He stuck his head in the door and grinned. “Timed it just right, I see.”
“Better hurry,” Ida, the cook, said as she took up potatoes from a pot on the stove. A hired girl stood by the side table, ladling out bowls of gravy. He caught a glimpse of Molly’s broad figure disappearing through the doorway with a plate of biscuits in each hand.
But no one else was in the kitchen.
Luke hung up his coat and hat on the hook board running down the length of the little room outside the kitchen. A shelf holding a bucket of water and a gray graniteware basin ran along the other side. On the wall behind it hung a small mirror and a towel on a peg. He filled the basin and washed up quickly for supper. Then, two-handed, he combed his hair in the mirror, stooping so he could see better.
Ida called, “Supper’s ready.”
“On my way.”
“Bring the pickles.”
He ambled through the kitchen, grabbing up the pickle dish from the side table as he passed, and headed down the hall for the dining room to find Emily McCarthy so he could ignore her.
CHAPTER
6
Luke leaned back in his chair and frowned across the table at Molly. The two of them were sitting at the end of one of the tables after dinner, going over the accounts. Spread open between them was Molly’s big black ledger. Papers and receipts were scattered across the table.
“Doesn’t make sense,” he said, tapping a finger on the page in front of him. “With the railroad into Billings, you should’ve sold a thousand head more than you did.”
“That’s what I thought, but we didn’t,” she answered. “The market wasn’t there. Happens all the time. Scully drives a herd to Billings, talks to the yardmaster, and finds out the order was already filled. So we either sell at a lower price or else we bring them back home. Scully did that once when the price went down to fifteen dollars a head.”
“Scully was right. Fifteen dollars was giving them away. You’d have lost money. If we had more help, we could forget Chicago and sell to the mining camps. They never have enough beef.”
Molly nodded. “I sold some to Bozeman camp a couple of times, but it’s a six-day drive up there and took every man on the place. Nothing got done here when they were gone.”
And it still wouldn’t, Luke thought. He liked trail-bossing, had gone back and forth to Oregon with Stuart’s herds many times, but those days were over as long as he was at New Hope. He couldn’t manage the rest of the herd at New Hope by himself.
“Once we get New Hope back in the black, we can hire more cowhands and go for the camps,” he said.
Molly wet her finger and flipped back through the ledger pages to the household accounts. “Emily says we should be making our own clothes and bed linen, instead of buying them or paying Ellie Butler in Repton to make them. Emily says we could save five hundred dollars a year if I bought another sewing machine and we did most things here. What do you think?”
“Sewing machines cost money is what I think.”
“Fifteen dollars, but the machine would pay for itself in a month with what we’d save.”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “Emily McCarthy’s a teacher. What does she know about expenses and cutting costs?”
“I’m surprised what all she knows about running an institution.” When Luke looked skeptical, Molly smiled. “I grabbed one of the boys running in the hall yesterday, and his shirtsleeve just ripped off in my hand. Straightaway, Emily asked me who made the starch. I told her the hired girl Anna did. She didn’t say a word, but a few minutes later, she came back and told me Anna puts too much borax and turpentine in the starch, says it weakens cloth something fierce.”
It was getting to be Emily this and Emily that – and getting to be downright aggravating. “She’s getting to be a regular little Miss Fix-It,” he said to Molly.
With a deep sigh, Molly closed the book. “She’s a godsend, Luke. She’s taken so much work off me.”
He swallowed a twinge of guilt. Molly needed help. If Emily could ease Molly’s schedule, he should be grateful.
Molly’s head snapped up. “Now, will you listen to that?” She cocked her head and chuckled. Piano chords shattered the afternoon quiet of the big house in a rousing introduction. “Emily does brighten up this place.”
“I didn’t know she could play like that,” Luke said, his eyebrows knotted into a scowl. Sideways, he glanced at Molly.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about that girl.” Her lips pressed tight together, eyes crinkling at the corners, and he could tell she was laughing at him on the inside. “Why don’t you try being a little nicer to her?” she said.
