Come Spring (5 page)

And the man was staring back at him with a cold, hard look in his deep blue eyes.

Buck turned away. He’d seen that look before. It seemed even ‘breeds thought they were better now than buffalo hunters.

The wind whipped across the platform, a chilling, cutting wind that shook Buck out of his dark thoughts. The sky was still raw blue and clear, but he knew now, as sure as Ted had, that a storm was on the way. He had to get back through the pass before it hit. He turned and pressed his way back through the crowd toward the ticket window. Just before he reached it, the clerk opened a small door in the side of the building and stepped out. He cupped his hands and shouted, “Train’s blown a crown sheet down the line outside of Busted Heel. Don’t know how long it’ll be before we can get another engine down to bring ‘er in. Maybe you folks ought to get in out of the cold until she pulls in. We’ll blast the whistle loud and long to let everyone know when it’s here.”

Buck listened to the grumbling around him and ignored it as he stepped up to the window where the clerk had safely ensconced himself inside once again. He grabbed the bars that separated him from the clerk and said, “Where’d you say that train’s stalled?”

Annoyed, the man stared at Buck’s rough hands. “Down the line. Near Busted Heel.”

“Which is?”

“’Bout an hour’s ride east of here.”

Buck Scott mumbled the one word he should have never uttered in mixed company and shouldered his way off the platform.

K
ASE
Storm listened to the station clerk’s announcement and shook his head in frustration. It was just like his half sister to board a train that was meant to break down.

He loved Annika, loved to spoil and pamper her just as his mother and stepfather did, and any other time he would be glad to have her visit, but when her last letter came informing him that she would arrive in less than two weeks’ time, Kase had wanted to wire her and tell her to wait until spring. But Rose, his Italian wife, had stopped him.

“How come you say this, Kase?” she had asked. “Your sister, she can help me, and this way I can know her better, like a real sister, before the baby comes.”

Kase didn’t have the heart to tell Rose that Annika would be little help. His sister had never done a day’s work in her life. Unlike Rose, who had come to Wyoming alone, started her own restaurant, sold it for a tidy profit, and still insisted she do all the cooking for the hands at their ranch, Annika had never had to lift a finger to do anything for herself. Their parents had seen to it that Annika was educated so that she would be able to support herself if the need ever arose, but both he and Annika had been endowed with ample trust funds, a legacy from Caleb’s father’s fortune, that would provide for them for a lifetime.

Two ranchers on the platform smiled a greeting before they moved on, and Kase nodded in acknowledgment. He’d made a name for himself as marshal of Busted Heel before he gave up his badge and went into ranching. More often than not, men he didn’t even recognize called him by name. He wondered how different his life might have been if he hadn’t taken the job of marshal six years ago and helped rid the area of the Dawson gang. And where would he be now if he hadn’t married the one woman in the world who could have helped him forget his heritage and see himself as a whole man?

Kase felt his anxiety build as he thought of Rose. She was pregnant again, due the first of May. It was the fourth time in five years they’d waited for a baby and now he was even afraid to hope that nothing would go wrong. His wife had miscarried once, then given birth to a stillborn boy. On the last try, their daughter had not lived more than a few hours. So this time, although he wished it could be otherwise, he had received the news of her pregnancy without joy, but with overwhelming fear. He couldn’t face the thought of building another small wooden coffin, didn’t want to bury another child any more than he wanted to risk losing his Rose, but motherhood was her one burning desire, so all he could do was see that Rose had the best of care, and wait. And pray.

Right now all he wanted was to collect his sister and get back out to the ranch as soon as he could so that he would be there if Rose needed him. He knew all the hands were at her beck and call—there was no one who could resist the petite Italian’s charm—but Kase still preferred to be within shouting distance of her most of the time. But Rose had insisted he go into Cheyenne to greet his sister properly, said that they should have dinner at one of the finest restaurants and attend the opera, then spend the night at the Interocean Hotel before he drove Annika out to the isolated ranch. After much argument—and although he would never admit as much to anyone, he was proud of the way his Rose could argue—he decided to give in to her and go all the way into town.

But now the train was late with no word of how much longer it would be before it arrived.

Kase watched in silence as a huge man dressed in the trappings of a buffalo hunter shoved through the crowd and jumped off the platform. The giant, bearded blond had to be a good six feet four if he was an inch, his hair was long and wild, pulled back in an attempt to tame it into a more civilized style. He was dressed in buckskins well greased to keep out wind and water, in clothes that appeared to be handmade. Long fringe swayed from the sleeves and yoke of the man’s hooded jacket. Knee-high moccasins adorned his feet. Kase frowned when he glimpsed the long sheath hooked to his belt and tied to the hunter’s thigh. It held a skinning knife.

He’d seen the rough-looking giant earlier, studied him as they stood near each other on the platform, wondered if such a young man could have indeed taken part in the last of the buffalo hunts. It had been years now since a herd of any size had been spotted anywhere outside of the Yellowstone area. Twenty years ago millions of head of buffalo had thundered across the prairies. Now, except for a few lone stragglers and small, privately owned herds like the nineteen head Kase had rounded up, there were no buffalo to be found. Hunters like the man who had just left the platform had slaughtered them one by one, selling off boxcars full of hides and leaving the carcasses to decay on the open plains.

