Wyoming Wildfire (37 page)

“Oh? How’s that?” A girl less self-absorbed would have scented danger, but Emma felt so sure of herself, so dose to victory, she was heedless of warning signs.

They don’t give themselves airs, and they have enough sense to leave men’s work to the men. You know,” she said in a burst of candor, “you don’t treat Burch very smart. I know you’re a relative and it’s not the same as with me, but you sure do put his back up. You’ll never get a husband that way, certainty not one as high-spirited and self-assured as Burch.”

“And how do you suggest I go about
getting
a
husband,”
Sibyl asked with deceptive cordiality, “one as high-spirited and, uh, self-assured as Burch?”

Emma didn’t quite like the look in Sibyl’s eye nor the fect that she had risen to her feet. She had the feeling of being circled by a stalking cat, and it was not a pleasant sensation. “You don’t have to get so touchy,” she said. “I just thought that since you were new out here and not familiar with our ways, you might like a little friendly advice.”

“But I would,” cooed Sibyl. “Is that how you do it, by being
friendly?”

“Well, of course you have to be friendly. You don’t expect a bear to come back to a honey pot if it bites, do you?”

“What an appropriate phrase. I would never have thought to characterize you as a biting honey pot if you hadn’t suggested it, but I do think you’ve bit the mark.”

“Now, wait just a minute,” warned Emma, her temper flaring. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can tell when I’m being insulted.”

“It’s only a fair exchange, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you thought I was when you first arrived—a honey pot for Burch to dip into when he liked? Or when he got tired of my aunt?”

“Oh, well, I’m sure I’m sorry for any mistake I made. It was the surprise of finding you here, when I expected to find Burch . . ”

“Alone is the word you’re looking for, isn’t it?”

“Well, not precisely alone, but I didn’t expect to find any other women here”

“So you could be the only honey pot around and lure Burch on until you could slam the door on him.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m a decent woman.”

“A decent
whom,
maybe; a decent woman, never!”

With a scream of rage, Emma launched herself at Sibyl. “I’ll teach you to call me a whore,” she squalled, trying to grab a handful of Sibyl’s abundant hair.

“You don’t haw to teach me, I already know how,” Sibyl responded, dealing Emma a slap across the cheek that caused her to stagger against the bed.

“Bitch!” Emma screamed and lunged at Sibyl again.

“My, my, is that kind of language decent women use out here, or have you confused it with decent whores?” Sibyl deftly sidestepped Emma’s bull-like charge and tripped her. Emma fell to the floor with a thundering crash and a torrent of curses.

“I’ll kill you for this!” she screeched, scrambling to her feet.

“It’s a shame Burch can’t see you now. I know he’d be powerfully drawn by your spirit and
self-assurance.”
This time Sibyl did not evade Emma’s attack and they came together with pulling of hair and rending of clothes.

“Stop!” ordered Rachel, bursting into the room just as Sibyl yanked Emma’s head back with a crack that threatened to snap her neck. “Have you gone crazy?”

“I want you out of this house tomorrow,” Sibyl said, panting, “with or without your brother.”

“This is Burch’s house, and I won’t leave until he tells me.”

“This is my house, too. If you don’t leave, I’ll have you thrown out.”

“Why, you little …”

There’ll be no more of that,” Rachel said, placing her slight frame between the two women. “You’d best go to your room, Miss Stratton, before anybody sees you.”

“I haven’t finished with you,” Emma threatened, turning her back on Sibyl.

“But I’m finished with you,” Sibyl replied, losing much of her fire. “I’m finished with all of this,
forever?

“What happened?” Ned inquired, entering the room barely seconds after Emma left. “We heard such a crash Balaam was sure you’d knocked over a trunk.”

“I weren’t such a fool,” said Balaam, almost completely out of breath from his hasty return. “I said it
sounded
like Miss Sibyl done knocked over her trunk.”

“Miss Stratton slipped on a rug,” Sibyl told them, as fruitful as Emma with handy lies. “She turned too quickly and lost her balance.”

“If I was to believe everything I heard, I would be an old fool,” said Balaam contemptuously.

“You’re a dotty old fool,” said Ned.

“Old, but no fool” Sibyl admitted with a ghost of a smile. “Could you pretend to believe me?”

“I guess it won’t do me no harm,” Balaam said, unable to ignore the pleading in Sibyl’s eyes.

“No, nor the rest of us,” agreed Rachel. “Now Miss Cameron is worn out. I’ll finish her packing, and you can load the rest of the trunks in the morning.”

“But I thought you said we had to load them tonight?”

“I did, Balaam, but I am awfully tired.”

“Good. It’s about time you went to sleep and let the rest of us do the same. It’s not Christian to be keeping an old man out of his bed at this hour.”

“There’s nothing Christian about you, you old piece of carrion,” said Ned, responding to a look from Rachel and pushing Balaam out the door before him. “I don’t know why Mr. Burch didn’t feed you to the coyotes long ago.”

“Better men than Mr. Burch has tried to do old Balaam a wrong turn and failed,” responded the ancient before Ned dosed the door behind them. Rachel began to straighten up the room without a word.

“You don’t have to do that,” Sibyl said, but Rachel didn’t stop. Sibyl walked to her dressing table and sat down. The same familiar face stared back at her, but she felt like she was facing a stranger. She couldn’t fool herself; she had just had a fight with another woman over a man. She
had
to leave tomorrow. If this was what being in love did to people, if this was how it bent and twisted them, then the sooner she got away from Burch the better. The feeling of being loved, of being held in his arms, of being brought to a peak of exquisite fulfillment was wonderful, but this torment of fear and jealousy was hell. If they had to go together, then she’d just have to do without love. It was impossible to consider going through the rest of her life like this.

