Sitting on the ground with her back against a wagon wheel, Sam watched the storm rolling across the land. Flashing sheets of lightning followed by resonant thunder. Although there was no rain, the air felt charged with expectation.
She could certainly understand why the cattle had decided to stampede tonight. She desperately wanted to run herself. She’d worked until her fingers were raw, every muscle and bone in her body ached. She’d faced the river.
And for what?
For betrayal. She’d earned the right to be respected, to be thought capable of handling a stampeding herd. Instead, she’d been relinquished to waiting and worrying and wondering.
Beneath her backside, the ground still trembled with the pounding of hooves.
“Eerie, ain’t it?” Cookie asked as he put another coffee pot on the stones he carried with him to place around the fire.
She glanced over at him. He was wiping his hands on his apron.
“Cattle don’t make a dadgum sound except for the thundering of their hooves. I think the dang silence bothers me most,” he said.
For some inexplicable reason, she shivered. “I don’t know why I had to stay behind.”
“So you’d be safe.”
“I didn’t think any place was safe during a stampede,” she muttered. She knew she should be grateful that Matt cared, but it angered her that he didn’t trust her to do the job.
“A wagon is usually safe. I don’t know why, but cattle won’t trample over a wagon. If they start heading this way, you just get on the other side of it. They’ll go around. No matter how many steers there are, no matter how fast they’re going.” He chuckled. “I’ve stood with my quaking back against the wagon and watched ’em rush by like the parted waters.”
Sitting here, wondering what was going on out there on the prairie, was driving her crazy. She scrambled to her feet. “What can I do to help?”
He grinned. “That’s the fighting spirit, gal. Let’s get some water to boiling. Probably have to clean some scrapes and cuts. And the men will want lots of coffee. Once cattle get it into their heads to stampede, they’re hard to settle down. Doesn’t take much to set them to running again.”
She grabbed a pot off his well-organized wagon and began to ladle water into it from the water barrel. “Have you seen many stampedes, Cookie?”
“Yep. Before the war, I worked for men herding the cattle to California. During the war, worked for outfits trying to get beef to the Confederacy.” He swung his arm in an arch. “Now, I got this.”
She set the pot on a hooked pole that Cookie had stabbed into the earth. “Have you ever seen a woman on a cattle drive?”
“Not until this one.” He squinted at her. “What were you thinking, gal?”
“That a hundred dollars would ease my ma’s burden.”
He shook his head. “How long has Matt known?”
She licked her lips, trying to decide whether she should answer. What could it hurt? “Since we crossed the Red.”
Cookie swore harshly. Then his cheeks turned red. “Beggin’ your pardon. Jake is gonna skin that boy alive and hang him up to dry.”
Good. He deserved it. Not for keeping her secret, but for revealing it.
She heard galloping horses and turned to see some trail hands switch out their mounts for fresh horses. She ran over to them. “How’s it going?”
“They’re scattered to the four winds,” Squirrel said.
“Maybe I ought to ride with you and help,” she suggested.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Slim said. “Jake would cut us loose quicker than you could blink.”
Disappointed, she nodded.
Squirrel mounted his horse. “For what it’s worth, I thought you were a fair hand—for a first-timer.”
She smiled as he kicked his horse into a gallop. “Be careful!”
Turning away, she headed back toward the camp to see what else she could do to help Cookie. She thought she’d been a fair hand as well.
Hell on hooves.
That’s all Matt could think as he galloped over the prairie, trying to get in front of the lead steer. A man didn’t want to fall from his horse and get caught beneath all those hooves.
Matt had heard tales of men being pounded into the ground until all that was visible was their hat. Probably nothing more than a tall Texas tale. But he had no plans to test whether it was legend or fact.
The men were as silent as the cattle. The cattle didn’t bawl and the men didn’t yell. No need to spook the critters any more than they were already spooked. Besides, the men knew what to do without speaking.
The hands needed to get the cattle to start turning in on themselves, to form a circle that the men could gradually guide the cattle into—smaller and smaller, until they had no choice but to stop running. And once they were settled, they’d still be jittery and nervous.
The least little sound would start them off again.
A group of cattle detoured from the main herd. Matt swore under his breath. Once they started splitting up, it made it harder to get them back in line. A man had to stay on the outside and not get caught in the middle.
Even if Sam hadn’t been a girl, Matt would have argued with Jake about letting her ride tonight. A haunting stillness hung heavy in the air. It made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with unease.
