Thankful for the Cowboy

by Mary Connealy

  Thankful for the Cowboy

  Thanksgiving Books and Blessings

  Book Three

  Mary Connealy

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thanksgiving Books & Blessings

  Collection

  TEXAS TEARS by Caryl McAdoo, full length

  MAIL-ORDER MISFIRE by Davalynn Spencer, novella

  THANKFUL FOR THE COWBOY by Mary Connealy, novella

  BLIZZARDS AND BLESSINGS by Samantha Bayarr, novella

  SPRING OF THANKSGIVING by Liz Tolsma, novella

  THESE GREAT GIFTS by Allison Pittman, novella

  ******* ******* ******* ******* *******

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.

   2019 by Mary Connealy; all rights reserved.

  First Edition September 6, 2018

  AISN (ebook): B07SYGGW15

  Series branding by Carpe Librum Book Design

  Cover art by Chauton Havig

  Cover art by Chautona Havig

  Series branding by Carpe Librum Book

  Design

  Series branding by Carpe Librum Book

  Design

  Thankful for the Cowboy

  Chapter One

  October 1881-East of Fort Niobrara, Nebraska

  “What am I going to do to keep our cattle alive, Dougal?”

  No answer. Of course. But still Lauren Drummond gave him plenty of time as she stood in the blowing wind amidst the waving prairie grass.

  The chores were done, the children—more men than boys these days—were fed and tucked under their covers. She’d been headed for her lonely bed when she looked out at the gathering dusk and noticed the yellow leaves on the young cottonwoods and gone out to them.

  She reached up and plucked a bright yellow leaf and remembered how she and Dougal had found them along the banks of the Niobrara River. Oh, how they’d hunted for trees. It had become almost a game to them, searching out the trees, transplanting maples and oaks and pines. Then keeping them alive. They might not have survived on this treeless plain if not for the coddling Lauren had given them.

  There were walnut trees and those were producing nuts. A small hedge of wild plum trees that bloomed like a dream in spring and gave up their tart fruit in the summer. They had five trees that bore a small, sour berry. Dougal had asked and been told they were Indian cherries.

  And Dougal had found other trees when he’d made his once-a-year trip to town. Two apple trees were their finest planting and the fruit was sweet and plentiful. If there weren’t trees, he found seeds. They’d started oaks from acorns and chestnuts and hickories.

  They’d searched the river banks and planted every tree young enough to be moved. And when their own trees had seeded little saplings, they’d transplanted them to spread them out and give them a good chance to survive.

  They’d started with these cottonwoods near fifteen years ago, when they were little more than a tuft of leaves barely peeking through the ground. The first trees they’d planted when they’d settled here, already with two young sons.

  They were really spurting up. The sons and the trees.

  But the yellow leaves. And that’s what caught her attention, because the autumn had fully arrived.

  In the delicate, blowing sandhills, the trees had been a challenge to keep, but they’d done it. They had the makings of what could boastfully be called a small forest.

  And it was there, beneath the spreading branches of their own personal, if young, forest, she’d buried her beloved Dougal.

  Finally, Lauren Drummond rose from kneeling beside her husband’s grave. She stared down at it in the twilight. The prairie grass had taken it back. Only the rough wooden cross remained to tell the tale of a fine man who died too young.

  Her heart twisted with grief. It’d been over five months now but it felt like yesterday. Her days were full of work and her sons. She’d gone on living, facing each day, for her sons. But facing the nights…oh, those lonely nights.

  She fought back tears, she’d cried too often and it had to stop now. But she missed her Dougal fiercely, constantly.

  She realized she hadn’t spent time with Dougal for nearly a month and the guilt was stronger than the grief. Which only made her feel more guilt.

  But this last month had been an endless rush. The cattle drive. They’d culled their herd deeply, and drove nearly every steer on the place over a year old to Fort Niobrara.

  The drive was near forty miles west of their land. It should have been four days but it ended up taking seven, on a non-existent trail with a herd not used to leaving home. They’d been received with excitement at the new fort and been paid top dollar. For just a bit, Lauren was a wealthy woman.

  And then they’d spent most every penny of her wealth.

  Niall had heard of a homesteader quitting his claim—and he had a good-sized herd. The rumor was, a man alone was considering just leaving the cattle, turning them loose in the Sandhills.

  Lauren bought more cattle than she’d sold, but it was for a very good price as the man was going on west and didn’t want to drive east before he headed out. His wife had died and left him with no heart for the Sandhills. The heartsore homesteader was grateful for the cash.

  For Lauren, replacing her now-sold steers with mostly cows meant babies in the spring and a faster growing herd.

  The man had a few steers, which she sold at the fort on their way past. While they were back at the fort, Niall—it was always her second-born Niall—had pushed until she’d spent nearly every penny she had left on land.

  Dougal had scraped together money to buy land a couple of times but never this much. Of course, these sandy, treeless hills sold for pennies an acre as so few people wanted to live out here.

