by Jake Logan
“Search me. He’s got his beak in lots of things up here. Why?”
“He’s looking for an enforcer.”
“Hmm, he say where at?” She hugged her knees and nodded as if in deep thought. “I never heard he had a ranch, but bankers partner up with others and let them have their names on things.”
“That makes sense. Then their hands are clean.”
“Yeah, then it’s the nasty rancher trying to run the homesteader away.”
“He must be under some pressure, or expects to be, from settlers moving in.”
“And you don’t work as an enforcer?” She was chewing on a stem of grass.
“No, but there’s plenty that will. Especially at his price.”
“Oh? What’s he paying?”
“A hundred and a half plus expenses. I thought he’d offer me more before I left.”
She whistled at the amount. “Sweet Lord, that’s lots of money. Why, fur that much, I might even consider doing it.”
He shook his head to dissuade her from even considering it. “Dirty business. Folks don’t want to leave, you might have to kill one to get it done.”
“More blood on the grass. It was the Sioux first up here. Now it’s the cattleman versus the sodbuster.”
“One trouble replaces another.”
She rocked off her butt and rose, brushing her seat as she stood. “Better ride. I’ve got an empty cabin on Foreman Creek I use the first night out if it ain’t been claimed.”
“It yours?”
“Oh, I got a deed for it. But squatters are bad enough here to just move in.”
He tightened the cinch on Turk and watched Rory walking on the balls of her feet to catch the packhorse. Even her stride was masculine in a smooth way. He stepped aboard and decided Turk was over his bucking. Then he rode out to take the lead from her so she could get on her roan.
“Thanks,” she said. “I ain’t use to gentlemen.”
He didn’t consider it that way—he’d’ve done the same for a man. She was different. Tough enough, but inside he saw a woman. Like a turtle in a shell, things she said and did pointed to her other side, the one she kept hidden as much as possible.
“Men don’t mind working for a woman?” he asked as they set out in a hard trot for the northern horizon of rolling grass-covered hills.
She dismissed it with an upturned lip. “Hell, they like to eat. I pay them well and they work hard for it. But I fire troublemakers, and I have been known to draw my pistol and back them down if they get me upset.”
“I just wondered.”
“A few have got downright pushy, like I was their woman. Well, I damn sure ain’t and they learned that fast. That ‘Aw, honey’ crap, I don’t buy it either.”
Slocum nodded and studied a couple of mule deer with emerging antlers who stopped to look at them from a far slope. Then they sprang off in smooth hops that distinguished them from whitetails.
“Pretty, ain’t they?” Rory said.
Slocum nodded and he pushed Turk on. The country would be a rancher’s paradise. Two things he saw in abundance were grass and water, like around Abilene, Kansas, where Joe McCoy first set up his shipping pens shortly after the end of the war. Texans thought they’d died and gone to heaven in that grass empire. But that whole region in central Kansas soon became cluttered with farmers—this country probably would be like that, too.
Late afternoon, they crossed the last ridge, and the cottonwoods with their new leaves along the creek were bathed in the blood of sundown. She shook her head and pointed out the cabin and corrals to him.
“See the damn smoke? Whoever’s there is probably using up my firewood.”
Before he could stop her, she tossed him the packhorse lead and spurred off for the cabin. He watched the roan fly away and shook his head. Those squatters were about to receive their comeuppance from her.
In a short lope, he followed her, and she was already directing things when he arrived. Three dirty-faced kids stood around a thin woman’s wash-faded skirts.
The woman swept her graying hair back. “We never knowed it was your’n.”
“Where’s your man?” Scowling, Rory looked around.
“He done went looking for something for us to eat.”
“Well, put your stuff out over by the corral. You can spend the night. Where’s your stock?” She peered around in the fading light to look for them.
The woman looked around as if she expected to see them. “They was about the place a day or so ago.”
“You know you can’t stay here. Didn’t you read that note on the table?”
