She watched him, not touching her coffee, not speaking. When at length he rose from his chair her eyes followed him. He lit a second lamp, adjusted the wick and replaced the chimney, then left the room carrying the lamp down the hall off the kitchen to her bedroom and returning almost immediately, empty handed. “I’m putting you to bed,” he said, as without further ceremony he pulled her chair back from the table, raised her to her feet and lifted her effortlessly into his arms.
She didn’t have the strength to protest, the energy to speak. Was barely conscious enough to be aware that he was tugging off her boots, stripping the wet wool socks from her blistered feet, drawing the waist of her damp denim jeans over her hips, her ankles, and peeling the long johns off after. He rubbed her feet with his rough warm hands, pulled the blankets up over her, wool blankets and the down comforter, thick and warm. He was saying something to her, but she couldn’t quite make it out. So tired. She was so very, very tired.
She slept.
CHAPTER SIX
IN THE NIGHT it came to him. The Idea. Guthrie lay on the hard lumpy sofa in the living room of the Weaver ranch house, hands laced behind his head, and stared up into the darkness. It was a good idea, about how to keep Jessie here at the ranch, on the land she loved. It came to him like a dream; or perhaps it was a dream—he didn’t know anymore. His dreams got all tangled up with reality sometimes. So many of his dreams had been about Jessie.
The seeds of this idea had been planted years ago. Years and years. He was eighteen, just barely. He remembered the day. It was hot. Lord, it was hot! Summertime. No wind. The midday sun was burning down and he’d stripped his shirt off, tossed it aside, baring his upper body to the scorch. He kept the leather gloves on his hands so as not to be blistered by the posthole digger. Seemed he spent most of his time on the Weaver ranch digging postholes and mending barbed-wire fence. He and Jessie, working together, riding the fence lines. It was a big job, a steady job, and it was never done. Cows were always pushing fences down. Fence posts were always rotting off. The wire was always drooping somewhere in a slack twist that needed tightening.
Jess was sweating right alongside him, working hard the way she always did. She used a crowbar to loosen the flinty soil, driving it down over and over with all her might until her strength ran out and she slumped onto her heels, and then he used the posthole digger to excavate what she’d loosened.
Damn, but it was brutal work. He loved it, though. Loved being with her, no matter what they were doing. Loved being near her. Loved the smell of her skin and hair, the sound of her voice; loved the way she moved, and the way she would sometimes pause in the midst of the most mundane of tasks and look around her as if seeing the beauty of it all for the very first time.
“I hate these fences!” she said vehemently when she paused for breath. She’d lost her hat somehow; it’d come off in all the struggle between her, the crowbar and the unyielding earth. She stood bareheaded, her long dark braid over her shoulder, her eyes young and disillusioned, deeply and intensely angry. “I hate barbed-wire fences!” she repeated, driving the crowbar into the earth between her booted feet. “Someday, when this place is mine, really mine, I’m going to tear all these damn fences down and then I’m going to rip out all the fence posts and make a big bonfire out of them!”
Guthrie had looked upon her with a kind of awe. Those were fighting words, rebellious words, the words of an environmental visionary, not a cattle rancher. Hell, words like that in a place like this could get a man tarred and feathered and a woman outcast for life. This was cattle country, through and through.
“Really?” he said, leaning on the posthole digger.
“Picture it without the fences, Guthrie. Picture it. No telephone poles, no electric lines, no houses. Just the plains and the mountains going on and on, reaching out forever, and the wind blowing across the entire of it and the bison and wild horses running free. We’ll never see it like that. We missed out by a century or better. But there’s enough of it here to make a bit of it right again. The Weaver ranch is big enough to bring a little of it back!”
He’d been in love with Jess almost since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her, but until that day he hadn’t known the true depth and the awful power of that love. He’d tried so desperately to share her dream of how the West should be, and to ease the pain she felt at how it really was. “Okay,” he said. “When the time comes, I’ll help you tear these fences down.”
Her eyes had flashed with righteous anger. “You think I’m joking, Guthrie Sloane, but I’m not!”