Rachel finished straightening the room and started to leave. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know” she said, pausing to look sadly at Sibyl, “not unless you let it.”

Chapter 24

The train gathered speed, carrying Sibyl farther and farther away from Burch. She reached out to the figure that grew steadily smaller in the distance, tried to will his horse to run faster, but the train whistle blew furiously, trumpeting its defiance again and again. In desperation, she called out to him, but no sound came from her throat; still the train continued its triumphant shrieking, louder and LOUDER and
LOUDER!
Sibyl woke up with a jolt.

The room was in utter darkness. Frightened, she fumbled with the bedside lamp, found the matches, and stared before her with anxious eyes until the dim light showed packed and corded trunks against the far wall. The tension slowly left her body; she was still at the Elkhorn, in her own room, and in her own bed.

Then what was the harrowing noise that sounded like the shriek of a train whistle? Sibyl threw back the covers; the bitter cold of the room bit at her flesh as though she were naked. She slipped her feet into fur-lined slippers and drew on a thick, servicable robe. Outside the whistling noise rose to a piercing intensity, howling and moaning around the corners of the house. She pulled back the curtains, but even though the clock said the sun should have been up an hour ago, it was so dark outside she couldn’t see the bare limbs of the tree that stood less than fifteen feet from her window. All she could make out was a dark, swirling gray mass. That’s snow, she realized; it’s another blizzard.

She hurried downstairs, but there was no one about. She didn’t want Emma to be up, but it was odd that Rachel hadn’t come to light the fires. Sibyl decided to start breakfast herself; someone was bound to come in soon. She didn’t have long to wait; she had barely poured her coffee when Balaam staggered in, hurtled through the door by a fierce blast of arctic cold and driving snow.

“You’re never stepping foot outside this house today, miss, much less going to Laramie,” he announced, unable to hide his satisfaction at being proved right. “That snow is blowing harder than any I can remember. No telling now long it’ll last.” He hurried over to the stove to warm his cold hands.

“Are you sure there’s no chance to get through?” Sibyl didn’t know why she bothered to ask. Anyone could see that it was impossible to travel in that storm.

“I nearly lost my way between here and the barn. I already put up a rope so’s you can hold on. That wind is getting worse, not better. You won’t be able to see at all before long.”

“Where’s Rachel?”

“Probably snowed in at her place.”

“Will she be all right by herself?”

“She’s used to it, been doing it for years, but you won’t be seeing her here at the house for some time.”

“And Ned?”

“He’s tending to that bull of yours. Old Balaam is okay to take care of pigs and chickens and milk cows,” he mimicked, “but I can’t be trusted with that precious bull and his harem.”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Naw. That fat plug is eating just as fast as he can chew, but I expect he’s a mite chilly. It’s near twenty below out there now”

“Twenty below are?”

“And going to be colder unless I miss my guess.”

“Do we have enough coal?”

“We could survive a storm twice as cold and four times as long as this one is likely to be. It’s the cows out on the plains I’m worried about.”

“What about the men?” Sibyl asked, unable to keep from thinking of Burch caught in that deadly storm.

“They’ll hole up in a cabin somewhere till it blows itself out. They took enough food with them to hold out for a month.”

“But we’ve already had so many blizzards.”

“They stocked up real good after New Year’s.” His hands were warm enough now to allow him to give some thought to his stomach. “Do you have anything here for a man to eat?”

“When didn’t she ever?” asked Rachel, entering the kitchen.

“Where’d you come from, woman? Don’t try telling me you came through all that snow.”

“I slept over” she said, glancing at Sibyl for only the briefest moment.

“Just as well you did,” Balaam said, settling down to the plate Sibyl handed him. “At least you’ll get something good and hot to eat.”

“Ned coming in?” Rachel asked, pouring her coffee.

“Soon as he’s through petting that bull.”

“Then see that you leave him something to eat,” Rachel said, noting the extra food Balaam had seen fit to add to what Sibyl had already given him.

“An old man like me needs lots of fuel to keep warm,” he groused, offended.

“An old man like you should be careful to eat past his worth.” They continued to swipe at one another, old foes comfortable in their mild antagonism, until Ned came in, hurried along by another blast of wind and powder-dry snow.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he announced to Sibyl, “not in all the years I spent on the Sweetwater.”

“That couldn’t have been too many now, could it?” Balaam badgered, still irked at Rachel’s jibes about his age.

“Enough to know that this isn’t going to clear up by tomorrow. We’re in for it this time.”

“And just how long do you suspect that’s going to be? You being so experienced an’ all.”

“Long enough to freeze your worthless bones if Miss Sibyl wasn’t too softhearted to know the best way to get rid of an old sucker like you.”

“Sucker!” hollered Balaam, turning purple with indignation.

“Leach or tick would have been more to the point, but I was trying not to hurt your feelings.”

Sibyl bowed her head to conceal a grin.

“Why, you half-baked cripple, I had broken hundreds of horses before you were dry behind the ears.”

“They seem to have broken you up a bit in return,” replied Ned nonchalantly, helping himself to something from every pot. “Or maybe you’re just coming apart from dry rot.”

Balaam rose from his seat, his spare frame shaking with choler, ready to defend himself with words Sibyl wouldn’t have found familiar.

“Don’t answer him, Balaam,” she said, trying not to laugh. “He’s just trying to get you to say something thoroughly improper to shock me. Besides, I don’t want to have you two bellowing at each other through my breakfast.”

“I may not have been raised in no Virginia mansion, but I do know how to behave,” said Balaam indignantly.

“If Balaam can’t cuss and bellow, he can’t talk. He don’t know any other way.”

“Leave him alone, Ned,” said Sibyl. “It’s not fair for you to pick on him when he can’t answer you back. Are my trunks still in the wagon?”