The woman shook her head, then hushed a crying child pulling on her skirt before she answered. “We can’t read none. They was sore-footed, them ox, and we had to stop—they wouldn’t go no farther no matter how much we beat ’em.”
“I guess they’re healed. Is your husband coming back tonight?”
The woman shrugged like she had no idea.
“How long’s he been gone?”
Her shoulders hunched, she shook her head. “Four, five days.”
“Four or five days?” Rory, looking exasperated, turned to Slocum.
He shook his head. He sure didn’t know anything about it, but if this woman’s man had been gone that long, Slocum wondered if he was ever coming back.
“Ma’am, you have any people?” Rory asked.
“In Illinois.”
Rory closed her eyes. “I mean is anyone, a relative, out here?”
“I don’t reckon. They all lives around Winchester, ’cept for a few cousins live in California, I think. They went out there once and never came back.”
“What were you going to do out here?”
“Farm. That’s about all we’s know how to do.”
“What do you have for food?”
“Oh, cornmeal. I was cooking some mush when you come up.”
“You better go stir it,” Rory said in defeat. “My name’s Rory and this is Slocum.”
She curtsied. “Mine’s Eva Black. Pleased to meet’cha.”
“Go stir your mush.” Off her horse, Rory shooed the woman inside and began pacing back and forth, squeezing her chin and holding that arm by the elbow. “They ain’t got their oxen or a man and I bet no food at all. Sweet Lord, what else?”
“We better camp up in the trees,” he said.
She agreed. “Exactly. They’ve already got my cabin loaded down with lice.” Revulsion at the notion made her shoulders shake under the suspenders. “We can camp up there.”
“Stay here,” Rory called in to the woman. “We can work it out in the morning.” Rory remounted and joined Slocum.
“Oh, thank you so much, Miss Rory,” Eva said from the doorway. “I didn’t know what me and the kids would do.”
When they were thirty yards away, Slocum chuckled. “You’re a helluva tough enforcer.”
“Why, those kids ain’t got nothing but some wormy cornmeal to eat, I bet.”
“An enforcer can’t worry about that.”
“Oh, Slocum, you couldn’t run them off.”
“If I was being paid one hundred fifty a month, I’d have to.”
“That’s why you and me both refused the job.” Then she snickered.
“He offer it to you?”
“Lands, no, but when you mentioned all that money, I damn sure considered it.” They both laughed.
Unsaddling by the light from a small candle lamp, they soon had their things unloaded. Slocum went off under the stars to get an armload of firewood from her supply behind the cabin. He came back with it and, on his knees, started the split wood burning in a rock-lined ring of the old stove.
In a short while, they were seated on the ground in the firelight as the bacon sizzled and the coffee water boiled. The aroma added to the hunger gnawing a hole in his backbone.
“You can eat day-old biscuits that I brought along,” she said. “I’ll make fresh ones in the morning.”
“Sounds fine—” Somewhere of
f in the night, a wolf raised his muzzle to the crescent moon and howled. Another answered.
“Where do you reckon her man went?” she asked, idly tossing some twigs into the blaze.
“Several options. He run off and left her, unable to face the situation. Second one, he died out there and no one knew who to tell. Or third, he’s still out there hunting.”
“But you’d think after four or five days—” She shook her head in disgust. “Those little kids—why, the oldest ain’t but four or five.”
“They ain’t big enough to be much help to her either.”
“I’m wondering what we need to do for her.”
“That’s your business. They’re in your cabin and if he don’t ever come back, they may starve.”
“That’s what worries me.” She hugged her knees and rocked on her butt. “Take a hard person not to be touched by their plight. What should we do?”
“Leave them enough food until we can get back from up there. Then we can haul them back to Ogallala.”
“There you go.” She got up to add the coffee grounds to the boiling water. “Thanks, I was sure in a sweat about the matter.”
“Her husband may be back by then and them gone.”
