“I’m quittin’, Alex. I can’t work here.” He waited for a response but Alex was biding her time, thinking things through. “I can’t stay on and work and…and see you every day. I ain’t made like that.”
“But you can leave me in the lurch, leave Tom in the lurch, you’re made like that, are you?”
“Tom’ll manage. You’ll manage. You always do.”
She stared at him with tired eyes devoid of life, and he wondered if owning the ranch was what she really wanted.
“You’re supposed to give a month’s notice, Jess.” She suddenly sat up. “It’s in your contract.” Realizing Jesse might leave permanently, might never return to the ranch, a vice gripped her heart. She had wondered time and again what their reunion would be like, considered over and over whether she wanted to see him. Now, faced with losing him once and for all, she was stunned.
He planted himself in front of her and shook his head. “What damn contract? I never signed no contract, and you know that. Any foreman on any ranch’ll walk off at a moment’s notice. What contract are you talking about?”
Alex thought quickly. “Well, if you didn’t sign a contract you certainly should have. Maybe in the wake of…of everything Tom just never got around to it.”
“Oh, don’t give me that!”
“All right. A gentleman’s agreement then,” she hedged.
Jesse paced a bit. “I can’t stay, Alex. I wrote you those damn letters. I wrote letter after letter and I didn’t get replies to the last three. I have no idea what’s been goin’ on...”
“Will it help if I apologize for slapping you?” she asked quietly.
He stopped and looked down at her. “It’s not the point. I can’t wake up in the mornings and—”
Alex rushed on, “I need you here. I can’t manage, and Tom can’t manage the ranch without you. You’ve been foreman now for over two years. No one can replace you. You have to give a month’s notice. If you’re still not happy and want to go at the end of the month, I’ll accept your resignation. Surely we can have a working relationship?” She tried to keep her tone quiet and reserved, business-like, her hands folded on the desk. But inside she felt like screaming. Her tension mounted.
“A working relationship?” Jesse spat. He shook his head, unbelieving. “My, but you are one hard woman,” he said, staring down at her. “You got one month and then I’m outta here, lady, you hear? One month!”
He slammed the door as he left.
Chapter Twenty
“He practically kicked down the stall door yesterday,” said Joe, stroking Ranger’s muzzle. “He sure is glad to have y’all back, Lady Lex. As are we all.”
“Thank you, Joe.” She led Ranger out, then stopped. “I thought he was in Jesse’s string now.”
“He was. Jesse took real good care of ’im for you. But he left him here t’day. Said you’d want to ride him now you were back.”
She rode out to see Annie who gave her a big hug and had a little weep and held her out, as Tom had, to look at her. There were no tears from Alex, though, just a little half smile as she put her arm around Annie and went with her inside.
“So, no major changes to the house this time, I see. How are the children?” Alex realized the tone of her voice must sound stilted but she couldn’t help it. Her reunion with everyone was proving more emotionally draining than she had foreseen.
“They’re fine. Growin’. Sue Ann’s quite the young lady. She keeps saying she’s going to wear that dress you left her.”
“Oh. Yes.” Alex just stood there in the kitchen as if she were a formal guest waiting to be asked to be seated. “And J.J.?”
“Still readin’ books. Tom says he thinks he’s going to be a lawyer the way he reads everything.” Annie waited for some response but Alex didn’t move. “You goin’ to have some lunch with me?” she asked.
“I don’t think so, Annie, I really have to get on and see—”
“David said you need to—”
“I know what David said, Annie!” Alex snapped. There was a moment before she said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean…I know you mean well. I’m just tired of people telling me what I have to do, what I can do.”
Annie stood there patiently.
“I have to go,” Alex said suddenly and she turned for the door.
“Just a moment, young lady.” Annie’s voice came back at her. “Don’t you do that, don’t you do that to me. This is me you’re talking to here and I’m not having this. I’m not being shut out like I don’t matter, like nothing matters. You sit yourself down and talk to me.”
