“And what am I supposed to do if one of those events occurs?”
“You drive off any wild animals, alert the camp to marauders or bandits, and try to stop a stampede before it starts, which is mostly impossible, so you position yourself to control it.” Walking their horses, they rode along the starlit perimeter of the bedding ground. The heat of the animals lessened the spring chill of the night. “On second thought,” Dal said, “don’t try to control a stampede, you don’t know how yet. Observe and learn.”
Since this was her initial experience on a bedding ground, there was plenty to observe. First, Freddy noticed the cattle slept on their sides, and they weren’t quiet as she had supposed they would be. Every now and then they made strange blowing noises that worried her half to death.
Dal laughed softly. “Perfectly normal,” he assured her. “It’s also normal for them to stand up along about midnight, graze for a few minutes, then lie down again. What’s not normal is for one of them to jump up and start bawling. If that happens, the rest panic, they all start running, and we’re into a stampede.”
“How did you learn all of this?” She told herself that she didn’t care about his answer. Talking helped her stay awake.
“I grew up on a ranch in Louisiana,” he said with a shrug. “It was nothing like the King’s Walk spread, only about a tenth the size. A better question might be why didn’t you learn something about ranching.”
“Pa had clear-cut ideas about men and women,” she said, watching the light from distant stars slide along the horns of the dozing steers. “Men do this, women do that, and they stay out of each other’s areas.” They rode so closely together, to facilitate quiet conversation, that Dal’s leg occasionally brushed hers. She didn’t like that, didn’t like being physically aware of him. At least she couldn’t see his face clearly and didn’t have to struggle against the feelings aroused by the cool speculation in his eyes or that slow smile that lifted one corner of his lips.
“If that’s true, then it’s strange that your father would throw his daughters into the middle of a cattle drive and expect them to succeed.”
“I don’t think he did expect us to succeed.” It was oddly intimate, riding together in the darkness, talking softly and listening to the quiet rustling of the bedded steers.
“If Joe wanted Lola to inherit his fortune, he didn’t have to set up this elaborate contest.”
“I don’t know what Pa was thinking,” Freddy said as they slowly circled the end of the sleeping herd and started up the other side. “Maybe he wanted to punish us. I don’t want to talk about him. It makes me furious every time I think about what he did to us!”
“Maybe he recognized something in each of you that you’re not seeing yourselves. When you make a horseshoe it begins as a lump of metal that doesn’t look like much. But fire and pounding transforms it into something hard and useful. Maybe Joe figured you ladies needed a little fire and pounding and figured you’d get it on a cattle drive.”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about this!”
Instantly, his hand shot through the blackness and gripped her arm so hard that she felt his fingers crushing her bones. “Don’t ever raise your voice on night watch!” Releasing her, he moved ahead, scanning the herd, his silhouette tense against the starlit sky.
Heart pounding, Freddy also peered hard at the herd, and she didn’t relax until Dal returned and brought his horse up close beside her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered between her teeth.
“We got lucky,” he said with an obvious effort at patience.
“It makes me mad when you talk about Pa. You didn’t know him.” Sometimes she wondered if she had known him. She tended to think of Joe in stark tones of black and white. But her earlier memory of sitting together on the porch steps had shaken that image.
“You’re wrong, Freddy. I know Joe Roark through what the man built and how he built it. I see hints of him in each one of you.”
She started to tell him that was nonsense, but midway down this side of the herd, a shape loomed toward them and Freddy sucked in a breath, holding it until she saw the shape was only Drinkwater, the other guard. He reined up and reported in a low voice, “Everything seems quiet. There was a moment up front. The brindle with the frayed tail couldn’t find his partner.”
“A big black with a chipped horn,” Dal said.
Freddy peered at him, incredulous. To her the longhorns were as alike as kernels of corn.
“That’s the one,” Drinkwater agreed, moving away from them.