A groan passed around camp, ending with a sour note from Goosey’s fiddle.
“If you choose to send her back,” Reese added, “we can try to pick up a cook at Red River Station.”
“Only hands at Red River is them that’s so sorry no one can git along with ’em,” Woody observed.
“On the other hand,” Reese added, “if we keep her, and she doesn’t work out, we can always let her off at Red River.”
“Hell, that’s rough territory for a lady.”
Reese shrugged. “It’s where you get rid of incompetent help. I’ll tell you boys again, I’m gettin’ into Wichita ahead of the crowd, whatever it takes. If you can’t stand havin’ a woman in camp, let me hear it now.”
“It’ll be a hassle.”
“You’ll have to keep her from usin’ up all the water.”
“An’ makin’ us feel like schoolkids.”
Tom Lovejoy glanced up from a cigarette he was rolling. “Way I see things…” He paused, swiped a long wet line along one edge of the paper with his tongue, then carefully folded the opposite edge over it and stuck them together.
Reese stroked one side of his mustache, waiting.
“Andie Dushane’s not only a good cook, she’s a looker,” Tom observed at length. “She’ll add a touch o’ home to the monotony we’re fixin’ to impose upon ourselves.”
“And another notch on your—” Monte’s attempt to rib Lover was cut short by Reese’s explosive,
“That’s reason enough to send her packin’, right there! I don’t have time to ride herd over a bunch of lustin’ drovers. If we take her along, she’ll be treated with the same respect we’d show our mamas.”
Lover struck a wooden match on the sole of his boot. “She don’t look nothin’ like my mama.”
“Not mine, neither,” Dink added with a laugh.
“That settles it. First thing tomorrow, she goes—”
“You heathens listen up!” Young Jordan jumped from the wagon where instead of sleeping, he must have been eavesdropping. All eyes followed the frail youngster who ran to stand beside the trail boss. “I’m here to protect my ma.”
Grins spread across the men’s faces. Undaunted, the kid continued. “Ever one of you better keep your filthy hands and eyes to yourselves—I mean, all except Mister Catlin.”
It took a minute for the boy’s meaning to register, and when it did, Reese felt like someone had waylaid him with the blister end of a shovel. “You connivin’ little…” His eyes flew from Jordan’s innocent expression to the tepee set in the distance. His mouth fell open. Sonofabitch! Would this nightmare never end?
Andie Dushane was preparing for bed; at least he hoped that was her intention, for she stood, bent at the waist, head down, brushing her hair in long, graceful strokes. He knew that’s what she was doing, for her movements, along with every gentle curve of her body, were silhouetted by the glow of the lantern that rendered the canvas transparent.
Hoodwinked? Dang if he hadn’t been, and not just by the old man and the boy from the looks of things. So they thought to catch him in a matchmakin’ scheme, huh? Well, it wouldn’t work. It would take more than a connivin’ old man, a schemin’ widder-woman, an’ a fibbin’ kid to wrestle him into a double harness.
If he didn’t need a cook worse’n a muleskinner needed a bath, he’d send ’em packin’ and good riddance.
But he did need a cook. And he could take care of himself; hadn’t he evaded double harnesses before? Hell, their little plot didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in a Texas heatwave.
But halfway to the tepee to upbraid Andie for revealing herself in the lantern light, Reese began to wish for a snowstorm, himself. Halfway there he realized that only part of the heat sizzling inside him came from anger.
II
“Haaaw, Bessie Mae! Heee, Bertha Jane!” Two weeks later Andie had settled into the routine of the trail drive, determined to see the job through, in spite of Jordan’s matchmaking and Reese Catlin’s belief that she was part of the scheme. Jordan, she had reprimanded, with as much success as one could expect from a nine-year-old who was trying to marry off his ma.
Reese was a different story. She had found neither the opportunity nor the courage to explain to him that she hadn’t known about or encouraged or approved of the wretched scheme. In truth, she never wanted to think about it again, but she did want him to know she wasn’t out to catch a husband, namely him.