Alex stayed where she was, her back to Annie.
“I know all about what you done, both good and bad, I know all about you saving us, saving the ranch, and I know about the bad things too. Don’t you go marching off like that and think you can just leave me with no words spoke. You sit down, Alexandra Calthorpe. This minute.”
“I’m not a child anymore,” came Alex’s hoarse reply. “I’m not eight years old, and I can’t be reprimanded or bribed with chocolate cake anymore, Annie.”
“No one’s bribing anyone here, nor reprimanding you neither. I’m asking you to talk to me. I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends. We’ll always be friends I hope.”
“Well, you sure as heck aren’t acting like it!” Annie stood there waiting.
Alex moved toward the door then stopped, looking out at the grassland, at some horses grazing off in the distance. She shook as tears forced their way out, a dam bursting. Annie laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I have to go.” said Alex, shrugging her off. She grabbed the door handle.
Annie moved quickly and slammed it shut. “You talk to me, Alex.”
Tears blossomed then trailed down Alex’s face. “What do you want to talk about, Annie? You want to talk about what it feels like when the man you love, the person you love most in this whole world, just stops writing for no reason when you need him most? Or maybe you just want to talk about what it feels like to lose a child? To feel like you’ve lost everything you ever wanted all at once, to have the bottom fall out of your life?”
“You tell Jesse yet?”
“No, of course not. Tell Jesse? What does Jesse care? He stopped writing.”
“No, he did not, Alex. He was in here saying he was getting letters from you begging him to write and he was writing all the time. I told you that!”
Alex moved to a chair and finally sat down. “I didn’t get them. I don’t know how three letters or however many could go missing. No one stole them. No one intercepted them. My father was dead—Frederic that is—he was dead by then and David certainly wouldn’t have given orders for letters to be intercepted. Maybe Jesse dreamt he’d written.”
“Jesse wasn’t dreaming and Jesse wasn’t lying, Alex. You know him as well as I do. If Jesse says he wrote those letters…”
Alex put her head in her hands. “What difference does it make now, Annie? What possible difference? It’s over. You see me. You know what I went through, what I did. Jesse would never understand that, Jesse—”
“Jesse has a right to know, Alex. Leastways ’bout the child. Jesse loves you!”
“Loves me? He doesn’t love me now. It’s been more than two years. It’s too late, it’s too damn late for anything now except going on and making a life that doesn’t involve pain.”
“You don’t want a life that doesn’t involve pain. Such a life doesn’t exist. What you want is a life that doesn’t involve love, Alex. You’re afraid of being hurt, that’s your problem. Well, if love doesn’t hurt, I can tell you it’ll be something else, it’ll be not loving, not being with Jesse, seeing Jesse with someone else. You think on that for a while.” She waited for a reply but got none. “And Jesse has a right to know,” she repeated. “You’re going to have to tell him sometime.” She went over and held Alex’s face against her chest, her arms around her, soothing her. “According to David’s last letter, Tom’s still in loco paren
tis until you’re twenty-one. Goodness, loco sure is the proper word!”
****
For the better part of two years Alex had attempted to eradicate her feelings for Jesse any way she knew how. Even when his letters were arriving, the pain she felt at reading them was so intense she could not deal with it in any manner except to try to put him aside, even knowing, as she did then, she was carrying his child. She wrote back lovingly at first but, as time wore on, more sparingly and with less emotion. Then, when his letters had stopped, she felt she had pushed him out of her life, realized her mistake and wrote begging him to write again. Letters never came back.
She knew before returning to Colorado she would see him, he was still there, and Tom had claimed Jesse still loved her. But for Alex it was too late. The last year had taken its toll and now all she wanted was her independence and freedom from all emotional ties. And yet…when she saw Jesse she knew she hadn’t eradicated those emotions as well as she had hoped.
