by Jo Goodman
“Unlike you.”
Annalea grinned toothily, revealing a space where the cusp of an incisor was starting to push through. “I take after Pa.”
The stranger had nothing to say to that.
Annalea looked him over, wondering what else she could do for him before she made her way back home. “It’s two miles or so that I have to cover to reach the house, and there’s no telling if Willa will be there, but I’ll do my best to hurry and find her. John Henry will stay with you.” She pointed a finger at John Henry and gave him a stern look and a sterner order. He flattened himself beside the stranger and offered up his most sorrowful expression. “Pitiful dog,” she whispered, bending to knuckle him between his ears.
She was struck by an urge to knuckle the crown of the man’s head in the same manner, but he tucked his chin more deeply under her coat and she knew she had given herself away. It was just as well. He might be pitiful, too, but even a bad man had his pride.
Chapter One
Pancake Valley was seventy-five square miles of prime grazing land, fit for raising beef cattle for the Chicago stockyards and smart, surefooted horses for cutting herds, mountain tracking, or outfitting an Army troop. The lay of the land bore no resemblance to any sort of pancake, flapjack, or johnnycake, nor was it properly a valley. But upon claiming the land in 1839, Obadiah Pancake declared its peculiar saddle shape to be a valley and so it was known from that day forward.
Wilhelmina Pancake had known her Grandpa Obie, remembered quite clearly sitting on his lap in the rocker he brought all the way from Philadelphia because he promised Granny that he would. She remembered that Granny complained, mostly good-naturedly, that excepting for the years she was nursing her sons, Obie and Willa got more use out of that rocker than she ever did.
Grandpa Obie was gone almost a score of years now, having taken a spill from a fiercely bucking mare that he was trying to break. Instead, the mare broke him, snapping his neck like a frozen twig. Willa had known he was gone before she reached him, and she had wanted to put the mare down, but Granny had stopped her, taking the gun out of her hands and holding her so tightly that Willa thought she might suffocate in that musky bosom. She hadn’t, though, and was glad for those moments because it was only a few years later that Granny passed.
Some days Willa missed that bosom, missed the comfort of it the way she missed her grandpa’s lap. From time to time, she sat in the rocker, but it wasn’t the same, and unless Annalea crawled into her lap—and really, Annalea was getting too big to be an easy fit—Willa found sitting there to be a bittersweet experience that was best avoided.
Willa lifted her face to the halcyon sky, tipping back her pearl gray Stetson, and let sunlight wash over her. She remained in that posture, one gloved hand resting on the top rail of the corral and the other keeping her hat in place, and waited for sunlight and the cool, gentle breeze to press color into her cheeks and sweep away the melancholy.
“Use your knees!” she called to Cutter Hamill as she pulled herself up to stand on the bottom rail. “Get your hand up! She’s going to throw you!” No sooner had the words left her mouth than the cinnamon mare with the white star on her nose—named Miss Dolly for no reason except that Annalea declared it should be so—changed tactics and crow-hopped hard and high, unseating her rider and forcing him to take a graceless, humiliating fall.
Miss Dolly settled, shaking off the lingering presence of her rider even though she could see his face was planted in the dirt. She nudged him once with her nose as if to prove there were no hard feelings, and then she walked toward Willa, her temperament once again serene.
Willa threw one leg over the top rail, and then the other. She sat perfectly balanced, her boot heels hooked on the middle rail, and braced herself for Miss Dolly’s approach and inevitable nuzzling.
“You all right, Cutter?” she asked as she held the mare’s head steady and stroked her nose. “This little lady has no use for you climbing on her back.”
Cutter lifted himself enough to swivel his head in Willa’s direction. “She’s no lady, no matter what Annalea says.” He laid his cheek flat to the dirt again. “Anyone else see me fall?”
Willa looked around. Except for animals of the four-legged kind, the area was deserted. “Happy’s inside the house, making dinner if you can take him at his word, and Zach must be in the barn, leastways I don’t see him out and about. Seems like I’m the only witness, and you know I don’t carry tales.”
“I don’t know that,” he said. “I don’t know that at all.”
She chuckled. “Go on. Get up and shake if off.” Willa could not repress a sympathetic smile as Cutter groaned softly and pushed to his knees. He rolled his shoulders to test the waters, and upon discovering he was still connected bone to bone, scrambled to his feet.
Unfolding to his full height, he shook himself out with the unconscious ease and energy of a wet, playful pup. At nineteen, Cutter still had a lot of pup in him, though Willa knew he thought of himself as full grown into manhood. She had suspected for a time that he favored her in a moony, romantic sort of way in spite of the fact she was five years his senior and his boss, at least in practice, and she was careful to treat him as fairly as she did the other hand and not encourage any nonsense.
Annalea, though, did encourage nonsense, and took every opportunity to make faces behind Cutter’s back but with Willa in her open line of sight. Annalea would pucker her lips and make a parody of kissing. She also liked to hug herself and pretend to engage in what she imagined to be a passionate embrace. In the first instance, she looked like a fish trying to capture a wriggling worm; in the second, she looked like the wriggling worm. Thus far, Cutter had not caught her out, but odds were that he would eventually, so Willa saved the scold that Annalea was certainly due and waited for the more enduring lesson of natural consequence.
