Nora

by Diana Palmer

  “Exactly,” Nora said. “I’ll do my best to help her over this sad experience.”

  “I knew you would,” came the satisfied reply. “It’s so good to have you here!”

  Nora smiled affectionately at her aunt. “I am delighted that I came.”

  MELLY RETURNED HOME barely an hour after Nora arrived, on horseback, wearing a riding skirt and a straight-brimmed Spanish hat. She had dark hair like Nora’s, but her hair didn’t have the same chestnut highlights as her cousin’s, and her eyes were a soft brown instead of blue. Her skin was tanned, as Nora’s was not, and she was delicate and very slender, like a little doll. Looking at her, Nora couldn’t imagine a man not wanting her for his wife.

  “I’m so happy that you’ve come,” Melly said after she’d greeted her cousin with sad warmth. “I’ve been rather droopy, but you can help me liven things up.”

  Nora smiled. “I hope that I can. It has been over a year since we visited when you came to Virginia. You must tell me all the news.”

  Melly grimaced. “Of course. But you must realize that my life is hardly as full and exciting as yours. I will have little to tell.”

  Nora thought of the times she had spent in bed, shivering with fever. Melly didn’t know—none of them knew—how her adventure in Africa had ended.

  “Melly, I do wish that you would not make us sound so dull,” her mother murmured. “We do have some social life here!”

  “We have square dances and housewarmings and spelling bees,” came the short reply. “And the abominable Mr. Langhorn and his son.”

  “When we have gatherings with other ranchers in the cooperative, Melly helps serve,” her mother reminded Nora. “Mr. Langhorn is one of the local ranchers, and he has a little boy who is worse than a wild man. Mr. Langhorn does not control him.”

  “Mr. Langhorn is the one who needs controlling,” Melly added with a chuckle.

  “That is true,” her mother agreed. “He has a…reputation…and he is divorced,” she whispered the word, as if it were not fit to be heard in decent company.

  “Surely that should not count against him,” Nora began.

  “Nora, our family name is very important to us,” her aunt said firmly. “I know that in eastern cities, and in Europe, a woman is perhaps allowed more freedoms than out here. But you must remember that this is a small community, and our good name is our most treasured possession. It would not do for Melly to be seen keeping company with a divorced man.”

  “I see what you mean,” Nora said gently, wondering just how confining this small society really was. Coming from a large eastern city, she was hard-pressed to understand small-town life anywhere.

  After dinner they sat in a blissful silence, one so profound and serene that the grandfather clock could be heard vividly, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…

  The screen door slammed suddenly and heavy boots made emphatic noises on the bare wood floor.

  Cal Barton stuck his head around the door, his hat held in one hand. “Excuse me, Mrs. Tremayne, but Chester would like a word with you on the porch.”

  Nora wondered why his spurs didn’t jingle until she looked down. Of course; his spurs were covered with…that. So was the rest of him, Nora thought, her expression revealing her opinion of it eloquently as she sat elegantly on the sofa in just the correct posture, looking so at home in the opulence that it put Cal’s back up at once.

  He saw the disapproving, superior look she gave him, and it irritated him out of all proportion. He didn’t smile this time. He simply looked through her, with hauteur that would have done a prince proud. He nodded politely when Helen commented that she would be right out, and he left without another glance in Nora’s direction.

  She was miffed by his sudden aloofness, and spent the rest of the day wondering why the opinion of a hired man should matter to her. After all, she was a Marlowe from Virginia, and that unwashed son of the great West was nothing more than a glorified male milkmaid. The thought sent her into gales of laughter, although certainly she couldn’t share the joke with her ranching hosts.

  Chapter Two

  NORA’S UNCLE WAS HOME in time for the evening meal, looking dusty and tired, but as robust and pleasant as ever. He welcomed her with his old enthusiasm. Later, while they sat together at the table, he passed along some worrying news to his family.