He gave a soft little snort through his nose, climbed to his feet, and started for his room. He dragged his feet as he passed the library. Inside, chairs scraped and children squealed. Luke stopped out in the hall and looked inside. Twelve children were yelling and marching, playing musical chairs. With her back to the door, Emily sat at the upright, swaying from side to side with the tempo, pounding out an old steamboat song.
Her hair spilled down her back, the weight of it tossing as she swept the back of her fingernails up and down the keys in a wacky, syncopated, bobtailed rhythm.
A corner of his mouth kicked up.
Pretty hair. Pretty back. Pretty little everything.
Five-year-old Mary Agnes Kelly pushed against the back of Two Leggings, the young Crow boy in front of her. Shuffling down the row of chairs, she spied Luke in his work clothes and heavy boots smiling in the doorway.
“C’mon in, Mr. Luke,” she squealed.
The music stopped. Emily spun around on the stool.
Mary Agnes threw herself into the same chair with Two Leggings, both of them falling to the floor. She looked up, whooping with laughter.
The doorway was empty.
On the staircase at the end of the hall, Luke was taking the steps up three at a time.
The next morning, a child’s hoarse wail made Emily stop sweeping the front porch and look up. Frowning, forehead wrinkled like a washboard, Luke strode around the corner of the house, leading a sobbing little boy in knee pants.
“Can you believe it? I hardly know this kid, and he ran all the way out to the second barn to get me,” Luke said.
Emily walked down the steps and kneeled beside the boy.
“What’s wrong, Teddy?”
Though he was only four, he was big for his age and had an odd croaky voice. Now his nose was running, and his eyes were brimming with tears.
“Wait a minute, kid.” Luke pulled out a huge handkerchief and gently wiped the boy’s nose. “Now tell her.”
Teddy sniffed. “My torse’s sick and I’m worleed.” His voice caught.
Luke looked down at Emily. “Translate, please.”
“His tortoise is sick and he’s worried,” she said.
Luke ruffled the boy’s hair, his big hand completely covering the small head. “One of the dogs played with his tortoise, tossed it in the air a couple times. Dog thought it was a walking bone, I guess, and bit it a little. I tried to tell him it wasn’t fatal, but he doesn’t believe me. He pitched a fit at the barn a while ago, wanted me to bring it to you for some medical advice.”
Part of the reason for Teddy’s tears, Emily suspected, was the little scene that morning in the dining room and not letting him bring his pet in for breakfast.
“You know the rules, honey. No animals in the house, and that includes reptiles.”
“Not a tile; he’s a torse, and he’s my friend.”
Emily hid a smile and held her hand out. “Let me see your sick friend.”
Teddy hid his face against Luke’s leg.
Luke rolled his eyes, dug deep into a side pocket of his overalls, and extracted a muddy, green and yellow tortoise, shut up as tight as a clam.
Emily frowned and held it up to the light. “You sure it’s in there?”
“Was when we left the barn,” Luke said.
She sat down on the steps to examin
e the turtle. It bore several shallow tooth marks and an insignificant gouge in the shell. It wouldn’t win any beauty contests, she decided, but it wouldn’t die, either.
She held it to her ear. “Hmmmm.” She nodded seriously, listening to dead air. “Come listen to how strong her heart is. She’s a tough little turtle.”
“He’s a he, and he’s a torse.”
“Got it. A torse. And he’s going to be just fine. Listen.” She held the tortoise to the boy’s ear and tapped her fingernail lightly on its shell for a sound effect. “There, you hear it?”
“I do, I do!” Teddy held the tortoise up to Luke. “You listen, Mr. Luke. You said she thinks she knows everything in the world, and she does.”
A red flush stained Luke’s cheeks. Avoiding Emily’s eyes, he held the tortoise to his ear.
“Do you hear it, Mr. Luke?” Emily asked in her schoolteacher’s you just got an F voice.
“Yeah, I hear it,” he growled.
