Page 20 of Wellspring
“Javier is right.We all take him for granted,” Cade said.“Thanks for dinner, Javi.I’ll try to remember to tell you more often.Let’s go check on the horses.”
Rather than leading Erick to the barn, Cade went instead to one of the paddocks that surrounded it and whistled sharply.A cream gelding with black mane, tail, and lower legs cantered up to them and butted Cade in the chest.“Hey, Nahnia.I missed you too.”
“He is a most unusual color,” Erick observed as he reached up to stroke Nahnia’s forelock.“What do you call a horse with such markings?”
“He’s a buckskin,” Cade explained.“If he were more gray, he’d be a dun.And then there’s the paints, the ones with the big white and brown patches, and the appaloosas, with the almost solid brown or black heads and spots on their hindquarters.All four of them are pretty common among mustangs.I’ve had Nahnia since he was a foal.”
“I must become familiar with horses such as this if I am to work with them.”Nahnia bumped Erick’s hand with his nose, clearly soliciting more petting.
“They won’t be attention hogs like this one,” Cade said, fondness clear in his voice.“But he’s been alone for over two months, so I guess he’s due some extra loving.”
The images that conjured made Erick long to confess that he’d been alone far longer, but he bit his tongue.Just because Cade wasn’t involved with Michele didn’t mean he wanted the relationship Erick ached for.“Did none of the other hands ride Nahnia while you were gone?”he asked instead.
“Chel took care of him for me, of course—and anybody else woulda done the same—but remember those conversations we had about a man’s horse and the difference between ranch horses and a cowboy’s personal horse?Nahnia’s my horse, and nobody would ride him without my permission except in an emergency.Fortunately we didn’t have any emergencies while I was gone, so nobody rode him,” Cade replied.“Which means tomorrow, he’ll be a handful when we get out on the range.But he woulda hated being tied behind the wagon all the way to Galveston and back too.At least here, he had the run of the paddocks.”He gave Nahnia’s nose another stroke.“Let’s go check on Zephyr.”
The big stallion appeared every bit as greedy for caresses as Nahnia was, but he had settled into his stall and seemed as prepared to make his home at Wellspring as Erick was.After paying him the attention he took as his due, Erick turned to Cade, wishing he could be as open as the horses about needing Cade’s affection.
“Ready to get some shut-eye?”Cade asked.“Payne wasn’t kidding about how early we start.We gotta take advantage of every minute of daylight.”
Erick had never slept in a communal setting like the bunkhouse before, but the long days of riding had left him tired enough that he doubted any noise the other men might make could disturb him.If he regretted no longer having Cade to himself, he was not about to admit it.“I would be well rested to begin my first day as a true cowboy.”
“Don’t worry.You’ll do fine.Payne’s a hard man—he’s had to be to get this far—but he’s fair, and I saw what you did with Zephyr,” Cade said as they walked into the bunkhouse.
Men milled around in varying states of dress, some with bare chests, others in just their union suits.A few were gathered around the central table playing cards.Another sat on his bunk darning a pair of socks.And on the bunk above Cade’s, Michele was sharpening a wicked-looking stiletto.Cade flopped on his bunk, pulled off his boots, and tossed his hat to catch on the hook attached to his bedpost.“Make yourself comfortable,” he told Erick.“We don’t stand on ceremony in here.”
He let out a sharp whistle, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.“For anyone who hasn’t met him yet, this is Erick Heller.He signed on just before dinner.Also, the JR boys are up to their old tricks.We overheard Reichardt and Ulrich making threats in Austin, and we ran into Carter on our way in, and he wasn’t exactly subtle, so be careful over the next few weeks.I don’t know what they’ll try, but I know they’ll try something.”
Among the grumbling about JR and Carter, several men nodded in greeting to Erick as he made his way to his bunk.He was glad Cade hadn’t introduced them all individually, as Erick was sure he’d never remember their names until he began to interact with them.When he reached the bunk where his saddlebags rested on the chest at its foot, he was startled to see the blacksmith, Burke, lounging on the lower bed.
“Couldn’t resist my charms, Hoss?I’ll have you know I’m spoken for, so your foreign wiles will be wasted on me.”Erick clenched his jaw to keep it from dropping in shock at the crude comment.Had his affection for Cade given away his inclination?Though Burke seemed more amused than appalled….Before he could decide how to respond, Burke pointed a thumb toward the upper bunk.“New guys go topside.Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure they deloused the bedding after Carter left.”
