Rebellion in the Valley (20 page)

“Dagnabbit,” Duffy moaned.

Rubbing his fingers together, he popped his
knuckles and shook them out, loosening the joints back into place
somewhat.

The scowl plastered across his face gave
evidence in any man’s book that he'd become one angry
individual.

P

With the last of the vegetables being rolled
into the oversized stew pot, the old cook wiped his hands across
the dry towel and reached for the salt crock. Without even glancing
up, his head shook when he heard the table scooting across the
parlor room floor. Again. This made the second time today that girl
had rearranged the furniture in there.

She’d been restless ever since the talk
earlier, and seeing as how she had been advised to keep her space
with Duffy and the barns, what else did she have to do with her
time?

Ever since she had been old enough to be
outside unsupervised, it had been her practice to go outside even
before breakfast and make her rounds with the animals. Now, here it
was: mid-afternoon and the farthest she’d gone was the front porch
of the house.

Richard heard her father's armchair being
moved and wondered where it find residence this time.

A few minutes later, Hailee strolled into the
kitchen in search of the broom and a warm soapy cleaning rag.

“Do you have some extra vinegar? I think the
windows could use a good scrubbing inside and out as long as I'm at
it there,” she mentioned as her head popped into a cabinet.

What he wanted to do was make all this
sadness and turmoil go away, fix it so none of this had ever
happened. But what he did instead was hand her a dust pan to go
with the broom.

“Could you reach behind the rocking chair and
clean those cobwebs I saw a few days ago? I didn't have a rag with
me then and just now thought of it again.”

“Already got 'em,” she reported.

Richard knew he hadn’t slept all that much,
but was certain Tobias had him beat. They wouldn’t be able to go on
this way forever; something had to be done about the way Duffy had
such a hold on the place. It had only been a couple of days, but
already the feeling of disorder clouded both the workers and
residents of the Red Bone Ranch. Some measure of order needed to be
regained before Duffy got the notion that everyone was about to bow
and cower under his temper. The last thing anyone needed was for
that man to get to thinking he was going to run the Red Bone!

P

Tobias found himself planted firmly at the
base of the staircase in the Johnson's home; a nervous hand ran
along his chin, giving the appearance of a young man who might be
contemplating something or another. Just as he began taking that
first step upward, he turned his head toward a window, wincing a
bit when he caught sight of the chickens still roaming around in
the yard. With night falling quickly, they should have been put up
by this time. Figuring he'd best go lock them up himself, he took a
step back when he saw one of the other hands taking care of the
chore. He nodded, proud of the way everyone had been pitching in a
little extra lately.

“Mostly everyone, that is,” he mumbled under
his breath.

Smoothing a palm over the cherry wood
railing, he pulled it back off and took a step back from the
staircase. It just wasn’t proper for a man to visit a lady in her
bed chamber, but he hadn’t wanted to bring the conversation up
earlier when Hailee was in the parlor; he knew she wasn’t really
cleaning - she was coping.

Besides, Richard had given Tobias the
permission to speak to her in her private room, taking the role of
her father on himself for the time being.

Eyes pulled shut, Tobias forced himself to
climb the stairs, stopping in front of her closed door.
Reluctantly, he tapped at it with his knuckles and wondered if she
was reading or taking a much-needed nap.

Just as he thought about heading back down,
her voice called out, “One moment, please.”

She pulled the door toward herself, revealing
the fact that she still wore the yellow dress she’d been cleaning
in earlier; a smudge on the left-hand pocket from the fireplace
ashes proving his thought.

“Tobias!”

“Richard said it would be alright to come on
up,” he offered before she had a chance to even ask. “I’d like a
chance to talk to you. Alone.”

Her hand reached over to his and he caught a
whiff of her perfume; she allowed herself a partial grin for half a
moment when his eyelids fell slightly at her touch. “Of course,”
she agreed without so much as a second thought.

