Rough Stock (3 page)

She wished for the millionth time that she had family in Cheyenne, a place to leave Willow so the little girl wouldn’t be subjected to all this. But that had been the point in coming to Cheyenne, that no one would know them. And though it was still Wyoming, and Rowan got the occasional side eye for being a single mother, tongues wagged less in Cheyenne than in Star Valley.

In four years, Rowan had managed to keep her trips back to the farm restricted to summer vacation and Christmas (if the weather was good). Willow loved the farm but had never been into town.

With everything falling apart around them, she hoped to God she could keep the girl hidden away.

Rowan finally roused her with a gentle shake. “Baby,” she said quietly. “Baby, wake up.”

Willow groaned and turned away.

“Sweetie, you have to get up,” Rowan insisted. “We have to go.”

The little girl opened her eyes and squinted. “Mama,” she protested. “It’s dark out.”

“I know, baby,” said Rowan, lifting Willow up. “But we have to go. We have to get you dressed then get in the car.”

Willow’s nose wrinkled as though the idea of trudging outside, in the cold, and the dark, was distasteful.

Rowan agreed.

The car was already warmed up by the time she put Willow in her booster seat. The little girl gazed up at her with soulful brown eyes that haunted Rowan sometimes, though she tried never to show it. “Where are we going, Mama?”

“To the farm, baby.”

Willow’s eyes lit up. “To the farm? With Kinka? And Pop-Pop?”

Rowan hesitated, not knowing what to say. “Yes,” she finally replied. “To the farm.” She figured that was enough for now.

The drive was long and Rowan was forced to white-knuckle it all the way along the highway that had once been dubbed the Snow Chi Minh Trail. Drift fences had reduced the danger of icy conditions these days, but Rowan was still on constant watch for antelope, which despite their diminutive size could create an unbelievable amount of damage when hitting one with a car. Driving at night on the near-deserted roads of Wyoming’s open country was never easy or recommended. The only people on the road this late at night were long-haul truckers, and even they were few and far between.

Rowan stayed under the speed limit, stopping for gas in Laramie, then again in Rock Springs, just to get a Coke and keep herself awake and racking up the credit card she’d worked so hard to pay off just last fall. Willow was bundled up and under her favorite Dora the Explorer blanket, so Rowan rolled the driver’s-side window down and let the cold night air keep her alert.

They reached the medical center a little before noon, and Rowan slid her Toyota into the space closest to the ER doors that wasn’t handicapped. She unbelted Willow, hoisted the little girl onto her shoulder, and hurried along the sidewalk.

As the glass doors whispered shut behind her, she instinctively tugged down Willow’s hood, covering her sleeping daughter’s face as she carried her inside. She located the lobby’s small reception desk and headed straight for it, identification badge in hand. “Mac Archer,” she said as she slid it across the counter.

The badge worked as well as any enchanted talisman, gaining Rowan access to her father’s chart and intake information. The duty nurse handed it back with a matter-of-fact nod. “Paul Renner is in with him, prepping him for the surgery.”

“Paul Renner?” Rowan’s eyebrows lifted.

“He’s the anesthesiologist on duty.”

Rowan blinked at the woman. It was odd to hear of an old classmate being a specialist, and an anesthesiologist no less, though she supposed if she’d been able to attend nursing school full-time from start to finish, she’d be further along in her own career by now. Paul Renner, though? Wow. Rowan had a vivid memory of Paul and a beer bong senior year. Honestly, though, she hadn’t been too much better, and she considered herself a decent nurse–when she wasn’t yelling at drunks.

“Paul Renner?” she repeated, hoping she didn’t reveal too much of her trepidation. Beggars, after all, couldn’t be choosers. She was grateful that a surgeon had even been on shift so as not to waste precious minutes life-lining him to Cheyenne or Denver.

“He’s good,” the nurse assured her.

Rowan nodded, taking the endorsement as gospel. She had no other choice. She was about to ask after Emma, if her sister had been given a quiet room to wait, when behind her someone called her name.

