Petticoat Ranch

by Mary Connealy

  “I’m staying,” Sally shouted.

  Sophie took charge. “We’ll eat in shifts. You girls go and eat now.”

  “I’m not leaving him, Ma!” Sally said adamantly, clearly planning to hold her ground until she died.

  “You’ll do as you’re told, young lady!” Sophie gave Sally a stern look and continued, “I’ll sit out here and nurse Laura while you girls eat. Then I’ll eat while Beth watches him. Sally, it’s your turn to wash the dishes, and there’ll be no shirking. Whoever is with him gets Laura, too, so your hands won’t be idle. We’ll take turns sitting and doing the chores. If he wakes up, come running.”

  With a raised eyebrow at her third daughter, she added, “We’re all just as curious as you are Sally, so don’t ask for special treatment.”

  “The only trouble with that, Ma,” Mandy said sensibly, “is that you smell so bad, I don’t think Laura will eat. Plus, you’ll stink her up.”

  “Yeah, and I already gave her a bath this morning,” Beth added. “I’ve got water hot on the stove for you, Ma, and the washtub set up. Let Mandy and Sally stay here with Laura. I’ll finish breakfast while you bathe. It’s just biscuits. I can bring Mandy and Sally some out here.”

  “I promise I’ll do my chores, Ma,” Sally pleaded, “I’ll go as soon as you’re done washing up. I know we all want to spend time with Pa. I won’t hog him.”

  When the girls ganged up on her, especially armed with common sense like this, she marveled at them. It was only then, as she thought of the logic of their reasoning, that she realized how much she didn’t want to leave. Was it possible that she was harboring resurrection theories of her own? She looked at the unconscious form of her husband who wasn’t her husband, and a sudden twist of longing made her breathing falter. That’s when she knew she had to be the one who went to the house. She needed to get away from him and clear her head. And she took pity on Laura, who was already clean and sweet smelling.

  “All right. Sally and Mandy take first shift watching out for him. Holler if he wakes up.” Before she left, she took one last hard look at the man who kept falling back to sleep in her shed. As she turned away from him, she thought of all that lay ahead of her today. There was enough flour left for one more baking of biscuits. They needed food, and she would have to go into the thicket and search for it. She’d hope for a nest of pheasant eggs. If there weren’t any, she’d have to set her snares and hunt for early-spring greens.

  The girls could do a lot, but in the end it all fell on her shoulders, shoulders made strong by hard work and faith. There was Laura to tend and laundry to do after last night’s muddy soaking. That meant hauling water and heating it. And on top of the regular struggle to survive, she now had an injured man to look after. All this came on top of a poor night’s sleep. Her shoulders sagged as she made her way to the house.

  Her morning prayers were the same as her night prayers and most of the prayers in between. Tears she would never let fall burned her eyes as she prayed, “Lord, give me the strength to get through another day. I can’t do it on my own. Help me, Lord. Help me, help me, help me.”

  Luther awoke with a start and slid into the brush, away from the glowing embers of the fire. He glanced behind him and saw Buff roll out of sight into the woods. The two of them lay silently for a long time. They knew how it worked in the West. Get stupid, get dead. Simple.

  What had made him move? The more Luther thought about it, the more he was sure it wasn’t a sound that had awakened him. It was a—a nightmare. But that didn’t quite cover it. Finally, into the darkness, Luther said quietly, “Buff, I’ve a hankerin’ to see the kid.”

  There was an extended silence. “That what sent you runnin’ for cover? Ya missed the boy?”

  Buff didn’t sound sarcastic, which Luther appreciated. Sheepishly he admitted into the night, “As I lay here, I reckon that’s exactly what woke me.”

  Buff came to the fire matter-of-factly. “Movin’ first an’ askin’ questions later keeps body and soul together.”

  Buff looked to be settling back in, but Luther knew he could not ignore that call for help. “ ’Twas one o’ them consarned dreams where a fella is fallin’ and lands afore he wakes up.”

  “Had ’em,” Buff said.

  “Only ’tweren’t me fallin’. It was Clay. An’ it was almighty real. And a call for help. I think the boy’s in trouble.”

