Miss Murray On The Cattle Trail

Alex turned her gaze on Zach, who was sitting across the fire pit from her. “Mr. Strickland, may I rely on you to supervise the drawing?”

“Maybe.”

She blinked. “Maybe? You do want it to be fair and square, do you not?”

“Sure.” He sent her a long look. “For a price.”

“Oh.” Her heartbeat faltered. “What price would you ask?”

“I don’t want to be included in your drawing. Don’t want you writin’ about me.”

“You don’t want to be interviewed? I cannot write a story if I have no, um, factual information.”

“I said I don’t want to be interviewed,” he repeated, his voice sharp. “That’s my price. Take it or leave it.”

She blinked again. What on earth ailed this man? Did he not want—oh, of course. He did not want her to write any newspaper stories at all. He wanted, he planned, to send her back to the Rocking K. Well, she would show him.

“Very well, I accept your condition.” She suppressed a grin of triumph. “On one condition of my own.”

One dark eyebrow went up. “Yeah? What condition?”

“Yeah,” came a chorus of male voices. “What condition?”

“That I am granted my hour of privacy first, before you all draw your straws. All except Mr. Strickland, that is.” She waited half a heartbeat. “And...” she caught a glimmer of something in Zach’s eyes “...that Mr. Strickland is the one who stands guard while I am, um, being private.”

“Fair enough,” Jase said. “Whaddya say, boss?”

He didn’t answer for so long Alex thought he hadn’t heard her proposal.

“Boss?” Jase prompted.

“Mr. Strickland?” she said, her voice as sweet as she could make it. “What is your decision?”

He stood and tossed the rest of his coffee into the fire. “Come on, Miss Murray. Let’s get your ‘privacy’ over with so the hands can draw their straws and turn in. Night’s half over.”

She shot to her feet. “Cherry, please gather your sticks. I will return in one hour.”

She walked downstream, away from the camp, looking for a sandy beach and a pool suitable for bathing. Zach walked five paces behind her, whistling through his teeth. Suddenly she stopped short. There it was, the perfect spot, a deep pool screened by willow trees.

“Here,” she announced. His whistling ceased, and she waited until he caught up with her.

“Right.” He tipped his head toward the copse of trees. “I’ll be over there.”

“Standing guard,” she reminded him.

“Yeah.” He strode off and disappeared. “Your hour starts now,” he called from somewhere behind the greenery.

Quickly she stripped off her shirt, boots and jeans, listening for telltale signs that he was creeping up to spy on her. He wouldn’t do that, would he? Well, he might, she acknowledged. On second thought, no, he wouldn’t. Zach Strickland was the most maddening man she’d ever come across, but something told her he was a man of his word.

She stripped off her camisole and underdrawers. Then she took three quick steps across the sandy creek bank and dived headfirst into the most blissful, cool bath she could imagine.

She swam and splashed, unwound her braid and washed the grit out of her hair, then floated on her back and gazed up at the purpling sky overhead. Dusk was beautiful out here, soft with tones of lavender and violet, and the air so sweet it was like wine.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” came Zach’s voice from somewhere.

She paddled to shore, dragged herself up on the narrow beach and stood shivering while a million crickets yammered at her. Drat! She had no way to get dry except to just stand still and let the water evaporate.

“Four minutes,” he called.

Double drat. Not enough time to air-dry. She grabbed her camisole to use as a towel. But when she’d blotted up all the water, the garment was too sodden to wear, so she wadded it up, stuffed it in the back pocket of her jeans and pulled on her drawers, followed by her shirt and trousers. Her wet hair dripped all over her shirt, but it couldn’t be helped. At least it was clean.

She heard Zach stalking toward her through the brush. “Time’s up. You ready?”

Well, no, she wasn’t, but at least she’d washed off the trail dust. “Look,” she teased when he appeared. She flipped her wet hair at him. “No grasshoppers!”

Unexpectedly he laughed out loud.

