Hannah's Dream (17 page)

That stupid photograph,
he thought.  
That's how they found me.

"Did he say why he wanted to talk to me?"

"He said he was sent to make inquiries by another agency in Cherry Hill."

Cherry Hill?
 "I've never been to Cherry Hill," he said.

"Then you've nothing to worry about.  He left his telephone number for you to call.  I suggest you do before he returns.  He's a strange little man."

"I'll call him tomorrow.  I have some errands to run and it may take me a while."

"More errands.  My, aren't you a busy boy?"

Louise giggled again.

"By the way," Margaret said.  "Louise is going to Colorado."

"Why?" he said.  His tone was a little sharp.

"She's going to visit Hannah."

He felt heat rise from his throat.  He hoped he wasn't turning red.

"Well, won't that be nice?" he said.  He looked at Louise.  "Tell her I said hello."

"I don't think she wants to hear from you."

Louise hadn't told Margaret about Pierre's visit to Marian Dawes.

"Why wouldn't she want to hear from Pierre?" Margaret asked.

"You must be mistaken, Louise.  Hannah and I have a great mutual respect."

"He went to Mrs. Dawes and asked if he could court Hannah."

"He did.  Now isn't that interesting?" Margaret said.  "Pierre, aren't you a bit old for Hannah?  Aren't you at least thirty?"

Pierre straightened his back.

"I'm twenty-six.  And Hannah is eighteen.  We are well suited to each other."

"Mrs. Dawes told him no," Louise said.

"Mrs. Dawes told me to wait," he said.

"Wait for what?" Margaret asked.

"She said Hannah needed time following her broken engagement."

"Mrs. Dawes told him if Hannah was interested in him, she'd write to him," Louise said.  "She didn't tell him where they were going."

Margaret looked at Pierre.  "Poor Pierre," she said in mock sympathy.

"If you will excuse me," he said.  He turned and left the room.

The adrenaline in his veins had subsided since his encounter with Detective Smith and he was feeling tired.  He didn't feel like going into town, but he had to keep up the pretense of doing his errands.  He also had to kill some time before disposing of Detective Smith's personal effects.

Pierre walked down Oak Street past the church and into town.  He went to the drug store where he bought some toiletries and had an ice cream soda.  Then he sat at the bar in the hotel nursing a brandy.  He didn't return to Margaret's house until after nine.

He thought about Louise.  She kept staring at him during dinner and he avoided looking at her.  The girl was becoming a nuisance.  He would be happy to see her go away for a while, but he resented that she would be seeing his Hannah before he would.  He longed to see her again.

At nine he returned to the carriage house.  He grabbed Smith's belongings and headed toward the beach. 

Fortunately for Pierre, the moon was full.  Sometimes people would walk out at night with lanterns, but there was no one around as he walked toward the rocks.  He went to the rocks and bent over to look for small rocks by the base of the pile.  He filled the pockets of the coat with rocks, put the wallet in with them, and tied the shoes together.  He also filled the shoes with small stones.  He walked out on the big rocks as far as he dared and hurled the items into the sea.

Chapter 29

High Bend, Colorado

The corral behind James' ranch house was adjacent to the stable.  Tom Beasley took care of the horses.  He didn't leave the stable and whenever James took on a new man, Tom would make sure the man knew how to ride.  It was Tom's job to teach Jimmy.

No one knew how old Tom was.  He had owned a livery in Denver and when James arrived in town it was Tom who taught him how to ride like a cowboy.  When James bought the land for his ranch, Mountain View, he asked Tom to come and work for him.  Tom was old.  He'd been working in the big city a long time.  James' offer of a cozy room behind the stable appealed to him.  The smell of horseflesh and manure didn't bother him and, in fact, made him feel right at home.

Tom believed young Jimmy was a natural horseman.  He'd watch the boy go around the corral over and over, and after several weeks decided it was time for Jimmy to join the crew.  One day, he went to James to tell him what he thought and found his boss sitting at his kitchen table brooding.

