by Freda, Paula
He sliced and forked a piece of roast beef, and coated it liberally with thick gravy. Delicious and tender, he thought, chewing it slowly, savoring the taste. Leatrice placed the coffee cups and pot on the table, using a checkered dishcloth under the steaming pot. Quite a woman, he pondered, not for the first time since their unorthodox arrange-ment. Leatrice’s hair was disheveled, the sides pinned back awkwardly, stray moist wisps curled about her forehead and ears. She looked tired and drowsy, her cheeks flushed and warm from the heat of the oven. Her plaid shirt and blue denims were wrinkled and stained with flour and gravy. Where was the rich she-devil with the silk shirts and diamond cuff links and earrings? The girl taking her seat opposite him to eat her supper was not the Leatrice Meredith he remembered. He experienced it again, that fear. He was growing used to Leatrice, like Professor Higgins had grown used to Elisa. “No good,” he muttered under his breath. Leatrice endured because she wanted him, but sooner or later her need for him would slacken and finally end when she grew bored and weary with the hard work basic to his lifestyle. Sooner or later it would happen, she would stop loving him. Only by that time she’d have battered his defenses and he’d have learned to love her and need her as he’d never loved and needed a woman before, except for his mother. When Leatrice left, he must stop loving her, and forget her. And that would hurt a lot. Seth attacked his food ferociously. The apple pie was good. He ate his piece all the way to the dark fluted pastry edge, then helped himself to seconds. He had put aside the fear. He just wouldn’t let it happen, fall in love with Leatrice, that is.
“I’m impressed, Lee,” he said between mouthfuls. “I’m glad you’re learning to bake some. Linda has enough to do cooking and cleaning for the hired hands.” Good to keep Linda’s image alive in his mind. There was a girl, Montanan born and bred, like himself, who would stay with him for the rest of her life. Involved with his own thoughts and with scraping up the remaining crumbs of his second piece of pie, he missed Leatrice’s somber expres-sion or that she put down her fork quietly and stared at him, reminding herself that Linda remained his idea of the perfect wife. As the months progressed, it had become clear to her that Seth had never harbored a burning passion for the girl. He probably expected the burning passion would come after they married — a growing together, Leatrice summarized. Marriages of con-venience sometimes cultivated this growing together. She and Seth had grown together a little since he’d reluctantly agreed to hire her. She had made it impossible for him to refuse her. He stood to gain a lot; the Triple R which he’d spent years nurturing, and the Bar LB at a quarter of its cost, thrown in for good measure, just for hiring her so she could be near him and prove herself worthy, and drive him to admit his feelings for her. The year was half over and she could not imagine life without him. Yet she was nowhere nearer to capturing his heart than the day he’d agreed to her terms. It was still Linda who held his esteem and his concern. For Leatrice, it was always, “Get your stomach in gear, we’re doing this, or that.” No matter how hard she tried to adapt to ranch life, no matter how much she attempted to prove herself, or how hard she worked, it was still “Linda has enough to do!” Upset, Leatrice poured Seth’s coffee well over the rim, spilling it into the saucer. “Oops, here’s something Linda would never do.” She grabbed some paper towels and soaked up the coffee. “Sorry, I’m not feeling too well,” she excused. “I’m going to lie down a while.”
Inside her bedroom, with the door shut, she threw herself face down on the covers, and argued herself into a state of tears and exhaustion. Seth thought bitterly, WOMEN! How did he ever get mixed up with the breed in the first place, but his mother had brought him up to be kind. One glance at Leatrice’s face as she left the table and he realized he’d hurt her with his reference to Linda’s workload. Maybe he’d meant to hurt her. And now he was sorry. The woman had determination! True, she was squeamish around the cattle, not the best housekeeper or cook, although tonight she had outdone herself, but then she didn’t give up easily. He ought to apologize.
