Widow Woman (30 page)

How much could she fault him? She had told him to leave them alone. She had given his son another man's name.

I'll leave you alone. I'll leave you and the babe alone. The way a stallion leaves the mare and the foal alone, once he's served his damned purpose.

"Mrs. Wood?"

She blinked hard against the scalding in her eyes. The preacher smiled benignly at her, taking the tears as tribute to his eloquence. Rachel stumbled out words of thanks, then took the first of a stream of condolences.

Alba Martin took form before her, dark eyes warm and understanding. One slim hand covered Rachel's where it cradled the baby against her.

"Rachel,” was all she said, but Rachel heard an acceptance. Her eyes filled anew.

"I ... I would be pleased if you would stay on with me a few days, Alba. Please."

"Yes."

That simply, the other woman gave her friendship.

The knowledge of it helped buoy Rachel through the exchanges with the rest of the mourners. And through the knowledge that one who had stood by the grave had left without approaching her.

"Rachel has asked me to stay with her.” Alba didn't seek permission, but she hoped for Nick's understanding. What she got was a raised, skeptical eyebrow and, “Didn't know you two were such friends."

"We are friends."

"If you say so."

"Nick.” He moved free of the hand she laid on his arm, continuing down the hillside, putting more distance between him and Rachel, still surrounded by a knot of people.

"You know I planned on sending Davis to Cheyenne with the wagon when we got back to the cabin."

Yes, Alba knew Davis was going for supplies, and that Nick had suggested she might want to go along to shop. She had no intention of taking such a trip. But she had not thought of a way to say that until Rachel's offer.

"If you'd rather stay here,” Nick went on in clipped indifference, “he'll leave from here and collect you on his way back."

"Thank you. But what of you,
hermano?"

He shrugged. “I'll start home now."

That was not what she meant. She had seen him watching Rachel and the child. She had been close enough to sense tension humming through him beneath the blank mask.

"Will you not pay your respects?"

"I paid them. I watched them bury Gordon Wood."

"And what of his widow?"

He flinched, then hid his reaction so quickly she would have missed it if she hadn't watched so closely. “She doesn't need my condolences."

"Doesn't she?"

He stared out to the horizon, saying abruptly, “I'll tell Davis the change."

He moved past her, and headed toward a row of horses hitched outside the stable.

Alba watched him, thinking that perhaps she had been the luckier of them to bear her crippling on the outside. Then she turned and limped into the house.

Nearly half the guests had departed and much of the food had been consumed, before Alba approached Rachel.

"I would be honored to stay with you, Rachel. It is arranged that Mr. Andresson will continue to Cheyenne, and stop for me here on his return, if that should not be too long a visit?"

Catching movement over Alba's shoulder, Rachel saw Davis standing near a massive hickory breakfront Gordon had had freighted here, at a cost equal to three good horses. Davis was certainly near enough to hear what they said.

"Not too long at all. But if you want to go to Cheyenne with Davis, I can't deprive you of that pleasure."

"Not so much pleasure,” the other woman said dryly.

Davis's shoulders tightened under his too-small coat. Rachel looked from that expressive back to the woman before her.

"The journey can surely be tiring,” Rachel offered.

"Yes, especially when you do not look forward to journey's end."

In the rushed words, Rachel recognized a deep discomfort with the gawking of strangers, though Alba's grave dignity hid it well. So Alba's reluctance to go to Cheyenne stemmed not from dislike of her companion, but self-consciousness, Rachel decided.

Unaware of her additional listener, Alba went on, “I will stay here with you, quietly, with much more happiness. It is Nick and Da—Mr. Andresson who insist I must go to Cheyenne for new dresses. New dresses? What use do I have for them? I am most happy to stay here with you."

"Thank you, Alba. But perhaps we can ask Davis to serve as your agent and you can yet have a new dress or two. Davis, may we speak to you, please?” She raised her voice as if he were halfway across the room.

He started, then quickly circled the far side of a small sofa so when Alba turned it looked, indeed, as if he had been halfway across the room.

"Ma'am?"

