Wild Horse Rescue

by Nancy M Bell

  “Hey Princess, time to get up.”

  Dad’s voice dragged her out of a great dream she couldn’t remember the minute she opened her eyes. He banged on Coll’s door next and then thumped down the stairs to the kitchen. By the time Laurel dressed and opened her bedroom door, the rich smell of coffee reached her. Coll’s door was closed when she went by and she hesitated. Should I check and see if he’s up or… The rattle of her dad pulling the truck and trailer up in front of the house decided her. She ran down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “Hey, I didn’t know you were already up.” She was surprised to find Coll already in the kitchen helping her mom load the cooler.

  “Morning, sleepy head.” Mom smiled affectionately at her. “There, that’s all that’ll fit in there.” She closed the cooler lid. “Would you take that out to Colt, please?”

  “Of course.” Coll hefted the heavy cooler easily and disappeared out the door.

  Laurel helped herself to some coffee and leaned on the island blinking sleep from her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so tired. I went to bed early enough last night,” she complained.

  Anna smiled and handed her a jug of iced tea. “Take that out too, would you?”

  The eastern sky had a just a hint of pearly grey when Colt pulled out of the yard. Laurel slouched in the backseat of the truck still nursing her go mug of coffee. She suppressed a surge of irritation at Coll’s excitement. God, how can anyone be so cheerful this early in the morning? Dad glanced in the rear-view mirror and caught her expression.

  “Laurie’s not a morning person,” he sang.

  She grimaced at him and refused to rise to his teasing.

  “You better watch out, Coll. Don’t cross her before the sun comes up.”

  Laurel pulled her hat down over her eyes and ignored her father. She woke with a start when a truck door slammed. Scrambling upright, she pushed her hat back and blinked to clear her bleary eyes. The sky was bleeding shades of red and orange undershot with gold and pink. Near the horizon the morning stars still glimmered in the pale blue of the sky. The Cullen’s corrals were alive with people and horses. The bellowing of cattle gathered into the pens was in sharp counterpoint to the shouts of the men and the chatter of the wives.

  Coll was already out, helping Dad unload the horses. Laurel slid out of the truck and hurried to help Mom with the food. Mrs. Cullen and Carly had everything set up under a big tent by the house. Coolers of pop and beer sat nearer the branding corrals.

  “You okay?” Laurel asked her friend who looked a bit pale with unaccustomed lines of worry creasing her forehead.

  “I’m good,” Carly answered shortly. “I’ll fill you in later.”

  Laurel left her to go and saddle Sam. She swung up into the saddle and jogged toward the huddle of riders near the pens. Jewel was easy to pick out of the crowd and she pulled up beside Coll, admiring how easy he looked in the western saddle now. His forearm rested on the horn, the reins held loose in his fingers, free arm crossed over the rein hand. He leaned forward to catch what Mr. Cullen was saying. Having gotten their orders, they moved off and the rest of the morning was lost in the chore of separating calf from cow and the resulting bawling of mother and calf to one another. The sharp stink of burning hair and flesh rose from the area where the branding irons were being applied. It would take a couple of showers to get the smell out of her hair. Laurel stopped Sam by the edge of the pen, waiting until the next head was called for. She pulled a bottle of water out of her pocket and took a huge drink. Dust hung in a haze over the corrals and pens and stuck in her nose. She tied the empty bottle to her saddle and removed her hat to wipe the sweat off her forehead. Even the hot breeze felt good on her head. Her palms were slick in the leather gloves and her shirt stuck to her back. August brandings always seemed to be either hotter than hell or cold, windy and rainy. Laurel wasn’t sure which she disliked more.

  She glanced over at Coll sitting on Jewel near a bunch of other riders. She hadn’t had time to pay much attention to how he was making out, but the men seemed to have accepted him, so he must have kept out of trouble. Laurel pushed her sleeve up and glanced at her watch. One-thirty. She shifted Sam so she could see how the boys were coming with the last calf. The Westcott boy released the red and white calf and slapped the dust from his jeans. Laurel shifted her weight and lifted her reins in preparation to bring another one along.