He cleared the table, even did the dishes. Then he left the kitchen and knocked at her bedroom door. Perhaps she was sleeping or perhaps she was giving him the silent treatment. He tried the doorknob. The door was not locked. He wedged it slightly. Leatrice lay on her bed, asleep. Her eyelids were red and swollen. She’d been crying. He ran a hand nervously through his hair. He entered the room and moved close to the bed. “Poor rich fool,” he whispered, compassion flooding him. Gently he lifted the ends of the blanket and covered Leatrice to keep her warm. As he did so, he touched her accidentally. At the contact he flushed with warmth. His fingers ached to caress the soft curves. He drew his hands away. She had a power over him. He’d recognized that power from the first day she rode into the Triple R. When the year was up and they parted company, he would feel very much like the alcoholic or addict struggling to free himself of his habit. Yet a lifetime commitment could not be based solely on a physical need.
CHAPTER TEN
Poor little calves, Leatrice commiserated, as she knelt on one knee, tending the branding irons. Seth had assigned her the task of keeping the fire burning with logs from the pile a few feet away. It was necessary to maintain the irons searing hot and in readiness for the moment a calf was snagged by his hind legs or middle with a lariat wielded by a cowboy on horseback. As soon as the calf was caught, it was thrown and pinned to the ground by two cowhands known as flankers. Leatrice’s thick, wide-cuffed gloves were covered in ash and soot, as was the front of her shirt and her denims. There were smudges of the same on her nose, her forehead and cheeks. Her eyes stung and watered from the hot haze the burning wood emitted. Her arms hurt from pushing and pulling and lifting the long irons. Linda had been branding all morning. As each calf was brought down, she would come running out of the corral, quickly grab an iron, and sprint back to apply the searing end with the letters Bar LB glowing red hot to the calf’s hip. The animal’s hide would sizzle and a billowing cloud of smoke combine with the critter’s bawl of pain and fear, and Leatrice’s heart would give a turn.
She pitied most the bull calves that were chosen to be altered to steers. Not only must they endure branding, ear slitting and vaccination, but also castration and dehorning, all done within the matter of a minute or two. She decried such cruel practices, even if they were a necessity. During the branding only the hair roots were burned. That operation was accomplished within a matter of seconds. As to the other measures, if the steers were not dehorned they would bruise one another as they were shipped to market. Neither the steer nor the buyer would appreciate that happening. The heifers on the other hand were permitted to keep their horns to protect and defend the young they would eventually bear. Castration was necessary so the bull calves chosen for eventual shipping to market would not spend their time searching out heifers or cows but instead eat and grow fat and bring a good price. Vaccination was necessary to keep the animals free of disease. Ear slitting was important for identification purposes.
All of the reasons were valid, but to Leatrice not born and reared to the cold, hard facts of working cattle, the entire procedure felt cruel and heartless. She moved aside as Linda, all spry energy came running out of the corral to draw an iron.
“Lee, Seth wants you to try your hand at branding while I get lunch out of the pickup.”
Leatrice froze.
“Well, come on, they’re working a bull calf,” Linda said. Seth shouted over the corral fence as he rode his horse and wielded the lasso to snag the calves. “Hurry up, Lee, the boys can’t hold him down much longer.” Leatrice’s mouth had gone dry and her legs refused to move. Linda watched her curiously. The shock and revulsion on Leatrice’s face were there for anyone to see. Linda’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. With her gloved hands she pulled out a branding iron from the fire and ran back into the corral.
Whatever Linda said to Seth brought him out of the corral on his stallion. The breadth and height of man and horse together, and the inflexibility of his voice as
he demanded, “What’s wrong with you?” overwhelmed Leatrice. Her larynx refused to function even when Seth dismounted and grasped her by the shoulders. Adrenaline was high and tempers short with the exertion and chaos of a branding session. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Seth demanded.
Words staggered from her throat. “I-I c-can’t, I-I won’t. I-I don’t know how,” she stammered, falling upon the most logical excuse she could devise. “Oh, come off it, Lee. You’ve been around cattle long enough now to at least give it a try.” Seth had never seen her so pale or her composure that unhinged. The part of him that had grown used to her felt compassion and some of his impatience left him. He released her, giving her a moment to gather her wits. He understood her inexperience. He’d help her. “Come on, Lee,” Seth urged, taking her elbow.
