Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (25 page)

A ranch hand she didn’t recognize, slightly older and with a large stomach that overhung his pants, leaned against a gate
as if he didn’t have a care in the world. That was what drew her attention to him; his lack of activity was so obviously different
from that of the other men.

Then he picked up a board that, from a distance, looked as if it had a couple of nails driven through it. He looked around
carefully, as if he wanted to see if there were any eyes on him. He never looked in Charlotte’s direction.

What is that man doing?

Without warning, the man swung the board hard, driving it into the rump of one of the last horses in the procession. The black
horse screamed in pain, rearing up on its back legs, huge eyes wide and rolling, before finally hurtling headlong into the
group of animals just in front of it. Its panic caused a chain reaction; it was like watching a boulder as it began to roll
down a hillside or a tree
just cut as it crashed to the ground, each picking up speed as it went. One wild horse collided with a second who struck a
third, which barreled into a fourth and fifth, and so on until what was once an orderly group became a riot, a calamity that
instantly roared out of control.

There was nothing that anyone could do fast enough to stop it. It was a stampede, and it was coming right at the men.

C
HARLOTTE COULDN’T SHAKE
the feeling that the scene unfolding before her wasn’t actually real; it was as if she were watching an adventure serial
or a newsreel at the theater. Panicked horses churned up the earth, the previously pleasant clopping replaced with a threatening
thunder that shook the ground. Eyes bulged and manes twitched as the situation grew deadly serious. The fear was so thick
in the air that she felt as if she could reach out and touch it.

With the horses trapped between the wooden fences of the corrals, there was nowhere for them to go but forward; they raced
that way in a state of frenzy. Dave Powell tried to turn his horse toward the ruckus behind him, but it caught up to him so
quickly that there was nothing he could do. The muscles on his forearms strained as he desperately tried to maintain control
of his horse, but his
mount was determined to bolt and he found himself swept up in the melee.

Ahead of her, Charlotte could see Hale’s mouth opening and closing, as he shouted instructions, but she couldn’t hear a sound
save for the charging horses and the incessant beating of her own heart.

Someone was going to get killed…

The situation was growing worse by the second. One of the ranch hands was unlucky enough to be caught in the passageway between
the corrals; the man was too close to the onrushing horses to have time to squeeze through the fence to safety. The first
horse struck, smashing him into the railing with impressive force before sending him crashing to the ground in a heap. The
horse barreled on. Charlotte feared that the man had been killed. Then she was relieved to see him curl up his body and cover
his head with his arms.

While most of the stampeding horses raced straight forward, several of the more panicked animals tried to find other ways
to get away; a black horse with a white spot high between its eyes leaped into the air, bringing its hooves crashing into
a section of fence, intent on getting either over it or through it. The force of the horse’s blow buckled the wood, but the
fence held. The screams the horses made spoke of their terror.

Snippets of conversation floated to where Charlotte stood, incomplete and unfinished.

“… get to the gate before…”

“Watch out for that…”

“Charlie needs…”

“Luke! Be careful of that…”

Charlotte felt that she should do something, but she had no idea what. As on the day of the fire, she knew that nothing was
expected of her, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t want to help. She would never be content to stand by while others worked.

Before she could decide on a course of action, a horse collided flush with the fence of the corral on which she stood. Its
powerful body sent such strong reverberations down the length of the rails that Charlotte’s hands were unable to maintain
their grip and she was flung off and onto the ground, landing painfully hard on her hip.

Quick as she could, Charlotte righted herself. Only moments before, she had felt that the events unfolding around her were
straight out of the motion pictures, but now they seemed unbearably real. While the danger of the fire had pressed her from
all sides, she had not known the fear she felt now.

Thankfully, the terrorized horses were not racing forward in a steady group, but straggling along. Just next to her, a tan
and white horse hurtled past, a few feet from where she sat, frothy spittle flying from its lips, the wind of its passing
strong enough to tug at her clothes. In front of her, horses continued to collide with one another, into the railings, everywhere
they could possibly go; a pair of them even managed to make their way into the main
corral as had been intended. The chaos was everywhere, overpowering.

