Mary Connealy (48 page)

Silas glanced over his shoulder at the thin, pretty woman-child with the glowing golden hair coated in dirt and sweat and the too-old eyes. He had a burst of insight as to what might convince the girl to let him help her. “I know you can do it, Linz, but I think Sarah’s about all in. Let her see me do your horse, then she’ll let me do hers. I’m almost finished here. By the time you get supper on, I can have the rest of the camp set.”

Lindsay hesitated. It reminded Silas of the way she’d gone about taking her rifle off of him this morning. At last she looked over her shoulder at Sarah, her face contorted from the effort, heaving a heavy pot full of cut-up dried beef and water onto the fire. Silas realized he had been right on target about how tired Sarah was.

Lindsay looked back at him with weary eyes rimmed in dark shadows. “Thanks.” She turned back to the camp.

Before she stepped away, Silas had to ask, “Did just one of her husbands hurt her once, Linz? Or was it more husbands, and more than once?”

Lindsay didn’t turn around, but she quit walking. The baby stared at him from Lindsay’s back, and he braced himself to be called Papa again.

Finally, Lindsay looked him in the eye over her shoulder. “Gerald tried it from time to time, but he only laid his hands on her once I ever knew about. Ma…well, Ma was sober and tough as a boot and Gerald was just a no-account drunk. The reason they were having a fight to begin with was because she didn’t like the way he was cussin’ us girls. After he swung on her, Ma picked herself up offa the floor.”

Silas wanted to go dig Gerald up and kill him all over again.

“She just laid him out flat with the kitchen skillet. The fat lip he gave her quit bleeding and healed in no time. After that, she just let him drink, and we girls learned to lay low when he came home. He weren’t a smart man on his best day. Hiding from him was easy.”

Silas’s heart ached at her acceptance of that kind of life. “Lindsay, not all men are like the ones who married your ma.”

Lindsay shrugged and a sad smile crossed her face. “I know that’s true. So I guess it’s something wrong with Ma that she picks men who are useless. I think it’s easier to think bad of all men than to think bad of my ma.”

Silas didn’t know what to say to that.

“It ain’t all her fault, though,” Lindsay continued. “I was seven or so when Gerald come a-courtin’. I know what it was like. There were men all the time. Every day someone else would come, and the ones who’d been by before stopped back. Sometimes they’d fight over her, and I know Ma was scared. She had me and Emma and the ranch to run alone. There were always men coming by, and some of ’em not very nice. I think one day she just snapped. She grabbed at the closest man to get the others to stand off. And that ended up being Gerald.

“With Anthony it was the same only worse. Everyone just assumed she’d marry someone, and they acted like she was a nuisance, making them ride all the way from town over and over. She didn’t want another man. She wasn’t scared of being alone anymore, but she finally just caved under the pressure, and Anthony was there. ‘A good-lookin’ devil,’ Ma said. Looked a lot like Betsy, and easy to boss around. And Ma just thought she had to. So many people said, ‘A woman’s got to be married.’ Like it was in the United States Constitution or something, and Ma went along.”

Silas did his best not to roll his eyes. What was the woman thinking to keep picking bums? Surely good men had come courting.

“This time, when Anthony died, she was gonna hold firm. She promised us.” Lindsay scowled at Silas. Then after a long silence, she said, “And now you’re here.”

Silas didn’t know what to say. He had no intention of marrying Belle, but he’d been kissing her this very morning in front of all her girls. He couldn’t blame Lindsay for thinking what she did. And a part of him wanted to trot out his virtues as if he were speaking to Belle’s father. He wanted to say,
My intentions are honorable. I respect your ma. I don’t drink. I’m a hardworking man. I’d never hit a woman or cuss you girls.
But why would he say all that to Lindsay except if he was thinking to marry her ma? Which he wasn’t.

Except every time he’d seen Belle today, he’d wanted to ride up next to her, drag her off her horse onto his, and taste her all over again. He couldn’t explain that to a young girl when he couldn’t even understand it himself. “I’d never hurt your ma, Lindsay.”

