Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (6 page)

“You think you’re so all-fired smart just ’cause you went to a fancy school. Well, you ain’t nothin’ but dirty Irish mick just like the rest of us!”

Mara heard his boot heels pounding on the bare floor, and the sound of the door slamming behind him echoed throughout the house.

“He acts like that sometimes,” Trellis said.

Mara turned. “Only sometimes? That’s a relief.”

“He was trying to impress you.”

“He did that, all right.”

“He wanted you to think he was a grown-up like Cullen.”

“If he’s trying to pattern himself after Cullen, he’s made a poor choice to my way of thinking.”

“Trav just wants to be somebody.”

“You mean he wants to be a man who people look up to? He’s sure going about it in the wrong way.”

“Ma says he’s goin’ over fool’s hill. He’ll settle down.”

“Why are you defending him? He’s an ill-mannered, undisciplined, strutting little rooster who needs his tail feathers pulled.” Mara poured water from the teakettle into a pan and dropped in a bar of lye soap. She would have to wash dishes before she could even drink a cup of coffee. “How is Pack this morning?”

“He’s still sleeping. So is Ma. She had me give him another dose of the laudanum in the night, but she says that’s all he can have. His stomach is growling. It’s probably been a day or two since he ate anything.”

“What does your mother suggest?”

“She’ll say he needs meat to make blood. I’ll get it from the cookhouse—that is, if you’ll cook it.”

“Of course I will. But I’ve got to clean this place first. How is it that you’re willing to help Pack? Cullen and your father seem to hate him.”

“Pack’s all right. He’s my half brother the same as Cullen. Besides, he’s good to Ma.”

“So are you, Trellis.” Mara smiled so sweetly and sincerely at the boy that his face reddened. “Now that I’m here, I’ll help you with your mother. We should be able to make things more pleasant for her.” She found a cloth and dried two cups. “Let’s have some of that coffee, shall we? Then I’ll scrub out that iron pot and we’ll cook some meat for Pack.”

“I didn’t know that you could cook. I thought you just knew, uh . . . things like how to serve tea and that sort of thing.”

Mara laughed. “Every girl at Miss Fillamore’s school takes a course in cooking. She learns how to cook a few things so that she will be able to supervise the cook when she marries a rich man and moves to a mansion.”

“Do they all marry rich men?”

“No.” Mara laughed again. “Their parents send them to school thinking it will help them get a rich husband. Sometimes it does.”

“What about you?”

“I did have a proposal.” Mara’s eyes began to sparkle. “He was very rich, but he also was bald, had rotting teeth and was old enough to be my grandfather. Miss Fillamore thought I should consider it. She said he was on the verge of drinking himself to death and I’d be a rich widow.”

“Why didn’t you marry him?”

“The cook at the school beat my time with him.”

Trellis grinned. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. He and Mable were perfect for each other. I was at the school for seven years, and I hung around the kitchen a lot. Mable had worked hard; she deserved a rich husband more than I. Someday I’ll make you a butter cake.”

“I eat down at the cookshack after the men have finished. Then I bring something to Ma. I’ll get something for you this morning if you want me to.”

Mara brought the pot from the stove and poured coffee into two clean cups. The plate of food Trellis had brought her the previous night had been so greasy that she could hardly eat it, but the bread and butter had been good.

“I’ll have some bread and butter. Who milks the cow and churns?”

“Steamboat. He hates cows. He named our cow Miss Fu—ah, well it’s not for your ears, Mara.”

“Who is Steamboat?”

“The cook. I’ve not heard his real name. He came up the Missouri on a steamboat about five years back. It hit a snag and sank. He’s told the tale so often that folks just call him Steamboat. He came wandering in, down on his luck, and he’s been here cooking ever since.”

“If he works here, why not ask him to cook the meat for Pack?”

“I guess he could if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll do it. I want to get this place cleaned today so I can cook supper in here tonight.”

“It’s not Ma’s fault things are in such a mess. She kept it nice for as long as she could.”

“I understand that. Who does the washing? I see there’s a boiling pot in the yard.”

“Miss Rivers comes every week or two. She can’t see much, but she can do a lot. She helps me change Ma’s bed and wash her things. Ma likes to have a woman to talk to. Miss Rivers likes it too. She doesn’t get out much.”

“Where does she live?”

“A couple of miles from here. She lives with her brother, Charlie Rivers. Their place is over along Lodgepole Creek. He’s ornery as a steer with a crooked horn. He won’t let a man get within a mile of her.”

