Softly Falling

by Carla Kelly

  He hadn’t even the courage to face his own lies. Did he think a ranch would materialize before she arrived?

  “Oh, Papa,” she whispered as she gathered up the pages and returned them to the waste basket. She went back to the bed and touched his shoulder, giving him a little shake. When he opened his eyes, she knelt by the bed and kissed his cheek, unsure of herself.

  “I’m here, Papa. It’s your Lily.”

  With a grunt that sounded like a protest, Clarence Carteret opened his eyes, closed them quickly, and then opened them again. “You’re really here,” he said. He closed his eyes once more. “It’s not much, is it?” he asked, and she heard the shame in his voice.

  “No, it isn’t,” she agreed, “but I’m here and maybe we can make something better.”

  He nodded but made no move to rise. Lily knelt there, uncertain, and then decided there was no time like the present to get to know her own father. She stood up, took his arm, and tugged him into a sitting position. His protest was feeble, and he sat there with elbows on knees, head in his hands. He still wouldn’t look at her.

  “Mr. Sinclair tells me that the cookshack is open until six and I am hungry,” she said. “What do you plan to do about that?”

  She had hoped he would rise to the challenge, but he continued to sit there, a beaten-down man.

  “Papa?”

  “I don’t usually eat dinner,” he said finally, his voice muffled.

  “What about breakfast?”

  He made a weak gesture toward the lean-to. “I have soda crackers in there for breakfast. It helps the nausea.”

  Lily sat beside him on the bed and linked her arm through his. “Papa, do you only eat at noon?”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  They sat together in silence, strangers to each other. “Do you have anything besides soda crackers?” Lily asked finally.

  “There might be some cheese.” He chuckled but with no amusement. “I have the wine in here.”

  “Well, then, don’t go anywhere.”

  It was the smallest of quips and it brought the smallest of smiles, but Lily counted it good. “Be right back,” she said and left his room. She went into the lean-to and just stood there, wondering how on earth she could help this stranger. She opened the back door and breathed deep, but got a strong whiff of corral for her efforts.

  She found the soda crackers and some cheese that had hardened and was starting to crack around the edges. A handful of raisins made up the menu. The cheese was dubious, but her stomach growled again and she didn’t care. A lengthy search turned up a pitiful excuse of a knife that sawed through the cheese and left an indent in her finger.

  Papa was still sitting on the edge of the bed, but the level in the wine glass had declined. He shook his head at the crackers, then changed his mind when Lily gave him a fierce look.

  She pulled up the stool again and ate, hungry and wanting more, but too shy to go to the cookshack. Whether she could bludgeon her father into breakfast tomorrow remained in dispute, but she knew she would be there.

  The silence was awkward—two people who hadn’t seen each other in years. Lily couldn’t overlook the fine tremor in his right hand, even though she tried not to stare at this ruin of a man. He ate crackers and sipped from his wine glass, growing more steady with every sip.

  “What do you do here, Papa?” she asked finally.

  “I manage the books for Mr. Buxton.” Then the old flair came back that she remembered. “I can call him Oliver, but no one else can,” he boasted.

  But you can’t hang onto a ranch, she thought.

  Finally, it was too much for Clarence Carteret. He sat there, cracker in hand, defeated finally by stale food as he had been defeated by everything else in life, from the looks of him. Silently, she took the cracker from his hand. He shook his head when she put his wine glass so far away on the bureau, but another fierce look from Lily stopped the mutiny on his weak face. He lay down again, knowing she would cover him, and she did.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Papa,” she said as she closed his door. No response.

  She leaned against the door, tired from her heart. When someone knocked, she just stared at it for a long, stupid moment. The only person she knew in the whole United States of America was Jack Sinclair, who understood precisely what her father was. For one small moment, she wanted to throw herself on his chest and cry, but the moment passed.

  She opened the door and there, indeed, was Mr. Sinclair, but he had a child with him. The little girl smiled at her and held out a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. She took it, feeling the softness of the bread and the warmth of her smile.