  “There was some gossip today, about the West Texas combine not being pleased with my handling of the property. A visiting businessman from El Paso said that he knows the Culhanes and they have not gotten the results they expected from me,” Chester told the others, grimacing at his wife’s expression. “They must remember that I would have lost this ranch myself if they had not bought it—”

  “Because of the low prices people were paying for our beef and produce,” his wife argued. “There is not enough money in circulation, and people are not buying agricultural products in enough quantity to let us make a profit. The Populists have tried so hard to effect change. And we have, after all, read that William J. Bryan has been nominated by the Populists to run against McKinley. He is a good man and tireless. Perhaps some changes will be made to benefit those of us in agriculture.”

  “Perhaps so, but that will hardly change our situation, my dear,” Chester said heavily.

  “Chester, they would not have let you manage the ranch for so long had they not had confidence in you. You are not responsible for low market prices.”

  “It might not seem that way to a wealthy family.” He glanced at his niece placatingly. “Not yours, my dear. The family I’m worried about is from West Texas, and the father and sons head the combine. The Culhanes are a second-generation ranching family—old money. I understand from Simmons that they don’t approve of the fact that I haven’t adopted any of the machinery available to help plant and harvest crops. I am not, as they say, moving quickly into the twentieth century.”

  “How absurd,” Nora said. “These new machines may be marvelous, of course, but they are also very expensive, aren’t they? And with people needing work so badly, why incorporate machinery to take away jobs?”

  “You make sense, my dear, but I must do as I am told,” he said sadly. “I don’t know how they learned so much about the way I run the ranch when no representative has been here to see me. I could lose my position,” he said starkly.

  “But where would we go if you did?” his wife asked plaintively. “This is our home.”

  “Mother, don’t fret,” Melly said gently. “Nothing is happening right now. Don’t borrow trouble.”

  But Helen looked worried. So did Chester. Nora put down her coffee cup and smiled at them.

  “If worse comes to worst, I shall ask Mother and Father to help out,” she said.

  She was unprepared for her uncle’s swift anger. “Thank you, but I do not require charity from my wife’s relations back East,” he said curtly.

  Nora’s eyebrows rose. “But, Uncle Chester, I only meant that my parents would offer assistance if you wished them to.”

  “I can provide for my own family,” he said tersely. “I know that you mean well, Eleanor, but this is my problem. I shall handle it.”

  “Of course,” she replied, taken aback by his unexpected antagonism.

  “Nora only meant to offer comfort,” Helen chided him gently.

  He calmed at once. “Yes, of course,” he said, and with a sheepish smile. “I do beg your pardon, Nora. It is not a happy time for me. I spoke out of frustration. Forgive me.”

  “Certainly, I do. I only wish that I could help,” she replied sincerely.

  He shook his head. “No, I shall find a way to placate the owners. I must. Even if it means seeking new methods of securing a profit,” he added under his breath.

  Nora noticed then what she hadn’t before: the lines of worry in his broad face. He wasn’t being completely truthful with his wife and daughter, she was certain of it. How terrible it would be if he should lose control of the ranch his grandfather had founded. It must be unpleasant
for him to have a combine dictating his managerial decisions here; almost as unpleasant as it would have been for him to lose the ranch to the combine in the first place. She must learn what she could and then see if there was some way that she could help, so that he and his family did not lose their home and only source of income.

  After that, conversation turned to the Farmers Congress in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and to the Boer War in South Africa, where a Boer general named De Wet was growing more famous by the day with his courageous attacks on the superior forces of the British.

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed peacefully. The men were away from the ranch most of the day and, it seemed, half the night, bringing in the bulls. Within a couple of weeks, they would be starting the annual fall roundup. Nora’s opinion of the “knights of the range” underwent a startling transformation as she saw more and more of them from afar around the ranch.