Emily checked the tooth marks again. “I don’t think he needs stitches. We’ll just put some medicine on his back and his tummy and he’ll be fine. And until he’s all better, Mr. Luke is going to build you a nice little house for Torse with a safe little fence around it.”
Luke’s eyebrows flew up. “I don’t know about that.”
Teddy’s small face looked as if the sun had burst out behind it. “Oh, Mr. Luke, Mr. Luke, I love you! You’re my best friend.” He threw himself at Luke and wound his arms around his leg.
Emily struggled to keep a straight face. “That’s what best friends are for, Teddy.”
Emily went into the house. When she returned, she held up a small red bottle of Mercurochrome.
A minute later, all smiles, and holding on to Luke’s hand, Teddy hugged the tortoise to his chest and crossed the yard. Its shells were still shut up like a fist, only now it sported a red splash in the middle of its back.
Teddy looked up at Luke. “Torse wants a house with a window and a door and a fence with a lock and – ”
“Yeah, yeah.” He looked back over his shoulder at Emily and called, “I’ll get you for this!”
Each morning about five o’clock, and still so dark they couldn’t see the ears on their horses, Luke and four New Hope cowboys rode out of the complex for the open range.
As a courtesy, he’d gone to see the Paxtons, the Ormons, and old Cecil Bolton, the other stockmen who used the range, telling them he was going into their herds and cutting out his brand.
“I reckon you know you don’t have to tell me. You got a right to cut anytime you’ve a mind to,” Carl Paxton said, then grinned and slapped him on the back. “But I appreciate it all the same. Come on in and have some supper with us.”
“I better not, Mr. Paxton. You’re the last one I had to see today,” Luke said. “We’re starting early tomorrow.”
“Mr. Axel gets a mite touchy about cutting. What’d he say?”
“I didn’t talk to him.” The answer was crisp.
“I see,” Carl Paxton said, in a tone that clearly implied he did not. He chuckled. “You’re polite, but you ain’t that polite.”
Luke didn’t say anything. Instead, he put his hat back on, waved good-bye, and rode off.
Each day they worked another section, cutting the other range herds for the N-Bar-H brand. They usually found a few of their own, for cows weren’t fussy. When cattle found a herd – any herd – they strolled over and melted right into it.
Luke was determined to cut out every one of theirs and bring it home. For days, from dawn until dusk, they drove cattle both up range and down range. If necessary, he thought grimly, he’d move his whole herd to another section, for until he got them all collected and together, he couldn’t begin to get an accurate head count.
Twice he ran into Axel’s crew. Four of them one day. They sat off to one side, rifles over their arms, watching stonily as he and Scully and Henry Bertel worked the herd, circling, plunging into the bawling mass of backs, checking for N-Bar-H brands, dragging out steers.
One by one, they lassoed and pulled out their own, driving them into a makeshift holding pen they’d thrown up on the prairie. Then, back they went again for more, switching horses from the remuda they’d brought along – two or three for each man. At the end of the day, they hazed their own cows down range.
Luke was puzzled. He knew the business, had been around cattle all his life and understood the psychology of range herds. Up at Stuart’s they used to say he could think like a cow. He’d never known them to wander like this. He was discouraged and knew they hadn’t gotten them all.
Emily untied her apron and hung it on a hook in the kitchen. For days the kitchen had been filled with clouds of sweet-smelling steam from a washboiler full of sap simmering on the back of the stove.
Ida, making bread at a table by the window, looked up. “You’re going up there again, are you?” she said, picking up her sifter and snowing a cloud of flour across the dough.
Emily nodded. “Molly says the first sap makes the best syrup. We never made maple syrup in Chicago. Once someone brought a gallon from back east. That’s the only time I ever tasted it.”
Ida pulled dough off her fingers. “That grove’s been up there long as I remember. The Indians taught us how to do it. Cheyenne and Crow have been making syrup and sugar for hundreds of years.”
“Molly told me how to do it. Says the sap started early this year because of the warm spells we had.”
Ida kneaded the bread with the heels of her hands, then gave a few more smacks to the flour sifter. “Want me to get one of the boys to go along with you?”
