Softly Falling

by Carla Kelly

  “I’m in favor. I’ll add my land and my herd to yours, and we’ll see what happens. How about it, Buxton?”

  “That’s Mr. Buxton to you,” the man said.

  “I don’t think so. What about it? Are you authorized to even do such a thing for a dissolved company?”

  Mr. Buxton sat back, his face thoughtful, now that money was involved. “I can do that. One thousand dollars. The shareholders’ll get about fifty dollars each. That should buy’em each ten boxes of Cuban cigars.” He had to get his dig in. “Will, this is another example of the stupidity that exiled you here in the first place. Your father will be delighted.”

  “Not sure I care, cousin.”

  “I have four hundred here in wages,” Will said. “Three hundred from me. Jack?”

  Without hesitating, Jack spread out five hundred dollars. “I’ll hold some back because I owe Manuel. That’s eight hundred. Lil?”

  Lily took a deep breath and deliberately counted out all of her money. “That’s two hundred and totals a thousand, Mr. Buxton.” She smiled at Jack. “Do I get my own brand?”

  “Absolutely, Lil. Go in the kitchen, love, and assure Madeleine that she has work here as long as she wants. Nick too. He’ll do our books and ride the range, just like he wants.”

  “Do your books?” Mr. Buxton asked. “Are you crazy?”

  “He learned a lot this winter, same’s the rest of us.”

  Lily hurried into the kitchen in time to see Fothering comforting Madeleine in a way that made her a little envious. No matter. She and Jack could swamp out the little house on the Sinclair Ranch and have their own peaceful time soon.

  “All right, you two,” she teased.

  “You found us out, my dear,” Fothering said in his pseudo-English accent. “I just proposed and my favorite cook accepted. I think we will open a restaurant in Wisner.”

  “Wisner needs something besides chop suey,” Lily said. She told them what Will and her husband had just done. “We were hoping you would just stay here,” she concluded.

  Fothering and Madeleine exchanged delighted glances. “We will give it strong consideration,” Fothering said.

  Mr. Buxton left, after he drew up a contract and extracted three signatures from the new owners of eight thousand acres of worn-out land. “Luella, I will see you tomorrow morning in Wisner. No later than nine, and no argument.”

  Lily put her arms around the little girl. “We’ll have her there.” She didn’t want to say that at all, but the man glowering before them was Luella’s father and she had no choice.

  Mr. Buxton left as soon as he could, assuring Jack that he could bury Mrs. Buxton whenever he felt like it. “We’ll put up a nice headstone,” Jack called as the man rode away from the Bar Dot.

  “I don’t think he heard you,” Lily said, taking his arm. “Good riddance.”

  They started back to the cookshack. “You don’t look too afraid of the daunting prospect before you, Mrs. Sinclair,” Jack said.

  “What daunting prospect?” she teased. “Oh, you mean who of us gets the chore of cleaning up behind the lean-to now that the snow has melted there?”

  “That’s the one, I mean,” he teased back. He opened the door. “You in there? Wasn’t the one who complained the most all winter supposed to ‘police the grounds,’ as they say over at Fort Laramie?”

  Everyone came outside. Amelie, Chantal, and Luella had become better than friends through the winter. They stood with linked arms. Nick walked toward Pierre. How could the boy have grown so tall on beans, onions, stringy beef, and a sugar cube? Preacher was looking over his little flock. Lily wondered how many prayers he had said for them all and said her own silent prayer of gratitude. Madeleine and Fothering already looked like a couple. Maybe all those arguments in the kitchen hadn’t been so vehement, after all. Will stood by himself. He would probably always be a solitary sort of man, but he had an air of confidence about him now.

  She leaned against her husband’s arm, wondering about love and how it happened. When she got off the train in that distant summer gone by, she had only wondered how soon she could leave this Wyoming Territory that was now her home. “God is good to me,” she whispered into Jack’s sleeve. He had the lion share of the property and Bismarck, this man of hers. No one was going to laugh at him now. Maybe in time the locals would come to understand her.

