Softly Falling (51 page)

T
here’s a simple explanation, I am certain.”

“They should have been back by now! Don’t you tiptoe around me on little cat’s paws.”

Lily looked down at the floor, wondering if she would leave a deep trough in front of the window. She peered through the darkness, telling herself that if she walked another mile in front of the window, Jack would surely appear. Ashamed of herself, she looked up at Fothering, who was only trying to be nice.

“I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” Lily said. “It’s just . . .”

If Fothering hadn’t held his arms out, she wouldn’t have thrown herself into them, sobbing. He only winced a bit and assured her that his arm had nearly healed.

She looked over his shoulder and saw her children staring at her with fear in their eyes. With an effort, she forced herself into calmness. “Silly me,” she said. “Here I am worrying about two men perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.”

“It scares me when you cry,” Luella said, her lip trembling.

So endeth the tears
, Lily thought later, after the children were asleep. Pierre beckoned her to the classroom table and she sat down. “I’ll track them in the morning,” he whispered. “We’re not in a blizzard, so there is probably a logical explanation. Maybe they stayed in town.”

“That’s probably what happened,” Lily said, mainly because she knew he wanted to hear that. “I’m going with you.”

“No, Lily, that’s not—”

“A good idea? At what point in this winter has there been a good idea?” When he said nothing, she tried out Jack’s foreman expression and achieved results, because Pierre agreed after one stare.

“We’ll leave after chores,” Pierre told her, his face stern. As he walked away, she wondered if the sternness had more to do with his own emotions than her intrusion into his man’s world. She told herself that if something had happened to her husband, she would be intruding in that man’s world more and more.

She lay down to sleep, but closing her eyes only meant reviewing the whole, dreary winter. She already had nightmares about the schoolhouse blizzard. All Jack had to do to banish them was to put his hand over her moving eyelids. She had returned the favor a few times. Where was he now when she needed him?

Exhausted from worry, she tried to find a comfortable spot on the floor. She gave up when she realized that the only thing that had made the floor even remotely accommodating was Jack lying beside her.

“I love you,” she whispered, not wasting a minute trying to think back to when it began, mostly because her mind was starting to play strange tricks on her resolve. She was exhausted and hungry and weak and did not need any more winter, not when her life was falling apart.

She woke up to another cold morning, one of too many. She sat up and looked around, hopeful that Jack and Will had come back late last night and crept to bed, to not disturb anyone. Nothing. All winter she had felt crowded and hemmed in. Two men were gone now, somewhere out in the cold. She liked one and adored the other, and the crowded cookshack seemed empty.

She ate breakfast because it was put before her and then darted for Jack’s old house with the roof gone while Pierre saddled up. She pawed in the hardened snow, searching for
Ivanhoe
. Maybe if she could find the book, Jack would appear, because he insisted on the ending.

The lean-to seemed like the last place for
Ivanhoe
, but there it was, crammed underneath a pot, thrown there by some force of wind or snow. Her heart rose at the sight of Sir Walter Scott’s dear book, the story of old England that had brought them together. Sakes alive, it was even dry. She tucked
Ivanhoe
in her coat pocket and went to find Pierre.

Clouds scudded across the sun as they rode, and Lily couldn’t help staring toward the northwest. A veteran of Wyoming winter, she knew a blizzard cloud now. She relaxed. They were clouds and nothing more.

“We’ve seen the worst of it,” Pierre told her. “We might have another storm or two, but I think the worst is over.” He reached over and put his gloved hands on hers. “He Stands with Feet Planted is not going to blow away when spring is here.”

“I’m not going to leave in the spring, you know,” she said, trying to keep her voice conversational and calm. “Even if he is alive and well and doesn’t need me, I’m not leaving.”

“I didn’t think you would,” he said.

They covered the two miles to Jack’s ranch with laborious effort, skirting huge snow drifts and avoiding uncovered cattle carcasses. She rode through them, dry-eyed, because she had bigger worries.

“There’s the ranch gate,” Pierre said, pointing to the crossbar on its tall post that leaned a little from the wind but hadn’t toppled. “Wait here.”

He continued toward Wisner, then stopped and looked toward her. He stared at the snowy ground and gestured to her. When she reached him, he pointed down. “See here, two horses side by side.” He pointed ahead. “Right there. See how they stopped for a while. And then look beyond—one horse following the other.”

“What does it mean?”

“Someone ran into a bit of trouble here, and the other one is leading his horse.” He made an elaborate gesture that made Lily smile. “Let’s go to your ranch, Mrs. Sinclair.”

They rode beneath the crossbar. She looked ahead and saw distinct tracks of two horses. The pounding in her heart began to slow down, as real calm took over, not the kind where she put on a false face to keep the children brave, but serenity she hadn’t felt in months. Jack was there, and he was going to get all the
Ivanhoe
he wanted.

She barely glanced at the little house with her father’s improbable wallpaper, knowing that Manuel had spent the winter in the barn with his charges. There was Bismarck in the corral, raising his massive head to the sun, the picture of contentment.

“What on earth? Pierre, Manuel has knitted Bismarck a blanket!”

Pierre shook his head. “I have now seen it all.”

They ducked into the barn, struck by the pungent odor of dung heaped in piles to one side. Manuel sat on a bench facing the sun, knitting and talking to Will Buxton. Lily looked around, determined to remain calm. Pierre dismounted and then helped her down.

