by Martha Hix
“Don’t take my words so damned literally!”
“Watch your mouth, woman. It isn’t becoming, your cursing.”
She didn’t dignify his comment with a reply. Head held high, she walked the calf to camp. The mother followed along docilely. Lisette heard her husband’s footsteps behind her. The hoodlum wagon in sight, she called out to Pigweed Martin, “Unload your wagon. Put some hay on the floorboard. Then help me pick up this newborn cow. We’re–”
“We’re what, Lisette?” Gil asked, danger in his tone.
He ground to a halt in front of her and dropped the strongbox. The boom of steel hitting the hard ground caused her and the baby calf to jump.
“If you’d let me finish, you’d know. We’re taking the calf with us.”
With his loose-jointed gait, the skinny wagon driver walked toward the trail boss. A thumbnail picked at his protruding teeth before Pigweed asked, “That be okay with you, Chief?”
Lisette held her breath.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hell, no, it’s not okay.” Gil’s hand chopped the air. “We’re not hauling any dead weight to Abilene.”
Disappointed, indignant, and vexed beyond reason, Lisette muttered through clenched teeth, “I might have known.”
Well, she wasn’t going to let any mule-headed, callous-hearted husband of hers stand between right and wrong as she saw it. The calf wasn’t going to be left behind; he would ride in the open-air hoodlum wagon. And in her husband’s favorite terminology, that was that.
Tugging gently on the rope fastened to the newborn calf’s neck, Lisette guided it–no, him–to the chariot of his salvation.
The little fellow lifted his snout to cry for his mother. The magnificent beast, her muscles moving like waves beneath the tan-and-white hide, trotted over to her offspring. She reared her broad head to moo before lowering it to nudge the babe to an udder. He found breakfast again. This is what life is all about, thought Lisette . . . a loving mother taking care of her own.
Just as she would be doing . . . someday in late autumn.
At the crest of her thought, Gil ordered, “Yates, put the strongbox away.”
Lisette wound the slack end of the rope around a wheel, then proceeded to climb aboard the hoodlum. The wagon was piled high with crates and bedrolls. The crates would have to stay. The bedrolls–it was back to the chuck wagon for them. Guided by the careening emotions that had plagued her for days, she started to make room for the bullock by dumping a bedroll on the ground.
Gil hurried over to the wagon and clamped his fingers around the wooden sideboard. Sunlight glinted in his furious eyes. “You’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing.”
“If you think I’m clearing this hoodlum for the calf, then you know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Lisette, get down from there. We are not, absolutely not, taking that bullock with us.”
“Oh yes, we are. He’ll ride from here, and in this very wagon.”
The mother cow lowed; her great horns turned in Gil’s direction.
He ordered, “Rope this cow. Get her to the herd.” The mountaineer Attitude Powell rushed forward as Gil bellowed to Pigweed Martin, “Get all this bedding back in the wagon.”
His overlarge gray eyes protruding, Pigweed protested, “Your missus might hit me with one of ’em bedrolls, Chief. She’s powerful mad. Can I wait a few minutes, till she gets her dander down?”
Pigweed got no response, and every man still in camp was watching the McLoughlins with absorbed attention. Cactus Blossom watched, too. Frank Hatch seemed to be hiding a smirk.
Eli Wilson rode up. “Are you all right, Mrs. McLoughlin?”
“Get lost, Wilson.”
The preacher looked at his boss, then at the boss’s wife. “Are you all right?” he repeated.
“Yes. Now, please do what he said.”
From the corner of her eye, as she continued to pitch bedding from the wagon and the preacher rode out, Lisette spied her husband reaching for the rope.
“Don’t you dare untie it,” she threatened.
His arms akimbo, Gil glared. “Get down from that wagon. And I do mean now.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” She tossed a bedroll at him, missed. “I’m not budging until I’m finished with these.”
She launched another bedroll; it struck his chest. If she thought there had been murder in his eyes before, she was certain of it now. She had pushed him too far. You’ve been acting like a child. Her temper abated, but what could be done to rectify the situation?