“NO!” Leatrice fairly screamed, snatching her elbow free. “I won’t go in there. The entire corral is filled with blood and dust and droppings, and — and calves bawling in pain. I won’t go in there, I tell you!”
“How the devil did you run the Bar LB in the first place?” Seth growled at her, what compassion he had felt gone up in fury.
“I already told you. I handled the business end. My foreman and the ranch hands took care of the rest.”
It was a poor excuse for a woman who had set out to prove herself worthy to be a rancher’s wife, but her nervous system was reacting violently to the idea of entering the branding corral.
Seth studied her, grey-green eyes coldly appraising her upturned face and its blanched pigment, before his mouth compressed into a thin, angry line. When he grabbed an iron and forced the handle into her reluctant palm, she knew he was not going to accept her defaulting.
Another bull calf had been snagged and thrown. The terrified animal was sprawled on its side and stretched taut between Leatrice’s foreman Tanner and another cowhand. Linda was preparing to inoculate it. The needle alone was the length of her hand and looked to be at least a quarter of an inch in diameter. Another man had just slit the tip of the calf’s ear in such a manner that the calf could easily be identified as belonging to the Bar LB in case the seared-on brand failed to do so. Binney, Seth’s foreman, was at the bull calf’s lower end, wielding a knife and about to castrate the animal. Another cowhand was about to dehorn it, the instrument in his hand the ugliest tool Leatrice had ever seen. The calf was squealing and bawling. The smell of blood and droppings was so strong it was turning her stomach and smothering her breath. Tanner, seeing Leatrice literally dragged into the corral, her gaze fixed rigidly on the bull calf, and Seth gripping her elbow, holding her there while he thrust instructions into her ear on how to brand, understood clearly the reason for the panic gathering in Leatrice’s eyes. He moved his knee and his hand to cover and close the bawling calf’s mouth, and block its face with its pained, bulging eyeballs from Leatrice’s view. Unintentionally, his action was the added straw that broke the camel’s back. In Leatrice’s eyes it personified cruelty incarnate. Helpless to change matters, she could stand no more. Her legs grew weak and buckled. She swayed. From somewhere far away she heard Tanner hollering something to Seth. Blessedly, and for the first time in her pampered, sophisticated life, Leatrice Meredith collapsed in a dead faint.
She woke with Seth holding her inside the pickup.
“Lee, are you all right?” he asked. Her attempt to sit up was met by an attack of vertigo. Everything around her spun furiously, hurling her back into Seth’s arms. It had all been too much, too soon, Seth forcing her to be a part of the bull calf’s trauma. She had gone with him that morning determined to prove her worth, not realizing that her inexperience would make the animal’s trauma her own. “I’ve never fainted before,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “It was too much, too soon. A year is an awful short time to adapt. I’m sorry.” A wave of nausea followed. She put her hands to her head, groaning, “Oh God,” as pain shot upward from the back of her head to her crown and spread to her temples.
“Easy now, just relax. I’m sorry, Lee. I thought you were just being squeamish. I didn’t realize how upset you were.”
His apology and the concern threading his voice soothed and calmed her. “I’ll be all right. I need to rest a little.”
“I’ll take you home,” he said.
Halfway back to the ranch the unavoidable jolting of the pickup over the dirt road caused the nausea to worsen. Leatrice covered her mouth, about to retch. Seth braked to a stop and had her out of the pickup and to the side of the road within seconds. She felt deathly sick. Tears and sobs mixed freely with her stomach’s upheaval. When there was nothing left to upheave, Seth handed her his handkerchief. “All right?” he asked.
Inside the pickup, he made her lie face up across the seat with her head on his lap and her eyes closed. She slept as he drove.
When they reached the house, he woke her and helped her out of the pickup. “Go to bed,” he told her. “And forget supper. I’ll eat at the bunkhouse with the boys.”
