The Vigilante's Bride (6 page)
“I won’t leave, though. Food’s good and Molly needs me. New Hope’s as good as the next place, I reckon.”
“I’ve been riding fences. Some of them are down.” Luke watched Scully’s face closely for a reaction. “One of them was cut. You know anything about that?”
Scully’s eyes widened. “I don’t like that at all,” he said.
Luke continued to brush the horse. “After breakfast tomorrow, I’m going out to restring those lines. Can you give me a hand?”
“Sure, but there ain’t much bob wire left. I used most of it up in the fall.”
“Don’t need it. Got enough fixing to do with what’s already down. I want N-Bar-H cows off the range and back on New Hope property, where we can get a decent count of how many we got. Tell the others I’ll need them to work on cutting ours out next week.”
When he finished wiping Bugle down, he led him into a stall and threw in extra straw on the floor. “That burns me up,” he grunted, kicking the straw around. “Who you suppose cut our fence, anyway?”
“Hard to say. Three different stockmen besides Axel use the range now.” Scully raised his voice over the sound of Luke’s boots scuffing straw. “To tell you the truth, I wish you’d stick around.”
Luke nodded. “I am. For a while, at least. Molly asked me to stay.”
Scully laid the bridle aside and walked to the stall. He stood in the doorway, his face serious. “I’m glad to hear it.” Then, lowering his voice, he said, “Yesterday when I went up there, someone took a shot at me.”
Luke’s head snapped up in surprise. “Shot at you? Any idea why?”
“Trying to run me off, I guess.”
“Think they mistook you for me?”
Scully looked over sharply but didn’t answer.
Luke knew from his expression that the same thought had occurred to him, as well. “Don’t tell Molly till we find out what’s going on. She’s got enough on her mind right now.”
“Luke, I don’t mean to pry – and it makes no difference to me one way or the other – but some folks around here . . . well, they’re a little leery about you. They say you’re still part of Stuart’s group and you came down here hunting someone.”
Luke’s leg stopped mid-swing. Hands on his hips, he stared at Scully. “They think wrong. I work for New Hope now, no one else,” he said flatly. Inside, the cold feeling in his chest thawed a little more. That was someone else’s job now.
“Like I said – don’t matter to me either way.”
Luke slammed the door to Bugle’s stall and latched it. Anger gave way to uneasiness. A little despondent, he shook his head. No matter what he said or what he did, people made up their own minds about things. It was the same in Lewistown. People ask you to do things, and then they’re afraid of you when you do. Stiffly, he walked out of the barn and into the yard.
A loose shutter rapped against the side of the house in the wind. The storm must be moving in fast. A curtain of snow swirled across the corral, obliterating everything for a moment.
From the barn door, Scully watched the dark figure of his new boss fade, then reappear from the white whirlpool and track for the house. He heaved a sigh of relief. Whatever was wrong, that man would fix it.
A smile tugged at his lips. As a little boy, Luke had a mind of his own, always fighting, stuttering and fighting. Until he was twelve, he stuttered every time he got upset. Scully used to watch him barrel across the yard on those skinny legs of his and dive into a fistfight on the side of the loser just to even up the odds a bit.
On more than one occasion, Molly had caught him out in the barn sneaking a smoke when he should’ve been in school. She’d marched him back to the classroom, stuttering and jumping, his ear pinched in her hand. But the next day, he’d be back out there again like it never happened. And so would she.
He outgrew the stuttering, but evidently nothing else.
Scully watched him cross the yard. New Hope needed someone hardheaded and tough enough to draw a little blood, if need be. A vigilante would fit every one of those. But was he or wasn’t he?
Scully turned and went back inside the barn, hoping he was.
Crossing the yard to the house, Luke ducked his head against the snow needling his face. In the three days he’d been back, he’d seen too many things he didn’t like. And now someone had taken a shot at Scully. His jaw tightened.
From inside the house came the shrill voice of one of the little girls.
Several times that afternoon, another girl, a bigger girl, had invaded his thoughts. A creamy cameo face and ginger hair swam through his imagination. Impatiently, he forced it away again. He wouldn’t waste his time with her. She wasn’t his type.
