An Unwilling Husband (26 page)

“Don’t think he meant it in a bad way,” Garret said dryly.

She waved as the man disappeared into the darkness beyond the firelight, and turned to start cleaning up after their meal. Garret hovered, but seemed at a loss for words, so she ignored him and waited for him to verbalize his thoughts. He didn’t. Instead he helped clean up and set up their bedrolls near the fire.

“Burke, you take the first shift,” he said. “Wake me in a few hours and I’ll take the rest of the night, if you like.”

Burke agreed, went a short distance and leaned against a tree with his pistols to keep watch. Despite the somewhat cordial dinner with their new acquaintances, having a weapon drawn still kept a person on alert.

Sleep would come restless that night.

Chapter 17

How was Maggie supposed to sleep when she was so close to Garret’s body? His warmth radiated onto her. His soft, slow breathing told her he slept with no trouble, while she, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep if her life depended on it. He’d decided, for reasons unknown to her, to put his bedroll behind hers and had proceeded to fall asleep undisturbed.
Right
beside her.

If she scooted back even closer to him, would he notice? Couldn’t hurt to try.

The instant she began to relocate her bedroll, she was startled to find him looking at her through one slitted blue eye, wearing an amused expression.

He chuckled at her. “Go to sleep, Maggie.”

“Harrump,” she grunted, and plopped down on her unmoved bedroll. It would have to be close enough.

When the first blue-gray streaks of morning lay across the sky, Maggie stretched the stiffness from her back. She huddled into her sleeping bag to regain some of the warmth she had lost sitting against an old cottonwood tree. While Garret slept on, she was riveted by a jagged scar across his neck. How had she not noticed it before? Sure, it was faint, and silvered with age, but at one time had been a significant injury and seemed obvious in the dim morning light. Possibly she hadn’t paid proper attention to his neck because his eyes so often had her enraptured.

Something alerted her that Garret had slipped from the depths of sleep into the subtle shift of wakefulness. Perhaps the slight variance in the cadence of his breathing, or perhaps, the small piece of her soul which seemed determined to tether itself to his had told her of the change.

“Where did you get the scar on your neck?” she asked.

She knew he’d heard her. He was just putting off waking the last bit of the way.

His bleary blue gaze focused on her, and he jerked his head back an inch. He cleared his throat and sat up. “It’s not a story with a happy ending. Where’s Burke? Why didn’t he wake me?”

More than a little proud, she explained, “Lenny spelled him, and then I took a turn. You were up most of the night before and you needed rest. Where did you get the scar?” she repeated, undeterred.

Garret rubbed his face, ran his hands through his hair and shook it out. “My old man hit the bottle too hard one night. Tried to slit my throat.” He looked at her with his eyebrows raised, as if daring her to ask more questions she likely wouldn’t appreciate the answers to. “Thankfully, my pa was too drunk to get it done right.”

He’d said it off the cuff, so detached from such a horrid story that had no business coming from a man’s mouth and ringing true.

He’d been a child who’d lost his mother and the remaining parent, the one supposed to protect him, had tried to kill him. Bile rose in the back of her throat at the horror, and she swallowed down the queasiness. “Your story had a happy ending to me,” she said quietly.

Garret regarded her, those cerulean eyes piercing to her very being as his expression turned questioning. “And how’s that?”

“You’re still here. When did he do it?”

Garret scanned the dim clearing as if he wished he were anywhere but there. “The season you and your ma left Rockdale.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No use apologizing. It ain’t your fault.”

“No, of course it isn’t, but I’m sorry no one was there for you.” She closed the short distance between them and hugged him around his neck.

He sat frozen and stiff, but she couldn’t seem to pull her arms from his shoulders. The scruff on his unshaven face felt right against her cheek. He relaxed and put his arms hesitantly around her waist. She wanted to cry for what he had been through, but it wasn’t his way, so she put her sorrow into holding him. Garret let out his breath and murmured, “It’s all right now, woman. I don’t even think on it anymore.”

Lenny and Burke watched them from a distance, but at a glance from her, took off into the woods. Maggie let Garret go, not pausing to talk or give him even a moment to panic and say something horrid to her, as he so often did after she showed any emotion. She simply stood, rolled the blankets, and avoided his gaze at all costs.

Garret rolled his blankets, and when finished, took hers and tied them to the saddles still cinched on Buck and Rooney. After a quick breakfast of stale biscuits and dried venison, the four of them headed out to finish the last few miles to Whitfield’s ranch.

“Need to talk to you,” Garret said as they pulled the horses up at the boundary of old Whitfield’s land.

His serious tone brokered dread, but with a straightened spine, she reined Buck closer to Rooney and waited.

“This money I’m using to buy these cattle? It’s the money we got from driving Roy’s herd, and therefore I was thinking it was rightfully yours. Figured I should ask what you wanted to do with it before I spend it.”

“Buy the cattle, of course. Anything I can do to help us keep the ranch, I’ll do, but can I say something?”

He nodded.

“Why don’t we drive the cattle straight to town, sell them at a profit and be done with Whitfield’s brand?

“But what about the breeding stock for next year?”

“We can put the money aside to help pay the loan to the Jenningses, but I fear the longer we have these cattle, the more time Wyatt will have to steal them back. I have a bad feeling about keeping this herd.”

Grunting, he nodded. “We’d easily triple our money if we drive them into town right now, as cheap as Whitfield is selling them to us. And it wouldn’t hurt to have them gone before the Jenningses find some loophole to get ’em back. I’ll talk to Burke and we’ll see about driving them that-a-way tomorrow.”

