Cowboy Tough (27 page)

He needn't have worried. The old trail horses, miraculously, had caught the excitement and were performing like seasoned cutting horses. Rookie riders clung to saddles as the horses circled, spun, bucked, and pranced, and the cattle, confused by the chaos, scattered in panic. Mack pulled Spanky to a stop and watched the herd stampede for the hills.

He'd never seen anything so beautiful in his life. And behind them all was Cat, helping Ed rise as Rembrandt stood with his four legs planted like a show horse squared for a halter class, protecting the man who knelt beneath him.

Cat helped Ed over to the gate, where he leaned on a post and caught his breath.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Okay?” The old man grinned. “I'm better'n okay. That was the most fun I ever had in my life, and it's been a fun life.” He chuckled. “Course, I thought it was about over when that horse reared up.”

“I thought so too,” she said. “Are you sure you're all right?”

“Sure.” He patted her shoulder. “You go talk to that man of yours.”

She didn't bother to correct him. Mack was her man—at least for now. Swinging up onto Rembrandt's back, she walked him over to where Mack was resting his arms on the saddle horn, talking to Sullivan.

“They're my cattle,” the man said, narrowing his eyes. “I bought 'em fair and square.”

“From a con man,” Mack said. “Look, I can sympathize, but he didn't own them and he didn't have a right to sell them. You can take it up with him, but if you come out here and load up those critters, I'll have you in jail for rustling.”

Cat couldn't help adding her two cents. “Those cattle are all Maddie has left. You wouldn't leave a widow woman without any means of support, would you? I thought you cowboys had some kind of honor code.”

Sullivan worked his mouth as if something tasted bad, then looked down at his saddle horn. When he met Mack's eyes again, some of the hardness had gone from his gaze. “I paid for 'em,” he said, but it was more a whine than a challenge.

“I'll help you run down the bastard and we'll string him up in court,” Mack said.

Sullivan nodded and took the hand Mack offered. The two men shook and shared a nod, and the deal was done.

“You've got quite a crew there.” Sullivan watched the students scamper around the pasture, struggling to get their overexcited horses to go after the cattle. It was the first time Cat had seen the man smile.

“Dudes.” Mack grinned and glanced over at Cat. “Can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.”

***

Mack smiled to see how proudly Ed sat in the saddle, riding back to the ranch at the head of the posse that had foiled the rustlers. He was John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Glenn Ford all rolled into one pajama-clad hero.

Mack felt fairly heroic himself, for the first time in ages. More than that, he felt hopeful. His cattle were scattered, but they were still his cattle. His daughter was injured, but she'd managed to hike herself up into the saddle and there didn't seem to be any permanent damage done. And despite the unscheduled mayhem, the students were chattering with excitement.

And Cat had risen to the occasion like a champion. She'd faced the emergency head-on, stayed steady and focused, and taken the whole thing in stride. She'd behaved like a seasoned ranch hand—or a ranch wife.

Wife.
Maybe that was too much to hope for. She had goals and dreams that ranged way beyond this patch of Wyoming land, and he didn't want her to give up who she was. Still, there might be a way…

A plan flashed into his head, an idea that might let him and Cat have everything they wanted—including each other. He'd barely begun to work it out when they crested the hill.

As the ranch came into view, what should have been a triumphant homecoming turned into yet another disaster.

***

Cat gasped as the ranch came into view and she saw the cruiser parked in the turnout. There was no sign of Maddie or Hank, and her gut twisted with dread. In the excitement of the cattle scattering and the students breaking for the hills, she'd forgotten that Maddie had gone back for Hank and never returned. Something had happened. And generally, when the police were involved, that something wasn't good.

She wanted to slide off her saddle and run for the ranch house, but Mack and Viv had more at stake than she did.

“Go,” she told Mack. “I'll see to the horses. Dora will help.”

Dora nodded and edged her mount up to take the lead. She'd become a capable cowgirl in the twelve days they'd spent at the ranch, replacing her sulky, troubled demeanor with a new confidence.

The students had learned as much about horsemanship as they had about painting—maybe more, given today's advanced exercises. She barely had to prompt them to pull the animals up to the corral fence and loop the reins over the top rail.

“Go on up to the house, Aunt Cat.” Dora slid from the saddle and grabbed Ed's mount. “I'll get these guys taken care of.”

“We'll help,” Abby said. Cat started to protest, then realized that by “we” she was referring to herself and Charles. For once, Ed seemed willing to do the sensible thing and toddle off to the Bull Barn so Emma could see to his bumps and bruises.

“You sure you don't need help?” Cat was torn. She wanted to do right by her students, but she needed to know what was going on inside the silent ranch house.

“You go on,” Abby said. “Just come out here quick as you can and tell us what the hell's going on. Inquiring minds are dying to know.”

Cat was starting up the steps when the front door opened and Officer Brownfield strode out, his face set in a grim scowl and his hand on his sidearm. His beefy hand gripped the biceps of none other than Trevor Maines, who glanced at Cat, then shifted his eyes away quickly. There was a flat, cold hatred in his eyes that gave her a sudden shiver despite the warm summer sun.

