A Cowboy for Clementine (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Floyd, Susan

  “I think we need to go in another direction,” Ryan said after he dismounted to study some tracks. “There’s nothing around except deer.”

  “I wouldn’t expect the cows to come up this high,” Randy added.

  Clem felt awful. It had been her suggestion that had brought them here, which was quite a distance from their original position. “We can go down this way and get close to where we were about an hour ago, but it’s a little steep.”

  “What’s a little steep?” Dexter asked.

  She led them to the path and pointed down. It was the equivalent to a dead man’s run at a ski resort. If a horse stumbled, there’d be nothing to break the fall except for the odd boulder and some wild sage. The one time she’d taken it she’d barely survived.

  Randy whistled, then flashed an I-dare-you smile at Ryan. “That little slope? Why, that’s nothing but a hill. Last one to the bottom is a rotten egg.” Without giving himself a moment to change his mind, he spurred Shuckabur and was gone. Ryan followed, shouting good-natured obscenities at Randy the whole way down.

  “Go next,” Dexter instructed.

  Clementine hesitated. It wasn’t just a little steeper than she’d remembered, it was a lot steeper. She’d been a teenager when she’d tried it, and not nearly as concerned with her mortality as she was now.

  She flashed Dexter a fake smile and countered, “You go. I’ll be right behind you.”

  DEXTER REGARDED CLEMENTINE. He’d been around enough frightened animals to know she was terrified.

  “Don’t look,” he advised. “Trust Archie to know what to do.”

  “I’m not scared,” she denied. “I just don’t want to go first. You go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Dexter didn’t believe her cheerful tone for a second. “No. I want you to go.”

  Clem was silent for a long time, her eyes fixed on the path. She bit her lip and then looked at him helplessly. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I lied before. I’m scared.”

  Dexter chuckled.

  “It’s okay to be scared,” he said. “Just don’t let it keep you from doing what you need to be doing.” He stopped, struck by the words. Once, long ago, he’d said as much to Joanna. He frowned, trying to push away another memory.

  “I’m not going that way, Dex. I’m not.” Joanna’s lip trembled. She looked very small on the saddle.

  He felt awful. Joanna was only eleven, too young to go on the trip, but they were here now and there was no other way home.

  “You need to be brave,” he said. “I know you can do this.”

  “I don’t want to.” Joanna started to cry.

  “No, no crying.” He couldn’t believe he’d made her cry. “Just suck it up and do it.” He knew he sounded harsh, but it was the only way to get her down this mountain—the only way to make her independent.

  Tears pouring down her face, she took the plunge. Halfway down, he heard her scream with delight.

  When he met her at the bottom, the tears had dried up.

  “Can I do that again, Dex? Can I do it again?”

  “Hey! Where are you guys?” Randy yelled up the embankment. “Ryan’s found something.”

  “Come on.”

  “No.” Clem sat frozen, clutching the horn of her saddle. “You go. I’ll meet you back at the truck in an hour or so.”

  “Nope.” Dexter grinned. Then he hooked one of her reins and uttered a short command to Archie. “We’re going down.” And together they went over the side of the mountain.

  CLEM’S STOMACH FLEW to her throat as Archie headed straight down. She felt like she was on a roller coaster but wasn’t strapped in. She choked back a scream and hung on for dear life, feeling Archie scramble for his footing. Halfway down, Dexter flipped her the reins, and although she grabbed them, she just closed her eyes and let Archie do the work. She braced herself for the inevitable fall, but it never happened.

  At the bottom, Dexter turned and said with a laugh. “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  If Clem had been able to form words, she would have disagreed.

  “Breathe,” he reminded her. “You won’t feel so sick.”

  She inhaled sharply, amazed he could tell she was nauseous.

  Randy rode up to them. “This way. Ryan’s found something.”

  “Go ahead,” she gasped. “I’m right behind you.”

  With a nod, Dexter followed Randy.

