Widow Woman

by Patricia McLinn

  “I’ll be fine, Gordon. I’ll go up in a moment.”

  After taking leave of Mrs. Murchison, she gladly left the parlor. But at the turn of the landing she felt a pull nearly physical, and looked over her shoulder. Nick leaned against the doorframe, watching her. She paused, holding her skirt ready to climb the next step, but not taking it. Then she heard the fretful, waking cry of her hungry child. She turned her face away and climbed the next flight of stairs, feeling those black eyes on her every step.

  After feeding the baby, she slept until Olive came with a tray and breathless tales of the grand dinner. “Ma says even when the ladies go to the parlor in a bit, the men’ll stay in the dining room. Why, we won’t be able to clear the table until it’s time to ready it for supper!”

  Once more in the proper, stiff gown Gordon had purchased, Rachel headed down the stairs. But at their base, instead of going to the parlor to join the ladies, she crossed the empty hallway. Without stopping to consider her motives or wisdom, Rachel cracked open the dining room door—and immediately recognized Nick’s voice. Had his voice, not heard at a conscious level, drawn her?

  He said he’d ordered hay as winter feed for his cattle, to arrive in two days at Hammer Butte.

  “Must have cost a pretty penny,” said a voice she didn’t know.

  “I heard you were haying fields like a farmer this fall, Dusaq,” came Thomas Dunn’s bored drawl. “I’d have thought you’d have plenty, even to hand-feed every head of that little herd.”

  “Hard weather came on before we finished.”

  “A pity,” Dunn said, with not a trace of that commodity in his voice. “But when you’ve been running cattle as long as I have, you know setbacks are part of the game.”

  “Bad weather’s part of that game—and I intend to win.”

  “But the worst is past,” protested a voice Rachel thought belonged to a cattleman from south of Chelico. “And what’s the use of buying hay, when the cattle have all that grass to keep ‘em?”

  “That’s the fine thing about our range grass,” Dunn interposed. “It cures natural, so cattle feed on it all winter.”

  “There’re signs the weather’ll turn. Worse than before,” Nick said flatly. “A lot more head will starve.”

  “Signs? What signs?” came a skeptical voice. “You been talking to Injuns?” That sally drew only weak laughter.

  Nick cut across it. “I’ll sell a share of the hay for what it cost me.”

  “No one here’s going to join you in that wild venture. Right, Wood?” asked Dunn, with an edge of demand. It was quickly replaced by subtle ridicule. “I’ve been thinking you were a true cattleman. You’re not going to throw away your money on hay, are you?”

  Rachel held her breath, willing Gordon to side with Nick.

  “Course not. If I throw money away, it’ll be on my family.”

  Other voices turned down Nick, one after another.

  A faint sound behind Rachel spun her around to face Alba Martin. Rachel’s reflexive discomfort passed as she read deep concern in the eyes of Nick’s sister.

  But a scraping of chairs from the dining room jerked Rachel’s gaze from Alba to the door. Without a word, they moved quickly across the hall to the parlor.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When the door of the small back room opened Rachel stopped in midpace. She was supposed to rest before supper, and if Olive had told Esther or Gordon of the errand Rachel had sent her on . . .

  But it wasn’t her husband or Esther, it was Nick.

  She’d heard Gordon insist Nick and his sister remain the night before heading to Hammer Butte. But she knew that leaving immediately was not beyond Nick’s stubbornness. She had to speak to him first.

  He closed the door, then turned.

  “The girl said—” He bit it off as if he’d nearly given away his most precious secret. And Rachel knew he’d expected Gordon.

  A flicker of emotion flared in his eyes, only to be dampened in an instant. But she’d seen it. That instant belonged to her. And she would hold on to it as proof that Nick lived and felt behind the mask he presented to the world.

  “Ma’am.” He nodded briefly before turning on his heel.

  “Nick, wait! I want to talk to you.”

  He stopped just short of the door, his face showing only the faintest surprise. He was going to make this as difficult as possible.