  “That’s it ’til after lunch, Laurie.” Chance stuck the iron back in the fire and pulled a bandana out of a back pocket to wipe his sweaty face.

  She gritted her teeth at his use of the stupid nick name. Only Dad called her Laurie. She waved to indicate she heard and slid Sam over to the gate. She leaned down and lifted the latch before neatly maneuvering him through and closing it again.

  “Nice trick. Can you show me how to do that?” Coll and Jewel rode up to join her.

  “At home,” Laurel replied, still annoyed at Chance.

  Coll looked at her and shrugged. “I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  “Horses first,” Laurel said turning Sam toward the shady side of the trailer. Dad’s gelding Red was already standing hipshot and half-asleep ignoring the hay net by his head. Dad, or maybe Mom, had filled the other two nets. “Can you put the halters on? I’ll get the water.” Laurel ground tied Sam.

  By the time she’d filled two buckets with water and carried them back, Coll had both horses haltered and loosened the cinches. She was glad he’d remembered to leave the near side stirrup thrown across the saddle to indicate the cinch was loose. Laurel never put a foot in the stirrup without checking the cinch herself. It was a safety measure her dad insisted on when she was younger, and she’d passed it on to Coll.

  Lunch was eaten in shifts. To Laurel’s regret Mr. Cullen put her to working with Chance and she was finding it hard to ignore him. She made a point of sitting between Coll and Harry Good Smoke while she ate, so she only had to put up with Chance looking her way every time she raised her eyes, and him knocking her hat askew whenever he walked by.

  “Thet boy has it bad for you.” Harry laughed the second time her hat came off. “When you gonna give him a break?”

  “As if.” Laurel picked up her hat and scowled after Chance.

  “I suppose he thinks it’s funny?” Coll offered.

  Laurel snorted and finished her sandwich. A group of cowboys in deep conversation wandered over into the shade. Her attention was piqued at the mention of the cull. She shifted backward a couple of inches and tilted her head toward the group. Beside her, Coll turned and began to say something. She shushed him with her hand and nodded toward the group. He nodded, and half-turned in that direction.

  “See you later.” Harry rose and went to refill his coffee cup. Some of the others held cans of Coors but Harry never touched the stuff to Laurel’s knowledge. She leaned back a bit more trying not to draw attention to herself.

  “Cory told me on the sly he’s going to get the permits soon,” Hank Jones said loud enough for Laurel to hear clearly.

  “I haven’t heard anything yet, how come he got that information,” Jack Carver sounded annoyed.

  “Wal…ya know, Cory’s on the committee ain’t he?” old Mr. Mills drawled and spit a stream of tobacco juice.

  “That don’t seem fair,” Harvey Mills growled. “Why should Cullen get preferential treatment just ’cause he’s on the committee and sucking up to the government?”

  “It’s always been that way. His daddy did the same kind of thing to get the grazing leases back in the day. Cullen learned the tricks at his daddy’s knee.”

  There was a general muttering of disgust and disagreement though Laurel couldn’t make out anything in particular. She glanced over at Coll and raised her eyebrows in alarm. The last time she’d mentioned the cull to her dad he’d said from what he’d heard they weren’t going to call for one this year. She knew that was wrong, Dad was probably thinking he was sparing her or something. She turned her attention back to eavesdrop
ping shamelessly on the conversation.

  “I got as much right to catch those wildies as Cullen does,” George Hall growled. “All he’s gonna do is sell them right to the meat buyers.” He glared at the circle of men around him. “You know I’m right. Don’t matter what they tell those conservation groups about adopting them out, Cullen sends ’em right to the packers or sells ’em to the meat guys, whichever will get him the most dough.”

  “Nobody’s disagreein’ with you, George. I got my name in for a permit too and I haven’t heard squat. Last time I tried to get an answer they told me they’re unsure whether a cull was necessary this year. What a load of crap.” Josh Elliot groused. “I’m so sick of those guys up in Edmonton lying through their teeth, saying two things out of different sides of their mouths.”

  There was a general muttering of agreement. Laurel stood up and motioned for Coll to follow her.

