Widow Woman (8 page)

"Doctor ‘im.” Nick tipped his head toward the steer. “Alone."

Crossing his forearms over the saddlehorn, he watched Davis move in, working with his horse to cut the animal, and catching him on the second toss of his lasso. The younger man was a damned good horseman, though not as smooth as Rachel Terhune. His roping wasn't near as neat, either.

Nick shook his head, trying to clear those thoughts.

Andresson looped a second rope around the steer's heels. Two riders’ ropes with their horses standing firm at opposite ends could be counted on to immobilize a steer. But with both ropes looped to one saddlehorn, a single cowhand had to rely on the savvy of his horse to counteract the steer's struggles. Screwworm cure in hand, Davis slid from the saddle. Miner kept both ropes taut long enough for Davis to get the mix on the open wound.

He remounted, released his ropes, gave Miner some low words of praise and tried to suppress a grin of achievement as the steer lumbered to its feet and hightailed it for the rest of the herd.

They sat by a small fire that night, having heated beans and shared a can of tomatoes.

Davis broke a long spell of quiet. “I wasn't sure I could do that this afternoon. Not by myself."

"You're learning. Keep on, and you've got the makings of a top hand."

"Good as you?"

"Sure."

Nick felt the considering weight of Andresson's eyes on him. Long accustomed to hiding his secrets easily, Nick still felt oddly relieved that the waning fire's flickering light would reveal little. For one so young and untried, Andresson's look could make a man feel like a lot was being seen.

Slowly, thoughtfully, Andresson said, “It don't seem right, you working for somebody else."

"They're paying me, so I work."

Davis shook his head, stubborn with the idea once he'd caught it. “You ain't the type to be a regular hand. Not even a foreman, to my way of thinking. You should own your own spread."

Nick surveyed the young man. “Yeah? What makes you say that?"

Davis gave a self-conscious hitch of his shoulders, but answered doggedly. “You got ideas. You got thoughts on the way things oughta be done. And you're ... I don't know, you're sort of separate, like."

Nick sat back on his heels, considering.

"What'll you do after roundup, Davis?"

"Me? I don't know. Hadn't thought of it. I guess ... I guess they wouldn't be wanting me to stick with the Circle T over the winter."

Nick shook his head. “Hands who've been round the longest get kept on to ride sections over winter. You and me just came on. Not much chance."

Though winter riding, trying to keep drifting cattle within vague boundaries of a ranch's range, wasn't any plum job, it still drew a salary in a season when few cowhands had jobs.

They sat in silence for several minutes before Davis gave a sigh. “Guess I could take my pay and head back to Iowa."

"You could."

"Don't much want to."

"Stay around here, then."

"But you said—Oh, you mean in town,” Davis said doubtfully.

"Maybe someplace else'll come up."

Davis gave him a curious look, but Nick left it. For now.

At the sound of hoofbeats, Rachel rushed out of the barn, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the lowering rays of the sun that reached under her hat brim, only to stop dead as she recognized the two horsemen as Nick and Davis. After four days on the range they approached at the easy pace that said they'd finished their duties but supper time hadn't come yet.

She and Nick had barely rubbed two words together in more than a month, since that night by the creek. She'd guessed he was sidestepping her, and she'd cooperated.

Now, the dark-eyed hand gave her a sharp look, but Davis asked the question. “Something wrong, Mrs. Terhune?"

"No. I don't know.” Being worried, wondering if you'd made a terrible mistake, did that count as something wrong?

"What's happened?” Nick demanded.

"I don't know if anything has.” She sighed. She had to explain now. “A Mr. Harris, who's visiting over at the KD Ranch, came by and said he'd heard so much about Circle T horses, he wanted to see them. He said again and again how impressive they were, and he seemed especially taken with Fanny, that three-year-old chestnut filly. I explained we had only started to work with her, but he said he'd had experience with young horses. So, when he asked if he could ride her some because he wouldn't want to purchase a horse he hadn't ridden, I said yes."

She stopped abruptly. Had she given her permission strictly as a business decision, because the purchase price for Fanny, as much as Rachel would hate to lose her, would be a much needed boost to the Circle T's income? Or partly because she'd wanted the man gone, because his compliments had not been limited to her horses, and his bold looks and smiles had made her very aware of being alone on the place except for Ruth?

