Page 46 of A Sweet Chat for the Cowboy

They were through it before she could figure that out.

Now they were in new territory.

And they kept pushing.

And pushing.

Her quad muscles and her lungs burned, but she pressed on to keep up with Tucker and Sundance. She was reminded of a scene from her belovedBattlestar Galactica. The handsome Helo and his partner Athena were on the run, trying to escape the killer robots called cylons. They ran and ran, through the rain, over rough terrain, and big tough Helo got exhausted, while Athena showed no signs of fatigue. At one point, Helo wondered how she wasn’t tired.Was she even human?

No, as it turned out. Athena wasn’t human. She was a cylon.

Maybe Tucker was an undercover cylon.

Finally, right when Wynona thought she might collapse, Tucker stopped, looked at her, and asked, “Does this work for you?”

She nodded. “Did you already scout this?” she asked, trying not to gasp for air. “All the way up here?”

He nodded as if that were no big deal. “We’re now almost at the trail’s midpoint. Not sure what we’re going to do when we run out of trail. I didn’t recognize any of Hiker Jan’s photos as being from anywhere else.”

She tried to laugh at his calling herHiker Jan, but she still hadn’t caught her breath, so her laugh sounded like one of her grandfather’s burps.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Afraid she might belch again, she didn’t answer.

They dropped off team number one and then started hiking again.

“It’s like we’re racing against winter,” she managed to say this without panting, now that her lungs had enjoyed a small break. Her ancestors had likely done something similar, hadn’t they? Raced the calendar to prepare for the coming snow? They’d likely been much better at it, or she wouldn’t exist.

“I feel more like I’m racing against a bureaucracy I don’t understand. But I don’t want to understand it. I don’t want to clog my mind with it. I just want to find this godforsaken toad.”

She chuckled. “I don’t think the toad is godforsaken.”

“I certainly hope not.” He stopped again.

“So soon?” she asked, not necessarily complaining about the unexpected rest.

“We can try to find another spot if you want, but this is such a nice, flat spot, I thought it was too good to pass up.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “It’s great.” And it was. It was almost a plateau, and it wasn’t too close to the previous spot. The men might bump into each other when they were making their rounds, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Tucker scanned the area. “Speaking of racing against winter ...” he muttered and then stopped. He put his hands on his hips and drew in a long, deep breath. “The more altitude we gain, the less likely we are to win that race.” He took another slow, full breath. “The air is thinner. Can you feel it?”

She closed her eyes to try. “Yeah,” she said, “actually, I can.”

They started again, leaving another team behind, and the incline increased drastically.

And suddenly, Wynona decided that it wasn’t worth the struggle to keep up. Let cylon-Tucker scamper ahead. She’d catch up eventually. She moved her focus to catching her breath and living through the night.

And she worked hard not to be embarrassed when Martin passed her.

Then suddenly she was gaining on Tucker again, and she knew that she hadn’t changed pace. Had he slowed down? Was he actually getting tired?

She caught up to Tucker and Martin, but the trail was too narrow to come abreast of them. She took a quick glance over her shoulder to see if Craig was still with them. He was, but he was twenty feet behind with his head down.

Sundance fell in alongside her, glanced up at her with a happy expression, and then matched her pace. That was sweet, she thought. Energized by Sundance’s company, she pushed on.

And then finally, when darkness was sliding in on them from all directions, the ground almost leveled out, and Tucker stopped. “It’s not ideal, but it’s the flattest spot for another thousand feet of trail.

---