Big Sky - 4. Chapter 4 Trouble is Brewing

BIG SKY

Chapter 4

Trouble Is Brewing

The ranch hands started riding back into the yard of the ranch one by one. Cody and Buck rode over to the barn to bed down there horses, Sam and Cal tied down there horses at the hitching post in front of the bunkhouse, since they are on patrol tonight and have to go back out after dinner.

Hunter was standing on the porch of the bunkhouse thinking that just maybe he did find a family that will accept his way of life, he looked over his shoulder to see who was riding in but he could only see 5 of the men coming in. Hunter did not see Butch with them, getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Hey, where is Butch at?” he asked nobody in particular.

The guys just looked at him and shrugged their shoulders. “Well did you see him mount up when ya’ll did or was he already heading back before you left the pasture?” Hunter asked

“He left over an hour before we did, he’s not back yet?” Sam asked Hunter with a concerned look on his face.

“No, Tom and I were the only ones here before ya’ll got here.” Hunter said

“Sam go over to the barn and see if his horse is in the stall for me please,” Hunter asked Sam with a frown on his face.

Buck looked over at Hunter with a worried look on his face, “Where is Mike at Hunter?”

“He is not here Buck, you have to have Ed tell you where he is cuz I don’t know.” Hunter said

As Hunter was telling Buck about Mike, Sam came walking up to Hunter, “His horse is not in the stall.”

“Ok, get everybody rounded back up and tell them to saddle up and meet me here when they get done,” Hunter told Sam

Hunter took off running to the big house to get Ed. Hunter knocked on the front door, Martha answered the door with a smile on her face. “Martha can you get Ed for me please?” Hunter asked her

“Ya, sure hold on,” Martha said

Martha yelled for Ed to come to the door. As Ed got to the door, he saw Hunter standing there with a worried look on his face. “What’s wrong Hunter?” Ed asked

“Butch hasn’t got back to the ranch yet, Sam said he left them about an hour before they started heading back. I’m going to take all guys back out to see if Butch is in trouble somewhere.” Hunter told Ed

“Hold on, let me saddle up and I will go with ya’ll, Martha stay next to the phone and I will call when we find out what is happening.” Ed told Martha

“OK,” Martha said to Ed with a worried look on her face.

Ed gave Martha a kiss and went out the door following Hunter to the barn. They both saddle there horses up, walked them out of the barn and saw that all the other guys were ready to go.

“Ok, does everybody have their phone and guns?” asked Ed

All the ranch hands shook their heads yes, and they all got in the saddle. “Sam, Cal, and Buck ya’ll head out to the east pasture, Hunter and Cody you’re with me going to the west pasture, if you find anything not right call me before approaching. We have no idea what is going on so make sure ya’ll are very careful. If you find Butch call one of us where your location is. Please ya’ll be careful out there. Ok let’s head out.” Ed told them all. Sam, Cal and Buck took off at a fast run, knowing the sun was going down and it would be dark soon.

“Cody show me which direction you guys took when you came back to the ranch, Hunter we need to look for tracks that shouldn’t be out there. There is 500 acre’s out there and not much daylight left. If we find trouble don’t hesitate to use your guns. If we find him hurt one of us will come back for the ATV and the other two will stay with him, let’s hope that is not what we are going to find.” Ed looked at both men with a worried look.

As they were heading out, Martha was standing at the door praying that they all returned safe and sound. She stood there thinking back how her great grandfather had started the ranch and suffered all sorts of deprivations to get it going. Her grandfather had taken over where he left off, improving both the cattle and land. Her father tried the modern methods when he took over but that just took the ranch into the red. When she married Ed her father by that time had already gave up on the place, so he handed over the ranch to them and moved to Florida. Ed has worked his hiney off to get this ranch out of the red, thankfully it is now but Ed still worries about everything on this ranch. Martha closed the door and went in the kitchen to start a pot of coffee for Ed for when he gets back in.

Ed and the guys have been out for about an hour when Hunter’s phone started ringing. Hunter dug his phone out and answered it, “Ya, did you find anything yet?” Hunter asked Sam

“No, nothing yet. How much further should we go? The sun is going down pretty fast,” Sam asked Hunter

“How much ground have you covered so far?” asked Hunter

“We are over here by the watermill and haven’t seen anything out here so far,” said Sam

“Watermill, Ok head across and come to where we were fixing the fence today and see if you find anything on the way over here, that’s where we all will meet up.” Hunter told Sam

“Where ya’ll at now? Have you found anything on that side yet?” asked Sam

“No nothing yet, we are looking about 200 yards out from the fence line, hold on Sam. Ed, Cody look over there,” Hunter said pointing to the left of him seeing a horse standing there.

“Sam I will call right back we found something.” Hunter told Sam

“Ok we are heading that way now.” Sam said to Hunter hanging up his phone.

“Ed look is that Butch’s horse?” Hunter asked Ed

“Come on,” Ed hollered taking off at a run.

