Once a Father

“As often as I could.”

He nodded. “It’s been a while since I had a dog. My sons always had at least one dog around, sometimes one each.”

“How many children do you have?” She sounded a little tentative. Disappointed, maybe. She hadn’t figured on kids.

“They’re not children.” If that helps any. “Trace and Ethan are in their twenties.”

“You don’t look old enough to have kids that age. You must’ve started young.”

“As young as I could.” He flashed her a wry smile. “I married a family. The boys were half-grown, and I was half-kid. Well, maybe not half, but it was a good mix to start with. We had some good times together.” He lifted one shoulder. “We’re all on our own now. Full-grown. Divorced. Footloose and…what’s the other thing?”

“Fancy free,” she quipped, joining him in some irony of her own. “Where is everybody?”

“No idea where their mother is. She cut out early. Left the boys with me.”

“What about their father?” She sounded suitably indignant on her new partner’s behalf. Logan appreciated loyalty.

It was almost a shame he had to set her straight. Try to, anyway.

“I’m their father. I adopted them, gave them my name. They both go by Wolf Track. Their mother left a picture of her, uh…one of the men. Ethan tried to look him up, but I don’t think he got anywhere. The other one…” He glanced at her as he turned onto the gravel approach to the Double D. He’d already said more than he usually did, but the look in her eyes invited more. And, what the hell… “Who knows? She never talked about her past. One of those livin'-in-the-moment people. I liked that about her right up until she was here one moment and gone the next.” “She just…left?”

“Yep. Said she’d come back for the boys and never did.”

She didn’t look too shocked. Didn’t look pitying or superior, wasn’t taking him for a saint or a sucker. Maybe she was just taking him for the way he was.

“That must’ve been hard,” she said. “Never knowing what was going to happen if she came back.”

“She wasn’t taking those boys, no matter what. Not after…” He smiled as he parked the pickup next to a paddock holding a handful of horses. “You’re good at stealing bases, you know that? I never answer questions on the first date.”

“This is hardly a date.”

“That’s right.” He cocked his finger and gave her a wink. “I picked you up.”

The man winked at her. Winked. All right, it was kind of cute, but what was he thinking? Mary hadn’t been winked at since…never? She didn’t remember anybody winking at her. It made her feel downright giddy. Of course, she’d hidden it.

Well, except for a little smile.

Hoolie Hoolihan emerged from the bunkhouse and ambled across the graveled quad that was surrounded by outbuildings and corrals. Hoolie was a true cowboy—unchanging, ageless, loyal as an old soldier. As far as Mary knew, he’d always been part of Double D. He greeted her with a proper pull on the brim of his cowboy hat before shaking Logan’s hand, tucking thumbs in his belt and commenting on the need for some rain. The visitors chimed in as they drifted toward the corral. As though they’d been cued, the horses suddenly took to the far corner like a flight of butterflies.

“Sally’s pretty pleased with herself, gettin’ you two partnered up,” Hoolie said as he hiked one boot up to the bottom fence rail. “Which one are you taking?”

“We’re going with Mary’s first instinct. Taking the claybank.” Logan glanced at his partner. “Right?”

“He’s beautiful,” Mary said, basking in his approval.

“That one’s all mustang,” Hoolie said. “No plow-horse blood in those legs.”

Logan smiled. “That’s the way we like ‘em.” At the moment, he only had eyes for the horses.

“I’ve got your book,” Hoolie said.

Logan spared him an appreciative grin. “So you’re the one.”

“The Indian way of training horses takes a lotta time, seems like.”

“I’ve been doing it all my life,” Logan quipped. “You think you can have the horse ready in just—”

“Oh, yeah.” Logan smiled, still watching the horses. “I don’t know if I can have Sergeant Tutan ready, but the horse is not a problem.”

“Are you taking him to your place?” Mary asked.

“First thing, I’m taking him back to his place. You can come if you want. Otherwise I can drop you off.”

“His place?”

“He’s a wild horse. His place is wild. That’s where we start.” Logan turned to Hoolie. “Can you help me cut him out?”

“I’ll be the gate man.”

Hoolie headed for the barn. Mary followed Logan around the front of his pickup to the empty horse trailer.

