Winds of Wyoming (A Kate Neilson Novel) (3 page)

He watched his dog feverishly zigzag up the hill following the fence line, probably hot on the trail of a jackrabbit. Most of the herd grazed some distance from him, spread across a brown-green hillside splotched with snow dollops and outlined by the blue of the Sierra Madres. High above him, a pair of hawks floated on an air current.

The scent of dung drifted on the breeze. One buffalo cow scratched her back on a low tree branch, grunting with pleasure, while another wallowed in a mud hole. Others chewed their cud in apparent quiet contemplation. In contrast, cinnamon-colored calves cavorted like school kids at recess.

Tranquility. The perfect word to define the moment. Whatever the ATV driver was up to, he or she hadn’t messed with his animals, thank God.

Tramp barked.

Mike turned toward the yap, thinking the dog had cornered the rabbit. Instead, his collie stood nose-to-nose with a calf—on the wrong side of the fence. Mike did a double-take before running toward the pair. He stopped when he saw a break in the wire.

So that’s how,
flashed his first assessment of the situation. The second followed immediately. The calf had a momma who would charge to its rescue sooner than later—and faster than a creature her size should be able to move. He yelled, “Tramp. Tramp, come here!”

Tramp’s attention did not waver from the calf.

Though his dog’s behavior frustrated him, Mike knew the stray calf activated his herding instinct, one as deep-rooted and powerful as that of salmon swimming upstream to spawn. He studied the cows closest to the calf. Some grazed, their tails twitching away the flies. Others rested. They all appeared passive, but he knew one of them belonged with the calf. The minute the calf bawled, his dog was in trouble—and at least two buffalo would be loose.

Tramp barked again.

Mike winced, knowing his dog was attracting the cows’ attention.

But the calf jumped to the side, ready to romp with its newfound playmate.

Mike started toward the pair, calling for his dog. But then he stopped, spun on his heels and raced for his truck. He’d create a visual barrier with the pickup to hide the hole in the fence and then signal Tramp to herd the calf back where it belonged. Glad he’d left the key in the ignition, he started the truck, jammed the gears into first, released the clutch and charged across the road onto the prairie. He’d worry about reseeding later.

The calf halted mid-frolic to stare at the advancing truck before it let out a
where’s my momma?
bellow.

Mike gripped the steering wheel tighter. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. He slowed the pickup and scanned the herd. Several bison lifted their heavy heads. A lone buffalo raised her head
and
her tail. Not a good sign. He pounded the horn.

The calf scampered through the gap toward the herd.

From the road, he gunned the truck uphill alongside the fence, maneuvering it as close as he could to the gap before stopping. The passenger side was angled precariously higher on the hillock than the driver’s side, but that was the best he could do. He rammed the gearshift into neutral, stomped the emergency brake to the floor, jumped out and dashed toward the road, yelling for Tramp as he ran.

Hearing nothing, he turned his head to see if the dog had followed. He promptly lost his footing and landed face-first in a puddle. Sputtering and floundering in the frigid mud, but knowing the buffalo could be right behind him, he scrambled for footing. Before he could stand, a booming metallic crunch fractured the air.

Mike staggered—and slipped again. Blinking brown water from his eyelashes, he looked up just in time to see the pickup balance for a brief moment on the driver’s side wheels before it clattered onto its side.

As the sound of the crash echoed between the hills, he braced himself for another blow by the buffalo, one that would knock Old Blue all the way over. He waited, but nothing happened. Finally, the melodic lilt of a meadowlark broke the silence like a church bell on a winter morning.

He was just beginning to breathe again when a terrifying thought bolted through his head. Maybe the cow would weary of the pickup and charge him instead. He tensed, ready to sprint into the trees—until he saw her saunter toward the herd with the calf at her side. Dropping backward onto his elbows in the icy muck, he watched the wheels of his dad’s favorite pickup spin in the air. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”

Tail wagging, Tramp bounded through the mire to lick his master’s wet face.

Mike shoved the dog aside and crawled out of the puddle spitting dirt.

Tramp crept away, head down, tail between his legs.