“Shut up, Burke,” Michele said from across the room.Erick surely hadn’t expected to find her here, rooming with the men, but no one seemed to find it extraordinary for her to be dangling her legs from the bunk above Cade’s, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and knee-length drawers as utilitarian as any of the men’s.“Stop trying to scare Cade’s friend.He has few enough of them as it is.We don’t need you running off a new one.”
Cade squawked indignantly from his bunk, making Erick’s lips twitch as he tried not to smile.Michele met his eyes and nodded, so he wasn’t sure if he was successful or not.Her manner was much less formal in this setting than it had been at dinner.He hoped she would eventually be comfortable enough to speak with him the same way.He would have to temper his own ingrained formality, he suspected, if he was to fit in.Then she leaned down so she could stare at Cade.“You should have let me kill the fucker instead of just letting Payne fire him.That would be one fewer bastard to worry about.”
“And watch you hang for it?Not likely,” Cade retorted.“If he’d attacked Miz Roarke, maybe, but you know the good people of the town wouldn’t give two cents about the virtue of a ‘former whore.’Like that gives Carter an excuse to try to rape you.”
“He didn’t succeed, did he?”She sheathed the knife and tucked it under her pillow with a sharp grin.Erick had no difficulty believing that none of the other men would offer her any unwelcome advances.Life at Wellspring was definitely nothing like the world he had left behind.He unpacked his few changes of clothes into the chest, slid the saddlebag underneath with his bedroll, and studied the bunk, debating how to reach the upper bed without encroaching on Burke’s space.
“Boots off before you climb up.The slats at the foot will hold your weight.”Burke smirked.“And you might want to strip down first.Let us all see what’s got Cade so worked up he brought you back with him.”
Erick froze, hoping he wasn’t flushing at Burke’s insinuation.He had kept his proclivity hidden for nearly twenty years—how had he given himself away so quickly?He took a step toward the trunk that held his belongings, wondering if he had time to saddle Zephyr and ride away before the situation became ugly.
“I will hurt you, Burke,” Michele said, the smile that had accompanied her earlier threats gone and her eyes cold.“Shut the hell up before I shut you up.”
Cade didn’t glance Erick’s way, but his gaze on Burke was as sharp and deadly as his arrows.Erick had often heard the expressionif looks could kill, but he had never seen it so vividly portrayed as now on Cade’s face.“Fuck off, Burke.Some things aren’t funny.Even from you.”
Burke scooted deeper into his bunk and mimed sewing his lips shut.Around the room, the other hands chuckled and resumed their card games and other pastimes as if the interplay with Burke was nothing out of the ordinary, which made Erick wonder.He had expected, feared even, that he would have to hide here as he had hidden in Prussia, but Burke’s comments seemed to imply a different attitude.Either way, he wasn’t about to strip with a woman in the room, no matter how casually she or the other men were dressed, but he did tug off his boots and remove his shirt.His pants and union suit were staying right where they were.
There were no further comments as he clambered into his bunk and settled onto the flimsy mattress.Despite the light and noise around him, he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Chapter Thirteen
CADE DRAGGEDout of bed the next morning before the sky had even started to lighten.He needed a little privacy, and this early in the morning was pretty much the only time he could guarantee no one else would be out back using the outdoor shower Burke had rigged up.It was, in Cade’s opinion, a stroke of genius, proving the value of his fancy degree from some big school back east—Harker, Harlem, Harvard?He couldn’t ever remember the name, but Burke bragged about it from time to time, like it was supposed to mean something.He’d come to Wellspring at the end of the war, but even with the haunted look in his eyes, he’d been an asset from the moment he stepped foot on the ranch.He’d created a system to gather water in rain barrels on the roof of the bunkhouse and then pipe it through hoses to a small wooden enclosure, where the hands could stand underneath the flow and get clean without the work of hauling water.Burke had even managed a tank to heat it, but most days, it was hot enough that Cade preferred the water cold.
He stripped and turned his face into the flow, letting the cool water wake him the rest of the way up as well as rinse away the dirt and sweat that had accumulated since they left Austin.
Thinking about Austin led to thoughts of Erick, not that he was ever far from Cade’s thoughts these days.It was a damn shame Burke was so good at what he did—the outdoor shower was just one example of his genius—because Cade was tempted to shoot him after his comments the night before.
