Loveland

by Andrea Downing

  The stallion spun ’round and made a dash toward Alex, stopping short just feet from her. She still did not move, staring him down, keeping her eyes always on his, totally fearless in aspect if not always in heart. She stood so motionless for the most part, it was almost a surprise to find she had moved along the rails, always keeping her face to the horse, her hands open. The men remained mesmerized by her and her soft sing-song words, forgetting their work until Tom rode up and started to shout and had to be shushed by Garrison; then he, too, got down and watched.

  Alex eventually made her way around to Joe, who was standing up on the rails at the stable side of the corrals. Still keeping her eyes to the stallion, she said in a very low voice, “I’m sorry, Joe. Truly. I-I never should have done that, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry.” Alex sensed Joe was somehow more amused by the whole thing rather than angry.

  He tugged on his moustache and in his smoky voice he said, “‘S all right, Lady Lex, you jus’ keep on doin’ whatever it is yer doin’. Maybe there’s somemat init fer us all to learn.”

  “Do you think…” She stopped for a minute while the horse came around again, pawing the earth angrily. “Do you think you might find some sugar cubes or apples for me?”

  Joe went off and Alex became aware of the low voices of Jesse and Tom. Still she concentrated completely on the horse, continuing to stand there in the damp heat of the day with her shirt hanging out over her denims, her hair loose and her English paddock boots barely pulled on. Joe returned and spoke quietly to tell her he was there, and she moved back, facing forward, to take the cubes in her hand, which she extended behind her, quickly shoving all but one into a pocket.

  The horse eyed her with interest now. He galloped toward her again and reared up at the last moment. Tom made a movement to stop it but Garrison stayed him. “She knows what she’s doin’, boss. I hate to admit it, but I think she does.”

  Alex’s hand went out with a single cube on it. The stallion’s suspicion was almost comical; the men watched as he shook his head first one way, then the other, before proceeding very hesitantly toward Alex and making a final dash to snatch the sugar off her hand and get away with it.

  Tom’s patience ran out and he told the men to get back to work. Garrison was the last to go, hanging over the corral gate for a last look and a word with Joe who, as wrangler at the stables, stayed on. It gave Alex a chance to apologize to Garrison quietly, an apology he accepted with a small admonishment.

  “I think you’ll find it’s Jess who’s angry as all get-out. But that’s ’tween you and him,” he advised before riding off.

  And so it was. When the men returned that evening, Alex was still there, in the corral with the stallion, who was a much calmer being. The horse followed her now as she walked backward, until she managed to slip out of the corral to get him a feedbag while his back was turned.

  “She been at it all day?” Garrison asked Joe as he pulled off his tack.

  “Hasn’t stopped to eat nary a thing. Fed the durn horse some, but only took some water for herself.”

  “Has she sacked him out yet?” Garrison asked.

  “Yeah, she done that a bit.” Joe found his makings and rolled a cigarette. “But she ain’t topped him off. Seems to be taking the slow route, I reckon.”

  “Huh!” grunted Garrison. “It’s fine if you have time to take the rough edges off. I thought she wanted an outlaw. Surely don’t seem like it. Dang cayuse’ll be sweet as pie the time she seems to be spending.”

  The two men looked over at Jesse who was leading his own horse into the stable, anger etched in every muscle of his face. Joe nodded toward the chuck house and they followed the others in to leave Alex alone when Jesse came out.

  She was starting back to the main house when Jesse grabbed her arm and turned her around. “You ever do that again,” he said in a voice she had never heard, intense in its anger, rage just below its surface, “I swear to God, Alex, I’ll…I’ll take you over my knee and give you a lickin’ once and for all.”

  “How dare you!” She shook him off. “How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you! Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Jesse jabbed his finger at her to emphasize he meant what he was saying. “Who do I think I am?” he snarled back. “Who do I think I am? You ever, ever take a gun off me again and point it at someone, you’ll find out who the hell I think I am. You know that coulda gone off? You know you coulda killed someone? I told you—out there yonder—I told you, you never point that thing at anyone less’n you mean bus’ness.”

