Mary Connealy (47 page)

Wade pushed to make his trip to the line shack in record time. He couldn’t pull his mind away from Belle Tanner and that cattle drive.

Everyone who knew Belle knew she’d take her little girls along. Wade shuddered at the thought, remembering the times his father had forced him to do things beyond his ability and drive his horse even harder.

It was late in the day, and he wasn’t going to make the line shack tonight. First, Seth had been slow getting the supplies packed. Linscott seemed to stay in town for the pure pleasure of goading him. Wade finally got out of Divide, and a horse came up lame five miles down the trail. He had to go back and get a new critter. The sun had been high in the sky before Wade was laying tracks at a good clip.

As he crested a rise, still with many miles of rugged riding ahead into the wooded area that abutted Sawyer and Linscott land, a silhouetted figure came riding out of the setting sun.

Wade didn’t have to see a face to know who it was. Nobody sat a horse like his pa.

They rode toward each other on the narrow, heavily wooded mountain trail. Wade had the sense of a showdown. It wasn’t on Main Street at high noon, but the tension drummed in Wade’s ears at the sound of hoofbeats.

His father pulled to a stop, and Wade did the same. To pass each other on the trail would be a close thing. Wade had seen his father in Divide a time or two since he’d left the ranch, but they’d never been alone. All Wade could think was, if he rode on past, for a few paces, he’d be within striking distance.

Please, Lord, help me be a real man. Help me respond to my father with love and strength. I know only a pure miracle could make Pa love me, but can You somehow make him respect me just a bit? Or at least help me get out of here without a black eye?

Facing his father, he recognized the gunslinger eyes, even though to Wade’s knowledge his father had never killed anyone. Wade nodded a greeting.

“What are you doing out this way, boy?”

Wade thought of several evasive answers. Pa would hate that his son was working for Linscott, another big rancher. He’d hate that Wade was living with Red Dawson, working as a hired hand. He’d hate that Wade had plans to meet Belle Tanner along the trail and throw in as a drover.

The fact wasn’t lost on Wade that, no matter what he said right now, his father’s reaction would be to hate.

There was freedom in that, knowing that nothing would make his father happy. Happiness had to come from inside, from God. So since no answer was going to please the old goat, Wade told the simple truth. “I’m taking supplies to Linscott’s line shack. After that, I’m going to hunt up Belle Tanner’s cattle drive. She’s culling her herd and driving a bunch to Helena.”

Mort’s face darkened. His fists clenched on the reins, and his horse shook its head nervously and snorted, rattling the metal in its bridle. “You’ll be an errand boy for Linscott and work as a cowhand for a woman boss, but you won’t come home to take your place?”

Wade nodded. “That’s right, I won’t.” He had ten excuses, or rather reasons, the main one being he wasn’t going to put himself under a tyrant’s iron fist ever again. But his father had heard this before.

“I’m cutting you out of my will if you don’t come home and mind your responsibilities.”

Wade knew the ranch and cattle were worth a fortune, and he was working hard now, earning enough to get by with none to spare. But he couldn’t bring himself to give one whit about that fortune his pa dangled in front of him. “It’s your ranch to do with as you please.” Wade swallowed and forced himself to speak the truth. “You’ve always said you were ashamed of me. Well, I’ve finally done the growing up I needed to do. I can’t be a man with you ruling over me. And you don’t know how to be anything but a tyrant. So forget about me. Forget I’m your son. Cut me out of your will. I won’t take that land and those cattle and your money even if you do leave it to me.”

Wade had a softening of his heart as he said those words. Not because he was changing his mind, but because somewhere deep inside, buried in fear and even shadows of hatred, he still loved his father, still wanted his father’s respect. He cared enough to speak of what was important. “You know I’ve made my peace with God now. No more drinking, no more cards, no more looking for notches in my gun. I’m a man now that
I
can respect, even if you can’t. You’re getting older, Pa. You need to start coming in to Red’s church. You’re long past time preparing for the next life.”

Mort spurred his horse and rammed into Wade, nearly unseating him. “I don’t want to hear about what a weakling I’ve raised.”

Wade’s horse pranced sideways, nearly smashing Wade’s leg between the saddle and a stout oak. He had his hands full settling the startled animal.

“I want you back on the ranch.” Pa jabbed his finger like a knife aiming for Wade’s heart. “I want a son I can be proud of, not ashamed of.”

“I
am
a son you can be proud of.” Wade fought with his horse until he brought it under control. “If you’d stop and listen to me, you’d know that, but you’re too stiff-necked to admit it. If I come home, it’ll be more of the same bullying, just like what you’re doing now, just like what you’ve done all your life. I refuse to live like that. No
man
would put up with being knocked down and kicked, yelled at and insulted.”

Wade’s shoulders squared, and he said the awful ugly truth. “You
hate
me for leaving, but you hated me for staying, too. Admit it, Pa. You just plain hate me.” A piece of Wade died with that simple statement.

Then Wade thought of a bigger truth. “And it’s not just me. You hate everybody. What joy has all your money and land bought you? You’re the most miserable man I’ve ever known.”

“Why, you little whelp.” Mort guided his horse closer, his fist clenched and raised.

“You’re going to hit me, Pa?” Wade got ready to duck. He wasn’t having a fistfight with his pa, but he wasn’t going to stay still and let himself be beaten either. “Just for refusing to come home? Well, that’ll sure convince me I should come, won’t it?” Bitterly, Wade laughed at what a stubborn old coot his pa was. And what a fool Wade was for still loving him.

