Mail-Order Cousins 2

by Joyce Armor

  “How far is it to our campsite?” she asked after they had ridden a mile or so.

  “About 38 miles, some of it hard riding.”

  “Oh.”

  She was definitely going to have a sore behind when this day was over. They were in open country now, with low grass as far as the eye could see, with forestland and mountains in the distance. “Why don’t we let them run?” she asked with a grin.

  He smiled. “All right.” He pointed. “Just to the top of that rise.”

  He barely got the last word out before she took off, kneeing her horse to a gallop. Her bonnet flew back and her hair started to come out of its chignon. She reached back and pulled out the pins, trying to stuff them into a pocket, but she dropped one or two. Her black hair whipped in the wind and she laughed. This was freedom. This is what her soul craved.

  Gus galloped up to his wife in utter astonishment. While riding her horse at top speed, she had undone her hair and it was flying in the wind. She looked like some kind of avenging angel. He could not get over the fact that this beautiful woman had traveled across the country to marry and live with him in the middle of nowhere. While appreciating his good fortune, he could not help but be suspicious. He could understand why an ugly woman would answer his matrimonial advertisement, but this specimen of female perfection? Something wasn’t right. Of course, he wasn’t planning on sharing his past with her either, so he recognized he was being a little unfair to judge her. He just didn’t want whatever she was hiding to come back and bite him.

  He passed her just before they reached the crest of the little hill. He was competitive by nature and couldn’t let her win the race. She was laughing and so joyous when she reached him, Gus couldn’t help but smile. Then his smile faded. She wouldn’t be giddy when she realized how hard the work would be to build the ranch.

  They rode for another couple of hours before he pulled up near a little creek. “Let’s give the horses a rest, and we can eat. I brought some apples, cheese and beef jerky.”

  She had no idea what beef jerky was but wasn’t about to admit that. They unsaddled the horses and ground staked them by the creek. He unrolled a blanket that had been secured behind his saddle and spread it on the ground. They sat and ate the apples and the jerky. She watched the way he ripped off a portion with his teeth and chewed, and she did the same. It actually was rather tasty, a little bit spicy as well as beefy.

  “Tell me about trapping. How long did you do that?”

  “I came west in ’69. It was kind of the end of the trapping era. Many of the regions had been trapped out.”

  “Trapped out?”

  “Not enough animals left to support the number of trappers. And the market in England for beaver had dwindled. I did it for a couple of years, mostly getting beavers and foxes, but started to take on scouting missions to augment my income.”

  She took a bite of her apple. It was hard and crispy, just like she liked her apples. “Where and what did you scout?”

  She noticed he was always scanning the area, on the lookout for danger, she suspected. She felt safe with him.

  “I did quite a bit of work for the Army. And I scouted for a wagon train from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon Territory. That’s how I found the land I bought.”

  Per wanted to have that conversation about consummating the marriage, without telling him why, but hadn’t quite screwed up her courage yet. “That sounds interesting. I’d like to hear more about both those ventures, particularly the scouting.”

  He stood and held his hand out to help her up. She took it and felt a kind tingling heat when his calloused hand grasped hers.

  “Some other time. We need to get going.”

  As soon as she was standing he let go, almost as if he had been burned. She took that to mean he had felt something, too. She should have felt hurt or insulted that he apparently did not want to fall in love with her, but she decided to approach it as a challenge. And she welcomed challenges. It wasn’t like she loved him now anyway. She did like him, though, despite his borderline civility. Or maybe because of it. She smiled at that thought.

  After another hour of riding, the landscape gradually changed from grass to trees. As they followed a worn path through the forest, the temperature dropped noticeably. Gus was riding ahead of her and she called out to him.

  He reined in.

  “I need my bag so I can get my sweater.”

