Elizabeth Lane - Wyoming Woman

Luke’s stormy gaze flickered toward her, then shifted to the dog. “Go, Mick,” he commanded in a soft voice. “Back to the sheep.”

Tail high, the dog wheeled and bounded back down the slope in the direction of the herd. But it had only gone a few yards when, abruptly, it halted in its tracks, ears up, nose to the wind. Rachel saw the hair rise and bristle along the back of its neck. A nervous growl quivered in its throat.

Luke glanced up from doctoring the lamb, his body tense and wary. Rachel held her breath, holding the lamb close as she strained to catch the danger the dog had sensed.

Luke’s expression darkened. “Get out of sight!” he hissed, shoving her up the slope toward an outcrop of boulders. “Stay behind those rocks and don’t make a move until I tell you it’s safe!”

Only then did Rachel hear what had alarmed the dog. Faintly at first, but growing rapidly louder, the ominous cadence of galloping hoofbeats rumbled from the far side of the hill. Whoever the riders were, they were moving fast. Seconds from now they would be in sight.

With the lamb still clasped in her arms, she plunged toward the outcrop. If the mounted men proved to be friends, she could always show herself. But until she knew who they were and what they wanted, it made more sense to stay hidden.

By the time she reached the rocks, Luke was in the saddle. He spurred the horse toward the herd. The dog shot ahead of him, a dark blur of motion against the pale green slope.

Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, Rachel pressed herself into a low spot between two jutting boulders. The lamb squirmed against her. Rachel’s grip tightened around the warm little body as she edged into a spot where she could look down on what was happening.

Four mounted cowboys appeared over the crest of the hill, riding hard. Just below the ridge they halted for a moment, their attention fixed on the broad, open slope and the slowly moving sheep below. Rachel’s breath caught painfully as she realized that, beneath their broad-brimmed Stetsons, their neckerchiefs were pulled up to cover the lower parts of their faces. Everything was masked except their eyes.

One of the men jerked his pistol out of its holster. “Let’s get ’em, boys!” he shouted, firing into the air.

Whooping like savages, the four men charged down the hill toward Luke’s herd. All of them had their pistols drawn now, and for a heart-stopping moment Rachel expected them to start firing at the sheep, or even at Luke. But that was clearly not their intent. As they fanned out, shrieking wildly and shooting into the air, she realized they meant to stampede the sheep and drive them over the ledge, as the Indians had once driven buffalo.

Their plan was working all too well. As panic swept through the herd, the frantically bleating sheep began to mill in circles. A ram wheeled and bolted in dumb terror toward the unseen ledge. Others followed, and suddenly the whole herd was plunging blindly through the scrub, headed for certain destruction.

Rachel had lost sight of Luke. Now, suddenly, she saw him, racing his buckskin horse full out along the rim of the ledge. One of the dogs dashed ahead of him. The other was already tearing along the forefront of the herd, lunging at the leaders, snapping and biting as it dodged their butting heads and flying hooves.

A man, a horse and two small dogs. Could they head off three hundred stampeding sheep and scores of lambs in time to save them? Rachel pressed forward between the rocks, almost forgetting to breathe as she strained to see what was happening.

The four masked men were keeping to the rear of the herd, aiming their shots well above the sheep. Clearly they had no wish to be recognized, nor to do anything that would force the hand of the law against them. In order to file any complaint, Luke would need proof that the stampede had not been an accident. A bullet in a sheep or dog would provide that proof. But the marauders knew better than to give him that advantage. As things stood, Luke would have nothing but his own word. And Rachel knew that would not be enough.

Not unless he could produce another reliable witness to the crime.

Catching the scent of fear, the lamb in Rachel’s arms began to struggle and bleat. Rachel clasped the little creature close, stroking its quivering body and praying that the plaintive racket it made would not give her away. If the riders discovered her presence, any number of things could happen, all of them ugly.

The sheep were no more than a stone’s throw from the precipice and still running full out. Rachel’s heart crept into her throat as she watched Luke’s frantic efforts to turn them aside. He was leaning forward, almost standing in the stirrups as his horse thundered along the top of the ledge. As he rode, he shouted and flailed the air with his hat. The dogs, saved only by their lightning quickness, darted like thrusting rapiers into the herd, snarling, nipping, retreating to attack another charging animal.

Despite her feelings about sheep and their owners, Rachel caught herself praying aloud. “Please, God…don’t let them go over. Let them turn…let them turn…”

On the brink of the ledge, Luke was running out of maneuvering room. With nowhere to go, he was pressing his mount into the forefront of the stampeding herd, risking horse and sheep and man. The terrified buckskin snorted, trying to rear above the milling herd while Luke fought to keep the animal under control. If the horse lost its footing, he would be swept over the precipice with the sheep. Even now, Rachel realized, his only chance of escape lay in plowing straight back through his own herd. But that would mean abandoning the sheep to their own destruction—something, she sensed, Luke would never do. She was watching a man fight for his dream. He would defend that dream with his life.

The dogs tore in and out among the sheep, snarling and biting in a frantic effort to head the leaders away from the precipice. Rachel swallowed a scream as the buckskin reared and staggered backward. The big gelding shrieked as one rear hoof slipped over the crumbling ledge. For a breathless instant, horse and rider teetered between life and death. Then, with a desperate lunge, they regained solid ground.

Spooked, perhaps, by the rearing horse, the sheep began to turn. The leaders swung hard to the right, and the rest followed, allowing the dogs to drive them away from the edge of the cliff. Like a woolly gray-white river, they flowed down the long slope of the hill toward the plain below.

Luke had paused to rest his gasping horse. His eyes glared across the distance as the four cowboys hung back, watching. For a moment Rachel feared they would fire at Luke or try to stampede the herd again, but it seemed they’d had their fill of mischief for the day.

“We’ll be back, sheep man!” the leader crowed at Luke. “Next time you won’t be so lucky!”

Luke kept his proud silence, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a reply. Rachel studied the defiant set of his shoulders, wondering how many times men like these had hurt and humiliated him. No wonder he hated cattlemen. No wonder he hated her.

Swearing and hooting with laughter, the cowboys holstered their guns, wheeled their mounts and cantered back up the hill. Only then did Rachel realize her own danger. The four riders were headed in a direction that would take them right past the rocks where she was hiding.

By now the lamb in her arms had begun to miss its mother. It squirmed and bleated in Rachel’s arms, butting its head against her breasts with a force that was so painful it made her wince. Rachel’s heart sank as she realized the little creature was hungry and looking for a place to nurse. The noise it was making had been lost amid the clamor of the stampede, but now that things had quieted down, its bleating was loud enough to lead the cowhands right to her.