  “I heard Cullen was asking some of his kid’s friends to come out and help build the traps. He’s planning to bait them, but you know as well as I do, he’ll drive the horses into the corrals if he has to. He won’t care if one or two get banged up. ’Specially the young ones, they don’t bring much for meat anyway. More a nuisance than anything else.”

  Jack Carver’s comment stopped Laurel in her tracks. She swallowed and grabbed Coll’s hand, dragging him out of earshot of the group. “I hate him! I hate them all,” she hissed, close to tears. “All they care about is money and grass for their stupid cows. Those horses don’t hurt the land any more than those elk they put on Suffield after they ran the mustangs out of there.” She let go of his hand to wipe her eyes and stalked toward the trailer.

  “What did they do at Suffield?” Coll hurried to keep up with her.

  “It was back in the early ninety’s according to Dad. There used to be wild horses on the Canadian Forces Base at Suffield. When they fenced in the base back in the mid nineteen sixties, a bunch of mustangs got fenced in too. Before that the original horses sometimes interbred with quarter horses, thoroughbreds, and Arabs that got loose, or the stallions stole from ranches, but mostly they kept the gene pool pretty closed. The stupid provincial government decided they needed to remove all of the horses instead of managing the population.”

  “Why? Wouldn’t it have been better to just do some herd management?” Coll scratched his cheek.

  “I don’t know. They were idiots, same as now. Probably somebody paid somebody off, good old boys club. Anyway, they rounded them up and removed all of them and sold them to anybody who’d pay for them. Some of them went to the packers, but some got adopted and a bunch of people got together and bought up as many as they could. They wanted to keep the mustang strain as pure as they could and keep the history alive. Old Red told me once that people used to come from all over the world to see the Suffield mustangs, even from Europe.”

  “So, some of those horses are still alive? The breed, if you can call it that, isn’t extinct?”

  “Oh yeah, they’re all over the place now, not just in Alberta. There are people who are actually breeding them now and keeping records. But it’s not the same, they deserve to be free and live like they’re supposed to.”

  “Why do they need to cull them? Aren’t there enough natural things that could happen to them?” Coll slid Jewel’s bridle on and tightened the cinch.

  “The government says the horses don’t have any natural predators, which is a load of horse shit. They lose some every year to old age, injury, cougars, wolves and the hard winters. Not to mention those babies can get covered in ticks in a bad year.” Laurel ground her teeth and turned her back to tighten Sam’s cinch, dropping the fender and stirrup down when she was finished. “It makes me so mad. There’s got to be something we can do about it.” She swung up onto Sam’s back and waited for Coll to mount Jewel.

  “What can you do, though? It’s not like they’re breaking the law or anything.” Coll nudged Jewel up beside her.

  “Rowan! Get your ass over here,” Chance yelled from the pen where he and Charley Yancy were waiting.

  “Jack ass,” she muttered but touched Sam’s side and loped back to work. Coll went back to his job and she was too busy the rest of the day to worry about him or the wild horses.

  Chapter Nine

  Laurel didn’t get a chance to talk to Carly alone until much later that night. The work stopped when the sun went down and the partying began. When she was a kid, Laurel loved the branding parties, running around with all the other kids in the dark, playing tag and hide and seek. Cooking hot dogs on sticks over the fire and setting marshmallows on fire, holding them up to flare brightly against the dark sky.

  Now she was older, Laurel was more aware of the amount of alcohol some people consumed. She was careful to listen to Mom’s advice and Dad’s orders not to wander off into the dark or go off alone anywhere. Dad was probably just being overly protective, but if Mom was warning her too, Laurel thought it best to be cautious.

  She loaded her plate with a burger thick with melted cheese and dripping fat. Just the way she liked them. Adding some ribs coated with Mrs. Cullen’s famous BBQ sauce, a heaping spoon of potato salad and some beans, she decided that might fill the hole in her belly. It had been a long time since lunch. Finding a spot on a log by the fire, she looked for Coll. Finally, she spotted his blond head towering over the group of cowboys he was standing with. She opened her mouth to call him and then shut it. He was doing fine on his own and she needed to find Carly and find out what was up with her friend.

