Dorothy Garlock (19 page)

“Had any trouble?”

“Didn’t mention any.”

“Seen much of the old woman?”

“Some. I put milk to the porch every mornin’. Once it set there two days and I threw it to the hogs. She comes out once in a while and goes to the outhouse. Smells like she empties her chamber pot off the end of the porch. Did ya see Fanny?”

“I saw her. Maud isn’t going to like what I found out if I tell her.” Smith sat at the table with his coffee. Billy brought the baked apples to him, a fork stuck in the top of one. Smith smacked his lips and grinned. “That’s prettier than a woman dancing bare-ass naked on top a barroom table. I’ve eaten so damn many rabbits I’m beginning to hop.”

Billy eased himself down into a chair. “I take it the trip went sour.”

“Trip went all right. What I found in Denver was enough to make a dog puke.”

“She ain’t comin’. I ain’t sure if I’m glad or not. Course if she did, it’d mean we could get the hell outta here.”

“She’s not coming. Ever.” Smith looked steadily at his friend. “She’s an uppity bitch, Billy. At first she refused to see me. I kicked up such a fuss, she agreed to meet me in the garden at the back of the house. She wasn’t the slightest bit interested in what I had to tell her about Maud. She’s cut herself loose from everything. She doesn’t want any part of Eastwood Ranch or her mother. I nosed around and found out that she’s put out the story that her mother and stepfather drowned at sea. She’s burned her bridges.”

“At sea! You couldn’t drag Maud a hundred miles from this place with a team of mules. That’s the biggest cock ‘n’ bull tale I ever heared of. Fanny was a snotty, uppity kid. Guess she’s worse’n I thought.”

“She’s called Francine now, Billy. All she cares about is her position as Mrs. Nathan Brockford. They’re leaving Den
ver within a month to go to England.
Mr. Brockford
is in line for a title and they plan to live there.”

“Now if that ain’t a lick. Fanny a dooches, or somethin’.
Francine’s
come a long way from that dugout on the prairie.”

Smith finished the apples, pushed the dish back and cupped the coffee mug in his two hands. “That’s the best eatin’ I’ve had in weeks, Billy.”

“Knowed ya’d be pert near starved,” Billy said gruffly to keep Smith from seeing how pleased he was. “I’ll put on beef ’n’ dumplin’s for supper.”

“I’ve got to decide what to tell Maud.”

Billy scratched his head. “Ya can always tell her how it was, that
Francine
don’t care no more for her than fer a old hound dog.”

“It’d be like pulling a rug out from under her.”

“What’a ya care ’bout that for? She hates yore guts.”

“I know that, and I care about as much for her as she does for me, but I owe Oliver, dammit.”

“I ain’t forgot how she’d not let ya in the house not even when ya was just a little ol’ youngun who’d lost yore folks. She was meaner than a rained-on hen. Down right ugly-mean. That old woman wouldn’t walk on you if ya was dirt.”

“I know that. Still I’ve got to leave her a little something to hope for. It’s what Oliver would do. He was the kindest man I’ve ever known.”

“Yeah.” Billy got up shaking his head. “I ain’t never goin’ to figure out why he done it if I live to be a hundred.”

Smith drained his cup. “Done what?”

“Married up with her.”

“We’ll never know, will we? There’s something else, Billy. Remember Oliver talking about his sister, Regina, who married a gambler named Gilbert Frank?”

“Yeah. Said she was pretty as a picture ’n’ real ladylike too. It set sorely with him that she married that bird.”

“Well, her boy and her girl and a woman traveling with them will be here in about an hour.”

“Be
here
? What’n hell for?”

“They were on their way here with their pa who hadn’t heard about Oliver being gone. Guess he was coming to leech off his wife’s brother. Anyway he got shot down at the stage station—drew a gun on Abel Coyle when Coyle accused him of cheating at cards.”

“Abel Coyle? Jumpin’ catfish. He must not’a had no sense a’tall. Air the kids younguns?”

“Guess you’d call them half-grown. The boy is fifteen, a good kid, but his sister is spoiled rotten and dumber than a fence post. She should of been named Trouble.” Smith purposely left out mentioning Willa and was glad Billy didn’t ask about the woman traveling with the Franks.

“Tis the drizzlin’ shits, is what it is. It’ll rain silver dollars before that old woman takes anybody in, even shirttail kin. Hell, she ain’t got one ounce of charity in ’er a’tall. Ya ought to be knowin’ that.”

“I know it and I told them. They were determined to come here and find out for themselves. Maybe I can get Sant to take them on up to Sheridan in a day or two.”

“Are ya feelin’ obliged to help ’em cause they’re Oliver’s kin?” Billy stood in the doorway of the cookshack.

“Something like that,” Smith said absently. He was looking toward the mountains, but he was seeing a blond-haired woman with big sad eyes sitting under a tree. Her dog was beside her and she was wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Maud probably saw me ride in. I’d best get on up to the house and get it over with.”

Smith ran his fingers through his hair as he passed through the gate that enclosed the yard surrounding the house. The gate swung easily on the hinges, but it was badly in need of paint. Maud wasn’t about to turn loose any money for any
thing as unnecessary as paint or whitewash. He and Billy had kept the place in as good repair as possible with what they had to work with.

By the time he reached the porch, Smith had about made up his mind to tell Maud the truth—that Fanny wanted nothing to do with her or the ranch. Then when Maud flung open the door, and he saw her ravaged face, he couldn’t do it.

