More Than A Cowboy

“You really think he’d be useful?” The mutt had a home and an owner, after all. He was only on loan. No commitment necessary, beyond opening his cans for the next three months.

“Show you something.” Gabe slid out of the truck, strode over to his own, and leaned in its open window. He pulled out a battered Stetson, then offered it to the dog. “Kitty, Watson! See the kitty?”

The dog pranced and nosed the hat, yodeling his approval. That hollow banging was the sound of his tail, slamming the sides of the pickup.

“Nice kitty. No, boy, sit. Staaay.” The dog sat with an anguished yelp and Gabe brought the hat to Adam’s window. “Lynx hatband,” he noted, pointing to its greasy circlet. “Tracy found it in an antique store. It’s got to be fifty years old at least.”

“And she trained him on that? You sure he’s not chasing mothballs?”

“He’s found plenty of lynx in the Mission Mountains. They’re doing a census up there and he’s accounted for most of ’em, at least in Tracy’s section. Distract him for a minute and I’ll show you.”

Adam sighed, grabbed a bag of potato chips and went to the hound. Stood glumly by while the dog inhaled one chip after another, then wiped his hands on his jeans as Gabe returned from the dark. “Now what?”

“Let’s finish our supper.”

They ate, talking when the mood hit them, but mostly in comfortable silence. The same way they’d ridden the range as kids, not so far from where they now sat. Adam said finally, “Had my own notion about how we could nail this creep. Most economical way of making a collar.”

Gabe turned to prop his shoulders against his door. “How’s that?”

“We do a sting. Instead of searching the mountains for the bad guy, we sucker him to us.”

“I like it, but how?”

“You said, back in N’Orleans, that the one thing these cats haven’t done is have kittens. Is it still that way?”

“So far, I’m afraid so. Oh, we’ve seen signs of courting behavior. According to their satellite signals, the males have been moving around for the last six weeks, searching for ladies. But with only forty-four lynx remaining, they’re spread so thin on the ground, and they only have a one-week window to find each other, while the females are fertile…”

“So nobody’s scored yet?” Adam demanded dryly.

Gabe shook his head. “No. Not that we know of. We’ll try to contact as many of them visually as we can this summer, especially any females whose signals go stationary. Maybe a queen will den up with kittens, though if she does, she’ll keep them well hidden. It’ll be next winter before we know for sure. We’ll snow-track them then. Look for juvenile footprints following a female’s.”

“But kittens, that’s what the pro-lynx camp wants, right? It’s the proof that your repopulation program is starting to work.”

“Exactly, but—”

“So kittens are the last things the anti-lynx camp wants to see in Colorado. There’s your bait.”

“How are they bait when we haven’t got any?”

“You already report on the DOW Web site your cats’ latest doings. Their latest sightings.” Even their pictures, when someone lucked into a telephoto shot. This was pure foolishness, in Adam’s book, drawing attention to potential victims, but try to tell that to a pack of politicians and bureaucrats. He supposed the Division hoped that publicizing the lynx re-intro program would get the public behind it. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad notion, considering the DOW was spending a million or more of the taxpayers’ money.

“So…” He tapped the map northwest of Trueheart, Colorado. “You post on your Web site that one of your females has moved to this location, where I’ll be waiting. That she’s been spotted and she’s knocked-up for sure. Set to drop a passel of kittens any day now.”

“They only have three or four, usually.”

“Fine. Four imaginary kittens. You plant them in my backyard, and I guarantee you, your perp will come hunting. If he’s smart enough to buy his radio direction finder off the Internet, then he’s bound to be checking your Web site for the latest news on his quarry. Heck, if you report every time one disappears, then he can read his own score sheet. Better believe he’s tuning in.”

Gabe rubbed his jaw. “It might work… I think it would work. Now all I have to do is persuade my boss to try it.”

“Your problem, friend.” Adam drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Meantime, you gonna show me ol’ Watson’s stuff?”

He lounged against the hood of his truck, while Gabe loosed the dog and commanded him to ‘fetch the kitty!’ Nose to the ground, tail waving, the hound snuffled off into the night.

“Did you lay a drag trail?” Adam inquired. By the sound of his snorts, the dog was circling the parking area.

“No need, with his nose. There’s enough of a breeze to carry an air scent. Once he gets downwind…”

“If he doesn’t find his hat, you send him back to Montana. How’s that for a deal?”

“You’re on,” Gabe agreed with a smirk.

