Blizzard: Colorado, 1886 (3 page)

“They're really going to just leave us here?”

Maggie turned to glare at Hadyn. “And what should they have done?” she demanded.

“We could have gone with them.”

Maggie shook her head. “Don't you ever think about anything besides yourself?”

A wolf howled suddenly, somewhere off toward the northeast. Hadyn jerked around to face the sound.

“It's a wolf, Hadyn. At least two or three miles away. We haven't seen one all winter. If you want to worry about something, worry about mountain lions. We've had one coming onto the ranch for chickens and winter calves.” Maggie felt the quaver in her voice. She was still shaking, but now it felt like anger.

“My parents will be furious when I tell them about this.”

“If you want to go back down to the valley, then go. I don't need your help. In fact, you'll be in my way.” Maggie stomped up the porch steps. She shut the door so hard that she heard a dish rattle in the kitchen.

Once inside, she stood in front of the hearth, automatically adding a log to the fire. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She looked blankly at the walnuts spread across the table, the half-full bowl, and the flecks of shell. Then, without meaning to, she pictured the blood on her father's shirt, the crimson lines running down his forearm to his fingertips.

Hadyn stood staring at the cabin door, his hands balled into fists. Maggie had no right to talk to him like this. And her parents were crazy to leave them here alone. He kicked at the icy dirt. The last thing he wanted to do was go back into the cabin.

He glanced toward the road. It would be easy enough to follow the fresh wagon tracks into Estes Park. Mr. Cleave would know someone who would drive him down to Lyons. And from there, he would just take the train back home. His parents would have to understand; after all, they'd never meant for him to be stranded in this wilderness.

Without allowing himself to think any further, Hadyn started walking toward the cabin. He could carry his bag, and he'd take some food. If he got thirsty, he could just melt some clean snow in his
mouth. It was midmorning. He would have plenty of time to get to Cleave's before dark.

Hadyn jerked open the door. Maggie was standing in front of the fireplace, her gloves off, her fingers spread across the warmth.

“I'm going home,” Hadyn said flatly. He walked into the little storeroom where he had slept the night before.

“What are you talking about?” Maggie asked from the other room.

“I'm talking about going home,” Hadyn said evenly. “To St. Louis.” He began gathering up his things.

“Hadyn. You can't go,” Maggie said from the doorway. Her voice sounded tight, as if she were about to cry.

Hadyn looked up. “I can do whatever I want to do.” He rolled up the last of his shirts and stuffed it in alongside the others. When he got home he would have the laundress wash and iron his clothes. Cook would have a meal ready within an hour of his arrival. He couldn't wait.

“You can't go home.” The desperation in Maggie's voice startled him—and made him angry.

“You can't stop me.” He wound a scarf around his
neck and jammed on his hat. Striding back in to the table, he scooped up the nuts they had shelled and put them in his pockets.

Maggie watched him, furious. “But my parents . . . and your parents—”

“Mine will be angry when I tell them about
this
,” Hadyn said, gesturing at the empty cabin. “Anything could happen to us here, and your parents didn't give it a second thought.”

“My father was
hurt,
Hadyn.”

Hadyn straightened up, then slung his bag over his shoulder. “Do you want to come with me down to Mr. Cleave's store?”

Maggie shook her head, her eyes narrowed. “I have to stay here. Papa needs me to—”

“ ‘Papa needs me,' ” Hadyn repeated in a comically whiny voice. He knew she would turn red, and she did. “You ought to come with me, Maggie.”

She stiffened. “I have to take care of the ranch. I'm staying.”

Hadyn nodded. “You stay, then, but get out of my way.”

Maggie stepped back and Hadyn crossed the parlor to the kitchen. He wrapped some corn bread and
a hunk of cooked venison in a piece of newspaper. When he returned to the parlor, Maggie was gone. He went out the front door, closing it behind himself.

Halfway down the road, Hadyn heard Maggie shout at him. He turned and looked back at her, then went on. He was sick of people making him do things he didn't want to do.

Maggie shouted at Hadyn until her throat hurt. She couldn't go chasing after him—she had to get the calf in. She stood, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, angry and scared. She could see Hadyn turning the corner, starting down the road.

Maggie bit at her lip. He'd probably come back in an hour or two when he got cold. She looked up at the sky. It was clouding up a little, the high wispy kind of clouds that sometimes meant a storm was coming. But even as slow as Hadyn walked, it would take only five or six hours to get to Cleave's store—and the weather would hold that long. Hadyn might even end up going down to the valley with her parents in the morning if anything delayed
them and they had to stop overnight at Cleave's.

She squinted upward. The clouds were thin, so high she could barely see them. The weather would probably hold fair for days. She peered back out across the glaring snow. She could just see Hadyn through a gap in the trees. His shoulders were squared, his chin up. He looked like a little boy pretending to be a soldier. She shook her head. It had been silly of Aunt Olivia and Uncle Thomas to send him here. He hated it.

“And I hate him,” Maggie said aloud. “He knows it isn't that dangerous to be here without my parents. He just wanted an excuse to leave.” She watched Hadyn until the road curved and she could no longer see him, then shook her head and went back into the cabin.

