Chapter 11

In the morning, it was tempting to dally in their bed. He knew that was a bad idea. He felt rough enough already, and wasn’t sure he could go through the emotional flailing of making love to her one last time. It was better to assume they were done ... to cherish the memories he already had, rather than try to re-capture them.

That she was willing to leave their love nest was more a function of being sated - she’d made love with him four times during the night. Her overly full bladder helped too. When she skipped outside, he got up and got dressed quickly. He was packing their gear when she came back.

“We have to leave already?” her voice complained.

“There’s a time for everything,” he said, not looking at her. “Now is the time for getting on the trail. You’ll be glad when we’re back, and you can enjoy the comforts of civilization again.”

“Maybe,” she said softly.

They had no trouble on the way back. She rode over next to him about once an hour and made him take his hat off. Each time her smile was brilliant.

Bob, thinking again like a rancher, remembered the radio, which he hadn’t even turned on during the trip, and dug it out. When he called for the base station, Crystal’s response was almost instant.

“Where are you?!” she yelled into her handset. “We’ve been worried sick!“

“What are you talking about?” Bob asked, rolling his eyes at Brenda. “We’ve been on a trail ride.”

“You didn’t check in!“ she yelled. “Rowdy!...”

The next voice to come out of Bob’s handset was his foreman’s.

“Everything okay, boss?” came Rowdy’s voice. Bob could hear Crystal in the background, berating him for taking the radio away from her. Bob grinned at Brenda.

“We’re just peachy keen. Got a dozen or more head of strays with us. I figure to just bring them on home so’s you can look them over.”

“You had that girl round up strays?” asked Rowdy, his voice an octave higher than usual.

“Sure did,” said Bob into the radio. “She’s a fair hand, too.”

“You got some mighty anxious parents hanging around here,” said Rowdy. “We sort of thought you’d check in more often than you did.” His rebuke was plain, if softly done.

Brenda reached over and took the radio. Bob showed her how to key the mike.

“I’m fine!“ she yelled into the radio.

Bob winced. It had to be loud back in the office. He shushed her and she lowered her voice.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, in a normal voice. “I’m almost starved, because Bob can’t cook for beans, but I’m perfectly fine.”

There was the sound of laughter as Rowdy keyed his mike. “OK, I’ll scout them up and tell them their baby girl is dandy. When you figure to ride in?”

Brenda shrugged and handed the radio back to Bob.

“Be a couple of hours, yet, I imagine,” he said. “We’re not hurrying.”

“Well, pick up the pace a little,” said Rowdy. “The Ronsons have been trying to get me to mount up a posse to come looking for you.”

“We’re coming in from the Northwest,” said Bob. “The ground is rocky for another mile or so and I don’t want to run the beeves.”

“I’ll send a couple of the boys out to take ‘em off your hands,” said Rowdy.

“That’s fine,” said Bob. “See you in a bit.”

He put the radio back in his saddle bag. Brenda was giggling.

“Oooooo you’re in a lot of trouble, mister,” she laughed.

“Not half as much trouble as I’ll be in if they found out what we were doing all those times I wasn’t checking in,” he said.

“I won’t tell,” she said, smiling.

“You might want to think about putting some underwear on,” he said. “If you ride in with those titties bouncing around, your Mamma is going to have a fit.”

To show how much her skills had increased, Brenda got into her saddle bags while they rode. She pulled out a bra and laid it across the saddle in front of her. Then she took off her shirt. She threw it to Bob, and rode on, bare-chested.

“The sun feels good on my skin,” she said, grinning at him. “What if I just ride like this?”

Bob felt his gut tighten. He didn’t need those feelings right now.

“You’ll get sunburned, and it will be an all-over burn. You really want to explain to your Daddy how that happened?”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” she sulked. She picked up the bra and put it on.

“I’ll never be happy wearing one of these things again,” she snorted.

Bob threw her shirt back to her and she shrugged into it.

“Dust,” said Bob, about an hour later. He pointed. There was a plume of hazy brown off in the direction they were headed. Ten minutes later Luis and Rodney, two of the ranch hands, went wide of the tiny herd and circled to come up from behind, still at a gallop. They pulled up, and their horses were suddenly walking beside Ranger and Buttercup.

“Surprised you found that many,” said Luis. “That’ll make Rowdy happy.”

“No it won’t,” said Rodney. “He’ll just bitch that we missed that many on the last sweep.”

“Don’t tell him we didn’t try very hard,” said Bob, grinning.

“And you must be Miss Brenda Ronson,” said Luis, tipping his hat. “Been some excitement around the place, about you.”

Brenda beamed. “My parents worry too much about me. Bob here took very good care of me. I had a great time.”

“It will never cease to amaze me,” said Luis, seriously, “how folks can do this and call it a great time.” He grinned, flashing a gold tooth.

