Daisies In The Wind (19 page)

Rebeccah gave her head a firm shake as she
set the dry plate on the countertop and took another wet one from
Caitlin. “I don’t care for dances,” she said airily.

Since it seemed Caitlin was loathe to drop
the subject, Rebeccah changed it by asking the first question that
sprang to mind. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she blurted out,
rushing her words. “How did Wolf get his name?” She flushed a
little as she spoke the words, and hurried on as Caitlin gave a
short chuckle. “I mean, as a baby, surely you didn’t call him
Wolf?” she finished doubtfully.

“No, as a baby I called him Joseph Adam
Bodine, after his father, as fine and handsome a man as any woman
would ever care to meet.” Caitlin’s expression grew warm and misty,
even her faded, near-sightless eyes seemed to brim with soft
emotion. “My husband was a Texas Ranger, a good man, Rebeccah, as
strong and decent and honest as a man should be—like Wolf,” she
said proudly. “He died when Wolf was only a little older than
Billy—but I’m straying from my story,” she said, straightening her
shoulders and giving her gray head a tiny shake. “Wolf was very
young—oh, six or seven, I reckon—when he wandered off one morning
when I had my hands full with laundry and gardening and the like,
and to make a long story short, he got himself lost in the hills.
We searched for him, Joseph and me, and our ranch hands, and even
his little brother, Jimmy, came along, calling—but we couldn’t find
him. Not that day, not all through the night. Finally, early next
morning, Joseph found him—guess where! Sleeping near some mesquite,
curled up on the ground with a great, mangy wolf, of all things. Do
you know, that animal actually seemed to be guarding him? Strangest
sight Joseph ever saw, or so he said. Well, the nickname Wolf stuck
after that. No one’s called him anything else in all the years
since that morning.”

“It suits him,” Rebeccah murmured, almost to
herself, and marveled at the image of the young boy, Joseph Adam,
sleeping in the open hills with a wolf.

Caitlin interrupted her thoughts. “Yes, it
does suit him. And he’s amazingly similar in character to that wild
wolf that guarded him that night, if you think about it,” she said
firmly. “Fierce and tough and somewhat frightening when you first
look at him, but underneath it all, shrewd and smart and ... a
protector. Not easy to know and understand, but a strong friend to
have when you’re alone in the dark.” She broke off and smiled at
Rebeccah, a bright, reassuring smile. “Don’t mind me, dear, I’m
quite sentimental and even foolish when it comes to my boy. But I’m
right fond of him.”

“Yes, I’m sure you are.”

“And I think you’ll be fond of him, too, when
you’ve had a chance to get better acquainted,” Caitlin finished
quickly. Before Rebeccah could protest, she shooed the girl into
the parlor.

“Enough chores for now. Let’s visit with the
menfolk.”

Wolf and Billy were engrossed in a game of
checkers on the floor. Wolf glanced up and observed her entrance
into the parlor with a hint of tightening in his expression.
Rebeccah squared her shoulders and turned away, strolling to the
mantelpiece with as much casualness as she could muster, trying not
to think about Miss Westerly and Mrs. Simpson fluttering over that
tall, lean man watching her from the floor.

Her gaze was drawn to the collection of
framed photographs displayed upon the mantel. For a moment her
heart skittered as she realized she would no doubt see a photograph
of Wolf’s dead wife. She braced herself to see the woman whom he
had loved so much and now mourned so deeply. But there was no young
woman, only an old silver-framed daguerreotype of a wedding couple,
taken perhaps thirty years earlier.
The woman in the photo is
Caitlin
, Rebeccah realized suddenly, and the man with her must
be Wolf’s father, a tall, imposing man with a lean, strong face
remarkably like his son’s. The eyes, too, were strikingly similar,
clear and keen and compelling. They wore wedding clothes and stiff
smiles, but looking at the photograph, Rebeccah fancied she could
feel the strong love flowing between them. After a moment her
glance shifted to the photograph beside it, the one in the brass
frame.