With the killing of the buffalo came the near annihilation of the Plains Indians, and although Kase had not been able to fully accept that part of him that was Sioux until a few years ago, he had always respected the Indians as a people, just as he respected all life. Caleb had taught him as much, and so too had his mother.

Before his anger could block out reason, Kase turned away from the sight of the hunter and left a message for Annika with the station clerk. He decided to go to the Interocean Hotel and reserve a room for each of them, do some of the shopping as he had promised Rose, and then return to check on the progress down the line. If the delay was to last much longer, it would be wiser for him to ride on back to Busted Heel and collect Annika there before he went back to the ranch.

As he stepped off the platform and began to make, his way up Capitol toward the Interocean, he saw the buffalo hunter leading a mare and two pack mules and riding flat out down Fifteenth Street.

   3   

A
LICE
Soams disliked just about everything she had seen so far on this hateful trip, and now that the train had stopped dead in the middle of nowhere, she even hated the Union Pacific Railroad. It was bad enough that she’d been cooped up in the confines of the first-class sleeper with the stove drying up what little moisture there was left in the air, but now that she’d decided to step outside and stretch, even the weather had turned against her. She tried to hold on to the lapels of her thick woolen coat as she bent forward into the wind and struggled up the gentle incline toward the tracks.

For the past day and a half she had spent her time mulling over her decision to marry Buck Scott, the man who answered the advertisement she had put in the paper on a whim. She certainly didn’t regret accepting the first-class fare he had promptly mailed her when she accepted his proposal, nor did she look back with any sorrow at leaving her sister’s home. She was tired of playing the part of the spinster sister, tired of living off Muriel and her husband, sick of wearing her sister’s old clothes and feeling beholden for every scrap of food she ate from their table merely because she had never found a man willing to marry her.

As she stalked down the snowy patch already trampled by the other passengers, Alice did not look right or left but at the ground. She couldn’t abide talking to strangers, never saw the good in it. Waste of time, if anyone ever asked her, but they never did. She looked down the right of way and watched a couple ahead of her swinging their clasped hands between them. “Immoral and indecent,” she grumbled to herself, still unable to avert her gaze. They were as bad as the flashy blond girl riding three seats ahead of her in first class.

Alice had seen her type before, knew the girl for what she was—a society debutante decked out in her finery, all too willing to lord it over the rest of the world. The girl had the conductor eating out of her hand from the moment she had boarded the train. Alice thought it was disgusting.

She had hated the girl on sight. It was almost too much to bear, watching her flash her big blue eyes at every man on board, having to witness the open, friendly way she greeted everyone. Anyone with a lick of sense knew that a body shouldn’t go around speaking to strangers, but the tall blonde didn’t seem to know it, even if Alice did. Probably never had a care in the world, that girl. It was all too clear she had more money than sense. Her clothes were new—cut fashionably and showy. She had an ornate, hinge-lidded lap desk she kept her writing things in and to top if off, a new valise. As if all that weren’t bad enough, she flaunted a shining black satin cloak with
AS,
the same initials as Alice’s own, emblazoned on the bodice in gold.

Alice thought of her own worn coat and protectively clutched it tighter with her long, thin fingers. As soon as she reached Cheyenne and married Buck Scott her worries would be over. She’d have money enough then, and she’d show them all. After all, she thought, he’d sent her first-class fare without question, and his last two letters had been filled with descriptions of Blue Creek Valley. His letters had never been long, but they were neatly penned. He told of the riches to be had in the valley, of how the place was all his, about the home he’d built that they wouldn’t have to share with anyone.

Alice looked up, braving the wind long enough to turn and stare down the tracks. She had walked farther than she realized, so she quickly turned around and began to make her way back. The last letter she had received from Buck Scott was tucked safely in the pocket of her coat. She might need it to prove her identity if she had to—if he didn’t recognize her right off. Not that he shouldn’t, but when she faced the truth, she knew that she had taken a bit of license when she’d described herself to him. But how could she have written to the only prospective husband she had ever had and tell him that she was painfully thin, had lanky, light brown hair, sharp features, and faded blue eyes? She couldn’t. And she hadn’t. But she figured she could clear all that up when she met him face-to-face.

She wondered what she would do if Buck Scott had lied to her about his appearance the way she had. He said he was taller than most men, blond headed, and promised he’d be easy to please. She had imagined him more than once, envisioned a successful land-owning man in a dapper, hounds-tooth check suit and bowler hat, bouquet in hand, anxiously awaiting her in a new carriage ready to whisk her off to their mountain home.

There seemed to be a crowd gathering up ahead, so she hurried toward them, planning to stand on the outskirts and watch whatever uneventful happening was about to unfold. As she drew near, she noticed that everyone was watching a rider approach from the west. He rode alongside the tracks across the slight ditch that ran parallel to the rail line. Alice sniffed in disgust as the man neared. He was huge, his clothing dark and greasy, his white-blond hair curling wildly, showing well past his shoulders beneath his hat. She was as speechless as the rest of the crowd as he thundered to a halt, followed by the string of animals he led behind him.