Sticking around New Hope had absolutely nothing to do with her, he told himself. Emily McCarthy was spoiled and stubborn and mouthy. Besides, she didn’t like him – and he didn’t like her, either.
He fumed to himself, remembering breakfast Christmas morning and yesterday morning and again this morning. Emily McCarthy had taken to acting like she was his big sister, cool and superior. Snooty. And she refused to look at him, absolutely would not meet his eyes. He couldn’t fight with her because she ignored him. A line of muscle pulsed in his jaw. He was a grown man, a ranch foreman; she was hardly more than a child. Despite the cold, the back of his neck warmed under his fur collar. Well, old Luke Sullivan gave as good as he got.
Right then and there he decided to treat Miss Emily Mc-Carthy with a brotherly indifference anytime he had to be around her – which was entirely too often to suit him.
Two at time, Luke took the steps to the back porch and crossed to the kitchen door. Stomping his feet, he batted his hat against his thigh to knock off the snow and then went on inside. The big kitchen was steamy and warm and bustling with the women getting supper on the table.
He stuck his head in the door and grinned. “Timed it just right, I see.”
“Better hurry,” Ida, the cook, said as she took up potatoes from a pot on the stove. A hired girl stood by the side table, ladling out bowls of gravy. He caught a glimpse of Molly’s broad figure disappearing through the doorway with a plate of biscuits in each hand.
But no one else was in the kitchen.
Luke hung up his coat and hat on the hook board running down the length of the little room outside the kitchen. A shelf holding a bucket of water and a gray graniteware basin ran along the other side. On the wall behind it hung a small mirror and a towel on a peg. He filled the basin and washed up quickly for supper. Then, two-handed, he combed his hair in the mirror, stooping so he could see better.
Ida called, “Supper’s ready.”
“On my way.”
“Bring the pickles.”
He ambled through the kitchen, grabbing up the pickle dish from the side table as he passed, and headed down the hall for the dining room to find Emily McCarthy so he could ignore her.
Luke leaned back in his chair and frowned across the table at Molly. The two of them were sitting at the end of one of the tables after dinner, going over the accounts. Spread open between them was Molly’s big black ledger. Papers and receipts were scattered across the table.
“Doesn’t make sense,” he said, tapping a finger on the page in front of him. “With the railroad into Billings, you should’ve sold a thousand head more than you did.”
“That’s what I thought, but we didn’t,” she answered. “The market wasn’t there. Happens all the time. Scully drives a herd to Billings, talks to the yardmaster, and finds out the order was already filled. So we either sell at a lower price or else we bring them back home. Scully did that once when the price went down to fifteen dollars a head.”
“Scully was right. Fifteen dollars was giving them away. You’d have lost money. If we had more help, we could forget Chicago and sell to the mining camps. They never have enough beef.”
Molly nodded. “I sold some to Bozeman camp a couple of times, but it’s a six-day drive up there and took every man on the place. Nothing got done here when they were gone.”
And it still wouldn’t
, Luke thought. He liked trail-bossing, had gone back and forth to Oregon with Stuart’s herds many times, but those days were over as long as he was at New Hope. He couldn’t manage the rest of the herd at New Hope by himself.
“Once we get New Hope back in the black, we can hire more cowhands and go for the camps,” he said.
Molly wet her finger and flipped back through the ledger pages to the household accounts. “Emily says we should be making our own clothes and bed linen, instead of buying them or paying Ellie Butler in Repton to make them. Emily says we could save five hundred dollars a year if I bought another sewing machine and we did most things here. What do you think?”
“Sewing machines cost money is what I think.”
“Fifteen dollars, but the machine would pay for itself in a month with what we’d save.”
Luke raised an eyebrow. “Emily McCarthy’s a teacher. What does she know about expenses and cutting costs?”
“I’m surprised what all she knows about running an institution.” When Luke looked skeptical, Molly smiled. “I grabbed one of the boys running in the hall yesterday, and his shirtsleeve just ripped off in my hand. Straightaway, Emily asked me who made the starch. I told her the hired girl Anna did. She didn’t say a word, but a few minutes later, she came back and told me Anna puts too much borax and turpentine in the starch, says it weakens cloth something fierce.”