“Where is he?” she asked, not caring that her voice was breaking.

“
Hola, señora
,” Manuel said. “You want your man?”

“Oh my goodness, I do,” she said, not even minding that Will chuckled. “Please, where is he?”

Manuel pointed with a knitting needle. “One, two, three stalls down. We had to keep him in the dark.”

She didn’t stop to ask why but ran to the third stall, bathed in shadows. She blinked, accustoming her eyes to the dim light, and there he was, lying under blankets with his hands behind his head. Manuel must have smeared soot under his eyes.

“Jack?”

“I thought that was you, Lil. Things’ll be all right now.”

She sank to her knees beside him and stared at his face. “You can’t see me, can you?” she asked, trying to sound like a woman grown and not a squeaky, frightened girl.

“I can see your outline. Lean over a bit. That’s better.”

He puckered up and she kissed him, not minding when the soot transferred to her face. She lay down with her head on his chest.

His hand rested heavy on her head, and she loved the feeling. “I’ll love you even if you’re blind,” she whispered.

“It’s temporary, Lil, that’s all,” he told her, then stroked her hair. “Snow glare finally got to me. I couldn’t see anything yesterday, but I can see you up close.”

Lily sat up and took a good look at his dear face. “Soot?”

“Yeah. Manuel’s not taking any chances with glare.” He outlined her profile with his finger. “Um, you’ll still love me, even if I’m
not
blind?”

She kissed him again.

“That’s a yes?” he asked, and she thumped him.

“I saw Bismarck in the yard,” she said, after another sooty kiss.

“Corral,” he corrected. “I’ll bring you along slow on ranch duties, but do start with corral. We’re going to be a strange enough pair anyway, the British lady of color and the Georgia cracker.”

She lay down again, ready to spend the day there, but he sat up. “You probably didn’t even notice, but I want you to go take a look at our herd—two heifers. We’re off to a good start. Scram! I’ll keep.”

Lily stopped at the barn’s entrance, delighted to see two small versions of Bismarck looking back at her. She knelt down to reach them through the fence. The slightly larger one butted against her hand, and she laughed.

Pierre rested his arms on the top rail, nodding at the little ones. “He did it, Lily. That man of yours is officially the smartest rancher in the territory.”

Pierre only stayed a few minutes more, then left with Will Buxton. With a smile to Manuel, who bowed from his chair in most courtly fashion, Lily walked back to Jack’s stall and lay down again, sound asleep as soon as she closed her eyes, secure in his arms.

They were two days in the barn, lulled by the lowing of cattle and even Bismarck, who made a sound similar to a soft purr. In the early morning, she woke to her husband staring at her.

“You’re still a bit grainy, but I’d recognize you anywhere,” he whispered, even though Manuel’s snoring thundered through the barn.

“You’d better,” she said, cuddling closer. He moved closer too, and one thing led to another. By the time Lily finally sat up, looking for her shirts, she was officially Mrs. Sinclair, as her husband reminded her.

“I doubt this was the wedding morning of your dreams,” he teased, “a half-blind lover in a cow barn, with beans and sauerkraut to eat.”

“You forgot the peppermints,” she added, which earned her another kiss, almost derailing her plans to get up at all. “No, Miss Tilton would never believe this,” she said later.

She got up long enough to fetch everlasting beans from Manuel, his expression so kindly, and blessed tortillas, which she had never experienced before. When they finished eating, Lily settled in with a kerosene lantern and starting reading the conclusion to
Ivanhoe
, chapter forty-three to the end.

“You found it,” Jack said.

“I had to,” she said simply.

By evening, his vision had returned. Lily washed the soot off his face, planning to reapply it in the morning when he had to contend with the sun’s glare on snow as they left. As it was, she had soot all over her face and neck too.

“Anything you want more’n a bath, Lil, my honeybunch?” her husband asked before he drowsed away into a lover’s coma.

“The aforementioned bank account, straight hair, and lettuce,” she replied, barely keeping her eyes open. “Leave me alone. I’m tired.”

“Ah, it begins,” he teased.

They left in the morning under an overcast sky, which Jack called a relief. He spent a long moment just staring at his little herd, which, in the curious nature of cows, had come to the fence to check him out.

“You’re the beginning, girls,” he told the cows. “Bismarck, what a lover you are.”

“For goodness sake!” Lily exclaimed.

“We’re going to have some lean years, but this is the start of something that will cover the range some day,” he prophesied. “More land would be nice, but we’ll be patient.”

He smiled at Manuel, sitting and rocking, so calm and placid, probably the way he had spent the whole, solitary winter. He came closer and put out his hand. When Manuel took his hand, Jack turned it over and kissed it. Lily looked away, tears in her eyes.

“I owe you a debt I can never repay, Manuel,” Jack said.

“Señor Sinclair, you gave me a home and a job when no one else would,” the Mexican reminded him.

“Someone did that for me once. He told me to return the favor when I could. See you in a week or so, my friend.”

As they rode for the Bar Dot, Lily tried to be sly about watching Jack, but he noticed immediately and told her not to worry. “Just a little grainy, that’s all,” he assured her. “I’ll put warm cloths on them when we get home. You’ll see; I’ll be better in two shakes.”

The melt had begun in earnest. Snow-covered trails of two days ago were running with mud now. The wind worked overtime to reveal burial mounds of cattle, which reduced them both to tears.