Wyoming Wildfire (52 page)

“I can believe that,” laughed Augusta ruefully. “She always did think I had no force of character at all.”

“Yes, but although she would have expected any kind of atrocious behavior from
me,
she was appalled to learn that
you
had so far forgotten your upbringing as to actually marry someone with the ungentlemanly name of
Lasso?

“Did she really say that?” asked Augusta, trying to hold back a choke of laughter.

“Almost those very words.”

“I can just
hear
her,” Augusta said and went into a peal of laughter.

Lasso found them doubled up with laughter, tears running down their cheeks; much better, he thought privately, them the forlorn looks they had exchanged all week. He felt sorry for Sibyl, but he didn’t want her upsetting Augusta or making her unhappy.

“You been telling shady stories?”

“We were just laughing at my sister Louisa, something, I’m afraid, that is just as improper,” confessed Augusta, “but she does deserve it.”

“I shouldn’t have made fun of her. She took me in without any questions and was unfailingly kind.”

“And why shouldn’t she be? You are her niece.”

“I caused her a great deal of inconvenience,” said Sibyl, drying her eyes, “just as I’ve caused you a lot of anxiety. You’ll be relieved to know I’m leaving tomorrow, Lasso.”

He was relieved but careful not to show it.

“Do you have anyone we can send with her?” Augusta asked her husband.

“I told you I don’t need anyone.”

“I’ll go,” said Lasso.

“No, you won’t,” insisted Sibyl, “not after having me on your hands for all thus time.”

“I might as well. Somebody delivered that damned windmill of yours here.”

“My windmill? What’s it doing here?”

“The fools left it here when I wasn’t around to stop them. I don’t know whether they couldn’t find the Elkhorn or just didn’t want to be bothered to haul that contraption another ten miles, but this’ll be as good a time as any to take it over.”

“As long as it’s not going to inconvenience you.”

“Of course, if you could take it yourself, it would save me a heap of trouble.”

“Lasso Slaughter, how dare you ask her to carry those heavy crates. Of course you’ll go, and if I hear another word, I’ll send that blueberry pie I baked for your dinner straight to the bunkhouse.”

Being forced to be a witness to loving banter only made Sibyl more anxious to return to the Elkhorn. But as she was packing her clothes, she came upon the small box Louisa had sent Augusta. Sibyl didn’t feel like giving it to Augusta right then, but she knew it might be a long time before she got another chance, and she would forget all about it by summer. Augusta and Lasso were sitting companionably by the fire holding hands when she returned.

“I thought you had already gone to bed, dear?”

“I meant to, but I forgot to give you this.” She handed Augusta the small box. “Aunt Louisa said it was yours, and now that you were married, you ought to have it.” Augusta’s puzzled look turned to surprise and then embarrassment as she flushed pink all over.

“What is it?” Lasso asked uneasily.

“Nothing, just my baby cup and spoon. Do you want to see them?”

Lasso, his curiosity disarmed, took the box she handed him, relieved that nothing further had happened to upset his wife, but Sibyl’s dogged gaze did not falter.

“It was just a surprise,” Augusta explained. “I had no idea they had been preserved.”

“That’s not enough to cause you to color up like that. It’s something else, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s nothing at all. Seeing them just brought back a lot of old memories.”

“Lasso may not know when you’re trying to hide something, but I do. You never could tell a lie, not even a very tiny one.”

Augusta tried to blunt Sibyl’s insistent curiosity, but it was too late; Lasso’s attention was caught.

“Why did you give this to your aunt if you thought it might upset her?” he asked accusingly. “She’s had too much worry because of you as it is.”

“Lasso, it’s nothing Sibyl did.”

“It seems like one of these lovesick fools is always doing something to throw you in a tizzy. It’s enough to make me close my doors to the both of them until they can stop acting like a pair of five-year-olds.”

