Blizzard: Colorado, 1886 Read Online Free Page A

high wispy kind of clouds that sometimes meant a storm was coming. But even as slow as Hadyn walked, it would take only five or six hours to get to Cleave’s store—and the weather would hold that long. Hadyn might even end up going down to the valley with her parents in the morning if anything delayedthem and they had to stop overnight at Cleave’s.
    She squinted upward. The clouds were thin, so high she could barely see them. The weather would probably hold fair for days. She peered back out across the glaring snow. She could just see Hadyn through a gap in the trees. His shoulders were squared, his chin up. He looked like a little boy pretending to be a soldier. She shook her head. It had been silly of Aunt Olivia and Uncle Thomas to send him here. He hated it.
    â€œAnd I hate him,” Maggie said aloud. “He knows it isn’t that dangerous to be here without my parents. He just wanted an excuse to leave.” She watched Hadyn until the road curved and she could no longer see him, then shook her head and went back into the cabin.
    Maggie banked the fire. She put on her coat and the hat her mother had knitted for her the winter before. Pulling on her gloves, she went out the door. She would take Rusty. He was calm enough to carry the calf. Her father’s mare was pretty jumpy sometimes—and it might take a while to find her.
    Rusty came out of his stall calmly and Maggie laid her face against the warmth of his neck for amoment. “We have to go get a calf and find Papa’s mare, if we can.” Rusty rubbed his jaw against her shoulder. “Hadyn left,” Maggie said, feeling tears sting at her eyes. She straightened up.
    Swiping at her eyes, Maggie got her saddle from the harness room. Rusty stood quietly as she bridled him, then tightened the cinch. She swung up and rode him out of the barn.
    The north pasture enclosed the high ridge on the northern boundary of their land. To get to it, Maggie rode almost half an hour across the wide meadows that surrounded the cabin. As she went, she automatically scanned the horizon, following the fence line along the road when she could see it through the pines, checking for snow damage.
    â€œIf we’re lucky, nothing will go wrong before Papa comes back,” Maggie said. Rusty snorted a spring gnat from his nose, and Maggie frowned as though he were arguing with her. “Don’t say that. Papa is going to be fine. He just has to.” Maggie nudged Rusty into a shambling trot.
    Rusty dropped back into a walk when they came to the long hill that led to the north pasture gate. By the time they were inside and headed across thefirst meadow, she had him trotting again. She rode catercorner from the gate, heading toward the open ground on the far side. The wind scoured the snow there, exposing the grass. She hurried Rusty along.
    The cow was easy to spot. She stood apart from the others, less than twenty feet from a patch of red-stained snow. The calf looked sturdy enough. As Maggie rode closer, she could see that it was nursing.
    â€œWhere is that fool mare?” Maggie wondered aloud. A second later, she spotted her father’s horse. The mare was grazing near a crooked pine that grew in the lee of a big flat-topped rock. Maggie turned Rusty toward the mare. The nervous sorrel tossed her head as Maggie approached.
    Talking softly, Maggie slid from Rusty’s back and walked toward her. The mare bolted. She galloped across the clearing, reins dragging the ground, then dropped back to a trot as she went into a stand of pine trees. Pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders, Maggie swung up onto Rusty and followed. This time, the mare let her get within twenty feet, then shied away again.
    Maggie strained to hold her temper, to keep hervoice calm and patient every time she dismounted and started toward her father’s mare. Even so, it took more than an hour before the nervous animal stood still long enough for Maggie to