Plots and Pans (40 page)

Jess reached out to pat his forearm, wanting to soothe both of them but refusing to show any distress over the prospect of a detour—or the added days they’d have to spend on the trail. “It’s not the first time that’s happened. We went through the same thing two weeks back, and it only added an extra day or two to go around.”

“Not this time.” Tucker shrugged away to point northward, and Jess realized she hadn’t dusted enough flour off her hands. A powdery print stood out in sharp relief against the dust-darkened cambric of his once-white work shirt. “The trail goes north for good reason—it follows the water. The detour will take us through the Saline Reservation, where the only water is so laden with alkali salts it will poison man and beast. Even going full-bore, we won’t find drinkable water for at least five days.”

Jess heard Desta’s sharp gasp and narrowly managed to gulp back her own. Doubts and questions roiled, but she whittled it down to the most crucial concern.

“Five days? Can the cattle make it that long?” If the cattle couldn’t survive, they wouldn’t make the attempt. Better to turn back and sell for far less than lose everything.

“If we keep night watch, keep them away from the water, and stampede them over the Cimarron crossing without letting them drink or turn back, most will survive.” He slapped his hat against his thigh in agitation. “We can’t afford another stampede, or we’ll lose them all. Ralph?”

“Time to blind the three?” Ralph’s forbidding expression rivaled Tucker’s.

“No choice now.”

“What?” Jess knew the situation was dire, but the idea of “blinding” anything sounded beyond belief.

“The three young bulls what caused most of the stampeding earlier on. Sometimes a group of ’em will get a taste for trouble. We been keepin’ ’em apart to cut back on problems, but with a hard push ahead and no water, ain’t no leeway to spare them no more.”

Desta looked every bit as appalled as Jess felt. “Be kinder to kill ’em and take the loss than to put out their eyes.”

“We don’t put out their eyes, Desta.” Thankfully, Tucker looked disturbed at the thought. “We sew the lids shut. The stitches wear down in about two weeks, but by then they’ve learned to follow the herd peacefully instead of leading them into trouble.”

“Most of the herd will go blind from lack of water anyway. They’ll regain their vision once hydrated again, but at that point the real danger will be losing the herd to overdrinking.”

“I still don’t like it,” Jess stated. “But the safety of our men has to be the priority. We can’t waste even an hour controlling renegades if we’ll be pushing so hard to reach water.”

The detour loomed as a death sentence. Even with the extra water barrel they’d had rigged to the spare wagon, it wasn’t possible to carry enough water for the entire outfit. Not to mention water for cooking and washing the skillets and dishware.

Tucker’s grim expression told her he knew that all too well, so she bit her tongue to keep from listing the concerns surging through her thoughts. For the first time, she regretted their showdown with the shopkeeper. They’d won Porter’s hat, but now there’d be no dealing with the only merchant in town. Whatever containers they had on hand would have to be enough.

Tucker watched as Jess sprang into action, making plans and issuing orders.

“Tell the men we aren’t rationing the pickles or the watermelon rinds anymore. I want it all gone by the end of the day. We’ll use the pickled eggs to make salad as part of the midday meal, too. Any water we put in those vessels will taste a bit briny, but it’ll be fine for boiling up later.” As she spoke, she hauled out the gallon and two-gallon jars. “Aunt Desta? Let’s combine all the remaining preserves as best we can to clear out those jars, too.”

“I’ll get to soaking enough beans and salt pork to last us the next five days.” Desta dove into the thick of things. “And I’ll bake up breadstuffs to see us through at least three days and make up an extra batch of corn mush for frying. Small things add together to make a difference.”

“Coming together’s the only way to make it through,” Tucker approved. “I’ll admit I was wrong about the extra buckboard. The added water barrel is nothing less than a blessing. You ladies do everything you can, and tomorrow morning you’ll leave the outfit in better shape than we had any right to expect.”

He half hoped she wouldn’t catch that last part, what with bustling around getting things ready, but Jess froze at the words. Slowly she turned, her brows slammed together as though already blocking out his reasoning.

“Leave?”

“Once everything’s ready, I’ll ride you into town and put you up there. You can catch the next mail coach and head home. You’ll have each other, and it’s safer than trying to push through the Saline Reservation with the rest of the outfit.”

“So much for pulling close, keeping near, and coming together.” Anger and indignation blazed in her gaze, burning hot enough to hide the hurt from anyone but him.

Tucker heard the betrayal beneath the words and mourned the renewal of a distance he’d thought they’d crossed. But seeing her safe took precedence over seeing her smile, and he’d settle for the chance to make it up to her.

“You need us.” Her whisper echoed with undertones of yesterday’s conversation, a plea for him to confirm that he needed her.

“I need you safe. That’s my priority, and that’s my decision.”

“We’re women, not troublesome bulls to be led about blindly. How can you think to make this decision for us?”

He moved toward her, his hands enveloping hers and holding tight when she tried to jerk free. “It’s not just a decision, Jess. It’s a sacrifice. I will always sacrifice to do what’s best for you.”

“No.” She twisted away from his grasp. “Desta and I started this journey, and we’ll see it through. You’ll need every man—even Quincy and Porter, whenever possible—to help move the cattle, stop stampedes, and keep up the pace. There’s no one extra to do our job, and we won’t leave things unfinished.” With that, she turned on her heel and started to leave.

“What about this?”
What about us?
He knew she understood what he was really asking. “Will you leave this unfinished, Jess?”

