Kathleen Eagle - The Last True Cowboy

KATHLEENEAGLE

The
Last True
Cowboy

To honor the memory of
Delano Spencer Eagle
1957-1997

In wildness is the preservation of the world.

Henry David Thoreau, Walking

F rom the beginning, it was the woman.

The rest of the High Horse setup wasnt anything K.C. Houston hadnt seen along the monochromatic trail of ranches hed worked for from Montana to Texas. Prettiest ranch in Wyoming, the owner had told him. Maybe it was, but meadows were meadows and mountains were mountains. It was the woman standing next to the rail fence that drew his fancy directly. Women often did, but this one hit him hard, right from the beginning.

He turned the radio off and rolled the window down as he slowed his pickup. A chilly spring breeze slid into his shirt. Hed been headed for the house, but the woman was closer and far more compelling. He thought about calling out to her, asking for directions he didnt need just to get her to turn his way, but he didnt. He just watched. She stood motionless, while the wind made a fluttering flag of her burnished brown hair and a loosely pegged tent of her white shirt. Her intensity captured him completely.

His pickup purred as he let it crawl over the gravel road. He felt like a crude tourist walking in on a pilgrim saying her prayers. Let me distract you, he thought. Turn this way and let me pull you down to earth. But she simply stared, as if something on one of the snowcapped mountain peaks were calling to her, claiming every receptor in her body. Whatever it was, she was lonesome for it. She was yearning for it, leaning toward it like a flower in a window. Whatever it was, there was some rash and equally lonesome part of him that envied it.

He dismissed the thought of speaking to her. Had she turned, had she even moved, he would have taken it as a cue, and he would have stepped up to the plate. But she didnt. She remained inaccessible, like a painting hed seen once and filed in the unfailing scrapbook of his memory. A mystifying feature in an otherwise familiar landscape, she was out of this world, beyond his reach. That fact alone made his palms itch.

Her image lingered in his mind as he drove on, once again heading for the house. He knew she wasnt his prospective bosss wife. He remembered something about a sister, but hed funneled the family talk in one ear and out the other. What K.C. knew for sure about the man he had come to Wyoming to work for was that he, too, loved horses. Women, no, at least not the way K.C. loved women. Horses, definitely. It was K.C.s business to recognize the symptoms. He earned his living off other peoples horse fever, and Ross Weslin had the fever about as bad as it could get. But a wife was doubtful. If he had one, she was an unhappy woman.

In fact, if the woman at the fence was Mrs. Weslin, K.C. knew right then and there that he was bound to get himself fired before the summer was over. He could overlook a lot of things, but not an unhappy woman. Not for a whole damn summer. Women and horses were K.C.s favorite kind of folks. He had superb instincts about both. Give him five minutes with a sullen woman or a skittish filly and hed know exactly what she needed. He also had good instincts about fulfilling those needs, and he had turned his instincts into an art form. It wasnt the kind of art a person could hang on the wall, but K.C. liked to think that making a gentle-hearted creature happy, even temporarily, required an artists touch.

But he had come to Wyoming for Weslins horses, not his women. He got paid only for working his fine magic with horses, and his pockets, like his gas tank, were flirting with E. He was beginning to wonder where the Weslins kept their horses. Empty acres of spring-green pasture flanked the road, which followed the course of Quicksilver Creek. K.C. spotted a coal-black Angus bull using the trunk of a scrawny poplar tree as a scratching post, but he wasnt seeing much activity around the outbuildings and split-rail corrals. And hed yet to see a horse, except on the sign above the gatepost. He was still looking as he drove across the narrow bridge that spanned the swollen creek and headed toward a copse of crabapples and old cottonwoods.

It was a mans house, a massive structure that stood amid the trees like a bird with its wings outstretched, too heavy to fly. Two single-story annexes, faced with a layer of gray river rock topped with one of tan fieldstone, flanked its main portion, where a second story of pine logs rose above the stone. Red bluffs faced the creek on the east, and the mountains rose to the west. K.C. liked the way the house fit right into its surroundings like craggy leavings from some prehistoric geological upheaval. Someday hed have himself a house. Maybe not as big, but it would have that natural look.

A rock path, already tufted with spring grass, led him to the steps of the huge stone-pillared front porch. The front door creaked, and a slim, blond, sleepy-eyed woman poked her head out. Her scowl melted when K.C. pushed his hat back with a forefinger and smiled.

Afternoon, maam. Im looking for Ross Weslin.

Ross is She gave him a quick, skeptical onceover. Why?

He asked me to come to work for him. The names K.C. Houston.

None of this appeared to be ringing any bells with her, but her interest in his message was clearly secondary. She liked his looks. Most women did.

I train horses.

The bemused look in her eyes didnt change. She stepped onto the slate porch, her shapely legs and small feet bared under the trim black-and-white Sunday dress shed obviously been napping in. He figured she must have been curled up somewhere when hed come knocking on the door, and he pictured her smooth, pale legs folded up to her breast, her dress just covering her bottom.

He raised his brow as he glanced over his shoulder at the gravel driveway. The sign about four miles up the road says High Horse Ranch. Did I take the wrong fork somewhere?

No, this is the Weslin place. Rosss

Something about the way she tipped her head quizzically struck a familiar chord, and K.C. realized that it was her resemblance to Weslin. Younger sister, he figured. Hed spent little time with the man, but Ross Weslin was curiously memorable. Quiet to start with, but once theyd got to talking, K.C. had found him to be sociable enough, agreeable, pretty high-minded in the way he looked at things. Even passionate, although that was a word K.C. would have been happier tagging on this female Weslin.

She was blinking up at him and putting her question to him cautiously. When was it he hired you?

Well, you know, hes inquired a couple of times about when I might be available, but Ive been pretty busy. We met up at a cuttin competition last summer. He said he was still interested, and I said Id try to get to him in the spring. I called about a month back, maybe two. Guess I wasnt too specific about a date.

But he told you to come?

Yes, maam, he surely did.

She shook her head. I cant imagine why.

Didnt surprise him too much. The way K.C. remembered it, Weslin liked to keep people guessing. Hed offered a deal, then sweetened it a little, then hinted that there might be a few added benefits if a guy liked the setup once he got started and felt like staying on. K.C. generally preferred a simple, straightforward, cash-on-the-barrelhead arrangement, for which he willingly guaranteed results. Hed had one too many sweet deals fall through on him. He had a knack for dealing with horses. Dealing