The Yellow Rose (21 page)

“I could eat an armadillo!”

“Well, let’s get you some new clothes first. I doubt if they’d serve you in the restaurant with those rags.”

Clay took Quaid Shafter by Potter’s General Store and bought him some new clothes and then took him to the restaurant, where Quaid ate like a starved wolf. Finally, when he finished the last of the breakfast, which included a half-dozen eggs, at least that many biscuits, and a chunk of ham as big as his head, he said, “That was mighty good, Clay. I do appreciate it.”

“I’m not a charitable institution, Quaid,” Clay said. He was drinking coffee and studying the young man. “You’ll work it out at my place.”

“Sure, Clay, be glad to.”

“Tell me about what you’ve been doin’. Haven’t seen you in a long time. I know you lost your dad. Sorry to hear that.”

For an instant the young man’s face grew sad. He looked down at the table and nodded. “That was hard when Pa died,” he said.

“Good man,” Clay remarked.

“Yeah, the best I ever knowed. Well, I’ve been movin’ around, Clay.

I went to Santa Fe and drove a freight wagon for a while. Then I got tired of workin’ for the other fella, so I bought me some tradin’ goods and started tradin’ with the Indians. Did pretty good, too.”

Clay was interested at once. “Did you do any tradin’ with the Comanches?”

“Shore did,” Quaid nodded. “They’re a tetchy bunch. They like to stake you out on an ant hill or cook you over a fire if the notion strikes them. But most traders steer clear of ’em, so I done pretty good. Almost married me a pretty little squaw, but the chief wanted too much for her.”

“You speak any of their talk?”

“Sure, pretty fair.”

“Ever meet up with Bear Killer?”

Instantly, Quaid’s face grew sober. “Once or twice, and I ain’t hankerin’ to run into him again. He’s the worst of ’em.”

“Well, come on if you’re through. I’ll settle up with the Golden Lady that you busted up. You can work it out.”

“Nursin’ cow critters?”

“Yes, mostly.”

“Well, it beats a few other things I’ve done.”

Clay had put in a hard day, and when he had finally gotten to bed, he had gone to sleep at once. He had been awakened abruptly when Jerusalem had come to bed and had pulled him around so that he had to face her. “Clay, don’t go to sleep,” she said. She took his hair and shook his head gently. “Talk to me.”

Clay groaned. “Woman, I can’t talk. I gotta sleep. Runnin’ this ranch tires a man out.”

“No, you’ve got to tell me what you did. It’s too early to go to sleep.”

Clay had discovered that Jerusalem loved to talk in bed. She was not interested in the big picture. She wanted to know the finite details of everything he did during the day, and if he went to sleep before he finished telling her, she would dig her elbow into him and wake him up and make him talk more.

“All right.” He groaned, and for a time he lay there flat on his back. He told her mostly about Quaid Shafter, about his times with the young man’s father in the mountains and what a good man he was. But he said, “I don’t know much about Quaid. He was real young when I knew him.

No more than sixteen or seventeen. But he was undependable, I remember, and was a grief to his pa. If he hasn’t changed, I’ll be lucky if he hangs around long enough to pay Frisco off.”

Clay’s voice grew fuzzy, and he drifted off. He was awakened by a sharp elbow nudging his side.

“Don’t
do
that, woman! I’m so tired I could scrape it off with a stick!”

Jerusalem, however, leaned over him and looked down into his eyes.

“I’ve got some news for you,” she said, her eyes dancing.

Clay did not see them, for his own eyes were closed. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? “ “No.”

“What is it, then?”

“We’re going to have a baby.”

Clay did not move for a moment, then his eyes opened, and he stared into her face. “What? A baby! Why, that’s impossible!”

Jerusalem put her hands on the sides of his face and kissed him on the nose. “You’ve made it
very
possible, Clay.”

“Why, it just can’t be!”

Jerusalem stared at him, shocked at his response. She rolled over and turned her back to him. Clay instantly knew he had hurt her feelings.

“What’s the matter?”

“You don’t want this baby,” she said stiffly.

“Why, certain I want it! You just spring that on me of a sudden, and I’ve got to get used to it.” He began to stroke her back, and finally she softened and turned over.

