Softly Falling (52 page)

“I hate this,” Jack said as he dabbed at his eyes. “Such a waste, and it never would have happened if folks hadn’t been so greedy.”

The schoolhouse came into view first. Lily tugged on her horse’s reins and stopped. It was easy enough to open the door, now that most of the snow was gone. Feeling shy for no reason, she peaked inside at bare walls and the one remaining desk in splinters and ready to be shoved into the pot-bellied stove. She leaned against the doorjamb, hoping that someday the good times would outshine the terror of their struggle to stay alive.

She walked to the corner where the Little Man of the Prairie, a.k.a. the Wyoming Kid, had probably made his last stand. “Are you in there?” she asked. Curious, she carefully pried up the floorboard and took a look. To her amazement, a whiskered pack rat stared back, lean, yes, but alive and irritated. He scolded her in his churring way but did not run. She sighed with relief and replaced the floorboard. Her children would be delighted.

She stood another moment in the doorway, happy in the knowledge that a temple of education could be found anywhere. She glanced at Jack through the window. So could love.

“All well?” Jack asked. He looked alert enough to Lily’s watchful eyes, but she knew he needed to lie down soon because he kept squinting.

Preacher met them at the cookshack door. He took the reins over their protests. “I’ll do this,” he said. “Boss, we’re glad you’re alive.”

“Same here, friend,” Jack said.

He put his hand on the doorknob, but Preacher stopped him.

“Mr. Buxton’s here,” he said, his voice low. “The train came in.”

C
HAPTER
48

O
liver Buxton looked the same to Lily, the same high color, the same displeasure at everything marring what must have been a handsome face in earlier years. She saw something else. She recognized the look in his eyes as the same look as anyone on the Bar Dot, that sadness of humans who have been tried to the limit. In her case, she knew that time would determine if that sadness was a badge of honor or a curse. With Mr. Buxton, she could not tell.

He just looked at them, as if mulling what to say. Jack beat him to it.

“Mr. Buxton, we are so sorry for your loss.”

Lily took a deep breath, wondering if Mr. Buxton would glare and swear and blame. To her relief, he did not.

“Sit down, Sinclair,” he said. “You look worse than most of us.”

“Getting better, though. I wish we had a good report for you.”

She helped Jack to the nearest bench. He blinked his eyes a few times, then focused them on his employer. Lily glanced to the corner, her school, where the children sat. Luella held what must be her Christmas doll on her lap. The doll’s extra dresses were on Chantal’s lap, and Amelie was already deep into a book that Mr. Buxton must have brought for Luella too. She sniffed and smelled wonderful things from the kitchen. Did the man bring food? She felt her mouth water and swallowed, eager for something better than canned sauerkraut chased by peppermint drops.

“When will you bury them?” Mr. Buxton asked Jack.

“As soon as we can. Perhaps tomorrow, if the ground will cooperate,” Jack replied.

Lily listened for something approaching sorrow in Mr. Buxton’s voice and heard nothing but the brusque tones of the businessman he had always been. She noticed that he had barely glanced at her before looking away. Apparently the sins of the father were going to plague the daughter, she decided. That’s nothing new, she wanted to tell him.

“Make it happen. I’m taking Luella with me to Cheyenne tomorrow and we’re going to Moline, Illinois, where we came from.”

At her name, Luella’s head came up. “No, Papa. My friends are here.”

He barely glanced at her, either. “Tomorrow, Luella, and no argument. There’s nothing here for any of us.”

“Yes, there is,” Luella said with all the dignity of an eight-year-old. “We learned so much this winter in our school, and I have friends here.”

You survived here too
, Lily thought, suddenly understanding the bond they had formed.

Mr. Buxton ignored Luella and turned back to the others. “As I was saying before your foreman decided to return—”

“That’s unnecessary and unkind.” Lily gulped. Had she actually said that? At least she hadn’t raised her voice. Might as well forge ahead. “As I am certain your cousin told you, they went to Wisner to send the telegram that must have brought you here. Jack has been recovering from snow blindness.”

