Chapter 8
Red’s life was a nightmare. And he was never going to wake up. “Cassie! Don’t open that…”
Cassie started screaming and flapping at the escaping chickens.
“…gate!”
Cassie screamed and started yelling, “Shoo, no, stop! Shoo, chickens!” and frantically waving her skirt at the escaping hens. Her noise and flapping skirts only served to make the chickens run out of the coop faster.
It bothered Buck too. It was just pure bad luck that when Buck started crow hopping, Red was on one of the chancier spots on the steep path down to the spring where his animals watered.
Red was watching Cassie instead of minding his horse.
So he was unseated—and slid over the edge of the cliff.
The dropoff wasn’t sheer—at least not right away.
And there was some brush growing. He grabbed it and dangled for a few seconds before he clawed his way back from the brink.
There were lots of stunted evergreens on the slope, all the way down, so if he’d missed the first bushes, he’d have caught the later ones.
The last dropoff, which was thirty feet straight down to jagged rocks, was still quite a ways away when he’d stopped sliding.
As he dragged himself back onto the trail, Buck ran off, kicking his heels. Cassie, as near as Red could tell, hadn’t noticed him fall, because she was busy jumping and screaming and flapping her skirts to try and stop the chickens from flying the coop.
He rushed over to calm her down. “Cass, honey, calm down.”
She whirled to face him, looking terrified. She didn’t seem to register his dirty jeans and torn shirt or his scratched-up arms and face. Or the fact that his hat now had a horse’s hoof-print stomped into the crown.
“Red, I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t mean to let them go.” Fear widened her eyes.
He had scolding words pressing to get out, but he couldn’t say them. How could he yell at her when she looked so scared? Instead of shouting, which had been his natural inclination, he said, “Don’t worry, Cass. They get out from time to time. They used to do it to me.”
That was the truth, strictly speaking. They’d gotten out just this same way when he’d gathered eggs for his mother.
He was five at the time.
He’d learned his lesson then, and Cassie had just learned hers, so there really wasn’t any point in talking about it.
“Don’t worry, Cass. Just remember to always close this outer gate before you open the inner gate. Then close the inner gate while you’re inside, and on your way out, make sure all the chickens are in the inner yard before you open this outer one.”
She’d left both of the gates wide open. “Yes, Red. I’ll never leave them open again.” She pressed her hands to her chest, and he could have drowned in those big, scared eyes.
“Most of them will return home to roost come nightfall.” He patted her arm. “I let them out to scratch most days in the spring and summer.”
In the spring and summer when there were weeds to pick at and bugs to chase. In the fall, they’d wander far afield looking for food, then they’d roost wherever was handy. Red didn’t tell Cassie all that.
“Gather the eggs and go on back in and start breakfast. I’ll milk Rosie and bring in the bucket.”
Cassie still looked nervous. She said with an almost pathetic eagerness, “Didn’t you say last night that you wanted me to milk the cow?”
Red’s stomach sank at the thought of what Cassie might do to his precious Rosie.
Rosie, a big-boned black-and-white Holstein, had followed him out here from Indiana, tied behind his covered wagon.
He’d raised her from a calf. Rosie was one of the gifts Red’s pa had given him when he’d first gone out on his own.
It was one of the last things his pa had done before he died.
In short, Red had known Rosie a lot longer than he’d known his wife.
“Sure, I want you to learn.” Red propped both gates wide open and scattered cracked corn around the inner yard, hoping some of the chickens would come around scratching for food. “But I’ll be done by the time you’ve hunted up all the eggs, so I’ll take care of her this morning.”
Cassie nodded and entered the little chicken yard. “Ugh!”
He turned from his hurried trip to the barn to get Rosie milked before Cassie could help. She had a sickened expression on her face as she scraped her foot. What kind of person didn’t know to watch her step in a chicken coop?
Buck loitered around the corral, still loose. The horse looked eager to enter his pen but turned contrary when Red tried to catch him.
“Get back here, you old galoot.” Red hustled after the stubborn critter and finally cornered the beast.
By the time he got to Rosie, she was overdue for milking and kicked him a couple of times to remind him to keep to a better schedule.
“Do you want me to try?” Cassie leaned down over his shoulder.
