What really annoyed him was that he’d found himself watching Lynnie McBride all day whenever he didn’t think she was looking. Had he never noticed before that her hair reflected light like flames? When she rode past him, he was aware of the roundness of her bottom and how soft her skin looked. He’d never thought freckles appealing before. “Careful, hombre,” he cautioned himself, “don’t let her soften you up and make a lapdog out of you like she’s doin’ these other loco fools. Keep remembering how hot those busty tarts in the saloons in Dodge City will be—and they’ll know how to please a man. Lynnie McBride’s never even be kissed.”
It would be exciting to the man to show her how, he thought, and then was both surprised and annoyed with himself for that idea. “Lynnie McBride is a stubborn, prim old maid, and no man would want to spend his whole life havin’ his grammar corrected and his neck checked for dirt.”
Lynnie enjoyed her day chasing stray cattle and adding them back to the herd. Once in a while, she returned to the chuck wagon to check on the calves. Cookie grinned at her and waved. “They’re fine, Miss Lynnie; I’m seein’ to that.”
She gave him her warmest smile. “I knew I could count on you, Cookie.” She rode on next to Pedro. “Things going well?”
The Mexican trail boss nodded. “Sí. In two or three days, we should make the Red River and be in Indian Territory.”
She noted his concerned look. “What’s the matter?”
Pedro shook his head. “Worst river on this whole trail. The Red’s drowned many a good cowboy tryin’ to get a herd across.”
She had a sudden picture in her mind of cattle churning up the water, horses caught in the confusion or the current. “We’ve got you, Pedro, and you’ll get us through.”
“Sí, I’ve crossed the Red before. I know the shallow spots.”
“That’s good, since everyone else is so green.” She rode on, assured, and reined in next to Ace. He was so sweaty, his shirt was plastered against every inch of his muscular, virile body. She remembered what he looked like stripped down naked.
“Lordy, girl, what’s the matter? Your face is as red as a deacon who got caught with his hand in the collection plate.”
“Nothing,” she stammered. “I—I just wanted to thank you for saving the calves.”
He shrugged and grunted.
She studied his body. His pants were tight and his body muscular. The way he gripped that big horse with his thighs betrayed the strength of the man. She glanced toward his crotch, and her eyes widened at the way he filled out those denims. An image crossed her mind of this big, sweaty man naked, and the thought shocked her. Why should she care what he looked like naked and sweating? “Uh, Pedro says we’ll be at the Red River in a couple of days.”
Ace nodded. “Glad we got him with us. They say the Red’s a killer if you don’t know what you’re doin’.”
She saw a drop of sweat run down his sinewy neck and into the open neck of his denim shirt. She’d like to see him without that shirt. Lynnie, what are you thinking? she scolded herself. Why, you’re not much better than the girls at Miss Fancy’s. She wondered what it was Ace did to please them. She had a sudden image of his sensual, dark body spread out on white sheets, with those hard hands reaching for her soft, virginal body.
Ace stared at her. “What’s the matter, Lynnie? You look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs.”
“Nothing.” His naked image unnerved her so, that she put spurs to her horse and galloped on down the herd of lowing cattle.
That afternoon, a wind came up, blowing swirling dust devils across the rolling prairie.
Pedro frowned and shook his head. “This is not good. Blowing tumbleweeds spook cattle.”
“Maybe we should camp early?” Ace asked.
“Sí. Pass the word,” Pedro said. “I think there’s a creek up ahead.”
Lynnie heard the news with a tired sigh. She wouldn’t want to admit how weary she was, but she’d like a chance to rinse off and maybe wash out some of her unmentionables. Maybe she could find some bushes to hang them on where the men wouldn’t see them. It wasn’t fitting for men to see freshly laundered personal items like a lady’s underpants.
The cattle were restless in the wind, stamping their hooves and bellowing.
Pedro yelled, “We’ll need double guards tonight, hombres. It won’t take much to set them off and start a stampede.”
The boys hurried to set up camp, and she helped Cookie with a quick meal that had more than a little grit in it. The western sun had turned red on the distant prairie horizon.