Sam. He understood that she was madder than a hornet trapped in a bonnet. He didn’t even blame her. He had betrayed her, but in his mind he’d had no choice. He didn’t have time to argue with her or convince her of the merits of staying behind.
With her out here, they would both have been at risk, because he would have had his mind on her, on trying to protect her. If the sacrifice was the loss of her affection, so be it. He’d rather have her hate than have her dead.
He urged his horse into a faster gallop as the cattle once again veered off. He felt rain splatter on his hat. Good. If the rain came, maybe the storm would pass.
An electric storm was the worse. He watched lightning streak across the sky and dance over horns. It was a frightening sight.
The gully appeared out of nowhere. He heard the cattle bawling as they plunged over its edge.
He heard his horse’s high-squealing neigh. It pitched forward into the abyss. Matt leaped free of the chaos. But in the darkness, he couldn’t see. He could only feel the agonizing pain ripping through him.
Before the merciful peace of oblivion claimed him.
Something was wrong; Sam felt it clear down to her bones as the rain began to fall in torrents. Matt wasn’t a coward. Neither was he a fool.
He had to know that his horse couldn’t keep at a gallop all night. He had to understand that facing Sam’s wrath was preferable to wearing his horse down to nothing. Besides, she didn’t think he’d slink away from confronting her.
He’d meet her head on. He no doubt expected them to have words as soon as the cattle were quieted.
So why hadn’t he returned to camp to get a fresh horse?
The other men had, some more than once. They gulped down the cups of coffee she offered them, then leaped onto their horses and rode back into the night with only a few words spoken.
“They must have run a good fifteen to twenty miles.”
“Had ’em calmed for a while, then they just took off like someone poked ’em.”
“Figure we’ve probably lost a hundred.”
“Some didn’t have the sense to get out of the way. I keep running across trampled carcasses.”
It was the last comment tossed onto the wind that bothered her the most. She figured two thousand head at a dead run could do a lot of damage. Even though Cookie continued to reassure her that cattle wouldn’t cut across the wagon, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t trample a man and his horse.
“Need help here!” someone yelled. “Jeb is hurt!”
Sam snapped out of her reverie. Jed was pulling back on the reins, drawing his horse to a halt. Jeb was sitting behind his brother. With a grunt he slid off the back end of the horse.
His hat was gone, his clothing was muddy, and his arm was dangling at his side like a scarecrow’s in a corn field.
Jed dismounted and led his brother toward the fire. “Jeb fell from his horse.”
“Dang it, boy,” Cookie muttered as he lumbered over.
Jeb dropped onto the ground and cradled one arm in his lap. Sam knelt beside him. “Is it broken?” she asked.
Nodding, he rolled back his sleeve. Sam’s stomach roiled at the sight of the bone pushing against the flesh.
“Head back out,” Cookie ordered Jed. “Me and Sam can tend this.”
Jed nodded and then he was gone.
Sam held Jeb’s hand and wiped his brow while Cookie set the broken bone into place.
“How did you fall?” Sam asked quietly, trying to distract Jeb from the pain.
“Horse dropped his leg into a prairie-dog hole. Jed had to put him down. Broke his leg. Broke my arm.”
“Does that happen often, men getting this badly hurt?” Sam asked.
“Not unusual to lose a man or two when the cattle are as riled up as they are tonight. I knew it was a spooky night. I could feel it in the air,” Jeb said.
“Did you see Matt while you were out there?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Cattle are spread out everywhere, though. We’re all just doing the best we can.”
She glanced over at the splint that Cookie had finished putting together.
“Reckon we can expect injuries to start coming in now,” he mumbled.
And he was right. Sam served up coffee and tender ministrations. She applied a damp cloth to a huge lump on one man’s head. Men limped around the camp. More men began to filter into camp, reporting that the cattle were spread out but calmed.
Some men fell flat onto their pallets and immediately began to snore. Others drank the coffee and ate the sourdough biscuits she offered right before they headed back out. But Matt never returned to camp.
The sunrise was just a sliver along the horizon, beginning to push aside the night. She tromped over to the remaining horses and began to saddle Cinnamon.
“What are you doing?” Squirrel asked.
“Something’s wrong. Matt hasn’t returned to camp,” she told him.
“A lot of fellas are staying out there,” Squirrel said.
How could she explain this feeling of dread that had been creeping over her? “But they’ve returned to camp off and on. Even Jake has returned to camp.” Not as often as some of the men, but he had come back at least twice that she’d seen.
“I’ll go with you,” Squirrel said.
She didn’t know whether to draw comfort from his presence or worry because he had thought, just as she did, that there was a need to go in search of Matt.