The house was almost as empty as she was. There seemed no rhyme or reason to what had been sold and what was left. The study was complete. There on her desk was Oliver’s set of engraved crystal and silver decanters. She sat staring into the faceted whiskey decanter, noting the way the light from the window filtered through the amber liquid and changed its color from pale yellows to golden browns. Fascinated, she turned the glassware around slowly, then sat back and stared at it a moment before returning to her work. Having agreed with Tom to have a meeting at the house with Jesse to bring her up to date on all the various ranch matters, Alex tried desperately to get her emotions back under control. Wading through a pile of work when Wilson showed them in, she felt incredibly tiny behind the stack of paper, her feet on the desk. She didn’t look up, but continued to turn pages as they entered.
“Coffee for the gentlemen, please Wilson,” she said as they sat down.
“You goin’ to manage all right with the reduced staff?” Tom seated himself in front of the desk.
“Of course,” she answered, looking across at him for a moment. “I’m not exactly having house parties here, Tom.”
“No, but it’s a big house.”
“We’ll manage.” She turned another page as Wilson came in with a tray, set the coffee out for the men and put a glass of milk in front of her.
She stared at it for a moment, putting the papers aside, sitting up, and leaving. Her hand went slowly out for the glass, turned it around toward her as she brought it to her mouth for a quick gulp. “Ugh!” She gagged getting up, turned from them, reached for her hankie and spat it out. She yanked on the bell pull.
“Is this your idea, Tom?”
“David says—”
“I know what David says. I don’t have to be told anymore. I’d rather stuff myself with potatoes every day than drink that.”
Wilson came back in.
“What the hell is that, Wilson?”
“Milk, M’lady. Mr.—”
“What kind of milk? Milk that’s never seen a cow?”
“Eagle Brand, M’lady.”
“Well, take it away. Or put some chocolate in it or something. And go find a milk cow for goodness sake. We’ve got enough of them out there.”
“You going to milk it?” asked Tom.
Alex sank back in the chair. Jesse just sat there, his face blank, unreadable. “There must be someone on this damn ranch who knows how to milk a cow?”
“I’ll find out, M’lady.”
“You can take that as well.” She pointed to the silver tray of decanters. “I don’t think I’ll be entertaining anyone from the Cheyenne Club any time soon. It’s a wonder these weren’t sold.” Alex settled back in her chair. “What’re rail prices like at the moment?” she asked, getting down to business.
They went through the papers: the much reduced size of the ranch now pulled down to the border with the Thompson, fences put up all around, the reduced head of cattle they were running, the increased head of horses, the lower number of men, the change to Herefords from their Longhorns, and the additional acreage given over for winter feed. The railway freight prices were down for the moment as so many ranches had gone bust, but beef prices were slightly up. They were just turning a profit again. Alex looked up from her papers.
“I haven’t said thank you,” she said quietly. “I owe you both so much, your management and your foresight, it’s the only reason the ranch is still going.”
Jesse had been monosyllabic throughout and still just sat there, a hand across his mouth, looking at her. She was still wearing the Indian cuff he had bought her but she had moved it to her left wrist.
“It was a joint effort,” Tom said, “The three of us. Without your money—”
“Never mind that.” She went back to look at the papers. “Who’s bought Boyd?” she asked suddenly.
Jesse changed position slightly and Tom looked at her for a moment. “Why? I don’t rightly know. Why do you ask?”
“I want to buy it back. I like it over there. The light is good for painting. How can you not know who bought it, Tom?”
“Higgins handled the sale. You’d have to ask him.” His voice had a nervous edge to it. “I don’t mean to pry, Alex, but have you the money to buy it back?”
“No. But…I don’t know. Maybe David would lend it to me.” She straightened the papers into a neat pile. “Who bought Cattail?” She referred to one of the other camps.
“Well, Garrison bought it actually. You know, he and Millie got married last year.”
“I think I did know that. You wrote.” She almost said, “unlike some,” but thought better of it. “Garrison still working for us?”
“He is. He’s handling the horses and throwing his cattle herd of about four hundred head in with ours. It works for him. He’s doing well.”
