Authors: William W. Johnstone

A Lone Star Christmas (24 page)

BOOK: A Lone Star Christmas

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C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

“Rebecca, may I ask you a question?” Sally said as the three women were resting after lunch. “If it is none of my business, and it probably isn't, you can tell me so, and I won't be offended.”

“What is the question?”

“Are you in love with Tom Whitman?”

Rebecca didn't answer, but she didn't have to. Immediately after Sally asked the question, Rebecca's eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, my,” Sally said. “Me and my big mouth. I didn't intend to open a sore spot. That was very foolish of me, wasn't it? Please forgive me.”

Rebecca shook her head and sniffed.

“There is nothing to forgive,” she said. “It is a perfectly legitimate question.”

“Perhaps, but it is also a loaded and painful question, if one is to gauge by your reaction.”

“Yes, I love him,” Rebecca said.

“And why is that so painful? Does he not return your love? I can't imagine that he wouldn't. He seems like a very intelligent young man; surely he isn't dumb enough to spurn your love.”

“I don't know,” Rebecca said. “I think he loves me. He has kissed me as if he loves me.” Rebecca felt her face flushing. “But he is bedeviled by something in his past and I think he is afraid to let himself love me. Also, my father does not want me to have anything to do with him. And I don't know if I am strong enough to stand up to him.”

“You aren't the first one ever to face that, Rebecca. My father is a banker, back East. The West may as well be a foreign country to him, and when he heard about Smoke, a man who had made a reputation as a gunfighterâeven though he had never used his gun for any reason except to right a wrongâwell, you can imagine what his reaction was. But Smoke won him over, and, from what I have observed of Tom, I'm sure he could win your father over as well.”

“Right now the problem isn't with Tom winning my father over. It is with me winning Tom's love,” Rebecca said.

“You will,” Sally said. “I know you will. And it will be worth it. I can't imagine my life without Smoke.”

“Smoke,” Rebecca said. “That is such an unusual name.”

Sally chuckled. “It's not his real name, of course. It's just a name that was given to him by Preacher, an old mountain man friend who became Smoke's mentor. His real name is Kirby.”

“What?” Rebecca gasped. “Kirby Jensen? That's his name?”

Sally was confused and curious by Rebecca's strange reaction. “Yes, Kirby Jensen. Why? Does that name mean something to you?”

“It does if he is from Missouri, and if he had a sister named Janie.”

“Oh, my God,” Sally said. “Yes, he is from Missouri, and he did have a sister named Janie. But she died a long time ago. What is your connection to this?”

“Janie didn't die a long time ago, though she knew that her brother thought she did. Janie died last month, in Dodge City, only a few days before you got there.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Janie Jensen was my mother.”

“Janie was your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Then that means ...” Sally stopped in mid-sentence then smiled broadly. “Oh, my, Rebecca! That means Smoke is your uncle.”

“And you are my aunt,” Rebecca replied, returning Sally's smile.

The two women hugged happily, just as Smoke and Falcon rode up, having returned from escorting the Back Trail riders out of harm's way.

“What are we celebrating?” Smoke asked with a grin as he dismounted.

“Smoke, the most wonderful thing!” Sally said. “You aren't going to believe this.”

“What.”

“Rebecca is your niece.”

“Oh, that's good,” Smoke said. “What did you do, adopt her as a niece?”

“No. I mean she really is your niece,” Sally said. “Your blood kin, niece.”

Smoke shook his head. “That's not possible,” he said. “I don't have any brothers or sisters.”

“Janie,” Sally said.

“Janie? She's dead. She died ...”

“Two weeks ago,” Rebecca said. “My mother, your sister, died two weeks ago in Dodge City, Kansas.”

“No, she died a long time ago.”

“She knew that you thought she was dead,” Rebecca said. “She said that she never told you, because you were better off if you thought she was dead.”

“How well did you know your mother?”

“I didn't know her that well,” Rebecca answered. “Sheâabandoned me when I was a baby. I never actually saw her until a few months ago.”

“I must confess that abandoning you does sound like something my sister would do. But I just don't believe your mother was my sister. If she had the name I'm sure it was just a coincidence. I imagine there are several Janie Jensens in the country.”

“How many of them have a brother who tied two cow's tails together?” Rebecca asked.

