“I’ll help you look,” he said, “but dry your hair first. You’ll catch a cold, going out into the dawn like that.”
BY THE TIME Guthrie and Blue arrived at the ranch, the bedlam surrounding Roon’s disappearance had been somewhat calmed by a domineering Ramalda, who had the other four boys under her scrutiny at the kitchen table. She set a fresh pot of coffee atop the table as he came into the kitchen, and said, in her very broken English, “You sit,” nodding to his chair, and then, “They went to look for missing boy. You eat. You too thin. You sick, maybe?”
Guthrie hung his hat on a wall peg and glanced at the four boys who sat at the table. Jimmy, Martin, Joe and Dan. “Roon’s gone?” he said.
Jimmy nodded. “Never slept in his bed last night. Must’ve run off.” The boy’s thin shoulders lifted and fell on a shrug. “Maybe he didn’t want to work here.”
Guthrie sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. “So they’re searching for him?”
Jimmy nodded again. “They left about half an hour ago. They took the truck.”
“You think he went back to the reservation?”
“Maybe. Roon doesn’t say much.”
Guthrie tasted his coffee and glanced at Ramalda, who was stirring something on the stove. He got to his feet, taking his cup with him. “Maybe I’ll go down to the barn and check on the horses while she finishes up breakfast. You boys stay put.”
Blue followed closely as Guthrie descended the porch steps. His hip pained him badly, and no amount of willpower could negate the depth of that pain. He took the steps one by one, carefully balancing the cup of strong brew and rewarding himself with another sip when he reached the bottom. He limped down to the barn, where the horses were milling about in the corrals, having already finished their hay and grain. Billy Budd watched his approach, ears pricked and dark eyes calm and intelligent. “Hey, Billy,” Guthrie said, leaning against the fence and reaching to brush the long tangled forelock out of the gelding’s eyes. “Hey, old man.”
He pushed the inquisitive muzzle gently away and was turning toward the barn when he froze and looked back into the corral. He counted heads once, then twice. The little grulla mare named Mouse was missing. He finished his coffee, set the cup on a post and grabbed a rope hanging inside the barn. The horses immediately crowded to the opposite side of the corral with much snorting and head tossing when he opened the gate. It was a game to them, this duck-and-shy business. Any one of them would gladly spend the day under saddle out on the range, but that didn’t mean they’d rush over and open their mouths for the bit. Nossir. They liked this little game and they played it well, but they knew when Guthrie shook out his rope that it wouldn’t last long.
He dabbed the loop over Gunner, the dun gelding that Jimmy had favored, and twenty minutes later he was in the saddle and he and Blue were heading up the trail that edged the creek, following the tracks of a little mouse-colored mare and hoping that they would lead him to Roon.
“SO TELL ME,” Caleb said as he pointed his pickup toward Katy Junction. “What did you mean when you said that Roon was on suicide watch?”
Pony was looking out the windows, scanning the sides of the road, the ditches, the gullies. “He tried to kill himself after he was caught stealing a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store. He thought they were going to put him in jail, so he took a rope and tried to hang himself.”
Caleb glanced at her, appalled. “He failed, obviously.”
“The rope he used was rotten and it broke. His mother found him unconscious in the shed. Adolescents who are at risk for suicide are given special counseling and are monitored closely at school, but when Roon dropped out of school he lost that support. Then his parents and younger siblings left the reservation, and shortly after that he came to me.”
“Has he tried suicide again?”
Pony shook her head. “That doesn’t mean he won’t. I try to talk to him, but he is so full of anger. He keeps it all inside and shares nothing. I hoped that a summer on your ranch, being outdoors and doing hard physical work, would help him work through this bad time.”
Caleb drove in silence for a while, and when he passed through Katy Junction he slowed and, on a hunch, pulled up beside a forest-green pickup with official insignia on its side, parked in front of the Longhorn Cafe. “Ben Comstock, the warden, is inside,” he explained. “I’ll just go in and tell him to keep his eyes peeled, then we’ll head wherever you think Roon might have gone.”