“Tomorrow night when I bathe—”

“Hold on a minute,” he interrupted her. “The hands don’t take a bath every night, and neither will you.”

“But we’ll all smell...well, funny after riding in the sun all day, won’t we?”

“Yeah. Get used to it. We don’t take baths unless there’s a river or a stream handy, and that isn’t too often. We sleep in our duds, too.”

“Oh.” That was another snippet of information she could put in her newspaper column, but it wouldn’t help her sense of smell for the next few weeks.

“So,” he continued, “when you’re close to anybody on a trail drive, just don’t breathe too deep. Or maybe hold your nose.”

“Oh,” she said again.

Back in camp the men sat around the fire, eyeing the fistful of twigs Cherry held in one roughened hand.

“All set, miss?” the graying wrangler inquired. The man was bent from years on the trail, she guessed, but there was something about him she liked. For one thing, he moved so gracefully and deliberately it was like watching a man do a slow sort of dance. And for another, he was the only one of the men who didn’t watch everything she did.

“All set,” she answered. “You may proceed with the drawing.”

The cowhands hunched forward, and one by one each of them drew a stick from Cherry’s gnarled fingers. Zach stood on the other side of the campfire, watching.

“Aw, my stick’s longer’n a steer’s horn,” Skip grumbled.

“Mine, too,” José said.

Some of the men held their sticks close to their chest. Others, disappointed, snapped theirs in two and tossed the pieces into the flames. At last a chortle rose from Curly, who leaped up and capered around the fire. “It’s me! I got the short stick! She’s gonna interview me first.”

“And we’re all gonna listen,” Cassidy drawled. “Ain’t we, boys?”

“This is okay with you, señorita?” José inquired politely.

“More important,” came Zach’s commanding voice, “is it okay with Curly? He might not want you hearin’ all his secrets.”

Jase snorted. “Heck, boss, twenty thousand people back East are gonna read all about ’m. After that, Curly won’t have any secrets!”

Curly settled his work-hardened frame next to Alex and sent her a shy smile. “Guess I’m ready, Miss Murray. Fire away.”

Quietly, Roberto set a brimming mug of coffee at her elbow. She took a sip, fished her notebook and pencil out of her shirt pocket and began.

“Your name is Curly, is that right?”

“Yeah. My real name’s Garner, miss. Thaddeus Garner.”

“Then why are you called Curly? I notice your hair is straight as a licorice whip.” The men guffawed.

“Dunno, ma’am. I’ve always been Curly, ever since I kin remember.”

“Very well, Curly. Now, tell me all about yourself, where you were born, where you grew up, how you came to be on this cattle drive.”

“Well, lessee, now. I was born in Broken Finger, Idaho. That is, I think I was. My momma could never remember. Some days she said it was Mule Heaven and other days she said it was Broken Finger. Pa died before I could ask him.”

“And did you grow up in Broken Finger? Or Mule Heaven?”

“Guess so, miss. Leastways Ma never moved whilst I was growin’ up. Went to school for a while, but I never seemed to learn much.”

Jase snorted. “Didn’t learn nuthin’, ya mean.”

“Didn’t learn anything,” Skip corrected with a grin.

“You neither, huh?” Jase shot back.

Alex tapped her pencil against the notepad. “Gentlemen, please. Let Curly finish his story.”

Curly talked and talked while Alex jotted down pages of notes. The man talked for so long that the other hands began to drift off and retrieve their bedrolls from the chuck wagon, lay them out around the fire and nod off to sleep. And still Curly talked.

Alex’s hand began to cramp, but she kept writing. Finally Curly ran out of steam. She thanked him profusely and he blushed like a schoolgirl.

Her fingers ached, but it was a small price to pay for a long, cooling bath. And the notes for an excellent newspaper story.