“Where are we starting?” she asked as she watched him open the tack door and reach inside for a coiled hard-twist rope. “I’m going, but I’m just curious.”

“His place.” He slid the bolt on the tack door and slid Mary a playful smile. “You like camping?”

She laughed. “I’m a soldier. Camp is my place.”

Chapter Three

He had set up his camp the day Mary had signed the agreement. The tipi was traditional. Except for its shape, the round pen was not. He had a permanent one in his backyard, but he used portable corral panels to make the circle he required in pursuit of his acquaintance with a horse. The round pen served as physical containment, but it allowed for freedom of the spirit. The rope he had watched many a tamer use to “break” a horse generally served Logan as a director’s tool. It helped him extend his arm or widen his hand. He could’ve used something else, but he was still a cowboy, and the rope was part of his gear.

And he was still an Indian. Gone were the old government-issue canvas tents his grandfather’s generation had known all too well. “Back to the blanket” had been an expression of ridicule. Back to the tipi was a summertime homecoming. Sure, he lived in a house. Most days, anyway. But there was no better shelter for camping at a powwow or getting away to a place where there were no square corners and no one knew your name than a Lakota tipi.

He’d set it up in a grassy draw in a remote part of the sanctuary. There was a stand of scrub oaks with a plentiful supply of deadfall, a patch of buffalo berry bushes, shifting shade, a view of mighty South Dakota buttes, and a sun-catcher creek meandering through it all.

He could feel Mary’s pleasure at first sight. She drew a quick breath and took it in wordlessly, which pleased him. Her curiosity was fully satisfied, and no comment could improve on that.

He backed the trailer up to the round pen, and she helped him adjust the panels to create a funnel into the circle from the trailer door. Logan entered the trailer through the front door, and the mustang scrambled out the back and darted to the far side of the pen. Logan half expected the horse to jump the fence. He could have cleared it, and Logan would have had all kinds of hell to pay getting him back. The fact that he didn’t try told Logan something about his state of mind. He wasn’t as scared as he looked.

Logan signaled Mary to stay where she was, partly hidden by the trailer door. Give everybody’s pulse rate a chance to settle down. His own sure was racing. This was the all-things-being-equal time. None of them knew the roles of the other two. If they were to spend time together—any time worth spending—they would find comfortable ways to fit with each other. But right now they were three individuals, each looking out for number one.

The gelding paced nervously, but his ears were working the space. Logan would let him have all the time he needed. He was already impressed with his partner’s ability to read his cues. When the mustang settled down, dropped his head and sniffed the grass he’d trampled all but flat, Logan moved in and started easing the fence panels, closing off the circle. Mary followed his lead without discussion.

Mary knew better than to chat up a trainer when he was working. She hated nothing more than another human voice confusing the animal and impeding her progress. She was probably boring to watch. But Logan was not. He wasn’t doing much, wasn’t saying anything, but every move he made was fascinating. He was long and lanky, and he moved so smoothly it was hard to tell how quick he was. Every aspect of his attention focused on the animal, intent on nonverbal means of show and tell. His hands were sure, his arms powerful, his back long and tapered, his face enormously attractive. Granted, some of that had no effect on the horse, but it surely sucked her in.

Once initial acquaintances had been made, Logan filled a hay net with alfalfa from his pickup and pushed a small galvanized steel water trough halfway under the fence. Mary went after the five gallon rubber water bucket she’d noticed in the trailer’s storage compartment and headed for the creek, smiling at him in passing. “Thought I’d fetch a pail of water.” He started to follow, but it was her turn to give the signal to stay. “I’ve got it under control, Jack.” She glanced up at his hat. “Watch out for your crown.”

“Don’t take any tumbles without me.”

“You’re thinking of Jill. I’m Mary. The contrary sister.”

“You feel like roasting a few dogs over a fire, Mary? That’s all I’ve got.” He grinned. “Unless you brought your little lamb.”

“You’re heartless,” she said as she sashayed down the slope, swinging her bucket.

“Yeah, I gave that away a long time ago,” he called after her. “Got myself a mechanical ticker. No more tears.”

“Right. The truth is, I’ve been in the army long enough, I’ll eat almost anything. Just don’t tell me what it is.”

