An Impossible Price: Front Range Brides - Book 3

by Davalynn Spencer

  ~

  Clay wanted nothing more than to feed Clarence Thatcher his teeth—julienned—but the man had been conveniently absent when Clay went back for his clothes and saddle bags. The desk clerk returned half his money, more than he’d expected, and Clay took the road east for the Hickman farm and a maiden mare.

  This was where his and Sophie’s work overlapped—assisting life into the world. His fingers tightened on the reins. He’d like to assist a certain hotel owner out, but taking life was not what he did. In spite of what his father had told him.

  Clay heeled Duster into an easy lope, leaving ugly memories behind. He’d come to Olin Springs to start living, and that meant getting a grip on his thoughts.

  “We feed our souls like we feed our bellies,” the old veterinarian in St. Louis had told him, right before he started quoting Scriptures. Clay bought the first line and stopped listening to the rest. He knew good feed made the difference in an animal’s condition as well as a person’s, so it stood to reason that what a man fed his thoughts would affect them the same way.

  As he approached the neat house and barn of Cyrus Hickman, his hopes rose for the mare. The outbuildings were modest but well kept, as was a kitchen garden and the fencing around the near pasture. Neglect did not appear to be part of the picture that he’d seen at many a farm.

  A boy, no bigger than eight or ten, walked out from the barn in dungarees and a straw hat and waited until Clay reached him. “You the horse doctor?”

  Clay chuckled to himself and stepped down. “Yes, sir, I am. And you are …?”

  “Peter Hickman. But you can call me Pete.”

  It was all Clay could do not to laugh at the boy’s seriousness, but he held a tight rein. “Nice to meet you, Pete. You can call me Clay.”

  The young face scrunched up. “Like dirt?”

  That fast, the dart hit dead center. He hadn’t seen it coming. He shook his head, dislodging an echo and separating the youngster’s curiosity from an adult’s sneering disdain.

  “Pete.”

  The boy whipped around. “Yes, Pa?”

  “Go on inside for now. Your ma wants ya.”

  Downcast and shoulders drooping, the boy glanced up at Clay and whispered, “He always says she wants me when he doesn’t want me seein’ somethin’.”

  Clay stooped and met the boy eye to eye. “You got a ma. That’s the best thing you could see.”

  The doubtful look on Pete’s face said he wasn’t buying it, but he did as his pa told him and dragged himself as slowly as possible to the house.

  “Mr. Ferguson?” Hickman offered his hand.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cyrus Hickman. I appreciate you coming out. I couldn’t very well bring her in to the livery, seein’ as how she’s already waxed over and bagged up.”

  “You made the right call. Is she kicking and nipping at her belly? Rolling around and acting fidgety?”

  Cyrus screwed his face up like his son had. “How’d you know?”

  Three years’ experience. “Just a hunch. Show me where she is.”

  The yellow mare had a roomy stall to herself with plenty of water and the fresh smell of clean straw bedding. She stood with her hindquarters facing them and threw her head around with an expression that was none too happy. From the looks of things, she’d be dropping any day.

  “I’d say you’ve done all you can for her. She’s ready, but I’ll check the foal’s position. More than likely, she’ll take care of things herself, and soon you’ll come out some morning to find you’ve got another horse to feed.”

  The mare was good-natured, as far as mares in her condition went. Clay palpated her and believed the foal was positioned well. He encouraged Cyrus to keep the stall clean, water and feed fresh, and when the foal came, to make sure it got first milk right off.

  “The sooner the better. If it won’t nurse, you can milk the mare, but that may not be easy. If need be, send for me at the Parker ranch. I’ll be staying there for the next month.”

  Clay left confident that the first foal in the area under his watch would be standing on its own within the week, and he had a hunch the Hickman boy would appoint himself the proud guardian.

  A sore spot on his chest throbbed, and he dug the heel of his hand into it not sure if it was from Sophie’s grief over the Eisner baby or Pete’s innocent jab.