“Hell, I know that.” Guthrie threw down the posthole digger, wiped the sweat from his brow and eyed her with a faint grin. “Let’s quit this job,” he said.
“Now? We aren’t done.”
“I know that, too, but what difference does it make if we’re going to be ripping all this out in a few short years? The hell with it! Let’s go swimming. It’s hotter’n Hades and there’s this bend in the creek where the water runs deep and cold and sweet grass grows along the banks…”
Guthrie’s dream was the reality of another time. His Idea involved the barbed-wire fences that Jess hated, but his dream was of Jessie herself. He lay in the stillness of the night and listened to the beating of his heart, remembering how he and Jessie had gone to the creek that hot afternoon and swum in the shade of the overhanging trees that lined the banks. Remembering how they’d kissed afterward, and how her lithe, sensuous body had moved passionately beneath his.
How had things turned so bad between them? How could something that had once been so beautiful ever have turned so ugly? He lay for a long time wondering, but could find no answers to their failed relationship in the darkness.
JESSIE OPENED her eyes to the familiar sight of the old cabbage rose wallpaper bathed in early light. Morning, and one of her very last to awake in this bedroom. Last night… Had Guthrie really been here? She barely remembered any of it. She hurt all over and wanted nothing more than to slide back into a deep and dreamless sleep, but there was so much to be done. There was always so much to be done—
Coffee. She smelled the sharp rich fragrance of it. Her bedroom door was ajar to let in the heat from the kitchen. She heard small domestic noises and movements. The scrape of a chair pushing back. A man’s voice speaking gently. Guthrie, talking to Blue. “All right, old girl,” she heard him say. “I’ll help you down the porch steps. C’mon, that’s it. Easy does it. Good girl.” The sound of the kitchen door opening, closing. Then a long and peaceful quiet.
She sat up, pushing the blankets down around her waist. The pain in her arm had become so constant it seemed almost normal. Funny that she hadn’t noticed it yesterday, but the cast almost looked as if it had come unglued, and there was a definite crook to it that hadn’t been there when they’d put it on, a bend where there shouldn’t be one. Damn! As if she needed another problem right now.
She was wearing nothing but a pair of cotton briefs and a camisole, though she couldn’t recall undressing. Her stomach growled and the intense hunger she felt became yet another pain to deal with. Ravenous! She could eat a horse. Oh, God. Fox! Could that grizzly have killed Fox? Could such a fate befall such a wily mustang?
And what about Guthrie? When had he gotten back from Alaska? How did he come to find her up on Montana Mountain? Had he spent the night here at the ranch? And what was she going to say to him when she walked out that bedroom door after five months of angry silence?
Well, the first thing to do was get dressed. She stood beside the bed and cast a questioning look around the bedroom. Where had she laid her clothes? Everything she owned was packed up in boxes and stacked in the shed, including all her clothes. So where…?
Okay. Her clothes were gone. Right now it hardly mattered. She pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around herself and padded barefoot into the warm kitchen, where atop the woodstove a pot of strong coffee simmered and on the table a clean mug waited. She filled it, breathed the aroma, was raising it for t
hat first desperately needed sip, when the kitchen door opened and Guthrie came in, carrying Blue in his arms. He grinned when he saw her, that broad handsome grin of his that held nothing back.
“’Mornin’,” he said, gently returning the dog to her bed behind the stove. “Blue had some trouble with the porch steps, but she’s doing just fine otherwise. She ate a good breakfast and I took her out to do her duty.” He rose to his full height and reached for a cast-iron fry pan hanging from a hook on the wall. “I’ll cook you up some breakfast. There isn’t much in the larder, but I scrounged up a can of corned-beef hash and a half-dozen eggs. That’ll hold you till we get to town.”
Jessie sat down at the table and watched him, raising her cup again for that first swallow of coffee. Hot, strong and restorative. She took another. He opened the can of hash and spooned it into the frying pan, flattened it out and waited until it was sizzling good, then flipped it with the spatula.
