Page 3 of The Forever Cowboy (Noble Ranch #1)

Another dead steer.

Sterling Noble pressed a hand against the steer’s now motionless ribcage. Warmth lingered in the hide, but the breath of life was gone.

Kneeling in the hay mound next to Sterling, Beckett sat back on his heels, obviously realizing the same thing. They’d lost one more.

At least the creature wasn’t suffering any longer. That was the only good thing about its death.

“Well, shoot.” Beckett’s voice dripped with his Southern drawl as he reached for the nearest railing of the stall and hoisted himself to his feet.

Lanky but muscular, the ranch foreman had a layer of dark scruff on his face that made him look slightly dangerous.

“At this rate, we’ll lose half the herd before winter starts. ”

“No. We can’t lose any more.” Sterling lifted his cowboy hat and combed back the straggling strands that were in need of a trim. He’d been too busy with dying cattle to think about anything else, including haircuts.

It was only mid-November, and the worst of the cold and snow was yet to arrive at the Noble Ranch in the high mountain country of Colorado. That meant it was much too early for disease to be plaguing the herd.

But it was. The dreaded blackleg had shown up over the past week. It affected mostly the young cattle—the healthiest, between six months and two years—which would develop a sudden lameness, soon followed by muscle swelling. Most died within one or two days.

So far, nothing they’d done had stopped it from spreading—not even isolating the afflicted steers—and they’d lost close to twenty.

To make matters worse, his newest breed, the Durfords—a mix of Herefords with Durham bulls—had been hit the hardest. More winter-hardy and providing a better cut of meat, the Durfords were the biggest source of income for the ranch.

Sterling blew out a tight breath as he took in the dozen or so other lame steers they’d brought into the barn.

Several more were already down on their sides, in too much pain to stand, their bodies bloated.

The others were resting in nearby stalls that usually held the cows and some of the youngest calves, which had all been moved to the horse barn to keep them safe.

Beckett cocked his head toward the door. “You go on and get some shut-eye—”

“I’m fine—”

“You’ve stayed the past three nights. Let me do it tonight.

” Beckett’s eyes held a gravity that likely matched Sterling’s.

The ranch foreman was only a few years older than Sterling’s twenty-six years and was like a brother.

In fact, at times Beckett seemed more like family than his three flesh-and-blood brothers.

It didn’t help that Mom and Dad, all three brothers, and both sisters were gone, leaving Sterling alone for the winter.

Not that he minded running the ranch. He’d been doing that for the past three years anyway while Dad had shifted his focus to his silver mines in the hills to the west of Breckenridge.

Ranching was in Sterling’s blood. He loved it more than he’d ever thought possible after his family had moved from Wisconsin to Colorado when he was only thirteen. Over the years, they’d worked hard as a family to build the biggest ranch in Summit County and one of the largest in all of Colorado.

Yes, he loved their ranch. But he’d never expected to be the only one here, the only one handling the responsibility and problems. Of course, he did have six full-time ranch hands living in the bunkhouse in addition to Beckett.

There was also Alonzo, who did the cooking and errands and took care of the rest of the livestock—including the horses, goats, chickens, and half a dozen pigs.

So technically, Sterling wasn’t alone. But the pressure to figure out how to save the cattle and keep the ranch successful was on his shoulders and no one else’s.

“You need a break.” Sticking a piece of hay in his mouth, Beckett tucked his fingers into his suspenders. “If any of the beeves worsen, I’ll come get you.”

Unable to hold back a yawn, Sterling scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw and chin. If he hoped to be any good to the ranch and the sick cattle, he couldn’t get sick himself. That meant he had to catch a few hours of sleep.

He climbed to his feet and stretched his back.

At six feet three inches, he was the tallest of his brothers and had the largest frame with the most muscle.

All of them had their dad’s brown hair and brown eyes.

But Sterling was the most rugged with his weathered, bronzed skin and tough, work-honed body.

“All right.” Sterling shuffled through the haymow. “Send one of the fellows for the veterinarian at first light.”