“Do they squat on our land?”

“Heavens no! Cullen would have shot him.”

“Hmmm.” Mara looked directly at the young boy sitting across from her. “Is that the usual way Cullen handles a problem?”

“He didn’t shoot Pack, if that’s what you mean. He might of roughed him up a bit—”

“Roughed him up? Do you call what was done to him roughing him up?”

“Well . . . they got carried away, I guess.” Trellis looked away from Mara’s suddenly cold stare.

“Who did it, Trellis? Who did that terrible thing to him?”

Trellis stood. “If Pack wants you to know, he’ll tell you. It’s best not to pry into things, Mara. There’s bad blood between Pack and Pa and Cullen. Ma says they didn’t get along right from the start.”

“I can understand why if the welcome I received from your father and Cullen is an example.”

“You surprised them, and—”

“And what?”

The boy shrugged. “They’re afraid you’ll sell the place out from under them, I guess.”

“It would be my right,” she said gently. “But I won’t do that because my father loved the land, and because of Cousin Brita.”

“Well, Pa and Cullen won’t cool off until Pack leaves, you can bet your boots on that.”

Mara watched Trellis walk toward the bunkhouse and the small cookshack that was attached to the end of it wondering how two boys, twins, could be so different.

A shaggy dog came out from under the porch of the cookhouse to meet Trellis. The dog was old and walked slowly.

“Hello, Maggie.” He bent and patted the dog’s head. “You’ve been out in the burrs again,” he said and pulled a burr from the shaggy hair that hung over the dog’s eyes. “I’ll cut this hair off when I get time.”

Maggie walked beside him to the cookshack and went back under the porch when Trellis stepped into it.

Sam Sparks, Cullen and two other men sat at the long plank table that stretched from one end of the small building to the other. Trellis nodded to them and went to the counter where Steamboat kept the tray they used for Brita.

“How’s Pack this morning?” Sam asked.

“He ain’t dead yet,” Trellis answered and then gave Cullen a searing look.

“Too bad,” Cullen answered.

“There’ll be hell to pay if Miss McCall finds out who did that to him.” Trellis set two granite plates on the tray.

“It ain’t my style to drag a man to death. I’d just shoot the bastard.” Cullen laughed harshly.

“He
was
shot. Did you do it before or after he was dragged?”

“You’re getting pretty big for yore britches, boy.”

“Pack came here to see Ma. Someday he’ll kill you, Cullen.”

“That would set fine with you, wouldn’t it, sissy boy? It just happens that I didn’t even know he was around. If I had, I’d probably a done worse. Me ’n Pa both told him to stay away from here.”

“He’s got a right to come see Ma.”

Cullen shrugged and banged his cup on the table for Steamboat to refill it. The thin, slump-shouldered man with a wrinkle-etched face, iron gray hair and a drooping mustache brought the heavy pot to the table and thumped it down. Cullen reached for the handle, then withdrew his hand quickly.

“Goddamn it, Steamboat! Leave the damn rag! That handle’s hot as hell.” The cook tossed the cloth on the table and hurried back to turn the meat cooking in the big spider skillet.

“There’s men beside me that would take pleasure out of beating the hell out of Pack,” Cullen said after he had filled his cup. “He was told not to win that last fight. He should a hightailed it out of the country. It’s his own damn fault he got jumped.”

“Are you saying you had nothing to do with it?” Trellis looked his brother straight in the eye.

“Yes, sissy ass. I’m sayin’ I had nothing to do with it only because somebody else got to him first.”

Trellis ignored the slur and said calmly, “Mara thinks you did.”

“Shitfire! I don’t care what she thinks.”

“She’s not the mousy thing you thought she was, Cull. She’ll stand up to you.”

“She’d better hie her prissy tail back to Denver, is what she’d better do.”

“You’d best be civil to her. She’ll not take your sass. She put you out of the house, didn’t she?”

“I didn’t sleep there half the time anyhow. ’Bout the time somebody comes in on her she’ll wish I was there.”

“I’m thinkin’ she’d blow a man’s head off with that little gun she carries in her pocket, eh Cullen?”

“Are you bein’
her
serving wench too, Trell?” Cullen asked when the boy placed two plates on the tray for Steamboat to fill. He was stung by the mention of the pistol the girl had pulled on him. “You’re turnin’ into a real housemaid.”