She looked back at him while bent over the boiling water. “I doubt that. Something tells me he’s gone.”
In a short while, she poured them each a cup of her brew. The hot coffee tasted rich, and he savored it sip by sip from his tin cup cradled in his hands as the night grew cooler. She finished cooking the bacon, and piled some brown strips on a tin plate along with biscuits on top, then handed him his supper.
“Here’s your food, such as I’ve got for you.”
“Wonderful. Beats my own cooking a hundred times.”
“If you ain’t a typical man. Long as you didn’t have to fix it—it’s good.”
“Must have learned that early in life.”
“That’s right. I reckon as they teach that to little boys behind the barn. You don’t want to cook, just brag on the deal.” They both laughed as she took her own plate of food, sat down cross-legged nearby, and began to eat.
At last full, they washed their own utensils in a kettle of steaming-hot water and dried them.
“Reckon we’re ready to turn in,” she said.
He agreed and rose to unfurl his bedroll. “Sure. You wake up before dawn, you start the fire. If I wake up first, I’ll do the same.”
“More’n likely I’ll be stirring before then.” She put her bedding out a few feet from him. “Sleep tight.”
“I’ll try,” he said, slipping off his boots.
The wolves had moved away and only a few crickets and frogs chirped. With his six-gun wrapped in the gun belt nestled by his head, he soon went off into dreamland.
4
In the morning before they pulled out, Rory left Eva a slab of bacon, some baking powder, and twenty pounds of flour. She threw in two airtight cans of peaches and some dry beans. The woman was in tears over Rory’s generosity and hugged her.
“Now if your man isn’t back when we get back, we’re taking you to Ogallala.”
“How will Harold ever find me there?”
“He can follow the tracks,” Rory said, looking over at the dirty-faced children. Then she turned, walked over to her saddlebags, and fetched a bar of soap. She went back, took Eva’s hand, and slapped the bar in it. “Use it on those children while we’re gone.”
“I was waiting to spring-bath them till it was warm enough they wouldn’t catch a cold.”
“It’s plenty warm enough now,” Rory said with authority, and went for her horse.
Slocum never said a word until they were a good distance from the cabin. Then he turned and looked back at the smoke curling skyward. When he faced north again, he laughed. “Guess she was more worried about their health than you were.”
“Spring bath. Sweet Lord, that was a damn mess.”
“I thought that was real nice of you, since you didn’t have time to wash them yourself.”
“Why, I’d’a used a stiff brush and lots of lye soap on them little rascals. Anyhow, they stunk like shit.”
“That might have been the cause. Let’s lope.”
“You know, Slocum, you can be real smart at times,” she said, loping her roan beside him. “Real smart.”
Jim Lane’s S Bar S outfit would not have impressed Texans. There were plenty of pole corrals and one long sod building with a greening roof. One end obviously was used for a horse stable because of the piles of horseshit stacked nearby. The other end, Slocum decided, must be the living quarters.
An Indian woman came out at their approach and shaded her eyes with her hand. She wore a leather-fringed dress decorated with beads and elk teeth.
“Hello,” Slocum said, and dismounted, removing his hat.
“Hello,” she said, looking him up and down.
“My name is Slocum. I’m looking for Jim Lane.” The slender woman was short, with hard-chiseled facial features and a very dark complexion. Her hair was pulled so tight in braids, it was almost like it made the corners of her dark eyes slant.
“He’s on roundup.”
“A man from Texas sent me up here to look at his place.”
“You can look, but this is all you’ll see.” She made a sweeping motion with her fringed arm. “This is all there is.”
“This is Rory,” he said, and Rory stepped forward to shake the woman’s hand.
“How long will Jim be gone on roundup?” Rory asked her.
“Too gawdamn long.”
“Oh. Slocum wants to talk to him,” Rory said.
The woman shrugged. “No way. He’s not here.”
