Cherish Read online

  Chapter 5

  Race stood near the drop-down work station at the rear of the wagon, waiting for Cookie to stop rummaging in a crate and dish Rebecca up a plate. Serving yourself wasn’t allowed, not in Cookie’s grub line. “I do the fixin’ and I do the dishin’,” was the cook’s motto, and he stood ready with a wooden spoon to thump any offenders on the head if they dared to help themselves.

  “I’d like to feed her sometime before Christmas, Cookie,” Race groused.

  “I’ll be right there!” the little man replied. “I swow, you boys want ever’ darned thing done yesterday!”

  “Mornin’, boss!” a youthful voice rang out in the clear morning air.

  Race turned to see his youngest employee, Tag Jones, loping across camp toward him, his footfalls impacting the parched clay like uneven drumbeats. His thin body a tangle of uncoordinated long legs and arms, the twelve-year-old looked like a scarecrow with his denim jeans and blue chambray shirt flapping loosely on his thin frame. He skidded to a stop a scant two feet away, the soles of his oversize riding boots, which had once been his father’s, digging sidelong trenches in the clay. Below the brim of his Stetson, Tag’s ears poked out like teacup handles.

  “Dang it to hell!” Cookie cried. “Don’t be raisin’ dust around my cookin’ fire, boy. You think you gotta do ever’ darned thing at full gallop, or what?”

  “I didn’t stir up that much dust!” Tag cried, his large gray eyes dancing with mischief. He turned a worshipful gaze on Race. “I heard all about how you gave them rotters what for last night! Johnny says you must’ve been shooting and reloading at the same time. One man, holding off a small army!”

  Race waved a hand to clear away the dust. “Johnny’s exaggeratin’. What’re you doin’ back in camp? I thought Pete had you ridin’ flank with Johnny this mornin’.”

  “I am!” Tag ran over to the bedroll wagon, swung up on the backboard to lean over the gate, and jumped back to the ground an instant later, clutching his rifle. “Johnny says he’ll take me off somewhere away from the herd to do target practicin’ after our shift, so I came to get my gun.” Tag beamed an excited grin. “I figure if I keep at it, someday I’ll be as good a shot as you.”

  God forbid. Race considered himself the last person on earth that the boy should try to copy. But no matter what he said or did, he couldn’t seem to get the crazy notion out of Tag’s head. If Race slurped his coffee, Tag did. If Race belched, Tag did. It was like carrying a mirror everywhere he went that reflected the worst of him. Race laid it off on the fact that the boy had lost his pa less than a year ago. Mac Jones had died chopping wood when the ax bounced back and nailed him between the eyes. In a twinkling, he’d been snatched away, leaving the boy without a father. Tag had adopted Race as a surrogate.

  “You just be sure you go off somewhere to do your shootin’ this time,” Race called as the youth ran from camp. “You fire that rifle near my herd one more time, and I’ll hang your hide on a post to dry.”

  “And I’ll help him!” Cookie inserted, wagging a finger. “No more nonsense with that gun, boy, or it’s gonna come up missin’, be it your pa’s or not! I mean it!”

  “I learned my lesson,” Tag called over his shoulder. “Geez. You fellas think I’m addlepated or something?”

  “Addlepated!” Cookie said with a snort. To Race, he observed, “You’re the one that’s addlepated, bringin’ a boy still wet behind the ears on a cattle drive.”

  Race stabbed his fingers through his hair. “I couldn’t very well leave him at the ranch alone. Now could I?”

  “You coulda not hired him to start with. When that kid ain’t actually in trouble, he’s dreamin’ up some kind of devilment to try next.”

  Watching the boy’s awkward, gangly stride as he hurried back to his horse, Race smiled to himself. Tag reminded him of a rambunctious pup, more trouble than he was worth, but so cute you couldn’t stay angry with him for long. “Leave off, Cookie. I can’t send him home, and you know it. Since Mac died, Tag’s ma can’t feed six young’uns on her own. Tag’s monthly wages is keepin’ the wolves from their door.”

  “And bein’ a rich cuss like you, it’s your job to feed ’em?” Cookie snorted again. Then he chuckled. “I gotta admit, he’s a cute’n, ain’t he? Ornery as sin, though. Some days, I feel like snubbin’ him to my wagon gate with a short rope.”

