Rebellion in the Valley (22 page)

Chapter 27

T
he
tips of her fingers tapped on the window sill and her teeth gnawed
on her bottom lip; Hailee’s eyes were trained on the pen just
outside of the barn. When Epoenah shook her muzzle inside the
feeding bag and flipped it up and over her head, the girl at the
window laughed out loud. It might have been the first laugh she’d
had in several days and by the look on her face – it sure felt
good.

Maybe the best part of the show was watching
Tobias; she’d seen him reach several times for the feed bag, most
likely, she guessed, to retie it around her mare’s neck. Each time
the man attempted to release the bag, which had half-way fallen off
anyway, the mare swished her head as if she knew her actions were
being observed by her owner.

Finally caught in her line of fire, he found
himself being smacked by her burlap-covered muzzle. Just when his
fingers released the bag on one side of the burlap, the bag
teetered in a downward swing and he grabbed the other side just in
time to be in full contact with the mare’s muzzle. Down to the
ground, right to his knees he stumbled.

The expression on his face not only kept her
laughter rolling, but it also increased her want – need – to be
back out in that pen herself.

Just to make sure nobody witnessed what
happened, his head snapped around, urging her to knock against the
window pane.

When his eyes found where the noise was
coming from, he held both of his hands out in front of his body and
shrugged his shoulders as if to say it couldn’t have been his
fault. Once he’d managed to regain some composure, Tobias waved at
the love of his life and bowed in a gesture that the equestrian
performance had ended, and much to the relief of both females, he
did manage to retrieve the burlap prize, handing a measure of
freedom back to the mare.

Hailee remained at the parlor room window and
watched him peer into what was left of the contents of the burlap
bag; when he glanced up to see that the girl had not budged, he
held the bag upside-down and shook it to indicate the Epoenah had
been a good girl and had eaten all her feed for the morning.

Although Hailee had never before known any
reason to be jealous of anyone, she couldn’t deny the feeling of
being cooped-up for so long was beginning to develop in that
direction.

“Three weeks is long enough,” she muttered
without realizing that she’d spoken out loud.

Several minutes dragged on. The constant,
irritating ticking of her father’s wind-up mantle clock grated on
her nerves; it was too loud in such a silent room. Finally, Hailee
turned on one foot and marched over to another window to open it up
and air the house out a while. It was just as she’d pushed it open
a couple inches that she noticed the trail of dust over the hill
leading toward the entrance gates of the ranch.

“Yes!” Hailee cheered. “Someone else to look
at other than my own reflection in the window!”

Instinct had the young woman smoothing down
her dress and hair in one swift motion while she squinted to see
who it could be.

As the buckboard wagon drew nearer, the
squinted eyes traded places with a wide grin.

“Mr. Hood,” she affirmed.

Before she could even give a second thought
to her orders of staying inside the house, her feet had already
carried her out of the parlor, past the front porch, and clean to
the team of horses pulling the wagon – and to the man who seemed
pleased to see her.

Tom held a hand up and waved.

“Well, Hailee, that is a fine way to greet a
fella such as myself; you must have been waiting at the window for
me,” he teased.

‘If he only knew,’ she thought.

“There’s nothing wrong with Susan, is
there?”

“Oh, no, not at all. In fact, she’s part of
the reason I’m here. You see, she wanted me to ask if you were
ready to get those sheep and get going on your spinning lessons. We
thought it might help get your mind off things,” he added in a
solemn tone. “Hailee, we sure are sorry to have heard about your
Pa. He’s one of the finest men I’ve ever met and that’s a
fact.”

For a few minute there, she’d almost
forgotten all about that.

Forcing the emotions bunching up in her
throat to go away, Hailee made herself nod in appreciation, trying
to find words to fill the awkward silence.

As if right on cue, Richard’s voice sounded
from the kitchen door.

“Well, Tom! How about a slice of cake and
some coffee? Got ‘em both fresh ‘n piping hot in here!”

