remuda scattered too, but Vic took off after them. He’ll bring ’em back.”
From his place on the grass, Jesse looked up at Luke. “Not as bad as it could be.”
“Bad enough,” Luke replied, his voice grim. How could he show up in Hays having lost a quarter of the herd and two men? “Anybody get a count of the rustlers?”
“Eight.” Morris’s gaze strayed to the line of bodies. “That means four escaped. I saw two riding off together to the west, one northeast, and one due east. They’ll meet up with each other again soon enough.”
“The cattle went in every direction.” Griff raised a hand above his head and made a circling motion. “Those rustlers were hightailing it away without thought for the herd they tried so hard to get. The way they were going, the cattle are miles from here by now.”
Charlie found his voice. “We can hunt down the strays, boss. We’ll get ’em back.”
Nods all the way around. Luke forced a smile of appreciation for the men’s attitudes, but his heart plummeted toward his boots. They had started out with a minimum crew to begin with—nine men to drive a herd of two thousand head plus a forty-horse remuda—and now they were down by three. Despite Jesse’s brave words, he couldn’t ride with that leg. In fact, he’d be lucky if infection didn’t set in before they got to Hays. McCann, who knelt over the injury, cleaning it and then binding it with clean cloth, looked pretty grim. Jesse might end up losing his leg, and whoever heard of a peg-legged cowboy?
Morris’s voice cut through Luke’s worries. “What in tarnation is that?”
They all looked toward the south. An unusual sight on the horizon sent Luke’s jaw dangling.
“Well, I’ll be a cross-eyed mule.” Jesse shook his head in disbelief. “It’s those Aim-ish folks.”
Sure enough, the sight of that ridiculously huge hutch in the back of an ox-drawn wagon was unmistakable. Even more amazing was the small herd of cattle being driven in front of the cart. Leading this bizarre parade was Jonas on foot, his round-brimmed straw hat and black suspenders unmistakable at any distance. And on either side of the cattle, Emma and Rebecca trotted along in flank positions, long sticks in their hands and black skirts trailing in the high grass.
A sudden lightness lifted his spirits and a slow grin spread across his face. It looked as though the Lord had sent him help this time. His gaze focused on Emma.
And He chose a mighty pretty delivery method.
FIFTEEN
Emma and her family stood in the shade of the chuck wagon and spoke with the somber men. Though Luke had greeted their arrival with true gratitude, sadness hung over the cowboys like a low-riding cloud. They had lost two of their own, and Emma’s heart grieved at the pain she saw in each face. Especially Luke’s.
Their little group of eleven stray cows had swelled to almost forty by the time they caught up with the main herd. The Switzers had encountered clusters of wandering steer along the way, and the poor things needed almost no prodding to join them, as though they had been lost and looking for someone to lead the way home. Since their arrival, they had melted seamlessly into the herd, which hung closely together as they grazed, as though drawing strength from each other. It was almost as if they sensed their handlers’ grief at the loss of their friends.
Emma had not met Kirk, but the thought of the smiling young Willie going to his premature grave was enough to make her weep.
“The first order of business is to bury our friends,” Luke told Papa, though his glance kept stealing toward her, which kept a perpetual flow of heat rising into her cheeks.
“What about them?” Rebecca, who had dropped to her knees beside Jesse to watch a grim-faced McCann clean the nastiest wound Emma had ever seen, pointed toward the bodies of the four cattle rustlers. “Will you leave them in the open?”
Luke shook his head. “That might be what they would do with our dead, but we won’t stoop to their depths. We’ll give them a proper burial and take their belongings with us to Hays. Maybe the sheriff there can identify them and notify their next of kin.”
The gesture warmed Emma’s heart toward him even more. He was too kindhearted, too upright, to leave the bodies of even dishonest men without proper handling.
“Eight, you say?” Maummi stood behind Rebecca, watching the ministrations