The Lover (5 page)

“I don't have time or paper for a bill of sale,” he said, “so you need to know this. If you call these horses stolen and set the law on me, I'll come back here and kill you.”

Adams didn't flinch. “I wouldn't bother,” he said.

He held out his hand, took the money Eagle Jack gave him, signaled his men, and rode away without a backward glance.

Eagle Jack put his pouch back in his pocket.

“So it begins,” Susanna said, in a voice he'd never heard before.

Startled, he looked at her.

Immediately he realized that, although he'd
thought he'd seen her angry before, he never had. Her eyes blazed.

“You're determined to take over and run this drive, aren't you?” she said. “Now it's out in the open. You never meant to talk things over, did you?”

It made him mad all the way to the bone. “Don't bother to thank me, Susanna,” he said. “All I did was pay way too much for a bunch of broomtails so we could get your cattle branded.”

“All you did was overturn a decision I had already made—without so much as a glance at me for my opinion—so that you can get on the trail of your stolen horse. Forget thanks from me.”

She sat frozen in her saddle, glaring at him with eyes big as saucers, looking shocked as if he'd slapped her face.

He didn't know a woman could be this unreasonable. He didn't know he could get as furious as he was this minute.

“All I did was rescue you from the clutches of a nasty old man.”

“All you did was make me a dangerous enemy,” she retorted. “He'll still be here when I come back to Brushy Creek without you.”

A small shard of concern stabbed through his fury.

He rode his horse closer.

“You should've had more sense than to have any dealings with him at all. He's a snake.”

“I can handle him,” she said.

“Then why're you worried about coming back here without me?”

“I'm not.”

Her voice was full of bravado and it didn't tremble but her lips did. They were full and luscious and inviting and he ought to kiss them.

To shut her up. Only that.

“This is going nowhere with you starting to contradict yourself,” he said. “What you need to be doing, Susanna, is building a fire and digging an oven in the ground. That bunch out there working your cattle will be hungry in just a little while.”

He turned his back on her and galloped away, sending his horse toward the herd.

To get started counting the cattle. Only that.

There'd never been any danger that he might kiss her.

Because now things were different. In Salado, he'd thought a short dalliance might be entertaining but he would never consider it now. It would only confuse an already tangled situation.

He still couldn't believe that the words “my wife” had actually come out of his mouth and he couldn't believe that he'd actually meddled in her affairs to the tune of two hundred and fifty dollars, just to try to protect her when she came home in the fall. All that got him more tied up in think
ing about her, and meeting Mr. Adams made it harder to try to talk her into staying home.

Damn it all! He'd gotten in far too deep here in the last few minutes to ever let himself kiss her. And that was good.

Because kissing her once would never be enough.

 

Susanna was in such a state by the time she got into the house that, at first sight of her, Maynell threw up her hands and dropped her potato-peeling knife clattering onto the table.

“What happened?” the woman asked. “Oh! Did one of them boys out there get gored?”

That thought helped jolt Susanna back to herself. “No,” she said, forcing the words out past the knot of fury in her throat, “and thanks for reminding me that it could all be worse.”

Maynell could never control her curiosity for a minute. “Then what is it that's next-to-worse?”

“I hired my pretend-husband and trail boss, that's all. And now he's made me so mad I could cheerfully stuff him in a sack and throw him in the river.”

Maynell tilted her head in her birdlike way and looked at Susanna closely. “Well, I—” she began.

“If you say ‘I told you so', Maynell, I'll swear I'll—”

Maynell put on her very best hurt look. “I'd
never say such a thing as that.” She pushed back her chair to get up.

“Oh, yes, you would,” Susanna said. “Don't lie to me, May. I've had enough. My new ‘husband' has been lying to me all day.”

Maynell shook her head wisely and padded off to the work table. “Not a good sign,” she said. “A lyin' man is trouble.”

