“I’m fine,” Nell said.
“It’s getting cold.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Best you put it on.” Before she could object again, Buddy had placed the jacket around her, grasping her shoulders a little too long. She liked the gesture, but she didn’t want the jacket. It weighed down her arms and made it awkward to sew, but when Buddy thought a thing was right, he didn’t allow disagreement. It was a little thing, Nell thought. Besides, most men she’d known were that way. Still, after a few minutes, she let the jacket slide off onto her chair.
“There’s a shindig going on at the Mackintosh house in Las Vegas come Saturday. You going to let me take you?”
“I heard about it. I was thinking of riding there with Lucy and Mr. Archer.”
“Might be they’ll want to be alone.”
Nell glanced up from her stitching. Her aunt and her boss were so circumspect that she believed she was the only one who knew what went on between them. “I wouldn’t mind being alone with you either,” he added.
She stared at Buddy a long time, until he dipped his chin and looked down at his harmonica. “We could ride horseback if there’ll be a moon. I wouldn’t want to ride if it was total dark,” she said.
“I was thinking that myself. I promise a moon, a spooning moon,” Buddy told her. “I’ll saddle Bean for you.”
“I can saddle her,” Nell said.
“No,” Buddy said. “It wouldn’t be right, me inviting you to go with me and you saddling your horse. It’s not proper.”
Nell didn’t see anything wrong with it, but she’d learned not to object when Buddy put his foot down. It didn’t matter. What mattered was riding across the plains with Buddy under a spooning moon.
* * *
“Your cowboy was sweet once on Alice Mackintosh,” Lucy said, after Nell told her she’d be going to the party with Buddy. “We all thought he was going to marry her. Maybe he would have if you hadn’t come along.”
Nell was taken aback. She’d never thought about Buddy having a girl before she arrived at the Rockin’ A. Lucy had said he hadn’t taken a shine to any of the other hired girls, but she hadn’t said a word about town girls. Suddenly Alice Mackintosh made her uneasy. Maybe Buddy wasn’t her cowboy after all.
CHAPTER SIX
Nell had only two outfits suitable for a party. She’d worn the cream-colored skirt and white blouse to the shindig at the Iverson ranch, so she decided on the other, a red dress, for the Mackintosh event. She wanted to look nice, especially if Buddy was going to compare her to Alice Mackintosh. She wondered why Lucy hadn’t mentioned anything about the girl before then.
Alice had not attended the affair at the Iversons’. She had been away at school in the East and then had gone to New York for the season. The party was a welcome home for her.
“She’s pretty, just like a china doll,” Lucy said when Nell asked about Alice. “She’s a gad-a-way. Buddy wasn’t the only cowboy she had on her string, but she liked him best, and I expect she thinks he’s been waiting for her. Alice is quite a catch. Her father’s a banker in Las Vegas and owns half the town. She and her brother will inherit it all. She usually gets what she wants.”
“Do you like her?” Nell asked.
Lucy had been kneading dough in a wooden bowl and stopped and dusted the flour off her hands. “Like Alice Mackintosh?” Lucy laughed. “I like her almost as much as that rattlesnake you killed with the skillet.”
“Really?” Nell was surprised. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Her nose is so high she’d drown in a rainstorm. Stuck up, vicious as a badger.” Lucy began kneading the dough with a vengeance. “I’ll tell you, Nell, if you fancy your cowpoke, you just might have a fight on your hands, now that she’s back. I never mentioned her before, because I didn’t know she was coming home. And I hoped she wouldn’t. I thought she’d marry some fellow back there. Even if she doesn’t want your Buddy, she’s likely to go after him just to spite you.”
“I doubt she’ll take much notice of me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on it. My guess is she already knows everything there is to know about you. Don’t underestimate her. The other girls around here know better than to tangle with her. She’s not much liked by the women. She thinks she’s cut finer than frog hair.” Lucy laughed again. “Men’s another thing. They don’t seem to notice how unpleasant a woman can be until it’s too late. My advice is steer clear of Alice Mackintosh and keep that cowboy away from her if you can.” Lucy slapped the bread dough onto the table and began cutting off loaf-size sections with a butcher knife and shoving them into pans. “But I don’t suppose there’s anybody that can keep a man away from Alice Mackintosh once she sets her cap for him.”
