Wyoming Wildfire (22 page)

It was good to have Burch feeling so much better, but in some ways it had been easier for them when he was too weak and ill to object to his treatment. Now that his strength was returning, he made no effort to contain his impatience and constantly complained of one thing after another. He even criticized his food.

“He must be desperate,” Augusta said, “for he has always been most complimentary whenever he mentioned your cooking.”

“When can I get a breath a fresh air?” he asked the minute he was settled downstairs.

“You ungrateful man. You no sooner force us to bring you downstairs—against our better judgment, I might add-then you want to know what else you can do that you have no business doing.”

“For a man used to spending his nights in the open, being closed in by walls is like being in Hell.”

“It’s too cold for you to be outside,” Sibyl informed him, putting more coal into the stove. “It’s not even November yet and there was ice in the buckets this morning.”

“I could keep you warm,” he said, his irritability quickly forgotten. “Just until you got used to the cold.”

“Hush!” she said, trying not to giggle. “You’ll shock Aunt Augusta.” Yet she couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have Burch’s bare skin next to hers.

There’s room enough for two in the bed.”

“If you so much as hint that in front of my aunt, I’ll never speak to you again,” she said sternly, but her insides were feeling definitely funny.

“I hope Jesse gets back soon,” he said, obligingly changing the subject as Augusta entered the room. “I heard some geese fly over yesterday. They don’t usually head south until three or four weeks from now, so we must be in for a really cold winter. We’ve got to make some plans.”

“What kind of plans?” inquired Sibyl, immediately interested, her visions of being warmed by the fire of Burch’s embrace momentarily interrupted.

“For looking after the herd. I never keep all the men through the winter, just five or six to ride the lines and make sure the cattle can get through the ice to find water or don’t get caught in a drift. When it gets to twenty below, they’re more likely to the of thirst than of starvation. Cows are stupid. They don’t know to eat the snow that’s lying all around them instead of trying to find open water. Some of them don’t even know you have to break the ice first.”

“Why don’t you keep all the men if you need them?”

“Because it costs too much money to feed them and pay their wages. I’m still not sure how I’m going to feed your herd. I can’t worry about feeding two dozen men as well.”

“I want to help.”

I was sure you would,” Burch said sarcastically.

This is my ranch too” Sibyl said, firing up, “and there’s no reason why you should always try to keep me from having anything to do with the decisions.”

“Because you don’t know anything about it, that’s why.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to listen to what I have to say, would it? Afterward, you could tell me what a little fool I was and then reject my idea.” Anger made her cheeks flame and Burch thought how pretty she looked. A throbbing desire stirred his blood and he thought back to the afternoon in that line cabin. That recollection had haunted him often during his confinement, and never more than now.

But Sibyl was under the sway of a quite different emotion, all of her susceptibility to his rugged good looks and physical magnetism momentarily swept aside.

“Why can’t you buy the hay and grain you need?”

“A simple matter of money: I don’t have any. Until I find out what price Jesse got on the herd, I won’t know whether I’m rich or nearly broke.”

“How can that be?” she asked doubtfully. “You’ve got thousands of cows and miles of land. The lawyers told me that just last year you made over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“What the lawyers apparently didn’t tell you was that Uncle Wesley was deeply in debt. We’ve got the best breeding herd and own the most land of any privately held ranch in Wyoming, but Uncle paid dearly for it. It’ll take a good price for this year’s herd to meet the last payment, and under the agreement it’s due the first of December. It can’t be put off. If we have a good calf crop next year, well be in a strong position to make money. As for the land, well, we still don’t have all we need.”

“But there’s miles of it out there, and there’s nobody here except you and Lasso.”

“That’s government land. We’ve been fighting a battle that grows increasingly difficult every year: We’re caught between the homesteaders who want to fence everything in and the rustlers who want to steal us blind. We’ve been able to keep most people out up till now, but we can’t keep it up for much longer.”

“You mean the success of this ranch depends on land you don’t even control?”

“We control it, we just don’t own it.”

“If you don’t own it, how can you control it?”

“If you control the water, you control the rangelands around it. Uncle bought up every parcel he could along the creek. He even had the hands stake claims and sell to him. We also have land along the Clearwater where it meets the Elkhorn. As a matter of fact, there are two strategic spots I want you and Augusta to file on, and I’ve even got one for Ned. Along with the dams, that ought to give Lasso and me control of the creek for at least thirty miles. That ought to be enough to keep out the homesteaders for a few more years.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” asked Augusta.

“Not strictly, but it is outside the spirit of the law. But what else are we to do? You can’t run cattle on one hundred and sixty acres when it takes twenty-five for just one head and the government won’t sell you more than one allotment. Nobody knows how much land there is, where it is, or who owns it, so until the government surveyors get in here, we can keep on pretty much as we are until then.”

“So the problem is cash?”

In a nutshell.”

Then I’ll buy the feed and pay the hands.” The problem solved, Sibyl’s thoughts wandered off again to a study of the angle of Burch’s jaw.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Burch decreed, sitting up rigidly. “I will not have any woman paying my bills.”

Sibyl’s thoughts jackknifed. They aren’t
your
bills, they’re
ours,”
she said, her eyes sparking angrily. “I have a right to help support the ranch even if you don’t like it.”

I thought you said your father was just a poor teacher.”

“We weren’t rich, but we weren’t exactly poor either. I sold Daddy’s farm and some land Mother left me. The money’s sitting in the bank doing nothing.”

“But you shouldn’t use that money. You might want to go back to Virginia.” The words were out before Burch understood the importance of what he had said. He was confounded to find that as much as he’d raged against Sibyl coming to Wyoming, he would be desolated if she should ever go back. He couldn’t imagine the Elkhorn without her.

