Rest and Be Thankful (41 page)

“That would be fine,” Norah said, but the voice wasn’t Norah’s.

Hell, he thought, she’s just another girl. He looked at the others, avoided Karl’s amused eye, and looked again at Norah. But the car was already slowly moving out of the yard. Jackson and Norah and O’Farlan were all crowded together in the front seat. O’Farlan had asked for a lift into Sweetwater: he wanted to buy some presents to take home. Why didn’t I fake some excuse to get a lift, Grubbock thought suddenly. But it was too late now. The car disappeared between the cottonwood-trees.

“Think I’ll do some work,” Grubbock said. He began walking towards the cabin.

“It’s four o’clock. I’m getting really worried about Esther,” Mrs. Peel was saying.

Earl Grubbock went on walking to the cabin. I’ve got worries enough, he was thinking, without adding that woman to them.

Mrs. Peel and Sally went up to the corral again. They could see nothing on the hillsides except horses and steers. The ranch itself was deserted. The only person left in it was Chuck. They found him in his kitchen.

Robb and Ned were busy in the alfalfa field today. Fine crop this year, with all that rain in June and the warm weather in August.

Bert was looking over the three-year-old colts which he was going to start breaking in on Sunday. Or Monday. As soon as he recovered, anyway, from the rodeo on Saturday. Bull-dogging could shake a man up.

Jim was out having a look at the steers in the south pasture with a couple of dealers, who had arrived by ’plane at Sweetwater that morning. They wanted to look over the steers before they made any contract for them, although the steers wouldn’t be shipped east until as late in September as possible. Jim had brought them a little late this year, so they needed all the weeks they could get to put some beef on their bones. After the dealers had seen them they’d argue a bit in Jim’s cabin, and drink his whisky, and try to beat him down to less than two cents profit a pound, no doubt.

“Then I’ll get Prender,” Mrs. Peel said to Sally. Karl’s arm kept him from riding. Earl was in a fiendish temper, and he was still limping badly. Robert O’Farlan had gone into Sweetwater. “Prender will just
have
to go, along with Carla and me. No, Sally, you aren’t fit to ride very far yet. Nor is Mimi.”

Chuck looked at them both. He put aside the potatoes he had been peeling, stuck the knife into the table, and said, “Guess I’ll catch me a horse and take a little ride.”

They watched him saddle up, and mount with an agility that Mrs. Peel envied.

“I’ll ride up the trail a piece,” he said. “She went thisaway. Saw her leave out this morning.” Like a drooping daisy, he thought; hanging on, she had been, with both hands. At a slow walk, too. “She ain’t the kind to be throwed,” he said consolingly, and he rode off.

“I wish I had been a pretty young girl in 1880,” Mrs. Peel said. “Or was it ’70? Chuck says he’s tried to forget his age so often that it just doesn’t come remembered any more.”

“You’d have taken him, language and all?” Sally teased her.

“Chuck would be a very comforting kind of man to have around your life,” Mrs. Peel said. “Language and all.”

Sally picked up a potato, pulled the small-bladed knife out of the table, and sat down beside a pail of water. “How do I look as a frontier woman?” she asked, beginning to work. “Now you go and drag Prender away from his precious book and tell him what to do.” But what? Sally thought of the miles of hills and mountains. “She’ll turn up,” she said comfortingly. “Don’t get worried, darling. The Esther Parks in this world always turn up.”

* * *

Prender Atherton Jones said, “Margaret, what
can
we do? It’s all very well to say, ‘Ride out and find her,’ but
where
do we start searching? And aren’t we probably worrying a little needlessly? She can’t have gone so very far. She doesn’t enjoy riding at all, you know. She’s no doubt persuading herself that she is communing with nature. My dear, don’t look so horrified... That’s one of her phrases. Don’t blame me for it.”

“I wasn’t,” Mrs. Peel said bitterly.

He laid aside
Verve
regretfully. “Very well,” he said, not unkindly, “let me come and worry with you, if that will bring her home more quickly. But I am a little bewildered. You blamed Esther when she didn’t want to be alone, and now that she has the good sense to leave us in peace for one day you blame her again.”

“If she isn’t here by dinner-time—”

“She’ll be here by that time. It begins to get quite dark by eight o’clock nowadays.” No one with any sense would stay out in the hills then. And Esther had quite a strong sense of self-preservation.

“That
is what worries me,” Mrs. Peel said.

* * *

By six o’clock everyone had returned except Esther Park.