“No. I’ll have supper ready for you. I’m better.” She wasn’t going to give Linda the pleasure of gloating while serving him his meal. She gazed directly into Seth’s eyes, holding herself stiff, not wanting to betray that her stomach felt as though it had been knotted into a bow tie. Wasted effort. Seth was not fooled. He shook his head in exasperation, reading the firm resolution in her limpid blue eyes. “Then make it simple. Sandwiches and coffee will do for tonight. He turned and started to climb into the pickup, then paused in the act and partly turned. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m feeling much better,” Leatrice assured him, but the paleness of her cheeks and the whiteness about her mouth and the pained look in her eyes belied her reassurance.
“Go to bed, Lee. I’ll be late coming back.”
“I’ll have supper ready,” Leatrice insisted.
Daft in the head, that’s what she was, Seth thought, and more stubborn than an ornery mule. Likely to pass out before she reached the door, and here she was insisting upon cooking dinner for him. Ahhh, damn the branding! Damn the Bar LB and damn the Triple R! He couldn’t just leave her like that.
He climbed down and without forewarning lifted Leatrice into his arms. “I’ll cook supper tonight.”
Two aspirins, a hot shower and a short nap later, Leatrice sat down to chicken and potatoes and fresh coffee.
“Now you do look better,” Seth commented as he served Leatrice. She nodded, smiling, and poured herself a cup of coffee. “I’d like to go back with you in the morning,” she offered.
“No, you’re not cut out for this life.” He spoke without malice, simply stating a fact.
“But I have to go back. You know I’ve never been one to run from a challenge.” “Lee, it’s not worth it. There are only six months left to our deal, and we both can do without the added aggravation.”
She would have argued, but his reference to only six months left to their deal erased any illusions she’d been fool enough to create that he might be growing to love her. Leatrice concentrated on eating her food.
In the morning, per his norm, he rose, dressed warmly, went to the barn and milked Bessie. Leatrice cooked and served their breakfast, as had become her norm. She listened without comment as Seth mentioned briefly that there remained quite a few calves to be worked on. Soon after, he left for the branding corral, and Leatrice prepared to tackle the milk separator.
The milk separator was referred by some as the “monster.” It was an important looking machine made up of a large round stainless steel bowl with valves and discs that channeled into spouts through which the cream and the milk flowed separately. The machine required daily washing, but Linda had taught her a short cut, to fill the separator with hot water and let it rinse clear. Then once a week, take the separator apart and give it a thorough cleaning.
The tricky, ominous part was putting the thing back together again. If the discs inside the casing were not replaced exactly right, when the milk to be separated was poured in
to the bowl and passed through the discs, the result was immediate disaster. During the week Leatrice had washed the separator, dried all the parts and assembled them all together again. But this time not as carefully as she thought. This morning she went about quietly and methodically pouring Bessie’s milk into the large steel bowl at the top of the separator and began to operate the machine. She screamed as the milk spurted in every direction conceivable.
She sat down, gloriously covered in milk curds, along with the walls, the ceiling, the utilities, the table, the chairs, and the frayed linoleum. As the fates would have it, the back door suddenly swung open and Seth walked in. “I forgot—" was all he got out before the whitewashed scene registered. “What the hell—" Leatrice allowed him to say no more. She rose, and though not sure if her retaliatory action was aimed at the “monster” or at the incredulous look on Seth’s face, or what in fact she was accomplishing, she pushed the “monster” over the edge of the counter and watched with vindictive pleasure as it crashed to the floor and came apart. The fact that she had probably broken it, the money that would be necessary to repair it, or buy a new one, was of the least importance to her at the moment. What was most frustrating, was the amount of work she would have to do to clean up the mess. She glanced at Seth whose expression wavered between disbelief at her predicament and exasperation at her revenge. Whatever he was about to say, Leatrice warned him, “Don’t you dare say a word.” And with that, she stalked from the kitchen into the family room. She entered her bedroom, slammed the door shut behind her, and pondered miserably how in the past two days she had proved to Seth what a presumptuous fool she was.
