by Thea Devine
"Papa . . ." she began, as if to argue with him right there, and he held up his hand.
"Come, my dear. Excuse us, will you?"
Kalida resentfully followed him out onto the porch, sat down on a rush-bottomed slatted-back rocker, and looked up at her father. "What now, Papa? Are you going to abandon me to Deuce?"
"Abandon you? The very idea! Kalida, you have some very strange notions in your head."
"Don't I though?" she murmured. "All right, what is it then this time, Papa?"
"Well, there is now working capital, as you well know, and I need to be in town to oversee things."
"But that's perfect! I'll come with you. I'd rather be in town than here," Kalida said cheerfully, knowing full well this pretense would not fool her father nor get her one step away from Sweetland.
"Kalida, my dear, you do know that's not possible. Not only would Deuce not allow it, neither would I. I intend to put up at the roughest lodgings — merely a place to sleep at night while I superintend the rebuilding of the ranch and begin negotiating for a new herd. I must be close to the mail and have access to the railroad and hire workmen, and none of that is possible here. And you are well aware of it. So what are you up to?" His tone was reasonable, his arguments were persuasive.
Kalida stared out at the vista for a moment. She could just see the diamond-drop sparkles of the spring away in the distance. What was she up to, indeed? "How important is the syndicate to you now?" she asked abruptly. His harsh answer came instantly. "I want it." She looked at him. The smooth joviality of his expression had turned hard, almost uncompromising. She would get no sympathy for her plans from him. He was determined to do what he was going to do, and he did not
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need the excess baggage of a meddling daughter to slow him down.
"Why?" His question was a guncrack in the silence.
She hesitated a moment and then plunged. "It seems to me that Deuce has bought and paid for, by contract, a certain amount of your property. I'm pretty sure that contract doesn't specify your daughter as part of that property. Or does it?" She tilted her head questioningly, not reassured that her father had the grace to turn away. "He isn't honor-bound to marry me," she went on dryly. "The terms of that agreement pretty well went out the window when the ranch burned down. And only my honor will keep me here, because otherwise there would have been no refinancing for you. But that's done now. And he doesn't need me here."
"But Sweetland . . ." her father prompted, turning back to her.
"He said next year, if you can afford it."
"Then you must stay," he said—calmly, he thought, but a certain urgency in his tone communicated itself to her. "You do understand that, Kalida. No matter what, you're bound to stay with him if he promised you that."
Her eyes darkened to navy as she regarded him. "And you just go off and leave me."
"It has to be." He was adamant; he needed her compliance on this. "No matter what, I still need Sweetland, Kalida."
"And I'm the price," she said, almost to herself. "Well, that's that then. I won't renege, Papa, but I still am going to try to get out of it."
"Remember where your first attempt got you," her father reminded her pointedly. "Don't jeopardize what I'm trying to do, Kalida. I won't have it."
"And isn't that the problem —what everyone will and won't have," Kalida said scornfully. "Except me. My sole contribution is to do what I'm told. Well, / won't have
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that, Papa."
He looked at her closely; she was bluffing, he thought. There wasn't much else she could do. Deuce was determined, and she would not get away from him. It was the one thing he had counted on, besides the generous infusion of cash to his bank account. If he could pull off his own plan, he would be sitting pretty himself. And he wanted that. In a way, he felt Kalida owed him the chance to try to recoup. But he couldn't put it to her that way. All she saw was that she was being bartered like a piece of property. And she was. He hadn't thought she would prove to be nearly so valuable to him.
"You'll do what you have to," he said finally. "I think you'll give me my chance to get back on my feet before you do anything rash." He watched her face now, knowing how hard it was for her mobile mouth to keep from expressing her feelings. Her cobalt eyes clouded over and her firm lips worked to deny that she would do anything except what was good for herself. But she couldn't. He saw it and knew it. Her mouth twisted in resignation. "You won't, will you?" he pressed. "I have my own plans," she said enigmatically. "You could love Deuce if you would let yourself," he threw out in desperation.
