Making a decision, Mattie raised her bag of food. “Why don’t you come out to the backyard and we’ll watch him play while I eat my dinner? I have part of a vanilla shake here that I could offer you. Or a soda from the fridge, maybe?”
Light returned to the girl’s face. “I’d love that. Robo’s the best.”
“Yes,” Mattie said, leading the way to the door, glad that she could make both her dog and this girl happy while she did nothing more than sit on her back porch and eat. “Yes, he is.”
TWO
Sunday Morning
Cole Walker leaned forward in the saddle as his horse, mud sucking at his hooves, lunged out of a stream swollen from spring snowmelt. He kept an eye on his two daughters riding in front of him. Sixteen-year-old Angie led their three-pony string while sitting astride Cole’s roan gelding, Mountaineer, who could be trusted to stick to any trail you set him on. Nine-year-old Sophie sat atop a mount named Honey, an aged palomino mare borrowed from Cole’s dad. Cole also rode one of his dad’s horses, a tall, bay gelding called Duke.
The family’s Doberman pinscher, Bruno, ranged off trail, often loping out front and then trotting back. Much to Sophie’s disappointment, Cole had decided to leave Belle, their Bernese mountain dog, home because of a gunshot injury to her hind leg from last summer. Though her wound was nine months old and well healed, Cole thought a long trek through mountain terrain would be ill advised, since she still walked with a limp that he feared might be permanent.
He wanted to show his kids the mountain sheep that he and a crew from Colorado Parks and Wildlife were going to relocate in a few weeks. The sheep lived on Redstone Ridge in the national forest west of Timber Creek, an area still recovering from a major fire from decades earlier, and the herd had grown too big for the available food supply. Cole had signed on to help sedate and trap about half the herd so they could be moved to a range farther west near Durango.
“How ya doing, Sophie-bug?” Cole asked for the umpteenth time as they breasted the steep incline that led them out of the draw. He would be the first to admit that he’d grown overprotective of this child—his baby—since she’d been kidnapped a month ago.
“My legs are getting sore,” she replied over her shoulder, her brown curls jostling as Honey made the last hump up the hill. She clutched the saddle horn.
“We’re almost there, and then we’ll stop for lunch. Look at how green everything is up here and how big the trees are getting. Twenty-five years ago this part of the forest was entirely black.” Although the forest still lacked density, healthy evergreens topped out at about twenty feet here in the old burn area. He wanted the kids to develop an appreciation for how long it took a forest to recover.
“There’s still plenty of black skeletons,” Angie called back from in front. She’d worn an olive green baseball cap to protect her fair skin from the sun, and her blond ponytail swung out the open notch at the back.
“There are still some skeletons.” Cole passed one of the hollowed out, blackened trunks, settling in his saddle as their horses climbed upward on a lesser grade.
Since talk was difficult, they rode in silence for a bit, the rocky trail winding through the evergreens, their horses’ shod hooves clicking against stones. Bruno trotted beside them, occasionally loping ahead but always returning. The pecking sound from a woodpecker echoed through the still forest, a balm to the soul. Cole’s back loosened as he swayed in the saddle, the sun warming his shoulders.
He wished Mattie had come with them. He’d thought she was going to say yes when he invited her, but after telling her he planned to round up a string of horses for them to ride, she’d begun to look apprehensive.
He smiled as he thought of her, a small package of dynamite with twice the power. Deputy Mattie Cobb with her intense, brown eyes and dark hair. He’d believed she wasn’t afraid of anything, but he was beginning to suspect that her fearlessness didn’t apply to horseback riding. In the end, she’d declined going on their trail ride, saying she needed to spend time with her foster mother on her day off.
An occasional clump of young aspen shot up toward the cloudless blue sky. Spring leaves, bright green and as yet unblemished by summer dryness, quivered at the ends of branches, their spade-like shape seeming to catch even the slightest of breezes.
“Look at the aspen leaves, girls. They’re dancing.”
Sophie tilted her head back and watched the leaves while she rode through the grove, and Cole watched her to make sure she didn’t get dizzy and lose her balance. Briefly, he regretted saying anything to distract her from paying attention to her seat, but she righted herself soon enough, and he relaxed his vigilance.
When Angie topped the rise, she reined Mountaineer to the side of the trail and pulled him to a halt. “Take a look at this.”
“Oh, wow!” Sophie said as she rode up beside Angie.
Cole angled Duke to the left of Sophie. In a meadow covered with bright green grass lay a carpet of red and pink blossoms. A soft breeze tossed the tiny, bright colored flowers back and forth on their stems. Heading into the wind, Bruno streaked through the foliage, his glossy black coat creating a brilliant contrast against the red flowers.
“That’s fireweed,” Cole said. “Sometimes it grows thick in burn areas like this. It helps hold the soil and prevents it from washing away.”
“It’s gorgeous,” Angie said.
“Do the sheep eat it?” Sophie asked.
“They could, but I bet they prefer the grass.” On the other side of the meadow, the solid cliff face and rocky spires that made up Redstone Ridge towered over the evergreen forest. Cole gazed upward, searching the rocks and boulders, and noticed movement at the top. “Look, girls.”
A bighorn ram with impressive curled horns scrambled to the top of a red-colored granite promontory and stood, apparently observing the human intruders from his perch. A group of four females, part of the ram’s harem, were scattered on various outcroppings below him, one with a small kid at her side.
Cole let out a quiet “huh” as the sight confirmed a thought that he’d expressed earlier to Ed Lovejoy, one of the wildlife managers. There would be ewes and babies to keep together during the relocation, and no pair should be broken up. Ed had assured him they would target younger animals to transfer and leave the pairs alone.
“Look at the baby,” Sophie squealed.
Cole unsnapped the leather case holding his binoculars and fished them out, then swung his leg over his horse’s rump to dismount. “Let’s get off here and stretch our legs. You guys can get a better look through these field glasses.”
After tying their horses to trees, they spent the next few minutes passing the glasses around, adjusting the eyepieces to the different sizes of their faces, and learning how to zoom in on the sheep. Sophie giggled with delight as she watched the tiny lamb hop from rock to boulder, while the more-reserved Angie smiled with contentment.
He couldn’t tell which made the bigger splash, the big horned ram with the full curl or the tiny but sure-footed baby who could keep up with its mom despite the rocky terrain.
When Cole focused in on the ram, he noticed a fully healed, jagged scar on his right shoulder. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the deadly force created when two rams collided, locking horns until one skidded off and then backing up to explode toward each other and crash heads again. He wondered how many battles this old guy had fought in his lifetime.
“Look at all the pretty red-and-pink rocks,” Sophie breathed.