Ride the Thunder (25 page)

From habit, Jordanna removed her rifle and scabbard when she dismounted, in case the sorrel decided to roll on the ground. The afternoon temperature had reached its height, which was still very chilly and brisk. She joined the huddle of riders sheltering near some scrub brush from the nipping breeze. Jocko was doling out the last of the coffee from the big thermos.

Their rest stop was near the timberline with steep, rocky crags climbing to the peak. Stunted conifers and dwarf willows dotted the land around them. A cobweb of animal trails wound through a pasture of moss and lichens, following the rolling contours. Her father was sitting on his heels, warming his hands with the cup of coffee.

“This is sheep country, Max,” he said when the man joined them, hunching his shoulders against the wind. He looked unimpressed by the statement. “You almost have to be a hunter to feel the excitement of it. The land where the bighorns range has a look to it—a feel—that makes it different from any other kind of country. It’s part of that special glamour attached to hunting bighorns. Some people say grizzlies are the most dangerous to hunt and the elk can be more physically demanding on a hunter, but going after a bighorn
ram has an aura that can’t be matched by any other big game. I don’t care what it is.”

Jordanna saw the gleam in his brown eyes and understood the awed fascination for the bighorn sheep. They had adapted to this harsh and forbidding terrain of the mountain rooftops, an alpine world of snowcapped spires, a wild grandeur that was unmatched except by the animals themselves.

“I know what Dad means,” she offered. “Bighorn sheep have a charisma, something that’s rare in people and rarer still in animals. They are magnificent.”

“I know what you mean,” Tandy agreed. “I’ve been up in the mountains during their rut. One time I saw a pair of big old monarchs fighting. It was a sight.” He shook his head in remembered amazement. “They’d walk all stifflegged away from each other like the other one wasn’t worthy of their interest. Then they’d spin around and throw themselves at each other. It sounded like a pair of billiard balls coming together, only much louder. The mountains would echo with it. After they made a few passes at each other they quit. There was a bunch of ewes there, but they didn’t seem to care who won.”

“At least they don’t kill each other over the females,” Kit inserted.

“Some of them do die from the fights,” Jocko corrected. “They come together with such force that sometimes there are internal injuries. The bighorn sheep fight more than any other hooved species.”

“But only in the breeding season,” Jordanna added, “which is in late November, isn’t it?”

“Si. That is when the rams leave their bachelor lives behind and seek out the ewes.”

“Is there any coffee left, Jocko?” Satisfied that the horses were taken care of, Brig finally joined the circle. He picked up the discussion. “The strongest rams have the breeding priorities, although they are challenged by lesser or younger rams. It is nature’s way of insuring that the offspring will be strong. Weakness is bred out, instead of in.”

“The ram with the largest horns is always the dominant one.” Jocko poured the last of the coffee into a cup and handed it to Brig. “He rarely lives to old age, because he is always fighting and breeding. It all becomes too much for him.”

“Now we know what our problem is, eh, Max?” Fletcher laughed and slapped the man on the shoulder in jest. “We’re a pair of old rams that are wearing out.”

“That’s probably it,” Max laughed in agreement. “Too many ewes instead of too many years.”

Kit ignored the ribald humor of the two men. “How long does the rutting season last?”

“About a month. Late November into December,” Jocko answered. “Or sooner if winter comes early to the mountains, and it is going to be a bad one. The wild animals always know. They live with nature and recognize her warning signs, while man tries to build machines to do the same thing.”

“Wait until you get your first look at a ram, Kit,” Tandy said. “All spring, summer, and fall, he’s been grazing to get his strength for the rutting season. He’s a massive, chunky animal. When you refer to them as sheep, most people think of something the size of domestic sheep. But a bighorn is about the size of a mule deer. Those big, curling horns can weigh forty pounds. Can you imagine carrying that kind of weight around on your head? It’s no wonder he’s got a neck like a football player.”