Ace looked worried. “Pedro says to keep your horses saddled, boys, in case anything spooks the cattle tonight.”
“If nobody minds,” Lynnie said, “I’d like to do a little personal laundry.”
Pedro nodded. “You go right ahead, Miss Lynnie. Let the men do the ridin’ tonight, you’ve been doin’ more than your share.”
She smiled and went to get a bar of homemade laundry soap from Cookie. The old man and Twister were sharing some vanilla, and her calves were nursing on their contented mamas, the pretty ribbons making the scene look homey.
She looked around. All the cowboys seemed to be busy with chores. She got herself some clean clothes and a towel from her saddlebags, and some of her dirty clothes and bloomers. It was not yet dusk as she pulled off her sweaty clothes and swam about in the cold creek. It was indeed a delicious feeling.
Lynnie waded up onto the bank, dried herself off, and dressed. Then she took her soap and began to wash her laundry. These white bloomers with the lace trim were part of her new protest outfit, she thought with satisfaction as she rinsed and wrung the green fabric out.
Lynnie gathered up her wet laundry and looked toward the restless cattle. The wind seemed to be dying down a little. Good, she wouldn’t get her wet laundry all dusty. She found some sand plum bushes and began to spread her wash out to dry. She had just hung the last pair of bloomers over a bush near the herd when the breeze picked up unexpectedly. The wind caught her lacy white bloomers, filling them with air like a hot-air balloon. Even as she watched in disbelief, the wind took her drawers and blew them through the air and toward the herd of nervous cattle. Immediately, the cattle began to low and bellow.
“What the . . . ?” Ace, riding past the herd, tried to control his rearing black horse.
The bloomers blew through the churning cattle, creating curses and shouts from surprised cowboys. The cattle milled and bellowed in confusion, their panic building in the blowing wind.
Lynnie cried out a warning, but the surprised men were already fighting to keep the spooked cattle milling.
“Stampede!” Hank yelled, “Stampede!”
And even as Lynnie watched in horror, the herd broke and began to run.
Thirteen
For a split second, Lynnie could only watch helplessly as the big herd of longhorns milled and bawled like a great, churning brown sea. Then they broke and began to run.
“Stampede!” Ace yelled, “Goddamn it! Let’s stop ’em!”
The spell was broken, and everyone ran for their horses. Lynnie ran, too, but Ace shouted at her, his face distorted with anger. “Damn it, you’ve caused enough trouble! Stay out of the way!”
“I caused it; I’ll help stop it!” She still had a pair of bloomers in her hand as she swung up on her horse and spurred Boneyard into a gallop, running along beside the thundering herd. The chuck wagon was in the way of the rampaging cattle. She yelled a warning to Cookie, who grabbed up the last baby calf and clambered inside. As she passed, the chuck wagon trembled against the onslaught of the running brown wall and flipped over on its side. Her mare was caught in the forward momentum, and Lynnie couldn’t stop to see if Cookie was all right. The most important task at this instant was stopping the panicked, headlong plunge of longhorns.
All the cowboys were in the saddle, running along the sides of cattle, trying to contain them so the herd wouldn’t split and scatter over t
he prairie, where the wranglers might never find all the stragglers. Up ahead of her through the churning dust, she saw Pedro galloping. Then his horse stumbled and went down. The momentum flung him to one side so that he didn’t fall under the pounding hooves, but the way he cried out, barely heard over the roar, told her he was hurt.
It seemed unreal, she thought. Her ears rang with noise that sounded like a tornado or a thunderstorm as thousands of hooves drummed the ground and the cattle ran on. Her mouth tasted of grit, and she felt perspiration running down her back in the evening twilight. Around her, red dust boiled up from the charging cattle so that her vision blurred and her spectacles became coated with a film of dust. There seemed to be no stopping the spooked cattle, she thought as she topped a rise and galloped down the other side. Here and there, she saw a blurred vision of hard-riding cowboys, but the longhorns charged on like a great brown wave crashing across the prairie. Far ahead of her, she saw Ace riding expertly, attempting to reach the herd leaders. Her heart almost stopped, knowing the men who reached the front of the stampede were putting themselves in grave danger, because their job was to turn the leaders, get the herd milling in confusion so that they stopped running. Sometimes, she knew, the riders trying to stop the lead steers were caught in the whirlwind and fell beneath the steers as they began to mill.