"How long's he been gone?"

Count on Nick to cut to the heart of it. “Near four hours."

Davis made a sound of surprise. Nick said, “We'll change horses and see if we can find her."

As Rachel followed them on foot to the corral, she recognized that Nick's search would be for the horse, not the man.

They'd roped fresh horses, transferred saddles and bridles, turned out the horses they'd come in on and were nearly ready to go, when Davis asked, “You think this Harris stole her?"

"I don't know.” Rachel hated her answer, hated the helplessness of it.

"Filly might have thrown him,” Nick said, then added grimly. “If he's lucky."

The words had barely left his lips when he raised his head, his eyes narrowed. Then Rachel heard the sound, too—a horse being ridden hard.

The three of them rounded the corner of the barn to see Fanny and her rider crossing the last of the rough ground behind it. That uneven terrain was an accident waiting for a horse, and any caring rider would have avoided it if possible.

A hissed oath escaped Andresson, and even amid her worry, the mild young hand's reaction so surprised Rachel that she had to swallow a gasp. Nick just kept striding forward to intercept horse and rider.

The filly was badly lathered, her sides heaving, her movements skittish and nervous.

She wasn't the same horse the man had ridden out.

Rachel trailed behind Nick and Davis's longer strides, her movements further slowed by a stomach-gripping nausea. As the distance narrowed, she could see welts raised on Fanny's flanks, also her neck—signs Harris had whipped around the reins. Blood-flecked foam showed at her mouth, from the bit being jerked cruelly against tender tissue.

Harris pulled the filly to a halt just before Nick reached them.

"This animal has been a grave disappointment, Mrs. Terhune. I had been led to believe that you possessed well-trained animals, but this—"

He never got a chance to finish.

When Nick got close enough, he reached out a hand to Fanny, and the always friendly little horse ducked away. Rachel had seen that too often not to know the filly was almost certainly reacting to being hit around her head. It was, perhaps, the most cowardly act of cruelty to a horse, holding its lead rope and beating its defenseless head at no risk to the beater.

Nick held absolutely still for a fraction of a second after the filly's newly instinctive flinch.

Then he sprang without warning, cutting off Harris's speech by dragging the man bodily from the saddle. It didn't matter that Harris was no lightweight or that his position on horseback gave him a great advantage. Nick's fury was more than enough to offset that. When Harris's boot heel caught in the near stirrup, Nick gave the man a jerk by his grip on the expensive jacket and shook him loose. The filly gave a cry of alarm and tried to back away, but Harris still clutched the reins clutched in one hand.

Davis and Rachel rushed in, Davis going to the filly and Rachel to the two men.

"Nick!"

He paid no attention. His grip had shifted to two fistfuls of Harris's white shirt, near the collar, in a hold so tight the other man's face reddened, his eyes started to bulge. Harris tried to use his arms to break Nick's hold, and Davis jerked the reins loose. Harris stumbled a few steps backward, but Nick followed.

"Nick Dusaq! Let him go!” Rachel shouted, dragging on his near arm. It was like rock under her hand.

He didn't loosen his hold. Gasping noises escaped Harris.

A chilling fear entered her. Nick would kill this man, and he would hang for it. Rachel reached up between the men and pressed her fingers as hard as she could against Nick's jaw to make him turn toward her. “Nick! Let him go!"

The release came so suddenly that Harris fell on his rump on the ground, further upsetting the skittish horse Davis now held, and barely escaping a blow to the head from her hoof when she lashed out with her rear legs. Rachel stumbled. Before she could fully right herself, Nick had spun on one heel and was striding toward the barn.

Harris rose awkwardly, spewing threats. “I will have that man arrested. Even here, where justice is so crude, there must be laws against assault by such a ruffian. How dare he—"

"Get out of here, Mr. Harris.” Rachel kept herself from screaming at him, but barely.

"That man should be horsewhipped, and if you will not see to it—"

She spun on him. “Horsewhipped? I wouldn't bring up horsewhipping if I were you, Mr. Harris. You'll remind me that under our crude justice horsewhipping seems a damn fine punishment for a bastard who mistreats my horses. Now get out of here. And don't you ever show your face on the Circle T again. Do you understand?"

