The Mavericks

by Leigh Greenwood

  Unable to restrain herself, Josie exclaimed, “This place is a wreck. It looks like squatters live here.”

  Zeke looked around him. “Hawk and I aren’t used to living in a house. It’s easier to sleep in the brush.”

  “Where do you cook?”

  Zeke shrugged. “Wherever we sleep.”

  It was worse than she thought. These men not only didn’t know how to take care of a house, they didn’t know how to live in one. “Do you have beds inside?”

  “I guess so. I mean, yeah. I remember seeing some.”

  “Do you have a stove?”

  “Yes. I definitely remember seeing that.”

  “Have you ever actually slept in that house?”

  Zeke grinned. “No.”

  She exhaled a noisy breath to show her frustration. “Why not?”

  “Because we’d have to clean it up.” Zeke looked and sounded like a little boy caught in mischief and forced to explain himself against his will. “Isabelle taught us how to take care of a house, but Hawk and I didn’t take too much to housework. Besides, Isabelle did all the cooking, so we didn’t learn about stoves.”

  If two men ever needed taking care of, it was these two. And nobody could convince her there hadn’t been quite a few women more than willing to accept the challenge. The West was full of men, but men like Zeke and Hawk were hard to come by anywhere. A woman looking for a husband would be a fool to reject them even if one was black and the other a half-breed. Giving in to the inevitable, Josie threw her leg over the saddle and slid to the ground. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  They started with the garden. “You’ve got to fence it in,” she said, “or rabbits will strip the peas and beans, and the deer will eat what’s left.”

  “We don’t—”

  “And you’ve got to plant something else besides peas, beans, and potatoes. What kind of diet is that?” She looked at the soil, which was black and loamy despite being rocky. “You ought to order fruit trees. All this water and sunlight would be perfect for peaches, plums, and cherries.”

  “I don’t—”

  Josie turned on her heel and walked rapidly to where several hens were scratching in the dirt with their broods in attendance. “You need a fenced-in yard for the chickens, too. That way you can control how many sit their eggs. I’m surprised you haven’t lost them all to coyotes.”

  “We didn’t because—”

  “Do you have a milk cow?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I don’t suppose you know how to churn butter or make cheese.”

  “No, but—”

  “I don’t know how you expect to survive. Now let’s look at the house.”

  “You sure you’re up to it?” Zeke asked, his temper rising. “The shock might be too much for you.”

  “Is the roof still good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I can stand it.”

  When she walked inside, she wondered if she’d spoken too soon. The floor in what was the parlor or sitting room was covered by at least an inch of dust. “Do you ever come in here?”

  “Why would we?”

  “Maybe to get out of the rain.”

  “We were in Texas during the rainy season. After that we went north to buy the mares.”

  Unable to believe her ears, Josie picked up her skirts and headed to the kitchen. One look told her it would be unusable without a thorough cleaning. With a sinking feeling, she said, “What about the bedrooms?”

  There were two at the back of the house. Much to her surprise, they had been swept and were reasonably organized. The beds had mattresses, sheets, and blankets, and appeared to have been slept in.

  “This stuff belongs to Adam and Jordy,” Zeke said.

  “Who are they?”

  “Hen Randolph’s boys. He’s the man who sold us our stud horse.”

  “Where are they?”

  “With the horses.”

  “I suppose they cook outside, too.”

  “Looks like it.”

  Josie didn’t understand it. Zeke and Hawk had been meticulous in their care of the mares. Hawk had known what medicine would help Laurie. They kept their equipment in perfect order and cleaned up after every meal. How could they put up with a house in this condition?

  The sound of two horses arriving at a canter drew them to the porch. Two young men brought their horses to a stop in front of the house. The shorter man with a stocky build dismounted and walked up to Zeke with a broad smile.

  “You sly dog.” He gave Zeke a playful punch on the shoulder. “You said you were going to buy some mares. You never said anything about some damned fine-looking women.”

