She held back a response to Dorothea’s comment. The doctor wasn’t casting judgment upon her, but giving encouragement, even if it came in a dose that burned a little going down.
Dusty had a long drink at the water pump as Dr. Dorothea came walking out of the house. He released the lever and caught up with her as she got into her small horse cart. “Dr. Dorothea, how’s Sophie?”
He caught her off guard by failing to offer a standard formal greeting. “Hm? Oh, she’ll be fine. She just had a stomachache.”
“Must have been pretty drastic to have to send for a doctor.”
“Sophie will live to get another petition signed.” She smiled and bid him good day.
Dusty languished in the feeling of relief that Sophie had not fallen into some disastrous ailment. He still preferred to see how she was faring for himself, but he took what was offered. It remained for him to complete the task that left him uneasy.
After filling a canteen with water, he carried it to Sophie’s father, who was busy seeding the carrot patch. “Mr. Charlton, sir, I need to talk to you.”
Mr. Charlton reached into the faded canvas seed bag strapped across his torso and sprinkled a handful in a meticulous plot near his feet. “Yes?” “It’s about my employment.”
He let the rest of the carrot seeds simply fall from his hand. Dusty prepared for a worse reaction to come. “No easy way of sayin’ this. I thought about it for over two months now. I figure it’s time for me to leave the farm, see what else there is to do.”
Mr. Charlton moved slowly, stepping over the carrot plot. “I wasn’t aware you were looking to go. You’ve been here for a long time.”
“Yes, sir, and I appreciate you keeping me on and all, but it’s time for me to start thinking about permanent work. I want to begin planting my own roots, maybe have a house and family like yours one day.”
Sophie’s father smiled at that. “This farm didn’t shoot up overnight. It was twenty-four years in the making from the time I began working for hire at seventeen to the time I moved my family to Assurance.”
“That’s why I’d like to make my way. At seventeen, you had yourself more of a head start than I did.”
“Are you going to stay in town?”
“Sort of. I applied for a position as cowhand at the Zephyr Ranch off the main road. The foreman’s expecting me to report for work as soon as I get things settled here. That’s what I was going to tell you yesterday evening before Sophie fell ill.”
Mr. Charlton looked instinctively at the house, to his daughter’s window. “Does your wanting to leave have anything to do with Sophie’s recent arrangement?”
Dusty scuffed the ground with the toe of his boot. He was free to admit his discontent since he would be leaving the farm in short time, yet it wasn’t good to part on bad terms. So far, Mr. Charlton was taking the news better than he expected. “This was on my mind well before last week.”
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound too good.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
He scuffed the ground with his other boot. “It took me a long time to make my decision.”
Mr. Charlton put his hands in the pockets of his overalls. “I’ll have to find your replacement, but I won’t obligate you to stay on until I do.”
“I can stay till this Tuesday or Wednesday, finish up on arranging the tack in the barn.”
“No, the boys will do that. You can leave as soon as you have the bunkhouse cleared. I’ll write you a letter to verify your good standing as a worker here.”
Dusty had the feeling that he was being dismissed, albeit courteously. “Thank you, Mr. Charlton. Before I leave, may I say good-bye to your family?”
“The boys are in the wheat field. The ladies are in the house. I think my wife has Rosemarie doing Sophie’s chores.” Mr. Charlton went back to sowing carrot seed in the soil.
Dusty made his rounds, tracking David and Bernard down to tell them first. David took no pains to hide his disapproval.
“You can’t go and work for somebody else. You tended the farm this long.”
Dusty didn’t mind being scolded by a sixteen-year-old when he knew that the boy only said it because he would be missed. “I gave Mr. Mabrey my word. I won’t be too far away from town. You and Bernard can ride out to the ranch and visit if your father allows.”
David crossed his arms and lowered his head in an older version of a child’s pout. “You still need to finish teaching me how to lasso and shoot.”
“Who said anything about shooting?”
“A long time back you said you’d let me try the Winchester.”
Dusty remembered no such thing. “Supposing I did, I’ll let you fire the rifle another day. Maybe.”
He went to the house next, hesitating at the front door. Mr. Charlton didn’t say he couldn’t enter when he asked to say good-bye to Mrs. Charlton and the daughters. He knocked on the door. Sophie’s mother answered.
“Yes, Dusty?” She wiped her hands on a dishrag.
He removed his hat. “Ma’am, I just talked to Mr. Charlton and told him that I will be taking a new position at a ranch outside town. Today’s my last day working for you.”
“How unfortunate.” She spoke the words, but they didn’t sound like they rang true. She smiled with her lips but her eyes remained discerning. “We’ve certainly appreciated your hard work.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Charlton. I wondered if I could say good-bye to Sophie and Rosemarie before I go.”