Hunter kicked Cope’s belly and took off at a run, all Hunter could think of was getting to that horse to see if Butch was there with it. Cody got to the horse first, he came out of his saddle slowly so as not to spook the horse, when Cody got to the horse and got a hold of the reins, he looked the horse over to see if it’s hurt which he found nothing wrong. “Hunter, the horse looks ok just a little spooked for some reason.” Cody said to Hunter as he was walking up to him. Hunter looked at the horse and seen he had his ears pinned back and was shaking a little. Hunter looked in a complete circle and did not see Butch.

Ed got out of the saddle and was looking around a bit but did not see Butch anywhere. “I’m going to go a little further up to look, he has to be around here somewhere, that horse wouldn’t go too far from Butch unless something spooked him to take off.” Ed said to Hunter

“Ok I’m coming with you Ed, Cody you stay here with the horse and see if you can calm him down a little and call Sam back for me, tell him that we found Butch’s horse but not him yet” Hunter turned and said to Cody.

“OK Hunter,” Cody said to Hunter.

As Ed and Hunter was getting back in the saddle, Cody pulled out his phone to call Sam. Cody was looking over at the fence line but from this far away he couldn’t see if there were any problems with it. He was getting tired of having to keep fixing the dang thing.

Sam, Buck and Cal was almost to the fence line when Sam’s phone started to ring. “Hold up guys, phone.” Sam said breathing hard. “Hey Cody, we are almost to you guys, what did you find?” asked Sam.

“We found Butch’s horse, he is fine just spooked a little, Ed and Hunter went further up the line to see if they can find Butch.” Cody told Sam

“Ok, I see ya. Be there in a sec.” Sam said hanging up the phone. As the three of them rode up to where Cody was at, they all got out of the saddle and walked over to Cody slowly. Sam got to Cisco’s and started rubbing him down and checking his legs and then grabbed the reins from Cody, he started walking Cisco around watching him walk and saw him favoring his back right leg, Sam stopped and crunched down to check the back leg and saw that there was some swelling but no cuts on it, which Sam didn’t like seeing that. Sam thought he would have to be trailered back so not to injur the leg any further. Sam turned around to find Cal.

“Cal ride back to the ranch and hook up one of the trailers and head back this way, get as far as you can with it. Cody, you and Buck need to walk Cisco out of here, take it as slow as possible and watch out for holes, his leg is hurt so it will be slow going, meet up with Cal and finish taking him back in the trailer. I’m going to find Ed and Hunter, keep them phones on I have a bad feeling about all this.” Sam said looking at the guys.

Sam got on his horse and took off at a gallop to find Ed and Hunter. Sam caught up to them about 10 mins later, Hunter looked back to see who was coming up on them and seen that it was Sam, “Did you find Cody?” Hunter asked Sam as he came up abreast of him.

“Yep sure did, I sent Cal back to the ranch to get a trailer to haul Cisco back, Cody and Buck are walking him back to meet up with the trailer.” Sam was telling Hunter what he had the others doing.

“Ok, I thought Cody said the horse wasn’t hurt, did you find something wrong?” asked Hunter

“Ya, he was limping on his back leg, I checked and it’s swollen a bit so I’m just taken caution with him.” Sam told Hunter

“Ok, let’s keep looking, he has to be around here somewhere.” Hunter said as the three of them took off looking.

As the three of them were riding along, Hunter keep thinking about the cattle that was missing and couldn’t get it out of his head that Mike was involved in it somehow. With all the questions he was asking in the truck earlier today.

“Look there he is,” Ed said kicking his horse to make him run.

Butch was leaning himself up against a tree holding his head. When the guys rode up they got off their horse’s and ran over to Butch. Ed seen that Butch was holding his head and asked him “Hey Butch you ok man?”

Butch looked up at Ed “Ya it’s just my head that hurts.”

“What happened out here Butch?” Ed was asking Butch as he was looking at his head, where he found blood and a big lump.

Ed grabbed his hanky from his back pocket and applied pressure to Butch’s head to help with the blood flow.

“Butch do you know who did this to you?” Hunter asked Butch squatting down in front of him.

“No, as I was leaving the fence line and heading back to the ranch, I heard somebody yelling further up so I took off to see what it was all about. As I got closer to the yelling I saw somebody on a horse coming at me, guess whoever it was heard me riding up, next thing I knew I was waking up laying on the ground. I couldn’t find Cisco so I crawled over here under this tree and just figured he would head back to the ranch and ya’ll would come looking for me.” Butch said to Hunter looking up at him.

“Did you recognize any of them?” Hunter asked

“No.” Butch said looking in Hunters eyes, then looked over at Ed without turning his head then looked back at Hunter. Hunter understood him not wanting to say anything in front of Ed, so Hunter let it go for now.

“Can you get up Butch?” Ed asked Butch with a frown on his face.

“Ya, just a little swimmy headed.” Butch said

“You’re gonna have to ride back with one of us, we found Cisco and he is heading back to the ranch with the other men right now, he hurt his leg somehow but other than that he is fine. We will have the vet come in and check him out.” Ed told Butch

They decide to put him on Hunter’s horse since his is the only one that you can ride double on, and slowly made their way back to the ranch. Hunter called Cody to let him know that they found Butch and were heading back in now.

