Cattleman’s Lament

by Robert Lubrican

Bookapy Edition

Copyright 2006 Robert Lubrican

Second edition edited 2023

License Notes

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Rights to use cover art purchased from iStock.com

Foreword

This book contains characters that the average reader would categorize as “adults” and offspring of some of those adults. The offspring play major roles in the plot, and you will read a great deal about them. The story is set in the west, in the nineteenth century. During that time frame young people who were sixteen or older were thought of as adults, as well, at least in many circumstances. Sometimes even younger people were given adult tasks to complete and had adult expectations pressed on them. In that era Young people of those ages were more often fully involved in the adult world of romance and marriage, than not. They formed families and made homes and helped populate the United States. Age was not the determining factor, in those years, in terms of exercising adult behavior. Boys and girls were considered to be adults as soon as they showed they could assume adult responsibilities.

That is very different than the present day, which is good in some ways and bad in others. It's good that kids can be kids, and are not expected to behave like adults when they are fourteen or fifteen. It's bad because often no adult expectations of any kind are put on young people and when they attain the age of eighteen their view of the world is warped. Some of them can't handle being an adult when they become one legally. They flounder, get involved in drugs or crime, and many die. They become a burden on society, rather than being productive citizens. Many died in the old west, too, of course, but for vastly different reasons. Then, they had the chance to help build the United States and it was dangerous to do it.

The danger hasn't gone. It has just morphed into other things. The question is, will our young people in this day and time be given the information, guidance, freedom and opportunity to do the same?

Bob

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter One

Sarah Jean Collins lay back and stared up at the dark blue sky, filled with fluffy white clouds. She felt the sun on her face and smiled. She wasn't out in the sun quite as much as her father and brothers, and didn't yet see it as a pain in the behind that one just had to deal with during the work day. Her body rocked, as the horse under her kept walking in the direction she had last urged it to go, but her muscles automatically took the horse's gait into account and shifted subtly to keep her from sliding one way or the other. Her thighs, draped on either side of the horse's neck helped too.

She felt the muscles in Daisy's haunches bunch and move under her back as the mare stepped gracefully over the scrub, heading for home, and the pan of oats she knew Sarah would provide her when they got there. Sarah loved riding bareback, in direct connection with the magnificent animal that carried her, and she rarely used a saddle unless she was working on the trail, or doing other tasks managing cattle.

But today she was just enjoying being with her friend, as the summer breeze swept across the plain. She had ridden over to visit Mrs. Settleton, on the ranch "next door", and the new dress Beatrice Settleton had made for her was in the saddlebags connected by the wide leather strap that currently made a hard pillow for Sarah's head. It was a red and white checkered gingham dress, and Sarah was going to wear it to the dance that was to be held in just two weeks. Travis Woods would ask her to dance and, as they swirled to the tune of the fiddle and washboard, he would fall madly in love with her and beg her to become his bride. And then ... she'd find out what made her mamma moan so loud when she and Papa were alone in the dark of their bedroom at night.

Sarah had heard that moan clearly on a lot of nights since she was a little girl. The first time she'd been aware of it as a real sound was the first time it had awakened her. Her parents' room was right next to hers in the big house her pa had built in the shelter of a geologic disruption in the mostly flat land they ranched. Her brothers had shared that room with her until she was eight, at which time they had been installed in their own newly added room across the house.

She had only been eight, or maybe nine that time, when her mother's agonized sounding moans had come through the wall clearly, and she had awakened. Unused to being alone in her room she missed the sounds her brothers had made while they slept, so she woke feeling like something was wrong. Her mother's voice had sounded like she was in pain. Sarah had been instantly frightened, thinking of Indians, or some other danger that had overtaken her mother. Those piteous moans had broken into an agonized plea of "Pleeease Jonas ... don't tease meeee."

Jonas was her papa and the noises that had followed had made her get out of bed and pound on her parents' door. She would never forget the sight of her papa's huge body, holding the lantern in one hand as he opened that door, a pistol in his other hand. He was stark naked, something Sarah had never seen before, and his gaze was over her head, searching for the cause of the pounding.

Then his eyes had fallen to see Sarah, somehow huddling, even though she was standing alone in the dark of the hallway.

"It's just Sarah," he said over his shoulder.

Her mother had appeared, concern on her face, closing a robe around her, but Sarah could see that she too was naked under that robe as it closed and was belted.

Then there had been the questions about what was wrong, and Sarah's tear-filled complaint of the sounds she had heard, as if her mother was being killed.

Her papa had laughed, standing there like he was proud to be buck naked, instead of ashamed, like all decent people were if they had on no clothes. Even at eight Sarah had been taught that.

"Send her back to bed, Molly," he said roughly. "We're not finished yet."

Mamma had shot her husband a look that would have sent Sarah running, had it been aimed her way, but Papa had just laughed louder and turned away, back toward the bed.

Mamma had taken Sarah back to her bed, and sat there in the dark, telling Sarah that what she had heard was nothing bad, but what husbands and wives did sometimes that was what they were made for during creation. She tried to convince Sarah that those sounds were pleasure, not pain, and that she must never interrupt them again when she heard them.

And so, over the years, whenever Sarah heard those noises again, her mind tried to come up with some scene that would account for them. She tried to think of her parents dancing, since that was fun, but who would dance naked? And why? When she started to bleed between her legs and her mother instructed her on what to do about that, she asked again about the sounds for some reason. Her mother simply said that, once she was married, she would understand. That was all she had ever been told.

Well, perhaps not all, though she didn't know it. At various times she had been scolded for wrestling with a boy ... Junior Ridgemont, to be precise. She was fourteen at the time and he had said something she didn't like, so she took him down and sat on him. He had cried, lying there in the dust under her, his eye already swelling where she had punched him. They were in town at the time, getting provisions, and her mother had seen from not far away. Her mother's anger had been vitriolic, and full of talk about how civilized people didn't behave that way, which was purely puzzling, since Sarah's brothers acted like that all the time, as did most of the cowboys around, and nobody ever yelled at them about it.

Her mother had made her wear dresses after that ... all the time. You couldn't fight or wrestle in a dress. You couldn't move quickly in a dress. And your legs got tangled up, so you couldn't kick. You could still stomp, but the soft soled shoes her mother made her wear weren't any good for stomping. Now, the only time she could put on pants, or boots, was when she had to ride a horse.

Which was one reason Sarah Jean Collins was riding Daisy on this sunny summer day. Anybody could have picked up her new dress from Mrs. Settleton, but the excuse to be able to wear pants was too much to pass up. So, Sara was dressed in pants, and one of her brother's cast-off blue checkered shirts, lying on her back, stretched out on the firm, swaying rump of her best friend in the world, riding along without a care in the world.

Then, her best friend stopped.

That was odd. Daisy wouldn't stop on her own. She was too well trained for that. About that time Sarah heard a deep voice ... one that raised the hackles on the back of her neck.

"Well, looky what we got here," growled the voice.

Sarah knew that voice. It belonged to one of the men who should not be anywhere near where she was currently located. It belonged to a man who would be beaten and dragged through the scrub if he were caught on her father's range. It belonged to Buford Smith.

And Buford Smith was one of the men who worked for Brad Rocklin, who was, if not at war with her father, at least most unwelcome in this part of Wyoming. Brad Rocklin was a sheep man, and that made Sarah Jean Collins shudder.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sheep were domesticated 10,000 years ago in Central Asia, but it wasn't until 3,500 B.C. that man learned to spin wool. Sheep helped to make the spread of civilization possible. Sheep production was well established during biblical times, as is shown by the many references to sheep in the Old Testament. Sheep farming is man's oldest organized industry and wool was the first commodity of sufficient value to warrant international trade.

In the 1400's, Queen Isabella of Spain used money derived from the wool industry to finance Columbus and other conquistadors' voyages. In 1493 on his second voyage to the New World, Columbus took sheep with him as a "walking food supply." He left some sheep in Cuba and Santo Domingo. In 1519, Cortez began his exploration of Mexico and the Western U.S. He took with him sheep that were offspring of Columbus' sheep. These sheep are believed to be the descendants of what are now called "Churros." The Navajo Churro is the oldest breed of sheep in the U.S. Despite efforts by the U.S. government to replace them, the breed is still raised by Navajo Indians.

As useful as sheep were, though, they were also the cause of much contention during American history.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, England tried to discourage the wool industry in the American colonies. Nonetheless, colonists quickly smuggled sheep into what would become the states and developed a wool industry. By 1664, there were 100,000 sheep in the colonies, and the General Court of Massachusetts passed a law requiring girls to learn to spin and weave. By 1698, America was exporting wool goods. England became outraged and outlawed wool trade, making it punishable by cutting off the person's right hand. The restrictions on sheep raising and wool manufacturing, along with the Stamp Act, and other annoyances for the colonists, led to the American Revolutionary War. Thus, spinning and weaving were considered patriotic acts. Even after the war, England enacted a law forbidding the export of any sheep.