  A few moments later, Clem and Archie trotted over to the men, and she finally realized she was out of her league. These guys were elite cowboys, able to do anything and everything on horseback. She’d always thought Archie was fit and well-trained, but he was hard-pressed to keep up with the other horses.

  “What did you find?” she asked, grateful her breath was under control.

  “They’re really close,” Ryan said. “It seems as if the cattle cut through here. What’s that way?”

  “It’s an old box canyon. There’s a really narrow fissure that I was able to squeeze through when I was younger. But the only other way in is through the creek bed.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They rode for another half hour before they ended up on the creek bank across from the entrance to the canyon.

  “There can’t be any feed around here,” Randy said, looking around.

  “Much of this is volcanic rock,” Clem said. She directed Archie to walk into the shallow creek. “One thing the area does have is plenty of water.”

  “Where are we in relation to the house?” Ryan asked.

  “About twenty miles as the crow flies, but we’re actually not that far from the trucks.”

  “Really? How’s the path from there to here.”

  “Well, you just rode part of it,” Clem said.

  “So that plateau would be as good a place as any to set up the corral.”

  “We could even bring a truck most of the way,” Randy suggested.

  Dexter frowned. “Maybe Clem’s truck. It’s pretty narrow. But the full-size trucks would never make it. The last thing we need is a truck on its head.”

  “Let’s find the cows first. They’ve got to be close.” Ryan sniffed the air. “I can smell them. What’ll we find if we follow the creek?”

  Clem thought and then smiled. “I don’t know how I forgot, but there’s a small pasture that dries up in the heat of the summer. I bet the rain we had has rejuvenated the grass.”

  “There’s the feed.” Ryan nodded.

  “Water, food. That’s all they need,” Randy spurred Shuckabur forward. “Let’s go get them. Clem, lead the way.”

  Clem was more than happy to oblige. At least this was something she could do. She took them down the creek to a small valley. When they got there, she almost cried with relief.

  Hundreds of fat, healthy cows, all with her family’s brand, grazed. They looked up at the new activity, but then dismissed the newcomers as no threat and went back to chewing.

  “We found your cows,” Randy said.

  “Isn’t that a beautiful sight?” she asked. If they got these cows in quickly, she just might be able to put out another herd before her parents came to town. Her elation bubbled up and she laughed. “Ryan, you are a wonder. How many do you think there are?”

  Ryan had been estimating apparently. “Near four hundred. That means there’s another pocket of them still hiding.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you. If you were closer, I’d kiss you!” Clem actually clapped her hands in excitement.

  “No kissing or clapping yet.” Dexter moved Calisto right next to Archie. “Finding them was the easy part. Now we’re going to have to get them back home.”

  “That’s your job, Dex. I’ve done mine,” Ryan smiled with mock smugness.

  They spent the next three hours scouting the area. After Dexter called a break, they chewed on venison jerky, and began to plan, Clem just listening as they batted around ideas. Finally a real strategy began to emerge.

  Dexter loo
ked up to the sun. “We should head back. There’s only a couple more hours of daylight, and I don’t want to be stuck in these canyons after dark. Plus, Clem has to get on the phone. We need those men for tomorrow.”

  THE NEXT DAY, five men joined the team, and the morning was spent setting up the pens on the plateau they’d parked on the day before.

  “So what’s the plan?” Ryan asked Dexter.

  “We’ll have to try to get them to follow the creek,” Dexter said. “We need to put three riders on each side. Randy, Ryan and I’ll be in the back and then we’ll let the dogs go. They’ll do the majority of the job. If everything goes as planned, we can get them on the path right to the pens.”

  Clem nodded, more excited than she’d been in a long time. She understood Dex’s plan and she knew it was going to work.

  “The riders on the left will have to be very careful to block the entrance to the canyon. These cows might stampede, and we don’t want them to head in there. It would be a big, fat waste of time waiting for them to find their way out.”

  “I think we should start with just a few and then go back for more,” Ryan said.