She wasn’t going to let that happen to Ace. This stampede was her fault, and she had a fast horse. She urged Boneyard forward, and now they were running neck and neck with Ace and his great black stallion.
Ace looked first surprised and then angry as he glanced to one side and saw her. “Get the hell back!” He waved her away.
She hesitated, then decided to ignore him. She had a good horse and she was an expert rider. In answer, she passed Ace, shouting and waving her bloomers at the cattle. For a heart-stopping moment, she was ahead of the longhorns, seeing the whites of their eyes rolling in terror, their great horns flashing in the last rays of sunlight, dust churning up in a great red cloud. “Ha!” she shouted, and waved her drawers at the cattle. “Ha! Get back there!”
“You little idiot!” Ace was beside her, shooting his pistol to turn the herd. Around the other side came Hank and Comanch, their guns echoing above the thunder of the herd. The cattle hesitated, bawling, then began to mill in confusion, those behind the leaders stumbling as the leaders stopped.
Cattle almost always mill to the right. Lynnie remembered the tales she had heard from old-timers. Knowing that, she reined her horse to follow the leaders and prevent them from starting off again. The cattle appeared as startled as the cowboys when Lynnie waved her underwear.
If they broke the mill and started running again, she and her tired horse would be swept under the longhorns as they charged toward her. Her horse reared, neighing, and Lynnie had never been so scared in her life. If she went down under the great brown mass, they wouldn’t find enough of her to bury.
Ace fired his pistol again, charging into the mill. “Hah! Get back there! Hah, cows!”
The cattle hesitated, dusty and lathered with sweat as were the horses, but they began to mill in confusion as the other wranglers caught up with the leaders, cracking their whips, forcing the cattle to stop. Now the herd was a churning, bawling mass, but the stampede was over. Within minutes, the tired cattle were barely moving, lathered and blowing as the cowboys began to sing, soothing the frightened beasts.
Lynnie sighed with relief as she rode off to one side and reined in her horse. There she dismounted and leaned against her saddle, trembling violently as she suddenly realized how close she’d come to death.
Ace galloped up. “Damn you, you nearly got us all killed!” He swung down off his horse, whirled her around, and looked into her face, suddenly concerned. “Are you all right?”
She tried to hold back the tears but couldn’t stop herself. “I didn’t go to do it,” she sobbed. “It just ha—ha—happened.”
“Oh hell, I know you didn’t go to do it, silly female.” He pulled her to him awkwardly and stroked her hair. “It’ll be all right.”
“The chuck wagon,” she sobbed against his big chest. “I saw the chuck wagon go over and Pedro go down.”
He swore and stepped away, then swung up on his horse. “Nothin’ but trouble on this drive,” he muttered, and put spurs to his lathered horse and galloped back down the line.
Yes, she had been nothing but trouble. She couldn’t blame him for being furious. She felt so alone and vulnerable now, remembering the comfort of his arms. With a sigh, she wiped her eyes and mounted up, following him to see how bad the damage was. Here she’d been trying to prove that women could do things as well as men, and she’d messed it all up. With eyes downcast, she rode past the cowboys who were now rounding up the strays from the stampede. How they must hate her.
Pedro’s horse stood ground-tied where the Mexican had fallen. Ace had propped him up against a stump. She dismounted and ran to join them. “Oh, Pedro, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right, señorita.” He nodded. “I was just tellin’ the boy here, I’m not hurt bad, I think.”
Ace was examining him. “He’s got a broken leg. He’s not going to be able to ride. I’ll get him some whiskey.”
They all looked toward the chuck wagon.
“Thunderation.” Lynnie stood up. “We forgot about Cookie.”
Ace’s dark eyes betrayed his fear. “That old bastard is too pickled to be hurt.”
“I heered that!” came from the overturned wagon.
Lynnie laughed with relief, and Ace grinned. “He must not be hurt too bad.”
They both ran over and peered inside. Cookie lay sprawled among overturned flour and sugar canisters, with four beribboned calves bawling in protest.