“With your help?” The sarcasm was unmistakable. He gave her a mocking bow. “Congratulations on your wedding. His idea or yours?”

Jack leaped to his feet, swayed a little, and righted himself, his face pale. “You have no idea what this winter was like. Don’t bother to fire me. I quit.”

Mr. Buxton threw back his head and laughed. Lily felt her skin crawl at the sound.

“That’s precisely why I am here! Sit down. Let’s get this over with.”

Mr. Buxton directed his attention to the men of the Bar Dot, those stalwarts who had risked their lives all winter trying to round up drifting, confused cattle, the men who had contrived and starved through months of misery, probably while he twiddled his thumbs in the Plainsman Hotel. He glared at them as if daring them to make a move or say one word.

And then he sighed, and it was an almost-human sound from someone tried almost as hard as they had been. “As you can all imagine, the Cheyenne Land and Cattle Company has been receiving disastrous reports from every corner of the range.”

“Everyone was hit this bad?” Preacher asked.

“Everyone, without exception. One of our ranches to the south and west tallied ten beeves alive out of three thousand.”

“We have two hundred, at last count,” Jack said quietly. “Out of five thousand. And that’s just the ones we know about.”

“Then you are to be congratulated,” Mr. Buxton snapped. “Three weeks ago, the Cheyenne Land and Cattle Company dissolved itself.”

Lily looked at the others and saw no surprise on anyone’s face. She saw tired, hungry men, weak from a winter that would have killed Mr. Buxton.

“That’s it then,” Jack said.

“As of now, you are all unemployed. What assets remaining to the company are to pay you off. You have a week to vacate.”

“Merciful saints defend us!” Madeleine had been standing in the door between the dining room and kitchen. She burst into tears.

“Stop it!” Mr. Buxton demanded.

Fothering put his arm around her shoulder and led her back into the kitchen.

“I have your wages here.” He pulled a ledger from his briefcase and opened it to the Bar Dot page. “You were last paid at the end of August. The amount here is from September through the end of April. Look it over and initial it.”

Silent, the men took turns at the ledger, no one bothering to even glance at Mr. Buxton. Jack took the book last and added his initials. He pointed to the blank space under his name and wrote in Lily Sinclair. “You owe Lily two hundred dollars for the school.”

Mr. Buxton shook his head. “That was a deal my wife cut, not me. Besides, her scoundrel of a father owes the company two thousand dollars.”

“There
is
no company now. Pay her the two hundred dollars,” Jack said in his foreman’s voice, even though he was foreman of nothing. “She did everything she was asked to do. Ask your own daughter. Don’t be so small, Buxton. Just for once.”

Silence settled over the room, the kind of silence charged with electrical currents. Lily could hear Mr. Buxton’s heavy breathing. To her ears, he didn’t sound like a well man. Pierre took out the knife he always wore at the small of his back and gave it a thoughtful appraisal.

“Very well, if I must,” Mr. Buxton said finally, the fight gone out of him. “Line up, people, and let’s get this over with.”

He pulled a canvas sack from the briefcase and doled out back wages that didn’t even begin to cover a winter like this one. His face registered no sympathy when Madeleine stood before him, her hand trembling.

“Where are we to go?” she asked.

“That is not my concern,” Mr. Buxton said. “Next?”

Fothering followed her. Silent, he took his salary, then stepped back, as if for a better look. “You, sir, are a reprehensible lizard with no feelings,” he said in his best butler’s voice. He turned on his heel and escorted his weeping co-chef into the kitchen and closed the door.

Lily took her money. He set it on the table and pushed it toward her as if he didn’t want to run the risk of actually touching her hand. “Thank you, sir,” she said, because she meant it. She had discovered this winter that she was a teacher, a friend, and a surrogate mother to a lonely child. “Please see that Luella gets into a good school in Moline. She is bright and clever and very much a leader.” Lily smiled. “She could probably even teach you a thing or two about leadership. For that matter, so could Jack. He’s the reason we’re still alive here.”