  “Best check it out.”

  Buff put on the coffee while Luther led the horses to the creek for water. Without more than ten words between them, they ate breakfast and broke camp.

  As the sun rose to the middle of the sky, Luther spoke for the first time since they’d set out. “Texas is a big state.”

  “Clay’s a big man,” Buff said. “He’ll leave tracks.”

  Luther nodded. “Blackfeet’re feisty in the spring anyhow. Might’uz well find a differ’nt spot.”

  “Yup,” Buff said grimly as he swung his horse into a ground-eating lope aimed at Texas, most likely a thousand miles away or more. “Let’s see if Apaches’re friendlier.”

  Sophie bathed the Hector stink off herself and ate her biscuits and jelly, while Beth stood behind her and braided her still-wet hair. She was just getting up from the table when Mandy came tearing into the house.

  “He’s awake again!” Mandy dashed away.

  Sophie and Beth were hard on her heels.

  Sally was kneeling beside the man, talking earnestly to him, when Sophie got to the shed. Sophie heard her say, “And I’m your third daughter, Sally.”

  Sophie skidded to a stop and tried to walk sedately into the shed. Her patient turned his eyes toward her and tried to sit up. Sophie forgot to be sedate and dropped to the ground beside him. “Don’t try yet. We shouldn’t have let you get up earlier. It was too soon.”

  As if he appreciated being given permission to lie still, he sank flat on the ground.

  “Now,” Sophie said calmly, “can you tell us who you are?”

  He rubbed his head and didn’t answer for a long moment. Sophie saw her daughters lean ever closer. Even the practical Mandy seemed to be hoping this man would be their father.

  When he didn’t respond, Sophie added, “You rode your horse over a creek bank last night. We heard you fall and got you back up here. This is going to sound strange to you, but once we got you to where we could see you. . .”

  Sophie really didn’t know how to say it. “The thing is. . .you look exactly like my husband. And he’s been. . .he’s been. . .” She thought it best to break it to him gently. “The thing is. . .my husband—the girls’ father—is. . . He’s. . .” Sophie could find no gentle way. “He’s dead.”

  The man was watching her like a hawk, hanging on every word. What little color he had faded from his poorly washed face. Sophie hated to go on, but there was no solution to this in silence. “I buried him myself two years ago. There can be no mistake. So you can see why the girls and I are. . .” Sophie faltered then went for a Texas-sized understatement, “. . .interested in who you are.”

  The man quit rubbing his head. He was staring at her and listening so intently, it was as if every word she spoke was coming straight from the mouth of God. “Earlier you asked me about a name?”

  “Clifton Edwards.”

  His eyes narrowed, and Sophie leaned closer along with the girls.

  “Clifton Edwards. Cliff,” he muttered. “It means something to me.”

  He felt himself withdraw from the women as he searched inside himself. Visions flashed one after the other. A towering mountain. A battlefield. A half-naked Blackfoot charging him with blood in his eyes. A star. A silver star pinned on his shirt. When he saw the star, the floodgates opened. He sat upright so quickly Sally almost landed in his lap. “Clifton Edwards. I remember. No, I’m not Clifton Edwards. I’m Clayton McClellen. I’m Cliff ’s brother. His twin brother.”

  Sophie gasped at the same time she reached her hand out to support the man’s unsteady shoulders. “Cliff didn’t have a
brother. He didn’t have any family.”

  “Yes, he did. We’d been separated for years. My ma couldn’t stand life in the West and went back to her family in Boston. We were young, three or four, but even then I knew I wanted the life we were living in Montana. Pa said Cliff hated it, so Ma took him and left me.”

  Sophie shook her head. “But. . .Cliff never said a word about you. Or about a father.”

  “Pa died while I was away fighting the war.” Clay tried to make sense of what she said. Could Cliff have been so indifferent to Clay that he wouldn’t even mention his twin brother’s existence? “I guess when he picked my mother over Pa and me, he decided we were dead to him.”

  Sophie’s blue eyes were kind and warm. Even though Cliff was long dead, Clay envied his brother. Sophie said, “No, I don’t think that’s true. Cliff used to talk about having a son. He wanted one so much. He said often enough that he was the last of his family line, and he wanted someone to carry on the name.”