"Davis, Alba has been kind enough to agree to remain with me at Natchez rather than accompany you to Cheyenne. I am sorry to deprive you of her company—” a new surge of color topped his collar “—yet I'm going to impose on your good nature more by asking you to purchase dress goods. We'll give you a list and I can recommend a friend who will know which shops are the most likely. All right?"

"Pleased to be of service,” he muttered gallantly.

"Thank you, Mr. Andresson.” Alba appeared to focus her sweet smile on his shirt's top button.

"My pleasure, ma'am."

Neither looked at the other, Rachel realized, as she promised Davis to have the list ready in the morning. Maybe she was reading more into this than was there. Heaven knew she hadn't much experience in that line.

But she found a spark of interest in the next half hour in noticing that Alba and Davis
did
look at each other, but only when the other's attention was diverted.

Davis stood patiently on the front porch, casting surreptitious looks at Alba. Rachel felt a guilty pang that her guest looked so tired this morning.

The need to be occupied had overwhelmed her last night, and Alba seemed to understand. It was impossible to delve into ranch finances on the night of Gordon's funeral, and the delay in facing what she knew she must do had made Rachel edgy and restless. Alba had suggested they survey Rachel's wardrobe for suitable mourning.

Gordon had lavished clothes on Rachel, many considerably more elaborate and beribboned than she cared for. But Alba had a good eye for what the removal of a flounce here, a row of bows there could accomplish. For several hours, they sorted out what Rachel cared to save, what she would rework and what she would give away. She pressed a pair of pale, creamy dresses on Alba, insisting they washed out her own fair coloring.

They also developed the short list of material Alba would allow, mostly for work clothes. Until, finally, exhaustion caught Rachel and she stumbled into bed, barely aware when Alba trimmed the lamp and retired to her room.

"I do think we should add a length of wool serge to the list. Alba,” Rachel said now, refreshed enough to renew an argument lost the night before.

Alba shook her head. “That would make a wonderful riding suit, but what use have I for a riding suit?"

"I'm sure we could rig something with a sidesaddle."

"Thank you, but it was tried, before I left Texas."

"I'll make you a saddle.” Both women looked up in surprise at Davis's decisive words.

"Thank you, but as I said—"

"It's been tried. But not by me. I'll do it. Now—” he turned to Rachel, who stared, bemused by this side of the young cowhand “—wool serge? What color?"

"Davis—Mr. Andresson, I can't—"

Rachel regained her wits and ruthlessly interrupted Alba. “A deep red. Something rich. Garnet or claret."

He nodded and climbed into the wagon, with a tip of the hat in farewell before clucking up the horses.

"Well.” Rachel divided attention between the woman by her side and the figure in the wagon. “Davis has developed a real decisive streak. He's become the kind of man,” she added with a returning spark of dormant mischief, “who won't take no for an answer."

Alba's visit was a respite. An all-too-short period of quiet and calm, while Rachel gathered her resources.

Alba would sit across the room, efficiently opening seams, removing fabric flourishes and remaking Rachel's wardrobe.

Rachel wished she possessed as much skill in reordering the workings of Natchez and the Circle T. She devoted hours to learning details of the financial trouble she had only glimpsed before, and in trying to formulate a plan to deal with them.

God, she couldn't even do right for her baby, she thought in moments of despair. Her milk, plentiful earlier, had rapidly dried up these past weeks. Instead of the warmth and satisfaction of having her child at her breast, feedings became episodes of frustration—hers and his.

Esther and Myrna said, one in few words, the other in many, that it wasn't unnatural. Then they set to mashing food and straining milk for Johnny.

Alone in bed, sometimes tears slipped loose, and Rachel allowed herself to wish for Shag. But only in sleep did dreams of Nick have their say. She never spoke to Alba of Nick, nor of details of the financial burden Gordon had left. Just as Alba never spoke of Davis, nor of the shadows that sometimes dimmed her eyes.

When it came time for Alba to leave, they stood once more on the porch with the wagon and Davis waiting.

"Thank you for staying with me, Alba. Please, come again."

"I will, Rachel."