Susanna jerked a chair out from under the table and dropped into it. “As soon as I can breathe again, I think I'll go out there and run him off,” she said. “I know as well as I'm sitting here that he's going to try to ride off with my herd and leave me home. He doesn't think a woman should go up the trail.”

Maynell poured a dipperful of water from the wooden bucket into a bowl, wet a cloth, and came back to the table with it. “Here, wash your face and calm down,” she said. “You're pale as a sheet except your cheeks are flaming like you've got the scarlet fever.”

Maynell sat and took up her work again. Susanna obeyed, thankfully holding the cool cloth against her hot cheeks.

“Thanks, May. This does feel good.”

But Maynell was done with sympathy. “If you couldn't find no good man you could trust, if you settled fer just breath and britches, then what kind of crew do you think he'll get for you?”

Susanna gritted her teeth. That was the hardest
thing about Maynell and Jimbo living as a hired couple in the other end of the dog-trot cabin—Maynell's scoldings and preachings. But who else would work for her for no money, for only a place to live and food to eat?

“Maynell—”

“They're liable to gang up and steal your cattle and leave you lost and alone out there on the prairie somewhere…if they don't kill you first.”

To her surprise, Susanna rushed to Eagle Jack's defense.

“He's not
that
kind of liar, Maynell.”

Maynell gave the potato in her hand a vicious swipe with the knife. “I wasn't aware there was more than one kind,” she said.

“Well, he's more the kind that…I guess you'd say he changes his mind about what he said before.”

“Like what?”

“Like agreeing to my deal, then an hour later trying to back out on taking me up the trail with my cattle.”

Maynell's tight mouth turned up at the corners. “Well, he might be forgiven for that,” she said wryly, “depending on what all you did and said in that hour.”

“Thanks a lot, May.”

But Susanna smiled, too, in spite of herself.

Maynell was irritating beyond belief, but she did have a way of putting things into perspective.
Eagle Jack probably had expected to go to the bank, get his money, pay her back for his bail, and talk her into letting him out of the agreement they'd made.

Well, she had fooled him, hadn't she?

“I picked the crew,” Susanna said, “at least part of it. We hired three men.”

“I seen 'em ride in,” May said. “Tucker put 'em right to work. And Jimbo, too—he's buildin' a fire for the brandin'.”

“Well, that's good,” Susanna said. “We're wanting to head out day after tomorrow at the latest.”

Maynell got up again and brought Susanna a cup of cool water. “Now,” she said, “tell me about that big Indian.”

Susanna stopped in mid-swallow and stared at her.

“I'm old but I ain't blind yet,” May said. “I seen that long black hair and that handsome profile from the porch.” She smiled and looked off out the open door as if she could still see him. “Rides like a Comanche, too,” she said, musing to herself. “Always did like a handsome man who could ride.”

It was true. Eagle Jack was a handsome man. Horseback or not, any woman would turn her head to look at him twice. Or three times.

“He's a Cherokee,” Susanna said. “His name is Eagle Jack Sixkiller.”

“Pretty name,” Maynell murmured. “Always did like a handsome man with a handsome name.” Then she fixed her steely gaze on Susanna and picked up her knife to get to work again. “Where'd you find him?”

Susanna told her the story from the minute she'd walked into the Salado Jail to the moment Eagle Jack had ridden away and left her down at the corral. In detail. Maynell, who hardly ever went anywhere, demanded detail in her stories because stories were few and far between. Brushy Creek had few visitors.

But in this story Maynell especially wanted detail because she—judging him completely on looks, of course—was so taken with Eagle Jack.

But the main reason Susanna didn't mind telling every detail was that it gave her a chance to try to figure him out.

“You see, May, in the jail I instinctively thought that I could trust him, that he was an honorable man. But it wasn't an hour later that he was saying he
wouldn't
take me up the trail and he's been back and forth on everything ever since.”

Maynell gave her that narrow-eyed, suspicious look of hers.

“What d'you mean by ‘everything'?”

