A chill shivered down Rose’s spine. “Peter, I think he was threatening you.”
“Now don’t go gettin’ yourself in a lather, Rosie.” He slapped the reins against the team’s backsides. “That’s just how Charlie Prescott talks. He’s full of his own self-importance.”
Rose wished she was as confident as her husband sounded.
NINETEEN
Julia watched from the doorway of the house as Hugh climbed onto the wagon seat, a strange ache in her heart. It had started yesterday morning by the river. She didn’t know what had gone wrong exactly. He’d said a little about his father. She’d said a little about her mother. Nothing that should have caused an uncomfortable silence to settle over them, and yet it had.
And it was that way still.
Julia felt a small hiccup in her heart as she moved off the porch and walked to the wagon. “Here’s the list of supplies we’ll need. And I’ve got a letter for you to take to the post office while you’re in town.” She held out her hand to pass him both items.
He stuffed them into his shirt pocket without glancing at them.
“On the way back, would you mind stopping by to see Peter? Make sure he still feels up to watching the place while we’re gone. Remind him we plan to leave Wednesday.”
“I’ll tell him.”
She took a couple of steps back. “Just have Mrs. Humphrey put the supplies on my bill. She’ll remember you. Tell her I’ll be in next week to pay it in full.”
Hugh nodded, then slapped the reins. The wagon jerked into motion.
Her chest hurt as she watched him leave. It would hurt even more when she watched him ride away for good. It was no use pretending that he meant nothing to her. That would be a lie. She liked Hugh. She liked him too much.
“Oh, God. How did I let this happen?”
Bandit rubbed against her leg and she leaned down to stroke his head.
“Don’t I have enough trouble without adding this to the mix?”
The dog stared up at her with doleful eyes.
Drawing a deep breath, she straightened. “We’ll be all right, won’t we, boy? Once I’ve sold the cattle and paid the taxes and Hugh goes on his way …”
Her words trailed into silence. She hadn’t the strength to speak them, let alone believe them.
Hugh wasn’t long in the mercantile. The list of supplies was a short one. As Julia had expected, Nancy Humphrey remembered him from his first visit to Pine Creek and didn’t hesitate to add the items to Julia’s account.
Finished in the store, he left the team and wagon in front of the mercantile and followed the boardwalk toward the post office. Almost to his destination, he took the envelope from his pocket, glancing at the address: Madeline Crane, Grand Coeur, Idaho. He wondered who —
“Mr. Brennan. We meet again.”
Hugh stopped and looked up. Charlie Prescott stood about three yards ahead of him, right outside the post office entrance.
Charlie looked beyond him. “Is Julia with you?”
“No.”
“Too bad. I thought I might be saved another trip to talk to her.” His gaze returned to Hugh. “You aren’t from around here, Brennan, so maybe you aren’t aware of this. Julia’s in trouble. She doesn’t have what it takes to manage that ranch, and she doesn’t have the money to hold on to it either. I’ve tried to make her see that. I’ve offered to buy the ranch, but she’s as stubborn as she is beautiful.”
Hugh wanted to grind his teeth. He didn’t like Charlie talking about Julia’s appearance or her ranch. “She seems to be doing all right.”
“Tell Julia I’ll be out to see her again soon. After she gets back from the cattle drive. That must be coming up this week. Right?”
Do your own dirty work, Prescott. I’m not your messenger boy. But even as the thought shot through Hugh’s mind, he knew he would pass along Charlie Prescott’s message as soon as he got back to the ranch. He had to tell her. She needed to know. It wasn’t his right to keep things from her.
Charlie chuckled. “Well, at least you’re a cowpoke who has the good sense to keep his mouth shut when he should. And yet you’re wondering how I know her business. It’s easy enough. Angus’s cattle got driven to market at the same time every year. It’s no secret. Of course she’s going to do what my brother did. She wouldn’t know to do otherwise.”
