Miss Murray On The Cattle Trail

“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.

Chapter Six

The day started out like all the others, but after breakfast Cherry told Zach the remuda was worrying him. “Been awful hot and dry the last few days, boss. Mebbe they smell somethin’ on the wind.”

Zach patted the old man’s shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Cherry. Maybe they’re just thirsty.” He reined away and rode toward the herd. He’d assigned Dusty to ride drag, and he sure didn’t envy her on a scorcher like today. But the damn little fool insisted she wanted to do “her fair share” of the work just like the other hands, so he gave in. Riding drag might teach her a lesson.

Still, he’d keep an eye on her. And he might as well start now. There she was, twenty yards in back of the lumbering herd, the blue bandanna he’d given her pulled up over her nose and mouth, trotting along and yipping like any seasoned cowhand. Guess her arm felt better.

He fell in beside her horse without speaking, and she gave him the barest of nods to acknowledge his presence. It was so hot and still she probably didn’t have the energy to talk, so she didn’t. She wasn’t quiet that often, and he had to smile.

They rode in silence for a mile or so and then she glanced up to the sky. “Oh, look, we’re in for a thunderstorm!” She pointed at a huge cloud that was moving toward them. It looked dark and menacing, and it had an odd yellow-brown tinge to it.

Oh, my God. He wheeled his horse forward toward the herd.

“Skip! Cherry!” By the time he clattered up, the hands were already staring at the cloud overhead.

“Turn the herd,” Zach yelled. “Get them down. Hurry!” He pointed at the cloud bearing down on them, and they jolted into action, spurring hard to round up the steers.

He couldn’t leave Dusty alone back there, so he turned and kicked his mount into a gallop.

“What’s wrong?” she shouted when he reached her. “Is a thunderstorm coming?”

“Not a thunderstorm,” he shouted. “It’s a dust storm.” She pulled her horse to a halt and sat staring up at the advancing cloud.

The sky darkened to a dirty brown. Zach dismounted, then reached up and pulled her off the gelding. He positioned Dancer next to her mount. “Stand between the horses,” he ordered.

“What? But—”

“Don’t argue, just do it!”

“Not until you explain—”

“Dusty, shut up and move! Now!” He shoved her toward the animals. Then he grabbed both bridles and pulled her forward.

“Zach, I don’t understand. Why—”

“You will,” he said shortly. He grabbed her arm, dragged her next to him and pushed her against Dancer’s neck. Then he jockeyed the horses closer together to serve as buffers.

“They’ll squash us!” she protested.

“No, they won’t.” He moved in back of her and pressed her body hard into Dancer’s quivering form. “A dust storm is dangerous. Can’t see. Can’t breathe. It’s important not to panic.”

She started to say something, but at that moment the first gusts of wind hit. “Tie your hat on,” he ordered. “Use your bandanna.”

When she fumbled, he reached over and pulled the square of cotton tight over her Stetson and knotted it under her chin.

Dirt and sand pelted them, and the air filled with swirling grit. He snugged his own hat down as tight as he could, lifted his arms and positioned them around her head. Then he stepped in close and pressed his chest against her back.

“Breathe through your mouth,” he yelled.

He felt her head dip in a nod, and then the storm hit.

The air grew so thick it was hard to see. To Alex it felt as if night was falling, and a bolt of panic stabbed through her. She jerked, and Zach pushed her hat down to shield her face and tightened his arms over her head.

“Don’t panic,” he said, his voice calm. “It’ll get dark but it will pass. Just hang on, okay?”

She tipped her head up and down and felt his warm breath against the back of her neck. In the next minute, the air grew so gritty she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and then all at once she was suffocating.

Choking, she reared back and heard Zach’s voice against her ear. “Keep breathing,” he ordered. “It’s thick and dirty, but it’s air. Just breathe.”

How was he able to breathe? she wondered. He was sheltering her with his body, but the air was just as thick and dirty for him.

The wind screamed around them with a strange, eerie cry, and suddenly she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life. She began to tremble and felt his hard body press more tightly against her back.

“You’re all right, Dusty. Just hang on.” He brought his mouth closer to her ear. “Hang on.”

“But I can’t breathe!” She felt as if she was drowning. Could a person drown on dry land?

“Dusty, take real slow breaths. Don’t hurry it.”

She wanted to scream, but that would take precious air. She opened her mouth wide to gulp in air, and shut her eyes.

Zach’s breath rasped in and out at her back, wafting against her cheek every time he exhaled. Could people choke to death in dust storms?

Don’t think about it. As long as she could feel him breathing she would be all right, wouldn’t she?

“Dusty, stay quiet. Stop thinking.”

How could he know that I’m thinking?

She wanted to ask him how long this would last.

She wanted to thank him for protecting her.

She wanted to stay alive!

Zach could feel her shaking, sending little tremors against his chest, but instead of making him feel protective it made him mad. Damn mad. She was scared? She shouldn’t be out here in the first place. Newspaper reporter or not, she had no business on a cattle drive. It put his men at risk. It put his cattle at risk. And, goddammit, it put him at risk!

Well, now, Strickland, just how do you figure it puts you at risk?

He tried to shut his mind down and concentrate instead on the wind. And the dust. And the...

