This Calder Range (17 page)

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don't know.” She shook her head, confused and overwrought by the whole situation.

“I hadn't realized how difficult this trip was going to be for you,” Benteen admitted. “I understand how embarrassing certain things can be. But you're going to have to come to terms with them.”

“That's easy for you to say,” Lorna retorted, finally bringing down her hands to look at him with bitter reproval.

“It isn't easy. And it wasn't easy to sit out there with all my men watching while you go running off to hide in the wagon and cry,” he informed her roughly. “You were crying when you came this morning, and you're crying tonight. Doesn't it matter to you what they're thinking right now?”

She cast an uneasy glance at the canvas side of the wagon, realizing that all the cowboys knew Benteen was in here with her now.

“I hadn't thought about it,” Lorna admitted.

“I imagine their opinion is the same as mine,” he stated. “I thought I married a woman, but instead I find I've got a spoiled child on my hands.”

She swung at him as hard as she could. The flat of her hand cracked against his cheek, the force of the blow turning his head. Lorna was shocked by her own physical violence and stared at Benteen with fear as he slowly turned his head back to look at her. No man had ever laid a hand on him in anger and got by with it, but she was a woman—his wife. Benteen controlled the urges within him.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, and eyed the white mark left by her hand as it slowly turned red.

“I swear to God I don't understand you.” The angry words were forced through clenched teeth. “You have enough guts to hit me, yet you cry over the lack of privacy.”

“You made me angry when you said that,” Lorna defended her action.

“You're going to have to grow up. I haven't got time to hold your hand,” he declared tersely.

“I don't want you to hold my hand, and I am not a child.” That was the cruelest implication. Lorna couldn't help bristling at it. “I may not know as much as you do about things, but that doesn't make me a child.”

“This trip is going to be hard. I'm not going to lie and tell you it will get better. Today is just a sampling of what's to come,” Benteen warned. “You have a choice. You can either cry over every little thing that happens and wallow around in misery the whole time, or you can accept the way things are—like the rest of us. Mrs. Stanton isn't in her wagon crying her eyes out. The same thing happened to her today.”

It wasn't a totally fair comparison, and Benteen knew that. Mary Stanton had not led the sheltered city life that Lorna had. But he mentioned the woman as an example to challenge Lorna.

“What are you going to do? Stay here in the wagon
and feel sorry for yourself? Or come outside by the fire with the rest of us?” he questioned.

“I'm coming out.” There was a flash of anger in her dark eyes.

“Good.” He held out his hand to take hers.

Grudgingly she laid hers into his grasp, resentment for his bluntness and lack of concession to her femininity still smoldering under the surface. Benteen wasn't sure whether her attitude would change to please him or to show him out of spite. There was fire in her; his smarting jaw could attest to that. It would carry her through this journey in better condition than wrapping her in cotton wool.

When she shifted her weight to climb off the mattress, it brought her closer. An awareness sang out to him of all that was woman about her. His other hand curved itself to her neck to stop her movements, and felt her head stiffen in resistance to his touch. Benteen ignored her unwillingness for his kiss and brought his mouth down to the straight line of her lips. He was irritated when she wouldn't yield to him, and increased the pressure until she did.

But submission wasn't enough, not when he'd previously tasted the fullness of her response. He began an investigation of individual curves in her lips, chewing at the lower one and wandering over the top until he felt her leaning into him. He answered the desire she was signaling with a hard, brief kiss, and drew back.

Her mouth was softly swollen, tilted toward him in silent invitation. She was breathing quickly, at a disturbed rate. Her eyes were dark with need. She looked pliable and a little flushed with eagerness.

“That's the way a bride should look,” Benteen murmured in satisfaction. “No tears, and no sulking.”

Something flickered in her expression as she suddenly regarded him with a thoughtful look. “When I was a little girl and I did something my daddy didn't like, he'd sit me down and talk to me real stern,” she said.
Benteen lifted a brow, not seeing the relevance of her childhood memory. “After I promised to behave and be a good girl, he always gave me a piece of rock candy. Do husbands give out kisses as rewards for good behavior?”

