Cassie & Jasper: Kidnapped Cattle by Bryn Fleming

Author:Bryn Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

We made our way back to camp by moonlight. Since the clouds had cleared off, the air was biting cold. I shivered and rubbed my icy fingers against my jeans.

Rowdy whinnied softly as we approached our camp. Willie whined as Jasper knelt and untied him. Jasper sat on the freezing ground close to the tree trunk, where the branches collected the snow, leaving bare spots underneath.

I forced myself to keep quiet. I wanted to shout and stomp around. I wanted to gallop back and ask those good-for-nothings what they thought they were doing with our cows. Instead, I paced in tight circles, my arms crossed firm over my chest. I kicked rocks and felt like steam was boiling out of my ears, I was that pent up.

Jasper watched me silently rage for a minute or two. He pulled a grass stem and chewed it where he sat in the dark in the dirt. He fingered the lucky horseshoe charm on the chain around his neck.

My heartbeat finally slowed and some of the anger gave way to frustration, then to puzzling it out. “Well,” I asked, slumping down next to Jasper, “how should we go about this? Are we really going to get the herd back by ourselves, or should we go for help, now that we know the rustlers really have our cows?”

“While you’ve been stomping and shooting smoke out your ears,” he said, “I’ve been making a plan.”

“Ha-ha. You saying you’re not mad at them?”

“’Course I’m mad,” he said. “But being mad’s not a plan. It won’t get the herd back.”

“Right. Let’s hear it, then.”

“First, we can do this ourselves. If we went for help, they’d be long gone before we got back. So, we wait.”

“Wait? I’m not in a waiting mood.” I was on my feet again, pacing.

“Listen. We wait until they’re asleep, maybe just before dawn, so we have a bit of light. We split up outside their camp. One of us gets their horses out of there, far enough away that they can’t just mount up and ride after us.”

“How are we going to get the horses out of there without waking anybody up?”

“Very quietly.”

“Yeah, well, I hope you tell that to the horses.”

Jasper rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll lead the horses away, quiet as little mice. Then you open the brush fence and get the cattle out?”

“Right.” He nodded. “You let the horses go, then come and help me with the cows. We’ll drive them far enough off that we’ve got a good head start when the rustlers wake up and see the cows are gone.”

I considered. “What about when they come after us?”

“Like you said before, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

I swallowed hard. He was right. There was no time to get help. It was up to us.

Jasper leaned over and pulled some pemmican out of the saddlebag. He broke it in half and handed me a piece.

“I don’t think I can sleep for thinking about it.”

“Nope,” Jasper said, “plus it’s too cold to sleep.

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