Wyoming Wildfire (5 page)

“Set it on the table,” Burch directed. “We’ll be ready as soon as I see about the trunks.” Both men disappeared, leaving Sibyl in a room smelling strongly of tobacco and sweat, facing the prospect of dining off tough antelope steak.

“He has got to be the most infuriating man I’ve ever met,” she said, envious of her aunt’s treatment in spite of herself.

“He is a bit brusque, but so decisive,” said Augusta, who was more surprised than Sibyl to hear such words come out of her mouth. “I mean, he does take things into his own hands,” she stammered, wondering why her treacherous tongue should betray her so unexpectedly.

“He most certainly does, but Cousin Burch has a few uncomfortable surprises in store for him.”

“I am afraid we all do,” allowed Augusta ruefully. The back door banged open, and Sanchez entered with a large pot of baked beans. They watched in dismay as he set out fried potatoes, stewed tomatoes, canned corn, and a steaming pot of virulent black coffee. Sibyl felt her appetite fade. Dinner promised to be more of an ordeal than crossing the plains.

Sibyl looked around her bedroom without enthusiasm. The bare walls were unpainted and the windows without curtains. It wasn’t precisely ugly, but she could do nothing to relieve the depressing emptiness until her things arrived from Virginia. But there was plenty of space for a desk in the corner, and enough work downstairs to guarantee that she would spend no more time in her own room than it took to dress each morning. She sank to her bed, weary with an aching tiredness that was only barely dulled by the pangs of hunger. Her remembrance of the catastrophic dinner did nothing to build her optimism about the days ahead.

Sibyl couldn’t understand how Burch could eat such food, but he had actually asked for seconds! Her aunt pushed her food around the plate, looking less well by the minute, and the coffee nearly took Sibyl’s breath away. All the while her insensitive cousin sat stuffing his face, unable to understand why they had so little appetite.

“It must be traveling in this heat.” She was too proud to tell him that she was starving but refused to eat food guaranteed to make her last hours a mortal agony.

“Does Sanchez do all your cooking?” Augusta asked cautiously.

“He cooks for the boys mostly, but he fixed this meal especially for you.”

“You can send him back to the boys,” Sibyl told him forthrightly. “We’ll do our own cooking from now on.”

Burch looked up from his plate, obviously surprised by their reaction.

“We don’t want to deprive them of their cook,” Augusta interposed lamely, but the damage had already been done.

“This food is not fit to eat,” stated Sibyl, not mincing words. “How can you stand to put it in your mouth?”

“What’s wrong with it? Sanchez runs the best chuck wagon on the Laramie. Everyone tries to eat from our pot on roundup.”

“Do you mean you all eat like this?”

“No, most cooks are worse.” He really didn’t understand why this thoughtful gesture was being rejected so emphatically.

“I’m surprised you’re not sick. Where is your storeroom? Do you have a garden?”

“Ask Sanchez,” he replied uncooperatively.

“How do I get fresh supplies?”

“We send a wagon to Laramie.”

“I’ll make up a list tonight, and you can send a wagon out first thing in the morning.”

“It’s not time to send the wagon. Anyway, I don’t have one free or anyone to drive it.”

“Ned can go.”

“I’m not paying Ned to run about picking up small orders.”

“I’m paying Ned, and he’ll do what I say.”

“You’ll not get a cent from the ranch.”

“I didn’t ask you for money, but I own half of this place and that includes the wagon and the cash to pay wages. I won’t have my wishes pushed aside or ignored just because it’s not convenient or hasn’t been done before. My aunt and I have to live here as well as you, and that’s going to mean a lot of changes.”

“You’ll get no help from Sanchez.” Burch was angry now.

“All I want from him is the key to the storerooms. He can cook for you any time you like. Tell him I want to see him after dinner.”

“Tell him yourself when he comes to clean up,” Burch said, rising noisily from his chair. “And don’t hesitate to inform me of any other changes you’d like to make.” His jaw hardened and Augusta was tempted to tug Sibyl’s sleeve.

“I won’t,” her dauntless niece replied, “but I don’t intend to interfere until I’m more familiar with things. I will confine myself to lady’s work for the present.”

Burch fixed her with a glare that caused Augusta’s heart to beat double time. “You’ll confine yourself to lady’s work altogether,” he said harshly. “I won’t tolerate meddling, nor will I stand by and watch some conceited, ignorant little girl mess up what it took my uncle twenty years of back-breaking work to put together.”

He slammed out the back door. No one had ever walked out on Sibyl, and she was as surprised as her aunt when her eyes filled with tears.

“I’m afraid you may have gone a little too far, dear.”

“It’s my ranch just as much as it is his,” she answered, angrily dashing away the tears.

“He’s spent his life here. I should think it would be very difficult to accept the intrusion of strangers.”

“I won’t let him think I can be ignored.”

“I don’t imagine he means to do that.”

“Then he should have sent the wagon.”

“Maybe he has some other use for it.”

“Then it can wait.”

“Maybe it can’t.”

“Then I can’t either,” she said stormily. Augusta frowned slightly, but Sibyl was determined not to give in, even if it meant being at odds with her cousin from the start. She extracted a promise from Sanchez to show them around the cook house before he left the next day, and then spent the rest of the evening making up her list.

She went to bed exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. Her mind was racing with all the things that needed doing. How could the house look like anything but a barn with no furniture or curtains? And all those horrible animals’ heads! Burch might not see anything wrong with empty rooms, bare walls, and not a speck of paint anywhere, but she didn’t intend to live in squalor just because they were hundreds of miles from civilization. Something had to be done to make at least one room tolerable.