“Haaaw!” She cracked the whip across the rumps of the mules Night Hawk had hitched earlier, before climbing up in the wagon to catch his forty winks. The heavy wheels lumbered out of camp, pulling the cumbersome wagon over the prairie; she steered the team in a wide arc around the grazing herd.
Before her, the rising sun glistened from dew-sprinkled grass. Already a morning’s work was behind her, and a full day’s worth awaited ahead. Jordan sat on the wagon seat, prattling, the one member of the crew who never seemed to tire.
“Grumpy said I could, Ma.”
“It’s Mister Tahlman, Jordan. How many times do I have to tell you? You must address your elders with respect, even on a trail drive.”
“Then there’d be three Mister Tahlmans and that would be confusing. Can’t I call him Uncle Grumpy?”
Andie sighed. She still wasn’t certain she had made the best decision. Indeed, more often than not, she questioned her reasons for not returning home and taking the job at Long’s Cafe.
Oh, her major reason, the money Reese would pay at the end of the trail, remained the same. She needed the money.
But from that first night when he stormed into her tent and demanded she blow out her lantern, she had sensed that money would not be the only factor in her decision to stay or return home.
Memories of their encounter shimmered in the crisp morning air, taking her back to that night in the tepee. The emotions she felt then assailed her now—embarrassment at Jordan’s outburst, fear of losing this job, guilt at her own runaway senses.
She hadn’t realized Reese Catlin was so handsome, nor so large. She saw him yet, in her mind’s eye, filling her little tepee, lantern light playing on his bronzed skin and glistening from the anger in his brown eyes.
But more than his anger, it was the fascination in his eyes that held her mesmerized. He had stood like a moth drawn to the light, gazing at her as though he had never seen a woman in a dressing gown before. And she let him look, as though she had never been admired before. Later, plagued by guilt, she tried to rationalize. It had been so long, so very long. Later still Samuel’s delirious pleas haunted her dreams. Don’t leave me, Andie. Don’t leave me alone.
Now, two miserable weeks later, recalling the indecent way she had stood there, still as a dewdrop on a trembling leaf, the guilt of that encounter remained fresh as an open wound.
It lasted mere moments, before Reese finally found his tongue and ordered her to extinguish her lantern. She had quickly regained control. “I’ll thank you to get out of my tent, and stay out, Mister Catlin.”
When he neither budged nor spoke, she became wary. Had he come to send her away in the middle of the night? Had Jordan’s scheme lost her this job?
“We’ve decided to try you out,” he told her.
Relief, though sweet, was short-lived.
“But I won’t have you sashayin’ in front of the boys, or showin’ yourself—”
“Showing myself?” Embarrassment gave way to anguish. “If you think I—”
“It isn’t what I think, ma’am. It’s those cowboys sittin’ out there watchin’ you brush your hair. I’m ready to protect a lady’s honor with my life, but I don’t hanker to have to shoot my own cowboys, leastways not before we get this herd to Wichita.”
“Oh!” She had extinguished the lantern with an angry puff. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.” Apparently believing the matter settled, he backed out of the dark tepee. She charged after him.
“Mister Catlin.” She stopped inside the open flap,
inadvertently, catching his eye.
“Reese,” he corrected.
She shrank at the personal request. The nerve of him! “Everyone addresses the trail boss—”
“Everyone except the cook. Trail boss and cook are on equal footin’. Since you’ve decided to stay, we’d best be showin’ the boys who the bosses are.” He turned to leave. “’Night, Andie.”
She steamed. Pigheadedness was her least favorite male trait. “What makes you think I’ve decided to stay?” That stopped him in his tracks. Turning, he quirked an eyebrow.
“We decided to try you out.”
“I know what you decided. I heard it all, including Grumpy comparing me to a skunk at a church social.”
“Don’t go gettin’ riled; he didn’t mean any harm.”
“I’m not riled. I told you earlier, I have no desire to stay where I’m unwanted.”