George Washington raised sheep on his Mount Vernon Estate. Thomas Jefferson kept sheep at Monticello. Presidents Washington and Jefferson were both inaugurated in suits made of American wool. James Madison's inaugural jacket was woven from the wool of sheep raised at his home in Virginia. President Woodrow Wilson grazed sheep on the White House Lawn during his presidency.

The expansion of the sheep industry started in southern Wyoming in the 1870's along the Union Pacific rail line. The coming of the railroad also led to large sheep drives from Oregon to Wyoming along the old Oregon Trail. On some drives in the 1880's as many as 20,000 sheep would be trailed to Rawlins. Even after the construction of the Oregon Short Line, sheep would be trailed from Oregon rather than be hauled on trains. Even within the state, trailing sheep remained the general means of transport. In 1928, as an example, a herd of 1500 sheep purchased from the Yellowstone Sheep Company was trailed from Hudson to Douglas even though the railroad was available. The reason was simple. One sheepherder with a dog and a sheep wagon could herd as many as two thousand sheep. By 1910 there were over five and a half million sheep in the state.

But in the late 1870's during what came to be called the U.S. range wars, violent conflicts erupted between cattle ranchers and sheep herders as both competed for land to graze their livestock on.

Which brings us back to Sarah Jean Collins who sat, more or less, her horse, on a summer day in 1877.

Sarah was a cow man's daughter and, in her teens, was tougher than most men five years older than her nowadays would even aspire to be. Her five foot six inch frame, which was undeniably as female as any man could hope for, belied that toughness. Her hands would have convinced anyone that she was a hard worker, but her thrusting breasts, unfettered by undergarments that women in later years would wear routinely, drew a man's eyes away from her hands. From there it was difficult to decide whether to look at those obviously sweet, soft humps under her shirt or dress, or at the pretty feminine face that was surrounded by a wild halo of bright yellow hair. That hair constantly got in her face when she wasn't wearing a hat, or had it tied up in ribbons like floppy dog ears. Of course it would be normal to let your eyes linger on her hips too, as they swelled out from a tiny waist, and smoothed into legs that looked too long to fit the rest of her body.

A man's eyes could get eyestrain, looking at this girl, from his eyes jerking all over the place trying to find a place to light.

"You're not supposed to be here," she said, sitting up. Her voice held command. Among the men on her papa's ranch, she was untouchable, and her word held sway. Men who looked too long at her, or spoke roughly towards her didn't last on the Circle C ranch.

"Y'hear that Chaps? We ain't supposed to be here," said Buford, sneering. "This here is open range girlie, and not you nor any of yore high fallutin' folks cain't say otherwise."

It was then that Sarah saw the sheep. While they were still in the distance, they were everywhere, heads down, doing what she knew destroyed the range ... her father's range... her range!

"This is Circle C land and you know it," she sneered back. My papa has ranched this land for years. You turn those dirty beasts around and get them off our land!" she yelled.

Buford smiled widely, unaffected by her outburst. Then, in what was obviously supposed to be a lightning quick, smooth, and impressive maneuver, he jerked the pistol out of the holster he was wearing and pointed it in the direction of Sarah.

The only problem was that, while it was quick, it was by no means smooth, and as far from impressive as drawing a weapon could get. In the first place, Buford had been practicing that draw while shooting at tin cans, and meant only to draw the weapon to impress the girl. His muscle memory, however, caused his thumb to cock the hammer back. Buford's brain realized that something was wrong, and he looked at the pistol, as his forefinger held the trigger back and he took his thumb off the hammer.

It might have been a comedic moment, as the Colt fired and flipped out of the startled man's hand to spin, now gracefully, backwards as it headed for the dirt.

But the bullet grazed Daisy's neck, where her mane erupted from the skin.

Daisy was a well-trained quarter horse who would turn on a dime, stop or start in an instant, and who would go up against a longhorn with not a care in the world. Gunfire did not faze Daisy. But Daisy had never been shot before, and she reared at the burn of the bullet that removed a .44 caliber patch of her mane.

Sarah Jean Collins slid helplessly off the back of her horse and landed square on the top of her head as Daisy scampered and bucked, and then ran for home at a full gallop.

Sarah saw stars, and then everything went black.

Both Buford and his even less intelligent sidekick, known only as "Chaps" stared at the girl on the ground.

"Yuh shot her Buford!" gasped Chaps. "What'd yuh do that fer?"

"I didn't shoot her you idiot," said a very pale-faced Buford. "The gun went off and skeered her horse."

"She looks pretty dead to me," said Chaps, taking his hat off and scratching his head. I don't think yuh ought to have done that Buford."

Buford sighed, once again, as he wondered why he had been saddled with this man. True, Chaps was probably the only human on earth who would call Buford his friend, but putting up with him was like putting up with sheep. It just rankled a man.

Buford thought hard, which meant it was quiet for fifteen seconds, other than the distant bleating of the sheep, and the occasional bark of Queen, the dog that actually did all the work when the sheep were being handled. Buford couldn't talk and think at the same time.

"We got tuh get her to a line shack somewheres," he finally announced. "You know, hide her away." His cretinous brain ground on further and his excitement grew. "We can hold her for ransom! And make that damn pappy of hers pay for her, to get her back. And then we'll have a stake and we can light out of here and live like kings. Yeah! That's what we'll do!"

Chaps screwed up his brow and put his hat back on. "I don't know, Buford. That don't seem right to me somehow. Won't her pa be all upset?"

Buford looked at his ... friend ... and scowled. "Whatta you think her pa's gonna do if he comes along and finds her here like this, and with us here too? You think he'll ask any questions? He'll gun us both down Chaps, fer sure. An she knows who we are now. If'n we just leave her here they'll come lookin' fer us fer sure. Takin' her fer ransom is the only way out of this. Now get her up on behind me and let's get the hell out of here before that horse of hers gets back to the barn and they know somethin's up."

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sarah woke up confused and in pain. Everything hurt. Her head ached abysmally, and her stomach and chest hurt. Her wrists felt like they were on fire. Then the musty odor of burlap filled her nostrils. Her eyes blinked open to a dim light. She couldn't tell what she was looking at until her nose reminded her that it had to be burlap. There was a burlap bag over her head. It was stifling, and she tried to move her hands to get it away from her face. But her hands wouldn't move and the pain in her wrists increased. Her shoulder joints were on fire too. Clarity seeped into her head as she realized she was bound. Then movement under her resolved itself into the knowledge that she was tied face down on a horse that was walking.

She opened her mouth to take in a breath to complain, and the bag sucked into her open mouth. Spitting it out, she moaned uncomfortably.

"I think she's comin' round," came the voice she suddenly realized belonged to Chaps.

"Don't matter. Not much further now," came another voice, that of Buford. Memory flooded back into her mind and she wiggled again, subsiding with another moan at the pain in her raw wrists and shoulders.

"Be still," barked Buford and she felt a hand slap her upraised bottom. It was a hard slap, and she gave a muffled squeak of outrage.

Despite what she'd heard, the ride seemed to go on forever. She bit her lip as tears streamed from her eyes. The pain was almost unbearable. The only thing that pushed past that pain was the feel of a hand, on her buttocks, rubbing and pinching.

That was when she began to get scared.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Frank Collins was oiling tack when Daisy cantered into the yard, riderless and without a saddle. He knew instantly that something was wrong, because he knew his sister, Sarah, had taken off on Daisy that morning. He whistled, and Daisy veered toward him, tossing her head and snorting. She looked angry, or scared. When she nuzzled him, he felt the dried blood matted in her mane before he saw the thin dark stain that ran down her chocolate brown neck.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Molly Collins was baking bread, and thinking about what her husband had done to her last night. She still felt, or imagined she felt, the warmth of the spend he'd left in her womb after riding her for almost an hour. Their lovemaking had always been a wild and torrid thing, since the first night Jonas had brought her to the ranch as his bride. She had been a frightened girl back then, but he had transformed her that night, and the next day people looked at her twice, trying to figure out what it was about her that was so completely different. What had transformed her was the gentle love of a man who, while he didn't know a thing about women, understood scared foals and bawling calves better than he understood himself.

He had taken his time, hard though that was, and had coaxed his young bride along until she was the one who was pushing and pulling at him, demanding more, laughing and crying so much that he was almost ashamedly glad that the men had stayed in town that night.

Since then it had been like that almost every time they coupled. And they coupled a lot. He knew every inch of her body, and she was just as familiar with him. It didn't embarrass her to inspect each dark and hidden place about him.

One time she had sat on his back, while he pretended to be the horse. She was facing his feet and laughing as she spanked him gently, grinding her wet sex into his back. When she leaned over and parted his buttocks, curious to see what he looked like between them, he became wild, cursing as her finger probed. That was the night she had taken him into her mouth as he lay, agog, unbelieving as his virginal wife did things to him he hadn't even imagined before.

