Cool Hand Hank / A Cowboy's Redemption: Cool Hand Hank / A Cowboy's Redemption

Chapter Four

“Kevin’s back,” Hoolie announced as he came thumping in the back door. “Add one for supper. Any coffee left?”

“It’s cold, but you can nuke it. I’m brewing iced tea.”

Sally laid aside the ice pack she’d been using on her right eye and filled the teakettle. Hoolie was still banging around in the mudroom, and she was only getting about half of what he was saying, but she’d catch up on the rerun. He had a habit of repeating himself, especially if one of the teens court-ordered to work at the sanctuary was giving him trouble.

“So I’ve got him ridin’ fence along the highway,” was the upshot as he clomped into the kitchen. “You know damn well there was no horse on the road, but that don’t mean Tutan didn’t put another hole in the fence to back up his story. We got some volunteers set to help cut hay this weekend. So Hank and me, we’re gonna…” He noticed the ice pack. “You feelin’ okay, big sister?”

“I’m not okay with that question.” Cold packs were her standard first-line remedy, and they were helping. Loss of vision in one eye wasn’t unusual with multiple sclerosis, but neither was remission. She’d had this problem before and regained a good measure of sight back. She’d do it again without losing ground anywhere else. Not for a good long while.

She closed the microwave door on his cold coffee and pressed the button. “My health is my business. I want nothing but positive health vibes. That wheelchair is staying in the basement. There’s only one person around here who needs a cane.”

“Crutch.”

“This reprieve could last for months. Years, maybe.”

“Trouble with your eye again?”

“A little, but I’m loading up on vitamins.” She believed in vitamins. Exercise, meditation, hydrotherapy—she believed in believing. She popped the microwave open and handed Hoolie his coffee. “You and Hank are going to what?”

“Move the cows.”

“You can’t ride with that ankle.”

“I’m not okay with that order.” He pulled two chairs away from the kitchen table, sat in one and propped his foot with its dirtier-by-the-day cast on the other. “I’m taking this damn thing off. My foot itches. That means the mummy boot has been on long enough.”

“What does Hank say?”

Hoolie questioned her with a look.

“He’s a professional.”

“You ask him about your eye, and I’ll ask him about my ankle.”

“No deal.” She snatched the whistling kettle off the stove. “I know more about MS than most doctors. These symptoms come and go. Eventually, some of them come and stay, but I’m not on any fast track to eventually.” She pointed to his ankle. “That is going to heal. Give it time, and it’ll go the way of all your other previously broken bones.”

“My health is my business,” he echoed in an irritating falsetto.

“Not when all your stories end with I got the scars to prove it.”

“I tell it like I remember it. The truth is always in there somewhere.” He sipped his coffee. “I said I’d look after you.”

“Look all you want. Just don’t talk about it.” She laid a hand on his bony shoulder. “I’ll ride with Hank. We’ll move the cows, and then we’ll ride out to Coyote Creek and see if we can get a look at the Don.”

“If something happens, you tell him why. You wouldn’t fall so much if you’d keep a cane handy when you get tired or—”

“Three weeks.” She squeezed his shoulder. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Hank was finishing up the hooves on the saddle horses when Sally came looking for him in the barn. From the first, he’d had her figured for a night person. Seemed he was right. Their ships would be passing mid to late morning, which was fine by him. Hoolie had filled him up with a hearty breakfast while they planned a few things out. He met one of the helpers he kept hearing about—Indian kid named Kevin Thunder Shield, who showed up ready to ride. Hoolie hooked the kid up with a horse and gave him an assignment, but Hank couldn’t let the gelding go without a hoof trimming. And he wasn’t herding any cattle until the rest of the saddle horses got the same treatment.

“That looks great,” Sally said of the third set of hooves he’d filed. “You are good.”

“The trim’s the important part. Right, girl?” He patted the black mare’s rump. She’d behaved well. Hard to believe she’d ever been wild. “The shoes are icing on the cake. It’s getting the right trim that makes the difference for most horses.”

“We go easy on the icing around here.”

“And that’s fine. These horses don’t have to hang out in stalls and watch their toenails grow. Except that one.” He pointed to a big gray gelding. “Without shoeing that crack will keep growing.”

Sally ran her hand down the horse’s leg toward the hoof. “I didn’t see that.”

“I’ll take care of it when we get back. Hoolie and me, we’re gonna do some cowboyin'.”

She straightened and faced him with folded arms. “You were going to let Hoolie ride with that cast on his foot?”

“I was gonna ride with Hoolie. Figured he could do what he wanted with his foot.”

“Any objection to riding with me?”

