Page 44 of Wellspring
“Should we have seen any cattle by now?”Erick asked.
“Depends on when they took off.They mighta been gone for days before Payne realized they were missing.And Wellspring has a lot of ground to cover.They coulda made quite a distance if they had a mind to.Not that anyone knows what goes through a cow’s mind.”
“You do not think that JR hands made off with them?”
Cade scowled.“I wouldn’t put it past them, but we’ve kept a pretty close watch.Someone would have spotted it if they were brazen enough to rustle that many head all at once.”
Erick nodded and speared a piece of meat out of the pan Cade had pulled off the fire and set on the ground in front of them.“So we will wander around hoping we find them?”
“Not quite,” Cade said with a chuckle.“Wherever they went, they’ll have left tracks.It hasn’t rained much since the last big storm we had, so they shouldn’t have been washed away.If we’re lucky, they’ll be all together and easier to track.If not, we may have to keep the ones we find together as we look for the rest.We’ll just have to see when we find their trail.”
“It sounds like quite the challenge.”
Cade shrugged.“My family taught me to read the land, but yeah, it’s a lot of ground to cover, hoping to find a sign.”
They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes.“I am sorry we did not bring the primers with us, but I would not risk them coming to harm when Miss Dawson was kind enough to lend them to us,” Erick said when they had finished.“I brought a notebook and pencils should you wish to practice your letters.”
“Practice my—” Cade laughed.“Did you seriously think I’d have the patience to practice my letters when I finally have you all to myself?”
“Practice makes perfect,” Erick said with a quirk of his lips.Cade’s answering grin made clear that he understood exactly what kind of practice Erick meant.
He tackled Erick back onto the ground and nuzzled below the collar of his shirt.“Drives me crazy,” he murmured against Erick’s skin.“Sleeves rolled down, shirt buttoned up, all prim and proper, when I know what’s hiding underneath.”He popped the top two buttons and rubbed his face against the hair that covered Erick’s chest.Erick didn’t really understand the fascination, but Cade was clearly fascinated.
Erick caught the beaded braid that tickled his skin and gently tugged Cade up until he could claim his lips.“Not everyone turns golden in the sun as you do,” he countered, dropping kisses along Cade’s cheek until he reached his ear.“Staying covered is preferable to burning, no?”
“At least no one else gets to see you all unbuttoned and rolled up,” Cade growled when Erick nipped his ear.
Erick shuddered as the sound vibrated through Cade’s chest above him and spread his legs a little so Cade could settle between them.He doubted the wisdom of disrobing completely out in the open like this, especially with the infernal bugs that had arrived with the summer heat, but even with layers of clothes between them, Cade’s weight pressing him into the ground made him hope he would eventually get his desire.He ran his hands down the back of Cade’s shirt to his finely toned buttocks and grabbed hold.“No one but you.”
Cade kissed him, the deep, fierce kiss that felt as though he couldn’t get enough of Erick’s taste, and rocked his hips into Erick’s.More than willing to take what Cade was giving, Erick gasped when Cade drew back.“We should bank the fire and move this to the bedrolls,” Cade said, his voice sounding as ragged as Erick felt.
“Surely it is too warm to bury ourselves in bedding.”Perversely, Erick felt the loss of Cade’s warmth as he rose to his feet.“Perhaps we can arrange them side by side?”
Cade banked the fire quickly, so the embers would still be burning in the morning but without the risk of sparks, and turned to Erick.“I have a better idea.”He spread his bedroll out flat, making a bed large enough for two.“Let me have yours.”
When Erick handed it to him, he spread it on top of the first.“A little extra padding, just in case.”
Erick would take all the extra padding he could since he fully planned to feel Cade on top of him tonight.He sat on the doubled bedroll and tugged off his boots.That was as far as he planned to disrobe on his own—he’d leave the decision of how much more to take off to Cade.Lying back, he folded his arms behind his head and smiled at Cade.“Let us practice, then.”
FOUR DAYSlater, Cade found what he’d been searching for since they left Wellspring: hoofprints going away from the mess left by a full herd.“Here,” he called to Erick.“They went this way.”
Erick rode to where Cade had stopped Nahnia and peered at the ground before looking back at Cade.“What do you see that I do not?”
“Tracks,” Cade said.“Hoofprints leading away from the herd.”He pointed toward the bluffs that ran along the southern edge of Wellspring’s land.“Those bluffs are treacherous, full of blind canyons and dry gullies that flood when we get a heavy rain.We generally don’t run cattle on that section of the ranch unless we have no other choice.”
They also hid Cade’s favorite spot on the entire ranch.If his luck held, the missing cows had found the one watering hole in those hills.If not, they’d be finding carcasses instead.
“Could you not fence that section off?”Erick asked.
“I mean, I suppose we could, but it would be miles of fence line we’d then have to maintain.For the most part, the herd don’t wander that way because there’s not a lot of water, which means not a lot of grazing, but obviously the runaways weren’t that smart.”
It hadn’t rained recently, so the tracks could be anywhere from a few days to three weeks old, but Cade didn’t think Payne would have waited that long to send someone after the missing cows.Not with everything going on with the JR.No tracker caught every sign, but Cade didn’t see anything to indicate the cows had been driven toward the bluffs—no horseshoe prints, nothing but cloven prints even outside the main trail, so a herd of mustangs (or band of Comanche) hadn’t come through to startle them either.Whatever wild hair had gotten into the herd, Cade was pretty sure it was natural, not human.
The farther the trail led south, the more Cade’s anticipation grew.If the tracks didn’t veer off, they would lead straight to the waterfall where he’d imagined taking Erick since the day they met.He hadn’t dared to hope they’d get there so quickly, especially not with JR’s hands pressing them from all sides.
By late afternoon, Cade had stopped worrying about following the tracks and simply turned Nahnia toward the waterfall.They’d find the cows on the way or they’d find them there, he was sure, because the tracks made a beeline for the bluff where he could see the occasional glisten of light off water.“Do you see that?”he asked Erick, pointing toward the falls.“We’ll make camp there tonight.The cattle should be there, but even if they aren’t for some reason, we can clean up a bit, refill our canteens, and rest before searching more.”
“I will look forward to the rest,” Erick said.“Zephyr is not accustomed to such uneven ground.Perhaps one of the mustangs would have been less fractious, though I suppose it is best he become acclimated to it.He will not always be riding over flat rangeland.”
