Mud's worse. Then we split them. You take the cattle near the brush. I'll open a line through the current. They moved.
Nollie and the Apache riders entered from the lower side, driving the first cattle away from the collapsing bank. Emmett turned Slate toward the water. The stallion hesitated. Months earlier, that hesitation might have become panic. Emmett loosened the reins.
Easy, Slate. Slate stepped in. Cold water rose past his knees. The current shoved hard against him, but Emmett stayed quiet in the saddle. Slate kept moving.
On the far side, Emmett freed a calf tangled in mesquite and sent it after the herd. Then he crossed again and again. Nollie worked beside him, soaked through, shouting directions over the rain. Once her mare lost footing and dropped hard to one side. Emmett turned toward her.
I'm fine, " she yelled. She was already moving again. One by one, the cattle reached higher ground. Blaine's riders joined once they saw a safe path. Apache riders and ranch hands worked shoulder to shoulder, too busy saving cattle to remember who had distrusted whom.
The last steer was half buried in mud and too exhausted to rise. Emmett and Nollie reached it together. Nollie looped a rope around its horns while Emmett urged Slate forward." Now! " Slate leaned into the pull. The steer broke free and stumbled toward solid ground.
Seconds later, the flood swallowed the patch of earth where it had been trapped. For a moment, nobody spoke. Blaine counted the herd twice. Every animal was there. Then he walked toward Nollie.
Rain ran down his face. His voice held none of its usual hardness. I'd have lost half of them without you. Nollie looked at him. Your cattle needed help.
Blaine glanced toward the Apache riders. Still, thank you. It was not an apology for every careless thing he had said, but it was a beginning. Later, as the storm weakened, Emmett found Nollie beside Slate. She rested a hand on the stallion's neck.
He trusted you in that water. Emmett looked at her. He had a choice. Nollie held his gaze. So did you.
Those words stayed with him long after the rain stopped. For the first time, Emmett began thinking seriously about a promise he wanted from Nollie, one he would never ask her to make in front of a crowd. The flood changed Copper Creek in ways no one noticed all at once. Blaine Harrow did not become a different man overnight, but something in him had shifted. He stopped blaming Apache families whenever trouble crossed his range.
His riders began sharing water with men they once rode past without a word. At the trading post, conversations that used to end in silence slowly lasted a little longer. Trust did not arrive like thunder. It came one small choice at a time. The same was true for Emmett and Nollie.