He shrugged. “I’m here to help out.”

“Weak,” she warned.

“Let me try again. Objection? Hell, no. My pleasure.”

“That’s the spirit.” She gave a tight smile. “I’m an excellent cowboy.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

She sighed and put her arms around the big gray gelding’s neck, nuzzling his thick black mane. “But I was hoping to ride Tank.”

“Tank?” Hank chortled. “I’ll have Tank retreaded for you by tomorrow.” He started loading his files and nippers into his shoe box. “I thought I’d try a Double D mustang. Maybe Zach has some started. I’m a pretty good finisher.”

“Me, too.”

“Once they’re green broke, I can put a nice handle on ‘em.”

“I’ll bet.” She raked her fingers through the gelding’s mane. “Tank was my first adoption. When I picked him out ten years ago, he was as wild as they come. I was a stock contractor back then, but Tank really opened my eyes.”

Hank eyed the horse. “He’s no Spanish Mustang.”

“Of course not. Like so many wild horses, he’s got a lot of draft blood in him. You know, a lot of them just sort of walked off into the sunset back in the days when farmers started going horseless. And during the Depression, when they were going homeless. Tank’s forebears were equine hobos.” She unhooked one of the horse’s crossties. “Can’t you just see them running across a herd of mustangs in the Badlands? Freeee at last!” she whinnied, and Tank’s ears snapped to attention.

Hank couldn’t help smiling. “Until they got their farm-boy asses kicked.”

“This big steel-drivin’ man’s gonna fix your hoof, Tank, so let’s let that remark pass.” She hooked a lead rope to the halter, scratched the horse’s neck, and he lowered his head. “If he calls you farm boy, he’s Henry,” she said in the horse’s ear.

“Nothin’ wrong with Henry.”

“I didn’t say there was. Some of my best friends are named Henry.”

“Hoolie?” he asked. She nodded. “Like I said, it’s a good backup name. What’s yours? Bet your mama didn’t name you Sally.”

“Ain’t tellin'. It’s a good name, but it doesn’t fit me, so I don’t use it.” She pointed to a small buckskin gelding. “I’m riding him. He fits me well. We call him Little Henry.”

Hank cracked up.

They rode side by side, soaking in sights and sounds and smells of summer in South Dakota without talking much. It was enough to point out the circling hawk, the coyote on the hill, the hidden gopher hole and to keep riding, keep looking and listening to the birds in the air, the insects in the grass, the thump-swish-thump of their mounts. It all felt right to Hank, as though he, too, had found a fit. Be damned if he’d try to work up some discomfort over feeling comfortable, not while it was working for him. This feeling was sacred.

He’d gotten away from the traditional practices his parents’ generation had struggled to take back from obscurity—ceremonies nobody wanted to explain and a language hardly anybody used—but he’d soaked up the stories. The People had emerged from the Black Hills. Paha Sapa. White Buffalo Calf Woman had given them the pipe, and the horse—Sunka Wakan, or sacred dog—had given them a leg up in a land only the Lakota truly understood and appreciated in its natural state. It was grassland. Pull the grass up by the roots, and the earth would fly away. Tell the river how to run, and you would pay a price that had less to do with money than with home. And home, for the Lakota, had less to do with a place to live than with a place to walk.

Preferably a dry one.

Hank loved the stories and honored the wisdom even if he’d taken up a different kind of medicine. Even if he’d let his family fall apart—the traditional Lakota’s worst nightmare—he believed that all people were relatives. All things? Being equal—not in this lifetime. But being relative? Sure. Relative to family life, being alone sucked.

Relative to reservation life, the old ways were healthy and holy. Relative to urban life, the reservation wasn’t half bad.

But relative to anyplace he’d ever been—and he’d been all over—the vicinity of the Black Hills felt right.

The Double D was southeast of the Hills, but Hank could see their silhouette looming at the edge of the grasslands like a hazy purple mirage, a distant village of ghost tipis. The sight was beyond beautiful. Its power worked his soul’s compass like polar magnetism. His whole body knew what it was about. It had been years since he’d pushed cattle on horseback, and while the method hadn’t changed, he realized the madness was gone. He was no longer the angry young man who resented the cattlemen who leased the Indian land its owners couldn’t afford to use. It didn’t matter that none of the animals belonged to him or that the land they were crossing was claimed by someone else. He was one with the horse, and the woman who rode abreast of him functioned easily as his partner. Cows moved willingly as long as their calves bleated regularly to check in. They must have known the grass was greener wherever they were headed. Maybe they trusted Sally not to let them down. They belonged to her, after all. They must have known something.

