Fired Up (14 page)

“Paul, you've heard how Vince, Jonas, Luke and I met in Andersonville Prison, right?”

He nodded. “I know a bit about it. A prison camp for Yankees during the War Between the States.”

“It was as mean a place as there's ever been on earth. I've been stabbed and starved. I've lived with fear and I've had a hand in bringing bad men to justice and seeing them hung. I've stood over bedsides while men died in agony. So don't think I don't know how I'd act if times got hard. I've faced some real hard times, son, and I came through them without taking to a path of evil.”

“You shot Greer.” Paul said it like an accusation.

Dare knew that no one had wanted Greer dead more than this boy. “Yes, I did. He was doing his best to kill my Regulator friends and me after we helped get you and your ma and Janny out of his house. He was bent on getting you all back, and he wasn't going to stop until someone stopped him. If there'd been a choice, I'd have let Greer live. Killing a man leaves a scar on your soul that never goes away. I hope and pray you never have to bear that scar, Paul.”

“Are you going to stay away from my ma or not?”

Dare wasn't about to make a promise he couldn't keep, and he wasn't going to make the mistake Glynna made of giving this boy the power to make a decision as important as whether or not Glynna let a man into her life. Dare thought of their kiss but shook the vision away. There was
no room in his life for kissing, not while he wasn't sure what his future might hold.

“I will promise you that I'll never treat your ma with unkindness or disrespect. And I will promise that I'll listen to you and do my best to earn your trust. But you need to promise me you won't take your anger out on me for things other men did. Maybe we can make a start on your letting go of your anger by working here with me when I've got a patient. You think about it, and while you're thinking, let's go hunting once Elias has gone home.”

By the frown on his face, Dare knew Paul wasn't satisfied with their talk, but his eyes did light up at the thought of hunting.

Then it flickered through Dare's mind that teaching this kid to handle a gun might be a real poor idea.

Dare and Vince rode side by side out to Luke's cabin, and then the three of them would drive a herd to Gil Foster's.

Dare had asked Paul to come along, but the boy wasn't interested. Just as well. Dare wasn't going hunting or doctoring today; he was helping with some ranch work, hopefully to figure out what it was cowboys did all day.

He thought he might end up embarrassing himself, and the fewer witnesses the better. He'd left Melanie to watch Elias and asked Paul to be on hand if any more help was needed. Glynna was going to stay with them as much as possible, too. Every day Dare could keep Elias in bed helped, though it wouldn't be for much longer. The young'un was healed enough to be restless.

Jonas didn't come. He was busy driving himself crazy getting his house ready for his chubby, bald sister to move in.

Dare didn't envy him the task or the sister.

Vince and Dare met up with Luke and fell in with him behind a herd of twenty cows, most with a calf running alongside and a couple of bulls thrown in. Luke had picked young cows with calves, born after the spring roundup, still
unbranded, so Gil could slap his own brand on them right away. Luke insisted that a chunk of the cattle Flint Greer had built up had come out of the Foster herd Greer had stolen, and it was only right that the Fosters get them back.

The cattle were placid, and driving them was proving to be simple. Dare thought he could handle ranching just fine. True, he wasn't learning any new cowboy skills, but he was enjoying the ride.

Several of Luke's cowpokes rode along, keeping the herd bunched. Luke, Vince, and Dare rode drag.

It was a crisp morning, the sun still low in the eastern sky. As the sun rose, it lit up the red in the canyon walls as they wound their way along.

“I've never seen the like of these red-striped stones,” Dare said. It was a raw, harsh kind of beauty. The ground was rugged. The canyon walls were torn away to show layer upon layer of red, all different shades. Palo Duro wasn't a welcoming, fertile land like Indiana. The grass was clumped and widely scattered, not lush pasture broken by rows of tall corn like Dare had known back home. But Luke's cattle were fat and contented.

