Softly Falling (30 page)

“No, you wouldn’t have. I drank away the cattle money, and then I lost the ranch to you in a stupid card game. Jack, I disgust myself.”

What could he say? Jack hesitated a moment, then put his hand on Clarence’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Tears started in the older man’s eyes. He gave a rueful laugh.

“Listen to me, going on about my petty problems, all of which I brought on myself! You fought a war and I don’t hear complaints from you.”

Jack kept his hand on Clarence’s shoulder, drawing him closer. “I think everyone fights a war, Clarence. Mine was just easier to see than yours.” He looked up. “Hey, guess who’s coming to take you home?”

Clarence looked up and Jack saw all the love in his eyes as Lily waved and walked toward them. “She’s the best thing that I ever did,” he whispered. “I know her life is hard too, but she is a great lady.”

“No argument from me,” Jack said with a smile of his own. “Say, uh, Clarence, we’ve all sort of noticed how you’ve been perking up lately. Seems to me like you might be turning the corner on your . . . your difficulties.”

“People have noticed?” Clarence asked, and his eyes had a hopeful glint to them now, a sort of quiet pride.

“Preacher was saying to me only yesterday—he talks and keeps us awake on long drives—he was saying that you’re walking steady and your color is better.” Jack patted Clarence’s shoulder. “And my goodness, you seem to have found a kindred spirit with numbers in Nick Sansever. I think you’re a teacher too.”

Clarence’s smile widened. “He’s a bright lad! I’ve been thinking: Lily says you’re always after her to have a plan. I have a little plan of my own. When I get to Cheyenne, I’ll see if I can act on it.”

“Care to share?”

“Not yet. It’s just an idea right now.” He patted Jack in turn. “You’ve been kind to listen to my ramblings. I never talked about any of this before.”

Maybe you should have
, Jack thought, wondering at the sorrow people bring on themselves.

He stepped back as Lily took her father by the arm and kissed his forehead. “I was wondering if you found yourself trapped between ledgers, Papa,” she teased. It was a gentle joke, the kind of joshing that a parent might use on a child.

Jack saw clearly how the relationship had changed. Lily had taken charge of her father in such a loving way that he doubted Clarence had a clue. He
was
a weak man, one who needed structure and guidance, much as a child would. Jack tipped his hat to Lily and moved toward the horse barn, trying not to walk funny.

As for me, that would never do
, he thought, watching them walk away, close together and bumping shoulders the way people who loved each other did. He had been in charge so long that he didn’t know any other way to act, but a weak man might look with relief on being corralled and guided by someone stronger.

Smiling to himself, he curried his horse, grained him, and then turned him into a loose box to forage and rest from three relentless days of hard work. A half hour later, after giving Nick and his sisters a dime apiece to haul hot water to the shed that subbed as a bathing room, he stuffed as much of himself as he could into the community tin tub and sank into the water. Stretch probably had some calamine lotion to daub on his sorer parts.

So Clarence Carteret had a plan too? One imp in his brain tugged at him to be wary because weak men can’t be trusted. The other one clasped hands above his head in a victory salute. Before he closed his eyes in the bliss of warm water lapping at his aches, Jack wasn’t certain which imp to heed.

C
HAPTER
28

I
n the classic fashion of man proposing and God disposing, Jack didn’t need to escort Clarence to Wisner after all.

Lily had packed her father’s bag, frowning over frayed collars and shirts that had suffered from Wyoming’s hard water. If they were able to move somewhere else after school ended in May—provided she could save every cent of her princely salary—maybe they could find a town with actual stores and a Chinese laundry.

As they hurried to the cookshack for breakfast, Lily noticed the air had turned chillier. The wind blew in fits, puffs, and bellows from the northwest, and practically threw them into the dining hall.

Jack was sitting with a stranger, a genial-looking fellow who shoveled in Madeleine’s admittedly excellent flapjacks like a man who hadn’t been near breakfast in weeks. Jack gestured to them and they came closer. He stood up.

“Clarence, this is . . . this is . . .” He leaned toward the man wielding his fork with such dexterity.