You’ve never had much luck with women, Night Horse. Maybe you should take it from her animals. Just go along with her. Nothing to worry about.

Either that or just take it. Take as much as she offers. Hell, the first few weeks are always the best.

Hank drew in a whole chestful of clean Black Hills air. He had a bad habit of thinking too deep and breathing too shallow. He was attracted to this woman, pure and simple. Thinking only complicated the matter.

Stop thinking, Night Horse. Enjoy the pure and simple. She’s pure. You’re simple.

Sally loved the way her world looked from the top of a horse. The way Little Henry’s gait made her hips move, the way he smelled, the way he snorted and strutted and swished his tail and made her sit up a little straighter, feel just slightly bigger than life—she loved every heady detail. But put the joy of sitting her horse together with the pleasure of watching Hank sit his, and Sally was all sweet spot. Watching him swing down from the saddle and open a wire gate gave her goose bumps. Pushing the cattle through the gate gave a taste of success, and making it happen together rubbed her utterly the right way.

She watched him muscle the wire loop over the top of the gate post, admired his easy mount, lit up inside when he looked her way as if to say, What can I do for you now?

“Follow me,” she called out. “Let’s take a ride to the wild side.”

Little Henry pricked his ears, and Sally shifted her weight and gave him his head. She bid her hat good riddance as the wind rushed through her hair. Hank could have flown past her if he wanted to—his mare was faster than her little gelding—but he gave his horse cues according to her pace. When they reached the creek, Little Henry splashed right in. The crossing required a few yards of swimming this time of year, but nothing major.

For Sally.

She whooped and the water swooshed as Little Henry bounded up on dry land. Wet to the hip, she was loving every drop of water, every ray of sunshine, every bit of breeze. She circled her mount and saw Hank eyeing the water warily from the opposite bank.

“Don’t worry,” she called out. “She’s a good swimmer.”

“I’m not.”

“You don’t have to be. I promise.”

He looked up at her. He’d held on to his hat, but clearly he wasn’t so sure about the value of her promise.

“I can go back and lead you across.”

“Hell, no.” He continued to stare at the water. “What’s my horse’s name?”

“Ribsy.”

“What kind of a name is that for a horse?”

“It’s from a book. My sister named her.” What difference did it make? What the heck was in a horse’s name? He wasn’t moving. Wasn’t looking at anything but the water. Needed a moment, maybe. “My sister, the teacher. It’s a kid’s book.” No connection. “Ribsy’s Henry’s best friend.” Still no movement. “Ribsy’s a dog.”

He looked up. “This horse is named after a dog?”

“Henry and Ribsy. Ribsy’s a dog.”

“Hoka Hey!” Hank called out as he nudged the mare with his boot heels.

She took the plunge. Hank kept his seat, and the big black easily ferried him across the water. He looked a little sallow, but his dignity was still intact.

“What did you call me?” Sally asked, grinning like a proud instructor. “Hooker something?”

“I said, Hoka Hey! It’s a good day to die.” He leaned forward and patted the mare’s neck. “Sunka Wakan.”

“That’s right,” she enthused. “It means holy dog, doesn’t it? Well, there you go. Ribsy, Phoebe and me, we’re your destiny. Stick with us, and your hydrophobia will be cured.”

“What’s that?” He glanced back at the murky water. “A monster with a bunch of arms?”

“I think that’s a hydra.”

“Yep. They’re all down there.” He looked up at her and smiled sheepishly as he joined her on the high ground. “Kind of embarrassing. I had a bad experience when I was a kid.”

“Maybe you should try a different war cry.”

They covered a lot of ground and saw a couple of eagles, a few deer and a few dozen mustangs before they found Don Quixote, a stout bay who’d surrounded himself with the prettiest mares on the Double D. There were roans and paints, mouse-brown grullos, buckskins and “blondies.” After what had turned out to be a more tiring ride than she’d expected, Sally was energized simply by the sight of them, mainly courtesy of her left eye. But the vision of blue sky, green grass, striated hills and a motley band of mustangs was glorious. She didn’t have to see Hank’s excitement. She could feel it. His rapt interest was palpable.

“Let’s get down for a while,” he said quietly, as though speaking might disturb something.

She nodded. He must have sensed her weariness because he swung to the ground and came to her, and she dismounted with far less grace than she would have wished. He noticed. He didn’t say anything, but he took her full weight in his arms, drew her up to him and recharged her with a deep, delicious kiss.

It wasn’t until he took his lips from hers that she realized she couldn’t feel her right leg. She had to hang on to him—not that she didn’t want to, but not for this reason.