The thought amused her. "Why should I? All he needs is a decoration for his house and heirs. Anyone would do." Her eyes were bright again, as if she expected him to leap on this cryptic statement.
He didn't. "I'll be gone a month .or so, Kalida. Please try to behave."
She stood up and held out her arms. "I'll be laying groundwork, Papa. Nothing more. Yet."
Her father put his arms around her lightly, noncommit-tally. "I do not like the sound of that," he said sternly, warningly. "Don't complicate our only chance to recover what we've lost."
She kissed his cheek. "What if—what if Deuce turns out to have other plans?"
"What other plans? I know his plans; he has no other plans," her father said sharply, setting her away from him. Damn, but she looked so young and vulnerable in that ridiculous dress and that infantile arrangement of her hair. Just for an instant he felt a pang at the thought of leaving her.
"He could change his mind about me," Kalida murmured. "He might find he -wants someone else."
Ryland shook his head despairingly. "Hold on to that thought if it comforts you," he advised her, "but don't be surprised to find it's just a daydream."
She smiled at him without rancor. It was obvious his mind was set: Deuce's money had bought the cattle and Kalida. Thank goodness he was going to town for the month. Otherwise he very definitely would have interfered with her plans. "Good-bye, Papa. Let me know how you're getting on."
"I'm not going forever, my girl," he said gruffly, sensing her capitulation to his wishes. "I'll be in touch. Let me know when Deuce brings down the herd, will you?"
"He said something about next week," Kalida told him.
"That 1000 soon? Well, he'll have his hands full if he pastures them on the Balsam Range, but that's his problem," her father said, hugging her again.
"He apparently plans on keeping them separate at Morgan field, Papa; they won't get mixed in with the syndicate. I expect he'll brand them there and then turn them out." She returned the hug, this time with reasonable emotion. She was sad at his going and desolated that Deuce would run their cattle, and she fully felt that her father was experiencing the same emotion.
He patted her shoulders as he released her. "It's all right, Kalida. I had already made up my mind that when it was done, I would put it behind me, no regrets. Deuce
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paid a very fair price, all things considered; I could not have expected more under the circumstances, and if I had had to market them myself, I could well have gotten less. I promise you, he means well with you, and you must give him a chance."
She didn't answer him, and he moved away from her, down the porch steps before she answered. "Don't make me promise, Papa."
He smiled at that, satisfied, and turned toward the barn with a wave of his hand, leaving Kalida, a rather forlorn-looking figure, standing on the porch staring after him. But he didn't see that. He saw his future ahead of him, bright with a certain kind of promise. He saw straight ahead of him, one step after the other. Kalida was out of sight now, and for Hal Ryland, she was out of mind.
"Stand still now, Kalida, and take off that awful dress," Ardelle commanded, hobbling around the small stool on which Kalida had been forced to stand in the parlor at Madame Dupuis's behest.
"I feel like a rag doll," Kalida said unappreciatively.
Ardelle and Ellie were both looking up at
her, and Madame Dupuis, a rather tall, gray-haired, black-garbed haughty older woman, with snappy compelling dark eyes, was rummaging around in a huge black bag that she seemingly habitually carried with her, oblivious to the torrential tirade of abuse that Ardelle heaped on her because of Kalida's ill-chosen dress. She merely shrugged, sent a black look at Ellie, and went for her bag where she claimed she kept her measuring tape and patterns. Her search allowed her to hide her face and her mouth, which was issuing imprecations against the idle wealthy who thought they could get away with anything, even maligning her taste. Meanwhile, Ardelle Cavender was beginning to, in the midst of her dressing down, have doubts as to
whether they should allow Madame Dupuis to even measure them if Kalida's dress were an example of how she could outfit them.
And Ellie's opaque black eyes glittered and just dared her to reveal that Kalida's dresses were Ellie's choice.
