The Rancher's Courtship & Lone Wolf's Lady

by Laurie Kingery

  “I was going to ask you about it at church, but you were talking to Mr. Collier, so I didn’t get a chance.”

  Caroline nodded and decided to steer the conversation away from Jack. She had spent more than enough time already wondering what she ought to do about him, and she had yet to come up with any answers that felt right. She didn’t know Louisa well enough yet to want to confide in her, at least about Jack. If only Milly didn’t live so far from town...

  “Then you don’t know the Hendersons invited me to Sunday dinner right after you left,” Caroline said. She could share her concerns with Louisa about Billy Joe, since she was a fellow teacher.

  “Oh? How did that go? What do you think of Billy Joe’s mother? I haven’t met her, but my aunt thinks Mrs. Henderson’s too meek for her own good,” Louisa said.

  “Yes...and Mr. Henderson has a rather...um, forceful personality, doesn’t he?” Should she tell Louisa about the bruises she’d seen on Mrs. Henderson’s arms, bruises she suspected Mr. Henderson had put there? She hesitated. Perhaps she should just keep her mouth shut and her eyes open right now. Instead, she told Louisa about her plan to tutor Billy Joe after school and the fact that the boy’s mother had expressed approval. “I think I’ll start today,” she concluded, “and do the sessions twice a week.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Louisa said. “I think you’re right. We could take turns doing it.”

  Caroline was just about to suggest they join the children and get some fresh air when the other woman murmured, “I happened to be out for a walk last evening and saw you walking into the hotel restaurant with Mr. Thurgood.” She said it with the same horror a Southerner would use when uttering the name “Ulysses Grant.”

  Caroline froze, knowing what was coming.

  “Yes, but there was no way I could avoid it, and I beg you not to tell a living soul, Louisa, please.”

  “Was it very awful?”

  Louisa’s tone of horror had Caroline laughing. “Very,” she said and told the other woman all about it.

  “So you really had no choice but to accept his invitation,” Louisa said, her eyes full of sympathy, as Caroline concluded her story. “And you’re afraid he has the impression he is now courting you? Oh, dear.”

  “Yes...and you can see, can’t you, it will be a delicate balancing act to refuse any further invitations without offending him and endangering my job.”

  “The old goat!” Louisa said, her face indignant. “That isn’t fair! He knows you want to keep your teaching job, so he thinks he can take advantage of that! Caroline, you must stand firm.”

  “I know.”

  “What if you had another suitor? Then he would have to understand he could not press his attentions.”

  “That would get me dismissed immediately,” she said and told Louisa how the superintendent had told her he preferred the county’s teachers to have never been married, let alone have gentlemen callers currently. It was comforting to think of encountering Mr. Thurgood while holding Jack’s hand, but that was impossible—for so many reasons.

  “Hmm...perhaps you could get the preacher to speak to him? Or the mayor? My aunt tells me that one of the Spinsters’ Club graduates is the mayor’s daughter.”

  “Yes, Prissy Bishop, the sheriff’s wife. And I suppose either of those gentlemen would help.” But how embarrassing, to have to speak to them about such a thing. Caroline could only hope it wouldn’t come to that.

  * * *

  The first tutoring session had been a success. Billy Joe had sulked a bit, when told he would be staying after school an hour, but Caroline suspected this was mostly for show. Once the rest of the children had left, including the twins, he settled right down and applied himself to his arithmetic lesson with a will. It was obvious that mathematics came hard for him. But then, when they progressed to reading, he read a passage from his McGuffey reader so perfectly that Caroline clapped when he finished.

  “Billy Joe, you’ve been hiding your light under a bushel basket,” she told him.

  Billy Joe wrinkled his nose. “What does that mean, Teacher?”

  “It means you’ve been concealing your ability,” she said. “You’re supposed to shine like a candle set on top of a basket, not under it.”

  “Aw, Teacher, then the fellas’ll call me a teacher’s pet. And what do I need ’rithmetic for, anyway? Soon’s I can leave home, I’m gonna go be a cowboy. I won’t never use it.”