“I wish it had taken longer,” said Brenda. Bob was glad to see she didn’t look at him when she said it.

“Boss?” said Rodney.

Bob looked at him.

“How come you ain’t got no hair hanging down from under that hat? You have another accident at the camp fire? Fall in or sum’pin?”

Bob took off his hat. There were double gasps from the boys. Brenda reached up and took hers off too, looking nervous.

“Well, boys, you see, it was like this. I had to wrestle a bear. It came for us the first night ... a huge old grizzly ... hungry from the long winter. Must have stood seven or eight feet high. Scared the hair plumb off of both of us! All I had was my Buck knife, but losing all my hair had me riled up some, so it worked out all right.” He smiled widely. “I can’t take all the credit, though. Dammit helped a bit, and Brenda, here whacked him with a stick.”

He put his hat back on. Brenda closed her sagging mouth and put hers on too.

Luis cackled. “You smell smoke, Rodney? They’s got to be a campfire around here somewhere for him to tell a whopper like that.” He grinned at Bob. “Though I have to say, your lies have improved some.”

Rodney laughed too. “You’d better pick it up a little, boss. Her parents are riding out to meet you, and they don’t sit a horse all that good. We’ll take care of this pitiful little herd of calves you scrounged up.”

They proceeded at a canter, until they saw dust again. It wasn’t as much this time, because the horses causing that dust weren’t running flat out.

“Let’s show them what you can do,” said bob, leaning forward. “Heyah“ he yelled.

Brenda leaned forward automatically, and grinned as the horses went into a gallop. She saw her parents, perched stiffly on horses, and the man she knew as Rowdy riding with them. They went in a large circle, riding around the small group, still running hard as Brenda held her hat on with one hand and yelled at the top of her lungs. Dammit ran for all she was worth, keeping pace and barking excitedly. After a complete circuit, they slowed to a trot, and went up to the group of gaping riders. Even Rowdy’s mouth was hanging open as he stared at Brenda.

“Nice day for a ride,” said Bob.

Dave and Linda Ronson’s eyes were only for their daughter.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” asked Linda breathlessly.

“I’m fine, Mommy,” said the girl, her voice sounding younger than it had on the trip. “I had a wonderful time.”

“We were so worried about you. We kept waiting by the radio but you didn’t check in,” said the woman, darting a look at Bob.

“Ohhh Mom, I got to see so many cool things. I saw a bear!“

Dave Ronson turned pale, and Linda gaped.

“And she had two cubs with her!” said Brenda excitedly.

“Binoculars,” said Bob, trying to head off an explosion. “They were on the other side of the valley from us.”

“Thank goodness,” sighed Linda.

“And we climbed a mountain and I could see forever,” sighed Brenda.

“You ... climbed a ... mountain?” Linda looked shocked.

“One all by myself,” said Brenda proudly. “While Bob was down...” She looked startled. She’d been about to say while Bob was down taking a bath at the bottom of the falls. That, she decided, wasn’t the best thing to say. “While Bob was busy,” she amended, lamely.

“It was really just a rock spire,” said Bob, feeling dread. “Plenty of handholds and footholds.”

Rowdy was grinning now. “Well, at least you didn’t scandalize any more guests by chasing your dog naked through the brush.”

Brenda sat up straight. “He really did that?” she yipped. “I thought that was a camp fire lie!” She looked over at Bob. He shrugged.

“Camp fire lie?” asked Linda weakly.

“It’s a tradition,” said Rowdy, waving his hands expansively. “We sit around the campfire and tell tall tales. Bob’s never been much of a liar, though. ‘Course his life has been fairly exciting - not humdrum like most of us - so even when he tells the truth it’s pretty interesting.”

Brenda looked indignant. “All those stories you told ... they’re true!”

Bob grinned. “They’re the only stories I know,” he said.

“I feel cheated,” she said, in mock ferocity. She turned to her parents, who were staring at her, almost with shock. “I want to stay longer. He owes me some real lies!”

“Honey, are you sure you’re okay?” asked her father, concern on his face. “You look...” He frowned. “Remember how Doctor MacNiel said that, just before...” He looked frustrated “You’ll feel really good just before you...”

“Daddy,” said Brenda, frowning. “I had a good time. I feel fine. I don’t think I’m going to fall off this horse in ten minutes and die.”

“We can’t stay,” said Linda sadly. “We have other things planned, and then we need to get back home. We have things to do. You need to be home when it gets worse.”

Brenda slumped.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I know.”

Now that he had put a complete damper on her excitement, Dave tried to get her to talk more about the trip as they walked the horses toward the ranch. Brenda answered questions, but her excitement was gone. It seemed like a long ride. Both of the Ronson adults had gotten to ride horses while she was gone, but neither was comfortable cantering, and the way Linda was grasping the saddle horn made a gallop a bad idea too. Neither of them was really comfortable on a horse.

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