He offered to help her carry the water up the hill, but she noticed he didn’t push when she said she had it. When she told him she was going back down to the creek for some dried wood she’d spotted, he grinned and called her his kind of woman. She figured there was a dig in there somewhere, but his smile was so infectious she didn’t care. His dark eyes glittered with unqualified delight.

They had fun with their fire making, traded hot dog jokes, enjoyed the fry bread his sister had given him that morning in return for snaking out a clogged drain. They traded smiles when they heard their mustang take a drink from the trough. Twilight settled in softly. Crickets sang to each other in the tall grass. Mary happily inhaled the smell of horse sweat from the blanket Logan had provided her to sit on. She figured being covered with horse hair would be a lateral move from being covered with dog hair. Hair came with the territory.

But the view was novel, and what Mary was viewing right now was an Indian cowboy stretched out long, lean and relaxed, elbow braced on the ground, sipping black coffee from a blue metal cup. She’d been around a lot of men in her line of work, but Logan was different. Maybe the difference was mostly in her head, but the view was definitely stirring.

“Whose land is this now? Sally’s or my father’s?” Logan gave her a hooded look, and she took it to mean that she ought to have known. “I never came out this far when I was living here.”

“Never?”

She shook her head slowly. She would not tell him how, once she’d signed her enlistment papers, she’d started counting the days until she would finally see what South Dakota looked like from the air. This was a beautiful place—the mustang’s place, Logan’s and Sally’s, and, yes, her father’s—but Mary had never been anywhere else before she’d taken that flight to Fort Leonard Wood, the first of many flights and many new sights. Granted, few were this beautiful, but she’d welcomed every takeoff knowing that she’d learned more about the world at every landing.

“This is Indian land,” Logan said. “It doesn’t matter who’s using it.”

“I’m not sure what my father would use it for. Hunting, maybe.” Her father had never been much of a hunter himself, but he’d made friends with influential people by hosting hunting parties. She hoped they hadn’t partied here. “This must be where the wild things are.”

“Some,” Logan allowed. “Not enough, if you ask me. We could do with more wild things.”

“Instead, we’re about to undo.” Mary glanced toward their mustang. “This one, anyway.”

“This is the one you picked. You signed and sealed his fate.”

“And it’s up to you to see that we deliver. As we say in the army, the fate of the many depends on a few.”

“Hear that, boy?” Logan called over his shoulder. “It’s for your brothers and sisters.”

“You do believe that, don’t you? It’s a good cause.”

“Of course I believe it. It’s what I do.” He sat up slowly, flexing his shoulders within the confines of what she judged to be a fairly new, crisp denim jacket. “Two animals came to live among the Lakota—the horse and the dog. It’s an agreement those animals were willing to make. Not all of them, but a few.”

“What if this one doesn’t agree?”

“Then we agree to let him go, and we ask someone else. Isn’t that what you do? Not all dogs agree to your training.”

“No, but I can identify the disagreeable ones almost immediately.” She smiled. “It’s what I do, Mr.

Wolf Track.”

“Where do the disagreeable ones go?”

“Back where they came from.”

“The wild?” He shook his head. “No. With dogs, you either have to care for them or put them down. Even the wild ones—the wolves and the coyotes—they’re barely tolerated.”

“A wild dog isn’t the same as a wolf or coyote.”

“True. In some ways a feral dog has more in common with a feral horse.”

“Except in the eyes of the law.”

He nodded toward the round pen. “This guy’s lucky. If he can’t live tame, he can still live free. For now, at least, thanks to the law and the Double D Wild Horse Sanctuary. Both subject to the whims of politics.”

“Now that the Tribal Council has stepped in on behalf of the sanctuary.”

“Tribal politics is still politics,” he allowed with a shrug. “But your instincts are good, and you chose well.”

“With a little guidance,” she allowed back. “How long will you stay out here?”

“Until he agrees to live among people.”

“That sounds pretty mystical.”

“Good. That’s what I’m goin’ for.” He looked up, a new sparkle in his eyes. “Psychology is out. It’s mysticism that sells these days.”

“That’s right. You wrote a book. I’d better get a copy so I can start doing some homework.”