  For one thing, there were as many black and Mexican cowboys as there were white ones. But whatever their color, they were mostly dirty and unkempt, because working cattle was hardly a dainty job. They were courteous and very polite to her, but they seemed to be shy. This trait had first surprised and then amused her. She went out of her way to flirt gently with a shy boy everyone called Greely, because it delighted her to watch him stammer and blush. The stale ennui of European men had made her uneasy with them, but this young man made her feel old and venerable. She had no thought of ridicule. It was the novelty of his reaction that touched something vulnerable in her. But she’d flirted with him once in front of Melly, and Melly had been embarrassed.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” she told Nora gently but firmly when Greely went on his way. “The men don’t like being made fun of, and Cal Barton won’t stand for it. Nor will he hesitate to tell you to stop it if he ever catches you.”

  “But I meant no insult. I simply adore the way he stammers when I speak to him,” she said, smiling. “I find this young man so refreshing, you know. And besides, Mr. Barton has no authority to tell me what to do, even if he did catch me,” Nora reminded her.

  Melly smiled knowingly. “We’ll see about that. He even tells Dad what to do.”

  Nora took the remark with a grain of salt, but she stopped playing up to poor Greely just the same. It was unfortunate that she should mention him, and why he amused her, later to her aunt when Greely was within earshot. After that, she had no opportunity to see him. His absence from her vicinity was pointed, and he had a somber, crushed look about him that made Nora feel guilty until finally he seemed to disappear altogether.

  NORA WAS INVITED OUT to watch the cowboys work, and she accompanied Melly to a small corral near the house where a black cowboy was breaking a new horse to the remuda, the string of horses used by the men during roundup. Melly explained what would happen in the upcoming roundup, all about the long process of counting and branding cattle, and separating the calves from their mothers. Nora, who had known nothing of the reality of it, was appalled.

  “They take the little calves from their mothers and burn the brands into their hide?” she exclaimed. “Oh, how horribly cruel!”

  Melly hesitated, a little uneasy. “Now, Nora, it’s an old practice. Surely in all your travels, you have seen people work on the land?”

  Nora settled deeper into her sidesaddle. She couldn’t bring herself to ride astride, as Melly did, feeling that it was unladylike. “I have seen farming, of course, back East.”

  “It’s different out here,” Melly continued. “We have to be hard or we couldn’t survive. And here, in East Texas, it’s really a lot better life than on the Great Plains or in the desert country farther west.”

  Nora watched the cowboy ride the sweating, snorting horse and wanted to scream at the poor creature’s struggles. Tears came to her eyes.

  Cal Barton had spotted the two women and came galloping up on his own mount to join them. “Ladies,” he welcomed.

  Nora’s white face told its own story as she stared at him coldly. “I have never seen such outrageous cruelty,” she said at once, dabbing at her eyes with an expensive lace-edged silk handkerchief. “That poor beast is being tormented by that man. Make him stop, at once!”

  Cal’s eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Make him stop,” she repeated, blind to Melly’s gestures. “It is uncivilized to treat a horse so!”

  “Uncivi… Good God Almighty!” Cal burst out. “How in hell do you think horses get gentle enough to be ridden?”

  “Not by being tortured, certainly—not back East!” she informed him.

  He was getting heartily sick of her condescending attitude. “We have to do it like this,” he said. “It isn’t hurting the horse. Jack is only wearing him down. It isn’t cruel.”

  Nora dabbed at her face with the handkerchief. “The dust is sickening,” she was saying. “And the heat and the smell…!”

  “Then why don’t you go back to the nice cool ranch house and sip a cold drink?” he suggested with icy calmness.

  “A laudable idea,” Nora said firmly. “Come, Melly.”

  Melly exchanged helpless glances with Cal and rode after her cousin.

  Nora muttered all the way home about the poor horse. It didn’t help that a gang of tired cowboys passed them on the way back. One was mad at his sidekick and using colorful language to express himself. Nora’s face went scarlet at what she overheard, and she was almost shaking with outrage when they reached the barn at last.

  “Knights of the range, indeed!” she raged on the way to the front door, having left the horses in the charge of a young stable hand. “They stink and curse and they are cruel! It is nothing like my stories, Melly. It is a terrible country!”

