She Shall Be Praised

by Ginny Aiken

  If this fellow came with ill intent, Emma knew herself sunk. She had nowhere to go, and he had the air of someone who meant business. There was no naive youthfulness like Ned’s to him, nor did she suspect the lack of smarts she’d identified in Sawyer. This man struck her as serious, determined, someone who knew his mind and would stick to his principles. From what she’d overheard, he’d come after the sheep her captors had stolen from him. He wasn’t one to be trifled with.

  She hoped to learn he also had a conscience. From the look of things, she had nowhere to go but with him.

  Pippa seemed to like something about the sheep rancher. She’d slipped from Emma’s grasp and scrambled up to greet him—the little traitor. Dread filled her gut. She had no alternative but to place herself at his mercy. She prayed for a good measure of virtue in the heart that resided somewhere within that powerful chest.

  She stood, shoulders squared, when his serious tone took on a hint of threat as he called for her to come out.

  All she managed to eke out was a weak, “He—hello.”

  Why? Why did her voice have to crack at just such a time? At the very moment when she most needed to appear strong and confident? Instead, she must be giving him the impression of a silly girl.

  His attention unwavering, he shook his head a couple of times then cleared his throat. The whole time, he held on to her dog. Perhaps she should start there.

  “Could I please have my dog back?”

  Clearly, it was the wrong question to ask. He stumbled back, and then spun on his heel to head outside, his strides long, firm, determined. In the interest of precision, she’d have to say he had stalked out of the cave.

  Oh, dear. What now?

  She didn’t have to wait long. At the end of yet another hushed conversation nearby, another person, this one older and squatter but garbed like Mr. Lowery, entered the cave. “Never woulda thought it possible, ma’am,” he said in a raspy voice, as he rubbed a tanned cheek. “A lady like you with a coupla bums like these.”

  Emma decided it might be the better part of valor to keep her response to herself. He didn’t seem to notice her discretion, though, since he went ahead with what he clearly had been sent to say. “We’re about to get along out of here, and you can’t be staying behind alone. Dunno how long it’ll take us to get the sheep back to the pasture where we summer the boss’s flock, but you’re gonna have to make the best of it. So are we.”

  “Oh, dear!” She glanced down at her once-lovely calf leather boots. “More walking…”

  The man shook his head and gestured for her to precede him out of the cave. “Not for you. Boss says you’ll be riding his horse, even if it might could be some uncomfortable with that there”—he waved toward her clothes—“with them fussy things you’re wearing. No proper riding clothes, those.”

  Emma shrugged and tried to catch a glimpse of the crusty cowboy’s face, but the hat shielded his features remarkably well. It seemed to be the common fashion up here. “They were perfectly suitable for my trip to Portland by carriage. I never did plan to be left behind in the woods during a holdup.”

  “A holdup, you say?” He sounded bemused. “And the driver left after that without you? Left you at the mercy of those two out there?”

  She tipped up her nose and followed him to a tree where two horses stood, their reins looped over a low branch. “Indeed.”

  The younger men turned away, affording her a measure of modesty, and Colley, as the older cowboy told her to call him, helped her settle onto a tall mare’s back. When she was ready, Mr. Lowery took Ned’s horse, while Colley and Sawyer, hands tied at the wrist, mounted their own. Ned, as eager to please the newcomers as he’d been her, had offered to help herd the sheep, promising he’d give his captors no trouble at all.

  “Don’t you go forgetting,” Colley told him, jaw squaring into an uncompromising rocky ledge, “I have my gun. You try something on us, and I promise you’ll wear the memory of your fool choice on a leg the rest of your life. You already stole from the boss here more’n once. You give me a third reason, and my gun goes off.”

  “Don’t you go worrying, Colley. I’m not ’bout to do nothing that foolish. I sure do fancy my legs a whole lot stayin’ right as they are. Anyway, you can trust me. I promise you.”

