The Independent Bride (9 page)

“I haven’t been trying to
get rid
of you,” Bryce said. “I admire your courage and determination. I was just giving you the advice I believe is in your best interest.”

“Thank you, but my sister and I will decide what’s in our best interest.” She was irritated at herself for being even the slightest bit attracted to a man who was doing his best to make her think she was incapable of running a store. She would have been livid at anyone else, but she seemed to have an irrational attraction to this man. The sooner he got his appointment back East the better.

“Where’s Pamela?” Bryce asked, breaking the strained silence. “I have to be going.”

“I expect she’s gone to see what Moriah’s doing,” Abby said, leading the way from the store to the living quarters.

Moriah had made good use of the three enlisted men at her disposal. The room had been scrubbed from floor to ceiling, removing thick layers of smoke, grease, and dirt. Once the walls were whitewashed, the room wouldn’t be so gloomy. Abby hoped to find a way to cut out a window to let in more light. Even clean, the room gave her the feeling of being in a cave.

“I’m helping,” Pamela said to her father. She was pushing a wet cloth over the top of the table.

“I’m sure they appreciate it,” her father said, “but it’s time for us to go. I have to get back to work.”

“Can’t I stay?”

“Not today. They still have a lot of work to do.”

“I can help.”

“You have your own work. Remember your lessons?”

Pamela made a face. “Do I have to do them?”

“You know you do. Now say good-bye.”

“You can help us cook dinner,” Abby said to Pamela.

“That’s not necessary,” Bryce said.

“Of course it is. It’s all decided.”

After he left, Abby realized he hadn’t protested a second time. In fact, he looked relieved. She wondered if it was just the food, or whether he might actually enjoy their company. They weren’t the most brilliant conversationalists, but it had to be a change from talking to a seven-year-old and discussing military matters all day. And while she and her sister were no beauties, they weren’t ugly. He had to like looking at them better than at Zeb.

Abby told herself to stop imagining things. If Bryce was still trying to get them to go back to St. Louis, he couldn’t be that enthralled with their company.

Abby’s day was completed by the appearance of Ray Baucom in the late afternoon. She was tired, dirty, and disheveled. She was short of temper, angry that Spicer had stolen the proceeds of the last months and indignant that Hinson thought she was incapable of managing the store. She tried to convince Baucom to come back me next day, but he said he was the one responsible for the beef shipment and needed to talk to her. He was the third person to whom Abby had taken an instant dislike.

“What do you mean you’re responsible for the beef shipment? You lost that contract,” Abby said, too tired and angry to mince words. Moriah had found some of their father’s recordbooks. The stock on the books didn’t match what was on the shelves, and there was no income to account for it.

“I was bending the truth a little so you’d let me in,” Baucom said.

Abby felt a surge of anger. “I’ve already had to endure Mr. Hinson’s lecture on why I can’t possibly manage to live up to my contract and that I ought to turn it over to you. I don’t need you telling me the same thing.”

“I don’t want it back,” Baucom said. “I was glad when your father won it.”

Abby stopped scrubbing and looked at Baucom. “I was told you were furious when my father got the contract, that you swore to get it back
one way or the other.”

“I may have said something like that,” Baucom said, looking slightly embarrassed. “I was very angry at the time, but I’ve had time to reconsider.”

“And just what caused you to change your mind?” Abby didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He certainly
seemed
sincere, but she couldn’t understand why everyone else would tell her just the opposite.

“The contract looks like a good way to make money. You buy beef at a low price and sell it to the government at a contracted price, regardless of whether it’s above current market price or not. And it always was. The government needs the beef no matter what.”

“So what made you decide you didn’t want to be rich?”

Baucom laughed. “I wasn’t getting rich. Rustlers and Indians attacked so often, I had trouble finding cowhands to work for me. I rarely delivered more than half of my contract. I decided it would be easier to grow the beef and sell it to you.”

The fact that everything Baucom said was calculated to make Abby think she couldn’t deliver on the contract caused her to distrust the man. But he was telling her what others had already said, and that made her think he might be telling the truth. But Bryce was trying to convince her to go back to St. Louis, and Hinson was a woman-hater.

“I’ll do what I can to help you, short of taking on the contract,” Baucom said. “I know it’s got to be difficult for you, coming in here like this.”

At least he didn’t say the job was too difficult for a woman. That was a handful of points in his favor. “I might take advantage of your offer,” Abby said.

“I know every rancher within two hundred miles,” Baucom said. “I’ll be glad to recommend you to any of them.”

“That’s very kind. How can I get in touch with you?”

“Ask anybody in Boulder Gap. I’m easy to find.”

“I don’t like that man,” Moriah said after Baucom had left.

“He didn’t tell me anything I haven’t heard already,” Abby said.

“Don’t trust him,” Zeb said. “He’s a mean, greedy man.”

Abby wasn’t sure she could hold that against him. It would take a greedy man to choose such a hazardous way of making a living, and a really tough one—maybe even a mean one—to succeed. The real question was whether she would be able to succeed where he hadn’t.

“I don’t care what he’s like as long as he doesn’t get in my way.”