Tom had seen that look before.  Many a night Tom had sat in the Half Moon Saloon and seen men crying in their beer over some female.  Tom didn't believe in love.  He'd seen too many good men broken by it and he wasn't taking any chances.  He would visit the women at the Half Moon, who thought he was a darling old coot, but he never let himself get attached to any of them.  He, like most cowboys, preferred the company of his horse.  Seeing James like this, preoccupied and sad, darn near broke Tom's heart.  He'd almost forgotten why he came to the house in the first place, then he heard Jimmy calling someone and remembered.

"Hey, Tom," James said when he saw the old codger standing in the kitchen doorway.  "You hungry?"

"I ate with the boys, thank you kindly."

"Sit with me while I eat," James said.  He had a sandwich and a large pickle on a plate in front of him.  It hadn't been touched.

Tom sat and put his hands on the table.  He folded them and studied James' face.  After a minute, James frowned.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I come to ask about that boy, Jimmy.  I think he's ready to join the crew."

"No, his Ma wants him to go to school."

"That don't make no sense.  He's a horseman, born to it.  Sending a boy like that to school is just a waste of time."

"I've got no say in it, Tom.  He's Marian's boy."

"But you're the man of the house.  You gotta put your foot down."

"Tom, did you ever have a sister?"

"I had one once.  Cholera took her."

"How old was she?" 

"She be two.  She was a sweet little thing."

"And too young to boss you around."

"You're a man, ain't ya?"

"She wants him to go until the eighth grade.  There's nothing wrong with getting an education, Tom.  You might have benefited from some yourself."

Tom waved his hands.  "Book learnin' is for sissies."

"I beg your pardon?" James said.

"Well, I don't mean you.  You needed it so you could do what you done."

Tom rolled his eyes and pretended to look around the kitchen.  James suppressed a smile.

"The boy has to finish school, Tom.  When he's done, he can join the crew."

"I think it's a darn shame."

"He's eleven years old.  There's still a lot he needs to learn."

"All he needs to know is how to fix a saddle to a horse."

"And I'm sure you took care of that."

"You're darn right I did."

"You still hungry, Tom?"

Tom had been eyeing James' sandwich.  James slid it across the table.  Tom looked at it and licked his lips.

"Go ahead, eat it," James said.

"Thank you kindly," Tom said.  He picked up the sandwich and took a big bite.  "
You
ain't hungry?"

"I'm fine.  I've been working on the books is all."

"Any problems?"

"No, it's just working the figures.  I never liked math."

"Then get someone else to do it," Tom said.

"It's personal."

"And you ain't found someone you trust?"

James shook his head.  Tom stopped chewing.

"What?" James asked.

"I know Adam's had some book learnin.' "

"Adam?"

"Yup.  I seen him working figures.  He cyphers pretty good."

"Why didn't he say something to me about this?"

"You know Adam.  He don't talk much about hisself."

"Why didn't I know about this?" James said, more to himself than to Tom.

" 'Cause you only seen him on a horse."

Tom was right.  James and Adam hadn't talked much about Adam's life before they met that day in Denver.  He knew the young man could rope a steer and mend a fence, and he trusted the boy's opinion, but their conversations mostly concerned running the ranch.  Even when Adam came in to eat, they would sit in silence or talk about a new horse, or how many cows had dropped a calf.

"When you see him, ask him to come see me," James said.

Tom nodded his head and wiped pickle juice from his chin with his sleeve.

"Will do," Tom said.

Jimmy walked in and smiled at James.  Marian was always admonishing Jimmy to come home for lunch, but Jimmy preferred his uncle's company over that of the women in the "hen house," as Tom called it and would come to James' house at noon every day.  He headed toward the sink and ran some water over his hands.  He then grabbed the loaf of bread James had left on the counter, cut two slabs, and grabbed a plate from the shelves above the sink.  James had also left the roast on the counter and Jimmy cut a big slice off the hunk of beef.  He took his plate to the table and sat next to Tom.

"Tom here tells me you've become quite a rider," James said.

"I like it," Jimmy said.

"He says you've got the makings of a ranch hand."

Jimmy was biting into his sandwich and grinned, exposing chunks of bread and beef in his teeth.

"But I told him you have to finish school first."

Now Jimmy frowned.  The thought of being cooped up in a classroom all winter didn't please him.  He loved being outdoors.  If he could read while riding a horse, he wouldn't have minded school.

"How long do I have to go?" he asked.

"Till eighth grade," James replied.

