imagine those fat cows giving birth to a spindly-legged calf. Or a fat one with horns. Won’t that look funny?”
Tyra relaxed some more and chuckled with Linda and Dorothy. They spent a while trying to come up with the outcome of such breeding before they moved on to another topic. Cow punchers.
They were deep in a conversation about the best-looking ones, as opposed to the most polite, the dirtiest, and the meanest, when James Lee rode over.
“Been looking all over for you. Thought maybe you fell in the river or something.”
“Oh, sorry.” Tyra rose, went to him, and laid one hand on his leg.
“This is James Lee, my fiancé. We’re getting married when we get to Texas. James, this is Linda and Dorothy.”
“Paladin,” the two girls said together.
He touched the under-brim of his hat with a finger. “Good evening, ladies. Ross Paladin’s girls?”
Linda giggled and whispered, “I know what category he’d be in.”
Stifling a smile, Dorothy elbowed her, then said, “Yes. It’s nice to meet you.”
With a puzzled expression, he turned from the girls to Tyra. “You’d better be getting some sleep. Tomorrow is a long hard day, and it’ll take all three of us to move those beeves.”
Tyra wasn’t real happy with his tone or his curt dismissal of Linda and Dorothy, but he was probably tired, so she let it go. “I’m pleased to have met you both. Hope you have a safe trip to Montana. Maybe you can come on over and visit us when you get back.”
Without saying anything to James Lee, she headed for the camp. The thud of his horse’s hooves faded toward the herd. Good thing, too. She had a few choice words for him, but they’d save. He had no right to come after her and order her to bed like a good little girl. She’d make him think “Go to bed.” She mimicked his words and tossed her hat down hard before dropping to her blanket. They’d definitely have another talk about him thinking he was in charge of her. Obviously, she hadn’t made her feelings clear earlier. Lying there awake, she constructed words that would have more punch, but the smell of horse and leather on her saddle soon lulled her to sleep.
She didn’t get a chance to bid the Paladin girls goodbye. James Lee and Renner broke camp and left out before full dawn to skirt the longhorns before they got on the move. It must’ve been a half mile or more before they cleared the last of the rangy animals. They had lunch on the move, not finding an empty trail till late in the afternoon.
Renner rode point while James Lee brought up the rear. He put Tyra back in charge of keeping the side cattle in line. “So you don’t have to swallow so much dust,” he explained.
She could blamed well swallow dust if he could, but she bit her tongue and did her job. One of the cows broke free and headed off toward a patch of green grass, and she went after her. Knees gripping Morgan’s side, she turned the stubborn animal back where it belonged. A sound hammered the air, at first rolling low, like distant thunder, then building. The horse tossed his head, stiffened all four legs, ready to move out. The lead cows rolled their eyes and broke into a trot, bawling.
“Turn ’em! Now!” Renner circled out around her, whooping. “Stampede, stampede!”
The ground shook as the low rumble grew, approaching from ahead. Their only choice was to put the cows in the river off the trail beyond a strip of trees, and do it fast, letting the stampeding longhorns pass them by. She swept off her hat and joined the men in shouting and turning the herd to escape what was coming—hundreds of panicked animals, each possessing a set of wicked horns, running full out, right at them.
Those lazy cows were seldom in a hurry. It seemed they preferred to plod along just ahead of shouts to move it. The remuda of horses were first in the river. A few last stragglers must have decided plodding wasn’t the smart thing to do, and raced out of the way of the stampede just in time.
Tyra huddled in the trees with James Lee and Renner, bandanas tied over their mouths like owl hoots while the animals waded around sucking up cold creek water. Morgan kept a nose on her shoulder, and she rubbed it, speaking softly to gentle him. In horror she watched one of the punchers, caught in the middle of the mad animals, go down, horse and all. The longhorns never slowed a minute, just trampled over him, hooves pounding him into the ground. The lead punchers hurried on, unaware of the tragedy, while they continued in their attempt to slow the wild herd. One of the riders on the side nearest Tyra spotted the man in trouble and shouted, but there was nothing he could do but continue to try to control the cattle.
Her stomach turned, imagining the rider smashed under all those sharp hooves. What must it have been like to know within seconds that he could not escape? That he was doomed to be stomped to death? She bent over and gagged, but nothing came up.
Cattle bawled, dust boiled, men shouted, horses screamed. Would it never end? The tail of the herd slowed, so somewhere up ahead the worst of the stampede had been brought under control.
What could have caused such a tragedy?
A few riders turned their mounts and came back, one pointing at the ground. James Lee and Renner rode over, but Tyra could not go. She had no desire to see what was left of the drover. She turned and reined Morgan into the river with the cows, letting him drink some.