She pointed to the chair in the corner as she
climbed on her bed, finding the center of the mattress and making
herself comfortable by grabbing a pillow and laying it across her
lap.

“I know there are matters to take care of,
but I don’t even know where to begin,” she started. “Maybe later on
the tears will come again, but for right now, I’m all cried out.
Daddy wouldn’t want me to risk losing this ranch by behaving like a
spoiled little girl, so tell me what I need to do next, Tobias,
because right now, I need something to focus on.”

His roughened fingertips scanned the cover of
the book he’d picked up from the seat of the chair and grinned.
Alice’s Adventures Through The Looking Glass by C.S. Lewis. One of
the few books he'd begun and never finished.

“Are you feeling strong enough to do
this?”

“No. I’ll never be strong enough to face the
loss of my own father; I don’t think you can ever be ready for
something like this. But I also know there are things to be done.”
She picked at the lacy edge of her petticoat and poked her toes out
from under the pillow on her lap. “Tobias, what do you think will
become of the ranch now?”

“Well, Honey, you’ve always been co-owner.
You still own it. The men and I will do everything we can to keep
her running properly. Under your direction, of course. What else do
you want to know?”

“Duffy seems to be the running problem around
here. Shouldn’t we do something about that?” Those blue eyes, so
drained of emotion as she asked the question, caused Tobias to
shift his weight in the small chair. He leaned forward, the concern
in his wrinkled-up forehead emphasizing the point to Hailee when he
answered her with, “Yes. We all agree he has to go, but not quite
yet…just between me and you, the sheriff wants us to keep him
around for a while.”

Hailee leaned her head to the side and
whispered, ”Is he a wanted man?”

Tobias shook his head.

“No, Honey. I believe I can honestly say that
man is wanted by nobody.”

Chapter 24

T
he
sound of horses brought Duffy to the front window of his bunk
house; he had been so involved with his own miserable thoughts, the
visitors managed to get rather close to the main house before he
even realized anyone was on the place. What the man saw turned his
blood cold; it was the sheriff and his deputy, and judging from the
way both of them dismounted and marched into the main house without
even knocking, they appeared to be on a mission. They weren't
searching for anyone, Duffy could tell that from the way they rode
in through the entrance gates at such a fast gallop.

“Well, that can’t be good,” he mumbled.
“Wonder what's got them all the way up here.”

After ten minutes passed by with no signs of
anyone going in or coming out of the main house, he couldn't help
but notice his coffee drinking tin was just as empty as his coffee
pot.

Tapping his fingertips in a nervous rhythm
against the small table, he glanced up and out his window in time
to catch the sheriff and his deputy galloping away from the Red
Bone, leaving a trail of dust behind.

The man grabbed his coat and shoved the tin
down into his pocket, but thought twice about going inside for that
coffee. Instead, he tossed the coat over the back of his chair and
made his way to the window once again, parting the red checkerboard
curtain. His eyes raked over sections of the barn yard and a few of
the pens he could see from where he stood.

“Something's afoot on this hill and I intend
to find out what,” he mumbled under his breath.

P

One of the ranch hands poked his head in
through the door and hollered in to Richard, “I was told to bring
these to you; where do you want them?”

The old cook craned his neck around the open
pantry door to see what the fella was talking about.

“Oh, that’s right! I dang near forgot all
about them,” he snapped his fingers and pointed toward the basket.
Richard's hands wiped across the sudsy dish rag in his hand,
dropping it down on the shelf he’d been cleaning in his pantry.

Hobbling over to the table, Richard
inventoried the vegetables he'd just acquired; they needed to be
eaten up, and he asked for some help in retrieving a few of them
out of the old spring house a few days back, but with recent
events, that request had been completely forgotten by him.

Eyeballing the turnips, Richard asked the
young man if he was too busy to help him bring in a couple more
baskets of food.

“No, not at all. I was in there a little
earlier swiping a few apples and thought you might wanna take a
look at the stones around the spring anyhow; you may want me to
repair this one section before it sinks in. You feel like heading
on out there now?”

