Showdown at Buffalo Jump (7 page)

“See, it wasn't even loaded,” he squeaked. “Uh, just so you don't think I'm trying to pull anything funny, maybe I'd better sleep outside tonight. I'll bed down with the chickens so the coyotes won't bother them.”

Max gathered his bedroll in one swoop of his arms and carried it outside. He stopped there, taking deep breaths of the cool night air. A shiver passed over him, and it had nothing to do with the chill moving across the land. He looked up at the stars that calmed him most nights, his problems and aspirations insignificant when measured against heaven's depth and breadth and beauty. But he saw no peace there tonight, only emptiness.

She actually had pulled the trigger. Catherine O'Dowd Bass pointed a pistol at her husband on their wedding night and pulled the trigger. What the hell had he gotten himself into? Max would spend the remainder of the night pondering that question.

6

Max awoke with a noseful of chicken. He had bedded next to the wagon, and it fairly reeked with the foul odor. But it wasn't the chickens that had awakened him.

Something in the night had poked into his consciousness, so he lay still, measuring his breath to the natural cadence of a sleeping man. Ever so slowly he opened his eyes. It was always best to know which way to jump before you made a move.

He glimpsed a flicker of movement just at the lip of the slope leading down to Pishkin Creek. Coyote. Must be a coyote after the chickens. No! The two shadowy figures outlined against the horizon were wolves, big prairie wolves. Two at least, maybe others. Strange they would venture so close this time of year. Max watched them for a full two minutes, and they watched him, each unsure of the intentions of the other. Then Max raised his arm, and they disappeared without a sound as though they were nothing more than an early morning dream.

It was early, the stars winking out against a gray sky, but there was little chance of more sleep with all the thoughts bumping around in his head. Max rolled back the bedroll and stood, shivering a little in the early morning chill. He stepped a little away from the wagon to relieve himself. He didn't want any telltale puddle: no telling what that woman would say about that.

Probably wasn't proper to pee near a wagonload of chickens. Probably a book somewhere that said that proper people don't do that, and no doubt she had read it. She wouldn't hesitate to tell him about her opinion of men who didn't go by the book, either. She was a woman who spoke her mind, no matter how much it stung.

Everything Max did was wrong—by her standards, anyway. He lived in a den, and ate like a hog. The more Max thought about it, the more it grated on his nerves. What made that woman so high and mighty? She was a mail-order bride, not a princess.

And then, as the sun cracked the eastern horizon, Catherine's voice floated up to him from the dugout.

“Mr. Bass!”

The voice seemed out of place. Except for an occasional visitor, an occasional trip to town, Max had spent the last three years alone, the sound of a woman's voice scarce as summer rain.

Max walked over to the edge of the hill and looked down. Catherine was below, fully dressed and standing by the dugout door. At least she was no slugabed.

“Mr. Bass, where is the … uh, facility?”

“Ma'am?”

“The toilet.”

Max's face lit up. “Just a minute. I should have shown it to you last night, but I wanted you to see it in daylight. Just built it. Had you in mind when I did.”

“How nice.”

Max continued his running monologue as he led Catherine downstream toward the corral.

“Put it in an arm of the coulee, just before we get to the corral. Close enough to the dugout, but not too close. I built her solid. You'll appreciate that when a blizzard blows through here.”

Max slowed as he neared the corral. The trail from there to the outhouse was faint, not yet worn through the grass that carpeted the coulee bottom.

“There she is, ma'am,” Max said, looking back to watch her face as she appraised his handiwork.

The outhouse was well constructed—solid. Each joint in the siding overlapped to ensure that the building would be tight against winter winds and summer flies.

“Got lap cedar roofing, ma'am. Don't see much of that around here, and ma'am,” Max said, pausing for effect, “you will be the first.”

“Why, Mr. Bass,” Catherine said. “You honor me. I don't know if I should go in or christen it with that bottle of champagne your friend gave us.”

She laughed then, taking some of the sting from her words, but Max's face was already glowing with dull, red heat.

“Where was the old outhouse?”