“We’ll go camp on the creek,” Rory said, indicating the stream they’d crossed, since her questions were answered so bluntly and the woman made no invitation for them to come inside.
“You camp. Don’t start no fires.”
“We understand.” "Him gone to roundup. I don’t know for how long—maybe many moons.”
“Thanks.”
Riding off, Slocum glanced back at the woman, who still stood there looking after them. “She’s not happy and we didn’t even learn her name.”
“Her name is Woman.” Rory laughed. “Simple enough.”
“How do you know that?”
" ’Cause I’ve heard Jim say, ‘Woman did this or that.’”
“She ain’t happy.”
“That’s ’cause they sent all of her people up to South Dakota. They use to come by in caravans and camp all over these bottoms to visit her. Now they can’t.”
Slocum nodded. “No dogs around the place either. Woman must have ate them.”
“Oh, Slocum, that’s terrible.” Rory wrinkled her nose at the notion.
They unloaded. She became busy scratching out a place to build a fire hole so the grass didn’t catch on fire, and he gathered enough deadwood along the creek to make a fire. Then he chopped it into short pieces so that she could make a small cooking fire.
“We’d make a damn good team,” she said, and laughed.
“We might at that.” Kneeling down, he cut up the rest of their supply of wood with the small ax. Calculating that the sun would soon set, he wondered where they’d find Lane on this vast sea of grass.
They sat back on the ground to let the beans cook and the water heat for coffee. A coyote or two yipped, and the cricket chorus woke up for their nightly orchestration. The wind let up on the cottonwood leaves overhead, and things settled down as twilight consumed the surrounding country.
“Damn sure better out here than all that noise and clutter in Ogallala,” she said.
“It is nice.” He agreed, thinking about the telegram he had to send to his boss, Sam Oliver. Good grass—still lots of room— bring horses—best prices—steers should do well—and then whatever he knew about Lane and his offer to sell.
“You’re a sugar-foot, ain’t cha?” She idly tossed some chips on the blaze.
“You mean
do I have a home?”
She shook her head and never looked at him. “I mean you’re like a butterfly flitting here and there.”
He nodded. “Something happened years ago in Kansas. I’d rather not say what just now.”
“I see.”
“I’m a wanted man so I keep on the move.”
“That must be worse than living in town all the time.”
“Times it gets that way.”
“Better add the Arbuckle. The water’s boiling.” She rose to pour the freshly ground coffee into the enamel pot. Looking back at him, she shook her head. “No place to ever lay your head down and feel safe must get real bad.”
“Or it becomes a way of life. If I ever just disappear, you’ll know why.”
She sat back down and nodded. “That’s different. Lots of men pass through this country looking over their shoulder, but they usually hide out most of the time.”
“I do the same.”
“No. I mean you don’t act like the others do. I’ve had men on the run drop in on one of our camps freighting. A twig breaks and they have their hand on their gun butt.”
Slocum nodded.
Rory made small talk about a Missouri girl growing up with a widowed freighter father and mostly being around men all of her life. How she’d spent a few school terms boarding with families—enough so she could read and write and do math. Always yearning to go back the entire time and be with her paw again, driving oxen or mules and being outdoors.
“I just wasn’t cut out to be no housewife.”
Slocum laughed.
“I ain’t. Oh, I cook, but men do that. I don’t like frilly curtains and all that stuff.” She used a wooden spoon to dip out some beans, and blew on them before trying one. “They’ll be ready. Better spread out our bedrolls while they cook some more, huh?”
“Sure.” He rose and went after the bedrolls. He brought them back and dropped them on the grass. He squatted down beside his own, and went to untying the strings binding it.
“You been thinking about it?” she asked, working on undoing the straps on hers.
“What’s that?”
“Why we’re using two of them?”
Without a word, he rose and took her by the shoulders. Their mouths met and kindled a new fire. As they melted into each other’s arms, he closed his eyes and savored his building need for her body and her for his.