Never one to pass up a dessert invitation,
Tom tied the team to a post and made his way up the pathway toward
the kitchen, passing by Duffy and the spring house on the way.

Hailee had been so excited to breathe in
mountain air, she allowed her guard to let down and paid no
attention to the fact that he had been taking in her every movement
since she stepped out of the house. Until, that is, she heard the
scratchy voice calling out her name.

“Hailee,” he smirked. “It’s been a
while.”

She felt her stomach turn a bit just at the
sight of his face, the way he bent over the wheel barrow.

“Not long enough,” Tobias answered for
her.

With eyes narrowing and searing holes right
through Tobias’ head, Duffy stood his ground and reached over for a
shovel in a fluid, nonchalant motion.

He shook his head without even moving his
eyes off Hailee. “Nah, it’s been plenty long enough,” he said with
no regard to who heard him say it.

Tobias walked square up to the man, face to
face and toe to toe.

“You do know how much I want to sink my fist
wrist-deep into your face, don’t you?”

Duffy spat off to the side, returning his
gaze to the man in front of him, but said nothing at all.

Instead, he grinned and chuckled.

“I’m telling you right now to back off. You
touch her and I’ll – “

Duffy offered a spit-spattered laugh into his
face.

“Or what, Tobias? You’ll what?”

Hailee interrupted the men by yanking on
Tobias’ shirtsleeve.

“No, Tobias! He’s not worth it!”

Duffy showed no emotion in the way his eyes
raked over her.

“And how would you know what’s worth what,
little lady? You never even gave the old Duffman a chance.”

“You’re disgusting,” Tobias told him.

He laughed and continued with his chores,
leaving the startled group of people standing to themselves. Duffy
carted the load off in the wheelbarrow, whistling a tune as if that
conversation had never even taken place.

P

“So I sure would like some riding-along
company if anyone feels like heading into Westcliffe with me for a
spell,” Tom continued.

The gears in Richard's head already turning,
he figured it would be good if Hailee got out of the house for the
rest of the day; glancing over toward Tobias for his unspoken
thoughts on the matter, the word was good.

“Hailee, you know, I sure could use some more
sugar and flour, and I was thinking if you came along, you could
pick out some sewing thread and get busy on a couple of redwork
towels for yourself. Until you get full swing into your sheep
business, I mean,” Richard winked.

Her head picked straight up. “Really? Yeah, I
want to go! How many sacks are we bringing home?”

Now that her mood had settled down from the
barnyard incident, the stress lines in Tobias' forehead began to
smooth out as he gave his own reply about heading into town.

“I think I best stay around here, but how
‘bout I make me up a list of a couple things I need from town?”

Tobias caught the questioning look on
Richard’s face and shook his head ever so slightly, shutting his
eyes slightly. Richard got the hint they’d have to talk later.

“We don’t want you coming along and stinking
the place up anyhow. We saw you out in the pig pens earlier!”

The group laughed and the air at the Red Bone
Ranch filled with goodness once more.

P

Tom and Hailee agreed on their way into
Westcliffe that he and Susan did share ownership of one great
buckboard wagon, crafted with two full bench seats and three
built-in chests for toting.

“When all our children were still living at
home,” Tom began, “sometimes Susan found it difficult with all the
young ones to figure out a way of keeping all their belongings
gathered together on a long trip. There were a few times,” he
recollected, “when even a trip into Westcliffe turned into a
fiasco. So I made those trunks and they served a dual purpose:
hauling and sitting on.”

She wondered what wagon-makers would think of
next and reopened the chest next to herself, running a hand along
the inside; so smooth and Tom had even built a divider to keep
items separate.

“I wonder if I’ll ever have such a fine wagon
one day,” Hailee wondered out loud.

“You thinking about settling down,
Hailee?”