  “Talk to me, Mrs. Wood?”

  “Yes, talk to you, Mr. Dusaq,” she snapped. He thought he could lash her by using her married name?

  “What about?” he said.

  “About your proposal to the other cattlemen.” His left eyebrow rose. She plunged on. “What you said makes sense. Shag said you two talked about that last winter. He said it might be worth trying. I think you’re right to buy the hay.”

  “Thank you.” She knew he meant it. She also knew he regretted the sincerity of the emotion. “Think you can persuade those men busy drinking your husband’s red-eye that I’m right?”

  He’d brought her husband into the conversation to break the thread of connection between them, and he’d succeeded.

  “No,” she said baldly. “But I can help you buy the hay.”

  His face went from still to stiff. “I won’t take charity.”

  “I won’t give charity.”

  “Then we have nothing more to say—”

  “Oh, yes, we do. Nick Dusaq. It’s not charity I’m offering.”

  “I don’t care what the hell you call it—”

  “I call it fairness.” She wouldn’t let this go easily. She knew what a bad winter could do to a ranch getting started. “You and I both know that the wages you got at the Circle T were nothing to what you should have been paid.”

  “I won’t—”

  “But if your pride won’t let you see the truth of that, we’ll make it a loan.” Another step brought her near enough that she had to tip her head to keep contact with his black eyes. “Have the papers drawn up legal. You once said pride would be my downfall, Nick. Now I’m telling you it will be your downfall. Take this.” She held out a faded red leather pouch. “Please, take it.”

  His hands wrapped around her upper arms. His long fingers bit into her flesh through the silk sleeves.

  “I won’t take your money.” His voice was as black and cold as his eyes. “Not under any name you want to give it—charity, loan, back pay. I won’t take anything from you, damn you. You are another man’s wife. You made that choice, Rachel. And I’m going to goddamn live with it.”

  Under the weight of her silence, Nick dropped his hands. She almost shuddered at the wrenching sensation of separation. He went to the door, then he paused. With his back to her, his voice came as a dark echo off the closed door.

  “I owe you an apology, ma’am.” His hand flexed around the knob. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. Without reason, her thoughts went to that noon in the shack, when he’d said he was leaving but he’d be back, and she’d known that when he returned it would be to bed her. There was no connection between his gloved hold on that rough latch and his bare hand on this polished knob. There was no connection between his leaving then with the intention of returning to claim her, and his departure now. “I meant what I said, but I shouldn’t have used rough language to you. I swear to you, I won’t do anything to hurt you or . . . I won’t intrude on your family again.”

  Rachel held absolutely still as the door closed quietly, and when the tears came, they were silent.

  * * * *

  Pleading a headache that was all too real, Rachel remained in her room that long evening, and waited. Even after she heard the guests wishing each other good-night as they retired to their rooms, she waited.

  A soft scratching at the door brought her across the room. Alba Martin took two limping steps forward, then waited for the door to be closed before she spoke, holding up a folded square of paper.

  “You wish to speak with me?”

  “Yes. Thank you for coming to my roo
m at such a late hour. I would have come to you, but . . .” Her gesture took in the cradle where the baby slept. “Please, won’t you sit.”

  “I prefer to stand.” The words carried quiet dignity. “What do you wish to speak with me about, Mrs. Wood?”

  “Your brother.”

  The other woman stiffened. “I do not know what you could have to say—”

  “Please.” She reached out a hand, then let it drop. “Please, listen. Nick—Your brother helped me. He and Shag—Shag was my foreman at the Circle T.”

  “I know,” murmured Alba, and Rachel wondered what else she knew. Or suspected.

  “Shag and your brother kept the Circle T going with about half the hands we needed. If it hadn’t been for them, I would have had to sell the Circle T and I never—”

  “But you did not sell your ranch, did you, Mrs. Wood? You brought it to your husband as your bride portion.”