"Mademoiselle was in a hurry," she muttered as she tossed things out of her bag. "Haste was paramount; it mattered not what she wore so much as she had something to wear, non? One does not have dresses ready made on rack for every size and coloration every day, Madame; surely it is obvious no one would have chosen to outfit Mademoiselle so unless it were absolutely necessary to do so, and I was given to understand ... ah! Now!" She looked at Ardelle, who was somewhat mollified by this semblance of an explanation, and she handed over her pattern books and fabric samples. Ardelle took them with more willingness than she had thus far exhibited to see Madame's work, scanning through them quickly and with an exacting eye.
"All right; these will do," she said at last, and Madame Dupuis let out a covertly held breath.
"I will have several skirts and shirtwaists if you please, and nothing fancier," Kalida put in, watching Ellie move gracefully to a chair by the window and sink into it with just the faintest air of boredom.
"Just take off the dress," Ardelle ordered, "and I'll have Prestina burn it. Now, Kalida."
Kalida shrugged, raised her arms to unfasten the hooks at the neck of the dress, and then shrugged her arms out of the sleeves and let it slide fluidly down the curves of her naked body into a gingham puddle at her feet.
"Kalida!"
This unladylike roar issued through the thin, firm lips of the most ladylike Ardelle.
Kalida shrugged again and bent forward to pick up the dress, a move that threw her breasts in sharp relief against
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the bright light of the window.
"I suppose you hadn't a chemise to spare," Ardelle commented sarcastically.
"Not a one," Kalida agreed calmly, wrapping her upper torso in the dress. She turned to Ellie, whose glittery black eyes seemed fastened to her long bare legs. "Ellie? Didn't you say you had gotten some underthings for me?"
Her dulcet tone snapped Ellie's attention back to her. She rose from her chair. "I believe I did. Can I have forgotten to give them to you?" She sent an insincere smile in Kalida's direction.
Kalida stepped down off the little footstool. "I believe you did."
Ardelle said, "Please, Ellie. I want to get on with the measuring. At this rate, Madame Dupuis won't even begin to get started this week."
"Don't let me hold her up," Kalida interpolated, and Ardelle sent her a scorching look and motioned Ellie out of the room. Kalida sank onto a small velvet-covered sofa, musing on the fantasy of Deuce still being around the house somewhere and what might have happened if Ellie had encountered him. Would he be polite? Probably. Ellie did look particularly fetching this morning, but since Ardelle had not yet formulated her objections to Kalida, he would only see her in the guise of a particularly charming guest in his house.
But surely, Kalida decided, he would remember the drift of ladylike rose-colored dress in his upstairs hallway and the calm, deliberate way that Ellie seemed to go about doing things. And surely, when he was made to see how unsuitable she, Kalida, was, the early morning vision of Ellie in fresh morning rose would recur to him and, perhaps, send his desire in a totally new direction.
The thought was so pleasant that a small contented smile played on her lips. She was absolutely on the right track; she had only to think of the next thing to do when
Ellie returned with the chemise.
And, in fact, it seemed like only moments before Ardelle nudged her and handed her the flimsy length of cotton knit undergarment. She took it resentfully and slipped into it as Ardelle and Ellie watched, and somehow she felt more embarrassed by this act than having appeared before both of them stark naked.
"All right," Ardelle said briskly, "back up on the footstool please, thank you."
Kalida obliged meekly, hef mind teeming. Madame Dupuis flurried around her with measuring tape, pencil, and paper, on which she took copious notes. "Bon," she muttered at last, and motioned Kalida to step down. "Now, Mademoiselle — " She beckoned to Ellie, who looked around at Kalida and Ardelle, and then said timorously, "Could we do this in private?"
Ardelle thought a moment and nodded, directing Kalida to put on her dress in that same no-nonsense voice she had been using with her since last night. Kalida hid a smile as she slid the dress over her head, and then followed Ardelle into the hallway.
"Ellie's modesty is becoming," Ardelle commented, with a meaningful look at Kalida.
"I think it's stupid," Kalida said flatly, and was gratified by Ardelle's disgusted reaction. They did not speak for the ten minutes that it took for Madame Dupuis to take measurements and notes, and for Ellie to dress.