Once he got to his feet and wiped the grime from his face, Mike retrieved his hat from the water. He hit it against a fence post. Mud sprayed from the brim like the bursts of frustration that shotgunned through his chest. The nearest dry-cleaning facility, which was fifty miles away, charged a fortune to clean hats. He didn’t even want to guess the cost to repair Old Blue.

He shivered and limped to the truck to look for his jacket, noticing for the first time that his shin hurt. Must have hit it on a rock.

The engine was silent. He peered through the front window. No way could he reach his coat. He dropped the hat in the open passenger window and turned to examine the barbed wire that drooped from posts adjacent Old Blue’s chassis. The separations were clean, the strands apparently cut one-by-one. Now the ATV trail made sense.

Chapter Three

THE BRANCHES OF THE
evergreens that fringed the Battle Mountain Highway danced in the wind and scented the air. The same fresh breezes swirled through Kate’s car windows, lifting her hair. Each time she saw a break in the trees along the highway, she slowed to gaze at mountains as far as she could see. But it was when she approached a clearing with wildflowers sprinkled across a sunny hillside like confetti flung from a rainbow that she stopped for pictures. She’d taken several at the overlook, but this was an opportunity for wildflower close-ups.

When she returned to her car, she noticed a brown pickup parked some distance behind her car. Was it the same one she’d seen in the church’s parking lot? Probably not. She hadn’t paid much attention to it. Maybe she was losing her street smarts after all, which might be a good thing. Time to stop acting like a criminal, always watching her back.

Kate started the engine and pulled onto the highway. The tangy smell of sagebrush drifted through the windows. Though the pickup didn’t immediately follow, as soon as it appeared in the rearview mirror, she steered to the right and waved it ahead, something she’d seen other slow western drivers do. But this driver didn’t take the hint.

Fine
. It was just too pretty a day to hurry. She turned her attention to the herd of antelope that stopped grazing long enough to watch her pass by. Behind them, a loop of cottonwood trees followed the river’s meander through the valley. A long-legged, long-eared rabbit hopped across the highway into a clump of sagebrush, one of the thousands of gray-green bushes she’d seen dotting the prairies on her westward drive.

Just before Copperville, she crossed a bridge sporting a
Little Snake River
sign—an appropriate name for the serpentine curves she’d viewed from the terrace behind the chapel. She slowed. The breeze that had buffeted her car all the way from the overlook spluttered to a standstill between the crags that sheltered the small town.

She downshifted, feeling lighter than she had in years, as if the wind had swept her sordid past onto the maternal slopes of the Sierra Madres, the Rocky Mountain “mothers” that straddled the Wyoming-Colorado border. Maybe she’d finally found a place to call
home
.

Kate’s stomach growled. She looked at her watch
.
Ten-thirty. Not quite lunch time, but she’d missed breakfast. No wonder her belly complained. She surveyed the few buildings she could see scattered across Copperville’s rugged slopes. She’d be lucky to find a restaurant open on a Sunday morning in such small, isolated place.

She drove at a snail’s pace past a Texaco station and Bogie’s Bar, which flashed a neon OPEN sign. She took a second look. That was different. Pennsylvania bars didn’t open until eleven on Sundays. Thank God she no longer craved alcohol or meth the moment she awoke.

Next came Copperville Community Bank and the Cut, Curl & Comb beauty shop. Glancing at the rearview mirror, she saw the brown pickup park in front of the bar. On the other side of the beauty shop, a fire truck, ambulance and police car flanked a single-story structure labeled COPPERVILLE TOWN HALL.

Kate cringed at the sight of the police car, instantly despising her gut reaction. Oh, how she longed to be a better person. Someone who stayed out of jail. Someone who didn’t have a criminal mentality. Someone who had no reason to fear cops.

Across the street from the Town Hall stood the Copper Fever Gift Shop. Main Street also hosted a small post office and a hardware-grocery store. At the far end of town, across from the Sleepy Time Motel, she saw Grandma’s Café, which appeared to be open. Several cars were parked beside it and red shutters framed a bright WELCOME sign in the door. Kate flipped on the right turn-signal, wondering if it was necessary when she didn’t see any other cars on the road. But she had to mind her Ps and Qs and stay on the good side of the local authorities.