Turning to Cactus Blossom, Gil asked, “You know how to drive a wagon?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re wanting a job?”
“Yes.”
“You’re hired.”
“Now, McLoughlin, don’t be hasty,” Hatch interjected. “Cactus Blossom and I neither one want to bring trouble on y’all, nor injure you in any way. You were rather adamant about not having her along.”
“Hatch, do you or don’t you want this squaw of yours?”
Hatch nodded.
Rubbing the stump of his arm under his chin, and riding a black cutting horse, Wink Tannington returned to camp. He said and did nothing.
Johns Clark, on the other hand, inquired, “Ma’am, do you need some help?”
“No, Johns–thank you.”
He shot her a look of sympathy, as did Deep Eddy Roland, who said to Gil, “What’s the harm in taking the bullock along?”
“When you’re the goddamn boss, I’ll tell you!”
Deep Eddy raised his hands in a gesture of I-give-up, and like Johns, went for his mount.
Gil whipped around. “Pigweed, fetch my sorrel from the remuda.”
Pigweed set out at the same instant Lisette bent to toss the last bedroll on the ground. All remaining in the hoodlum were crates of supplies and a woman who dreaded owning up to her fit of temper.
“Herd ‘em up,” Gil ordered the cowhands. “Cactus Blossom, round up these bedrolls. Put ’em in the chuck wagon. Hatch, give her a hand. When the two of you get through, Hatch, get riding. Cactus Blossom, set that chuck wagon in motion.”
“Albino, come on.” The tiny Comanche woman looked up at her and extended a hand. “We leave now.”
“She is not going with you,” Gil announced, his words dangerously even, all of a sudden.
“Albino . . . ?”
“Go on, Cactus Blossom,” Lisette urged, shaking in her boots. “Do as he says.”
The Comanche, wariness in her gaze, accepted the orders.
And just where does this leave me? Lisette asked herself as Hatch and his woman scurried about and the campsite cleared out. She didn’t have to wonder long. Gil parked his foot on the wagon tongue, swung a leg into the bed, and lunged toward her. As if she were a sack of potatoes, he heaved her onto his shoulder, debarked from the conveyance, set her to her feet. He dusted his hands, riveting a look of total disgust into her eyes, and stomped toward the approaching sorrel.
He intends to leave me here, she concluded.
Desert the mother of his unborn child, right here in the middle of nowhere.
“What about me?” Lisette asked, her voice weaker than she would have wanted.
“Way I see it, you got your choices. You can behave and ride with me on Big Red. Or you can stay here and caterwaul till kingdom come. Do whatever strikes your fancy.”
Once before he’d ordered her to abandon the outfit. This time his suggestion didn’t cut as deeply. Once she thought about it, she knew he wouldn’t leave her here. Not over so little as a calf.
She decided to call his bluff. “I choose to walk this baby to civilization.”
“Like hell you will.”
Tight-lipped, he wheeled around, and with long and hurried strides, returned to grab the calf into his arms, its mother lowing a protest from the distance. Gil set the calf to its feet on the floorboard.
Thankfully he wasn’t deserting the baby.
“I’ll
ride in the hoodlum,” Lisette said courageously.
Gil shook his head. “It’s the saddle or the soles of your shoes. Take your pick.”
“I choose to walk. I don’t fear the wilds,” she lied.
“Good. Glad to hear you’re not scared. You’ve learned the first lesson in survival.”
The hoodlum driver returned, leading the mighty Big Red. Pigweed’s eyes nearly popped from his skull as he caught sight of a hairy, bovine face peeping above the hoodlum’s sideboard.
“Boy,” Gil explained, “you’re dragging this calf along.”
“Chief, I don’t reckon I hanker to smell his poop all the livelong day.”
“Where’s your head, boy? All you’ve gotta do is stop every once in a while and muck the wagon out.”
Pigweed shrugged a thin shoulder. “Ifn that’s what you want, Chief.”