  “Here it is, crew,” Jack said. “The one who complained the most this winter gets the lime, a bucket, and shovel.”

  Everyone stepped forward, which made him look at her, his wife, tears in his eyes. “What do you do with people like this?” he asked.

  “Mostly love them,” she said. “I’ll get the bucket, boss.”

  CHAPTER 49

  The ground was ready to receive the two LC cowboys, Mrs. Buxton, the maid, and Stretch by midafternoon. Everyone took a turn digging the graves. Amelie, Chantal, and Nick spent a quiet moment by their father’s grave. Amelie left one of Stretch’s Farmer’s Almanacs on Jean Baptiste Sansever’s final resting place.

  “He would like to know that we can all read now, and that Nick is a marvel at numbers,” she told Lily. “Do you think he does?”

  “I am certain of it,” Lily said. She held Amelie close, admiring the cemetery beyond the schoolhouse, with its long view of prairie and mountains in the distance. All around them were dead cattle, which made her sigh. She turned precisely toward her new home two miles away. In her mind and heart, the Sinclair Ranch was going to be the spot everyone knew about as the place where ranching changed. Perhaps other ranchers had the same idea. She knew the little spread Jack won from her father in a card game was first, and best.

  After the two cowboys were at rest, they buried Stretch, the maid, and then Mrs. Buxton, a woman deeply troubled who was now at peace. By unspoken decision, Preacher handed his Bible to Jack, who turned to the book of Job.

  “ ‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.’ ” He read with real fluency and feeling, which made Preacher smile. “ ‘And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.’ ”

  Jack swallowed and handed the Bible to Lily. “I just can’t. This is hard.”

  “You’re good at hard,” she whispered, handing it back. “They want you, not me. You’re in charge.”

  He took back the Bible and turned to Psalms. “I like this one,” he said, sounding almost as shy an Amelie. “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou are with me.’ ” He stopped. “We all took that walk this winter.” He looked down at the graves and then around at them. “Some of us didn’t make it. I intend to make my life count for me and my . . . my own family, and for these dear ones who left us. That’s it and amen.”

  Jack and Lily took the buckboard to town, Preacher and his one suitcase in the backseat. Luella had refused to leave, and no one forced her. “I’ll make it right with your father,” Jack said. “I’ll tell him we’ll take good care of you.”

  They drove in companionable silence to Wisner, Lily’s hand on Jack’s knee. He kept inching it higher, which made her laugh and pinch him, but she didn’t remove it. Preacher, in the backseat, couldn’t see anything, but she doubted he would mind. He wasn’t that kind of preacher.

  “You have to tell me what’s so all-fired important in Alabama that you have to go back,” Jack said as they reached the depot. “I know it’s a Western credo not to ask questions, but I gotta know.”

  “Easy enough,” Preacher said as he took his suitcase out of the buckboard. “There’s a young lady in Dothan. I got cold feet and left. If she’ll forgive me, I’ll make that right too.”

  Lily clapped her hands in delight. “Preacher, you sly dog!”

  “Oh, you Sinclairs. I watched you two all winter, maybe even before you knew you loved each other,” he said simply.

  “Couldna been that early, Preach,” Jack said. “You weren’t with us in the Great Wall of
China Café.”

  Lily stared at her husband. He shrugged. “You looked mighty good over chop suey.”

  Lily laughed, her face flaming hot. She kissed Preacher. “Keep being a good man and come back with your wife.”

  “I just might.”

  They followed him inside the depot and there was Mr. Buxton, pacing up and down and glaring at his watch, as if it didn’t measure up, either. He saw them, then went to the window and looked outside.

  “She didn’t want to leave,” Jack said. “I hadn’t the heart to force her. We’ll take good care of her.”

  Mr. Buxton said nothing. He looked at them a long time, as if wondering at what point he had lost charge of his entire life, and then turned on his heel and went out to the platform. He stared at the tracks and came back inside. His shoulders drooped, and Lily had one small moment of pity.

  “If she decides to return to you, we’ll see that she gets to Moline,” she said.