Troy, Emma’s husband, came toward her, two coffees in hand.

Rowan sighed in relief at seeing a friendly face. He led her to a small room, where Emma, eyes puffy and hair uncombed, grabbed her into a fierce hug, nearly crushing Willow between them.

Rowan finally stepped back and laid the girl down on a threadbare sofa, gratefully taking Troy’s offered coffee. He excused himself to get a replacement.

As the door closed behind him, Emma threw up her hands. “Five hours!” Rowan’s older sister explained, prompting Rowan to shush her for Willow’s sake.

Emma ducked her head guiltily, still incensed, though. “Five hours he laid in bed, thinking he pulled a muscle in his shoulder! Unbelievable! And who does he call then? Me! Not an ambulance. Not Dr. Webber. Me!”

Rowan grimaced. Their father was a master at ignoring the sometimes painfully obvious until it just went away.

“You look terrible,” Emma said suddenly.

Rowan heaved a sigh and rubbed her neck. “I was on night shift when I got your message.”

“You should go get some rest,” Emma declared.

“I was about to say the same to you. It’ll be hours before he’s out,” Rowan told her, glancing nervously at the door. “But someone should stay. In case.”

“In case he doesn’t make it,” Emma added grimly.

“Don’t say that!” Rowan snapped.

It was Emma’s turn to hush her. Willow stirred anyway, almost opened her eyes, but went back to snoring softly.

Emma sighed. “You two are so alike,” she said while gazing at her niece.

Rowan frowned, knowing Emma didn’t mean Willow. As a nurse, Rowan was practical about a lot of things, but not her family. She missed them too much. Living in Cheyenne felt too much like self-imposed exile, which was exactly what it was, if she was being honest. The thought of losing one of them, after having been away so long and having missed them so terribly, was too much to take.

“I’m sorry,” said Emma before Rowan could argue. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

The two of them sank down into chairs and sipped their coffees in silence. The rush of adrenaline that had carried Rowan this far dissipated quickly. Now a dull buzzing was growing behind her eyes, and she was struggling to keep them open.

Almost three hours later, the door opened (it must have been for the second time, because Troy was in the room and Rowan hadn’t heard him come in). Paul Renner was standing before them, looking almost exactly like he had in high school, but now with blond hair that was thinning a little on top. He smiled at her, though, and Rowan took it for a good sign as she hauled herself out of her chair.

She listened intently, translating for Troy and Emma as Paul told them it was a double bypass and that the surgeon was reasonably pleased with the results. There was a slight blockage in a third artery, and they’d go in for an angioplasty in a few weeks rather than take more veins out of his legs for the graft. Dad was still out from the anesthesia, but his blood pressure and heart rate were encouraging.

Rowan said a silent prayer of thanks that the beer bong hadn’t taken Paul’s last few brain cells. The duty nurse had been right—he seemed to be sharp, with a good head on his shoulders. Rowan shook his hand before he walked out the door. He looked like he might say something, about high school, or old times, but given the circumstances, he must’ve thought better of it.

He left after explaining the nurses were checking Dad into his room.

“I’m tired,” Emma declared then looked at Rowan. “Go home. Get some rest.”

“I think you have that backwards.”

But Emma shook her head. “No, you go,” she insisted, nodding to Willow. “This is no place to rest, even for a kid. Take her to the house, take a nap, both of you. I’ll come around in a few hours and we can swap.”

Rowan wanted to argue. As a sometimes-night-shift nurse she was far more used to long stretches of wakefulness than Emma, but the drive had been long, and she was close to stretching out on the tile floor and shutting the world out. “Okay,” she finally relented, gathering Willow in her arms. She was more than grateful to be offered a few hours’ worth of sleep, even if she wasn’t entirely certain she could relax enough to take advantage of it.

She could check on the sheep, too, and get them their feed. She tugged the hood down over Willow’s face and hurried back out the hospital doors. There was nothing she could do here at the moment, so it made more sense to go where she could be the most useful.

