"I'm going with you," Tyler said.
"Me, too," Zac said. "You can't stop me," he said when Monty showed signs of refusing. "I'll follow you if you try."
"Okay, but if you don't follow orders, I'll tie you across your horse and leave you until somebody has time to bring you back."
"I'm coming, too," Iris said, dismounting quickly. She had remained in the saddle, too absorbed by the conflict of emotions around her to realize she would be left behind if she didn't get moving.
"No," Monty said.
Iris looked up quickly. Not even when he was most angry at her had Monty used that tone of voice. He wasn't angry now. He merely spoke to her like she was a hand, somebody who could be dealt with by a curt order.
"I want you and Betty to go to Dodge," he said. "You'll be safe there until we get back."
Monty strode off to choose a horse from the remuda. Iris ran after him.
"It's my herd. I have a right to go."
"Right has nothing to do with it," he yelled back at her as he entered the corral. "It's what's best for everyone. You shouldn't have been on this drive in the first place. I should have taken you to Rose that very first day. I won't make that mistake again."
The words were like a knife, cutting her heart right out of her chest. "What do you mean you won't make that same mistake again?" She felt like she was talking to a stranger, a man who looked like Monty but didn't act like him at all. He certainly didn't act like the man who had held her in his arms last night.
Monty chose his mount, slipped a bridle over his head and led him out of the corral.
"It's too dangerous out here for someone as inexperienced as you. I won't make a worse mistake by taking you on an even more dangerous trip. You keep doing things without remembering you're not in St. Louis any more. If we had been in Indian territory when you ran away, you might be dead by now." Iris started to object, but Monty silenced her with a quick kiss. "I don't have time to explain right now. Go on to Dodge, and we'll talk when I get back."
He picked out a blanket and saddle.
"We'll talk now if I have to follow you all the way across Kansas."
Monty whipped around. Iris fell back from the blaze of anger that flashed at her from his eyes. "Yesterday you were in danger. There was never any question that I would go after you. But you're safe now, and it's time I put my other obligations first."
Iris had come first all her life. She tried to believe Monty, but it was hard for her to believe he could love her without putting her above everything else. But it wasn't just being placed second. She was being ignored, left out, and she didn't know how to sit back and wait.
"So you're sending me away."
Monty finished tightening the cinch on the saddle, slipped an arm around Iris, and started to join the other men.
"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "It's just that right now the most important thing is to get the herd back and find out who killed Danny. This is a responsibility I accepted when I took this job. I can't ignore it just because I'd rather do something else."
"I'm not asking you to ignore it. I'm just asking to go along. I want to catch Frank as much as you do. Besides, this can't be any more dangerous than going to the Comanche village."
"I was a fool to let you do that. This time you're going to stay put."
Iris felt if Monty left her now he would never come back. Maybe it was irrational, but her belief in his love was too fragile to withstand being sent away. In desperation, she reached out to bring him back to her. "And if I don't?" Why was she always challenging him? It was as though she had to prove a point she had ceased to care about a long time ago.
Monty stiffened, stopped, and turned around to face her. There was something severe and uncompromising about his expression. It was not anger or irritation, just cold decision.
"We're going into a gun fight. I've already lost one man. I don't mean to lose another. I can't make the best decisions for my men if I'm worried to death about you."
"You don't have to worry about me. I can take care of myself."
Monty's temper snapped. "You can't. You never have. I don't know why you can't understand that sometimes what we want has to take a back seat to our responsibilities. Rose always did."
Monty turned to leave, but she pulled him around. "I have no doubt your perfect Rose understands everything," Iris retorted, hurt and angry. "But all I can see is you spending your whole life doing what George wants you to do, always worried about responsibilities. What about what you want? Do you even know what that is?"
"That's not important now," Monty answered impatiently.
"Of course it's important," Iris said, lowering her voice so the men couldn't hear her. "Do you think I want to get married knowing you're going to spend the rest of your life trying to satisfy George's every whim?"
Monty looked like he'd been hit in the face with something wet and cold. "Who said anything about marriage?" He practically yelled the question.
Iris was mortified. All motion around them ceased. She could practically feel the eyes watching them, hear the ears listening.
"You said you loved me," she said in a barely audible whisper, glancing significantly over her shoulder and the waiting crew. "I naturally assumed--"
"I just figured that out last night," Monty hissed. "I haven't had time to think about anything else yet."
Iris died a little bit inside. "You don't want to marry me?"
"I didn't say that. But even if I don't want to get married, it doesn't mean I can't love you."
It was because she was a bastard. That had to be the reason. How else could a man love a woman and not want to marry her?
The men mounted up. Monty tried to take Iris by the hands, but she pushed him away.
"You don't want someone to love. You just want someone who'll do what you want, who won't make demands on you when it's inconvenient."
"If that were the case, I wouldn't love you at all. You haven't done a single thing I've asked, and everything you've done has been damned inconvenient."
He didn't understand. She didn't want to stand in the way of his work. She understood his dedication to the herd, his family, the crew, his job. She'd seen it every day for months. She didn't even mind his efforts to please George all that much. She didn't like it, but she accepted it.
