by Janet Dailey
17
The noon meal was a catch-as-catch-can affair. A pot of beans was kept hot, as well as the coffee, for any rider that came in. Usually a drover would ride in, wolf down some beans, wash them down with coffee, saddle a fresh horse, and be gone in less than fifteen minutes.
“It looks like Mr. Willis has woken up,” Lorna noticed as the injured cowboy stirred in the shade of the Stanton wagon and attempted to sit up. “I’ll take him some food.”
After Woolie had passed out, they had carried him to the shade and laid him on his soogan, where he’d slept through the morning and into early afternoon. It was a combination of shock, exhaustion, and alcohol that had kept him out.
Mary added some biscuits to the plate of beans Lorna dished up. She carried the plate and a cup of coffee over to the wagon. Woolie had managed to sit up with the wagon wheel for support, but effort had him sweating again from the knife-sharp throbbing in his broken leg. There was still a pale cast to his tanned face as his breath came in short pants.
“I thought you might be hungry.” Lorna bent down to offer him the food and coffee.
“Thanks.” He took the plate, but made no attempt to eat the food. His head turned to gaze at the herd. “How are the boys doin’? I’ll bet those cattle are scattered all over hell and gone.”
“They’ve brought in several bunches already this morning,” Lorna assured him.
Despite the faint glaze of pain in his eyes, there was a determined set to his jaw when he looked again at Lorna. “Could you help me get to my horse? They’ll be needin’ my help.”
“You’re in no condition to ride with that broken leg,” she protested.
“You get me in a saddle and I’ll stay there,” he insisted. “They’re working shorthanded an’ they’ll be needin’ every rider they can get.”
With the loss of Spanish and Dollarhide, there were only six able-bodied riders left, not counting Benteen. Two of those had to stay with the main herd, which left only four to search for the missing cattle.
“You can’t go tearing off across the prairie.” Lorna frowned.
“Maybe not,” Woolie conceded, grimacing in pain when he tried to shift his position. “But I sure can walk a horse around that herd and free up Jess or Ely to look for cattle. It don’t take two good legs to do that.”
She stared at him, seeing a certain logic in what he was saying. His first thought on waking had been for the herd, not concern for his injuries or hunger. First and foremost, it was the cattle—just like Benteen. The herd represented their future livelihood. Lorna remembered the way her mother worked at the store to help out on busy days, while she had resented the amount of time her father spent at his work and not lifted a hand to help him.
“Missus Calder, I just can’t sit here when they need me,” Woolie argued.
“You are going to sit there until you’ve eaten that food.” Even she was startled by the ring of authority in her voice. “You’re going to need all the strength you can get.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He obediently took up his fork.
Rising, Lorna turned and walked to the chuck wagon. She opened the sideboard where the bedrolls were stowed. “Rusty, which one of these bedrolls belonged to Joe Dollarhide?”
He came over, a curious frown making a scowl on his features. “Why do you want to know? I was gonna see to it that his property was returned to his folks.”
“Just tell me which one it is.” She kept the sound of authority in her voice, not wanting to explain her plan to him.
Just like Woolie Willis, he obeyed. “This one.” He pulled out one that didn’t appear any different from the others.
“Thank you.” Lorna turned away before he could ask any more questions. As she started for her wagon, she called to Mary, “Could you come help me a minute?”
She was inside the wagon and untying the roll when Mary climbed in the back. “What is it?” asked Mary.
Unrolling the tarp, Lorna didn’t pause to answer as she rummaged through the contents. “I’m going to ride astraddle, so I need some clothes to wear. These skirts and petticoats will just spook the cattle and there’ll be another stampede. Joe Dollarhide was about the same size I am. I thought his pants might fit me.”
Mary sat down on a corner of a trunk, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”
“Benteen’s shorthanded right now. He needs riders to find the missing cows.” Lorna found a clean shirt and pair of pants and held them up to study them with a critical eye. “Mr. Willis just said that anybody can walk a horse around the herd. So that’s what I’m going to do, which means Mr. Trumbo can look for cows.” She turned to Mary and held the pants against her waist. “What do you think?”
