Page 35 of Follow the Lonesome Trail
Tears filled her eyes. One fell hot down her cheek.
“I just want you back. For one moment.”
Loneliness washed over her like a river in thaw. She knelt down and pressed her head against his stone.
“God, please,” she whispered. “Help us.”
He struck a match on the towering rock at his elbow and lit the cigarette between his lips. His pony flared its nostrils and flicked its ears, but it was used to this nightly ritual now. The moon was bright tonight, illuminating the whole canyon below.
Tucked into the flat-bottomed floor of the canyon stood a modest ranch outfit. A homestead, bunkhouse, barn, corrals. About forty or fifty head bunched into one corral. A couple shifted here and there. Stomped, tails switching.
Another thing caught his eye: movement by the stand of trees, just beyond the homestead. It was a woman on her knees, her hand upon an upright stone, her forehead leaned against it, hair pale in the moonlight, every line of her body dejected. In the stillness of the night, he thought he could hear words, just snatches.
He watched until the cigarette was gone; he put out the stub against the rock. It felt almost wrong.
Yet he couldn’t look away.
Now she stood, smoothing back her hair, bracing her shoulders as she turned back to face the house.
There was something so beautiful and strong about the way she stood. Defiant, almost, though there was no one to see her and no one for her to stand against.
She must have kids. He knew no one alive who cried in the dark, away from the house, and pulled themselves together that completely unless they had someone to protect.
It was the way of it. Even he, without a family, knew that.
He watched as she went back to the house, saw the smoke change in its rise from the chimney—she must have put a little more wood on the fire.
The night had a chill, sure. Something was brewing on the wind.
He backed his horse up and turned back the way he came.
It was late morning by the time he rode over the hill and spotted the camp. He’d passed a couple clusters of Lucky Dollar cattle, but he’d pushed them into a box canyon. Something in his gut told him not to bring them along just yet.
Hank’s roan was there, and probably forty head of cattle.
A fire with a thin trickle of smoke coming out sideways burned beside a makeshift corral of hacked brush and saplings. Long handles from a pair of brands stuck out of the glowing embers.
He rode down, skirting wide and passing the cattle first. He saw the crook-horned cow that had threatened him yesterday. She had a fresh brand on her side: the Bar S. There were fresh tracks all around. There had been a couple other horses here too, not too long ago.
He licked his lips.
There was no mistaking it now.
“Johnny!” It was Hank, appearing from around the other side of the cattle pen, looking like he’d been startled. “Where’d you come from?”
“I just rode up a ways. Looking for strays.”
“And?”
He just shook his head.
"Well, as you can see, I’ve found some of ours. And some mavericks.”
“Mm.” There was no mistaking the other horses; one was missing a nail from its shoe, and the other was too deep to be made by Hank’s horse.
“What’s eating you?”
“Was there anyone else here?”
