Page 40 of Wellspring
Erick didn’t have a whip, and couldn’t wield it with Cade’s expertise if he did, but he didn’t need to watch helplessly either.He dug his legs into Zephyr’s side, urging him forward to circle the runaway cattle on the opposite side from Cade.For a moment he thought the stampeding cows would overrun him, but he stood his ground and echoed the “hyah” Cade had shouted as loudly as he could.The cows veered away and, bracketed by Cade on one side and Erick on the other, began to trot back toward the rest of the cattle.
The herd mooed and shifted as the runaways rejoined them.“Thanks for catching them,” Cade said, panting slightly from the exertion of the hard, fast ride.“You slowed ’em enough they didn’t set off the whole herd.That woulda been a mess, with just two of us out here trying to stop them.Let’s hope that’s the worst of Kit’s bad feeling.”
“I could not let you face them alone,” Erick answered, “though I do not doubt you could have managed them without my help.You were magnificent.Are all cowboys as proficient with a whip as you are, or is that another skill you learned from your adoptive family?”
“No, that’s a skill I learned after I left home,” Cade replied.“The Comanche stampede bison, but they don’t use whips.They’ll shout and wave hides and things to scare them, and then ride alongside to herd them, but that’s all.”
“There is so much I must still learn.”If he could hope to attain half the abilities Cade seemed to embody innately, he would deserve to consider himself a true cowboy.Still, Cade said he’d had to learn to use a whip, no matter how effortless—and arousing, if Erick were honest with himself—he made it appear now.With effort, Erick could aspire to become nearly as adept.
“You will.”Cade’s utter confidence resonated in his voice.“Nobody was born knowing all this shit.We all learned it, and you will too.”
Cade drew Nahnia alongside Zephyr, so close his leg brushed against Erick’s, and leaned across the remaining distance.“Anything you need,” Cade said before pulling Erick into a soft kiss.
Erick leaned into the kiss, grateful for the solitude that allowed them this intimacy.“With that incentive,” he asserted, “I will be sure to do so.”
Late in the afternoon, Cade tensed and reached for his bow.Erick unhooked his rifle and set it across his lap as he scanned the horizon to see what had set Cade off.It took several moments of searching before he finally found the black specks on the horizon that resolved into riders.
“I’m tired of them watching us,” Cade said.“Let’s go see what they want.”
“Is that a good idea?”Erick asked.
“Probably not, but as long as we stay on our side of the fence and don’t draw first, they can’t say we started it.”Cade spurred Nahnia into a ground-eating canter.Erick sighed and urged Zephyr to follow.
They rode within a cautious distance before the four riders on the other side of the fence drew their pistols.Cade reined Nahnia in, and Erick halted Zephyr beside him.He recognized one of the riders as Adam Carter, and another as the man who had accompanied Reichardt the day he’d appeared at Wellspring to try to coerce Grace into accepting his suit.He’d been too on edge at the time to remember the man’s name.
Cade had his bow in hand but no arrows, although Erick knew how fast he could put one to the string and shoot.He would bet the JR riders didn’t, but that wasn’t particularly reassuring at the moment.He kept his hands on the reins, taking his cues from Cade for now.
“Did you fellas need something?”Cade asked.“We been seeing you on our fences for a few days now.”
“Just checking the lay of the land,” Carter replied.“Gotta make sure nobody’s going where they don’t belong.”
“Does that go both ways?”Erick asked.“Or does that only apply to Wellspring riders crossing onto JR land?”
Cade shot him a surprised look, but Wellspring was Erick’s home now, and he was as protective of it as he’d ever been of his estate in Prussia.
“Buncha mutts and bitches got no right squatting on land that oughta be part of the JR.”The rider Erick had seen at Wellspring spat a stream of tobacco juice over the fence, barely missing Cade.Erick’s hand dropped to the rifle in his lap, but Cade shook his head.
“We don’t want to be the ones starting anything,” he said quietly, then raised his voice to address the JR riders.“Miz Roarke is the lawful owner of Wellspring, and if we catch any of you trespassing on her land, we’ll have the law on you.”
“You do that,” the man called out, laughing.The whole group of them seemed to find Cade’s threat funny.“I’d like to see Lutz and our crew bash a few of your heads in.Nobody’d miss a few injuns and colored and furriners, would they, boys?”
“Clean the place up for people with the right to run it,” another agreed.
“I’d take any one of those ‘bitches’ and ‘mutts’ and free black men and proud immigrants over any ten of you in a fight any day,” Cade said.“As for Lutz, he ain’t the only law in Texas, just the closest.You’d do well to remember that.”
“You’re one of the first I’d take out, squaw,” the first man retorted.
Erick really needed to learn the lout’s name, because he was going to have a reckoning with him one day.“You are so sure of what you mean to do.Have you taken over from Reichardt, then?”
“Who the fuck are you?”he blustered.“Just off the boat, aintcha?Oughta know better than to take up with trash like this redskin.”
“My name is Erick Heller,” he answered, knowing his accent marked him as an immigrant, as worthless as Cade or the others he had denigrated in the JR hand’s view.“What is yours, my friend?”
“Frank Sanders, and I’m no friend of anyone working for Wellspring.”
“Be assured that your sentiments are wholly reciprocated.”Sanders seemed to be working on whether that was an insult or not.Erick glanced at Cade.“We should check the rest of the herd, perhaps?”He knew he had no right to give Cade orders, but if he had to listen to Sanders’s ignorant ranting any longer, he was likely to do something he’d regret later.
Cade tugged on Nahnia’s reins, making the horse take a step backward without turning from the fence.Erick would have to teach Zephyr that trick, as it let Cade continue to keep watch while moving away.