It was getting to be Emily this and Emily that – and getting to be downright aggravating. “She’s getting to be a regular little Miss Fix-It,” he said to Molly.
With a deep sigh, Molly closed the book. “She’s a godsend, Luke. She’s taken so much work off me.”
He swallowed a twinge of guilt. Molly needed help. If Emily could ease Molly’s schedule, he should be grateful.
Molly’s head snapped up. “Now, will you listen to that?” She cocked her head and chuckled. Piano chords shattered the afternoon quiet of the big house in a rousing introduction. “Emily does brighten up this place.”
“I didn’t know she could play like that,” Luke said, his eyebrows knotted into a scowl. Sideways, he glanced at Molly.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about that girl.” Her lips pressed tight together, eyes crinkling at the corners, and he could tell she was laughing at him on the inside. “Why don’t you try being a little nicer to her?” she said.
He gave a soft little snort through his nose, climbed to his feet, and started for his room. He dragged his feet as he passed the library. Inside, chairs scraped and children squealed. Luke stopped out in the hall and looked inside. Twelve children were yelling and marching, playing musical chairs. With her back to the door, Emily sat at the upright, swaying from side to side with the tempo, pounding out an old steamboat song.
Her hair spilled down her back, the weight of it tossing as she swept the back of her fingernails up and down the keys in a wacky, syncopated, bobtailed rhythm.
A corner of his mouth kicked up.
Pretty hair. Pretty back. Pretty little everything.
Five-year-old Mary Agnes Kelly pushed against the back of Two Leggings, the young Crow boy in front of her. Shuffling down the row of chairs, she spied Luke in his work clothes and heavy boots smiling in the doorway.
“C’mon in, Mr. Luke,” she squealed.
The music stopped. Emily spun around on the stool.
Mary Agnes threw herself into the same chair with Two Leggings, both of them falling to the floor. She looked up, whooping with laughter.
The doorway was empty.
On the staircase at the end of the hall, Luke was taking the steps up three at a time.
The next morning, a child’s hoarse wail made Emily stop sweeping the front porch and look up. Frowning, forehead wrinkled like a washboard, Luke strode around the corner of the house, leading a sobbing little boy in knee pants.
“Can you believe it? I hardly know this kid, and he ran all the way out to the second barn to get me,” Luke said.
Emily walked down the steps and kneeled beside the boy.
“What’s wrong, Teddy?”
Though he was only four, he was big for his age and had an odd croaky voice. Now his nose was running, and his eyes were brimming with tears.
“Wait a minute, kid.” Luke pulled out a huge handkerchief and gently wiped the boy’s nose. “Now tell her.”
Teddy sniffed. “My torse’s sick and I’m worleed.” His voice caught.
Luke looked down at Emily. “Translate, please.”
“His tortoise is sick and he’s worried,” she said.
Luke ruffled the boy’s hair, his big hand completely covering the small head. “One of the dogs played with his tortoise, tossed it in the air a couple times. Dog thought it was a walking bone, I guess, and bit it a little. I tried to tell him it wasn’t fatal, but he doesn’t believe me. He pitched a fit at the barn a while ago, wanted me to bring it to you for some medical advice.”
Part of the reason for Teddy’s tears, Emily suspected, was the little scene that morning in the dining room and not letting him bring his pet in for breakfast.
“You know the rules, honey. No animals in the house, and that includes reptiles.”
“Not a tile; he’s a torse, and he’s my friend.”
Emily hid a smile and held her hand out. “Let me see your sick friend.”
Teddy hid his face against Luke’s leg.
Luke rolled his eyes, dug deep into a side pocket of his overalls, and extracted a muddy, green and yellow tortoise, shut up as tight as a clam.
Emily frowned and held it up to the light. “You sure it’s in there?”
“Was when we left the barn,” Luke said.
She sat down on the steps to examine the turtle. It bore several shallow tooth marks and an insignificant gouge in the shell. It wouldn’t win any beauty contests, she decided, but it wouldn’t die, either.