They waited some more. Adam didn’t mind, if it ended this nonsense. He could just picture the other hands’ faces if he showed up with Watson in tow for the cattle drive. A dog with ten pounds of ear, and no cow sense? It would take him all summer long to live that one down. Cowboys loved to tease and a newcomer was fair game. Come on, Watson. Lose the kitty.

“You know any women over towards Trueheart?” he asked, to pass the time. The Monahan family ranch lay east of Durango, while Trueheart lay northwest, but on the odd chance…

Gabe cocked his head at him. “Lonesome already? Well, there’s Kaley Cotter.” It was Gabe who’d found Adam the Circle C line-camp job with Kaley’s brother, three summers ago. “But you met her. That was the year she came back, wasn’t it? And I hear she’s married since then.”

“To Tripp McGraw,” Adam reminded him. He’d be riding for the McGraws this summer. “No, this is somebody else. Met her in passing, but didn’t catch her name. Hair dark as…” Wishing he’d never spoken, Adam jerked a thumb at the starry sky. That dark.

That velvety, when finally he buried his face in it, but how did he know that already? He stirred with impatience, then forced himself back to stillness.

“Then there’s Lara Tankersly, one of Ben Tankersly’s daughters,” Gabe continued. “I slow-danced with her once, at a shindig over in Cortez. Didn’t sleep well for the next year. But she moved to San Antonio shortly thereafter, and she’s a cornsilk blonde.

“Then, speaking of blondes, there’s a café in Trueheart called Michelle’s Place, and Michelle’s—” Gabe broke off as Watson came blundering out of the dark, gripping the hat by its brim. “Well, well, what have we here? Good boy! Whatta guy, whatta nose! Good fella!” He thumped the hound on his side as he accepted the trophy, then straightened with a grin. “And who needs a woman when you’ve got this for company?”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NEXT TIME Adam saw her was the last night of the drive.

Following a century-old tradition, the combined herd of all the Trueheart ranches arrived on the summer range at sundown. The cowboys held the cows overnight at Big Rock Meadow. Come morning, the best riders would show off their mounts’ cutting skills. The cattle would be sorted by brand, then driven east or west across the foothills, to their own ranch’s grazing allotments.

Low, laughing voices rumbled around the campfire, punctuated by the occasional satisfied belch. Tonight was the cowboys’ final chance to savor Whitie and Willie’s chuckwagon cooking. Grilled steaks and barbecued beans and cornbread tonight, then tomorrow—and for the rest of the summer—it would be bachelor fare cooked in their own solitary camps.

This was their last night to pull a prank, swap a yarn or tell a joke to an appreciative audience, before they rode their separate trails. Starting tomorrow, company would be scant and seldom, not that it bothered this crew.

Line-camp men were chosen for their solitary ways. Solid, self-sufficient men, they were amiable in company and even better apart. After five days of rubbing elbows with sixteen men, most of whom were strangers, Adam had to admit he was ready for a spell of solitude himself.

“Dubois, this danged hound’s ’bout to break my heart! Claims you ain’t fed him since Christmas.” Across the fire, Jon Kristopherson scowled in mock indignation. Watson stood behind him, with his chin resting on the rancher’s shoulder. “He’s droolin’ down my collar again. Call him off.”

“Don’t you believe that beggar!” warned Willie. At seventy-five, he was the oldest hand on the drive. Too stiff to sit a saddle these days, he shared the driving of Suntop Ranch’s pride and joy, a genuine mule-drawn chuck wagon that was older than he was. And he reigned over the cookfires alongside Whitie Whitelaw. “Worthless bum stole half a skilletful of biscuits this morning, and Whitie’s been sneakin’ him bacon all the livelong day.”

Since Watson had turned out to be terrified of cows, he’d been consigned to ride on the wagon, where the old guys were spoiling him rotten. At this rate he’d be too fat to track a lynx hatband, much less a lynx.

“Watson, get your ass over here!” Adam patted the ground and the hound shuffled meekly around the circle to sit by his side, then heaved a long-suffering sigh. Adam was the only one who refused to be charmed by his “gimme” eyes. “Stay,” Adam told him sternly, then glanced up….

And there she was, stepping into the glow of the fire on the far side of the gathering. Slender as a young aspen in her boots and jeans, dark hair gleaming loose on her shoulders.

“Tess! What are you doin’ up here?” called one of the Jarretts, over a shouted chorus of similar questions and greetings. Faces brightened, bodies shifted to make room for the newcomer. Adam sat up straighter. At the edge of his vision, men were rebuckling loosened belts, tucking in shirttails and wiping greasy mouths. Seventeen men with a sexy woman suddenly dropped in their midst.