Helen DePrima - Into The Storm

“Reckon we’ll try your way first.” A younger man, tight-muscled under a Blue Seal T-shirt, sauntered forward with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Since Ma’s set on it. I’m Gary Norquist—just holler when you need help.”

Shelby sighed inwardly—one of those. He would give her no respect as a woman or as a trainer. Jerks like the truck driver were less trouble. She could blow them off with Stranger’s help, but she needed to work around Gary Norquist.

She wished for the hundredth time she looked her age or, even better, as old as she felt. She played down her looks the best she could. Once, she had cut her hair boy-short, but it had grown out in a halo of soft dark curls, making her look maybe fifteen. Skinning it back in a braid at least looked businesslike. She stuck with relaxed jeans and shapeless shirts, rarely wore shorts and didn’t own a dress. Sometimes in her dreams she felt a skirt flutter around her knees and woke with her heart pounding, weeping tears she never shed in her waking hours.

“Thanks, but I work strictly with the horses’ owner. Stranger, to me,” she said without turning her head. She heard a scramble of claws, and the dog sat at her side, ears pricked.

The smirk faded from Gary Norquist’s face.

“You must be Shelby.” A lanky woman with gray-shot auburn hair haphazardly gathered into a bun had come up behind them. “I’m Liz Norquist,” she said, wringing Shelby’s hand. “The boys keep saying horse-breaking is men’s work, but I reckon we’ll show them different. Come, see the horses.” She strode toward a fenced enclosure, her denim skirt flapping around her legs.

Her husband and son fell in behind her, Gary rolling his eyes and muttering. “Come along, Jake,” Ross said. “See what we’ve let ourselves in for.”

“We did like you told us,” Liz said. “Water and good hay, otherwise we’ve let them be.”

Three horses stood at the far end of a long corral. Two mares huddled together while a young stallion possibly two years old stamped and snorted at a little distance. Shelby studied the horses. One of the mares, a red roan, looked close to foaling but in decent shape for wintering on the open range. The younger bay mare clung close to the older horse’s side. The colt stood between the other horses and the humans by the fence.

Ross pointed at the colt in disgust. “I agreed to a couple of mares, and they show up with that! Guess he pushed into the trailer with the others and they couldn’t get him out. Last thing I need around here is a stud making trouble, but he might make a decent cow pony once he’s cut.”

Shelby almost protested at the thought of gelding the colt. He looked like a throwback to Barb ancestors, rose-gray with his reddish baby coat already shading toward silver. His shaggy forelock couldn’t disguise the dished face and delicate ears of a classic Arabian. She sighed. Most owners wouldn’t chance a mare with a stud of undocumented lineage and no guarantee he’d breed true.

Liz jostled her elbow. “When do we start?”

Shelby checked the corral; ample hay lay scattered near the fence, and a stock tank brimmed with water. “Tomorrow morning,” she said. “No more hay today—I want them a little hungry.”

She turned to Norquist. “Can you put up a round pen? I won’t need it tomorrow, but soon.”

“We figured you’d want one—got the sections ready.”

“Guess you’re all set,” Jake said. “I’ll get along home.” He dug into his wallet and handed her a battered business card: Cameron’s Pride—Red Angus—Hesperus CO. “Call me if you need a ride to get your car. I still owe you.”

She took the card. She had been at ease with Jake Cameron, almost a sense of homecoming and a quiver of something long forgotten or ruthlessly beaten down. Loneliness swept her as she watched him walk away. She shook it off and stuck his card in her pocket before turning back toward the corral.

CHAPTER FIVE

JAKE PULLED THE sack of dog food from his truck and leaned it against the barn. He’d heard a thing or two about Gary Norquist, but Shelby should be safe enough with Stranger at her side. He looked once more at the group by the corral, sighed deeply and got behind the wheel. Maybe she’d call him; more likely Ross and Liz would drive her to Albuquerque and make a weekend of it.

He’d felt pretty decent riding up from Cuba and then driving from Durango. Now his head ached anew and the scrape on his cheekbone burned. He checked his watch—coming on to noon, plenty of time to reach the ranch before Lucy got home from school. At least his beat-up face would give them something to talk about for a minute or two before she left again or shut herself in her room.

Tom and Luke would be home by suppertime. Lucy got along fine with her brothers, using them as a buffer between herself and her father. They didn’t encourage her acting ambitions, but they understood her passion to chase a dream. Weekends were the worst, with the boys on the road, but Lucy’s drama club activities and her job kept her out of the house.

All said, Jake might as well not have a daughter. Somehow the sunny little girl who had been his and Annie’s delight had become a beautiful but sullen stranger who slept under his roof. She seemed to hold some secret grudge against him, but when he asked her outright to tell him what was wrong, she would say only, “You wouldn’t understand, and it’s too late anyway.” He’d hardly had a civil conversation with her since Annie died.

Tire tracks in the snow led from the main road to the log ranch house, the same vehicle in and out after the snow had stopped during the night. Mike must have brought her home in his rig this morning to pick up what she needed for school. Jake’s relief shamed him—hours before he would have to deal with her. Maybe he should just give in, let her drop out of school and see how she liked making her own way in Tinsel Town.

He gritted his teeth. She was going to graduate if he had to drive her to the high school every morning and pick her up in the afternoon. He only hoped Mike could persuade her to follow him to the University of Colorado after her senior year.

He had just backed up to the feed shed to unload when Luke and Tom arrived in Luke’s Explorer. Luke handed Tom a pair of crutches and held the kitchen door open for him to hobble through the back door.

A few minutes later Luke came out dressed in work clothes and rubber paddock boots. He grabbed a fifty-pound bag of cow cake from his father and slung it over his shoulder.

“Just a deep bruise, Doc thinks,” he told Jake. “He said Tom should skip next weekend if he’s got any sense.”

“Yeah, right.” Jake pulled another bag from the truck and turned to face Luke. “Before you ask, I put my rig in a ditch on the way home yesterday. Oscar asked if I drew Bodacious in the short round, but it looks worse than it is,” he said. “And I picked up a hitchhiker along the way—the lady horse trainer Ross Norquist ordered up for Liz’s mustangs. I dropped her off at their ranch.”

“Hitchhiking! In March? What the—”

“She got a ride from Albuquerque with a trucker who figured she should give him something extra for his trouble. She told him she’d rather walk.”

Luke whistled. “Hope she knows how to handle herself. One of these days Gary Norquist needs to get the whuppin’ he deserves.”

“Best kind of defense—she’s got a dog size of a weanling calf.”

Luke pulled a bale of straw toward the tailgate. “What’s this for?”

“Mulch—I thought maybe we’d try to bring the vegetable garden back.” Jake’s eyes flicked toward a weed-choked patch just south of the house. Annie had delighted in her kitchen garden. He and the kids had kept it up even when she could do no more than sit in a lawn chair and supervise. “Maybe Lucy will take an interest.”