“Yes,” Jocko agreed with what his friend said. “And you should see this same ram after the rutting season. He rarely eats at all during that time. He fights and chases ewes and breeds. By the time it is over, he will be thin and scrawny. That is why when the big ones get older, they do not always make it through the severe winters in the high mountains.”

“The bighorns sound like fascinating animals,” Kit murmured.

“They are,” Fletcher insisted.

“If they are a wild sheep, how come they don’t
resemble our domestic sheep more? Or vice-versa?” Kit asked.

Jordanna answered that question. “It’s believed that the bighorns are descended from the large Asian sheep and migrated here to North America when the two continents were linked by a land bridge. Our domestic sheep resemble the Middle East sheep.”

“You do know something about the quarry you’re after, don’t you?” Brig eyed her with grudging approval. “More than just what part of the body to hit for a sure kill.”

“Dad taught me to know all I could about whatever I was hunting,” she replied with a slight shrug that said the knowledge was part of being a good hunter and warranted no special acknowledgement.

“It’s essential to know as much as you can about the animal you’re hunting,” her father elaborated on her statement. “What his habits are, what time he eats, what time he rests, the type of terrain he prefers. This is especially true with the Rocky Mountain Bighorns because they have been hunted so hard and been driven back by man’s encroachment into some of the roughest country there is. They have become doubly wary, which makes them that much harder to stalk—and that much more of a prize.”

“Except during the rutting season,” Tandy inserted. “Then those rams are so wrapped up in each other you can practically walk right up to them. Which is why they don’t schedule the hunting season during the rut.”

Brig drained his cup dry and straightened. “The rest stop is over. It’s time we were moving on.” He passed the cup to Jocko to put away while the others pushed stiffly to their feet.

Jordanna followed Brig as he walked to her sorrel horse to tighten the saddle cinch. The discussion about the bighorns had eliminated the tension of the earlier confrontation between Brig and her father.

“Brig.” Jordanna watched him flip the stirrup across
the saddle seat. “Why did you object to Dad shooting that elk this morning?”

“I don’t believe in killing an animal for his horns.”

His answer brought a frown. “If you feel that way, why did you agree to act as a hunting guide for the bighorns?”

He jerked the cinch strap tight. “Because I needed the money.” Without looking at her, he held the horse’s bridle while she mounted, then walked to his own horse.

Her father had said he’d bought McCord, but somehow Jordanna hadn’t believed it until Brig had said it just now. She was beginning to understand why her father had backed down from taking that trophy elk. He was allowing Brig to hold onto a fragment of his principles, rather than push him too far. Jordanna suspected it had probably been a wise decision.

“What’s the frown about?” Kit had walked his bay horse up to hers.

“I was just thinking about Brig and why he objected to killing that elk,” she murmured absently.

“He probably shares my contempt for killing as a sport,” he supplied the same answer Brig had. “There should be a law that people have to eat whatever they kill.” He urged his horse ahead of hers to follow Brig when he started his mount forward.

Shortly after four that afternoon, they stopped to camp for the night. Brig and Tandy took care of the horses, hobbling them and turning them loose to graze on the thick mountain grass. Jocko started a fire and immediately put a pot of coffee on before fixing the evening meal. A screen of bushes at the edge of camp provided nature’s version of a latrine. Jordanna was just walking out from the bushes to return to the fire when her father approached. She smiled and started to walk past him, but he stopped.

“There is something I’ve been meaning to speak to you about, Jordanna,” he began. “But I haven’t had a chance to see you alone today until now.”

“What is it?” She experienced only a mild curiosity for this unknown subject he wanted to discuss in private.

“It’s about last night. Or, maybe I should say this morning.”

Jordanna felt her cheeks growing warm.

“What about it?” She tried not to appear as insecure as she felt.

“Yesterday, when I asked you to be nice to McCord, I never meant for you to go that far.” He looked embarrassed, and apologetic. “I was suggesting that . . .”