  Randy disagreed. “I think once the dogs start in, it’s going to be all or nothing.”

  “But we don’t know if we can control the flow.” Ryan was ever the conservative.

  “We’ll soon see. Once the dogs get going we’ll just have to try to keep the cows going in the right direction.” Randy’s attitude was practical.

  Dexter turned to Clem. “They’re your cows. What do you think? Small groups or the whole she-bang?”

  She shook her head. “I leave it up to you.”

  “Make a decision,” he said, his voice mild but insistent.

  “I agree with Randy,” she said slowly. “I think once the dogs start barking, all the cows will make a break for it. We won’t have a choice to take them out in controlled numbers.”

  Dexter nodded. “Okay. We try for the whole herd. Probably the worst that can happen is we’ll lose a few.”

  Clem’s heart was thumping hard as she positioned herself next to two hands.

  At Dexter’s signal, the dogs raced forward.

  The commotion was unreal, but the cows did begin to bunch together. One cow tried to escape, but Clem was able to cut off its path. When it rejoined the group, Clem felt a thrill she hadn’t known before.

  She was so busy watching her part of the line that she wasn’t aware of what was going on elsewhere, but she began to worry when she realized she couldn’t hear the cows enter the creek. The water level was low, but she should have been able to hear splashing.

  The yelp of a dog had her peering through the dust, but she couldn’t see anything. She had to abandon her search, though, when a bunch of cows began to break left.

  “No!” she shouted. The creek was straight ahead. She needed to keep them heading for the creek. But all her efforts were futile, and she watched with increasing dismay as they funneled through the small opening to the box canyon, where there was nothing but sandstone and space.

  Ryan reined his horse right next to her, his eyes watching, evaluating. “I knew he was wrong,” he said, his voice irritated.

  Clem looked around her, trying to find Dexter’s familiar gray hat. “Where’s Dexter?” she asked Ryan. “Where’s Randy?”

  Ryan grinned at her. “They’re trying to turn the cows from the other side. I think they figured they could block the escape route and get the cows to head back this way.”

  “It won’t work,” Clem protested. “Dex and Randy’ll be crushed.”

  “Why? There should be room for all of them.” He made a small attempt at a joke. “I know Randy’s been eating a lot lately—”

  “You don’t understand,” Clem swallowed, trying to control her panic. “It looks big, but the further in you go, the narrower it gets. There’ll be nowhere for the guys to go.”

  “We need to see if we can at least turn the cows that haven’t made it through,” Ryan said, spurring his horses. “You go from the south.”

  He quickly explained the plan to the other men, then waited for everyone to get into place. “Now!”

  Without another thought, she rode Archie directly at the cows that were still heading toward the canyon. Her effort was rewarded when a cow veered off in the other direction. That got the rest of them running away from the canyon entrance.

  “Is there another way into the canyon?” Ryan shouted, after they’d managed to turn the remaining cows. “We need to get to Randy and Dex.”

  Clem didn’t answer. The first time she’d been in the canyon the creek had been high. The only way in had been a fissure just big enough for a man walking a horse to get through.

  “It’s got to be here,” she muttered, searching desperately. “I know it’s here somewhere. It’s around a rock. A large boulder.” She drew in a deep breath. Sandstone boulders eroded with time, and she hadn’t thought about this entrance in almost fifteen years.

  Then she saw a round sandstone rock, hidden beneath the bushes. Scrambling off Archie, she hoped it was what she was looking for. Ryan dismounted and joined her.

  “What are we looking for?” he asked.

  “A fissure.” She fought her way past the brush, ignoring the burs and branches, until she got the boulder.

  “It’s a big fissure, another entrance to the canyon. But it might have closed, eroded. Oh, let it be here. Please let it—here it is!”

  She pulled away thorny vines that had got hold of the sandstone, obscuring the opening. She grabbed her hunting knife from her saddle and began slashing away at the vines. What she found wasn’t encouraging. The opening was smaller than she’d thought. She held her breath and started to squeeze through.