“Would you want a girl or a boy?” she asked.

“Why, it would have to be one or the other, wouldn’t it?”

She laughed at him, and the two lay there talking. She was more excited than Clay had ever seen her, but soon she grew sleepy. She turned over and went to sleep almost at once. Clay lay there for a while, his mind racing at the news that he was going to be a father. As the excitement grew inside him, he couldn’t keep it inside, so he nudged her and said, “Wake up, Jerusalem.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I want to talk some more about this baby.”

“Not tonight, Clay, I’m so sleepy.”

“Too bad. Now you know how I feel. Now, listen,” he said, shaking her shoulder, “I’ve been thinkin’ about names. How about if it’s a boy we can give him a Bible name.”

“I think that would be good—like David or Jeremiah.”

“No, I was thinking more about the name that old prophet Isaiah gave his boy.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Why, he named him Mahershalalhasbaz.”

Jerusalem’s eyes flew open. She was horrified. “Why, that’s
awful
!”

“No, it ain’t. We could call him ‘Hash’ for short. And if we have a girl,” he said, “we’ll name her Jezebel. We can call her Jez or Jezzy.”

Jerusalem began to laugh. “You are absolutely crazy, Clay Taliferro.”

Clay put his arms around her and held her close, stroking her hair.

“You took me plumb off-guard, wife, but now that I’m used to the idea, I’m plumb proud of myself.”

“Proud of
yourself
! What about me? Don’t I have any part of having this baby?”

“Well,” Clay said thoughtfully, “you can be my helper . . .”

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

M
oriah sat in the wagon seat beside Quaid Shafter and could not remember a time when she had had such mixed emotions about a human being. She was a young woman who liked to keep things straight and orderly and in proper perspective in every way, but Quaid Shafter had disturbed this equilibrium. As she sat on the far side of the seat so that she would not brush against him, she cast a sideways glance at the young man.

One thing that troubled her was that he was one of the most attractive men she had ever seen. He wasn’t neatly handsome in the way of Len Pennington, but there was a ruggedness about him that drew the eyes of women. She studied Shafter as he sat loosely in the seat, whistling cheerfully. His eyes were apparently fixed on nothing more important than the horses. He was clean cut, deeply tanned, and his light blue eyes seemed to leap out from that darkness. They were deep-set, very light, and she felt uncomfortable when he looked at her. It was his hair that set him off from all other men, pure silver and soft, cut now so that it fell on the back of his collar.

Shafter slapped the back of the mules with the line and suddenly turned to face her. He had a very wide mouth, and now he stopped whistling and grinned at her. “My music bother you?”

“No.”

“I can’t sing much, so I had to learn how to whistle. I expect you sing pretty well.”

“Why would you think that?”

Quaid shrugged his shoulders and remarked, “You just look like a woman that can sing.”

“That’s foolish.”

“I expect it is. Most of the things I do and say are pretty foolish. It’s a gift I have.”

When Moriah had noticed that she was attracted to this young man, it had a reverse effect on her. She grew stiff and answered him only in monosyllables, which he seemed not to notice. This also irritated her, and now she said sharply, “If you’d work a little bit more, you wouldn’t have to think up things to occupy your time like whistling.”

“Why, I tried work when I was a young fellow, but it just didn’t turn out right. I think I’m like a mule we had back when I was a boy growing up. His name was Jesse. Well, Jesse would pull a light load, but if he came out and saw a heavy plow or a wagon heavy loaded, why, he’d turn right around and run back in the barn. I had to put a trace chain around his neck and have a bigger mule drag him out through the gate. He was one cantankerous individual, Jesse was.”

“Work never hurt anybody. You might do better if you thought on that more.”

“Why, I sure will, Miss Moriah. I’ll think on it right hard.”

Quaid’s voice was cheerful, but there was a slyness that lurked around the corners of his lips. She knew he was teasing her, and it irritated her.

She glanced down at the big new gun he wore everywhere he went. Many men carried guns in Texas, but there was something ostentatious about the weapon that Quaid Shafter carried around. The barrel and the cylinder were highly polished, and the handle was carved out of pure ivory. It seemed frivolous, and she asked, “Why do you carry a gun all the time?”

