The Wyoming Debt

by April Hill

  Taking a deep breath, Cathy stepped cautiously from behind the curtain that afforded her “bedroom” a bit of privacy. She was sure that her absence at breakfast had annoyed Hannah, and that the girl had spent the night devising ways to make today as miserable as yesterday had been. There was nobody in the kitchen, though, or anywhere downstairs. Somewhere outside, probably at the barn, she could hear Caleb talking and laughing, and she realized that the other voice she was hearing was Gideon’s. But Will was nowhere in sight, nor was Hannah. Cathy debated climbing the ladder to the loft, to see if the girl was there, but decided against it. She was grimly determined not to give Hannah the satisfaction of knowing that she was looking for her, and that made her feel foolish, as if she and Hannah were a pair of vengeful children engaged in a childish war. But a war over what? Not Will Cameron, certainly. There was no question that Hannah adored her father, and as far as Cathy was concerned, the girl was welcome to him. After what had happened in the barn, all she wanted was never to see his face again, and to leave all of the Cameron clan behind her as soon as possible.

  With the possible exception of young Caleb.

  Cathy smiled as she remembered how sweet Caleb had been to her yesterday, and how willing and eager he’d been to help. She sighed. If she ever got married–really married, and had children, she would want a boy. Definitely a boy. A boy like Caleb. Well, not exactly like Caleb, of course. Caleb looked very much like his father. He had Will Cameron’s deeply blue eyes and his thick, dark hair–hair that had streaks of gold in it in the sunlight and that fell over his forehead when he bent his head. The boy had Will Cameron’s smile, too–a quick, shy smile that seemed to …

  Cathy swore under her breath. Why was it so hard to remember that she despised Will Cameron? And that she never wanted to speak to him again, even if she lived to be a hundred years old?

  As she turned to go back to the kitchen, she saw Gideon come around the side of the barn and start up to the cabin, with Caleb tagging along behind him, chattering the way he always did.

  There was no place to conceal herself, short of retreating to her curtained “bedroom,” so she hurried to the sink and began scrubbing away at one of the charred pots that had survived the fire. When the old man and the boy came inside, she muttered a barely civil, “Good morning,” and kept her eyes on what she was doing.

  Gideon walked over, in search of a clean cup. “Mornin’, darlin’,” he greeted her. “Any coffee left in the pot?” Cathy glanced toward the stove, suddenly realizing that there was no coffee. The pot sat empty on the sink. The stove, while still grimy with soot and even uglier than it had been prior to the fire, seemed none the worse for wear, and was apparently perfectly usable. Hannah had simply not made coffee that morning.

  “I’m afraid not,” she replied, afraid that his next request would be for her to make a fresh pot of coffee–something she had never done before, and had no idea how to begin. Her heart sank as she realized how inept she looked to the old man–unable to even brew a simple pot of coffee.

  “No matter,” he said, with a wink. “Probably drink too much of the damned stuff, anyway. You seen Will around, this mornin’?”

  Cathy flushed, and shook her head. “No. Nor Hannah, either.”

  Gideon nodded, as though Hannah’s being gone explained everything. “The two of ‘em probably had somethin’ to chaw on. I reckon they’ll turn up when they get ready to.” He set the cup down and motioned to Caleb. “Get a move on, boy. Looks like it’s gonna be just you and me fixin’ that danged gate.” Caleb bounced up from the floor where he was playing with the new sack of marbles, and ran after the old man, into the yard and toward the corral.

  Gideon was right. Will came up the front steps less than a half an hour later, and motioned to Cathy. “Hannah’s out by the springhouse,” he told her. “She wants to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me!” Cathy cried. “About what?”

  He shrugged. “I figure that’s between you and her. You’d better get on out there, though. If I know Hannah, she’s fixing to bolt about now.”

  “You said something to her about yesterday, didn’t you?” she demanded. “Or punished her?”

  “I figure that’s between her and me.”