  “The child would have been carrying on my mother’s family name if Cliff called himself Edwards,” Clay said bitterly.

  “Yes, but his name wouldn’t be his doing if he didn’t know you and your pa existed. Three’s awfully young. Maybe. . . Did you ever see your mother and brother again? Is it possible he forgot he had a brother?”

  “Forgot? How could he? I never forgot him. Never!”

  “But did your pa talk about him? Did he keep the memories alive for you?”

  Clay nodded as he thought of the stories his pa had always told about the mischief he and Cliff had gotten into as toddlers. He thought of the sympathetic way his pa had talked about how unhappy Clay’s mother had been during the brutal Montana winters. Clay had seen the sadness in Pa and he knew, even then, that Thomas McClellen had missed his wife and had loved her until the day he died. His pa had kept the memories alive, and he’d made those memories good ones. So he was never angry at his mother and brother. Only lonely for them— terribly, endlessly lonely—especially for the twin brother that he knew was out there somewhere. And then he’d heard that Cliff had died.

  “Maybe your ma didn’t do that for Cliff,” Sophie said gently. “I know he would have wanted to have a brother. There was a loneliness in Cliff. I think in some way he knew you existed and he missed you.”

  Clay suspected Sophie said it mainly to offer comfort to an unhappy man, but even as she said it, he knew it was true. Cliff had been his best friend. Cliff would have wanted to know his twin brother.

  Sophie added, “Loneliness isn’t the right word exactly. It was more like he had a way of being alone even when he was surrounded by people. He kept everyone at arm’s length.”

  From the sad way she said it, Clay wondered if “everyone” included her.

  “So you’re not our pa?” Sally asked with a downward droop to her mouth.

  Clay looked away from Sophie to the little girl who’d offered him unconditional love from the first moment he’d opened his eyes. He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, no, I’m not.”

  A sudden burst of clarity in his befuddled brain made him think of something else. “I’ll tell you what I am, though. I’m your uncle.” He felt a wide smile spread across his face, and even as a single tear ran down the little girl’s face, a shy smile bloomed on her lips.

  “My uncle?” she said with wonder in her voice.

  “Yeah! I’m your uncle Clay. I didn’t even know I had a niece, and here I have four of them. I like the idea!”

  “I do, too.” Sally nodded and swiped an arm across her cheeks to dry her tears. “Are you going to stay around then?”

  Clay sat up and looked from one girl to the other. His eyes paused on Laura, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the cheerful little girl. Then with a shake of his head that made his stomach lurch from the pain, he remembered why he’d come here to begin with. A hundred more details washed aside the joy of finding a family, when he thought he was the last. He’d known Cliff was dead. He’d heard about the lynching. He reached for his breast pocket, searching for the star the Texas Rangers had pinned on his chest when he’d accepted this one and only assignment he’d ever do for them. Not only was there no star, there was no shirt.

  Vigilantes were terrorizing this corner of Texas. When Clay had heard about Cliff, he’d gone looking for justice, and he’d gotten a star. But where was it? He remembered taking it off and tucking it in his saddlebag before he’d ridden up to that campfire last night. Then he remembered how the campfire had been attacked and they’d all scattered. And he’d been pursued.

  He said firmly to Sally, “You bet I’m gonna stay around. I heard about Cliff, and I came to see what happened.” For now Clay didn’t mention the Rangers. “I didn’t even know he’d gotten married and had a family.”

  Clay’s eyes traveled to Sophie. She was a pretty little thing. And she was even sweet-smelling now. “Is there a mule around here somewhere?”

  Before anyone could answer him, Sally announced, “We’re your family now, Uncle Clay. Our pa used to do all kinds of things with us girls and with Ma. Now you can do all those things.”

  All the things Cliff had done with Sophie. Clay looked at her. Their eyes caught and lingered for a second too long. Sophie looked away first. Clay forced himself to forget about the charged moment and turned back to Sally. “You are, for sure, my family now.”

  It sounded like he was staking a claim. Or making a vow. And that suited him right down to the ground.

