Chapter Thirteen Fireline #2
"We cache it above the flood line," Drew said more gently. "Mark the place. Send men back after the sale."
"You think we'll have a sale."
"I know what Warren expects. I have spent thirty-five years disappointing him in ways too small to matter. I intend to make this one count."
Hank's mouth shifted. "Ridge it is."
They worked for two hours beneath a lowering sky.
Salvageable food went into saddlebags. Records were wrapped in waxed canvas and divided among three riders so one bullet or bad fall could not destroy their proof.
Drew kept Warren's signed orders inside his shirt.
The paper crackled against his skin whenever he bent, a cold reminder of the life he had left.
Hank caught him alone behind the wagon while he was changing into a dry pair of trousers.
"Privacy appears to be a forgotten luxury," Drew said, though he made no move to cover himself.
"Came to bring your boots."
Hank set them down but remained. Drew felt his attention like touch.
The terrible river crossing had not erased desire; survival had made it more immediate, almost painful.
Hank's gaze moved over the bruises darkening Drew's hip and thigh, lingered where Drew's physical response was impossible to mistake, then returned to his face.
"That from the chain?" Hank asked, pointing to the bruise.
"The riverbed."
"Let me see."
"You are seeing quite a lot."
"Drew."
The fear beneath Hank's tone ended the teasing. Drew stepped closer. Hank touched the bruise with two careful fingers, then examined a scrape along his ribs. His rough hands were gentle enough to hurt in another way.
"Nothing broken," Drew said. "I am sore, cold, and very much alive."
Hank pressed his forehead to Drew's. "You went under."
"And came up."
"Couldn't see you."
Drew slid both hands beneath Hank's open coat. His shirt was still damp and warm from his body. "You found me."
"You found yourself."
"We can share the credit."
The kiss was brief only because neither trusted himself to make it longer. Hank's mouth was rough with cold, his hand firm at Drew's back. Need flared between them, fierce and reassuring. It said that terror had not emptied them, that their bodies still believed in a next hour.
Bootsteps sounded nearby. They separated before Will rounded the wagon, but not far enough to pretend.
Will looked from Hank's face to Drew's half-fastened trousers. "Ridge scouts are ready."
"Then why are you standing here?" Hank asked.
"Wanted to be certain I had the correct chain of command."
Drew threw a damp sock at him. Will ducked and departed laughing.
Hank picked up the sock. "Crew's getting insolent."
"Poor leadership."
"Put your clothes on, Mr. White."
"That is not the effect you were hoping to have a moment ago."
Hank's grin appeared and vanished. He handed Drew the boots, squeezed the back of his neck, and returned to the herd.
The ridge proved passable, though barely.
Drew rode its length with Will and Ortiz.
Fire had scorched the southern grass in patches, leaving islands of grazing between blackened earth.
The trail narrowed at three shelves where frightened cattle might pile against one another.
Drew marked each with stacked stones and stationed riders before the herd arrived.
At the highest point they could see smoke dragging across half the southern horizon.
Beyond it lay the river, invisible now, and the country they had crossed at such cost. To the north, rain fell in distant gray curtains.
Somewhere past them, Copper Ridge's stock pens and scale house waited behind Warren's orders.
"You ever lead three thousand head over a goat path?" Will asked.
"No."
"Comforting."
"Have you?"
"No."
"Then we are equally qualified."
Will gave him a sidelong look. "You learned that from Hank."
"What?"
"Answering fear like it's just another chore."
Drew looked south again. "No. Hank taught me fear can ride with you without holding the reins."
They returned to find a small fire burning.
Ben had produced coffee thick with grounds and river ash.
It was terrible. No one complained. The injured ate first. Hank moved from man to man, checking cinches, wounds, and resolve.
When he reached Sam, the older drover shoved a tin cup into his hand and forced him to sit.
Drew joined them. "How many can ride?"
"All who ain't dead," Sam said.
"That was not the question."
"You're getting tiresome with authority."
"I have had a poor example."
Hank drank the coffee. "Four men ride wagon horses. Two rotate off every hour. Sam stays here with the cache."
"The hell I do," Sam said.
"Your ribs are bleeding through."
"They've been doing that since Black Tooth. Doesn't mean I can't sit a horse."
Drew crouched beside him. "If we lose the records, the sale will not save us. Someone has to guard the cache until the last cattle clear, then bring the wagon by the broad trail. I would trust very few men with that."
Sam narrowed his eyes. "You're dressing up babysitting."
"Shamelessly."
"And if Briggs left riders behind?"
"Then I would rather they meet you than Ben."
Sam grunted. "Director of abandoned wagons. Fine."
Hank hid a smile in the cup. Drew understood then that leadership was not only giving the right order. Sometimes it was giving a proud man a reason to obey it.
They ate strips of wet jerky while the light failed.
Hank sat close enough that their shoulders touched.
In front of the crew, the contact was small.
After the river it felt as intimate as the blanket around them had been.
Drew let his hand rest on the ground between them.
Hank's little finger hooked briefly over his, hidden by the folds of a coat.
"When we reach town," Hank said quietly, "first thing I do is lock a door."
Drew looked straight ahead. "To sleep?"
"Eventually."
Warmth traveled through him despite the cold. "Then we had better make the deadline."
"That's my thinking."
One by one, the men stood. Blankets were rolled, cups emptied, weapons checked. The herd shifted in the dusk like a dark, breathing country of its own. Drew climbed into the saddle and rode to the twenty men Hank had given him.
"Keep each animal's nose on the tail before it," he told them. "No shouting on the shelves. If the leaders balk, wait for me. We do not outrun the night. We use all of it."
Hank came alongside on the opposite edge of the herd. Across hundreds of cattle and rising dust, he touched two fingers to the brim of his hat.
Drew returned the gesture. The crew opened the line north.
They mounted beneath a darkening sky and drove north through the night.