Beth forgot her tea. She wasn’t likely to hear any of this anywhere else.
Maddy brushed some flour from her sleeve and went on. “Before the snow came, Trey had the barn up and got his first two mares. He stayed in the barn that winter. We told him he was welcome to stay here, but he wouldn’t. He looked like something was eating at him, but he never would say what. The same things that would eat at any of those boys who fought, I suppose. I’m thankful David stayed out of it. The next summer, Trey built the cabin and bought the other two mares. He had them all shipped from back east somewhere. Now he’s got the makings of a future, and he’s earned it.”
Beth pictured Trey sitting at the table in the lamplight, as she’d seen him on her first night at his place. When she’d mentioned it in the morning, he’d shut her out. Was a devil still driving him after all this time? “Trey’s said next to nothing about his time here, or about the war. So far, we’ve done as much arguing as talking.”
Maddy grinned. “That might be a good sign.”
Beth laughed in spite of herself. “I suppose so.”
They made their tea last until the bread came out of the oven. Beth enjoyed two thick, fragrant slices, then reluctantly said goodbye. She wanted to linger and hear more about Trey, but there was too much to do at home. Everything took her longer than it should.
She took Maddy’s spare jar of starter home with her, and just before bedtime she went to work, trying to remember everything she’d learned. Trey lay on his stomach on the rug, reading by the light from the open stove and glancing at her now and then as she thumped and kneaded her dough on the table.
“Reminds me of when I was small. If I was sick, I’d be put to bed on the kitchen sofa. I’d go to sleep, then wake up later and watch my mother setting her bread,” he said.
Beth wiped a sticky arm across her forehead. “It’s harder work than I thought. What are you reading?”
Trey held up the book Two Years Before the Mast. “My mother had a brother who was a ship’s captain. He sent me this for Christmas one year. It’s about a law student from Boston who took a couple of years off from school and sailed around Cape Horn and back on a merchant ship. As a kid, I thought I’d like to go to sea some day.”
Beth pictured Trey as a young boy, lying in front of the fire at home, lost in the same book. “Aunt Abigail and I spent a winter in Europe when I was seventeen. I enjoyed the trip over. Have you ever been on a ship?”
“Only for a few minutes, when Dad and Chelle left for England. My uncle Michel – Mother’s brother – used to send us letters from all over the world. In one of them, he said something about a ship leaving harbor under a flying cloud of sails. That’s how Cloud got his name. I still think about going to sea sometimes. I get it from my mother’s family, the Surettes. There’s been a sailor or two in every generation.”
It felt surprisingly good and natural to Beth to be doing this, making bread and talking with Trey as the day came to a close. She wanted him to open up to her, but she also liked hearing him talk just because she liked his voice, with its pleasant roughness and that teasing hint of an accent. She turned her dough, sprinkled on some flour, and folded it again. “What happened to your home?”
“Dad sold it to one of the local planters who wanted the land and wanted us gone. Dad didn’t hold with slavery or secession, and he said so. It didn’t make him popular. The house has probably been torn down by now.”
Beth heard the lingering anger in Trey’s voice. That anger would have been one of the things driving him when he built here. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
He laid his book on the rug and sat up, facing her. “It would probably have gone for taxes after the war, anyway. The price we got for the farm helped me get a start here, and I still have my memories.”
Beth leaned on the table to rest for a moment. The small, plain room looked welcoming in the flickering firelight, with the smell of the baked beans they’d had for supper lingering in the air. Trey had built a home, where a lot of others would have just thrown together a shack. “You should be proud of what you’ve done here, Trey.”
He looked flattered, and more than a little surprised. “Thanks. I am.”
“You haven’t seen your family since they left?”
“No, but we write often. I’ll go overseas to visit someday.”
He spoke with a touch of resignation. It would be difficult for him to go to England, now that he was tied down here. Maybe in a few years… What would he think of London?
“Couldn’t you have gone with them?” Perhaps it was none of Beth’s business, but Trey hadn’t held back from questioning her reasons for coming to him.