Chapter Five

After Curly’s interview, Zach sent him off to night-herd with José, listened to his wrangler’s report about the remuda and grudgingly admitted that Miss Alexandra Murray—Dusty—had more sand than he’d thought. Today she’d ridden a full twelve hours across miles of sunbaked sagebrush and bunch grass without once complaining, or crying, or doing any of a dozen other things most women would under the circumstances. And she could still sit up and talk past suppertime.

Not only that, he’d learned more about Curly tonight than he’d gleaned in the seven years he’d known the man. Dusty had a way of asking questions that sort of drew forth information. And secrets. He’d never known before that Curly had once had a wife. Or that his newborn son had died at birth, along with the baby’s mother.

But he knew one thing for certain—he’d never let Dusty within twenty yards of himself with her pencil and that notepad in her hand. The woman was downright dangerous. He had secrets, too, things he’d never told a living soul.

He heard Roberto’s wheezy breathing from under the chuck wagon. Between his cook’s snoring and the scrape of crickets, the night seemed to close in around him in an unsettling net. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Curly’s dead wife? Juan’s polite but pointed remark about the river they’d have to ford soon? Swollen, the kid said. “And the current muy swift, Señor Boss.”

Or was it the way his new hand, Cassidy, kept staring at Dusty and edging closer and closer to her while she sat talking with Curly?

Last night she’d rolled out her pallet as close to the chuck wagon and Roberto as she could get without scaring the cook out of a night’s sleep. Zach noted that tonight she’d done the same thing.

Cassidy always seemed to be there beside her around the campfire. Not good. And when Dusty climbed into her bedroll, there was Cassidy, throwing his blankets down right next to her.

Zach moved quietly to where she lay, her dark head poking out from her top blanket. Cassidy was sound asleep. Zach laid one hand on her shoulder.

“I’m not asleep,” she murmured.

“Get up and come with me,” he said. She slipped out of her bedroll, and he rolled the blankets up under his arm and tipped his head toward the opposite side of the fire pit. She nodded, picked up her boots and quietly followed him.

He positioned her bedroll parallel to the dying coals and motioned for her to crawl in. Then he rolled out his own pallet next to hers. Now no one could reach her without first stepping over him or wading through hot coals.

“Understand?” he whispered.

“Yes. That man, Cassidy, makes me uneasy.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He laid his revolver under the saddle he used for a pillow, positioned his hat over his face and closed his eyes.

“Thank you, Zach,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” he said.

“And I’m still here,” she breathed. “You owe me a silver dollar.”

“Yeah,” he said again. He hated to admit it, but he was halfway glad. Dusty was fun to watch.

He tried like the devil to go to sleep, and he would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the quiet breathing of the woman beside him. He was so aware of her his toes itched.

He damn well didn’t want to be aware of her. He didn’t want to notice her or find himself watching her or listening for her voice. A female could be a dangerous thing. And a female on a cattle drive, a female he couldn’t help admiring, made him sweat bullets.

* * *

The next morning, an incident occurred that brought him up short. It wasn’t what happened, exactly; it was his puzzling anger about it. He never lost his temper. He’d learned long before he came out West, before he’d learned to ride or shoot a rifle or sweet-talk a girl, how to stuff down rage. So his reaction surprised him.

At first light he saw Cassidy snatch up Dusty’s white camisole where it hung drying on the chuck wagon towel rack and caper around camp, twirling the garment over his head. It made Zach see red.

He grabbed the lacy thing out of Cassidy’s hand and laid him flat with one punch. Then he stuffed the garment inside his vest and stalked out of camp to cool off down at the creek bank. When he returned, the men were sitting around the fire, sleepily shoveling down bacon and biscuits, and he sent Cassidy out to relieve one of the night-herders.

Dusty sat between Juan and Curly, calmly sipping a mug of coffee. Zach couldn’t stop staring at her chest. Without her camisole, he knew her bare nipples were pressing against that thin blue shirt, and it was doing funny things to his insides. His outsides, too.

He slipped the bit of cotton and lace out of his vest and without a word knelt beside her, pressed it into her hand and folded her fingers over it. She gave a little squeak, and he bit back a chuckle.