Since then she had made him her slave, demanding that he do the same kinds of things to her. He had resisted mightily, thinking that no normal man would stoop to put his tongue where she wanted it. But, once she had bullied him into it, he found her taste to be intoxicating. After that, there was almost nothing he wouldn't try if she was curious enough to ask for it. He would die a thousand deaths before admitting some of the things they did, but he looked forward to each and every night with Molly.

She had become even more wild and demanding after he impregnated her the first time, and sometimes she went much longer than he could. Still, she had a way about her that made it clear that what she needed most was ... him. She needed his soul, his essence, and she drank that in through his body when they made love. She made it impossible to feel less than a man who could compete with the mythical gods.

He had given her two more babies before a longhorn steer snagged him in the crotch with the tip of a sharp horn, and threw him fifteen feet like he was a rag doll.

After she was assured he'd live, and would recover to walk and work, Molly had been almost as anxious about his recovery as he was. It had almost killed him to lie abed for a month, but the first time he got up and took a few steps he couldn't wait to get back to the hated bed again. Still, he was back on his feet a week later, limping around and doing what he termed "wimmens work". As to whether his sexual equipment would recover, Jonas had wanted to know sooner than the doctor said was wise, and it was Molly who pushed her delicate face into his grizzled one and snarled that if he ruined himself by trying too early, she'd cut it off and save him the trouble.

Conversely, after making him wait an entire month past when Doc Granger said it was okay to "test out the bull", her tenderness and patience had been exactly what he needed to be soothed enough to let things happen naturally. The upshot was that his penis still worked . . . but the babies had stopped coming after that.

Molly rolled out another crust, thinking that it was too bad. She'd wanted six or seven children to assure the future of the Collins line. She was comforted by the fact that both Peter and Frank were strong young men. Sarah was the essence of motherhood too, though she resisted taking up that mantle. Molly sighed as she thought she'd have to have another talk with Sarah. At least she'd been excited about the new dress, and about going to the dance. That was an improvement, at least. If only she wasn't so picky about the boys she could have her pick of.

Frank's scream stopped Molly's movements as if she'd been frozen instantly, and the cold ran straight to her spine. That scream had the sound of panic, but not pain to a mother's ears, and she turned, looking first to the shotgun on the wall by the door. Frank yelled again, and this time she could hear the drawn out and panicked "Mawww" in it.

She grabbed the gun off the wall, broke it open to make sure it was loaded and then snapped it closed again while reaching for the door. Only the sound of Frank's boot heels on the porch gave her enough warning to step sideways as the door burst open and Frank rushed through, heading immediately for the kitchen.

"Frank!" she shouted.

He spun, overbalancing, and his shoulder hit the wall hard enough to shake her collection of rare plates displayed on a shelf that ran the entire length of the wall up high. Molly's eyes darted toward the plates, but then snapped back to her son. The plates weren't as important as whatever had set him off. Frank was the calm one.

"Sarah's horse!" he burst out. "It came back. She's not on it and its bleeding."

Molly's existence as a rancher's wife had tempered her in ways that made her tough as nails. Clamping down on her own panic, she opened the door and pointed, not needing to say anything. She took the shotgun with her, even though it probably wasn't needed. It made her calm to feel its weight in her hand.

Daisy was standing at the stock tank, head down, drinking. Frank patted her withers and Molly saw the blood at the same time he pointed it out. As she parted the blood-matted hair at the base of the mane, Daisy snorted and stepped sideways until Molly cooed at her. A quick look-over found no other injuries.

"You father is in Ford's gulch, rounding up strays," she said. "Peter and Buckshot are with him. I'm going to start backtracking Daisy. You ride Widowmaker and go get them."

Frank was off at a dead run as Molly yelled after him. "Be careful!"

Widowmaker was the fastest horse on the ranch. Jonas, and sometimes one of the boys, rode him at local fairs in the races the stockmen threw together and bet astonishing amounts of money on. His temperament belied his name. He was a sweet horse, who loved to run. He worked cattle pretty happily too, but he purely loved to run. Molly heard the clatter of hooves as she went into the house, skinned out of her dress and pulled on leather pants, and a bright red and white blouse. She stomped into her boots and grabbed a hat before getting a few things she hoped she wouldn't need when she found Sarah and packing them into a set of saddlebags she had tooled herself.

For her own mount Molly chose Vixen, a quarter horse mare who stood almost fifteen hands high. She wanted Vixen because she was voice broke, and would follow spoken commands. She could also see farther from Vixen's back, rather than her own horse, Tulip. She took Tulip along too, but not to ride.

Jonas, like most stockmen who shoed their own horses, made every set of shoes in recognizable patterns. With a quick look at Daisy's left front hoof, Molly saw the V shaped notch at the toe and knew that all four shoes would exhibit the same sign. She cursed under her breath for forgetting to ask Frank what direction Daisy came in from, but started looking towards the North, the direction Sarah had left in that morning. It only took her five minutes to pick up Daisy's back trail. She could see it easily even from up as high as she was.

Molly Collins set Vixen a mild canter and let the horse watch where they were going. Molly kept her eyes on the ground, looking for more of those notched hoof prints. They were there, dug in and far apart. Daisy had been at a dead run when she approached the ranch. That was odd. Horses usually only stayed scared for a short while, and then stopped to nibble. They'd come home, but they usually took their time about it. Whatever had happened to Sarah had scared Daisy enough to make her run for miles, unless, of course, Sarah wasn't far away at all.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Frank, besides forgetting to tell his mother which direction Daisy ran in from, also forgot, or maybe didn't think to take Daisy with him when he went to get his father. Had he been a little older, he'd have known that the first thing his father would do was examine the horse's hooves, to see what color of dust was on the fetlocks. It wasn't a sure fire piece of information, but Jonas Collins knew his range well, and he knew what soil types could be found in what areas.

Jonas and his foreman and son had collected thirty-five strays and had them bunched up and ready to move when his younger son came flying toward them on Widowmaker. The horse, after a mere five miles, didn't want to stop, and danced under Frank as he tried to tell his father what had happened. Jonas hated to leave the small herd; because he knew they'd fragment and have to be rounded up all over again

Had Jonas known that Daisy's hooves were stained with red dust, he'd have known immediately that Sarah had cut through Ute Canyon, and he would have ridden straight there. But he didn't know that, and the only way he could determine where to look was the same way his wife was currently using.

Jonas was unhappy about all this, whatever it was. He couldn't bring himself to think something bad had happened to his daughter, the light of his life. He also believed, in that way that strong men have of thinking, that there was probably nothing wrong. Sarah had probably gotten off of Daisy to water the flowers and something had spooked the horse. Daisy could work cattle, but she was lazy about it, and that colored Jonas' opinion of her worth.

So they had to return to the ranch first, to get more information from Sarah's horse, and to find her back trail.

His attitude changed instantly as he peeled apart the mane hairs and examined the wound on Daisy's neck.

"A bullet caused that!" he growled.

The ranch foreman, known to all as simply "Buckshot", crowded up and pushed his boss aside. Buckshot Anderson, got his name from the small pieces of lead still residing in his buttocks, placed there when he was much younger by a girl's father, who objected to the attention being paid his daughter. He peered at the crusty raw wound that was a perfect semi-circle, cutting into the flesh of the horse, right where the hair should be growing out of the neck. He idly thought that that hair would never grow there again, but then sobered as he realized Jonas was right. Peter, Jonas' elder son, tried to see what the older men were looking at. He knew not to speak. Questions could come later, but when his father was busy, or thinking, you didn't bother him.

The men examined the rest of the horse intently, at which time Jonas saw the red dust on her fetlocks.

"She used Ute Canyon," said Jonas shortly. "Peter, get your Winchester," he ordered without looking at the boy. "And extra ammunition," he added. He glanced over at Buckshot. "You think you can find that telescope you got hidden away?"

Buckshot nodded and moved off. Jonas got another box of bullets for his own rifle, which he carried with him habitually, and stuffed them in his saddlebags with an extra canteen as well. He saw that Buckshot also brought extra water, along with a short brass tube that he was wrapping in a piece of cloth. Jonas mounted his horse as he saw Peter running toward him, excited, as usual. At least he wasn't yammering ... yet. Frank came tearing out of the house belting on the double holster and Colt pistols he had won riding Widowmaker at a Rodeo a year ago. They were garish guns, with pearl handles ... sissy guns to Jonas' way of thinking.

"Frank, you stay here and keep an eye on the place," he ordered tersely.

"Paaa!" complained the boy. "I want to go with you!"