“The only world he knows is the reservation,” she said. “But his family is gone. I don’t know why he would want to return there.”
She waited in the truck while he went inside and stepped up to the counter beside Ben Comstock, nodding to Badger and Charlie, who were sharing their usual table and quarreling about something. Bernie slid a cup of coffee in front of him, and Comstock gave him a questioning glance over the rim of his own cup.
“What’s wrong?” Bernie asked. “You’ve got trouble written all over your face.”
“I’ve lost one of my hired hands,” Caleb explained. “A thirteen-year-old named Roon.”
Badger abandoned his quarrel with Charlie, pushed out of his chair and carried his coffee to the counter. “Well, I guess it’s begun,” he said with a shake of his head. “The work was too much for them and they’re sneakin’ off.”
“The work hasn’t even started yet,” Caleb reminded him. “He never slept in his bed last night.”
“That right?” Badger cocked an eyebrow. “Hell, when I cowboyed full-time at that ranch, I use to throw my bedroll up in the hayloft. It sure beat listening to Charlie and Drew snoring their brains out in the bunkhouse, and a bed of sweet-smelling hay is pretty tough to beat.”
“Did you check the barn?” Comstock asked.
Caleb felt a flush of embarrassment. “Well, actually, no. Never thought to. I fed the horses, but I didn’t check up in the loft.”
Bernie handed him the portable phone. “Call the ranch and have someone go look,” she said. “He’s probably sound asleep. Boys his age need lots of it.”
Caleb dialed. Ramalda answered. He tried several times to get her to put one of the boys on but she didn’t understand. “No comprendo, no comprendo!” she kept repeating. “Hold on!” he ordered, laid the phone on the counter and went back out to the truck. “I need you to tell Ramalda to put one of the boys on the phone,” he told Pony. “Badger and Comstock seem to think Roon might be sleeping up in the barn loft and I need them to go check for me.”
Pony followed him into the restaurant, eliciting admiring glances from the male patrons and a warm, welcoming smile from Bernie. She picked up the phone and spoke a stream of rapid-fire Spanish into it, listening for a long moment afterward before ending the conversation with words that even Caleb understood. “Sí, sí, muchas gracias, Ramalda. Hasta luego.” She handed the phone to Bernie and looked at him. “Roon took one of the horses and Guthrie has gone after him,” she said, then abruptly turned on her heel and departed the little restaurant.
“Yepper.” Badger nodded sagely as soon as the door closed behind her, smoothing his mustache with the knuckle of his forefinger. “Horse stealing is one of an Injun’s favorite old-time occupations. That and killing buffalo.”
CHAPTER FIVE
GUTHRIE HAD NO IDEA if Roon knew much about horses, but the boy was headed for the high country on a mare that could take him there and then some. Guthrie also didn’t know how much of a head start Roon had. He gave Gunner free rein and let him lope when he could in order to close the distance between himself and the boy more rapidly, but soon the only gait possible was a walk or jog as the trail climbed the steepening flank of Montana Mountain, heading toward Dead Woman Pass.
“Damn-fool kid,” he muttered, reining Gunner in to let the gelding blow after a particularly steep stretch. He would have swung out of the saddle and led the horse for a while but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back aboard. “Sooner or later he’ll run into snow. The pass is still full of it.�
�� Gunner’s ears flickered at the sound of Guthrie’s voice, and he rubbed the horse’s shoulder with a gloved hand. “Where does he think he’s going to, and what’s he running from?”
It was easy enough to track the mare. She was freshly shod, and her hoofprints were clearly defined by her iron shoes. By noon those hoofprints had left the main trail and skirted along the south flank of the mountain, as if heading toward the high meadow and the line camp at Piney Creek. When he finally spotted the mare, he did a double take before reining in the dun gelding. Mouse was standing beside a big outcropping of rock, grazing on the tender shoots of young grass at its base. The boy was sitting on the rock, arms folded and resting on his knees, which were drawn to his chest. In one hand he held the mare’s halter rope. Roon sat motionlessly while Guthrie approached. Only the mare showed any response, raising her head and whickering softly when she recognized Gunner, then lowering it to sniff at the little cow dog.