  She smiled. “You might need to figure out how much is left of your pay after you spend a few dollars for a Saturday night in town.”

  He looked dubious. “Reckon I’ll have my pay in my pocket, and I can see what’s left.”

  “But what if the rancher makes you foreman, and one of your duties is to figure out each man’s pay?”

  “Then I guess I ought to know some cipherin’,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.

  “And what if you’d want to write your sweetheart a letter? We’ll work on your handwriting next.”

  “Aw, Miss Wallace, I don’t set much store by girls—’cept my ma and you, a’ course. Oh, and them twins. They’re all right.”

  “Those twins. And thank you for including us as exceptions. Now, you go right home and do your chores,” Caroline told Billy Joe as she closed the schoolhouse door behind them. “And be sure and tell your papa what we worked on.”

  “Sure, Miss Wallace,” Billy Joe said. “G’night!” Then he ran out of the schoolyard with all the pent-up energy only a boy his age could muster. There was a bit of the show-off in Billy Joe, Caroline thought with amusement, as he looked back to see if she was watching, an action which nearly caused him to trip over the half-buried root of a live oak.

  Her tutoring done, she made her way home and, after greeting the twins, joined in supper preparation.

  “Going to be a busy week, what with Thanksgiving on Thursday,” her mother commented as she sliced corn bread into squares.

  Caroline blinked. “Thanksgiving? Goodness, is it time for that already?”

  Her mother smiled. “I think you’ve been too busy to notice.”

  “Will there be turkey?” Abby asked.

  “Can Papa come to dinner?” piped up Amelia.

  “Yes, assuming Dan gets one, when he goes hunting on his day off tomorrow,” her mother told the girl. “He can stop at the ranch while he’s out and invite your papa. Oh, and Caroline, I was talking to Milly at church, and she figured Jack would come here to be with his girls, so she and Nick are going to invite Jack’s drovers to have the Thanksgiving meal along with their cowboys at the Brookfields’. I’ll have him stop at the Parkers’ place and see if he can buy one of their hams, too.”

  So it was all settled. She wouldn’t have to maneuver to see Jack—it would happen quite naturally in just a few days. A vision of Jack sitting down with them at the traditional feast had her quite suddenly giddy with happiness.

  Her mother winked, making Caroline think her mother could read her thoughts. “Yes, and now that the new church is done, remember Saturday is the rededication of the church with the carry-in supper in the new social hall afterward. The whole town will be there.”

  “We’ll have to make sure and invite your papa to that, too,” Caroline said, speaking to the twins, then added to her mother, “and as many of the drovers as he feels can be spared from their duties.”

  So there would be not one, but two occasions to see Jack. She felt a stirring of excitement she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  * * *

  The bunkhouse was finished. There was no more need to sleep outside—a good thing, now that there was a nip in the air, at least at night. At present, they were still sleeping on bedrolls inside the bunkhouse, since there were no beds. But Jack and some of the men had made their bedding more comfortable by spreading straw underneath their bedrolls, while others were using their newly discovered carpentry ski
lls to construct cots for themselves.

  They were a little bored, Jack knew, now that the building was done. There was nothing much to do besides tend the cattle and the remuda. When their chores were done, they played endless rounds of poker—a pastime Jack had always found useless, in addition to the fact his mother had had a rule against it. Their stakes consisted of dried beans donated by Cookie, rather than money, since their wages would be meager until the cattle were sold in Montana. They kept their cash for trips into town. He guessed a few of them were already wishing they had left when the other two drovers had, but winter was no time to be an unemployed cowboy. Still, he’d have to find things to occupy their time, for a restless man was apt to find mischief.

  This morning, a little bored and fidgety himself, he stared at the empty scar of land where the ranch house had once sat. What had the house looked like? He knew it had been made mostly of stone, for they had piled up the soot-darkened stones that remained, but he only had his imagination to supply the rest. Almost absently, he picked up a piece of the scrap paper and the stub of a pencil he used to write lists of supplies needed in town, and, using the underside of a clean skillet as a firm backing, he began sketching the house as he envisioned it.

