by Thea Devine
"Much as I came to care for Asa later on, Prestina came to take care of Lydia. By then, because the children were growing, Asa had raised the roof and added the two upstairs rooms. But privacy and patient care did not help Lydia. Prestina stayed for the children, and Asa calmly went about building his cattle empire. When he accumulated enough money, he built the new house, but Deuce wouldn't let him tear down the original house, and he uses the downstairs rooms—still the original sod that Asa boarded over as he enhanced the house—Deuce uses those rooms as offices for the syndicate.
"Five years ago Asa took ill —lived long enough to see Camilla married off to an English investor who had come to buy into one of the larger spreads. Anyway, that's the first house, and Asa built it and enlarged it with his own two hands. The barn"—she pointed now to the larger log-hewn structure that was set at a perpendicular angle a hundred feet or so from the house—"he built it too; you remember they used to site them like that because of the Indian attacks. This is the beginning of Sweetland, just what you see here, and the Musselshell River in the distance, and why Asa chose to settle here, along with its proximity to Jtozeman. He didn't want any truck with Miles City—Milestown it was then —lawless place.
"It was better here. Most of those pick-up-and-go ranchers hunkered in along the Powder River anyway. It
was getting too crowded, Deuce said, and they had gone on a survey trip to confirm that. No, Asa was happier here where there weren-'t too many neighbors to horn in on things. He had the whole shebang to himself, along with his connections in Texas."
Ardelle started walking, stabbing the ground with her cane to emphasize her words —or perhaps her anger at circumstances * beyond her brother's control. "My father would have been proud of Asa, if he had lived to see this. But he didn't." She shook her head. "Then, of course, Deuce took over and made it bigger and better, got more money, bought the land, which, young lady"—she pointed at Kalida—"was perhaps one of the smartest things your own father did."
"His backers insisted," Kalida murmured, fascinated by Sweetland's history and where Ardelle was leading them — past the old corrals and the old barn, to the long side of the newer house, and beyond that to the bunkhouse and cookhouse, pointing out the laundry, the dairy, the garden, of course, the canning cellar, the sanitary facilities that were discreetly hidden by bushes and stood close to the house. More outbuildings behind the bunkhouse stored their hired hands' gear, housed the horses that were not on the range, stored the buckboard and flatbed wagons, the hay baler and other implements.
It was ten times larger than her father's spread, Kalida thought in dismay, and didn't account for the thousands of acres of grazing Jand and streams and valleys that were like gold to a cattle rancher.
"There are still chores to be done by the mistress of Sweetland," Ardelle went on as they walked. "We have two Cheyenne women who come twice a week for laundry, of course, because of the men, and Prestina supervises the house. We do the sewing, plan the meals, tend the garden, put up the fruits and vegetables. I help Deuce with his account books during summer and winter
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roundup, as well as I keep the books for the household expenses and make sure we never want for anything." She looked at Kalida. "One is never idle at Sweetland." "Does one never get away from Sweetland?" Kalida
asked sardonically.
"Why would one want to?" Ellie asked softly.
Perfect! Kalida thought balefully. Ellie had all the right responses, especially the ones she could never bring herself to make.
"I never have wanted to," Ardelle said with a serious finality that put a period to that discussion.
"I should like to watch the cutting and branding," Kalida announced, daring Ardelle to dissuade her.
"I don't doubt you would," Ardelle agreed, giving the notion some consideration. "I suppose it does come under the heading of entertaining the guests, since you are still to be counted as our guests. Guests never tire of watching real ranch work going on." "I never tire of doing it," Kalida snapped, put out by
Ardelle's insinuations.
"I would not advertise the fact if I were you," Ardelle tossed back pointedly, her speculative eyes wondering whether Kalida would jump out of the carriage and take over the branding pen if indeed she did consent to take
them.
She wheeled in the opposite direction, still undecided, when a figure on horseback barreled into the barnyard, hailing them with a shout.
"Danton," Ardelle murmured. "What the devil is he
doing back?"
