Of all the miserable times to get caught out a thousand miles from nowhere, this beats everythin’!” Joe Perkins turned his coat collar up around his neck and glared at Mike Carey. “You an’ your dumb idea to go huntin’ while Sharpe’s in Rock Springs.”
“How did I know it was going to rain?” Mike defended himself and poked at the little fire in front of them that sputtered its protest against the storm. “Cookie said he sure could use some fresh venison, so I told him we’d get some.”
“An’ dragged me along with you.” Joe grunted. “We could have gone courtin’ instead of spendin’ the night out here.” He waved at the blackness around the complaining fire.
“They aren’t home.” Mike didn’t have to identify who they were. “One of the boys who rode in for the mail said he met Nate Birchfield at the post office and Nate said his folks and the girls and their folks were going camping in the high country for a couple of days.”
“Why’d they want to do that this late in the year?” A little worry line crossed Joe’s face and sent a quiver through Mike’s veins.
“They probably didn’t know it was going to rain, either,” he reminded Joe.
“Who does in this country?” The worry line didn’t go away. Joe tugged off his boots, turned them upside down over stakes he had driven in next to the fire and stretched his feet toward the little blaze. “Looks like the rain’s letting up some. If we can get our socks dry maybe we can also get a little shut-eye. The tarps’ll help.” He waited until the drizzle stopped for a time and spread his tarp on the ground, waterproof side down. He tossed down the blankets that had been wrapped inside the tarps and finished by covering the hard bed with Mike’s tarp, waterproof side up. “I hope you don’t snore.”
“Only when I’m pretending to be asleep,” Mike reminded, stifling a grin at the memory of the day Sharpe stormed into the bunkhouse spitting death and destruction.
Never in his entire life had Carmichael Blake-Jones, alias Mike Carey, spent such an uncomfortable night. He went to bed cold, stayed cold, and woke up a dozen times, still cold. It didn’t help that Joe slept like a hibernating bear and only roused himself long enough to yank the tarp over their heads when the rain increased.
Along with his physical torment, Mike couldn’t help remembering the worry that creased Joe’s forehead. When the gray dawn came, the stiff cowboys struggled into their boots. The fire had dried the inside a bit, but the downpour in the night had soaked them again. “Why didn’t you stick them under the tarp?” Joe asked. A trace of his permanent grin lightened the mood. “I’d have done it myself but I guess you noticed once I fall asleep it takes a lot to wake me up.”
“I noticed,” Mike let it go at that. Then he said, “Joe, uh, you don’t think the Birchfields would get into trouble, do you? They’ve lived here a long time.”
“Only a fool or newcomer tries to predict Wyomin’ weather this time of year,” Joe spit out. “Everythin’ looks all bright an’ beautiful like yesterday. Then along comes these innocent-lookin’ puffy clouds that get their heads together an’ the first thing you know, bang! You’ve got a storm.” He eyed the sulky sky. “There’s more to come. Did Nate say where they were headin’?”
Mike started to shake his head no then stopped. “Wait, I believe he did. Our rider said something about the gulch trail being the prettiest place around, what with all the color.”
Joe jerked erect. His apple-red cheeks lost their color. “Saddle Peso.” He ran to Splotch, the pinto he liked best of the Circle 5 horses. “I reckon we’d better mosey along an’ meet them comin’ out.”
Something in Joe’s voice stilled the million questions knocking in Mike’s brain. He forgot the rain, his growling empty stomach, everything except the fact the Birchfields might be in danger.
“Now’s the time to pray to that God of yours,” Joe said as he climbed into the saddle, wheeled Splotch, and touched him with his boot heels. “Come on, will you?”
Mike mounted Peso and in two jumps came even with Joe. “All right, pard, let’s have it. It’s worse imagining things than knowing how they really are.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the steady drum of the horses’ feet.
