Page 38 of Wellspring
“WEBSTER!”
Payne’s voice cracked in the humid air. Cade stopped on his way to join the line for dinner, grumbling inwardly at having to wait even another minute to see if Erick and Matt were back from their shift on the range.
Cade knew he couldn’t always be the one to work with Erick, but having Erick ride off this morning while Cade was stuck on guard duty had burned.
“We’re missing cattle,” Payne began bluntly.
“Maybe they just got a wild hair and wandered off, or they coulda found a patch of locoweed and made themselves sick, or some of those JR bushwhackers mighta rustled them, I don’t know.
But it’s more than I’m willing to lose without an explanation.
You’re the best tracker we have. I need you to find as many of them as you can and bring them back to the main herd. ”
Cade bit back a grin Payne wouldn’t understand. “I’ll do my best, but that’s a big task for one man, if we’re talking about more than a dozen head. It’s keeping them together while still tracking the others.”
Payne gave him a dry look. “And I suppose you have an opinion on who you should take with you?”
“Well, since you asked….” Cade shot him a grin. “The very first time he rode out with me, Heller helped me stop a stampede. He might look like a greenhorn still, but he’s got more skills than his appearance suggests.”
“If it keeps the two of you from getting up to trouble in my barn, I might consider it.”
“I wouldn’t call it trouble, exactly….” Cade refused to blush, refused to feel in any way guilty for jumping Erick in the stable when he’d found him working there shirtless a little over a week ago. “… but it would give Heller more experience than just a day or night on the range does.”
“And of course you’re the best one to teach him.
” Payne waved his hand dismissively. “The two of you leave in the morning. Take enough supplies for two weeks. With the size of Wellspring, finding a hundred cows on the land we don’t graze on could take that long.
If you haven’t found the strays by then, you won’t find them. ”
Cade nodded to acknowledge the orders and forced himself not to run off in search of Erick to share the good news. Two weeks. Two whole weeks alone on the range in the most isolated portions of Wellspring.
Two weeks of riding side by side, sleeping next to each other at night, with no one to interrupt or wonder what they were doing.
It sounded better than anything he’d be likely to find outside the eternal hunting grounds.
Erick wasn’t in the bunkhouse, so Cade resigned himself to joining the line for dinner and sharing his news with an audience.
Usually they went down to the spring after dinner, but with all the preparations they’d need to finish to leave tomorrow like Payne wanted, they wouldn’t have that moment of privacy tonight.
He didn’t have to tell anyone else he’d convinced Payne to send Erick along so they’d have some time together. He could simply say Payne had given him the orders to pass on to Erick. Everyone else might see through him, but most of them would let it ride. He just had to avoid Burke at dinner.
“Thanks, Javier,” he said as the cook filled his plate. “Have you seen Erick?”
“No, he hasn’t come through yet, although I did see Matt, so I’m sure he’s around somewhere,” Javier replied.
Cade frowned and went to sit with Chel and Svenson. At least Svenson wouldn’t give him shit about heading out with Erick in the morning.
“Where’s your shadow, louveteau ?” Chel asked.
“I don’t know,” Cade replied. “He should be here soon.”
A few minutes later, Erick joined them, his damp hair and pink cheeks evidence that he’d stopped to shower and change clothes after his shift on the range. Cade couldn’t help but regret that he wouldn’t have another chance to join him before they’d have to leave tomorrow.
“Any problems?” he asked once Erick sat and greeted everyone.
“A quiet day. It is good to work with more of the men and get to know them better.” Cade might have envied the hands working with Erick, except that he was about to have him all to himself for two wonderful weeks.
“Yeah, Chiles is great. He’s been here about a year, bounced around a bit before that, always leaving when yet another outfit didn’t treat him good because he’s black.
I think he about cried when he first laid eyes on Payne,” Cade said.
“Kinda like the rest of us, not fitting in anywhere until we washed up here.”
“Speak for yourself,” Chel said airily. “I fit in anywhere I go.”
Cade gave her a dismissive wave and focused back on Erick. “Payne grabbed me just before dinner. He has a job for us.”
“Gathering more mustangs?” Erick didn’t seem excited at the prospect. “I had hoped to spend more time working the herd before having another batch of horses to train.”