“Your clothes are dry,” he said over his shoulder. “I hung them behind the stove last night. They’re on that chair,” he said, nodding in the appropriate direction. “Your pants are ripped, you’ve worn holes in the heels of your socks and you’ll need to oil your chaps up good. I expect you traveled far enough to have gotten sick of walking, especially carrying Blue.” He fried up the hash and then cracked the eggs right into it, scrambling the concoction and cooking it until the eggs had set up. He gave her most of the food, piling it onto the only tin plate, stabbing a fork into it, then sliding the plate in front of her. “Couldn’t find any bread, so no toast,” he said. “Sorry.” He sat down opposite her and ate the remainder right out of the frying pan. He took a big swallow of coffee from his own cup and leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “Okay,” he said. “Where’s the cat?”
Jessie frowned. “What cat?”
“The cat that’s got your tongue. You never did talk much, but you used to make words once in a while. Seems as though you might have a thing or two to say after all that’s happened.”
“Thank you for breakfast.”
“That’s not what I was fishing for, but you’re welcome. Go ahead and eat. It’s not fancy, but it tastes pretty good.”
At that moment her stomach let out another growl, which was loud enough to get an answering response from Blue. She picked up her fork and followed Guthrie’s example. He was right. The food was delicious. The best meal she’d ever eaten. She cleaned her plate and sat back, feeling the warm strength of it percolate through her. She could have eaten more. She could have eaten ten times the amount, but he was right about the larder being bare. She’d cleaned the cupboards out over the past month, using up all the food she normally had on hand. There was really nothing left except some spices and a dozen highly suspect jars of home-canned mincemeat that had to be twenty years old or better.
“My truck broke down. Fuel pump went. McCutcheon fixed it, so I can load all the boxes today,” she said.
“Nope. ’Fraid not,” he said with a shake of his head. “Today I’m taking you into town to get that arm of yours tended. I might make a scene, too. All those supposed professionals letting you walk out of that hospital yesterday without fixing that cast. That’s shameful!”
“It wasn’t like this yesterday. I’d have noticed.”
“The only thing you noticed yesterday was that Blue was hurt. Today you’re getting your arm fixed, unless you want it to be permanently bent like that.” Guthrie pushed out of his chair and took her plate and his to the sink. “McCutcheon’ll be getting out of the hospital today. We could pick him up, since we’ll be there anyhow. Bring him back here. What shape is that old cabin in? Is it livable?”
“He can stay wherever he pleases. It’s his place now.”
“He favors that old cabin.”
“It needs a good cleaning, but it’s as sound as a dollar, and it has a good roof.”
“He told me you could stay right here in the house,” Guthrie said, pouring hot water into the dishpan.
“He might have told you that, but I’m not staying.”
“He told me he offered you a good job, too.”
“I have to find the mares and bring them down, that’s all. Then I’m going.”
“He was real worried about you. Nearly killed himself, climbing up into the pass looking for you. Even after he busted his ankle and was rolling around in that terrible pain, all he could say to me when I got to him was, ‘Is she okay?’”
“I was fine. I didn’t need a helicopter looking for me. I didn’t need the two of you looking for me. I wasn’t the least bit lost.”
“’Course, he isn’t going to be able to stay out here by himself. Not with that bad ankle. Too bad. I got the impression he’s a private person. And he’s kind of like you, the way he thinks about the land. Living out here would probably be real good medicine for him. He talked about fixing up that old cabin…”
Jessie stood and snatched her neatly folded clothes off the chair. She carried them into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind her with a bang, leaving Guthrie to wash the breakfast dishes all by his lonesome.
“WE’RE CUTTING YOU LOOSE,” Dr. Stowell said, standing at the foot of McCutcheon’s bed and rubbing a kink in the back of his neck. “Your ankle is as fixed as it’s going to get right now, but you’ll be wearing that walking cast for a lot longer than you’d like. I guess the only thing I can add is that in future maybe you should avoid steep mountain treks on snowshoes.”
“No problem. I’ve learned my lesson.” McCutcheon swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “May I get dressed?”