“I made do.”

Catherine's lip curled. “I'm sure you did. Well, at least when I leave, you will be better off for my having been here. Now please give me some privacy.”

Max walked back toward the dugout muttering to himself. That woman sorely tested a man's patience. That outhouse was as fine a piece of handiwork as Max had ever seen, and he had seen more than his share. But was this Boston woman Catherine pleased? Of course not.

By the time Max reached the creek crossing, his anger was at a low boil. Who was this mail-order bride to sneer at him? And worse, why was he still trying to please her? He was acting like a schoolboy, and each time he laid his pride before her, she stepped on it, smeared it with her big-city shoes. There was only so much, by gawd, that a man could take.

When Catherine pulled back the blanket door of the dugout, Max was already inside, turning sizzling salt pork in the pan on the stove. He glanced up at her, and returned to his work, and for some reason, his inattention irked her.

Max waved her to a chair at the table, and then cracked four eggs into the frying pan.

“Oh,” Catherine said. “Fresh eggs. Did the chickens lay them?”

“No, ma'am, these are skunk eggs.”

Catherine rose to the bait like a trout chasing a caddis fly across a wild stretch of river. “Mr. Bass, your tongue is as dull as your wit.”

Max's lips pulled back from his teeth. “I may not be as witty as some of your Boston friends, but I know where chicken eggs come from.”

“You, sir, are not as witty as
any
of my Boston friends.”

Then, the bitterness vented like an obscene blessing, the two began eating, each raising his or her eyes occasionally to glare at the other. Finally, Max broke the silence. “Have to build a chicken yard today, so I'll be going over on the north side of the ridge to get some posts. Won't take too long. I'd like you to go along,”

“I'd like to go back to Prairie Rose.”

“Ma'am,” Max said, his face contorted with the effort of holding his anger under control, “you are not going back to Prairie Rose until I say you are.

“I told you once that I've never had a horse I couldn't break. Well, you can't break horses if you don't keep them corralled. You, Mrs. Catherine O'Dowd Bass, are corralled. And you will stay that way until I decide that I can no longer tolerate your foul temper and pointed tongue.”

When Catherine replied, it was with downcast eyes and a strangely subdued voice. “It is, then, as I feared. I am your prisoner.”

“No, ma'am,” Max said, his anger gone like the air from a punctured balloon. “You are my wife.”

“I see little difference.”

Those words stung more than any she had said in anger. There was soul-withering truth in that simple statement.

Catherine was a prisoner. Max had spent months building a trap for her, examining it from all angles so there was no way for her to wiggle free once entangled.

And then Max baited the snare with lies, carefully chosen to attract a special prey.

Catherine O'Dowd was special. She was ambitious, or she would have stayed in Ireland. She was bright, or she would not have so quickly assimilated the proper speech and manners of the mansion in Boston. She was pretty and would bear Max sons worthy of the empire he would build. But mostly, she was vulnerable, a woman alone in a new land without friends or family to turn to. She was perfect.

And when she came to Prairie Rose, Max slipped the trap, a ring of gold, over her finger. She could not escape that trap. It held her as firmly as spiked jaws hold a bear. Her upbringing would not allow her to pull that ring from her finger no matter how great the pain. Catherine O'Dowd was Max's prisoner, and he would not let her go.

And now the guilt of that drove him from the table. He paused at the door. “Edna figured out about what your size would be from your picture, and I bought some ranch clothes for you. They're in the top two drawers of that dresser over there. You should put them on before we go up the hill.”

Catherine didn't bother to look up.

“How long, Mr. Bass?”

“Ma'am?”

“I served three years to pay for my ticket to America. How long must I serve to pay you back for my ticket to Montana?”

“Ma'am, it ain't like that at all. I … I'll be back as soon as I harness the team.”

Max stepped out of the dugout, carrying a wag-onload of guilt on his shoulders. He felt as though he had just sobered up from a three-day drunk, and one of his friends had just filled him in on all the sordid details. He didn't feel that he was a bad man, but somehow he had become a villain. He wanted nothing more from life than most men did: a livelihood, a home, and a family. He had done nothing more than was necessary to acquire those things. Was that so terrible?