  “I did bloody well mean business! They were destroying that horse. Furthermore, I knew, and you knew, and they both knew, there wasn’t a shot under the hammer. You taught me that, didn’t you? So there was no chance of an accident!”

  “That don’t matter none. You coulda pulled the hammer back twice. Way you was, you were nothin’ better’n a loose cannon, Alex. You ever do a thing like that again—”

  “You’ll what?” She shook with her rage as tears pooled against her will. “I apologized to them both and they accepted my apologies. It’s none of your concern—”

  “None of my concern! You pulled my gun! You ever do that again— Don’t you walk away when I’m talkin’ to you!”

  She turned back to him after a few steps. “You’ll what? You’ll what, Jesse? What will you do? I want to hear it! Say it again. What will you do?” And she stood there in the evening darkness, facing him down, wearing him out like she’d faced down the stallion.

  ****

  Alex expected Tom to sit her down and give her a good talking-to, but the reprimand never came. She thought perhaps he would discuss the matter with Oliver, but then she figured Tom would know all too well that would be useless. With the situation left at the status quo, Alex reprised the events in her mind. She knew she had been wrong to pull Jesse’s gun but having apologized to Garrison and Joe, she had no inclination to apologize to anyone else—especially not Jesse.

  Over the next couple of weeks, Alex went down to the corral to train the horse before the men went out, and she was still there when they got back. The men got bits of news from Joe: how she had found an old jacemo and tried that on the horse, how she was now using a hackamore to ride him about the corral, how they had gone out bareback and he was now in bridle and what type bits she had tried, how she had him on a lunge. “Heck,” Garrison told them, “she’s spent so much time on that dang horse, it’s a wonder she can’t just sorta communicate with ’im and tell ’im where she wants to go without a dang bridle!”

  They wanted to know had she named him yet and were pleased to hear she had named him Open Range but was calling him Ranger for short. It suited, they felt.

  Only Jesse didn’t apparently take an interest. Only Jesse went straight out and came straight in without a glance.

  One evening after dinner, Alex approached Oliver with her latest idea. “I’m going to have to wear my pants into town for a while,” she began.

  He snapped shut the ledger he’d been studying but it was obvious he had more important things on his mind than Alex’s latest request. “Oh?’ he said with little real interest.

  “I’m going to Miss Bea’s to start a series of paintings of the saloon girls. I hope you won’t mind,” she added somewhat archly.

  “No, no, go right ahead.”

  “Maybe I’ll strip naked and join them,” she said as she left the room.

  The next day she rode into town dressed in what Rose now referred to as her cow-girl’s outfit, stopping first at the Benders’ to see if there was any news regarding her boots (“No, dear, I’m afraid I’ve had to write to our other supplier in Texas….”) and then marching boldly through the swinging doors which had held such interest for her in the past. She was prepared for stares, obscenities and rude comments, and outright rejection, but kept going and stayed good-natured throughout.

  “What’ll it be?” said the barman coming over to her. “No, don’t tell me, sa
rsaparilla!” The whole room laughed.

  “No, thank you. I’d like to speak to Miss Bea, please.”

  The barman put on a dainty English accent. “Who shall I say is calling, Madame?” More laughs.

  Alex gave him her most winning smile. “Lady Alexandra Calthorpe, if you please.”

  He looked at her for a moment in disbelief. “Listen kid, Bea ain’t seein’ nobody today. Bea’s real busy, you get what I mean?” He leered across the bar.

  “Well, I can wait,” came her smiley reply.

  “What’s going on, Barney?” bellowed a husky voice from the stairs.

  Alex looked up to see what she thought was the most magnificent figure of a woman suitable for portrait she had ever seen. Tall and broad and heavy-set with heavily rouged cheeks, ash darkening her eyes, more feathers than a rooster’s tail, there stood the famous Miss Bea, red satin and black lace barely covering her décolleté.