She leaped up, marched over to the horse Cherry had brought up for her today and pulled herself up into the saddle. Lordy, he’d have to work hard to keep his eyes off that all-too-female body of hers this morning.

It wasn’t easy.

Sometime around noon they entered a stretch of red-brown rocks interspersed with clumps of tall mustard, blazing bright yellow in the hot sun. Pretty stuff in the wild. In the summertime, Consuelo used armloads of it to make a kind of spicy-hot spread for venison or baked ham. He watched Dusty slow her mount to admire a patch of the weed. Probably gonna draw a picture of it in her notebook.

She looked up and bit her lip. “How will I ever learn everything there is to know about a cattle drive?” she asked.

“Everything? You don’t need to know ‘everything,’ Dusty. You just need to know enough to stay alive.”

“But my newspaper...the readers are simply fascinated by the West. How will I ever report enough to keep them entertained?”

Entertained! Hell’s bells, this drive means life or death for me, and all she wants to do is entertain?

“Well, I’ll tell ya.” He sent her a look from under the brim of his hat. “Do what Charlie told me when I first came to work for him.”

“And what would that be?”

“Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut.”

She gave him a sharp look, her lupine-colored eyes widening.

“Got it?” he snapped.

“Yes, sir, I have most certainly ‘got it.’ In order to keep my readers riveted to their morning newspapers, I thank the Lord I can scribble my notebook full of interesting facts while joggling along on the back of a horse. Nothing will escape me.” Her voice was so frosty it made him wince. “I do keep my eyes and ears open,” she continued. “And that includes noticing your...your insufferable rudeness. You will not hear another question out of me.”

He laughed out loud. “I’ll believe that when steers can fly.”

She sent him a smoldering look and gigged her mount away from him.

Sure hope you remember the “mouth shut” part, Dusty.

He reined away, but her horse started acting funny, and that caught his attention. She urged it closer to the rocks and all at once the animal shied and danced sideways. What the—Then the sorrel arched its back and bucked her out of the saddle.

She landed flat on her back. By the time he reached her, the horse had skittered off a ways, and out of the corner of his eye he saw what had startled it. Rattlesnake.

Dusty laid without moving. Zach pulled out his gun, shot the snake, then dropped out of the saddle and raced over to her. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t breathing. Had the wind knocked out of her, he guessed. When he knelt beside her, she grabbed for his arm. Her face was white as flour and she was struggling to draw in a breath.

“You’re okay,” he barked. “You’re winded. Just lie easy.”

She tried to sit up, then sucked in a huge breath and started to cough, gasping for breath at the same time. “C-can’t breathe!” she choked out.

Zach rocked back on his heels. “Not surprising since you got thrown. Your horse shied at a rattler.”

Her eyes widened. “A s-snake?”

“Yeah. Horses are afraid of snakes.”

“P-people, t-too,” she said. “Oh, my s-stars, a snake!” She shuddered visibly.

Now that she was breathing better, he found himself mad as hell. “Dusty, there’s a whole lotta things out here that’ll spook a pilgrim like you. It’s time you turned tail and—”

She jerked upright and jabbed her forefinger into his chest. “Pilgrim! I am not a ‘pilgrim’ by any stretch of your minuscule imagination, Mr. Strickland.”

Hell, she sure had plenty of breath now. He caught her chest-poking hand and held it out to one side. “Damn right you’re a pilgrim. You’re a real beginner out here in the West. Oughtta know better than to ride close to the rocks on sunny days. And that’s another reason why—”

“I am most certainly not going back!” she hissed. “I can learn about snakes and rocks and...and other things. I intend to complete this cattle drive, and my newspaper assignment, so you can just stop yammering and let me get on with it!”

He stared at her.

She jerked her hand out of his grasp. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you, all right. You’re more stubborn than a whole passel of mules, Dusty, but I’m the trail boss of this outfit, and I say you’re just too much damn trouble out here. I say you’re going back to the Rocking K.”