  After watching Tag ride from sight, Race turned just in time to catch Cookie spitting on a tin plate he’d found. The cook began shining the metal with his sleeve as best he could before spooning up some food for the girl.

  “That’s disgustin’,” Race said.

  Cookie stopped rubbing. “What is?”

  Race snatched the plate away from him. “Spittin’ on her plate like that. I swear, Cookie, we can’t be that hard up for water!”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch! Here I was tryin’ to be nice and clean it up special.” Cookie huffed and bent to stir the contents of the pot on the cooking fire. “And get it straight outta your head. You ain’t touchin’ none of my water! You don’t like the way I cleaned it? Well, then, go scrub it with sand. I keep tellin’ all of you it works real slick. But do you listen? Heck, no. You just gripe. I swear, it’s worse than a bunch of ol’ women!” Cookie shoved his finger into the chili and popped the coated digit into his mouth. After smacking his lips, he shoved his finger back in the pot. “I can’t spare water for ever’ little thing!”

  Race jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “There ain’t a speck of sand out there. The sand hills is south of here. All we got is dirt, and it don’t clean nothin’ worth a darn. Seems to me you could spare some water for the girl, at least. It ain’t sanitary, spittin’ on someone’s plate. Or stickin’ your finger in our dinner pot. Haven’t you ever heard of germs?”

  “Of course I have. And I ain’t got none.” Cookie squinted one eye to peer up at Race. “You sayin’ I got one of them communicatin’ diseases? Well, I don’t.”

  “It ain’t ‘communicatin’,’ it’s communicable, and how do you know you don’t?”

  “Because I ain’t feelin’ puny. And they are so called communicatin’ diseases.” He wagged the spoon under Race’s nose. “Passed amongst folks when they’re talkin’. That’s how come they’s called communicatin’ diseases! Ain’t you ever noticed how folks spit in your face when they talk? Pert’ near everybody does it, some worse than others.”

  Cookie was one of the latter. The only reason Race didn’t go hunting for a towel was that the old codger’s beard caught most of the spray. “’Course I’ve noticed,” Race said, rubbing even harder at the plate. He held it up to the sun, gave it a close inspection, and then turned it toward Cookie. “You reckon I got all your germs off?”

  Squinting, Cookie leaned closer to look with one buggedy eye. After a moment, he snorted. “How’n’ hell am I s’posed to tell? I’m long sighted. I think. What’s it called when you can’t see nothin’ unless it’s sittin’ on your nose?”

  “Blind.”

  The cook snorted and bent back over the pot, dipping his finger in the chili up to his second knuckle again. “Just what I always wanted, a boss that’s a smart ass.”

  “I reckon I ain’t too smart,” Race retorted. “If I was, I’d wring some water outta you instead of puttin’ up with your nonsense.”

  “We finally agree on somethin’.” Cookie shook his head. “There’s days when I find it purely amazin’ that I work and take orders from such a dumb son’buck.”

  Race lowered the plate to his side. “Well, this dumb son’buck is gonna wash this plate.”

  “You’re the boss. When we run outta water, don’t let the boys complain to me ’cause they ain’t got coffee!”

  The report of a high-powered rifle exploded in the morning air. Simultaneously the plate jerked out of Race’s hand, spun past Cookie, and struck the chili pot, knocking it off the fire and spilling it sideways.

  “Balls on biscuits!” Cookie cried, and dropped to the ground like a felled oa
k.

  Race hit the dirt beside him. “Jesus!”

  Cookie shinnied under the wagon. Race raised up on one knee. Across camp he saw McNaught and Jesperson inching their heads back up as well. Race heard more gunfire over near the herd, which set the beasts to bawling. “What the hell?”

  “That kid again, mark my words!” Jesperson yelled. “Probably shootin’ at a rabbit. Boss, you’re gonna have to take him in hand. He’s gonna keep on, and one of these times he’ll stampede the herd!”

  “Take him in hand?” McNaught said with disgust. “If he was my boy, I’d take him apart. This is about the fourth time! It isn’t like he hasn’t been warned, and more than once.”

