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The Wrangler's Woman

By Davalynn Spencer

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Chapter 1

Ford Junction, Colorado
1881

Corra Jameson’s feet tingled. She paused midstroke in her sweeping and looked toward the open front door. A growing vibration worked its way into the soles of her shoes, and teardrop crystals on the hallway lamp trembled. She leaned the broom against the kitchen table and went to investigate.
Like a wasp buzzing down the hall, her niece flew by and out the screen door. Hard on the girl’s heels, Corra yanked her back from the narrow yard fronting Main Street—now a bellowing river of cattle.
Horns clacked together and dust churned, coating Corra’s lips. Two young outriders, one on either side, flanked the mass. Corra pressed Alicia against her skirts, the girl’s excitement pulsing beneath her hands.
“I saw them coming from my window upstairs.” Quite an event for an eight-year-old. Not much happened in Ford Junction, other than the arrival of trains, stages, and wagons for church socials. Certainly not a cattle drive through the heart of town—if a small store, depot, and boardinghouse could be called a town.
But Corra’s pulse beat as rapidly as the girl’s. She’d never seen the like, though tales of wild cowboys and life in the West were half the reason she’d come to Colorado. The other half propped up the porch upon which she stood—Baxter’s Boardinghouse. The only meal and bed at this juncture of the Denver and Rio Grande and the Texas Creek stage road.
She tightened her grip on Alicia’s shoulders and craned her neck for sight of the end. A dirty red dog and a third cowboy followed the herd. From the back of his dark horse, he appeared to command the whole procession, eyes roving over the cattle, flitting from side to side until they locked with Corra’s. She could not look away.
Everything about him, from his dirt-colored clothes to his piercing gaze, matched the pictures in her mind, painted there by dime novels and newspaper stories. He passed not ten feet from her and nodded, touching his hat brim. She watched until the last cow’s tail flicked around the bend in the road and only the dust remained, stirring around the flurry in her heart.
“You’re hurting me.” Alicia’s small hands pried open Corra’s fingers.
“I’m sorry, Ali. I didn’t realize I was squeezing so hard. But you nearly ran into the path of that herd.”
Alicia looked up with a scolding frown. “I am not a baby. I would have stopped at the edge of the road.”
Corra wiped the grit from her mouth, ruing the extra housecleaning needed now after that bovine parade. Why had she not gone inside and shut the door?
Holding the screen for Alicia, she knew exactly why she hadn’t gone indoors. Her imagination had latched as tightly to the passing cowboy as her fingers on her niece’s shoulders.
~
Josiah Hanacker kept a proud eye on Jess and Joe as they skirted the herd through town. They didn’t crowd or rush the cattle, just kept them from straying down side streets. Few folks were out—the reason he’d come through so early. Those who were watched from the boardwalks and porches like the woman at the boardinghouse. It wasn’t Letty Baxter reining in the yellow-haired girl. The woman’s bold gaze held longer than most. She tracked along with him until he had to look away to see where he was going.
Jess and Joe turned the herd south at Texas Creek, and in five more miles they’d be home. Lord willing, Pop would be waiting for them and not hurt or too stoved up. Josiah snorted. Stubborn ol’ coot refused to move to town. Said he’d die in his rocker on the front porch looking out over the ranch. Josiah drew his neckerchief up against the dust, and a smile pulled his dry lips. Were it not for his father’s grit, they wouldn’t have a ranch at all. He touched his heels to Duck’s flanks and loped ahead to Joe, who slumped in the saddle, dangerously close to tumbling into the herd.
“Joe!” His throat pinched from disuse. “Sit up, boy. We’re nearly home.”
The lad jerked, goosing his mount. Guilty blue eyes shone like chunks of sky in his grimy face, and he gathered his horse. Josiah chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder.
“You’re a hand, Joe. Don’t know how I would’ve made the trip from Texas without you riding flank.”
Pride shoved the boy’s shoulders higher, all serious and manly in his twelve-year-old skin. Josiah nudged Duck ahead. He’d been a dozen years himself when he’d ridden his first trail drive.
He pulled up alongside Jess. “When we get to the big rock that juts into the creek, fall back.”
A silent nod.
“They’ll spread out across the valley.” Josiah leaned forward and looked under the too-big hat. Jess nodded again and let go a full grin. “It’ll be good to be home, Pa.”
“You did a fine job, Jess. A real hand.”
Two hours later, Duck drew his ears forward. Sniffed familiar fields and the clear water creek that bent behind the ranch house. Josiah wet his lips and cut a whistle, and his children fell back. The lead steer caught wind of freedom, trotted toward the pasture, and the rest of the herd followed. Short ten by Josiah’s tally. Not bad for one man and two young’uns. He pulled his hat off and waved it in a circle. Joe wheeled his horse and made tracks for the ranch house, hollering like a Comanche. Jess followed, yanked off the floppy hat, and set her braids to flying.
At the house, they bolted from their horses and bounded up the porch steps to their grandfather’s crippled embrace. The old man’s laughter rang across the yard and set Rusty to barking and romping. The commotion was enough to wake the dead. A tight band cinched Josiah’s chest as he watched the shadowed door. Trail dust graveled his eyes and he blinked away the sting, tethered Duck at the corral, and joined his family.
Hosea Hanacker reached for Josiah’s hand with both of his. A little more bent than when they left in early spring, but not in spirit. “How many head?” Dark eyes sparkled, and his whiskered jaw tugged to one side, a constant reminder of the palsy.
“Near all one-fifty.” Josiah turned to his children. “See to the horses, then turn them out with the cattle.”
“Yes, Pa.” As close as twins in voice and deed, though a year apart, Jess and Joe bounded off the porch with Rusty yapping after them. Josiah squatted near the rocker.
“Lost ten by my count. Not bad for that many miles and being shorthanded.”
“Short, I’d say. But just in the stirrups. Looks like those two young’uns did fair to middlin’ for their part.”
Josiah dangled his hat from his hands. Shoved his hair back. “That they did. I’m proud of them.”
“The bull ain’t far, just up a gulch with a few old steers. Soon as he gets wind of the new heifers, he’ll come home.” Two gnarled hands gripped the rocker arms and Pop pushed upright. “Figured you’d be hungry and put a stew on. Got biscuits, too.”
Josiah had a mind to carry a soap cake down to the creek and let cold mountain water wash the dust from his skin, the miles from his bones. But he’d wait. He’d go later and visit Maisie. Tell her what good hands her children were. How sorely he missed her. In the cool of the evening he’d go, when the breeze ruffled through the aspen leaves and whispered over her grave.

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