The Wildcatter

CHAPTER FOUR

TODAY HE’D STACKED and shifted some eight tons of hay—seventy-five pounds at a throw. Miguel ached from his back teeth to his big toes and all points in between.

Worse than strained muscles was the exhaustion. All he wanted was to lie down on a soft bed—ay, Dios!, even the ground would do—and sleep for a week.

Instead here he sat, sore legs clamped in a death grip around this surly oat guzzler, miles from his goal. With the sun going down.

Pain he could always handle. And fatigue; his hands and his back would soon harden to the work. But at the end of this second day of haying, Miguel was beginning to realize that time was against him.

Yesterday, except for that dawn scouting trip he’d made to get the lay of the land, he’d not had a minute to spare. Cutting and raking in the fields till sunset, then a short stop for food, then the mower’s blades had needed replacing and that job stole the evening.

Then this morning, again they’d started work just after breakfast—and his crew had stacked the final bale in the hay barn only an hour ago. He’d grabbed a shower at the bunkhouse, skipped supper in spite of his groaning stomach, then spent the past forty minutes wrestling a bridle and saddle onto this diablo, and strapping them in place.

Luckily no one had been around to see the show when he tried to mount! The beast could kick forward with his hind leg—Miguel had thought horses only kicked backward—and he’d done so with vicious glee, every time his would-be rider tried to step into the stirrup.

When Miguel had faced toward the back hooves and tried to mount that way, damn if the beast hadn’t twisted his shaggy head around and bitten him in the butt! He’d lost fifteen precious minutes while they’d spun in a swearing, kicking, snapping circle, till finally he’d shoved the brute against the side of a corral and used the rails to scramble aboard.

Now, bruised, battered and bitten, he was taking the first ride of his life—with the sun going down. No way would he make it to the Badwater Flats tonight. But perhaps as far as the river? A man had to start somewhere. Clenching the reins, he clucked to his mount. “Vaya, cabrón. Move it.”

The beast swiveled back his brown pointed devil’s ears and left them that way, reminding Miguel of a cop’s portable radar gun—two guns—aimed at approaching cars. He was being “watched” and measured. “Go on.”

The horse snorted, shook his head and stepped out at a finicky walk.

Not daring to kick him, Miguel shook the reins. “Faster, you!” From the barnyard to the nearest border of the flats was nine miles, he’d calculated on his map. At this rate, he could not reach it before midnight.

Pulling on one leather, he hauled the horse’s head toward the trail he’d seen riders take this morning, which must lead to the valley floor. “To the river,” he told his conveyance. “You know the way.”

The well-trodden trail sloped gently downward toward the outcrop of sandstone that formed the edge of this bench. Halfway there, Miguel felt his mount’s ribs expanding beneath him—then he burst out with a shrill, shuddering whinny. “Whuh!” Miguel grabbed the saddle horn with one hand, while he jerked on the reins with the other. “¿Qué tienes?”

“He speaks Spanish?” A horse emerged from the narrow cut that led down through the caprock. Mounted astride it was Tankersly’s daughter—she of the mountaintop and the Mercedes, though he’d heard there were two more about the ranch. But with her wicked smile and her golden eyes that seemed to take in his awkwardness all in a glance, this one was quite enough.

“No, and maybe that’s the problem,” Miguel admitted. “I tell him to go a la derecha, and he goes to the left. Izquierda gets me right. Tomorrow I buy the big mutt a dictionary.”

She had a low, musical laugh—a fine thing in a woman. “The problem might be that you’re holding your reins too tight. And then—there—you cluck at him, telling him to move on? He doesn’t know if you want him to stop or go.”

“So we’re both confused.” Miguel let his reins out a grudging inch. “Like so?”

“More. See the curve mine make?” Her horse, a golden palomino, sidled around to face the way it had come.

“Ah.” Though what had caused her mount to turn like that? She’d made no movement he could see. “Weren’t you headed to the barn?” he added as her horse leaned back on its haunches and started down the steep cut. He grabbed the saddle horn as his own horse snorted—and plunged after.

“Was, but this is more entertaining,” she called over her shoulder.

Just what he needed—a witness to his incompetence. “Sí, entertainment must be hard to come by out here. Owning a ranch the size of Louisiana must be very boring.”

“Not quite so big,” she said, refusing to take offense. “And I don’t own it. My father does.”

“Ah, yes, a big difference.” The only difference being that Tankersly worked, after his fashion, and she was a lily of the field, buying her right to existence by beauty alone.