“Ed Parker,” he said. He tipped his loaded fork in salute. “She’s some cook.”

“Ed is going to Wisner and he said he’d take you along too, if you’re agreeable,” Jack said. “There’s so much to do here.”

Ed eyed Lily’s father. “Got room on the wagon, if you’re not picky about sitting with a scoundrel.” He laughed, showing off flapjacks and blackened teeth.

“I haven’t been picky in years,” Clarence assured him. “Let me have breakfast first, and then I’ll go back to my house and get my bag.”

Parker nodded and directed his interest to two new flapjacks that Amelie put on his plate. Jack joined them at their table, nodding to Chantal when she refilled his coffee mug.

“Says he comes from Marquardt’s outfit, but I don’t know him. If you’d rather wait a day, I can probably free up Preacher.”

Clarence shook his head. “Mr. Buxton made it amply plain that he wanted this money in consortium hands as soon as feasible.” He sighed. “They want to buy even more Texas cattle for next year’s drive north.”

“Jeez Louise,” Jack said in disgust. “Thanks, Clarence, for agreeing to this. You too, Ed.” He leaned closer to Clarence. “Did Buxton give you any money to stay at a hotel?”

“He never does,” Clarence replied, so serene that Lily had a sudden urge to shake him.
Papa, it’s one thing to be proud, but another thing to be meek
, she wanted to tell him, but he had been pummeled enough by events and time. He didn’t need his newly found daughter berating him.

“I’ll take care of him,” she told Jack, more sharply than she should have, because both men looked at her in surprise.

“I was going to offer to—”

“No need, Jack. I have a little money set by,” she said, wincing inwardly because she knew better than to interrupt good-intentioned people, even when she knew Jack Sinclair had her father’s welfare at heart.

Jack reddened, and Clarence put his hand on her arm. “He didn’t mean anything by it, daughter.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that your boss is a stingy fellow,” she said, perhaps louder than she should have, because Will Buxton glanced her way with a frown. “And I’m making it worse,” she finished in a whisper. “Forgive me?”

Jack nodded, but she could tell she had wounded him. She nearly said it:
Someone has to come to my father’s defense and it should be me
, but she choked the words back in time and nodded instead, miserable, because she liked Jack Sinclair, liked him a lot. Now he would think she was a shrew and a busybody. She mumbled something about seeing her father back at the house and left the cookshack.

The air was definitely cooler. Maybe she could work up her nerve soon and ask Madeleine where a lady might find warmer undergarments in this windscow of a territory.

Lily stood still. “Stop it,” she murmured. What had happened to her appreciation of the territory, and her admiration for her little students? Blown by the wind, she suddenly realized how much she loved her father. “Papa, I just want to smooth your tattered way,” she said to the wind, which obligingly carried her words east.

She hurried to her house and dug around for some cheese and crackers in the lean-to kitchen. Too embarrassed to return to the cookshack for breakfast, she gathered it into a napkin, along with some bread crusts for the Little Man of the Prairie. She reminded herself that she had asked her children to think of a name for the pack rat.

Looking as cold as she felt, Papa opened the door.

“Papa, I’m sorry,” she began. “I just . . . I just.” She took a deep breath. “I just love you, and I fear I try too hard to be your champion. Forgive me?”

He answered by opening his arms. She moved into his embrace, relieved and happier than she remembered in years. Clarence Carteret was no protector, and he never would be. He was her father and she loved him. She thought of all the years they could have been tramping the world together, and she mourned the lost moments, even as she cherished their future, whatever it looked like.

How could she say all that? She tapped his shoulder. “You’re my papa,” she said simply.

“I wish I had sent for you sooner. Ah, well. We have time now.”

“I have a little money,” she told him, going to her trunk, which she had covered with a tablecloth dredged up from some cubbyhole and turned into a bedside table. She removed the tablecloth and the copy of
Ben-Hur
that she was reading at night, after Jack reshelved
Ivanhoe
(always with regret), and left. She had earlier hidden her uncle’s money in her extra corset, fearing that her father would scavenge through the trunk.