  “Miss Bea?” Alex marched around to the bottom of the steps. “I’m Alexandra Calthorpe. And I’d like to paint your portrait.”

  Chapter Ten

  It was, first and foremost, a business deal. Miss Bea told Alex the girls’ time was money and at first expected her to pay for the time they would have to pose.

  “You can’t paint ’em while they’re workin’. No man is gonna want that, you understand. So what’re you gonna pay me for their time, then?”

  “I’m going to pay you in a painting which I shall do—”

  “Hell, lady, I don’t want no painting. What in tarnation am I gonna do with a painting?”

  “A painting of you,” Alex went on regardless. “A nude for above the bar. My paintings sell for a great deal of money in New York and I shall take your painting to New York with me in October—”

  “I thought you jus’ said it was fer above the bar?”

  “And you will be famous. I shall take it and bring it back. It will be just for show. You will be famous,” she repeated.

  Bea stared up at her from behind a great desk in her office. She never offered Alex a chair. Indeed, there wasn’t one—only a huge brass bed at the other side of the room, disheveled now but with lacey pillows thrown about the crumpled sheets. Alex glanced at it, then back to Bea.

  “My paintings sell for over a hundred dollars apiece,” she told her. This was true, because as she had learned, before Jonathon took his commission, they had sold for two hundred dollars each, most of them. “The one I plan to do of you, being large enough to be seen above the bar, would be worth far more. How much do your girls make an hour?”

  Bea looked at her, deliberating. “For a mere wisp of a girl you sure know how to talk your way out of a box.” She waited a moment before going on. “All right then. You do the painting of me first, then you can choose two girls for two more paintings. You can take the damn nude to New York and make me famous but I want it back here, you understand?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And you don’t go botherin’ the girls when they got better things to do, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Most of all, you don’t go namin’ names or tellin’ tales when you get outa here. Men don’t like their wives a-knowin’ where they been, you understand? If I see a fall off in business, out ya go.”

  “It’s round-up. There won’t be a fall-off in business. It’s your slow season,” Alex stated, as if she knew what she was talking about.

  “Been doin’ your homework, ain’t ya?” Miss Bea showed her to the door. “Come to think of it, I think it would be best if you was to come up these back steps from the alley. Men see y’all out front, they might get the wrong idea!”

  ****

  Annie was completely horrified of course but Alex really liked Bea, liked her company, her raw humor, her earthiness and, more to the point, loved painting her. The woman was completely immodest, brazen and bawdy, a complete novelty to Alex who came from a world where her maidservant Rose, who dressed her and looked after her in every conceivable way, would close her eyes to hold open a towel as Alex stepped from her bath.

  “Bea, you can’t keep moving. Every time you move I have to readjust the damn cloth, or your breasts and your you-know-what start showing.”

  “I thought that was the durn reason to be nude—that folk wanted to see them parts. What’s the durn purpose of coverin’ ’em up? I ain’t here to be modest, Lady A.”

  “That much I have certainly ascertained,” replied Alex getting back to her oils. “But the cover is virtually transparent and the beauty is in your shape and form, not in every damn hair in your…your private area.”

  Bea roared. “My private area? My goodness but we are pretty durn delicate, ain’t we?” She sized up Alex while the girl continued to paint. “You ever been with a man, sweetheart?”

  “Of course I’ve been with a man. I live on a bloody ranch, don’t I?”

  “No, I mean, been with a man. You know, had him make love to you ’n’ all.”

  “Certainly not,” said Alex primly, still concentrating on what she was doing. “Why ever would I want to do that?”

  “I suppose you all are intendin’ to keep yerself for marriage, huh?”

  “Keep myself? I have no intention of marrying at all.” Alex realized here, at least, was one person who had not heard the gossip of her recent past.

  “You all gonna be a spinster? I don’t think so, not by the look of ya.” She bolted upright all of a sudden. “Wait a minute now. What about you—”

  “Bea! You’ve moved again! What did I tell you?” She came over to push Bea back into position and adjust the cover.

  “Heck, ain’t Jesse Makepeace been courtin’ you?”