“Lorna, a woman in pants?” Mary was certain she’d taken leave of her senses.
“They’ll be too long, but we can roll them up,” she decided, and ignored the shocked remark.
Her mind was made up, and she began peeling off her clothes. The pants fit a little snug around the hips, but the shoulder seams of the shirt drooped onto her arm. She rolled the pants legs up until the toes of her shoes showed. The clothes felt very strange, made her feel like she wasn’t really dressed.
“Well?” She looked at Mary.
“Lorna, those pants show everything. It’s scandalous,” her friend declared.
“Then I won’t tuck the shirt in.” Lorna tried to pretend she didn’t feel self-conscious, that it was all very natural and right.
“You’re really going to go through with this, aren’t you?” Mary realized.
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do for a saddle?”
“Jonesy’s saddle is in the back of the chuck wagon.” Lorna had already thought about that. “I’ll use it.” She picked up her sunbonnet and tied it on her head.
Mary laughed, unable to smother it. “You look silly in those pants and that bonnet.”
Lorna grinned, then laughed, too. Both knew the alternative to the sunbonnet was no hat at all, which meant exposure to a blazing Kansas sun. Which was no alternative.
When she swung out of the wagon, unhampered by skirts, Lorna discovered a freedom of movement she’d never known. To cover her nervousness, she walked briskly to the chuck wagon and tried to pretend there was nothing strange about the way she was dressed. There was a shocked and incredulous look on Rusty’s face. It was one of the rare times she’d known him to be speechless.
“Would you catch my horse for me, Rusty?” she asked briskly. “I’m going to relieve Mr. Trumbo from herd duty so he can look for the missing cattle.”
The cook managed to nod and reached in the front of the wagon for a spare rope. All the while that he walked out to the remuda, confined in a rope corral, he kept looking back over his shoulder at Lorna, as if he believed his eyes were playing tricks on him.
The reaction was the same when she rode out to the herd and relieved Jessie Trumbo. The cowboy was dumbstruck at the sight of a woman in pants and sitting astraddle a horse. He kept twisting in the saddle to stare at her as he rode away. Lorna had discovered there was no real trick to riding astride the saddle. It was still a matter of leg strength and balance.
It was late afternoon when Benteen approached the main herd, driving the fifty head he’d found. The cattle trotted quickly when they saw their own kind. Benteen eased his horse back to let the bunch infiltrate the herd on their own.
With a nod to Ely, he started to turn his horse toward camp for a cup of coffee before heading out to make one last sweep while it was still light. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a strange sight. It looked like a man wearing a sunbonnet. It couldn’t be—but it was.
The rider was too slim to be a man—a boy maybe. Benteen didn’t recognize the way he was sitting his horse, either. Then he noticed it was Lorna’s horse. He set his spurs to his horse to intercept the slim rider making a slow circle of the herd. His horse was pulled to a plunging halt directly in her path. Lorna stopped her mount.
Bentee
n raked his gaze over the shirt, plastered to her skin by perspiration, and the pants, drawn tightly across her thighs. Outrage simmered somewhere within him, but he was too stunned for it to have any force.
“What are you doing out here—in that getup?” Benteen frowned.
“I’m taking Mr. Trumbo’s place so he can look for the cattle.” She tried to be calm and very matter-of-fact about the unusual situation. “I knew you were shorthanded, with Mr. Willis laid up and all, so I thought I’d help out. These cattle are just as important to my future as they are to yours.” Lorna had been thinking about that a lot while she rode around the herd.
For a long moment Benteen didn’t say anything. On only one point could he argue with her reasoning, and that was her flagrant defiance of convention by wearing pants. Yet he saw the practicality, the necessity of such clothes if she was going to help. And he certainly could use it.
“When you’re in camp, you wear a dress,” he stated. “I don’t want you walking around in front of the men like that. It shows too much of your body.”