  Laurel hadn’t seen her since the morning. She took a big bite of the burger and closed her eyes in ecstasy. When she opened them again, Carly was coming around the fire with a plate of food in her hand. Laurel balanced her own plate on her knee and waved. Carly lifted a shoulder in reply, skirting the bonfire and shaking her head when an errant gust of wind blew the smoke in her face. She settled beside Laurel and handed her a can of pop.

  “Here, I brought you a drink.”

  “Thanks, I didn’t have enough hands.”

  Laurel continued eating, her eyes on the leaping flames within the ring of stones. From past experience she knew Carly would talk when she was ready and not before. There was no point asking her anything until then.

  Halfway through her burger, Carly stopped eating and plunked it down on her plate. She stared at the fire for a moment before setting her supper on the ground by her feet and turning to Laurel. “I just don’t know what to do, Laurel.”

  “About what?” Laurel’s words were muffled by the mouthful of burger.

  “Chance…he’s…different. You know what I mean?” Carly’s face wrinkled in concern.

  “Sort of. I mean he’s acting like an ass around me, like he thinks he owns me or something. I didn’t know anything was wrong between you two? What’s changed?” Laurel set her almost finished supper by her feet and moved a bit closer to her friend.

  “It’s like he’s angry all the time. He says he’s not, but he’s my brother, he can’t fool me. I know he’s drinking way too much and I’m afraid he’s into something worse. Some of those kids at school he hangs with…”

  “Did you talk to your mom about it?”

  Carly nodded. “Yeah, then she must have told Dad what I said ’cause I got crap for even suggesting Chance could do anything wrong. Dad says it’s just part of being a guy and growing up. Something a girl wouldn’t understand.” She snorted and kicked a rock at the fire. “You’d think this was the sixties or something back when women were still burning their bras.”

  “What!” Laurel smothered a shout of laughter.

  Her friend shrugged. “That’s what Mom hollered at him and then he called her a women’s libber and told her she’d better forget all that crap from her past if she wanted to stay living under his roof. I kinda got the impression it was an old argument they’d had before.”

  “Weird. But, back to Chance, you really think he’s into the hard stuff?”

  “I’m not sure, but it worries me.” C
arly turned and reached over to squeeze Laurel’s hand. “Can you talk to him? He’d listen to you, I know he would. If you asked him to stay away from the dangerous stuff he would. He’s had it bad for you ever since we were kids. Please Laurel?”

  She swallowed hard and pulled her hand free. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Carly. He’s already acting possessive, like it’s only a matter of time ’til we get married. No offence, but I don’t want to marry your brother. If I start asking him to do stuff for me, he’s going to think there’s more to it. It’s hard enough now to keep him from grabbing at me every chance he gets.”

  “Please Laurel.” Tears shimmered in Carly’s eyes. “He’s trying so hard to live up to Dad’s expectations I’m afraid he’s gonna kill himself.”

  Laurel’s heart did a double beat in shock. “You think he’s suicidal? Like those kids at the high school a few years back that had that suicide club?”

  “No, no! At least I don’t think so. I just mean all the drinking with the guys and riding bulls and taking all kinds of stupid chances. I hate riding in the truck with him anymore. Scares me shitless speeding and taking the turns way too fast. The wilder the ride the better he likes it. Please go talk to him. Do it for me, please.”

  Faced with Carly’s distress Laurel couldn’t find the heart to refuse. Besides, the mention of suicide scared her too. Even if Chance was behaving like an idiot he was still one of her oldest friends. Getting to her feet, she threw the remains of her supper into the fire and glanced around. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I think he’s over by the barn with some of his friends.” Carly waved to a group of men standing just on the verge of the light thrown by the bonfires.

  “I’m not sure this is such a good time then. He won’t appreciate me dragging him away from his buds.”

  “Don’t have to,” Carly all but crowed.

  A tall lean figure broke away from the group and sauntered over toward where Laurel’s dad was laughing with some of the older men.