Roped (Gail McCarthy Mysteries) by Laura Crum Page B

the two big old barns, much repaired, were high-roofed and cavernous, their siding weathered to a silvery gray. A couple of small sheds and other outbuildings and a good many corrals clustered around them.
    All the buildings bore the names of their original purpose. Thus the biggest barn was still called the dairy barn, though the dairy cattle were long gone; the second largest was the hay barn; the smaller buildings the calf shed, milk house, bull barn, respectively. Glen had altered them just enough to use them comfortably as a horse setup, but they still had the look and character of the turn-of-the-century dairy they had been. It was part of what I had always loved about the place.
    Tim parked Sixball, and the three of us got out of the truck. "Morning, Glen," I said.
    He looked up from tightening the cinch and smiled at me, the old, familiar Glen Bennett smile, a flash of white teeth and blue eyes, an instant of warmth and charm. I was immediately transported back to a sixteen-year-old who had been half-infatuated with Lisa's handsome father.
    "Well, hello, Gail. Did you come to help us gather?"
    "I sure did."
    "She's going to ride Chester," Lisa said. "He's for sale," she added to me. "If you know anyone who wants a nice young horse."
    She got Chester out of his pen, and I looked the colt over. He was light-boned for a rope horse, but everything was in proportion and he had the sort of flat muscling I liked. He was about fifteen-two hands, and Lisa said he was five years old. Glen wanted $6,000 for him.
    "He's ready to campaign at the heels," Lisa told me. "And he's real good outside-got a good handle on him, watches a cow real well. You'll see." She was saddling the horse as she spoke and handed his reins to me when she was done.
    "He's not cinchy or anything, is he?" I asked cautiously. The last thing I needed was to be bucked off.
    "Chester? No way. He's never humped his back in his life. He's dead gentle."
    Good. I climbed on and walked the colt around a little, getting the feel of him. Tim was saddling the roan mare he'd ridden yesterday, and Lisa got another blue roan mare who looked exactly like Smoke out of her stall.
    "Did you raise all these?" I asked Glen, who had mounted his stallion and sat waiting.
    "They're all by him," he said, looking down at Smoke. "And out of that good bay mare I used to rope on. Remember her? Annie Oakley was her name."
    "Oh, yeah, Annie." I did remember. Annie was the horse Glen had roped on when I was young. "Is she still alive?"
    "She's almost thirty," he said proudly, "but she still has a foal every year. She just foaled two days ago." He waved a hand at a small field off to the side of the bam.
    I looked where he pointed and saw a bay mare I recognized as Annie. Her back was deeply swayed and there were hollows over her eyes and a lot of gray hairs in her forehead, but she looked healthy and in good flesh. Next to her stood a bay foal.
    He was tiny and new and perfect, long-legged and bright-eyed, with a high curved neck like a seahorse. I smiled in delight at the sight of him.
    "He's a clone of Chester," Lisa said. "I think he'll be a good one."
    "These three," Glen indicated the two roan mares and Chester, "are all full brothers and sisters to him."
    "That's Roany," Lisa said, pointing at the big mare Tim was sitting on. "She's the oldest. She's six. And this is Rosie." She patted the neck of the mare she was saddling. "She's four. We lost their three-year-old full brother just a month ago."
    Silence followed that remark. I remembered Lisa telling me that Glen had lost his three-year-old when the colt had gotten into the gopher grain. Another accident.
    I patted Chester's neck. How could anybody do that? Could anybody really do that? Surely not Tim.
    Tim sat quietly on Roany, not taking part in the conversation. He held himself stiffly, for Tim, and it was easy to imagine that he hurt all over. Glen had not said one word about the condition of his son's face; in fact, he