"We don't know what's going on," said Jonas, as patiently as he could. "There's a gunshot wound on your sister's horse. Could be Indians ... could be bandits ... could be those damn sheep farmers. Trouble's been brewing ever since they invaded the range. I don't want this place left unguarded. You do what I say, boy," he finished.

"Yes, Sir," said the dejected teenager. He kicked the dust with his boot toe.

"See to that wound on Daisy," said Jonas. "There's liniment in the stable. And rub her down. Widowmaker, too. You rode him hard today." He nudged his horse with one knee and the animal turned instantly away from the nudge. Over his shoulder, as the horse stepped out, Jonas yelled "And don't shoot yourself with those damned toy pistols!"

The other two men mounted up and the group moved directly toward the same path that Molly had taken. Now they galloped, knowing where they were going, and eager to get there.

Frank looked around, waited until his father was out of sight, picked a knothole in a fence post in the corral and, in a draw that would have left his father standing slack-jawed, fired one shot. The knothole burst outward as the hard wood was displaced by a .44 caliber bullet that struck dead in the center of the target. Frank stood and looked at what was left of that target, while his fingers automatically opened the loading gate of the pistol he had used, ejected the spent case, and loaded a fresh round into the cylinder. Almost idly he spun the pistol backwards around his trigger finger and let it drop back in the holster. He had secretly been practicing with his guns for a year, and, though he didn't know it, he had become amazingly good with them.

Then, kicking the dirt with his toe again, he went to take care of Daisy and Widowmaker.

Chapter Two

Sarah knew she was in some kind of trouble. She didn't know why she was in that trouble. Something had happened that didn't match up with her experience. What should have happened was that, when she found the trespassers on her father's land, they should have tucked their tails between their legs and hastened to get their nasty little grass killers back where they belonged. Wherever that was.

Sarah's attitude towards sheep, and the men who raised them, was the product of her father's attitude towards the same subjects. Jonas had been prepared to dislike sheep from the beginning. Actually, he was prepared to dislike any animal that ate what his cattle ate, including cattle belonging to other ranchers. Wyoming was a fine place to raise cattle, as long as you were the only one doing it.

When more and more people began to filter into the land, the resources soon became stressed, and that stressed Jonas.

All it had taken was coming upon a sheep trail just once. He had smelled it first, and then came upon the mass of tracks that went from side to side as far as he could see from his horse. This flock of sheep had left a broad bare swath, weedless, grassless, flowerless, in their wake. Where sheep grazed they destroyed. That was what Jonas had against them.

He didn't know that the flock he had seen the results of were badly trailed, allowed to move much too slowly and thus over-feed. He didn't know that, if sheep were moved properly, as nomadic people had done for thousands of years, their passage would be almost invisible in a few weeks time. He didn't know ... and he didn't care to learn. The solution was simple to him. He was there first. Take the damn sheep back to Oregon, where they came from.

Some of the other ranchers had been talking of proclaiming a "Dead Line" along the Green River. They wanted to post signs that said in no uncertain terms that any sheep that crossed the line was dead as soon as a cattleman saw it. Some of the hotter heads suggested that there wouldn't be much difference in shooting sheep, or the men who herded them.

Jonas was, despite his rough exterior and almost surly countenance, a thoughtful man. He was fully aware that a herd of sheep could easily contain five thousand animals. You could bankrupt yourself buying ammunition if you actually planned on shooting sheep. Even if you did, you were left with having to clean up the carcasses. On the other hand, if there were dead sheep lying around, maybe the wolves would leave the calves alone. He didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. So far, the nearest sheep farmer, a man by the name of Brad Rocklin, hadn't caused him any problems. There were no sheep on his land, to his knowledge, and as long as it stayed that way, things were fine.

The only problem was that, like a lot of cattlemen in the late 1800s, Jonas Collins viewed a lot of land as "his" that many other people, including the United States Government, defined as public land, or open range. And, to those people, Jonas didn't have any right to keep anyone off of that land.

Brad Rocklin was one of those people.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Brad Rocklin was currently treating sheep that had been brought in for one ailment or another by Charley Kemp and Buster, the alpha male sheep dog of Brad's operation. Every so often the whole flock was run back to the ranch house and weak animals were culled out. Sometimes they were treated and re-inserted into the flock. Sometimes they became supper. It all depended on what was wrong with them.

Buster had a sixth sense about which sheep were in less than perfect condition and when Charley worked him to find those sheep Buster went about it with single minded concentration.

First he'd just range through the flock. It looked for all the world like he was just running back and forth as the sheep opened corridors for him. In that situation the sheep seemed to know they weren't being herded, and didn't shy away from the dog like they usually did. That's how dogs herded sheep ... by making them shy away in the direction the dog wanted them to go. The dog took his cues from the shepherd. A well trained dog only had to see the shepherd walk off in some direction, perhaps with a whistle or yell of a command, but not always, and the sheep would appear to follow as the dog went to work.

It was actually a combination of things that moved a flock of sheep. There was a dominant ewe in the flock, the matriarch, and most sheep followed wherever she led. She, too, was trained to follow the shepherd, based on cues and commands. What the dog did was take care of the beasts that didn't follow the ewe.

But when Buster was "evaluating" the flock, it was almost as if he was counting how many of the animals would need to be culled out of the flock. Once he had done that, with little nips and the clacking of teeth, he picked out those animals he wanted and moved them through the flock toward Charley. Once there, the number two bitch, one of Buster's offspring named Lisa, was being trained to keep the chosen sheep bunched up. She did that by running in circles around them, which she loved. She had taken to it naturally, watching her mother work. Her two brothers weren't quite as smart. At least not yet. They were penned up when the flock was home, so that Charley could work on firming up Lisa's training without having to pay attention to their antics.

That had happened the day before, and Buster had culled out thirty four animals. Brad and Charley were now evaluating each one, having sent his two hands and best dog, Queen, who was also Buster's mate, out to graze the rest of the flock. Brad had told them exactly where to take the flock, a piece of open range that had good grass. As usual he told Buford not to leave them in any one place too long, but to keep them moving so they didn't overgraze the land.

There was plenty of land for the twenty-five hundred sheep Brad ran in his flock, as long as they kept moving. Soon it would be time to run the flock up into the mountains where the high meadows, lush with grass watered by melting snows from above, would feed them until late fall. While they were up there, he'd process the wool that had been shorn off the sheep when winter was over. That was still piled high in a barn.

Brad was cleaning an infected hoof when his son, Bobby, wandered up and stood watching. Bobby was a good boy, but he didn't have sheep in his blood. He did whatever his father asked of him, but Brad knew Bobby would never take over the business when his father was too old to do the work. Brad himself had gotten into sheep by accident, back in Oregon, when he needed a job and that was the only one he could find. Well, there had been the owner's daughter too. The first time he'd seen Amanda she had taken his breath away. A short girl, only fifteen at the time, with long strawberry colored hair and a temper to go with it, she had been upbraiding a cowboy who had ridden too close to her and bumped her with his horse. Dressed in jeans and a man's shirt, the girl had reached out and slapped the horse on the butt, making it jump and sidestep. The cowboy had almost fallen off, and two of his friends had laughed at him. He'd wheeled the horse, aiming to go back and teach the upstart girl some manners, but had found Brad suddenly standing between him and the girl. When the cowboy persisted, riding toward Brad as if to walk over him, Brad had taken the bridle of the horse in hand and, in a trick taught to him by an Indian friend, had caused the horse to dip his head and roll onto his side, trapping the cowboy's leg underneath.

Luckily, the sheriff had seen the whole incident from the porch of the jail, and arrived in time to stop anyone from shooting Brad. Amanda had given him a kiss as a reward and invited him to dinner at her house. He got a good dinner, a job, and another kiss in the process.

Amanda's father was the owner of almost thirty thousand sheep in the Oregon territory, and he had a hundred men working for him.

He had no use for Brad, particularly when he saw how his daughter looked at the man. But Amanda was stronger than her father and when they got married, Brad was suddenly the owner of five hundred sheep. He had almost screwed that up, except Amanda saved him there too. It was Amanda who found the right dogs, and taught him everything he hadn't yet learned about sheep, and urged him to leave Oregon and establish a ranch in eastern Wyoming, where they would be closer to the markets for both meat and wool. The United States Army had a voracious appetite for both, and being so much closer to Army points of delivery gave them an advantage over their western brothers. For one thing they could just trail the sheep to market, rather than having to pay rail fees. For another, cartage for wool was less expensive since there were no mountains involved.

"Dad?" Brad's reminiscences were interrupted by Bobby.

"What?" asked Brad, wrapping up the hoof he'd just put salve on.

"My chores are done." said Bobby.

"Well find something else to do," said Brad, looking at a deep scratch on a lamb's hindquarters, trying to figure out what had caused it.

"Everything's done," said Bobby.