“I still have the house in Lexington and a little land in town that brings in a rental income,” Sibyl stated, looking hurt and tantalizingly vulnerable at the same time. “I will not become your
pensioner?

“And I have some money of my own to help share the expenses,” added Augusta.

“In other words, you are completely independent of me for your support.” Burch summed up, seeing another of the arrows in the quiver of his masculinity snatched from him.

“Of course, there’s my half of the ranch,” Sibyl interposed, eyes glittering. “If I were to sell, I could be quite well off, even able to live in luxury.”

“Not luxury,” contradicted Burch, feeling a spurt of anger, “but you wouldn’t have to beg for your dinner.”

“I don’t plan to sell,” Sibyl admitted, forgetting her intention to annoy him when she saw how much it would hurt him. She knew she would
give
her half to Burch before she could do anything that would wound him so deeply. One glorious afternoon in his arms had changed her forever.

Sibyl sounded so meek that Burch was emboldened to hope she had backed down from her insistence on paying for the hay, but in that he’d gone too far.

“That is already settled,” she stated firmly, regarding him with a wary but determined look. “Providing for the herd is just as much my responsibility as it is yours.”

“But the money for running the ranch ought to come out of operating income, not your private funds,” Burch insisted.

“Don’t you use your own money?”

“I don’t have any money separate from the ranch. If I need something, I buy it.”

“There ought to be some way to determine the total income and expenses, and then pay each of us an equal sum. Then we would know where we stand.”

“Much more businesslike,” he said briskly.

“Also more fair.” She didn’t trust the way he was looking at her.

“Then I must know the value of the breeding herd, and the furniture you’re forever talking about.”

“What do you need that for?” she asked, scenting danger.

“The ranch owes you for the feed, the herd, and the furnishing of the house. And that doesn’t include the chickens, the pigs, and the milk cow.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she protested, feeling cornered by her own words. “You provided the house and I intend to provide the furniture.”

“No, you already own half the house.”

“Then half the furniture will be in my half of the house and the rest will be a loan,” she responded, vexed. “Besides, part of it belongs to Aunt Augusta.”

“Okay, I’ll forget the furniture and the work you do around here, but I will not forget the herd. They must be worth thousands.”

“Then consider them still mine, and the feed and hay is an exchange for taking care of them this winter.” She had eliminated one more debt. It was getting increasingly more difficult to keep her temper under control; she wasn’t used to being left with no defense.

“Okay, they’re still yours, and the ranch will pay for the bull’s services.” Sibyl agreed with him reluctantly.

It was a small victory for Burch. His pride had warred with his concern for the ranch, and pride came in second. Had he been able to move out of the chair by himself, he might have argued further, planning to somehow produce a solution of his own, but being unable to get about without aid had made him feel foolishly dependent and completely unmanned. Ever since the accident he had been in the position of having to receive help from Sibyl, and he couldn’t accept it that easily. He had to reestablish his control, and her fighting him on every point made it more difficult.

And the fact that Sibyl was a lovely, desirable, fascinating woman he hoped to keep by his side didn’t change his feelings one bit. He constantly felt torn between his desire to do anything that would keep her near him and the necessity of fighting her tooth and nail over virtually every move he made. He wasn’t so full of senseless pride that he was going to throw away her offer of help, but neither was he going to knuckle under to her, no matter how much his memories of the delicious pleasure to be found in her arms tortured his dreams. He swore the ranch would pay back every cent; he couldn’t stand knowing that he was beholden to some women for the well-being of
his
ranch. Good Lord, Uncle Wesley would turn in his grave!

“How do I go about buying hay?” Sibyl asked, trying to turn the conversation to less dangerous channels. “I don’t imagine peddlers come by offering wagon loads for sale.”

“It has to be brought in by rail,” Burch replied humorlessly. “One of the boys will have to ride to Casper or Laramie and see what he can find. We may have to go as far as Cheyenne because of the drought.”

“I’ll send Jenkins tomorrow”

“Better still, wire Jesse to buy it in Chicago and bring it back with him. You’d best tell him to get all he can if we’re to keep your herd alive as well. I’ve been building castles in the air ever since I saw that bull. Your father must have been a genius.” The tension was gone, and once again Sibyl gave in to the enjoyment of just being in Burch’s company.

“He started the herd with his own father’s blood cattle, or the few animals that survived the marauding soldiers. There wasn’t much those two armies didn’t eat up, and it didn’t matter to them if it was a priceless bull or a stray heifer.”

A stentorian knocking at the door, followed by the hearty voice of Lasso Slaughter, signaled the end of the quiet morning. Burch’s face broke into a smile of welcome, Sibyl frowned in disgust, and Augusta looked suspended somewhere between resignation and delirium. Sibyl was unable to see one redeeming characteristic in that loud, boisterous buffoon. It was a complete mystery to her how her aunt, who was the most gentle, well-bred woman alive, could continue to tolerate him. Not even for the endless stream of little presents could she have stood the broad hints, extravagant compliments, and low humor that at times bordered on the crude.

“I didn’t think you’d stay in bed long,” Lasso thundered. “Look who I brought to see you.” He pointed to Burch’s hunting dog, who followed at his heels. “The poor beast was lying about the steps looking lost.”

Brutus, who was a mixture of several breeds, all of them very large, sighted his master and bounded forward with a joyful volley of earsplitting barks.

“Stop him!” Sibyl shrieked when she realized the hound intended to jump into Burch’s lap. She had horrible visions of Burch in a tangled heap and the stupid dog licking his face as he passed out from pain.