  She couldn’t gauge his look. Was he annoyed that she couldn’t stand the cold? Frustrated that they’d had to stop? Well, too bad if that was the case. God forbid she slowed them down by two minutes. As she quickly rifled through the bag and pulled out a gray sweater, she wondered about the path they were on.

  “How did this trail get here?”

  “It’s an old Indian path.”

  She handed him the valise and donned the sweater as he secured the bag behind his saddle.

  “I hope that means only old Indians use it.” She mounted without his help, although her foot could barely reach the stirrup.

  He chuckled as he vaulted back into his saddle so gracefully she almost sighed.

  Then he looked at her, all humor aside. “Do you know how to shoot?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do, although I’m not a sharpshooter. I learned in Spain, but I don’t have a gun.”

  He leaned over and unbuckled a saddlebag, reaching in and pulling out a pistol. He handed it to her. “It’s a Colt .45 single-action Army revolver.”

  She nodded. “The Peacemaker.”

  He raised an eyebrow. She was surprisingly knowledgeable about things he would not expect her to know. “Yes. Be careful. It’s loaded.”

  “Wouldn’t do much good if it weren’t,” she smiled, placing the gun in her waistband.

  No, she wasn’t like any debutante he had ever met.

  The next time they stopped, in a clearing near another little stream, she wasn’t sure her legs would support her when she dismounted. Her thighs and butt ached, and her back was a little sore. She would be damned if she would let Gus know that, however. Locking her knees, she climbed off the horse, holding onto the saddle to steady herself.

  “Leave the saddle on,” her husband said. “We’ll just be here a few minutes.” He took her reins and led her horse to the creek.

  She gratefully sank to the ground, leaning back on a juniper tree. A few minutes later, Gus returned and tossed her a hunk of cheese. He sat cross-legged nearby.

  Per thanked him and tried to muster all the energy she could. “Are we almost there?”

  “Yes. It’s no more than a couple of miles.”

  Uh-oh. It was time. It was now or never. She had to say it. “Gus?”

  “What?”

  “Uh, I’ve…I’ve changed my mind.”

  He knew it, dad blast it. She wasn’t cut out for this. Couldn’t even make it to the campsite.

  “You might have said something before we said the vows.” He stood and started pacing, holding his hand on the back of his neck.

  She was pretty certain he was misunderstanding what she was trying to say.

  “I’m not taking you back to Vale now, and it might not even be in the next two weeks. You’ll just have to wait until I can get there again.”

  “I don’t want to go back to Vale.”

  “Well, where the hell do you want to go?”

  “I didn’t change my mind about the marriage or the move, Gus.”

  “Oh.” Now he felt like a complete jackass. “What are you talking about then?”

  “The eleven days.”

  He sighed. She probably wanted to make it a year now. He wasn’t cut out to be a husband, that was awfully dang obvious.

  He stopped and looked down at her. “How many days do you want it to be?”

  She hesitated, admitting to herself it was just to toy with him since he had thought the worst of her. Then she looked up at him and said, “None.”

  He swallowed. Surely he had not heard her correctly. “None?” His voi
ce sounded higher than usual.

  She smiled. “None.”

  And then he ogled her with such undisguised yearning, she panicked. “Not here!” she exclaimed.

  He burst out laughing. “I promise you, I’m not going to ravish you on the ground, at least not without a blanket under us. We need to get home and set up camp before dark. There’s only a few hours left in the day.”

  He headed off toward the horses and she breathed a sigh of relief. She realized it wasn’t that she didn’t want to couple with him. She actually did. It was that she was utterly inexperienced, although she understood the act, having witnessed those horses copulating on Lindy’s farm. She didn’t want to disappoint her husband. Then again, he might be disappointed if you were experienced. That made her feel better.

  She got up and glanced over at the creek, where he was untying the horses. Just then she caught a movement in a tree off to his left. She was about to yell to him but realized there wasn’t time. She took two steps as she pulled out her revolver. That’s when the cougar sprang from the tree. She fired twice, hitting it both times. Gus turned, pulling out his pistol as the cat landed with at his feet. The horses both shied away, whinnying, and he fought for control of the reins until they finally calmed down as he led them away from the dead cougar.