  ~

  Abigail Eisner was sitting up when Sophie called the next afternoon, a cup of willow bark tea on the bedside table with a biscuit and jam. Her brow was cool, her hands dry. Hiram rose a notch in Sophie’s estimation. However, she managed to earn Abigail’s agreement for Doc Weaver to stop by—not for an examination, but merely to see how she was doing and answer any questions.

  With the verbal promise, Sophie visited the good doctor on her way out of town and rode easily the rest of the way home to the farm.

  Todd was splitting and stacking firewood, and Mama was breaking ground in the garden. She paused, wiping her brow as Sophie rode up to the hitch rail by the house. Dudley welcomed her as if she were a long-lost pup.

  “Are you here for a while?” Mama’s eyes asked more than that, but she was wise enough to tackle only one issue at a time.

  “A few hours.”

  Her mother leaned the hoe against the garden gate and gave Sophie a hug. “Then we have time for coffee and fritters.”

  Either Mama knew how to read minds, or she had an uncanny knack for detecting sorrow. More than likely, both.

  The security of home and the comfort of things familiar dropped Sophie’s defenses, and she spilled out every detail. Mama’s eyes filled, and as Maggie had suggested, shared grief was easier carried than grief borne alone.

  “Nothing else hurts quite as much,” Mama said, her wrinkle-cut features bearing witness. “Hopes and dreams of the future die with a child, and you feel like you’re unable to live as well. Depression can overwhelm the mother, and a close eye must be kept. But the midwife suffers too, as you have learned.” She covered Sophie’s hand where it lay on the table.

  Sophie felt a twinge of betrayal.

  Her mother rolled her lips, thinking in that way she had, scrolling through all the things she could say and finally choosing the best.

  “Rarely—if ever—is the loss of a child due to the midwife. Don’t let this discourage you and stir fear in your heart. Not enough women do what you do, and more are needed. More like you, with a healing touch.”

  Mama insisted they eat while Sophie was there, and she called Todd in for an early supper of fried potatoes, sausage, and onions along with biscuits and strawberry preserves.

  “I’ll send a few jars with you,” she said as Sophie cleared the table after their meal. “I doubt Mae Ann has been up to cooking much, and she may be running short on last year’s stores.”

  Sophie packed all of her clothes—from dresses and stockings to shifts and chemises—even a pair of Todd’s trousers he’d outgrown, just in case. Just in case of what, she wasn’t sure, but better to have something and not need it than to need it and not have it. She also took her boots, heavy cloak, straw hat and a felt, following the same line of thinking as she had with the trousers. Just because it was spring didn’t mean it couldn’t be snowing and blowing by tomorrow.

  With a little mashing and rearranging, everything fit into a carpet bag, and she lashed it to the mare’s saddle.

  “Are you sure you can’t stay longer?” Mama’s eyes pleaded, loneliness peeking through at the corner creases.

  From atop the mare, Sophie leaned down and cupped her mother’s cheek. “You know I need to be there. But do you know I love you?”

  Mama brushed at her eyes and handed over a bundle that smelled suspiciously like stockpiled fritters. “See that Deacon gets a few of these if you would. I promised him I’d make another batch just for h—” She waved the words away.

  Sophie gave a soft laugh and stuffed the fritters in her bulging carpet bag. “You spoil him, but he’ll be tickled.”

&nb
sp; Mama hugged her arms around herself and stepped back, her stance the picture of a woman letting go of things she wanted to hold on to. Sophie rode through the yard and out across the pasture shortcut, praying she’d have such wisdom when she needed it.

  Watching for deer this trip, she kept the mare at a lively clip, and when they reached the Parker ranch, lights winked on either side of the ranch-house door and barking dogs welcomed her to the second home in one day. People expected her, needed her. Again she prayed, but this time with more urgency, that she would have what Mae Ann needed when her time came.

  A rustling deep inside told her that time would likely come while Cade and Deacon were gone.

  At the thought of Deacon, she glanced toward his cabin huddled in the dusk with a dim light warming his window. She’d give him the fritters tomorrow at breakfast. No horses stood tethered out front, and she couldn’t tell if Clay was already there or not. Not that it mattered.

  Why would it matter? She had come for Mae Ann and no other reason.