  The soft words were like a slap. Rachel pretended a need to rearrange the baby’s covers. She straightened slowly, then turned to meet Alba Martin’s brown eyes. They were not as dark as her brother’s, nor as guarded. The pain was nearer the surface in the sister’s eyes, Rachel decided, but so was the compassion.

  Rachel spoke to both.

  “Yes, that is what I did. And one day my son will inherit all the Natchez holdings, and that will include the Circle T. None of that would have happened if it had not been for your brother.” Alba’s gaze flicked toward the sleeping child for half a heartbeat, an involuntary admission that she knew the boy’s parentage, before Rachel finished, “And Shag.”

  “For her child, a woman will do many things.”

  Rachel let out a breath, hoping to ease the sting of tears that perversely pricked at this balm of understanding. “I have money from the Circle T’s beef herd last year. I want you to take it. Tell your brother whatever you want, but get him to use it to buy that hay. I know he needs it.”

  “You offered this to him?”

  “I offered. He said no.”

  “But you think I will take it for him?”

  Rachel looked at her steadily. “Yes, I think you will.”

  Slowly, Alba Martin’s face changed, the sorrowful lines shifting and rising into a smile of great sweetness, with a surprising touch of mischief. “You are right. I will.”

  Rachel wasted no time handing over the purse.

  “I think,” Alba said serenely as she secured the pouch to her waistband, obscuring it under the sweep of her shawl, “that I will receive word in this railroad town that the property I left to be sold in Texas has brought a good price. A very good price.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Is it not I who should thank you?”

  “No. I think both your brother and I should thank you.”

  Alba shook her head, but argued no more. She turned, as if to leave, but paused at the cradle. She stroked her palm with a feather touch over the downy curve of the dark-haired head.

  “You have not yet christened your baby?” she asked.

  “No.” In her mind, for all the months she’d carried this new life, he had been my baby or the baby or, sometimes, Nick’s baby.

  “The names we carry, my brother and I, these are not our full names. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Our father—” and there was such bitterness in that word father “—never called us by our true names, but always by these. Our father knew cruelty in many languages. When he called my brother Nick, it was for niquiscocio. In Spanish it is something of no importance, a trifle, a nothing. That is what he said each time he called his son. My mother baptized me Mary Albertina, but our father called me an albatross. You know what that is? Yes? So, I became Alba. I tried to hold to our true names, but my brother said no, we would take what our father tried to use to shame us and carry it with pride.”

  Without taking her hand from the baby’s head. Alba looked over her shoulder to Rachel. “John Nicholas, that is my brother’s true name. It is a good name, do you not think so?”

  Through a tight burning in her throat, Rachel answered. “Yes. It is a good name. My father’s middle name was John. It would be good to carry on the name.”

  Alba nodded. “It is good to carry on a name in a family.” She looked at the sleeping baby, and almost seemed to address him. “Only my brother and I know his true name. And now you.”

  She stroked the downy head once more, then went to the door, where she turned and faced Rachel.

  “I would like to come to see you and your son again, Rachel.”

  “Yes, please. Come whenever you can.” And for all the oddness of their connection, Rachel believed she had truly found a friend.

  * * * *

  Winter struck midway through January, more deadly than a rattlesnake and without even the courtesy of a warning.

  First came snow. Looking soft and innocent, but able to smother the land as surely as a pillow pressed to a face. It went on for nearly two full days.

  At first they were grateful for the absence of the wind, often so fierce. It took only a day after the snow stopped to realize that no wind meant no clear spots where cattle could feed. It wasn’t in the animals’ nature to root through the snow for the grass that lay under their feet.

  A rising temperature lifted spirits, but wasn’t enough to cause a melt. And when the clouds gathered this time it wasn’t snow they dropped, but a full day’s pelting of sleet and freezing rain that crusted atop the snow. Some places it held a full-grown steer. When it didn’t and a hoof broke through, their own weight trapped the animals.