  That’s when he looked at Per and saw the blood had drained from her face. He quickly tied the reins to a bush and rushed over to her. She was still holding the gun and her hand was shaking. He carefully removed the gun from her hand.

  “That was some nice shooting. You may have saved my life.”

  “I…I never shot a living thing. Just targets.”

  He couldn’t help it. He put an arm around her shoulder to comfort her. “It’s not the same, is it?”

  “No.”

  “A good rule is, don’t point your gun unless you’re willing to kill if worse comes to worse.”

  Then she turned and looked up at him with those blue, blue eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “Me? I’m fine, thanks to you.” Seeing that her color was back, he let her go. “We’d better get going.”

  “Should we bury the mountain lion?” she asked him as he brought the horses over.

  “Nah, the predators will take care of it.”

  He helped her mount. “There’s bigger predators in these woods than that?” she asked in semi-horror.

  He had started off but turned back. “Well, the cat’s dead, so the predators don’t have to be bigger.”

  That was comforting. Kind of. The last two miles went quickly, with no talk between the newlyweds. And then they came out of the forest to a clearing that was part meadow and part cleared forest, with mountains in the distance. She spotted a stream about a hundred yards beyond the campsite. It truly was an awe-inspiring spot.

  Gus had stopped to survey his property, and Per rode up next to him.

  “Oh, Gus, what a wonderful, gorgeous spot you picked. How many acres do you have?”

  “We have 160. And we’ll be able to claim 160 more. Much of what we have now is forestland.”

  She could see a large tent, a circle of stones where he built his campfire and a corral. Nearby stood a lean-to, presumably where the horses could get out of the weather. The shed next to that probably held his tools and feed. To the right of the cabin, a garden area looked to hold a variety of vegetables. Off to the left was a massive pile of logs, which he obviously would use to build a cabin or ranch house. What effort it must have taken to chop down all those trees and haul and strip those logs. And he apparently had done it all himself.

  “I know I’m going to love it here,” she gushed, but she could see he was dubious.

  He didn’t know that to her, the sky looked bluer, the grass looked greener and the trees were more beautiful than any she had ever seen. She breathed in the pure western air and felt her soul expanding.

  “Let’s go,” she beamed and led the way into the clearing.

  He shook his head and followed. Now the real test began.

  Chapter 3

  Gus had taken care of the horses, which were now moseying around in the corral, and headed into the woods with his rifle. He tasked Per with taking her valise and his saddlebags into the tent and putting things away, as well as coming up with some kind of a meal, to be ready in an hour. Mercifully, her husband had started a fire, as she might have spent the entire hour trying to do that.

  The tent was roomy and included not only Gus’s pallet with a blanket that looked suspiciously like a bear’s coat, but also a little table and chair as well as a pine bureau. On top of that was a lantern. Securing the tent flap open provided enough light for now. Beside the bureau sat several boxes, piled on top of a large, leather-covered steamer trunk. That looked out of place somehow, not in keeping with the humble abode. Shouldn’t it have been a duffel bag or carpet bag? She decided to ruminate about that later; she had work to do.

  After putting her clothes into a couple of the bureau drawers, which Gus had kindly emptied for her, she removed a shirt, trousers and long underwear from his saddlebag and folded and placed them in one of the upper drawers. After that, she looked in the boxes and found some potatoes and an onion. In another box lined with waxed cotton, she found silverware, including a sharp knife she could use for peeling, and several pots and pans. She chose a cast iron frying pan and took it and several potatoes and the onion to the fire pit.

  Now she just needed to find something on which to cut the potatoes and onion. Although she had never cooked potatoes or onions before, she was no dummy. How hard could it be? She decided to head down to the creek to look for a flat rock to use as a cutting surface. She didn’t see any by the edge of the creek, so she took off her boots and the socks she had bought in Vale, rolled up her trousers and waded into the little stream.