  “Jordy has no manners,” Zeke said to Josie. “Hen found him sleeping in a stable. Apparently, adopting him couldn’t take the stable out of him.”

  Jordy laughed good-naturedly. “I’m Jordy Randolph,” he said to Josie. “That young scamp who’s too shy to get off his horse is Adam Randolph, Hen’s other effort to redeem an orphan.”

  Adam dismounted and walked up to Josie. “I wasn’t an orphan. Hen married my ma.”

  Josie thought Jordy was a nice-looking young man, but Adam was going to be a heartbreaker in a few more years. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn his father had gotten him a job on this remote ranch to protect him from all the women who’d be after him.

  “Hawk told us to get our stuff out of the house so you ladies could move in,” Adam said.

  Josie turned to Zeke. “They don’t have to—”

  “Do you want to sleep out in the brush?”

  Josie swallowed. Sleeping in a wagon in the desert was one thing. Sleeping in the open in the desert would be something very different, she was sure.

  “Suzette and I can share a room.”

  Jordy looked at Adam and grinned. “I’m not sharing a bed with him. He might think I like him too much.”

  Adam blushed but managed to get in a hit over Jordy’s guard. “He’s just jealous because I’m taller than he is.”

  Josie decided the two boys were true friends, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if Jordy was a little jealous of Adam’s looks.

  “Where’s that wagon Hawk said we are supposed to get?” Jordy asked Zeke.

  While Zeke gave Jordy directions, Josie followed Adam inside. “Have you boys worked here long?” she asked as Adam started gathering his stuff and putting it in his saddlebags.

  “Just a couple of months,” he replied. “I’m only sixteen. This is the first time Hen has let me take a job away from the ranch.”

  “Has your father known Zeke and Hawk very long?”

  “Forever. The man who adopted them was in the war with Hen’s oldest brother. Hen said if I grew up to be half as good as them, he’d stop being sorry he adopted me.” He grinned suddenly. “He said nothing could keep him from being sorry he adopted Jordy.” He paused in his packing. “You ladies going to stay here?”

  Josie didn’t know why the question should upset her so much. It had never entered her mind. If it had, seeing the condition of the ranch would have tossed the notion right back out again. “We’ll leave as soon as we get our wagon. We’re going to try to find jobs in Tombstone or Bisbee.”

  Some of the brightness went out of Adam’s eyes. “Too bad. I’ve never seen Hawk look at a woman like he looks at Suzette. Or Zeke like he looks at you.”

  She tried to deny the question the moment it formed in her brain, but the words came out anyway. “How does Zeke look at me?”

  “Like there’s nobody else around. Ma says that’s the way Jordy looks at Hope. He’s saving his money so he can ask her to marry him. Do you think Zeke wants to marry you?”

  She’d met this innocent-looking sixteen-year-old barely five minutes ago, and already he’d laid bare the question she’d refused to allow even in the back of her mind. She wouldn’t deal with it now. She couldn’t. She wanted to run away, to pretend Adam had never asked that question, but he was waiting for an answer, his gaze wide an
d innocent. He was far too young to realize the devastating effect his question had had on her.

  “I doubt Zeke is the marrying kind,” she managed to say.

  “Hen said he wasn’t the marrying kind until he met Ma.” He grinned. “Now he’s got four of his own kids in addition to Jordy and me. He keeps telling Ma he needs one more to bring him up to the family standards, but Ma says he’s nothing but a big kid so that gives her seven already.”

  Josie couldn’t imagine how a man who thought he was a confirmed bachelor could end up married with six kids and still want more. She wondered if Zeke or Hawk wanted kids. They’d never said anything about it. But then, they hadn’t said anything about wanting to get married, either.

  She was allowing this boy’s appealing picture of his family to cause her imagination to run away with her. She didn’t want to get married. She didn’t want to live on a ranch. And she certainly didn’t want six children. She had a successful career which would soon allow her to retire before she was thirty and open her boardinghouse. That had been her goal ever since she ran away from her uncle. She couldn’t start questioning it now.