The horses nickered as Max approached the corral. He filled a bucket with rolled oats, and the Percherons trotted over to him. While the horses were eating, Max draped the harness over their backs, collars over their necks. Then he slipped the bits between their teeth and walked the horses up the hill and backed them to the wagon.

Max took great pleasure in these two giant horses. A simple clucking sound would set more than a ton of muscle leaning into the harness. Little could resist that power. Stumps, rocks, and the breast of the earth yielded to that pure, honest strength. In return, they asked nothing but oats in a box, a soft voice, and an occasional slap on the shoulder.

Max turned the wagon in a wide sweep, letting the horses get the feel of the harness, and then he drove the team and wagon off the hill toward the creek ford at the bottom. He left the horses waiting there, muscles of a strong right arm tied to Max's will by harness and reins and habit.

One after another Max carried the boxes of chickens to the lean-to where he had wintered that first year. They would be safe there until he and Catherine returned from the ridge with posts to build a chicken yard. Not likely a coyote or wolf would come in broad daylight, and no way a skunk could breach the lean-to and chicken wire, too.

Next came an axe and saw from the tack shed and a promise to pick up the Winchester, even though there wasn't much chance of seeing wolves, much less of getting a shot. Wolves could pick the silhouette of a man out of a jumble of juniper and pine a mile away.

Max walked to the dugout, calling out before entering so as not to surprise Catherine. But when he stepped inside, she was already dressed. She stood beside the dresser in denim pants and a shapeless shirt and heavy shoes.

“Is this suitable?” Catherine asked quietly. “Is this how servant people dress in Montana?”

“Ma'am, I don't want a servant. I want a wife.”

“You may force me to be your servant, Mr. Bass, but you will never force me to be your wife.”

They stood quietly then, neither looking at the other. Finally, Max said, “Let's go,” and Catherine followed him to the door. He paused there long enough to take the rifle from a box near a pile of firewood.

“I never leave it loaded,” he said, and then wished he hadn't, but Catherine didn't seem to notice.

They walked downstream to the wagon. Catherine refused Max's arm and climbed in. The two set off in surly silence. The air was relatively cool, the sun not yet in full control of the day. Light attacked the prairie from the flank, leaving long shadows stretching off toward the west and north. The shadows gave definition to rocks and trees and bushes that would be hidden later in the day.

Catherine had seen the prairie flattened by the brightness of the sun. Now she was seeing the land in better light, sculpted into gentle shapes by heat, rain, and cold. There was beauty on each side, subtle beauty in pastel shades and sweeping curves. Here and there, yucca pointed sharp spines menacingly into the air, warning all creatures to stay clear of its seed pods or suffer the consequences. Tall juniper stood like exclamation points on a page of understatement, and everywhere bunch grass yielded to the passing wagon as the sea yields to a ship.

They followed the gentle contour of the creek until Max clucked the team up the steep lower reaches of a ridge that stretched away to the top of the butte. The ridge top was narrow and the sides were steep, and Catherine reluctantly, and silently, admitted Max's expertise with team and wagon.

The redolent scent of sage below was complemented as they neared the top with the clean, sweet smell of the pine trees. Bull pine lined the upper reaches of each coulee, leading from the sandstone rimrocks above to the prairie below. It was beside one of these stands that Max pulled the wagon to a halt. He climbed down and shook his head when Catherine tried to follow.

“Won't take long. I'll just drop two or three. I can trim them and cut them into posts and have them stacked by the wagon in a few minutes. Got something above that I want to show you.”

Max walked through the stand, picking small, dead, and ailing pine. He notched the trees uphill toward the wagon and then cut through the other side, watching with satisfaction as they fell just where he planned.

The trees were small—didn't need much of a post to hold in chickens and hold up chicken wire—and Max's Swede saw ate through them in big bites. He left some of the trees almost full length. These would be poles to line the pen top and sides.