“Yes, I really want it. I mean it when I say I’d be grateful to be relieved of some of the burden.”
“So…” Lance took a slow breath, finding it hard after all the years of being an outcast to commit his trust. “What needs doing?”
Reed’s mouth curved in a rueful smile. “The most pressing is to round up several hundred head of the least valuable horses and sell them before winter sets in. There won’t be enough grazing to support all the herds once the grass goes dormant. And they’ll need to be broken to saddle if we’re to get the best price. Can you see to all that?”
It was Lance’s turn to break into a grin. “With one hand tied behind my back.”
“Would you like to shake on our new partnership?”
For a long moment, Lance looked at the hand Reed had stretched out to him. And then slowly he reached across the desk and clasped it with a firm grip. “To our partnership,” he replied solemnly.
Reed relaxed visibly. “I’d say this calls for a drink to celebrate. You prefer whiskey or brandy?”
The result of their interview gratified Summer. Reed and Lance settled into a truce of sorts, apparently willing to let bygones be bygones. It was awkward at first, and a bit uneasy because of their past relationship, but Summer held out the hope that from partners, the two men eventually might become friends.
Amelia showed no sign of relenting, however, much to Summer’s sorrow. She scarcely spoke to Summer when their paths crossed, and looked at her as if she considered her a traitor. The night Reed invited Summer and Lance up to the big house for dinner, Amelia stayed in her room. And the following afternoon, when Summer found her crying in the kitchen, she wouldn’t accept consolation or comfort.
Otherwise, Lance seemed to be fitting in fairly well as the new boss. As Dusty had predicted, a few of the hands quit outright, but the others were willing to give him a chance, and the Mexican vaqueros seemed pleased to be working with a man of Lance’s knowledge and skill.
That he was skilled with the horses, no one could dispute, and he more than proved his worth in the roundups.
“You ought to see how he breaks those mustangs, Miss Summer,” Dusty told her a few days later. “He downright charms ‘em. It’s a sight to watch.”
“I’d like to see it,” she agreed, warmed to have someone finally appreciating Lance for his abilities rather than condemning him for the copper color of his skin.
She rode out with Dusty that afternoon to the north end of the valley, and found a ridge where she could watch without getting in the way. In the distance she could see where the vaqueros had constructed a wide-mouthed corral of brush and post oak timbers near a watering hole and had driven part of the herd inside.
The wild mustang was a tough, wiry, mobile animal, smaller than the warm-blooded American horses of the East, and more ungainly, but with great endurance and the ability to subsist on grass and cover great distances between water holes. John Weston’s strategy for the ranch had always been to encourage selective breeding, maintaining the best qualities of the mustang stock but adding the thoroughbred traits of beauty and speed. More than a few of these wild mustangs joined Sky Valley’s herds each year and had to be culled out so as not to dilute the bloodlines and contribute to overgrazing.
Summer watched at a distance as Dusty explained what was happening. Lance, mounted on his sorrel gelding, a coiled lasso on hi
s arm, entered the corral and rode through the restless herd. When he picked the horse he wanted, he and the other vaqueros drove it away from the band and back through the opening in the fence, which was quickly closed. Then the chase began, Lance alone following the racing mustang over the valley.
“It won’t be long now,” Dusty said confidently from beside her. “And you’ll get a better view. They’re headed this way.”
True enough, the galloping pair had moved close enough for Summer to see the flecks of foam on the horses’ coats. After a mile or so, when the mustang was weary and blowing hard, Lance uncoiled the thong of braided rawhide and flung the lasso noose over its neck, choking off its breath. Immediately he dismounted, running with the animal, holding the rope taut as he ran.
Moments later the horse fell to the ground for want of breath. Lance advanced slowly, keeping the lasso tight, till he could fasten a pair of hobbles on the animal’s forelegs and slip a noose around the underjaw. Then he loosened the rope so it could breathe.
The dazed animal struggled to its feet, and having gotten its breath, began a desperate effort at escape, rearing and plunging and whirling till it was covered with foam.
Finally, at last, the mustang’s power was exhausted and it stood trembling and wild-eyed. Lance advanced hand over hand toward the horse’s head. From her position, Summer couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she knew it must be something and that his low murmurings obviously had a calming effect. The mustang stood obediently as Lance gently placed his hand first on the horse’s nose, then over its eyes.
“What is he doing?” she asked Dusty curiously when he saw man and horse standing nose to nose.
“Breathing in its nostrils. It’s the darnedest thing you ever saw. Watch and you’ll see what I mean.”
Bending down, Lance carefully removed the hobbles. Then catching a handful of mane, he swung himself gently up on the animal’s back. The mustang moved off without protest, as docile as a lamb.
“See? And it doesn’t break the mustang’s spirit. We’ll keep it tied to a gentle mare for a few days, and give it a lot of handling. Then one of our boys will be able to break it to saddle without much trouble. We already have two dozen green-broke horses like that ready for market, thanks to Lance. Come on, let’s go meet him.”
He led Summer down off the ridge, while down below, some of the vaqueros assumed control of the mustang and returned Lance’s sorrel to him. Lance must have spied her, Summer realized, for he turned and rode directly toward her. When he reached her, Dusty excused himself, giving them some privacy.
Lance looked tough and supremely masculine with his black hair drenched in sweat and plastered to his skull, and streaks of dust lining his face, she thought. He also looked guarded as his dark eyes surveyed her warily. “Something wrong, princess?”
Summer smiled demurely as she offered him water from a canteen. “Why do you always thing something’s wrong whenever I come out to see you?”
“I guess I still think of you as being too fancy to get your fine clothes dirty, coming near us filthy hands.”