She left for the high camp with three horses and a couple of days worth of food. Peaches and saltines and Bisquik and ice. She didn't know why she felt so tired because she'd slept twelve hours that night and she never slept near that long.
It was a twenty mile ride up through the mountains and when she got there she saw where the wild horses had damaged the water tank again and she fixed that but she felt like shit and she rolled out in her sleeping bag and didn't move for two days.
She knew she had a fever. She knew she had to eat. When she got through the peaches she mixed up Bisquik and ice into cowboy ice cream and that went down good.
The third day she tried to get up but she laid back down in a minute. No way could she look for strays she didn't think were there anyway. She stared up at the hard blue sky all day and a trillion stars at night and she wished she had more peaches. She drank a lot of water and ate crackers when she could force herself.
When she tried to get up again every joint in her body ached and her head felt like it was full of something but not brains. She was out of food. No one had come looking for her. She'd have thought someone would have taken the time, no matter how short handed they were, but no one came.
She had to get home. It took all her strength to catch one horse. She picked Sprocket because he had the fastest walk, and walking was all she was up to.
She was glad there was no one around to see her climb on a rock to mount. Her long skinny legs weren't hers any more.
She slept most of the way back. A couple of times she set Sprocket straight when he got off course, but mostly she slept.
It took most of the day at a solemn walk. When she saw the ranch in its grove of poplars and cottonwoods she might have wept if she'd been someone else.
She slid off poor Sprocket and made for the kitchen.
``I'm feeling better,'' she said.
The cook made her drink three tall glasses of lemon Koolaid and put her to bed.
Next morning she went back up on Sprocket to finish checking on the stock and to bring back her gear and horses.
An antelope hunter with an ATV was going through her stuff.
``Stand away,'' she said. He did.
They talked a few minutes before he went on his way.
``You could have died up here.''
``That's the cowboy way,'' she said.