Mary Connealy (87 page)

“Thanks, honey. And you still don’t obey worth a hoot.”

“Sure I do. As long as you order me to do what I was gonna do anyway.”

“And you’re right. I’d never kick you out of that house. I’ve gotten real used to having you around.” Silas kissed her again, soundly.

Once her feet were back on the ground, Belle turned, strode over to Cassie, and linked their arms. “Just because we disagreed and he won doesn’t mean anything I told you about how to stand up for yourself is wrong.” They walked toward the house.

Red almost followed so he could hear what advice Belle was giving his sweet Cassie now.

“Let’s head toward the watering hole.”

Red hated to let the two women go. His life might depend on his being ready for Cassie’s next round of independence. But since it was about cattle rustlers, he followed Silas.

“I just wanted Cassie away from this. I wasn’t worried about Belle.” Silas glanced behind him as if to check that the women were gone. Then he lowered his voice. “Okay, I’ll admit I’m a little worried, but I can’t let Belle know that, and my woman has ears like a nervous mama cougar. Belle gets the bit in her teeth and there’s no stopping her. Here’s how it goes, Red. I’ve found a solid trail leading into some rugged land on Sawyer’s range. It was mighty bold the way they came into our valley—that gap is close to my house—and drove off about ten head of cattle. I only know it was that many because of the tracks. Then I back-trailed ’em and found a little canyon where they’d held the cattle not more’n a couple days. Then they drove ’em out and met up with another small herd, another ten cattle maybe.”

“You think those came from my place?”

“I know they did because we followed the trail back this way.”

“I’ve come up short in my tally. But we always lose a few head to winter kill. Still, it was high enough I was sure there’d been some thievin’.”

Nodding, Silas went on. “If I take you with me tracking the cows, that’d leave Cassie alone here. I don’t like that idea at any time, but especially not if a pack of rustlers as bold as these are close to hand. But I didn’t want to leave the children at our place or here with you and Cassie. So I want Belle here and Emma. They’re tough ones. They’ll keep everyone safe and be better here than they would be in our cabin. ‘Course, Belle is fit to be tied that I’m not letting her come along. I swear the woman would take on a whole gang of outlaws with a baby strapped on her back, and Emma and Sarah are game enough to go along. But I can’t stand the thought of them in danger.”

Red wondered if Belle wasn’t an abler saddle partner than he was going to be. Which made it pretty easy to accept Belle’s staying here with Cass.

“So I think Belle will stay behind here if we make it about Cassie, but Cassie will pitch a fit and try to come, too, if she knows it’s for her own good. Which then means we’d have to take all the children.”

“We might as well be taking a wagon train with us.” Red shook his head.

“We can go and leave the women and put an end to this gang once and for all.”

“I’d have had it to do pretty soon anyway,” Red said. “But I couldn’t leave Cassie home with the young’uns. Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s got another babe on the way. She hasn’t admitted it to me yet, or maybe she hasn’t noticed.”

“How could she not know if she’s expecting a baby?”

“It don’t surprise me none. Cassie’s led a real sheltered life.”

“Keep her with child as much as possible.” Silas nodded with satisfaction. “It slows Belle down some, gives me a few months off her scaring me to death busting broncs and hog-tying thousand-pound longhorns.”

With a grin, Red said, “I oughta tell Belle you said that.”

Looking terrified, Silas said, “You wouldn’t!”

Red laughed. “Let’s go join the women for a quick supper then hit the trail. There isn’t room in that house for us anyway. We might as well put some miles behind us on the trail since we’re gonna get banished to the barn.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Silas headed for the house like a man who wasn’t the least bit scared of his feisty wife.

Red followed along, deeply impressed.

A
bby worked on the house, disgusted by the time that was wasted wiping away perfectly natural dust. Didn’t the land have a right to be part of every home? Strange people, these whites.

