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then realized he'd just set off a keg of Nurse Ratched dynamite.
"That's absolutely insane," Genie said, as predicted. "And it's exactly what I said before about
you and your brothers having no sense of self preservation."
"Maybe it's insane from your viewpoint," Josh said, "but it's not to the committee of bull riders
and stock contractors that selects the bullfighters for the National Finals and other pro rodeos. They
watch the way we work around bulls and judge us on how we protect the riders. At the upcoming
rodeo there will be a bull named Trouble Ahead that's one of the rankest bulls on the circuit and I
want a crack at him. He's also a bull Jeremy's hoping to draw."
Genie looked miffed with the whole conversation, but she also looked confused, which she
affirmed when she asked, "Why would either of you want to face a smelly bull?"
Josh laughed. "Rank doesn't mean smelly, it means the bull's an aggressive, mean-tempered
bastard who comes out of the chute like a spinning top and doesn t wait for his hind feet to hit the
ground before he s already pushing off his front feet for the next buck. "
"I'm sorry," Genie said in an impatient voice, "but I can't help thinking that the lot of you have
death wishes."
"None of us what to get hooked," Josh replied, "but a rank bull like Trouble Ahead would give
Jeremy the best chance for a high score and me a chance to do some serious bullfighting, which helps
my standing with bull riders."
Genie gave him one last Nurse Ratched look, then pursed her lips and said nothing, but the
perturbed look on her face said it all. She would not be hooking up with a bullfighter. And he didn't
intend to give it up.
The rest of the hike down was in silence, but on approaching the mouth of the canyon, Josh said,
"The canyon borders the Double J Ranch so if fences are down somewhere there could be a few stray
cattle."
"Would they be a threat?" Genie asked.
Josh shook his head. "They'd head back up the wash. There's a one-acre stock pond up there
that's fed by a stream and blocked by an earthen dam, and since that's the only water around this time
of year, the cattle tend to gather there."
When they entered the narrow mouth of a canyon that was faced on both sides with rock walls,
Genie said, "There's barely a trickle of water here."
Josh looked at a stream bed that made its way through the narrow mouth to the main canyon, and
said, "It's pretty dry this time of year, but there's a dug out area upstream from the petroglyphs that
might have enough water for Abby to wade."
"Maybe another time," Genie said. "I think we'd better see the petroglyphs and start back."
Following the rocky stream bed, they walked past a grove of poplars and willows, but just
beyond those Josh crouched beside Abby, and pointing toward the side of the canyon where red
images were visible on the face of the rock wall, he said to her, "Those are the rock pictures. They're
called petroglyphs and they were put there by people a long, long time ago."
Abby, seeming satisfied, looked down and said, "Can I make a castle out of rocks?"
Josh looked at Genie, who shrugged, and said, "Maybe for a few minutes, but then we need to
head back. Meanwhile I'll pick some poplar leaves for our leaf book."
While Genie was across the streambed picking leaves, and Abby was arranging rocks, Josh
looked toward the mouth of the canyon and remembered the day they'd driven Annie's band of Kiger
mustangs across the rangeland and into the box canyon to prevent them from being captured during a
helicopter roundup. They'd almost lost the herd that day, when in a panic, the horses headed for the
rim of the butte before he and Ryan managed to turn the band. It wasn't the stampede that held his
focus now but what happened after they'd contained the horses, when Annie threw herself into Ryan's
arms and cried like a baby, and Ryan closed his arms around her and stroked her hair. He'd known
Ryan had a thing for Annie, but it wasn't until that moment that he realized the hold Annie had on him.
Not an intentional hold. Annie was just Annie. It was the kind of hold that had Ryan giving up his
dreams for her&
"You want to help make my castle?" Abby asked.
Josh glanced down at Abby's circle of rocks and saw that there was more water than there had
been a few minutes before, which puzzled him. He looked toward the mouth of the canyon, but the
stream bed remained dry there, and if a flash flood had been triggered in the mountains miles away, it
would have to come from that direction. But as he watched Abby arranging rocks, the water where
she crouched was unquestionably growing wider. Figuring a spring on the hillside might have opened,
he looked up the wash and saw that rocks that had been dry five minutes before had trickles of water
cascading around them. Within seconds the flow of the water increased. And then it hit him.
"Run for high ground! The dam's going!" he yelled across the streambed to Genie.
Genie looked toward him like she didn't understand what he'd said, so he yelled louder, "The
dam on the stock pond! It's breaching! Get to high ground!"
The water was widening fast. Already it spanned the creek bed and was rising. Rushing for
Abby, he grabbed her around the waist and raced for the canyon wall. Grasping her hands he
maneuvered her around behind him and pulled her arms around his neck, and said, "Wrap your legs
around my waist and hold on. We're going up the hill." Abby clamped on, and with her legs and arms
wrapped around him, Josh launched himself onto a boulder. Grasping a fistful of roots he pulled
himself up, with Abby clinging to his back like a monkey, while moving from boulder to boulder as he
struggled to find his next handhold.
He glanced back momentarily to see Genie attempting to get up the opposite wall of the canyon
but not having the strength to pull herself up, and already water was up to her knees. Once high
enough to escape the rising water, he grabbed Abby's arms from around his neck and pulled her off
him, then removed his shirt, and said to her, "I'm tying you to a tree with my shirt so you'll be safe
while I go get Genie."
"No," Abby cried, while grabbing his legs.
Prying Abby's arms from around him, and ignoring her panicked cries, he braced her against the
tree so her back was to it and quickly wrapped his shirt around her and tied the arms together. "You'll
be safe," he said, then turned and raced back. But as he descended the sidewall of the canyon, he saw
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