Coming Home to Wyoming (Peaceful Valley Series Book 1) (7 page)

When he allowed her to stand up, she turned her back and began straightening her dripping skirts as well as she could, an unusual bit of modesty that Griff knew wasn’t just for his sake. She was too proud to have Martha and Abner know what had happened. And while it was still too early to know for certain that she wouldn’t try to run away again, Griff had a strong feeling that she was ready, at last, to stay put. He couldn’t have explained why he felt that way, unless it had something to do with her sense of honor. Halfway through the whipping, he had asked that very question: “Will you at least promise to stay here long enough to finish school?” The only reply had been a nod and a small grunt, but to Griff, and hopefully to
her
, it sounded
something
like a promise.

* * *

When they returned to the house, cold and wet, Martha asked him to stay for one more night, an offer he was grateful to accept. And the following morning, when Eileen a ‘Roon seemed quietly resigned to her situation, he started down to the barn with a sense of having had a weight lifted form his shoulders. He still wasn’t totally convinced that he was completely out of the woods just yet, though, and a moment later, he realized that once again, Eileen a ‘Roon had followed him from the house, silent, but clearly still angry.

He saddled Jack quickly, hoping to say a quick goodbye and make a dignified departure before something else went wrong. She watched his preparations without saying anything, until he touched her shoulder and tried to say goodbye—and used entirely the wrong words.

“You take care of yourself, Eileen a’Roon. I’ll miss you, but maybe we’ll meet up again, someday, when you’ve all grown up.”

“You just better hope we don’t,” she snarled. “If you’re so hell-bent on goin’, just go, damn it. And don’t never come back neither. See if I care!”

So, Griff rode away, feeling a little better because she appeared to be more angry than sad about his leaving. He knew instinctively that he should just keep riding, and not look back, but when he did, she was sitting on a bale of hay, sobbing.

* * *

Six weeks after leaving Rainbow Water, Griff rode down into a wide green valley he’d never seen before, and knew in an instant that he’d finally found what he wanted. Two days later, he walked out of the county land office holding the deed to a hundred and fifty acres of softly rolling pastureland with a wide, meandering creek that ran right down the middle, and another twenty-five acres of straight, standing timber. There was a level three acres to build a house and a couple of barns, and just behind where the house would be, a tiny grove of gnarled trees heavy with small green crabapples. He didn’t have to think twice before deciding to call the place Crabapple Valley.

Four years later, the ranch in Crabapple Valley was up and running, and even turning a small profit. Griff had hired several cowhands the first year, one of whom took off with one of the ranch’s best mares two days after he showed up for work, and three of whom were still there, and Griff hoped they would stay on forever. His first year, he’d taken in a stray mongrel he called Amos, the ugliest dog he’d even seen, and the best cattle dog he’d ever had. It took another week to discover that Amos’s idea of entertainment after a twenty-hour work day was to spend the remaining four hours running the local coyotes ragged. Within one short week, they began scouting the place to be sure he wasn’t around before making a try at the hen house, or stalking a wandering calf.

Over the first three years after he left Eileen a ‘Roon in the care of the Goodspeeds, he’d sent money every month to help with her keep, and written fairly regularly to her as well. In her first letter to
him
, though, she had made no secret of the fact that she still hadn’t forgiven him for dumping her there, that she would
never
forgive him even if she lived to be two hundred years old, and that she now wanted to be called Elyn, because it was her pa’s pet name for her, and because she was getting damned sick and tired of telling people how to spell
Eeileen a’Roon
. In the next few letters, though, “Elyn” began to concede—one small step at a time—that Martha and Abner were treating her wonderfully, and were beginning to feel almost like her real parents.

Before long, she was writing to him about how much she enjoyed being in school, even though she was the oldest one there, and all the boys were puny little runts with pimples who didn’t even shave yet. The most agreeable surprise to Griff was how rapidly she was continuing to change, from a half-literate foul-mouthed tomboy, to a well-spoken young woman—though not quite all the way to becoming that female creature she had always claimed to detest—“
a
proper lady.”

Somewhere in the early summer of his
fourth
year as a cattleman, when the round-up was done and the cattle shipped, he decided to make a buying trip, to have a look at some young Hereford bulls he’d seen advertised. The year had been a good one, but he knew that if he wanted to be able to compete, and start making real money in the currently thriving cattle business, it was time to expand, and increase the size of his herd.

