Wyoming Wildfire (4 page)

“Maybe your cousin won’t want us to live with him.”

“Half the house is mine.”

“But what if you get married?”

“I shall never get married,” she declared emphatically. “That’s why I left Virginia. I did love Daddy, but I don’t think I could endure a husband who thought of nothing but books and bulls.”

“I don’t think this is a place for a woman to live by herself. What do you really know about ranching?”

“My cousin can teach me all I need to know; it can’t take too long. Then he can sell out to me?

“Maybe he won’t want to sell,” suggested her aunt carefully. “He probably feels that it’s his home, not ours.”

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” Sibyl said, summarily dismissing her unknown cousin. “Ill settle things with him in short order.”

Chapter 3

Sibyl heaved a sigh of relief as the cluster of ranch buildings came into view. They had been following the creek for more than an hour, and she was completely out of patience with oxen, wagons, heat, and dust. Inside the wagon, Augusta dozed fitfully, but Sibyl was too keyed up to sleep. Before her lay the end of her journey, a raw, uncharted, and untamed country whose newness and promise kindled a feeling of excitement deep within her. She had traveled two thousand miles because she was weary of the confinement of life in genteel but exhausted Virginia. Not for her the gentle acceptance of Augusta or the unshakable belief of her mother; she refused to bow to stifling convention or narrow criticism, but in the struggle to gain her independence she had grown a tough, protective shell.

No man appeared with the generous understanding or uncritical love that would have dissolved the encrustation, and years of censoring by well-intentioned matrons and whispered innuendo from friends jealous of her beauty hardened her shell until it became a plate of armor to repel friend and foe alike. Sibyl had seized upon her inheritance as the last chance to halt this calcification of the spirit, her only chance to escape becoming an old maid or a school teacher, whose only thoughts revolved around sums and recitations. Maybe in this wild country, where men carried guns and women voted, she could find a way to turn her life into something of pleasure rather than an ordeal of endurance.

Yet the nagging doubts grew when the forests of the Mississippi valley gave way to the endless stretches of flat prairie; the haggard faces that emerged from sod huts only fueled her uncertainty. The towering mountains were a welcome relief from the crushing monotony of the grasslands, but once they left Laramie all signs of civilization vanished, and she found herself on a plain even more desolate than the first. To a person reared in the comparative hustle and bustle of a small Eastern town, the vast loneliness of the land tore at her soul.

Her most frequent answer to friends who tried to talk her out of leaving home had been, “How different can a valley in Wyoming be from a valley in Virginia?” Now she knew the answer to her question, and she could not rid her mind of the suspicion that this was but the first of many disagreeable surprises.

“Wake up, Aunt, we’re almost there.”

“Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to doze off,” Augusta said, attempting to smooth her hair and straighten her hat. “But I do feel better now that it’s not so hot.”

“You might know we would find trees just when we didn’t need them,” Sibyl said, pointing to the scattered willows and cottonwoods that grew along the creek. “It’s nice to know they have something out here besides this everlasting grass. How odd! There’re so many trees around the house I can’t even see what it looks like.”

“I must say this is a pleasant surprise,” said Augusta, as the outlines of an enormous house began to take shape through the leaves. “I had begun to entertain the gravest fears as to the kind of house we should be expected to occupy.”

“It looks like grandfather’s house,” Sibyl exclaimed in surprise. A columned double porch, identical to one on the Lexington house, ran across the front, with shutters at the windows, but the brick of the Virginia home was replaced by unpainted weathered gray wood siding.

“I’ve never seen anything like it outside Cheyenne,” Ned said in wonder. “Whatever could your uncle have wanted with a big house like that?”

“It is rather nice.”

“Where you stayed last night was nice, miss. This is grand.”

“Where is everyone?” her aunt asked uneasily. “You did tell your cousin we would be arriving today, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I wrote him and sent him a telegram.”