The sound of rocks crunching beneath her tires in the graveled parking lot made her think of eating Ritz crackers while reading in bed, something she hadn’t been able to do for years. Maybe she’d stop at the store before she left town to buy crackers and paperback books. Freedom, she was learning, was as much about the small pleasures of life as it was about new opportunities.

Kate locked the car and hurried toward the restaurant, anticipating home-cooking and the smell of Grandma’s fresh-baked bread—or maybe apple pie. Instead, she walked into a cloud of grease-laced cigarette smoke, a smell she knew all too well. Reminded of her hustling days when she worked one sleazy, smoky, Pittsburgh joint after another, she considered leaving. But Grandma’s was apparently the only place in Copperville to eat, and she was hungry.

She glanced around the room. A group of middle-aged women chatted at a table, their voices obscured by Elvis singing from the corner jukebox about crying in a chapel. Three teenagers slouched against the old forty-five player, perusing the selections. Other patrons sat in the booths along the wall, smoke spirals rising above them.

Near the door, she saw a pudgy woman with spiked hair and dangly earrings leaning against a counter, a cigarette in one hand. The bronco on her brown-and-gold Wyoming Cowboys tee-shirt was stretched so taut it looked more like a weasel to Kate than a stallion.

The waitress blew a puff of smoke. “We serve breakfast and lunch until three, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Kate dropped her keys into her purse. Funny. She’d pictured Grandma in an apron, not a tee-shirt.

“Sit wherever you want, missy.” She aimed her cigarette toward the seating. “Smoking in the booths, non-smoking at the tables, unless …” She winked. “Unless the boss is out of town, which he happens to be today.” She flicked ashes into a small bowl. “Be with you in a minute.” Her husky voice suggested it wasn’t the first cigarette she’d ever smoked.

Kate sat at a table near the door, noting the vacuum cleaner in the corner and the map of Wyoming above it. Elvis was still singing about the chapel. That’s what she should have been doing at Highway Haven. Praying and crying out to God, not attacking an old lady. She studied the map until she located Copperville. The Whispering Pines Guest Ranch, she’d been told, was eighteen miles from the town.

Her insides fluttered, something that happened every time she thought about the Whispering Pines. Not only was she finally in Wyoming, she was going to spend an entire summer working on a guest ranch. As Aunt Mary had said, who’d a thunk she’d fulfill her marketing internship in paradise. If the owners were pleased with her work and their budget allowed, they might even make her a permanent employee. She closed her eyes. It would be so wonderful to have a normal job on the outside and …

“Here’s your water.”

Kate blinked.

The waitress plopped a laminated list in front of her and plunked a glass on the table. Water droplets splashed onto the menu. “I know you folks from back east lock your cars and expect ice in your drinks, but Harry only lets us offer it in July and August. It takes water and electricity to make ice cubes, he says, and we’ve been in a drought for going on six years.”

“Uh, no problem.” Just because the waitress saw her drive in didn’t mean she knew all about her. Kate snapped the paper ring from the napkin that bound the silverware. Too bad she wasn’t wearing her state-pen ID tag. That would get the woman’s attention. She unwound the napkin from the silverware and wiped the menu with it.

“Know what you want?” The woman pulled a pad from her apron and a pencil from above her ear. “Or you need a couple minutes?”

“I’d appreciate more time, please.”

“I’ll be back in a bit.” She ambled away singing a nasal duet with Bobby Vinton.

Kate studied the youths who surrounded the jukebox and who appeared to be ordinary teens. Maybe the selection didn’t include recent hits. Even so, it was a change from the country-western songs most of the stations this side of the Mississippi played.

She scanned the lunch menu, hoping to find something under five dollars. That would leave her a few dollars for gas.

Someone spoke. “Are you new in town or just passing through?”

After a moment, Kate realized she was the one being addressed and looked up.

A neatly dressed woman about her age sat in a nearby booth, a cigarette in her left hand. Kate slid a little lower in her chair, acutely aware of the contrast between her ponytail and travel-weary Pittsburgh Steelers tee-shirt and her neighbor’s starched blouse and perfect strawberry-blond bob.

The woman dipped a tiny brush into a bottle of fingernail polish and painted a reddish-orange swath across her left thumbnail. “Just curious. Haven’t seen you in here before.” She sucked at the cigarette then pursed her coral lips to blow smoke at her thumb.