The Rancher's Courtship & Lone Wolf's Lady

by Laurie Kingery

  No, she mustn’t meet him just now, not when she didn’t know how Jack felt about her. If she’d never met Jack Collier, perhaps she would find those gentle, scholarly features appealing, but as it was—

  “Miss Caroline Wallace, may I present Mr. Gilford Chadwick?” Milly was saying, and Caroline carefully schooled her features to show only a polite interest. There would be a way later to indicate that she wasn’t interested in being courted—perhaps a tactful word in his father’s ear, or Milly’s, and they could let him know he’d better fix his attentions on another of the Spinsters...like Faith Bennett! Faith was a nice, beautiful girl, she thought desperately, a perfect match for a young clergyman.

  “How do you do, Mr. Chadwick?” she said. “Welcome to Simpson Creek. And have you met Miss Faith Bennett?” she said, drawing Faith closer.

  “Yes, we’ve met,” Faith said, with a pleasant smile in Gil’s direction. “Just a few minutes ago.”

  Caroline glanced at Milly, hoping for some help from her friend, but Milly was watching Caroline with all the concern one might show a lit firecracker due to explode at any moment. What did she expect her to do, faint? Why on earth hadn’t Milly explained to the young Reverend Chadwick—

  Faith was still speaking. “But he asked to meet you, and—”

  Just then the door slammed open, and a boy propelled himself toward Caroline.

  “Teacher!” Billy Joe yelled. “You gotta pertect me—he’s right behind me!” He barreled into Caroline, nearly knocking her over in his haste. “Sorry!” he cried, and shifted until he was standing in back of her. As he passed her, she had the quick impression of tears mixed with blood on his pale, frightened face.

  “Come back here, you disobedient whelp!” hollered a red-faced William Henderson, lurching into the room, a doubled-up belt clutched in one fist. The group whirled to face him.

  Henderson’s bleary eyes searched the room and found his son. “Don’t you dare think you’re gonna hide behind that schoolmarm’s skirts, you imp a’—”

  Shaking at the suddenness of it, Caroline drew herself up. “Go away, Mr. Henderson! You’re obviously drunk. We’ll talk again when you’ve sobered up. Until then, Billy Joe will stay with me.”

  “Get outa my way, you fussy old maid!” Henderson bellowed. “That’s my son, and he’s coming with me. Let go a’ him or I swear I’ll do to you what I did to his ma.”

  “Stop right there, Henderson!” Sheriff Bishop shouted from across the room, already heading in their direction, but Henderson was oblivious.

  “Don’t let him catch me, Teacher,” cried Billy Joe from behind her. “He’s already hit me six times, and my ma...”

  Suddenly Gil Chadwick was standing in between Caroline and the mad bull of a man. “In the name of all that’s holy, I won’t let you hurt this lady, or your son, mister. Do you hear me? You need to leave now.”

  “Get outa my way, stranger,” Henderson shouted, blinking in his attempt to focus on the younger man. Henderson’s body stank of sweat and waves of stale whiskey fumes. “Dunno who you are, but in this town, a father’s got a right...”

  “I’m Gil Chadwick, the preacher’s son, and I’m telling you to leave this building immediately.”

  It was unclear if Chadwick could have stopped Henderson, for the drunken man outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, but Gil Chadwick’s willingness to step between Caroline and the raving man gave Sheriff Bishop time to reach them and yank Henderson back by the collar of his shirt. Then, before the drunk could identify the new threat, he laid him out cold on the floor with a well-aimed fist.

  “Sorry, ladies,” Bishop said, looking down on the unconscious form. “I didn’t have my come-alongs with me, so that was the best way I knew to get him under control pronto. Luis, will you run next door to the jail and open up one of the jail cells, and get it ready for Henderson?” he asked the lanky youth who had materialized at his side. “He’s going to be spending the night there.”

  “Of course, Sheriff,” Luis said.

  Dr. Walker bent to examine Henderson. “He’ll be all right after he sleeps it off,” he announced, straightening again. “Nick, why don’t we help Sam and his deputy take Henderson over to the jail?”