Lindsay looked away from him. “There’s lots of kinds of hurt, Mr. Harden. It ain’t all done with fists.” She turned her back on him and walked over to the fire.

Silas watched Lindsay urge Sarah down onto the ground so she could lean back against a fallen log. She put Betsy in her little sister’s arms and eased the two little girls around until they were practically lying down.

He heard Lindsay say softly, “I need help, Sarah. I need you to sit still and cuddle the baby up, or she’ll cry for Ma, and Ma’s riding herd. And if Ma comes by on a circuit, she’ll have to stop. You know how tired Ma is. You’ve got to do this to help her.”

“Getting grub’s my job, Lindsay. And Betsy don’t cry none. You take Betsy and sit.”

“Please do it for me, sweetie. My back is tired from carrying her.”

Sarah subsided with the baby in her arms.

By the time Lindsay began stirring the stew, Sarah was fast asleep, the baby awake in her arms, looking around and kicking. Lindsay came over and lifted the baby away, strapped Betsy on her own back, and went back to the campfire to work.

Silas hurried through the horse chores so he could help her, but by the time he was finished, Lindsay had a plate ready to hand him.

“Eat quick and go spell Emma.” The look in her eye told him not to offer any help.

He sat and ate, and finally Lindsay ate beside him, feeding bits to the baby. Silas went to find a fresh horse and another tired little girl.

W
ade rode up to the line shack and was surprised at the number of horses: four in the corral behind the little log building, three tied out front.

His hand stayed cautiously near his six-gun and prayed there wasn’t trouble. One of the things he’d never managed to hand over to God was the deep sense of his own cowardice.

When he’d been drinking and carousing, he’d wanted to put a notch in his gun to prove himself a man. He’d never been able to pull the trigger though. Now he was glad. Glad he didn’t have a death on his conscience.

And now he knew better than to judge his courage against so false a standard as the ability to kill. But his heart still contained a seed of sickness deep inside, calling himself a coward.

What if he needed to defend himself? What if one day he took a wife and had a child and they were in danger and only Wade and his gun stood between his family and death? Seeing these strange horses reminded him that in this rugged land death was just one dumb move away. And a life-and-death decision, like drawing and shooting a gun, was the only thing keeping a man on this side of the pearly gates.

Wade no longer worried about those gates; he knew where he’d spend eternity. But it fretted him like an itch he couldn’t scratch to know he was a coward.

He rode his horse to a grassy area back a ways from the shack. He swung down and ground-hitched his mount. Th at kept the pack animals, which were tied up in a line behind Wade’s cow pony, together. The animals went to chomping grass, and Wade walked toward the house, wary. Before he got close, the door swung open and five men sauntered out. Wade knew two of them; Linscott’s hands seemed at ease, not worrying about the three strangers.

“You brung vittles.” An old drover, one of Linscott’s longtime cowpokes, rubbed his hands together like he was eyeing a feast.

Wade smiled. “Yep, oughta be enough supplies in those packs to keep you fat all winter.”

“I’m Buck Adams.” One of the strangers stepped forward and extended a hand. His eyes were clear and his expression pleasant. Buck was the tallest of the bunch. He looked to be nearing forty. A man at the height of his strength and ability.

“Wade Sawyer.” While they shook, Wade wondered if, like so many men, Buck had heard of Wade’s pa. Often men would be extra friendly to him, thinking to befriend the son of a wealthy, powerful rancher they’d heard of by reputation. Others would immediately be hostile, and Wade figured they’d been stomped on by his pa or knew someone who had. There were plenty of ’em out there.

Buck nodded but didn’t react, which meant Wade didn’t have to live up or down to his father with these men.

“This here’s Shorty.”

Shorty was gray-haired and had a quick laugh and didn’t speak a sentence when a syllable would do. But he had eyes that told a hard story of a life in an unsettled land and a toughness no one could earn except by facing a thousand dangers and surviving.