They moved along at a fast walk. Luke held a coil of rope in his left hand and waved it occasionally at a lagging cow. There was no trail. Luke was following an old memory. The canyon floor was broken and rocky, so they moved along slow and easy. No sense harassing the cows or risking their horses with a mad rush.

“Luke, I've made my decision. I'm going to be a rancher.” Dare didn't see anything here he couldn't handle, although he knew they were going to brand these calves later and
he had no idea how to go about that task. “I've a mind to buy Greer's old land and change professions.”

“Do you have any money?” Luke asked.

“No.”

“Because you need money to buy the land.”

“Glynna offered to give him the land.” Vince jumped in, always talking.

“She did?” Luke frowned. “I don't know if that's right, taking land from a widow and her fatherless children.”

“I'm not taking her land,” Dare said in disgust. “What kind of coyote do you think I am? I can pay her—eventually.”

“Okay, fine. Then you'll need cattle and horses. It costs a lot to get a ranch up and running . . . unless, wait!” Luke sounded excited.

Dare thought maybe he could get this ranching concern going, after all. “What?”

“You can go out into the hills and round up some wild longhorns. But they can be killers—you've gotta watch the horns. Backbreaking work, yet there are cattle aplenty running wild. That's how my pa started his herd. I could loan you a few men and horses until you got a herd together.”

“I'd pay your men while they worked for me.”

“With no money?” Luke arched a brow.

“I'll pay you over time, like I'm gonna do with Glynna.”

“And maybe we could find a herd of wild mustangs and get yourself some horses that way. Rounding up wild horses is tricky. Then you've got to break them. I've ridden out by Greer's place. He's got a ramshackle cabin that probably won't stop the snow and cold wind through the winter.
And there are no outbuildings or corrals. You know how to patch holes in a cabin or raise a barn?”

Dare pretty much just knew how to be a doctor. In his youth he'd been a decent wheelwright too, with his pa's help. Now that he thought about it, he probably was fooling himself about the wheelwright skills. “I asked you to teach me, didn't I?”

“You don't have any hay for the winter, but there might still be some tall grass, winter-cured, on Greer's place. You know how to mow hay and stack it?”

“I can learn.” Dare thought maybe his voice, always deep and a little gravelly, qualified now as a growl.

“You know, cattle and horses get sick, too.”

Dare perked up. “I might kind of enjoy doctoring them.”

“Probably the best thing would be if you came out to my place and worked for me as a cowpoke,” Luke offered. “That'd be a good training ground. We'll see what kind of rancher you'd make.”

“I'm a little old to be starting out as a cowpuncher.”

Vince flashed a smile. “You're a little old for a lot of things, Dare, my friend.”

Dare had a surprising desire to wipe that smile off Vince's face with a fist. Vince seemed to know that, because he smiled even wider.

They didn't call him Invincible Vince for nothing, so Dare knew better than to take a swing. All the same, Dare enjoyed imagining it.

“Come on out.” Luke pulled his hat off, smoothed back his overly long brown hair with a swipe of one hand, then anchored his hair again with the hat.

Movement from the south drew Dare's attention.

“Here comes Red Wolf. I told him we'd be riding over to Gil's, but I wasn't sure he'd come along. Gil and Red Wolf and I had us a time running wild in these canyons.” Luke smiled at the memory. “Look at that man ride.”

Dare watched Luke's Kiowa friend ride his horse, no saddle, the only bridle woven strips of cured hide. The horse stretched out, galloping across the rugged terrain as Red Wolf leaned forward, his spine straight as a lance. Man and horse moved together with such grace it was like they were one.

A moment later, Red Wolf came even with them and slowed to match their pace, riding on Luke's right while Dare and Vince were on his left. “You say our friend Gil has returned?”

“Yep.” Luke reached across the space between his horse and Red Wolf's and grasped his friend's forearm. Dare noticed they clasped each other's arm over their scars, and he wondered if it wasn't a secret handshake of sorts.