Hugh wanted nothing more than to punch that self-satisfied smirk off Charlie’s face. But he held his temper. Fighting wasn’t the answer. All that would get him was time in the local jail cell, and that was something he preferred to avoid. Couldn’t stand even to think about it.
With a shake of his head, he went into the post office.
A plump woman with a round face and cheery expression stood behind a long counter. She greeted him, then asked, “How can I help you?”
“Just need to mail this letter.”
“Of course.” She held out a hand to take it from him. After glancing at it, her eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be. It’s been years since Mrs. Grace wrote to her mother.”
Julia’s mother? For some reason, he’d thought her mother deceased, like his own parents. He’d believed Julia was all alone in the world.
As if echoing his thoughts, the post mistress added, “I thought she must be dead.” She looked up. “They wrote each other often when Mrs. Grace first came to Wyoming to live with that husband of hers. My, my. What a handsome couple they made. Angus Grace was a fine-looking man. There was more than one disappointed miss in Pine Creek when he went and married a gal from Idaho. But he hardly ever brought his wife into town, so I can’t say I knew Mrs. Grace well. Got used to seeing these letters, though. She wrote to her mother as regular as clockwork, she did. Then all of a sudden, maybe five years back, Angus stopped bringing any more letters into town to mail and right soon the letters from Idaho stopped coming too. I thought it real peculiar at the time, but it was none of my business, of course, so I couldn’t very well ask.”
Hugh had begun to wonder if the post mistress would pause to draw breath. If a person wanted to keep a secret, it was obvious they shouldn’t share it with her.
“Are you working for Mrs. Grace?”
He nodded.
“You tell her I said hello. Will you do that for me? Marjorie O’Donnell’s my name.”
“I’ll do it, ma’am.” He touched his hat brim. “Good day.”
Although Hugh was glad to escape the talkative post mistress, her comments stayed with him on the ride back to Sage-hen. The more he pondered them, the more they seemed to provide him with new glimpses into Julia’s history — and yet much about her remained a mystery to him.
They were alike in that, not wanting to talk about their pasts. He knew his reasons. What were hers?
TWENTY
On Wednesday morning, Julia and Hugh were on the trail soon after the sun rose over the mountains, driving the herd of cows and calves south. They would follow the river until it turned west. There, they would turn the cattle east, dropping down onto the plains where they would follow the rails to the Double T Ranch.
In past years, with two or three cowboys riding along with Angus, the drive had been accomplished in two days. Julia hoped they could accomplish it in the same amount of time. Bandit was a good herding dog and could be trusted to keep a lookout for cows who tried to double back. And Hugh, while not accomplished with a rope, rode well, and his gelding could turn quick.
Julia had chosen to sell off just over half her mature cows. It was a gamble but one she was forced to take. And if Mr. Trent at the Double T gave her the price she expected — he’d always been fair — she would be all right. She could pay her taxes, her debt at the mercantile, and Hugh Brennan’s wages for a month’s work, plus have enough left over to see her through another year. As long as she didn’t lose any cattle over the winter to weather or predators and as long as she got a good crop of healthy calves next year, she would be all right.
Why wasn’t she encouraged by that belief? Why was her soul
still so troubled?
They were close to two hours into the drive when Hugh trotted his horse over to Julia’s side. “Looks like we might get some rain.” He motioned with his head toward a darkening western horizon.
Rain? It had been clear and sunny for better than three weeks. If it rained now, it would be a miserable few days on the trail.
“Let’s try to bunch them up a bit and keep moving. If we get thunder and lightning with that storm, I think we’d be better off down on the plains than where we are now.”
With a nod, Hugh fell out to the left. Julia went to the right, both of them shouting, “Ho, there. Ho.” Bandit added his barks for good measure and darted at the heels of any stragglers. The cattle bellowed their complaints but complied with the pressure on the flanks of the herd, moving into a closer formation while quickening their pace too.