He shrugged. “Dad went to work at his brother’s smithy, but Uncle Jack didn’t need me. No future, unless I wanted to be a farm hand for the rest of my life. I wanted a place of my own.”
Something they had in common, something Beth could respect.
She left her dough to rise and went to bed, then got up in the middle of the night, punched it down and put it in the pans. She got up again just before sunrise. The loaves looked perfect, high and round.
When she threw a pinch of flour in the oven, it browned right away. Too hot. Half asleep, Beth lifted a grate and poured water from the kettle onto the fire.
The rush of ashes and steam knocked her flat on her back as the grate she’d just replaced flew across the room. It crashed into the wall a couple of feet from Trey’s head. Jerked out of a sound sleep, he lunged upright, cursing. “What the hell are you doing?”
He sat on his bunk, his blankets down around his waist, dark eyes wide.
Beth scrambled up from the floor, dusted herself off and tried to muster some dignity. “I needed to cool off the oven, so I poured a little water on the fire.”
Trey ran his fingers through his tousled hair, stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “You poured – Christ, Beth, you’re lucky the stove didn’t explode and kill us both. Did you get scalded?”
Beth felt her face. No burns, only a scorching blush. “No, but you nearly got scalped.” She crossed the room and gingerly picked up the stray grate with a potholder. “I guess I’ll put the bread in now.”
Even in the dim light, she saw the smirk that spread across Trey’s face. “You might want to look in the mirror first.”
Beth grimaced at her soot-specked reflection, grabbed a towel and a basin, and started scrubbing. At least they’d have fresh bread for breakfast.
* * *
The town council met in the schoolhouse. Generally, a handful of townspeople attended, but tonight the crowd was especially sparse. There was nothing in particular on the agenda, just routine business. Only Nathan and two or three others sat at the students’ desks.
John Reeves ran the meeting from the teacher’s desk, with the other council members in chairs on either side. It didn’t take long to get through the night’s business. When they were ready to adjourn, Nathan raised his hand. John acknowledged him. “Yes, what’s your name?”
“Nathan Munroe. I’m new in town.”
“Planning on staying?”
“Yes. Mr. Reeves, I’ve been here for the last few days looking around, and I’ve decided I want to settle here. From what I’ve seen and heard, this town is growing and having some growing pains, too. I think you could use a sheriff and I want the job. I hear there’ve been a couple of robberies lately.”
Frank Baker, the storekeeper, chimed in. “That’s true. They’re bound to hit the store sooner or later.”
The council members took a minute to look Nathan over. He saw doubt on every face. They must know it was time for some law and it wasn’t going to be easy to find someone, but knowing how he looked, and with a lame leg as well, Nathan didn’t blame them for wondering if he was up to the job.
Harriet Grant spoke up. “Mr. Munroe, no offense meant, but what makes you think you’re qualified?”
Nathan leaned back and smiled at each council member in turn. He migh
t only get this one chance to convince them. “I took my first job as sheriff in a little hole in the wall in Wyoming three years ago. I was broke, I didn’t like the idea of sitting behind a desk, and I didn’t think I’d do well at farm work or punching cows. The town wasn’t much different than this. People were moving in with families and they wanted things safe. I dealt with the drunks and convinced a lot of the rougher crowd to move on. Things got boring then, so I moved on, too. Three towns later, here I am.” Nathan’s smile widened. “I’m still broke. I didn’t learn to hang on to money when I had it, and I doubt that I ever will now.”
John gave him a long, level glance. “So how did you convince people to move on?”
“I’m still alive, which means I use my head. I don’t shoot off my mouth or a gun unless it’s necessary. I’d say that’s my main qualification.” Nathan gripped the back of his seat, pushed himself to his feet, fished in his pocket, and handed a slip of paper to Harriet. “Here’s a list of the places I’ve worked. Go ahead and wire them about me, if you like. Good night to you all.”
