Henry’s duties “riding line” were much the same today as they would have been in the late 1800’s. He would be checking fence and livestock, watching for rustlers, who oddly enough still operated in the west, as well as keeping an eye out for predators. Admittedly the predators these days weren’t as prevalent as they had been in the 1800’s and mostly came in the form of coyotes prowling around during calving season.

The area he would be keeping an eye on was much smaller then that of the line riders of the past. While one, or perhaps two men would be in charge of hundreds of square miles of range in the 1800’s, Henry would only be responsible for watching about ten. Still, ten square miles of open range dotted with rolling hills, deep banked creeks and a large winding canyon, as well as three windmills and water tanks, would be enough to keep him occupied for the six-month stretch he would be putting in.

Henry was no stranger to the kind of solitude that riding line provided. For the past seventeen years he had lived a life of self-imposed solitude and felt he had gotten along just fine. When Sam Mitchell gave him his choice of jobs on the ranch, he had chosen this one. It was an easy choice, especially after two weeks of living amongst the cowboys working the ranch. He’d already had enough of them and couldn’t seem to get away quickly enough.

Henry’s first few days out on the line were filled with the chores needed to get the place ready for the winter. He put the supplies away, stacking the canned goods on the empty shelves near the sink, the coffee tins on the counter and leaving his clothes in the satchel and placing them on an old wooden chair near the bed. He went outside and set to repairing the corral fence that had a number of broken rails, nailed the siding back on the small hay barn where the wind had blown it loose, and made sure the windmill that kept the horses’ water tank full was in good working order.

When his chores around the shack were finished, he woke one morning, mounted the big red horse, put a packsaddle on the dun with a week’s worth of provisions and began his first swing through the country he would be looking after for the winter. He wanted to familiarize himself with the country, make sure the fence was in good repair, check windmills and water tanks, do a head count of the cattle that he found and check and note ear tag numbers.

Henry finished yet another dinner of canned chili he’d cooked over his campfire, realizing he had been gone from Jessie for nearly a month. The horses were hobbled and grazing peacefully nearby, both taking on the orange hue of the campfire that was keeping him warm that night. Although there was little or no wind, the night was cold, and had gotten colder since the sun went down. It was the kind of cold that made the ends of his fingers sting when exposed to the air for more than a few minutes. As Henry pulled his heavy Navajo blanket tighter around himself, he gazed up at the starry night emblazoned by a full moon. He had been thinking about Jessie non-stop since he left her, but until that very second—with the moon shining so brightly down on him that it could have been mid day—he hadn’t really realized just how much he missed her, and he wondered what she was doing at that very minute.