The sun was close to straight up by the time Julia decided to let the cows and horses stop to rest and graze. The storm that threatened earlier in the morning had rolled north. Now the temperature was climbing. The day was going to end up a scorcher.
Julia and Hugh found a place in some shade to sit. They ate their lunch in silence, and Julia found herself missing the sound of Hugh’s voice. They hadn’t spoken much to each other since Sunday by the river. She’d been the one to end that conversation, and her action seemed to have put up a wall between them. But she supposed it was better that way. Her feelings for Hugh confused her, and she didn’t like being confused.
As if he’d read her thoughts and wanted to change her mind, Hugh said, “The dime novels I’ve read about the West make a cattle drive seem more exciting than it really is.” He washed down the last bite of sandwich with a long draw on the canteen.
“Dime novels? You don’t strike me as the type to read those kinds of books.” Unable to resist, she added, “The nursery-rhyme type, but not dime novels.”
He laughed.
Julia’s confusion vanished. Her spirits lifted as a crack appeared in that wall she’d erected.
“I like to read most anything,” he said, not seeming to notice her lightened mood. “Biographies are my favorite. But sometimes a man has to settle for whatever’s available.”
A sixth sense told her he meant something more than lack of funds or access to other literature. What, Hugh? Tell me what you mean.
He couldn’t read her mind, and he didn’t tell her what he meant. Instead, he asked questions of his own. “What about you, Julia? What do you like to read?”
She looked away, staring into the distance. “My husband believed books were a waste of money and reading a waste of time.” The memory made her want to rebuild the wall, made her want to draw inside herself and stay there.
Would the day ever come when she could speak of her dead husband and not feel that twinge of pain, not want to withdraw from the world? God willing, she hoped so.
Hugh was beginning to hate Angus Grace, the dead man who’d left behind a legacy of pain in his widow’s eyes. The man who’d kept his wife away from town. The man who hadn’t wanted her to read books. She might not have spent years behind bars, as Hugh had, but he suspected she’d been imprisoned all the same. And an innocent prisoner to boot. He knew something about that particular agony.
Abruptly, Julia stood, her hands brushing her riding skirt. “We’d best go. We need to cover a good piece before sunset.”
He was sorry the respite was over. There was more he would have liked to ask.
A short while later, the cattle were on the move again. Dust rose in a cloud above the trail. Even though Hugh and Julia rode at the sides of the herd, it was impossible not to be covered in a layer of dirt. He tasted grit on his tongue and felt it in his eyes. He found himself wishing the storm had caught up with them after all. Could a good drenching be any worse than choking on dust? And if it was this bad with a small herd, what must the large cattle drives of twenty and thirty years ago — with a hundred times more cattle and lasting for 2,500 miles — have been like? He shuddered to think.
“Ho, there. Ho!”
Through the dust cloud, he saw Julia turn her horse out and bring back a couple of strays. She was a strong, independent, determined woman. He suspected she’d had plenty of heartache, but she hadn’t let it defeat her. She didn’t need his help beyond this drive.
But if he could help her … if there was a chance that she might ever want —
No. He couldn’t and she wouldn’t. Better to let it end there.
They stopped at dusk at the mouth of a narrow draw. Dinner was beans warmed over a fire. After they were done, Julia slipped away to the creek that ran nearby and did her best to wash away the dirt of the trail from her face and hair. She would have liked to bathe all over, but the water was too cold for that. A bath would have to wait until they were home again. After toweling dry her hair, she wove it into a damp braid before returning to the campfire. Hugh sat with his side toward the flames, reading his Bible in the flickering light.
“My mother always said I’d ruin my eyes, reading in such poor light.”
He closed the cover of the book and looked in her direction. “Mine used to say the same.”
“I miss her,” she whispered, not meaning to say it aloud, not meaning for him to hear.
“She’s still in Idaho.” He shrugged. “The envelope. Remember? The post mistress told me who the letter was for.”
