Page 14 of Love Me Dangerous

I finish adjusting my stirrups when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

It’s a text from Gabe.

Are you riding today?

I slip the phone back in my pocket and free Julep’s reins, then turn her toward the trail and climb on.

We cross the road, the horses’ hooves clip-clopping on the dry pavement, to the trail. I lead, ascending at first a steep rise, then after we cross the creek, through a meadow dotted with sage and tall, dry grass thecolor of honey. By the end of next month, this meadow will be covered in snow, and my volunteering with The Winter Range Project will pause until it melts. I should have already quit—we’re well into hunting season now—but the work is too important.

Gabe’s message hums through my thoughts. He’s probably guiding hunting clients today and is trying to find out where my dad might be patrolling. If I’m on horseback, it means the conservation officerisn’t, which likely indicates something useful to Gabe and Sage Creek Outfitters.

This isn’t the first time he’s tried to needle me for intel. Nobody wants to see the game warden while they’re out hunting, even if everything’s legit.

There’s also another possibility why Gabe’s asking where I am, but I don’t want to think about that right now.

Julep’s saddle squeaks with her steady gait. The aspen leaves tremble in the soft breeze, creating a mirage of rippling yellow. We spook a grouse deeper into the trees. Julep plods on, unimpressed. We follow the Finn River Ranch perimeter fencing built responsibly thanks to their partnership with The Winter Range Project, then turn onto a double track. Linnie comes alongside.

The valley narrows, and we slip into the shadows of the pines. Coils of old barbed wire are stacked in tidy heaps against the trunks of the bigger trees, ready for pickup.

The sound of rockfall draws my attention. Above us, the sparse trees give way to a rocky slope that rises to mountaintops out of sight.

Julep pricks her ears. I pause in the saddle, but there’s only the wind and the trickle of the creek below. Hunters don’t usually like this valley. It’s too tight, and with the confusing borders with Finn River Ranch, staying inside the limits of public property is too much trouble for most of them.

But it’s prime elk habitat, so maybe someone’s troubling with it today.

“Let’s put on our vests,” I say to Linnie, reaching into my right-side saddlebag.

“Aw,” Linnie complains.

“Come on.” I hand the smaller one to her.

Reluctantly, she slips it on. “I’m hungry.”

“Almost there.” I smile at her.

She nudges Cocoa on.

“You want to play Rabbit or Robot?” I ask.

Her eyes light up. “Yeah.”

“You want to start?”

“Okay. Ask.”

“Rabbit or Robot?” I give Julep a soft squeeze of my heels to catch up. Her ears are no longer pricked, but she’s funneling some of her attention toward where we heard the rockfall. I focus on the guessing game with Linnie, but when we pass the path of the rock, I glance up. There’s a gap in the trees to the broken face of the mountain, the pale granite alternating between smooth planes and gritty chutes where bits of loose rock have slid down. I see nothing out of place, yet I can’t shake the tension in my shoulders. Maybe I should have asked Dad to bring Fergie along with us today.

The trail parallels the creek for another mile before breaking into a broad plain of sparse trees and tall, dead grass mixed with bitterbrush and sage. It smells of warmed pine and dust. I dismount and string a rope between two trees, then halter Julep to it and help with Cocoa.

Linnie grabs the cookies and the canteen and settles in the shade.

I grab my gloves and pliers and pull my hat low over my eyes, then start removing the steel fasteners on a post. The rusted, old wire is taut and stiff and, in some places, pulled so tight due to age that cutting it is dangerous. Linnie only gets to do the coiling.

It’s slow, tedious work and turns up the ache in my left hand to a noticeable throbbing. The fencing bisects an open meadow, which means soon I’m leaving the shade behind. The hum of a motor rises above the hush of the creek below us.

“What’s that?” Linnie asks, squinting at the broad slope across the valley.

I follow her gaze while wrestling a bottom row of wire from a stubborn sagebrush. “Probably someone from the ranch.”

---