Still, why quarrel with flowers? She wore a cream-colored Stetson this evening, which had slipped off her fiery head. A dark rawhide cord across her slender throat now held it in place on her shoulders. He could imagine hooking a fingertip under that cord, his knuckle brushing petal-soft skin as he drew her closer…

“Very different,” she said under her breath, then added with an edge, “if the guys see you holding your saddle horn, you’ll never live it down, you know.”

Miguel let go the horn, stole a glance at her, then transferred his reins to the left hand the way she held hers. He rested his right hand on his thigh, fingers clenched in spite of himself. “Aren’t you missing your supper?”

His own stomach growled at the taunt and she laughed. “Yes, but I’m waiting for my fiancé.” Reining in, she gazed out over the twilit valley. “That might just be him there, coming back from Durango.” She nodded toward the county road, some five miles to the east, and a tiny pair of moving headlights.

But they passed the ranch entrance and crawled on to the north. Her fiancé. “You mean Señor Mercedes?” A pity. He would make a poor husband, ill-tempered and overbearing. And a man who was full of himself would be selfish in bed.

“I mean Eric Foster, who does happen to own a Mercedes, and it’s a nice one, too.”

“Except for that dent in the door. Must be a careless driver?”

“Ha!” She touched her spurs to her palomino’s ribs and the horse surged toward the river.

Without signal from his rider, Miguel’s own horse followed. Miguel grabbed the horn—grimaced and let it go—yelped and clutched it again, half standing in his stirrups. Dios, a mile of this and he could forget having sons!

She glanced back at him around the brim of her hat and called mockingly, “Let go of that horn, cowboy!”

“¡Brujita!” he swore under his breath. She was a little witch, with her hair of burning embers blowing back over her face as she laughed and tortured him. Impossibly slim in the saddle. And graceful, her hips barely bouncing against the polished leather, while he slipped and jolted like a clown.

Abruptly she took pity on him and reined in, letting him catch up to her at the next cut down to a lower level. “Why haven’t you sold these worthless brutes for dog food and bought yourselves something useful? All-terrain vehicles or dirt bikes?”

She smiled as she rubbed her horse’s glossy neck. “Oh, they sort of grow on you. No bike’s going to blow down your collar or rest his head on your shoulder.”

“Gracias a Dios.”

“Of course, it’s partly your choice of ride,” she added with a twinkle. “Did they tell you his name?”

“Jack is what Wiggly called him.”

Her smile broadened. “That’s short for Jackhammer.”

“And thank you, Wiggly!” He dared to touch Jackhammer with his heels, and miraculously the beast didn’t resent it but moved on. His tormentor pursued, drawing even with him again. Their knees brushed for a moment and he glanced at her sharply. “I suppose you’ve been riding since you could walk.”

“Oh, no. I started late myself. Fourteen.”

He cocked an eyebrow; how could that be? But she’d swung away from him, was gazing off in the direction her fiancé would come. The pale line of her profile against the gathering dusk was a thing of beauty, like Venus rising in her veils of light, there in the east. Someday, once he’d made his fortune, he’d find himself a woman like this one, all grace and spirit and fire.

But first, but first, he reminded himself. First came the means to win, then keep her. Because a man without money—

“There he is!” she cried on a note of satisfaction. A pair of headlights slowed for the turn into the ranch, then seemed to glare at them across the intervening miles as the car topped a low rise.

She reached over and laid two fingers on Miguel’s wrist. Her touch shot up his arm like a spark leaping to tinder and he sucked in his breath. “Pull back on your reins and hold them,” she commanded.

“Like so? But why?”

“Because I’ve got to run and you don’t want to follow.”

Or do I? But already her horse had spun in its length, snorting and dancing.

She gave him an absent smile, her mind filled with another already. “Have a good ride.” The palomino thundered away uphill.

Jackhammer threw up his head, fighting the reins, eager to race for the barn. “Whoa, you cabro! ¡Cabrón! Who’s the boss here?”

A good question. By the time they’d settled it, she was long gone.

THIS WASN’T THE SUMMER Risa had pictured when she’d invited Eric to Suntop. She’d imagined them riding out daily. She’d show him all her favorite, secret spots—the canyons, the swimming holes, the high country. They’d pack picnics along every day, and somewhere outside, sometime this summer, sometime just…right, they’d make love. She wanted her first time to be outdoors, under the stars. Or in a high-mountain meadow, in the lush grass and flowers, with the sun blazing down, only eagles for witness.