  Alex stood stock still. She looked at Bea as if she’d been shot, blinked, then went back to her easel where the huge canvas at least partially hid her from view. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Jesse—”

  “Ha! The hell you don’t! If you don’t know it, there’re sure some Faringdon boys who know it.” She played with the corner of the cover for a moment. “May says he ain’t been in for quite some time now.” She laid back thinking, but Alex was busy mixing paints. “Says he used to be a dang good lover, too, when he came in, but you know, when they get sweet on someone...”

  “I really don’t wish to hear about this,” Alex retorted, keeping herself busy. Suddenly she was forced to think about Jesse with another woman, Jesse whoring, Jesse doing what men did. The incident the day of the circus with the soiled dove had never bothered her; it had been funny if anything, yet hearing it now so plainly put by Bea, she was stunned. Confused, she put her brush down for a moment, then took it back up. One standard for men, another for women, she thought to herself. Fine, let a man get experience, but I won’t be a virginal spinster, that’s for sure. “In any case,” she added at long last, “there is nothing at all between me and Jesse Makepeace. In fact, if the truth be known, we are not even on speaking terms at the moment.”

  “Oh, hon, a lovers’ quarrel? Hell, I can tell you how to fix that one up right quick.”

  “Really, Bea. Can we change the subject, please?”

  “Well, you listen to me, you’re gonna have to do it one day cause you sure as heck don’t wanna go dyin’ no virgin, and when you do, you wanna be well prepared. Do you know what to expect?”

  “My brother has given me some information on the matter, yes.” Alex kept painting.

  “Your brother? Your brother! Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lady A. What in hell does your brother know ’bout it ’ceptin’ how to push it in. I’m talkin’ ’bout bein’ on the receivin’ end, darlin’.” There was quiet for a while as she twisted the cover through ringed fingers and lay back again. “You know how to kiss?”

  ****

  “Faringdon Ranch,

  Colorado, USA!

  3 June 1886

  Darling David,

  I was so glad to hear you have a new love and that things are proceeding well in that area, but of course not so happy to
hear you might now not be coming over this summer. That truly would be a huge disappointment. I understand back East they have those new telephones where you can actually talk to someone a distance from you, via wires and things. Wouldn’t that be lovely to be able to pick up this telephone and speak to you whenever I liked, although I suppose it will never be able to go from America to England because of the sea. Never mind—it was just an idea.

  Oh, David please come visit. I need a bit of “bucking up.” I think that is the expression. Have had a terrific row with Jesse—my best friend amongst the punchers, whom I am sure you remember from your visit in ’78—so we are now not on speaking terms. I guess it will be a long, hard day until we are. And Oliver is completely off in a world of his own, things bloody awful on the ranch front—don’t tell Papa though. I’m sure you won’t anyway, but please be sure not to slip as I fear he will have Uncle O. dismissed and then I would have to leave too, I suppose. By the way, sorry to hear about Papa’s illness, though Lord only knows why I should be sorry, but there we are.

  Row with Jesse was due to something very awful I did, being spoilt young lady I am, and something equally awful he said to me. I actually pulled his gun and threatened two of the men with it, but the point is, I did apologise to them both later and that was accepted, but it seems Mr. Makepeace wanted to thrash me and you can imagine how that went down with yours truly. Ah, well…

  The painting is going remarkably well. I have just about completed the chef d’oeuvre—a huge nude of the local madam for above her saloon bar. These have been the most informative sittings of my life. David, those cozy little chats you and I had were not particularly informative really, now were they? Surely you could have given me a bit more information. With Miss Bea, as she is called, although I was a captive audience I can truly say I was an attentive student. In any event, Miss Bea has given me a lesson every woman should have and even if I never do marry, I am now a mine of information. Do you really stick your tongue in someone’s mouth when you kiss? I think I have to try to sort out the whore-only items on my list from the real lovers’ or “fun” in bed things. Miss Bea, by the way, assures me it is fun in bed, but then she would think that, wouldn’t she?