After a while Renner ambled back, looking white around the gills. “Good God. Onliest way you could tell he’d been there was his gun. They dug it out of the mess. He’s just a great pounded splotch.”
“Please do not discuss it with me. I don’t want to hear such a thing.”
He pushed his hat up and scratched his head. “Sorry, ma’am. I sometimes forget you ain’t—”
“Don’t say it. I try to be tough, and most of the time I am, but there’s just some things I’d rather not know. So you just keep it to yourself, you hear me?”
“Yes’m, I shorely do. Sorry. You are tough, if you don’t mind my sayin’. Tougher than any woman I’ve ever known.”
Anger boiled up in her, and she turned on him. “What if that had been James Lee? What would I have done then?” Her eyes watered, but she batted her lids fast to dry them before the tears trailed down her dusty cheeks.
The object of her question rode up, and Renner prodded his horse to start gathering the fat cows. The coward didn’t want any part of the upcoming conversation.
“You okay, Tyra?” James Lee rode close to her and touched her thigh.
The anger bled away, replaced by fear. An emotion she rarely knew. At the young age of fifteen she had spent a year with her cousins traveling from Scotland to her new home in Kansas, all the while sure nothing should faze her. But at this moment, deep down in the pit of her stomach, arose such dread that tears drenched her cheeks. James Lee dismounted, urged her down off her horse, and wrapped his arms around her.
“It’s okay, dearest. These things happen.” His words only made matters worse. What if this man she was to marry died? It had never occurred to her in all her young years that anyone could be snatched from her by death. She barely remembered the accident that had taken her parents, along with Wilda’s and Rowena’s. It was as if she had put that horrible experience in a locked box in the dark of her thoughts and only today had seen it broken open with the death of a man she didn’t even know. How could this be? Her parents died in a senseless accident. What would keep the same thing from happening to James?
She clung to him, his feel, the smell of his hair like the windblown prairies of Kansas, his soft, warm breath against her ear. “Promise me you won’t die. Please promise me.” Disgust overcame her. She sounded like a whiny baby. She’d bet Calamity Jane never acted like this.
“Why, Tyra. I can’t do that. We’ll all die someday.” He leaned back, lifted her chin, his blue eyes sparkling. “It’s natural. You mustn’t be so upset. I’ll be around long enough you’ll plain get tired of seeing my face.”
He kissed her on the nose, and then his lips found hers with a tenderness that sent a surprised longing down into the pit of her belly. That feeling was new.
Groaning down in his throat, he pulled her so close his taut muscles rippled against her; something hard prodded her stomach. Hmm. Something else new. Being a virgin, she only had some idea what that was, but she’d never let herself think about her and James Lee engaging in such a thing. Well, almost never. Sometimes in the night, when the moon laid a silver sheen across her bed, she imagined him lying there beside her, his hands moving ever so gently over her breasts, then his mouth, his lips. The nuns had warned her about such nonsense, and she was usually able to bring it to a halt before things got out of hand.
In his arms, a long, low “Oh” escaped
her lips when he broke the kiss.
He continued to hold her and inched back a bit so she could no longer feel the insistent probing. “I apologize, Tyra. All the excitement. We men are like that, you know.”
She couldn’t help herself. She grinned. “So I’ve been told, but I never thought…I mean, it’s…” A vision of the man going down under the pounding hooves caught her up short. “Oh, James Lee, that poor man.”
“I know, I know. Let’s not think about it anymore. I prefer to discuss something else. Like, since we will be married soon, perhaps I could…I mean, we could experiment a bit. Not everything, you understand? Just bed down together. Hold each other in comfort.”
“Why, James Lee.” She tried to act shocked, but in reality she was flattered. Things were surely different here in America, in the old west where everyone was wild and free. She could surely lay with him. The thought of feeling him pressed up against her, holding her in his arms in the stillness and dark of night was thrilling.
When they finally camped, she waited to see if James Lee would fulfill his earlier stated desire. Renner had first watch with the herd and moved away, singing in his deep voice. James Lee spread out his blanket in a small thicket, then approached her, where she sat near the fire, and held down his hand.
She took it and rose, brushing her backside with the other hand. A fist gripped at her insides, her heart thumping so hard she could feel it in her temples.
He fetched her bedroll and led her in silence. His hand curled around hers was warm, the palm and fingers tough with calluses. In the dark shadows cast by the undergrowth, he gestured for her to sit and lowered himself beside her.
“Not much of a deal since we have to keep on our clothes and boots. Can’t be caught running around barefoot and buck naked, should we have to chase after some ornery slab-sided cows.”
Eyes gleaming from the distant fire, he took her shoulders in both hands and lowered her to her back. Settling beside her, he first took her hand in one of his, then reached across and carefully cupped her breast with the other and lay still.
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