Before she could speak, Juan cantered up on his bay. “Is problema?”

“No!” Dusty yelled up at him.

“I’ll say,” Zach contradicted. “Horse threw her.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” she protested. “It...it was the snake!”

“Si,” Juan acknowledged with a sidelong glance at Zach. “The snake. And the horse, he did not like, so...” He made an eloquent somersaulting motion with his hand.

“Exactly,” Dusty said. She got to her feet, dusted off her jeans and advanced on her horse. Juan walked his mount forward, leaned over to grab the reins and laid them in her hand.

With a nod of thanks, she stuffed her boot into the stirrup and clawed her way up into the saddle. Then she tossed her head, stuck her nose in the air and kicked the horse into a gallop.

Juan and Zach looked at each other. “Mucho woman,” the young man breathed.

Zach shook his head. “Mucho trouble, you mean.”

“Si, maybe so. But ees ver’ pretty trouble, no? Like I say, Señor Boss, mucho woman.” Chuckling, he kicked his gelding and rode off.

Zach stomped over to remount, but instead stood looking after Dusty. Mucho problem. Very mucho.

* * *

Long days followed long days, one after the other, with nothing happening except endless hot, boring hours plodding after a herd of noisy cows, and listening to the thunder of hooves and the yipping of cowhands trying to keep them moving forward. Sometimes she wondered what the cowhands thought about during the interminable hours on horseback with nobody to talk to and nothing to do but chase after wandering animals.

They all smelled sweaty at the end of a day on the trail. When they could, the men bathed in creeks and rivers, and on Sundays, if Zach held the drive over for a day, they’d grab a cake of yellow lye soap and wash out their filthy garments. Like everyone else, she had only one pair of jeans plus an extra shirt and another pair of drawers, so every day she prayed for a camp beside a creek.

Did people in Chicago or Philadelphia or New York have any inkling what whole days lived like this were really like? She knew her readers would want to “see” what happened on a cattle drive, so part of the hours she spent on horseback she planned how she would write about it.

I’ll start out by describing the meadows full of red and yellow wildflowers that get trampled by thousands of animal hooves, and how the sky looks in the morning when the sun comes up, all pinky-orange, and how hot it gets at noon, and how the dust smells after it rains. And then I’ll...

* * *

A day later Zach’s frustration reached the boiling point. He told himself he was just tired, worried about getting a thousand head of prime beef to market, concerned about Cassidy and his over-interest in Dusty and just plain disgusted about nursemaiding a city girl who had no business on his cattle drive. He’d taken to watching her struggle to keep up with the herd as it lumbered along. Kinda enjoyed it, if he was honest about it.

She was green as grass on a horse, stiff in the saddle and inconsistent with the reins. Often the poor animal couldn’t read her contradictory signals and stopped dead in the middle of a meadow. Dusty had assured him she knew how to ride, but when he watched her, he sure doubted it. She probably rode on tame, city park bridle paths, ambling along with some poor dude she’d roped into an outing.

This afternoon was no different. There she was, trotting parallel to the herd through a meadow dotted with dandelions and patches of bright yellow mustard, pulling so hard on the reins he winced at what the bit was doing to the poor horse’s mouth. He spurred Dancer away and came up on the other side of the herd so he wouldn’t have to watch it.

Juan and Jase were riding flank, working hard because the herd seemed restless today. Probably the weather—part sun, part clouds and lots of wind. Juan tipped his hat. Jase started to say something, then broke off to chase a wandering steer.

Zach reined up and waited for the herd to pass, planning to relieve Curly, who was riding drag. The last animal lumbered past, and through the haze of dust behind them he glimpsed Dusty’s roan standing stock-still in the middle of a patch of grass. Riderless.

Guess the horse had had enough.

He trotted closer and sure enough, there was Dusty, in a heap on the ground. “You okay?” he shouted as he rode up.

