Love's Rescue (12 page)

Seth scraped his plate until it was spotless. “But I heard that the last Cookie went and got himself married.”

Jake finished his biscuit. “I found a replacement.”

Seth glanced at him. “Oh, yeah? Who? I hope it’s old Cracker Jack from the Bar Seven.”

“I wouldn’t hire him. He drinks too much.” Jake sidestepped the question. “Red Deer’s running the kitchen while he and a couple of the men are off getting the supplies I couldn’t find in Carson City.”

Seth brushed crumbs from his hands. “Miss Hale, I think the boss should fire the new dough roller and just hire you.”

Jess smiled at his enthusiasm but inwardly cringed at the thought of being stuck inside a cookhouse from sunup till sundown. She was still recoiling from the notion of spending months on end inside a small room when she realized that this was exactly what Seth and the other men on line duty were doing. She shook her head, wondering how the men could survive it, and she found herself respecting the strength and forbearance of the cattlemen. Seth interrupted her thoughts when he placed three mugs of steaming coffee on the table, two within easy reach of her and Jake.

He sat down again and took a sip from his mug, looking over the rim at the amusement in Jake’s eyes and what must have been obvious revulsion in hers. He lowered his mug. Jess’s mind scurried for a way to avoid hurting Seth’s feelings.

“It isn’t all that bad, Jess,” Jake said.

Jess hesitated. Then, glimpsing Seth’s understanding grin, she quietly muttered, “It smells like a pot of something left on the stove too long.” She added, “I’m sorry, Seth.”

“That’s just fine, ma’am.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever tasted coffee, Jess?”

“Taste something that smells like that? Why punish myself?”

Seth chuckled at her disgust.

“It’s just roasted beans and water,” Jake said.

“An adulteration of perfectly good water.”

“When you’re cold, it’ll thaw you clear to your toes,” Seth cut in.

“I’ve heard men claim it puts hair on your chest.”

Seth nearly spewed out a mouthful of coffee, laughing. Jake smiled and glanced pointedly at her braid. “Don’t worry, Jess. The worst it does to women is make their hair curl.”

Jess carefully lowered her gaze away from Jake’s handsome face to peer doubtfully at the inky brew inside her cup. Grounds were floating on the surface. It wasn’t like any coffee she’d ever seen. Cautiously, she asked the boy, “How do you make it?”

He shrugged. “Same way most cattlemen do, I reckon. You fill a pot with water and throw in a handful of roasted, ground-up beans. It cooks a while and then you drink it. Of course, the pot gets low by nightfall, so the next morning, you add water and throw in more beans.”

Jess bit back a smile as Seth sobered importantly and continued his instructions in the fine art of coffee making.

“After a week or better, I find I need to toss out the old beans and start again with new, or else it gets too thick to pour.” He frowned. “That’s a shame, too. Right about then, the grounds quit floating, and you can drink it without swallowing any bits.”

Jess felt Jake’s eyes shift to her. By strength of will, she didn’t shudder, but neither did she ask the boy how old this particular batch was. She merely lifted her cup and, with all the resolution of a martyr, took a sip.

Seth waited anxiously for her reaction. Her eyes watering, Jess set down the mug. She looked at the two men in disbelief, all at once laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

“It tastes like liquid coal!” she declared. “How can you drink this?”

Jake chuckled and Seth shrugged good-naturedly. “Nothing’s better on a brisk winter night.”

Feeling its heat spreading within her, Jess silently agreed and, from then on, sipped the brew with declining repulsion.

“Do you know how to read an’ write, Miss Hale?”

The question surprised her. “I do. Would you like me to write a letter for you?”

“Well, ma’am, I’ll be returning to the line camp come morning, and I haven’t sent a letter home since fall. I’d sure appreciate it if you could.”

“Gladly. We’ll do that as soon as I’ve washed the dishes.”

While she finished in the kitchen, Seth relayed to Jake the number of cows lost through the winter due to freezing, thieves, and predators. When Jess sat down again, Seth handed her a piece of paper and a pencil, then started dictating his letter.

