“Any objection to riding with me?”
He shrugged. “I’m here to help out.”
“Weak,” she warned.
“Let me try again. Objection? Hell, no. My pleasure.”
“That’s the spirit.” She gave a tight smile. “I’m an excellent cowboy.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
She sighed and put her arms around the big gray gelding’s neck, nuzzling his thick black mane. “But I was hoping to ride Tank.”
“Tank?” Hank chortled. “I’ll have Tank retreaded for you by tomorrow.” He started loading his files and nippers into his shoe box. “I thought I’d try a Double D mustang. Maybe Zach has some started. I’m a pretty good finisher.”
“Me, too.”
“Once they’re green broke, I can put a nice handle on ‘em.”
“I’ll bet.” She raked her fingers through the gelding’s mane. “Tank was my first adoption. When I picked him out ten years ago, he was as wild as they come. I was a stock contractor back then, but Tank really opened my eyes.”
Hank eyed the horse. “He’s no Spanish Mustang.”
“Of course not. Like so many wild horses, he’s got a lot of draft blood in him. You know, a lot of them just sort of walked off into the sunset back in the days when farmers started going horseless. And during the Depression, when they were going homeless. Tank’s forebears were equine hobos.” She unhooked one of the horse’s crossties. “Can’t you just see them running across a herd of mustangs in the Badlands? Freeee at last!” she whinnied, and Tank’s ears snapped to attention.
Hank couldn’t help smiling. “Until they got their farm-boy asses kicked.”
“This big steel-drivin’ man’s gonna fix your hoof, Tank, so let’s let that remark pass.” She hooked a lead rope to the halter, scratched the horse’s neck, and he lowered his head. “If he calls you farm boy, he’s Henry,” she said in the horse’s ear.
“Nothin’ wrong with Henry.”
“I didn’t say there was. Some of my best friends are named Henry.”
“Hoolie?” he asked. She nodded. “Like I said, it’s a good backup name. What’s yours? Bet your mama didn’t name you Sally.”
“Ain’t tellin'. It’s a good name, but it doesn’t fit me, so I don’t use it.” She pointed to a small buckskin gelding. “I’m riding him. He fits me well. We call him Little Henry.”
Hank cracked up.
They rode side by side, soaking in sights and sounds and smells of summer in South Dakota without talking much. It was enough to point out the circling hawk, the coyote on the hill, the hidden gopher hole and to keep riding, keep looking and listening to the birds in the air, the insects in the grass, the thump-swish-thump of their mounts. It all felt right to Hank, as though he, too, had found a fit. Be damned if he’d try to work up some discomfort over feeling comfortable, not while it was working for him. This feeling was sacred.
He’d gotten away from the traditional practices his parents’ generation had struggled to take back from obscurity—ceremonies nobody wanted to explain and a language hardly anybody used—but he’d soaked up the stories. The People had emerged from the Black Hills. Paha Sapa. White Buffalo Calf Woman had given them the pipe, and the horse—Sunka Wakan, or sacred dog—had given them a leg up in a land only the Lakota truly understood and appreciated in its natural state. It was grassland. Pull the grass up by the roots, and the earth would fly away. Tell the river how to run, and you would pay a price that had less to do with money than with home. And home, for the Lakota, had less to do with a place to live than with a place to walk.
Preferably a dry one.
Hank loved the stories and honored the wisdom even if he’d taken up a different kind of medicine. Even if he’d let his family fall apart—the traditional Lakota’s worst nightmare—he believed that all people were relatives. All things? Being equal—not in this lifetime. But being relative? Sure. Relative to family life, being alone sucked.
Relative to reservation life, the old ways were healthy and holy. Relative to urban life, the reservation wasn’t half bad.
But relative to anyplace he’d ever been—and he’d been all over—the vicinity of the Black Hills felt right.
The Double D was southeast of the Hills, but Hank could see their silhouette looming at the edge of the grasslands like a hazy purple mirage, a distant village of ghost tipis. The sight was beyond beautiful. Its power worked his soul’s compass like polar magnetism. His whole body knew what it was about. It had been years since he’d pushed cattle on horseback, and while the method hadn’t changed, he realized the madness was gone. He was no longer the angry young man who resented the cattlemen who leased the Indian land its owners couldn’t afford to use. It didn’t matter that none of the animals belonged to him or that the land they were crossing was claimed by someone else. He was one with the horse, and the woman who rode abreast of him functioned easily as his partner. Cows moved willingly as long as their calves bleated regularly to check in. They must have known the grass was greener wherever they were headed. Maybe they trusted Sally not to let them down. They belonged to her, after all. They must have known something.
You’ve never had much luck with women, Night Horse. Maybe you should take it from her animals. Just go along with her. Nothing to worry about.
Either that or just take it. Take as much as she offers. Hell, the first few weeks are always the best.
Hank drew in a whole chestful of clean Black Hills air. He had a bad habit of thinking too deep and breathing too shallow. He was attracted to this woman, pure and simple. Thinking only complicated the matter.
Stop thinking, Night Horse. Enjoy the pure and simple. She’s pure. You’re simple.
Sally loved the way her world looked from the top of a horse. The way Little Henry’s gait made her hips move, the way he smelled, the way he snorted and strutted and swished his tail and made her sit up a little straighter, feel just slightly bigger than life—she loved every heady detail. But put the joy of sitting her horse together with the pleasure of watching Hank sit his, and Sally was all sweet spot. Watching him swing down from the saddle and open a wire gate gave her goose bumps. Pushing the cattle through the gate gave a taste of success, and making it happen together rubbed her utterly the right way.
She watched him muscle the wire loop over the top of the gate post, admired his easy mount, lit up inside when he looked her way as if to say, What can I do for you now?
“Follow me,” she called out. “Let’s take a ride to the wild side.”
Little Henry pricked his ears, and Sally shifted her weight and gave him his head. She bid her hat good riddance as the wind rushed through her hair. Hank could have flown past her if he wanted to—his mare was faster than her little gelding—but he gave his horse cues according to her pace. When they reached the creek, Little Henry splashed right in. The crossing required a few yards of swimming this time of year, but nothing major.
For Sally.
She whooped and the water swooshed as Little Henry bounded up on dry land. Wet to the hip, she was loving every drop of water, every ray of sunshine, every bit of breeze. She circled her mount and saw Hank eyeing the water warily from the opposite bank.
“Don’t worry,” she called out. “She’s a good swimmer.”
“I’m not.”
“You don’t have to be. I promise.”
He looked up at her. He’d held on to his hat, but clearly he wasn’t so sure about the value of her promise.