  Heart pounding strangely, she tied up at the house, loosed her satchel and bags, and let herself inside.

  Cade slumped in a leather chair in front of the cold hearth, head tipped to the side and Willy asleep in his arms. Surprised that the dogs hadn’t roused him, she hated to do what they had failed at, but he needed to know she’d arrived.

  She touched his arm. “Cade. It’s Sophie.”

  He startled, but without waking Willy, and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and fingers. “Go on up,” he whispered, “and I’ll see to your horse.”

  “I can do that. I just wanted you to know who was tiptoeing around in your home.” She took her things upstairs and set her bags on the bed in the room at the end of the hall—Betsy’s old room. Shadows scurried under the furniture when she lit a lamp on the bed table. She hung her dresses and shifts on pegs and filled two drawers in the bureau with the remainder of her clothes. Her hairbrush and comb, tooth powder, and other things took their places on the dressing table, and she tucked her boots beneath it.

  On her way downstairs with Mama’s preserves and fritters, she paused at Mae Ann’s door, listening for sounds of discomfort but hearing none.

  Cade had fallen asleep again, and she touched his arm. “Go on to bed. I’ll take Willy if you want.”

  He stirred. “No, I’ll take him rather than wake him up handing him over. Glad you made it tonight.”

  She watched him climb the stairs, still wearing those old moccasins of all things, as quiet as a Ute on a sand bar. Anxious to take stock of the kitchen for the next morning, she left the mare a few minutes longer while she checked on what was where and what was needed.

  Satisfied that she could serve coffee, eggs, biscuits, and preserves, she heated a kettle of water and set to washing the dishes left in the sink.

  ~

  It had been dark with a saucer moon rising when Clay rode in. Lights were burning in the house, and a tired old horse stood slouching at the rail, a back leg bent.

  Across from the house about fifty yards, Deacon’s cabin hunkered next to the barn on one side with a shed on the other. The door opened, spilling the old codger and a thin wash of light into the yard. Clay tied up at the barn but went to the cabin before unsaddling.

  “Boss said you was comin’. Get your soogans, and I’ll show you where you’re bunkin’.”

  Deacon wasn’t much on speech-giving, but his manner made Clay feel welcomed just the same. He unlashed his bed roll and slicker from behind his cantle and tossed them with his saddle bags on the nearest of four bunks in the room off the main cabin, then went back to unsaddle Duster. After brushing him down, he set fresh water in a stall, filled the trough with hay, and led him in.

  “This is home for the next month or so.”

  The gelding flicked an ear and drank his fill, then raised his head toward a familiar whinny.

  Clay walked through the barn and out the back. A high-sided round corral sat a hundred paces out, and the dark stallion tossed its head and whinnied again. Clay approached with an eye to its right back leg, watching it travel. The sides of the round pen angled out slightly, and the top pole laid at just above his six feet. A snubbing post sprouted dead center, and the stallion circled it like a wheel around a hub.

  “Looks like we’ll be sharing the same spread for a while, Xavier.”

  The horse stopped across the corral and watched him without watchin’ him.

  Clay waited, keeping up a low, steady stream of talk, until curiosity won the day. The stallion came around from the side and blew into Clay’s outstretched hand, then trotted away, head high, tail swishing.

  Good signs, all.

  At the cabin, Deacon had coffee cooking, and some kind of fried bread on the stout-built table that centered the room.

  Clay was hungry enough not to be picky.

  “Travine’s fritters. I saved back a few.” A lamp on the table lit a gleam in the old man’s eye.

  Clay read sign as well as the next fella. “She make ’em special for you?”

  The handlebar mustache puffed at Deacon’s fluster. “I’m glad you took the job. Roundin’ up the herd’ll be easier knowin’ you’re here seein’ to things.”

  Clay valued the remark and helped himself to a fritter. Deacon Jewett didn’t scatter compliments like seed corn.

  One bite of fried-apple goodness set things right. “These are good enough to make a man wanna tie down.” He almost felt guilty baiting his mentor.

  Deacon snorted, but it didn’t hide that look in his eye or the twitching mustache.

  “You ask her yet?”

