Tyler gazed into the still face for several seconds, then pulled off his glove and brushed the cowboy's hair off his forehead. “Give me a hand, Joe,” he murmured, and they turned him over.
Libby gasped. A large, jagged rip in his shirt ran down his left shoulder blade. The fabric along the rent was scorched, and when Tyler lifted one edge she saw that the skin underneath was blackened as if someone had held a flame to it.
Tyler examined both of Charlie's hands, front and back, and glanced down at his boots. She couldn't imagine what he was searching for.
“Here it is,” he said then, and showed them Charlie's right elbow, where his sleeve was also torn and blackened. “Here's where it came through.” He looked at the unnaturally peaceful face again. “Does his mother still live in Wichita?”
“I believe she does,” Joe said.
Tyler nodded. “I'll wire her when we get to Miles City.” He propped his own arm on his knee, then he looked up at Libby. All traces of the frown she knew so well were missing. His expression was open and unguarded, betraying his sense of loss. “We'll need a blanket from his bedroll for a shroud. Could you get that?”
She nodded with her shaking hand pressed to her mouth, her throat constricted. “D-do you want me to sew him into it?”
Tyler gave her a small, tired smile. “No, we won't do that. He'll be all right.” He reached out and patted her foot. “Go on, now. Get the blanket, and then we'd better eat. Joe, you go with her, and talk to the crew. See which of them would like to dig Charlie's grave.” He made no effort to move beyond taking off his hat.
“Ty?” Joe prodded.
He glanced up again. “I'm just going to sit here with this boy for a minute.”
It was the first time she'd ever seen him express any real emotion. No, she corrected herself. It was the second. Last night, there had been something in his kiss, his tenderness . . . that feeling. But it had to have been due only to the circumstances, she told herself. Thrown together like that in a frightening situation—it couldn't have meant anything more.
Joe nodded and put a hand on his shoulder. Then as she and the foreman walked away, she glanced back and saw Tyler gently fold Charlie's hands across his chest. She turned her head and inhaled, pushing down her persistent urge to cry.
When they'd put some distance between themselves and Tyler's privacy, Joe spoke.
“Maybe it don't seem like the right time to say this, but I think I should. Charlie was in love with you.” He said it quietly; it was a very personal thing to discuss. “I don't suppose he told you that. He said he couldn't work up the nerve.”
“Joe,” she said, her voice trembling again, “h-he hardly knew me—”
The ring of his spurs was comforting as they walked along. It was a sound that she'd learned to listen for, the men's jingling spurs, and one that had become familiar to her, like the soft tick of a clock. She'd miss it when she went back to Chicago.
“He knew enough to suit him, Miss Libby. I don't think he could have given you an easy life—not too many people out here have easy lives. But he would've done everything he could to give you a happy one.” He sighed. With his head bent, he looked every bit as downcast as Tyler. “He couldn't tell you any of that himself, but I know he wished he could. I'm not sayin' this now to make you feel bad—” He kicked at a tussock in his path. “Aw, hell, ma'am, I don't know why I said it.”
Listening to him, her chest had grown tight again. “Maybe it's a way of telling me that Charlie was a kind, good-hearted man.”
He turned and gave her a pleased smile, as though grateful that she understood. “Yes, Miss Libby, I expect it is.”
After she retrieved Charlie's blanket to give to Joe, she put together a quick meal of bacon and fried potatoes while Possum Cooper and Noah Bradley volunteered to dig the grave.
Even though the men hadn't eaten since the day before, breakfast was somber and orderly, and the group around the campfire very quiet. Death and exhaustion had silenced their good-natured bantering. Now and then, she lifted her gaze to the distant boulder and saw Tyler still crouched next to Charlie. No one intruded on his solitude.
When Rory came to get his food, he gazed blankly at the plate she offered him.
“Miss Libby, no offense, ma'am, I ain't really hungry. Tyler says I have to eat, but I don't want anything.”
Pale as snow and despondent, his misery was so obvious that Libby's heart ached for him. The Lodestar seemed to be the only family he had, and Charlie had been his hero. She knew he'd take his death hard. She patted his arm.