Benteen frowned, wondering if he had imagined the little sting in her question. He couldn't be sure. Something told him it was best if he ignored her query.

“Let's go outside,” he said, “before everyone starts wondering what we're doing in here.”

The remark achieved its desired effect. She didn't pursue an answer to her question and followed Benteen to the rear of the wagon. He swung down and turned to lift her to the ground.

There was a studious attempt by the cowboys to take no notice of her return to the camp circle, but it didn't make it any easier to rejoin them. Everyone had finished eating, and the dirty plates and cutlery were piled in the “wreck pan” to be washed. Lorna noticed the tubful of dishes. Without offering a word of explanation to Benteen, she moved away from his side and walked to the chuck wagon, where the cook was putting some beans to soak.

“I will wash the dishes for you,” she stated, and saw his head jerk, a refusal forming in his expression, so she quickly continued with more poise than she felt. “You may not want any help with the cooking, but I can't imagine any man wanting to wash dishes. So I'll do them for you.”

“Usually the wrangler or his helper does them,” the cook explained. “But I reckon they won't object to losin' the job.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rusty.” Lorna began rolling up her sleeves to tackle the tubful of dishes. Benteen had indicated everyone regarded her as a spoiled child. She intended to show them that she wasn't above doing menial tasks and that she intended to pull her own weight.

Her new role as cook's help was duly noted by the cowboys as they came to the wagon to get their bedrolls stowed in the front. Benteen noticed, too, but with mixed reaction. He wanted her accepted by the men as his wife, but he didn't want her to associate with them too closely. Over the long haul, it would invite trouble. For the time being, he let it stand.

After assigning men to the four sets of guards drawing night herd duty, Benteen saddled his night horse for his own final check of the cattle. He led it to the chuck wagon, where Lorna was busy scouring the tin plates. Her glance was faintly defiant.

“I'm riding out to the herd,” he said.

She nodded, rinsed the plate in her hand, set it aside, and reached for another. Benteen briefly met Rusty's glance, then looped the reins over his horse's neck and swung into the saddle.

The herd was bedded down not far from camp on a stretch of level ground—an area the Longhorns would have picked for themselves. With their thirst quenched and their bellies full, the cattle were lying down. Despite the stampede earlier, they showed no signs of being restive. As Benteen walked the dun horse in a wide circle around the herd, he picked out the brindle steer in the moonlight, resting a little off from the main bunch. Willis and Garvey had pulled the first watch. A rider approached, making his slow circle and hunching loosely over the saddle. Benteen recognized Garvey's musical, crooning voice singing a stanza of “The Old Chisholm Trail.”

I'm up in the mornin' afore daylight

And afore I sleep the moon shines bright.

Come a ti yi yippy, yippy yay, yippy yay
,

Come a ti yi yippy, yippy yay.

No chaps and no slicker, and it's pouring down rain
,

And I swear, by God, that I'll never night-herd again.

Come a ti yi yippy …

Garvey let the song trail off in mid-chorus as he drew even with Benteen, both horses stopping for the riders' brief palaver.

“They're as contented as ticks on a dog,” Garvey said.

“Let's hope it stays that way,” Benteen replied, and kneed his horse forward. Behind him, Garvey picked up the chorus where he'd left off.

… yippy yay, yippy yay.

Come a ti yi yippy, yippy yay.

I went to the boss to draw my roll,

He had it figured out I was nine dollars in the hole.

There was a score of verses or more. Benteen knew Garvey was likely to sing them all and make up a few of his own before his two-hour shift was through. Rounding the herd, Benteen angled the dun horse toward camp. To the south he caught the winking light of another campfire. Bob Vernon had been one of the three drag riders today, and he'd mentioned to Benteen that the Ten Bar herd was behind them.

He left the dun tied at the picket line and carried his saddle to the camp circle. Lorna was sitting by the fire, staring into the flames, something no range-wizened cowboy would do because it blinded him when he looked into the night and its differing textures of darkness.

