Part 2
“He belongs with someone else,” Caleb said. “I’m looking after him.”
It was a poor lie. Roy let his rope slide down against the saddle and turned his mount toward Caleb.
“Then send the owner to Grant’s place.”
Caleb could feel the rifle trembling. He tightened his grip before Roy could look at his hands.
“You’re leaving without him.”
Behind Roy, the filly called. Bracken swung toward her, and another rider hurried his horse out of reach. Roy glanced at the tight space beside the cabin. He had come prepared to rope a horse, not argue with a ranch hand who had finally raised a gun.
He jerked his chin at the others.
“Grant can hear your reasons himself.”
They rode out, one loose rope brushing the ground. Caleb kept the rifle up until the last rider disappeared beyond the ridge. Afterward, he got down and pressed both palms into his gelding’s mane. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Bracken came close and smelled his sleeve. Caleb stared at the saddle buckle until he could breathe properly.
The tarp couldn’t be saved. He ground out the last ember with his boot, then packed the filly’s supplies and his blankets. There wasn’t much else in the cabin that was his. He left the fencing tools against the wall where Grant could find them.
Inez Talley lived on the other side of the broken hills. Grant had been trying to buy her land for years. Caleb knew little more about her, but he saddled his gelding with the supplies and took the filly’s lead.
They were gone before Roy had time to return.
Avoiding the roads made a short journey long. Avoiding anything the filly couldn’t manage made it longer still. They spent two days working their way through the rough country, resting whenever her steps shortened. Caleb warmed her feeds, checked the healing wound, and waited while she leaned against Bracken.
His gelding carried the load. Caleb walked.
At the shale crossings, he went ahead to test the footing. Bracken followed with surprising care, placing his great hooves where the stone held. By the second afternoon, Caleb could feel torn skin at both heels. He practiced his request while they walked, trying to find a version that didn’t sound like trouble arriving at somebody else’s door.
Inez was weeding beside the house when they reached her fence. She straightened slowly, brushed dirt from her apron, and looked over the procession.
“Should I expect Grant today or tomorrow?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Well. That saves us one conversation.”
Caleb told her why he’d come. She listened to the account of the filly and the ropes, then interrupted when he repeated Roy’s claim.
“Those were his words? Grant said the horse was his?”
“As near as I remember.”
She let him finish, then walked to Bracken. He lowered his nose to her open hand. She rubbed the rough skin above his nostrils, looking up the length of his face.
“There’s an old type in that head,” she said. “Haven’t seen it for a long while. Certainly not on anything this tall.”
“Can you tell what he is?”
“I can tell you what I’ve seen before. That’s not the same as knowing about him.”
Caleb waited. Beyond her stood a barn with unusually high doors. He tried not to keep looking at it.
The road passed above the yard, separated from it by a steep cutbank. A level stock path ran around the grove toward a lower meadow. There was water near the barn. There was room.
“I’m asking for a place to stay,” he said. “I’ll earn it.”
Inez glanced toward the road. “Grant already wants this ground. Shelter might cost me more than chores will cover.”
Caleb nodded. The filly moved against his leg.
“I still can’t take them back.”
Inez studied him, then pointed toward the barn.
“Clean bedding first. You’ll find the water out back.”
She kept him busy over the following weeks. There were boards to replace, a trough to level, a stretch of fence to pull straight. When she wanted a job done a certain way, she told him before he started. If she could manage part of it herself, she worked alongside him.
He learned that a cup left on the porch rail would come back full. Inez never asked why he had stopped long enough to drink it.
Audrey visited between calls. The filly’s wound closed, leaving a puckered patch, and soon her daily exercise included sudden dashes around the paddock. Bracken would follow for several strides, then stop at the fence while she wheeled back toward him.
After chores, Caleb practiced the small things with him. He touched an ear without making the horse toss his head. He lifted one immense foot and put it down when asked. Bracken learned to step back instead of using his size to crowd Caleb into the rails.
But when Caleb closed the gate, the horse often remained beside it, looking over Inez’s pasture.
One evening she brought a bowl of bruised apples onto the porch and handed Caleb a knife. The horses were grazing beyond the garden. He cut around a soft spot while she watched him look toward the paddock again.
“You’ll wear that latch out by staring.”
“I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“He could use more than that.”
Caleb’s knife paused.
“I’m not telling you to turn him loose,” she said. “But he may have been doing useful work before you met him.”
“He brought her in dying. He’s done plenty.”
Caleb dropped a sound piece of apple into the scrap bowl. Inez picked it out and set it with the good fruit.
“I asked about the horse. You answered about what Grant might do.”
That night, Caleb remained in the paddock after the buckets were empty. Bracken searched one with his nose, then settled beside the rail. Caleb worked his fingers into the thick mane and stood there until Inez called from the house.
Rain hit the porch hard enough to bounce against the windows two evenings later. Before the loudest thunder reached them, water was already running through the dry wash below the pasture.
Inez came outside with a flashlight and aimed it across the fence.
Vivian Cross’s cattle had broken through. The herd was running downhill, the animals behind pressing those in front toward the wash. Brown water filled it now, carrying branches fast enough to make Caleb hear them knock against the bank.
He grabbed his gelding’s bridle from its peg.
Behind him, hooves struck the barn floor. Bracken came through the open doors and turned straight toward the running cattle…
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