  Gordon’s men tried to rescue some, riding out the first two days. But they spent more time extricating themselves and their horses than retrieving cattle.

  Then the cold hit.

  It hit with a blow that seemed to make the earth shudder and threatened to crack the brittle air.

  And it held on.

  The first week, Gordon gave up sending out men to try to save the cattle. Esther closed a number of rooms in the house to limit the stoves to feed.

  The second week, the Chapmans took over two rooms in the main house to save Myrna and Olive going outside morning and night. A hand named Jerry got frostbite getting firewood, and they assigned four men together so each would be out a shorter time.

  The third week, a single rider came in off the stage road—the first outsider they’d seen since the snow started nearly six weeks before. The men, bored to trigger-temper with each other, greeted him like a savior of novelty.

  He also brought firsthand accounts of the carcasses of frozen cattle piling up deeper than the snowdrifts.

  “I’ve got to go, Rachel,” Gordon said for the fourth time as he tucked a rolled-up shirt into his saddlebag. As if he’d be changing his shirt out on the howling, frigid range. In the stable the men were loading packhorses with foodstuffs, and preparing two riding mounts. All the strongest, most durable of the Natchez stock.

  “Gordon, you can’t do anything out there. One man alone—this is madness.”

  But she knew his answer. She’d talked herself hoarse. He wouldn’t listen.

  “I’ve got to see for myself. I’ve got to know—Besides, I’m a tough old lion and I don’t want anyone else out there to worry about. But it’s not as if I’m leaving you and Johnny alone. You’ll have plenty of people to take care of you.”

  She could take care of herself, Rachel thought. How did he think she’d survived those years on the Circle T?

  Looking at the folds of worry on Gordon’s face, she regretted her irritation. She smiled, because she knew that was what he wanted.

  “We’ll be fine, Gordon,”

  “That’s my girl, Rachel,” he said, softly kissing her on the forehead. “That’s my girl.”

  An hour later she stood at the upstairs window, watching Gordon and the lead horse dip out of view behind the nearest hill, the other animals slowly following.

  A sigh beside her reminded Rachel of Esther’s presence.

&
nbsp; “Some of the men say you read stories to them at the Circle T. You should read stories now.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said slowly. “I think you’re right. I will begin tonight. Please tell everyone we’ll read in the—” the parlor would intimidate some of the men “—dining room?” The final two words rose in question.

  “Kitchen.”

  Rachel nearly smiled. “Yes, the kitchen.”

  The woman grunted an acknowledgment and left.

  Rachel’s gaze returned to the window. No living creature was visible, and the horses’ trail was barely discernible in the blaze of white. Her eyes went to the horizon, seeing the folds and hollows and rises in her mind. Beyond these hills to Circle T land, and beyond that, the Wallace spread. Now Nick’s.

  How were they faring, Nick and Alba and Davis? Had they fixed up that cabin enough to withstand this brutal cold? Was the hay Nick bought enough to feed his cattle the way he’d wanted? Could he get out to feed the animals in this weather?

  It wasn’t the first time she’d had those questions. It wasn’t the first time she’d sent up a prayer as her eyes focused on the northern horizon until they burned.

  * * * *

  Nick had emptied the travois rig he used to drag feed to the animals and was starting back through a driving snow when he spotted tracks down a small rise. They looked jagged, drunken.

  He reined the sturdy spotted horse toward the odd tracks, then spurred him when he saw what looked to be a bundle of cloth at the base of the rise.

  He’d never hated cold the way some from Texas did. Cold or heat, it didn’t matter, it was something to fight and conquer. But he could see how a body could drown in this kind of cold. Let it wash over you like water, drag you under and hold you there until you couldn’t breathe.

  As he swung a cold-stiffened leg over the rump of the spotted horse, he thought the blanket-wrapped figure before him might have gone down for the last time. But when he got a hold of the fabric, the bundle stirred and emitted a groan. Then a mumble.

  “Dead. Oh, sweet Lord, gone. . . What have I done?”