  At what point it stopped being the old Waters ranch house and became the house he would have built, he wasn’t sure. And he couldn’t seem to stop himself from picturing what sort of dwelling Caroline would want, if she were living here—a good kitchen, of course, with lots of shelves and hooks for cooking implements and room for a family dining table. What else? A bedroom with an eastern exposure, so she could watch the sun come up? A porch facing west, so she could watch the sun set behind the blue hills? Several other bedrooms, for children?

  Now where had that idea come from? There was no use planning a house with Caroline in mind, for clearly she preferred an educated, powerful man like that school superintendent, a man she could discuss the classics with, who didn’t have to think twice about how to spell a word.

  So it was better to think of building the house as something constructive for himself and his men to do when the cattle-related chores were finished and the weather wasn’t bad. Any participation by his men must be strictly voluntary, of course. If one of his men preferred to pass the long days till spring whittling or playing cards, Jack would have no grounds to object, but perhaps he could offer those who participated a greater share of the profits when he sold the herd to motivate them.

  He’d reuse as much of the stone as possible and use wood from the ranch land, to keep costs of building this house down...

  “What ’cha drawin’ there, Mr. Collier?”

  He’d been so engrossed in his drawing he hadn’t even noticed the horse approaching. He looked up to see Dan Wallace sitting on the horse, peering down at him. A big tom turkey was trussed by his claws to the horn of the saddle, its red wattle hanging limply from its grayish-white head.

  “Nothing much, Dan,” he said, laying the drawing and skillet down. “Just passing the time. I see you’ve been hunting. You bagged a big one there.”

  “Yup, shot us our Thanksgiving turkey. Ma and Caroline asked me to stop and invite you to Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “I’d be right pleased to attend,” he said. The idea was very appealing—until he thought of the possibility of that superintendent fellow at the same table, sitting next to Caroline as her beau.

  “Say, that older fellow that took her to supper—is he coming, too, by any chance?” he asked casually.

  Dan gave a hoot of laughter. “Shoot, no, Mr. Collier. I don’t think Caroline likes Mr. Thurgood much. I think she just had to go to supper with him that one time ’cause he’s her boss, an’ he got his feathers all ruffled when my sister had to go find Abby.”

  Jack considered that. Was it possible the boy was right? He felt a stab of guilt that his child had been the cause of the superintendent’s disfavor. But he couldn’t help being cheered by the idea that Caroline hadn’t wanted to go dine with Thurgood. Still, Caroline not liking the paunchy superintendent didn’t mean she had any liking for Jack Collier, however—or any man, despite the fact she’d started wearing half-mourning rather than austere black.

  “Oh, an’ you an’ all the men’re invited to the church Saturday for the rededication service an’ carry-in supper, too. You don’t hafta worry about bringin’ nothin’ to that, neither. There’ll be enough to feed an army, Ma says.”

  “That sounds real nice.” He couldn’t quite imagine his drovers sitting through a church service, but if there was food to be had afterward, he bet they’d be willing to try. They’d have to draw straws to see who got to go, of course, but they’d probably only have to leave two or three here with the cattle. He figured there’d be a way to bring them back some food from the church supper, too.

  And he’d get to see Caroline on both occasions.

  And perhaps he could show her that, while he was a cattleman, rather than a learned man like the superintendent, he wasn’t completely ignorant.

  Cookie rang the triangle just then to signal it was time for the noon meal.

  “You’re welcome to stay and eat with us, Dan,” Jack said.

  The boy grinned. “Thanks, but I still need to stop by the Parker ranch and buy a ham for Ma for the Thanksgiving feast. We’ll see you Thursday, okay?”

  It was just as well. His mind was whirling with thoughts about the ranch house he’d decided to build, and he didn’t want Caroline’s little brother jumping to the wrong conclusion if he was present while he broached the idea to his men.