  Ned’s eager expression made Emma glance down at Pippa. Mr. Lowery had returned her dog, who now sat comfortably in a puddle of crushed velvet traveling-suit skirt. Slowly, with three of the men working the sheep—two on horseback, Ned trotting on foot—Sawyer complaining, and Emma, who put up a valiant fight to stay upright on the horse, they traveled down a narrow trail, rutted, twisty, and scattered at frequent intervals with substantial broken branches.

  Later, much, much later, when the sparkling stars dotted the inky fabric of the sky and the moon lent its silver gleam to illuminate the path for their odd troupe, they arrived at a large meadow where more sheep milled about. Emma sighed in relief as her horse came to a stop. She looked forward to a hot bath and a good night’s sleep. As she anticipated curling up for the much-needed slumber, a breeze picked up the tumbled curls on her forehead. She shivered. A thick and heavy wool blanket on a fluffy feather bed would be an absolute necessity. Even though spring had come, they remained partway up the Blue Mountains, and night air still bore the bite of cold.

  As she waited for Colley to come and help her dismount, Emma looked around, trying to orient herself.

  An awful sense of dismay poured onto her, drip by drip, until it saturated her. The stark reality of her circumstances overwhelmed her. She saw… nothing. Nothing but trees and sheep. No kind of shelter anywhere. At least the cave had provided that much.

  Surely this wasn’t where they’d been headed.

  This was… well, nothing. She realized she couldn’t even see the men she had ridden in with.

  Where had they gone?

  “Um… Colley?” she called out. “How soon before we set out on our way again?”

  “Huh?” The cowboy emerged from among nearby trees. “On our way to where?”

  “Well, to… um… Mr. Lowery’s sheep… place? Farm? Ranch?”

  For a moment, the older cowboy didn’t answer. Then he drew his felt hat off, slapped it against his thigh, and laughed. “You sure don’t hail from these parts, now do you, Miss Emma? We’re here. This is it, ma’am. This camp here is home for the summer months.”

  “Here?” Her voice went up to a shrill pitch. “What do you mean, here? Why, there’s nothing here. Just sheep. And trees.”

  It was more than obvious to any sane soul. She couldn’t stay here. Of course not. Surely, they couldn’t either. There was no house anywhere to be seen. Cowboy or city woman, both needed a roof over his or her head.

  “Yup, ma’am,” Colley said, still chuckling. “This is it. Home for the rest of May, June, July, August, and likely a bit of September, too. And there ain’t much in these parts, I’ll give you that, but there’s enough. Plenty pasture for the sheep, clean water for all, and the boss has himself a nice little cabin here. He built the hands a fair bunkhouse not too far, neither. You’ll see.”

  “But… but—”

  “Colley!” Mr. Lowery bellowed.

  “On my way, boss,” the cowboy answered then scurried away.

  Emma’s words died off as Colley made his way across the clearing to the shadows on the other side again. That’s when it dawned on her. At the very top of Colley’s head, where it had hidden under the straw hat, sat a large, tight silver-gray bun. Colley was no cowboy.

  Colley was a woman!

  The realization stole her breath, made her thoughts spin, and started up a horrid humming at her ears. It all conspired to leave her quite lightheaded.

  Emma clutched the saddle horn, hoping to keep herself upright. She didn’t relish a fall off and the rough landing that would follow. Thank goodness she’d ridden a western-style saddle. English saddles lacked that prominent feature at the very front.

  “A woman… Colley is
a woman.” Emma’s thoughts spun back to when she’d first heard him… well, her speak. That raspy voice hadn’t sounded right. Now she knew why. Sure, it had a low and growly quality to it, but it didn’t sound anything like a man should. It made sense now.

  She watched the older woman disappear into the darkness of the trees. Who would have thought? What would make a woman turn herself into… well, that? Emma couldn’t comprehend it.

  From her end of the clearing, she heard Colley chase a lamb out of the woods and toward the larger cluster she could just make out in a spill of moonlight. The nearness of that many animals disturbed her, but not nearly as much as did finding herself all alone.

  In the dark.

  And cold.

  “Hello?” she called out after a few minutes’ wait. “I’m back here!”

  No response came her way, as she remained on her perch atop the horse. With a dog on her lap. And she needed… um… her own “constitutional.”