“I know what you were suggesting,” Jordanna interrupted him to spare him further explanations. “It was entirely my own decision.”

“Are you sure that . . .” He was skeptical, not fully convinced.

It hurt that he believed she would do it for him. It hurt and it irritated. “I am an adult, Dad,” she told him stiffly. “I’m capable of doing my own reasoning. For once, will you trust me to know what I’m doing?”

“I do.” His smile was apologetic and rueful. He cupped her cheek in a gentle caress. “I just wanted to be absolutely certain that you knew what you were doing.”

“I do, Dad,” Jordanna assured him. “I promise there is nothing for you to worry about.”

Turning, her father draped an arm around her shoulder in a gesture of affection. “Let’s go back to the fire and see if that coffee is ready.”

Brig remained hidden in the long shadows cast by the bushes. When the horses had been rubbed down and hobbled, he had approached the screen of bushes from the opposite side. He had overheard Fletcher’s request to speak privately to Jordanna. Instead of making his presence known, he had turned away, intending to permit them their privacy, until he’d heard the subject. His involvement in last night had prompted him to listen.

“. . . when I asked you to be nice to him . . .” That phrase of Fletcher’s was still ringing in his ears.

The clenched muscle in his jaw smoothed out as he watched the father and daughter stop at the fire, stretching out their hands to the flames to warm themselves. Jordanna’s reply had confirmed that last night had been what she wanted, too.

Not that he would have settled for anything less than sleeping with her. He wouldn’t have. But if the light hadn’t been on in the bedroom, would he have gone to the door? She had waited up for him, Invited him to come.

His mouth curved into a half-smile beneath his mustache when he remembered her claim that she wasn’t promiscuous. He should have guessed that from the first time he’d made love to her and had discovered the thread of inhibition holding her back.

Last night her response to his lovemaking had been unrestrained. He had wakened her. Or was that his damned male pride talking? He almost chuckled aloud at the question.

Brig found himself wondering briefly what was so important that Fletcher had felt it necessary that Jordanna “be nice” to him? Could it be the hunt? The man seemed inordinately determined that he would have this hunt. Brig supposed that Fletcher was obsessed with the idea of bagging a trophy ram. Wealthier men than Fletcher Smith had been known to have more peculiar idiosyncracies.

T
HE CAMP SCENE
wasn’t one Brig wanted to return to immediately. The serenity of the blazing bonfire and the smell of fresh coffee didn’t appeal to him. He preferred the biting chill in the air, stinging his nose and lungs, to the warmth of the golden flames. It brought all his senses to life.

And isolation was better than the voices and the atmosphere of comaraderie in the camp, nestled near a windbreak of trees. A purpling mountain stream was braided copper in a reflection of the day’s sunset. Ridge after ridge marked the horizon stretching to the endless beyond. A coyote yipped from one of them.

The night’s camp was crude compared to the accommodations that would be available at the base camp they’d reach tomorrow. Jocko was cooking their meal on an open fire. Only two tents had been pitched, a larger one to accommodate the majority of the party and a smaller one for Jordanna. Brig saw her carry an armload of pine needles into the small tent, where there was barely enough room to stand upright.

He was drawn to her, with the same irresistible force that pulls a moth to the flame. It was an upsetting weakness, but when had he been able to resist her since he’d met her?

Today, when she had ridden beside him, he had felt good inside. He had liked the feeling of someone riding with him, someone who didn’t take his orders, who was there to share. She had aroused feelings in him that were deep and gentle. It was the way he wanted to be with her.

Scooping up half an armful of rusty pine needles, Brig walked to the small tent. One flap was fastened open to reveal Jordanna on her hands and knees spreading the pine needles for a mattress. Brig ducked under the canvas roof and stepped inside, crouching to spill the pine needles to the ground. She sat back on her heels, her look of concentration replaced by a radiant smile that knotted his insides.