“He's right, Rory,” she agreed, putting back most of the potatoes and half the bacon. “But I think he just wants you to eat a little.”
He took the plate and glanced across the flat, untimbered range at the hole Noah and Possum had dug for Charlie's final resting place. Two shovels were stuck in the pile of dirt they'd excavated.
“I wish they could've found a tree to put him under—you know, so he wouldn't have the weather beatin' down on him year after year. A man ought not to have to spend the rest of eternity bein' frozen and rained on.”
“He prob—” Libby cleared her tight throat, “he won't mind, Rory,” she said just over a whisper. He hung his head for a moment, then nodded and scuffed away with the dragging steps of an old man.
Tyler didn't follow his own advice about eating. When he came to Libby, he took only coffee. “We'll be having the funeral in a few minutes. Do we have enough cups to go around?” His face still wore its faint gray cast. In some ways he looked worse than Rory—the hint of emotion that he'd shown earlier was under firm control again, but she sensed that it required considerable effort to keep it there.
“Yes, shall I make another pot of coffee?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Just make sure everyone has a cup.”
Several minutes later, with the exception of a couple of men who held the herd, the Lodestar crew assembled to bid farewell to one of their own. They gathered in a semicircle around the grave in which Charlie had been laid. Libby stood between Rory and Kansas Bob Wegner.
Each of them held a tin cup as they waited for Tyler, their hats removed and their shifting feet stilled under the morning sun. It was the first time she'd seen them bareheaded as a group. No one spoke. The only sound to be heard besides the far-off bleating of the cattle was the wind in the grass. She kept her eyes averted from the bottom of the grave; it was too similar to her experience with Ben just a few weeks earlier. Feeling her eyes well up again, she reached into her apron pocket for her handkerchief.
Down the line, she saw Noah Bradley staring at Charlie's blanket-wrapped body, looking grief-stricken and remorseful.
Finally, Tyler rode up to the graveside. The smudges under his eyes were noticeable even from where she stood, and his face mirrored his exhaustion. But still, he was so handsome she couldn't help but stare at him. He dismounted and reached into his saddle-bag for a bottle of whiskey. Walking around to face the semicircle, he put the bottle down at his feet, then let his gaze rest on each face.
When he spoke, his voice had an unhurried, intimate tone, as though he were talking to each of them individually.
“Charlie Ryerson worked at the Lodestar for seven years. He was always cheerful, brave, and helpful. His life ended before it should have because his luck ran out first. But he always did the best he could, and it was an honor to know him. He was a good cowboy, and a good friend, too. I'm going to miss him.”
A couple of bandannas came out of back pockets as his words rolled over the Montana prairie, carried away on the wind.
He picked up the whiskey bottle. “All of you know I don't hold with drinking on the trail. Hardly any cattleman does. But burying a friend is a damned hard thing to do, and I don't think any of you would object to drinking to Charlie's memory.” He scanned the circle, stopping at Libby and Rory. “That includes both of you.”
He handed the bottle to Joe, who poured a measure into his tin cup and passed it along. When it reached Kansas B
ob, he poured a sip for Libby and a full drink for Rory.
At last the whiskey made its way back to Tyler and he gave himself a healthy share Then he extended his cup, and the rest raised theirs.
In the distance, a lone bird twittered.
“Some people die in their beds, but Charlie, you died doing a man's job, and doing it well. Now we're going to put you into the arms of the land you loved. I hope you find tall grass and good water.” His voice grew rough with emotion and he paused. “You were one of the best.”
Tyler bolted the whiskey in one swallow. Around the circle, the men followed suit. The silence was punctuated with a few coughs and gasps. Libby wrinkled her nose at the strong smell, but the occasion seemed to warrant drinking the thin layer of liquid fire at the bottom of her cup. She let it trickle into her mouth and tried to swallow before she tasted much of it.
Imitating Tyler, Rory gulped his, then coughed until she thought he would choke. She clapped him on the back until he got his breath.
Then, one by one, each of them filed past the grave and threw in a handful of dirt. When Rory's turn came, he froze, the mud clenched in his fist.