  A few minutes later, they had gone, and Caroline was left with Gil, Billy Joe and the other ladies.

  “Are you all right, Miss Wallace?” Gil asked, concern lighting his hazel eyes. “I’m sorry if that fellow frightened you. Might I escort you home?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, touched by his attentiveness. “I believe our concern should be focused on Billy Joe, though,” she said, putting an arm around the shaking boy’s shoulder, “and his mother. Billy Joe, how are you feeling? Is your mother at home? How is she?”

  “I’m all right, Teacher,” Billy Joe said, trying to smile with a puffed-up lip. One eye was about to swell shut, while the other was reddened with tears. “Ma’s at home. He beat her bad....”

  “Then we must go check on her immediately,” Caroline said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Gil said.

  “Thank you. Sarah, will you come, too, just in case she needs medical help?” Sarah was no doctor, but Caroline knew that having worked at her husband’s side so much, Sarah Walker was the best one to judge whether or not Mrs. Henderson needed to see a physician.

  “Of course,” Sarah said.

  “I’ll go let your mother know where you’ve gone, on my way home, so she doesn’t worry,” Prissy said.

  Thank God she had already sent Amelia and Abby home with her mother, Caroline thought as they began to gather up their coats. Not for the world would she have wanted those little girls to witness what had just happened.

  They found Daisy Henderson shaking and weeping, both eyes blackened and with bruises in various stages of healing all over her. “You and your boy are coming with me,” Sarah said in her decisive manner, bundling Mrs. Henderson into her coat and gathering up what they would need overnight. “You can stay the night with us, just to be on the safe side, after my husband examines you and Billy Joe,” she said.

  “But what about my husband?” whimpered Mrs. Henderson. “What if he comes home and finds us missin’? He won’t be happy about that—”

  “He won’t be coming home tonight, Daisy,” Caroline told her gently. “He’s intoxicated, and he’s spending the night in jail. After that Sheriff Bishop and Reverend Chadwick can help you sort out what’s to be done. But tonight, the main thing is that you and Billy Joe are safe and cared for.”

  “You were magnificent,” Gil told Caroline later, after they’d seen Sarah, Billy Joe and Mrs. Henderson to the doctor’s office and he’d escorted her to her door. “Both you ladies, but especially you, Miss Wallace, the way you stood up to that violent, drunken man. You might well have been hurt.”

  “I think you prevented that from happening, Reverend Chadwick,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Nonsense. I only gave the sheriff time to cover the distance between where he was standing and us. But please, call me Gil. ‘Reverend Chadwick’ is my father.”

  “Gil, then,” she said. “And now, I’d best tell you good-night,” she said and put her hand on the doorknob, knowing her mother was undoubtedly anxious to hear what had happened.

  “Good night, Miss Wallace. May I be allowed to call you ‘Miss Caroline’ as everyone else does? And may I call on you sometime?”

  Her mind was whirling with too many things. She was too tired to think of whether she should tell Gil straight off that she was not interested in being courted, when at this point she didn’t truly know her own mind anymore.

  “‘Miss Caroline’ would be fine, Gil, but as to the other, perhaps you’d give me time to think about—”

  “Of course,” he said quickly, obviously seeing the fatigue she felt rolling over her in waves now that she was home. “Forgive me for my presumptious haste,
but I feel so fortunate to have met you. Good night, Miss Caroline.”

  * * *

  Jack felt faintly foolish when he and his men arrived back at the ranch only to find all was well, the cattle bedded down for the night with one of the men riding herd, while the other two were fast asleep in the bunkhouse. He’d let Sims and Adams render him jumpy as a cat on ice, and for what? He could have stayed overnight at the Wallaces, after all, kissed Abby and Amelia good-night and talked to Caroline—maybe even worked things around so he could have kissed her good-night, too, if all had gone well. At the very least, they could have read books side by side.

  Thinking of reading reminded him he had a letter in his vest pocket he hadn’t read yet, so after seeing to his horse alongside the other men, he took his letter over by the fire to read.