Cutter removed his sweat-banded hat and ran one hand through a thatch of wheat-colored hair before he settled it on his head again. He grinned at Willa. “You want me to give it another try?” he asked.
“Give what another try? Getting thrown?”
He flushed but held his ground. “I thought I’d—”
“I know what you meant. Lead her around, let her walk off the jitters, and then take her to the barn and wipe her down. And talk to her while you’re doing it. You don’t talk to the animals nearly enough, Cutter. Miss Dolly will respond to your voice if you sweeten it a bit.”
Cutter regarded her skeptically but kept his questions to himself. He dusted off his pants and shirt and dutifully started walking toward Miss Dolly.
Willa chuckled under her breath when the mare sidled just outside of Cutter’s reach as he approached. “Sweet talk, Cutter,” she called to him.
“Is that what you want, girl? Sweet talk?”
At the sound of the smooth, tenor tones of her father’s voice at her back, Willa shifted so sharply on the fence rail that she nearly unseated herself. “I thought you were making supper.”
“I am making supper. Just stirred the pot. No harm leaving it alone for a minute. I saw Cutter take a fall and thought maybe I should check on the boy myself.”
“He’s fine, Happy.”
Simultaneous to Willa’s pronouncement, Cutter yelled over. “I’m fine, Happy.”
Willa returned her attention to Cutter but spoke to her father. “See? You have it twice over. Better go check on that pot because it won’t stir itself.”
Happy shrugged, and except to reach for a flask inside his scarred leather vest, he didn’t move. “Feeling a chill,” he said by way of explanation, although Willa had given no indication she knew he had his flask in his hand. “So what about that sweet talk? You lookin’ for some of that from Mr. Cutter Hamill?”
Willa pretended she hadn’t heard him.
He’d been christened Shadrach Ebenezer Pancake at birth, but family lore had it that he carried on wit
h so much chortling gusto that it was only right and natural that he should be called Happy. Since he had answered to the name all of his life, most folks did not know he had another, which suited Shadrach Ebenezer just fine when he was a youngster, and later, when he was a husband and then a father. But now that he was a widower, barely a father, and usually a drunk, he wore the name like a hair shirt, and that, too, suited him in a dark, humorless fashion.
Happy sipped from the flask, capped it, and returned it to his vest. He folded his arms and set them on the top rail a short distance from where Willa sat.
“You should have a hat on,” said Willa without glancing down. “Wind’s picking up.”
He nodded. “Going back in directly.” Still, he didn’t move.
Willa sighed. “You already burned supper, didn’t you?”
“I might’ve scorched the biscuits.”
“Stew?”
“I expect most of it will be good if we don’t draw the ladle from the bottom of the pot.”
Willa said nothing.
Happy grimaced in response to her silence. “I swear no one speaks as loudly as you do when you hold your tongue. Wouldn’t hurt at all for you to let it out. Might even feel good uncorking that bottle of mad dog temper once in a while.”
“I doubt it,” she said, and her words were carried away on the wind. She called to Cutter before he disappeared into the barn. “Take your time. Supper’s going to be—”
She stopped as a movement a hundred yards distant caught her eye. She tipped her hat forward to shade the winking sunlight and squinted at the tree line as a figure burst into the opening and continued racing toward them. “Now what is she up to? And where is John Henry?”
Happy scratched his head. “Damned if I know.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Well, there’s no one else around, is there?” Happy was forced to move when Willa swung her legs back over the fence and jumped down. He was perhaps all of two inches taller than his daughter, and when they were eye to eye, she looked right through him. He shivered. “I swear that cold shoulder you like to give me is a damn sight frostier than any wind coming off the mountains. I got ice splinters prickling my skin.”
“Another reason you should have worn a hat.”
“Maybe so. But I got this.” He patted his vest to indicate his flask.
Without comment, Willa turned smartly on her heels and started off toward Annalea. Cutter, she noted, had also observed Annalea coming at them at a flat-out run, and she motioned to him to secure Miss Dolly and follow her. Her father stayed where he was, which to Willa’s way of thinking was a point in his favor.
In spite of Willa’s head start, Cutter’s long legs carried him farther and faster, and he reached Annalea a few strides before she did. Willa wondered if he regretted it when Annalea launched herself at him. He staggered backward but managed to stay upright, sweeping Annalea into his arms before she caused his second spill of the day.
“Whoa! Whoa there, Annalea.” Cutter set her down, unwound her arms from around his neck, and looked her over. Her cheeks were deeply flushed, and she was breathing hard. Her pigtails had mostly come undone. She inhaled loose, flyaway strands of dark hair and her fingers scrabbled at them to keep them out of her mouth. He simply shook his head. “Ain’t no one called you for supper that I recollect, so what’s chasing you?”
Willa caught up to the pair in time to hear Cutter’s question. “Answer him,” she said, her eyes focused once again on the tree line.
“She can’t talk yet,” said Cutter. “Near as I can tell, she’s not hurt, but she’s run a ways.”
