Miss Murray On The Cattle Trail

“Y-yes?”

“Everything all right?”

“N-no. I mean, yes. Everything is just fine.”

She heard him chuckle. “I mean, did Roberto’s liniment help your sore backsi—your sore muscles?”

“Of course,” she answered.

“Good. Just checking whether you’re ready to throw in the towel tomorrow and hightail it back to a hot bath and a soft bed.”

She refused to dignify that remark with an acknowledgment of any kind. Instead, she wrapped her blankets more securely around her and purposefully closed her eyes.

* * *

Before the sun rose the next morning, the hands were lined up at the chuck wagon for Roberto’s thick-sliced bacon, fried potatoes and sourdough biscuits. Zach studied them as they lounged bleary-eyed around the campfire, warming their behinds and shoveling in their breakfasts. All nine men and one stubborn woman.

He watched Dusty more closely than anyone else. She’d tamed her long, wavy hair into one thick, glossy-looking braid that hung down her back and swung enticingly when she moved. She was wearing a form-fitting blue plaid shirt that hinted at lush breasts beneath the light cotton material, and he swallowed hard.

Didn’t help. After her half hour in the stream yesterday, her jeans had shrunk so tight across her butt that watching her move made his mouth go dry.

He couldn’t help wondering all kinds of things about her. What made her tick? What made a woman who looked the way she did, all soft and desirable, want to pal around with a hardened bunch of cowboys instead of staying home with a husband and a dozen children? What made Dusty prickly as a desert cactus with a spine stiff as a railroad tie?

She tucked into her fried spuds, crunched up the bacon slices like a hungry kid and carefully slipped two of Roberto’s float-off-your-plate biscuits into her shirt pocket. He tried not to smile. Looked like she’d learned something yesterday.

He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire and stood up. “Time to roll.”

Twenty minutes later, the chuck wagon lumbered off after Wally, the scout, to set up ten or fifteen miles farther on, somewhere with good grass and enough water for the herd. His wrangler, Cherry, followed with the rest of the horses in the remuda, and the two point men, José and Skip, uncovered the bell clapper on the lead steer and set off. A muddle of lowing animals thundered after the clanging bell.

Zach let out a satisfied breath and studied the pinkening sky over the mountains in the distance. God, he loved chasing steers across pretty country with the sunlight coming up and glinting off their horns.

He spurred forward and began calling out orders. “Curly, Juan, cover the flanks. Cassidy, you ride drag.”

He guessed stubborn, determined Miss Dusty Murray would tag along somewhere, at least until suppertime. Then he’d pry her off her horse, drop her into another cold stream, collect his silver dollar and send her back to the Rocking K. Kinda made him chuckle.

He had to admit he just plain didn’t trust a woman that pretty. Or that sassy. He set his eyes on the trail ahead and kicked his horse into a trot.

* * *

A cattle drive, Alex acknowledged as she guided her mount beside the mass of mooing cows, had to be one of the strangest endeavors ever conceived by modern man. No one would believe most of the things that went on, so her task as a newspaper reporter was easy: write about everything and make it interesting.

Today, for instance, she noticed strange little brown birds no bigger than sparrows that rode along on the backs of the steers, pecking insects off their hides. The sparrows weren’t the least intimidated by the lumbering animals beneath them, and the steers didn’t seem to mind. In a way, it was sort of like Zach Strickland and herself; she survived the best way she could, and Zach paid no attention.

This morning she’d gotten another taste of the strange habits of cowboys on a trail drive. Roberto rose before the moon had set and began to rattle around in the chuck wagon, cutting out biscuit rounds and frying bacon. Before the sun was up, the cowhands dragged themselves out of their bedrolls.

All except the scout, Wally Mortenson. Wally was an older man with laugh lines etched deep in his tanned face, and of all things, he woke up singing. Sometimes it was a hymn; sometimes it was a song so bawdy her ears burned. “Oh, my sweetheart’s not true like she should be,” he bellowed. “At night she lies close and she—”

His voice would break off and he would swear at whoever had kicked him into silence and start again.