“Ranch houses are deserted most of the time,” explained Ned. “The hands stay on the range, and if the owner isn’t staying in Cheyenne or Laramie, he’s probably out with them.”

“What do they do that takes so much time?”

“Looking after cows proper takes twenty-four hours every day.”

“Surely my cousin doesn’t expect me to just walk in and make myself at home. Not even cowboys can be that casual.”

“People out here don’t usually get visitors, at least not the kind that stays,” Ned said, pulling the wagon to a halt before the gate. “Most just sit for a spell and then move on.”

“Come on, Aunt,” Sibyl said, climbing down and looking about her. “If Cousin Burch can’t be bothered to meet us, we can let ourselves in. Take the wagon around back, Ned. Maybe you can find someone to help unload it.” The wagon moved off and the ladies paused outside the fence.

“You know, I believe this is the first grass I’ve seen,” remarked Augusta.

“How can you say that when we’ve seen nothing else for thousands of miles?”

“I mean
real
grass, like we have at home.” She stepped inside the gate. “I don’t feel quite so homesick any more.”

“It needs a coat of paint,” stated Sibyl critically, walking briskly toward the front steps. She had reached the first step when the front door opened and she became acutely aware of two sturdy legs encased in tan leather boots, planted squarely before her. As her eyes traveled up, the length and power of those limbs made her feel a little breathless. Over broad hips and past a powerful chest, Sibyl had to crane her neck to see the face of the tallest man she’d ever met. Cool gray eyes, set under a broad forehead and astride a long, tapering nose, watched her with the hint of a twinkle. Thick, curly sun-bleached hair peeped out from under the edges of a broad-rimmed hat; a square chin and firm mouth seemed to wait expectantly.

“You are the young man who helped us out of the river,” proclaimed Augusta, delighted to meet a familiar face. “How nice to see you again. Do you live here?” she asked, moving forward to greet him.

“You might say that,” answered the well-remembered, irony-laden voice.

“Then you can explain why my cousin isn’t here to meet my aunt,” said Sibyl, recovering quickly.

“I’m here,” he replied quizzically. He was still laughing at her and that made Sibyl mad.

“He should not have sent you in his stead,” she said brusquely, “but since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. The wagon is around back.”

“We can not go on meeting you without knowing your name,” Augusta said, smiling kindly. “I can’t think why we have not asked it before. What shall we call you?”

“Cousin Burch will do just fine,” he replied, his gray eyes positively glistening with merriment.

“What!” gasped Sibyl. The shock was so unpleasant she felt physically unwell.

“Are you really Ada Cameron’s nephew?” asked Augusta hopefully.

“I’m afraid so,” he answered, without taking his laughing eyes off Sibyl. “Aunt Ada didn’t have any other nephews, so there’s no chance they sent the wrong one.”

“There’s no need to be absurd,” said Sibyl. She gathered her paralyzed wits and climbed the steps with a purposeful stride. “I’m your Cousin Sibyl, the only one on the Cameron side,” she said, extending her hand.

“Looks like we’re stuck with each other, there being no other cousins to swap, I mean.” His eyes continued to dance merrily, but Sibyl had the unmistakable feeling that behind all this lazy humor was a mind of more than ordinary force. He certainly didn’t lack the effrontery to eye her like a prize heifer. “Your aunt come to protect you from the wild cowboys?”

“I don’t need protection. Aunt Augusta has always lived with me.”

Burch moved down the steps to where Augusta waited uneasily. “Welcome to the Elkhorn, ma’am. I hope you don’t mind if I call you Aunt Augusta, too. You’re barely old enough to be my sister, but if you’re to play the duenna to Cousin Sibyl, I can’t call you Augusta. I wouldn’t want to sound disrespectful.”

Augusta swallowed hard but nodded in agreement.

“She’s not my duenna, and if you wish to remain in my good graces, you’ll not call her that again.”

“I’ll remember that, in case I want to keep on your good side, that is.” Sibyl’s eyes blazed, but Burch only chuckled and turned back to Augusta. “Let me take you inside.”