This one was of Wolf. His face, relaxed and
handsome, stared out at her with a stark familiarity—identical to
the young man who had come to the Arizona hideout shack so many
years ago tracking her father. He wore a Union cavalry uniform: a
snug-fitting dark woolen coat piped with yellow braid, silk
neckerchief, and trousers with the traditional cavalry stripe on
the outer seam. The trousers were tucked into straight boots, and
to complete his uniform he wore brass spurs secured to the boots
with a single spur strap, heavy brass epaulettes decorating his
shoulders, and a large Kossuth hat set upon his head. He had his
foot propped on a chair and was staring with a slightly bemused
smile into the camera, looking so like the young man who had come
to the hideout cabin in Arizona and captured her imagination that
Rebeccah’s throat tightened with memory. She yearned to stare at
the photograph, to memorize it, touch it—but feared someone would
notice her absorption. So she moved hastily on and forced herself
to peer at the one beside it, a small, brass-framed picture of a
young man no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, holding his
hat in his hand and grinning eagerly from ear to ear.

“That’s Uncle Jimmy,” Billy announced,
glancing up for a moment from the checkerboard to follow her
glance. “He was Pa’s brother.”

Caitlin, seated complacently on the sofa
darning a pile of Billy’s socks without once glancing down at them,
offered up a misty smile. “He was a fine-looking boy, my Jimmy,
don’t you think so, Rebeccah? That photograph was taken in Carson
City, when Jimmy was seventeen. He went to visit cousins in Nevada.
It was his first and last trip away from home ...” Her voice
trailed off.

A solemn tension settled over the parlor. The
checkers game over, Billy began putting the pieces away. Wolf went
to the window and gazed out toward the infinite glitter of stars.
As the fire crackled and popped, Caitlin wearily closed her
eyes.

Rebeccah longed to ask what had happened to
Jimmy but bit back the question, sensing the answer would be a
painful one.

Yet Caitlin opened her eyes and began to
speak, responding quietly to her unasked question.

“The town was full of gamblers, outlaws, and
thieves, you see, men drawn to the lure of all that silver and
gold. It was a rough place, but Jimmy and his cousins wanted that,
they wanted, as young men often do, to experience the excitement
and adventure of the rawest part of the frontier. There was a
sheriff in town, a man by the name of Luke Davis.” Caitlin’s lip
curled over the words. “But he was a coward,” she told Rebeccah
bitterly, and her fingers clenched on the socks in her lap. “Davis
was in cahoots with a group of outlaws planning to steal some poor
miner’s claim to a rich silver deposit. Jimmy and my nephews saw
them drag the old man into an alley and start to beat him. They
rushed over and tried to save that man.” Caitlin took a deep
breath. “Jimmy always hated an unfair fight, and he loathed
bullies. Same as Wolf.”

Suddenly, in the quiet of the parlor, silent
but for the logs popping in the hearth, an anguished sound choked
from her throat. Tears brimmed in her faded eyes. Wolf had not
turned from the window, but Billy was listening to every word, and
watching his grandmother’s sturdy, sorrow-wracked face, his own
expression somber.

“What happened?” Rebeccah asked, suddenly
aware that her palms were damp.

Caitlin picked up the socks and held them
tightly between her small, strong fingers. “They killed my Jimmy,”
she said in a low tone. “And my nephew Roy. Shot them both. Neither
boy was armed. My younger nephew, Walt, was left for dead, but a
passerby found him and sent for a doctor. He survived to tell us
what had happened.”

“And that crooked sheriff was the one who
shot Uncle Jimmy!” Billy piped up suddenly. Rebeccah realized that
he must have heard and contemplated this story many times. “That’s
why my pa hates crooked lawmen even more than outlaws—‘cause
they’re charged with a solemn duty to uphold the law and protect
people, and there’s nothing worse than when a lawman goes bad. When
he heard what happened to Uncle Jimmy, he tracked that sheriff all
the way to Abilene.”

“You killed him?” Rebeccah asked softly as
Wolf turned from the window at last and met her gaze with
stone-hard eyes.

“No.” He stuck his thumbs in his pockets and
spoke slowly. “I brought Luke Davis back to Carson City and put him
in jail to stand trial, along with the other two who shot Roy and
Walt in cold blood. I let the law mete out punishment for them. And
after they were convicted,” he said with grim satisfaction, “I
watched them hang.”

Caitlin stirred on the sofa. She turned
proud, tear-filled eyes in Rebeccah’s direction. “Wasn’t Jimmy a
handsome boy?” she asked softly.

“Yes, Caitlin, I can see he was.”

“And he had the kindest soul. I’ve been
blessed with both of my sons—and with my grandson.” She smiled
stoutly then through her tears and wiped them away with a lace
hankie tugged from her pocket. “Who else would take such good care
of a useless, blind old lady?”