  Howdy Jack,

  Hope this letter finds you well. We got yore letter sayin you were going to spend the winter in Simpson Creek Texas and think that is probably the wise thing to do. We are sittin round the fire in the big cabin wishin you was here. There’s a foot of snow on the ground & looks to be another foot by mornin so we won’t be able to make it into town to have our whiskey at the saloon. The gals there is mighty purdy. We tol them all about you and they cant wait for you to come so they can see if yore as handsome as we built you up to be. Ha. Glad to hear your dotters is gettin some book learnin while yore there—they’ll probably be way smarter than you come spring. Ha. Let us know when yore comin and we’ll kill the fatted calf for ya. Jake’s already got some Injun squaw to tan you a buffalo robe to keep ya warm...she wants to know if you are as pretty as Jake is. Ha.

  Yore pards, Jake and Patrick

  Well, it didn’t sound as if there was anything wrong there, at least, contrary to Caroline’s misgivings. From the spelling and penmanship of the letter Patrick had sent, it sounded as if his partners could have used a bit more time with an exacting schoolmarm such as Caroline Wallace, Jack thought with a grin. What on earth would they say if they knew he was reading a book in the evening?

  The idea of going to Montana no longer seemed like journeying to the Promised Land. It sounded like a long and dangerous trip with only unfamiliarity and an uncertain happiness at the end. Would he go there in the spring? It all depended on Caroline—

  Just then the crack of gunfire made him jump to his feet. It sounded as if it had come from the far northern border of the ranch, beyond where Simpson Creek crossed from his land to the Brookfields’. Immediately he heard cattle bawling and the shouting of men...and the thundering of hooves—in their direction!

  “What was that?” cried Masterson, running out of the bunkhouse, jumping into his boots as he went.

  “A stampede, and it’s headed this way!” Jack shouted back, as his other drovers, rubbing their eyes, began to file out behind Raleigh. “Get to your horses! There’s no time to lose!”

  They didn’t bother saddling their mounts, just tied ropes to their halters to use as bridles and trusted in their animals’ training and their own ability to stick like burrs on the horses’ bare backs to accomplish the rest.

  What followed was a frantic hour of galloping on the fringes of the plunging herd, trying to get ahead of the cattle to turn them. The longhorns had been so frightened by the sudden shots that they had first run headlong into the new barbwire fencing, some lacerating shoulders and forelegs. New shots had rung out, and the beasts had turned in the opposite direction, running headlong toward the bunkhouse. Naturally they ran around it, the herd splitting in the middle as if Moses himself had parted them, but the chuck wagon was not so lucky—the cattle knocked it over and trampled through it until it was no more than a ruin of splintered kindling and scattered supplies.

  Spurring their horses with one intent, Jack and his men succeeded in turning the herd just as it seemed it would charge the fencing that bordered the road. At last the herd began to slow and eventually to stop, exhausted.

  “Who fired those shots?” Jack demanded when the drovers met back at the campfire.

  “Wasn’t me, boss,” said Ben Compton, the man who had been riding herd. “I was just headin’ back to let Shep know it was his turn on watch when someone jes’ beyond th’ fence started shootin’. I couldn’t see nobody in the dark, but I heard ’em laughin’ while they galloped off, an’ then I was so busy tryin’ to turn ’em I didn’t have time to think.”

  “I’ll bet it was Sims and Adams, blast their hides,” Cookie grumbled, surveying the ruins of his beloved chuck wagon. He’d moved most of his supplies into the bunkhouse, but they’d have to replace the chuck wagon when it came time to hit the trail.

  “You can count on that,” Jack agreed. “Who else would have a reason?”

  “And they’re probably clear to the next county by now,” added Raleigh. “I hear bawlin’ out there,” he said, cupping a hand to his ear. “Sounds like a few a’ them beeves out there is hurt.”

  They found a heifer tangled up in barbwire, which had to be cut loose, and a steer that had put a leg in a gopher hole and had to be shot. Another had fallen and been trampled to death. The sudden silence, when they had freed the heifer and put the steer out of his misery, left them staring soberly at one another. Not even the prospect of fresh breakfast steaks was enough to cheer them, because even the greenest of his hands knew that fewer cattle on the trail meant less profit at the end of it for all of them.

