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With the ranch headquarters reflected in her rearview mirror and an open road before her, Sloan increased the truck’s speed. Soon there was nothing but the sun-baked plains stretching out from the road, vast and empty, constant yet ever changing. The sight of them filled her with a sense of freedom. For too many weeks she had been obliged to stay close to The Homestead while the master suite went through its face-lift. The work was finally finished, and all their clothes, toiletries, and other personal items were back in place, leaving her free to explore.
The Triple C’s network of inner roads didn’t follow any set grid pattern, with other roads intersecting at regular intervals. With few exceptions, most had evolved from old trails once used by buckboards, supply wagons, and the occasional buggy to reach its outlying camps. As a result, the route chosen had always been one that would be the easiest for a horse team to traverse.
Any substantial rise in the undulating prairie was skirted to avoid a hard pull for the horses. Other times routes were dictated by the location of water crossings. There were stretches where the current roads ran straight and true, but they never lasted long before resuming their snaking course through the heart of the land.
It was rare for there to be the customary four-way intersection. Usually there was just another road branching in one direction or the other, with no signs to indicate where it led.
With the whole day ahead of her and no real timetable to keep, Sloan didn’t mind the dirt road’s many curves. The slower pace made it easy for her to look around and study the photographic possibilities.
A half dozen times she pulled off and gathered up her oversized camera case to capture some scene that caught her eye, sometimes using a zoom lens and, at others, a wide-angle. Sometimes it was just the roll of land beneath an endless sky that invited a picture. Once it was a hawk perched on a fence post that posed for her camera, then obligingly took wing. Another time, it was a small herd of pronghorn antelopes, heads turned to stare in open curiosity. At a river crossing, she spotted a cow at the water’s edge and captured the sparkle of sunlight on the ripples the animal made as it drank.
After climbing onto the pickup’s roof to achieve the necessary vantage point, Sloan snapped a few shots of a fence line marching across an empty expanse into forever. But the light was all wrong to achieve the effect she wanted. A check of the sun’s position confirmed her suspicion that it was nearing its zenith.
Back inside the pickup, she packed her camera away for the time being, rolled up the windows, and turned the air-conditioner on full blast to rid the interior of its stifling heat. Again she pulled onto the road, but this time she kept her attention on it, watching for the turnoff she was to take.
Roughly a mile farther, she saw a road that forked to the right. Certain that Cat had instructed her to take the third one, Sloan drove on past it. She continued another five miles before she came to the third turnoff.
According to Cat’s directions, there would be a pasture gate some three miles after the turn. Sloan went closer to four miles before she saw it. There were no trucks or stock trailers in sight, but Cat had warned her that she might not see any.
As she swung open the gate, Sloan noticed a rutted track, half hidden by the thick grass, that curved off into the pasture. She drove the pickup onto it, stopped to shut the gate behind her, then followed the dim trail. She soon came across the suggestion of other tracks, some branching to the left and others to the right. Uncertain which to take, she stayed on the one that seemed to show more use.
It was rough and deeply rutted in spots, forcing her to slow the truck to a fraction of its usual speed. All the while she kept scanning the land around her, watching for the flash of sunlight on a truck’s windshield or a glimpse of a rider. She saw nothing.
Suddenly the tracks disappeared. On impulse, she reversed direction and headed back the way she came. When she arrived at the first dim trail that branched north, she took it. She hadn’t traveled very far before it, too, vanished. Again she backtracked and took the next one.
Just like the others, it led nowhere, but it took longer to get there. This time Sloan ignored the lack of a trail and drove on, striking out across the open country. The decision had seemed to be a sound one until she came to the bank of a ravine that was much too steep for the truck to safely navigate. Frustrated, she switched off the engine and got out of the pickup.
The land beyond the ravine was rugged and broken, with cut banks and coulees, rising into full-scale hills in places. The sight of it drew a sigh of discouragement from her.
“I guess they call this Broken Butte for a reason,” she murmured to herself and sighed again. “So what now?”
Then she remembered Chase mentioning the ranch cook would be bringing out a noon meal. All she had to do was return to the pasture gate and wait for him to arrive. Buoyed by the th
ought, she scrambled into the truck and started up. Automatically she glanced at the dashboard clock. A frisson of shock went through her when she saw it was already a few minutes after one.
Certain that the cook hadn’t passed her, Sloan could only conclude that he had arrived at the pasture before she did. Her best bet was to drive back to the gate and catch him before he returned to the Triple C headquarters. When the hunger pangs struck, she was glad Cat had insisted she take a packed lunch with her.
Well over a century old, the timbered barn cast a long shadow onto the ranch yard, shading the stock trailer parked in front of it from the glare of the late afternoon sun. One by one the saddled horses were unloaded, each rider claiming his mount as it came off.
When a sweat-caked red dun backed out of the trailer, Trey stepped forward to catch its reins. At almost the same instant, his side vision registered the familiar shape of his mother crossing the ranch yard toward him. Hot, dusty, and tired after all day in the saddle, he grudgingly led his horse to the side and waited, knowing she would want a report.
“I thought you’d be back an hour ago,” Jessy said when she reached him. “What took you so long?”
“I didn’t want to hurry them in this heat. They walked off enough weight as it was,” Trey stated with a certain bluntness that came from fatigue.
“That was wise.” She made it a statement, not a compliment.
When he noticed the way she scanned the trailer, Trey assumed she was looking for Laredo. “Laredo’s in the barn putting his horse up.”
She nodded absently. “Where’s Sloan? Didn’t she come back with you?”
Thrown by the question, Trey frowned. “What are you talking about? I haven’t seen her since this morning. Isn’t she at the house?”
“No.” It was Jessy’s turn to look confused. “She told Chase she was driving out to Broken Butte. She wanted to take pictures of the cattle being gathered and trailed to the new pasture. Are you saying she never showed up?”
“No.” An uneasiness flickered through him. Almost of its own volition his gaze scanned the main road that led west, the one Sloan would have taken. Annoyance replaced the uneasiness when he thought of the camera. “Knowing Sloan, it doesn’t take much to distract her when she has a camera in her hands. She’s probably out there somewhere right now waiting for the sun to shift to the right angle. Hell, she could even be waiting for a sunset scene.”
“Maybe,” Jessy conceded. “Just the same, I can’t help thinking that she hasn’t been here long enough to know her way around the ranch. One wrong turn and she could easily get lost. And if we need to search for her, I’d much rather do it while there’s some daylight left.”
