Hidden Fires

She had never made small talk with him before. Since he had initiated the conversation, she was eager to continue it. Strained though it was, it was a beginning. “I like to cook. My guardians in Clayton had a cook/housekeeper who ruled her kitchen like a despot, but sometimes she would let me experiment with a recipe.”

“Maybe Gloria will let you putter around in her kitchen. If you can stand all the kids underfoot.”

“Who’s Gloria?” she asked with interest.

“She’s Rudy’s wife.” He saw her eyebrows raise in another question. “Rudy’s my… uh… he’s the foreman at the ranch. He and Gloria live there with… his mother. They have a baby every year or so.” He smiled, and Lauren noticed that his eyes crinkled at the corners. She had glimpsed only a few unguarded genuine smiles at their wedding reception. They made him appear younger.

“Ben…” she hesitated over that name. Why should she? She continued doggedly, “Ben told me that one of your vaqueros is an Indian.”

Jared laughed. “You’d better believe it. Right down to his boots—which he usually forsakes for moccasins. Thorn is a Comanche. My father found him when he and a few Rangers raided a village to rescue some white captives. Thorn was half-dead with a gunshot wound and starvation, either of which should have killed him.”

He swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and dusted his hands free of bread crumbs. “Anyway, Ben brought him back to Keypoint. Thorn was about eleven or twelve, I guess. It was long before I was born. He’s been there ever since and is one of our best hands. He and Ben were very attached to each other. Thorn used to take us—Rudy and me—out on the plains. He taught us to stalk deer, read the stars, the weather, things like that.”

Lauren was amazed, not only at the story, but at Jared’s telling it. He had never been so loquacious. “Then you and Rudy grew up together?” she asked.

He was made uneasy by the question and answered laconically, “Yeah.”

She tried again. “I think your land is beautiful, Jared. I really do.” She said it impulsively, but emphatically.

He looked at her strangely, then away. He squinted his eyes against the late-morning sun’s glare as they swept the panorama before them. “Yes, it is beautiful.” He seemed entranced with the view for long, silent minutes, then stood up abruptly as if embarrassed by having spoken so freely. “If you need some privacy, go behind those rocks over there.”

It took her a few seconds to comprehend his meaning. Then she lowered her head in confusion and stammered, “No, I… I’m fine.”

“Then if you’ll excuse me,” he said with exaggerated gallantry. He loomed over her with characteristic impudence, and she blushed to the roots of her hair. He laughed out loud as he sauntered off, his spurs jingling against the small rocks lining the riverbank.

Lauren rewrapped the remainder of her sandwich and put it back into Jared’s saddlebag, standing warily beside the huge palomino. A rifle was sheathed in a scabbard strapped to the back of his saddle. She had noted earlier that Jared was wearing a holstered pistol. Never in her life had she been around firearms, and they terrified her. Yet her husband seemed not to think anything at all about having them so close at hand.

When he had come back and gathered the reins of the horses, she commented, “I noticed some uprooted trees over there. Is someone clearing that land?”

“No, that’s what the Rio Caballo can do if it gets angry enough. That happened two years ago and was one of the worst flash floods in recent history. Trees, cattle, houses, even bridges, were washed away.”

“But the river seems so tranquil.”

“Most of the time, it is. But if it rains hard enough and fills up the streams in the hills, the river can become an entity to reckon with. It takes back some of what it’s given to the land.” It was a poetic philosophy for this usually taciturn man.

Mechanically he gave her a boost up to her horse. She couldn’t contain a gasp as she resumed that torturous position. To cover it, she asked, “What is my horse’s name?”

“Name? I think the vaqueros call her Flame because of her color.”

“And yours?”

“This is Charger,” he said proudly, patting the beautiful stallion’s neck. “He’s not his usual self this morning. I think… Flame has got him excited.” The golden-brown eyes slanted toward Lauren and were rewarded with a high blush that stained her cheeks. Involuntarily her eyes were drawn to the part of the stallion that manifested his maleness.

They say he is as big as a stallion! Lauren nearly choked when Elena’s words once again came back to her.

Jared roared with laughter. “Don’t worry, Lauren. He’s too much of a gentleman to mount her in public. But I’ll keep a tight rein on him, in case her attraction proves to be too much for him.” When his laughter subsided he said, “He’s quite an animal, isn’t he? Ben gave him to me when I came home from Cuba.” In an instant, Lauren’s embarrassment vanished and was replaced by astonishment.

“You fought in the war?” she exclaimed in surprise.

He nodded curtly in affirmation. He obviously didn’t appreciate reminders of the war. His eyes turned as hard and cold as agates. Distressed that she had spoiled his civil mood she turned her head away from him and became intensely interested in the horizon.

* * *

They rode for another hour before cresting a hill and reining in. On the other side, the land spread out like a large, shallow bowl, creating an incredible vista. A sizable herd of cattle, mostly Hereford, was grazing in the pasture and standing in the shallows of the river, which wound through the meadow. A few cattle, whose curly red coats contrasted with the colors of the verdant pasture, lazed in the shadows of the cedar trees dotting the valley.

Lauren was so taken by the sight that she wasn’t aware of the thundering hooves approaching her and Jared until the horses were almost upon them. She screamed when she saw about ten riders, bandanas pulled up over their noses, hats pulled down low, brandishing pistols and rifles and shouting at the top of their voices.

They rode toward her and Jared pell-mell, leaning forward over their saddle horns. She whirled toward Jared in fright, and was astounded to see him adjusting his red scarf over his nose in the same manner as the bandits. Faster than she could follow his movements, he whipped the rifle from the scabbard and cocked it. Then, spurring Charger, he galloped toward the attacke