Something close to panic came over Augusta when Burch took her tentatively extended hand in his firm grasp, but she was helpless to draw back and allowed herself to be led up the steps.

“I’m afraid you’ll find this isn’t the kind of house you’re used to. There’s been nobody to tend it except Uncle Wesley and me, and we never were too keen on cleaning.’’

“Men never are,” Augusta agreed, dazed.

“Sanchez tried, but I don’t think he knows any more than I do.”

“Sanchez?”

“You can’t blame him though. He’s away nearly nine months of the year and doesn’t have time when he’s in. And Balaam won’t turn his hand to anything unless he’s driven to it.”

“Of course,” acceded Augusta, giving up any attempt to understand the conversation and meekly accompanying him into the house.

Sibyl was left standing on the porch, so angry her knuckles were white. He was fawning over Augusta just to make her mad, and he would soon find out how very well he had succeeded.

“Cousin Sibyl, aren’t you coming in?”

Sibyl did not deign to reply, but the rapid staccato of her heels on the planks of the porch and hallway would have been recognized by her friends as a declaration of war. Augusta did recognize it and quaked inwardly.

The wide entrance hall extended two thirds of the way through the house, its walls lined with the mounted heads of bear, mountain sheep and goat, and antelope. At the back was a curving stairway to the second floor, and on either side were sets of sliding double doors. Sibyl opened first one and then the other. “They’re empty,” she announced, so surprised she hardly noticed the enormous elk head mounted above one fireplace. “Where’s the furniture?”

“There isn’t any,” Burch disclosed."Uncle Wesley built this house for Aunt Ada, but when she died he lost interest in it.”

“But where do you sit?” She frowned as he stared at her with a blank expression. “What part of the house can you use?”

“Mostly the ranch room, or the kitchen. And the bedrooms, of course.”

“I mean where do you entertain visitors?”

Laughter positively danced in his eyes, and Sibyl could have bitten her tongue.

“In the kitchen.”

“You can’t take ladies into the kitchen,” she declared flatly.

“We haven’t had any ladies here since Aunt Ada died.”

“Do you mean that we are the only women on this ranch?” inquired Augusta in a faint voice.

“You’re just about the only women within a hundred miles of here, unless you count Indian squaws.” He was watching Sibyl and nearly missed seeing Augusta stagger. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked, springing forward. “You shouldn’t be on your feet.”

Burch scooped Augusta up in his arms and strode through the door at the back of the hall into a long chamber that ran the length of the house. It, too, was filled with hunting trophies. At one end was a large kitchen; an enormous table, capable of seating more than twenty people, occupied the center of the room; and at the far end an odd collection of chairs sat grouped around an iron stove, which stood directly beneath an enormous buffalo head. Burch lowered Augusta into one of the chairs.

“I should have let you sit down earlier. You must be exhausted.”

“I am a little tired,” she said, almost recoiling from a cougar head just above her.

“The trip would have been much quicker on horseback.”

Augusta’s complexion lost the last traces of color.

“No one could expect my aunt to ride a horse two hundred miles in this heat.”

“I do it all the time.”

“We’re accustomed to a buggy.”

“I’ll begin correcting that tomorrow.”

Sibyl was about to tell him exactly what she thought of his plans, but he turned back to her aunt.

“Do you feel well enough to climb the stairs, ma’am, or shall I carry you? I wouldn’t know what to do if you fainted.” Augusta shook her head.

“Your rooms are at the top of the stairs on the right. I’m at the other end. All the other rooms are empty.”

Augusta didn’t tell him that the closest she had ever come to fainting was when he carried her from the river on horseback, his arms wrapped tightly about her, her bosom pressed against his chest.

A short, ugly, and obviously annoyed little man carrying a huge platter of meat noisily entered the room from the back of the house. “If you don’t eat this food now, it ain’t going to be fit for the dogs,” he barked with a thick Spanish accent. “The antelope is tough as mule hide already.”