“Someday I’m going to bust your mouth, Cullen,” Trell said calmly.

“Ya can dream about it. It’ll be a cold day in hell, boy. ’Pears to me like you’re suckin’ up to Miss High-’n-Mighty. Are you thinkin’ you’ll be man enough to run this place someday?”

Sam Sparks watched and listened. The boy was showing much more maturity than his older brother. In a few years the boy’s body would catch up, and Sam would like to be around to see what happened.

If Cullen and his bunch hadn’t beaten Pack, who had? Sam mulled the question over in his mind, then dismissed it. Pack Gallagher wasn’t his business. The fact that Cullen allowed outlaws to hide out here for a price wasn’t his business. He was looking for bigger fish than a few two-bit outlaws. Sooner or later his break would come if he just remained patient.

Sam pondered Miss McCall’s sudden appearance and how it would affect the situation here. Plenty of bangtails hung out in all the railroad towns—worn-out women who supplied a man with what he needed for the moment. But decent women were scarce out here in the Wyoming Territory, and pretty young single women rarer still. . . . Cullen had swallowed his story about needing a place to hide out. He’d paid for a month’s lodging. The inactivity was about to kill him, but he’d stick it out for that length of time, and if nothing turned up, he’d mosey on over to Laramie.

“I’ve got to exercise my horse. I think I’ll ride out to the lower basin.” Sam got to his feet and reached for his hat.

“Stay away from the squatters’ place. Rivers is liable to fill your tail full of lead if ya get too close.” The bowlegged man who had helped him carry Pack into the house looked up with a grin that showed tobacco-stained teeth.

“What’s he hiding out there?” Sam asked casually.

“His sister. She’s pretty as a speckled pup ’n blind as a bat. I heard a woman singin’ as I was ridin’ along Lodgepole Creek. It come up over the hill sweet ’n clear as a bell. I rode on up close so’s to hear. Bang! The next thing I knowed my horse got a load of rock salt in his rump ’n I went tail over teakettle. Rivers said next time it’d be lead. I ain’t never heared of a man keepin’ such a close eye on a
sister.
Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Cullen and the two men at the table all shouted with laughter.

“She’s sightly. Ain’t no two ways ’bout it.” Cullen spoke as if he were privileged to something they knew nothing about. “If you want to get a look at her, hang around when Rivers brings her over to visit Brita. She comes every week or so ’n helps sissy pants with his ma.”

Sam was getting more than a little tired of Cullen constantly belittling the boy because he took care of his crippled mother and bit back what he really wanted to say.

“He doesn’t keep
too
close a watch on her if he lets her come here,” he said almost absently.

“Charlie Rivers’ll sit here on the porch ’n watch to see that no one gets close to her.”

“What’s he scared of?” Sam moved out of the way so Trellis could pass with the tray.

“Hell! I guess he’s scared somebody’ll get under her skirt ’n atween her legs. Hell! It ain’t a bad idea.” Cullen grinned. “Bet she ain’t had no man . . . less’n it was Charley. She’s so damn blind she’d not even know who it was anyhow!”

Sam looked down at the shorter man. “Cut out that kind of talk, McCall.” His voice was more deadly because he spoke quietly. “Any man who forces himself on a woman, decent or not, will answer to me.”

Cullen was taken aback by the quiet authority in the Texan’s voice and was embarrassed to be chastised in front of the men.

“You Texans are sure touchy ’bout women.” His need to redeem himself forced him to speak with a sneer in his voice. “Hell, they all got a slit. If’n they ain’t goin’ to let a man enjoy it, they ort a sew it up.”

The laugh Cullen expected didn’t come. The men got up and filed out the door, leaving him sitting at the table alone. Sam followed them out. He stood on the porch and looked off toward the mountains. Where in all this vast land was the man he hunted? Each time he thought he was close, the trail faded away. When he followed a trail on the ground, he also trailed with his mind. It was what made him good at his job. He had to think as the man he hunted would think. If he had someone on his tail, Sam reasoned, he’d want a far-off place where he could keep out of sight for a good long while. This was such a place. But hell, a hundred places such as this existed between here and Denver.

*  *  *

The dishes were washed and dried and stacked on the clean end of the trestle table. Her mother’s service for ten had dwindled to a service for no more than four. Mara wondered what had happened to the pots and the iron spider that had hung on the nails behind the stove. She remembered the large wooden bread bowl, the churn, the caster set, none of which she had found. She would have cried had she not been so angry.