Jake busied himself logging notes in the small book he kept with him. As she wrote, Jess considered him from the corner of her eye. He seemed to sit slightly leaning to one side. He was tired, maybe, but overall he appeared contented with the homey quiet, as if, by stepping away from the busyness of Carson City, he had become one with the mountain wilderness, and she, the men, and the ranch had melded into it with him.

After Seth had provided his family’s address and Jess had penned it, she folded the letter away with a promise to send it with the first man who went to town. Seth thanked her heartily, then glanced over at Jake.

“I have a dozen pelts, boss.”

“A dozen?”

Curious, Jess looked up.

Jake turned a page in his book and made a new notation. “A dozen is a good catch for one season,” he said.

“I’ll bring them to you when I come back next month.”

Jake eyed him. “I pay you a dollar a head to bring them down. The pelts are yours to keep, like I told you last fall.”

Grinning, Seth pulled a deck of cards from his vest pocket. “In that case, I’ll sell them and buy me a fancy new pair of boots. They’ll be even fancier than those ones Diaz wears.”

Jess frowned back and forth between the two. “What kind of pelts?”

Jake made one more notation, then closed his book. “Wolf. They attack the cows, and sometimes people, if they’re hungry enough.”

Jess sat a little straighter. “There are wolves out here?”

Seth’s grin widened. “Well, there’s a good twelve fewer than there might have been. Poker?”

***

After Jess had returned to the house and Seth had turned in, Jake remained behind in the cookhouse to bank the coals. He nudged bits of wood aside with a fire iron, reliving a moment minutes earlier when Jess had shrugged into her coat for the walk across the compound. He had stood, looking down at her, and something had shifted inside his chest at the shining brown hair that hung to her hip in a thick braid. She’d tugged her collar close under her chin, and he knew that if she had lifted her face, he would have seen eyes the color of summer sage. Suddenly, Jake realized the path of his thoughts and swiftly changed the focus of his contemplation.

Well, he mused, she has taken to Seth well enough. He chuckled, the sound echoing across the empty room. Whatever her troubles were, he knew poker wasn’t one of them. Companion-starved, Seth had challenged her to game after game of cards. She couldn’t bluff, but she had a good head for odds. She won more than she lost.

Jake’s attitude sobered. He set aside the fire iron and leaned a hand on the mantle, sifting through other reflections of the past two days. Although Jess had warmed to many of the cattlemen, she had held him at a distance, confirming his belief that her vexation was with him alone. But that didn’t trouble him beyond his concern for her. She had laughed at Seth’s coffee-making lecture, and it was good she’d made that small step away from the weight of recent memories. Thinking too long about such things could tear someone up inside.

Jake doused the lamp, gathered up his coat, and left the cookhouse. The night sky glittered above him, and he paused to appreciate the awesome beauty of it. Yes, it was good out here. This place had a way of taking a body’s mind off those troubles that just won’t let go.

***

In her room, Jess lay on the bed and settled under the covers. She had been at the ranch just a short time, yet she was quickly coming to love a kind of people she had never known existed. Like young Seth, many of the linemen would likely keep the pelts to sell for additional income, and she fully expected there to be a swarm of new hats and silver-ornamented hatbands and flashy spurs, as well as heavily decorated boots, strutting about the ranch come spring. She grinned in the darkness. A few of the men had spoken as though the world held no finer goods, and perhaps, to them, it didn’t. She was beginning to understand that others would refuse any additional payment to the dollar for each animal they had originally agreed upon, firmly believing that if the wolves were on Jake’s property, the pelts were his. The cattlemen’s code of ethics was like nothing Jess had ever experienced before—men hardly older than boys neither taking anything they believed they didn’t earn nor standing in obligation to remain at a ranch if wanderlust beckoned.

Jess realized she felt no differently. She would stay at the ranch until she had worked off the cost of her food and clothing, along with the horse she would take. Perhaps, by then, the sheriff or Captain Rawlins would have news. When she left, she would have no reason to feel guilt or further compulsion to repay Jake Bennett. She would owe him nothing.

