Page 20 of Belle Fourche Legacy

He knelt down by the water and crawled along the edge, hunting for anything out of place. That river had been a common place for him and Armstrong to play, and he knew the plants that should be there. He’d been looking long enough for his back to feel hot from the sun when he heard a gasp.

Whipping his head up, he saw Alice across the fence on her side of the river. He quickly stood, feeling like a child crawling around in the mud, and brushed off his bare knees. Heat that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on him flowed through him.

Alice hadn’t looked away yet. In fact, even though he wore nothing but his trousers hiked up over his knees, she seemed loath to look away. If he’d been asked to make a scientific assessment of her look, he’d have called it nearhungry.

He headed back over to his horse and found his undershirt a moment later. As soon as he had it on, Alice took a deep, visible breath and seemed to find herself.

“I’m sorry for interrupting you. We lost one of our guard dogs this morning. She didn’t come up for feeding. Pa had me ride out to look for her.”

He shrugged his shirt on over his undershirt and began buttoning it, Alice watching his every move with keen interest. “Not, Lilly?”

She shook her head. “Pa doesn’t use dogs when they have pups. She won’t go back to work for at least a week.” Alice dismounted and came slowly toward him. Her mien held friendliness where a moment before she’d seemed, rather . . . taken with him.

“I haven’t seen your dog.”

She chuckled. “Whatever you were doing there, it wasn’t looking for dogs.”

He rolled up his sleeves, prepared to get back to the hunt, though with her here he’d have to do it fully dressed. “We’ve got a problem up at the ranch and I was looking for a solution.”

* * *

The words hither like a brick after the distraction of Kent without his shirt on. She’d seen her brothers multiple times in less clothing when they’d bathed out in the washtub in the backyard. Even last week, she’d seen both Leo and Gideon strip down to their bare chests when they’d been stung by bees from a nest in the barn.

It wasn’t just any male skin that drew her eyes, but his certainly did. She swallowed and put on what she hoped was a calm smile. “I’m sure you’ll figure out whatever is ailing the cattle.”

He wiped his hands on a bandana he pulled from his pocket, leaving her hoping he didn’t have another to cover his face. “I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Weakness. Trouble breathing. No loss yet, but I can’t discount that it’s possible.”

“This is the same thing that hit the Oleson place?” He’d said similar things about those cattle.

“Yes. I’m worried they’re eating something they shouldn’t.”

She bit her lip, recalling a conversation she’d overheard between her father and Leo, one she wasn’t supposed to have heard, but she was in the barn feeding Colby. If not for the puppy, she’d be in the dark. “The sheep are having the same problem.”

He sobered immediately and came right to the edge of the water. All that separated them was the river and the fence on the other side. “The same symptoms? In the sheep?” He scratched his chin. “That’s both troublesome and helpful.”

“Really? How?” Pa hadn’t mentioned any losses yet, but he’d been concerned when some sheep started showing weakness. Especially since many of them had lambs. If they lost the ewes, they’d have trouble raising all those lambs.

“Most parasites and infections are animal specific. They affect some and not others. For instance, dogs get rabies but a turtle cannot.”

She pressed her knees into Blaze’s sides and eased him into the river to get closer to Kent. “It’s good that there is a vaccine now for rabies or I would suggest we study turtles to see why they cannot get it and we can.”

He smiled at her, and her heart thumped wildly at the warmth there. She’d waited so long to see it. “I believe the reason is that turtles are not mammals.”

Her cheeks warmed to match the feeling in her chest. Of course, he would immediately know the answer. She turned Blaze back toward the shore. “If you discover what’s causing the weakness in your cattle, please share the information with my father. He’ll want to know. Sickness in the flock is . . . troublesome.” Worrisome was a better word, but she didn’t want to make her father sound as weak as the sheep.

He lowered himself back down to his knees and picked along the tufts of grass along the edge, especially around the fence posts where it seemed to grow thicker.

“Would you like help?”

He leaned up and looked at her. “I thought they tasked you with looking for the dog?”

“This seems more important. If I can help you find out the root cause of the trouble, we can prevent our animals from eating it.”

“In the meantime, I’d advise your father to get some hay. I’ve heard it’s in short supply. He may have to wait.”

“He already has. He told me he’d visited a few days ago, and they were out. But he’ll check back. Leo may have found some. I’m not sure. I’ve been distracted as of late.” She hoped he understood her meaning.

“The puppy probably does take a lot of time.” He didn’t look up at her and continued to slowly sift through the grass with his fingers.

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