Chuck had come back, having ridden five miles out by the Timber Trail. “Saw nothing,” he reported to Sally, who was just finishing seasoning the stew which she had cooked for the boys’ supper. Ned, Robb, and Bert were gathered round her admiringly as they listened to Chuck’s news. “I hollered a bit,” Chuck went on, “but I heard nothing. I rode up that trail quite a piece. Stopped off at Laughing Creek where the Seven Sisters begin.”

“Oh, the seven small canyons...” Sally said, following him by memory.

“I hollered some more there. And I listened a bit. Saw nor heard nothing of Miss Park.”

“We’ll eat,” Bert said, “then we’ll take our turn.”

“But tomorrow’s a big day for all of you,” Sally said. “Oh, I do hope she comes riding in before we have to... In any case, this is our worry, not yours.”

The men said nothing.

“Talking of tomorrow,” Chuck said, dishing the stew without more waste of time, “there’s one thing I did see. Saw some Injuns coming over the Far Hill. Squeehawks, by the look of them.”

Bert groaned. “Now we’ll have to get all the horses corralled. It’s too near sundown for the Squeehawks to travel to Sweetwater. They’ll camp here for the night. Wait till you see!” He waved a fork in Robb’s face. “Come on, let’s eat. There’s a helluva—pardon, Miss Bly—there’s a lot to get done tonight.”

Sally decided it was time to leave and let them start eating. At the door of the cookhouse she met Jim and Jackson.

“What’s this about Miss Park?” Jim asked quietly.

“Just all that,” Sally said. “And I mustn’t keep you, Jim. Seemingly there’s a helluva lot to get done tonight.” She tried to smile. If the men hadn’t been watching her she might have burst into tears. It was the concern in all their faces and the worry in Jim’s voice that had touched her. She gave them a wave and hurried down to the house.

“See you at the corral,” Jim called after her. He stood there, watching her.

“Nice woman that,” Bert said, looking at the excellent stew in front of him. “Hope she’s as good a cook as she is pretty. Come and get it, Jim. Don’t look to me as if we’ll be poisoned, after all.”

* * *

“But
what
are we to do?” Prender Atherton Jones asked at the end of the quickly served, quickly eaten dinner.

“Find her,” Sally said. “Look, Prender, the cowboys are all going out to search for her. Are we going to let them do our work for us?”

Everyone looked angrily at Prender Atherton Jones. They were now all having the first pangs of conscience about the casual way they had talked of Esther Park all day.

“Sally, you shouldn’t ride far,” Mrs. Peel said. “And I don’t think Mimi should be out in the night air either. And as for Karl—why, it’s madness for him to ride with that arm.”

“Don’t worry,” Karl said, “I’m not falling off a horse again.”

“But in the darkness you could strike your arm against a branch of a tree.” Mrs. Peel began thinking of blood-poisoning and all kinds of complications.

“We’ll see,” Sally said appeasingly, and exchanged looks with Mimi and Karl. “Now let’s get
warm
clothes. See you at the corral in two minutes.”

They all arrived at the corral in less than four minutes, which proved that everyone, even Prender Atherton Jones, had begun really to worry.

“At least, the weather is good,” Carla said miserably, and looked over the fields, clear and golden in the rays of the evening sun.

“There’s Ned and Robb, and there’s Bert,” Earl Grubbock said, as he pointed to three horsemen spreading up towards the canyons. “They began early.”

“They certainly did,” Karl Koffing said, looking with surprise at all the horses—except those that were saddled and hitched to the rail—now clustered together inside the corral. “What’s the idea?”

“Thought they looked kind of cosy in here,” Chuck answered. He was leaning on the hitching-rail, and he exchanged that peculiar smile-that-wasn’t-a-smile with Jim. Jim Brent was mounted, waiting for all the guests to gather.

Then Karl noticed that his horse wasn’t among those saddled. Neither was Mimi’s. Nor Sally’s.

“Look, Jim,” he began angrily, but Jim Brent just shook his head.

“None of you are fit to ride,” Jim Brent said quietly.

“But, Jim,” Mimi said indignantly, “I—”

“Will you all stop talking and get moving?” the quiet voice went on. “Karl, we need a man at the corral, just to keep Chuck company. Sally, you can help there too. Mimi, you get back to the house and help Ma Gunn get everything ready for our return.”

No one contradicted him this time.

“Now,” Jim said, “Jones will ride with Carla as far as Ironstone Ridge, and no farther. Mrs. Peel with O’Farlan as far as Blue Hill, and no farther. Earl, you’ll keep within shouting distance of Jackson and me. We’re fanning out in the direction of the Seven Sisters. Got that, all of you? Now point out to me where you’re going. Jones?”

