That should have encouraged Lou.
Instead she found three dead cattle from Circle P near the wash.
No wounds.
No obvious sickness.
Emmett dismounted.
Examined their mouths.
Then the ground.
“Salt.”
Lou frowned.
“What?”
“They pushed too hard without enough water.”
Ash was racing.
Not simply trying to stay ahead.
He was willing to damage his own herd to ruin hers.
Lou looked toward the western horizon.
“Sage Hen tomorrow?”
“Late.”
“Before dark?”
“If nothing goes wrong.”
Something always went wrong.
At midnight, someone cut the remuda loose.
The horses scattered across open desert.
By the time the alarm spread, three were already half a mile away.
Lou mounted bareback.
Emmett did the same.
They recovered eight.
One disappeared entirely.
Tracks showed a shod horse approaching camp from the south before the rope was cut.
Circle P.
No proof.
No witnesses.
Just tracks.
Lou stood beside Emmett before dawn.
“This is what he does.”
“Yes.”
“Is there more?”
“What?”
“About Ash.”
“No.”
“Think carefully.”
Emmett looked directly at her.
“No.”
Lou believed him.
She hated that she still did.
Sage Hen Wells appeared at sunset the following day.
Lou smelled cattle before seeing water.
Dust.
Manure.
Sweat.
Six hundred Circle P steers covered the basin.
Ash had reached it less than an hour earlier.
His men controlled both trough approaches.
Lou’s herd began bawling the moment they smelled moisture.
She rode forward.
Emmett came beside her.
Ash waited near the main well.
He smiled.
“You made good time.”
Lou stopped twenty feet away.
“Move your cattle.”
“They’re drinking.”
“They’ve been drinking.”
“Water takes time.”
“My herd is next.”
Ash looked toward the basin.
“Public wells.”
“Then move.”
“When we’re finished.”
“How long?”
He shrugged.
“Morning.”
Lou’s jaw tightened.
Her herd could not wait.
Not after the push.
Ash knew it.
Emmett said quietly, “South seep.”
Ash’s eyes flicked toward him.
That reaction told Lou something.
“What seep?”
Ash smiled.
“Nothing worth finding.”
Emmett turned his horse.
Lou caught his rein.
“Where?”
“Two miles south.”
“Enough?”
“Maybe.”
Ash laughed.
“Hasn’t run properly in years.”
Emmett looked at him.
“You don’t know that.”
Ash’s smile vanished.
Emmett rode.
Lou followed.
Behind them Ash shouted:
“You’ll kill half that herd chasing mud!”
Lou did not turn.
The south seep looked dead.
A shallow depression surrounded by cracked soil and salt grass.
Caleb swore.
Ben asked whether anyone had brought whiskey.
Emmett dismounted.
Walked toward an old timber brace half buried beneath sand.
Lou understood.
“Man-made?”
“Old stock collector.”
He pulled.
Nothing.
Tomás helped.
Then Lou.
Together they lifted a rotted plank covering a stone channel.
Water glistened beneath.
Not much.
Enough to matter.
Emmett climbed into mud up to his knees and began clearing the channel by hand.