Only 05 - Autumn Lover

nervous and wary, Leopard followed Bugle Boy toward the ravine.
    Elyssa was as unsettled as Leopard. She watched the underbrush as though she expected it to explode at any moment with murderous longhorns.
    After Hunter entered the ravine, the tracks were harder to read. The going was rough, often more stone than dirt, with occasional patches of slick moss where the sun rarely touched.
    Yet there were enough tracks to puzzle Hunter.
    Elyssa saw Hunter’s expression, started to ask what had caught his eye, and remembered that she was supposed to be quiet. With a muffled sigh, she sat motionless and tried to coax her nerves into settling down.
    Hunter was as motionless as Elyssa, but not because he needed to settle down. He was focused entirely on the tracks he could see and thinking about the ones he couldn’t see.
    Bedamned, either something was rousting you or you were one crazy son of a bitch , Hunter thought.
    Most livestock simply wandered from feed to water and back, leaving meandering tracks. Bedamned had moved purposefully. When the bull stopped, he didn’t graze. He simply pawed at the ground, digging out great clots of earth and leaving scars on stone surfaces.
    Your tracks look like you were fighting something, but whatever got your dander up didn’t leave any tracks of its own .
    Were you crazed, or was something after you ?
    If so, what was it?
    And is it still around ?
    Hunter sat without moving, letting the sounds of the land sink into him.
    Wind rubbing and shaking willow branches.
    A hawk’s high whistle.
    Magpies talking.
    The bit jingling softly.
    Bugle Boy swatting flies with his tail.
    Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to tell Hunter why Bedamned had come helling out of the ravine right at Elyssa with murder on his mind.
    It could have been bad luck , Hunter told himself. Christ knows I saw enough of that during the war .
    Good man in the wrong place .
    Good man dead .
    No evil plot or subtle planning or higher meaning. Just plain bad luck and someone dies .
    Hunter sat for a minute longer, listening to and sifting through the small sounds and immense silence of the Ruby Mountains.
    Bad luck was one thing. It couldn’t be helped.
    Carelessness was another. A lot of what was called bad luck was just lack of care.
    Hunter wasn’t a careless man.
    Finally he reined Bugle Boy around. Elyssa was watching him with clear blue-green eyes. Though her curiosity was as plain as the moonlight shine of her hair, she said not one word.
    “Nothing to hang your hat on,” Hunter said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “Lots of tracks, but the bull made all of them. Guesshe just turned killer in his dotage. It happens that way sometimes, especially with bulls.”
    Elyssa let out a relieved breath.
    “I was afraid we’d find one of the dogs trampled,” she said. “If they had found Bedamned and tried to herd him toward us, the bull would have turned on them.”
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed. He swung down off Bugle Boy and went to a patch of damp earth. He looked at the nearby tracks with great care.
    And saw nothing he could hang his hat on.
    The next few patches of ground he looked at were the same. Bull tracks were easy to read. No other tracks were to be found in the chopped and churned earth.
    “Well?” Elyssa asked anxiously.
    “Call in your dogs.”
    Elyssa whistled shrilly through her teeth, three short blasts of sound.
    Very quickly the dogs appeared. They stopped fifteen feet away and watched Elyssa alertly.
    “Will they track?” he asked.
    “Cattle, yes.”
    “Put them on the bull’s back trail.”
    A few minutes later the horses were pressing farther up the ravine, following the dogs. They moved at a brisk pace, for the trail was fresh.
    Less than a quarter mile up the trail, horse tracks appeared along with the bull’s. Quickly the horse tracks veered off to one side. It was impossible to tell which tracks had come first, the horse’s or the bull’s, because the tracks never crossed.
    “Call the dogs off the trail,” Hunter said.
    Three quick whistles brought the dogs back on the run.
    Hunter swung down and studied the horse tracks that came close to but never crossed those of the bull. The horse was shod. Its hooves had cut into the ground withthe weight of rider and saddle. It was a rather small horse.
    “Recognize the hoofprints?” Hunter asked.
    “No. I’m not that much of a tracker. I can tell horse from cow or deer or elk, but that’s about it.”
    “Not much call for