Nathan limped out of the school, but lingered by an open window to hear the council’s discussion. It was short and to the point. John spoke first. “We can send some wires tomorrow, but I believe him, and we’ll have to look hard to find anyone better. Now, if we’re going to have a sheriff, I guess we’d better do something about building that jail.”
“He’s been a good boarder – but sheriff? I don’t know,” Harriet said. “I mean, look at him.”
“I’ll bet he can move when he has to,” Frank Baker put in. “And if he uses his head more than his gun, I’ll be pleased. As for the jail, I’m with you, John. Let’s get the building budget set before we go home.”
Smiling, Nathan walked away. His luck hadn’t run out yet.
CHAPTER 6
“Easy now, Chance. Almost done.” Beth ran through Trey’s instructions in her mind as she finished saddling the mare. Satisfied that she’d tightened the girth enough and hadn’t left any wrinkles in the saddle blanket, she stuffed the package of sandwiches she’d made into a saddlebag, swung up, and put Chance into an easy canter. She’d decided on the spur of the moment to take lunch out to Trey. He’d said he’d be working at shoring up a waterhole today, across the river and a mile or so downstream from the cattle.
She didn’t find him there, but she lingered a moment to look at what he’d been doing. He’d built up the sides of the small pond with rocks and deepened it to hold more water. It looked like a lot of hard, slow work, but it could make a difference during a drought. Another of the never-ending jobs on a place like this. If only Beth could handle her share of the work as well.
She’d learned not to pour water in the stove, but she struggled with managing it, especially for baking. Trey explained that she needed to use hardwood for that, but when it was split and peeled she couldn’t tell hardwood from soft. Since her first batch of bread had turned out light and only slightly burned, she’d gotten brave and tried to make biscuits, only to have them collapse into hard, doughy mounds.
Trey picked one up and pitched it out into the yard, aiming at one of the corral posts. He hit it dead on. The biscuit fell to the ground, unbroken. “They’d make fine ammunition.”
Beth dumped the rest of the biscuits in the pig’s bucket, and dropped the baking sheet on the counter in disgust. “What a waste. I don’t know why they didn’t turn out. I followed Maddy’s recipe.”
“The oven wasn’t hot enough.” And so it went. Her johnnycake came out as soggy as the biscuits were hard. She cooked salt beef without soaking it first and forgot to put salt in the porridge. Her only comfort was that Trey took her mistakes as a joke. At least she hadn’t made the same one twice – yet.
Beth turned Chance around and rode back upstream to the cattle. When she reached the herd, she spotted Trey a short distance away, kneeling, busy with something on the ground. She rode closer and saw that the ‘something’ was a very small calf, which he was deftly skinning. Another calf lay tied on the ground next to him. A few yards off, two crows waited for their chance at the remains.
Beth’s stomach turned over. Surely Trey couldn’t be killing the little animals? They looked newborn. With an effort, she kept her face and voice calm when he looked up. “What are you doing?”
“There were a couple of late calvings overnight. This one was born dead and that one’s mother died. If I tie this hide on the orphan, the other cow might mother it. Works sometimes.” Trey glanced down at his bloody hands. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
He turned back to his work, leaving Beth unsure if he was pleased or annoyed that she’d come out. Fighting her nausea, she watched Trey tie the fresh hide on the living calf, then carry the animal over to a cow standing not far away. He waited for the cow to pick up her own young’s scent, then untied the calf’s legs and set it on its feet. When it touched noses with the cow, she didn’t chase it away.
“Do you think she’ll accept him?”
“We’ll have to wait and see.” Trey washed his hands in the river and returned, wiping them on his pants. “What brings you here?”
Beth reached back and slapped the full saddlebag. “Lunch.”
She relaxed when Trey smiled. He wasn’t annoyed. “Thanks. I was going to head home as soon as I was through here.”
Not sure she could eat after what she’d just seen, Beth dismounted, unsaddled Chance, and pulled out the package of sandwiches. She and Trey sat in a shady spot under a clump of aspens while the cow and calf wandered back to the herd.