Atherton Jones, scarcely recognising himself by that name, pointed obediently. He looked again, incredulous. “Good God!” he said in alarm. Everyone turned to look.

Carla and Mimi screamed.

The others stared.

“Indians!” Mrs. Peel said faintly.

Over the hill came the Indians, riding in a tight group, wheeling in a circle, making for the high field that stood behind the ranch.

“On their way to the rodeo,” Sally explained quickly. “They are staying here for the night. Isn’t that right, Jim?”

“They usually do,” he said. He grinned. “It’s all right. They aren’t hostiles. Never killed a white man except in self-defence.”

“Well, I’m glad of that,” Atherton Jones said, so thankfully that he raised a smile all round the group. They were mounting now.

“And wigwams!” Carla said, suddenly noticing the white-winged, cross-poled tepees that were being erected in a small line under the shelter of the hill. Farther east, on the road from Snaggletooth, several cars were parked along the grass edge, and a straggling group of shawled women and small children were climbing up towards the camp.

“I think it might be a good idea to keep your mind on your horse, Carla,” Jim said.

“Of all nights for Esther to choose to get lost in!” Carla said, and then felt ashamed of herself. She paid attention to her horse.

“Got your holts?” Chuck asked, as he watched them sitting on horseback.

“And one last thing,” Jim said. “If you find her with any blood around, don’t, for God’s sake, try to get her on a horse. One of you stay and let the other ride back for help.” He turned his horse and rode off, with Jackson and Earl following him. The others chose their appointed directions.

“My God,” Karl said, under his breath. “I bet that stiffened all of them.”

Chuck said nothing, just looked at the horses.

“It stiffened me,” Sally said.

“Blood,” Mimi said. “You know, I hadn’t even thought of that. And the things we said today! We’ve all disliked her, you know. Even Prender.”

“Oh, shut up, Mimi,” Karl said. “Hell’s bells, what a mess...”

“Shut up yourself, Karl,” Mimi said.

He looked at the horses in the corral, then at the Indians on the hill. “Any connection?” he asked Chuck suddenly. I’m damned, Karl thought, if I’ll keep guard around the corral. Didn’t Jim Brent realise the Indians would notice the carefully corralled horses? Fine way to treat friends.

“Sure,” Chuck admitted frankly. “And we couldn’t pay them a bigger compliment. The Squeehawks say they can beat the Crows any day when it comes to being horse-fanciers.”

“Well, I’m not staying here to insult any Indian,” Karl said.

Chuck looked at him, pulled his hat farther down over his eyes. “Leaving your post, son?” he asked quietly, almost casually.

“That’s right,” Mimi said quickly. “You go and help Mrs. Gunn, and I’ll stay here in your place.”

“Argue it out with Jim,” Sally said. “But you better wait until he gets back before you go making your change in his plans.”

Karl said nothing. But he stayed. He’d argue it out with Brent.

Mimi was watching Jim in the distance. He was riding towards the Indians, who had travelled over the hill. Indians, she thought, Indians coming over the hill. I’ve never seen anything, imagined anything, like this. It’s a matter-of-fact thing to Chuck here, to Jim, to the boys. But I’ve never known anything like this. “And we’ll probably never be able to see them,” she said gloomily, thinking of Esther Park and a night of worry and trouble. Trust Esther to choose today...

“You’ll be hearing Injuns plenty,” Chuck said, as if he had been reading her thoughts. “After they set up their tepees and the women start cooking, and they eat, and they do a bit of talking, they’ll be singing and dancing half the night. They’re kind of slow to get started on it, but once they get going they keep it up. You’ll be hearing them plenty. But first we’ll find Miss Park.”

“Yes, Chuck,” Mimi said. And for penance she turned away from the blue-rimmed mountains and the golden hillside and the white-pinioned tepees, and she marched down towards Mrs. Gunn and a stack of dirty dishes, and fires to be lit, and sandwiches to be made.

“And what do we do?” Karl asked. “Just stand here counting the blasted horses every five minutes?”

“There’s worse things to look at nor a horse,” Chuck said amiably. Then, as Karl and Sally both stood silently beside him, he began to tell of the winter when he lived with the Squeehawks on their reservation which lay eighty-odd miles away to the south. They were good ranchers. Not like the Iropshaws, who rented out their land to others and spent too much on joy-water, when they could get it, and then never had a penny for their families. Now take the Squeehawks...