Oh, hell and damn, it was hard not to think about Dusty when he could feel every little hitch in her breathing and every shudder traveling along her spine.

He had to admit she didn’t complain. She didn’t cry. She didn’t shirk her share of the work. She didn’t ask for special treatment because she was female. Dusty was maddeningly agreeable. He hated to admit it, but she was good company.

And, oh, God, she smelled good.

He could feel grit and sand sifting through his shirt and into his jeans, making his sticky skin itch. He heard the wind pick up. A dust storm could blow for half a day or longer, and this one showed no sign of letting up.

One of the horses tossed its head, but it didn’t move. He tried to keep his mind on the animal, but his thoughts kept coming back to Dusty. What was it about her that he found so maddening?

And how much longer can you stand here with her trim little butt snugged into your groin?

Guess he had a bad case of Dusty getting under his skin.

Suddenly she pulled away from the horse she was leaning against and with a half sob turned into his arms.

“Zach, I’m scared.”

Well, maybe she did cry sometimes. He pressed her head against his neck and wrapped his arm around her.

“H-how long will this last?”

“Don’t know. Sometimes an hour. Sometimes a day.”

She gave a little jerk. “A day? A whole day?”

“Sometimes. Forget about the dust storm. Just standing here in one spot for twenty-four hours will probably kill us.”

“Oh, but—It couldn’t really go on for a whole day, could it? What if I have to, um, relieve myself?”

That made him laugh out loud. He pressed her face back against his neck. “Dusty, stop talking. It takes air.”

He let ten minutes go by while the wind screamed across the plain and threw dirt in their faces. After another ten minutes she raised her head and wasted some more air.

“I can’t wait to write down some notes about this windstorm!”

Zach just shook his head. She was either crazy or she was a great newspaper reporter. Maybe both.

The storm finally moved off to the north, and Zach heaved a sigh of relief. Their ordeal was over. He took a step away from her, and she moved out of his arms and began brushing dirt off her clothes. Yeah, he was relieved it was over, but maybe he was the crazy one, because part of him was sorry.

Everyone gathered around, and they decided to set up camp for the night. Dusty immediately began scribbling away in her notebook and Zach took stock of the damage. The storm had left his hands gritty but uninjured and his herd of cattle was still intact. Cherry assured him the remuda was restless but untouched, and he was already brushing the animals down.

The men were all filthy and the chuck wagon was gritty with sand and dirt. Roberto was beside himself.

“Señor Boss, I cannot cook with dirt in pans, and the wagon—ay de mi—it must be scrubbed before supper.”

Dusty looked up from her writing. Her face was dirty, and when she stood up, grit sifted from her jeans. “Roberto, give me a bucket of water and a scrub brush. I’ll help you clean up.”

Zach grinned all the way out to check on the herd, and when he’d ridden twice around the subdued steers, he was still smiling.

She might be green and scared and a little bit crazy, but maybe she was worth riding the trail with.

That night Alex interviewed the scout, Wally. He told her some of his adventures over his considerable years “on the drover’s trail,” as he termed it.

“Kinda hard to get used to it at first, scoutin’ for a cattle outfit. Gotta ride ahead of ever’body, and it kin get mighty lonesome with nobody to talk to ’cept my horse. Got to be purty good friends with my horse after a while, but...aw, heck, Miss Alex, you don’t want to hear about this stuff.”

“But I do, Wally. Honestly I do. And just think, thousands of readers back East will want to hear about ‘all this stuff,’ too. You’ll be famous!”

“Aw, heck, Miss Alex. I don’t want to be famous. Somebody might come after me for money I owed in a poker game somewhere. Golly, I remember one time down in Texas...” And he was off again.

When Wally stopped regaling her with his wild tales, the hands began to spin their own yarns. Nothing was too outlandish or unbelievable. Skip recalled one cattle drive when they ate “nothin’ but oatmeal and bugs” for four days straight. Curly told about riding two days on a spring roundup with a broken foot; it had happened when his horse stepped on his boot, but he’d wanted to stick it out because one of the riders was “a pretty little filly” from a neighboring ranch.

“Aw, that’s nuthin’,” Jase challenged. “One time I was night-herdin’ during a blizzard and my fingers froze up. Had to chop ’em off myself the next morning. Had to, or they’d a got the gangrene.”

Alex didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but when she noticed his middle two fingers on one hand were missing, she decided he was telling the truth. She dug out her notepad again. This was wonderful human-interest material about the type of people who worked these cattle drives. She could see a whole series of pieces about the men on the trail; maybe she should get to know them better.

After an hour of after-supper talk, she acknowledged she was certainly getting a good education about life on a cattle drive. And it wasn’t just about the men. Cherry was constantly instructing her about the horses in his remuda.

“Don’t never walk up to a hoss what’s pullin’ yer rope tight, Miss Alex. Good way to git stomped. Why, I remember one time...” And, like Wally, the wrangler talked nonstop for half an hour.

Chapter Seven

Night after night she watched the men around the campfire, how they teased one another and played practical jokes and sang and told stories about other cattle drives they had been on. Sometimes one of them would start to talk about a girl “back home,” or a woman of questionable reputation, and then Alex noticed the men would tip their heads in her direction and quickly shush the speaker. She guessed they didn’t want to offend her.

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