grassy spit off the bit, then he went on: “Even if our folks figured out we weren’t where we said we’d be, they couldn’t catch us. Like you said, that’s big, rough country up there, miles and miles of it. And we’d have a head start.”
Something loosened in my mind, hope muscling aside despair. “Might work,” I conceded. “And what could they say when we brought them home?”
Jasper grinned. “We’d come riding in with the whole herd trotting along ahead of us. You could keep the ranch. We’d be heroes!” His eyes flashed bright. “How many head are we talking about? A hundred, hundred and fifty?”
I considered for a minute, remembering back to last spring when we’d sorted out which cows would go. “Only about forty cow-calf pairs, I think.”
“We can do it, Cass.” He said it so simply, as if it were already done. “Look.” He held up his lucky horseshoe charm on its chain around his neck. “We can do it,” he repeated.
I stared out the barn window at the fields stretching away, the mountains starting to color pink with sunset, like I’d find the answer there.
And I did.
“Guess we’ve got nothing to lose if we try,” I finally said, “and everything to lose if we don’t.”
I stuck out my hand and Jasper took it and we shook on it. We had a plan.
Chapter 4
Cassie, are you with us?” Mrs. Norton’s voice roused me out of my daydreams. I sighed, hating to let go. Seemed like there was so much to think about. I’d been packing my saddlebags in my head, thinking of all the things Jasper and I would need when we set off early next Saturday morning: food, of course, and water for us; the horses could drink from the streams and ponds, but I wasn’t going to take a chance on getting beaver fever, bedrolls….
“Cassie, would you please tell us the significance of blah blah blah….”
I couldn’t, of course.
“No, not really,” I admitted. “Um, could you repeat the question?” Tittering laughter around me and a bigger cough-laugh from the back of the room.
“Please move to the front row, Cassie. We’ll see if you can hear me better from there.”
I gathered up my books, slow trudged up to the front, and plunked myself down at an empty desk. Mrs. Norton started up again: blah, blah, blah and I drifted back to my saddlebag packing: wire cutters, hoof pick, leather gloves….
I’d been doing a little better in school since Jasper and I had stolen the horse. The importance of getting an education sunk in a layer. I’d seen what dropping out of school had done to Carl McCarthy, the horse’s owner, how he’d turned into a criminal. After that, I studied harder, read more, paid attention in class … sometimes.
But nobody could expect a person to think about algebra and history when she’s getting ready to ride into the mountains and bring back a herd of cattle almost single-handed.
Of course, nobody knew about the plan but me and Jasper, so I could hardly use it as an excuse. Maybe when we came back as the heroes who saved the ranch I’d be excused for doing so poorly in school this week.
Maybe. I didn’t really care.
Jasper and I worked on the plan every day. After school, we went over the lists we made, the route we’d take, what we’d do if we encountered x, y, or z unexpected thing. (X = bad weather, y = predators fiercer than us, z = we get hit by lightning.)
That week before the trip, we gathered up the camping gear and extra horse tack and stashed it in an empty stall in the back corner of our barn where no one would see it.
In my room, I stuffed clothes into my backpack, watching over my shoulder for Fran or my pa the whole time. Jeans, T-shirt, flannel shirt, boot socks, blanket coat, sweater … hard to say what we’d need up there; fall in the mountains could be warm as summer, could be nice and cool, or could slam us with rain, sleet, or even snow. Nights would be freezing for sure.
Just looking at the snow inching down the mountains every day made me itch to get going. Our cows were up there somewhere. Winter was coming. Pa was ready to give up and sell out. We didn’t have much time.
Thursday evening after chores, Jasper and I checked off the list we’d agreed on as we sorted through the provisions in the back stall of my barn. Swallows swooped in and out of the diamond window of the hayloft. Willie whined and scratched at a pack-rat hole under a hay bale. Everything was peaceful and calm. Everything but my insides, and probably Jasper’s.
I tried not to show how nervous I was, so I grinned at him as we checked off the last items: flashlights and extra batteries. “We’re really doing it!”
“Yep,” Jasper nodded. “Day after tomorrow, we’ll be gone. You excited?”
“’Course I am. It’ll be fun, a piece of cake.” I said it, but didn’t entirely mean it. I had more than a few worries. Would just we two kids really be able to keep track of the herd? What if they got spooked and scattered? What if one of the horses tripped and broke a leg? Still, I kept my fears to myself—a plan was a plan.
I tried to sound confident. “I remember exactly where we left the cows last spring. There’s so much grazing in those meadows, I doubt they’ve have wandered far. The calves can’t cover a whole long distance, anyway.”
I went on, remembering the spring cattle drive. “We’ll ride on the highway for a mile or so, just to Gable Creek, then about five miles to where the road cuts off to Black Snake Mine.” I untied the baling twine around my sleeping bag and rerolled it tighter.
Jasper picked up the trail I was following in my head: “Then past the old gold mine. Do you think we’d have time to dig around there a little? Maybe we’d find some nuggets they missed….” Gold flecks sparkled in Jasper’s eyes when he talked about it.
“Maybe one of your ancestors was a miner, Jas. You sure do get excited about gold.”
“Remember the field trip to the Blue Bucket Mine? Remember the gold I found?”
“That little flake? I remember how you got in trouble for ditching the group and scratching around in the pile of tailings by the creek. Boy was Mrs. B. mad. She was about ready to get up a search party you’d been gone so long.”
Jasper smiled. “Yeah, maybe I’m a miner at heart. But if we stop at the Black Snake on the way to find the cows, I might find a big nugget! Then we could buy our own ranch and cows and….”
At first, I shook my head. His eyes lowered in disappointment. I felt bad; after all, he was helping me. I added, “Maybe just a short break. If we spend all Saturday poking around that old mine, we’ll never find the herd before dark. Besides, if there was any gold left, someone would have found it by now.”
“Entonces….” Jasper nodded slowly in agreement, but rubbed his hands together like a greedy villain in a movie.
We both laughed.
I found the cook kit in the pile; one pot and a wooden spoon, still crusty from our last camping trip. I scraped it with my thumbnail and smelled