“Then he said he
will
take me up the trail and that we'll talk over all the decisions except when it's life or death—at which point, he'll gag and tie me and throw me in the wagon—”

Maynell chuckled heartily. Susanna refused to dignify that with an acknowledgment.

“—yet
he
decides we need extra help with the branding so we can get on the trail fast, and then he scares me half to death to make me agree to it. He's paying for it, now I'm in his debt.”

“Hmm,” Maynell said. “Sounds like a sensible man.”

Susanna set her glass down, hard, and frowned at her.

“Whose side are you on here, anyhow, Maynell?”

“Does he have brown eyes?” Maynell asked.

“What difference does that make?”

“I always did like a brown-eyed handsome man.”

“You're acting like a silly schoolgirl, Maynell.” Then Susanna smiled. “He has a grin that could melt an iceberg,” she confessed.

“Well, thank the Lord,” Maynell said. “Up till now, I was thinking you'd plumb lost all your senses.”

“He's a charmer,” Susanna said. “He's used to getting his way with women. And so he doesn't know what to do with me.”

Maynell gave a low chuckle.

“Oh, I'd bet he does, honey. All you have to do is give him a chance.”

Susanna was horrified.

“Maynell!
You've
lost
your
senses.”

“Well, I know I told you hiring a stranger to pre
tend to be your husband was foolishness, but now I'm thinking you've made a right fine choice.”

“Good Lord, Maynell! You're only saying that because he's brown-eyed and handsome.”

“Always did like a brown-eyed handsome man who'd speak right up and tell you how it's gonna be,” Maynell said. She fixed Susanna with that look again. “He's one in a million, girl. You oughtta nab onto him.”

Sometimes Susanna wondered why she'd ever let Maynell and Jimbo live in the other end of her cabin. This was one of those times.

“Listen to me, Maynell. My ‘right fine choice,' Mr. Brown-Eyed Handsome One-in-a-Million, has just gotten me in a whole lot of trouble. He insulted Mr. Adams and insisted on buying that whole remuda and now I'm in even more debt to him. Big debt.”

Maynell listened, wide-eyed.

“Mr. Adams has an interest in the bank. He can probably make them foreclose on this place if I don't come back from Abilene with enough money.”

“Why did he insult old Adams?”

“Adams was implying that he'd rather take his pay in another way than money.”

“Always did like a handsome man that'd step up and take a handle on any situation,” Maynell said.

“Maynell! Listen. Worse than putting me two hundred and fifty dollars in his debt is that he did
not consult me. He took over, don't you understand that? He overturned a decision that I had already made.”

Maynell just looked at her and kept on peeling potatoes.

“I can't let him take over my herd and my life,” Susanna said, the urgency rising in her again. “What if he takes over and doesn't consult me on any decision and I'm just the cook all the way up the trail and when we get to Abilene he takes over the sale of the cattle and everything?”

“You jist said he ain't the kind of liar to steal your cattle.”

“Well, he's not. Actually, he isn't really a liar…in a way. He just keeps changing his mind about—”

“About what to do with you,” Maynell said. “Well, you can't blame him for that. It's a big question, missy, because you are a handful, if I do say so myself.”

“Thank you so much.”

Susanna's tone was sarcastic but she really didn't take offense. Maynell, whom she'd never met until two years ago, was the closest thing to a mother that she'd ever had. Maynell loved her. She knew that.

Maynell was the only person who had ever truly loved her because Susanna's mother had died birthing her.

“You're looking at the debt he put you in,”
Maynell said. “And him making the decisions and all that. But that ain't why he insulted old Adams and it ain't the important thing, neither.”

Susanna stared at her.

“He done it protecting your womanhood, Suzy,” Maynell said. “He could've got hisself shot. You best be grateful for a man like that.”

S
omebody came galloping up to the porch before Susanna could think of an answer to Maynell's proclamation. Thank goodness.

Much more of this drivel from Maynell and she'd be giving her whole world over to Eagle Jack and thinking about what he really meant by what he said and did and obeying his every command like a puppy dog. It was already turning her mind to mush and filling her with a bunch of confusing feelings.