Cade could feel the grin spreading across his face, but he didn’t care. “No, he wants us to hunt down some stray cattle. Since you did such a good job with the ones that tried to get away when we worked together.”
Erick flushed and shook his head. “I only followed your lead. But I look forward to another day to ride with you.”
Both Svensen and Chel laughed. At Erick’s puzzled expression, Olav explained, “If they are not to be found where we usually let them graze, it could be quite a lengthy search.”
“Payne’s given us two weeks,” Cade said. “That’ll give us time to check the backcountry if they’ve wandered there.”
“And if JR hasn’t rustled them,” Chel said with a frown. “Be careful, both of you.”
“You know I always am,” he told her gently. And while he wouldn’t say it out loud, he had Erick to look out for—and come home to—so he had more reason than ever to watch his back. “We’ll have to skip our reading lesson tonight so we can get everything together and leave at first light.”
He just had to figure out how to fit two weeks’ worth of supplies into their saddlebags and still have room for their book and a pot of something slick. If he had two weeks alone with Erick, he wanted to take advantage of it.
“What must I prepare?” Erick asked.
“A change of clothes and food, mostly. There are a couple of spots we should be able to clean up where we’ll be heading.” Cade spent a moment imagining Erick naked under the waterfall before forcing his mind back to the matter at hand. “And your weapons, in case they haven’t just wandered off.”
“You can help me make sure I have everything after we finish eating,” Erick said with a small smile, the one that did things to Cade’s insides.
“Sure can,” he drawled to cover the heat in his belly and probably on his face. At least the hotter, longer May days had tanned his skin enough to hopefully hide any visible blush.
Chel rolled her eyes at him, but he ignored her in favor of Javier’s delicious dinner. They’d be back to jerky and beans tomorrow.
“THIS IS almost like the trip from Galveston,” Erick said as they prepared the turkey Cade had brought down to augment their store of tinned beans and jerky.
“Except we aren’t wasting all that time we could have been together,” Cade said, sliding an arm around Erick’s shoulder.
Erick leaned into the embrace. “And I am not as sore from having to become accustomed to a new horse and saddle.”
“You should have said something.” Cade squeezed Erick’s shoulder. “We could have taken more breaks or had shorter days on our way to Austin.”
“But then we would not have been in time to hear Reichardt’s threats,” Erick reminded him. “And while it might have been an easier adjustment for me, it would have been more of a struggle for Wellspring, and I cannot wish for that.”
“No, I suppose not,” Cade agreed. He poked at the meat in the skillet. “This looks done. We can smoke the rest while we’re eating and it’ll stay good for a few days while we travel.”
“Should we have seen any cattle by now?” Erick asked.
“Depends on when they took off. They mighta been gone for days before Payne realized they were missing. And Wellspring has a lot of ground to cover. They coulda made quite a distance if they had a mind to. Not that anyone knows what goes through a cow’s mind.”
“You do not think that JR hands made off with them?”
Cade scowled. “I wouldn’t put it past them, but we’ve kept a pretty close watch. Someone would have spotted it if they were brazen enough to rustle that many head all at once.”
Erick nodded and speared a piece of meat out of the pan Cade had pulled off the fire and set on the ground in front of them. “So we will wander around hoping we find them?”
“Not quite,” Cade said with a chuckle. “Wherever they went, they’ll have left tracks.
It hasn’t rained much since the last big storm we had, so they shouldn’t have been washed away.
If we’re lucky, they’ll be all together and easier to track.
If not, we may have to keep the ones we find together as we look for the rest. We’ll just have to see when we find their trail. ”
“It sounds like quite the challenge.”
Cade shrugged. “My family taught me to read the land, but yeah, it’s a lot of ground to cover, hoping to find a sign.”
They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
“I am sorry we did not bring the primers with us, but I would not risk them coming to harm when Miss Dawson was kind enough to lend them to us,” Erick said when they had finished.
“I brought a notebook and pencils should you wish to practice your letters.”
“Practice my—” Cade laughed. “Did you seriously think I’d have the patience to practice my letters when I finally have you all to myself?”
“Practice makes perfect,” Erick said with a quirk of his lips. Cade’s answering grin made clear that he understood exactly what kind of practice Erick meant.