Page 73 of Wellspring
When Payne finished, he pushed the bowl back and stared pointedly until Li Mei and Alice emptied their meals.Grace nodded her okay, murmuring something as Payne stalked past her that sounded suspiciously like “women’s bunkhouse.”
“Another damn building.I’m a rancher, not a carpenter,” Payne muttered as he stalked away.Li Mei rose with a grace Erick recognized from his days of fencing and pugilism and swung onto her horse’s back with the ease of an experienced equestrian.Whatever tests Payne had devised for her, Erick had no doubt she’d pass them with flying colors.He turned to the younger woman.“If you have finished, I can introduce you to some of the mustangs we are preparing as mounts for the outfit.”
Alice turned to Marshal Parnell with a smile.“Thank you for seeing us here, Marshal.”
“My pleasure, Miss Smith,” he replied with an answering smile.“You’ll be in good hands here.”
“You may want to bring your horse into the barn,” Erick suggested as she rose.“If your… companion… is as good as Beaufort says, I’m sure the two of you will be staying.”
Alice must have heard the hesitation in his voice.“Oh, let Li Mei hear you call her my companion!”she said with a grin.“Most people assume she’s my mother or aunt, but we’re not related.Not by blood anyway, though she sort of adopted me after she caught me picking her pocket.”
“That sounds like a story worth hearing,” Erick said as they led Alice’s horse into a vacant stall.
“I was abandoned in front of an orphanage as an infant.”Alice unsaddled her horse with the ease of experience before patting the bay’s nose and shutting the stall door behind her.“I ran away when I turned twelve and lived on the streets, stealing food and picking pockets to survive.I picked the wrong person when I tried it on Li Mei—or the right person, I guess.She saw something worth saving in me and took me back to the ranch with her.”
Though Erick didn’t say it aloud, Cade had done much the same with him, not that he’d had to resort to picking pockets.“You will be the latest in a line of newcomers to Wellspring, all who came here because they had nowhere else to go, and all who have found there is nowhere else they wish to be.”
He led her out the back to the paddock where the mustangs grazed aimlessly.Rosy came up to him immediately.He rubbed her nose before she could butt him with it.“This one is Rosy.The others have yet to be named as I had to stop working with them eight weeks ago, although I hope to have a new batch to train after the cattle drive.”
“Why’d you stop?”Alice asked.“They need consistency if they’re going to make progress.”
“I am aware, but being shot and nearly dying makes riding any horse inadvisable, much less riding ones that are still new to a saddle or bridle.”
“Nowthatsounds like a story worth hearing,” Alice countered.
“Perhaps, but not today.”Erick didn’t want to relive that experience, even though he was finally beginning to feel recovered.Enough to take part in the cattle drive, he insisted to himself, even if he had to ride on the chuck wagon with Javier.He just had to convince Payne that he had the stamina to accompany them.To accompany Cade.Assuming he made it back to Wellspring before they had to leave.
Shaking off the worrisome doubts, he opened the gate to the paddock.He’d gotten the mustangs ready for riding before the ill-fated trip to town, but they hadn’t been handled since and might well have fallen back into bad habits.“Have you trained horses before?”
“Not a lot of wild horses roaming the streets of San Francisco, but Li Mei let me work with the ones on the ranch, and she says I have a way with them.”Alice followed him inside the paddock.The mustangs, except for Rosy, took off for the far side of the field.
“See if she will let you approach her.”
Alice held her hand out and started toward the little mare.Rosy shied away at first but Alice didn’t give up, circling around and crooning to her until Rosy relented and let Alice get close enough to pat her withers.“There’s a good girl,” she murmured.“You’ve forgotten how to be around people again, haven’t you?That’s okay, though.I forget how to do that sometimes too.”
The words tugged at Erick’s heart.What must it have been like for the girl, abandoned as a baby and then on the streets alone so young?At least Cade had his Comanche family to care for him.That was in the past, though.She was here now, and that was what mattered.She would carve out her own place just as he had done.
“Bring her over here and let us see if she will take a saddle.”
Alice led her to the paddock fence and clipped her halter to a lead rope tied there.Rosy shook her head but didn’t fight the rope beyond that.“Easy,Kleine,” Erick soothed.“You are safe here.”He pointed out the tack room to Alice and waited while she fetched a saddle, blanket, and bridle.
Rosy quivered as Alice set the blanket on her back but she accepted the saddle, even when Alice tightened the girth.
“You have an apt touch,” Erick complimented.“Slip her bridle on and you can try riding her if you would like.”
Alice beamed as she fitted the bridle over Rosy’s ears and then eased into the saddle, crooning to the paint under her breath.Rosy shook her head once but didn’t buck or strain under the weight, though Alice was much slighter than Erick.He unclipped the halter from the lead rope, and Alice guided Rosy in an easy walk around the paddock.
“What a sweetheart you are!”Alice murmured to Rosy as she dismounted.Erick watched as she removed the saddle and bridle and rubbed the horse down.He offered a carrot from the bunch Lizzie provided him in every supply run, and Rosy took it from Alice readily.
The sound of hoofbeats in the stable yard heralded the return of Payne and Li Mei.Alice took the reins from Li Mei’s horse after she hopped from the saddle, and after a nod from Erick, she led them into the barn to find another vacant stall.
“She any good?”Payne asked as he swung his leg over the saddle horn and dropped to his feet.
“Since I am now in charge of the horses, I say yes.She handled her own horse well and managed to saddle and ride Rosy.I would feel confident leaving the horses in her care.”Payne raised an eyebrow but didn’t rise to the opening Erick gave him.“What is your opinion of Li Mei Zhou?”
Payne tossed the reins of his horse to Erick.“Eh, she’ll do.”Coming from Payne, that was practically effusive praise.“Now we just need another couple dozen like them before the damn cattle drive starts in five days.”
That was a problem for which Erick had no solution.