She got up and went to the open door. It was Jimbo, bareback on Buster, the one mule that she had not yet been forced to sell. Jimbo rode in a circle in the yard, as if he didn't have time to stop and talk. She stepped out onto the porch.

“Susanna!” he called. “Boss wants you to come
down to the herd. Big pow-wow about what the trail brand's gonna be.”

He rode away, hunched over the neck of the big mule like a jockey, looking about as big as a fly. The normally solemn Jimbo was surely in his sixties, but now he was as excited as a boy.

Susanna watched him race back to the herd. Well, well. Another staunch supporter for Eagle Jack?

Surely
Jimbo
wasn't taken with him because he was a brown-eyed handsome man.

When she came back from Abilene, she must see to it that Jimbo and Maynell got out more. They needed to go to town, see other people. She'd send them for supplies instead of going herself.

“Maynell,” she called, as she strode back into the house, “I've been summoned by the boss.”

“I heard,” Maynell said. “That's good. See there, he ain't makin' all the decisions. He's askin' your opinion on the brand.”

“Which is the least he could do, considering they are my cattle,” Susanna pointed out.

She went into her bedroom to get a fresh bandana, glancing at herself in the mirror as she passed the dresser.

It wouldn't hurt to have a fresh shirt, too. She was covered with dust from the road and the corral, plus she needed to feel her most confident in this confrontation, which it certainly would be.
When had she and Eagle Jack ever had a conversation that wasn't a confrontation?

The way she looked would affect how much her authority would be accepted by the men. She went to the armoire and rifled through her meager pieces of clothing.

“Not the tan,” she muttered to herself. “Surely my other blue shirt isn't dirty.”

She found it. It was made of a slightly heavier cloth than the one she had on but if she got too hot, she could change back later. She would change, anyhow, when she came back to the house to help Maynell cook supper for the men.

Thank goodness, she had washed the dust off her face.

She unbuckled her belt, started pulling out the tail of her dirty shirt and unbuttoning it. At least the other one fit her—it was a real woman's blouse and not one of Everett's old shirts like this one was.

Once changed, she took her time tucking in the blouse and buckling her belt a notch tighter than before. She did think her waist was getting smaller. Maybe she was losing weight, as Maynell had been saying. She stepped closer to the mirror.

Only to get the bandana out of the dresser drawer.

But she did look into the mirror, too. Yes. This shirt was exactly the same blue as her eyes.

She smoothed back her hair, then took it loose
from the scrap of braided ribbon that bound it at the nape of her neck. Funny. She and Eagle Jack wore their hair the very same way but he had his tied with a leather thong.

His hair was so black it had blue lights in it. It was beautifully thick.

But she wasn't interested in his hair or his brown eyes or his handsome profile. She'd better remember her goal.

She combed out her hair, then gathered it up in one hand and picked up the ribbon with the other. The real boss of this outfit was Susanna Copeland, and the men needed to know it. Neatness would help her establish that.

Turning away from the mirror, she went back into the main room to get her hat.

“Well, sakes alive,” Maynell said, from the stove where she was putting the potatoes on to boil, “you're looking mighty clean and fresh. They's some vanilla over there in the pie safe, in case you want to dab some on behind your ears.”

That just flew all over Susanna. “I'm only trying to wear an air of authority,” she said. “The men won't be getting close enough to smell me, May.”

“Most of 'em won't,” Maynell responded, her little eyes twinkling.

Susanna slapped her hat onto her head and stalked out the door without another word.
Maynell loved to get her goat. Well, she wasn't going to succeed.

Fred was still ground-tied where she'd left him, and as she gathered the reins and swung up into the saddle, she tried to concentrate on the details of the drive. Tonight and tomorrow wouldn't be much time to finish stocking the wagon and thinking about what all she'd need, in the way of equipment and staples. She just had to be careful that she left enough for Maynell and Jimbo to survive on.