She wanted to be with him. She needed to be with him. As long as she was with him, as long as she could still believe he loved her, she could stand anything.
"If you plan on catching up with Frank by tonight, you'd better come on," Hen yelled. The men waited, keeping their distance.
"Iris, I've got to go! Wait for me in Dodge. We'll talk about it then."
He had shouted, at her then dismissed her. In front of everybody, shouted at her like she was a servant, like her opinion didn't matter, like he didn't have time to worry about what she wanted. She followed him to where he joined the others. She watched as he mounted up, issuing commands all the while.
Then she saw it. The four Randolph brothers, all in a row, closing ranks to face the world.
Then she understood.
She would never come first with Monty. Either his family or his work was more important, she didn't know which, but it didn't matter. Whatever the order, she came behind both of them. If she even came that close.
He hadn't even kissed her. He didn't have a tender word of goodbye. He had shouted at her, told her to go to Dodge, said love didn't have anything to do with his ordering her to stay behind.
The tender bud of hope that had been born of their night of love withered and died in the harsh glare of reality. Again she saw the four Randolph men lined up facing her, a phalanx she could never penetrate. For them it was family, duty, and cows. Everything else came after that.
"Go find your cows," she said, putting a brave face on it. "But be careful. Frank hates you."
She wouldn't let him see now much he had hurt her. She wouldn't let him know how much she needed him.
"We'll have
to hurry if we hope to make Dodge before night," Betty said.
Iris nodded, but there was nothing in Dodge for her. Everything she wanted had just left astride a leggy grey gelding named John Henry.
* * * * *
"What are you going to do?" Iris asked Betty.
The trip into Dodge had been longer than Iris expected. As they approached the town, dusk was not far away. Iris looked forward to getting out of the saddle and soaking in a hot bath. Riding ten to fifteen miles a day at a leisurely walk was nothing compared to the more than thirty miles she had ridden this day.
"I'll probably see if I can get a job cooking or washing."
Iris might not know much about keeping house, but she knew cooking and washing was very hard work, the kind done by women who had no other choice.
"Don't you have any family?"
"Yes, but they don't have the money to pay my way back home." Betty was quiet for a moment. "Besides, I'm not certain I want to go back. My husband and I had a difficult life, but I have become accustomed to a certain amount of freedom. I fear I would find it impossible to endure the restrictions of my home."
"You could marry again."
"I imagine I would have to."
"But you don't want to?"
"I married my husband because I had to marry somebody. When I marry a second time, I hope I will be able to choose a man I like. One who has some consideration for what I want."
That struck close to home. Monty might like her a great deal -- Iris had decided that regardless of what he thought he couldn't love her -- but he didn't respect her. He didn't think anything of her intelligence or her ability. Even if he didn't care about her birth, and Iris had decided he was mistaken about that as well, he didn't care about her as a person.
Monty didn't love her, didn't respect her, didn't have a lot of concern for what she wanted. Anyway she looked at it, Iris had nothing now, no promise of anything in the future.
He used me, and I let him.
But she had used him.
It was over, done, gone. It had never worked from the very first. It was time to put it all behind her and start again.
She might not be good enough to marry a Randolph, she certainly wasn't as useful as the perfect Rose, but she was too good to be used and then cast aside. But what could she do, where could she go? She couldn't go back to St. Louis, and things weren't going to be any better anywhere else.
She would go to Wyoming and learn to run her own ranch. Monty had said she didn't know anything about ranching and cows. Well she would show him. He wasn't the only person who could figure out what to do with cows. Carlos would help her. He wouldn't look down on her. They were two of a kind.
"Would you consider cooking and washing for me?" Iris asked Betty.
"Surely there'll be someone in the hotel to do that."
"I mean in Wyoming. I'm going to start my ranch. I'm also going to learn how to cook at least one dish. Maybe it'll only be chicken and dumplings, but they'll be the best chicken and dumplings in Wyoming."
"Then we're not going to wait for Monty in Dodge?"
Iris shook her head. She couldn't spend another month in the same camp with Monty. She couldn't bear to come face to face with her dashed hopes every day. Monty would get her herd safely to Wyoming. If she'd learned one thing, she'd learned that. The only danger to him or the herd had come because of her.
Betty appeared to be giving her proposal some serious thought.
"I can't promise to pay you very much," Iris said. "I won't have much money until I sell my first calf crop. In fact, we might be reduced to eating bear meat by then." Her stomach heaved at the thought. "I don't even know what kind of house I have to live in."
"How will you get a crew?"
"Carlos will take care of that. He's going to be my foreman."
"I like Carlos, but I can't say I like having Joe Reardon around."
"What's wrong with Joe?"
"I don't know anything against him, but I don't trust him. Besides, Monty distrusts him, and Monty has good instincts about men."
The thought of Monty was like a stab of pain. She guessed it would never be easy, but she had to put him out of her mind and she had to start now.