  Since none of the men came to her rescue, even after she’d given them a handful of minutes to do so, Emma decided they’d left her to her own devices. She would have to get herself off the mountain of horse. Oh, goodness. She did not like the prospect.

  While she had gone riding any number of times, in London as well as in Denver, these men—and even Colley—hadn’t and wouldn’t be able to provide her with a proper lady’s sidesaddle. Her dilemma was immediate. Nothing nearby provided the opportunity for her to step down from this great height with any measure of feminine grace and dignity. At least the animal seemed placid enough. She hoped it wouldn’t skitter away when she slid down its side.

  First, however, she had to figure out what she ought to do with Pippa… ah, yes! She’d button the puppy inside her jacket. After all, the garment was ruined through and through. It didn’t matter if Pippa’s modest bulk stretched the velvet past its original shape. It would prevent her pet from falling, being trampled, and keep her snuggled close to Emma, should the horse shy away.

  Moments later, with Pippa inside the jacket, Emma wriggled over onto her belly, legs flailing in the air, and began a controlled slither down the horse’s side, bemoaning her petite stature the whole way. No sooner had she started, however, than her plan failed. She plummeted in one fast swoosh to the ground.

  “Ooooof!”

  She somehow managed to land with her feet squarely under her, but her knees buckled from the momentum and gave under her weight. She landed in a crumpled heap of ballooned skirt and twisted legs on a carpet of soft, damp grass. A moment later, her green wool cloak oozed down the back of her head and a shoulder to pool off to a side.

  Tears of misery stung her eyes, but she refused to give in. She had to stay strong.

  Pippa yelped her objection to such disgraceful treatment.

  Emma scrambled upright and swiped at her damp eyes with the back of a hand. She stomped in the direction where Colley had vanished, but saw nothing of note. Where had the woman gone?

  She turned, scanning the meadow, but of course, saw only sheep. As she continued to turn, her angle changed, and she spotted the mellow gleam of golden lamplight within a cluster of trees at the farthest edge of the clearing.

  So that was where they’d all vanished.

  A house… food, even.

  Perhaps.

  That morning, she’d been sure she had left her appetite behind ages ago. The chunk of greasy bacon Ned had offered had been inedible, and no amount of hunger made it possible to choke it down. The biscuit next to it had been hard as rock. But her stomach gave off a good grumble, as though to remind her of its empty condition. Aside from that, she was exhausted, and being left out in the cold and dark didn’t sit well with her. Shoulders squared and head high, she marched toward the light, good and ready to give those scoundrels a piece of her mind.

  When she drew close, she saw the outline of the cabin Colley had mentioned. Just outside the modest building, she took a deep breath, and then yanked open the door. “I do not appreciate being abandoned while you all have meandered inside to warm yourselves…”

  Her scolding dried up. Instead of her companions from the trail, in the structure she found a young man she’d never seen before and a child. A sleepy boy, who sat up in a bunk and rubbed his eyes.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Pippa yipped and popped her head out the top of Emma’s jacket.

  The young man gaped.

  The boy chortled.

  Something broke loose inside Emma, and a tear finally rolled down her cheek. Would her nightmare never end?

  The next morning, Emma awoke in the bunk where she’d first seen Robert—Robby, as he’d said to call him—Mr. Lowery’s son. When the rancher and Colley returned after they’d marched Sawyer and Ned to the bunkhouse, they moved the boy up to what clearly had been his father’s bed, built into the wall above Robby’s bunk, and Emma was offered the one the boy previously had occupied.

  Robby was thrilled; Emma horrified.

  They expected her to sleep out in the open? In an area where everyone seemed to come and go all the time? The cabin was nothing more than one large room with two or three doors to the outside. Anyone could walk in at any time. Besides, the child could gape down at her whenever he awoke. Not that she imagined he would do her any harm, but she’d never had to sleep with another person in the same room.