  “Well, Mr. Cameron, I have no wish to speak to her, and since you seem to be her messenger boy this morning, I’d appreciate it if you went back and told her that.”

  With one incredibly quick movement, Will bent her forward over the sink of dirty dishes, and shoved her skirt up to her waist. The three blistering swats he laid across her sore buttocks with a wet wooden spoon stung like fire, even through the thick fabric of her cotton drawers. Cathy didn’t even try to stop herself from yelping at every whack, and when it was over, she left her skirt bunched around her middle and openly rubbed both scalded cheeks, too uncomfortable to be embarrassed.

  Will tossed the spoon back into the pan of dishwater. “I’ve had about all I’m going to take from you, and from her, as well,” he said grimly. “She’s out there, waiting to talk to you, so get your tail out there and talk. And, I’ll give you the same advice I gave her. When you come back in here, you’d better both be smiling.”

  She found Hannah sitting on the low stone wall next to the springhouse. She’d been crying, and she was obviously angry–at Cathy, or at her father, or maybe at everybody. The girl said what she had to say before Cathy was within twenty feet of her. “Pa says I’m to apologize, so I’m doin’ it,” she said sullenly. “You happy, now?”

  And suddenly, for reasons even she didn’t understand, Cathy’s heart went out to Hannah. “I didn’t ask him to talk to you, Hannah. I swear I didn’t. He didn’t … punish you, did he?”

  Hannah glared at her. “No, but he says I’ll get me a real hard lickin’ if I ain’t nice to you, and Pa ain’t raised a hand to me since I was … I don’t even remember when.” She began to cry. “He’s awful mad at me, and it’s all your fault.”

  “My fault?” Cathy repeated, incredulous at the girl’s nerve.

  “It’s bad enough he sneaked off and married you, like he did, but then you come out here makin’ out like you’re our new Ma. Tryin’ to take her place, and now you even got stupid Caleb on your side, a dumb little kid who wants a new ma so bad he’d suck eggs if you told him to.”

  Cathy sank down on the wall beside the sobbing girl. “I’m not trying to replace your mother, Hannah,” she said softly. “I know I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. Please believe me. I understand how much you and Caleb loved her, and how you miss her.”

  “Then, why did you go and marry him in the first place?” Hannah demanded. “He ain’t got a lot of money. Some years, we hardly get by. If Gideon didn’t go out trappin’ like he does every winter, we’d be in the damned workhouse.”

  For a moment, Cathy considered telling the girl the truth. Not the whole truth, of course. Not about what she had once been, or about Jack, but about the debt to Mrs. Peppmueller, and how she and Will had ended up as man and wife. If only there was a way to explain all of that without also exposing herself as a thief–and worse, yet–as a cold, calculating liar.

  As she sat there, helplessly, Cathy tried reviewing her options. There were only two ways of getting free of the debt she owed Will Cameron. She could pay it back honestly, or she could look for a chance to run away, and Cathy had known from the beginning which alternative she’d choose if the opportunity arose. Until a minute or so ago, nothing had happened to change her mind. She’d been essentially sold into slavery, dragged here against her will, and forced to live in a crude log cabin surrounded by rattlesnakes and prairie dogs. She’d been ignored and overworked. She’d been insulted and abused by an adolescent brat with the personality of a scorpion, and repeatedly spanked ‘til her behind was on fire by a determined man who apparently had every intention of doing it again, whenever the hell he felt like it. There wasn’t one good reason for her to stay here.

  And yet …

  Cathy sighed, rememb
ering a verse by Sir Walter Scott she’d been assigned to memorize on one of her rare appearances at Sunday school: “Oh the tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” It was odd how clearly she could recall the exact words, after all these years, when she’d spent the same number of years missing the truth in them. And now that she was tangled up in the web of deception she’d woven, getting disentangled was turning out to be more complicated than she’d expected.