“I will,” Lorna promised, and tried to keep the swell of triumph from curving her lips.
But she sobered at the sudden tension that entered his expression as he seemed to involuntarily lower his gaze to let it wander over her body. There was no attempt to voice the desire she sensed that he felt, nor even an acknowledgment of its existence. Then with apparent calm he turned his horse and rode away.
As she lay alone in bed that night, her body was tired but her mind wouldn’t stop thinking. Benteen was sleeping on the ground outside the wagon. She wondered if he felt as lonely tonight as she did. Lorna remembered how warm his body had been to curl against, how pleasantly solid.
There were so many things about him that she hadn’t understood before. Maybe she had been too inexperienced about life to understand them. He had not been raised as gently as she had. When he got hit, he hit back. He did not threaten idly, as she had done.
She ran a hand over her breast and remembered the way his hand used to claim it and play with the nipple until it was hard and round in his fingers. Gradually she had stopped being shy with him and enjoyed the things he made her feel. Maybe the bad memory was fading. Maybe he could make her feel those things again.
Sighing, Lorna rolled onto her side and tried to close her eyes. There was a brief irritation that Benteen had left the decision for her to make the first move as to when they would be man and wife again. Yet, if he had tried to force it, she would have been angry. It was very confusing.
After two days of wearing pants and riding astraddle, the trailhands became accustomed to the sight and Lorna stopped being an eye-popping oddity. There was a bit more to the work than Woolie Willis had led her to believe, yet Lorna discovered she could handle it. She was really quite proud of herself, too.
It had taken two days to round up the scattered herd. There were ten head they never found. The third morning, they started up the trail again. Benteen assigned Lorna to ride one of the flank positions, while Woolie Willis drove their wagon. He was hobbling around on a makeshift pair of crutches Rusty had fixed up for him. It was hard work, dirty work that tested Lorna’s endurance.
Ten days later, they reached Ogallala, Nebraska, on the North Platte River. They stopped south of there for a day so Benteen could ride to see if he couldn’t hire a couple extra men. Lorna took advantage of the day’s layover to wash clothes.
When she had her things together, she went through Benteen’s bedroll to get his dirty clothes. A bright brass coin fell out of the roll onto the quilt. It didn’t look like any money she’d ever seen before. Lorna picked it up to examine it curiously.
On one side, a woman’s portrait was stamped. The printing on the other side read: “Compliments of Miss Belle, Dodge City.” It was a coin of some sort, but it obviously wasn’t money or any kind of foreign currency. And who was Miss Belle?
Curiosity got the better of Lorna. Leaving the clothes in the wagon, she climbed out. Three of the trailhands had ridden into town with Benteen, and the others were out with the herd. Woolie Willis was at the river, trying his hand at catching some fish. There was no sign of Mary, but Rusty was over by the chuck wagon. Since he’d been practically all over the world as a ship’s cook, it seemed likely that he would know what this coin was, so Lorna went to ask.
“Rusty, have you ever seen a coin like this?” She showed him the brass coin lying in the palm of her hand.
He glanced at it, then sent her a sharp look. “Where’d ya get it?”
Something in his tone prompted her to be vague. “I just picked it up.” But she didn’t say it had fallen out of Benteen’s bedroll. If Rusty thought she’d found it on the ground, that wasn’t her fault.
“One of the boys musta dropped it,” he concluded.
“What is it?” Lorna repeated her question. “Is it money?”
“It’s a dollar token,” he replied, and tried to look busy.
“Do you mean it’s really worth a dollar?” Lorna studied it again.
“There’s places that accept it as legal tender. I don’t know as I’d take it into just any bank,” Rusty hedged on his answer.
“Who’s this woman—Miss Belle? Is that her likeness on the other side?” she asked.
“It probably is.” He nodded reluctantly.
The pieces were starting to fit together in her mind. A dollar token. Good in some unmentionable places. A woman’s picture.
“Is it a kind of advertisement?” Lorna guessed.
