{Chapter 6}

Before the sun even broke out over the horizon the next morning, the entire MC outfit was lined up in front of the trail boss.

Mark stood in front of the cowboys, a hard look in his eye. A look that would have given Adam shivers before he had spent years as a deputy sheriff.

“Okay boys, we’re gonna go over a few rules here” Mark placed his hands on his hips. “On this drive you’ll be expected to do your job as best as you can with no excuses. Most of you have been on a drive before, so I won’t go into the particulars with the cattle. You’ll leave the cook alone if you know what’s good for you. If you have any guns on you, please give them to the foreman and he’ll put them away. Tiny, Rattlesnake, Joe, Doc, Dallas, Bubba and Dusty. You boys are the swing riders. J.T., Rawhide, Brant, Rusty, Walker, Toothpick, and Alex. You boys are the flank riders. Adam and Gringo,” Mark grinned at them. “Ya’ll have the pleasure of riding drag this first little while.”

Adam and Gringo groaned. Adam knew they did this to him because he was green to the whole cattle thing. “Marshall, you’re the point rider, so go find Hondo and get started. Erik, Slim, and Slick, you boys handle the remuda. Boys, you mind Erik, hear? He knows more about horses than the rest of us combined” Mark took a deep breath. “You’re all aware of the wages and how that will be handled, so I guess that’s all I have. Wade, you wanna lead us in prayer before we leave?”

Adam watched as Wade came to the front of the group.

“Hats off, men” he ordered.

The cowboys removed their hats and bowed their heads.

“Lord” Wade began. “I suppose you know what we’re facing now. We’re not asking you to make it easy for us, just to give us strength to make it through this. Keep us and the herd safe, and help us to be mindful of Your ways. Amen”

Everyone replaced their hats and went on about their preparations.

Adam turned and his eye caught one of the cowboys that had joined up this morning. He felt all the blood rush from his face and down to his boots.

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

**********

Katie made sure that everything was in place in the chuck wagon, and double-checked the contents to make sure she didn’t miss anything. All was ready to go. She was clad in a split skirt and had purchased a cowboy hat to protect her from the sun. Her adrenaline pumped at the thought of her first cattle drive. Looking around the ranch, she spotted Aubrey and Wade locked in each other’s embrace, Aubrey’s tears wetting Wade’s shoulder. Her heart twisted and she felt a wave of sorrow come over her. She wished she could have told Ben goodbye before he was murdered. What she wouldn’t give for just one more moment with him to tell him that she loved him. Wade kissed Aubrey’s hair and muttered words in her ear. Aubrey nodded but continued crying. Katie tore her gaze away from their private moment and watched as Toni rode up on her horse, ready to go.

Searching out Erik, Katie found him walking toward his wife with a faint smile on his face.

“Where do you think you’re going, missy?” he asked.

“On the drive. I haven’t missed a drive since I was fifteen years old, and I don’t plan on starting now” Toni’s jaw was set determinedly, and Katie knew that there was no changing her mind. Yet Erik was obviously putting his foot down on this, too.

“Toni, if you think I’m gonna let you take that baby and ride out there in the middle of nowhere with it, you’ve got another thing coming” he said.

Toni looked down at him. “He’s gonna stay in the chuck wagon with Katie. I’ll work with the herd between feedings.”

“No you won’t.”

“Yes I will.”

“Toni!”

“Erik, you can’t keep me away from doing what I’ve done every year for nearly half my life. I’ll go crazy knowing I’m here and you’re all out there working yourselves to death without me,” Toni said.

“Not happening, Toni” Erik disagreed.

“Just how are you going to stop me?” Toni asked.

Erik took her arm and pulled her off her horse and over his shoulder.

“Erik! Put me down!” Toni kicked and squealed.

Erik sat her down on the porch of their house.

“What makes you think I won’t just ride out after you’ve left?” Toni asked.

Erik groaned. “Why do you have to do everything I tell you not to?”

“Because you’re overprotective,” Toni told him.

Erik groaned again and looked up at the dark sky. “Why me, Lord?”

Toni waited, her foot tapping against the ground.

Erik glared at her, shook his head, and walked away. He passed Katie on his way to his horse.

“You’re responsible for her,” He said.

Katie didn’t protest. Toni could take care of herself, and she knew what she was doing with herself. AS for taking a baby along on the cattle drive, that was a stupid streak in her.

“Toni, I can’t believe you’re going through with this,” Katie said to her cousin as Toni made a place fortified with pillows and blankets for the baby in the back of the chuck wagon.

