about driving a herd of cattle with cameras pointed at them.
“What are you thinking about? Where to throw that bedroll?” Dewar asked.
“No, I was thinking about the first day of the reality show.”
“They’ll be thinking they were crazier than drunk roosters to sign on for such a trip. I can’t begin to imagine this trip with all the lights, cameras, and action stuff,” he answered.
“Me either.” She pointed toward the ground. “Is this spot taken?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Not the one where your bedroll is but this one I’m standing on. You got a problem with me being this close to you?”
“I snore,” he said.
“So do I.” She threw her bedroll down and paid careful attention to the way it was tied and rolled so she could put it back the same way. Buddy had helped her unsaddle Apache and in his slow stuttering way had refreshed her lessons the riding coach had given her all those years ago.
“Is every day going to be more just like this one?” she asked.
Dewar nodded. “If you are lucky. After the excitement of getting started wears off, your contestants will be bored. Put that in your notes. Fightin’ boredom was a problem during the real Chisholm Trail days and it will be with your fake one. It’s another twenty-nine days and they’ll all be basically just alike. I can’t imagine how you’re going to keep the viewers entertained for a whole season. Only exciting thing I can think of is that you’ll face coyotes, snakes, and rain that swells the rivers and makes crossing tough,” he answered.
“During the real trail drive there were saloons and brothels along the way,” she reminded him.
“Good luck finding even an old empty building where those were. Of course, you could get the film crew to come on ahead of you and build a movie set with a brothel or a saloon,” he said.
“Sounds like a great idea, but we really want this to be as real as possible, so I don’t see that happening. Wouldn’t it be something if I did find an old brothel still standing, though? Or the building where an old saloon once stood? Man, that would make for some real good footage.” She pulled a notepad out of her saddlebags and started writing.
***
Using his saddle for a pillow, Dewar leaned back and stretched his long legs. The woman was crazy if she thought she could control coyotes and rattlesnakes so her reality show would be more exciting. Those things just happened and were totally out of her control no matter what she wrote down.
He could imagine her writing that the first few days would be getting used to the saddle. Coyotes would appear pretty early in her notes. Rain would pour down in buckets at least once, even if it was hot summertime. Hell, she might even think she could make it snow right there in August just by writing it down. Boy did she have a lot to learn about nature.
How could he have been so stupid not have asked to talk to H. B. on the phone? If he’d heard her smooth southern voice, he would have known he was talking to a woman. There wasn’t a man alive that had a voice like hers. But nothing could be redone and everything was in motion. He didn’t have to like it, but he did have to put up with her because her father, Carl Levy, was footing the bill for the whole trial run.
Earlier in the year he had scouted the route as near to the Chisholm Trail as possible, gotten all the permissions to cross landowners’ property, and cut fences where he had to, and figured out where the best places to make camp were located. Not one single time had he thought about taking a woman with him.
When she had fallen flat on her back, he figured she’d dust off her ass, get back in that cute little car, and throw her smelly shoes out the window, but something changed when she went into the barn to take off that fancy black suit. She’d left a businesswoman with an attitude; she’d come back a woman with a purpose and that was by far scarier than a woman with an attitude.
He slid a