Silas saw a lifetime of wisdom in Shorty’s watchful eyes.

“And this is my son, Roy.” Buck clapped a skinny kid on the back who had a man’s height but not a spare ounce of meat on his bones.

Roy seemed to practically buzz with nervous energy. He used that energy to throw himself into the unpacking with a good nature.

The men, all six of them, fell to unpacking and stowing away the food. The tiny shack was lined with cans and bags before long.

“These fellas are just passing through,” Linscott’s old drover said.

From the look of their well-kept horses and the way they threw in to help work, Wade was impressed with the trio.

When the work was done, Roy twitched and looked around, bouncing his knee as if sitting still made him crazy.

Wade had to control a grin as he remembered being so young he thought resting was wasting his life. He was only twenty years old, and he’d already grown out of that.

“Come on in and set a spell. Stay a few days.” The old drover picked up the coffeepot.

Wade looked out at the cold fall wind. He’d much prefer to stay. It was going on evening and he’d have a cold night outside. But he could ride a few hours toward Belle’s drive, and he felt rushed to get there. She’d already be two days down the trail by now.

He deliberately didn’t refer to the drive being run by a woman. “I told the Tanner outfit I’d help run their herd up to Helena. They’re trying to beat the winter. You know that mountain valley the Tanners live in. It’s a late start, and they need to push hard and get back home before the gap snows shut for the winter. I’d better hit the trail.”

Buck straightened from where he’d settled on the floor. “We could use a month’s work.” He tipped his head at his son and Shorty.

Roy got to his feet as if he was dying to hit the trail right now. No doubt he was.

“It’ll be a hard drive because they’re shorthanded. I told ’em I’d come along as quick as I could.” Wade was uncomfortable hiring three men on for Belle, but by the time they rode the trail to catch her, Wade would have a good idea of what they were made of. And he’d be there to help her run ’em off if necessary. Belle’d most likely welcome them.

“I can’t make promises for the Tanners ….”

Shorty frowned but remained silent.

“Let’s do it, Pa.” Roy began pulling on his buckskin coat. The boy looked like he planned to hunt Belle down himself if Wade didn’t lead the way.

“It’s a hard ride through mean, cold country. We’ll be days catching up.” Wade waited to see what the men were made of.

Buck grinned. “We’ll partner with you for the ride over. If we don’t get hired on, we’ll just keep drifting.”

Wade looked at the three men. Considering he was taking three strangers toward a pack of females…he knew Belle well enough to know those salty daughters of hers would be along…Was he turning wolves loose on a herd of lambs?

He thought of Belle, those direct eyes and scarred hands. Not all lambs, not even close.

“Saddle up. We can put a lot of miles behind us before we sleep.”

The Tanner girls were tough, Silas’d give ’em that.

Lindsay was the leader. He saw countless instances of the oldest girl bossing her little sisters around, and sometimes even him and Belle. For the most part, they all did as Lindsay told them because the girl was organized and uncommon smart.

When it came right down to it, Belle was the boss. Silas had noticed that the girls listened to him when he thought things should be done a certain way. But for the regular stuff where no out-of-the-ordinary decisions needed to be made—which described almost everything on a cattle drive—Lindsay was the one in charge.

Emma was the natural horsewoman—so confident in the saddle that Silas rarely quit wondering at it. The first to mount up in the morning and the last to quit the saddle come suppertime, she seemed to have limitless energy. She was also a quiet kid, not prone to much give-and-take with the rest of them. Emma reminded Silas of a lot of cattlemen he’d known in his day who worked and ate and slept and worked some more without having much to say that wasn’t about the job.

Sarah was the talker. She was the one often as not who made them laugh or made Silas squirm with her straight talk. The eight-year-old could ride like an Indian, and she did her share in the saddle, often with the baby on her back. But in many ways, Sarah was like the mother. She was quick with a word of sympathy for cuts and bruises. She changed the baby’s diaper more than her share. She ran circles around most chuckwagon cooks he’d known.