  “Please come in.” Lily put her finger to her lips. “Mr. Carteret is asleep.” She gestured to the packing crate settee as graciously as she could, banishing all thoughts of her uncle’s best sitting room, because that life she had put behind her.

  “May I introduce Miss Chantal Sansever?”

  “You may,” Lily said and held out her hand. “I’m Lily Carteret, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Her eyes wide, Chantal took her hand and gave it three distinct shakes. “Jack says three shakes for ladies,” she whispered.

  Lily laughed, then had to turn away when Chantal put her finger to her lips in perfect imitation. “I forgot,” Lily whispered. “Do sit down, please. Who do I have to thank for this sandwich?”

  “My mother,” Chantal whispered back. She let Mr. Sinclair lift her onto the settee. “She said you were probably too tired to come to the cookshack, so we would make allowances just this once. It’s ground up roast from dinner, with a little onion and sage mixed in.” She put her hands in her lap. “And that is all I am supposed to say, because I am a child.” Chantal looked at Mr. Sinclair for approval, and he nodded.

  “There’s one more thing, isn’t there?” Mr. Sinclair asked.

  Chantal dug into her apron pocket and brought out a peppermint, coated with pocket lint. She frowned at the lint, blew it off, then handed it to Lily. “Jack said I had enough to share.”

  “I’ll put it in my pocket and save it for a special occasion,” Lily said softly.

  “She wanted to meet you,” Mr. Sinclair explained. He held out two pictures. “I said she could come along when I brought these over.”

  Her heart full, Lily took the pictures, one of a tall woman. She remembered the woman in fleeting ways, as if seen through gauze. “She was so beautiful,” she said, running her finger lightly over the image.

  “You look like her, Miss Carteret,” Chantal said, then looked at Mr. Sinclair with a frown. “Is it all right for me to say that? Mama said I mustn’t make a social blunder.”

  “It is a fine compliment, and I thank you.” Lily looked at the other picture. “I’ve never seen this one.”

  “It’s you, isn’t it?” Chantal asked. She sighed. “I keep talking. Mr. Sinclair, you should say something instead of me because you are a grown-up.”

  “You’re the rightful owner of these, even if the ranch is mine now,” Jack said. “They’ve kept me company for a few months.”

  “You probably have your own photographs,” Lily said.

  “Not one. I’ll miss these ladies,” he told her. He looked around the room and shook his head at the half-strung barrier. “So this is your corner of the room? I’d have thought . . .” He paused. “Well, no, this is what he would have done. Can I finish the job?”

  Without waiting for a reply, Mr. Sinclair took the sagging end, stretched it taut, and then wrapped the wire around a nail that Papa must have driven before the whole business defeated him. He draped the two army blankets across the wire.

  “Not too fancy, but it’ll do until something better comes along.”

  And that will be precisely never, Lily thought. “Thank you. I am certain you are right,” she said.

  “I mean it, Lily,” he said, his voice as firm as his expression. “Do you have a plan yet?”

  She shook her head,
not even trying to disguise her shame at such a father, and the greater shame at knowing everyone else knew too.

  “Get one fast,” he said, and it was no suggestion. “After Chantal and I leave, take a good look out that window in the lean-to. A good look. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at breakfast at 5:30 and I expect you to have a plan.”

  “Why do you care?” she asked, keeping her voice low, angry just the same because she was embarrassed.

  He indicated the pictures she held. “Because I’ve been tending these ladies for a few months and I’ve been talking to them. It gets slow here in the winter. Do it for them.”

  “But . . .”

  He nodded to her, his equanimity restored, and held out his hand to Chantal. “Your mama will be wondering where we wandered. Good evening, Miss Carteret. Enjoy that sandwich.”

  She did, crying and eating, and wiping her nose, and then repeating the process until the whole sandwich was gone. When she finished, she went to the lean-to and looked out the window.