It was all there. She sat back on her heels. “Uncle Niles gave me fifty pounds,” she lied. “He wanted me to invest it in your cattle herd for him. I had it changed into dollars.” She counted out ten dollars and looked him in the eyes. “That should buy a nice room and meals.” She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “I won’t give you more because I’d rather you weren’t tempted to spend it . . . inappropriately.”

There. She sounded like the parent to the child, but he made no objection. His fingers closed around the greenbacks. “I won’t need all this for any room in Cheyenne, but I’d like to buy you something nice. What do you need?”

Sweet man, sweet, sweet man. She laughed and held her hand out, and he pulled her to her feet. “Papa, you’ll be embarrassed, but what I really think I need are what they call union suits for ladies. I don’t have anything warm to wear, you know, under everything.”

Papa scratched his chin. “A dry goods store here might have what you need.”

Blushing, she wrote her measurements on a card and tucked it in his pocket. “If you have time, and you’re not too embarrassed, I’d appreciate it.”

“I have time for you,” he said, putting on his coat again. “Walk me as far as the Buxtons’. Mr. Parker said he’d meet me there in an hour.” He waved the ten dollars and then pocketed it. “Fifty pounds, eh? Niles has no idea what cattle cost.”

He laughed, the first genuine laugh Lily had heard in years, maybe even since Barbados, when they were all so happy. “Hang onto the rest, my dearest. Maybe you can invest in Jack’s cattle herd because it’s a modest sum. You know, keep it on the, ah, family ranch. I’ll never tell Niles.”

She smiled back, pleased to hear him laughing about what she knew must have been a sore point with him. “Maybe it’ll buy a salt block for Bismarck.”

“One or two thousand! Don’t forget: I know salt blocks because I account for all the Bar Dot’s business.”

“So you do, Papa, and you’re good at it.”

It touched Lily to see how he basked in even the smallest compliment. He had heard so few in his life. “Maybe you can teach Nick how to do double entry bookkeeping—you know, for those moments when he isn’t breaking broncs.”

“I could do that, Lily. When I get back.”

Arm in arm they walked up the hill, struggling against the wind together. “Papa, wherever we go next year, let’s find a place with no wind,” she said, shouting to be heard.

“I hear that San Francisco is nice,” he shouted back.

Just then, the wind stopped, and his words carried so far that Fothering, helping Luella, looked behind him in surprise.

Lily and her father laughed. “San Francisco, then, in 1887,” she said.

He stood still, as if struck by something important. She gave him an inquiring look.

“Daughter, only a few months ago, I would have said, ‘I’ll drink a toast to that.’ ”

“But not now?”

“No. I don’t know if you are aware, but I’ve been imbibing less and less.” He took a deep breath, and she saw the pride in his face. “Last night, I didn’t drink anything.”

She hadn’t been aware and couldn’t help the tears in her eyes. Papa kindly wiped them away with the end of his muffler. “San Francisco in 1887,” he told her softly. “You can count on me.”

Lily walked him to the Buxtons’ porch and kissed his cheek. She tightened his muffler, and wished he had a hat made of something warm. At least Wisner was only four miles, and then he would be on the train, chugging to Cheyenne. With Papa gone, maybe it wouldn’t do to have Jack come to her house tonight for a reading lesson and
Ivanhoe
. When she was helping the children in the dining hall tonight, she could take him aside and apologize for speaking sharply.

“Write when you get work, Papa,” she teased.

Papa waved and gave her a thumbs-up—so American and so vulgar, and she loved it. Fothering and Luella waited for her, and she continued up the hill with them.

“I heard the mention of San Francisco,” Fothering said. “Making plans, are we?”

“We are, indeed,” she said.

He sent Luella skipping ahead. “Maybe you would like a butler in San Francisco. Mrs. Buxton is ever more certain daily that she is going to die. She’s even starting to cling to Luella, which is unnerving in the extreme. Poor child doesn’t know what to do.” He turned to face her, hanging tight to his hat. “You have no idea what a refuge school is for Luella.”