  A hand yanked her back.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “That looks unsafe,” Ryan said. He had a small shovel. “Let me go first.”

  Systematically he began to whack at the walls. The sandstone rained down on top of him. “This could collapse.”

  “We only need it to hold until we can get them out.”

  “It’s going to be a tight squeeze for the horses.”

  “I don’t care about the horses!” Clem yelled, pushing past him.

  The fissure was dark and narrow, and condensation dripped on her head. Apparently this was the perfect condition for the vines. She began hacking at them, fear of what she was going to find adding strength to her frenzied strokes. What seemed like hours later, she emerged to see that Dexter and Randy had only a limited amount of room to maneuver. Despite the hands’ best efforts, some cows were still trying to crowd into the canyon.

  “Dexter! Randy!” she hollered, desperate to get their attention. Belatedly she realized that theirs wasn’t the only attention that she caught. A cow had its eyes trained on her.

  DEXTER WASN’T SURE how Clem had managed to get into the canyon. She was right in the path of a cow who had nowhere to go but through her. Using every skill he possessed, he managed to bump and jostle his way through the cows to get to Clem. At the last possible moment, he threw his rope and managed to snap the horn of the charging cow.

  “Get the hell out of there!” he yelled.

  Clem nodded and signaled for him to follow her. She disappeared into the vines.

  Then Randy shouted, “She’s found a way out.”

  Dexter let go of the rope and followed Randy, sliding off Calisto right before the opening.

  Clem met them, holding the vines aside.

  “You have to lead Calisto and Shuckabur through,” she said. “It’s really narrow.”

  “Narrow is better than dead,” Randy commented. “I can feel cow breath on my neck. Scoot on through, Clem. You are a lifesaver.”

  The horses shot out of the small crevice like a cork out of a champagne bottle. They shook their manes to rid themselves of the debris, all the time whinnying their intense displeasure. Ryan grabbed their reins, calming them with a soothing voice.

  Dexter and Randy
collapsed on the ground, looking up at the sky.

  Ryan stared down at them and addressed his brother, “You never listen to me do you?”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Randy said confidently. “I knew there had to be a way out.”

  “You did not,” Dexter accused with a grin. But the grin faded when he caught sight of Clem. She looked like she was going to pass out. Her face was ashen gray.

  He stared at her, thinking she was the most beautiful woman in the world. “Are you okay?” His voice was gruff.

  She nodded, but he didn’t believe her. Finally some color came back into her cheeks.

  “That was quick thinking on your part, Clem,” Randy complimented her. “I think we owe you our lives.”

  “I know you owe me your lives,” Clem said. She plopped down next to them. “This isn’t worth it, guys. No herd is.”

  Dexter could feel her tremble next to him. He grabbed her hand, surprised at how cold it was.

  “It’s part of the thrill,” he said gently. “We’re fine.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. She shook her head. “This isn’t thrilling. This is scary. If Ryan hadn’t been able to turn away so much of the herd, you both would have been trapped or killed. This is too dangerous. I think we should just shoot them. I’ll take my losses.”

  “No!” all three men said in unison.

  “We’ve come this far. We’ll get them out of the canyon.” Ryan nodded.

  “What are you going to do? Bribe them?” Clem’s voice was high, the pitch alone evidence of her shock.

  Dexter shook his head. “Won’t need to. They’re not happy where they are, so they’ll eventually find their way out. It’s easy. We just have to wait. And then we’ll take them twenty or thirty at a time, the way we originally planned.”

  “Twenty trips rather than one?” Clem asked.

  “We have the time,” Ryan said gently. “And you’ll have your herd.”

  When Clem didn’t respond, Dexter patted her hand. “Please, Clem. It’s going to be smooth sailing from here. You’ve had a bad scare. But this is just part of the job.”

  Finally, she swallowed and stood up, dusting herself off. “Well, then,” she said. “I guess we’d better go back and see what we can do about the others.”