She moved backward slightly as he pulled in his heaving mount and dismounted in a supple movement, with an instant smile that included all of them. "Howdy, ma'am," he said respectfully to Ardelle and removed his hat, and Kalida had the impression that he wasn't being respectful at all. His bright hazel eyes skimmed over Ellie
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and herself, settling for the briefest moment on her breasts, and then he transferred his quicksilver look and attention to Ardelle.
"You were taking Hal Ryland to Bozeman," she was saying.
"Well, I'm on the way back to Balsam; Mr. High and Mighty Ryland—excuse me, Miss Kalida — didn't want to be taken nowhere. He wanted to be let off at the ranch to get his own buggy and proceed from there. I was just as happy to let him, ma'am. I didn't figure on losing a day to nursemaid nobody to town."
"Quite right," Ardelle said brusquely. "Meantime, Kalida had the itch to go to Balsam herself." She shook her head. "An hour of that should suffice for any woman with any sensibilities."
"You all figuring to go?" Danton asked, his eyes back on Kalida, who nodded, sensing an ally; and then to Ellie, who shuddered delicately thinking of all the sweat and noise, and then thought about all the men, including the not-too-unpleasant-to-look-at Jake Danton, with his dark curly hair, leather-tanned face, and knowledgeable eyes. She nodded also, and Ardelle gave her a disgusted look.
" 'Pears to me you and Miss Ellie should take the buggy, what with your being dressed so nice and all; Miss Kalida and I will ride." He winked at Kalida and bent a straight, serious look at Ardelle, who indignantly found herself committed to this jaunt, and with Kalida on horseback, too. Nothing was going right, and Ardelle was becoming furious with Jake Danton's high-handed familiarity with both Kalida and herself. Jake had a place, damn it, and he had better remember it.
She watched helplessly as he pulled the buggy from the carriage barn, and then went off with Kalida to the stable to saddle Malca and bridle a horse for the buggy.
Kalida felt a delicious moment of freedom in Jake's
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company as they strode away. It was almost as if they were defying an enraged parent and getting away with it. Jake's manner was conspiratorial and just faintly overbearingly male, as though he were telling her he appreciated the fact she was a woman but he knew the boundaries. And Kalida rather liked his attitude; it allowed her a flirtatious freedom that wasn't fraught with sensual peril.
Jake was, in fact, very likable, and he made it plain he found Kalida very attractive too. "We're two of a kind," he said to her as he slung her saddle blanket over Malca's impatient back. "We're mavericks, and we live by our wits, and we grab for everything we can get. Don't we, Miss Kalida?" He cinched the saddle under Malca's belly with a brisk yank, and then paced around to his other side, where Kalida was stroking his sleek flanks and admiring Jake's efficiency. "Don't we?" The urgency of his words pulled her up short. "I never really thought about it quite that way," she said brusquely.
But she saw that abrupt reply had no effect. He was as close to her now as he could be without having intimate contact, and it was obvious from the expression on his face that he wanted that too. "You're a beautiful lady, Miss Kalida," he said softly. "I've been watching you." "How could you have?" she said sharply. "I've been in my room."
"I saw you running from Cavender," he amplified, but did not elaborate. The vision of her streaking b
lue-gowned figure vanishing into the fields and the humiliated look in her vibrant blue eyes when she returned . . . and that robe clinging to her skin, which made her look almost naked. No, he wouldn't forget that, or the glimpse he had had of her nakedness through the window this very morning. The vision of those long legs and lush breasts would have turned a stone man alive, let alone a
celibate cowboy who once a month had leave to relieve his turmoil at the nearest brothel in town.
She had flaunted her nakedness before two women. He wondered, as he was on his way to join her father, whether it was because she had no opportunity to flaunt herself before a man as she must be dying to do. A violent dream possessed him as he disappointedly had watched her* pull up her dress and enfold her naked charms in it. And the dream had carried him through the morning and back to Sweetland again, earlier than he had expected, vibrating with a lust to just see Kalida again. And fortune had thrust her right into his hands, alone and willing, in the dank isolation of the stables for these very few minutes.