  The moon had come up, which made the buildings look less ugly. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass and closed her eyes, thinking through her day that had begun with those dratted expectations, and ended with none, or almost none. She opened her eyes and looked.

  Beyond the jumble of ranch buildings was that schoolhouse. She could think of it as isolated, but she could also think of it as looking down on a little community. She only knew three people in the community, or maybe just two. Maybe her father shouldn’t count.

  She was a woman and knew that much wasn’t expected of her. Little Chantal might see her as a lady, but she knew from painful experience that not everyone would. She could stay in this wretched little shack that represented her father’s last chance. She knew that women didn’t get as many chances.

  She looked at the schoolhouse again. “I’ve never taught anyone anything in my life,” she whispered to the window. “I can’t.”

  It took her no time at all to prepare for bed. By the time she had spread out the sheets and blankets, she was starting to shiver. She lay in bed and thought of muskrats and thin cattle, and drift fences and woolly caterpillars, and of a man with a gaunt face and a scar, and a pampered Hereford. Her last thought of the day, after she had dried her eyes, was the view from the lean-to.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jack woke up even earlier than usual, staring by habit at the space above his apple crate bureau where he had kept the two pretty women for several months, just because a fool was too proud to ask for his pictures. He put his hands behind his head and lay there, admiring them in his imagination.

  “You there on the left,” he said to the dignified and so beautiful lady, “your daughter should probably be crying her eyes out right now, but I bet she isn’t.” He sighed. “And why not, you ask? Probably because she has few expectations. What happened yesterday has to be one calamity of many, with such a father.”

  He imagined looking at the young girl in the other frame, younger than little Chantal Sansever, but so serious. “Miss Carteret, it appears that your childhood, although spent in comparative luxury, was likely no more pleasant than mine.”

  He had almost hated to surrender the pictures to Lily Carteret, because he had become so fond of them. He had no family, and the two women—one of color and the other of a creamy blend—filled his heart more than he knew at the time. They were ladies of quality but suspended in an unkind world, because they fit no mold.

  “Did I come on too strong last night, practically ordering you to get a plan, and quick?” he asked. He was a good judge of character, learned the hard way during the War of Yankee Aggression as he rose from private to sergeant and then to lieutenant and back to less-than-nobody after the surrender. The six hours he had spent in her company yesterday showed him a woman exercising a certain awe-inspiring calm because that was how she survived the unfairness of her life. He recognized it because it mirrored his own almost thirty-six years.

  Still . . . he should never have disquieted her with his fears of the coming winter. Considering Sinclair luck, he was probably wrong anyway. I’m not wrong, he thought, lying there. I know I’m not.

  Time would tell. Time would also tell if he had been a fool to sink so much money into an English bull, when fortunes were being made in these northern territories on scrub stock trailed up from Texas on yearly drives. Maybe only a fool would invest in a purebred bull, when money was being made from lesser beef.

  Still . . . for someone from Georgia who had come out West in 1866 knowing next to nothing about cattle and even horses, he had learned from his hard school. Wartime experience had taught him to never say no to an opportunity, no matter how little he knew. Most important was his willingness to give his all, get up, and try again. He understood horses, and cattle weren’t so bright.

  Hard choices on the open range had shaped Jack Sinclair even more than the war. Marching and fighting and obeying orders hadn’t required much skill. Making good decisions, even the small ones at first, had turned him into a foreman whose word was law, and who had confidence to spare.

  He had thought that winning the little ranch and buying the bull had required the payment of all his bravado, but maybe he was wrong. There seemed to be a little more confidence lurking in the corner of his heart, just enough to allow the smallest thought of a home of his own, and maybe someday a wife to manage it. The thought made him glance into his front room and look at his one easy chair. “I’ll need another chair,” he said out loud, then laughed. You’ll need more than that, he thought, squelching such nonsense. Some things weren’t going to come his way now, especially in a territory with so few women, and even fewer of them ladies. And he wanted a lady.

  “My dears,” he said, “I’m glad you found a new wall.”