“If you want to leave here looking normal, I’d certainly suggest it. Your chauffeur awaits. I’ll get your release forms filled out and be back in two shakes.”
“My chauffeur?”
“Actually I believe it’s your nephew. He’s in the waiting room…along with your niece.”
“Ah, yes. Of course.” McCutcheon nodded as if he had fully expected such attendance by his caring and concerned relatives.
Dr. Stowell paused at the door. “Incidentally, your niece has become somewhat of a legend here in the past two days, what with getting her dog illicitly stitched up by one of our staff doctors down in the basement yesterday afternoon and somehow neglecting her broken arm in the process. By the way, we had to perform an open reduction on it this morning—right after your surgery, as a matter of fact—to fix the considerable damage she’d done to it in the past two days.
“We’ve put two traction pins in it to keep the bones pointing in the right direction this time. She needs to take very good care of it. By that I mean, no more rowdy cowgirling for a while. Her orders are to take it nice and easy. As her ‘uncle,’ I would expect you to strictly enforce that edict.”
“Oh, I will,” McCutcheon solemnly reassured the concerned physician. After he’d left the room he dressed himself hastily in the same clothing he’d worn yesterday on his arduous mountain trek. It was somewhat the worse for wear, especially the left pant leg, which had been cut clear up to the crotch, but at least the clothes were dry. “And just how in hell does he expect me to do that?” he muttered as he zipped up his pants. “No one could possibly enforce any edict on that girl.” He was startled by the reappearance of Dr. Stowell as he buttoned his shirt.
“Sorry,” the doctor said, looking sheepish. “I don’t like to ask such a thing, but my son made me promise.” He reached into his lab coat and withdrew a baseball. “I was wondering, would you…?”
McCutcheon’s fingers stilled. He grinned. “I’d be glad to.” And with the pen the doctor handed him, he signed the baseball.
Ten minutes later he was free to leave. Guthrie Sloane and Jessie Weaver waited in the hallway outside his room. Jessie stood flat-footed and stone-faced, her injured forearm now sporting an evil-looking metal apparatus that was connected to pins inserted into the bones of her forearm. Guthrie Sloane stood behind an empty wheelchair, which, McCutcheon assumed, was for him.
“Hello,” he said, l
eaning on the crutches he’d barely begun to learn how to use. “Thanks for picking me up. Steven stopped in earlier and offered to do the same. He said for me to call when I was ready.”
“We were here anyhow,” Guthrie said. “And being as you already have a car back at the ranch, we thought it made more sense to drive you out. No point in calling him except to tell him you’re all set.”
“Well. Thank you.” The nurse in attendance motioned for him to get into the wheelchair. He did so grudgingly, knowing from experience that hospital rules were hospital rules and arguing that he was perfectly capable of limping out under his own power was pointless. Nevertheless, to be carted out in a wheelchair, especially in front of Jessie Weaver, was the ultimate degradation. He sat obediently, feeling foolish and old and wondering if life was just going to keep sliding steadily downhill.
“You could stay in that old cabin tonight if you like,” Guthrie said as he pushed the wheelchair toward the elevator. “My sister cleaned it for you today. She was going to stock the cupboards, too.”
McCutcheon was overwhelmed by the magnitude of this kindness. He sat in silence while they waited for the elevator, and when it finally came and they were inside it, he said very quietly in a voice hoarse with emotion, “Thank you.”
GUTHRIE’S PICKUP had a bench seat. Jessie sat in the middle—an awkward place to be in a truck with a standard transmission. She sat in silence, staring straight ahead at the empty road that stretched out before them, leading them toward the mountains of home.
Guthrie drove carefully, acutely aware of Jessie’s rigid body pressed up against his in the cramped cab. She was mad. Oh, Lord, she was hopping mad! They’d had to knock her out to fix her arm. She’d protested the whole thing, of course, right from the start, but after the X rays and after the two doctors on staff had concurred Guthrie had laid down the law to her. He’d told her how it was going to be and they had squared off, right there in the emergency room and right in front of a full complement of wide-eyed staff. “You’re going to do this thing!” he’d told her.
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