At least that was one area where Eagle Jack wouldn't be meddling—the chuck wagon.

Jimbo, Eagle Jack, Tucker, and Marvin were sitting their horses, talking, while the other men rode around the herd. They all touched their hat brims when she arrived, and Eagle Jack and Marvin opened the circle to let her in between them.

“We're talking about a trail brand, Susanna,” Eagle Jack said. “We need something easy to do with a running iron.”

“Of course,” she said. “I'm going to use an 'S.' For Susanna.”

To her complete shock, Eagle Jack nodded agreeably.

“That'll work,” he said.

She was so taken aback that she stared at him for a minute.

Wasn't he going to find some objection, some
way to argue with her and undermine her authority?

Well, whatever he did, this was a battle for the respect of the men. A struggle to decide, before the drive ever started, whether she'd be only the cook or the owner first and the cook second and the way to do that was to prove she wasn't a greenhorn.

“The 'S' is easy and fast,” she said, “only one stroke. And it has no corners to burn too deep.”

Eagle Jack nodded again. “Good thinking,” he said.

Yes, he was agreeing with her, but she did consider his tone a bit condescending. And the remark, too, come to think of it.

“I've been ranching on my own ever since my hus—my first husband…died,” she said. “I learned about branding then.”

“Main thing we couldn't do was catch 'em,” Jimbo volunteered.

Susanna turned and stared at him, hoping the look would shut him up.

But he shook his head ruefully and rambled on.

“Danged if'n' we didn't come right near gittin' ourselves killed,” he said. “Ain't no good at brushpoppin', me and Miz Suzy here.”

Great. Jimbo hadn't said that many words all strung together since he'd been at Brushy Creek. Now, at this moment, he had to get a flapping jaw and make her look like a tenderfoot when she'd
just made a little bit of progress toward being the boss. You'd think Eagle Jack was paying him.

“Now, Jimbo,” she said. “You have to admit we did catch quite a few,” she said.

She looked at Marvin and Tucker, mostly Marvin because he'd be on the trail.

“You'll find some cattle that are already branded,” she said. “That'll show you the way I want the brand to look—slanted to the left.”

The men, including Eagle Jack, were looking at her solemnly. They nodded. Were they humoring her?

“We'll get it done,” Eagle Jack said. He lifted his reins as if to turn his horse back toward the herd, then he stopped in midmotion. “Susanna, dear,” he said, giving her that charming grin of his, “you'll make us some pie for supper, won't you? I was telling the men that we'll have pie on the trail.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Tucker said. “If'n' I wasn't so scared of water and crossin' rivers, I'd sign on right now to go with you all. Won't be no other camp with pie, 'least not too often.”

Well. What
was
it about being around Eagle Jack? Tucker normally didn't talk any more than Jimbo did, and here he was, making a speech.

Susanna fought her flaring temper and stared at Eagle Jack.

“Maynell has already started supper,” she said.
“I'll have to see what she's got planned.”

“I'm thinking you're the boss,” Eagle Jack said. He said it flatly, as if that settled the matter.

So now if there was no pie for supper, all the men would know it was her fault. She wanted to strangle him for that, not to mention for the fact of the hollow words themselves. He didn't intend for her to be the boss of anything.

“And, since we haven't been married long enough for me to try your pie,” he said clearly, “I'm looking forward to it as much as Tucker is.”

“So'm I, ma'am,” blurted the apparently shy and reticent Marvin. He blushed at his own boldness and tugged at his hat. “Thank ye very much, ma'am,” he said, even more softly.

Susanna bit her tongue and grabbed her saddle horn to keep from attacking Eagle Jack, both verbally and physically. She longed to reach out and slap him with the ends of her reins, right across his thigh, that hard thigh bulging with saddle muscles beneath his tight, faded jeans.

“I have to pack the chuck wagon,” she said. “If we're leaving day after tomorrow, I need to make sure it has everything.”