* * *
The afternoon of the Mackintosh party, Nell took extra care with her appearance. She’d washed her hair that morning, and before she dressed, she arranged it on top of her head and put rouge on her cheeks, which she knew were too tan from riding in the sun. She rouged her lips, too, then glanced into the mirror and decided she looked like a chippie and rubbed off the color. Finally she put on the red dress and asked Lucy to button the back.
“How’re you going to ride Bean in this dress?” Lucy asked.
Nell hadn’t thought about that. She’d have to push the dress up to her waist if she rode astride, and that wouldn’t do.
“Best you ride in the carriage with Mr. Archer and me.”
Nell wanted to ride with Buddy, however, wanted to ride with him under that moon he’d promised, and she thought it was a good idea to show up at the party with him, just in case Alice claimed Buddy. So she changed into a divided skirt that she had ordered from the wish book, pairing it with a white shirt and black boots. The skirt came well above her ankles, and Nell wasn’t sure that was proper, but Lucy told her she looked up-to-date, just like a picture in a ladies’ magazine.
Buddy’s rich brown eyes lit up when he saw her, and he muttered, “Pretty as daybreak.” He had shaved and had put on a new flannel shirt, Nell judged from the fold lines still in the garment. He had polished his boots and brushed his hat, and wore what must have been his good coat. Nell had never seen it before. He’d knotted the red silk handkerchief around his neck, too—the one Nell had bought and sneaked into the bunkhouse and put into his trunk. He’d never mentioned it, perhaps because he didn’t know it had come from her. Buddy looked handsome as a dime-novel hero in all his finery, and Nell thought perhaps he’d wanted to impress her. Or maybe it was Alice.
Lucy looked at him, hands on her hips. “You got your low-neck clothes on,” she observed. “Well, you ought to wear your Sunday best if you’re taking our Nell here to the party.”
“I sure wouldn’t want her to be ashamed of me,” he said.
“I hear Alice is back,” Lucy said.
Nell looked away. She wished Lucy hadn’t brought up Alice, but then, maybe she ought to know what she was up against—if she was up against Alice. Were they rivals? Buddy hadn’t mentioned a word about Alice, and of course, in the past weeks, he’d acted as if he was stuck on Nell. Perhaps she’d just been a diversion. Maybe he’d been stringing her along hoping Alice would return. Nell didn’t want to think he was like that, but she couldn’t be sure.
“So I hear. I hope she hasn’t got too full of herself back at that school.”
“She was always too proud,” Lucy replied.
“Now, Miss Lucy, I don’t know why you gals are so down on Miss Alice. I always thought she was mighty nice.” He considered the remark. “Almost as nice as Miss Nell here.”
Nell hoped he meant that, but perhaps it was an afterthought. She felt unsure of herself and was apprehensive about meeting Alice.
“Well, just don’t get your spurs tangled, cowboy,” Lucy said as she and Nell went back into the house to carry out the pies. Lucy had baked a dried apple pie with raisins and cinnamon, while Nell had made her lemon meringue. It had received so many compliments at the Iverson party t
hat Nell had baked it again, this time using even more egg whites so that the meringue rose up like a blizzard on a mountain.
Buddy helped Lucy mount Bean, then climbed onto his own horse. Nell thought to race him to the gate, but she found herself wondering if Alice would do that. Probably no—not if the girl had been in New York attending debutante parties. Besides, Nell didn’t want to arrive at the Mackintoshes’ sweaty and wind-blown. It was bad enough she wore a riding outfit instead of a party dress.
“Have you seen Miss Mackintosh since she came back from New York?” Nell asked, as they trotted across the prairie, side by side. It was the tail end of daylight, with no sign yet of a moon. The earth was brown, covered with sage and chamisa and clumps of buffalo grass. They could see a long way off east, where there was nothing but a few cottonwoods to block the view. To the west, the mountains were a blur of blue in the darkening sky. A hawk flew high above them, then dropped suddenly as it spied a rabbit. As it rose, it clutched the animal in its talons and flew into the dying sun. Far off, the cattle were lowing, and Nell heard the rattle of a wagon, or perhaps Mr. Archer’s carriage, in the clear air, where sound traveled for miles. The world seemed enormous to Nell.