Harris kept blustering, but he wasted no time heading for the horse he'd ridden over from the KD Ranch. Rachel followed at some distance to make sure he didn't have any ideas about slipping into the barn to surprise Nick.

"Thomas Dunn will hear about this, I can guarantee you,” Harris said, once safely mounted. “And he does not take kindly to having his friends insulted so."

"I hope Thomas Dunn does hear of it—all of it. And I can guarantee you that he will hear from me that I don't take kindly to any of his friends acting in such a manner on my property."

She finished that speech with a slap of her hand to his horse's rump, just enough to get the animal started. Also just enough to catch Harris unprepared making him grab awkwardly for the saddle horn.

After she'd satisfied herself that he was well on his way off the Circle T, Rachel turned, her gaze skimming over the barn where Nick had disappeared, then coming to rest on Fanny, tied to a fence post in the shade of two cottonwoods while Davis tended to her.

Rachel joined them, as the young cowhand squeezed cool water from a cloth into the filly's mouth and on her tongue. His voice was a soothing murmur. Rachel made sure to keep her own movements slow and her voice in that same reassuring register.

"How bad is she, Davis?"

He'd already removed the saddle and bit, and wiped down her sides, removing the lather, which revealed the welts more clearly. He continued his ministrations to her mouth now as he answered.

"He cut her some."

"There's that balm you mixed up in the barn."

He nodded. “I didn't want to get it until somebody else could be with her here, talking to her. We got to keep her trusting us, can't let her get to thinking all humans'll treat her like that."

"I'll stay with her.” He nodded again, and held out the cloth. Rachel dipped it in the bucket Davis had brought and repeated the gentle soothing of Fanny's mouth, murmuring to her all the while.

Davis returned, and began wiping her down again, cooling her and cleaning the area before he applied the balm.

"He must've sawed at her mouth something fierce.” Davis's voice was as gentle as ever, but Rachel saw something hard and angry in his face she'd never seen there before. She understood it perfectly.

"I'd understand with a nervous horse—somebody who's not much of a rider can have a problem with a horse like that,'’ he went on. “But with Fanny ... I swear, Mrs. Terhune, only thing I can figure is he whipped her to make her go, then jerked back on her mouth out of pure meanness."

Rachel had come to much the same conclusion.

"Why would a man do that to an animal?"

"I don't know.” But it was something she'd talk to Shag about. Could it have been pure accident Thomas Dunn had sent a man who treated animals that way to look at one of her horses?

"Men like that should have their bal—"

Davis gulped down the last of his judgment on Harris, a horrified embarrassment flooding his eyes as raw color suffused his face.

"I'm terrible sorry, Mrs. Terhune, for saying such a thing before a lady,” he said stiffly.

Rachel had all she could do not to laugh. It felt good.

"It's all right, Davis. I agree completely.” But she could see that the only thing that would ease his discomfort was being relieved of her presence.

"I'd best get on with my chores, ma'am,” he suggested. “If you'll see to Fanny now, Mrs. Terhune?"

Rachel couldn't see denying the horse his attentions. “No, no, you stay here and take care of Fanny, Davis. I have, uh, some other duties to see to."

The first one was seeking out Nick Dusaq.

She wanted to reassure herself that the storm of emotions she'd seen in his face that instant he had turned under her touch and before he'd released Harris had passed.

She also wanted—desperately—to turn and walk, maybe run, in the opposite direction.

At the open barn door, she drew a deep breath, aligned her posture to her mother's strict standards and went inside.

Before her eyes adjusted from the glare outside, Nick was merely a darker form moving against the dim light of the interior. It took an instant for her to realize he was taking the saddle and bridle off the gray named Marley.

"Nick."

He didn't pause in his work. “Go away, Mrs. Terhune."

"I have something I want to say to you and—"

"I have nothing I want to hear."

She ignored that. “I want to thank you for trying to protect Fanny, but—"

He stopped, and turned around cold and slow. “Don't thank me. Tell me why the hell you're trying to sell her."