"Eighth grade!" Jimmy cried.  "That's two years."

"Darn shame," Tom said.

"Tom, are you done eating?" James asked.

Tom looked at his empty plate.  "Yup."

"Then go back to work."

Tom got up and left the kitchen and James turned his attention to Jimmy.

"Listen, son, I know how Tom feels about education, but it's important.  A man needs to know things so he can understand how the world works.  You have to know figures so you know you're not being cheated.  I know the idea of being a cowboy is exciting to you now, but someday you might want to be something else and you'll need an education to do that."

"Ain't nothin' else I wanna be," Jimmy said emulating Tom's speech patterns.

"I know you don't talk that way in front of your mother," James said.

"I know," Jimmy said softly.  "But I do love being a cowboy."

"You can be one when you graduate from the eighth grade.  Until then, you go to school."

Jimmy finished his sandwich in silence.  He knew Uncle James was right -- there was something else Jimmy wanted to do.  He wanted to paint pictures like Hannah, but he didn't tell the other hands for fear they would tease him.  He'd painted many pictures while living in New Jersey, some of which Marian had framed and hung in the house, but he'd never told his friends there about his passion for art.  Marian had hung his pictures in the new house, too, but he'd begged her to take them down.  He didn't want James to see them.

"That's foolish, Jimmy," she'd said.  "Uncle James would like them just as I do."

"No, please, Ma, not here."

Instead of painting, he would draw in a journal, as Hannah did, keeping it hidden under his mattress.  He drew horses.  They were so realistic that when Marian looked at them, when Jimmy wasn't at home, she would gasp at their quality.  She felt sad that he felt it necessary to hide this part of his life, but she respected his privacy even while she was taking the journal out from under the mattress.  She didn't see the inconsistency of her actions.

At first, Marian wouldn't have dreamed of spying on Jimmy, but as he grew older and formed a bond with the men on the ranch, he pulled away from the women in his house.  She began to worry he might be learning bad habits, and when she saw the carelessly placed journal peeking out from under his mattress, she pulled it out and looked at it.  It was filled with his drawings and she sighed in relief, but she felt bad that her son had hidden them away, especially when he asked her to take down his paintings.

She was especially touched to see a drawing of Agnes Welsh.  Jimmy never talked about his mother, but the drawing hinted at the sadness he must have felt over her abandonment.  He had made her look pretty, with a lovely hairstyle and little makeup.  She looked sad as though she'd lost something precious that she couldn't replace.  It was the way he chose to remember her.

Marian hoped Jimmy would "grow out of" whatever stage he was going through and be the boy she'd grown to love over the past two years, but Becky wasn't so optimistic.  She'd been raised with brothers and found men to be a stubborn lot.

"He's with the men now," she'd said when Marian spoke to her about Jimmy's changing personality.  "They'll turn him into a brute just like them."

"Oh, Becky," Marian said.  "I grew up with a brother, too, and he's not a brute."

Becky thought about the handsome James Hughes.  "Well, he's a gentleman and they're different."

Marian smiled.  She'd noticed the way Becky acted around her older brother and it tickled her to think about Becky falling in love.  She was concerned about the social aspect of such a union, though.  Becky was a housekeeper and James had been born a gentleman.  While she had noticed the rules were somewhat muddied out here in the mountains, she still wondered if James would even consider Becky as an acceptable mate.

Back east, a marriage between a gentleman and a servant was unthinkable.  But James had been living in the wilderness for twenty years and his attitude had changed.  Perhaps it wasn't so out of the question after all.

Marian was sitting on the porch enjoying the summer day when she saw Jimmy emerge from James's house.  He was running to the corral and didn't see her.  She thought of Agnes and wondered if the woman ever thought about the boy she gave away.  She had no idea that poor Agnes was lying in a watery grave.

Chapter 30

Hannah stood at her bedroom window watching Adam working with a recalcitrant horse named Amigo.  The horse had been found near the ranch and brought to the corral, but it stubbornly refused to obey anyone but Adam.  He had been able to get the horse saddled, but it bucked when anyone tried to sit on it.  Now Adam had been able to get on the horse and was holding on tightly as Amigo bucked.  Hannah hadn't noticed she was holding her breath until the horse began to settle down.