Ride the Thunder Read Free Page B

Here.” She started to hand it over the seat to him.
    “You can have it, Jordanna. I don’t want it.” He turned to stare out the window at the scenery racing by.
    “But it was a present,” she protested. “Dad gave it to you. You just can’t . . .” Her father’s silencing hand rested on her arm. Jordanna faced the front and he patted her arm in approval.

PART ONE
THE MEETING

Chapter I

    T HE BIG BUCKSKIN horse trotted across the high meadow with a free-swinging stride. Its golden coat was shaggy with winter hair. Its warm, moist breath formed clouds, twin spirals coming from its nostrils. The horse mouthed the metal bar, jangling the bit against its teeth. The leather saddle creaked beneath the weight of the horse’s rider, blunted spurs jingling on his boots.
    He was a tall man with a rangy build that deceptively hid solidly muscled flesh. Relaxed in the saddle, he rode in a partly slouched position. Yet every movement of the horse was transmitted to him through the reins and the bunching muscles beneath the saddle. Beneath the indolent posture was a keen alertness.
    His boots were dusty and dirty and worn down at the heels. The metal of his spurs had become dull with time. The faded but still serviceable Levis that covered the long length of his legs were patched at the knees and on the seat. A heavy suede jacket lined with sheepskin hung down to his hips. a slit at the back for easier riding. The hands holding the reins were gloved, theleather worn smooth from much usage. The collar of his jacket was turned up against the breeze blowing down from the high mountains. A dusty felt Stetson was pulled low on his head. Dark coffee-colored hair grew thickly, its length curling into the collar of his jacket.
    Hours in the sun had browned the planes and hollows of his face to a bronze hue. A full mustache grew above his mouth, a neatly trimmed brush of dark brown. His eyes were brown, a dry and dusty shade. The sun had creased permanent lines that feathered out from the corners of his eyes. His thick, dark brows had a natural arch to them. Strength, sureness, and stamina were etched in his features. He was a man others would go out of their way to avoid irritating. If the situation demanded it, he could be ruthless. Other times, simply hard with a trace of cynicism.
    His keen eyes spotted something thirty feet to the right. With a twist of his wrist. Brig McCord reined the buckskin toward it. As the horse drew close, he slowed it to a walk. The spring grass of the mountain meadow swished against the buckskin’s black legs. Where the trees grew down to the meadow’s edge, patches of snow could still cling to their shadows, the remants of the last blizzard to hit Idaho in the spring.
    The horse stopped of its own accord, snorting and tossing its head at the object near its feet. As the buckskin shifted sideways, Brig saw the skeletal remains of a calf, the bones partially covered by its red hide.
    “Damn!” he swore softly at the sight. How many did that make? He’d lost count.
    He looked away, his hard gaze sliding to the patches of snow. That spring blizzard had come at the worst possible time—calving time. He’d be lucky if forty percent of his spring calf crop had survived. One average year—that was all he had needed to get his head above water. Instead, he was going to be lucky if he didn’t lose the ranch. If he’d had some insurance . . .
    “Hell, I couldn’t afford the premium!” Brig interruptedthat thought with a soft curse. Jabbing a spur in the horse’s ribs, he reined it away from the carcass the scavengers had already picked clean. The horse bounded into a canter and snorted a disgruntled sound. It fell into a tireless, ground-eating lope that it could maintain for miles. A complete survey of the losses couldn’t be made at that pace and Brig slowed his mount to a striding trot.
    Two more calves were found. The carcass of a third was in the woods, dragged there by a scavenging predator.