  “How long do you think it will take to get the wagon?” she asked.

  “Are you in a real hurry to leave?” Adam had finished packing his saddlebags and turned to his bedroll.

  “Zeke and Hawk have a ranch to run. We’ve already taken up too much of their time.”

  “They didn’t look like they minded.”

  She had to get away from this boy. Every word out of his mouth created another breach in her defenses. She had to remember Adam was asking these questions, not Zeke. He was saying what he thought Zeke might be feeling.

  “They’ve been extremely kind, but we can’t impose on them any longer.”

  Adam stood and hefted his saddlebags over his shoulder. “There ain’t a man in the world who minds being imposed on by a beautiful woman.” He grinned shyly. “You got any sisters?”

  “No, but Suzette has one just your age.”

  When he flushed crimson, Josie figured the thought of finding himself face to face with a younger version of Suzette had probably unnerved him as much as it had excited him.

  “I’d better get going. Hen says I can talk the ear off a donkey.”

  “You pack my gear?” Jordy asked when they came out of the house.

  “Do I look like your ma?” Adam retorted as he jumped off the porch and walked over to his horse.

  Jordy looked disgusted. “You don’t want me to tell you what you look like.” He headed inside the house.

  “I see you boys are getting along as well as always,” Zeke said with a grin.

  “About,” Adam replied with his boyish grin.

  “Have any trouble while we were gone?”

  “Cougars get one whiff of a dog and go someplace else, but those damned coyotes just don’t care. You ought to pen up the chickens.”

  Zeke turned to Josie. “So I’ve been told.”

  “And you’d better water that garden soon,” Adam said to Zeke.

  “Why don’t you do it?”

  “I hired on for a riding job. I’m no farmer.” Adam looked so affronted it was all Josie could do to keep from laughing.

  “Did Hawk say when he was coming to the house?” Zeke asked.

  Adam finished fastening his saddlebags to the saddle and reached down for his bedroll. “He said he wanted to make sure the mares were settled first. He seems to think that bay with the Morgan blood is about to foal. I think he means to bring her up to the house so he can watch her.”

  Josie hoped Dusky Lady would foal before she and Suzette left. She knew Suzette had come to think of each of the mares as a friend. It would be hard for her to leave them behind.

  Jordy came barreling out of the house. “I got my stuff,” he said as he threw his saddlebags across his saddle and dropped his bedroll. “I’ll be ready to ride out in five minutes.”

  “You know how to find the ranch where the wagon is?” Adam asked.

  “A baby could find it, even without Zeke trying to describe every tree between here and there.”

  “I hope that means we won’t make more than one wrong turn.”

  “We won’t make any.” Jordy tightened the buckle on his saddlebags and slapped his bedroll across his horse’s haunches.

  “We’d still be wandering around the Huachuca Mountains if I’d listened to Jordy,” Adam said to Zeke. “If you told him to follow the sun, he’d somehow end up going north.”

  “Your ma’s going to be right upset if you show up with a broken neck.” Jordy tightened the strings on his bedroll and swung into the saddle. “Come on before I leave you to find your own way.”

  “I think I can follow the river without getting lost.”

  “Won’t make any difference if I drown you in it.”

  “Are they always like that?” Josie asked as they rode off exchanging insults.

  “Hen says they were trying to get the better of each other the first time he saw Jordy, and they haven’t stopped since.”

  Josie decided that being orphans adopted into the same family had probably caused them to bond just like Zeke and Hawk. It made her feel sad that Hawk and Zeke felt like outsiders. They were two wonderful men who deserved to feel accepted. Why couldn’t they see that they were worthy of the same kind of love and loyalty every person deserved?

  Why can’t you believe you’re worthy of that kind of love and loyalty?

  At first Josie couldn’t believe she’d asked herself that question. She didn’t want love and loyalty. She just wanted to be left alone. But no sooner had that thought crystallized in her mind than she knew she was lying to herself. She’d decided she didn’t want love or loyalty because she didn’t believe anyone could feel that way about her. Men saw only her face and body, thought only of their physical needs. That knowledge hurt, but she’d finally gotten used to it, accepted it as the way things were.