Maggie banked the fire. She put on her coat and the hat her mother had knitted for her the winter before. Pulling on her gloves, she went out the door. She would take Rusty. He was calm enough to carry the calf. Her father's mare was pretty jumpy sometimes—and it might take a while to find her.

Rusty came out of his stall calmly and Maggie laid her face against the warmth of his neck for a
moment. “We have to go get a calf and find Papa's mare, if we can.” Rusty rubbed his jaw against her shoulder. “Hadyn left,” Maggie said, feeling tears sting at her eyes. She straightened up.

Swiping at her eyes, Maggie got her saddle from the harness room. Rusty stood quietly as she bridled him, then tightened the cinch. She swung up and rode him out of the barn.

The north pasture enclosed the high ridge on the northern boundary of their land. To get to it, Maggie rode almost half an hour across the wide meadows that surrounded the cabin. As she went, she automatically scanned the horizon, following the fence line along the road when she could see it through the pines, checking for snow damage.

“If we're lucky, nothing will go wrong before Papa comes back,” Maggie said. Rusty snorted a spring gnat from his nose, and Maggie frowned as though he were arguing with her. “Don't say that. Papa is going to be fine. He just has to.” Maggie nudged Rusty into a shambling trot.

Rusty dropped back into a walk when they came to the long hill that led to the north pasture gate. By the time they were inside and headed across the
first meadow, she had him trotting again. She rode catercorner from the gate, heading toward the open ground on the far side. The wind scoured the snow there, exposing the grass. She hurried Rusty along.

The cow was easy to spot. She stood apart from the others, less than twenty feet from a patch of red-stained snow. The calf looked sturdy enough. As Maggie rode closer, she could see that it was nursing.

“Where is that fool mare?” Maggie wondered aloud. A second later, she spotted her father's horse. The mare was grazing near a crooked pine that grew in the lee of a big flat-topped rock. Maggie turned Rusty toward the mare. The nervous sorrel tossed her head as Maggie approached.

Talking softly, Maggie slid from Rusty's back and walked toward her. The mare bolted. She galloped across the clearing, reins dragging the ground, then dropped back to a trot as she went into a stand of pine trees. Pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders, Maggie swung up onto Rusty and followed. This time, the mare let her get within twenty feet, then shied away again.

Maggie strained to hold her temper, to keep her
voice calm and patient every time she dismounted and started toward her father's mare. Even so, it took more than an hour before the nervous animal stood still long enough for Maggie to reach out and take hold of her bridle.

Relieved, Maggie looped the mare's reins around her saddle horn and remounted. Rusty plodded back downhill toward the cow and her newborn calf. Maggie looked up at the wind-torn clouds. They were still thin. She shivered. It was cooling off. She wanted to be back at the ranch well before dark. Maybe Hadyn had come to his senses and would be waiting for her. She shook her head. He was going to be useless even if he was there.

Lifting the calf was hard, but after a few tries Maggie managed to get it across her saddle and swung up behind it. She held the frightened calf close, grateful for the warmth of its soft coat. It kept licking at her gloved hands and rolling its eyes upward to see her face.

“Tell your mama to cooperate and we'll be home quick,” Maggie said. The calf wriggled and she tightened her grip. Her father's mare followed, prancing a little, as Rusty ambled along. The cow was hard to
get going, but kept up a good pace once Maggie got her started.

Getting through the gate was difficult, but Maggie managed to keep the cow moving. The calf started to bawl halfway down the long slope. The cow stopped in her tracks, confused. Maggie took off her glove and let the calf suck on her thumb. It quieted, and the cow calmed down and moved forward again.

Back at the barn, Maggie put the cow and her baby in an empty stall, then unsaddled her father's mare. She gave Rusty a whole coffee can of oats. He had earned it.

“Tomorrow after chores, I think we'd better go down to Cleave's place to see if Mama and Papa got started off toward Lyons. And we'll see if Hadyn is still there,” she added, scratching Rusty's ears for a moment.

Once all the stock had water and hay, Maggie closed up the chicken coop for the night, pitched hay into the corral, and broke the ice on the pigs' water trough. Then she started for the cabin.

The fire had died down. Maggie stirred the powdery white ashes, finding a few buried coals. She used the hearth rake to gather them into a little pile,
then split some thin kindling to lay on top of them. Blowing on the embers, she had a fire going within minutes.

Maggie heated some stew from the night before and sat close to the fire to eat her supper. Then she listened to the wind rising outside the little cabin and thought about her parents. It was a long time before she was sleepy enough to stop worrying and go to bed.

When he left Maggie standing on the porch shouting after him, Hadyn was feeling wonderful. For a long time, he enjoyed striding along in the crisp, cool air. For the first half hour, the road slanted downhill and he kept up a good pace.

The road was so rutted that he began walking beside it to avoid the freezing mud. His boots were wet. He stopped to brush at them. The leather was going to stain, he just knew it.
That
wouldn't make his parents happy. The cobbler's shop where the boots had been made was one of the most expensive in St. Louis.

He slowed down as the road started upward. He was breathing hard. The air this high was thin, or at
least that was what people said. He ate the walnuts as he walked, wishing he were already on the train home.

A shrill sound made Hadyn jerk upright. He looked at the dark pines that edged this section of the road. Wolves? But it hadn't been a wolf, he was almost sure. He started walking again, feeling the pulse in his throat, glancing behind himself every few seconds.