you’re not makin’ dust you’re eatin’ it.
Ever since returning to sleepy Carbondale for good, he’d battled a constant choking sensation. Seemed his old life wasn’t as easy to swallow anymore.
The returning shadows cast by a cluster of ponderosa pines suggested they’d passed lunch without a break, a fact confirmed by his rumbling stomach. They’d been laboring since dawn, ahead of the heat that now made his plaid shirt cling to his sore muscles and his thighs chafe beneath leather-chaps-covered jeans. Even his toes, crammed inside dirt-splattered boots, slid against each other.
He could sure use a drink right about now.
A whistle cracked through the air. He craned his head and spotted his brother James riding up with a three-month-old straggler secured across the front of his saddle. James pointed at a young heifer that’d wandered from the herd, shaking its head. Peering closer, Jared spied its leaking eye. He reached for the rope coiled at his side.
Pink eye.
They’d need to doctor it on the range before the infectious condition spread. He freed his rope and circled it as he closed in on the wayward steer.
Suddenly the calf spooked and bolted for a tree line fifty odd yards away. If it broke through there, it might tumble into the ravine on the other side and break its neck.
“Yee-haw!” hollered a familiar, blood-thirsty voice. He caught sight of his little sister, Jewel, streaking by atop Bear, her lariat lassoing above her Stetson.
He kicked Chance and galloped after her, clods of dirt spewing behind them as they thundered after the panicked cow. They didn’t need to exchange a word or a look to execute this familiar roping routine.
Giving Chance his head, his trained heel horse flashed past the young cow before pivoting to block its escape into the trees. Rope snaked through the air, and the lariat’s noose dropped neatly over the heifer’s head, checking its flight.
Jewel rode closer, the line held fast in her fist, her slim, freckled face set, dark eyes flashing beneath the wide brim of her hat.
He whistled under his breath. Jewel was greased lightning with a lariat. He’d expect nothing less of his talented little sis, who could, despite her size, outride, outshoot and outdo any of the Cade boys. She was headstrong and full of grit, and it had never occurred to his brothers to give her breaks for being “a girl.” To be honest, they were all a little bit afraid of her and her shoulder jab that kept them in line.
Most of the time.
The heifer wheeled, straining against the rope, while James continued circling his cord, waiting for the balking animal to settle enough for him to snare its hindquarters. Trying to shake Jewel’s rope, it swung its head, then spread its front legs, bracing and pulling. Getting nowhere, it raced back to the herd, then jerked to a halt at the end of the tether.
Jared advanced a couple of paces, then stopped, patient, steady, holding himself and Chance still, save for his circling rope. The blowing yearling dropped its head. A tense minute went by while Petey expertly hemmed in the animal, wearing it down without stressing it. Then, without warning, it reared up and kicked out its back legs.
Bingo.
Jared tossed his loop neatly around the calf’s hindquarters and lowered the lariat’s bottom edge to the ground, keeping it loose and flexible. His breath lodged in his throat as he waited, willing it not to slide off before he could cinch it around the animal’s girth. Petey charged the yearling so that it stepped back, straight through the noose.
“Got it!” whooped Jewel.
In a flash, he pulled, tightening the loop around the runaway’s belly. Jewel secured her line to her saddle and hopped off Bear, the jerking, straining yearling trapped between their ropes. In the grass, Petey sat on his haunches, his mismatched eyes intent, oversize ears pricked forward as he assessed the unfolding situation, eager as always to help the humans who’d once rescued him.
Jewel crept forward, a tie-down rope clamped between her teeth. Her horse, trained like all the ranch’s mounts, backed up a couple of steps to keep the line taut and the calf from thrashing. One kick could bust a kneecap or knock loose teeth, not to mention the risk of the animal injuring itself. Grabbing hold of the heifer’s head, Jewel expertly worked Jared’s rope over its hips and down with her other hand.
He wheeled Chance so that the loop slid to their quarry’s ankles. Then he jerked the rope, knocking it off its feet. It flopped into the soft, deep grass.
“Hold!” Jewel hollered. He circled Chance back and watched his sweating, straining sister tie up the heifer’s front legs, trussing the winded animal in a blur of movement. Then she hopped back on Bear and they walked their horses toward one another, slackening the ropes to give the straining calf more breathing room. It lifted its head, struggled to get back on its feet, then sank down again.
James trotted up, unbuckled his saddlebag and passed them eyewash. His dark eyebrows met over his nose. “Anyone seen Justin?”
A yowl rang out, answering that question. Their reckless younger brother, Jesse’s twin, raced by after a breakaway calf. Jared’s heart stopped at its proximity to the tree line and ravine. Riding that fast, Justin might not stop in time to avoid a fatal plunge.
At the last possible moment, Justin launched himself from the saddle and tackled the animal, wrestling it to the ground in a tangle of limbs, hooves and feet. A cloud of dust and grass rose. In two wraps and a hooey, he bound three of the heifer’s legs while his pinto circled back.
James swore a blue streak. “Someday he’ll kill himself.” He kicked his mount and joined their daredevil sibling.
“That’s the plan,” Jewel muttered, dropping to her knees beside their four-legged patient.
Jared joined her and ripped off the eyewash cannula’s wrapping. “He hasn’t been the same since Jesse.”
Jewel held the calf’s head as he flushed its red-rimmed eye. “It’s as if he’s daring death to take him like it did Jesse.”
“Justin loves playing the odds.” Using a sterile cloth, he carefully wiped the discharge from around the heifer’s eye.
“Playing a fool more like,” Jewel huffed. “Next time we hog-tie him.”
Their shared chuckle died off quickly. Justin wasn’t the only Cade affected by Jesse’s murder these past two and a half years. Jack, their oldest brother, had left home, became a bounty hunter and returned only once he’d captured Jesse’s killers. James, second oldest and ranch manager, had turned their operation into a fortress, determined to keep out the kinds of outsiders who’d taken their brother. Of course, all that changed once Sofia Gallardo, Jesse’s ex and mother of Jesse’s five-year-old son, Javi, showed up at the door and stole James’s heart.
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