  Race pushed to his feet. The bullet that had come through camp could have killed someone. This time, he had no choice but to punish Tag. If he didn’t, the kid was going to seriously hurt someone.

  “I tell ya,” Cookie cried as he started to crawl back out from under the chuck wagon, “somebody oughta wrap that rifle of his around his scrawny neck!”

  Race dusted off his pants. “Well, I guess I’d better go find him.”

  Cookie suddenly let loose with curses to singe chicken feathers and began digging into the dirt with elbows and knees to get out from under the wagon. Race knew trouble in large measure must be headed their way. The cook didn’t even bother to detour around the spilled chili, which was still hot enough to send up steam. Instead he slithered right out to the center of the puddle, then flapped his short arms and legs like an overturned turtle, trying to find purchase in the grease and smashed beans to gain his feet.

  “Christ A’mighty!” he cried. “Run, everybody. Run for your life!”

  Race looked up and saw a wave of red and white fur coming toward them. A stampede. McNaught and Jesperson both swore and raced for their horses.

  “Them steers is comin’ right for us! Run! Run for your life!” Cookie cried as he headed for a tall pile of rocks some forty yards east, his short legs churning with amazing speed.

  Race headed for the girl’s wagon. “Rebecca!”

  Just as he was about to swing up on the backboard, the cattle veered, completely changing directions, as often happened.

  Gripping the wagon gate, Rebecca leaned out, the morning sunlight glancing off her golden hair. “A stampede?” she cried, obviously frightened, whether by the gunfire, which undoubtedly had recalled bad memories of yesterday, or the thunderous pounding of hooves, he didn’t know.

  “A kid who works for me fired off a rifle!”

  “And that’s all it took to spook them like that?” She gazed after the panicked cows. “Just a couple of gunshots?”

  “Nobody but cattle know how come they stampede, and they ain’t talkin’,” Race told her. “Them are all boogers, straight off open range.”

  “Boogers?”

  “Easy cattle to spook.”

  “It’s a miracle they turned like that.”

  Race nodded. “That’s what makes stampedes so dangerous; you can’t never predict what a bunch of scared cows might do.”

  In the dust that rose all around the cattle, Race could see his men, darting their mounts in and out at the edge of the charging herd, the Stetsons they waved above their heads cutting through the yellowish cloud. They were doing their level best to head the animals off. Race just prayed one of the horses didn’t lose its footing. More than one skilled cow pusher had gone to meet his Maker under the hooves of frenzied cattle. Damn. He had to get out there and help them get those steers under control.

  After watching a moment longer, Race determined that the cattle weren’t likely to double back. Rebecca would be safe where she was. “I have to go help my men, honey. If you just stay put, you won’t be in any danger. And Cookie should be back shortly.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Go!” As he turned to leave, she called, “Do be careful, Mr. Spencer. That looks like dangerous business.”

  That wasn’t saying it by half. “Just stay right where you are, honey.”

  Race ran for his horse. Luckily Dusty was a trusty mount, saddled or barebacked, which saved Race the trouble of bothering with tack. Several feet from the tether line, he took a flying leap onto the stallion, then leaned forward along the animal’s neck to jerk the halter rope loose. With a nudge of his heels against Dusty’s flanks, he spurred the horse into a full-out gallop.

  Ten minutes later, Race found himself at the opposite side of the panicked herd and as helpless to stop the crazed animals as his men had been. Before his very eyes, the profit he’d hoped to make by buying and reselling these beefs before winter was dwindling away to nothing. In a stampede, a rancher lost countless cattle, some to plunges off embankments, some to chuckholes that broke their legs. Race had even heard of a rancher who’d lost an entire herd to drowning when the stupid animals charged straight into the swift, churning white water of a river.

  For Race, who’d owned his own spread for only two years and was just now beginning to operate in the black, a sizable loss would be financially devastating. He wouldn’t lose his land, thank God, because he owed no mortgage payments. But a catastrophe like this would still set him back—way back—and with hurtful results not only for Race, but every man in his employ. To survive, he’d have to trim expenditures, and that meant laying off some of his crew. In turn, they would face winter without jobs, and without jobs, they would have no income. For those without families to support, it wouldn’t be so bad. But for the husbands and sons who put food on the table, this damned stampede would cause a world of grief.