Alex sat back and rocked in her chair for a moment. “Can you find out who bought Boyd?”
“Some businessman from Cheyenne, I’m thinking,” Tom said. “Yeah, I reckon that was it. Wanted a hunting cabin.”
Alex stared at him. Jesse looked up at the ceiling.
“I’ll ask Higgins,” she said.
****
“Confidential, Lady Alex,” Higgins told her.
“How can it be confidential, Mr. Higgins? It was my property. I have a right to know who bought it. I want to buy it back.”
“Buyer has a right to remain confidential. His lawyer acted on his behalf. Anyway, it wasn’t your property at the time of sale.”
“Who was his lawyer then?”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll have to get the papers out and see. Don’t rightly recall. Papers are in the vault. Come back, in a couple of weeks, why don’t you. I’ll try to find it for you by then.”
She went to say hello to the Benders and then went on to the saloon. There was no one to stop her now from wearing her denims into town, no one to tell her where she could and could not go, and she didn’t care what people thought. Tom took his guardianship seriously, but so far it only seemed to extend to her health and the need, according to her English doctor, to put on weight. She swung the saloon doors open and looked up at the painting above the bar.
“Still there.” Barney smiled and extended his hand.
Alex shook it, then noticed a table of her men, Cal and Reb included, along with the new man who seemed to still be working for her. She slapped a couple of bills on the bar. “Bea upstairs?”
Barney nodded. “What’s this for?”
“Give my men over there whatever they’re drinking.” She started up the steps.
“The only person who knocks like that,” called the voice from the other side of the door, “is the merest wisp of a girl who—”
Alex swung the door open.
“Good Gawd!” Bea got up from her desk. “You’re even smaller than you used to be. What they been feedin’ ya over there?” She enveloped Alex in a bear hug. “Lemme look at ya.” Alex stood there patiently and turned around as if showing off a dress. “Not much to look at, kid, no
t much to see. You’re disappearin’.”
“Well, some might think it was for the best.”
“Now what in tarnation is that supposed to mean? You feelin’ sorry for yerself? That ain’t right. When’d you ever feel sorry for yerself?”
Alex stood there smiling at her friend. She went and hugged her again. “You’re so damn wonderful,” she said, holding her.
“Yeah, I know—whore with a heart of gold. Give me a break, sweetheart.” They sat on the edge of the desk. “You got tits now, I see, thin as you are. Where in hell did you get...” She stopped, suddenly serious. “Oh, I see.” She ran her hand gently down Alex’s back. “Wanna tell me ’bout it?”
“Nothing to tell.” Alex’s mouth formed a hard line. “Baby died.”
“You tell Jesse?”
“No. And don’t you tell him either, Bea.”
“Man’s got a right to know, Lady A.” She rubbed Alex’s back a bit. “He ain’t been in since he lay right there with you that time. Jesse’s—”
“Oh, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse.” Alex got up. “Everyone’s worried about Jesse. Jesse can take care of himself. I’ll take care of myself—”
“And you’ll jus’ go on regretting everythin’ for the rest of your life, is that it?”
Alex looked at her sadly. “I have to go,” she said.
“You have to go because you don’t want to hear. Yer boys told me you and Jesse split. Let me tell you, that is one of the dumbest damn things—you gonna throw him out because of some letters?”
“It wasn’t the letters, Bea. I needed him. I needed to know he was there for me, even if he was on the other side of the world, I needed to know he still cared.”
“So you’re blaming him for the U.S. postal service or Wells Fargo or maybe the defunct Pony Express, or whoever the hell lost them letters? Hell, lady, you are some dang fool.”
Alex took a breath and smiled at her friend. “Good to see you, Bea.”
The door closed behind her.
She stopped on the way home, looking back at the mountains, dark against the unending blue of the sky, snowcapped still and standing there as they had for the ages. An eagle was gliding overhead and she watched it as it hung in the air, flew in the current, then swooped down for its prey.
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