“Well, maybe someday,” she blushed. “If the
right fella shows up.” changing the subject, she inquired, “Tom,
what do you think about having three sheep? Susan said one would be
sufficient, but I want to be sure I get plenty of wool so I don’t
keep running out of yarn. In the winter, I tend to crochet a lot
more, and I’m thinking by winter next year, I’d like to have a
proper supply built up. Of course, that means I’ll be coming to
your house more often for advice, if that’s alright with you.”

Richard smiled at her yammering on and on in
aimless talk.

“I should have gotten more salt and sugar in
Canon City. Noticed the other day my yeast supply is getting low.
Gonna have to spend a whole day making another batch,” he drew in a
breath of the fresh Colorado mountain air. “All I know is, there’s
some flour sacks waiting with my name on ‘em. Did we settle on how
many sacks to get, Hailee?”

“We go through about three barrel bags every
couple of months, right?”

Richard nodded after he thought about it for
a second or two. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right; my word, we go
through the food, don’t we? I hear butcher hogs are going for close
to fifteen dollars each over in the valley; good thing we don’t
count on others to feed the lot of us.”

As the men transitioned into a conversation
which neither involved nor interested the young lady in the back of
the buckboard wagon, her eyes turned to the dust kicking up behind
the wooden wheels and to the open skies overhead. Her mind turned
to other things.

Bruce. Tobias. Duffy.

If only her father were still there, Duffy
would never have gotten to this condition. He would for a certainty
never have spoken to her the way he did, and he would never have
been brave enough to stand in Tobias’ face and mouth off against
him in front of the other ranch hands. It was true that the man
sometimes gave her the willies, but she never imagined he could
have ever thought about behaving this way. Not with her father
there to keep him in line.

When she felt a tear trickle down her left
cheek, Hailee just allowed it to drop. First one, then three more.
She just allowed them drop, one by one.

P

The wagon rolled down the main dirt road in
Westcliffe known as Dutch Row, mainly because of the number of
German people who had moved into the mountainous region and set up
not only their homes, but also many of the local stores and
saloons.

The wagon moved onward toward the Sangre De
Cristo mountain range and right past the Klutz saloon. Snow already
wrapped the tops of the jagged peak edges, providing the perfect
base for low-lying clouds to hover over. Hundreds of flat, grassy
acres lay in between the town and the base of those mountains;
Hailee had asked her father more than once how long it would take a
person to walk from Westcliffe to the top of the farthest peak. As
a little girl, it had been her wish to climb all the way up to the
steepest peak of one of those mountains with him.

Shaking her head a little bit to focus, she
noticed a couple of girls from church standing near the doctor’s
office. They waved in unison.

Richard jumped down, helped Hailee from her
perch. Out of the corner of his eye, he happened to notice the
sheriff had just opened Doc Amerley’s door and stepped inside.

“Think I’ll head on over to the doc’s place
and see about some camphor, his seems to be thicker than the
general store’s supply – I’ll find you when I’m done.”

Giving Tom a nod in the direction of the feed
and grain store, Richard and his friend decided to meet up there in
an hour or so.

Boots scooting across the dirt street and
down the wooden-planked sidewalk, Richard's open palm pressed
against the heavy door to the doctor's modest office with one hand
as the other turned the handle.

“Just the man we needed to see,” the sheriff
extended a hand to shake the cook's. “Got news earlier this morning
from the sheriff over in the San Luis Valley, and you might want to
sit down to hear this.”

Complying, the man took his seat with a
cautious yet optimistic glimmer in his eye.

“What do we have?”

“According to my old buddy over the ridge, we
have a case. Enough evidence to bring him in for questioning,
anyhow.”

P

Richard stood and shook the man's hand once
again.

“That is the best news we could've heard
today; our little trip into town is actually the result of getting
Hailee out of harm's way for a while. That man doesn't care who he
plows down anymore, and to tell you the truth, if Tobias has to
look at him one more day, there may be other reasons for you paying
us a visit,” he gave a nod toward the sheriff.

“Now you keep him calm,” the sheriff
directed. “Don't let him stoop to that level, this is almost over
and then life can carry on as normal for all of us. But first, we
have some work to do.”