“Couldn’t be worse if they get caught on the gulch trail an’ a wall of water comes racin’ down.” Joe’s fixed gaze on their own trail didn’t waver an inch. “It all depends on how far they went, how fast they started out this mornin’ an’ if they got past the point where the trail leaves the creek.” A steely gleam that crept into Joe’s eyes when he glanced at him confirmed Mike’s fears.
“How far are we from there?”
Joe grunted. “Far enough, but we’re a darned sight closer than if we’d had to come from the Circle 5.”
“Just maybe God knew we’d be needed and that’s why we got caught out last night,” Mike reflected.
“Maybe.” Joe’s lips set in a grim line and Mike lapsed into silence, pouring out his concern in an unspoken prayer.
An eternity later Joe called, “One more hill.”
Panting from their run, Peso and Splotch scrambled to the top of the rise and plunged over, sliding on wet needles and grass.
Boom! A distant reverberation chilled Mike and Joe swallowed hard. Heedless of possible danger, they urged their horses down the slope.
Before the echoes died in the narrow canyon, Nat bellowed, “Ride for your lives and don’t spare the horses!” He whacked the pack ponies with his leather quirt until they whinnied in terror and bolted down the trail. The others followed, slipping, regaining their balance.
How much time did they have before churning waters poured toward them? Rose wondered. She expertly guided Mesquite, conscious of Columbine’s half-sobbing breath behind her and Nate’s encouraging, “Steady, Piebald, easy.” The half mile to safety dwindled to one-fourth of a mile. The trail widened slightly and Rose’s death grip on her reins loosened. The pack ponies were out of sight. Nat swerved his stallion to one side, close to the cliff, and motioned Laurel and Ivy Ann past, then Rose.
The vanguard of the flood waters reached them, a roiling, hungry monster seeking vengeance after being restrained miles above. “Go, Mesquite!” Rose screamed. He snorted, stretched out to his full length, and leaped away from the relentless tide. Laurel and Ivy Ann had reached the junction where the stream went one way, the trail the other, up an incline to a flat bench-like formation. Their weary horses forged ahead and stopped on top, trembling and spent.
A wall of muddy water hit the others like an avalanche. Mesquite swayed but kept his footing and nimbly sailed over a rushing log, staggered, then stamped his way to safety.
Rose turned and cried out in despair. Below her the other horses fought valiantly. Piebald made it to the junction and raced toward the bench high above danger. “Oh, dear God, please help them!” Rose couldn’t tear her gaze from the awful scene. Logs, some upright, rode down the gulch, smashing this way and that. Nat’s stallion stood braced against the rock wall, up to his knees in sucking water. “Head your horse this way,” he shouted to Columbine. Her face shone paler than the flower whose name she wore, but she tried to obey.
The next instant a branch grazed her horse’s flanks causing him to rear. Columbine stayed in the saddle, but Rose could see that her sister’s strength had been tried to the utmost.
Nat’s stallion went down. Adam’s horse attempted to swim but the current made it impossible. To Rose’s horror, her father disappeared in the sweeping torrent around the bend. Nat’s magnificent animal regained his precarious position.
“Rose!” Columbine’s pleading voice beat in her sister’s ears but was replaced by pounding hooves and men shouting. Nat grabbed for Columbine and missed, and his wild cry rose above the tumult. Both Nat and Columbine went under when the big stallion and the girl’s mount stumbled and fell, to reappear, but unable to brace the flood.
Something sang over Rose’s head, and she whipped around. Joe Perkins had thrown his lasso. It fell far short of Columbine but close enough for Nat to grab it and be hauled in. Regardless of her own safety, Rose stumbled toward the edge of the bench. She couldn’t just stand there and do nothing! Nate tackled her and brought her down. “You can’t save her, Rosy. Only God can do that. Look, look!” he shrieked.
Mike Carey had urged Peso into the river. Strong and powerful muscles rippled in the quarter horse’s shoulders. With his knees and left hand clenched to keep in the saddle, Mike’s right hand readied his lasso. Then he, too, passed out of sight around the bend, leaving only the thundering flood to taunt the mortals shivering on the little bench of land.