The others nodded, and she saw smiles on tired faces.

“Well, hip hip hooray,” Mr. Buxton said, sounding remarkably childish. The smiles widened. He closed his briefcase with a snap. “I’m going to Wisner to spend the night.” He looked around at the room where they had stayed alive. “This place disgusts me. I’ll take the morning train to Cheyenne. Come, Luella.”

His daughter shook her head. “I belong here.”

“With these haggard, smelly people?” he said. “Come with me!”

“We’ll get her to the train in the morning,” Jack assured his former employer.

“Wait a moment, Cousin Oliver.”

Will Buxton had been silent through the whole dismal, humiliating business. He sat down next to his cousin and gave him an appraisal both long and thorough. This was not the Will Buxton who had begun the winter, Lily knew. This Will Buxton had been tested and proved, his assurance almost equal to Jack’s.
Will, you’ve been studying a master all winter, haven’t you?
she thought, pleased.

“I want to buy eight thousand acres of the Bar Dot.”

Mr. Buxton laughed, with no mirth even remotely in sight. “You do? Ask Jack how we wore out the land and ruined it with overgrazing. And you want that?”

“The land just needs some kindness, fences, and fewer cattle,” Will said. He looked at Jack, his real boss. “Yeah, it’ll take a while, but I have the time. What do you say, Jack?”

“I’m in favor. I’ll add my land and my herd to yours, and we’ll see what happens. How about it, Buxton?”

“That’s Mr. Buxton to you,” the man said.

“I don’t think so. What about it? Are you authorized to even do such a thing for a dissolved company?”

Mr. Buxton sat back, his face thoughtful, now that money was involved. “I can do that. One thousand dollars. The shareholders’ll get about fifty dollars each. That should buy’em each ten boxes of Cuban cigars.” He had to get his dig in. “Will, this is another example of the stupidity that exiled you here in the first place. Your father will be delighted.”

“Not sure I care, cousin.”

“I have four hundred here in wages,” Will said. “Three hundred from me. Jack?”

Without hesitating, Jack spread out five hundred dollars. “I’ll hold some back because I owe Manuel. That’s eight hundred. Lil?”

Lily took a deep breath and deliberately counted out all of her money. “That’s two hundred and totals a thousand, Mr. Buxton.” She smiled at Jack. “Do I get my own brand?”

“Absolutely, Lil. Go in the kitchen, love, and assure Madeleine that she has work here as long as she wants. Nick too. He’ll do our books and ride the range, just like he wants.”

“Do your books?” Mr. Buxton asked. “Are you crazy?”

“He learned a lot this winter, same’s the rest of us.”

Lily hurried into the kitchen in time to see Fothering comforting Madeleine in a way that made her a little envious. No matter. She and Jack could swamp out the little house on the Sinclair Ranch and have their own peaceful time soon.

“All right, you two,” she teased.

“You found us out, my dear,” Fothering said in his pseudo-English accent. “I just proposed and my favorite cook accepted. I think we will open a restaurant in Wisner.”

“Wisner needs something besides chop suey,” Lily said. She told them what Will and her husband had just done. “We were hoping you would just stay here,” she concluded.

Fothering and Madeleine exchanged delighted glances. “We will give it strong consideration,” Fothering said.

Mr. Buxton left, after he drew up a contract and extracted three signatures from the new owners of eight thousand acres of worn-out land. “Luella, I will see you tomorrow morning in Wisner. No later than nine, and no argument.”

Lily put her arms around the little girl. “We’ll have her there.” She didn’t want to say that at all, but the man glowering before them was Luella’s father and she had no choice.

Mr. Buxton left as soon as he could, assuring Jack that he could bury Mrs. Buxton whenever he felt like it. “We’ll put up a nice headstone,” Jack called as the man rode away from the Bar Dot.

“I don’t think he heard you,” Lily said, taking his arm. “Good riddance.”

They started back to the cookshack. “You don’t look too afraid of the daunting prospect before you, Mrs. Sinclair,” Jack said.