Free High Country : A Novel by Willard Wyman

off more jerky, wondering what he was supposed to consider. He chewed, watching Fenton ride off into darkness.
    It seemed to Ty he had horses and mules tied everywhere, but it was Cottontail’s packs that worried him. They were so water soaked he could barely lift them, and he was afraid if he got one on it would pull the saddle over before he could get the other in place. He found a high bank down the trail, wrestled one up, tied it off, and rested it there as he fought the other into place.
    He lined the string out, Sugar in the rear to encourage Loco. Lightning was almost their only light now. When they left the lake and entered the woods, there was no way he could see at all. He gave Smoky her head and hoped the packs would ride, finally dozing in the saddle until a rumble too steady to be thunder told him they’d found the river. Smoky turned up against it, paralleling the noise, which lifted and faded and lifted again. At dawn he saw they were on a faint trail crossing low benches and going through stands of timber that opened into meadows. Across the meadows he could see the river, swollen and gray with silt.
    The rain was starting in as they crossed a bog, the sucking sound of hooves too much for Loco. Ty was thankful Fenton had fashioned a new pigtail. It gave way as Loco fought back, his knotted lead hanging useless as he stood with Sugar, watched Ty cross with the others. Ty tied up and made his way back. He released Sugar, who hurried across to join Turkey, flinging mud on Ty in her haste. Loco wouldn’t follow. Ty stroked him, leaned against him, dozed as he talked and calmed him. But it was no good. Each time he led him to the crossing, he balked, set his weight, scrabbled back.
    Ty knew Loco wasn’t crazy this time, just scared. He also knew he was too tired to fight him. He took the lead-line and slopped his way through the mud to Smoky, mounted her to ride into a country he’d never seen. He’d come back for Loco when he found out where he was, if he ever did.
    Turkey and Sugar were free now—both of them unconcerned as Ty led Cottontail and tried to pick up tracks. But the trail was everywhere awash—and he was having trouble staying awake. He stopped when he saw a faint trace leading off toward the river, the animals so tired they made no protest. Turkey drifted off to graze, but Sugar nosed along the trail until she passed him, moved down the trace, and turned through timber toward the river. Ty followed, seeing what they were on hadn’t been used for years and knowing he should turn back—if his body would respond. Then Sugar, well ahead now, went belly-deep into the river, quartering upstream against the current. Smoky followed her, the rain settling in hard now but Ty too weary to think about his slicker. He looked back, thankful Turkey was following so closely, and thought he saw something along the bank. There was too much rain to be sure. And he was tired, coming alert only as they pitched steeply out of the river, climbed up and still up again to a broad bench, an opening in the timber. In the clearing was Fenton, standing under the big kitchen fly, the wall tents already up against the rain. Spec and Jasper were there too, all of them looking at him, calling out to him.
    He got off Smoky, relieved his legs didn’t buckle, tied Cottontail to the log where the saddles were stacked.
“Had to leave Loco.” He looked at Fenton, standing under the ridge beam of the cook tent with his coffee. “But we made it. Sugar brought us in.”
“You ain’t the first to be rescued by a mule.” Fenton was smiling.
Ty saw the others were were smiling too. He looked down at the mud on his pants, his shirt—mud everywhere from his struggles in the creek bed and with the packing and through the muddy crossing.
“It ain’t the mud,” Jasper said. “We was wondering about the waterproofed trousers. Is that to keep you dry when you wade the river?”
Ty looked, saw that the neat’s-foot oil had stained