“What?” Smoke gasped. He stared at Rebecca with eyes open wide. “How do you know that?”

“She told me,” Rebecca said. “Not only that, she also told me that you told your father that the cows had tied themselves together while they were swishing at flies.”

“I'll be damn! You
are
my niece!” Smoke said. And, as Sally had before, he welcomed her into his family with arms open wide.

“Smoke! You never told me that story about the cows tying their own tails together,” Sally said.

“I've never told that story to a living soul,” Smoke said. “Not even Preacher. And there is no way; absolutely no way that Rebecca could know that story unless Janie told her.”

Over the next half hour, Smoke questioned Rebecca about his sister. Rebecca told him that Janie admitted to having been a prostitute, but that she had reformed when she met and married Oscar Davenport.

“And when I say reformed, I mean reformed,” Rebecca said. “It's as Mama told me, there is nobody more righteous than a reformed whore.”

“But, why didn't she tell me?” Smoke asked. “Why didn't she get in touch with me? She knew where I was. I didn't know where she was.”

“She said she thought you were better off thinking she was dead. She hurt you, she hurt your father, and she hurt your mother. She was ashamed and contrite, and wanted only to go to her Maker without hurting anyone else. I wish you could have seen her at the end, Uncle Kirby. She was a good woman, and she was a good wife to Oscar. He grieved terribly when Mama died. And, in the few months I was privileged to know her, she was a good mama to me.”

“And you say she died just before we got to Dodge City?” Smoke asked.

“Yes.”

“What a cruel turn of fate that was,” Smoke said. “To think that I came that near to seeing her again.”

“Smoke, for years you have resented your sister,” Sally said. “Even if you had gotten there in time, I don't know that you could have found it in your heart to forgive her.”

“If the wound is deep enough, it takes a while to heal, I'll admit that,” Smoke said. “But, still, I wish I had gotten there in time to see her, and to learn what she had become. I wish I had gotten there in time for forgiveness.”

“For you to forgive her?” Sally asked.

Smoke shook his head.

“No, Sally. I wish I had gotten there in time for her to forgive me.”

“Uncle Kirby, if you had asked Mama, she would tell you that you had done nothing that needed forgiveness. She loved you, I know that she did, I could tell by the way she spoke of you, with such pride, and such emotion.”

Smoke took Rebecca in his arms and held her tight. And, for the first time since he had buried his first wife, Nicole, and their baby, Art, he felt his eyes well with tears.

By suppertime, everyone on the trail drive knew that Smoke was Rebecca's Uncle Kirby. Sally told the tale of the time Smoke tied the cow's tails together, to the delight of all the others, and to Smoke's embarrassment.

“How the hell did you do that?” Dusty asked. “I've been around those critters for most of my life and I ain't never seen one with a tail you could tie. That would be like trying to tie two fingers together.”

“Look,” Smoke said. He took a handful of Sally's hair. “This is the tuft at the end of a cow's tail.” He took a hand full of Rebecca's hair. “This is the tuft at the end of another cow's tail.” He tied their tresses together.

“Ouch!” Sally said, as she and Rebecca struggled to get untangled.

“Let that be a lesson to the two of you,” Smoke said, laughing, “for telling secrets on me like that.”

Everyone laughed again.

“Rebecca,” Dusty said. “Would you sing for us?”

“What do you want?
Little Joe the Wrangler
?
Home on the Range
?
Red River Valley
?”

“No,” Dusty said. “I want you to sing one of them real pretty songs I've heard you sing. I don't know the names of any of them, but you know what I'm talking about.”

“Rebecca, sing
Panis Angelicus
,” Tom said.

“Do you know the song, Dusty?” Rebecca asked.

“No, ma'am, but once you get into it, I reckon I can strum along.”

“I know it,” Duff said. “I'll do the intro on the pipes.”

Rebecca nodded, and Duff retrieved his bagpipes from the hoodlum wagon, and started the intro, soft, soothing, and beautiful. Then Rebecca began to sing, her voice soaring to the heights and stirring the souls of all around the campfire.

Panis angelicus
Fit panis hominum
Dat panis coelicus
Figuris terminum
O res mirabilis
Manducat Dominum
Paupier, Paupier
Servus et humilis
Paupier, Paupier
Servus et humilis

Then, when Rebecca started through the second time, she was pleasantly shocked to see Tom step up beside her and sing along with her in perfect harmonious rounds.

