From Here to There (43 page)

 She buttered their toast and slid the overdone eggs onto plates. "It isn't the Colonial Inn," she said, handing him his plate of food, "but we won't starve."

 After they’d eaten, Phillip walked over to his coat. "It won't take me long to open that gate," he said. "I'll check on the cows and be back in less than an hour. Keep everything warm for me." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

 Helene frowned. "I am going with you."

 "It's only going to take one of us to open that gate. You stay in here where it's warm. I won't be that long. I know what I've got waiting for me." He grinned at her scowl. "Trust me, babe," he added, his voice soft. "I'll take care of your uncle's stock."

 "I do trust you, Phillip, but do you trust me?" she asked, looking straight into his eyes. "Are you going to try to protect me from everything that's difficult or maybe dangerous?"  This was important, a part of their future together. Could he understand her need to go with him?

 He smiled then. "You saddle your own horse," he quipped, shrugging into his coat and heading out the door, the big German shepherd at his heels.

 Helene laughed as she quickly pulled insulated cover-alls over her jeans and flannel shirt. She wanted a marriage where she was more than an ornament, and it looked as though with Phillip she was going to get it. She knew part of wanting to go with him was because his ordeal had been too recent for her to want to let him out of her sight, but that wasn't all. She wanted to be part of his life, to work at his side, not sit protected someplace waiting for him to return. In his business world, that wasn’t likely; but she’d find ways to share where she could.

 As she walked out of the house into the crisp air, the snow was still lightly siftering down. Although the sky was fairly bright overhead, she could see a darker sky to the northwest. They’d have to move fast as possibly more snow was coming. Phillip waited at the barn, two horses saddled. She smiled as she pulled his head down for a kiss before she took the reins to her horse.

 The horses labored to break a path through the snow. Their breath came out in puffs of white steam. "Now, I don't feel so bad about wearing myself out last night," Phillip said with a grin.

 Hobo bounded through the drifts, scented the air, then came back to follow the blazed trails of the big horses.

 The land was pristine with its white covering. Helene could see across the hills, and everywhere was the beauty of newly fallen snow. It seemed impossible to believe that such beauty could be life threatening. This was a harsh land, little forgiving of mistakes. She could only feel gratitude that it had given her back Phillip.

 As she shifted her weight in the saddle, Phillip pointed, and she watched a rabbit bound across the road. Hobo, behind them, was totally oblivious to the little animal. "I'm surprised he's out in this," she said as she watched the rabbit disappear.

 "Maybe he got caught outside last night too and is on his way back to his spread," Phillip drawled, then laughed. "I am beginning to sound like one of your Western men."

 "They're not mine anymore," she said, smiling at him. "All I want now is an Easterner, but I'm pretty particular about which one."

 "Oh, looking for qualifications are you? Going to ask for applicants to send in résumés?"

 "I might."

 "Well, what qualities should this paragon of virtue possess?"

 "He has to stand about six foot one, and have the bluest eyes I ever saw. His jaw should be square and, of course, he's got to be blond and handsome."

 "So, only physical attributes count in this dream man."

 "Well there are a few other things. He should be loyal. The kind of man who does what he promises. A man who'll take on difficult jobs and somehow or other finish them, no matter how much it costs him."

 "Kind of a Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, taking on impossible missions and falling flat on his face?"

 She wrinkled her nose at his sarcasm. Unable to resist laughing, she nodded in agreement. "Maybe. Like coming west to Montana, giving up everything he knew, and proving once and for all to some silly woman that he was a hero."

 "Seems pretty stupid to me," he retorted dryly.

 She smiled at him, a warmth flooding through her at the tender expression in his eyes. "Not stupid, never stupid."

 Ahead, they could see the cattle, their backs covered with snow, bunched against the fence that kept them from the covered stacks of hay. At the sight of Phillip, the cows began to bellow, the sound carrying over the frozen landscape and seeming to fill the air all around them.

 "While you tend to your fan club," Helene asked, "should I check on the spring to see if they're still getting water?"

 "Good idea," Phillip answered, dismounting and raising his voice so she could hear him over the cacophony. "Although if it's frozen, I don't know what we'll do about it." He pulled the wire loop over the post, lifting the gate. "I can't see us carrying a couple of hundred buckets of water up here."

 He grinned at her as he let her through the gate. "I'll open up the fences but we’ll have to be sure we get back up here as soon as the storm lets up. If the springs are providing water, they’ll probably hang around for that and the salt, but your uncle tells me cows like to go walk about—even if there’s nothing but desert and sand on the other side."

 Helene laughed. "And the worst is that once they get through somewhere they never can figure out where that hole was--so they don't come home 'til you go get them."

 Phillip grinned. "That's the story, and I'm thinking I've got better things to do with the rest of this day than go chasing after cows."

 "Then I guess we better hurry," Helene said, giving her horse a light kick in the side to convince her that she should leave Sunshine.