  He nodded, took another breath, and was all business again. “Sinclair, I’ll take your contract to my attorney in Cheyenne. He’ll spruce it up and I’ll register it there. Next time you’re in Cheyenne, drop by the First National, and you’ll have the deed.” He held out his hand and Jack shook it. He didn’t hold out his hand to Lily, but she hadn’t expected him to.

  “Well, Lil, let’s drop by the bank and see just how pitiful my account is,” he told her.

  The teller had a smile for them both and turned to Lily. “I’m glad to see you! We’ve been holding two checks for your father from England. Just the usual. Sign for them and I’ll give you the money, so you can take it to him.”

  “My word,” Lily said, stunned. “I forgot he had remittance checks.”

  “We can understand why no one made it in from the Bar Dot this winter.” He ran a finger around his own too-loose collar. “It was a dilly, wasn’t it? Sign here, and I’ll get the money.”

  “Grab it and run,” Jack whispered out of the corner of his mouth when the teller turned away to complete the transaction.

  She did, holding her breath and afraid to look down at the bills until they stood on the sidewalk. “One hundred, two hundred—Jack, five hundred dollars!”

  He closed his eyes and turned his face to the warming sun. “I hadn’t even thought of those remittance checks. Do you think he’d mind if we used some of it for posts and bob wire?”

  “You’re the boss,” she reminded him, handing over the money.

  “So are you,” he said as he pocketed it.

  They spent the next hour in the bathhouse behind the hotel. The tub was too small to share, which Jack considered a great pity, so they took turns until the water ran clear. “That’s a lot of grime,” Jack said as he stood there with a towel around his middle and took a careful razor to his battered face. He looked back at her. “You’re getting all wrinkled, Lil.”

  “We’re going to have bathhouse on the ranch just as soon as cattle start paying again,” she told him.

  “Guess we’d better. You’re one of the bosses.”

  Clean and brushed, Lil felt almost self-conscious walking down the sidewalk. She was pretty sure what came next, even though chop suey would never be high on her list. Maybe there had been enough trains coming and going by now to drop off some green tea at Mr. Li’s Great Wall.

  As they passed the Back Forty, Lily’s attention was caught by a group of men standing around one of the still-snowy alleys. As they watched, one of the men ran for the sheriff.

  Jack shrugged. “I’m betting they’re finding dead cattle everywhere. On to Mr. Li. I insist.”

  The restaurant looked the same, and the menu had the same fly specks. She handed hers to her lord and master and favorite rancher. “Chop suey, of course.”

  While they were eating, Mr. Li took a moment from mysterious noises and fragrances from the kitchen to pull up a chair. He gave her a little bow.

  “Jack tell me he marry you, pretty missy. May you have many, many children.”

  “We’re working on it, Mr. Li,” Jack said cheerfully, which made Lily blush.

  Mr. Li nodded and gave Lily his attention again. “Missy, you let me know what day you want me to visit your class. I tell them all about China and bring almond cookies.”

  “My class?” Lily stared at him. It seemed so long ago that she had given that letter to her father and told him to drop it by the Great Wall. “You . . . you got the letter?”

  Mr. Li bobbed his head up and down. “Yes, missy. Mr. Carteret brought it right here and we ate chop suey.” His face fell. “It was snowing so hard, and I told him to hurry and run for the train, but he said it would be fine.”

  Jack leaned forward, his eyes intense. Lily clutched his arm. “Lots of heavy snow?”

  “Ah so. I told him after a while maybe he better just stay here and eat chop suey and get the train the next day, but no, he ran out.”

  Jack took her hand, probably squeezing it harder than he intended to. “Lily.”

  She didn’t know what he was going to say because the door slammed open then and the sheriff stood there, breathing hard. He took off his hat. “Miss Carteret.”

  “Sinclair,” Jack said automatically.

  “You’d better come with me. Good thing you’re here, Miss . . . Mrs. Sinclair? Jack, don’t let go of her.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Jack kept hold of her hand as they hurried after the sheriff toward the mounded snow in the alley.