  Her one-hundred-and-sixty-acre homestead had grown to nearly a thousand acres.

  She insisted on paying her sons their well-earned share of her money, but they didn’t buy land themselves. They were all too young to homestead or sign a contract for land. They pushed her hard to keep the money she’d paid them, but they were partners in her ranch and fair was fair. They had used their money for supplies and, she was glad to see, saved back a good chunk of the money for the future. Her house and the root cellar were bursting with food.

  After making more money than she ever had in her life, Lauren was penniless.

  There was food aplenty in these Sand Hills, but this was store bought food, a luxury. They’d feast this winter.

  She came to talk all of that over with Dougal, and she’d knelt at his graveside and missed him terribly. He would have loved this. The growing ranch, the growing herd and oh, yes, the growing boys, were all his dream.

  Having his dream come true with him dead and gone was like an endless ache in her chest. She felt the physical pain of it. To enjoy all this without him seemed as if she’d forgotten him. And she never would.

  But she’d gone on living. What choice did a mother have? She’d learned to live in these rugged Sandhills of Nebraska, tend her children and her cattle without a man’s help.

  But she was lonely every day.

  And he wasn’t here to share her most
dire worry.

  Her cattle were dying of thirst. They weren’t going to make it through the winter this time. The cattle Niall had demanded they bring home had grown the herd too big. They’d had a dry summer and the ponds on her land weren’t as deep as usual. The autumn rains had been sparse. When the ponds were this shallow, they froze solid in the winter.

  She stood for a moment looking at the grave, wondering what advice Dougal would’ve given her. He was no cattleman. Nor was she, but she’d learned a lot during their years out here.

  “I’ll come again, Dougal, my love,” she murmured quietly. “Thank you for where your dreams led us. And thank you for my sons and your love, given when we were near children in Scotland making the reckless decision to marry so young. We made a good life together. I fear now I won’t be able to save this ranch and keep this life as we’d hoped.”

  It crossed her mind to say she was glad he hadn’t lived to see it, but she couldn’t quite go so far as that.

  The cattle might not make it but she would, and her four sons with her. Maybe not here, but somewhere, somehow.

  “Ma, come quick.” The small voice, her youngest son. He sounded upset but that was Rory’s way.

  It was time to go in anyway. Lauren turned to walk up the rise toward her house. She’d buried Dougal in a low hollow near the house, where she found real dirt between the swells of grass-covered sand. They’d planted a garden here and the trees. And now it had become the family cemetery.

  She’d made the little cross—wood was so dear she didn’t make it big. Then she’d built a rickety little fence made of sod to surround the grave.

  Rory, her sweet boy, one of the four lights of her life, stood by the open back door of her soddy. Larger now than when they’d first homesteaded out here. Rory watched her come. A furrow between his brows. Rory’s job in their family was to do all the worrying. Lauren wished she could lift that burden from his thirteen-year-old shoulders but she hadn’t found the means yet.

  Four sons. All as different as winter was from spring, summer and fall, and they’d each been born in their own season. Conall the oldest, with golden hair, shot with hints of red, like the colors of autumn. Blue eyes that shone like the summer sky. He was the image of his father. Conall was changing as surely as autumn marked the change of the year. They’d just celebrated his eighteenth birthday. He had the same restless strain as his father.

  Niall, a summer child, hair bright as sunlight. Tall and broad, he was living proof that somewhere in their family tree there was a Viking warrior. A marauder no doubt. Niall wanted land to conquer. Or in his case, homestead. The war he wanted to fight was with land and water and cattle. But he was seventeen and he needed to be twenty-one to homestead. It was a burr to her ambitious son.

  Duncan, the wise, the kind, the quiet. Fifteen, and born in spring. In his sharp, always considering brain were new ideas, new encouragement, he bloomed and grew like the prairie grass. Duncan with his brown hair, from Lauren’s father, while Lauren had her mother’s red curls.

  And calling out to her was her winter baby. Her worrier, Rory.

  “Ma, where are you?” Rory had hair as red as a carrot, more orange than hers, but close enough for her to say he took after her. He was the youngest when Dougal died, and that might account for his worrying nature. He was a boy who knew the worst really could happen.

  At a distance, she heard the sound of hooves, riding away and the noise struck her in the belly like a fist because she knew as surely as only a mother could that one of her sons had grown up and gone.

  Conall, it had to be him. He must’ve walked his horse until he thought they could no longer hear him, but sound carried for miles out here.

  “Ma,” the worry took on a note of true fear.

  “I’m coming, Rory.”

  His head pivoted to follow the sound of her voice, and he saw her coming in the dusk and ran toward her. She noticed he was dressed.

  “Conall’s gone.”

  Lauren’s hand went to her stomach. The sinking feeling hit hard when Rory’s words matched her worst fears. There should have been a way to keep him. Or a way to let him go without him thinking he needed to sneak off in the night. It shamed her as a mother to know her son had believed he needed to escape her.

  “He saddled up and rode off.”