Beth scanned the valley for Trey’s horse. “Where’s Cloud?”
Trey pointed toward another stand of aspens about fifty yards upstream. “There’s a patch of grass he likes over there.”
“You don’t hobble him?”
He handed Beth a sandwich and took one for himself, stretched out his long legs, and leaned back on one hand. “He won’t stand for hobbles. He’d break his legs fighting them. Anyway, he’ll come when I call him.”
Beth made herself comfortable beside him. She wanted to know how Trey spent his days. It was pleasant here, with an occasional snatch of birdsong and the muted sound of Chance tearing grass blending with the music of the water. Minutes passed before she felt the need to speak. “How many cattle do you and Logan have?”
“About four hundred between us. As many as we can manage. It’s a good thing he wanted a partner when I came here. I didn’t know squat about raising cattle out in the open like this. I had a lot to learn.”
Beth could certainly sympathize with Trey there. “I suppose you felt a lot like I do these days.”
“I guess so.”
Looking up and down the valley, Beth remembered how Trey had described it in his letter. Bleak and of little interest. She could see now what he meant. Nothing in the landscape commanded attention. A small patch of early wildflowers, the play of light and shadow over the river, the tender blue of the spring sky – all could be easily missed, but Beth noticed them. “I can see why you like it here, Trey. It’s beautiful.”
He smiled. “Just wait. When I first arrived, the thing I liked most about it was the quiet. Then, after a few weeks, I started to hear things I hadn’t noticed before. The same thing will happen to you.”
Beth closed her eyes and listened. She heard the sweet notes of the same thrush that had called earlier, but now she also picked up the faint answering song of its mate some distance away. When she opened her eyes, Trey was watching her.
“See what I mean?”
“Yes, I do.” If she wasn’t careful, the place would work a spell on her the way it had on him. She wasn’t ready for that to happen. When Trey’s gaze met hers, she looked away. “Trey, you’ve been here four years. Why did you decide to write to the agency when you did?”
She saw him pull back into himself, just as she’d expected. “Like I told you, the work was getting to be too much.”
Beth watched him out of the corner of her eye. “With the
money you offered me, you could have hired some help.”
“Yeah, but hands who can cook are hard to find.”
Beth thought of her attempt at pancakes that morning and laughed. “I’d hardly say I could cook yet.”
Trey pulled a piece of dried apple from a shirt pocket and bit it in two. “You’re learning, and anyway, I’m not fussy.”
“You’re lucky.”
“Guess so. Look.” Trey pointed at the orphan calf and its foster mother, standing at the edge of the herd. “She’s letting him feed.”
Beth smiled to herself at the diversion. She hadn’t expected Trey to admit that he was lonely. “So does that mean she’ll accept the calf?”
“No, but it’s a start. I may have to put that hide on him a few times. We’ll see.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“Then he won’t make it, not if she won’t feed and protect him.”
Beth glanced down at the sandwich in her hand. “I’ve never stopped to really think about where meat comes from.” Or where any food came from, for that matter. She didn’t think she’d be able to take it for granted again. “So you just turn Cloud loose and he’ll come to you? That I’d like to see.”
Trey whistled. Cloud appeared from behind his clump of aspens, cantered to Trey and reached for the piece of dried apple he offered.
Beth shook her head at his smug smile. “Bribery!”
With an eager muzzle nudging him, Trey pulled another piece of apple from his pocket. “He’s not stupid. There has to be something in it for him.”
Beth got up and took a couple of cautious steps toward Cloud. This close, the stallion seemed enormous. There wasn’t any excess weight on him, but he looked as different from the mares and geldings she’d always ridden as a grown man did from a seventeen-year-old boy. Cloud’s thick, heavily crested neck and broad chest rippled with muscle under his shining coat. “The stallion at Uncle Robert’s farm was dangerous. I was never allowed anywhere near him.”
To Capture the Sky (Choices of the Heart, book 2) Page 6