"What Monty thinks doesn't matter. I don't expect we'll be seeing him again."
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Betty asked. "It won't be an easy life."
"I'm quite sure I don't want to do it, but I have no choice. All I possess is that herd and some land along a creek."
"You could get married. A woman as beautiful as you must know dozens of men who would jump at the chance to marry you."
"That's what everybody says, but it hasn't worked out like that. You would think this red hair would be good for something besides giving me a bad temper. And the things I've been told about my eyes would turn the head of even the most sensible female."
"And your skin, your figure, and the fact that you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Betty added.
Monty had never praised her hair and eyes. She couldn't remember that he had mentioned them more than once or twice. Maybe he didn't find them attractive. Anyway, he didn't find them attractive enough to keep her with him.
Iris pushed away the unwelcome thought. It was too late. From now on she was determined to think of nothing but her cows. She was determined to show Monty she could be just as single-minded as he could.
"You would think it would all add up to something," Iris said. She could feel the tears welling up to the surface. "My mother was absolutely certain I would marry some rich man who would give me everything my heart could desire."
What had Monty wanted to give her? Not marriage, not a family and the security she so desperately wanted. Maybe it was the fault of her red hair. Men didn't think of her as the wife and mother type, just someone to enjoy as long as the attachment lasted.
"Only she forgot to tell me I had to be very careful, that some girls have foolish hearts. But I guess Mama never thought I'd be stupid enough to fall in love with the one man in all the world who wouldn't care a snap of his fingers for all my charms."
"Monty?"
"Yes, a man who likes cows better than he likes women. Isn't that funny? I used to own enough fancy dresses to outfit half of Dodge, but he never even noticed me until I'd worn this riding outfit threadbare."
"He does care. He went after you even though he was worried about the herd."
"I know, and I wish he hadn't. For one night I thought he really loved me."
Iris didn't like the look of disapproval Betty gave her. It was none of her business what she did, but if it made her feel any better, Iris was going to pay for her sins. She was going to pay dearly.
"But now I know he doesn't care."
"I can't believe that."
"Not the way I want to be cared for," Iris said. "I used to think I wanted all those things my mother told me to want. I guess I'm not very much like her. One lousy trip across this terrible prairie and all I want is Monty. But not on his terms."
The buildings of Dodge had grown closer. Iris gathered herself and squared her shoulders as though she were about to face some great task.
"Now I'm through feeling sorry for myself. That spoiled little girl Monty despised so much doesn't exist any longer. Will you come with me?"
Betty paused only a moment. "Yes."
"Thank goodness," Iris said. "I don't know that I would have had the courage to go alone."
But she would have gone if she'd had to walk all the way by herself. She hadn't given up. She'd never give up. Monty Randolph belonged to her. He was the only one who did know it. She had a month to learn how to convince him, and she didn't mean to waste her time.
Chapter Twenty-three
Monty lagged behind the others. He wasn't anxious to reach camp.
He should have been feeling on top of the world. Everything had gone just as he planned. They had caught up with Frank and his men about an hour after midnight that first day. Thanks to the deadl
y accuracy of Hen's guns and his own plan of attack, it had taken less than five minutes to recapture the herd. The only casualties this time were to the rustlers. They buried Quince Honeyman and Clem Crowder on the prairie. Monty would take Frank and Bill Lovell to the sheriff in Dodge.
But the closer he came to camp, the closer he came to Dodge and the decision he didn't want to make, a decision he had fought against the whole time he had been gone.
He had decided he and Iris couldn't possibly have any future together. He would divide the herd as soon as they got back and let Iris and Carlos go on to Wyoming alone. He would follow later with the Circle-7 herd.
He had also decided he and Iris should never see each other again.
"Where's Iris?" Monty asked even before his feet hit the ground.
"She and Mrs. Crane left for Dodge just like you wanted," Bud Reins, the man Monty had left in camp with the chuckwagon, told him.
Instead of returning to the original camp after he recaptured the herd, Monty had grazed the herd in a slow arc north. Zac had been dispatched to bring the chuckwagon to the rendezvous spot. They were now about twenty miles north of Dodge.
Monty had been gone six days.
"Good," Monty said, a weight off his shoulders. He'd been worried the whole time Iris might follow him. Or maybe get lost again. He was relieved she had shown some sense for once.
"Salty, I want the men to separate Iris's herd from ours while I'm in Dodge. I'm sure she'll want to be on her way as soon as she can."
Monty knew his orders were a surprise. He hadn't told anyone of his decision. He hadn't wanted them asking questions or arguing with him. He didn't even want them to know what he was thinking. It had been painful enough as it was. To have been under the intense scrutiny of his brothers for six days would have been intolerable.
But six days had been more than enough time for him to decide he and Iris were no good for each other. The moment he started thinking of marriage, he knew it would never work. She wasn't the kind of wife he needed, and he wasn't the kind of husband she wanted. It wouldn't matter whether they were locked up together on a Wyoming ranch or in a St. Louis mansion, one of them would be miserable. They would come to hate each other before a year was out.
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