Free Whispers of the Heart by Barbara Woster Page A

morning at breakfast, “I just wanted to let everyone know that today we’re going to leave the ranch...”
    “Where are we going, Dalian?” Chloe raised her hand as a child in a classroom might. Kat shook her head and grinned. She might be done with her pursuit, but she still liked to be noticed.
    “Well, part of being a cowboy...
    “Uh-hum,” Chloe cleared her throat loudly.
    “And, cow girl ,” Dalian clarified.
    “Thank you.”
    He nodded politely, and then continued, “As I was saying, part of being a cow hand , is learning how to live out of doors during a drive. We spent this past week practicing rounding up strays...” Chloe raised her hand again and Kat heard several of the men snicker. “Yes, Miss Chloe,” Dalian asked, trying to keep his patience in check.
    “I’m afraid you lost me at the bakery,” Chloe smiled. “What do you mean precisely by living out of doors and what’s a drive?”
    Dalian laughed, “Well, Miss Chloe, when the cattle are taken to market, a lot of times we round them up and drive them cross country. By that I mean, they walk and we ride. During that time, we sleep and take our meals out on the range. It can take a month or more to go and come back.”
    “Why not just load them up on a truck and drive them that way?” Chloe asked.
    “Fuel efficiency,” Dalian said. “Even in this day and age of economic fuel sources, transporting cattle can prove costly, which would eat into our profit margin. Moving them via truck is fine if you have only a couple hundred head, but when you’re taking several thousand head at once...well, you can only imagine the cost of fuel and the number of cattle trucks required. Not very economical. We did work with cattle trucks several years ago, but went back to driving them cross-country on foot since we aren’t but a few hundred miles from the nearest railway terminal. Also, we generally use All Terrain Vehicles these days for a cattle drive, since it’s easier, but for the purposes of our week-long foray, we’ll ride horses . I found out long, long ago, that most people associate cowboys with horses, and so prefer to ride them when they come out here on vacation.”
    “We’re not going to drive your cows to market, are we?” Chloe asked, her eyes widening in distress.
    “No, you’re not. We won’t take them for a few months yet,” Dalian responded. “But, as part of the ranching experience, we like to take our guests out on the range for a week with about fifty head, just to let them experience rounding them up, roping 'em in, and sleeping under the stars. That’s why we had you fine folks practicing on the wooden steers in the corral.” Dalian looked over at Kat and laughed when her face tinted crimson.
    “It’s not required, is it? I mean, we don’t have to go if we don’t want to, right?”
    “Absolutely not, Miss Chloe,” Dalian said, “however for those who do want to go, we’ll be leaving later this morning, so after breakfast, we’ll meet up and go over the preparations needed for an extended stay away from the ranch. If you don’t have what you need, don’t fret over much. I’ll see to it that you get it. Okay?”
    Everyone nodded in unison. “Good. Anyone besides Miss Chloe planning to stay behind?” Dalian held his breath in hopes that Kat didn’t raise her hand. He let it go when she didn’t; however, he was surprised to see two men raise their hands. In all his years running the dude ranch, he never encountered a man that didn’t want to go out on the range. That’s why they came to a dude ranch, after all – to play the part of a cowboy. “Okay, appears most everyone else is going to brave the trip, so for now, enjoy your breakfast; and meet me next to the barn in an hour,” Dalian took his place in the breakfast line. He looked over to where Chloe was busily bending Kat’s ear about whatever women talked about and again breathed a sigh of thanks that she’d decided to go, and that Chloe