“This conversation might take a while, and I don’t have a second to spare.” Jess turned back to her chuck wagon. “Talk to me after we’ve made it through, Tucker.”

“We made it.” Too tired to savor her triumph, Jess wearily sank down beside her aunt and ran the tip of her finger across her cracked lips. “We can leave out the chili and let the men fend for themselves while we catch up on some sleep.”

“My bones fair ache, and my eyes are heavy, but I’m wound tighter than a church key still.” Desta sighed and sipped some of the blessedly pure water they’d finally reached that day. “Cool evening breeze feels too good to leave it behind and lay down in the tent just yet.”

“After some sleep, I’ll be hunting down another spot for a bath.” Jess sipped from her own mug. Earlier, she’d belted back an entire canteen’s worth without taking a breath. Everyone in the outfit did the same, and had been nursing canteens and mugs ever since. Maybe the men half-felt the way she did—as though if she left the water out of reach for more than a minute, it’d disappear again. Five days didn’t seem like a long time until you had to ration every swallow, stop washing up, and still put in round-the-clock hours on a grueling trail ride.

“Mercy, the thought alone of sliding into cool water makes me light-headed. I covet that bath same as you.”

“Tucker’ll see to it as soon as he can,” Jess soothed.

“That’s the first positive thing I’ve heard you say about Tucker since we took off across the Saline Reservation. You two were getting along so much better, then he tries to spare us this awful trek and you stop wasting words on him.” For an exhausted woman, Desta could work a glower like nobody’s business. “What happened ‘twixt the two of you?”

“The usual.” Jess drained her mug and eyed the water barrel. “On the ride back from getting Porter’s hat, Tucker tried to propose and botched it badly. Not one word about love in the bunch.”

“Don’t know how to tell you this, but that ain’t usual.” Desta snorted with laughter. “Then again, maybe it is. Even the smartest of men sometimes can’t speak his heart.”

“He got better at it. The day we went fishing, we’d just about reached an understanding. Tucker kept talking about working as a team, coming alongside, wanting to keep me close… .” Jess would’ve sworn she had no moisture left for tears, but found herself blinking a few back at the recollection.

“Then he tried to send you home, and you took it wrong.”

Jess stiffened. “What other way is there to take it when a man says he wants you close but tries to send you off at the first opportunity?”

“He was willing to sacrifice having you with him to know you were safe.” Between Desta’s plain speaking and the experience of the past five days, Jess felt a bit more ready to consider the point.

“That’s what Tucker says, that a husband is supposed to sacrifice for his wife, and that’s the reason she submits in love and trust. But how can I trust that he’ll make the right choices when we don’t see things the same?”

“Nobody makes the right choices all the time. But if you think about it, you already trust Tucker with all sorts of things. Even if his judgment may be flawed at times, do you trust him to seek out the Lord’s will?”

“Yes. But even so, he gets things turned around sometimes.”

“But not most times. Who do you trust to run the Bar None?”

“Tucker.”

“Who do you trust to manage the trail drive?”

“Tucker—mostly. He’s made a few mistakes there, too.”

“Who would you run for if something went wrong?”

“Tucker.”

“Who is it yore lookin’ for first thing every morning?”

“I think we both know the answer to that.”

“What I hear you sayin’ is that you trust Tucker with yore home, yore cattle, yore loved ones, and you even trust him not to leave you alone. All the most important things in a person’s life.” Desta pushed to the heart of it. “So there must be somethin’ in particular yore worryin’ on. What is it you don’t trust Tucker to do?”

“It’s more what I don’t trust him
not
to do.” Jess picked at a loose thread as though it could unravel her concerns. “He’s already tried to send me away, same as Papa.”

“No, honey.” Desta folded her hand over Jess’s. “Tucker tried to keep you home, then tried to send you home. He’s never tried to send you off. Every step of the way, he’s done his best to keep you safe and sound in the center of things.”

Neither of them spoke for a long while. Desta didn’t have anything to add to what she’d said, and Jess closed her eyes, thinking and praying things through before making any decisions. When she opened her eyes again, they shone with unshed tears.

“What happens when I mess up? Perfect love isn’t possible for imperfect people, and we both have plenty of flaws.”

“That’s what love is for in the first place, Jess. To fill in the flaws and keep the heart full.” Desta stood up. “Don’t let fear of being hurt keep you from being whole.”

A
unt Desta?” Jess passed off the last of the breakfast dishes and sent Quincy to the stream. Then she looked around for her aunt. When she didn’t spot her right away, Jess bit her lip.

They’d brought along a jumped-up wooden frame and canvas to set atop the buckboard and angle to the ground. They set it up every day as part of base camp, and Desta liked to go there to rest out of the heat of the sun. If her aunt were resting in the slapdash tent, Jess didn’t know if she’d have the heart to wake her up.

Desta seemed to tire so easily these days that Jess suspected she wasn’t sleeping well. Before making a decision either way, she slipped over to the tent and peeked inside. Sure enough, her aunt lay inside. But to Jess’s horror, this was no restful nap.

Desta stretched out directly on the ground, without so much as a bedroll for a cushion. And though she clearly slept, she muttered and moved her arms and legs in agitation, as though trying to fight something off.

Is it a nightmare?
Worry clutched at her. It didn’t seem possible that Jess wouldn’t have noticed her aunt suffered from nightmares, when they’d spent so many days sleeping in separate shifts. If her aunt had been groaning and thrashing around, she would have noticed long ago.
If not a nightmare … then what?