***

Jake hurried up a staircase flooded with morning sunshine to retrieve a pair of chaps from his room. With Jess spending her days at the cookhouse, the place was empty, silent. His gaze traveled across his room as he buckled the chaps on, recalling that first morning when he had found her there, looking out his window. On a thought, Jake crossed the short hall to stand in her doorway. Her bed was neatly made; the sparse furnishings were dusted and arranged along one wall. None of her own things was out, he saw. She must have placed her cloak and ball gown in the trunk. On the dressing table stood a basin and pitcher.

With one last look around the room, Jake strode out.

Late that night, after all but the watch had turned in, night sounds drifted in through the partly open door of the workshop. Inside, Jake patiently worked over a whirring lathe, turning a spindle to carve away peels of fresh wood. Beside him, a sturdy, uncut plank and three more shapeless spindles waited.

The days passed with Jess gradually taking on more responsibilities, sharing with Red Deer the tasks involved in caring for a ranchful of men. Jake and most of the men, she’d learned, rode out each morning before sunrise to see to the cattle, while half a dozen or so stayed behind. The air had lost its wintry chill. As soon as new grass appeared, the linemen would return, then the ranch yard would be full of working men…and attentive eyes.

During the second week of March, Jess decided she’d worked off her debt to Jake. She began watching for an opportunity to ride away.

One morning, she undertook the task of scrubbing the floors of the main house. When she carried out the last pan of dirty water and emptied it away from the buildings, the sun felt warm on her face and arms—the warmest it had felt since autumn. Letting the pan dangle from her hand, she turned to take in the view around her. Horses had been freed in the corrals, and suddenly she was filled with pleasant memories of Kentucky. The horses tossed their heads and frisked about, seeming to welcome the oncoming spring.

Across the yard, one of the cattlemen raised a hand in greeting, and she surprised herself by waving back. The man went on about his work, and Jess strolled aimlessly in the sunshine, ending up, by happenstance, at the stable. The stable. Suddenly, her mind was alive with possibilities. With an air of innocence, she leaned the pan against the outer wall and breezed inside.

Searching furtively for any observers who might stop her, Jess wandered down the long central aisle. If she were a ranch hand, she mused, this would be the outfit where she would want to be. The stable was well organized, and it snapped with newness. The men kept it freshly bedded with straw, and they also took great care of their mounts and tack. If her father had been there, he would have made some remark about telling a good man by his way with horses. She smiled sadly at the bittersweet musing as she made her way to the far end of the building.

Aside from the remaining horses and herself, the stable was empty. With Jake gone working cattle, this was her best opportunity to leave. Walking back the way she had come, she lifted a bridle from its peg, slid open a gate, and entered a stall.

The sleek horse within eyed her warily, her ears pricked up. “Whoa, girl. Here now, have a sniff of me.” She moved slowly, allowing the palomino to see her. The mare stretched out her muzzle, her nostrils taking in Jess’s scent. Jess reached up gently to stroke the animal, smoothing her hand over her forehead and cheek. “Yes, you’re a sweet girl,” she murmured warmly. “How would you like to chase the wind with me?”

The horse nudged her shoulder for more petting. Jess obliged, then drew on the bridle and buckled it in place. As she slipped the reins over the horse’s head, her hands began to tremble.

Jess listened for anyone returning to the barn, peering about as she led the tan beauty toward the waiting saddles. There were four of them, and Jess found the one that would best fit the mare. She laid a thick blanket over the mare’s back, then set the saddle on top. Ducking under the mare’s neck, she lowered the cinch and a stirrup, then slipped under again to retrieve the cinch strap and secure it. With the threat of discovery, she decided that the current lengths of the stirrups would have to suffice—there was no time to adjust them. She swung herself up into the saddle and eased the horse out into the sunshine. Taking one last look about, she gave the horse her heels.

The mare was solid, and she stretched out with remarkable speed. Behind them, the cluster of buildings faded away rapidly. None of the men was in sight. No one shouted after her. Jess took a long, deep breath of spring air. She was free. Laughter bubbled in her throat with the joy of it, but she held it in. Eventually, someone would discover she was missing. She needed to keep her wits about her.

Red Deer had said that the ranch was a day and a night’s ride from Carson City. Jess knew that if she followed the general flow of the creek, there would be food and water for the horse, and she could manage without food until they reached the city.