When they were invited back into the parlor, Madame Dupuis was all business. She had laid out her patterns and fabric samples on the floor, and sat in a chair beside them. Ellie was back in the chair by the window, looking like a flushed rose, and Ardelle and Kalida seated themselves on the sofa.
"Now," Ardelle said abruptly, "we have the underthings and shoes. Therefore, four dresses, one suitable for evening—I leave to you the styles and colors; two shirtwaists,
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two skirts, wool and cotton weave is suitable for working around the ranch when required I believe. You will start on the house dresses first, and perhaps a skirt and shirtwaist apiece so that we're not totally confined indoors."
"Colors?" murmured Madame. "A suggestion —? The green would go better for Mademoiselle Ellie. Red and gray she can wear very well with her coloring. The gold taffeta also becomes her; I have only to take it in a little."
Ardelle nodded and looked at Ellie questioningly. "I put myself in your hands," Ellie said softly.
"Bien. Now, Mademoiselle Kalida ... the blue, of course; and the rose is suitable, white, blue-gray, black, lavender-blue, perhaps. Always the blue for the eyes, quite lovely is Mademoiselle," Madame finished suddenly at Ardelle's quelling look. She bent forward and gathered up her samples. "It is time to begin."
"Yes," Ardelle agreed, "now we begin."
Kalida made a fuss. If they were to tour the ranch, she had to change; she just couldn't go gallivanting around in that light, horrifically unsuitable dress, she couldn't. Ardelle's expression became hectic as she excused her and led Ellie out onto the porch.
Kalida dashed upstairs quickly, pulled off the offending dress, dived into the cotton shirt and skirt, and peered out the window. From Deuce's room, she could just hear the drone of voices, but whether they-came from the barn or the porch she couldn't tell.
She fully intended to keep Ardelle and Ellie waiting as long as possible, but her impatient nature did not allow her to sit still. She knew Deuce was cutting cattle on the Balsam Range; she had a deep yearning to be out on the range, unfettered and helping. Dangerous, that kind of yearning. It was just part and parcel of the things she had
done at home, things she would never be allowed to do again.
She wondered what Ardelle was saying about her. She wondered whether she oughn't ease up on this first day of her campaign to earn Ardelle's dislike. But she couldn't control the situations, and they seemed to be comi
ng thick and fast, with opportunities to be seized and used at the moment. '•
She contained herself for .twenty long minutes before she appeared on the porch, ready for instruction.
Ardelle said, "Humph," reached for her cane, and led them around to the front of the house. Kalida was gratified to watch Ellie pick her way through the dust and dew-moist grass with disdainful little movements as she lifted her skirt and wrinkled her nose, as if to say, is this necessary?
"The original house," Ardelle was saying, pointing with her cane. "When my brother arrived here twenty or more years ago, he built a sod hut. Deuce was just entering his teens then, Camilla was just a little girl. They hardly had anything; and, in fact, when Asa first went to Texas, father cut him off without an allowance, since he wasn't about to follow in the shipping business. No, Asa caught western fever, and he had come up north with the original drives in the sixties and married after that, and then it took ten years and more for him to convince his wife that they were coming to Montana before it was too late.
"She died several years after they came; the life was too hard for her, I suspect. Nothing was like it is now. The original house was two rooms, with a stove for cooking and heating in the one room, and a stone fireplace in what was the bedroom. The kitchen had a dirt floor and she never could keep it clean, even with laying down canvas, even after Asa laid the plank floor. And no windows but the two original ones you see in front here, and muslin material for a wall covering with newspapers
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over that for decoration. Well, my sister-in-law came from a right well-to-do family herself, and it almost killed her to do the kind of work she had to do while Asa was out herding cows.
"She hated the gardening and she hated the chores, even after the children were old enough to help, and she finally took sick and got out of the whole mess." Ardelle paused, looking at Ellie's rapt expression and Kalida's cool disdain, which hid the fact she was listening avidly. Ardelle sensed it. She went on.