“Mr. Hollins is right, Rory,” Kansas Bob said in low voice. His usually rosy face had gone quite pale. “Burying a friend is one of the hardest things a man can do. It takes a lot of grit. And that's what you are today—a man.”
Libby watched to see if Kansas Bob's words would make the youngster feel better, but his chin still trembled. His effort to hold back his tears was obvious. “I sure don't feel like a man. I wish I could wake up and find out this is all just a bad dream.”
Tyler, who'd been watching this, stepped forward and took Rory out of line. His tired face was shadowed with concern.
“I need you to do a favor for me,” he said in a confidential tone. Rory stared at the gaping hole with wide eyes and said nothing. Tyler put a hand on the back of his neck and gently turned him away. “Rory, listen to me, now. I need you to escort Miss Libby to camp. I can't go with her because I have to finish up here and Joe needs to see to the herd. We don't want to make her walk back all by herself—it wouldn't be right. So could you take her?” He looked for Libby over the boy's head.
She stepped forward. “I'd really appreciate your company, Rory. This is a bad day for me.”
He wouldn't meet her eyes, but he turned and offered her his arm, the dirt from Charlie's grave still clamped in his hand. His voice suddenly sounded much older than his years. “It's a bad day for all of us. Come on, Miss Libby, I'll walk you back.”
As he led her away, Libby saw Tyler leaning on one of the shovel handles, considering her. She thought he looked for all the world like a man who'd just seen his own life go by.
*~*~*
After the night they'd all had, and this morning's sorrow, Tyler decided to make it a short day. He rode ahead to choose the night campground, while Joe stayed back with the herd and took over Charlie's place at the point.
Tyler rode alone. He wanted some time to think, to be by himself. Feeling as though he hadn't slept in a year, he kept a slack grip on the reins and let his horse find its own way. In the void, his thoughts turned to things that had happened in the last day or so. The image of Charlie's lonely grave out there on the grassland behind them kept returning to his mind. He'd helped Noah fill it in and ended up doing most of the work himself. Noah had become so unraveled he could only push feebly at the dirt with his shovel while he swiped at his streaming eyes with the back of his hand.
When a man lost someone, he was inclined to think of all the things he wished he'd said and done for that person, and felt guilty for any petty human grievance or grudge he'd ever held. That's what was bothering Noah. And Tyler's conscience pecked at him for the day he'd embarrassed Charlie in front of Libby Ross.
He shouldn't have told her the story about the afternoon Charlie and Noah had spent upstairs at the Big Dipper. He knew he'd done it on purpose. He'd been highly annoyed when his top hand appeared to be setting his sights on Libby, and he'd had no reason to be. At least no reason he'd been willing to admit to. Now he wasn't so sure.
Losing a friend also made a man prone to review the regrets of his own life. Tyler was no stranger to disappointment and grief, although he'd learned to shut them out. But in many ways, that left him with not much more than the icy shell that encased his heart. Libby, with her scent of flowers and vanilla, her modest blushes and her courage, had warmed the shell in a way that Callie, all fire and proud brassiness, could not.
When he'd held Libby in his arms last night and kissed her, it took every bit of self-control he had to keep from pulling the blanket away from her and burying his face in her breasts. He'd wanted to make love to her, hot and sweet, to join his body with hers, to fall asleep in her arms. He didn't make love with Callie. He satisfied a physical need. Oh, he wouldn't for a minute say that he didn't enjoy it. But a hunger in his soul was left wanting by their encounters.
Tugging on his hat brim, he kicked his horse into a trot through the buffalo grass, driven by the urge to be near Libby. Not to touch her or kiss her—though he couldn't forget how good that had felt; her soft body in his arms, her lips under his, moist, warm. No, right now he just wanted to be around her, to look up from his shaving mirror and see her rolling out pie crust or stirring beans. He was beginning to realize how good that felt, too. He was setting himself up for trouble, and he knew it. But, God, it had been such a lousy day . . .
He spotted the chuck wagon sitting on a gentle rise up ahead. Yellow flowers bloomed in the grass around it, and he wondered why that wagon made him feel as though he'd come home. Maybe because she made it seem that way—
He pulled on the reins and slowed his horse. Goddamn it, but he was getting all sappy and soft, he thought crossly, and tried to derail the contemplations. It was just because he was tired. A decent night's sleep would help get this weight of gloom off his shoulders.