She snapped the dishrag before folding it into a perfect square. “Rosemarie is helping me in the kitchen. Sophie is still not feeling well. The medicine the doctor gave her makes her sleep. She’s unable to receive visitors.”
Astonishment took control of his senses. Sophie’s mother had always been strict, but he never thought that she would be harsh enough to keep him from saying good-bye to her daughter. It wasn’t as though the ranch was next door to the farm where he could walk across the field and say howdy at any time of day.
“Ma’am, the ranch is outside of town. I won’t be in Assurance much.”
She offered him no pity. “If I see you in church, I may decide to let Sophie tell you a final good-bye.”
A final good-bye? He thought she misunderstood him. “No, Mrs. Charlton. I won’t be leaving Assurance to go across the state or anything like that. I just won’t be close as I once was.”
“I know very well what you meant, Dusty, but I may not have made myself clear. Sophie’s father and I will decide when and if she will be permitted to speak to you again.” Mrs. Charlton regarded him coolly. “When I watched you from that window, I saw the way you looked at my daughter. I was her age once. She may not recognize the signs, but it’s obvious what you intend to do should you get her away from the protection of her family.”
Dusty was rendered speechless, and for a moment, had a mere trace capacity to shake his head. “I’m not that kind of man. The wrong I did make was in not telling you sooner that I came to care for Sophie. For that, I’m regretful.”
Sophie’s mother twisted her lips in disgust. “She is my precious daughter, not some painted dance
hall girl that you may hope to charm with empty words and fleeting promises.”
She would have done better to strike him across the face. The shock would have been far less bracing than the vitriol of her accusations. “I’ve never treated Sophie in that manner, Mrs. Charlton. You know because you’ve seen with your own eyes.”
She took a step back inside the house, her hand on the door handle, ready to close it in his face. “I see that Chad Hooper is a more suitable match for my daughter, Dusty. Not you. Not a hired hand.”
Her true opinion of him finally emerged, based on far more than him not being able to shower Sophie with riches. He was from the wrong station. No matter what he did to earn money and prove himself stable, Mrs. Charlton would always see him as a drifter for hire.
Dusty steeled his jaw as he looked down at her. “Well, ma’am, that’s a true shame. I hope one day to raise your estimation of me.”
With that, he proceeded to the bunkhouse to gather his things, to leave the farm that had been his livelihood for three years and the home of the woman he had come to love.
CHAPTER 21
T HE RIDE TO the ranch softened Dusty’s anger toward Mrs. Charlton, though it by no means lessened his resolve to prove her wrong. Such measures took time and he prayed that in his absence she would not be able to persuade Sophie to view him the way that she did. It tore him up that he was forced to leave without being able to tell Sophie where he was going or why. Her mother could pick and choose how to explain his departure, and if he were a gambling man he could bet his horse that the explanation would put him in a bad light.
Please, Lord, give Sophie discernment.
Dusty arrived at the ranch where Mr. Mabrey greeted him with a clap on the back and told him to see Joe about getting settled in one of the bunkhouses.
Joe joked with him. “It’s much easier to share quarters with a wife than it is a bunch of workers that don’t wash regularly. You ought to try it sometime.”
“I plan to. Soon as I get a wife.” Dusty set his few belongings on the floor of his new living space in the ranch bunkhouse. He was spoiled for so long having an entire structure to himself at the Charlton farm. He had to get used to sharing a bunkhouse with other cowhands all over again.
He viewed the newspaper clippings and old calendar pictures that were posted along the walls as decoration. A French portrait was displayed prominently in the middle of the two sets of bunk beds, featuring an attractive young brunette who left very little to the imagination.
Joe averted his gaze from the provocative art. “Can’t do nothin’ about that. The other boys all banded together to get that picture tacked up on the wall.”
“It’s alright. I tend to sleep with my eyes shut.”
The assistant foreman chuckled. “What happened to that gal you said you had your eye on?”
“She’s still in town. It’s gonna be harder to visit her now that I’m out here.” Under no circumstances could Dusty mention Sophie’s exact whereabouts to anyone on the Zephyr Ranch. After having just left the Charlton farm, it looked quite the scandal to declare that he was sweet on the daughter of his former boss.
“If you’re keen on stayin’ ’round long enough, you might want to see about building a house nearby. There’s still enough land to be sold at a good price. That’s what I did.”
Joe’s suggestion sounded like a good one. “How much is the land going for?”
“Ten dollars an acre. If you put away a little less than half of what you earn each month, you could have yourself a homestead by this winter.”