Mike only had time for a quick prayer before entering the now river-sized stream. The moment he and Joe saw the trouble no question arose as to their duty. Mike waited long enough to see Joe’s rope fall short of Columbine before he charged into the river, appreciating to the fullest the horse he rode. After that he had no thought for anything except getting to Columbine before a crashing branch knocked her out. When he surged around the bend and saw the girl clinging to the branch of a tree only God could have kept from crushing her, he gave a cry of joy. Yet Columbine remained in danger. How long could she hold on with the treacherous flood waters pulling at her?
Mike cast a quick glance ahead and again cried out. Downstream a stumbling figure at the edge of the water showed Adam Birchfield and his soaked horse making their way to safety. The gulch widened at that point but Mike saw how it narrowed again into what had to be a drop-off. “Dear God, I have to get her out here or not at all.” His fingers tightened on his lasso. “Hold on, Columbine!” he yelled as loud as he could.
For the second time in Mike’s life, another human being’s life depended on him, and he knew as surely as when he had saved Joe that he had to act at once. There would be no time to recoil his rope if he missed.
Peso gained on the frail craft that supported the girl and finally drew even. Mike screamed into the heavens, “Give me Your help, oh God,” and threw the rope.
The rope missed the girl but caught on the branch she held. With daring born of desperation, Columbine released one of her hands from the branch, lunged for the rope, and somehow got it over her slender shoulders. Mike saw her lips move while he tightened the lasso around his saddle horn. “Now, old man!”
All the breeding that made Peso the best roundup horse on the range sprang into life. Inch by inch he fought his way until he swam close to Columbine. Mike clasped his knees against Peso’s heaving sides and, bending from the waist, scooped Columbine into his arms not a moment too soon. A purple bruise showed where floating debris had struck her. Her light brown eyes looked black with emotion.
“All over but the shouting.” Mike tried to smile and saw her tears start. A few minutes later Peso gained the shore in spite of his double burden and Mike slid from the saddle, laid Columbine on his tarp, and hurried to where Adam lay gasping a few hundred yards away.
“Are you all right, sir?” He helped the dazed man sit up.
“Laurel, Rose, the others? Columbine? Oh, dear God, tell me they’re not all dead.” His prayer brought weakness to Mike’s knees, but he shook Adam until his eyes cleared.
“God has saved every one. Every one,” he repeated. “The others are back at the junction of the trail. Columbine’s just below. Peso and I fished her out.”
Adam still looked confused, and Mike shook him again.
“I don’t know if Columbine’s hurt. She needs you to look at a bruise on her face.”
The appeal for his God-given skills reached the doctor as nothing else could. With Mike’s help, Adam limped downstream and grabbed Columbine into his arms.
Mike looked away, back at the flood waters that had already begun to abate until only muddy grass showed how they had spilled over their banks.
“I’ll build a fire,” Mike said. “If I can find dry wood.”
“Do you have dry matches?” Adam’s expert hands checked over Columbine to make sure no bones were broken.
“Always. A candle stub, too.” Mike found a sturdy branch from the flood, whacked open the trunk of a dead tree and scooped out the dry inside. Before long a tiny fire smoldered. A few soggy biscuits from the saddlebags offered sustenance.
“I expect the others in a few minutes,” Adam said. “The water is down and they can pick their way. What did I tell you?” He pointed upstream to where horses and riders gingerly came between discarded logs at the edge of the gulch. “Good. The pack ponies didn’t get wet at all. We’ll have hot food before long.”
Rose’s eyes looked like drenched brown velvet pansies when she saw Columbine sitting up against a saddle, bedraggled but safe. She gave a little cry. “We prayed so hard. Thank God. How did He save you? Joe Perkins dragged Uncle Nat out after his horse went down.”