Riding toward the chuck wagon, he continued to scold himself. He should count himself lucky that a lightning bolt hadn't sent him to an early grave. So his soul was unsatisfied—so he was scared sometimes, and lonely most of the time, and weary of the burdens he carried by himself—well, so what? Life was hard but it went on.
Yeah, life went on, but now and then it left unlucky ones behind, buried on green bluffs in a mahogany coffin, or quilt-wrapped in a windswept prairie grave. It could happen to anyone.
It could happen to him.
*~*~*
When Libby and Rory arrived at the night camp, he went about his usual routine to stake the rope corral and dig the fire pit. But she was concerned about him. She watched him from her spot at the drop-leg worktable as she cut lard into flour for pie crusts. He was still chalk-pale, and his movements were as listless as those of a sleepwalker. And though she didn't expect him to be his customary outgoing self, it worried her that he'd stopped speaking altogether. As soon as the coffee was boiling, she called him to the back of the chuck box.
“Rory, have some coffee and a biscuit. You've hardly eaten today.”
Obediently, he came and took the cup she held out to him. When she looked at him, her heart contracted. His freckles stood out in stark contrast to his pallor, and he gazed back at her with an uncomprehending hurt. The wind ruffled his sandy hair, and at that moment he seemed very young.
She wiped her hands on her apron. “I think I'll take a break myself. Do you want to sit down with me over here?”
He only nodded and followed her to the side of the wagon where Libby had put Tyler's keg. She sat, and he sank down on the ground next to her, staring into his cup.
Suddenly he looked up at her, and his pale mask cracked. “Miss Libby, I keep askin' myself why that lightning bolt hit Charlie, instead of a stupid cow, or the saddle band, or the ground. But I can't figure it out.”
“I don't think there are answers to those questions,” she said. “Maybe that's why accidents like Charlie's are so hard for us to accept.”
*~*~*
<
br /> When Tyler got to cow camp the fire was going, and he smelled biscuits in the Dutch oven, but he found neither Libby nor Rory. Dismounting, he walked around to the chuck box and paused.
Tyler saw Libby sitting on an overturned keg down by the front wheel. In the afternoon sun, her hair gleamed in shades of ripe wheat and whiskey, lifted by the breeze to fly around her shoulders. Sitting on the ground next to her was Rory. Tyler heard the tremor in the boy's voice.
“One minute he was alive, just doin' his job, tryin' to save the herd. Then come dawn I found him out in the grass—f-face down with that burned h-hole in the back of his shirt.”
“You were the one who found him?” Libby asked.
He nodded, and his face crumpled.
“Oh, Rory, Rory—I'm so sorry,” she lamented, and drew his head to her lap. He gripped a wad of her apron in his fist, and sobbed out his heart while she stroked his hair. As if feeling his eyes on her, Libby turned and glanced at Tyler.
He drew a deep breath, backed up and walked away. At that moment he wished to God that he could rest his head in Libby Ross's lap and cry, too.
*~*~*
The next few days on the trail were busy but, to everyone's relief, uneventful. Libby, tired, but oddly enough, growing stronger, had settled into a routine that made her job bearable, if not easy. She still silently cursed the primitive conditions. She had little privacy, and no washing facilities beyond a bucket of warm water and a bar of soap. But that would all be over soon. Tyler said that barring any more problems, Miles City was two days away.
After the cause of Charlie's death had been dispensed with once and for all, at night around the campfire the men would fall to reviewing funny things he'd done or said, heroic deeds he'd accomplished, the nobility of his spirit. Overall, it was decided that Charles Ryerson had been a cowboy's cowboy, embodying every good thing that was expected of a man who earned his pay in the saddle.
After Rory had poured out his grief the day of Charlie's funeral, Libby supposed that he'd feel uncomfortable around her now and would avoid her. Instead, he was more solicitous, and she noticed that he walked and rode with a bit more dignity. Perhaps he had indeed become a man, she thought.
A Taste of Heaven Page 17