“That’s what I want.”
“What about your missus?” Pigweed asked, screwing up one side of his face.
“She makes her own choices.”
“Missus, reckon you wanna ride with me?” The driver raked a hand into his crop of straw-colored hair and waited expectantly.
She shook her head.
“All right, I guess, missus.”
Nothing appeared too right with Gil McLoughlin.
Pigweed meandered to the hoodlum wagon, got aboard, and clicked his tongue as he snapped the reins. The wheels were set in motion. The mother cow broke loose from Attitude Powell. She trotted to the wagon, following along as if she were a donkey chasing a carrot.
“I couldn’t help her getting away,” fretted Attitude as he hurried forward.
Gil tossed his arms wide. “Just get on your horse, then. Ride out.”
Attitude went for his mount, and Gil glared at Lisette. She didn’t know how to make amends with her husband. And right then she didn’t know if she wanted to.
Chapter Twenty
The hoodlum, the calf aboard and his mother trotting along, drifted out of sight. The sound of longhorns moving to north and the dust from beneath their hooves began to fade.
Lisette and her husband were alone at the now deserted campsite. Big Red, fretful as ever, pulled at the reins held in Gil’s hand. His long mane drifting like wash on the line in a breezy day, he shook his massive head. His master quietened the stallion, then wound the reins around a tree trunk.
From over his shoulder, Gil said impatiently, “Wife, I am not going to stand here all day, waiting for your answer.”
Just moments ago she had thought she didn’t want to make up with Gil, but that wasn’t so. Since “guilty party” fit her like a second skin, he deserved an apology.
“I guess we should talk,” she said hesitantly.
“No. I’m doing the talking.”
He wouldn’t talk, he’d yell, she decided.
She was in for a surprise when he rounded on her and said in an evenly modulated voice, “I won’t put up with your undermining me in front of my men, Lisette.”
“I’m sorry. I–”
“I told you a good while back, ‘sorry’ doesn’t work with me. If you and I are going to get along, you’re gonna have to think before you act.”
“I was upset over Cactus Blossom. It would’ve been terrible, sending her off alone, and–”
“I don’t see how she relates to your snit over that calf.” He rubbed a finger across the scar Blade Sharp had left.
“It’s bothered me since the first day I joined this outfit, the way you abandon the sucklings.”
“They have to be left behind. We can’t slow the drive to let them poke along or take time to nurse.”
“You spend hours herding their mothers back to the fold.”
“Not as much time as we’d spend babying those calves along. This isn’t a ranch or a farm, Lisette. This is a cattle drive. A drive that depends on moving and moving fast. We need the spring waters and the best grasses. Soon summer’s going to be here. The water and grass will be scarce. You know the first cows at the railhead get the best prices.”
He grimaced. “And I’d have appreciated it if you’d had the courtesy to speak with me about your obsession with calves before you took the matter into your own hands.”
“I was afraid to.” She studied the toes of her shoes. “I figured you’d find me weak for even mentioning the matter.”
“I would’ve. But no matter how I might have reacted, you had no call to take the reins as trail boss.” He took a step toward her. “Nobody, nobody tells me how to run my cattle drive.”
Still shaking from the morning’s events, she bristled at his high-handedness. “You’ve got a cold heart.”
“When it comes to business, yes.”
“I don’t see how you can sleep at night, with all those dead calves in our wake.”
Exasperation set his whisker-shadowed features. “Let me tell you something, Lisette McLoughlin. I sleep pretty damned well, thank you very much. Want to know why? I’ve been to hell and back. I’m thankful I survived.”
“I thought you had a conscience.”
“Conscience has nothing to do with it. Ours is the game of survival. I’ve made this trip before–three times. And what I didn’t know about enduring, I learned up this very cowpath.”
“They teach cruelty to animals somewhere along the way?” she asked crossly.
“You’re better suited to the drawing room, woman.”
“You would have made an excellent executioner.”
“Thank you, wife.” His eyes got dark. “Appreciate it. I love being so compared.”