  Then she’d met Zeke and things had changed. It scared her even more to realize she wanted things to change. She had to leave soon.

  “How long do you think it will take them to return with the wagon?”

  Zeke subjected her to a long look before he answered. “They’ll be back sometime tomorrow. You can head for Tombstone the next day.”

  Rather than return Zeke’s gaze, she looked up at a hawk circling overhead. Hens clucked urgently to their chicks. Two days. Surely she could hold out that long. There was nothing about this ranch to make her want to stay.

  Except Zeke. And he was the one reason she couldn’t stay.

  “I’d better get to work if I’m going to have the kitchen fit to cook supper. I have a hankering for food cooked on a stove and served at a table. Do you think you could find me a rooster? I’m in the mood for baked chicken.”

  “That was a great supper,” Hawk said to Suzette and Josie. “You’ve spoiled us for baked beans and jerky stew cooked over an open fire.”

  “You could learn to cook with a stove,” Josie said.

  “Too late,” Zeke answered. “I wouldn’t know what to do if the heat wasn’t burning my face and the wind sending grit into the pot.”

  “You’ve got a house now,” Suzette said. “You don’t have to live outdoors.”

  The men had insisted on helping clean up. Now there was nothing left to do but go to bed. All evening long they’d avoided talking about the feelings that were boiling just below the surface, feelings that colored every comment anyone made. Suzette had tried to decide how Hawk felt about her leaving—about her being there—about her staying, but his expression was as impenetrable as ever. She would have to ask the questions. He never would answer otherwise.

  “Hawk is afraid Dusky Lady might foal at any time, so we’re going to sleep outside to watch her,” Suzette said.

  Everyone acted as though what she’d said was perfectly natural, when they all knew it meant her feelings for Hawk hadn’t changed. Further, her decision meant Zeke and Josie would be sleeping in the hou
se alone. That might not be fair to Josie, but Suzette believed Josie was close to falling in love with Zeke. She was certain he was in love with her. If there was no chance that Josie could ever love him, then Josie ought to tell Zeke so he could stop hoping. As for herself, she had her own confession to make.

  “You can use my bedroll,” Zeke said. Suzette had left all her bedding in the wagon.

  Hawk didn’t say much as they walked toward the small corral where Dusky Lady would spend the night. The trees along the river formed a black silhouette against the sky that made the moon gleam brighter by comparison. Stones crunched under their feet and cicadas chirped in the salt cedar. One of the dogs ran up to fawn over Hawk, but he sent it back to watch the horses. They didn’t have to worry about coyotes getting the chickens. Zeke had rounded them up and put them in the pen they’d escaped from earlier. A bat swooped through the air with its fast but erratic flight. Suzette shivered. She didn’t like bats even though Hawk said the insects would be unbearable without them.

  Hawk stopped at a spot where the ground had been smoothed out. She suspected the men had spent many nights here. They spread out their bedrolls and settled on to them before Suzette said, “We need to talk.”

  “I didn’t think there was anything to say.”

  “There’s a lot to say. I don’t know that it will change anything, but it needs to be said.”

  “If you can’t stay, what’s the point of saying anything?”

  “Because I can’t leave without first telling you what I’m feeling. You may not want to hear it, but I need to say it.”

  “What makes you think I won’t want to hear it?”

  “It could hurt you as much as it hurts me.”

  “I can stand it.”

  He probably could, but she wasn’t sure she could. Already the tears were welling up in her eyes. How much longer did she have to go on merely surviving? When was it going to be her turn? Suddenly she felt overwhelmed. Unable to stop herself, she burst into tears. Hawk took her in his arms, which made her cry harder. This was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. She’d given up so much, endured so much, why couldn’t she have just this one thing?

  “If it helps you to know this, I love you, too.”