Page 49 of Falling for the Cowgirl
“Sometimes love is complicated, but you’ve gotta work through it.”
“In this case, I can’t work through it.”
Wyatt stared at Jericho as if trying to see down inside to help him figure out the problem. If Wyatt knew the danger that came with being a bounty hunter, he’d ride away with Ivy so fast, all Jericho would see would be the dust from their trail.
“Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you love her.” Wyatt tilted his hat, as though readying to be on his way. “Reckon every cowhand this side of the Divide knows it but you. Best you untangle whatever’s holding you back before you end up losing her.”
Without giving Jericho a chance to respond, Wyatt turned and wove through the milling crowd toward his wagon and family. Not that Jericho could have responded. The whole conversation had taken him completely by surprise. From Ivy’s admission of guilt to Wyatt’s offer of his job back. Most jolting of all was Wyatt’s insistence that he loved Ivy.
Surely Wyatt wasn’t right. Did everyone else know it but him?
He tried to get his lungs working again. He was supposed to be proficient at hiding his emotions. But in the case ofIvy, apparently the only one he’d hidden his feelings from was himself.
Jericho clamped his jaws together to bite back a slew of harsh words for Hance Payne. With the dancing long over and most families having dispersed, the younger crowd remained—mainly cowhands and miners and single businessmen. Men like Hance Payne laying the charm on Ivy with way too much persistence.
Standing at a central bonfire, Jericho had used the opportunity to learn as much as he could about the men on his list. But with Ivy hanging on to every word of Hance’s tales of long-forgotten treasures buried in the mountains, Jericho had only grown more irritated and distracted, so that now he wanted to walk over to the fellow, kick him in the pants, and send him to his home at the back of the barbershop.
It had nothing to do with his feelings for Ivy and more to do with the fact that Hance was filling Ivy’s head with thoughts of gold. With the way her eyes were brightening in the firelight, Jericho had no doubt she was thinking on how she might be able to get her hands on a treasure.
“Otis and I are going out treasure hunting again on Sunday.” Hance was standing next to Ivy. As he stretched his hands out toward the flames, he brushed his shoulder against hers.
Jericho took a puff on his pipe, unable to stop the low burn of anger inside from fanning hotter.
A fist bumped into Jericho’s arm. “If looks could kill, Hance Payne’d be a dead man.” Gordo guffawed beside him and drew the laughter of several other cowhands.
Jericho had finally worked his way into Gordo’s loyal band of friends. And the longer he’d talked with them, the freer they’d been in telling him stories about their pasts.
From piecing together various details, he’d come to the conclusion that Gordo and two of his friends had fought for the South. They’d boasted about some of the guerilla war tactics Rodney James was known for. They’d even admitted to deserting near the end of the war and running off to Texas.
Gordo leaned in, his breath sour from whiskey. “Reckon it’s time for you to teach Hance he can’t have what ain’t his.”
“Maybe so.”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t be letting my girl flirt with every man around. I’d be makin’ sure she was plenty satisfied with me. If you know what I mean.” Gordo ended with a lewd kissing motion.
His friends burst into raucous laughter.
Jericho opened his mouth to clear up the confusion that Ivy wasn’t his girl, then clamped it shut. He hadn’t danced with her once. Hadn’t even spoken with her. But maybe it was better if everyone believed she was his. Maybe he could frighten them off that way.
His dark glares certainly weren’t keeping Hance away. The man hadn’t even seemed to notice him.
Hance was caught up in regaling Ivy with another tale of treasures. “In the early 1800s, Spanish prospectors were returning to Mexico City with eight mules laden with gold. Not long after they started out on their journey, Ute warriors chased after them. In order to outrun the Utes, the Spanish had to lighten their caravan. Even though they quickly hid their gold, only three men escaped the Utes and made it to Santa Fe. Later, they tried to return for the gold but never could find it.”
Ivy watched Hance with rapt attention.
“Some say the Utes took it all away,” Gordo interjected.
“Exactly.” Hance didn’t break his attention from Ivy. “They say the Utes moved it up here into Pike’s Forest and marked the spot with a pile of rocks in the form of a rattlesnake.”
“A rattlesnake?” Ivy’s face conveyed her growing excitement.
“That’s what me and Otis have been looking for.” Hance directed a nod toward the hefty dentist standing on his other side, as quiet and shy as always, but who was having another coughing fit from the smoke. “We’ve found rock piles near Snyder Creek. And some near Rock Creek. But nothing in the form of a rattlesnake.”
“Reckon you’ll be searchin’ awhile.” Gordo spoke derisively. “Lookin’ for a pile of rocks in Pike’s Forest is like lookin’ for a piece of hay in an alfalfa field.”
Several others chortled, while a couple of the men offered suggestions to Hance and Otis on where they’d seen snakelike rock patterns in the towering mountains to the east that made up part of Pike’s Forest.
Once upon a time, the hunt for treasure might have lured Jericho. But that lure had died right alongside Nash the day he’d fallen to his death. In fact, the lure was long gone, replaced by the cold, hard reality of life. He was too practical to waste time chasing after whimsical dreams when he could chase after crooks who needed to face the consequences of their crimes.