Charley snorted. He was Brad's foreman, and had been with him since he and Amanda had gotten married. Amanda had marched up to him one day and informed him that he now worked for her, instead of her father. Charley had grinned, packed up the few things he owned, and followed Amanda off the farm where she'd just stolen him. He was just a lead hand then. Amanda had made him "Foreman", but he took a cut in pay. He was Amanda's uncle.

The only time Charley listened to her, or more correctly deferred to her after that, was when they were in public, and non-family members were around. Their relationship was tumultuous and loving at the same time. Amanda would tell him what she wanted done and he'd tell her what he was going to do. More often than not, those two things differed, sometimes significantly. Amanda stomped her foot and made dire threats, all of which rolled off Charley's back like water off a duck. He just grinned insolently as she railed, and then went off and did what he knew was best.

The fact that Amanda, who thought she knew everything about sheep ranching, was smart enough to know when she'd made a mistake, kept things more or less peaceful. She was smart enough to know when Charley called the shots correctly, even though she had never once admitted she had been wrong. Right now, Charley snorted because he knew there was never a time on a ranch when "everything" had been done.

"Go see what your mamma needs done," said Brad, peering at the lamb's injury.

"She sent me down here," said Bobby heavily. "Said I was under foot."

Charley snorted again, but didn't say anything. He knew Bobby's heart wasn't in sheep ranching too. He was the only one, however, who knew that what Bobby really wanted to do was be a mountain man, trapping furs and hunting big game. Bobby had confided in him around a campfire one night, while they were tending the flock. He thought it was a ridiculous idea, but didn't try to talk Bobby out of it, exactly. Charley had a wild streak in him too though, and knew how the boy felt. Instead, he set about teaching the boy what he'd have to know to be a successful mountain man, thinking that, when he found out how hard it was, and how much knowledge would be required, and how dangerous it was, the boy would change his mind.

That hadn't happened yet, to Charley's surprise. Every task he'd set the boy had been attacked with vigor, and completed successfully. Bobby was an ace shot with a Sharps buffalo rifle, or Winchester. He could track with the best of them, and he understood predators as well or better than Charley did. More than once he'd taken on bear or wolf and ended up the victor.

But Charley didn't mention any of this to his niece or her husband. He knew what Amanda would say if she found out the kinds of things Charley had been teaching her fair-haired boy, and he knew Brad couldn't keep a secret from Amanda to save his soul.

He didn't know what he was going to do if the boy didn't tire of his dream soon. In the meantime, he just didn't mention Bobby's dream to either of Bobby's parents, and made sure that Bobby knew not to as well.

"Clean the stalls," said Brad.

"Did that already," said Bobby.

"Fence around your mother's garden needs work," said Brad.

"Did that too," said Bobby.

"How about the tack? Did you oil it?" asked Brad, looking up at his son.

"Yep. Finished that yesterday," said Bobby smugly.

"All of it?" asked Brad.

"All of it," said Bobby firmly.

"Find a tool that's rusty and put some lanolin on it." suggested Brad.

"Dad, I did that last week," said Bobby, a whine beginning to creep into his voice.

"Well find something to do, dammit." Brad's voice began to rise.

"Can't I go out with the flock or something?" asked Bobby.

"You know I don't like you hanging around Buford," said his father, slathering medicine on the lamb's injury. Amanda made the stuff from plants she knew about. Brad had no idea what was in it, but it worked well.

"You know you can't trust him to move the flock like he's supposed to either," said Bobby. "I can ride out and make sure he's not overgrazing. Didn't you say there's been some trouble with the cowmen about that?"

"Yes," said Brad firmly. "I did say that, and you should know that if there's trouble with some cowboys, that's the last place you need to be."

"Okay" said Bobby. "How about I take a wagon up to the high pastures and restock the shack up there?"

Charley snorted again. Now he understood. Bobby was trying to get up into the mountains, where he could have all kinds of excuses to do all kinds of things that had nothing whatsoever to do with pasturing sheep. The high meadows were up above the heat of the plains, with trees and wildlife and plenty of water from snowmelt.

"You know I already stocked that camp," said his father.

"I could check on it then ... to make sure nobody's messed with it." suggested Bobby.

"Who'd mess with it?" asked Brad. "Nobody even knows we go up there. The cowboys won't take their steers up there because they walk off too much weight getting up the mountain."

"Maybe a drifter has set himself up in our camp," said Bobby, reaching for any reason to go.

"And if he has?" asked Brad, looking at his son. "What exactly would you do about that? Run him off? How? All you'd do is get yourself hurt and then your mother would make my life miserable."

"Come on Dad, there has to be something I can do," complained Bobby.

Brad didn't want to argue any more. He was getting hot under the collar and he didn't like being that way either. "Okay, ride out to the flock and tell Buford to start moving them up toward the high meadows. It's a week early, so tell him to take his time, and weave them back and forth between here and the foothills. How's that?"

"That will only take me a few hours." complained Bobby.

"Well, you could always oil tools you've already oiled, or clean stalls you've already cleaned. I bet you two ewes and a good dog there are weeds in your mamma's garden."

"Okay, okay, I'll go out there and tell Buford and Chaps to start them up toward the mountain," said Bobby, moving off.

Maybe he could stretch this trip out to four hours. "I'll take a look around and see if there's any wolf sign," he said over his shoulder.

Brad looked up and frowned. Then he looked at Charley. "What would he know about wolf sign?" he asked.

Charley grinned. "Oh, you know. Turds is turds, but maybe even he can tell the difference between dog turds and wolf turds.

Charley knew very well that Bobby could not only identify wolf scat, but what that wolf had been eating.

He's just lookin' for something to do anyway," he drawled.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

An hour later Bobby arrived at where, to his mind, the flock should be.

But it wasn't there.

It had been there. That much was plain. There were tracks everywhere, and the area had been grazed. There was a wide swath of tracks that led off to the East, but that was wrong.

That was toward the Collins spread, and his father kept a five mile buffer zone between his sheep and the Collins cattle. He didn't want trouble, and there was plenty of other land on which to graze the flock.

Bobby followed the tracks, and grew even more unhappy as they led straight toward what Bobby knew was where there could be a thousand head of cattle grazing. He had gone six more miles and it was late afternoon before he spotted the flock.

What he didn't spot was two horses that should have been easily visible standing above the sheep, or the two men who should have been riding those horses.

As he neared the grazing flock, Queen bounded up to meet him, barking and wagging her tail. Bobby got down off his horse which pawed at the ground and whickered, probably a greeting to the dog. After ruffling the fur on Queen's head he asked her where Buford and Chaps were, and then, knowing she couldn't tell him, got back up on his horse and began circling the flock, looking for sign.

The first thing he saw was that the flock had been on this piece of ground too long, and had eaten the grass down to the roots.

That was the difference between sheep and cattle or horses.

Cattle and horses bit into a tuft of grass and pulled, tearing it, and then chewing. As they lowered their heads for another bite, it was almost impossible to end up at the same place the last grass had been pulled up, so there were tufts of grass left to keep growing and spread.

Sheep's teeth were arranged so that they could bite through the blades, and then reach for more, biting through that too. They didn't raise and lower their heads when they grazed, and would eat a tuft down to the ground and then move their head to keep doing that. Unless they kept moving, sheep would eat the grass to death, so to speak.

Queen barked that special bark that meant "strangers" and Bobby looked around. He saw a horse in the distance and, as it got closer he saw a woman riding it. She was wearing a hat like most westerners did, commonly called a cowboy hat, with a wide brim that protected the eyes from the sun, and the head from rain. Bobby didn't know who she was, but it was unlikely she was just out for a pleasure ride, and the flock was now close to the Collins spread.

She was still some distance off, so Bobby kept looking at the ground as he moved his horse along. He came to a place where the ground was scuffed, and there were a number of horseshoe prints in the dirt. He recognized two of them as belonging to horses that Chaps and Buford would be riding. There was a third set he didn't recognize. He got down again, seeing something that was the wrong color, and found a small patch of cloth stuck in the thorns of a plant. It wasn't so much a patch of cloth, as a large number of threads torn from the edge of a piece of cloth.

They were blue. They were also faded, and could have been here for a long time. He was puzzling out something that looked like drag marks in the soil when he heard the other horse approach.

"What are these sheep doing on our land?" came an imperious female voice.

Bobby stood and turned to look up at the woman. He recognized her, having seen her in town.

"You're Miz Collins," he said.

"And you're the Rocklin boy," she said back. "Now, answer my question. What are these sheep doing on our land?"

"Ma'am, in the first place they're not supposed to be here. That's..."

"I already know that young man." interrupted the woman impatiently. "I want to know why they are here."

"Ma'am, if you'll let me finish, I might be able to answer your question," said Bobby. Adults didn't faze him.

He had been around a lot of adults who were stupid, or vain, or just plain mean, so just being an adult didn't get you much respect from Bobby Rocklin. He was polite, or tried to be, but if you wanted his respect you had to show you deserved it. He stood and looked at the woman, who was still mounted. For the first time he saw she had a Winchester cradled in her arm, lying across her thighs. It was more or less pointed in his direction.
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.