Although she stood inside the darkened tepee, Reese was in full view with moonlight playing on the broad planes of his face. Again, his eyes took her in, and the perusal jolted her, for in it she saw want of a far different kind than she had intended.
Oh, he believed Jordan’s story, she could tell. Skepticism tightened the fine lines around his eyes. But thinking her a hussy out to catch a husband hadn’t checked the physical need she saw reflected in his eyes. Saw and, Lord help her, responded to.
Uncle Kipp had called Reese Catlin respectable. In that intense, sensual moment she sensed something in him that was wild. Still, for the life of her, she could only stand there and savor the pleasure of being admired by this determined, pigheaded, and yes, too-handsome, man.
Against her better judgement, she acquiesced. She needed the money. But even then, she retained enough sense to realize that if she were to remain with this drive, it must be on her own terms.
“All right, Reese Catlin, I’ll try you out. I won’t sashay or otherwise flaunt myself in front of the cowboys; to be truthful, I consider it an insult that anyone would accuse me of such behavior. And you will not put me out at Red River.”
“Now, Andie—”
“Jordan has relations in Fort Worth. If things aren’t working out, we will leave the drive there. You can prorate my pay.”
His grin befitted a man who had just won at faro. “If you last to Fort Worth, I reckon you’ll have earned it all.”
Jordan’s voice penetrated Andie’s reverie, calling her back to the wagon. “Uncle Grumpy says a boy my age should be ridin’ herd. He says when he was nine he was already fendin’ for hisself.”
“Himself, Jordan.”
“Anyhow, he said he’d teach me how to ride drag.”
“No.”
“Please, Ma.”
“No.”
“Here comes Mister Catlin. I’ll ask him.”
A rider galloped toward them from the north. Even from the distance, she recognized Reese. How quickly one learned! Aggravated with herself, she cracked the whip, startling the mules. “You will not ask him to let you ride drag, Jordan. Don’t make me regret coming on this drive.”
“You won’t regret it, Ma. Uncle Pop says Mister Catlin’s gonna be howlin’ round your tepee any night now.”
Andie turned stricken eyes to her son. “What?”
“Uncle Pop says—”
“Oh, Jordan. What did I get us into? More specifically, what did you and Uncle Kipp get me into?”
“Nothin’ you won’t like better’n a hog likes slop.”
“Jordan!”
“That’s what Uncle Gimpy said.”
“The cowboys…” She cast an eye back to the sleeping figure of Night Hawk, then lowered her voice. “They’re talking about Mister Catlin and me?” She watched Reese approach the wagon, wishing she could crawl under the seat and disappear.
“Don’t let it ruffle your feathers, Ma. That’s what Uncle—”
“Ruffle my feathers, my eye!” Embarrassed to her toes, Andie pulled the team to a halt and awaited Reese’s directions to the noon camp. Did he know what the cowboys were saying?
These meetings had become a daily ritual. Reese left camp immediately after breakfast, while the cowboys caught up their morning mounts and moved the herd out slowly, allowing the cattle to graze if the buffalo grass was dry enough. With the dishes finished, she drove the wagon alongside the herd, until Reese returned with directions to the noon site. Afterward, he rejoined the herd, and Andie, Jordan, and Night Hawk proceeded to the new camp, where they set up and she prepared a hot meal.
Amazingly, given the misunderstanding that brought them together, she was comfortable with Reese. Or had been. She had looked on these meetings as a respite from the grueling work that took up most of her waking hours. In large part, she knew, Reese himself made this possible. Since that first night, he had kept their relationship strictly professional.
Now, with the cowboys’ talk, all that was ruined. She couldn’t even meet his eye this morning.
“Hidee, Mister Catlin.”
“Howdy, Jordan. Andie.”
From the corner of her eye Andie watched him remove his Stetson and wipe his brow with his sleeve, motions she could see with her eyes closed, they had become so familiar.