  Furious, Race guided Dusty around the perimeters of the charging bovines and brought the horse to a skidding stop alongside Johnny Graves. Startled, the skinny, sandy-haired young cowboy spun in the saddle. Upon seeing Race, an expression of relief washed over his dust-streaked face.

  “Where’s Tag?” Race roared to be heard over the deafening din sent up by the bawling cows. “I swear to God, he won’t sit down for a week after I’m done with him!”

  Johnny’s horse threw its head and sidestepped, whinnying shrilly. Graves jerked hard on the reins, dug a heel into the animal’s haunch, and wheeled it back around. Yelling to be heard, half his words drowned out by the noise, he cried, “Damn if—know! It—Tag, though! He—with me!” He shrugged and shook his head. “Don’t know—did it!”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t Tag? How in hell could it not be?” Race roared to be heard over the thundering of twelve hundred hooves. “A quiet herd one minute, and fireworks the next? Somebody was shooting, and you know damned well no one else would!”

  Johnny shook his head. “It wasn’t him! Tag was ri—front—me! Everything—quiet, then—hell—loose! Rifle—and every—went crazy!” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “It came—up there—hind me! From some—on—rise.”

  Race turned to look, and there was indeed a rise in the distance, although the cattle had run a goodly distance from it in the time since the first shot had been fired. “And you’re sure it wasn’t one of our men who fired the shots?” he yelled.

  Johnny shook his head. “Wha—think? That—a bunch—damned fools?”

  Hauling back on the halter rope and throwing his weight, Race spun Dusty in place on his back hooves. He gazed at the distant rise, all thought of financial loss fading from his mind as a new fear took root. If Tag hadn’t fired those rifle shots, that meant an outsider had done it in a deliberate attempt to stampede the herd.

  Race needed no detailed pictures sketched in the dirt to tell him the rest of the story. Like a goddamned fool, he’d ridden off to save his cattle, leaving Rebecca alone back at camp, believing she’d be safe there. Now, he was a good five minutes away—if he pushed Dusty to his limit and went back as a crow flew—and that wasn’t counting the ten minutes he’d already been away from her to get here.

  That added up to fifteen minutes. His stomach dropped to somewhere in the region of his boot heels. Sweet God Almighty. He’d let himself be lured away, leaving her there with no o
ne to look after her. Even Cookie had run for high ground.

  The bastards who had slaughtered all those people in the arroyo yesterday could do untold damage to a defenseless slip of a girl in fifteen minutes. And damn his own worthless hide, he’d be the one who had let it happen.

  Chapter 6

  Hands locked on the wagon gate, Rebecca stared after the horse and rider racing away from camp, her admiration for Race Spencer growing with each powerful stride of the buckskin’s long legs. The man was a magnificent horseman, his well-muscled body flowing with the movements of his mount, making stallion and rider seem like one entity.

  As she watched the dust billowing behind the horse’s flashing hooves, Rebecca decided she should probably get out of the wagon to better monitor the stampede. Just in case the cattle turned back toward her, she didn’t want to be caught unprepared. Mr. Spencer had said that someone named Cookie would be back in camp shortly, but otherwise it appeared that all the other men were gone, chasing after the cattle. That meant she’d have to manage on her own if the panicked herd reversed its direction.

  Except for clumps of brush, a large pile of rock in the distance, and the peaks of the mountains far to the west, nothing but rolling grasslands stretched for as far as she could see. After having traveled over this sort of terrain for weeks on end, Rebecca knew all too well that the dips between hills could conceal an approaching wagon train until it was nearly on top of you. She could only assume the same might hold true for a herd of cattle. She would be wise to watch in the direction they had gone for any sign of dust, for that might be the only warning she got that the cows were headed back her way. Not a pleasant thought.

  Gathering up her skirts, which were inches too long, she swung a leg out over the gate, searched with her toe for a foothold, and then lowered herself to the ground. A quick peek around the corner of the wagon told her that no one had remained behind. Not far away, she saw a length of rope stretched between two sturdy wooden stakes driven deeply into the ground. That was undoubtedly where Mr. Spencer and his men tethered their mounts. Since all the horses were gone, it followed that all the men were gone as well.