“I added Dr. Mercer’s number to my service. He said he’d be happy to call on any ranchers who need a vet for the next week or so.”
“Old Doc Mercer?” Jonah shared a grin with Brand. “Isn’t he as old as dirt?”
Ham’s head came up sharply and he fixed his great-grandsons with a piercing look. “Something wrong with being old?”
“No, sir.” Jonah struggled to hold back a grin.
“That’s right, boy. And don’t you forget it.” Ham turned to Casey. “I’m glad Will Mercer is still able to lend a hand.”
“So am I. Otherwise, I’d never be able to enjoy some time away.” Casey glanced at the sky outside the window. “Great send-off breakfast, Billy. But now I’m out of here.”
Bo entered the barn just as Casey was loading his final supplies into his saddlebags. “I wish you’d consider taking one of the trucks, son.”
“That was my plan.” Casey nodded toward the snowflakes drifting past the open barn door. “But if it’s snowing down here, it’ll be waist-deep up in the hills.”
Bo wrapped a muscled arm around his son’s shoulders. “I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, no matter what the weather throws at you. But please check in from time to time, so my mother doesn’t have to lose sleep.”
“I will.” Casey bit down on the grin that tugged at his lips. His father had been saying the same thing for years. And always, Bo Merrick pinned Gram Meg as the worrier. But in truth, the loss of Bo’s wife, Leigh, had marked him for life. He was only truly happy when all his chicks were safe in the nest.
Bo hugged his son, who stood several inches taller. “Stay safe.”
“You, too, Pa.” Casey pulled himself into the saddle and turned his mount, Solitaire, toward the door. “I’ll check in as often as I can get service. But if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you just have to believe I’ve taken shelter somewhere and can’t get word to you.”
“I understand, son.”
As horse and rider started past the house, Casey spotted the entire family on the back porch, huddled in parkas, waving and calling their goodbyes.
With a nod to all, he turned Solitaire across a pasture and started up toward the distant mountains high above, which were wreathed in dark, ominous clouds.
Kirby Regan drove her truck to a lookout in the foothills of the Tetons and texted her boss with her location before stepping out. The crisp air had a bite to it, but that was to be expected in late October. It was perfect hiking weather. Warm enough by day to make good time into the hills, and cool enough at night to be comfortable in her insulated sleeping bag.
She had a rifle for protection and enough provisions to last a week, and if the weather held and luck was on her side, she’d be home in half that time.
Hearing the ding of a text, she dug her phone out from her pocket to check it.
Bring an approximate count of the mustang herds, and that promotion is in the bag.
With a smile, she slid her arms through the straps of her backpack, shouldered her rifle, and started out at a brisk pace.
When she’d left Wyoming after college, she’d headed straight to Washington, DC, hoping to make her career in the big city. The minute she’d set foot in the nation’s capital, she could feel the power in the air. The atmosphere there, so different from the small towns of Wyoming where she’d been raised, was like a drug. A by-the-books overachiever, she’d worked her way up the ladder in the Association of Land Management, and she probably would have continued the climb if she hadn’t come home for her uncle’s funeral. That brief visit had changed everything, bringing back a flood of happy memories that made her hectic life in the city suddenly unbearable.
Now she was back in Wyoming, and the silence and beauty of the countryside seemed all the more spectacular after her long absence. Oh, how she’d missed all this.
A cut in pay and a much lower rank in the Wyoming branch of the company made her more than willing to take on whatever tasks were assigned to her, just to prove to her supervisors that she had what it took to work in the field.
When this assignment had presented itself, she was thrilled to accept. As an expert hiker, she welcomed the task of heading into the hills to catalog the numbers of mustang herds she encountered. Since she was the rookie in the field office, her boss had told her this would go a long way toward cementing her position as someone who could deliver. As a carrot, he’d dangled the offer of a promotion in front of her. Not that she’d needed it. The thought of hiking alone in the Tetons was, to her, the assignment of a lifetime.
As she climbed, she adjusted her backpack, looking forward to a good workout. After spending the last few years exercising in a crowded, sweaty gym, she was back where she’d started, and loving every minute of it.
“You can do this,” she muttered aloud. “Piece of cake.”
By noon the misty rain-snow mix that had begun earlier had turned to snow in the higher elevations.
Kirby adjusted the hood of her parka and shouldered her backpack before following a trail that led into a heavily forested area. She knew by the fresh droppings that the herd wasn’t too far ahead.
As she crested a hill and stepped out of the woods, she caught sight of the mustangs just disappearing over a rise. Kirby counted six or seven, and wondered how many more had already slipped away. The stallion, all black except for one white foreleg, stood watch as the last of the mares moved out of sight.
Quickening her pace, Kirby crossed the distance, noting idly that the snow had picked up and was beginning to form drifts. But she wasn’t about to let a little snow keep her from cataloging this herd.
When she reached the top of the rise she looked down at the mustangs, which were moving more slowly now as they pawed the snow to graze on the range grass underneath.
She stopped dead in her tracks at the soul-stirring sight. From the time she was a little girl and caught her first glimpse of wild horses, it had always been this way. Though the Association considered them little more than numbers to be managed, she couldn’t deny her love for these wild creatures. To see them living free, as their ancestors had, touched her deeply.
She counted the mares, logged the number into her phone, then took a photo. At the muted click, the skittish stallion, sensing something unknown, began herding his mares toward a line of trees in the distance. Within minutes they blended into the woods like ghosts and were no longer visible.
Kirby sat on a fallen log and allowed her backpack to drop to the ground.
By the time she’d finished eating her sandwich, she looked around and realized the snow had picked up considerably.
If this storm continued, she would have to readjust her thinking. Instead of getting home ahead of schedule, this little trip was liable to drag on for a week or more.
Not a problem, she assured herself. If her pace was slowed she could easily ration her supplies to stretch beyond her self-imposed deadline.
She drained her protein drink, stashed the empty bottle in her backpack, and set out at a hurried pace, keeping an eye out for shelter in the event the snow became impossible to traverse.
Chapter Two