Sibyl flushed angrily at what she felt was an unfair accusation. “I’m just as fond of my aunt as you are, and I’d have thrown that box out the train window if I thought it would upset her.”

“If you cared as much for her as you say, you wouldn’t be bringing her all your troubles every time you do something stupid or lose your infernal temper.”

“Stop, both of you!” Augusta said, coming as close to a shout as was possible for a person of her mild nature. “That’s not it at all, and I won’t have you fighting, especially over me. I’d have told you before,” she said, turning to Lasso, “but it’s far too early. I was going to wait until I was certain.”

“Certain about what? Don’t be so mysterious, Aunt.”

But Augusta fumbled for words, unable to find just the right ones to convey such an important message. Suddenly, a blinding flash of intuition struck Sibyl.

“You’re going to have a baby! That’s it, isn’t it?” But Augusta wasn’t looking at Sibyl. Her anxious eyes never left Lasso’s stunned face.

“Is it true?” he asked in a bare whisper.

“I don’t know. I won’t be sure for some time yet.” She searched his face anxiously. “You’re not upset or angry, are you?”

“Hell no!” he erupted, sweeping Augusta up and kissing her roughly. “I feel like the kid covered with pimples who just got a date with the prettiest girl in town. I’m as happy as a steer in a hay meadow” He swung her around, and then just as abruptly put her down. “You’re going to have to start taking care of yourself. You can’t go on doing all the work around here.”

“There’s not a thing wrong with me” said Augusta, breathless and radiant, “and I intend to continue taking care of my family. And that will be easier to do now than later. There’s one less to look after.”

“I’ll have to see about getting someone to help you. I wonder if you’d consider giving up Rachel?” he asked, turning to Sibyl.

“Rachel won’t come because she just got married herself,” Augusta said, regaining some of her perpetual calm. “Now you stop acting like I’ll die of the least effort, or I’ll soon be sorry this baby is on the way, if it is on the way, which I really can’t be sure of just yet.” But Lasso wasn’t listening. He was busy counting up on his fingers.

“It oughta show up sometime in late September or the first of October. Damn, right in the middle of roundup. Burch will have to take my steers to market but, hell, I can’t ask the man to round them up too. Besides, he’s got to come out of those blasted hills first.”

Augusta began to chide him gently for worrying about things before they happened, but Lasso paid her no attention and they soon forgot Sibyl’s presence in their concern for each other. Unobtrusively, she sought the refuge of her room.

It would be a relief to leave. She didn’t know how much longer she could endure the blissful euphoria that surrounded those two.
Why,
she thought bitterly,
must my own unhappiness prevent me from being able to be truly happy for those I love? I feel like a selfish monster. Maybe I don’t deserve happiness.

The glare of the bright sun reflecting off the snow nearly blinded Sibyl, causing her to pull the brim of her hat lower over her eyes. The hard crust crunched under her horse’s feet as they broke through to the soft snow underneath. This made traveling slow and more dangerous than usual.

“You should have stayed home,” Sibyl told Lasso, who was driving a wagon filled with the crates containing the windmill.

“It’s not bad now; just wait a few days. That’s the trouble with these warm spells. The sun blazes down for two days and covers the ground with water. Then the temperature drops fifty degrees and you have a crust of ice two inches thick. There’s not a cow in Christendom that can break through that to the grass underneath. They’ll starve more surely than they would if there was no grass at all.”

“You mean a herd is in more danger from ice than a blizzard?”

“Sure. A blizzard just makes it hard to get to the grass; ice makes it impossible.”

“If there are such terrible hazards to raising cattle in Wyoming, why do so many try it?”

“Because the land was here for the asking, and the grass is the best in the world. When the winters are reasonable, you can make a fortune.”

“And this year?”

“A lot of people are going to find they can make a surer profit in banking. Some of the owners are banks, anyway, or foreigners who buy and sell without ever setting foot on a ranch. They aren’t good for Wyoming but they’re good for the industry, so we have to put up with them.”