  “Lord, that feels good.”

  She desperately wanted to soak her bottom in the creek, but thought better of it. The creek bed was mostly silt, which felt wonderful on her feet. She could see rocks, though, especially as she walked a little ways. At last she spotted a large enough, reasonably flat rock and tugged at it. It was stuck in the silt and slippery, and as she pulled with all her might, her hands slipped and she fell back into the creek with a screech.

  Well, you wanted to soak your arse.

  So she did. She laughed. The water was cold but refreshing. She sat up and looked around the bank until she found a sturdy stick. Using that for leverage, she managed to pry the stone out of the silt. It was not as heavy as she feared, and she was able to carry it and her boots and socks back to the campsite without much trouble. In the clearing, with the sun beating down, it was still warm, although late afternoon. She took off her soggy sweater and rung it out, laying it on the corral fence to dry. Would the horses eat it? She didn’t think so. She decided to peel and cut the potatoes and onion before changing her clothes. Maybe she would put on a dress for Gus.

  She could only remember peeling potatoes once before, in that little hamlet in England. The process came back to her, although she would never win a contest if speed were a factor. Nonetheless, within 15 minutes she had the potatoes sliced and the onion chopped and cooking in the frying pan on the fire. That accomplished, she returned to the tent, where she stripped off her wet clothes and rooted in the bureau for a dress.

  She was standing in her wet, clinging boy’s undershirt and bloomers when Gus walked into the tent. She turned around, and he froze. The thin shirt was plastered against her curvy body, and it left nothing to the imagination. He could see her hardened nipples and the outline of her pubic area through her wet bloomers. He carefully laid his rifle down and covered the two steps to her in a trice. Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with a passion that may have surprised her, but it stunned him. He would have felt ashamed of his almost uncontrolled ardor toward his innocent young wife, except he suddenly realized she was giving as good as she got. Their tongues were dueling, and she was pressing that gorgeous little body into his incr
easingly hard frame.

  After a minute or two of this erotic exchange, he pulled back.

  “Well,” he said.

  She looked at him for a moment and then squeaked, “The potatoes!”

  “I took them off the fire. But I suppose I should skin the rabbit and get it cooking or we’ll never eat.”

  “Right,” she nodded.

  “We’re not done here, though,” he said over his shoulder as he picked up his rifle and left the tent.

  Lord, I hope not.

  The meal was one of the humblest Per had ever eaten, her potato/onion mix and fire-roasted rabbit on a spit Gus had rigged, and she had never tasted anything better. He had snagged a large rabbit, so there was enough for a stew for tomorrow. She was only slightly embarrassed when she had to ask him how to make a stew. She had never claimed to be a cook in their letter exchange. Though she waited for him to be annoyed or impatient with her about that, he just calmly described the steps to making a good stew. And then she realized he was probably trying to stay in her good graces so she wouldn’t change her mind about the coming night’s activities. Not bloody likely.

  While Gus wrapped up the remaining meat and looked after the horses, Per went down to the creek to wash and dry the pan, plates and forks. When she returned, he was sitting on a log by the fire. He had kind of a faraway look in his eyes, and she wondered what he was thinking about. She dried the dishes and returned them to the box in the tent and went out and plopped down next to her husband. He didn’t say anything for a long while, and neither did she. It had been a long day and she was tired, a good tired, she realized, not one born of frustration or ennui.

  The sun was just about down, turning the sky a pinkish-orange. Gus might not have a romantic bone in his body—Per realized she didn’t know her husband well enough yet to assess that—but she thought the setting was about the most enchanting sight she had ever witnessed. It wasn’t just the stunning sky or just the dancing fire or the surrounding regal forest. It was the combination of everything, not the least of which was the handsome, intelligent, capable man she had married.