The sun was strong here, and it felt good. Guthrie eased himself in the saddle and let the warmth soak into him. The boy didn’t speak. Guthrie gazed out at the distance that reached beyond the rugged peaks of the Beartooth Mountains, beyond the plains, beyond the boundaries of his imagination. He filled his lungs with the wild Montana wind and said, “It’s real pretty up here, isn’t it? You can see just about forever.”
Still the boy said nothing. His hair was long and loose and blown back from his face, and his expression was devoid of emotion. He kept his eyes fixed on the distance, never looking in Guthrie’s direction or acknowledging his presence. Guthrie reached back and unbuckled a saddlebag. He took out a couple of Snickers bars and several long twisted pieces of dried beef wrapped in a piece of muslin cloth. “You must be hungry after that ride.” He reached over and laid the snacks on the rock beside the boy. “It ain’t much, but it’ll hold you till Ramalda can fill you up proper.” He bit into a piece of jerky and commenced to chew. “Jessie made this stuff,” he commented after he’d worked on it for a while. “I guess she figures most of the enjoyment is in the chewin’, because it takes about half an hour of solid work before you can swallow the stuff. Not that I’m complaining. It’s mighty tasty.”
He finished the stick of jerky and decided against a second, tossing it to Blue instead and uncapping his water bottle for a long drink. The dog devoured the tough beef strip with no problem at all. “Well, I guess if we’re gonna make it back before dark, we’d best get started. Drink?” he offered, extending the water bottle.
Roon looked at him for the first time. His eyes were black and turbulent with some emotion Guthrie couldn’t read. “I came here looking for the buffalo,” he said.
Guthrie capped the bottle. “They’re up here somewheres, I don’t doubt.” He dangled the bottle’s strap around the saddle horn. “Maybe we’ll spot ’em on the way down. We’ll head over to Piney Creek and start down from there. That’s where we spotted ’em last, over on the Piney.”
The black eyes studied him intently. “I took one of your horses.”
Guthrie nodded. “A good horse, too. Mouse is about as tough as they come. You did well to ride her that way. She’s an independent-minded lady.” He smoothed the dun’s mane, wishing the pain in his hip would ebb and dreading the ride back down the mountain. He drew a steadying breath and tugged his hat down a bit tighter against the pull of the wind. “Well, Blue, let’s see if we can’t scare us up some buff,” he said to the dog as he headed Gunner into a downhill walk, angling the slope toward the cutoff that led to Piney Creek. He didn’t look behind to see if Roon was following. There was nothing he could do to make the boy obey. There was only the certainty that the sun was westering, that the ride ahead of them was long, and that darkness would eventually come.
By the time the dun entered a grove of wind-stunted spruce less than a quarter mile from the rock outcropping, Guthrie heard the swift, light hoofbeats of the grulla mare playing catch-up, and his stomach muscles unclenched.
It would have been a sorry thing to have returned to the ranch without Roon.
PONY SHADED HER EYES against the powerful rays of the setting sun and looked for the hundredth time to where the trail to Dead Woman Pass began. Nothing. She whirled about, digging her hands into her jeans pockets and rounding her shoulders. What had Roon been thinking, riding off with one of McCutcheon’s horses like that? A whole day wasted—watching and waiting for Guthrie Sloane to return from his ride into the high country. And hoping that Roon would be with him.
McCutcheon had been understandably grim on the drive back to the ranch after learning that Roon had taken one of the horses. “You told me that he once stole a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store,” he said. “Has he stolen anything else that you know of?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “When he first came to my house, he stole five dollars from my purse to buy a pack of cigarettes.”
“Just once?”
“Just once. I told him not to come back, that I would not live with such disrespect. But he came back anyway a week later and repaid me the five dollars. He said he’d earned it digging a garden plot for one of the elders. I didn’t believe him, so I asked and it was true.”
“And you let him stay.”
