Her father used to call her stubborn, too, every time she disagreed with him. Which happened whenever he got it into his head to move to a new place.
“Can’t we stay here, at least long enough for me to finish the school year?” By the time Gabrielle graduated high school, she’d asked the question a dozen times. Without fail, her words fell on deaf ears, and no matter how sincere—or pathetic—her plea, her dad went ahead and loaded their suitcases into his cramped station wagon with a promise that one day they’d settle down. Then he would pull out his battered road atlas and, eyes shut, he’d choose a page, his forefinger pinpointing their next “home.”
Sulking alone in the back seat, she’d wondered why her mother never complained about the frequent moves. If she ever got married, Gabrielle had told herself—all twelve times—it would be to a man who’d stay in one place, forever.
Triumph’s head bobbed just as an age-old adage came to mind: Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Well, Gabrielle thought, laughing bitterly to herself, she had to admit, she got what she asked for. Drew was as rooted as a man could get. Rooted, and rigid, and controlling. A sob replaced the laughter. You promised me things, Drew. If only you’d kept your word—
She blamed the sharp scent of pine in the air for the tears stinging her eyes. She swiped them away with the back of a leather-gloved hand, then jammed her wide-brimmed black hat lower on her forehead. Few things riled Gabrielle more than her own tears. She saw them as a sign of weakness, proof that she was every bit the needy female her husband seemed so determined to protect and shelter. But shelter from what? In a few weeks, she’d be twenty-eight years old. Twenty-eight, married barely more than a year, and already about to be divorced.
Anger—at herself, for giving in to the tears; at Drew for not being the man she’d thought he was—prodded her to give the stallion yet another command: “Run, Triumph!”
He seemed only too happy to oblige, and raced over ditches carved by creeks feeding from the Great Fishtail River, around boulders that had rolled down from Granite Peak, through stands of spruce, to a barren plateau at the river’s edge.
Immediately, Gabrielle recognized the place, and her heart did a little flip.
It had been a glorious fall day, much like this one, when the crisp scent of pine filled the air. Now, however, dozens of trees lay flat, their broken stumps reaching like jagged fingertips toward the blue Montana sky. The thunderstorm that had blown through the county last week was responsible for this devastation, but in time, Gabrielle knew, nature would repair the storm’s destruction.
If only time could fix what Drew did to their marriage that terrible night.
Suddenly she realized that exasperation over her marital situation had made her careless, irresponsible, reckless. At this speed, one misstep could cause Triumph to break a leg, or worse.
“Easy, boy,” she called, yanking hard on the reins, “you’re not a racehorse, y’know.” She strained to slow him down, but as Drew had so astutely pointed out, Triumph had a mind of his own.
Miraculously, he thundered through the woods unscathed, and as they rounded the river’s bend, sunlight bleached the grassy knoll ahead, making the willowy weeds appear to have been dusted with snow. Anxiously, she guided the steed around gnarled trees that sprouted from the stony soil, providing patches of shade for livestock, and over clumps of wildflowers that brightened the land with surprising splashes of color. Finally, the beast slowed, came to a halt, and Gabrielle breathed a ragged gasp of relief—
Until she spotted the sidewinder, lazily sunning itself on a flat rock a few yards ahead. In an eyeblink, the snake reacted to the vibration of hammering hooves, and drew itself into a tight coil. Head raised and tongue flicking menacingly, it prepared to strike.
Gabrielle jerked at the reins—too late, for Triumph had seen the rattler at almost the same moment.
He reared up, front hooves alternately pawing the air and stomping the ground, back legs thrashing left, right, left. He threw his head back far enough for Gabrielle to see his flattened ears, curled lips, and panicky, wild-rolling eyes. He cut loose with a high-pitched trumpet, gave one mighty buck…and sent Gabrielle soaring.
Shielding her eyes from the harsh sunlight, Gabrielle sat up and groaned softly. Every part of her, it seemed, had an ache of its own. Instinctively, she touched her throbbing temple. “Yee-ouch!” she whispered, wincing in response to the stinging pain. The lump was the size of a hen’s egg. “What in the world…?” The sight of blood on the fingertips of her leather glove silenced her, and Gabrielle’s frown deepened.
Dazed, she tried to get a fix what had happened, on where she was.
She recognized the river and the rocky terrain surrounding it, but couldn’t remember heading for the plateau. And how had she gotten all twisted up in the underbrush? she wondered, carefully peeling herself from the thorny shrubbery alongside the trail.
The last thing Gabrielle recalled was saddling Triumph for their morning run, and Drew waving goodbye. “I love you,” he’d called after her, raising his steaming mug of coffee in the air in a farewell salute, “so mind your Ps and Qs out there, y’hear?” She smiled now, and her heartbeat quickened as she pictured the handsome face of her brand-new husband.
But where was Triumph? Through narrowed eyes, she scanned the skyline, expecting to catch a glimpse of him grazing nearby. Instead, she spied the trampled remains of a rattlesnake. Wrinkling her nose, she gasped. “There’s one sidewinder that learned what happens when a snake spooks a horse,” she muttered, putting two and two together.
She’d fallen off a horse enough times to know that occasionally the landings could be rough. Real rough. On her sixteenth birthday, for example, afraid that she might hurt her father’s boss’s beautiful new mare, she hadn’t cinched the saddle tightly enough. Gabrielle’s “kindness” had cost her, and she’d zigzagged around the corral at a forty-five-degree tilt—until she hit the ground. That time, it was hours before the buzzing in her brain went away.
Now, brushing dirt and grit from the seat of her jeans and the elbows of her suede jacket, she told herself this had been one of those falls, nothing more. Unfortunately, she thought, grimacing as she peeked through one squinting eye at the horizon, without Triumph, it would be a long hike back to the Walking C.
A wave of dizziness nearly knocked her down again. Easing up to the riverbank, she belly-crawled toward the water, mindful to keep a careful distance from the dead rattler. She stripped off her gloves. It felt good, pressing a cold palm against the bump on her head. Filling cupped hands with icy, mountain-fed water, she drank her fill.
Gradually, as the jitters subsided, she perched on the boulder, arms hugging her jeans-clad legs, and surveyed the territory. It had been a while since she’d taken the time to enjoy the view this way, what with keeping the ranch house clean and the ranch hands fed. The vista was like no other place on earth—and Gabrielle had seen her share of places, thanks to her dad’s nomadic spirit. Here was an explosion of color and scent, from the sunlit mountain peaks to the twisting river below, from the pale azure sky to the pillowy green of faraway treetops.
An eagle screeched overhead as a fuzzy white mountain goat skittered down a rocky slope, a kid close on its heels. Cottony clouds sailed silently by, so close, it seemed to Gabrielle that she could reach up and touch them. She stared with pride at the pink snow that dappled the mountaintop, knowing Montana was just one of a handful of places in the world where it existed.
Sapphires, garnets and smoky quartz hid deep beneath the rich soil. And down the road, abandoned mining towns. No matter which way she looked, Gabrielle felt life pulsing in this land.
Moose and bear, bison and pronghorn shared this place with geese and ptarmigan and saw-whet owls. In the springtime, nodding yellowbells and shooting stars made way for summer’s daisies. Now, fall’s wild mums were in full bloom.
Gabrielle