He had to convince her of his desire without scaring her away.
"Did you?" she murmured in answer to his statement. "So what?"
"You're scared of him," he said, moving closer, backing her against the stall wall.
"I'm getting scared of you," she snapped, looking wildly around, wondering how she could have thought that Jake Danton was a harmless cowboy who could possibly be a friend.
"Don't be scared, Miss Kalida." His voice had dropped. "I'd like to help you." But that wasn't true. What he wanted was for her to start stripping off her clothes of her own volition because she had been yearning to be alone with a man where she could reveal her nakedness the same way she had this morning, when he was watching and she was not aware of it.
But she made no move to unbutton her shirt or slip off her skirt; she stood looking at him oddly, and he had the wild idea that she knew exactly what he was thinking and she was sneering at him. But all she said was, "You can't help me."
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Damn bitch, he thought, struggling to hold onto his control and his reason. She had no way of knowing what he wanted or that he had seen her. She couldn't feel the raging inside him. One day, he vowed, one day she would. But until then he had to play her along a little.
"Listen, Miss Kalida," he said urgently —urgent but not what she would be thinking; oh, no—but the sincerity in his tone was unmistakable, and he thought it was a rather nice touch himself, since he couldn't touch her—yet. "I know you're not in a good situation here. I do know that. And if you ever find a way out of it and you need someone to help you, you must promise to call on me.
Say you will."
"I might have to," she said dryly, edging away from him and taking Malca's reins. He didn't stop her.
"You'll want a hat," he said gruffly, mesmerized by the line of her body outlined against the stall doorway where the light filtered through. "And probably a bandanna." "I know," she said gently, caught off balance by the sudden change in him. It was as if two different men were with her. She was not wary of the one giving her all this kindly advice. She pulled a bandanna from her skirt pocket and tied it around her neck. He handed her a deep-crowned hat and caught up two others for Ardelle and Ellie, and then followed her out of the stable, bringing with him one of the dray horses and a bridle, admiring all the way the sway of Kalida's hips, and remembering the lush curve of the buttocks hidden beneath her skirt.
Kalida mounted Malca, who was as restive as she felt, and watched with mixed feelings as Jake skillfully bridled the horse and hitched it to the buggy. Here, in bright daylight, there was nothing menacing about Jake Danton. There was, in fact, something very attractive about his long, rangy body and his brown face and capable hands. He was foreman of the ranch, a man given responsibility,
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a man used to taking charge, a leader, a knowledgeable man, a man who knew his business. He was muscular in a thick kind of way, slightly fleshier than Deuce, a half head or so shorter. He wore his pinch-crowned hat at a jaunty angle, with the braided chin strap almost defiantly visible. There was nothing not to like about Jake Danton, she decided, as he looked up at her before he mounted his own horse in a kindly way that made her ashamed she had felt afraid of him in the stable.
Then he swung up onto his saddle.
"How far away is it?" Ellie questioned as he grabbed the lead strings of the buggy.
"Far enough so you don't hear the noise or smell the sweat," he said baldly, rapping the leather strap against their horse's nose to get him walking. His hazel eyes shot to Kalida. Yes, she had a faint smile on her lips at the humor. Very faint. Just enough to give him hope.
Ardelle, however, looked disapproving; and he was beginning to think it was her natural expression. She said nothing as he led the buggy to the dirt track behind the outbuildings that fed out into the pasture and the range-land beyond. She took over briskly and Ellie shuddered delicately as the carriage jounced onto the well-rutted track. Noise! she thought disgustedly; sweat, heat, dirt! The words pounded through her head during the grueling half-hour trip. The only sustenance she could find was the thought of all the men, the lovely hired hands and the better-heeled ranch reps who always seemed to have lots of money in their pockets. All those work-hardened men in one lovely place with no other women around but herself and Kalida. The thought, in fact, was nourishing enough. Kalida just could not attract every last man of them.