"You're impertinent, young man." sniffed the woman.

"No, Ma'am, I am not." Bobby disagreed. "You asked me a question, and I'll be happy to answer it if you'll just let me." He waited to see if she'd respond.

Her horse moved toward his and the woman spoke a command, backing her horse up a little. She was riding a mare. Bobby hoped that mare wasn't in season, because if she was, his mount might cause trouble. He looked at his horse, which was a stallion, but it was standing more or less placidly. Its ears were up, and it was looking at the mare, but that was all for now.

"Well ... get on with it then," said the woman in an exasperated tone of voice.

"Thank you," said Bobby. "As I was saying, my pa has told us not to graze the flock too close to your land. This, I believe, is open range, but he's trying to be neighborly." The woman's face screwed up and she opened her mouth, but he went on, not giving her a chance to complain, like he expected she would. Cow people all seemed to think that all land was "theirs" for some reason. "The two men who were supposed to be watching the flock are missing, and the flock has strayed over here. I was trying to figure out where they went when you rode up.

There's some strange horse tracks mixed in with theirs, but I haven't figured that out yet."

"What tracks?" the woman said, sounding suddenly interested.

Bobby turned and went to one of the strange prints, which was clear in the dirt. He leaned over and pointed.

"Here's one," he said. "If you get down you can see it better."

"I can see just fine from up here," said the woman. "That track belongs to the horse my daughter was riding. I'm looking for her."

"Well, I haven't seen anybody," said Bobby. "I just got here a few minutes before you did. But something's wrong. Those men should be here. Well, not here, but they should be with the flock. My pa told them to graze them well west of here." He stood back up and looked at Mrs. Collins. "There was some kind of scuffle here too."

"What?!" she asked. Now she did step down from her horse.

She brought the rifle with her. "What are you talking about?"

"See here?" he pointed. "These drag marks? They look like they were made by the heels of a pair of boots." He leaned down and pulled at the blue fibers. He held them up. "I don't know how long these have been here, but they didn't grow on that plant."

Molly peered at the fibers. She couldn't remember what Sarah was wearing that morning. Wait. Yes, she was dressed like a man. Now Molly remembered. She was trying to get Sarah to act like a woman, and it was a long haul. She had been wearing one of Frank's old shirts. And it was blue!

She reached out for the fibers and took them, bringing them close to her face.

"I think this is from the shirt Sarah was wearing." she said. She frowned. "What have you done with my daughter?" The rifle came up and now it was pointed directly at his stomach.

"I haven't done anything with your daughter, Ma'am," he said, taking a step backward. He wasn't armed. There was a rifle just like hers in a scabbard on the side of his horse, but that was ten feet away. "I told you, I'm looking for our men."

Molly stared at the boy. He had been nothing but polite, but he was a sheep herder, and she had no use for sheep or their herders. But he had pointed out things that, if he were guilty of something, he would have tried to keep secret.

Queen had been making her rounds, keeping the flock bunched up, and she came around to nuzzle at Bobby's knee, wanting to be noticed. Molly's horse didn't like having the dog so close, and sidestepped away from them. Molly reached for the hanging reins, but missed.

"She won't bother your horse, Ma'am," said Bobby.

"She's already bothered my horse!" Molly barked. She was worried now, and being worried made her argumentative.

Bobby ignored her combative response. "Look, Ma'am, I want to know just as much as you do what happened here. Those men aren't much, but they wouldn't have gone off and left the flock without a reason."

Molly wanted to be angry with this sheep herder boy, but his attitude was so different than what she'd expected that she was thrown off guard a little. "Sarah's horse came back without her. It was injured."

"Injured? How?" asked Bobby.

"I don't know for sure." admitted Molly. It had something wrong with its neck. It had been bleeding. It looked like it had been cut or something. There was a little piece of mane missing."

Bobby ranged around the area, looking at tracks. His uncle had taught him better than anyone might have known. Bobby saw where the strange horse had been standing, and then had jumped sideways. There were two hoof prints, walking backwards, and the bush the strands of cloth had been caught in was crushed. He located more prints heading off at a gallop in the direction the woman had ridden in from. He went back to where the horse had been standing and found prints where the two Rocklin horses had been standing. He could see where Buford and Chaps had gotten down off their horses and walked toward the crushed bush. Then he saw one set of boot prints that straddled the drag marks on the ground. One of his men had dragged a body out of the bush. He followed the drag marks. The Rocklin horses had moved and the drag marks ended up where one of them had been standing. There were two sets of boot prints in the soil at that point.

Bobby stood up. The woman had watched him, saying nothing.

"Here's what I think happened," he said. He pointed to the things he'd seen. "I think your daughter fell off her horse when it reared. She must have been hurt, because they dragged her to another horse and put her up on it. She wasn't fighting, because the marks her boots made as they dragged her don't show any movement.

"My daughter," said Molly grimly, "wouldn't just fall off her horse." She looked at the marks on the ground.

"I'm just telling you what I think happened," said Bobby. "Why don't we see where the horse tracks lead. Maybe they were taking her to get help for her."

Bobby had a sinking feeling in his gut, though. Buford was the kind of man who, if he found you lying on the ground, was more likely to pick over your body than help you. And Bobby had seen this woman's daughter in town too. She was a looker, the kind of girl that made a boy's pants get tight. If Buford picked her up off the ground, it wasn't to help her. He didn't want to voice his doubts to the girl's mother though. She still had that rifle, even if it wasn't pointed at him anymore.

Instead of waiting for her to agree, Bobby just started following the tracks. He soon found that one of the horses was, indeed, carrying double, or at least carrying a heavy load. Those tracks were deeper than the other horse's prints. The trail made it obvious that both Rocklin horses were in a canter too. The problem was that they led in the wrong direction. They led toward the mountains, and not toward any ranch where someone might seek help for an injured person.

They had only followed the tracks for a quarter mile when the woman spoke.

"Obviously, your men were not going back to your ranch."

"No, Ma'am, it appears you're right about that." admitted Bobby.

"So they took my daughter," she said. Her voice sounded ... ugly.

"I don't understand it, Ma'am, but it appears that's correct," said Bobby.

"I should just shoot you where you stand," said the woman harshly.

"Ma'am, I didn't take your daughter. But I can help you find her. Well, I can help you find her if you don't shoot me. It would be pretty hard for me to track them if I'm lying dead."

He looked over at the woman. She still held the rifle, but, despite her comment, it wasn't pointed at him. Unknown to him, his coolness under her threat impressed her. She recognized that emotion had made her run her mouth ... like a man ... and she didn't like that.

"Why don't we work together on this?" said Bobby. "They can't have gone far."

Technically, Bobby knew that wasn't true. The men had a good five or six hour start, maybe more, based on how long the sheep had been at this one place. Bobby whistled at Queen and yelled at her to follow, giving her the arm movement too, just to make sure. He stepped up onto his horse and started following the tracks of the two Rocklin horses.

"What are you doing?" asked Molly, as Queen darted into the herd and barked at the lead ewe, moving her toward Bobby.

"I can't leave the flock here," said Bobby. "They'll ruin the grass. They need to move."

"You can't herd sheep now!" said Molly, getting angry. "We need to find Sarah!"

"We'll find your daughter, Ma'am. I just told Queen to follow us, that's all. She'll keep them moving along our track, even if she can't see us."

"Why didn't your men do that?" asked Molly, confused.

"I'd say because they're hoping we won't be able to track them," said Bobby, unsure whether or not the truth was a good idea right now. "It would be easy to follow the whole flock. If they're heading for the mountains, there will be rocky areas, and they may hope to lose themselves that way."

"Are you saying they plan to keep my daughter?!" gasped Molly. Molly was a frontier wife, and the code of the west was firmly ingrained into her. The code of the west said that women were to be respected ... cherished ... held inviolate. If a man abused a woman he often ended up dead as a result. It was unthinkable to her that the missing men might hold her daughter against her will ... kidnap her, for all intents and purposes.

"I don't know what's going on," said Bobby. "But I aim to find out." He looked over at the woman riding beside him.

"Are you with me?"

Molly looked at this self-possessed young man and her eyebrow arched. "You, young man, are with me! And if anything has happened to my daughter, you will answer to me!"

"Let's just see what happened. Then we can decide what's going to need doing," replied Bobby. He had a bad feeling about this. There was just no good reason why Buford and Chaps would take the girl toward the mountains.

Chapter Three

Jonas, Buckshot and Peter arrived in Ute Canyon and located Sarah's trail. Had they followed Molly's tracks, they'd have arrived at the scene of Sarah's kidnapping much sooner, but Jonas had gone with his gut instinct. As a result, they were four hours behind Molly when they arrived at the place where she had met Bobby Rocklin. Unfortunately, the signs that Bobby had read were gone.