 Where the cattle had been milling, the snow was beaten down, but half way across the pasture, it deepened and Helene let her mare pick her way through the drifts, occasionally finding a path the cattle had used. Behind her she could still hear the symphony of bellows but ahead, the land was hushed with the quiet only a blanket of snow could pull over the land.

 As she rode, she thought how much she loved this rugged country. Even knowing it might have taken Phillip's life, even knowing she might never live here again, it would always be part of her dreams. Perhaps not the way the imaginary image of a man once had been, but in a way that would allow it be a part of who she was. It wasn't a thing that would take away her satisfaction in living, but it would be part of a set of memories to draw on whenever life grew dismal--as life, no matter how carefully it was planned, inherently had a way of doing.

 The spring had been fenced on one side to keep the cattle from destroying the source of water. On the lower side, it had been dug out, improved with gravel and cement barriers to improve sanitation and enlarge the amount of water. The slightly heated water was running free in the center of the pool, still bubbling up from its underground source.

 Helene dismounted. Taking a stick, she broke away the ice at the edges of the pool. From the beaten down snow, it was obvious the cattle had been here as well as deer. At the edge of the pool, she saw a fresh print of a fox. This pool was life for a myriad of animals. She couldn't imagine it being turned into a hot tub for rich people to wallow in, not when the forest animals as well as cattle depended on it for water when other sources were frozen. She shook her head then. Whatever the pool was used for in the future, it wouldn't be her decision. She knew where her happiness lay, and she had to put concern for the ranch behind her.

 Riding back across the pasture to where Phillip was throwing out hay, Helene smiled at the virile picture he made.  When she got nearer, she saw sweat was beaded on his face. He stopped a moment to catch his breath as she opened the gate. "How do you think they're doing?" she asked.

 "For all I can tell, fine. They're glad to get food." That he wouldn't have had to tell her as the sounds of tumult had softened to chomping sounds and softer bellows over right of possession.

 Phillip wiped his face with his scarf and remounted his horse. At her side, he took a deep breath of the cold, mountain air. "No man could've told me about this," he said, shaking his head.

 "What do you mean?"

 "That it could feel so good feeding cattle. I know it’s something you already knew, but I didn’t. I don’t even know if I can explain it.”

“Try.”

“Well, even now, hurting in every muscle, there's something--grounded about coming out like this. Like there's a connection between me and all the men before me who have done the same job. I like doing something that is directly connected not only to the land but also the people this land will feed."

 "You really do like doing this?"

"I love doing it." He laughed then, amused at himself. "I sound like a nut. There's not a lot of money in it. If there was, your uncle wouldn't be struggling to hold onto this land, and yes, I know that’s what’s going on here. But... what is here is worth more than money."

“I have found the same thing with the housework. My mother had all those maids and she missed out on what might’ve made her own life happier—real work where you can see the results.”

He chuckled. “I suppose that’s what those western stories were all about.”

She laughed too. “Probably so. They had to add in the heroics to get people to read the stories but it’s not really about that. It’s about sticking to a job, the simple work that so many are removed from.”  They gigged their horses back down the trail. Hobo ran ahead following the trail they'd blazed out.

 "Do you think you can do anything to help Uncle Amos hold onto this ranch?" Helene asked after having considered the question for some time. She could leave it behind, but she'd be happier knowing her uncle still lived on this land, that he managed it rather than some stranger.

 "Well." Phillip thoughtfully rubbed his lower lip. "I was kind of thinking we'd help him sell it."

 She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She swallowed down her disappointment and nodded her agreement. "I guess that is most realistic."

 Phillip threw his head back and let a laugh ring out that echoed across the snowy landscape. "Realistic, huh? That's what I love in you, woman. You're so realistic."

 She knew he was teasing her, but she smiled nonetheless. After a moment, he pointed to a rocky ridge high above the main ranch buildings. "If a man built a house up there, he'd have a view of the whole valley. The house would be sheltered from the worst winds by that grove of pine trees."

 She looked from the ridge back to Phillip. His eyes were so blue they took her breath away. She didn't suppose she'd ever get used to the handsomeness of his face. There was something more though. The glint in his eyes, the shadow of his beard showed a toughness there that she'd failed to recognize before she married him. He looked like a man capable of making decisions, of taking care of a family, but also of caring for those he loved. She wondered how there could ever have been a time when she hadn't recognized those qualities in him.

 "What do you mean?" she asked, not wanting to misunderstand what he was telling her.

 "Think maybe your uncle would like a partner?"

 "Phillip!"

 He went on as though he hadn't heard the excitement in her voice. "I'd like to build a house for us here. A house with lots of windows and wood. Maybe a big stone fireplace with one of those big paintings of Montana over it." He smiled at her further squeak of pleasure. "I'm not saying, at least in the beginning, that we could live here year-round. We'll try, but I may have to maintain an office in Boston. With my plane though, I think we can make it work at least until my clients get used to my living out here. We could build a house big enough for a family someday. What do you think about that?”

“I love it but I would live in Boston if that’s what you wanted. I thought, after the storm nearly killed you, you'd want to leave Montana and go back to Boston as fast as you could."