  He got dressed and stopped on his front porch, breathing deep and drawing advancing autumn into his lungs, even if his calendar said early September. He felt the momentary satisfaction he always enjoyed—looking at a well-run ranch from his doorstep. The place was buttoned down for winter, with most of the hands let go to ride the grubline and come back in the spring, when the early work began. He’d find enough to keep his four remaining hands busy. There were harnesses to mend and horses to water, doctor, and cajole. Preacher was good at duties around the big house, since the Buxtons’ cook complained more and more of aching joints. There would be cattle to coax away from air holes when the snow came and covered those treacherous patches by the river. He and Indian could handle that, even those Texas cattle that took exception to their first winter in the north and tried to drift south where they remembered warmth.

  Stretch and Will had already left for town to bring back barrels of apples, potatoes, and flour. Jack had told Stretch to keep an eye on Will, who had a saloon habit. He had only agreed to keep Will on through the winter because he was Mr. Buxton’s cousin.

  Jack looked toward the cookshack, unable to help that the habitual frown between his eyes deepened. He was a man of some imagination, but it took no creativity to remember the piercing screams from the cookshack when Oliver Buxton told Madeleine Sansever, in his usual ham-handed way, that her man had died breaking horses. Ordinarily so careful around green horses, Jean Baptiste Sansever had just looked away long enough to get a kick to the head that broke his neck. Everyone in the corral heard the snap.

  After he and Preacher brought Jean to the cookshack on a plank, Jack had stayed to hold little Chantal on his lap as she wet his shirt with her tears. Her older sister, Amelie, had grown even quieter in the face of her mother’s agony. And Nicholas? Only twelve, Nick had taken a gun from somewhere and killed the horse. Then he ran away. Manuel had found him two days later, crouched in Bismarck’s hay barn, all cried out and grim.

  You people are my family, Jack thought, as he walked toward the cookshack.

  Preacher and Indian were already seated at their benches in the cookshack, digging in to porridge, elbows on the table. “I said grace, Jack, so you can eat with a pure hear
t,” Preacher said in that straight-faced way of his. “Looks like flapjacks next. God praise.”

  Jack raised his hand to them and went into the kitchen where Madeleine, hair wild around her face, was stirring down oatmeal lava. Chantal cracked another egg in the flapjack batter and gave him her smile, the one that made her brown eyes all squinty and never failed to melt his heart. Amelie nodded to him as she stirred the batter, her eyes shy but no less admiring.

  Madeleine made no objection when he patted her cheek. Madeleine had told him once that he reminded her of her little brother, even though Jack was certain that he was older than she. He had said that to her, and Madeleine just shrugged in her Métis way.

  “I hear she is a pretty lady,” Madeleine said as she lifted the oatmeal pot onto a trivet. She handed him a bowl. “Chantal says Mademoiselle Carteret has skin the color of wrapping paper. Can this be?”

  “It can,” he said, spooning out oatmeal and sugaring it well. “I hope she’ll be here for breakfast, and I hope you’ll treat her nice.”

  “I will if she is not too good for us.”

  “She’s not,” Jack replied and hoped he was right.

  Grateful that the one cow on the place was still giving milk, Jack poured cream on his oatmeal and took it into what Clarence Carteret called “the dining hall,” with its benches and three long tables, testament to the number of cowhands hired on between April and most Septembers. Now the men of the Bar Dot were just crickets sawing on the hearth, sitting at half of one table. He mentally shook his head over the neatly folded blankets in the corner, where the Sansever children bedded down. Madeleine and Jean Baptiste had slept in a small room off the storeroom in the back, and no one was particularly choosy in the Sansever household. Thinking about the winter to come, he eyed the dining hall for warmth. He would ask Preacher what he could do to keep out drafts. Preacher was better at indoor work anyway.

  Jack sat down with his ranch hands as the door opened and Miss Carteret stepped inside, uncertainty written everywhere on her expressive face. He wondered how long she had stood outside that door, steeling herself to step inside. Hunger obviously overruled shyness. He got up.