  “Let’s see if we can get you up and into the house,” Sophie said, rising to her feet. “We have breakfast ready.”

  The girls all grabbed hold, but he was steady on his feet this time. They’d delivered all the shocks while he was still sitting. He walked slowly to the house with Sally on one side, Sophie on the other, Mandy following, and with Laura and Beth running ahead.

  Clay marveled again at being surrounded by so much femininity. The gentle touches and worried looks. The soft cooing sounds of concern. He’d grown up with only his pa around. Luther and Buff most times, and a dozen others who had come and gone. He’d rarely seen a woman, and until the war, he’d never seen a child, except for a few Indian children who lived in Fort Benton when he and Pa made the long trek every spring to trade their furs for supplies. Those children had fascinated him, but the Indian women wouldn’t let a curious, half-grown mountain man near their babies.

  The Edwards women escorted him to the house and seated him at their table as formally as if he were visiting royalty. He was appalled. “This is where you live?” The minute the words burst out of him, he wished them back.

  Sophie bristled, and all the girls frowned at him—even Laura.

  “What’s wrong with where we live?” Sophie asked defensively.

  Clay decided to forge ahead. “It’s the most pathetic house I’ve ever seen. It’s so small.” Clay rose from the table and stepped to the door to stare out. “Are we in the middle of some kind of. . .weed patch?”

  Sophie appeared at his side, her hands on her hips. “This is our home. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “But you can’t live in this—this shack in the middle of a thicket.”

  Sophie crossed her arms and glared at him. “Define can’t, Mr. McClellen. Because my girls and I have proven you can.”

  “And it’s just one room? How do the five of you fit in here? What are you thinking, to be raising my nieces like this?” Clay looked into the fire in Sophie’s eyes and wondered what was the matter with her. He’d been bending over backward to say it as nicely as he could. Of course, he’d grown up with men. They talked straight, and the closest they came to watching their mouths was when they’d refrain from saying something that might get them shot. Sophie didn’t seem to appreciate his efforts at all.

  “Raising your nieces? I’ve been making do pretty well raising my daughters for two years with no help from you or any man! What do you suggest I should have done? The banker threatened to foreclose on the ranch unless I married him
. The town marshal offered to marry me, in between accusing Cliff of horse thieving. I had fifty proposals, not all of them decent, I assure you. Life in a thicket was a better idea than any of them.”

  “You should have taken one of them up on his offer!” The thought of Sophie with another man made his gut twist. But common sense should have made her pick the best of the lot and accept his proposal. “A woman can’t live alone in the West, and you’re the proof of it with this leaky house and that rickety shed!” Clay was shouting by the time he finished talking.

  “If you need better accommodations, there’s a path leading straight out of the thicket and into Mosqueros, about ten miles down the road. If you think you can make it in your condition, feel free to go.”

  He looked at the path that disappeared into the thicket. It looked like she’d settled herself into the middle of a wasteland. Then he turned and stared down into Sophie’s defiant eyes. He told her the simple truth. “No, I don’t want to go.”

  Their eyes locked again.

  After a long, tense moment, Sally came and tugged on his arm. He tore his gaze away from Sophie’s beautiful blue eyes.

  “Well, that’s settled then,” Sally said. “Come and eat.”

  Clay looked past the sweet little girl and saw the table set with a single plate, with only biscuits and jelly for breakfast. His heart clenched as he realized this might well be all they had. Clay looked back at Sally’s adoring little face, and then he turned and looked at his brother’s wife. Wasn’t there a Bible verse about marrying your brother’s wife if your brother died? Clay looked into Sophie’s pretty face and thought he had God on his side. It was his God-given duty to take care of them all.

  Then he thought of a second verse about a brother dying without leaving sons. It was the job of the second brother to give sons to the wife, to carry on his brother’s name. His eyes lost focus when he thought about it. He was barely aware that Sophie grabbed his arm and, with all the girls helping, eased him into a chair. His head cleared, and he was fairly certain that he’d almost passed out because of his injuries—not because he’d thought about how it was really his Christian duty to see that Sophie had another baby. Cliff still needed that son.