Kalida was not thinking of the men; she was thinking of the pleasure of working and the freedom of the range —not typical feminine thoughts, she acknowledged
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to herself with a smile. Jake cantered easily beside her, companionable now, hardly talking except to occasionally point out some feature of the landscape she might have missed. His eyes, however, were focused on her breasts and his thoughts on his own elaborate plans, so that he was not aware of the noise that suddenly became obvious as they drew closer to the Balsam range. They heard that first, the ceaseless bawling of the cattle below the dust swirling above the rise that they were just topping. And then they saw the whole stunning picture.
A river of cattle streamed down from the foothills opposite and pooled into the lush grass of the Balsam range. The numbers were awesome, uncountable; the men were numberless. They seemed everywhere, whooping and prodding, galloping and changing direction on a moment's decision, a rope lashing out here to fell a calf like lightning, fastening it, tying and holding it; instantly two other men to heip control its flailing body; and the third with the branding iron nearby to scald the flesh, the glint of a knife in the sunlight, cutting the ear, and then gone —a whoop and slap to send the calf in the direction of the holding crew. And then it began again.
Ardelle watched it all with a certain avidity, since she knew the dollar figure each head translated into. But it bored her after a few minutes, when it was obvious the work was well in hand —as it would be when Deuce was present.
Ellie sat beside her, aloof and disdainful, her eyes greedily sizing up the men on horseback, choosing, imagining, lost in a sensual daydream compounded of dust and desire.
Kalida and Jake, however, moved farther over the hill and down its slight incline to a place where they were silhouetted against the sky. Kalida's excitement communicated itself to Jake, as she seemed to watch everything, overpowered by the sheer numbers and the pageantry of
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the movements. Her hat was tilted back, and she leaned forward in her characteristic way. Jake admired the long straight line of her back and the fact she did not ride sidesaddle. He imagined her strong, firm thighs gripping Malca's flanks, and he envied the horse.
A brisk wind whirled the dust up and around them, obscuring his reverie, and when next he looked, Kalida had dismounted and he was disgusted that he had lost the chance to catch a glimpse of her legs.
She stood on the rise, arms akimbo, looking this way and that, looking —although she didn't admit it —for De
uce, and when her eyes spotted him, she thought, Thank goodness; now I can keep out of his way.
She felt Ardelle's impatience behind her, and Ellie's hazy swoon, and a kind of thick resentment emanating from Jake; but that was a momentary sensation. Her whole attention was fixed on Deuce as he cut through the herd, chasing this calf and that, finally cornering one and laying it low. He was masterful at it, and she was happy to be able to pinpoint exactly where he was and what he was doing.
And she was happy that Ardelle was so annoyed. If there was one thing she had wanted to accomplish with this trip, it was to make Ardelle unsure of the kind of mistress she would make for Sweetland. And Ardelle was champing at the bit; her sensibilities were being assaulted every minute more she sat in that buggy and had to witness the grim work of the branding pen.
Kalida's satisfaction ran deep. Ellie must have fainted, so quiet was she. Exactly the proper response, she thought.
She was aware suddenly of Jake standing next to her. He had to shout over the noise. "Hard to talk."
She nodded agreement and moved closer to him. Their bodies touched and his fevered imagination had her turning just slightly more so that her breasts nudged him —
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just so he could feel the softness of them. Just . . . But with her standing just so, he could look down at the sweet swell of them, and his memory would supply the rest. He bent his head so that his lips were just touching her ear and inky black tendrils of her hair blew back into his mouth.
"I don't see Deuce."
His words were very clear. And so had been her sight of Deuce's distinctive ramrod posture on horseback. She looked around frantically and still could not see him.
Damn, she thought, moving still closer to Jake to say something to him. Suddenly she was swooped up in the air, close against the sweating flanks of horse and angry man. "Deuce!" But her protest was lost under the sound of the herd and the thud of his stallion's hooves down the incline. They veered left to pound furiously hundreds of yards away from the branding pen, past the chuck wagon and bed wagons, out into the lush brush of the range where, finally, he pulled up, dropped her, and reached down his hand.