“He's moved back into the cabin he grew up in. He's come into the country with a wife and three sons. The oldest of them had pneumonia, just like you had, and Dare's been doctoring him.” Luke told Red Wolf about the sick boy.

Red Wolf turned to Dare. “Your healing has helped another family, medicine man.”

Dare nodded his head. He couldn't reach far enough to shake the man's hand, but he felt as though there was a friendship between them.

“Maybe we oughta make Dare and Vince blood brothers like you, Gil, and me.” Luke raised his scarred forearm.

“That's a nasty cut.” Dare frowned at the ugly wound. “You're lucky you didn't sever a radial artery in your wrist and bleed to death or get an infection and die.”

“Yep, you're a natural as a rancher.” Luke and Vince laughed.

“No sense pretending to be a medicine man, Dare,” Vince added.

Red Wolf looked confused and might have asked what they were talking about, but then a cow made a break for home. Luke herded her back into line with such ease that Dare had serious doubts about his ability to ranch.

They rode four abreast, trailing after the cattle until they reached the Foster holding.

“Bunch the cattle on that grass and hold them there. Holler when they've settled in, and we'll get to the branding.” Luke's foreman, Dodger, took over while Dare and his friends swung down by the front door of the Foster cabin and lashed their reins to a hitching post—all but Red Wolf, who left his horse standing as if the horse stayed with him because it wanted to.

It was a one-story house, whereas Luke's house had an upstairs, but it was longer than Luke's. It looked more than big enough for a family of five. A fine-looking home, built with logs and the red stones that littered the neighboring canyon. A stand of cottonwoods was nearby, which had provided the logs for the house, and yet there were plenty of them left standing.

Gil opened the door, and the shrill laughter of his wild sons echoed out of the house. “Red Wolf!” Gil jogged across the wide porch and down three steps.

Red Wolf met Gil as he reached the ground. The two men shook hands in the same way Luke and Red Wolf had, then they laughed and Gil slapped the Kiowa man on the back. Luke joined in the good-natured talk, and Dare could see the boy in Luke, see more of the fires that had forged him into a strong soldier and a capable rancher.

After a few minutes, the Foster boys came charging out of the cabin, and Gil, a man with a lot of practice, snagged them both and held them wriggling in his arms. “These are two of my three sons, Red Wolf. Come on in. My boys will climb on your horses and go riding off if we don't pen them up.”

“I can pen up the horses,” Dare offered, though they looked fine standing tied to Gil's hitching post.

“No, I mean pen up my
boys
.”

They all laughed.

“Let's go in.” Gil hoisted the boys, one under each arm, as he went up onto his porch.

Dare watched Luke enjoy his friends, and the antics of Gil's boys reminded him of how fine a thing it was to see a child in full health.

They turned to the branding, and between the bawling cattle, the red-hot irons, the stench of burning cowhide, and two little boys who seemed determined to cast themselves into the fire or get hit by thrashing hooves, Dare wasn't sure what was even happening.

They were ready to leave when Dare saw Luke absentmindedly scratching his neck. Dare saw a red spot, then a closer look revealed another and another.

Measles.

“We'd better head out now,” Dare said. “By the way, Gil, have you and your boys ever had the measles?”

“Yep, sure have.” Gil's brow furrowed, curious about the unexpected question. “We've all had them. Why?”

“Luke, you need to stop scratching.”

“Why's that?”

“Have you had a fever?” Dare was struck by how differently he felt about Luke coming down with this than Red Wolf. There was a good chance Luke would be well in a few days with few, if any, complications. Why would such a thing be true? Some doctor, somewhere, needed to do some research on that.

“I feel fine.” Luke gave Dare a man-to-man look that said nothing could lay him low.

Dare had a feeling Luke was going to spend the next few days learning different. “We need to get you home.”

Dare decided he'd stay until he was sure Luke was going to get through this. It struck Dare that about the only thing that could make his life more hectic was if a cyclone blew into Broken Wheel.