  “Jack, you don’t think . . .” Think what? she asked herself frantically, her mind and heart on her father, the man who had delivered her letter to Mr. Li and run out into the storm, the man who had run off and abandoned her.

  Jack made her stay at the head of the alley while he threaded his way past snowdrifts and out behind the buildings. “Breathe, Lily, breathe,” she whispered.

  He came back more slowly, the crowd parting to let him through, his eyes disbelieving. He took her hand and his fingers were so cold. He tucked her close to his side. Two deep breaths. “Lily, your father didn’t run away and leave you.”

  She fell to her knees because her legs refused keep her upright. Jack knelt beside her in the mud and snow of the alley and they clung together. She cried tears of sorrow, anger, relief, and gratitude that Clarence Carteret, that weak man who told her she was the best thing he ever did, had not failed her after all.

  When she thought she could stand, she let Jack lead her through the alley and into the open field. She covered her nose with her fingers as they passed dead cattle. The crowd of men parted, and she saw a tall figure wearing a familiar overcoat, face down in the mud, still clutching his valise.

  The sheriff put a meaty hand on her shoulder. “I’m afraid it’s . . .”

  “My father,” she finished, calm now. “He got lost in the blizzard, didn’t he?”

  The sheriff nodded, his eyes solemn and sad. “It happens. One inch and he would’ve touched a building. Another inch . . .” He shrugged and turned away, leaving her scant privacy with what he thought was simply grief, but which was grief mingled with the greatest relief she had ever known.

  “He didn’t leave me,” she told Jack.

  “Not at all.”

  At her husband’s quiet words, the sheriff and others wrapped Clarence Carteret’s mortal remains in a blanket, knotting it securely, and carried them to the buckboard that Jack had pulled around. One of the bystanders handed Lily the valise. Tears in her eyes, she traced his initials on the worn bag. “Papa,” she whispered.

  They rode home in silence, Lily holding the valise tight in her arms, staring straight ahead. He never made it to Cheyenne, kept running through her brain. He never made it to Cheyenne.

  “Stop!” she cried.

  Jack spoke to the team. “What, honeybunch?” he asked, his voice so gentle.

  With hands that trembled, Lily opened the valise. She pawed through the jumble of clothes, a copy of King Solomon’s Mines, and her father’s ledger. Underneath everything was a ca
nvas bag. She pulled it out, widened the drawstring and gasped.

  Jack was looking over her shoulder. She heard his sharp intake of breath.

  “I’d forgotten about that,” he said finally. He leaned back and started to laugh.

  “Jack! How can you . . .” She stared at the money in her hands. “My word. Two thousand dollars that a dissolved company has already written off.”

  “We’d better hold a meeting of the ranch owners,” he said and slapped the reins.

  Will looked like he didn’t know whether to look serious or let out a whoop. They had taken him aside in the barn. “Who are we supposed to give this to?” he asked, his expression puzzled. “There isn’t any company. Mr. Buxton said so. I even have my doubts that he’s going to turn that thousand of ours over to anyone. Who should get this? No one owns the Cheyenne Land and Cattle Company, Lily. It doesn’t exist.”

  They were both looking at her as though it was her money. Maybe it was, in a way. Oh, what was she thinking? She was silent, remembering what the old Clarence Carteret would have spent it on. She suddenly knew what the new Clarence Carteret would have done.

  “How many of us are there?” she asked, even though she knew. “Counting Preacher.”

  “Eleven.” He laughed. “I believe you’re right, honeybunch. Divide it evenly between us all?”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Madeleine and Fothering will get the lion’s share with the children,” he reminded her.

  “I know. Good! I have Papa’s remittance money, at least until I write to my uncle and tell him what happened, and he shuts off any more.”

  “That could take a while,” Will said. “Even a year or two, if you play it right.”

  “No, it won’t,” she said, serene now in a way she had never been before. “I’ll write him tonight. There might be a final settlement for me or there might not be. It doesn’t matter. We are all honorable people.”

  Will nodded, even though she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Then he grinned. “Guess I still have some faulty character to work on, huh?”