“How has the winter affected you?”

“Hard,” said Lasso with none of his usual heartiness. “I didn’t have but one of your haystacks, and I only put that one up to please Augusta. I suffered a lot less than the Strattons, but my losses have been heavy.”

“Did they lose much?” she asked, trying to make her voice sound flat and casual.

“Auggie doesn’t know because they paid off their hands after the fall roundup, but he’s not waiting till spring to find out. He and Emma have already gone to Denver to try to sell the whole outfit before anyone can get a head count.”

“Where are they going?”

“He says Emma doesn’t care as long as it’s far away from Wyoming and its iron-willed cowboys.” Lasso watched her out of the corner of his eye. “Auggie says it sounds like somebody turned her down, and that doesn’t happen to Emma very often.” Sibyl’s spirits soared, but she rode on in silence.

Lasso couldn’t resist an inward smile of satisfaction. He had nothing against Emma; she was a fine woman and lots of fun, but his first loyalty was to this young woman who seemed so necessary to the happiness of the two people he cared about so much. He didn’t know what had gotten into Burch, but anybody could see those two were set on having each other. That was okay with him. He liked Sibyl but not all this upset; it worried Augusta, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.

And the Strattons
were
selling up, and Emma
was
in Denver, but when she had heard of Sibyl’s departure, she made plans to invite herself to the Elkhorn for the summer. If thinking that Emma was heading East would help Sibyl and Burch get things patched up, then Lasso was willing to tell any number of little lies. And as for Emma, well, Emma would have to take care of herself.

“What’s this windmill for?” he asked Sibyl when he judged she had been quiet long enough. “It looks like a lot of trouble for nothing.”

“It pumps water.”

“By itself?”

“The wind drives it.”

Lasso’s brows furrowed in thought. “You mean you can have all the water you want all summer long just by putting up a windmill?”

“I don’t know that it’ll do all that, but maybe it will. At least it’ll mean we don’t have to bring water for the house from the creek.”

“Was it expensive?”

“A little.”

“Does Burch know you bought it?”

“No.”

Lasso thought for a moment. “I know you’ve had too many people sticking their noses in what’s not their business, but if you’ll take some advice from me, you’ll tell Burch when you do something like this. He might not agree with it, but I can’t see him telling you no, not if you go about it in the right way. And it would save you both from some nasty surprises.”

“I meant to tell him, but with the blizzards and his not being around most of the time, I just never did.”

“Use your own money?”

Sibyl nodded.

“He’ll like that even less.”

“Do you think I should send it back?”

“No. Burch has some uncomfortable ideas about women, but don’t sell him short. He’s smart, and he’s always looking for better ways to do things. Your uncle came here in the early days when the grass was plentiful and the winters were easy. Everybody made money then, but it’s going to take Burch’s kind of rancher to survive winters like this one or summers like the last. He won’t like it when you think of something before him—he just wasn’t raised that way—but he’s not one to bite his nose off to spite his face. And he won’t hold it against you for knowing a bit more than he does.” He looked Sibyl squarely in the eye. “I don’t say it wouldn’t be a bit easier if his wife wasn’t quite so ready to show how much she knew, but they don’t come any better than Burch Randall, and he never was one to deny a man his due.” “What are my chances of being that wife?”

“If you have enough sense to use your advantages instead of throwing them in his face, I’d say there isn’t a chance in hell of him getting off your hook.” There was another slight pause. “I don’t think he wants to, either.”

Chapter 35

After he had skinned the deer and given Brutus his supper, Burch built his campfire and constructed a spit to roast a haunch of venison for his own dinner, but he didn’t pay much attention to the slowly turning meat or the mouthwatering aroma that soon filled the air. For the last two days he could not rid himself of the conviction that he was being followed, and he was worried. There were several Indian hunting parties in the same area, but it wasn’t Indians; Brutus knew someone was following them, and he ignored it.
That’s
what worried Burch.