“He did?” The glory in Columbine’s eyes sent a sheepish grin to the cowboy’s red face. “Dad stuck on his horse and the flood swept him close enough to shore so he could get out. I thought I wouldn’t make it when I lost my stirrups and the current got me.” Stark horror returned and Rose hugged her, but Columbine bit her lip and went on. “I grabbed a branch on a log that came toward me. Just when I knew I couldn’t hold it any longer I heard a yell to hold on. Someone threw a rope and it caught the branch. I got it around me and then I don’t remember what happened.” Her dirty fingers explored the bump on her head. “I guess something hit me. Then I was in Mr. Carey’s arms and he got me out and—oh dear! I’m going to cry.” The tears she had held back so long threatened to drown Rose, who still held her close.
“We couldn’t believe that you’d leap into that flood,” Nate told Mike. Color returned to his white face.
“I didn’t stop to decide,” Mike admitted and patted Peso’s neck. “I’ll tell you, if it hadn’t been for God and this old man here—”
“Don’t say it,” Rose pleaded and tightened her hold on the sister she had never before known she loved so much until she almost vanished in the dirty, rolling waters.
Joe Perkins didn’t say a word, but Rose noticed how serious he looked when the others talked about God saving them. Her cold heart warmed. Maybe someday… She didn’t finish her thought. Right now they needed to get home.
“We lost two horses,” Adam said. “Columbine’s and mine. There’s a chance they’ll get out somewhere below and come home, but even if they don’t, that’s a small price compared with—”
“With what could have happened,” Laurel finished quietly.
“We’ll redistribute the pack ponies’ loads onto the other horses and Rosy and I will ride them bareback,” Nate offered.
“I’ll ride a pack pony and Miss Birchfield can ride Peso,” Mike corrected, without looking at Joe Perkins who made a funny sound in his throat. Was he thinking of Mike’s boast months ago that no one would ride Peso but his owner?
“After all we’ve been through, this Mr. Carey and Miss Birchfield business sounds downright unfriendly.” Nate’s spirits had already bounced back.
“I agree if Miss, er, Rose does,” Mike quickly inserted.
A lovely light shone in her eyes. “I do. Thank you for the loan of your horse, Mike.” She stepped into the stirrups and stood while he adjusted them to her shorter height. “Now let’s go home. Not to Antelope, but to the Double B. We can get dry there and Grandma will feed us.” She paused. “That includes you two,” she told Mike and Joe.
“Grub sounds good to me,” Joe said heartily, and a murmur of assent rippled through the stained but thankful band.
Hours later, in the crisp, clear evening, Mike and Joe rode home to the Circle 5. Bright stars guided their way, yet none glowed more brilliant or beautiful than the girls’ eyes when they told the cowboys goodnight and thanked them again. Mike didn’t notice how much distance they had covered in silence until Joe heaved a sigh. “I reckon that trailmate of yours came in mighty handy today.”
Mike’s heart lurched with gladness. “I reckon He did,” he repeated. When Joe didn’t respond, Mike added, “He’s waiting to be your trailmate, too, as soon as you invite Him along.”
“I know.” Joe sighed for a second time. “A feller’d be an ungrateful cuss for not acceptin’ Him, wouldn’t he?”
Mike reined in Peso, their forms silhouetted in the starlight. “Joe, I’d give almost anything in the world to have you accept the Lord, but it can’t be just because He sent a miracle and saved the Birchfields today.”
The pale light didn’t hide Joe’s astonishment. “Who said anythin’ about that bein’ the reason?” he demanded. “Didn’t you say Jesus came to save everybody an’ died to do it?”
“All those who believe and claim the promise.” Mike didn’t move a muscle. The night wind held its breath and the mountains loomed as if waiting for Joe to answer.
“Well, I guess if He wants a poor, sinful cowpoke who’s sorry, I’m willin’.” Joe rode away before Mike could recover his wits enough to realize what had just happened. How like Joe Perkins to confess his sins and invite Jesus to be his trailmate in his own unique way! A few long lopes and Peso overtook Splotch. Mike didn’t say one word. He just held out his hand and gripped Joe’s and sealed the brotherhood between them.
An errant thought that maybe someday they might truly be brothers in the eyes of the world as well crossed Mike’s mind, a thought only shared with his loving and merciful Creator.