  “He’s riding a night watch is all.” But she knew that wasn’t it. She just hoped.

  Rory was silent for too long, and Lauren regretted trying to reason with him. Rory wouldn’t be out here if there wasn’t something wrong.

  “He packed his clothes, Ma. I watched him roll up most everything he owns in two blankets, then slip out.” Rory shrugged helplessly. “I pretended to be asleep because I didn’t know what else to do. I wish now I’d said something. Told him good-bye, but it was clear he wanted to leave without waking anyone. So, I let him believe he’d done just that. I waited until he went outside, then watched him ride off on Dundee.”

  His buckskin gelding. They had a nice string of horses on their ranch now. But she’d bought a horse for each of the boys and made sure they knew they had the ownership of it.

  And she’d held firm when Conall had wanted to sign up for a homestead. He wasn’t of legal age. Lauren had insisted he not do it. Niall had urged her to let them both claim land and she’d balked until they’d given up on the idea.

  Lying awake nights ever since, she’d argued in her head over that decision.

  She considered riding after her errant son. Aye and it suited her to think of grabbing the boy by one ear and dragging him home. But Conall was six inches taller than her own five feet five—at least he had been the last time she checked—the boy grew like a weed in a warm, wet spring. He wasn’t likely to be dragged anywhere.

  Resting one trembling hand on Rory’s shoulder she thought of the morning coming. The long hours, the brutal work. The herd always spreading, always needing to be gathered back close.

  The ponds to get ready for winter, of course they’d done a lot of that already.

  The pond.

  Water. They didn’t have enough.

  She shoved that worry aside and thought of her son.

  Conall had been planning this. Lauren knew it though she’d hoped she was wrong. Ever since the cattle drive to Fort Niobrara nearly a month ago, he’d worked until he could hardly stand up straight at the end of each day. Now, only now when it was too late, she could see clear as day that he was trying to get everything in shape before he left.

  When she’d given each boy a share of the earnings, Duncan, Niall and Rory had spent a bit on treats for themselves. Conall held on to every penny.

  “I’ve known he wanted to go, Rory.” She stared in the direction her little boy…not so little anymore, though, had pointed. “But why didn’t he talk to me first, and say a proper good-bye?”

  “I reckon he was afraid he’d stay out of love for you, Ma. He’s been working so hard.”

  “He stayed until we were tucked in tight for the winter.” Lauren’s hand slid across Rory’s shoulders, and she noticed he was getting his growing on. He was the only one who she could still look down to. That wouldn’t be much longer.

  “I hope he comes back,” Rory sounded forlorn, like a little worrier should. Now he’d add worrying about his big brother to his long list. “At least for a visit.”

  “So do I, son.” Lauren pressed Rory forward enough to get him moving and they headed for their old sod house together. “So do I.”

  Chapter Two

  Lauren rode around a small herd of cattle. They grazed around a pond left from the spring flooding of the Niobrara River. One of the last ponds left in the dry Nebraska Sandhills.

  October, and the pond was brackish and shrinking. It wouldn’t last through the winter. The cold was coming and the pond would freeze. She and her boys would come daily to this one, and two others and chop away the ice that formed on the surface so the cattle wouldn’t die of thirst. Until the pond froze solid.

  T
hey had one good natural-flowing spring that kept running all winter and that had been enough until ambitious Niall had bought more land and grown the herd so industriously.

  They’d expected to find water on that new land, but the only ponds were dried up.

  Her cattle weren’t going to survive.

  Niall said he had an idea but he wouldn’t speak of it. Duncan worked and tried to keep all their spirits up. Rory worried and planned.

  Duncan rode up to her with his usual peaceful smile. “Ride to the house, Ma. I’ll take over here so you can laze around inside cooking.”

  She smiled back. All the boys loved her cooking and she’d taught them enough they knew there was no lazing about it. But Duncan was quick with his teasing and always ready with a smile.

  Of her three, this one took after her father in looks with his dark hair and gleaming hazel eyes. But he was a calm child, wise beyond his years. Aye, it might be said he was almost too well-behaved until Lauren couldn’t tell if he wanted to do as he was asked or he simply denied all he wanted in order to help the family.

  In his own way, he lightened the load more than anyone else.

  “Niall fetched a deer early this morning.”

  Duncan jerked his chin in a nod. “I helped him butcher it. He sliced up venison steaks for supper.”

  Fresh meat always put heart into the boys. The winter would bring a lot of the salt pork and salted fish they caught in the Niobrara. The game would get skittish and thin, of course they always had beef. But they tried to let the herd grow if possible.

  As Lauren stripped the leather from her horse in their sod barn, plodding hooves drew her attention toward her sod house. Her heart lifted.

  The boys were all accounted for. Duncan near the pond. Niall and Rory with another herd.

  Conall had come back.

  She hung up the leather, slapped the horse on the rump to turn it into the corral and rushed outside… to see a stranger riding up. He drove a team of strong horses pulling a large wagon piled high with something covered by a tarp.