You’ve got to move… you’ve got to go now or you’ll be trampled!

Desperately, Charlotte looked around for help; it was then that she saw Owen. He was opposite her, halfway through the fence,
his eyes on her as he gauged their surroundings. Suddenly, he raced into the gap between two horses, waved his arms at the
deadly approach of another, before diving headlong to his left, landing on the ground and rolling until he reached her. Without
a word, he covered her with his body, shielding her as another horse pounded past, its powerful hooves missing his leg by
scant inches.

“We can’t stay here!” he said in her ear.

“You don’t need to tell me that!” she murmured in confusion. “What?”

“Now isn’t the time to ask questions! Go! Go! Get to your feet and run!”

Unsteadily, Charlotte did as Owen told her, rising to her feet and stumbling forward, paying no attention to the charging
horses as she desperately tried to make her way to the fence railing. Safety lay beyond, so she focused on it. Her hip hurt
from where she had landed on the ground, but she ignored it as best she could. The fence was so close, only a matter of feet,
but it seemed miles.

Without warning, Owen shoved her hard from behind, sending her sprawling into the loose dirt, her chin striking
the ground. She never thought to pause and wonder what had happened, choosing instead to crawl and scramble, one handful of
dirt following another, inch by painful inch. She was just about to the bottom rail of the fence, about to crawl under to
safety, when a sound reached her ears that stopped her cold, freezing the blood in her veins.

Behind her, Owen yelled in agony.

The force of the collision lifted Owen from his feet as easily as if he had been a rag doll, tossing him into the air without
effort. The blow from the horse’s thick body was tremendous, sending brilliant chards of pain running wildly down the length
of Owen’s body. It brought an agony unlike anything he had ever felt before. For a long moment, everything went blacker than
the deepest night. His head incessantly rang like a church bell on the day of a wedding. All the air in his lungs was driven
out by the force of the impact, leaving him gasping for air; he winced painfully from the effort and wondered if he hadn’t
cracked a rib. When he hit the ground, he was so dazed that he thought he must have banged his head against a rock or a fence
post. Desperately, he struggled against the urge to sleep, to close his eyes and let the pain simply fade away.

When the stampede began, he’d been standing beside Pete, preparing the corral for the horses’ imminent arrival. The stampede
had happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Owen had stood frozen in those first seconds, in
disbelief. Then his concern for Charlotte easily overrode his surprise.

Charlie!
he shouted silently.

Owen found her on the fence rail and had hoped that she had enough good sense to climb over and run to safety. But then she
had fallen and he’d begun to run. Facing down the onrush of terrified horses, he’d proceeded without regard for his own life;
it was irrelevant, unnecessary. Nothing mattered except getting Charlotte out of the corral.

Once he’d managed to make it to where she lay, Owen had been glad but hardly relieved; they were still in the corral with
the frenzied horses. Once he’d gotten Charlie moving, a horse turned directly toward her. Owen acted without thought, pushing
her out of the way even though it had placed him right in the path of the charging animal. He’d closed his eyes an instant
before he’d been struck.

And damn! It hurt!

Now he lay on his back, blinking the confusion from his eyes. Everything seemed muted, dull. Blackness crept over his vision
and the pounding of the horses’ hooves, their panicked whinnying, sounded like it was happening far away. Somehow, he managed
to turn his head to see Charlotte just out of his reach. She was shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear a word she said. Deep
down he knew that he needed to get to her.

With great effort, Owen rolled over onto his side, then to his knees. For all he knew, another horse might
be barreling toward him, intent on finishing the job the first had started, but he hadn’t the energy to look. He kept his
eyes locked on Charlotte, even if he couldn’t see her clearly, and never wavered.

“You can make it, Owen!” he heard her shout.