They stood apart, uncertain, then Alba made a low, soothing sound and they hugged each other tightly. Davis handed Alba into the wagon with exquisite care and a reddening neck.

Rachel waved a final time when the wagon rolled under the distant sign that proclaimed “Natchez,” then turned to the house.

Jim Henderson quit as foreman two weeks after Gordon's funeral. He was going into business with his brother-in-law in Cheyenne, he said. Rachel suspected he didn't want to work for a woman. Especially not on such a troubled spread.

She promoted Bob Chapman without hesitation. But that didn't stop cowhands from quitting singly, in pairs or, one memorable day, by the quartet.

Gordon's creditors allowed almost three weeks before they presented demands. She stalled them as best she could. She'd written to ask Arnold Brett in Montana to sell Gordon's holdings there.

She was trying to lease the house at Natchez, which Gordon had built as close as possible to Chelico. She couldn't sell without selling some—or all—of the land around it, and that would be a last resort. But a lease could bring income.

The herd might yet produce income if the roundup about to begin should show winter had not been quite as disastrous as feared. The trouble was with so few hands, she couldn't mount roundup crews to cover all the range. In the end, she sent only Joe-Max to the roundup district north of them, the one Nick would be involved in, with orders to hold Circle T and Lazy W head until another crew freed up to trail them to home range.

"Done that before,” Joe-Max said, fingering his mustache. “Looks like we're back where we started year before last, when you and Shag had us bringing the herd home half at a time, before Davis and Henry and Nick joined up."

Back where they'd been when Nick first rode onto the Circle T? No, she would never be there again. And whether she was glad or not, she truly didn't know.

"Somebody's coming!"

Hard to tell which of the cowhands gave the shout amid the milling cattle rounded up this morning and now waiting their turn, none too patiently, at the branding iron.

Rachel put her palm on the cantle and twisted to look over Dandy's rump to dust showing on the western horizon. Not a plume like a single rider kicked up, but a wide, thick cloud.

"I'll go see what it is,” Rachel told Bob Chapman, his eyes trained in the same direction.

"Maybe I should send somebody with you."

"You can't spare anybody. Besides, there's no need.” She patted the rifle in the holder Shag had made and smiled reassuringly. She wheeled Dandy and trotted off.

She'd thought Shag overprotective, but at least he'd given her credit for her skill. Some of these men acted as if she were an exotic species landed in their midst.

Most days Rachel was in the saddle as long as light lasted, and it lasted a little longer each day. She checked on the roundups, even did a bit of roping, though her hands, pampered these past months, would take toughening before she could be a real help. But she thought it important for the men who remained to see she was there, with them. They'd get used to her eventually.

Still, she was the most expendable of the crew that had started in predawn chill to round up head and now branded as this spring day heated to midsummer.

Here at the western tip of Circle T territory, the land rolled steadily toward the mountains. The folds blocked her view of what raised the dust that grew larger against the blue horizon, until she topped a ridge and saw a stream of cattle cresting the next ridge. As she watched, they started down the opposite slope. They were being led on a beeline for Natchez home range.

Her heart beat faster and her mouth felt as dry as if she'd swallowed some of that dust they churned up.

A rider appeared on the far ridge, a lean silhouette on a wiry black horse.

Nick.

As if he'd felt her gaze, he turned his head for a handful of heartbeats, then he returned his attention to the cattle. It was stupid to feel he'd turned away from her. It wasn't as if they could really even see each other. He'd simply appeared as a small figure on a ridge, and she couldn't have been any more to him.

She slapped the reins against her canvas-covered legs, setting Dandy sidling. The important thing was the herd coming down that slope, and the hope that it bore Circle T or Lazy W brand. She pressed her heels to Dandy's sides.

When she was within a hundred yards of the lead steer, Nick rode out to her. But if she'd expected much from him in the way of words, she was disappointed.

"Take the point. These hands don't know the land."

Sweat stains rimmed his hat. Dust and sweat created a muddy rivulet racing down the side of his throat. His clothes, his skin, even his dark hair had a layer of pale dust that said he'd ridden some time behind the herd.