Rocky Mountain Maverick

“Something wrong?”

Nate Beaumont had reined in a little farther back on the trail, behind Michael. Eyes narrowed, he watched Michael from under the wide brim of a battered straw hat.

“Seems a little lame.” As he offered the explanation, Michael lifted the gelding’s foot, pretending to examine the frog. “Got a pick?” he asked without looking up.

After a slight hesitation, Nate urged the mare forward, bringing her alongside the gelding. Michael put out his hand, palm upward, to receive the equestrian knife he was offered. As he unfolded the hoof pick from the multi-bladed instrument, he slanted a sideways look at the boy.

“Picked up a stone?” Nate asked.

“I don’t think it’s been there long enough to do any damage. He’s only been favoring it a minute or two.”

He bent over the gelding’s foot, his body shielding it from the boy’s view, and pretended to pry out the nonexistent obstruction. After a moment, he dropped the leg then ran a soothing hand over his mount’s neck. He turned to face Nate, folding the pick back into the knife before he held it up to him.

“I need to get one of these. You never know when a knife might come in handy. Especially out here.”

For a long moment Beaumont didn’t move. In contrast to their customary avoidance, the sapphire eyes locked on Michael’s face. He would have sworn that what he saw in them was raw fear.

“Your knife,” he prodded, moving it up and down to draw Nate’s attention. “Thanks for the loan.”

The boy swallowed, the movement strong enough to be visible down the column of his throat before it disappeared into the high collar of the thermal undershirt he wore. Michael’s eyes had followed the motion, and he felt again that nagging sensation that there was something important about what he’d just seen. Something he was missing and shouldn’t be.

Before he could figure it out, Nate’s hand closed over the knife, removing it from his grasp. “You probably should at that. They’re useful for all kinds of things.”

Maybe he thought it was strange Michael didn’t have a knife. After all, most cowboys carried them. He had when he’d worked on the Royal Flush.

His equipment requirements in the days since then had been very different. He had considered bringing the Glock up here, but the thought of acquiring a folding knife had never crossed his mind.

“How about a breather?” he suggested. “Give him a chance to figure out he’s not crippled.” Because he could see the resolution to refuse building in the kid’s eyes, he added, “I could stand one, too. Stretch my leg.”

Nate had never mentioned his limp. No one but Quarrels had commented on it. And although the knee had been stiff and painful this morning from the stooping he’d done yesterday, it hadn’t kept him from climbing on board the gelding. There was no way he would have let it, no matter how sore it had been.

Today’s assignment, however, hadn’t quite worked out as Michael had hoped. There had been no opportunity to ask Beaumont any questions. And maybe that had been deliberate on Nate’s part.

Going up to the high pasture, they had ridden on opposite sides of the flock, letting the Half Spur’s collies do the actual herding. During the ride back down, Nate had kept his distance, hanging behind Michael on the trail, letting the dogs run between.

That’s why Michael had come up with the story about the gelding’s lameness. And now he needed a reason to prolong this brief time alone with the boy. As he’d expected, the veiled reference to his disability worked like a charm.

Nate eased down off the mare, saddle creaking in the stillness of the mountain air. Once Michael saw he’d succeeded in getting Nate to dismount, he pretended to ignore the kid. He walked the gelding slowly around the small clearing as if assessing the injury, the dogs following behind him. As part of the act, he didn’t bother to try to hide his own aching muscles.

When he’d completed the circle and was returning to the starting point, he realized Nate had been watching the performance. Watching him, rather than the horse.

“You smoke?” he asked.

A lot of kids that age did, and it would provide another reason to prolong the break. Nate shook his head, his gaze now pointedly considering the trail down to the compound.

“Something bothering you?”

The kid turned, his eyes widened slightly. “What does that mean?”

“I’m just curious why you’re so damn skittish.”

“Skittish?”

“You keep to yourself. You keep your head down. You don’t talk. In my experience that means a man’s afraid of something or he’s hiding something. I just wondered which it was in your case.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about finding a good place to hide and then laying low. Trying to keep yourself off somebody’s radar screen,” Michael said, realizing that he had unconsciously repeated Colleen’s words about him. “I’ve done that a few times in my life.”

Nate shook his head. “I like working here. I like the country. The isolation.”

“So your family knows where you are.”

“I don’t have family. Not everybody does.”

“No family. No friends. No past.”

And no denial. The regard from those blue eyes was steady. Whatever fear Michael thought he’d seen in them before had been conquered or controlled.

“You about ready to head out?” the kid asked. “If we’re not back by six, there won’t be anything to eat until breakfast tomorrow.”

Since it was midafternoon, his excuse for leaving wasn’t terribly convincing. Given a chance to be on their own and without supervision, most cowboys would find a way to keep from going back before suppertime. It was almost expected.

“What’s the rush? Quarrels will just find something else for us to do. Relax.”

Nate’s lips flattened, but he didn’t argue. He led the mare over to an outcropping of rock and sat down. His mount began nibbling at the few patches of rough grass growing nearby. He signaled to the dogs and they lay down in a shady spot.

Michael made a pretense of walking the gelding for a few more minutes before he limped over to join Nate. Instead of sitting down beside him and taking a chance of scaring the kid off, he put his left foot up on the rock, resting his weight on his sound right leg. The position relieved some of the stress on the damaged knee.

“So how long you been here?”

“About six months.” The kid was ostensibly watching the two horses, which had begun ranging farther afield in search of more promising grazing.

“And the others? How long for them?”

“Less.” The admission was reluctantly made. “Nobody stays long.”

“Except you.”

“I told you. I like it here.”

Despite the determined front the kid was putting up, Michael’s conviction that he was on the run was still strong. There wasn’t much point in trying to push past this kind of stonewalling, however.

Maybe after he’d been here a while and earned Nate’s trust, the boy would be willing to confide in him. Until then, all he could do was keep an eye on Beaumont and at the same time do the job he’d been sent here for. Maybe if he couldn’t get Nate to talk about himself, he could get him to talk about the Half Spur.

“You like this place despite the weirdness?”

Nate turned his head, looking directly at him. His eyes were carefully blank.