  “Now, now, give it a chance,” Melly said encouragingly. “You’ve only been here a short while. It gets easier to understand, truly it does.”

  “I cannot imagine living here,” Nora said heavily. “Not in my wildest imaginings. How do you bear it?”

  “I love it,” the younger woman said simply, and her brown eyes reflected her pleasure in it. “You’ve lived such a different life, Nora, so sheltered and cushioned. You don’t know what it is to have to scratch for a living.”

  Nora’s thin shoulders rose and fell. “I have never had to. My life has been an easy one, until the past year. But I know one thing. I could never live here.”

  “You don’t want to go home already?” Melly asked worriedly.

  Nora saw her concern and forced herself to calm down. “No, of course not. I shall simply have to stay away from the men, that is all. I do miss Greely. He, at least, was a refreshing change from those barbarians out there!”

  “Greely hasn’t been around lately,” Melly agreed. “I wonder why.”

  NEITHER KNEW THE ANSWER to the question of Greely’s absence. Days passed, and the cowboys began to look a little less like dirty tramps and a little more like men as Nora’s first impression began to waver and then fade. Nora became able to recognize faces, even thick with dust and dirt. She recognized voices, as well, especially Mr. Barton’s. It was deep and slow, and when he was angry, it got deeper and slower. She marveled at the way he used inflection to control his men, and the way they responded to even the softest words. He projected authority in a way that made her wonder about his past. Perhaps he’d been in the military. He could have been, with that bearing.

  He came riding up the next to the last Friday afternoon of August with a bunch of disheveled, hot and dirty men. He dismounted at the front steps and tossed his reins to the stable hand, so that his horse could be attended to.

  Nora, who was on the porch, stepped back when he approached, because he was dirtier than she’d ever seen him, and he had a three days’ growth of beard. She thought that if she met him on the road, she’d expect him to have a pistol in either hand and a mask over his nose and mouth.

  He noticed her withdrawal with cold fury. Since her remarks out at the corral, he’d been waiting for an opportunity to tell her how much her superior attitu
de irritated him. She had no right to look down her nose at hardworking men because they didn’t smell like roses or live up to her idea of civilized behavior.

  “Where’s Chester?” he asked curtly.

  “Why, he drove my aunt and Melly into town in the buggy,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  He pursed his lips and studied the lines of the sleek, soft gray dress that clung to her slender figure. “Do you always dress like that?” he asked with cool mockery. “Like you were going to some fancy city restaurant in one of Mr. Ford’s fancy automobiles?”

  She bristled. “The automobile is more civilized than a horse, I tell you,” she said haughtily. “And we have electric streetcars back East as well as automobiles.”

  “What a snob you are, Miss Marlowe,” he said pleasantly. His smile didn’t reach his cold, silver eyes. Not at all. She felt chilled by them. “One wonders why you came out here at all when you find us and the work we do so distasteful.”

  She wrapped her arms across her small breasts and felt herself shiver. The heat was uncomfortable. She hoped she wasn’t having a chill, because she knew what it presaged. No. She couldn’t have an attack here, she just couldn’t!

  With her dignity intact, she smiled at him. “Why, I came because of the books.”

  “Books?” he asked, frowning.

  “Yes! I’ve read all about cowboys, you know,” she told him seriously. “Mr. Beadle’s dime novels portray the cowboy as a knight of the range, a hero in chaps and boots, a nobleman in spurs.”

  He shifted his stance and glowered at her.

  “Oh, and cowboys are the courtliest gentlemen in the world. That is, when they’re not robbing banks to feed little starving children,” she added, recalling two of her favorite books.

  The glower got worse.

  “But there was nothing about the odor,” she added with quiet honesty. “People hardly expect a knight of the range to smell bad, or be caked in blood and mud and…ahem…other substances,” she pointed out. “I don’t expect you get many social invitations, Mr. Barton.”