The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,157

was just pulling out of the fort. Boston Jones, the gambler with whom they’d been traveling had bought a horse and moved on after their first night at the fort. Letty had heard rumors that Boston had gotten into a card game with some of the soldiers and won big. There were also rumors that the game hadn’t been fair, which figured since he carried a marked deck. She figured it had been in Boston’s best interests to get out while the getting was good. Personally, she was glad to be rid of the lot.

Her horse nickered. Eulis’s mount answered back with a bray, which was a large part of their problem. They hadn’t had the money to buy good mounts and had to settle for a horse and a mule. The horse was old and mostly blind. The mule was big and broad and stayed in a pissed off mood, but the pair were oddly compatible, somewhat like Eulis and Letty.

The hostler who’d sold them the mounts had given them only one instruction. Aim the mule where you wanted to go and the horse would follow. Therefore, Eulis was on the mule. Letty was on the horse. It wasn’t the most ideal of arrangements, but Letty and the mule had struck sparks off one another from the start. The mule didn’t like her any more than she liked it, which left Eulis no choice as to what he would ride. If they wanted to get to Dripping Springs, he would be riding point, with Letty following along behind—in the dust—on a blind horse being led by the smell of a mule’s ass.

To Eulis, their situation was somewhat comical and he would have enjoyed a good laugh, but judging from the expression on Letty’s face, it would not have been a good move. This momentary setback might be uncomfortable, but it wouldn’t kill either one of them. The town of Dripping Springs was supposedly only a day and night’s ride away. Without misfortune, they should arrive at their destination before noon tomorrow. Surely they could endure their discomforts for one night.

“Well, let’s get moving,” Eulis said, and turned the mule away from the fort toward Dripping Springs.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Letty asked.

Eulis frowned. “You heard the directions the same as I did. If you have a different opinion as to where I should aim, then let me know now.”

“I suppose we’re going in the right direction,” Letty said.

“All right then,” Eulis muttered. “Giddyup mule,” he said, and kicked the mule lightly in the flanks.

It responded with a buck and a kick and something that sounded suspiciously like a fart.

Letty rolled her eyes. Someday she was going to live in a fine house and surround herself with people who talked pretty and smelled the same way. However, it did occur to her that if it got dark, and she could no longer see where they were going, all she had to do was follow the smell, which her old mare was already doing.

A faraway mountain range broke the contour of the horizon, strung out along the edge of the world like a length of discarded blue ribbon. Something about the scene accentuated the emptiness with which Letty lived. She took a deep breath around what felt like a sob, then focused on the man and the mule in front of her. She couldn’t afford sentimentality. That was for women who still had hopes and dreams.

And so they rode—across the unending prairie, toward the ribbon of blue mountains—bringing them ever closer to Dripping Springs. Beyond that, only the Good Lord knew what might happen, and Letty was hoping and praying that He understood they meant no disrespect for their pretense.

They made camp in a grove of cottonwoods on the banks of what Eulis called a fair-to-middlin’ size creek, which he explained was one too wide to jump over, but not deep enough to drown in.

Letty didn’t care where they stopped, only that they had. She’d ridden cowboys for the better part of her life, and had never been as sore as she was now after only one day on the back of that mare. And as if that wasn’t misery enough, she’d hoped to bathe in the creek. That dream had been dashed by the stupid mule that, not only waded into the creek to drink, but had then proceeded to get down and roll until it was wet all over, turning the water to the consistency of thick soup.

Her