“Nope,” Buddy answered.
“I imagine you’re old friends.”
“That’s right.”
“Then I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you.”
“Hope so.”
Buddy didn’t seem inclined to talk, and Nell didn’t want to sound nosy or—worse—jealous. So she was silent as she rode beside him, the only sounds now the horses moving through the underbrush, crushing the sage, which sent up its sharp smell. They passed the remains of a wagon, its wheels broken, its bed sagging into the ground.
Then Buddy asked, “You got anybody you’re sweet on back in Kansas?”
Nell turned to him in surprise. She almost said no, but something told her not to be so quick to dismiss the idea. She wasn’t sure about Buddy and Alice. It might be a good thing if he thought he wasn’t the only one on her string. “There’s a fellow. Lane Philips is his name. But I didn’t…” She shrugged and did not finish, and Buddy asked no more questions.
As they approached Las Vegas, Buddy adjusted the handkerchief and said, “You didn’t say anything about my neckwear.”
“It’s handsome,” Nell replied.
“Funny thing it showing up in my trunk the way it did. Kind of a present. I wonder who put it there. Maybe it was from somebody that admires me.”
“Maybe.” Nell couldn’t quite bring herself to admit it. “Or maybe from somebody thinking you needed some low-neck clothes.”
“You think so?” He chuckled. “Well, I sure do thank that person. If I knew who she was, I’d give her a kiss and an old white handkerchief.”
“Then maybe she’ll tell you who she is.”
The two of them grinned at each other. Then suddenly Buddy reined in his horse and jumped off to pluck a dried yellow flower from a chamisa bush. He presented it to Nell with a bow, and she tucked it into the buttonhole of her shirt.
They arrived ahead of Lucy and Mr. Archer. The other Rockin’ A cowboys had not been invited, since this was a formal party in town, not like the event at the Iverson ranch, which had been open to the cowhands as well as the ranchers. They rode past low mud-daubed buildings and fussy frame houses. Then Buddy reined in at a black iron fence in front of a large Victorian house with a tower and a mansard roof, a cast-iron fountain in the yard. The house seemed overbuilt, and Nell preferred the Rockin’ A ranch house with its soft adobe walls, which seemed at one with the earth. She found the Mackintosh mansion too showy.
Alice Mackintosh was standing on the porch steps. She had to be Alice, Nell thought, because who else in New Mexico Territory would be wearing a low-cut white satin gown with jet beading, and a hothouse corsage pinned to her shoulder? With her blond hair artfully arranged on top of her head and a complexion as pale as cream, Alice was the prettiest girl in Las Vegas. Certainly prettier than Nell was with her tanned face and sun-bleached hair, Nell thought. Who could blame Buddy for wanting to see her?
Alice’s face lit up as she spotted Buddy. She did not rush to meet him but waited like royalty on the steps of the mansion for Buddy to dismount, tie his horse to the fence, and go to her, taking her hands. He seemed to have forgotten Nell, who dismounted on her own and walked up beside him.
“My dearest old friend, what a pleasure to greet you.” Alice held on to Buddy’s hands a little too long.
“Welcome home, Miss Alice.”
“Miss Alice indeed. We mean far too much to each other for such formality.” Alice started to say more but became aware of Nell, who was standing next to Buddy. “Oh, do forgive me. I thought you were one of the hands, dressed that way.”
“This is Nell, Miss Lucy’s niece,” Buddy said.
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard the Rockin’ A had a new hired girl. How thoughtful of you to bring her along.” Alice smiled to take the sting out of her words, but the insult was there all the same. Then, without releasing Buddy’s hands, Alice asked Nell to excuse them because they had so much to talk about. “The kitchen is over there,” she told Nell, with a wave of her hand.
“Buddy—” Nell began.
Alice cut her off. “Buddy?” she said. “You call him Buddy? Why would you do that? That’s the name of his horse.” Alice laughed, a sound like the tinkling of bells. She took Buddy’s arm and led him inside the house, and Nell heard her say again, “Buddy! Isn’t that the oddest thing? Is she addled?”