She held it to her ear. “Hmmmm.” She nodded seriously, listening to dead air. “Come listen to how strong her heart is. She’s a tough little turtle.”
“He’s a he, and he’s a torse.”
“Got it. A torse. And he’s going to be just fine. Listen.” She held the tortoise to the boy’s ear and tapped her fingernail lightly on its shell for a sound effect. “There, you hear it?”
“I do, I do!” Teddy held the tortoise up to Luke. “You listen, Mr. Luke. You said she thinks she knows everything in the world, and she does.”
A red flush stained Luke’s cheeks. Avoiding Emily’s eyes, he held the tortoise to his ear.
“Do
you
hear it, Mr. Luke?” Emily asked in her schoolteacher’s
you just got an F
voice.
“Yeah, I hear it,” he growled.
Emily checked the tooth marks again. “I don’t think he needs stitches. We’ll just put some medicine on his back and his tummy and he’ll be fine. And until he’s all better, Mr. Luke is going to build you a nice little house for Torse with a safe little fence around it.”
Luke’s eyebrows flew up. “I don’t know about that.”
Teddy’s small face looked as if the sun had burst out behind it. “Oh, Mr. Luke, Mr. Luke, I love you! You’re my best friend.” He threw himself at Luke and wound his arms around his leg.
Emily struggled to keep a straight face. “That’s what best friends are for, Teddy.”
Emily went into the house. When she returned, she held up a small red bottle of Mercurochrome.
A minute later, all smiles, and holding on to Luke’s hand, Teddy hugged the tortoise to his chest and crossed the yard. Its shells were still shut up like a fist, only now it sported a red splash in the middle of its back.
Teddy looked up at Luke. “Torse wants a house with a window and a door and a fence with a lock and – ”
“Yeah, yeah.” He looked back over his shoulder at Emily and called, “I’ll get you for this!”
Each morning about five o’clock, and still so dark they couldn’t see the ears on their horses, Luke and four New Hope cowboys rode out of the complex for the open range.
As a courtesy, he’d gone to see the Paxtons, the Ormons, and old Cecil Bolton, the other stockmen who used the range, telling them he was going into their herds and cutting out his brand.
“I reckon you know you don’t have to tell me. You got a right to cut anytime you’ve a mind to,” Carl Paxton said, then grinned and slapped him on the back. “But I appreciate it all the same. Come on in and have some supper with us.”
“I better not, Mr. Paxton. You’re the last one I had to see today,” Luke said. “We’re starting early tomorrow.”
“Mr. Axel gets a mite touchy about cutting. What’d he say?”
“I didn’t talk to him.” The answer was crisp.
“I see,” Carl Paxton said, in a tone that clearly implied he did not. He chuckled. “You’re polite, but you ain’t that polite.”
Luke didn’t say anything. Instead, he put his hat back on, waved good-bye, and rode off.
Each day they worked another section, cutting the other range herds for the N-Bar-H brand. They usually found a few of their own, for cows weren’t fussy. When cattle found a herd – any herd – they strolled over and melted right into it.
Luke was determined to cut out every one of theirs and bring it home. For days, from dawn until dusk, they drove cattle both up range and down range. If necessary, he thought grimly, he’d move his whole herd to another section, for until he got them all collected and together, he couldn’t begin to get an accurate head count.
Twice he ran into Axel’s crew. Four of them one day. They sat off to one side, rifles over their arms, watching stonily as he and Scully and Henry Bertel worked the herd, circling, plunging into the bawling mass of backs, checking for N-Bar-H brands, dragging out steers.
One by one, they lassoed and pulled out their own, driving them into a makeshift holding pen they’d thrown up on the prairie. Then, back they went again for more, switching horses from the remuda they’d brought along – two or three for each man. At the end of the day, they hazed their own cows down range.
Luke was puzzled. He knew the business, had been around cattle all his life and understood the psychology of range herds. Up at Stuart’s they used to say he could think like a cow. He’d never known them to wander like this. He was discouraged and knew they hadn’t gotten them all.
