Calder Brand - Janet Dailey Page 0,25
we talked. I know how much he cared about you. He even made sure that, when we got to Ogallala, I’d find an excuse to send him into town. I’m just sorry that it had to be me who walked through your gate, and not him.”
Sarah willed herself to take a deep breath. It hurt, the air going in and out of her tight chest. “What happened?” she asked. “Tell me the truth.”
“There was a stampede, in a big lightning storm. We think he was thrown from his horse and fell under the cattle.”
Sarah struggled, and failed, to block the image from her mind—the helpless terror Joe must’ve felt. She could only hope the end had been swift, and that he was at peace now. “Can you tell me where you buried him?” she asked.
Lorna hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. The men searched, but all they found was his dead horse. There was nothing left of Joe to bury.”
Sarah almost broke then. But she managed to hold back until Lorna had said good-bye and was headed back downtown to join her husband before she collapsed on the bench, shuddering with shock and grief.
She couldn’t say she’d loved Joe Dollarhide. She hadn’t known him long enough for that. But if he’d lived—if he’d come back to her—it might have happened. He might have been the love of her life. But now he was gone, leaving nothing behind.
All she would ever have of him was the memory.
* * *
The wind that stirred the prairie grass brought clouds and a passing sprinkle of rain. The man lying facedown on the earth didn’t stir, not even when a rattlesnake slithered across his water-warped boot and crawled away. Not even when a curious raven lit on his shoulder, pecked at his sunburned ear, and flapped off into the sky.
Joe Dollarhide was alive, but barely. His battered body lay as still as death, drained of the strength to move. His clouded mind wandered in and out of dreams.
His most vivid dream was of wild horses. Timid but curious, they came to stand around him. The two spotted mares and the chestnut foal he had seen in the wash were there, along with others—bays and pintos, buckskins, grullas, and sorrels; mares with their foals, and yearlings nearly grown to size. They gazed down at him with their velvety eyes, nuzzling his skin and clothes, tasting his hair. They nickered softly as if conversing in a secret tongue.
The band stallion, a magnificent blue roan, kept his distance. Head high, his splendid mane streaming in the wind, he kept watch from a grassy knoll. His nostrils flared as he tested the wind, expectant, like a general preparing for battle.
A powerful black stallion galloped into sight, an outsider, charging in to steal mares and foals to add to his own harem. Ignoring the blue roan, the big black horse moved in among the mares, shoving and nipping to cut out one, then two more, separating them with their foals from the rest of the band.
The blue roan’s shrill challenge echoed across the prairie as he charged his rival. The black horse wheeled as the blue stallion crashed into him, the impact so violent that the ground seemed to shake under their hooves.
Biting, kicking, and slamming with their massive bodies, the two stallions grunted and screamed as they battled for dominance. In size and strength they were a close match, but the blue roan was defending his family. He had more to lose.
Slate-colored clouds rumbled across the sky, darkening the sun. Sheet lightning etched the horses in electric blue and white. Both stallions were bleeding now, from the strikes of their slashing teeth. They were nearing exhaustion, but the fight went on. Suddenly, the black horse went down, hooves flailing, neck straining. The blue roan poised over his rival as if readying a final blow.
At that instant lightning split the sky. Rain poured out of the clouds. Taking advantage of a moment’s distraction, the black horse scrambled to his feet and loped away, favoring an injured leg. As the blue roan shrilled his victory call, the horses melted into the rain and vanished, leaving nothing in the dream but wind, thunder, and rippling grass.
* * *
“Check his pockets, Clem. Maybe the poor bastard’s got some cash on him.”
The words penetrated the fog in Joe’s mind. He smelled wet earth and the pungent odor of tobacco smoke. From somewhere nearby came the snort of a horse and the faint metallic