“Of course she did.”
“Was it a secret?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just … it’s just that my mother hasn’t written to me in a long while. We had a … a falling out.”
“I’m sorry, Julia. I know how that hurts.”
His soft response soothed something inside of her. She believed him. The tenderness in his gaze almost overwhelmed her. She wanted … something. Something she shouldn’t want.
Hugh cleared his throat. “Shall I take the first watch?”
Good heavens! She’d forgotten the cattle, forgotten there was a need to keep watch.
He got to his feet. “I’ll wake you in a few hours. Better get some sleep.”
Julia watched as he strode to his horse and swung into the saddle. It was a moonless night, and Hugh didn’t have to ride his gelding far to disappear from view. When she could no longer hear the rocks crunching beneath the horse’s hooves, she lay on her bedroll, pulled the blanket to her chin, and rolled onto her side, her back to the fire. Before she was settled, Bandit joined her, turning in a slow circle, as if making a nest, then laying down with a grunt.
“You worked hard today.” She reached out to stroke his head. “You’re a good boy.”
The dog responded by closing his eyes.
Julia did the same, and immediately she pictured Hugh as he’d been a short while before, reading his Bible in the firelight. A sense of security, of rightness, perhaps even of hope stole into her heart, and in no time at all, she was fast asleep.
The fire had burned low by the time Hugh returned to camp. A look at his watch by the failing light showed he’d been with the herd for close to five hours. He wished he could let Julia sleep until first light, but he needed a few hours of shut-eye himself.
“What time is it?” she asked groggily after he gently shook her shoulder.
“Almost three.” He straightened and moved a few steps away.
She groaned as she sat up. “You should have woke me before this.” In the pale light of the remaining fire, he saw her stretch her arms above her head.
“It’s a quiet night. Nothing’s stirring.”
“Good.” She stood and stretched again.
A longing hit Hugh, so strong it almost paralyzed him. He’d wanted to help her before. He’d wanted to protect her before. He’d even wanted to embrace her and kiss her before. But this feeling was different. Now he wanted … more. He wanted to promise her the sun and the moon and the stars. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to make her dance for joy. It took his breath away, the wanting, and he was thankful for the darkness
so that she wouldn’t see it in his eyes.
She moved away from her bedroll. Although Hugh couldn’t see her clearly, he was aware of her movements as she saddled and bridled Teddy, and he heard the creak of leather as she swung into the saddle.
“Better get some rest,” she said before riding off.
He lay down, but sleep evaded him. All he could think about was Julia and the yearning he felt for her. It wasn’t lust, wasn’t merely a man’s desire to possess a woman’s body. He knew that physical reaction, knew how to control it rather than being controlled by it. No, this was something different, something rare and fine.
His mind wanted to put a name to the emotion, but he wouldn’t allow it. He was a former convict. He’d spent years in prison, surrounded by men who’d done unimaginable things to innocent people. Hugh hadn’t been guilty of the charges that placed him in that penitentiary, but he’d been changed for the worst by the experience. Did he think he could walk away from his incarceration without being tainted by those years within its walls? Yes, Christ’s blood had washed away his sin, but it didn’t undo his past, didn’t make him a fit man for a woman like Julia Grace. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing away the thoughts, willing away the feelings that he had no right to feel.
She doesn’t know who I am. She doesn’t know what I am.
He’d had a chance to tell her the truth when they went to the river for Sunday worship, but something had kept him silent. Perhaps it was God Himself.
And it made no difference whether she knew or not. He had nothing to offer any woman, let alone what he would want to give to Julia.
TWENTY-ONE
The rain they’d escaped the previous day started falling before noon. With it came the wind and dropping temperatures.
Julia and Hugh donned slickers, but water still found its way down their necks, making them cold and miserable. Too miserable to stop to eat their noon meal, so they pressed on toward their destination, determined to reach the Double T Ranch before nightfall.
Betrayal Page 13