“Yeah, you could call it that,” Rusty agreed.
“What is this lady advertising?” A cold anger was starting to chill her dark eyes. “It doesn’t state what her business is.”
Rusty actually started to turn red. The color crept up under his white whiskers, making his skin ruddy. “Well, now, I don’t rightly know,” he faltered.
“Do you suppose she might be a ‘soiled dove’?” She challenged Rusty, daring him to deny what she had already guessed.
“If you already know, why’d ya ask me?” he grumbled in irritation. “You shouldn’t be askin’ me questions like that anyhow. It’s them pants you been wearin’. They’re makin’ you forget what’s proper.”
“I am a married woman,” Lorna asserted. “I am not unfamiliar with such women. It would be silly to pretend they don’t exist.”
“I reckon. There ain’t exactly a surplus of women out West, an’ sometimes a man gets tired of sleepin’ alone.” This time his look challenged her.
Her cheeks flamed at his implication that Benteen might be tired of sleeping alone. Pivoting on her heel, Lorna hurried back to the wagon. The brass coin seemed to burn her palm. She dropped it on the mattress, then sat down to stare at it.
Dodge City. He had wanted to make love to her at the hotel when he came to the room after she had bathed. Only she hadn’t been able to freely respond to his advances. Both nights they had stayed there, he had been out late. That had to be when he had gotten the coin.
A wild jealousy stormed through her as she was forced to conclude that Benteen had gone to bed with a whore to satisfy his lust. He had been unfaithful to her, and she’d kill him for that. Her hands were trembling with rage as she took the pistol from the valise. He’d regret the day he ever taught her to shoot.
When she checked to make sure it was loaded, another incident forced its memory on her. But Lorna wanted to listen to only the part that said “a whore in bed.” But there was a corresponding phrase to it that pushed its way into her consciousness. “Lady on his arm.”
The gun was lowered to rest in her lap. That was what the prostitute had said when they’d spoken so briefly in the millinery shop. The redhead named Pearl had advised her that if Lorna wanted to keep Benteen from seeing that kind of woman, she had to be wilder in bed than he was.
During those first weeks of marriage, Lorna had learned that Benteen responded to the passion she once tried to conceal. And she had responded to his. Even though she’d had cau
se to keep him from her bed, the question was: for how long? If she wanted her marriage to work—which she did—then certain changes had to occur. She had forgiven him for what had happened; now she must forget it.
The gun returned to the valise, along with the brass token of the Dodge City charmer. She gathered up the clothes to wash and left the wagon.
All day long, she had time to think about her decision. When Benteen returned from town in the late afternoon, Lorna felt quite calm about it. She barely noticed the package he was carrying—if anything, presuming it was supplies—until he offered it to her instead of Rusty.
“I bought something for you,” Benteen stated with a bland look. “I had to guess at the size.”
Her calmness fled. Lorna hadn’t expected a gift, and she was knocked completely off balance by it. She stared at the package, then at Benteen. His jaw hardened at her hesitation, taking it as a rejection of anything that came from him.
Murmuring “I don’t know what to say,” she reached out to take it from him. “What is it?”
“Open it and find out,” he urged.
It was a flat-crowned cowboy hat. At first Lorna could only stare at it. Finally she lifted her sparkling gaze to Benteen.
“You looked silly in that bonnet.” Warmth gentled his look. “Every cowboy has to have a hat. You’d better see if it fits.”
When she tried it on, the hat was a little snug, but she’d probably be glad of that on a windy day. Lorna wished she had a mirror handy. For the moment, she had to rely on Benteen’s opinion.
“How does it look?” she asked.
“It doesn’t go with the dress.” His mouth crooked.
“But I promised not to wear pants around camp.” She laughed, but he pulled his gaze away from her and she knew she’d said the wrong thing.
“The hat looks fine.”
“Thank you for buying it for me,” Lorna offered. “I really like it.”
“You’re welcome.” With the present given, he moved away.