“Oh, you were wonderful!” Rebecca said, spontaneously hugging Tom as the others applauded.

As Tom lay in his bedroll that night, the lyrics and melody of
Panis Angelicus
played and replayed in his head. He had enjoyed singing it with Rebecca, who had, he believed, the sweetest and purest voice he had ever heard.

And though nobody at the ranch, including Rebecca knew it, Tom had been exposed to such music before. The Harvard Men's Choir, founded in 1858, was one of the best musical ensembles in America, and Tom had sung with the group as 1st tenor.

“Son, you're going to have to make up your mind whether you want to sing or play football,” the coach told him. But the other players, having heard Tom sing, told the coach that if Tom couldn't do both, they wouldn't play. The coach acquiesced and a timely tackle by Tom in the 1879 Harvard Yale game preserved a 0-0 tie, the first time in three years that Harvard hadn't been beaten by Yale.

Tom thought of his fellow graduates of the class of 1880. They were all lawyers, professors, politicians, and business leaders now, all of them prominent members of society in their respective home cities. He wondered what they would think about him if they knew he was working as a cowboy for forty dollars and found. The West was wild, there was no denying that. In the last two weeks he had seen twelve men killed by gunfire. Such a thing, he knew, would leave his former acquaintances shocked and mortified, but he had come through it with no damage at all to his psyche.

On the Cimarron, November 27

The next morning during breakfast, Dusty suddenly put his tin plate down and got up and walked several feet away from the wagons and the campfire. He stood there for a long moment looking toward the ragged top of a bluff marking the western boundary of the prairie. He sniffed.

“Say, what's got into Dusty?” Dalton asked.

“I don't know,” Clay replied. “But whatever it is, I've got a feeling it's not going to be good.”

After a few minutes Dusty came back to the others. “Boss,” he said to Clay. “We've got us a fire. I can smell it.”

“What? Where?” Clay asked.

“I think it's on this side of the river. And it's west of us, which means it'll be comin' this way.”

“He's right,” Matt said. “Look.” Matt pointed to the west and there, faintly visible, was a cloud of light brown smoke mixed in with the haze.

“Maybe it's just a morning fog,” Dalton suggested.

“It's a fire,” Smoke said. “And it's a big one. Look, you can see the smoke from there, all the way down to there.”

Smoke pointed out the parameters of the approaching fire.

“We'd better start a back-fire if we want to keep it away from the herd,” Falcon said.

Setting a back-fire big enough to stop the oncoming flames would be quite an effort. It might have been easier if everyone could do it, but Clay knew that he would have to hold at least two people back to keep an eye on the herd. He gave that assignment to Matt and Dalton, then told the others to come with him to fight the fire.

“I think we should keep Maria back with the wagons,” Sally said.

“No, Maria can do her part,” Clay said. “We are going to need every hand.”

“Clay, you, more than anyone, should understand why she must stay behind,” Sally said.

“Oh,” Clay replied, understanding now, what Sally was saying. “Yes, you are right. She should stay behind.”

“I will stay by the river,” Maria offered. “That way, I can keep some sacks wet for you.”

“Yeah, that's a good idea,” Smoke agreed. “We'll need wet sacks to control the flames of the back-fire, to keep them going in the right direction.”

With improvised torches, Clay and the others crossed a shallow coulee and began setting fire to the tangled, brown mat which covered the ground just on the other side.

The men were setting the fires while Sally and Rebecca followed slowly behind them carrying wet sacks, making certain that the flames did not blow back across the ditch. When an errant blaze did attempt to come back, the women would beat it out while it was still small.

They were working under the most difficult of conditions, attempting to set a back-fire with no freshly plowed break of dirt, but only a shallow little dry ditch between the herd and the fire. And even the ditch had dry, tinder-like grass growing so high that it almost met over its top in places. This was anything but an ideal situation, but they had no choice but to try it.

They had barely gotten the back-fire started when a jagged line of fire with an upper wall of tumbling, brown smoke leaped into view at the top of the bluff.

“Smoke!” Sally called pointing to the fire.

“It's closer than I thought it was,” Smoke said.