  The first complication, of course, was how to get away. When she ran away from Jack, she’d had access to a railroad. And she’d had at least a small amount of cash in her pocket. At this point, the only means of transportation she had access to was a decrepit, sway-backed horse that had barely made it this far. Milo’s appearance hadn’t improved a lot since then, and Cathy knew that the odds of his making it to the next town were slim to nil. If she wanted reliable transportation, she’d have to compound her debt to Cameron by stealing a horse–maybe two, and while the old Alex had been proficient at running crooked Faro tables, picking pockets, and rolling drunks, horse rustling was a talent she’d never mastered. The second complication was money. She still had her wedding and engagement rings, but no cash at all, and nowhere to sell the rings for a decent price. The third complication was that she had absolutely no idea of where she was, and which way to go to make good her escape.

  And then, there was the fourth complication. Will and Gideon would surely come after her, and they might very well catch her. And if they did catch her … Cathy shuddered at the possibilities, and went on to the final, and most complicated complication–one she couldn’t begin to untangle. The fact was, that for reasons she couldn’t explain, she had already become fond of Will Cameron’s children. And while her growing affection for young Caleb was easy enough to understand, her feelings for Hannah were not. And now, those tangled feelings had become a fifth, maybe insurmountable, complication.

  It was growing obvious, though, that Hannah’s feelings toward her stepmother hadn’t changed, and they were actually fairly straightforward and uncomplicated. Hannah distrusted her. Hannah was jealous of her. In her present mood, twelve-year-old Hannah Cameron could watch her father’s new bride tumble off a cliff, and whoop with delight as she bounced to the bottom.

  Cathy was still working her way through the list of foreseeable complications when she recognized suddenly that none of them was as important as the one stubborn complication sitting beside her. The realization came as a bit of a shock, since she’d come out to the springhouse with every intention of putting the petulant little witch in her place. (The lingering sting in her bottom was enough to keep her from even thinking of Will Cameron’s daughter by that other, less flattering appellation.)

  Hannah’s weeping had subsided now, dwindling down to sniffles and an occasional hiccup, and Cathy sensed that in the girl’s present misery, there might also be an opportunity.

  “Do you know what’s meant by the word, ‘truce’, Hannah?” she asked gently, laying her hand on the girl’s arm.

  Hannah looked up through tear-reddened eyes. “You think I’m stupid?” she snarled. “Of course I know what it means.” She pushed Cathy’s hand away and leapt to her feet. “And you can keep your damn truce,” she hissed. “I still can’t figure how you fooled Pa into marrying you, but I know what you are, even if the men in this family are too blind dumb to see it!” She walked a few steps, then turned around and gave Cathy one last, long, cold look. “Why don’t you just crawl back into the snake hole you came from and leave us alone. Bitch!” With that, she turned on her heel and marched off toward the barn.

  Cathy sighed and put her head in her hands. There would be no truce, not even the temporary, uneasy one she’d cautiously hoped for.

  She walked back to the cabin slowly, wondering what Will would say when she presented him with his daughter’s terms–complete surrender.

  He was sitting on the front steps, whittling a small stick into curls, and watching as Hannah disappeared into the barn. Cathy sat down on the lower step.

  “You may as well carve yourself a paddle while you’re at it,” she said, indicating the pile of wood shavings at his feet. “I failed in my peace mission. If you want to put me over that stump again and whale the tar out of me, go ahead. I’m already beaten.”

  “Well, I figured you had about as much chance as General Custer did when he met up with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, but at least you came back with your hair. You’ve taken a pretty good licking, already, so I won’t add to your troubles by giving you another one. But don’t let that go to your head. Knowing you, it’s just a matter of time before you earn yourself a real barn-burner.”

  “You’re a merciful man, Mr. Cameron, and I appreciate it, but your daughter is still on the warpath, so to speak.”

  Will chuckled. “Tell me something. You used to be her age. What would you do, in my place? Besides selling her off, somewhere, that is?”