Willa gave her full attention to Annalea when she observed no disturbance in trees. Nothing was chasing Annalea except perhaps her own imagination. “Is he right? You’re unhurt? Just nod your head.”
Annalea sucked in a deep breath and nodded hard so there could be no mistaking the matter.
“Where’s John Henry?”
Annalea pointed behind her.
“So he’s following you?”
“No,” Annalea said on a thread of sound. “Told him to stay.”
One of Willa’s expressive, arching eyebrows lifted a fraction. John Henry was devoted to Annalea. That the dog would stay anywhere without her was extraordinary, if it were true. “And he listened to you? That seems . . .” She paused, looking Annalea over again. “Where’s your coat?”
“Left it with John Henry.”
“That’s no kind of answer.”
“No kind of good answer,” said Cutter.
Annalea shot him a withering look. “There’s a man,” she told Willa, using her thumb to point over her shoulder. “I found him a ways back close to Potrock Run, and I left John Henry with him to stand guard. He’s hurt, Willa. Bad hurt. The man, not John Henry. I figure we should help him, Good Samaritan–like. That’d be the Christian thing to do.”
“Maybe,” said Willa. “And maybe not.”
Annalea nodded gravely. “I already entertained that argument, but you go on ahead and have it out with yourself.”
Willa gave a small start, blinked once, and then surrendered in the face of Annalea’s clear and righteous expectations. “Very well. Cutter, sounds as if we’ll need a wagon.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Annalea nod. “Go on. Take care of that while I find out what else we need.” She put her arm around Annalea’s shoulders and gently urged her in the direction of the house. “C’mon. You’re shivering.”
“He was worse cold than me. That’s why I gave him my coat.”
“Well, I suppose that was a kindness as long as you don’t take ill. If that happens, I might say it was foolish.”
Without breaking stride, Willa shrugged out of her jacket and tucked it around Annalea. “Could be I’m foolish as well.” She bathed in the warmth of Annalea’s radiant and knowing smile all the way back to the house.
* * *
Happy wanted to come along and see the trespasser for himself, but Willa told him plainly that was not going to happen. She left Zach in charge of making certain her father did not attempt to follow. Happy was just tipsy enough to trip over his own feet. On horseback, he was a sure danger to himself and the animal, and there was still the matter of supper. Zach, at least, could be counted on to put something on the table they could actually eat.
Cutter and Willa rode on the wooden bench seat with a shotgun resting between them while Annalea huddled under two woolen blankets in the bed of the wagon and offered directions and commentary as necessity or her mood dictated.
“I don’t think there will be any call to shoot him,” said Annalea. “He is not likely to give you a reason.”
Willa patted the Colt strapped to her right leg. The last thing she did before she left the house was put on her gun belt. Annalea had not commented at the time, but clearly she had been thinking about it ever since.
“We don’t know anything about this man, and we don’t know what to expect when we reach him. It’s a certainty he didn’t drag himself all over creation, so it could be that whoever did that to him is still around. Better to be prepared than not. Don’t make me regret not tossing you out of the wagon and leaving you with Pa and Zach.”
Willa looked back at Annalea, her eyebrows raised. “You understand?”
Turtle-like, Annalea poked her head outside the shell of her blankets. She nodded once. “I think the guns are an abundance of caution.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” said Cutter.
Annalea harrumphed too softly for Cutter to hear, but Willa caught it and quickly averted her head before Annalea saw her lips twitch.
Cutter pointed to a split in the pine trees up ahead. The parting made a natural fork in the trail. “Which way, Annalea? Right or left?”
Annalea mumbled under her blanket and Willa interpreted. “She says left.”
Cutter gave the reins an expert tug and guided the mare to the left. Under his breath, he said, “You reckon he’ll still be alive?”
Willa shrugged. How could she possibly answer? For Annalea’s sake, she hoped he was, so she said that.
Annalea rose to her knees and inched toward the bench seat. She leaned forward, poked clear of the blankets, and inserted her head between Cutter and Willa. “Did I tell you he wanted me to leave him where he lay?”
“No,” said Willa. “You did not tell us that.”
“I figured he was talking out of his head so what he said he wanted was of no account.” She nudged the shotgun a little to one side to make more room for her head. “John Henry licked his face. It was kinda sweet, him showing partiality like that, and I judged it to be a good sign.”
Willa smiled wryly. “Of course you did.”
Annalea suddenly thrust an arm between the pair to motion toward the bend up ahead. “Just around there. Look, you can see the grass is trampled coming off the hillside. He was dragged that way. Probably over that patch of rocks, too, and then across Potrock because he’s on this side of it. Someone sure had it in for him.”
“More like someones,” said Cutter, following the trail that emerged from the trees and took a meandering route toward the run.
Willa nodded. She was more interested in where the trail began than in where it ended. She looked as deeply as she could into the cluster of limber and lodgepole pines. The thick, scaly trunks made it difficult to see what might be hiding behind them, and the canopy of boughs cast a shadow across the area that the lowering sun could not penetrate. The surest way to learn if someone was watching with the intention to harm was to find Annalea’s stranger and tend to him.