Obeying Gertie’s orders, Abby ignored the shouts she’d heard from the weakling tied to his bed—or he might as well be—as she finished her assigned tasks. Turning to her own needs, she found a whetstone and sat at the kitchen table sharpening her knife. The roaring from the bedroom finally got on her nerves to the point she slapped the whetstone on the table, returned her knife to its sheath, and stormed into Mort’s room.

His face was bright red. He lay on his side reaching for the strange contraption Wade had called a wheelchair, which, since it was a chair with wheels, was a fair name. His ruckus stopped and he glared at her. “Help me get into that chair.”

Sneering with contempt, she said, “And will you need me to bring you warm milk and a baby’s bottle to suck?”

Mort’s eyes narrowed. “Get out of here. Get off my ranch. You’re fired. Fired, I tell you.”

“I do not work for you. Wade offered me the job and only he can fire me.”

“He’s paying you with my money and he has no right to spend it.”

“He spoke of this money. I told him I would need food and I accepted the roof over my head, a room next to Gertie’s, even though it is a roof held up by your monstrosity of a house. I refused any other money. It would be just something to carry around, another burden.”

“Money isn’t a burden. It makes life easier. You can buy your own roof.”

“I’ll build a bow and arrow and shoot a deer or two, skin them, and make a tepee. I need no money for that.”

“What about food?”

“The deer that provides my home will also give me food.”

Mort waved a fist at her. “What about when you need clothes? Your deerskins are on your tepee.”

“I will shoot another and dry the meat into jerky so I can survive for a long while before I have to hunt again. For the cold months, I will find an animal with fur for a warm coat—a buffalo or bear. What good would money do me for that task? Why did you come to this wild beautiful land, overrun with food, clothing, all the things you need to live, then shut yourself away from it inside these ridiculous walls?”

Mort snorted like an enraged buffalo. “Help me up. Come over here. I try to keep the chair from moving but it won’t stay put.”

Abby narrowed her eyes at him. Their gazes locked. As if they were in a fight, neither of them broke the contact. Abby felt her temper rise, her patience shorten.

Finally, when she’d decided to just walk out, Mort looked away. “Please.”

“What?”

“Please. I’m asking you
please
to help me get in my chair.”

That word,
please.
It went with
thank you.
Wade had reminded her of these white men’s manners. Mort said it like the word was painful to force from his lips. She realized that, to a stubborn tyrant like Mort Sawyer, saying please was an act of humility. And she knew how much a tyrant hated to ask for anything.

Her Wild Eagle had been like that. He didn’t ask; he ordered. Abby was used to it, but Wade’s kindness had been a surprise and a delight to her. Was this man like Wild Eagle? Would Wild Eagle have been any better if life brought him so low?

“Fine.” With a deep breath, Abby rolled the chair to the side of Mort’s bed.

They made several attempts to get Mort transferred to the chair, and finally, using his arms and with Abby supporting him almost completely, they made it.

Gasping, Mort finally caught his breath enough to say, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The words came almost as a reflex, without thought.

“Can…can you push me to the kitchen? There’s a window there. I’d like to look out over my ranch.”

“Use your arms. Push the wheels. Can you not do a thing for yourself?” Disgusted and ashamed that she’d had a moment of sympathy for the weakling, she stalked out of the room.

Before she’d gotten her knife’s edge to suit her, Mort was in the kitchen studying the huge piece of the earth he so foolishly claimed as his. The earth was the Lord’s, given to everyone, teeming with food, fuel to burn for warmth, and beauty to soothe the soul.

White men seemed to understand none of that. What a strange breed.

“What’s that idiot son of mine doing?” Mort punched the arm of his chair.

What were these idiots doing?

Wade saddled up and met the first bunch of cattle the men drove into the yard. They’d been at it for hours and Wade should have gone out to help, but he’d made a quick trip to town instead to arrange for the lumber to make some changes to the house that would make his pa’s life easier. Sam Jeffreys, one of Libby Jeffreys’s mule skinner sons, usually had a few days between hauling loads. Wade needed to focus on the spring roundup, so he’d asked Libby to have Sam ride out next time he was in Divide.