I hope you’re right, Charlie…

A horse’s hoof landed so close to Owen’s foot that, he knew in his befuddled mind, when it rose to take another step it would
strike his boot. At any moment he could be severely injured, perhaps killed. All he could do to prevent it was keep going…

Suddenly, a huge shape loomed up before him, blocking out Charlotte. He couldn’t tell if it was on her side of the fence or
his, but it surprised him so much that he quit moving.

“Give me your hand, damn it!” a man’s voice shouted.

Owen heard it as clearly as if his head were submerged in the horses’ water trough, but the meaning wasn’t lost on him. Straining
his sore muscles until his shoulder hurt from the effort, he reached out, wriggling his fingers, hoping to find purchase.
Like a vise, a hand clamped down on him, pulling him roughly across the ground and through the fence.

“You’re hurt!” Charlotte cried, her hands touching his face.

“It isn’t… that bad,” Owen wheezed. “Just… every bone in… my body…”

“Just lie there. Don’t move.”

“Don’t think… I got much choice in the matter…”

The last of the traumatized horses raced past heading down the remaining length of the passageway. Men ran after them, shouting,
yelling, and whistling more to one another than to get the horses’ attention. The whole thing hadn’t lasted longer than a
few minutes, maybe two or three, but that had been more than enough time for significant damage to be done.

Owen lay still, hoping that the world around him would finally stop spinning. It was just beginning to slow a bit when a man’s
face leaned down toward him. He recognized him immediately; even as dazed as Owen was, it was impossible to miss a man Hale’s
size.

“I reckon that… I got you to thank for pulling me out of the way…”

“You would’ve done the same for me, wouldn’t you?” Hale asked, a hint of a smile poking through his rough exterior.

“Maybe,” Owen answered. “Don’t know if I’d be strong enough… to pull you out, though…”

Hale chuckled, the humor a pleasant break from the wreckage the stampede had wrought. “You done right good today.”

“He saved my life!” Charlotte exclaimed.

“And for that I’m grateful.” Hale nodded. “But now ain’t the time for us to be thankin’ each other. Now’s the time to figure
out what the hell just happened.”

Charlotte started to say something, but it was lost to
Owen. The urge to close his eyes had become too great to ignore, so instead of continuing to fight it, he gave in and let
the blackness wash over him.

Charlotte sat on a pile of hay bales that had been tossed beside the open doors of the tack barn. She was glad to be out of
the afternoon sun but annoyed when she had to occasionally swat at insistent flies buzzing about her head; they seemed utterly
absorbed with nipping at her, even after she managed to kill a couple of them.

A couple of hours had passed since the stampede that had nearly cost her and Owen their lives. Her heart still hadn’t managed
to settle down. Every loud noise, the sound of a hammer being tossed aside or one of Salt’s barks, set her off, certain that
another calamity was about to take place.

Owen had been taken up to the main house just as soon as the horses were rounded up and safely put away in their corrals.
A couple of other men were hurt even more seriously than Owen. Charlotte had followed the procession, fretting every step
of the way, holding on to Owen’s hand so tightly that their fingers had gone white. Once he was placed in a room, the tears
she’d been holding back burst free. Owen tried to assure her that there was nothing to worry about; he even promised that
he would be well enough for them to go roller-skating later in the week. Amelia had come in and shooed her away, explaining
that
there was nothing she could do for him besides worrying herself sick.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done ever since…

Del had comforted her for a while, trying to explain to her that these sorts of things happened from time to time, part of
living on a ranch, and that there was nothing that could have been done to prevent it, but he was soon called away to help
with the repairs to the broken fence posts.

“I hear that you had something of a close call.”

Charlotte looked up to see John Grant’s smiling face; she couldn’t tell if it was the shadows thrown by the barn, but he looked
older all of a sudden, as if the events of the day had prematurely aged him.

“I could have been killed. Owen too.”

“Speakin’ for all of us, I’m mighty happy to see the two of you still with us.”