The day started off well. Alex was riding a roan gelding that seemed to like her, his gait was gentle enough that her sore behind didn’t hurt too much, and the weather was clear and sunny. She rode for an hour, getting used to the dust clouds and the gnats and the heat, and then spurred her horse to join Juan and Curly, who were riding in the flank position.

All of a sudden the sun that had been blazing down on her only moments before slid behind a cloud. For a brief moment she welcomed the suddenly cooler air, and she lifted her face to the breeze and let it wash over her perspiration-soaked shirt. But when she raked off her wide-brimmed black hat, she felt droplets of water dampen her hair.

“Miss Alex!” Curly pointed to the sky. “Rainstorm.”

Very quickly it grew darker and wetter, and then thunder began to rumble overhead. Oh, heavens, a thundershower! She looked around for some shelter, but other than an occasional stand of spindly cottonwood trees, there was nothing to shield her from the rain, and it was now coming down in sheets.

Alex clapped her hat back on, snugged it down and tried to see through the mist enveloping them. The herd kept plodding forward, with Curly and Juan keeping pace with the animals. Good heavens, would they just keep going?

Yes, they would.

She tried to keep up. After another rain-soaked mile, large patches of boggy grass slowed her progress even more, and then there were big, wide puddles and stretches of mud-slicked ground that splattered when she rode over them.

Rain slashed at her face. Her thoroughly wet shirt stuck to her body as if glued on; her jeans felt cold as water soaked through the denim to her thighs. Despite the rain, she worked hard to keep up with Juan and Curly, who were still racing after straggling cows and whooping it up, as they always did.

She was thoroughly miserable, wet and cold, her clothes sodden and her hat dripping water onto her jeans. She had never felt so cold and clammy, so disheveled or so disheartened.

They rode on, pushing the herd along, for another hour, and then, as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped and the sun burst through a cloud. Curly and Juan kept the herd moving as the puddles began to dry up, and her wet shirt and jeans began to steam in the sunshine. Now she felt hot and clammy.

By dusk, the moving mass of cows and riders slowed and finally dribbled to a stop near the chuck wagon. The tired cowhands drove the herd to a broad green meadow and bedded them down for the night.

Alex rode straight for the rope corral where the wrangler, Cherry, had gathered the remuda. She left her roan in his care and made a beeline for the chuck wagon. Her boots squished. All she wanted to do was peel off her sticky garments and put on dry clothes.

But Roberto had an iron Dutch oven bubbling over a blazing fire and he clanged his spoon around and around in an iron triangle to announce that supper was ready. One by one, the hands straggled in, dismounted and handed their reins to the wrangler. Then they stumbled tiredly toward the fire and the tin plates the cook was loading up with beef stew and hot biscuits.

She had lived through her first thunderstorm on the trail, and she wanted to record the details right away, while they were still fresh in her mind. Her notebook was damp, but the words were still legible. She nibbled on her pencil and started to write.

“Ain’tcha gonna eat supper, Miss Alex?” Curly inquired.

“Yeah,” Skip echoed. “Good thing we had that thunderstorm today, huh?”

“You crazy?” Curly snapped. “Wet is wet and miserable, and steers don’t need washin’.”

“Aw, wise up, Curly. The boss couldn’t send Miss Alex back to the Rocking K during a thunderstorm. That’s good, ain’t it?”

Oh, yes, Alex thought. This rainstorm had come at a most fortuitous time. Being wet and miserable for a few hours was a small price to pay for continuing on this adventure.

Suddenly she found she was ravenously hungry.

* * *

After another bone-crunching day, Alex spied the chuck wagon pulled up in a grassy meadow overlooking a river. She was half dead with exhaustion and so hungry her stomach hurt, and she felt hot and grubby and short-tempered. She sent a longing glance at the serene blue-green river behind the wagon and immediately started to plan how she could indulge in a private, cooling bath with nine cowboys and a cook in the vicinity.

She’d think of something, anything, that would allow her to sponge away the sweat and the faint smell of Roberto’s liniment that still clung to her skin. She might not be a seasoned trail rider, but she was not without wiles. Her chance came after supper that evening when the hands were gathered around the fire.

“Gentlemen,” she began. “I have a proposition for you.”

Jase jerked upright, knocking over his mug of coffee. “Uh, what kind of proposition?”