Page 114 of My Cowboy Freedom
Chapter 27
Sky
“Hey!”
Late-afternoon sun made the shadows lengthen over the rock-strewn trail. Eight hundred hooves rumbled over the earth like a single beast whose snaky spine showed at the crest of every hillock, and whose belly disappeared from view between rises.
Two hundred animals, cow/calf pairs.
You wouldn’t thinkanythingcould make that much noise.
One of the heifers charged Julio playfully, sheering off when he spun his horse around.
He gave a shout. “No, you don’t.”
We chased a couple more onto the loading chute. Because the Rocking C is primarily involved in breeding bulls, the Rocking C’s heifers, and sometimes cow/calf pairs get sold to other outfits as seed stock. Once we had them loaded up, Julio was scheduled to deliver them to an outfit near Plano.
He leaned out the window of the rig to give me last-minute instructions. “You and Tad ride back to the ranch house and make sure Robbie and Jason have the barn and pens under control. We should know about the boss by then.”
“Got it.” As we finished up, I gave the beasts one last look. Through the bars of the livestock hauler, all I could see was their wide, frightened eyes.
I’d worn that same expression when I was behind bars.
“You hear anything back from Rock yet?” Tad asked.
“Not yet.”
And my gut wasn’t telling me no news was good news. My gut was a realist. Chandler had looked awful when they’d taken him away.
On Elena’s orders, Julio drove me into town first thing for a cheap smartphone.
Maybe it was Elena’s way of saying she understood why we were drawn to each other. Maybe she’d have looked the other way and we could have kept everything on the down low if the boss hadn’t gotten involved.
But Rock hadn’t texted me back yet.
“I’m worried he didn’t get my message.”
“What are you, twelve?” Tad hadn’t exactly called me an idiot. “He’s probably been a little busy.”
“Or he’s sleeping.”
He was probably sleeping. None of us got much sleep the night before.
Tad turned Goldie toward home and I let Ogre fall in behind them.
“When I get back to the bunkhouse I’ll try again.”
“If you even make it that far.”
I shot him a sour look but he wasn’t wrong. I itched to take out my smartphone and learn more about it. It was a nice, new one. ’Nando’d had the juice to get phones smuggled inside, but sure as shit, as soon as he did, somebody’d snitch, or another con would steal it. Phones could be more trouble than they were worth too. Some guys would kill for one.
“The boss could be dead for all we know.”
Tad was good at wringing his hands but I knew he didn’t believe that. “We’d know if he died.”
“What’s going to happen if he’s laid up for a while?”
“Don’t know.”