  He waited till forks were clinking against tin plates before he began. “Men, I’ve been thinking about a project I’d like to do to pass the time this winter....”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Mrs. Wallace, Miss Caroline, that was the mighty-finest Thanksgiving dinner the girls and I have had in years,” Jack said, pushing himself back from the table with a barely suppressed groan. He couldn’t remember when he’d been this full of good food.

  Mrs. Wallace beamed. “You’re welcome, Jack. We’re mighty glad you could be here with us.”

  “The pleasure was all ours, ma’am,” he said. “Mine and the girls’.”

  “Papa, mighty-finest isn’t a real word,” Amelia, sitting next to him, told him primly, then looked to Caroline across the table for confirmation. “It isn’t, is it, Teacher?”

  “Oh, I think when one is giving a compliment, making up a word that seems to fit is perfectly permissible,” Caroline said, giving Jack a quick smile.

  “I don’t think we ever had a real Thanksgiving dinner, Aunt Mary,” Abby, sitting on his other side, said, her face wistful. “So of course it’s the mighty-finest.”

  “Punkin, you’ve had Thanksgiving dinners,” Jack said. “You just don’t remember. Well...not since your mama died, true, but we always had them before that.” The old woman who’d cooked and kept house for them after Lucinda had died hadn’t been up to cooking special meals; in fact, she wasn’t even as competent a cook as Cookie. He’d never pressed her to make a special dinner at Thanksgiving—the holiday had been relegated to just-another-day status till now.

  “I don’t remember,” Abby said, in her determined way. “So it doesn’t count.”

  “Then this will be one to remember,” Jack said. “Please tell Aunt Mary and Miss Caroline how much you appreciate their hard work.”

  The twins did so with great enthusiasm.

  “Would everyone like their pumpkin pie now, or shall we wait till later?” Caroline asked. She was lovely today, Jack thought, in a dress of russet brown with black piping, her dark, glossy brown hair neatly gathered into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  Mr. Wallace rubbed his belly and said, “Believe I’ll wait a spell for mine, wife. I feel as full as a tick that just fell off an ol’ hound dog’s back. Girls, why don’t we get out the checkerboard? I’ll play a game wit
h one a’ you girls, then Dan can play the other.”

  “We don’t know how to play checkers,” Amelia said, a little uncertainly, as if afraid that the invitation from Uncle Amos would be withdrawn because of her admission.

  “Then I’ll show you how, while Dan shows your sister,” her father said, and the four filed away from the table.

  Overhead, the rain drummed on the roof. It was too bad about the weather, Jack thought. He would have liked to have suggested to Caroline that they take a walk while the girls were occupied. But perhaps there was a way to garner some time alone with her after all.

  Mrs. Wallace was already up and bustling around the table, gathering up dishes. Jack put out a hand to forestall her.

  “Why don’t Miss Caroline and I redd up those dishes, while you rest, Mrs. Wallace?”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t dream of letting a guest—” the older woman began.

  “Please don’t say no, ma’am,” he interrupted to plead. “It’s the least I can do after such a feast.”

  “Go ahead, Mama, lie down for a while, or at least put your feet up,” Caroline said. “You’ve been cooking since before first light. Come on, Jack, I’ll wash while you dry.”

  “Why don’t I wash and you dry?” he teased.

  Her mother had put two large kettles of water on the stove to heat for wash water. Jack brought the dirty plates from the table, and she scraped the food from them onto one big platter. Both were quiet at first while they worked.

  Jack was thinking about how most of his men had been willing, even enthusiastic, about the project of building the ranch house as he’d proposed it. They’d grinned at his announcement that those who helped would receive a bonus when the cattle were sold, but he’d been encouraged to see they’d seemed agreeable to the project even before he’d mentioned that. They really were a fine bunch of fellows, he thought. They’d listened to ideas and offered up some of their own. Now the winter months wouldn’t seem endless anymore.