They rode through the brush that lined a small clearing, and Whitfield’s modest cabin peeked through a pair of cottonwood trees. The wind caressed a splintered rocking chair on the small porch and milling cattle dotted the yard. It was clear Whitfield had made a one-man effort to bring the herd together in preparation for driving them. Cows were spread far and wide, but at least they wouldn’t have to go riding all over creation in search of them.

Garret instructed Burke and Lenny to start rounding up the stragglers and motioned for Maggie to join him. Whitfield was a hunched, gray haired man who came out onto the front porch with his arms full when Garret and Maggie neared. He was packing, and in a hurry.

“Don’t want to be here when the Jenningses figure out they weren’t careful enough with the paperwork,” Whitfield offered with a mischievous grin.

“Right,” Garret said with a chuckle. “We’ll make this quick then.”

He tossed Whitfield a leather bag of money and waited while the man counted it.

Whitfield grunted in approval. “That’ll do it. This money will get me out of town and into the city where I have relatives waiting. Plan to get onto the train by the end of the day.”

“Probably a good idea,” Garret replied. “Don’t reckon anybody’s tried to stand up to the Jenningses before today. We’ll probably drive the herd straight into town ourselves, and get out of the Jennings way.”

“Probably best. I’d drive them myself, if I had the manpower. They’ll fetch a good price.” Whitfield squinted at the position of the sun. “Listen, I got a horse. A real fair filly, and I can’t take her with me where I’m going. Would you mind picking her up in town and taking her back to the Lazy S? She’s draft and Friesian, a real big girl. She’s great for hard work, and her foals will catch a price. I’d be much obliged. I can’t part with her, thinking she is going to Jennings’s breeding stock.”

“I’ve seen the horse you’re talking about. She’s a beauty. We’ll take her, if it’s what you want. Give them my name at the stable and we’ll get her after we sell the cattle.”

He tipped the brim of his hat. “I’ll see you when I see you,” Whitfield said, and went back to loading his small wagon.

It took an hour to gather the milling cattle before they were off at a grueling, slow pace. Getting such a large herd moving in the intended direction while keeping the headstrong ones from escaping into the brush took alertness to the cattle’s ornery ways, hard riding and lots of yelling. As the other three were seasoned at driving, often she had to go after the numbers intent on splitting from the bulk of the group. Tumultuous motion, like she was a chicken with her head cut off. There was no pattern or organization. Driving, for her, was chaos.

They avoided the main road in hopes of avoiding attention, so the cattle had to be pushed through areas of thick brush. Every muscle was strained as if she had been driving for days by the time they stopped for a bite to eat.

The cattle milled about, exhausted from traveling, and grazed hungrily on knee high prairie grass. With Garret’s portion of dried venison in hand, she wove through the mass of irritable beasts on Buck, careful to avoid the bulls with the biggest horns, until finally she reached him near the middle of the herd. It would have to be a lunch in the saddle if they wanted to get to town by dark.

Garret leaned across the saddle horn and took the small meal from her outstretched hand. “We aren’t going to break camp until late today.”

Already tearing into the jerky, she nodded. A small flash of gray through two large patches of brush caught her attention, and she jerked her head and squinted in the direction she had seen it. Nothing moved besides the cattle that had wandered that far. She shook her head and took another bite.

“What?” Garret asked, watching her.

“Nothing. I thought I saw something but nothing’s there.”

“Cow?”

“No, something gray.”

Garret perked up and pulled his pistol out just as the cattle in that area bellowed full force and began to run. The effect of a few frenzied cattle was disastrous.

“Heyeyeyeyey!” he yelled, trying to slow the beasts barreling toward them.

Rooney and Buck danced, ready for a command which would take them to safety.

“Get out of here, Maggie. Head for the edge and stay out of their way. Go!” Garret yelled over the noise of the stampede.

Sound advice. Garret had given her sound advice.

If it had only been that easy, she would have rejoiced. Instead, caught in the middle of a large herd of frantic cattle caused Buck to get stuck running in the midst of a large number of bulls, as big as himself and horned. Forced to stay with the stampede, she tried to maneuver to her right whenever a hole presented itself. The beasts’s eyes rolled in fear as they ran into each other, bellowing.

A bull hit Buck hard, pinning her leg. Screaming, she barely heard Buck’s whinnied echo of pain. She couldn’t give him room because more cattle were flanking them on the other side.

Garret had managed to make it to the edge right away, and Maggie turned in her saddle.

Smoke shot into the air as he fired his pistol at a coyote that had latched onto a calf’s nose. Terrified, she turned to find a slight hole had opened up. Buck jerked to the side, and she yelled at the cattle as she zigzagged through them. Lenny and Burke rode to control the other side, becoming a blur as she tried, failed, and tried again to escape the chaos. Lather bathed Buck’s sweaty neck where the reins touched him, and he panted loudly as she asked him for more.

As she neared the edge, Garret raced past her and yelled, “Hold this side. I’m gonna try and head ’em off!”

Rooney nearly flew under Garret’s able command as he pulled him closer, toward the frenzied front line. Horse and rider cut in deeply, pushing against the furthermost cattle, creating a bottleneck. On the other side, Burke made room for the beasts to veer toward him. Garret led the cattle in a wide arch, and at last they slowed. When they had eased up enough, he, Burke and Lenny pulled in front of the group pushed against the grain until the confused cattle stopped.