Backing up against the porch rail, she watched the trooper frog-march Trevor to a cruiser and shove him inside. She wondered why policemen always pushed the perp's head down to keep him from hitting it on the car roof when they so obviously wanted to give it a good crack against the chrome.

Maddie came out and stood in the doorway, Hank standing behind her.

“Hank,” Cat said. “I was worried about you.”

He blushed scarlet and started fiddling with his hat, circling it one way, then another. “I came back and he was here,” he said. “Guess he came back for revenge or something. Had a sack of rat poison, and he was getting ready to mix it in the feed when I found him. Broke into the beer cooler, too.”

“I pretended I didn't know what he was doing. Invited him in for tea while I called the cops. They'll put him away for a while. We take livestock poisoning damn serious around here.”

He flushed more deeply and the hat spun faster. Maddie chuckled.

“I come back and found the two of them chatting over as nice a plate of shortbread as you'll ever see.” She jostled Hank affectionately. “This one had laid out a plate of cookies nice as you please, and brewed a fine pot of Earl Grey. I didn't know he had it in him.”

“Least I didn't have to make conversation,” Hank said. “The man does go on.”

Cat couldn't help laughing. “I'd say you've shown dedication above the call of duty,” she said.

“I'd say so too.” Maddie beamed, and Cat realized there was more than duty between her hostess and the hired man. “Way above.”

“Told you I'd do anything.” Hank gave Maddie one of those rare smiles that lit up his face. “Guess now you know it's true.”

Cat woke early the next morning—early and alone. They'd all stayed up late the night before, hashing and rehashing the roundup and the details of Trevor's arrest. Dora was thrilled to have been the one who caught the “rustlers.” Ed was thinking about “gettin' him some cattle” and moving out West permanently. Emma and Abby were trying to talk him down from his Wild West euphoria, but without much luck.

And Mack—Mack was very quiet. He seemed to have something on his mind, and she could feel his eyes on her whenever he was near. But every time she caught him staring, he looked away. Maybe because today was the last day of classes. Tomorrow would be her last official day at the ranch.

But this was the last day with the students, and she needed to get things started.

“We've spent a lot of time learning how to look, how to see, and how to translate that onto paper,” she said once she'd gathered the students around the chuckwagon. “But today we're going to put all that together and learn how to feel.”

She paced the edge of the fire pit. “Don't just paint what's on the surface. You don't always have to paint what you see. Take reality and make it your own.”

Make
it
your
own.
She couldn't even do that with her own life. She'd be going back to Chicago the day after tomorrow, and she felt like she was taking a trip to a far country. It was as if the ranch had become her reality, and everything before it had been a dream.

She wondered if Van Gogh had felt that way about St. Remy, where he'd painted his
Starry
Night
. She was starting to think that she'd found her own—that ultimate expression of herself. The problem was, she didn't think it was a painting.

It was a place. It was a way of life.

She turned toward the students and hesitated. She'd learned so much in the past week. The most important parts of it weren't part of the curriculum, but she wanted to pass it on.

Because being an artist didn't just mean learning to paint. Being an artist was about knowing your heart and being able to show the world all that it held. That's what Ames did, and that's why he'd been so successful. He painted from the heart. It wasn't much of a heart, but he was honest about what was in it, and that touched people.

She'd always believed she'd succeed if she worked hard enough, but you had to live hard enough, too. It was the time she'd spent with Mack, with Dora, with Maddie and all the rest of them that had made her see what mattered.

She could hardly tell her students that, though. She knew how they'd react—the knowing glances, the indulgent smiles. They'd think the relationship with Mack had gone straight to her head.

But though she couldn't tell them, maybe she could show them.

“We're going to the canyon today. There are a million things to paint, and I'm not going to pick one for you. Find what speaks to you. Take everything you've learned here and put it in a painting. Paint what you want, how you want.”

Charles put his hand up, hesitantly, like a student who couldn't quite understand what the teacher was saying.

“Are we still using the limited palette?”

Cat smiled. “No. You use whatever colors you want. Whatever colors you
feel
. That's what it's about today.”

The ride out was uncharacteristically quiet. Everyone seemed to be lost in their own thoughts, and instead of the usual banter there was only the creak of saddle leather and the slow plodding of the horse's hooves. After yesterday's excitement, today seemed like a dream.

They'd seen the canyon before, but it still evoked a long breath of wonder from everyone in the crew. It was as if a great fissure had been cut in the earth, a jagged scar that revealed the complicated underpinnings of the seemingly placid prairie. Layers of silt and clay and sandstone revealed the beginnings and endings of worlds, eras that had been all and everything to whatever creatures roamed the surface before it was submerged under the next world, and the next and the next.

The sun did its best to light the canyon, making the wildflowers that clung to its sides glow against the dull rock. But shadows took over halfway down, shrouding the craggy depths in mystery. Only the river that had created the deep gash in the earth managed to catch the light, its mirror-bright surface reflecting the sky in a slice of rippling silver.