Knowing the night might be short and the following day long, most of the trailhands were stretched out on the ground, a “soogan”—quilt—cushioning its hardness. Many of them still had their hats on or were using them to cover their faces. Bob Vernon, the scholar of the bunch, was reading a dog-eared copy of Plato for the fifth time.

A cowboy's bedroll was more than just a soogan and a tarp. It held nearly all his possessions that he didn't carry on his person. Everything from tobacco sacks and
cigarette papers to a spare cinch and a rope, from a change of clothes to a picture of his family or his girl, from old letters and reading material to a marlinespike, was kept in it.

Young Joe Dollarhide was sitting with Lorna, too green to the trail to know that the sleep he was missing might be all he'd get for two days or more. It happened like that sometimes when herds got it into their heads to stampede. They could keep a man in the saddle for days with no sleep and only dried jerky to eat.

“I'm plannin' on havin' a big spread of my own someday,” Joe Dollarhide was bragging to Lorna when Benteen walked up. “I already got my brand all picked out. A dollar mark for my name—a dollar mark on a cowhide.” He liked his cleverness in coming up with the association and wanted Lorna to notice it, too. Then he was absently modest. “'Course, it'll be a few years before I get a place of my own.”

“And a girl of your own?” Benteen asked to make sure the boy understood that Lorna was private property.

“Mr. Calder.” He stood up quickly, almost snapping to attention.

Benteen took the challenge out of his voice. “Thanks for keeping my wife company.” There was still a slight emphasis placed on her marital status.

“Yes, sir.” Joe Dollarhide awkwardly bowed to Lorna. “Night, ma'am.”

When he started to retreat, Benteen said, “I want you to look over the remuda tomorrow, Dollarhide, and see if there's a gentle horse in the lot—something a lady can ride sidesaddle. If there isn't, I want you to pick the most likely one and break it for my wife. Let me know whose string the horse is from and I'll put it right with him.”

“Yes, sir.” The young man's shoulders were pushed back, proud that he had been trusted with the responsibility.

As the lad moved into the shadows around the fire, sidestepping bedrolls, Benteen reached for the coffeepot on the fire's edge. “If we can find a gentle horse, you won't have to spend all your time bouncing in the wagon,” he said to Lorna as he filled an empty cup left near the pot. “Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks.” She shook her head, the glow of the firelight flattering her clear features. “I don't see how you can drink it when it's so thick.”

“That's when it's good.” He smiled and crouched on his heels beside her, amused by her grimace of distaste. When he took a swallow, his glance ran beyond the tin rim to sweep the camp area. “Where's Mary?”

“She and her husband have already retired for the evening,” Lorna answered.

He glanced at the Stanton wagon, and said nothing, letting the silence run between them. From a distant prairie ridge there was the yap-yapping howl of a coyote, trailing off on a thin, wavering note.

“Coyotes?” Lorna asked.

“Yes.”

“I heard them once before, when I was a child,” she said. “I never realized how lonely they sound.”

“You're not used to the quiet.”

She huddled closer toward the fire, as if seeking its warmth. The shawl was pulled tightly around her shoulders to keep out the coolness of the Texas night. There was a strange mixture of vulnerability and strength in her profile.

“You'd better turn in,” Benteen suggested. “Tomorrow's going to come quick.”

There was a second of hesitation as she glanced at him. “What about you?”

It was difficult to read her look, half-thrown into shadows by the firelight. But something in her attitude fanned his close-held needs. She did that to him, making him want to open up and let her into his most secret thoughts.

“I'll be along.” Benteen took another drink of coffee, breaking contact with her look, guarding himself with an aloofness that he didn't fully understand.

Another second went by before she stood up and adjusted the ends of her shawl more closely around her middle. Her long skirts made a soft swishing sound in the tufted grass as she walked to the rear of their wagon. Benteen kept his back to it, listening to the strike of a match and catching the brief flare of light from the lantern wick. He thought of the long journey ahead of them and the cattle land that waited for them in Montana. The picture of it was burned in his mind—the thick grass, the limitless sky.