“Why, I reckon because I found out you can get more from folks with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”

It was the kind of answer that he made all the time. Moriah had discovered that he was witty enough, and a cheerful young man, though Clay said he was almost worthless at any work unless you posted another man to watch him. “Well, I might as well tell you I don’t appreciate the way you’ve treated our family. Clay got you out of jail and gave you a job, and you haven’t been any help at all.”

“You know, I expect you’re plumb right about that, Miss Moriah. I’m just a no-good bum, is what I am. I’ve been tryin’ to think when it happened to me.”

“When
what
happened to you?”

“When I became no good and lost all of the good qualities that a man ought to have. You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I’d like to think it all happened in an instant. That I was a good man full of nobility and high ideals, but somebody offered me a passel of money and I sold out and became a crook all in one minute.” Shafter shook his head and assumed a look of sadness. “But it wasn’t like that. I turned worthless a little at a time. It’s like little mice came in the night, startin’ a long time ago, and they carried off just a little bit of my honor and goodness. Why, I didn’t even notice it! But they kept comin’ back night after night, and I looked up one day and found out that they had carried every bit of my goodness off with them! Ain’t that a pitiful thing for a man to let happen?”

Moriah suddenly flared out at him. “I believe you’ve lost your honor, all right!”

“You ain’t the only one who thinks that, Miss Moriah. I’ve got a bad reputation. Why, even the Indians look down on me when I live with ’em.

Ain’t that a horrible thing to think about?”

The wagon rumbled over the ruts in the road, and the dust rose up behind it. Moriah sat there half fascinated by the rather exotic young man beside her, drawn and repelled at the same time.

Finally, he drew up at a small creek that crossed the road and said, “Better let the horses drink. They’re mighty thirsty.” He sat there loosely for a time, then straightened up and turned to face her. “So you’re gonna get married.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, congratulations. That’s a lucky fellow that caught a good-lookin’ woman like you.”

“Never mind my good looks,” she said curtly.

Quaid opened his eyes wide in mock surprise. “Why, a man can’t help noticin’ a pretty woman. Didn’t you know that?” He put his arm up on the back of the seat as he spoke, and Moriah listened, intrigued by his manners. He seemed to be able to take small incidents out of his past and was, despite his laziness and obvious worthless character, able to fascinate people just with his words. As he spoke of his early life, how he had gone with his father into the mountains, he said, “When I left the farm and went to the mountains, everything changed. You know how it is, don’t you?

Sometimes a man drops something. He bends over, picks it up, and when he gets up and looks around, the whole world has changed all at once. You ever notice that?”

Moriah had noticed that life could suddenly go in a different direction when you least expected it. The biggest change in her life had been when Len Pennington had fallen in love with her. It had happened suddenly, almost as quickly as Quaid Shafter said. She was so engrossed with his talk, she was shocked to feel the touch of his hand on her shoulder. He had moved closer to her, and though the touch of his hand was light, she was intensely aware of it. “Take your hand off of me, Quaid.”

But Quaid Shafter was laughing at her. He reached out easily, pulled her around, and his move was so fast that she had no time to think. She started to open her mouth to protest, but his rough kiss prevented her from saying anything. His grip tightened, and for one instant, Moriah was shocked at how his touch stirred her. Then anger filled her at his boldness, and she wrenched her head away and struck at his chest. “You take your hands off of me, you hear me!”

“Well, sure I will,” Quaid said. “I didn’t—”

“You’re nothing but a trashy bum, Quaid Shafter. Get those horses started, and don’t say another word to me.”

Shafter moved back to his seat and picked up the lines. He slapped the horses and startled them into a fast trot. After a few minutes he turned, and all the laughter had left his face. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Look, Miss Moriah, it was just a kiss. Don’t put a man down when he’s drawn to you. That’s just something that’s in you.”

Moriah turned to face him and spoke more sharply than she intended.

“I’ve told you what I think of you. Now, keep your dirty hands off of me.

If you don’t, I’ll tell Clay, and he’ll run you off the ranch.”

Moriah saw that her words struck harder than she had intended. The impulse came to soften them, but she had no chance. He turned away from her and slapped the back of the horses, urging them up into a gallop. The road, such as it was, was rutted and filled with potholes, and she had all she could do to hang on.