“We've got one thing in our favor,” Falcon said. “There is less grass on the hillside than there is down here.”

“Aye,” Duff said. “And on some places there is nae grass at all.” He pointed to a few patches of gray dirt, absolutely bare of vegetation.

When the fire reached those places it would not be able to leap over, but would have to move around. They had one more advantage. The fire was burning noticeably slower coming down a hill than it did while it was on level ground. But even that advantage was somewhat offset by the fact that there were a few long, narrow ditches that ran to the top of the bluff, and they were filled with dry brush. Those long seams would act as flues, drawing the fire down them as easily as flame following a wick.

Because Rebecca was driving a wagon instead of riding a horse, she had been alternating her apparel, wearing pants one day and a dress the next. As luck would have it, she had chosen this day to wear a dress, a choice that turned out to be unfortunate for her.

Maria was keeping the sacks wet, so that not only Rebecca and Sally, but Tom and Dalton also were carrying wet sacks with them. That helped as they beat out the errant little tongues of flame which managed to escape the back-fire line and retreat down one of the seams, or jump across the break to take up new residence.

Rebecca, in turning to extinguish a new outbreak of flames behind her, inadvertently swept her skirt across a clump of burning grass and set it aflame. Because she was intent upon her work, running from one outbreak of flame to another, and with the smoke and smell of fire all about her, she was totally unaware of what had happened.

Tom saw it, and moving quickly, wrapped a wet sack around her. Startled, and still unaware of the flaming skirt, Rebecca called out in shock.

“Tom! What are you doing?”

“Your dress was on fire,” Tom said.

Rebecca looked down to inspect the damage done to her dress. When she raised up again, her face was pale.

“Oh, Tom, I ...”

Tom saw that she was about to faint and he moved toward her quickly, catching her before she fell. She leaned into him, and as he held her, he could feel her heart beating rapidly. He remembered once having picked up a bird with a wounded wing. The little bird's heart was beating rapidly, and it looked at him with eyes full of fear. He had felt nothing but compassion for that bird, and wished with all his heart he could comfort it, let it know that it had nothing to fear from him.

He felt that way now about Rebecca, holding her to him, wishing that he could turn time back a few months and start over with her. He knelt down, bringing her down with him, lying her down on the ground, with her face up. He then positioned her across his lap so that her heart was above her head, and her feet above her heart. After that, he tilted her head to one side to reduce the risk of her swallowing her own tongue.

“Yeah! Oh yeah!” Dusty shouted.

Tom looked to see what Dusty was shouting about, and saw that the back-fire was now well on the way to meeting the approaching fires, leaving behind it a long, very wide strip of black from the charred grass. As the fires met, there would no longer be fuel to sustain them, and they would quickly burn out. The herd was no longer in danger.

“Oh!” Rebecca said, coming to. She looked up at him, suddenly realizing that she was lying, for the most part, on his lap.

“Oh!” she said. “Oh, what happened?”

“You fainted,” Tom said.

“I must get up.” She struggled to do so, but Tom restrained her. He restrained her gently, but he did restrain her.

“Get up slowly,” he said. “Other wise you could pass out again.”

She stopped struggling, then he got up, reached down, and helped her up.

A little unsteady on her feet, she fell into him again, and he held her tightly for a long moment.

“Are you all right?” Tom asked after a moment.

“Yes, I'm fine, thank you,” Rebecca said. “You saved my life, didn't you?”

Tom smiled at her. “I wouldn't go that far,” he said. “But I might have kept you from getting a painful burn.”

Rebecca put her arms around his neck to steady herself. As she did so, their lips came in close proximity as they had before when he set her down from the horse. That time, the unexpected flushing of a quail stopped them. Nothing stopped them this time, and he pulled her to him, crushing his lips against hers.

Rebecca was pleasantly surprised by the kiss, and she reacted to it with a heat that thrilled her to her soul. The kiss went on, much longer than she would have thought, until, finally, it was Tom who broke off the kiss.

Rebecca felt as limp as a rag doll, and she looked at him with her senses reeling.

“I'm sorry,” Tom said, self-consciously. “I had no right to do that.”

“Oh, Tom,” Rebecca said. “You have every right. Don't you know that?”

“We should get back to the camp.”

BOOK: A Lone Star Christmas

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