Thatcher Hoyt had already been out to the ranch earlier in the week and had officially diagnosed the disease and let them know that blackleg was becoming a huge problem on ranches throughout the West. He’d spouted some technical causes for the disease, what he’d called a bacterium that lived in the soil and manure.

Thatcher had a Latin name for the bacterium that Sterling couldn’t remember and claimed that the tiny critters were so small that no one could see them, not even the cattle.

But somehow, apparently, the cattle could ingest them.

Once inside their stomachs and intestines, the bacterium got into the blood and then into the muscles.

The veterinarian had said most of the time the disease was fatal, and the best thing to do was to try to isolate the sick.

Thatcher had also offered to vaccinate the steers in an effort to stave off the disease.

But he’d warned that the vaccination methods were unproven and had met with varying success.

Some had even been more lethal than the disease.

Sterling hadn’t wanted to vaccinate and chance having the whole herd die, so over the past few days, they’d cleaned and scoured the barns, the holding pens, and the nearby fields, getting rid of the waste and putting out clean hay.

But the cattle were still getting sick. At the rate they were dying, he would lose the whole herd within a few weeks. He had to try something else.

“Let’s get Thatcher back over here and talk more about the vaccination.”

Beckett gave a curt nod. “Will do, boss.”

Grabbing his coat off the end of a pitchfork, where he’d tossed it, Sterling opened the barn door to the blackness of the night, broken by the light of the half-moon in the cloudless sky. It was well past midnight, probably already one or two in the morning.

The barn wasn’t heated, but the natural warmth from the livestock kept it from getting too cold. The well-constructed walls blocked the wind.

Without the protection, frosty air hit his face, bringing with it the scent of damp soil after the snow they’d had a few days ago. A gust whipped at him, the frigid bite stinging his face and arms.

He shrugged into his coat, then picked up his pace as he crossed the ranch yard.

His boots crunched against the frozen ground, the only sound except for the occasional snort from the cattle penned into the pasture closest to the barns.

The night noises from insects and other small critters were gone, since most animals had migrated to lower elevations for the winter or were hibernating.

The house windows were all dark, not a single lantern lit to help guide the way—not that he needed the light.

He was familiar enough with the ranch to get around blindfolded if need be.

Even so, his chest squeezed with the loneliness that had been bothering him lately.

Maybe that was another reason he wasn’t keen on everyone abandoning the ranch for the winter.

Because the loneliness had a way of creeping up on him whenever he was in the house.

Even their faithful maid Jo-Jo was gone.

She’d accompanied Mom, Dad, and Scarlet for their trip to Coleman’s college graduation.

At twenty-five, Coleman was finishing law school and following in Dad’s footsteps, the dutiful son who had done everything Dad had wanted by going to college and getting an education.

Sterling knew he’d been a disappointment to Dad by refusing to go.

His dad had argued with him that he would have more opportunities with a specialty and by bettering himself.

He’d wanted more for Sterling than just the ranch.

But Sterling had insisted the ranch was all he’d ever need, and he’d vowed to his dad that he could make the ranch successful without an education.

He stifled a sigh. Right now, with the number of cattle dying, he was failing to live up to his vow. He didn’t want Dad to arrive home and find the ranch worse than ever. No, he wanted his dad to return home to a thriving and even bigger ranch.

Ultimately, Sterling needed to prove he hadn’t made a mistake in staying at the ranch instead of going to college the way Dad had wanted. More than anything, he didn’t want his dad to look at him with disappointment and say I told you so.

Thankfully, Sterling still had time to turn things around.

While his family was in the East, they planned to also visit Paxton at his college and meet up with some of Dad’s friends from his law-school days.

After that, they were heading by train to stay with relatives in Wisconsin, where they would spend the holidays and the rest of the winter before returning to Colorado in the spring.

At least Hazel was living on High C Ranch only two miles away. Sterling saw her once in a while, mainly at church on Sundays. She was happily married to Maverick Oakley, his best friend, and she was still the broodmare manager and planned to keep working until she had her baby in the spring.