  The question earned Clay a hard-eyed glare. “I’m fixin’ to.”

  “Before or after branding?”

  “Don’t rush me, boy.”

  Clay washed one fritter down with a swig of coffee and reached for a second.

  Deacon did the same.

  The old cabin had a homey feel—stone fireplace, cook stove, sideboard, and cupboards. The bed in the corner was a real bed with a tick mattress and quilts, not just a leather-strapped bottom and ground sheet like the bunks in the spare room. No water at the sink, but the hand pump outside at the trough served.

  Deacon noted the survey. “Got this place ready for you. Good stove, good bunk. All the chinks filled. Be a nice little setup for you to get your doctorin’ goin’. After we leave, you can bunk out here if ya’ want.”

  Well, that answered one question. Clay agreed—the place would be a good start for him. He heard the unspoken offer, but he hadn’t come back to sign on with the Parker Land and Cattle. He wanted his own place. Needed his own place. Helping out was one thing, but filling Deacon’s boots wasn’t in the plan. And as far as that went, he figured it’d be near impossible.

  The old cowboy didn’t have the schooling Clay had, but that didn’t mean he had no education. He’d learned firsthand what worked and what didn’t. Spent his life around livestock and had taught Clay how to gentle yearlings and steer clear of locoed broncs. It’d take a lifetime to catch up to Deacon Jewett.

  “How long you been here?”

  A river of memories washed through pale-blue eyes. “I trailed the original Parker herd up from Texas right after the war. When Cade’s grandpap passed, his pa asked me to stay on.”

  Clay’d been alive as long, and he couldn’t help but wonder how things might have been if a man like that had sired him.

  “The Colonel was a good cow man, but he had the temper of a mossy horn bull.”

  That bit of news stopped the coffee halfway down Clay’s throat. Not what he’d expected to hear about the Parker clan, but a lot of deep water passes under some bridges. “You been married before?”

  Either stalling or stoking his courage, Deacon swigged his coffee, refilled his cup, and took the last fritter. “Before the war I had my eye on a gal, but I dallied around and lost her to a fancier gent.”

  Clay waited for more, but Deacon only gave him one of those eye-full looks that said more than a S
unday-morning preacher.

  “My rough-string ridin’ days is over. But I can still drive a chuck wagon, heat an iron, and help Travine at her place.” What little showed of Deacon Jewett’s face above his handlebars turned berry red. “Way I see it, she needs a hand and I know just the one.”

  Courting was serious business, regardless of a man’s age.

  That night Clay lay fully dressed and awake on his bunk, looking into his own future—and nearly as many stars through the roof as he’d seen out on the plains. Easy to forget about patching over a spare room rarely used. A spring storm meant trouble for the roof and anything underneath it. Clay’d better have it repaired sooner rather than later.

  He rolled to his side, a sight fewer miles on his trail than the old cow puncher. But he knew the cut of loneliness when the night gathered round and supper was a solitary affair. He too had a gal in his sights. A girl with soft brown eyes and a crooked smile.

  He got up and stole into the main room, where Deacon was snoring like that mossy-horned bull he’d mentioned. At the window over the dry sink, Clay pulled back the canvas. The old horse was still out there.

  Chapter 10

  Sophie couldn’t see the barn from her bedroom window, but dawn was graying the sky and shimmering pink along the horizon. She quickly finished with her tooth powder and washed her face, then dressed, twisted her hair into a bun, and quietly went downstairs.

  The house was chilly, and she rubbed her arms, deciding against a fire on the hearth, for she’d soon have the cook stove heating the kitchen. On her way through the great room, she stopped at one of the wide windows and checked the yard for activity.

  Last night after cleaning up, she’d gone out with a lantern from the pantry to take care of her horse, but the hitch rail was empty. She’d stood there a moment, baffled, the lantern throwing a dim circle around her. Nothing stirred. There’d been no sign of a scuffle, and she doubted the dogs had frightened the old girl off. And then she saw movement across the yard, the mare’s tail swishing as she plodded into the barn, led by a man as tall as Deacon Jewett but not Deacon Jewett.