The idea appealed to Dusty. He could purchase twenty or thirty acres of land at that moment with part of his bank savings. The cost of timber to build a house would be more, but he could make the purchases in increments. “I’ll have to see. I’m still looking to get into ranching myself one day, and Mr. Mabrey wouldn’t take kindly to having another man’s cattle grazing so close to his.”
“He’ll let you buy cattle off of the ranch as long as you agree to give him a share of the sale price. No competition that way.”
Joe left him to get situated. As Dusty was the newest man hired he had to settle for a pallet on the floor until a new bed could be put in for him. It was the tiniest inconvenience in light of the higher wages he would make and the satisfaction of rising every day to do the work he loved.
He arranged his spare pair of boots and extra clothes near the pallet, all the while thinking of the opportunities Joe described. Land. A chance to build a house, to raise his own cattle. His dream was getting closer to his reach day by day.
Only one exclusion to that dream persisted to taunt him. The choice shouldn’t have had to come between remaining at the farm with no chance of bettering himself or leaving Sophie behind.
He peeled back a dark heavy tarp that hung over one of the bunkhouse windows. Staring at the road leading back to Assurance, he wondered if she had already been given the news.
Sophie felt better enough on Sunday morning to eat a small bowl of oatmeal, but not quite steady enough to attend church. Her mother stayed home with her.
“I think I’ve been sleeping for the past two days,” she said, after having a bath and putting on a clean dress. “What’s happened since then?”
Her mother helped her change the bed linens. She folded the corners of the laundered sheet and tucked it under the mattress. Her lips remained silent.
“Mother?” Sophie stopped manipulating the sheet on the opposite side of the bed. “What’s going on?”
“It’s over, Sophie. There’s no need to tell.”
“Tell me what? Did one of my brothers or Rosemarie also get sick?”
“No.” Her mother pulled the sheet up to the head of the mattress. “Dusty left. He’s taken another job at a ranch.”
Sophie sat down on the half-made bed. In her weakened state, she had to repeat what she had just heard for clarity. “Dusty left us? Why?”
“Not us, the farm. I suppose he left for reasons why any worker for hire should. More pay.”
Sunlight made reflections on the glass window, casting little lights across the wall. Sophie stared at them without blinking until they all merged into a cluttered mural. “Didn’t Daddy offer to increase his wages?”
“We can’t afford to maintain our wealth by giving our employees more money than they deserve. Your father plans to go into town tomorrow to look for a new worker. It shouldn’t be difficult. Young men come off the trains all the time seeking a new start.”
Sophie was long used to her mother’s intentional deflections of the actual matter at hand but this time she was unable to let her get away with it. “I’m not worried about Daddy finding another worker. Why didn’t Dusty say good-bye?”
“Given his rough-and-tumble background, you must make allowances for his slip in manners.”
“No, he would have said good-bye to me. Why didn’t he?”
Her mother let out a deep breath. “He came to the house just before going to gather his belongings. He asked to see you one last time. I told him you were asleep.”
Sophie looked at her, aghast. “You could have woken me.”
“I didn’t f
eel it was necessary to drag you from your bed.”
“But I don’t know when or if I’ll see him again.” The possibility brought tears to Sophie’s eyes, threatening to spill over the brims.
Her mother frowned at that. “Don’t you dare cry over that cowboy. He’s not part of our family.”
Two fat tears rolled down, anyway. “Yet he’s supped at our table and accompanied us to church. Most hired hands leave when the day’s work is done.”
“That’s where we made our mistake.” Her mother turned to rearranging the contents of the bedside table since the task of making the bed halted. “We’ve always dealt liberally with Dusty when he showed himself trustworthy. This time he’s overstepped his boundaries.”
“Please don’t talk about him that way. You make him sound like an outlaw.”
Lucretia put the empty medicine bottle on the vanity table to remove from the room later. “He’s worse than that. He has feelings for you, Sophie. I know because he stood on the porch bold and told me without a bit of shame.”
So he finally admitted the truth to her family. It was a brave act; one that could bring him trouble depending on how her mother and father decided to use the information. Sophie turned away from her mother’s astute gaze, fearing that her face would give her away. How could her family go from having respect for Dusty to despising him on the small reason that he fancied her?
“You’re not saying anything. Am I to assume you feel the same way toward that drifter?”
Sophie resumed making the bed. “I just wanted to have a chance to say good-bye to Dusty.”
“Remember what I told you. Your place isn’t to associate with the help.”
That teaching made sense to Sophie for so long but it was beginning to unravel. Her place wasn’t to associate with anyone her family didn’t approve of, let alone Dusty. She murmured as she picked up the bed coverlet.
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