Into The Storm. Helen DePrima

broke it to check that it wasn’t loaded, and handed it back. “I’m sure,” she said.

      “Good enough.” He stepped into the tack room and came out with a stock saddle, two bridles and a coiled rope. “Be right back,” he said, and strode through the metal gate beside the barn.

      A few minutes later he returned leading a dun gelding. Shelby had already brushed Sadie and cinched her own saddle on the mare.

      He stood back to study her rig. “I didn’t take a good look before—what is that, a Buena Vista?”

      She nodded. “My granddaddy called it a plantation saddle. It’s lighter than a Western saddle, and I can take the stirrups off when I first put it on a horse.” She stroked the leather, smooth and dark as antique walnut. “I learned to ride on this saddle.”

      Jake saddled the gelding and filled his saddlebags with food. He lashed the sack containing Stranger’s food behind his saddle and cocked an eye at the sun. “Get the colt,” he said. “Let’s move out.”

      Shelby followed him, leading the colt with Stranger trotting alongside. The attack and her blind flight into the snowstorm faded like a bad dream with the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. Jake hadn’t urged her to talk and hadn’t pushed her to report the attack. The tension that had strung her nerves taut at the Norquist ranch, waking and sleeping, eased. She slouched into the mare’s long stride and lifted her face to the sunlight.

       CHAPTER NINE

      GOOD THING SHELBY couldn’t see his face. Jake ground his teeth and mouthed savage curses. He wanted to pound Gary into the corral dirt. He should have dragged Shelby straight to the sheriff’s office, but the terror in her eyes had made him back off. What made her fear the police more than her attacker? It didn’t seem likely she was running from the law if she kept an ad in Western Horseman.

      His mount caught his mood and shied at nothing. “Sorry, Butch,” he said and patted the horse’s neck. He slapped a grin on his face and looked over his shoulder. “You doing okay back there?”

      Shelby nodded, answering with a lopsided smile. “Doing fine—everything looks better from on top of a horse.”

      He dropped back to ride beside her on the wagon track, no more than two deep ruts in the red soil. Even in his black mood, he automatically checked out range conditions as he rode. They’d had a good winter, with enough snow to soak deep against drought but not so much they’d had to chop ice or haul hay through head-high drifts. Already new green showed though the brown grass. He’d be able to move his cow-calf pairs out here soon, with Shelby to keep an eye on them.

      If she stayed. The possibility she might leave brought him up short; he reined in without thinking atop the long slope they’d just climbed.

      Shelby halted her mount. “Something wrong?”

      “Just thought we’d breathe the horses while I show you some landmarks.” He pointed westward. “See that long ridge shaped like a ship’s prow? That’s Mesa Verde, where the mustangs were rounded up. The colt wouldn’t have to run far to his old stomping ground. From up there you can see clear down to the Navajo Reservation.”

      “Do we have much farther to ride?”

      He gave her a sharp glance; she was drooping a little in the saddle. He hated leaving her alone a good hour’s ride from the home ranch, but he was pretty sure she would resist coming back with him.

      “Another fifteen minutes at this pace,” he said. “Across the creek below this ridge, around that next bluff, then back across the creek. We can’t drive across yet because the banks are soft and the water’s high, but I brought up a full propane tank last fall and there’s enough hay to last you a while.”

      A small log house came into view as they splashed across the creek. “There it is,” he said. “The Cameron’s sacred shrine, Jacob’s first homestead. The old boy picked a good spot—plenty of water, the bluff at his back, and level ground to put in a garden.”

      He spurred his horse to a trot, and Sadie followed with no urging. Shelby rode into the corral with the colt while Jake tied his horse outside and closed the gate. A roomy lean-to formed one side of the pen with hay bales stacked under cover; a stock tank with a rusty pump brimmed with water. Shelby dismounted stiffly and unsnapped the lead line from the colt’s halter before unsaddling her horse.

      Stranger sniffed ecstatically around the cabin’s foundation and then lifted his leg against a corral post. He continued his personal survey of the clearing, disappearing behind the lean-to.

      Jake unsaddled his horse, as well. “You’re going to need this saddle for Sadie,” he said. “The scabbard for the shotgun won’t fit on yours. I’ll ride home bareback.” He carried both saddles to the shed and broke open a bale of hay. “Let me show you around before it gets dark.”

      Shotgun in hand, he opened the cabin door and ushered her inside. “I’ll turn on the propane for the stove and light the pilot before I leave. The fireplace draws good, and there’s more wood just out the back door. No fridge, but we have a Coleman chest in the back room.” He carried apples, frozen hamburger, half-and-half, a carton of eggs and a couple freezer packs to a small back room and put them into the big cooler.

      “Sorry, no bathroom,” he said, “but the outhouse is clean and limed.” He pointed to a row of empty plastic jugs. “Grab a couple of those, and I’ll show you where to get water.”

      He led her to a well-trodden path skirting the bluff behind the cabin. Hidden behind a bold sandstone outcropping lay an almost perfectly circular pool. Tendrils of vapor hung above it in the cooling air. A miniature waterfall leaped from a fissure in the rocks above the pool.

      “The water from the rock face is safe to drink, and the pool is great for bathing—it stays an even one hundred degrees year-round.” He climbed up the rocks and began filling the jugs.

      Shelby followed, and they each carried two gallons back to the cabin. The sun sat nearly on the western horizon and shadows filled the interior. Jake lit two oil lamps and showed Shelby where to find more oil before lighting the range and kindling a fire on the hearth.