Ed got his phone out and called Martha to let her know what was happening. “Honey, call Doc Adams and the vet and have them come out to the house?” Ed asked Martha after she answered the phone.

“You found Butch? Good, is he hurt and how bad?” Martha asked Ed with a worried voice.

“Ya, just got him on Hunter’s horse, he has a cut on his head and will probably need stitches. Has Cal got there for the trailer yet?” Ed asked

“Ya, he has already headed out with it, honey what is going on?” Martha asked Ed

“Butch got knocked off his horse, and somehow Cisco hurt his leg so the boys are walking him back to meet up with the trailer, and we are bringing in Butch. Let the Vet and Doc know this so they know what is wrong.” Ed told Martha

“Ok honey, I will call them right now, see you when you get in.” Martha said to Ed and hung up.

Martha called the vet and asked him to come out to the ranch and told him that one of the horse’s hurt his leg. Then she called Doc Adams and asked for him to come out and that one of the boys got knocked off his horse and cut his head pretty bad. After hanging up with them Martha went over to the Kitchen house to make sure there was enough coffee for them all.

As they were heading in with Butch, Hunter was thinking about what the hell happened out there. Then he thought about the cattle and then decided to have some of the men check the fence line tonight while they were out patrolling the ranch to see if the fencing was still in working order. The cattle were ok since they had moved them over to the lower east pasture last week. Ed wanted them closer to the ranch so they could be checked on more often. Hunter decide that he would go out to the lower east pasture and check the fencing there himself after Butch and the horse were looked at, to make sure the both of them were ok.

As Ed and the boys got back to the ranch with Butch, the others were already there with Cisco. Cal and Buck came running over to Hunter to help get Butch down off Cope, “Easy with him, and keep that rag on his head. Is the Doc here yet?” Hunter asked looking down at Cal

“About 5 mins ago, he’s waiting in the bunkhouse. We will take Butch over to him to get checked out.” Cal said looking up at Hunter.

Cal and Buck each grabbed one of Butch’s arms and slung them behind their heads to help him get to the bunkhouse. Hunter heard them whispering as they walked off but couldn’t make out what was being said.

Hunter looked at Ed and told him “I’m going to the barn to check on Cisco and see if the vet got here yet.” Ed shook his head ok.

Hunter got off Cope and tied him to the post and went to the barn. He walked up to Cisco’s stall and looked in the door at the horse as he seen that the vet was checking him out. Hunter opened the door and walked in.

“Is he ok?” asked Hunter walking up to the horse and rubbing Cisco’s forehead.

“It looks like he tripped in a hole or something, I’m going to put some ointment on his leg to try and bring down the swelling and wrap it, then I need one of you men to unwrap, clean his leg and rewrap without the ointment tomorrow morning. I will be back in the afternoon to check on him, it looks like he pulled a muscle in his lower leg and just needs to stay calm and not be ridden or worked until it’s healed, it’s not as bad as I was thinking when I first got here, you can rub the muscle and he doesn’t try to pull away. So it’s not that much to worry about.” Sid told Hunter

“Ok, thanks for coming out this late. I will let everybody know how he’s doing.” Hunter told Sid

The vet got his things packed up and walked out of the stall. Hunter went out and got Cisco a treat and gave it to him then walked out of the barn to go check on Butch. He walked over to the bunkhouse went inside and there stood all the men and Martha, Butch was laying on his side on the bunk with the Doc working on stitching his head up. Hunter walked over to Ed, “How’s he doing Ed?” Ed turned to Hunter

“He has a 2 inch gash and a concussion, Doc is stitching the gash up but somebody will have to stay with Butch and wake him up every 2 hours, so I’m taking Sam off patrol and keeping him here to help with Butch. Cal and Buck will do the patrol tonight. I’ve got some friends coming in tomorrow and I know I can get them to help with the chores around here for a few days.” Ed explained to Hunter.

Hunter looked at Ed with a concerned look, “Who’s coming in and can they help with riding the fence line, I’m going to go out and check the cattle in a bit but the fence needs to be checked in the area where we found Butch at.” Hunter said

“Yes they all ride and they’re bringing their horses with them so everything will work out around here. I’ll send a couple of the men out to look at that fence. You be very careful when you go out there to the cattle, I don’t need another hurt man around here.” Ed said to Hunter

Hunter looked over at Tom “Is there any coffee made Tom?”

Tom said “Yes” so Hunter and Tom walked out of the bunkhouse and went over to the Kitchen house.

“Can you and will you tell me what you think happened out there with Butch,” Tom asked Hunter as they were walking in the kitchen.

“I’m not sure yet, but I have my ideas on it and no I’m not going to say yet until I check out a few things.” Hunter told Tom but was thinking about the look on Butch’s face earlier.

“Let me have that coffee so I can go check on the cattle for Ed.” Hunter said sitting down at the table.

“Do you want to eat something before you head out Hunter, I can whip up something fast for you,” Tom asked Hunter.

“No just coffee will do for now,” Hunter said thinking he needed to get out there to make sure the cattle was ok.

Hunter drank the coffee down, got up went outside and jumped on Cope and rode out to the lower east pasture, not knowing more trouble was coming to him and the ranch.