Two or three hundred sheep had walked over them.

"Been sheep here," said Buckshot needlessly.

"Do tell?" commented Jonas sarcastically.

By then it was getting dark, and the sheep following Bobby and Molly had wiped out all trace of their tracks. Buckshot rode wide, to the East, toward the Collins ranch, and located Molly's tracks coming into the disturbed area. Those tracks were lost where the sheep had wiped them out. He rode back up to Jonas.

"Found tracks coming in. I figure it's Molly. She's riding Vixen, and leading Tulip," he said. "Nothing going back to the ranch, though."

"What the hell is she doing here?" Jonas' voice was heavy with worry.

"Same thing you are, I imagine," said Buckshot.

They ranged through the mess of tracks, finding prints of three other horses, all strange to them. Two were hard to read because the shoes were worn down and left little detail. The third had the distinctive bumps on it that indicated they were winter shoes, made to grip ice better. Most stockmen took them off in the summer because they were expensive and it was no use to wear them down in routine conditions. That horse was also a big, heavy animal too, with large hooves. All that told them was that there had been strangers in this place, along with Sarah and Molly.

Had there been a little more daylight, and had they ranged wider, they might have picked up some of Molly's tracks heading toward the mountains, or the small cairn of stones, with two large ones piled on top of each other, and a smaller one set to the side. Bobby had left that sign for anyone who might be following them. The smaller rock pointed in the direction he thought he'd be headed for a while. But, while Charley would have known instantly what that meant, the cattlemen weren't used to following that kind of trail, and it wouldn't have made sense to them. In any case, darkness caught them, and they had no idea where to go next.

"What do you want to do, Boss?" asked Buckshot.

"Damned if I know," said Jonas. "I thought to ride out here, find her and then get home. We didn't bring supplies to camp overnight."

"Maybe they went over to that sheep farmer's spread." suggested Peter.

"That sheep farmer doesn't have a spread," said Jonas angrily. "He's a squatter."

"Now Jonas, the way I heard it, old man Johansen said he sold his ranch to the man," said Buckshot. He immediately wished he hadn't said anything.

"Johansen didn't know they were bringing sheep here," said Jonas. "If he'd a known that he wouldn't have sold."

Buckshot didn't want to argue. His arthritis was acting up. He idly thought that it must be going to rain soon. "Boy could be right Jonas," he said, ignoring the outburst. "Mebbe they did go over to ... Johansen's old place."

"Let's ride," barked Jonas. Jonas never apologized, but if he recognized a proper course of action, he took it.

The three men headed for the ranch now owned by a man named Rocklin. It would be the first formal meeting of men who, as the world saw it, were neighbors. Jonas Collins didn't think of it that way at all. He loosened the rifle in its scabbard by his right knee.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In the house now owned by Brad and Amanda Rocklin, there was a serious conversation going on. It was almost dark, and supper was on the table, though no one seemed interested in eating it except Enid. She was fourteen years old and had a healthy appetite to go with the stocky body she'd inherited from her father, much to her mother's dismay. The only thing Enid had inherited from her mother were a pair of proud, thrusting breasts that, according to her, were a bother because they always "got in the way", whatever that meant. Amanda often looked at Enid, and then her other daughter, Elizabeth, and wondered how they had both come out of the same womb.

Beth was tiny, like her mother, almost delicate, with thin wrists, and a narrow waist to match. Like her year-younger sister, she had the same large, lush breasts that Amanda had, but Beth's figure was more proportioned to that of a woman, with swelling hips to match. Enid's hips were slim and boyish. Beth worked hard too, but it didn't show on her like it did on Enid. Beth's skin was milky white, while Enid had freckles and darker skin that was darkly tanned by the sun.

Enid was already taller than Amanda, and had the sturdy look of a young pioneer woman, with callused hands and short, usually dirty fingernails. Not that she didn't appear to be a female. Her long strawberry blond hair, not quite so red as Amanda's, was tied back with a ribbon. Her troublesome, large breasts pushed at the soft buckskin shirt she was wearing, above pants made of the same material. Beth had on a proper dress. Amanda would rather have had both girls wearing dresses, but the only ones Enid owned were two or three years old and had been made for a much smaller girl. Amanda hated sewing, and, come to think of it, Enid had inherited that from her too. Beth, on the other hand, had probed to find what sewing skills Amanda possessed, and had pulled them from her on cold winter nights beside the fire. Beth made her own clothes. Amanda could spin wool into thread that made the finest cloth, like most women of that day, and Beth was fast on her way to becoming just as good with a spinning wheel. But the weaving and cutting and sewing of that fine wool cloth was something Amanda had no patience for. She'd just as soon buy ready-made dresses.

That happened infrequently, though. It was rare to get to town, and even more rare to have the money to spend on things like that. The only proper dresses Amanda still owned were the one's she'd brought with her from Oregon, and one that Beth had made for her.

On the other hand, the Rocklins had good relations with the local wandering tribe of the Batcinena, or Red Willow Men of the Arapaho Indian tribe. In the uneasy peace between former enemies, enforced by the infrequent appearance of soldiers, the tribe traded with other tribes who wove wool into beautiful blankets, and the Rocklins were able to trade good wool thread for both good will, and fantastically well-made clothing of animal skins. Elk skin made the best clothing, thick and almost indestructible, and as long as you didn't wear the same outfit too long without airing it, the leather maintained its sharp, pleasant smell.

As a result, Amanda's children often dressed in clothes that were more suited for a wild Indian than a civilized sheep farmer. For that matter Amanda herself owned two sets of sturdy Indian garb.

Her husband refused to wear leather clothing, preferring jeans and cotton or wool shirts, depending on the weather. His chaps, though, were Indian made. They were a gift to him by an Indian woman who had showed up on foot at the ranch, handing them over and saying her son's name. Brad had found the boy with a broken leg and had splinted it and carried him to where the tribe was located at the time. At that time, that had been thirty miles away, and the woman had made the chaps and walked the whole distance ... round trip ... to thank him.

The other nice thing about leather, Amanda had to admit, was that it stretched as the body grew into it. She glanced at Enid's swollen breasts, pushing the leather away from her chest, and sighed. Her worried mind was drawn back to the issue at hand as her husband spoke.

"I shouldn't have sent him out there," he said.

"Nonsense," said Amanda. "He's a grown man. Well, almost. And he should be back by now. I'll tan his hide good for making us worry like this!"

"He's probably dead," said Enid. She had argued with her brother that morning about whose job it was to clean the chicken coop. Being two years older he had simply informed her that he had other things to do, and it was her job, and if she didn't do it he'd tell their father. She realized it had gotten very quiet at the table, and looked up. Her mother and father, along with Buckshot and Xian Bai, their other lead shepherd, were all staring at her.

"Why would you say that?" asked her mother, her face darkening. "Why in the world would you say that, Enid Rocklin?"

Enid knew that tone of voice, and knew she'd made a tactical mistake. But the odor of chicken manure on her hands ... the odor she couldn't get off no matter how much she washed them ... made her compound the mistake.

"Well? He's just so stupid!" she said forcefully.

Oddly enough, Amanda relaxed and sat back in her chair. She recognized that tone of voice. Sibling rivalry. She glanced at Beth, who had her eyes on her food, like she was trying not to get involved in the conversation.

Charley tried to defuse a situation that really didn't need to be diffused any more. Of course he didn't know that. He was a man, and didn't recognize those tones of voice.

"Your brother is not a stupid man," he said patiently. "He should be back by now and your mother is worried."

Xian Bai spoke from the other side of the table. "Your Brother is very smart, Missy," he said, grinning. Xian Bai had somehow attached himself to the party as they moved from Oregon to Wyoming, herding five hundred sheep along the old Oregon Trail. He had been walking alone, with only a sack hanging from a six foot long pole as he was surrounded by sheep. He had just kept walking until the Rocklins caught up to him. Queen, their lead dog, had ambled up to him, sniffed him and then ambled off.

That, in itself, was an endorsement. Amanda had been exposed to Chinese immigrants, and invited him to eat with them when they camped. He'd been with them ever since. He picked up sheep ranching as if born to it, and he had an almost magical way with the dogs, as if he could speak to them somehow. He took his pay, when they had money to give him, but often Amanda found it back in the big clay jar she kept loose cash in. He was also a wizard with the weaving of rope, and made all the rope they used on the ranch.

Enid, knowing that she had gotten off easily, started eating again.

Buster, who had been lying in a corner of the room, suddenly lifted his head, his ears up. A soft growl issued from his throat. The three puppies who had been sitting patiently under the table, hoping for scraps, began yapping loudly. Brad kicked one and Amanda shushed at them, picking two of them up and holding their muzzles closed. Xian Bai grabbed the third and did the same thing.