Contrite, Lisette licked her lips and contemplated the ground once more. “Forgive me. I was being cruel.”
His voice lost its sharp edge as he said, “Don’t apologize for a trait that might just get you to Kansas and back. This land demands cruelty. And it could get worse before we reach Abilene–especially in the Indian Territory. There’s neither a town nor a lawman between Texas and Kansas.”
Catching on “Indian Territory,” she shivered, thinking of savages, arrowheads, tomahawks. And guns.
“Comanches are up there, too, aren’t they?” she asked.
“In some areas. Mostly around here. Lisette, I can’t say I blame the Comanche for trying to protect the land we whites are taking from them. They want to live and prosper same as us. They fight to keep their way of life; we fight to capture the land we need. And we’ll keep fighting until one of us wins.”
Borrowing wits from somewhere, she jacked up her chin. “What do Indians have to do with baby cows?”
“What I’m trying to make you understand is ... nothing–neither man nor beast–has an inherent right to life out here. Either you survive or you don’t. We’ve been lucky so far, honey. We’ve had good weather and only one Indian attack. Let’s pray that holds, because no one–no one–will make it unless he or she is tough as ten-year-old pemmican.”
“You’re certainly that.”
“Right.” He nodded. “But even the fittest don’t make it sometimes. Some of us are going to die, some of us are going to live. Some of those will be cattle, some will be man. It’s as simple as one-two-three.”
“You paint a grim picture.”
“I speak the truth.” Gil collected Big Red’s reins. “You’ve got two choices. You can toughen your hide and go on with me to Kansas. Or you can stay in Fort Worth till I get back to collect you.”
“You want,” she began in German, then spoke in English. “Y-you want to leave me in Fort Worth?”
“I’ll rent you a place in town, hire you some help. You needn’t concern yourself, I’ll leave plenty of money for you to live on.”
She swallowed, then met his determined gaze. “It sounds as if you’ve been thinking about this awhile.”
“I don’t deny it. I think your settling would be for the best. You said yourself you’re lonely for womenfolk. And the work’s getting to be too much for you.”
“I can handle my work.”
“You won’t be
able to handle it a few months down the line.”
“Not true,” she protested.
He closed the distance between them. His fingers locking around her shoulders, he said, “Why don’t we stop the pussyfootin’ around. You haven’t admitted it, maybe not even to yourself, but you’re with child.”
“I ... I’ve admitted it to myself.”
His voice quiet, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was waiting for the right moment.” Rubbing her suddenly aching temple, she said, “If you won’t be back till no telling when, you might miss the birthing.”
“There’s a chance of that. A slight one. But a chance.”
All her old feelings of loneliness and fears of abandonment struck anew. Nerves lurching like an out-of-control wagon, she took a step backward. Her knees almost buckled.
“Lisette,” he said patiently, “it’s best for the cattle drive if you stay put. I can’t have anything holding us up.”
“You could have put it in more personal terms.”
“Then think of all those heads of cattle as gold pieces, giving us security. Delays could mean losses.”
“You’ve no right to assume I’ll cause delays. Anything could happen to slow the procession.”
“You’re right about that.” A grim set to his mouth, he added, “You’d have no business in the middle of it. You are going to stay in Fort Worth, keep your sense and sensibilities in check, and bring our child into the world. That’s more important than me being there for the birth.”
Maybe it wasn’t important to her husband, but it was very important to Lisette. She was on the verge of telling him all the things she’d decided this morning: she wasn’t some delicate flower in need of pampering; she was as healthy as a horse, and babes had come into this world under far worse conditions.
He wouldn’t want to hear that, she figured. Why? Because she’d become a hindrance rather than an asset to the Four Aces undertaking. He ought to have a sign painted on the sides of the chuck wagon: No Sentimentalists Need Apply.
“I don’t blame you,” she said, filled with the self-pity she believed was deserved, “wanting to be free of a teary-eyed female who’s muddying up your trail drive.”