Softly Falling (5 page)

“You sound skeptical,” she told him, and again he was impressed with her awareness.

“I am. Who is to say this will be an easy winter, with enough snow and rain in the spring?” He spoke to his horses and pulled back to slow the wagon, just watching the cattle, something he did all the time, because they worried him.

“You’d have sold anyway, wouldn’t you?”

He couldn’t hold back his admiration, and the sudden realization that he had a most unlikely ally. “Bravo, Miss Carteret!”

“Oh, now,” she said with a low laugh. “You’re teasing me.”

“No, I’m not! I wouldn’t. I’d have sold the whole lot, even at a loss.” Might as well unlimber his whole gripe on her. “That’s what I told Mr. Buxton, but he ignored me. Said the consortium knew best. What was I but the foreman who works the cattle?”

She peered at his face in a way he found endearing. “
You’re
the one who knows. Who is Mr. Buxton?”

“He’s my boss, but he never rides the range. He works for a whole bunch of Englishmen who have sunk amazing fortunes into cattle. They call themselves the Cheyenne Land and Cattle Company.” He started the horses in motion again. “I’m the one who knows, but who listens to a man making seventy-five dollars a month?” He couldn’t help his sarcasm. “They’re piling in thousands of dollars and
that
makes them experts.”

He could have said more, but Jack was curious to know just how bright she was. She looked at the vastness of the plains, full of cattle, and then up at the sky without a cloud in sight.

“What’s going to happen, Mr. Sinclair?” she asked. “What do you know?”

“I’ll show you when we get to the river.”

C
HAPTER
5

H
ang onto the seat,” he told her. “Or grab my belt. It’s steep here. Don’t be shy.”

She gripped the wagon bench as they started down toward the Sublette River, hardly more than a creek now. She pressed her feet against the wagon boards as the pitch grew and then grasped his belt, trying not to slide. He enjoyed the feel of her fingers.

He reined in at the river so the horses could drink, and she let go of his belt, her face tinged with slight color that made her light tan skin so handsome.

He knew she was embarrassed, but he didn’t bother to set her at ease, because that was the journey, as she would discover the longer she lived here. He pointed toward the muskrat mounds along the bank.

“Muskrats. Seen any before?”

She shook her head, then moved a little closer to him when he said they looked like big rats.
Must remember this
, he thought, amused.

“They live along riverbanks here and pretty much hole up for the winter.”

She gave him another puzzled look.

“I knocked into one of their lodges the other day, out of curiosity. I’ve never seen walls so thick. That means a bad winter.”

She didn’t try to hide her skepticism.

“You’re as unconvinced as my boss!”

“We can’t call this scientific,” she said a trifle tartly.

“Well, let me show you something else. Just stay here. I’ll be back.”

He let himself down by the water’s edge and walked back among the cottonwoods, looking until he found what he wanted. “Up you get, little feller,” he said as he carefully lifted a caterpillar off the tree. At the wagon, he set the little beast on the seat and watched her slide the other way.

“It’s a woolly caterpillar,” he said, letting it crawl onto his index finger. “Don’t go all girly on me. They’re upstanding little citizens. I’ve never seen one so woolly.”

She looked less skeptical. In fact, a fine frown line worked its way between her eyes. She reached out tentatively and touched the creature. “When will it freeze here?”

“Already has. Last week.”

“But that was the end of August!” She held her hand palm up and he deposited the caterpillar in it. He watched the frown deepen as she brought the caterpillar closer to her face. “It’s so warm today.”

He returned the caterpillar to a tree. “It’ll be warm a few more days, Miss Carteret, maybe another week or two even, but we’ve already had our first freeze.”

“You’ve never seen it so early?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It’s going to be a bad winter, and I can’t convince anyone.”

“What’s going to happen to all these cattle?”

“You’re not supposed to ask that question,” he said. “It’s bad luck.”