  “I read somewhere that in China, the symbol for unhappiness is a drawing of a tiny little house, “ Cathy remarked. “A tiny house with two women inside it.”

  “Smart people, the Chinese,” he said. “I reckon I could try building a second house.”

  For a moment, Cathy didn’t say anything. “Or maybe just send the second woman away,” she suggested quietly. “Trust her to pay you back when she could, even if it took her a very long time.”

  “Would you trust this woman we’re talking about?” he asked.

  Cathy sighed. “No, but I’m not a very trusting person.”

  “By nature, or from some bad experiences, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  She smiled. “We agreed not to ask personal questions, Mr. Cameron–since ours is a purely business arrangement.”

  “If that was true, Mrs. Cameron, you’d be looking for a new job. You might just be the worst cook I’ve ever met.”

  “Your daughter says you didn’t recognize that earlier because you’re a fool.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll have to figure a way to pay her back for that. She’s at a hard age, though. A few years too old to take a switch to, and a few years too young to marry off.”

  “Oh, come, now!” Cathy exclaimed. “This is the nineteenth century. Surely, you don’t want to see Hannah marry early.”

  He laughed. “No, but the thought of it is all that keeps me going sometimes, so I’d take it kindly if you’d leave a foolish old man a dream or two.”

  “Hannah doesn’t like boys, yet?” Cathy asked.

  “She doesn’t know many, and doesn’t hold a lot of truck with the ones she’s met. Last time she was in town, she beat the stuffing out of a neighbor’s boy who’s about her age and twice her size. All because he told her she had pretty hair.” He grinned. “It took Gideon and me both to pull her off the poor kid, and she was still cussing like a Missouri muleskinner and throwing punches at everything that moved when we got her in the wagon. I made Caleb sit on her ‘til we got out of town.”

  He stood up and tossed away the stick he’d been whittling. “Well, now you know you’re in for a battle,” he said. “You ready for it, or are you the kind to turn tail and run away?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “But, it wouldn’t be the first time I ran away.”

  Chapter Seven

  The weeks passed, and fall arrived, bringing with it the blessed relief of brisk, cooler days and bright starlit nights with a sharp chill in the air. Most aspects of Cathy’s situation hadn’t changed dramatically. She was still trapped in a place where she didn’t want to be, and though she and Will had begun to deal with one another in a friendly but slightly guarded manner, her relationship with his daughter remained cool and distant, bordering at times on openly hostile. Will had made it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate any further warfare between them, but the truce Cathy had hoped for hadn’t come about. As a result, Hannah simply kept her distance, spoke to her only when necessary, and maintained an air of sullen indifference even with Will, Cal
eb, and Gideon.

  Cathy couldn’t have said when it was that things had begun to change between her and Will, or why, but the differences were perceptible. Sometimes, she felt that the change was because of Hannah. Will Cameron was a loving father, but he was desperately in need of help with a daughter going through the tumultuous emotions of growing up. And though it often amused Cathy that he thought that she, of all people, could help, she was determined to do what she could.

  Since Hannah avoided all but the most rudimentary conversation with Cathy, and still referred to her as “the woman my father married,” Cathy had been forced to master the workings of the ancient stove and the mysteries of homemaking by simply watching Hannah as they worked side-by-side, usually in silence. As her skills improved, and she began to be a genuine asset to the Cameron household rather than a burden, Cathy often found herself enjoying the small, everyday satisfactions of her new life. On mellow fall afternoons, when she was busy around the cabin, she sometimes even forgot about Jack for hours at a time, and wondered if this was what normal felt like. And at moments like this, she found herself hoping that he had forgotten her, as well. It was too much to hope that he had forgiven her, of course, because forgiveness wasn’t in Jack’s nature, but what if things had improved for him? What if he had found another woman, a woman beautiful enough, and adoring enough, to make him happy–or at least to distract him?