With that all in order, he’d returned home to find his men just bringing in the first herd. Watching, Wade knew why it had taken so long. The herd milled and broke away.

Wade charged his horse into the fractious cattle. Chewing on dust, Wade cut this way and that to force the critters forward. It was almost as if the men here had no idea how to handle cattle or run a ranch. Or if they knew how, they didn’t care enough to break a sweat trying.

The bawling cattle and the thundering hooves of Wade’s horse kept Wade from thinking too much about his incompetent cowhands. When he got the herd headed in the right direction, Wade watched. He drove the whole herd with the help of about three of the old hands. A dozen other men spent their time making the day harder for everyone.

They got the longhorns herded into the lush valley. A few of them found the gushing spring. The rest waded into the belly-deep spring grass. They all settled in quickly, as Wade knew they would.

Wade waved his drovers in. He’d seen his father operate long enough to know what he needed to do. Run most of these men off, including the foreman. But that wasn’t what God wanted from him. He saw some laziness but mostly incompetence. “I want you, you, you, you ….” Wade jabbed a finger at ten of the men. He skipped Sid Garver for now. The man had to go, but not in front of the whole crew. No use humiliating him.

“Team up, each of you. Everyone needs to learn a few cowhand tricks.” Wade turned to the oldest hand. “Chester, pick who you want to work with from the men I’ve pointed out.” Noticing Chester’s disgruntled face, Wade said, “Let’s head for the high pasture to the west. It’s next closest. I want to move at least three more herds today.”

The men turned to ride out.

“Chester, wait a minute.”

Turning his horse with only the pressure of his knees, the old cowpoke dropped back to Wade’s side. “Well, you got part of it. You saw what a bunch we’ve got here. But instead of teaming them up with the older hands, you should have shown them the road.”

Taking a quick look around, Wade made sure no one was within earshot. “I did it that way because not all of these men are no-accounts. Some of ’em are just new. I don’t want to fire a man when I can teach him a skill. If I’d have run ten men off, with rustlers in the area, they might have thrown in with outlaws. They might have headed to Divide with their pay and a grudge and drunk all their money away. That’d leave ’em mad and broke, and in some men that adds up to dangerous.”

“Some of these men are just bums. All the training in the world isn’t gonna help.”

Nodding, Wade said, “In a week I’ll decide who’s a bum and who’s just new at ranching. The ones who don’t shape up will get run off my range. Fair enough?”

“A week is too long.”

With a bark of a laugh, Wade said, “I’ll bet we know enough to tell who’s gonna at least try to work hard by the end of the day. So maybe I won’t give ’em a week.”

Chester scowled. “I always knew you were soft, boy. To my way a’thinkin’ you’re just provin’ it the first day.”

“I know how to handle a horse, Chester. And I know a cowhand when I see one. Have all these men been hired since Pa was hurt? I can’t believe he’d’ve been fooled by them.”

“Sid Garver hired them. So they’re loyal to him. And Garver ain’t loyal to anyone but himself. Watch your step, Wade.”

“Watch yours, too, old man, because I’m naming you the new foreman.”

“I’m doing the job anyway; I sure had oughta get the title. And if I’m the foreman, then you’d be better off listenin’ to me and just get the worst of these drovers off the property. Instead you’ve hurt their pride by askin’ ’em to pair up like they were greenhorns. Now you’ll have a bunch of cowboys carryin’ a grudge.”

“Maybe, but that’s the way it’s gonna be.” Wade met Chester eye to eye. “That’s the way God wants me to handle it.”

Chester wasn’t a bad man, not much of a talker. A grizzled gray beard, lean and brown and tough as leather. He’d never joined in the harassment of Wade as so many of the hands had. But there’d been plenty of contempt in the old coot’s eyes back then. Wade had a lot to prove before the wrangler gave Wade any respect.