Buffalo Summer. Nadia Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ important when dealing with the buffalo, especially when you wrestle them to the ground to brand them.”

      His forehead creased skeptically. “Brand them?”

      “And a man rides a horse so much better than a woman,” Pony continued, “because a man is so much stronger, and a horse truly appreciates brute strength.”

      “Now look…”

      “Mr. McCutcheon, if you talked to Pete Two Shirts, he would tell you that I know my stuff. And I would tell you this. I have five strong boys who would do your bidding for the summer. They would cost you nothing more than room and board. I was told you have a lot of work. If you have buffalo, you will need good boundary fences. Six strands of wire at least six feet high. Panels seven feet high would be even better, with wooden corner posts sunk into four feet of concrete. Putting up sturdy boundaries takes a lot of time and work, but without them, your herd might run clear to Saskatchewan.”

      “Look, why don’t you—”

      “And you’re right about the branding, Mr. McCutcheon. You don’t brand buffalo. But you do need a good set of corrals with an eight-foot-high fence and an indestructible chute of welded pipe, because even though they don’t get branded, they do need to be tested for brucellosis, tuberculosis and pregnancy. They need to be wormed and vaccinated. I know how to design such a set of corrals and a good chute. I know how big and how strong the buffalo are, Mr. McCutcheon, and how wild.”

      McCutcheon eyed her appraisingly. He ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. “Please, come in and have a cup of coffee. We can talk—”

      “I don’t drink coffee,” she said. “Why don’t you call Pete and ask him about me?”

      He nodded. “Okay.” He hesitated. “Won’t you at least come inside while I call?”

      “I’ll wait out here, thank you,” she said, not wanting to run into the unfriendly old Mexican woman.

      He nodded again, clearly perplexed. “Who should I tell Pete I’m checking on?”

      “Steven Young Bear’s sister,” Pony said.

      McCutcheon’s blue gaze intensified. “That’s why you look so familiar. I’ll be damned! Why didn’t Steven tell me you were coming?”

      “I asked him not to. I’ll wait here while you call Pete.”

      McCutcheon shook his head with a faint grin. “I don’t need to call anybody. If you’re Steven’s sister, that’s good enough for me.”

      Pony’s heart leaped. “Does that mean you will consider me for the job?”

      “That means you’re hired, you and your five boys. There’s plenty of room for all of you here in the main house. When can you start?”

      “In three weeks.”

      “That long?” His face fell.

      “I’m a teacher and school lets out in three weeks.” Pony held her breath, her heart hammering. Please, oh please…

      McCutcheon nodded reluctantly. “All right. We’ve survived this long. I guess we can wait until mid-June. The job pays three-fifty a week, plus room and board.”

      She could hardly have hoped for as much, and struggled to maintain a neutral expression. “I can only work the summer.”

      “I’m hoping you can teach me and my ranch manager all we need to know in that time.”

      “I am sure that I can.”

      “Good. Then I guess I’ll see you in three weeks.” He put out his hand and took hers in a warm, firm handshake; a single up-and-down motion that made her fingers tingle curiously. She turned to descend the porch steps and was almost at her truck when his voice stopped her. “Ah…miss?” She turned and glanced up at him questioningly. “What’s your name?”

      “Oo-je-en-a-he-ha,” she said. She stood for a few moments, watching him mentally grapple with the impossibility of it, and then, with a barely suppressed smile, she said, “But you can call me Pony, if you’d rather.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      “SHE HAS FIVE BOYS,” McCutcheon said, pulling the mug of coffee that Bernie Portis had just topped off closer to him and studying the whorls of steam rising from the strong black brew. It was midmorning of the following day and the Longhorn Cafe, the only eating establishment in Katy Junction, was enjoying a brief lull between breakfast and lunch.

      “Five?” Bernie paused, coffeepot in hand. Her friendly face split into a smile. “She’s been a busy gal. How old is she?”

      “Not old enough. At least, she didn’t look like the mother of five kids.” Too young and too beautiful, he thought.

      “How old?”

      McCutcheon lifted his shoulders. “Hard to say. Late twenties. Early thirties, maybe.”

      “Okay, so she started young. Say, eighteen years old. First baby. Second baby at twenty. Third at twenty-two. But how much work are you expecting to get out of a bunch of little kids? And who’s going to wipe their noses and change their diapers while their mother is out herding buffalo? Ramalda?” Bernie gave him a teasing smile before making a run through the tiny restaurant, refilling customers’ coffee cups and pausing to chat briefly here and there. She was Guthrie Sloane’s big sister, and a sweeter, more generous soul did not exist west of the Rockies nor east of them, either.

      McCutcheon took a sip of his coffee and frowned. He hadn’t thought to ask Pony how old her children were. He had a sudden vision of a three-year-old boy in the saddle, reins in his teeth, horse running flat out, twirling a lariat better than a washed-up baseball player by the name of Caleb McCutcheon could. It wasn’t Caleb’s fault that Badger and Charlie hadn’t taught him how to throw a rope yet. They kept promising, and then one day slid into the next, one week followed another, and he was no closer to being a cowboy than he’d been the day he’d bought the ranch.

      Ramalda had already threatened to quit. “Indians!” she had muttered when he told her, as if the word itself were a bitter poison in her mouth. Her venom had surprised Caleb, but not Badger, who’d been sharing the table the way he and Charlie almost always did nowadays, at suppertime. Or any other time for that matter. The two old cowboys had sort of come with the ranch. “Now, Ramalda,” Badger said, smoothing his white mustache. “When I first laid eyes on you, I thought to myself, that there’s an Apache woman, sure as shootin’. How do you know you ain’t part Injun yourself? And what gave you such a sour take on things, anyhow? I thought you liked little ’uns.”

      Ramalda had turned her broad back to them with a string of heated Spanish that neither he nor Badger could make heads or tails of, banging pots and pans about and letting her feelings be known in no uncertain terms. “Six Indians here?” she exploded, brandishing a frying pan in one fat fist. “I queeet!”

      “Whoa!” Caleb said, alarmed at the thought of losing such a phenomenal cook and housekeeper. “They’re Steven Young Bear’s nephews. They’re his sister’s children. You like Steven.”

      Ramalda turned and slammed the frying pan down on the woodstove, cut СКАЧАТЬ