“Useless?” Wolf and Billy demanded in
unison.

“You’re about as useless as a rope at a
rodeo, and you know it,” Wolf commented drily, and Billy grinned.
The heavy mood lifted. Rebeccah left the mantel and the collection
of photographs and seated herself on the sofa with Caitlin.

“Well, I do manage to find my way around this
house fairly well,” the gray-haired woman admitted, twinkling.

“And you prepared the most delicious meal
I’ve ever tasted,” Rebeccah exclaimed. “I was wondering ... perhaps
you’d teach me how to prepare that raspberry cobbler sometime?”

“I’d be pleased to do that. Why, you’ve
probably never had the chance to get much practice cooking, have
you?”

“No, my mother died when I was two. I don’t
remember her at all, so I’ve mostly known only campfire cooking,
which I learned when I was very young and rode with my father and
his—” She broke off.

“Gang,” Billy supplied helpfully.

“Yes, Billy, his gang,” Rebeccah said,
shooting a defiant glance at Wolf. He lifted his brows but made no
comment.

“Anyway, the ‘gang’s’ cook, Old Red, taught
me how to fix beans, biscuits, coffee, and a few other staples over
a campfire, and occasionally I saw him use a stove, but after I
went to Miss Wright’s Academy, my meals were all prepared by a
kitchen staff, and I never had a chance to learn any more.”

“Did you like that school?” Billy
inquired.

She met his gaze with dancing eyes. “I hated
it. The teachers were stuffy and strict and boring. But the books
were interesting. I brought some of them with me—you’ll get a
chance to see them when school starts next week. And don’t you or
your pards try any tricks on me, Billy, like spitballs or spiders
on my desk, because I know them all,” she warned him with a grin,
waggling her finger in his face with mock sternness. “I invented
them—or at least I thought I did when I was pulling all those
pranks at Miss Wright’s Academy.”

Gazing admiringly at her, Billy spoke with
ingenuous innocence. “I never thought I’d look forward to school,
but I do now. I think it’s going to be downright fun.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Wolf said drily. He
pulled out his pocket watch. “Time for bed, son.”

Billy threw him a disappointed glance and
edged closer to Rebeccah. “Will you play one more song for us, Miss
Rawlings?”

“Only with your father’s permission.”

“Pa?”

Wolf studied her darkly as if deciding
whether or not she had somehow instigated this small rebellion.
“All right,” he said at last. “One song.”

As Rebeccah took her place at the piano, Wolf
tossed another log onto the dwindling fire. The night chill had
begun to permeate the ranch house, and Caitlin had pulled a sweater
around her thin shoulders as she worked.

The melancholy strains of “Aura Lee” poured
forth from the piano to resound with bittersweet valor through
every corner of the cozy room. This time Rebeccah sang along with
Billy and Caitlin. Her voice was huskily mellifluous, as lightly
sensual as the silky lashes sweeping down over her brilliant eyes,
and Wolf found himself fighting the overpowering urge to take her
in his arms and kiss the lips from which those sweet sounds were
tumbling.

Of course Billy called for another song after
she had finished, but Wolf, taut with a tension from which he could
find no relief, adamantly shook his head.

“When it’s time to get up and do your chores
in the morning, you’ll thank me,” he informed his son, and abruptly
took Rebeccah by the arm to lead her to the door.

Caitlin, following, urged Rebeccah to join
them for supper again soon.

“And do think about changing your mind about
the dance,” she urged Rebeccah as Wolf held open the front door.
“It’s a fine opportunity for you to meet folks here and get to know
them at their best. I hope you’ll come, after all.”

Rebeccah flushed with embarrassment as Wolf
glanced at her following these words. She felt exposed, as if he
could somehow see that part of the reason she didn’t want to go to
the dance at the schoolhouse was because he would be there with
that Miss Westerly, and she would have to watch them together. She
let him help her onto the wagon seat, and twisted her hands
together, praying he would not continue the conversation where
Caitlin had left off.

She needn’t have worried, she reflected
bitterly a short time later. Wolf didn’t continue the conversation
at all. Silence reigned between them as he drove her home, a taut,
tension-filled silence punctuated by the rapid clip-clop of the
horses’ hooves, the chirp of crickets, the faint rustle of animals
in the unseen brush.