Buster was standing now, rigid and facing the door. His growl continued, but he did not bark.

Brad and Charley stood. Charley went to the wall and took down the double barreled Damascus twist black powder shotgun. He knew it was loaded, but he checked to make sure there was a cap on both nipples. Brad went to the desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a Navy Colt .36 caliber pistol. Charley headed for the back door of the house while Enid, all business now, turned the kerosene lamp down until it gave off just a dull glow. Xian Bai had disappeared without a sound.

"Halloooo the house," came a faint yell from outside.

Brad opened the door, but stood to one side.

"Who's there?" he yelled out into the almost dark. He could see the dark forms of three men sitting horses, out away from the house.

"It's Jonas Collins," came back the reply. "I'm lookin' for my wife and daughter. They've gone missing!"

Brad frowned. He hadn't met the cattle rancher. That had been intentional. When he'd moved onto an old cattle ranch with sheep he'd known that he would not be welcome. Cattlemen he saw in town wouldn't even speak to him, shooting him hostile looks instead. He'd decided on his own to try to lie low and keep the flock away from his closest neighbor's range, to avoid conflict. While surveying his new ranch he'd found grass that cattlemen wouldn't want to use, and had capitalized on that.

He had four or five times as many sheep now as he had when he'd first arrived, and the operation was just beginning to make some money.

He intentionally left a broad piece of free range untouched between him and the Circle C ranch. Brad was trying hard not to get caught up in the general trouble between cattlemen and sheep men. The last thing he needed right now was trouble with Collins. He was uneasy about this "visit", but when kinfolk were missing, it was a serious thing.

"Come on in," yelled Brad, and he stepped out onto the porch. He put the pistol in his pocket, but did not let go of the grip. He knew Charley was at one corner of the house, covering the three riders.

The three horses stepped slowly toward the house. It was too dark to see the men's hands, and that made Brad more nervous. As the men got closer he spoke to them.

"We haven't seen any strangers," he said, suddenly wishing he'd said "people" instead of "strangers".

Jonas sat his horse. He hadn't been invited to step down.

Found sign of your sheep where her trail disappeared," he said. "Over by that dry creek bed that comes out of Ute Canyon."

"That's impossible," said Brad firmly. "We don't graze the flock over there.

"Well, somebody does," said a gravelly voice of one of the other men. The grass had been eaten to the roots, and there's sheep tracks all over the place."

"I don't graze my sheep that way," insisted Brad.

"Where is your flock, then?" asked Jonas.

"They should be on their way to the high meadows," said Brad. I sent my son out to tell the men to start them that way this afternoon. He's not back yet. We were just talking about that at supper."

Brad suddenly remembered his manners. "You men eaten yet?"

"No sir!" came a young man's voice from the three.

"Shut up Peter," growled Jonas, turning his head.

Brad had heard that tone of voice before. He'd never talked to Jonas Collins, but others had shown their contempt for him and his sheep.

"Well, we've got plenty. You may as well come on in and have a bite. If nothing else tell me what you've found. Maybe we can figure out what's going on. My son should have been back by now and we're a little worried about him too."

Jonas sat there silent, thinking. He didn't want to act friendly in any way toward this man, but his daughter and wife were missing. At least he should get a look inside the house. He didn't think the man would just lie outright, but he'd like to look around a little ... just in case. His saddle creaked as he put his weight on his left leg and he swung down. The two other men followed suit.

When his booted feet hit the boards of the porch, Jonas smelled the food and his stomach growled. He hadn't had anything except jerky since morning. He thought a curse to himself, but kept quiet. He didn't want to take the hospitality of a sheep farmer.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sarah came to and, through the fuzziness in her head, she realized she must have passed out again. The terrible pain in her middle was gone and she realized she was lying on the ground. Her wrists still hurt and as she tried to flex shoulders in fiery pain, she realized she was still bound. The first odor to get past the burlap bag still covering her head was smoke. She heard voices.

"Keep it small you idiot. We don't need no smoke and flame giving us away."

"Damn it Buford, I want hot vittles!" complained Chaps' voice.

"You won't get any vittles at all if'n they find us ‘afore we're ready," snarled Buford's voice.

"An' that's another thing," went on Chaps' whiny voice. "Why'd you take her like that? They's gonna be mad Buford. Real mad."

"I already told you Chaps! That there pretty little slice of pussy's gonna get us the stake we need to light out to better parts you fool. They'll pay gold to get her back," said Buford, trying to be patient. He couldn't pull this off without Chaps' help. He couldn't manage the girl by himself. She was too damn heavy.

"What if she's dead?" whined Chaps. "She ain't moved in a long time Buford."

"She ain't dead," grunted Buford. "Least wise she'd better not be. She ain't worth nuthin' dead. Plus I aim to get me a piece of that pussy. I'm tired of fucking sheep."

"That ain't right Buford," said Chaps, his dim mind settling on sheep ... and what Buford sometimes did to sheep ... and forgetting the girl. "You shouldn't ought to be doin' that anyways."

"You shut up. If you want to live with blue balls, fine.

But I'm a real man and I need some real pussy once in a while. That there little filly's gonna feel real fine wrapped around my dick."

"I don't like this Buford." insisted Chaps. He was simple minded, but he was no fool. He knew the code of the West just like every man in that part of the country. He knew what was likely to happen just for carrying the girl off, if they got caught. If she was raped they'd swing from a tree for sure.

But Chaps was scared of Buford. He'd seen Buford do terrible things to a sheep, things that hurt it ... sometimes even killed it. And the way he was unnatural with them. It scared Chaps a lot. So Chaps subsided into unhappy silence as he stirred the beans over the tiny fire Buford had allowed him to build using only squaw wood - small dead sticks pulled from the lower trunks of trees, or found lying on the ground. While Buford wasn't looking he added a few sticks to the flames. Beans needed to be hot to choke down, in his opinion.

Sarah heard all this as though it came through cotton stuffed in her ears. Her head hurt horribly, and her face felt hot.

She knew she should be frightened, listening to Buford's plans to rape her, but she couldn't concentrate. Her eyes closed as her bruised brain cut off her consciousness once again.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Molly sat her horse in the dark, next to the boy. They hadn't talked much. The boy's attention was all on tracks and bent twigs and flattened tufts of grass, or scrape marks on rock. Molly knew a little of tracking, though she wasn't much good if the trail was faint. But it was obvious this boy knew what he was doing. Whenever he lost the trail, he found it again within minutes. He seemed to have an instinct for it, or knew his men well enough that he knew what they'd do. The trail had not gone straight, like she thought it would. It often turned, for no clear reason at all.

She realized that each time they came to rock that the trail would turn and go in a different direction. She wasn't stupid, and it didn't take her long to understand that the people they were following didn't want to be found. That made the pit of her stomach lurch, and a sour taste come to her mouth. Her baby girl was with men who didn't want to be found.

"It's too dark to go on," said the Rocklin boy softly.

"I didn't come prepared to camp out," she said irritably.

"Neither did I," he said. "Still, that's what we're going to have to do. We'll pick up the trail in the morning. I know those men and they won't ride through the night."

"We can't camp out here!" said Molly firmly. "It gets cold at night up this high."

They had left the plains after a three hour ride, and had been climbing ever since.

"Yes, Ma'am it does." he agreed. "We'll just have to build a fire and live through it, I guess."

"That's insane." complained Molly.

"You can't go back in the dark, ma'am," said the boy. "And if you did you'd lose hours on the trail. I thought you cow people were supposed to be tough," he said mildly.

Molly bristled. "You watch your mouth, boy," she grumped.

But there was no heat in her voice. She realized she sounded soft and pampered to be complaining about a single night out in the open. She'd done that when she was younger lots of times. She'd show him tough!

Three hours later she wasn't so sure she was tough at all.

He had some food in his saddlebags, which he shared with her.

Then, finding a rock face, he built a fire right up against it. He dragged in two respectably sized logs and lay them next to the rock face, forming a V, and then built a fire filling the void between them. He added wood until the blaze was uncomfortably hot and she complained.

"The heat will soak into the rock and then reflect back out when the fire dies down." he explained. "Whichever one of us wakes up in the night will need to add wood to keep it going all night, but the fire will eat down into those logs, and it will be easy to get it going again."

"Aren't you going to stand watch?" asked Molly. It had been a long time since she'd slept out in the open. She'd been a girl the last time she'd camped.

"What for?" he asked. "The only folks around here are the Indians, and they won't be out in the dark. You can stay awake if you want to, but then you'll be tired in the morning."

"This is just ridiculous," moaned Molly. It was cold already. Well, her front was warm from the huge fire, but her back was freezing. She turned around to warm her backside. "Won't they see this fire and know we're after them?" She wanted to find something wrong with the way the boy was doing things.

That was a preview of Cattleman's Lament. To read the rest purchase the book.

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