“Well, it took ya long enough to get up here. I saw ya ride in. Ya didn’t bring her,” she said accusingly.

“Come on out on the porch and I’ll tell you about it.”

Maud slid out the door. Staying close to the wall, she inched over and sank down on a bench beside two empty washtubs. It was plain to Smith the woman was sick. Hair had come loose from the usually tight knot at the back of her head and strands hung down on her neck. Her eyes were dull, her cheeks hollow, her legs so trembly they could hardly hold her thin body. The severe black widow’s dress she wore accentuated the pallor of her skin.

“When’s she comin’?” she demanded.

“I didn’t see her. She’s in London.”

“London? Is that in California?”

“No. It’s across the ocean. Someone over there left her husband some money and they went to collect it.”

“Why’d she go way over there for? This place is worth a lot of money. It’ll be hers when I’m gone.”

“I guess her husband wanted her with him.”

“When’s she comin’ back?”

“Mr. Brockford’s people told me they’d be back in six or eight months and that they would be sure and tell her to come right on up here.”

“Liar!” Maud’s thin lips barely moved. “You always was a liar,” she hissed, staring at Smith with hate-filled eyes. “You didn’t go to Denver.”

“I rode to Laramie and took the stage to Denver when I
had more important work to do right here. I talked to Fanny’s in-laws. Now dammit, I don’t care a hell of a lot if you believe me. I did what I said I’d do.”

“You didn’t go there. You’ve been off drinkin’ and whorin’. I told Oliver the day he brought you here that you were a no-good leechin’ little bastard some whore had dumped in the scrub.” Maud’s eyes took on a strange, feverish shine and the words gushed from her mouth in gasped whispers. “You think if you keep Fanny away you’ll get this ranch. You won’t get a stick. I’ll burn it to the ground first.” Her legs were trembling violently when she stood and stumbled to the door.

“Are you sick, Mrs. Eastwood? Do you want me to get a doctor?”

“You
make me sick! Get off my land! Don’t take one thin’ with you or I’ll have the law on you, hear? You come here piss-poor. You leave piss-poor.” Maud’s heart was pumping madly and her insides were quivering from the effort it took to keep her legs under her.

“I’d like nothing better than to ride out of here, but I can’t do it and you know why. No one else would put up with you, and this place would go to rack and ruin in no time at all. Then what would you do?”

Smith’s control was slipping. He knew he had to get away from her before he said something he would regret. The door slammed, leaving him to stare at it and wonder why he had taken the trouble to lie to save her grief.

Maud leaned against the other side of the door and held her clasped hands to her flat bosom. Tears of weakness and despair filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. He was lying. He had made up the story about Fanny being across the sea. If she had the strength she would kill him. She had hated him since the day he had come here riding in front of Oliver just as pretty as you please. Oliver had fawned over
him like he was somebody. He had paid more attention to that homeless by-blow of some whore than he had to Fanny.

Sobbing with anger and frustration, Maud stumbled around the table toward the couch. She stepped on a spot made slick by food she had dropped on the floor. When her foot slipped sideways, she tried to grab the back of a chair, missed, and hit the floor hard.

Pain like a hot flame enveloped her leg and hip in a sheet of agony.

13

I
t was almost noon.

The knot of dread Willa had felt when she had awakened was now a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her throat felt as if a hand were squeezing it; her eyes burned from lack of sleep. She had lain awake most of the night after an unusually nasty scene with Jo Bell. The girl had been furious when she had learned that Smith had taken Willa to a warm spring to bathe and had accused her of every ugly thing she could think of.

“Yore wastin’ yore time,
ma’am.
Ya can take him off in the dark every night and give him what ya wouldn’t give Papa, but it still won’t matter none. I can have him if I want him. All I got to do is snap my fingers and he’ll take me to a town and look after me till I can find a man with lots of money.”

Jo Bell’s words rang in Willa’s ears long after the girl had flounced off to bed. What really hurt was the disappointed look she had seen in Charlie’s eyes and the fact that he hadn’t tried to defend her against his sister’s harsh words. Had he
seen Smith kiss her? Did he think she was a loose woman after all?

Why
had
Smith kissed her? It had not been an insulting, cruel kiss—of that she was sure. She had experienced
that
kind. If his intention had been to teach her a lesson, he had gone about it gently. His mouth had been soft, the kiss sweet. Not that she had liked it, she hastened to tell herself. She had been vulnerable at that moment. Her mind had been muddled with worry or she would have screamed her head off.

Oh, shoot, she wished she could stop thinking about it, but she had never felt quite so alive, so feminine, so protected, as she had while sitting across his lap, his arms around her. But not even being really clean for the first time in weeks could untie nerves tied up as tight as a fiddle string.

This morning she had taken special care when she dressed, telling herself that it was important that she look her best when she met Mrs. Eastwood. Wearing the light blue dress with the white collar, she brushed her hair until it shone and wound it in a neat coil at the nape of her neck. Of course, she would feel more confident meeting the strange woman if only she had shoes on her feet instead of Jo Bell’s moccasins.

Jo Bell was still in her bunk when they broke camp. Charlie tied the horse to the back of the wagon, climbed up on the seat beside Willa and took the reins. When he spoke, it was for the first time that morning.

“In a little while I’ll stop and put Buddy in the wagon.” He cracked the whip over the backs of the team. They strained at the harnesses and the wagon began to roll.

Willa was silent for a while. She felt a desperate need to make things right with Charlie. It was all she could do not to squirm. When she looked at him, he averted his eyes.