“Yes, I think so. I fell off my horse.”

Zach snorted. Got bucked off, more likely. He dismounted and stood beside her. “Want a hand?”

“Yes, thank—” She started to reach up and gave a yelp of pain. “My arm hurts! And my shoulder.”

He knelt at her elbow. “Probably bruised it. Let me see.” He rolled back her shirt-sleeve to see if her arm was broken.

“Just sprained.” But when he touched her shoulder she cried out again.

“That hurt?”

“It most certainly does hurt,” she said through clenched teeth. “And I can’t move my arm.”

Oh, hell.

“Okay, let’s get you back on your horse.”

She sucked in a breath. “I—I don’t think I can ride. I’m right-handed and I won’t be able to hold the reins.”

“Gotta get you on your feet,” he said in a resigned tone. “You hold on to your hurt arm with your left hand.” He slid his hands around her waist and lifted her upright. “Ouch!” she cried. “That hurts!”

He walked the roan over and lifted her into the saddle as carefully as he could while she grabbed her injured arm and gave little groans of distress. Then he had to pry her left hand away from her right arm, which she was clutching, and lay the reins in her hand.

“Wait! I told you I’m right-handed, so how—”

“Any good cowhand can ride with the reins in either hand. So do it. And don’t jerk on the lines. Tossing you out of the saddle is the horse’s way of telling you that you’re not doing it right.”

“Oh.” Her voice sounded funny. “All right, I’ll try.”

Good girl. She might be green, but she had guts.

She urged the horse forward, and after the animal took a few halting steps, Zach strode over to where he’d left Dancer and hauled himself into the saddle. It was going to be a long, achy day for her. Part of him felt okay about that. Might teach her a lesson. The rest of him felt halfway sorry for her. He’d bruised a few shoulders in his time. Hurt like hell.

Hours later they came upon the chuck wagon and Cherry’s remuda on a rise overlooking a long valley. The herd plodded to a halt and the hands began turning their horses over to Cherry and washing up for supper. Almost against his will, Zach kept his eye on Dusty.

Curly lifted her out of the saddle, and she moved very slowly toward the wash bucket. Roberto stopped her.

“Señorita Alex, let me fix your arm.”

She followed him to the chuck wagon, where he pulled a clean dishtowel from one of his drawers and expertly fashioned it into a sling. Then he pressed the bottle of liniment into her hand.

“Tonight you must use this again. Make better.”

“Thank you, Roberto. I’m sorry I won’t be able to help you wash up the plates tonight.”

“No problema, señorita. I get José to help.” He spooned a big dollop of beans onto a tin plate and added a chunk of corn bread, then folded her left hand around the edge.

Zach watched her thank the old man again and settle herself on a log by the fire pit. The hands dug into their suppers, and Zach took his plate and a fork and went to stand outside the circle of firelight.

But Dusty just sat there, staring down at her plate.

Roberto noticed. “What is wrong, Señorita Alex? No hungry for my chili beans?”

“I...I can’t eat with my left hand. I can’t control the fork.”

The cook frowned. “I give you a spoon, okay?”

But after she dribbled beans down the front of her shirt it was clear she couldn’t manage the spoon, either.

Suddenly Zach couldn’t stand it one more minute. “Move over,” he ordered, settling himself next to her. He grabbed her spoon and loaded it up with beans. “You’re a lot of trouble, you know that? Open your mouth.”

Obediently she did so, and he shoveled some beans past her lips. She swallowed them down and looked up at him.

“Thank you, Zach.”

He gritted his teeth, broke off a bit of the corn bread and motioned for her to open her mouth again.

“Just like feeding a baby bird,” he muttered when the corn bread disappeared. Then he wished he hadn’t said it because her cheeks got pink, and when she glanced up there was real pain in her eyes.

Blue eyes, he noted again. Dark blue, like the morning glories Alice grew on the Rocking K porch trellis.

He bit his lip and loaded up her spoon again.