Abby’s words were bold, but she didn’t feel nearly so confident. She was beginning to wonder whether it was possible for anyone to handle the beef contract and the trading post. Her father had died before he’d been able to answer that question for himself. She stood up from where she’d been bending over to wash a shelf and stretched to get the knots out of her muscles. “We should start thinking about supper,” she said to Moriah. “You ready to go?”

“Give me five minutes.”

That would give Abby a chance to clean up herself. “It’s time we had a talk with the colonel about this beef contract.”

“If you decide to give up the store, you could hire out as cooks,” Bryce said as he savored the taste of a prairie chicken cooked with rice and simmered in its own juices. He didn’t have to worry about his compliments hurting Zeb’s feelings. His striker wasn’t the least bit upset about having his kitchen taken over by the Pierce sisters. At this moment he was in the kitchen enjoying his own share of the supper.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Abby said. “Maybe someday we can offer a few simple dishes for officers not fortunate enough to have a striker who can cook.”

“That will depend upon how much time we have,” Moriah said. “Men don’t realize how long it takes to cook a meal.”

Actually he did know. It was one of the things he’d learned from being the commander of the fort. He had to know everything about everybody’s job in order to make sure everything ran smoothly. And Bryce was determined things would go smoothly until he got posted back East.

“Maybe you can find someone who will work with you,” Bryce said, “and give you more time.”

“I’m more worried about the beef delivery,” Abby said. “I haven’t found anything about it among my father’s papers. Wouldn’t he have some sort of written agreement?”

“I would expect so, but I can’t be sure. The Indian agent is appointed by and works under the Department of the Interior, not the army. I’m only called on when there’s trouble.”

Which was a stupid arrangement. The Department of the Interior could make all the half-witted mistakes it wanted, like giving guns and ammunition to Indians who were friendly
at the moment,
but when it came to dealing with those same Indians when they got angry and were no longer friendly, it was the soldiers who had to face up to the guns their own government had provided. And the reason the Indians got angry was because the Indian agents, miners, or settlers ignored the terms of the treaties, something else the army had no control over.

“Who would I ask to find out who’s delivering the beef and when?”

“The Indian agent.”

“What do I do about payment?”

“What do you mean?”

“I expect the man providing the beef will want his money before he turns the beef over to me.”

“Over to the agent You’re only the go-between. Your contract determines how much you’re paid. Your arrangement with the rancher determines how much you owe him. The difference is your profit”

“I can figure that much out for myself,” Abby said.

Bryce thought she was only being abrupt because she was caught in between and didn’t have enough information. It wasn’t his job to educate her, but no man could ignore a woman like Abby. Besides, if the beef didn’t come, the Indians would get angry and possibly cause trouble, and then it would become his job. Also, several people were trying to take advantage of her father’s death to cheat a little. Or a lot. That angered him. He didn’t think Abby and her sister ought to stay, but that was no reason to cheat them.

Besides, despite everything, he liked Abby. He had decided he would keep his distance, that she had too many sharp edges to appeal to him, but his brain was in a corner by itself. The rest of him liked everything about her. She had courage. She was in a tough place, but she wasn’t running scared. Though she would accept help, she didn’t expect it. Bryce didn’t mind admitting to himself he enjoyed having her around. She brightened up his dull evenings. He couldn’t imagine being married to such a spunky woman—he looked for comfort and support in a wife, not entertainment—but she did make for interesting company.

And Pamela couldn’t stop talking about her.

He had still another reason for helping her. He didn’t like the circumstances surrounding Abner Pierce’s death. Everyone was satisfied it was an accident, but something about the way he’d died—combined with the fact that he’d just won the beef contract—had made Bryce uneasy. He had no facts to support his suspicions, but if he was correct, Abby and her sister could be in danger.

“I will ask around tomorrow,” Bryce said. “Someone is bound to know who’s delivering the beef, but keep looking for the contract. Your father may have had an oral agreement with the rancher, but I doubt it. He wasn’t a trusting soul.”

“Unlike his daughters, you mean.”

“You’ve been brought up among people who’ve lived in the same community most of their lives. You know their histories and their reputations.”

“Not everybody you’ve known for years can be trusted,” Abby said. “A man I’d known for some time was arrested and convicted of embezzlement. It came as quite a shock to his family and friends.”

“We have a lot of men in the West who’ve run away to avoid facing up to the consequences of what they’ve done. It’s best to put everything in writing.”

“I plan to do that,” Abby said.

Bryce could see fear in the back of her eyes but not panic.

“What if Hinson has already paid for the beef and I haven’t paid the rancher? Will I lose the contract if he takes his beef back?”

“That could be a blessing in disguise. Then you could concentrate on the store. Your father should have done well with the store, but he never seemed to have more than enough money to keep his head above water.”

“That’s because he was sending a monthly allowance to support us,” Abby said. “He’d been doing so ever since our mother died.”

That explained why Abner never seemed to stop working, never drank or gambled—two of the most common activities of western men—never patronized saloons or the women there.

“We told him he didn’t need to send as much after I started to work,” Abby said, “but he always sent the same amount That’s the money we used to come to Fort Lookout We don’t have much left.”