“That’s silly,” she retorted immediately. “I mean . . . well, I mean . . . that’s silly.”

“Tell Mr. Buxton for me, will you?”

They started up the opposite bank in silence, Miss Carteret with her hand on her totally impractical hat this time. He needed both hands on the reins, or he would have happily put one behind her back to steady her. She leaned forward and grasped the front of the wagon, giving a small sigh of gratitude when they were on level soil again. He pointed to a cluster of buildings—so small on the open plain—and edged the wagon in their direction.

“I don’t mean to upset you, but that’s your father’s ranch that I won last January.”

He wished he hadn’t been looking at her eyes then, because he saw shame.

“Mr. Sinclair, two years ago, my father wrote his brother—my uncle—all about his wonderful ranch. He never mentioned this.” She spoke so softly. “Two years! He lied to us. My uncle thought things were better, and he sent me to this wonderful ranch that now belongs to you.”

She looked away, and he felt the hot embarrassment for someone else that was somehow worse than almost any other emotion. This English lady was pawning her dignity, and it ripped at his insides. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Let’s see it, then,” she said after a long pause. She put her hand up to shade her forehead and take a better look. “Right now at least, I’m not feeling too sorry for myself.”

It was an interesting comment, spoken clearly and with no tears in her voice. He knew then that he was looking at a lady with no expectations, and it pained him. Some chivalrous part of him wished that ladies had an easier time of it in this vale of tears than men did. Generally, woman’s lot was worse, or so he had observed.

When they came to the ranch gate, he got off, and with a certain easy-walking pride, opened the gate. To his surprise, Miss Carteret slid over, took the reins, and clucked the horses through, so he could close the gate behind him. She pulled up a little shortly, but the horses didn’t mind.

“Thanks for that. Didn’t know you knew horses,” he said as he climbed up again and took the reins from her.

“I don’t know teams, but I’ve been watching you.” She placed her hands placidly in her lap again, as if daring him to make anything of such a simple act of kindness.

The buildings weren’t far from the gate, down a sheltering slope. The sodbuster or would-be rancher who had first owned the property that her father bought had known something about wind, tucking his shack a little below the constant breeze. The barn was close by. He had already told Manuel to string a rope between the two buildings, even though the Mexican had laughed.
Just you wait
, Jack thought, feeling grim again.
You’ll be glad you listened to me
.

Wiping his hands on a towel, Manuel came into the yard. He was just a little Mexican, too old now for hard ranch work, but willing to sign on to watch one bull and a couple of cows and not laugh about it, as everyone else did.

“Manuel Ortega, this is Miss Carteret,” Jack said, remembering the proper way to introduce a lady. “She’s going to stay on the Bar Dot with her father. How’s Bismarck?”

“Fat and king of the pasture,” Manuel said. With a courtly little bow, he held out his hand to Lily Carteret and helped her from the wagon. “All I have inside is cold coffee, and I don’t recommend it,” he told her.

She laughed. “I’ll settle for a glass of water, if you have one.”

The three of them went into the shack, two rooms and a kitchen lean-to. There was only one tin cup, but Manuel graciously wiped off the rim with the same cloth he had used on his hands, and dipped Lily a drink from a bucket. She accepted it just as graciously and looked around the room.

She focused her attention on the wallpaper, roses on a shiny background.

“My father’s home improvement.”

“Yes. He also left this funny couch . . .”

“A chaise lounge.”

“. . . and Manuel has a really nice pitcher and basin with roses.”

He couldn’t help but watch her expressive face, wondering if this information would break through the steely resolve she seemed so capable of, but no. She took it all in stride, though, and just glanced into the other room, which held an ornate brass bed. Manuel had just thrown his bedroll there, but she made no comment, beyond observing a whiter portion of the wall and asking if there were photographs.

Jack felt his own discomfort now. “Yes’m, two,” he mumbled. “I took them down and tried to give them to Mr. Carteret, but he just gave me a strange sort of smile and reminded me that I had won the whole ranch, fair and square.”