Emily shook her head. “Not today. They’re studying for a history test, and they’re too anxious to get out of class as it is.”
Ida straightened. Eyes dancing, she planted a hand on her hip. She stood there, hipshot and grinning wickedly. “I bet Mr. Luke wouldn’t mind helping you.”
Emily stiffened and threw Ida a sharp look. “I can do it myself. I don’t need any help from him.” She shrugged on her coat and mittens and hurried out onto the porch. She tossed the scalded tin pails and a big metal bucket into a wheelbarrow at the bottom of the steps. Picking up the heavy handles, she headed out across a field spotted with large patches of snow for the grove of black maples on the other side of the hill.
Outside, the temperature was twenty degrees, but in the smithy it was stifling. Luke’s shirt was wet, his upper lip beaded with sweat. Wearing a grimy leather apron, Scully Anders worked the bellows hanging above the forge, jetting air down over white-hot coals. A horseshoe glowed a dull cherry red in the fire.
Bugle stood patiently, his back hoof caught between Luke’s thighs. With painstaking care, his master scraped and pared the horse’s hooves.
Luke clapped another horseshoe, still warm, against the hoof, measuring. He handed it back to Scully. “Not quite. Bend the ends in a tad more.”
Scully shook his head and thrust the shoe in the fire again, muttering, “Never seen a man so fussy ’bout a horse.”
Luke heard him and grinned.
A gust of wind creaked the door open. Luke lowered Bugle’s leg and went to close it. Standing in the doorway, he watched a small figure trundling a big wooden wheelbarrow beyond the corral.
“Now, where’s she going, I wonder?” he said to Scully, raising his voice over the ringing racket of the older man’s hammering on steel.
“Who?”
“Her.” Luke pointed to Emily, watching as she shut the garden gate behind her, then grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and pushed on across the open field.
Scully stopped his pounding and raised his head. “Looks like she’s got sap buckets with her,” he said. “Going up to the sugar bush, I guess. They been boiling syrup in the kitchen the last couple days, or ain’t you noticed?”
Luke shook his head, not taking his eyes off the girl plodding along in boots and a long brown cape, the ends of a bright blue scarf fluttering behind her. Uneasy, he studied the sky. All m
orning, a steady northwest breeze had been blowing down from Canada. More snow on the way.
“She always thinks she can do more than she can,” he grumbled. “That bucket’s too heavy for her.”
“Right now that bucket’s empty, so shut the door. You’re cooling my fire,” Scully called. “She’ll be all right.”
“Snow’s on the way. And she’s got no business going up there alone.”
“Go with her then, but shut the door!”
Luke swung the plank door closed, dropped the wooden bar in place, and went back to shoeing Bugle. Determined to put Emily McCarthy out of his mind, he rested the horse’s front hoof on his thigh and began prying out the old nails.
Emily had seen Luke standing in the doorway of the smithy, watching her. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed along faster. As soon as she got to the orchard, she checked the buckets hanging on spouts driven into the trunks. Humming under her breath, she unhooked the pails and drained the watery liquid into the big bucket in the wheelbarrow. It was prime syrup weather, she thought. With the mild, sunny days and freezing nights, they ought to get fifteen gallons of sap from each tree this year. It took about forty gallons of sap – almost three trees’ worth – to boil down one gallon of syrup. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. Drizzled on hot biscuits on a cold morning, nothing could match it.
Emily shivered. The wind had kicked up. She pulled her mittens off and tugged the scarf tighter around her neck. That was when she saw it, a bear cub – a small grizzly, only a few months old. No doubt curious at all her banging and clattering, the cub wobbled on a beeline through the woods in her direction.
And shambling right behind, head swinging, shoulders rolling, was its mother.
Emily dropped the pail. Hiking her skirts, she ran for the entrance to the grove, zigzagging through the trees as fast as she could go. Feet flying, she raced for the edge of the woods and the open field beyond. Behind her, she heard the cub nosing the pail on the ground.
The Vigilante's Bride Page 7