“Right you are,” Eagle Jack agreed, turning his horse to get back to the work. “Build you a fire and cook outside tonight for a dry run. Only way to ever know what all you really need.”

They started turning their horses to get to the work, but Eagle Jack had a final shot to make.

“You know, darling,” he said, “we ought to sleep outside tonight. Let's put up your tent and try it out, too.”

He spoke just low enough for that to appear to be the private communication it should have been, but loud enough for all three of the men to hear. In fact, the one of Marvin's friends who was riding past on that side of the herd looked over at them. He had heard, too.

Susanna had to answer. They were all looking at her from the corners of their eyes. Listening, too.

“I'll see what I can do,” she said in her sweetest voice.

Then she choked, so she turned her horse and headed for the house. She was going to horsewhip him. She had no choice.

 

Maynell helped her set up boards across the two barrels to make a table out in the yard and she helped her carry the supper to it just before sundown, but Maynell was not happy about the extra work. However, the main thing Maynell was not happy about was that Eagle Jack had asked for pie and he wasn't getting any.

Susanna set her jaw. “May, I cannot jump every time he says ‘frog,'” she said. “If I did, I couldn't live with myself.”

Maynell scowled as only she could do. “You'd best be thinking about living with
him
. After all, he is your husband.”

“He is
not
. You're losing your mind. Pretending that it's true doesn't make it so.”

“For the next three months he might as
well
be your husband.”

“What do you mean by that?” Susanna asked.

But Maynell wouldn't say anything more.

Susanna rolled her eyes as she rang the dinner triangle. “You don't get out enough,” she said. “You've got to start going into town once in a while.”

“Hmpf,” said Maynell.

Susanna shifted the basket of hot bear sign to the other end of the table and gathered the tin cups for the coffee. Sweets were scarce, and the yeasty doughnutlike fried treats called bear sign were scarcer still in the cow camps. The men would appreciate the dessert and Eagle Jack
wouldn't
get his way.

She should never have told May what Eagle Jack said about the two of them sleeping outside tonight in her tent.

But if she argued with her too much, May would go to her end of the cabin in a huff and quit helping entirely.

No, she wouldn't. She wanted to see Eagle Jack up close.

“Maynell, you need to be helping me think what I can do with him tonight.”

“Already did,” Maynell said, with a dreamy smile.

“You know what I mean,” Susanna said sternly.

“Yes, ma'am, I surely do.”

Susanna laughed reluctantly. “All right, get your mind on the supper,” she said. “Here they come.”

Actually, she did feel remarkably light-hearted at the moment, despite May's grumbling. She had refused to let Eagle Jack dictate to her, yet, by bringing the food outside and serving some kind of dessert, even if it wasn't pie, she was putting on a show of cooperation with his orders that would satisfy the men of the reality—and happiness—of their marriage. At least, it should.

Two men stayed with the herd and the rest washed up quickly at the pan she'd set up beneath the big sycamore tree. Studiously, she ignored Eagle Jack and busied herself with the food.

But, after he'd dried his hands and started walking toward the table, he called to her.

“What kind of pie do we have, Susanna, dear?”

She glanced up. “No pie,” she told him. “I've been packing the wagon.”

Marvin and Tucker were right behind him, and at this news, their faces fell.

“We have bear sign instead,” she said to them.

Not to Eagle Jack. She wasn't going to report to him.

He walked up to the table and picked up a plate from the stack. Maynell dipped him some baked beans.

“Miss Susanna's saving the dried fruit for the trail,” she said, smiling up at him as she served his plate. “I tried my best, but I couldn't talk her out of any of it to make pie.”

Susanna wanted to shake her.

“Maynell, this is Eagle Jack Sixkiller,” Susanna said. “Eagle Jack, Maynell Hawkins. Jimbo's wife.”

“Maynell,” he said, with a gallant nod to acknowledge the introduction. “I thank you for trying. I'm already learning that sometimes it's mighty hard to get past Miss Susanna.”