He jumped. Rosie, startled, kicked over the nearly full bucket of milk. The bucket skittered across the barn floor and slammed into the hay bale where the lantern sat. Kerosene spilled across the hay.
“Cassie, fire! Get out of the barn.” Red raced toward the burning hay with a feed sack.
Cassie didn’t get out. She charged the haystack with her bare hands. Her skirt caught on fire.
Red grabbed her and pulled her to the barn floor. “Roll, Cassie. That’ll put the fire out.” He swatted at her skirt until the flames were gone, and then he turned back to the crackling barn.
Red had dropped his burlap bag. He retrieved it and dunked it in the spilled milk and doused the flames.
Red turned to ask Cassie what in heaven’s name she’d been doing with a lantern in the barn in the full daylight. She stood behind him, tears streaming down her face.
Red’s anger fizzled away as surely as the fire. “Now, don’t cry, honey.” Red went and slung an arm around her trembling shoulders. “We’re fine. The fire’s out.”
But the skirt of her one and only dress was charred. He shuddered to think of how badly she could have been burned. He tipped her chin up to look at him.
“Everything’s fine now, Cassie. I want you to stop that crying, all right?
The important thing is that you weren’t burned.
There’s no damage except to a little bit of hay, and I have plenty.
It was pure clumsiness on my part to let Rosie knock that bucket of milk over. I’ll be more careful next time.”
Cassie pulled herself together and squared her shoulders.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have startled you.
I shouldn’t have brought the lantern in with me.
I was trying to learn to light it, and I wanted to ask you if I needed to turn the wick down.
I’ll never bring a lit lantern into the barn again. That hay catches fire too easily.”
“That’s a right good idea. I think we oughta make that a rule.
I’ll never bring one in here either.” Red wanted to say, “Only an idiot brings a lantern into a barn full of hay and leaves it sitting close behind a cow like that.” But she’d surely learned everything his yelling would teach her.
And besides, he wasn’t much of a yeller.
Red smiled down at her pretty, sad face. “It was my fault, and you’re sweet to try and take the blame, but I won’t have it. Just go on back to the house now and start breakfast.”
Please, dear Lord, let her go back to cooking. She has a knack for that.
Cassie sniffled for another second, and the terror faded from her eyes. She nodded and headed out of the barn.
With a sigh of relief, Red turned to untie Rosie. Just as he let Rosie out into her corral, a piglet squealed, Cassie screamed, and it was all drowned out by the bloodcurdling roar of an angry mama sow.
Red raced out of the barn, took in the situation in a glance, and dived between Cassie and the furiously protective mother. “Drop the pig, Cassie,” he roared.
Harriet slammed, with slashing teeth, into Red’s leg. He rolled and dodged her, kicking at her gaping fangs.
Cassie dropped the piglet, and it ran toward the pen. Harriet whirled away from trying to kill Red and chased after her baby.
Red scrambled to his feet and rushed to the gate Cassie had so casually left open.
Apparently, the woman had decided she wanted to cuddle a cute but unwilling piglet.
He glanced down at two long slits in his pant leg.
Before he could check for bites, he needed to make sure the gate was secure.
When he had it tightly wired shut, he turned, his temper simmering, to brace Cassie about being so reckless.
He took one step toward her, and his ankle, still sore from his fall off the horse, almost gave out on him.
He caught the gate to keep from falling, then decided to turn his attention to his ankle until he quit wanting to holler at his wife.
Harriet was still woofing, but she was focused on her babies.
Red bent to look for bites. He found several deep scratches on his leg, but thankfully, Harriet hadn’t drawn blood. Animal bites could turn septic, and Red had heard of many a man dying from a bite that wasn’t very serious.
This time, he’d have to say something. Cassie couldn’t touch anything on his ranch, ever again.
Red turned to look at her. Her face had gone pure white.
His heart clutched, and his anger vanished.
Could this much fear hurt the baby? He hurried as best he could to her side, doing his best to hide his limp.
“Are you all right, Cass, honey?” Red reached for her face to study her pallor, then hesitated and wiped his hands on his pants, still filthy from being thrown off Buck, never cleaned after he fought the fire, and now worse from being rolled on the ground by Harriet.
Red had a second to think of what could have happened to Cassie if Harriet had gotten to her instead of him.
“Red, Red, I’m sorry—” Her voice broke.