Seth helped Sawyer turn the herd back toward the pass, and the two older brothers calmly drove them back up Riley’s Ridge, leaving Court behind.
Seth took the lead as Sawyer fell back to take the rear.
Court was trailing behind them by almost a half mile. It took half a dozen tries before he’d managed to lasso that buckskin mare. He gave her a long line once he did, so she didn’t attack BlackJack. Wrangling the wild female didn’t look easy. Sawyer would’ve been better at it—he was the header on their roping team after all, the first to land the rope over a steer’s horns. But Sawyer was ignoring the dog and pony show in order to bring the herd closer to camp, which was their actual job.
Court, always the heeler, neither as accurate nor as steady as Sawyer and Seth winced, when he realized that Court was using a synthetic, piece-of-shit rope, too—no doubt a holdover from his rodeo days.
Seth sighed heavily. Court would be Court, and there was nothing anyone could do. The youngest Barlow didn’t help at all as Seth, Sawyer, and Gabe trailed as fast as they could to race the twilight and get to camp before the sun set. Court preferred, instead, to wrestle with the mare.
It was dark when they arrived back at the river bend. The jovial mood of the herding party dissipated, though, as they rejoined the others. Walker’s face was drawn tightly, in that way Seth had come to expect these days. The promising numbers didn’t seem to have lifted the man’s spirits at all. He and Austin had the tents out, though, four-season, heavy nylon ones, low to the ground to stand against the wind. Two to a tent, except Walker had the last one to himself. Was it the privilege of being the oldest, Seth wondered, or was Walker just not ready for company?
Probably both.
Ropes had been strung up between some trees for a makeshift horse pen, and Seth, Sawyer, and Court untacked their horses before setting them loose inside. Court fought with the mare to tie her to a third tree, away from the others, especially Choctaw, who wasn’t gelded and might try to mount the new, pretty female. She fought against the rope but finally tuckered out and stopped resisting, though that wild look in her eye never went away.
Court hooted triumphantly as he gaze at his prize, chest puffing out and grinning from ear to ear.
Walker looked pissed, jaws clenching, eyes narrowing into slits. In fact, he stood up, grunted loudly, and stomped toward the mustang.
“Hey!” Court protested. “You can’t let her go! I was going to give her to Dakota!”
Walker paused, glaring at Court. Everyone watched as he turned, snatched up a reata, and stalked back toward the horse, fingering the braided rawhide rope in his hands.
Court opened his mouth to argue then wisely snapped it shut again.
The mare balked as Walker approached. He lifted his arm high, swinging it in a lazy, counterclockwise loop. At the apex, with a flick of his wrist, he let the rope fly. It snagged the mare over her head, and Walker tightened it gently. Approaching with caution, and drawing out a long blade from the sheath on his hip, Walker cut the synthetic rope and loosened it, dropping it to the ground. He re-tied the horse around the same tree, bent to gather Court’s shitty rope, and tossed it into the campfire.
Nobody moved as they watched it catch and burn.
“I think it’s about time you remember who you are.” Walker was looking at the fire, but there was no doubt to whom he was speaking.
The silence was heavy and dry around them, like it too might catch a spark and burst into flames.
The brothers were of Mexican descent; all of them were, though only Gabe and Dakota spoke Spanish now. The Barlows weren’t just cowboys, but half-vaqueros, ever since Kit Barlow had first laid eyes on Rafaela, an immigrant girl who’d come to the wild lands of Wyoming with her family in the late 1800s. He’d taken her as his bride, adopted her culture, her family’s ranching ways, and the Barlows had carried on the old traditions, even into modern times, many of them intermarrying with Vaquero girls from old families who’d settled the area.
In one hundred years, the Barlows had never lost sight of their past. Even their late father, Rafe, was named after their fiery grandmother, Rafaela.
Watching Court leave Snake River to join the rodeo circuit had been difficult for all of them. To see him return with a synthetic rope, like some kind of…Texas cowboy…and no more mature now at twenty-six than he’d been when he’d left at twenty, well…
“If he could see you now,” Walker said in a near-whisper.
Seth watched Court’s eyes widen. “Okay!” Sawyer said, cutting through the tension. He grabbed Court’s arm and pulled him toward his tent. “It’s late. We’re all tired. Hit the sack.”