“You hurt?” Lynnie asked.
“Dagnab it, nothin’ but my dignity,” the old man complained.
Hank and some of the others rode up.
Ace said, “Help me get this chuck wagon back on its wheels, and then we’ll see what we can do about Pedro.”
Tired, dusty men dismounted. “Pedro hurt bad?”
She felt shame and chewed her lip as Ace said, “We’ll have to send him back. Pedro can’t ride with a broke leg.”
“I’m sorry,” Lynnie said. “I’m really sorry.”
Ace shrugged. “It’s our fault for lettin’ a female come along. Women don’t belong on a cattle drive.”
“Aw, Ace,” Hank said, “go easy on the lady. She didn’t go to do it.”
“That don’t make me no never-mind,” Ace snapped. “She’s still caused a big mess. Hold on, Cookie,” he shouted, “we’re fixin’ to get the wagon up on its wheels.”
As she watched, Ace put his strong back into his lift as the other cowboys rushed to help. In seconds, they had righted the wagon, and it didn’t seem badly damaged.
Ace peered inside. “Cookie, you hurt?”
“No, but these danged calves peed on me.”
“Lynnie,” Ace ordered, “get some bandages and the whiskey out of the chuck wagon.”
She peered in as Cookie moved a bawling calf off his lap. They were all covered with sugar and flour.
Cookie’s eyes lit up. “There’s whiskey?”
Ace grinned in spite of himself. “Knowing you, I hid it in the liniment bottle.”
“Well, that’s a damned dirty trick—excuse my language, Miss Lynnie. At least my bottle of vanilla ain’t broke.” He began to dust the spilled flour off the bawling calves while the anxious cows clustered around the wagon.
Daisy Buttercup looked like a ghost, but she complained mightily as Cookie dusted off the flour and Lynnie picked her up and put her on the ground for her anxious mother. Then she searched out the bandages and the liniment bottle, then followed Ace back to where Comanch squatted by the injured trail boss. Lynnie held out the bottle, and Pedro took a big swig.
Ace asked, “How bad is it, compadre? ”
Pedro wiped sweat from his swarthy face. “It hurts, but i
f I get it bandaged, I think I can go on.”
Lynnie exchanged glances with Ace. Ace looked beaten. For the first time, his wide shoulders seemed to slump. If Pedro had a broken leg, they both knew he wouldn’t be able to sit a horse.
“Lynnie, go find me some sticks we can use as a splint. I thought we passed a cottonwood tree back there somewheres. Joe, you tell the boys to meet at the chuck wagon in about an hour so we can assess the damage and decide what we’re gonna do next.”
Lynnie glanced around. All the boys looked depressed. This is the end of the drive, she thought, and it’s all my fault. Without an experienced trail boss like Pedro, they would have to cut short the trip and go home like defeated hound dogs with their tails between their legs. True, Cookie had made the trip before, but with his taste for anything alcoholic, they couldn’t count on him to lead them. In the meantime, Willis Forrester and Purdy would get top dollar for their beef in Dodge City and return to Texas in triumph.
She rode back and found some fallen branches that could be cut up for a splint. Following Pedro’s instructions, the novice hands helped straighten the leg and bandage it. Then some of the cowboys put the injured man on a blanket and carried him back to camp. In the meantime, Cookie had gotten a fire started and a big pot of coffee boiling.
The old geezer was coated with flour until he looked like a spook, but he seemed cheerful. “Boys tell me one steer got kilt in the stampede, so we got steak if anyone’s hungry.”
The cowboys grinned.
Hank said, “You ever see a cowboy not hungry?”
After a hearty meal and some broth for Pedro, the wranglers gathered around the fire to talk as darkness fell. Lynnie was so ashamed, she couldn’t look at any of the men.
“I think I could sit a saddle,” Pedro said, and nobody else said anything, knowing the pain would be unbearable.
Ace shook his head. “Gracias, compadre, but you’d never make it. Is there a railroad anywheres near?”
Pedro thought a minute and nodded. “A few miles to the east. It connects with a stage line farther south. Why?”
To Tame A Texan Page 18