“I have no choice, anyway. Since Mark and I are both co-owners of the ranch, we both have to sign the receipt,” Toni explained.

“A cattle drive is no place for a baby, Toni,” Katie protested.

“Justin will be fine. He’ll be in here out of the sun and the dust, and I’ll be regular with feeding him. I don’t see why everyone is making such a big deal out of this. Justin won’t grow up to be no namby-pamby” Toni placed Justin in among the blankets and smiled at him.

Katie huffed. “Fine. It’s your child.”

“Load up!” Mark hollered.

Katie turned to Jay and Sandy where they stood on Erik and Toni’s porch.

“Come here and give your Aunt Katie a hug” she stretched out her arms.

The children ran to her and hugged her tight.

“You two be good for Aubrey, okay? Stay out of trouble” Katie told them.

They nodded.

Katie climbed up into the chuck wagon seat and took up the reins. She saw Wade hesitantly mount his horse and look back at Aubrey. Katie held her chin up high. She had to stop being reminded of what wasn’t there anymore.

“Move out!” Mark yelled.

Toni broke off her hug with Sandy and rushed to mount her horse. Katie looked around at the cowboys and Adam’s dark red shirt caught her eye. He was eyeing one of the new cowboys nervously, and hid hands fiddled with the reins around the pommel of his saddle.

**

“Adam, why are you doing that?” Katie asked him one day while they were out riding.

Adam twisted the end of his reins around one fingertip. “Doing what?”

“Playin’ with your reins. You do that sometimes. Are you nervous about something?” Katie asked him.

Adam laughed stiffly. “No, why would I be nervous? I’m not nervous.”

Katie shook her head.

“I don’t have anything to be nervous about” Adam went on. “I’m not nervous at all. Can’t a man fiddle with his own reins anymore without his motives being questioned?”

Katie laughed. “Go on, Adam. What’s eating at you?”

Adam sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

**

Then he had shattered her heart like a china teacup on a concrete floor. Katie shook her head against the memory. Adam set his jaw hard and mounted his horse. Blondie pranced in anticipation, and she obviously didn’t get that from her rider.

Suddenly Katie remembered Jane and her match. Evan James should be going to her house calling today. Smiling at herself, she couldn’t wait to get back and see how the relationship had turned out.

She made a clicking sound and sent the horses to moving. Once they got out to the herd, she and Mark would take the lead, and then the cowboys would take their positions. Then the drive would officially be in motion.

**********

Adam couldn’t believe he was stuck riding drag on the first day. It was the nastiest, smelliest, dustiest job with the herd.

“Have you done this before?” He had to yell at Gringo to be heard over the thundering herd of thirty-five hundred cattle.

“Every year I‘ve been here” Gringo replied in the same tone. “The newest guys get the first shift of drag. That was a deal I wasn’t privy to.”

“It was a mutual agreement,” Toni yelled from his other side.

Adam shook his head and kept pushing the cattle to keep moving. A slow one would wander away every now and then and he would have to go after it. Even the bandanna over his face didn’t keep him from eating a lot of dirt. His hat protected from the direct sun, but the heat still caused his shirt to be soaked with sweat only minutes into the job.

Toni had been stuck riding drag as punishment for her insubordination to her husband, no doubt. He could tell that she didn’t mind, though. She sat straight and erect in the saddle, looking completely natural working with the cattle. She was definitely a strange kind of woman. Looking over her equipment on her saddle, Adam spotted something that amused him.

Was that a Sharps 50 caliber strapped to her saddle? Adam shook his head. What he wouldn’t give to see her shoot that thing.

For the life of him, he couldn’t get that man Brent out of his mind. He could have sworn he’d seen a ghost. It took him a moment to realize that it couldn’t have been the man he thought it was, because he had buried that man. He couldn’t help but have an uneasy feeling about that man, though.

*Lord, I sure hope nothing’s going on here that I don’t know about.*

Just incase ya'll didn't know these terms, here are the definitions.

Swing riders - positioned 1/3 of the way back from the front of the herd.

Flank riders - positioned 2/3 of the way back from the front of the herd.

Tail riders a.k.a Drag riders - positioned at the back of the herd to keep the slow ones moving.

Point rider - leads dominant steer in the front of the herd.

Remuda - pack of horses used by cowboys. The hard riding causes them to have to swap out horses.

There you have it? What do we think so far?

Chuckwagon ----->>