Softly Falling (26 page)

C
HAPTER
24

L
ily thought her father might object to her evening plans that involved him, but he did not. She explained the matter to him over supper, Madeleine’s usual beef and beans, livened this time by dried apple pie.

The special occasion was a cookshack full of hands from other ranches, everyone hungry and expectant. Their eyes serious with the task of refilling bowls and lugging around the heavy coffee pot, Amelie and Chantal hurried from table to table.

Lily wondered why the extra hands were there. Like all cattlemen, they ate with no commentary beyond thank yous to the girls, and pass this or that to their fellow diners. Steel forks clinked on heavy white china and someone had a nagging cough.

“Papa, do you know I had a lesson once in proper dinner conversation?” she told her father in a low voice.

He smiled at her, that smile she saw more and more often, and ducked his head close to hers. “Would have been a true waste here, eh?” he whispered.

“Do you know . . . do you have any idea why these men are here?” she asked.

“I might. Jack came to the office this morning to tell Mr. Buxton that several ranchers had agreed to join together to gather their drifting cattle,” he told her and reached for another slice of bread as Amelie hurried by.

You are eating better
, she thought, grateful, and almost let his words pass her by. “He
told
Mr. Buxton?” she asked, paying attention again. “How did he fare?”

“Mr. Buxton called him a fearmonger, among other things which I will not repeat,” her father whispered. “They went at it hammer and tongs, and I am surprised Jack wasn’t told to draw his wages, as they say here. Jack didn’t back down.” He gave a disgusted snort. “All Mr. Buxton wanted to know was that it wasn’t going to cost him anything.”

Lily thought of her afternoon conversation with Pierre. He Stands With Feet Planted didn’t seem to fear unemployment. She remembered her brief visit to his little ranch and her introduction to Bismarck, and how Jack draped his arms over the corral fence and watched his three-cow herd with shy pride. “I think he really likes cows, Papa. He cares.”

She looked around at the men of the Bar Dot. Pierre sat close to Jack, listening to a conversation growing more intense by the minute. Stretch had his own little circle of friends, laughing and smoking. Preacher had tipped his chair back, perhaps the better to hear several conversations, while Will Buxton sat alone playing solitaire, belonging nowhere.

She saw exhaustion on many faces and a certain uneasiness that had no real name. Over conversation, she heard the wind outside, rattling the panes of glass as though wanting to join the gathering too. If there had not been so many warm bodies in the room, it might have felt colder. She was already not looking forward to their walk back to Papa’s quarters.

“Would you mind staying here a while?” she asked her father. “Nick Sansever is doing so well with his addition and subtraction. He is ahead of the others, and I wonder if you would help him along with multiplication. Just for a little while.”

He considered her request. “It will be noisy here,” he said, but it was a feeble objection.

“Just for an hour. And look, here is Fothering with Luella,” she said as the door opened and the wind blew them in. “She will help the Sansever girls with their alphabet.”

“How can I say no?” her father teased. “Are you managing me?”

“I suppose I am,” she said, grateful for his light tone. “I was thinking, a few nights a week . . .” She nudged her father’s shoulder, then kissed his cheek. “And here is Nick with his slate.”

“I wonder how he knew?” Papa gave her an arch look and then loosened his cravat, that article of clothing that set him off as a stranger in a strange land of cows and ranchers. The dingy cravat was as shabby as his collar, but it touched Lily’s heart to see his own brave struggle to stand his ground and remain a gentleman. “Thank you, Papa. Just one hour.”

She went to the girls, who had gathered at a table closest to the kitchen. In a few minutes, Luella and Chantal and Amelie had their heads together over small words. Pleased, she watched them, enjoying Luella’s confidence.

“And who, miss, are you?”

The gravelly voice boomed out over all the talk, and all conversation ceased. Lily turned away, uncertain. She put her hand on Luella’s shoulder, because the girl had half risen from the bench, startled. “Just keep working,” Lily whispered. “I doubt he means any harm.” She pointed at Amelie’s slate. “Very good. If you add an E you have . . .”