“Yes. Roon’s a good boy. He’s trying.”
“He took one of my horses.”
“He borrowed your horse, perhaps to see if that horse has any worth.”
“And what will he do if he discovers that the horse has worth?”
“He might just steal it.” She turned to stare directly at him. “And then he might paint its shoulders and flanks with his handprints, and ride it into battle against enemy warriors.”
McCutcheon let his foot off the accelerator. The truck coasted, slowing. “So how does a boy like Roon become a man in the twenty-first century?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice gentling, surprised that he understood. “I wish I did, but I don’t.”
The truck rolled to a stop. “I sense that Roon isn’t the only one who has a lot of anger inside him.”
Pony dropped her eyes from his intense gaze and felt a strange shortness of breath. “I have learned to live with the way things are.”
“Have you?”
A surge of rage heated her blood, and she raised her eyes. “Who are you, to ask such a question?”
“I’m your boss,” he said. “But I’m beginning to wonder if being your boss is a particularly safe occupation.”
Pony had remained silent for the rest of the journey back to the ranch, and once there, McCutcheon had left her at the main house and gone to his own cabin as if relieved to be rid of her company. And why shouldn’t he be? Had she brought him anything thus far in her short employ but trouble? She turned and looked toward his cabin. Rich man that he was, it made perfect sense that he would be sitting on his porch, reading a book and lazing the long summer afternoon away. She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and drew a deep breath, shoring up her resolve.
Tomorrow she would take the boys and leave here. Go back to the reservation. They could get field jobs for the summer, working for any number of farmers in the area who would be delighted to hire a bunch of Indians for minimum wage or less. Maybe she could get a job up in Billings, working at one of the bigger hotels cleaning rooms. She had heard that the money was pretty good, and sometimes there were tips, too. Either way, field hand or housekeeper, it would be better than staying here and living under Caleb McCutcheon’s stern and disapproving rule.
CALEB FOLDED the top corner of the page of the book on Crow Indian history and raised his head, listening. The noise of the creek rushing past was a constant undercurrent of sound, but he’d heard something else. The solid footfalls of a horse—no, two horses—coming down the trail. He laid the book aside and stood, leaning over the porch rail and looking upstream to where the trail emerged from the timber. Guthrie came into view first, riding Gunner. Behind him came Roon, riding bareback with nothing more than a halter and a rope to guide the grulla. Cal
eb stared. Leaned out farther and caught a glimpse of Pony. She must have been waiting at the trailhead for them. She took the halter and stopped the mare, and he could hear her say, quite clearly, “Roon! What were you thinking?”
Caleb descended the porch steps, listening, watching as Guthrie halted his mount. “Don’t be too hard on him, ma’am,” Guthrie said as Caleb approached. “I guess you could say this was his first day on the job, being as he spent most of it chasing after this runaway mare.”
Pony swung on him. “Runaway?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s a real escape artist, a wild mustang through and through. Come spring, the urge to wander gets real strong. She must’ve jumped the corral fence and taken off for the high country.”
She looked back at Roon. “Is that true?”
“’Course it is,” Guthrie replied before Roon could answer. “Why, if it weren’t for Roon, here, that mare might’ve made for the Dakotas. She was heading straight up Dead Woman Pass and going like a bat out of hell.”
“And Roon caught her?” Pony said.
“Yes, ma’am. When she hit the snow in the pass she turned around and went right to him. All the spit and vinegar went out of her when she saw that deep snow and she started thinkin’ about how nice a scoop of grain would taste.” Guthrie looked at Roon. “Matter of fact, why don’t you take her to the corral, rub her down, give her a big feed of oats and a couple flakes of hay. She must be gettin’ hungry about now. Then go to the house and wash up. Ramalda hates it when we’re late for supper.”
The boy nodded somberly and kneed the mare uphill toward the barn. Pony watched after him for a long moment then turned back to Guthrie, catching sight of Caleb at the same time. She shoved her hands into her rear pockets. “That was quite a story,” she said to Guthrie.
“The boy’s a good horseman,” Guthrie said.
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