  And yet, she hadn’t had the heart to object. From what she came to understand, the only other structure at the summer camp was the bunkhouse Mr. Lowery had built to house his ranch hands. It would now house Wade, the young man who’d cared for Robby, Sawyer, Ned, and Mr. Lowery, himself. He was moving there to afford Emma the relative privacy of the cabin. Colley had her own tiny room in the lean-to attached to the right side of the cabin. One of the doors led to it.

  The rancher was doing what he could.

  When her bottom lip quivered again, she bit down hard on it. She hadn’t even been able to remove her dirty, dusty, sticky, and much too uncomfortable suit. As much as she hated to climb into Robby Lowery’s bed in her disgracefully dirty outfit, she didn’t feel she had a choice. Colley had offered some of her shirts and denim trousers. But since she was a head and more taller than Emma, and outweighed her by a good amount of muscle, none of it would fit. And while the offer was quite generous, she must also have left her wits out in the woods. Emma couldn’t envision the time or pressure that might compel her to wear men’s clothes.

  Unlike Colley. Evidently, that was all she ever wore.

  In view of all that, Emma had, at the very least, removed her jacket.

  Oh, how Emma wanted a long, hot, luxurious bath, fragrant with the French lavender extract Aunt Sophia knew she favored, and a thick, fluffy cotton towel for drying off afterward. Instead, she’d washed hands and face in a wide bowl filled with water Colley ladled from the large kettle that hung from an iron rod over the hearth. Somehow, they managed to cook meals there, but she couldn’t imagine how. There was no proper cookstove anywhere in sight, like those Aunt Sophia’s and Ophelia’s kitchens boasted. Just a fireplace and a rod.

  So much for the civilization she hoped to find. This certainly wasn’t it.

  Fully awake, and in the light of day, she took a good look at her surroundings, only to have her dismay grow greater still. The structure was rough and consisted of scarcely more than four walls with some grayish-white… stuff crammed in between the logs, a roof, and a plank floor. Two chairs and three stools surrounded a table that looked as though someone had thrown it together from leftover floorboards and a handful of nails. More of those additional flat planks had been pressed into use as shelves on the walls. They held cooking pans, plates, cups, and a variety of other items Emma couldn’t begin to identify.

  A couple of fairly attractive gray, blue, and brown braided rugs lay strewn around the floor. Their rustic charm contrasted nicely with the simple rocking chair at one side of the hearth, and made it appear delicate and elegant and lovely, indeed. Clearly, the chair belonged to a
woman, but Emma had yet to see any sign of female habitation besides Colley. The chair did not bring Colley to mind. There was, of course, nowhere for another woman to hide. One worth her salt would run from the place screaming. As Emma meant to do. Straight away.

  What an abysmal situation.

  Then again, since this was Mr. Lowery’s place, and Emma would only stay here until the men helped her return to Bountiful—immediately—she didn’t let herself dwell on the missing owner of the rocker for long. A huge yawn struck her and she stretched. At her side, Pippa rolled over, wiggling her paws in the air. Emma scratched her pet’s belly and wondered when someone, Colley probably, would come and prepare a meal. She’d been offered, and had accepted, a hunk of decent bread and a thick slice of cold mutton the night before. She’d been so hungry it had tasted almost as exquisite as the finest, juiciest filet mignon she’d enjoyed in London.

  It made sense to take Pippa out for her constitutional before Colley—or worse, the stern Mr. Lowery—walked in and found her lazing in the bed. She wasn’t a child like Robby to sleep till all hours. Glad she’d stuffed Pippa’s rope in her skirt pocket before she dropped off to sleep the night before, Emma now attached it to the dog, then stepped down from the bunk.

  And straight into a cold puddle, undoubtedly courtesy of her pet. “Oh, dear, Pippa! You naughty girl. You’ve done so well this far, going outside all the time. Why would you ever do this now, inside Mr. Lowery’s house… er… cabin?”

  Pippa yawned.

  “What’s that?” Robby asked in a sleepy voice, head hanging upside down from his bunk, precisely as Emma had imagined when she first saw the bunks’ setup the night before.

  She looked in every direction, seeking something with which to clean up her dog’s mess. “She’s my dog.”