Tossing one basket over to his food-fetcher
and reaching back into the pantry for another basket he could use
himself, Richard asked how the apples were holding up this season
and a conversation about the many things a body could do with those
apples followed the pair of men all the way outside and down to the
spring house.

When Duffy spied the pair of them disappear
through the door, he made a quick dash to the kitchen; the thought
of roaming into the house when nobody was in there sent an excited
shiver down his spine and his pace quickened.

Just as Duffy returned the coffee kettle back
on the wood-burning stove, a startled Hailee popped in from behind
the heavy paisley curtain separating the dining area and kitchen.
She held a hand-woven box filled with her unmentionable under
garments and instinct moved her to retract a step when she sensed
they were alone in the room. An uncomfortable second or two pierced
the space between them, and Hailee placed a protective hand over
the top of her clothing. She felt herself begin to tremble on the
inside, but Duffy never even saw her fear as a lop-sided grin began
to grow across his upper lip.

“Well, hi there. You haven’t been out to the
barn lately. You wouldn’t be avoiding me, now would you,
Darlin’?”

Allowing himself to leisurely take in the
sight far longer than Hailee felt comfortable with, she took
another step backward. Her back brushed up against the curtain.

Duffy let out a little chuckle and brought
the coffee to his lips. His eyes did not leave her face.

“You know, we should get to know one another
a little better one of these days,” he mentioned before turning to
head out the door. Halfway through the kitchen, the clacking of
Duffy’s boots against the wooden flooring paused, but the man
didn’t say a word before resuming his pace out the door.

She heard him whistle a tune all the way to
his bunk house and felt a sick knot building a nest in her
throat.

Did that really just happen, or had she
imagine the whole thing?

P

Hailee sat in her father's armchair, quietly
slumped into a ball of blonde hair and blue gingham. The only sound
in the parlor came from the light ticking of the wind-up clock on
the mantle.

She had no idea how long Tobias had been
standing behind the chair when he placed a firm hand on her
shoulder, but that one action sent the girl sailing from the chair
and half-way across the room in a soft squeal before glancing over
her shoulder to see who had placed that hand on her. Her reaction
confirmed his suspicions about her mind becoming occupied with
unpleasant thoughts.

“Whoah, Nellie,” Tobias held the hand out in
front of himself, palm still facing the nervous girl. “You
dang-near turned this teacup upside down and over your head. You
wanna tell me what's going on here?”

She tilted her head in an attempt to sluff
the incident under the rug, but he stopped her.

“None of that 'whatever-do-you-mean' look.
Not gonna work this time. C'mon, Honey. Why don't you tell me
what's up?”

Both of Tobias’ eyebrows tilted inward and
the skin between them wrinkled a bit. “What is it, Honey? What
don't you want to tell me?”

“Nothing. I thought you were…”

“You thought I was what?”

Her hands reached out for the tea, grateful
to have something to hold.

“Nothing,” Hailee repeated as she reclaimed
the spot in her chair. “I’m glad you’ll be taking your meals with
me in the dining room so I don’t have to eat alone, but why can’t
you just talk to the sheriff and ask him to take Duffy away?
Wouldn’t it be easier for all of us?”

With a hand raking through his brown mop of
hair, Tobias could only shake his head and blow out a breath of
air.

“You know what I told you. The sheriff’s
hoping the man will slip up and hang himself in a mistake,” he
reminded her in gentle voice. “I promised him our full
cooperation.”

Pausing, Tobias fished for a truthful answer
from the young woman he loved, asking straight out, “Has that snake
out there made contact with you? If that man is trying to get to
you, Hailee, I want to know about it.”

Swishing the tea in soft waves around the
inside of her teacup, Hailee did not want to lie to Tobias. But she
also knew what would happen if the truth of Duffy’s end of the
conversation a few short hours ago was made known to Tobias.

Seeing the struggle in her face, his jaws
clamped tight.