Outlast the Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a grin. “I shouldn’t start my first full day on the station getting thrown like the greenest blow-in.”
    Harris grinned back.
    Jeremy threw the tack on the closest horse, a big bay mare, and mounted up. “Lead the way, boss,” he called to Harris. “Daylight’s wasting.”
    Harris laughed and headed toward the far end of the valley. Once they were outside the valley gate, he led them off the roads and up onto the tablelands, heading steadily south. Jeremy studied the men around him. The youngest of the bunch, Simms, Jeremy thought his name was, rode closest to Harris, clearly at ease with the other man if not so at ease with his horse. He didn’t make obvious mistakes, but the way he sat in the saddle showed a lack of experience. The others were almost as ill at ease with their horses and didn’t seem much more comfortable with Harris. It made Jeremy wonder just what had gone on that summer at Lang Downs.
    Despite the apparent inexperience of the jackaroos riding with them, the station didn’t show any signs of neglect, which was good, but it still made Jeremy curious. The last time he had visited Lang Downs—three years ago, at least—everything had seemed to run almost by itself, as if everyone knew what needed to be done without being told. He doubted most of the men he was riding with today had the slightest idea what they were doing beyond following orders. He wanted to ask but wasn’t sure how best to broach the subject.
    “How long have you been at Lang Downs?” he settled for asking Harris.
    “Since the beginning of the season. I heard a rumor about the bosses and figured this might be a better place for me than some of the other stations I’d worked at,” Harris said.
    “And has it?” Jeremy asked curiously.
    Harris slanted his eyes in Simms’s direction. “You could say that. Caine offered to keep me on year-round.”
    Jeremy nodded. “Lang Downs has always been a place people stayed.” The same had never been true of Taylor Peak, much to Jeremy’s father’s and Devlin’s dismay, but that only made the current situation even stranger.
    They reached the mob then, and Jeremy didn’t have time to ponder the situation anymore. He was too busy calling orders to Arrow and trying to stay out of the way of the others. Harris had a good command of the situation, but some of the men were better at following orders than others.
    Between him, Arrow, and Jeremy himself, they got the mob moving back toward the valley. If Jeremy had to send Arrow after more strays than usual, he kept his comments to himself. Harris voiced them for him, and he was the one in charge of the drive, so better for it to come from him.
    They got the sheep into the valley and delivered to the breeding pens. Macklin had that down to a science, a kid Jeremy didn’t know separating the sheep out one by one and directing them according to Macklin’s nods. “Who’s that with the boss?” Jeremy asked.
    “Jason Thompson. His dad is the head mechanic. He’s lived here since he was two. He’s got a way with the animals. I thought Seth was supposed to be helping today too. I hope he hasn’t skivved off somewhere.”
    “Seth?”
    “Chris’s kid brother. Usually you can’t keep him and Jason apart unless Seth’s working with Patrick, Jason’s dad, but Patrick took the weekly run to town for supplies this morning.”
    “Maybe Macklin sent him to do something else?” Jeremy didn’t claim to understand the tone of Harris’s voice, but he figured the kid deserved a chance to defend himself before he got reamed for shirking his duties.
    “Maybe. He’s gotten better, but he played some pranks when he first got here, mostly on his brother, but I won’t let him jeopardize Chris’s place on the station. We’ve worked too hard for that.”
    Before Jeremy could decide how to reply to that, another teenager, a little older than Jason, came running back toward the pens. “Seth will be out in a few minutes, Macklin. He