Lucky Bride. Ana Seymour
Lucky Stars?”
“Hanks’s place. Ol’ man Hanks named it after his three girls. He always called them his lucky stars.”
“They didn’t have any brothers?”
“Nope. Just the three fillies. Sarah Hanks died on the last one and Charlie Hanks never got over it. Not ‘til the day he died.”
“So the three girls are running the ranch now?”
“Molly is. Can’t say as the other two are much help.”
Parker tied the towel around his waist. “Where might I find their outfit?”
Max pushed away from the wall and started to walk toward the door, a secret smile on her face. “You plannin’ to sign on out there?”
“I might give it a try.”
Max shook her head. “Head straight north out of town. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Parker said with a smile and a nod. “And thanks for the, ah…company.”
Max started out the door, her broad shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “Lord almighty,” he heard her say as she disappeared into the front room, “that’s all Miss Molly needs… a gol-danged pilgrim with the body of a prize stallion.”
He’d found the canyon. It wasn’t much of a canyon, but it sliced deep enough so that the horse he’d exchanged for Diamond tossed her head and looked reluctant to start down.
Parker dismounted and walked to the edge, looking for a path. A pilgrim, Max had called him. At the moment he was ready to add some epithets of his own to the description. When he left Canyon City he could have sworn he was heading due north, but he’d been riding a good portion of the afternoon and hadn’t seen the Lucky Stars ranch. Nor had he seen anything of the Hanks sisters. To make matters worse, the wind that had been brisk when he left town was now downright nasty. He hunched into his sheepskin jacket. Max hadn’t said anything about having to cross a canyon. Maybe he should turn back to town. If, indeed, he knew which way was back.
“What do you think?” he asked the swaybacked sorrel. The animal had been a sorry trade for Diamond, but the liveryman had insisted that Diamond might never heal up, in which case any trade was a good one. Parker didn’t know enough about horses to argue.
The animal looked at him reproachfully, as if to remind him that finding the right road was the rider’s responsibility, not the horse’s. He took another look into the canyon. The riverbed at the bottom was dry. There’d be no problem crossing. And the slope up the far side looked more gentle than the one he was standing on. If he could make it down, he should be all right.
“Ah, hell,” he said aloud. He grasped the horse’s reins firmly in one hand and started down the slippery side of the cliff, pulling the balky animal after him. Now that he was on his way, it didn’t look so formidable. And the wind cut a little less once he was within the shelter of the rocks. A few ominous white flakes whipped by him, but he ignored them and concentrated on his footing.
“Just one foot after the other,” he said under his breath. One tenderfoot after another, he silently corrected, remembering his encounter with Max. He grinned in spite of himself.
“Papa must be a-rollin’ in his grave to see me like this,” Susannah said with disgust, tearing off the oversize gloves and looking at her chapped hands. “My skin’s going to be as tough as shoe leather.”
“People don’t roll in their graves,” Molly replied. “Once they’re dead, they’re dead.”
“Can’t we go back now, Molly? I’m half-froze.”
Molly pulled off her own gloves and huffed on her numb fingers. The storm was getting worse, and if they hadn’t found the blamed mule by now, they probably weren’t going to. They could only hope that the poor nag had found a place to take shelter. Beatrice was too old to weather a storm like the one kicking up just to the west of them. Too old to be of much use around the ranch, either. She’d been their father’s favorite—the only animal he could afford when he’d first come West back in ‘50. He’d been on his way to join the California Gold Rush, but had fallen in love with the wide open skies of Wyoming and had never left. Molly still felt the pain like a piece of glass in her throat every time she thought about him. She reckoned she owed it to Papa not to let Beatrice freeze to death alone in a snowstorm.
“We’ll look along the canyon,” she told her sister. “If we can’t see any sign of her there, we’ll have to head back.”
Susannah wheeled her horse toward the west. She was actually the best rider of the three sisters, but she played down her skill, not wanting Molly to assign her more tasks around the place. “Hurry up with it, then. That’s a blizzard coming,” she called back to her sister. “I don’t see what’s so all-fired important about an old mule. She won’t even let any of us ride her.”
“She misses Papa, just like the rest of us. One of these days she’ll calm down.”
Susannah frowned and let Molly pull up alongside her. “You talk about her as if she were a member of the family.”
“Don’t be stupid. You and Mary Beth and I are the family. The only family we have left.”
They’d been riding toward the edge of Copper Canyon, an unexpected gap that opened up in the middle of the prairie like a crack in a smooth pan of cake. It was named not for any particular mineral content but for its burnished red color when the sun hit it right. Susannah reached the edge first and pulled up, holding her hat down on her head as the wind tore into her. “She’s not going to be down here, Molly,” she hollered. “Papa never took Beatrice into the canyon.”
Molly squinted to keep the snow from her eyes. The big flakes were coming down harder, and it was becoming difficult to see. She flipped her horse’s reins over its head and handed them to her sister. “Hold on to Midnight. I’m going to take a look.”
“I don’t think…”
Before Susannah could finish her protest, Molly had jumped from her horse and was walking toward the edge of the cliff. As she reached the rim, her heart gave a little jump. Through the snow she could make out the distinct shape of an animal, just a few yards down into the canyon. “She’s here!” she yelled to Susannah as she scrambled over the side.
“Be careful. The ground’s slippery,” her sister warned.
In fact, the footing was more treacherous than Molly had anticipated. The snow had formed an icy coating over the rocks. She turned around and began to climb down backward, holding to the side as she went. From beneath her came a gentle whinny. She straightened up in surprise and looked over her shoulder. She knew the mule’s throaty sound. The animal below her was not Beatrice.
Her body sagged a moment with disappointment, then she straightened her back. It was someone’s animal, and it didn’t belong stuck here on the side of a canyon. She faced the rocks once again and continued down until she reached the horse. Close up, it didn’t look as if it was worth saving, but there was a fancy tooled saddle on its back and bulging saddlebags.
She looked around. Where in blazes was the rider? The gale tore at her, threatening to blow her off the side of the cliff. She clutched at the horse for support. “What are you doing here, you old nag? Where’s your owner?” The animal tossed its head and gave another whinny of complaint.
Molly twisted around to survey the surrounding area, but the canyon was fast turning into a sheet of white. She could barely see the ground right next to her own feet. She started to feel an ominous cold from the inside out. If the owner of this horse was lying hurt or wounded somewhere near here, they might not