“I don’t have to do much to earn a beating from you, do I? I think you oughta know I’m ashamed you’re my
father.”
Not the loving words Wade had hoped to share with his pa. Not the gentle call to turn to God.
“You’re
a poor excuse for a man.” The anger poured out of Wade with such venom it surprised even him. “Once I started growing up, once I got to know what being a man really meant, once I found God, I knew
you
were someone to be ashamed of.”

Mort froze, his elbow bent, his fist drawn back.

God, I know it’s wrong to tell him I’m ashamed of him. I know I’m supposed to reach him with love. Forgive me. Make me wise and kind. Let my boldness be from You and for You.

His father, eyes blazing, lowered his arm. “I’m doing it. I’m changing my will. You’ll be penniless.”

Wade had already said his piece. He had only one thing left to add. “I love you, Pa. If you ever get to the day when you think you can love me back, I’d be obliged to try and get along. But I’ll
never
live on the ranch again, and I’ll wish whoever gets it after you die good luck. It’ll be broken up, I reckon. It’ll make good homes for a whole lotta people.”

Mort sneered and jerked the reins, guiding his horse past Wade without swinging a fist.

Wade looked after his father and felt the loss of a parent’s love. Even worse, the loss of a man’s soul. All of that burned like tears made of brimstone as Pa rode away without looking back.

Silas checked on the girls a thousand times throughout that first relentless day.

They were fine.

He couldn’t have helped them if they weren’t, because he didn’t have a moment to spare beyond seeing that they were still in the saddle and working. By the time they got the last steer driven out of the canyon, the whole herd had spread itself across the rugged, rocky plain, hunting succulent young plants that were a sad comedown from their rich grasslands. Silas didn’t think there was a single steer that hadn’t tried ten times to go back into that canyon, and he swore the critters were working together at times, one to distract him while ten made a break down the back trail for home.

There was no thought of a noontime meal; the cattle would have been back at the ranch by the time the coffee boiled. Silas ate hardtack and jerked beef that he’d packed in his saddlebag, and he saw the girls and Belle doing the same.

He saw Belle swing the baby around to the front from time to time and drop back slightly at drag to attend to Elizabeth’s diaper, or whatever else a baby needed.

Silas had kept a lot of space between him and the rest of the crew, but once in the late afternoon, when Silas was so tired he was beginning to forget why he had to avoid the other cowpunchers, a steer cut from the herd and ran within a few feet of Belle while she held the baby in front of her.

Belle, without hesitation, worked her cow pony to stop the steer.

Silas raced his horse over to her, and with a quick glance and nod at Belle so she knew he had things under control, he hazed it back in the right direction. It was only after he had settled in a couple of hundred yards away from Belle that he thought about the way she’d handled her cow pony with one hand on the reins while she clutched Elizabeth to her chest with the other arm. His stomach dropped all the way down to below his belly when he realized Belle had held the baby just so to feed her.

Silas’s logical mind told him that, although he hadn’t thought of it, of course a woman fed her baby that way, and really it was more convenient than driving a milk cow along on the trail and taking time to milk her several times a day. But no amount of logic could stop his stomach from tap dancing around inside him. It was just too crazy a situation to grab ahold of. No one would ever believe it.

And with that thought, Silas knew he was a dead man.

Even if they all survived the trip without a scratch—which seemed unlikely—he was going to have to spend the rest of his life on the dodge against the chance that the other hard, lonely men who worked cattle in the West would hear he’d signed on for a drive with a baby, a breast-feeding mother, and three little girls. He was never going to be able to live it down.

As soon as they had the cattle safe in Helena, he’d just go ahead and shoot himself.

Silas watched Belle ride right up despite that kiss this morning and look him square in the eye.

Working like a dog and being ten steps beyond exhausted must help a woman get over things.

“I’ll take first watch,” she said. “The cattle will hold here because of the water.”

Exhaustion hadn’t been enough for him. He couldn’t look at her without remembering and wondering and wanting. “You go get some supper. I’m fine for a while.”

“No.” Belle shook her head. The boss, clear as could be. “I need time later seeing to Betsy. You go.”

Silas glanced at the camp and saw Lindsay and Sarah. Emma was riding a slow, wide circle around the thirsty cattle lining the narrow mountain stream. Belle had left Elizabeth with Lindsay, who already had a fire going.

Silas thought about what “seeing to Betsy” meant. He wanted to be a hundred yards away from the camp when that event took place. Make that a hundred
miles.
“Fine, I’ll eat now and take next watch.”

Then as he rode into the roughly made camp, he quit thinking about babies and kissing and remembered this morning and the angry girls he’d faced. Wishing there was another choice but to eat with them, he admitted he was starving. Stiffening up his backbone, he rode in, cool as a Montana winter. Then he went to work making the fire smaller and hotter.

The cattle were drinking out of the creek, so he went upstream a piece and fetched back water. He stripped his saddle off his horse and rubbed him down with a handful of grass then slapped him on the flank to send him off with the horses. He proceeded to do the same with Lindsay’s horse.

Lindsay came up beside him, carrying Betsy on her back. With hostility that didn’t conceal the girl’s fatigue, she said, “I care for my own horse.”