Court flung Seth’s arm off, looking like he was going to spit nails or take a run at Walker.
Seth shoved him, hard, in the direction of the tent. “Not tonight,” he growled in his younger brother’s ear. “Not tonight.”
Court’s nostrils flared, but finally he turned and ducked into his tent.
Seth didn’t relax until he saw Walker crawl into his own. Austin picked up a battery-powered lantern and was already heading toward his tent. He was right to get as much sleep as he could before his turn at the watch.
In the dark, a howl erupted, but even Seth, who was not half the mountain man his older brother was, knew it was a mile away, possibly more.
Austin paused and grunted. “We’ll likely lose a head or two tonight in the dark if we can’t scare them away,” he muttered. “Damn wolves.”
There was nothing for it, though. It was too dangerous to split up this early in the season, and shooting anything in the dark was likely to hit one of the cows rather than any faster-moving predator. Now that they’d located their cattle, tomorrow they’d round them up and drive them west toward grazing lands. There was no grass yet on this snow-covered ground, but it would be easier to drag in hay. It’d be safer there, too, closer to the homestead, farther away from the wilds.
To maintain the uneasy truce, Seth kept the watch all night, with the others trading off in the wee hours. Despite the near-constant howling, Seth wasn’t worried as much about bears or wolves as he was his own family tearing into each other. Most of the herd had made it through the winter. The Barlows, it seemed, were still left in the cold.
Chapter Four
‡
Rowan was grateful that the drive to the Archer farm was quick, at least compared to the trek across the entire bottom of the state of Wyoming she’d made the night before. Within twenty minutes of leaving the city limits, Rowan was winding her way up the long driveway toward home. The two-story house could use a new paint job. Its white boards were cracked and peeling in some places, but it was still the most comforting sight in the world to Rowan.
She pulled up in front of the house, driving past the low-slung barn where the sheep were housed during the worst months of the year. As she got out of the car, she could already hear the dogs in their chain-link run, clamoring for her attention.
Willow had fallen asleep in the car, so Rowan left her in the heated interior while she let the dogs out. Kinka, Jory, and Kono were barking furiously at her as she approached them. They were large, all three of them Great Pyrenees, with long white hair rivaling the sheep they looked after. The breed made excellent livestock guards, protecting the flock from wolves, coyotes, and any other predators that came down from the mountains looking for a quick meal. They were friendly, though, toward humans, at least, and Rowan always smiled when she saw them. Kinka was the pack leader, the oldest and the largest. He jumped up to greet her, paws on her shoulders.
Rowan grabbed frantically for the chain-link gate, grasping at it with her gloved fingers to hold herself up under the large male’s immense weight. He licked her face enthusiastically, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Nothing to do but grin and bear it. After a few seconds, she finally pushed him down. “Okay,” she told him. “That’s enough. Go on. Go do your job. Guard.”
Kinka recognized the gesture and the command immediately. He gave Rowan an affirmative bark then yipped at the others to get them to fall in line. Jory and Kono stopped dancing at Rowan’s feet and fled after their leader, announcing their presence to the sheep still housed in the barn and other wildlife beyond the tree line as they headed off to patrol the pasture’s perimeter.
Rowan threw open the large barn door and saw the flock huddled together in groups, standing in front of the large ceramic heaters Dad had purchased last winter after they’d lost one third of their head to below-freezing temperatures. She flipped the switch on the electrical box to shut them down. As the roar of the fans diminished, the protests of the sheep could be heard. The sun was out, though, and the day was heating up, so they’d be fine outside for the afternoon.
She slid open the side door that led to the pasture but struggled with the secondary fence. The top wire had collapsed, and she had to peel the gloves off her hands so she could untangle Dad’s makeshift attempt at fence repair. When she finally detached the barbed wire from the heavy steel gate, she heaved it open all the way to allow the flock to get through. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted “Kinka!”
The dog left the other two to finish the patrol and bounded back toward the barn at full speed, large webbed paws never slipping in the slush and snow that covered the ground. He charged through the gate, passing up Rowan, intent now on the day’s work of herding and guarding. He snapped at the ewes, circling around them, pushing them away from their beloved heaters and out into the world, where he, Jory, and Kono would keep them safe while they grazed.