Cowboy Country. Linda Lael Miller

       CHAPTER ONE

      Lonesome Bend, Colorado

      RANCHING, BRODY CREED THOUGHT, shifting in the saddle as he surveyed the sprawling range land from a high ridge. It can mend a broken heart, this life, and then shatter it all over again, in a million and one different ways and twice that many pieces.

      There were plenty of perils. Cattle starved or froze to death when a hard winter came around, which averaged once a year up there in the high country. Spring calves and colts fell prey to wolves and coyotes and sometimes bears, hungry after hibernating through the coldest months.

      It was now May, and all was well, but come summertime, wells might dry up for lack of rain, and turn the grass to tinder, ready to blaze up at the smallest spark. He’d seen wildfires consume hundreds of acres in a matter of hours, herds and houses and barns wiped out.

      Year-round, good horses went lame and pickup trucks gave up the ghost, and every so often, somebody drowned in the river or one of the lakes.

      On the other hand, Brody reflected, the beauty of that land could heal, take a man by surprise, even though he’d called the place home all his life. That day, for instance, the sky was so blue it made Brody’s heart ache, and the aspens, cottonwoods and pines lining the landscape were shimmering splashes of green, a thousand hues of it, ranging from silvery to near-indigo. The river wound like a ribbon through the valley, clear as azure glass.

      After a few moments, Brody adjusted his hat and sighed before giving the gelding a light nudge with the heels of his boots. The buckskin, long-legged with a black mane and tail, picked his way cautiously down the steep slope that led to the water’s edge.

      Behind them and a hundred yards farther along the riverbank, in a westerly direction, hammers clacked and power saws screeched, and Brody glanced back, pleased, as always, to see the steel-and-lumber skeletons of his house and barn rising.

      Not so long ago, there had been a campground and RV park on the site, owned by Tricia McCall, now his sister-in-law and therefore a Creed. The picnic tables and the concrete fire pits were gone, along with the public showers and electrical hookups for trailers. Only the log building that had once served as the office remained; Brody had been baching in it since last Thanksgiving, when he’d moved out of the main ranch house.

      The peace between him and twin brother, Conner, could be a fragile one at times, and they both benefited by a little distance.

      Now, ready to get moving, Brody clucked his tongue and gave the gelding, Moonshine, another tap with his heels.

      “Come on, now,” he told the buckskin, his tone reasonable. “The water’s shallow here, and it’s real calm. If we’re going to be working livestock on both sides of this river, then you’ve got to learn how to cross it.”

      Moonshine, recently acquired at an auction in Denver, was young, and Brody hadn’t had a chance to train him in the ways of a cow pony.

      No time like the present, he figured.

      Brody was about to get down out of the saddle and lead the horse into the water, which lapped gently at the stony shore that used to be a swimming beach, back when the River’s Bend Campground was a going concern, when Moonshine suddenly decided he was willing to get wet after all.

      He plunged into the water, up to his chest, making a mighty splash in the process. Brody, gripping the barrel of that horse hard between his knees, just to stay in the saddle, laughed out loud