Softly Falling (54 page)

“We’d better hold a meeting of the ranch owners,” he said and slapped the reins.

Will looked like he didn’t know whether to look serious or let out a whoop. They had taken him aside in the barn. “Who are we supposed to give this to?” he asked, his expression puzzled. “There isn’t any company. Mr. Buxton said so. I even have my doubts that he’s going to turn that thousand of ours over to anyone. Who should get this? No one owns the Cheyenne Land and Cattle Company, Lily. It doesn’t exist.”

They were both looking at her as though it was her money. Maybe it was, in a way. Oh, what was she thinking? She was silent, remembering what the old Clarence Carteret would have spent it on. She suddenly knew what the new Clarence Carteret would have done.

“How many of us are there?” she asked, even though she knew. “Counting Preacher.”

“Eleven.” He laughed. “I believe you’re right, honeybunch. Divide it evenly between us all?”

“That’s fair.”

“Madeleine and Fothering will get the lion’s share with the children,” he reminded her.

“I know. Good! I have Papa’s remittance money, at least until I write to my uncle and tell him what happened, and he shuts off any more.”

“That could take a while,” Will said. “Even a year or two, if you play it right.”

“No, it won’t,” she said, serene now in a way she had never been before. “I’ll write him tonight. There might be a final settlement for me or there might not be. It doesn’t matter. We are all honorable people.”

Will nodded, even though she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Then he grinned. “Guess I still have some faulty character to work on, huh?”

“Just hang around Lil,” Jack said, “but not too close, because she’s my special partner in this business.” He put his hand on the back of her neck and gave her a gentle shake. “Lil, you’re the smart one: how it is that a terrible winter can also be the best winter that ever happened?”

She shrugged. “ ‘Beats me,’ as you would say. Let’s go tell the others about their good fortune.”

They buried Papa at dusk. Lily had saved her newspaper wedding bouquet, and she placed it on his grave, kneeling there after everyone had left except Jack and Pierre, her heart at peace. She looked at the valley beyond, thinking of the days and weeks ahead that would be filled with the bleakness of burning dead cattle and reliving every terrible moment of suffering for man, woman, child, and beast. But Jack’s calves would grow and frisk, their little red-and-white faces full of the optimism of young things.

Her husband said he was already making plans with McMurdy to scour the range for the hardy cattle still alive. “I’ll buy them, if we know the owners,” he had told her as he and Pierre took turns digging a good grave for a man who tried. “The cows will be tough and that’s what Bismarck’s harem needs.” He had leaned on his shovel and looked up at her. “Tough like us, my dear wife.”

Mah deah waf
. She loved the sound of it, and so she told Pierre as they walked back together, Jack hurrying ahead to make more plans. She’d have him to herself at night, and that suited her right down to the ground.

“I’ve never properly thanked you for your winter count,” she said as they strolled along. “It saved my life twice.”

“And I’ve never thanked you for insisting that I was Pierre and not just Indian.”

“What will you draw for this year’s winter count?” she asked. “Can’t be too hard to imagine.”

“Probably you and Jack holding hands. That’s what I choose to remember.”

She thought about it and agreed. “It’s better than snow, cold, and death.”

He stopped and took her hand. “Lily, I have a name for you. It’s a good one to walk side by side with He Stands with Feet Planted.”

“Heavens, I’m almost afraid to hear it,” she said, secretly pleased.

He turned away from her as if seeing something beyond her vision. “I watched your face at that first snowfall, the soft snowfall, the one that covers all ugliness and sins and sourness and misdeeds. You’re like that, Lily. Probably the closest I can come in English is ‘Softly Falling.’ ”

She rested her forehead against his arm. “Pierre, that’s too much.”

“No, it’s just right, Softly Falling,” he said quietly. He gave her a little push. “Go tell your man. He’ll agree completely. Go on!”

She did as he said, walking fast, then running, and then waving her hands and calling to her husband. Spring had come, summer was near, and her cup of life was full at last.

About the Author

T
here are many things that Carla Kelly enjoys, but few of them are as rewarding as writing. From her short stories about the frontier army in 1977, she’s been on a path that has turned her into a novelist, a ranger in the National Park Service, a newspaper writer, a contract historical researcher, a hospital/hospice PR writer, and an adjunct university professor.

Things might be simpler if she only liked to write one thing, but Carla, trained as a historian, has found historical fiction her way to explain many lives of the past.

An early interest in the Napoleonic Wars sparked the writing of Regency romances, the genre that she is perhaps best known for. “It was always the war, and not the romance, that interested me,” she admits. Her agent suggested she put the two together, and she’s been in demand writing stories of people during that generation of war ending with the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Within the narrow confines of George IV’s Regency, she’s focused on the Royal Navy and the British Army, which fought Napoleon on land and sea. While most Regency romance writers emphasize lords and ladies, Carla prefers ordinary people. In fact, this has become her niche in the Regency world.

In 1983, Carla began her “novel” adventures with a story in the royal colony of New Mexico in 1680. She has recently returned to New Mexico with a series set in the eighteenth century. “I moved ahead a hundred years,” she says. “That’s progress, for a historian.”

She has also found satisfaction in exploring another personal interest: LDS-themed novels, set in diverse times and places, from turn-of-the-century cattle ranching in Wyoming, to Mexico at war in 1912, to a coal camp in Carbon County.

Along the way, Carla as received two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Regency of the Year; two Spurs from Western Writers of America for short stories; and two Whitney Awards from LDStorymakers, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times. She is read in at least fourteen languages and writes for several publishers.

Carla and her husband, Martin, a retired professor of academic theatre, live in Idaho Falls and are the parents of five children, plus grandchildren. You may contact her at
www.carlakellyauthor.com
or
[email protected]
.

© 2014 Carla Kelly

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

Although this work is based strongly on fact, it is still a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. The views expressed within this work are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Cedar Fort, Inc., or any other entity.

ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-0869-5

Published by Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.

2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT, 84663

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Cover design by Kristen Reeves

Cover design © 2014 by Lyle Mortimer

Edited and typeset by Melissa J. Caldwell

Printed in the United States of America