They pulled up their horses at the edge and drank in the view. Even Ed had nothing to say.

Finally Cat cleared her throat. “Well, this looks good,” she said.

Always
a
poet.

While the students set off in search of inspiration, Mack strung a coil of rope around a circle of trees to turn a small clearing into a makeshift corral. The horses milled inside, browsing on the greenery and nuzzling each other. After unloading everyone's equipment, he settled down as usual, finding a comfortable log in a spot laced with dappled shade. Tippy sat at his feet, flinging her head back to beg for more attention whenever he stopped absently rubbing her shoulders.

Dora stood at the edge of the corral, the sun turning her hair into a flaxen crown.

“Aunt Cat? Do you want to go together?”

Cat smiled, feeling a little guilty. Getting Dora to paint had been an all-important mission through most of the trip, yet today she hadn't even noticed that her niece had brought supplies for herself as well as Viv.

“That's okay,” Cat said. “You can go with Viv if you want. I—I don't think I'd be much company.”

Dora nodded. “I guess you need some time to yourself.”

Cat remembered what Mack had said when Dora had first arrived.
It's all about them, and it's all about drama.
Dora had grown up on this trip. Cat didn't need to hover around her anymore.

She watched the two girls set off, falling instantly into lively conversation, and checked to see that everyone else was happy. Emma and Ed had headed north with Abby, while Charles set off on the trail that led into the canyon's shadowy depths. Cat was tempted to watch over them, to dart from one group to another and help everyone with technique, but she'd told them they'd be on their own. Besides, Dora was right—she needed some time to herself.

Slinging her bag over one shoulder and her collapsible easel over the other, she set off in the opposite direction from the others, scanning the canyon as she went, looking for a scene that spoke to her. She hadn't thought too much about what she wanted to paint, so she was open to anything: a close-up portrait of a flower, a long view of the canyon, or a forest scene.

But when she came to the right place, she recognized it right away. As she set up the easel, she felt something rise in her chest, a lightness that seemed to make the world around her a little brighter.

She'd have to get that into the painting somehow.

***

Mack knew he should announce himself. He felt like a stalker, or maybe a voyeur, standing behind Cat and watching her paint. But he loved the way she became totally engrossed in what she was doing, the way she moved like a sleepwalking ballerina, the way she took on a new grace and beauty when she did what she loved. Even Tippy seemed to understand Cat shouldn't be interrupted; she hung back with Mack rather than doing her usual enthusiastic meet-and-greet.

Cat was painting the canyon. The foreground of the painting was a rock that jutted out into the drop-off a few feet from where she stood. Below it, seemingly bottomless depths were shrouded by mist struck by sunlight. On the far side of the canyon, huge pines lined a rock wall; above them stretched layer on layer of rock—red, yellow, and gray—and above that a thin crust of grass and a few tortured trees.

Above that was the horizon and a sky lit with delicate pink hints of dawn. It was clear the sun was rising behind the viewer, and a shaft of light slanted through the mists and lit a small tree that was clinging to a crack in the canyon's layers of rock. He knew without being told that the little tree was the real subject of the painting. It was struggling into the light, holding tight to a narrow cleft in the rock but reaching and straining for the life-giving rays of the sun. One yearning root snaked out to the edge of the rock, like a toe testing cold water.

He'd never been much for academic interpretations, symbolism and imagery, all the intellectual claptrap that got in the way of just sitting back and enjoying a book or a painting or a piece of music. But he knew without even thinking that the tree was more than a tree. He wondered if it was Dora, or him, or Cat herself.

Maybe it was all three. Or everyone, doing their best to grow in whatever poor soil they were given, reaching for the light in everything they did.

He looked at the scene itself. He'd seen it a hundred times, maybe a thousand, but he'd never noticed that tree. He'd never seen the light look quite like that, either.

“It's dawn,” he said without thinking.

She whirled, giving him a strict schoolteacher-squint as she held her brush in the air like a weapon. He'd better be careful or she'd paint him to death.

“What?” She blinked as if she'd been asleep for a hundred years, and he had to resist the urge to go to her and kiss the cobwebs away.

“You're painting sunrise.” He nodded toward the far side of the canyon. “You changed the light.”

“I know.” She cocked her head and looked at the painting with a critical squint. “I didn't realize it till I got halfway through. That's how I feel, I guess. Like everything's just beginning.”

She backed away from the painting and the two of them stood together, soaking it in. Tippy nudged her hand and she petted the dog's head without looking.

“It's good,” he said. “Amazing. It looks like you just stopped time—like everything's about to change at this exact second.”

Cat turned to him smiling, fully awake now, fully in the moment. She reached for him and he took her in his arms, looking down at her and feeling that mysterious tug, that pain in his heart.

“It is,” she said. “And somehow, it's going to change for the better.” She rested her head on his chest. “I just know it is.”