With the men away for weeks at a time, Ned would have to stay on, especially if this Balaam person was as useless as Burch said. And they would need someone to help with the housework. They couldn’t be expected to rise at dawn, scrub and clean all morning, cook all afternoon, and entertain guests at night. She remembered the prematurely aged women she had seen on the plains and decided right then there were limits to what she would do. Wyoming would just have to adjust to her in this instance.

Chapter 4

Sibyl cornered Sanchez early the next morning. She was dismayed to learn there were no chickens and no milk cow; a flourishing kitchen garden behind one of the barns raised her hopes, but Sanchez’s scornful expression informed her he wasn’t responsible for it. He fetched a decrepit old man, who came toward Sibyl with great slowness, regarding her with a distrustful eye. But as soon as she could make him understand she admired his garden and intended to buy a cow, his entire appearance underwent a dramatic change. Old Balaam straightened his back, stopped dragging his foot, and his eyes glowed as one coming to the end of a long tribulation. He vanished only to reappear moments later with a half-dozen brown eggs.

“Where did these come from?” she asked, thinking of soufflé for dinner.

“Mrs. Ada’s hens went wild after she died. There’s some in a canyon above here, and I rob their nests.”

“Can you catch some of them?”

“Sure, but you’ll have to go to Laramie for a cow. There’s none to be had around here, and it’s worth your life to try and milk one of those wild things.”

“I’ll see to the cow, you just catch the chickens. I need to stock the kitchen cupboards,” she said, turning back to Sanchez. There were some intensely muttered Spanish curses, but with Balaam acting as translator—Sanchez pretended not to understand Sibyl—she selected her supplies and set them aside to be taken up to the house later.

Ned had been dispatched at first light with a long list of such items as Sibyl considered essential for their survival. “Hurry back, or you’re likely to find us starved to death,” she had told him.

“There’s plenty of food for them that’s not too particular to eat it,” growled Sanchez to his horse, over the jangle of pots and pans, as he headed back to the range.

During the rest of the morning the ladies turned their efforts to the kitchen. They went through cabinets and closets, disturbing ancient webs and driving out the distant descendants of the critters who built them. “I couldn’t let Ned put anything away in all this dirt,” Sibyl said, sneezing at a cloud of dust.

Lunch was some hot bread and jam, with coffee from a freshly scoured pot, then it was back to work until every cupboard and closet was spotless and every can, bottle, and jar neatly arranged on its proper shelf.

“That’s enough for today,” Sibyl declared as she settled back with a cup of coffee.

“There is so much to be done,” groaned Augusta.

“Enough for months to come, so there’s no point killing ourselves today.”

Her aunt looked about the room, a little overawed by its masculinity. “I don’t suppose we should change this room?”

“Of course we will. You can’t like these benches and tattered chairs, and something must be done about these animal heads.”

“They aren’t very attractive,” her aunt agreed.

“I can’t imagine why Burch keeps so many.”

“He must be proud of them. I wonder if he shot them all himself?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sibyl said, looking around at the dozen or so trophies, “though I don’t know when he found time to look after the ranch if he did. I wouldn’t mind them half so much if they served some purpose. Hmmm, I wonder if they could be made so you could sit on them?”

Her aunt was betrayed into a giggle. “I would love to see Louisa seated on that big bear we saw in the hall.” Both ladies enjoyed a laugh at the expense of the middle Hauxhurst sister, but Sibyl soon became serious again.

“There must be some furniture somewhere. I can’t believe Uncle Wesley would build such a house and not buy something to put in it. If we could find some chairs for the parlor, at least we’d have somewhere to ourselves.”

“We could sit here,” Augusta pointed out.

“We need a room of our own,” Sibyl stated firmly. “Men never seen to know how to behave unless they’re told, and I think it’s a great mistake to try to adjust to the rumpus they get up to. Just look at my cousin. His aunt’s been dead only a few years, and already, he’s worse than a field hand.”

“But he’s so
big
… ”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“I am not perfectly sure, but I doubt anyone that large will take kindly to being told what to do.”

“Then he’d better improve his manners.”

“Are you sure they need improving?”

“Aunt, don’t you dare back down just because he’s got broad shoulders and powerful thighs.”

“Sibyl! You should not
see
such things.”

“How can I help it when he appears on the porch looking like two oaks growing through the floorboards. I was a trifle overcome at first, but I hope I recovered quickly. Do you think he noticed?”

“No, I don’t think he did,” she answered, sighing regretfully.

Sibyl, covered with flour up to her elbows, was making biscuits when Burch entered the house, wearing a heavy scowl. His thoughts seemed deeply involved elsewhere, but the small sounds from the kitchen drew his attention. His eyes found Sibyl and immediately the scowl disappeared; her hair was up and her dress pulled taut over her shoulders, outlining the daintiness of her waist and the tempting nape of her neck. Burch felt a nervous twinge arc through his body, and an immediate, aching tension began to build, pulsing through every nerve until he felt as though he had to reach out and touch the smooth white skin regardless of the consequences.

“I wondered if you were coming back,” Sibyl said, turning around to face him. “It would be helpful to know when you intended to return for dinner.” Her voice was crisp and impersonal, but there was implied criticism in her tone and Burch’s eyes lost some of their warmth.

“You were asleep when I left.”

“I’m afraid I overslept.”

“I’m sure you were very tired.”

“I was, but someone has to fix your breakfast.”

Burch’s eyes widened; her tone was almost friendly. “I can do without breakfast,” he said, surprised Sibyl would think fixing his breakfast was part of her duty.

“You can’t do a day’s work on the food that Spanish person prepares,” insisted Augusta, emerging from the pantry. “Just tell us when you want breakfast and we’ll have it ready.”

“I usually leave about five o’clock when I’m headed for the range, but not until six on other days.”

“Five in the
morning
!”
Augusta gasped, mistrusting her ears.