“You made the earth move under my feet,” she said. “Either Night Horse or Charley horse, I’m not sure—ah!” The sound of sharp pain was an innocent lie, if there was such a thing. Everybody understood pain, at least to some extent. Numbness was harder to explain.

“Damn cousin Charley’s beatin’ my time.” He supported her against his right side. “Can’t let him get away with it.” He brought the horses along on the left and found a little grass for everybody on the shady side of a clump of chokecherry bushes.

“Better already.” Her butt welcomed contact with good old terra firma, but she felt obliged to protest. “I’m okay now.”

“Not so fast. I know how to—”

“Seriously, it’s coming back.”

“That’s Charley for you. Right calf?” He massaged with practiced hands. She didn’t feel much at first, but her nerves responded steadily to his gentle kneading. “This can be a sign of calcium deficiency.”

“I’ll load up on it tomorrow.”

“I’m abig believer in truth and supplements for all.”

“Good to know.”

“Better?”

“Infinitely. Like your talents.” Smiling, she grabbed his hand. “Wait. I think he’s moving into my feet.”

“Sorry, Charley,” he quipped as he slid his hands down to her boot.

She stilled them with hers. “I’ll take a rain check.”

“Sounds good.” He went to his saddle and brought back the canvas pack he’d tied behind the cantle. Squatting on his heels, he took out a bottle of water and cracked open the plastic cap. “It might be warm, but it’s wet.”

“You think of everything.” She took a long drink.

“Second nature when you spend your life on the road.”

“I’ll bet you’re starving. I do have supper waiting in the refrigerator. I almost brought something along, but then I thought, no, we’ll be sweaty and dirty, and we’ll appreciate it more after we get back, and it’s nice and fresh and…” She handed him the bottle. “Annie would have packed a nice picnic. She’s like you. She thinks of everything.”

He took a drink from the bottle and laughed. “It’s just water.”

“I’m easy.” She smiled. “Simple pleasures. I don’t do this often enough. I used to ride out here all the time, but it’s become…” She gazed at the bluffs in the distance. “I’ve become lazy. It’s easier to hop in the pickup. And now that Zach’s come on board…”

“You don’t get out here in a pickup. It’s too rough.”

“And we don’t want this area disturbed by anything motorized.” She pointed west. “There’s some public land beyond those hills. Very isolated. And there’s tribal land adjoining that.” She swung her hand in a northerly arc. “If… when we get those new leases, we’ll almost double our carrying capacity. The Tribal Council has been very supportive of our program, but Dan Tutan’s been leasing it forever, and he pays practically nothing for grazing permits on the public land. He has his own support from Pierre all the way to Washington.”

“You’re running publicly protected wild horses for the Bureau of Land Management, aren’t you? You should get preference. Plus, if you’ve got the Tribal Council…”

“We have the majority. We’re…pretty sure we do.”

“You can never be too sure about those Indians.”

“I’m not too sure about you.” She smiled. “But I know what assume makes out of me.” She lifted one shoulder. “And Tutan’s been taking us all for granted for far too long. He knows how to work the system. Like anything involving property, it’s all about location.”

“Tell us about it.” He glanced at the barren draw below. “I’ve got some beachfront reservation land for sale. Complete with a big bridge.”

“I’ll take it,” she enthused. “Where do I sign?”

“I’ll have my people draw up the treaty.” He adjusted his hat by the brim, leaned back on his elbows and eyed her for a moment. “You’ve got a good thing goin’ here. Why push it?”

“Because we can.” She leaned closer. “Because the push needs to be made. More needs to be done, and we can do it. All we have to do is show that our program is viable, that we can handle more land, more stock, and we’re in the catbird’s seat. Tutan’s free rein over the range will soon be over. For a considerable piece of these grasslands, it’s back to nature.”

“This part doesn’t look like it’s ever been away.”

“My father never got much use out of this part of the ranch. He would have sold it, but back then there weren’t any takers. But the takers are…” The look in his eyes set her back on her heels. The takers are what? The takers are who? “I don’t want to take any more land. I want to set some aside, and I’m willing to pay for the privilege of standing aside.” She smiled. “Pay with what? you may ask. My sister asks every other day. I have to get creative about getting more public support.”

“I seem to recall some mention of a plan.”

“Plan? What plan?” Mock innocence was one of her favorite shticks.

“It was on hold for the wedding. Then you had to get the honeymoon back on track. You are one smooth operator, Sally.” He plucked a droopy-headed grass stem and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. “So, what’s the plan, and how many days before you have it in place? You’ve got what? Twenty-one?”

“Give or take.” She smiled. “Sam told the newlyweds to stay as long as they wanted.”