“I mean
you
, Miss High Yaller. Putting on airs?”

Mortified, she heard a chair hit the floor and another scrape back, and then Jack’s familiar voice, except there was menace in it. “That’s enough, Mr. Ledbetter.”

“Just wondering, that’s all.”

Lily turned around. Ledbetter was a big man, taller than some, but no taller than she was. He looked like the others with his shirt that had probably been white in better days, a vest probably greasy enough to stand on its own, and jeans. He needed a haircut and a shave like the others, and he was regarding her with more than interest. He looked her up and down.

“I am Miss Carteret, the schoolteacher here,” she said, suddenly finding a purpose for those lessons in precise diction she had learned in Bristol.

“She is my daughter,” her father said as he stood beside her, swaying a little because he was never steady.

“On purpose?” the big man said and threw back his head to laugh.

“Here now . . . ,” her father began.

“I, sir, am a gentleman’s daughter,” Lily said.

“How in tarnation can that be? You’re a—”

The click of a hammer pulled back stopped the man right there.

“Just one more word, Ledbetter,” Jack said. “You rubbed my last nerve.”

Lily deliberately stepped in front of the man who had taunted her, the man who was now ghostly in complexion. “I am not worth a life. Not over this.”

“Oh, you are. What’s it to be, Ledbetter? If I don’t get you tonight, since this
lady
”—he said it with emphasis—“. . . this lady is far kinder than you are, I’ll get you later. Count on it.”

“It won’t happen again,” the man said behind her, his voice so high and strangled that some of the other men chuckled. He put on his hat. “Past my bedtime,” he said as he started for the door. “Bunkhouse?”

“If they’ll have you there,” Jack said, easing back the hammer and holstering his gun. “If they won’t, there’s a tack room next to the horse barn.”

Ledbetter nodded and left. Everyone in the room seemed to take a deep breath. The children went back to their studies. His own face pale, Fothering took her arm.

“That was a bit too much like the old West,” he said as he sat her down. “My dear, would you care for some tea?”

“I would,” she told him, hoping her own voice was in its proper register. She clasped her hands to stop their shaking and looked around the room at the cowhands, the ones she knew and the strangers. “I must confess, gentlemen.” Chuckles here and there. “No, gentlemen,” she insisted, but mildly. “When I knew I was coming to Wyoming, America, I read what I hear is called a dime-store novel.”

Stretch slapped his forehead. “I’m crushed you would stoop so low!”

Everyone laughed, and the air seemed to start circulating again.

“Which one?” Preacher asked.

“Let me see . . . it had an obnoxious title,” she replied, going along with the more friendly tide now. “Oh, how could I forget? It rejoiced in the name of
The Train Robbers, or Lucy in Peril
.”

More laughter.

“It was set in Texas.”

Groans followed the laughter.

“What did you learn?” This from Pierre, who had just slid what looked like a filleting knife back into its beaded pouch.

She looked around again at friendlier faces and understood just what she had learned. She stood taller. “I learned that the West is colorful, and that . . .”—her voice faltered—“. . . that cowboys are kind to ladies.”

“Have to be, ma’am,” said a cheerful voice. “Scarcer’un hen’s teeth. By the way, I know Buxton is a skinflint. I’ll double whatever he’s paying you to teach
my
kids.”

“I’m not really a teacher,” she said.

The cheerful man—he must have been a rancher, rather than a hand—looked around at the children, who had returned to their tasks. “You could’a fooled me.” He tipped his hat to Lily. “If you change your mind, my ranch is the Bar Lazy M and I’m Pete Marquardt. I’m off for your bunkhouse, Sinclair.”

“No need,” Jack said. “I have room at my little place. You know where it is.”

The rancher opened the door, and a gust of wind nearly blew the knob out of his hand. “Woo-wee! Colder’n a well digger’s . . .” Marquardt closed the door behind him.