She flinched at that and tightened her lips, reminding him that even this woman with no expectations had a tender heart.

“I have them at the Bar Dot, and I’ll give them to you,” he said.

“I thank you for that.” And then she completely betrayed herself by lowering her eyes and dabbing at them in the most casual way, perhaps thinking he might believe she was just flicking off dust. “Is there one of a beautiful woman?”

“Yes’m. You’ll have it.”

She gave herself a little shake, as if daring him to comment on the tears that made her brown eyes look liquid. “I would like to see Bismarck, if you please.”

They walked from the house toward the barn. He couldn’t help himself as he ran his hand along the rope stretched between the two buildings, testing it for tautness, wondering if Manuel was going to be equal to the winter he knew was coming.

He had to admire the barn. He had stuffed it with hay, cut from his fields when all his work was done on the Bar Dot. Mr. Buxton had unnecessarily warned him that he was foreman of the Bar Dot first, and rancher second. Jack knew that. Every penny of his salary went for hay he contracted from the few farmers in the area. No one had a good harvest that year, which meant that stunted corn, blasted by the wind, came his way too. What he couldn’t cram in the barn, he and Manuel had piled into stacks and covered with canvas, anchoring them down against Wyoming wind. Would it be enough?

He gestured toward his summer-long efforts. “I am a source of real amusement to every stockman I know,” he told Miss Carteret. “ ‘Hey, reb, why don’t you let that overgrown pile of beef and tallow graze with all the rest?’ they joke. I keep my head down and my mouth shut. It has been my pattern.”

Miss Carteret nodded. “Mine too.” She put her hand on his arm, which startled him, although he liked it for the split second she did it. “After a while, people forget to tease, and you just blend in.”

He nodded, impressed with Miss Carteret, and walked her to a fenced pasture, where Bismarck cropped whatever ground cover he could find. His massive head went up and he began a slow, nearly regal progress to the fence. He didn’t look around, but his harem moved along in his wake, as he must have known they would.

“Goodness, does he know you?” Miss Carteret asked.

“We shared a cattle car on the train from Cheyenne. I expect he does.”

Miss Carteret had draped her arms over the top fence rail. He enjoyed her smile, relieved that she didn’t seem to be dwelling on the ranch that should have been her father’s.

“Mr. Sinclair, if I get homesick for England, which I doubt I will, I will visit this pasture,” she told him. “I’ve seen many cows like this one. Is he dangerous?”

“Most probably. I kept him tethered to an iron chain in the railcar, and I don’t take chances now.” He patted the wooden fence. “I made it stronger than most.”

But there Bismarck stood, curious, with a gleam of intelligent capability in his eyes. Jack touched his big head. “His lady friends will each have a calf, come early March. Slow and sure, I’ll get a herd of . . . Hairifords.” He laughed, a self-conscious sound. “If it won’t ruffle your sensibilities, I’ll keep calling them Herferds. No sense in giving the boys even more to laugh about.”

Miss Carteret walked behind his house while he gave a few orders to Manuel, plus the promised peppermints. He questioned Manuel about the general condition of the privy, but the old man only shrugged. “It’s just a privy,” he said.

Jack knew Miss Carteret was too much of a lady to comment on the primitive facilities, but she surprised him. As he helped her up to the wagon seat again, she said to some imaginary person standing just beyond his left ear. “Only my father would have put a chairback in a necessary. He does like his little comforts.”

Jack laughed out loud. His good humor lasted to the main road and even beyond the sight of skinny cattle overgrazing worn-out land. It might be too much to hope for, but maybe Miss Carteret really had what it took to survive what he feared was going to be a winter to remember. If she stayed that long.

Who was he kidding? Of course she would stay. He knew Clarence Carteret was not a man to plan ahead. His daughter would find out soon enough that her father probably expected her to help
him
.