‡

S
eth passed through
the sparse trees that lined the river and headed toward the Point to meet-up with the others. When he arrived to find no one, he fished out his hand-held and tried to raise Gabe.

“I haven’t heard from him,” came back Austin’s static-cracked voice.

They all used the same channel.

“They might—” Seth heard, but the wind took the rest.

“What? I didn’t get that.” The steady hum of the hand-held was all Seth got in response for a moment.

“—said maybe they found the eastern group,” Austin repeated.

Seth held down the slick, black plastic button. “Could be,” he replied, almost crossing his fingers. “That’d slow them down.”

Court, Austin, and Gabe were under orders to take the long way around, not stray from the trail, but keep an eye out for the group they’d split off before the storm. If they found them, they’d drive them to the Point to join with the other cattle they’d left down in the Gulch.

Seth watched the horizon, hardly daring to breathe. He hated waiting. He hated wondering. All that was left to do was hope that his brothers and Gabe had found the group.

And that the cattle were alive.

And that they hadn’t run into trouble at the river the way Walker, Austin, and Seth had.

That was a lot of things to hope for.

Maybe too many.

He waited nearly an hour, alone in the biting wind, and was about to give up and head east to try to spot them when he finally saw the shape of a rider rise over a far hill. It was Gabe, Seth noted, or rather Azteca he recognized first. The paint horse was striking against any landscape, clearly the result of Dakota’s (Gabe’s younger sister’s) most successful breedings. Behind him, a slow-moving group of cattle started to appear over the horizon.

Relief flooded Seth, and he clenched his teeth to keep from letting out a whoop of joy at seeing them, both the man and his four-legged charges. No sense in spooking any of them or attracting the curiosity of predators up in the hills.

Court and Sawyer, at the rear of the herd, were usually trading naughty limericks, but this afternoon they were somber, silent, perfect mirrors of each other with their dour expressions. Though not twins themselves, Court and Sawyer seemed to have an even better bond between them than Austin and Walker. Seth supposed it was because they’d lit out together to join the rodeo a few years ago and hadn’t looked back. Sawyer and Court travelled together, lived in a trailer on the road together, and competed together on a roping team in addition to their individual bronc-riding efforts. Though they’d been back for almost two months, Seth still had trouble adjusting to their presence. Sawyer’s constant jokes were wearing thin, and Court was rather surly these days, apparently preferring the roaring crowds to the relative silence of the open range.

Sawyer wasn’t cracking jokes now, though, and one look at the cattle they were driving made it all too clear to Seth why.

Ahead of them, Gabe slowed considerably, crossing the last quarter mile at a slow walk, settling the cows down and preparing them for a stop. When he finally got close enough—and the rest of the head crested the hill—Seth raised his hand in greeting. “Gabe,” he said, nodding, but was unable to keep his eyes off the group of cattle trailing the younger vaquero. “Shit.”

Gabe made an affirmative grunt. “One third,” he said quietly. “We lost one third.”

And there was no way that wolves, even multiple packs, could take out that many, so that meant they’d starved during the blizzard when the Barlows and Gabe had been unable to bring food. Just before the mercury dropped and the snow on the ground started to freeze, they’d hauled all their remaining hay bales out to the range with snow cats, hoping it was enough, then had been forced to return to the homestead and wait.

It had not been enough.

The storm had hit harder than even Austin could have predicted. The men had been cut off from the herd for too long.

“Maybe,” said Seth, turning in his saddle and gazing at the trail that led down in the Gulch.

Gabe said nothing. And that was all right. Seth hated even asking the man to go down there, but there wasn’t much choice. The younger man was so like his father before him, serious minded, responsible, loyal to a fault, even given the circumstances. And Seth hadn’t really noticed before, but Gabe also
looked
so much like Manny that Seth had to turn away. The guilt was still too overwhelming. He focused, instead, on Court and Sawyer heading toward them. Both the younger Barlows looked exhausted.