  “Reckon we’ll have some fence to mend in the morning,” Jack muttered aloud. “And we’ll have to come out and look at that heifer again and make sure those cuts on her leg aren’t festering. From now on we’ll have two men riding night watch, two in the day.’

  “You gonna tell the sheriff about this, boss?” Raleigh asked.

  “Yes, I—” he began, then closed his mouth again. It would have to be reported, but if he was the one that did it, his daughters would expect him to come to dinner at the Wallaces’, then stay the night and so on. No matter how much he wanted to see them—and Caroline, he realized, just as much—he felt guilty about being in town so often and leaving hard work to the rest of his men while he sat around in comfort with his children. Whoever had attacked—and he was as sure as Cookie that it had been Sims and Adams—may well have known that Jack and most of his men had gone to town, though they may not have known they’d just returned. That fact had emboldened them to try to stampede the herd.

  “No, why don’t you ride into Simpson Creek for me, Raleigh, and make the report,” Jack said with a sigh. “I’ll stay here with the rest and mend fence. Oh, and if you don’t mind, stop in and tell my girls I needed to stay out here and get some work done, that I’ll see ’em again soon as I can. Don’t tell ’em what happened—don’t want them to worry about it—though you might mention it to Miss Caroline if you can talk to her apart from the twins. Remember, though, not a word about the house we’re building.”

  He hoped Caroline would understand.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Masterson had stopped at the house just as the Wallaces, Abby and Amelia had come outside to walk to church, and told the twins their papa wouldn’t be able to make it that day. Then he’d asked Caroline if he could speak to her alone.

  She sent the rest of them on to church. Masterson told her about the stampede and its probable cause by the drovers Jack hadn’t rehired.

  Poor Jack! Her disappointment that she wouldn’t see him was completely swamped by concern for him and his men.

  “Is he all right?” she demanded to know. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “He’s fine, just mad as a rained-on rooster that we lost two head. But no one else was hurt, thank the good Lord.”

  “Amen,” she said, shaken inside at the thought of the danger Jack and his men had faced last night.

  “Well, I’ve got to be gettin’ back. I’ve notified the sheriff, and he’s going to be looking for those two polecats. Jack just didn’t want you an’ the girls
t’ worry none when he didn’t come.”

  She made it to church and squeezed into the pew in time to join in singing the last verse of the hymn.

  Then Reverend Chadwick introduced his son, who stood at the pulpit next to him. “Gil will be making a long visit with me while he awaits the Lord’s direction about his future,” the elder Chadwick said. “He’ll be helping me by making some of my pastoral calls. I hope you’ll all make him welcome, as those who met him last night have already done.” He beamed proudly at Gil.

  There was a spattering of applause, and Gil smiled back at the congregation, then turned slightly so he seemed to be smiling directly at Caroline.

  Oh, dear. Feeling herself flush with embarrassment, she turned and looked around, only to catch Faith Bennett’s eye. To her exasperation, the woman winked at her, then glanced meaningfully back at Gil Chadwick, who was now sitting down in the front pew.

  “My sermon today concerns...”

  Between the incident at Collier’s Roost, what had happened to Billy Joe and his mother last night and the normal fidgeting of six-year-old girls, Caroline had no idea what the preacher spoke about. She could hardly wait for the service to be over so she could speak to Prissy Bishop about whether William Henderson had been released from jail this morning. How were they to ensure Billy Joe and his mother’s future safety once he was free? Short of a miracle, she didn’t expect Mr. Henderson to change.

  She wished she could talk to Jack about what had happened. The Walkers weren’t there, either, Caroline noticed. Was Daisy Henderson, or her son, in worse condition than they had thought?

  After the benediction, Caroline made a beeline for Prissy. She’d told her mother what had happened at the social hall after she’d taken the twins home, so her mother knew Caroline would need to check on Mrs. Henderson and Billy Joe. She’d keep the girls occupied until Caroline returned.

  She found Prissy talking to the preacher and his son.