“Let’s purify some water, check the fence to make sure it’s sound, treat our horses to some feed, and get a little coffee going.”
Cal was amenable to all these things, if his smile, and the way he stuck close, not just Zeke’s shadow but his companion, was anything to go by. The mustangs grazed in the once-tall grasses, drank in the river at the bottom of the fence line, and twitched their tails, giving the humans on the other side of the fence only a cursory notice.
The horses in the paddock, Flint, Applejack, and Dusty, were another story. They clamored for attention, for feed, buckets of water, and horse cookies, ears pricked, eyes bright.
“How about some breakfast?” asked Zeke.
Cal took off his cowboy hat and scrubbed at his hair, his smile wide as he looked at Zeke.
There were thoughts behind those big blue eyes that Zeke couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and imagined that if he could have traded his soul, he would ask for the moment by the river and the joy at the morning that arced between them to be captured forever.
Was this what love felt like? Or was he making a whole lot of stuff up to justify the fact that he wanted to draw Cal into his arms and kiss into the sweetness of Cal’s smile, and anticipate what might come at nightfall?
He shook his head, reset his cowboy hat on his head, a bit chagrined at those romantic thoughts when surely Cal wanted nothing of the kind.
He heated some water in a pot over the butane burner, and made them a quick breakfast of oatmeal and reconstituted blueberries, and tossed in some powdered milk to make it a bit more creamy. They ate by the vanishing warmth of the burner, shoveling the food in while Zeke boiled water for coffee.
“What’s that?” asked Cal. Sitting cross-legged, with his metal bowl balanced on one bent knee, he pointed across the river at a large brown shape snuffling in and out of the trees. “It’s a bear. Isn’t it a bear, Zeke?”
Zele had seen a few bears in his time, mostly at a distance. The first bear they’d seen on this trip had been headed away from them, but out here so far away from anywhere, this bear felt more like a danger to them.
“Let me get the rifle,” said Zeke, putting his bowl down and standing up.
“What? No!”
“I’m not going to shoot it,” said Zeke. “I’m going to use the scope to check it out, like I did the last one. If it tries to cross the river, I’ll shoot to scare it away. Only that. Just scare it away.”
His heart was pounding as he moved to the paddock to grab the rifle from its holster. He’d left it loaded, so now he cocked it and raised the scope to his eye.
In the shadow of the brim of his hat, the outline of the bear, each brown hair doused in sunshine and tossed by mountain breezes, came absolutely into focus.
The bear was foraging for its winter sleep, as the last one had been. It was a brown bear, so while it wasn’t a vegetarian, it ate berries and fish and small mammals. Not horses or humans. The bear was fat and sassy from its summer feeding, and powerful looking. It probably meant them no harm while it was focused on feeding. Still, Zeke didn’t want the horses or Cal to feel alarmed.
He kept the scope focused on the bear. When it turned downriver, in the direction of the mustangs, even though it was on the far side of the river, Zeke didn’t want it anywhere near their compound.
“Cover your ears,” said Zeke as he pulled back the bolt. Not because the rifle shot would be loud, but because it would be loud in contrast to the silence of the valley.
When Cal had his hands clapped over his ears, Zeke took aim upwind of the bear so the sound and the smell of the shot would have full effect and send the bear on its way. He pulled the trigger, felt the kickback in his shoulder, and kept looking through the scope.
The bear lifted its head and quickly ambled upstream, away from them. They had never been in danger, but when Zeke dropped the rifle, aimed at the ground, he was glad to see the look of relief on Cal’s face, as well as the complete lack of concern of the horses, both wild and domesticated.
“I, for one, could use some coffee,” said Zeke. “How about that?”
“Yeah,” said Cal.
While Zeke wiped down the rifle and tucked it away in its long leather holster, Cal raced to the burner, where the water was already at a boil. Zeke added freeze dried coffee and stirred it around, turning the burner off.
While they stood in front of the small burner waiting for the coffee to brew, Zeke felt his phone buzzing. For all that they were out in the middle of nowhere, he was pleased to see he had plenty of bars.
“Zeke Molloy here,” he said.
“Hey,” said a voice. “This is Arnie. I got Walt with me here. The BLM got a path dug so we can bring in a skinny trailer by truck. Not the huge rig as we’d thought, but this’ll do. It holds six, so we’ll make two trips.”
“Do you want help cutting the herd?” asked Zeke, thinking of how quickly they could saddle up.
“Naw, we’re good for that,” said Arnie. “Got any treats for the beasts to tame ‘em a little? We don’t want to do much but tag ‘em, so as to leave the wild in ‘em for the gals to tame ‘em.”
“Gals,” said Zeke, just as he remembered the program where young women took one hundred days to train mustangs and win awards and prizes. “Oh yeah. We’ve got cookies and some dense feed we can pass around. Will that do?”