Fothering stood up. “What say you, Luella? Might this be an opportune time to leave?”

Lily thought the butler looked as though he expected an argument. “Morning comes early, Luella, and the Temple of Education awaits,” she added.

The child nodded. She looked at Fothering, then at Lily and declared in her forthright way, “A few weeks ago, I probably would have said that I will catch my death in this cold and surely die before the week is out.” She appeared genuinely puzzled. “What happened?”

Lily exchanged a glance with the butler. “Perhaps you are discovering how resilient you are.”

“Resilient?” Luella asked. “Define it, please, for my benefit.”

“Strong and mighty, but able to bend,” Lily told her promptly, trying not to smile at Luella’s quaint ways. “It’s an excellent quality in Wyoming ladies, so I am learning.”

The men in the room laughed. Some returned to their cards, and others poured more coffee. Jack grinned at her, relaxing again.

Pierre got to his feet. “Fothering, let me walk with you. Between the two of us, we’ll keep Luella from blowing away.”

“I would greatly appreciate it,” Luella said. “Mr. Fontaine,
will
the Little Man return?”

“He is probably in your classroom already,” Pierre said as he shrugged into his coat. “It’s a cold night.” He smiled at Lily. “He has probably pouted enough.”

“I thought that’s what he was doing,” Chantal said. She fingered one of Luella’s braids. “Thank you for helping us.”

“Thank you for forgiving me,” Luella said softly. “See you tomorrow.”

After they left, Lily turned to her father. “Papa, perhaps we should go now.”

Papa looked up from Nick’s slate. “Wait a while, my dear. Nick and I are not quite done, are we, lad?”

“Not yet, Miss Carteret,” Nick said. “Just a few more minutes.”

“He’s doing so well, I would hate to stop right now,” Clarence Carteret said. He smiled then, and his smile took her breath away. “Oh, please, Miss Carteret,” he teased.

Lily let her breath out slowly, wondering—perhaps like Luella—what had happened. This felt surprisingly like a tender mercy, except that it had been years since she had petitioned the Almighty for anything since she knew He wasn’t all that interested in little girls of partial color stuck in boarding schools.

“I can wait, Papa,” she said.

“No need,” Jack said, standing up. “I’ll be your escort.” He looked around. “I have room for two more of you bandits, if you don’t mind Marquardt’s snoring. There’s a reason why no one likes to sleep near him at cow gathers.”

Two men stood up. “Ready, Lily?” Jack asked.

She nodded, already bracing herself for the wind outside.

“Put your head down,” Jack said outside. He held her arm with one hand and his hat with the other. One of the cowhands linked her other arm through his, and the second man walked in front of her, trying to block some of the wind that roared down from the north and west, always from the north and west.

Although she had also learned how to carry on a conversation to gentlemen walking home a lady, Lily knew that everything she said would be snatched from her mouth, so she was silent.

“I’ll get her the rest of the way,” Jack shouted over the wind as they passed his quarters. He stopped a minute, looking at his roof. Then he pulled her closer and continued the short distance to Papa’s place, where the wind, impatient to enter, rattled the doorknob. When he opened the door, the wind blew her in. Jack followed her and shut the door, after leaning against it.

“I’d hate to run into that wind in January,” he told her. “You all right?”

“Certainly. It’s only wind. I may need more lead shot for my skirts,” she replied.
And I will never tell you what else I need
, she thought. Her English undergarments were no match for Wyoming, but she didn’t see a remedy for that dilemma from the foreman of the Bar Dot. Maybe Madeleine would have a suggestion before her legs fell off.

“Well, then, good night.” Jack pulled his Stetson down more firmly. “We’ll be gone for the next few days pushing cattle.” He leaned against the door and regarded her seriously. “Lily, this winter is already unfolding like I thought it would.”

Yes, he had told her, but it frightened her anyway. “Pierre said it would snow tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t doubt him. He’s staying here, so you’ll have your winter count lesson.”