It was going to be a long, hard trip back to Kansas, most of it in a hot, mostly airless railway coach. The only good thing about it, aside from the chance at finding a good bull or two, was that he’d be passing a short distance from the ranch at Rainbow Water, from Martha and Abner—and from Elyn O’Malley.

* * *

Nothing had changed much at Rainbow Water. Martha’s rheumatism had gotten a little worse, and Abner’s sparse hair had finally gone entirely white. The two older boys were working in town, but Daniel, the youngest, was still living with them, determined to be a sheep rancher, like his father.

The only major change was that Elyn O’Malley was no longer there.

When Griff asked what had happened to make her leave, Abner simply shrugged his shoulders.

“She just set out one morning with what she’d earned washing dishes at that café in town. Thanked us for all we’d done, then promised Martha that she’d write often, and not to worry, because she’d be just fine. When we tried to talk her out of going, she said her mind was made up, and she wasn’t getting any younger. She rode off on a paint pony I let her have when she first came here. I bought him from an old Blackfoot woman who told me she was too stiff in her bones to make use of him any more. He was wild-like, and didn’t know a saddle from sausage, but that little bit of a girl had him in shape quicker’n most experienced cowhands I’ve known. The day she left, Martha and I watched ‘til she reached the ridge and disappeared, and when we went back in the house, we found twenty dollars wrapped up in a kerchief on the kitchen table, and a note that had Martha bawling like a baby every time she read it.

“The girl is about the most stubborn female I’ve ever laid eyes on, although my good wife tells me it’s not so much stubborn, as determined—which seems much the same thing to me. I will tell thee one thing, Friend Griffin—if that determined young lady doesn’t find whatever she’s looking for, it’s just not there.”

“I’d like to see her again,” Griff said, “before she wanders off too far looking. Do you or Martha have any idea where she is now?”

Abner shook his head. “No. She writes quite often, but the mail is slow getting back and forth, and most of our letters have come back saying she’s moved on to somewhere or other. In her last letter, she told us that she was working at an apple cider mill up north of here, keeping their books.”

Griff smiled. “Apples, again.”

Abner looked at him. “What was that?”

“That’s how I met her—hanging by her ankles from a tree, after trying to pick a lot of wormy crab apples. How about beaus? A lot of young women her age have already married, and had children.”

Abner shook his head. “That’s an odd thing as well. She said that she would like a house full of children—as many as six, perhaps. Martha told her if that’s what she wanted, she’d better get to it. Thee doesn’t get a coop full of baby chicks with no rooster around to do what needs doing.

“Thee probably recalls what she was like when she came here—a bit scrawny and pale, with those big green eyes. She looked like a good breeze could blow her across the barnyard. Before long, though, she became quite pretty, and the young men began coming around. They would come to the house right after First Sunday meeting was over, and sit on the porch, hoping she’d come out and pay them some mind, I suppose. It got to where Martha almost had to beat them off with a broom.” He smiled at the memory. “There were days when it seemed that every young fellow in the county wanted to come courting her, and I told Martha that it wouldn’t be long before she picked one of them to settle down with.”

“Did she?” he asked nervously.

Abner shook his head. “She wouldn’t have any of them, and told Martha that she knew exactly what she wanted, and they weren’t it. When my good wife asked what she
was
looking for, Elyn smiled rather mysteriously, and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for him to come and find
me
, but if he doesn’t get here pretty quick, I may have to go and get
him.
’ To tell thee the truth, Griffin, Martha and I believed it was
thee
she meant in saying that.”

Griff chuckled. “Not too likely. The last time I saw her, she was cussing me out, and swearing that she never wanted to lay eyes on me again. She sounded like she meant it, too. I was just damned happy she wasn’t armed.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. It’s Martha’s feeling that sweet Elyn had her cap set for thee from that first day in that apple tree.

“For a while, there, after thee left, she talked about thee as if thee were a kind of fairy book prince—like one of the knights in shining armor in the stories she enjoyed reading. When Martha went up to the loft to say goodnight, she often found Elyn under the covers, with a lit candle sitting on a saucer, and reading a book. We could only thank divine providence that she didn’t burn the house down, and once, nearly did. Martha came near to wearing out a butter paddle on her backside, and while I didn’t enjoy doing it, I took a switch to her once myself when she continued. It was as if she had a powerful need to know about things, and to learn it all as quickly as possible. Martha compared her to a parched flower that had gone too long without rain, and needed to drink deeply, to save itself from dying.