Wanted some way that distinguished the act from the casual rolls in an unmade bed, in a small shabby room with cobwebs in the corners and cigarette smoke hanging heavy in the air. Half-empty beer cans on the bedside table. That was her earliest impression of love, the way her mother had gone about it.

For herself, Risa wanted something different, so different. But how was she to get it when Eric wasn’t welcome at Suntop? Ben had looked her fiancé in the eye at the supper table for three nights running and asked how long he planned to hang around Suntop.

And Eric was sensitive. Eric had his pride. Eric could take a hint. He’d come back last night from Durango to tell her he’d found a job for the rest of the summer. He’d be working pro bono for the biggest law firm in that city. The senior partner was a friend of his father’s. He’d sublet an apartment there, and they’d see each other weekends and evenings. “I’d like to be closer, sweetheart, but what with your father…” He’d shrugged and smiled bravely.

She’d flown to lock her arms around his waist. “Oh, Eric, that’s just his way. He gives all our dates a hard time.”

“He’s going to have to get used to the fact that I’m not just some pimply-faced date. I’m here to stay, Risa. There’s no way he’s stopping me. Stopping us.”

What had she done to deserve such devotion? she’d wondered as he kissed her. It seemed such a miracle. That a man like this could love someone like her. Too tall, too shy, too awkward. Neither brilliant nor beautiful. Never quite belonging anywhere.

A castoff, a stray. Her younger sisters were both legitimate, but she was not.

Ben had never bothered marrying her mother. Never troubled himself once in fourteen years to visit his daughter, not till Eva’s death. Then he’d brought Risa back to the ranch like an afterthought. When he’d adopted her and given her his name, well, that must have been for no more reason than that all Suntop stock wore his brand.

Compared with Ben’s brusque and offhand affection, Eric’s unswerving attention was cool water in the desert. In his arms she’d found her home at last.

But, oh, she was missing him already, and this was only the second day he’d been working. So to pass the hours till sundown, she’d ridden out with her youngest sister.

“Who cares if we didn’t bring our swimsuits? I’m positively, absolutely melting! Come on, Risa. Race you there!” Twelve-year-old Tess Tankersly wheeled her paint pony midbridge and spurred south down the river trail.

“Tess!” Risa had wanted to return to the Big House, in the hope of finding a message from Eric waiting there. But she couldn’t let her youngest sister swim alone. “Darn it. Wait up, you silly goose!”

No answer but a wavering war whoop. Tess ducked her dark head alongside her pony’s neck and vanished under the green-fringed curtain of a willow tree.

Risa growled something wordless and urged her lathered mare into a lope. Exasperating as her little sister was, she was right. It was hot today. They should have ridden into the heights instead of the valley, but Tess had wanted to show her the latest crop of yearlings. She had her eye on a black, half Arab, half quarter horse filly that she was determined to make her own. Her first grown-up mount.

So far, Ben, in his usual fashion, had made Tess no promises. There was so much more power in maybe, than sure.

That’s why he doesn’t like Eric, Risa told herself. Because he can’t control him. And once they married, Ben would lose control over her. She smiled as she crouched along her mare’s shoulder, willow leaves stroking her back.

Two more twists along the narrow trail and she came to the swimming hole. Here the river made a wide bend around the cliffs on the opposite shore. The current slowed, the bottom was sand, the water deep and dark.

Tess had shucked the saddle off her paint and was leading him into the river. She’d left her T-shirt on, thank heavens, but she’d wriggled out of her jeans. Her skinny little butt gleamed bright red with her cotton bikinis, then vanished beneath the olive-gold water. Beside her, her pony snorted and launched himself into the depths, paddling like a dog.

“You twerp!” Risa called. Now they’d have to wait for Oscar to dry off before Tess could saddle up again.

“He was as hot as I was.” Swimming alongside, Tess grasped the pony’s black mane and squirmed up onto his withers, then threw a leg over his surging rump. “Wheee, we’re flying!”

“What do you think—want to swim?” Risa asked Sunrise as she folded her jeans on top of her boots. Sunny dipped her head and actually seemed to nod. Risa laughed and reached for the cinch knot. “Just like old times.”