Buddy didn’t give Nell a backward glance as he went through the door. Nell stood frozen, humiliated, as she watched the other guests arrive. Although the women were not as finely dressed as Alice, none of them wore riding clothes, and Nell realized she should have put on the red dress, even if it meant riding with Lucy and Mr. Archer. She straightened the collar of her shirtwaist and touched the tiny chamisa flower. It looked silly compared to the flower pinned to Alice’s dress, but still, Nell wouldn’t have traded corsages for anything.
Nell stood by the steps and waited for her aunt and Mr. Archer. When the couple arrived, Lucy handed down the pies. “I suppose for a party as fancy as this, we didn’t have to bring anything, but I’d rather err on the side of being neighborly.”
“I know where the kitchen is,” Nell said.
“How’s that?” Lucy raised an eyebrow.
“Alice told me.”
Lucy laughed. “I just bet she did. You crossed spurs with her already, then? Where’s your escort?”
“He left me behind.” She stamped her boot in frustration.
“Now you’re acting the way she wants you to, and just girly enough to make Buddy think you’re silly,” Lucy warned.
The two women walked through the front door and back to the kitchen, where Mrs. Mackintosh was checking the food preparations. Unlike her daughter, she was plump and disheveled, and she fluttered about like a prairie chicken. When she saw Lucy, she threw up her hands. “I should have taken you up on your offer to help. I thought Alice and me…” She rolled her eyes as she mentioned her daughter. “Alice spent more time getting dressed than she did in the kitchen. All to make an impression on that cowboy.”
“Mildred, you haven’t met my niece, Nell,” Lucy said quickly.
“No, but I sure heard about you.”
Nell looked confused.
“You know, those perfumed hankies.” She laughed. “What a trick. Well, I heard the cowboys admire that you can laugh at yourself. Now, which one of you made that momentous meringue pie?”
“Nell did,” Lucy said.
“I imagine it will be the first thing to go.” She looked up and said, “There she is now. Alice, look at this pie Lucy’s niece baked. Ain’t it a beauty?”
Alice leaned over the pie. “If you like pie.” She turned to Buddy. She was holding his hand. “I made your favorite chocolate cake, dear.”
Alice led him to the dining room where the desserts were waiting: pies
and cakes and cobblers, chocolate pudding, lemon pudding, and what the cowboys called frog-eye pudding—tapioca. Alice’s mother shook her head and said in a low voice, “That one can bake a chocolate cake about as well as I can ride a bronco. I should have sent her to cooking school instead of to that fancy eastern female seminary.” Still, she smiled as she glanced into the next room at her daughter. “But I don’t expect any cowboy to care how well she can cook. Not that cowboy, anyway.” Mildred Mackintosh apparently had not heard that Buddy had been riding out with Nell.
“She’s a very beautiful girl,” Nell said, determined to take Lucy’s advice and not appear jealous.
“Yes. I thought she’d find a young man in the East. But she didn’t. There must be something about cowboys.” She grinned at Lucy. “Me and you both know about that, don’t we, Luce? Maybe Alice does, too.”
Mrs. Mackintosh touched Nell’s arm and said, “I hope you’ll be a friend to Alice. There’s some that think she’s too stuck on herself, but deep down, she’s a nice girl.” She added to herself, “I hope she is.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” Nell whispered to Lucy when Mrs. Mackintosh turned to the stove. “Maybe I should say I’m not feeling well and go on back home.”
“Now, don’t try to alibi your way out of it. Nothing would please Alice more. You just stay here and enjoy yourself. Why, you’ll turn out to be the belle of the ball.”
Nell looked down at her riding skirt and shook her head. “Not with Alice Mackintosh around.”
* * *
Nell stayed in the kitchen with Lucy and Mrs. Mackintosh, dishing up food and taking it to the dining room table, which was as big as half a dozen bunkhouse beds shoved together. Alice came into the kitchen again and carried out the desserts, placing her cake at the front on the dessert table. Nell’s pie was on the side. Buddy, standing with the men around the bottles Mr. Mackintosh had set out, watched her. When the tables were loaded with food, Mrs. Mackintosh rang a little bell, and everyone trooped into the dining room and picked up plates—china, not tin, Nell noted. The Mackintoshes had enough china plates for dozens of guests.
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