“We sent her to school, as thee asked us to, and while she disliked it in the first weeks, she honored her promise and worked hard. She had always been good with figures, even before she came here, and once she set her mind to it, she began to excel in all her subjects, particularly in reading and writing. Her speech improved quickly as well, and her spelling. I believe thee would have been as proud of her as we were.

“She often told us that she would like to teach children someday, as Martha does, but one day, she simply walked out of the classroom and never returned. She told her friend, Hannah Jackson, that she was going to San Francisco—to be a singer, I believe.”

“Are we talking about the same girl, here?” Griff asked. “As I remember it, she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

Abner grinned. “Yes, I suspect she’ll never find that sort of employment, thank the Lord. As thee knows, our faith doesn’t approve of singing, and I was much relieved to be able to tell her that First Sunday meetings don’t require the services of a choir. Still, she’s a very determined young lady, and the dreams of the young are not easily discouraged. Faith teaches us that with God, all things are possible, though I believe He would find making our dear Elyn a singer very challenging.”

“When she writes, again, be sure to let me know. Maybe she’ll stay put long enough to get a package—something I ordered for her a while back, from one of those stores back east.”

Abner smiled. “Now thee’s buying
gifts?
For a young lady thee’s sure dislikes thee?”

“Just the one gift. I bought her a harp.”

“A
harp
, did thee say?”

“You heard right,” Griff growled. “A gold one, yet—all the way from Ireland. Took almost a year to get as far as New York, and I’d hate to tell you how much I paid Wells Fargo to get the damned thing all the way to Mill City.”

“I must say that I’ve never thought of thee as a romantic sort, Friend Griffin—given to showering lavish gifts on a woman.”

“It’s a harp, Abner,” Griff groaned, “not a lacy nightdress, or some frilly pair of underdrawers.”

“Well, as an imperfect Quaker, with a well-nigh perfect Quaker wife, I’ve never bought either of those things for Martha. And I’m afraid that she would regard a harp, despite its rumored use in heaven, as little more than a frivolous musical instrument, meant for idle hands.” He smiled. “Without question the perfect gift for Elyn, when thee finds her. Does thee intend to search for her, when thee leaves here?”

Griff sighed, unwilling to admit how disappointed he was with Abner’s news—or lack of it. “Probably not. It’s a big country, so the chances of finding where she’s gone without more information aren’t good. Knowing her the way I do—or
used
to know her, anyway—my guess is she’ll turn up when she wants to, and not one damned day before. Besides, like I said, the last time we talked, she didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“And like
I
said, I believe thee’s very mistaken about that, Griffin. All that first year, after she came to us, in fact, she seemed quite smitten with thee, and in the months just before she left home, she must have asked me at least once a week if I had heard any
important
news from thee.” He winked. “I believe what she truly wished to know was if thee had found thyself a wife.”

“I just wish I’d gotten down here sooner,” Griff said. “I write to her all the time, and until the last few months, she’s been writing back. When she stopped, I guess I thought she’d met someone to…you know, someone she liked well enough to marry.” He smiled. “Of course, he’d have to like red hair and freckles.”

“I doubt thee’d recognize her as she is today, Griffin. She’s grown into a lovely young woman—with no freckles at all. Even her hair is a bit softer in color. Thee may well be right about one thing, though. I believe that Elyn had already found a man she wished to marry, even before she left us.”

* * *

Griff returned to Crabapple Valley disappointed at not having had a chance to see Elyn, again. Over the last two years, he’d been surprised and a little chagrined at how much he was enjoying her letters, and how disappointed he was when he went into town for the mail and didn’t find a letter from her in his box at the post office. And then, a few weeks before his buying trip, the letters had simply stopped. It was a long way to San Francisco, of course, and though he told himself that there could be another letter from her any day, he recognized that the chances were better that he wouldn’t. Not if Elyn O’Malley had finally found someone who could make her happy.

Griff knew that as an old friend, and somebody that had once seemed akin to an older brother, he should have been pleased at the possibility that she was finally enjoying the happy, fulfilled life she deserved. And on one level, he
was
pleased. He was even trying his best to be genuinely happy for her.

What he found more painful to accept than he’d ever imagined, was that he would probably never see her again.

And when he followed that thought, he discovered something else that surprised him. His feelings for Elyn were a lot more than friendly, and nothing at
all
like brotherly.

Which he was now going to have to learn to live with—somehow.