“Camp’s six or seven miles ahead,” he told her. “Along the Concho River.” After she repeated the directions, another part of their daily ritual, he turned to the boy who eagerly hung on his every word. “Jordan, I want you to help Night Hawk fill the water barrel from the river before we pull out.”
“Yahoo! Thanks, Mister Catlin. Wait’ll you see what my ma’s fixin’ for dinner. It’s a real tummy-tickler.”
Aghast, Andie glanced at Reese. His jaws were clenched; those fine lines around his eyes had tightened.
He knew what the cowboys were saying!
When he continued, his tone was brusque. “Once you get past the herd, Andie, wake up Night Hawk.”
“He needs his sleep,” she argued, determined, in spite of the situation, to defend her right to control the wagon and its occupants.
“Do as I say,” Reese shot back. “When you move out ahead of the herd, I want him sittin’ on that bench with his eyes peeled.”
Trepidation shot through her. “Is there trouble?”
“I cut the trail of a couple of fellers headed west on shod horses. Followed ’em a piece. They appeared to be leavin’ the country, but it won’t do to take chances.”
She relented. “You win.”
He shrugged in a pigheaded way that called for a retort, but before she could think of one, he continued pleasantly, “It’s a fine campsite with good grazing. Since we’re ahead of schedule, an’ the boys need a rest, we’ll stay there till tomorrow morning.”
Overjoyed, self-consciousness fled. “Three meals in one place?”
“Thought you might take a likin’ to that.”
She sat motionless, soaking in the warmth of his smile, while a rare giddiness gripped her. “I have so many things to do around camp,” she babbled. “There’s never enough time—”
“Likewise.” His gaze focused on her lips. He touched his hat brim and sunk spurs. “Ma’am.”
“What’d he mean by that?” Jordan wanted to know.
“By what?” Still in a dither, she stared after Reese.
“What he said, Ma? Likewise. What’s that mean?”
“It means…” She cracked the whip and headed the team north. “That he has unfinished business around camp, too.”
“What kind of business?”
“Oh, you know. Mending harnesses, oiling saddles, washing clothes.” But somewhere deep inside her unwanted expectations began to build. Angrily she reminded herself that she was not a giddy schoolgirl looking for a beau, but a widow with the memory of a beloved husband to honor and a strong-willed son to raise in his pa’s image. She had no time for dalliances. And nothing awaited her at the next camp but another day of backbreaking work.
As it turned out, she was right, with one exception. After dinner Reese had a surprise. On his way back t
o the herd, he stopped at the lid where she washed dishes. The biggest part of the surprise was that he stopped at all, for he had avoided her throughout the meal. A couple of times she had caught him studying her, but it was with a distracted look that told her little.
Except that he surely knew what the cowboys were saying.
Now he kept the width of the lid between them and his eyes on his Stetson. “A stray calf took up with us a few days back. What say I get Monte to butcher it for you?”
She watched him study his hat. “Fine.”
“How’d you want the meat cut?”
Surprised he would consider her opinion, she gathered her wits. “We can have steaks tonight; I’ll use some for breakfast; and the rest…save the entrails for, uh, son of…uh…stew.”
Son-of-a-bitch stew was a staple around a cow camp. Uncle Kipp claimed it contained nutrients not readily available on a trail drive in any other form.
That got Reese’s attention. Caught off guard, he grinned and slapped his hat against his thigh. “The boys’re gonna have a hard time callin’ it by name in front of a lady.”
The word lady rolled off his tongue like a caress. When Andie caught herself focusing on his mustache, she glanced down at the dish in her hand. Then it came to her. She could kill two birds with one stone. As cook, again according to Uncle Kipp, she could change the name of that stew. “I understand it’s the cook’s prerogative to call it after anyone she wants.”
“You bet. Long as it’s after an enemy.” He challenged her with quirked eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re claimin’ to have an enemy.” At ease like that, he was disarmingly handsome.
“I certainly do.” She was more than ready to set the record straight. “I’ll call it Uncle Kipp Stew.” She watched him consider her meaning.
A Wish to Build a Dream On Page 3