They swam the horses downstream as far as the next bend in the river, then back against the current, to come ashore on the opposite bank, where a narrow sandbar edged the cliffs. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, legs outstretched, digging their bare heels into the damp, sugary grit, they talked aimlessly, while Sunny and Oscar prowled the bank behind them, seeking mouthfuls of grass growing from the cracks in the rocks.

“You’re really not going back to Yale in September?” Tess lay back on her elbows. “Dad will be sooo mad at you!”

“He’ll get over it.” Or he wouldn’t. “Eric and I are marrying in October and that’s that, Tessums. Just as soon as he starts his job—his real job—in Denver, as a public prosecutor.” The job had been promised to him—the Denver attorney general was another friend of Eric’s family—and the coveted position would open up when one of the staff left on pregnancy leave.

Once Eric started drawing a salary, they could marry. After that, Ben would have to make up his mind: he could smile on her decision and help her. Though this time—and from now on—he’d have to let Risa define what was help and what was interference. She hoped to transfer to the University of Colorado at Boulder; that should be a feasible commute from wherever she and Eric set up housekeeping.

But if Ben refused to help her, refused to give them his blessing… Risa’s lips tightened as her fingertip traced a line in the sand. Well, she was marrying Eric anyhow. She’d have to work for a few years, then she’d put herself through college. This was her life and she’d live it her way. Ben had had his chance to shape her future back when it would have really counted for something, and he’d passed it by. So how could he complain now?

“But Eric’s not a cowboy,” Tess pointed out with a child’s irrefutable logic.

Risa smiled to herself. Her youngest sister had been raised all her life at Suntop. She could imagine no world beyond its borders, conceive of no better life than one that circled around cattle and horses. “No, he isn’t. Not every…interesting man rides.” From out of nowhere the image of Miguel Heydt flashed across her mind, his big hand clutching the saddle horn for dear life, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a mock scowl while he swore at the horses. He’d been laughing at himself, as well as teasing her, the other night. Strange, that a man who could make fun of himself seemed not weaker for it, but stronger.

“Interesting.” Tess smirked. “You mean sexy?”

Tess’s fiercely tomboy years seemed to be drawing at long last to a close. Sometime in the ten months Risa had been gone, Tess had discovered boys. “What would you know about sexy?” Risa teased. “You mean like Robbie Kristopherson?”

“Robbie?” Tess made a gagging sound. “Robbie can’t even walk straight! He fell over the wastebasket in Ms. Ever’s class the last day of school! No, I mean sexy. Hot—like that new guy on the haying crew.”

Risa’s heels stopped their rhythmic sliding. “What new guy?” Tess knew every foal that dropped, every barn-swallow that nested at Suntop, but still, surely she was much too young to have noticed…

“The one with buns to die for! And when he takes his shirt off…!” Tess collapsed with a blissful moan and hugged herself.

“How did you see him without a— Ben will shoot you, you goose, if you’ve been hanging around the haying crew. It’s dangerous.” And Risa didn’t mean just the machinery. The haying crew weren’t regular Suntop men but temporary workers, hired only till the fields were cut. Unknown factors, unlike the cowboys, who were all dependable, hand-picked men, who knew their boss too well to flirt with the boss’s daughters.

“I haven’t been hanging around. But this new guy, Risa, you’ve gotta see him. He has a chest and arms like a—like a comic-book hero!”

“You haven’t been peeking through the bunkhouse windows! Tess?” Risa prodded her in the ribs till the girl giggled and shook her head. “Hiding in the hayloft, you little lech?”

“Uh-uh! No, stop, don’t do that! I w-watched him through my binocs yesterday, okay? When I rode out to look for b-bluebirds. He was stacking bales, then they took a break and he took off his s-shirt and dumped water over his head!”

“Oh, well, binoculars, of course,” Risa said dryly. Add one Hunk, genus American Male, to the Life List in the back of her little sister’s Peterson’s Field Guide. And just because Miguel Heydt sprang to her own mind, his muscles shining with sweat and water, didn’t mean that he was the object of Tess’s admiration. Half the men on the haying crew were probably in their twenties.

“Anyway, if you won’t marry a cowboy, why don’t you marry somebody like that?” Tess muttered as she scrambled to her feet.

“Eric’s got a nice chest. A perfectly wonderful chest.”

“Ooooh, and how do you know that?”

CHAPTER FIVE

BY LATE AFTERNOON the crew had cut, raked, then turned as much grass as could be baled on the morrow. Since the weather promised to hold hot and dry, they’d be working straight through the weekend. So the hay boss had given them the rest of this day off.