by Lisa Norato
It was quiet. She hadn’t seen or heard another vehicle since exiting off the Lincoln Highway. WYO 130 was deserted, a great barren asphalt strip in the midst of the Laramie Plains, surrounded by a rippling sea of green grass, distant hills and oh, yes, the sky.
The sky … the sky … the sky. That great Wyoming sky. To her, it was the most outstanding feature of life in the West. In other parts of the country folks never took more than a passing glance at the sky. Here, it was unavoidable. Here, in the wide open spaces of Wyoming, there always seemed to be more sky than land. It filled the heavens and swallowed the earth, leaving its inhabitants feeling like they were living inside a vast, azure blue bubble.
Inside that bubble, huge rolling clouds—dazzling white with shadowed underbellies—drifted across the plains. Shelby thought she smelled the snow of the distant Medicine Bow Mountain Range, commonly called the “Snowy Range.” The air was pure and glorious, fragrant with a hint of pine and the sage of the plains.
Jorge was in his glory, straining at the leash, a little black powerhouse, zigzagging this way and that. All this wonderful territory to explore and no other canines around he had to share it with.
Shelby was so amused by his enthusiasm, she didn’t heed the moments passing, didn’t realize how much ground they’d covered, until she turned and noticed her automobile was no longer in sight.
And when had the highway turned into a narrow dirt road? The telephone poles had disappeared, and even though the countryside looked the same, Shelby got the eerie feeling something was … different.
Jorge stiffened and snarled, his body tense. The snarl turned into a “woof-woof-woof,” and pretty soon all four paws were bouncing off the ground simultaneously with what Shelby recognized as his protective yipping.
*
Ruckert St. Cloud sat astride his horse Chongo and contemplated the lone figure in the road. A premonition in his gut told him it was her. He’d just been on his way into Laramie City to fetch her from the Union Pacific train station, so he’d hardly expected to find her making her way to the ranch on foot. She was tall for a woman, dressed in tight, blue denim trousers and some sort of bright, multi-colored, suit jacket worn over what looked to be a man’s white dress shirt. Despite her clothes, the sway of hips was feminine, and with no bonnet to cover her head, the morning sun glinted off her short, tousled hair so’s it gleamed the color of golden apricots.
So this was Miss Shelby McCoy, the little range calico his mother had invited to the Flying Eagle to make his life hell for the next three weeks.
There weren’t many things in life Ruckert was scared of, but talking to a beautiful woman ranked right up there with rattlesnakes.
From a distance of not more’n a couple hundred yards away, they plodded towards one another, she walking, he riding, each eyeing the other warily, too fascinated to turn away.
Ruckert settled his weight back in the saddle and Chongo obediently slowed his pace. Ruckert never used the reins to pull at a horse’s mouth; instead, in training horses, he created an environment in which they wanted to learn. And none had learned better than his Chongo hoss. Their relationship was founded on trust, such that they understood each other’s body language. Together, they waited for Ruckert’s mother and brother to catch up in the wagon.
Ruckert felt betrayed by this woman who had given birth to him. His mouth was a sneer beneath the thick black mustache, a mustache he’d grown to hide the slight trembling of his upper lip when he spoke. How could Ma welcome a strange female into their predominantly male household when she knew the way folks reacted to his stuttering?
Some found it funny. They’d start to smile, trying to hold back their laughter, while the effort to speak was the hardest thing in the world for him. Others offered pity. Most figured him for just plain dumb, but Ruckert lacked nothing in the way of intelligence. For some reason doctors were unable to explain—in Ruckert’s experience, this occurred mostly in social situations where he was expected to say certain things at certain times—his talk box refused to cooperate. And in trying to force the words out, he usually ended up blubbering, gasping or choking, making himself look ridiculous and embarrassing those around him. As a result, he avoided such situations and confined himself to silence when he yearned to speak. But in this self-inflicted exile, he was often considered a lone wolf, a snob, rude, even a dunce.
Folks just didn’t savvy the embarrassment and anxiety that went along with being cursed with a stumbling tongue. And that tongue stumbled most in the presence of an attractive female.
His mother’s spring wagon clattered up alongside him, and Ruckert glanced at her to say, “D-on’t expect me at the s-s-supper ta-ble as long as sh-sh-she’s staying at our place. Just leave a p-p-p-plate in the kitchen for me, and I’ll come eat it once I’m sure sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-she’s in b-b-bed for the night.”
Just as he’d expected, Ma balked. “Come now, Ruckert, don’t be that way. Miss McCoy is a fine, decent girl. She won’t care nothing for your stuttering. And what’ll she think if you refuse to eat at the table with her after she’s been charitable enough to offer her services while Cookie’s in Cheyenne visiting his mother? Besides, you’ll starve yourself half to death waiting until bedtime for your supper.”
“Oh, no, he won’t neither, Mother,” Wylie interjected. “Ruckert’s got it all figured out. He’s going to stock the barn with canned tomatoes in case his stomach starts to growl.”
Clearly, Ma did not approve of this plan, and she dismissed both Ruckert and his thirteen-year-old brother in that infuriating way she had of changing the subject when it was not pleasing to her. She directed their attention to the male-clad gal walking down the road, and in so doing, Ruckert knew his ma intended to set a place for him at the table just the same.
“If that’s her,” Rose St. Cloud said, “then she must’ve taken the Cheyenne-Deadwood stage as far as the county road instead of the train into Laramie City like her grandmother wrote us she was going to do. But why would Miss McCoy do such a thing? It’s an awfully long way to the ranch on foot.” She tsk-tsked her disapproval. “Can you imagine, out in all this wind and sun with no covering for her head? Now how do you suppose Nana Tinkler would react to her granddaughter tramping about the countryside dressed like a man? Why, I like her already.”
“Well, Ruckert don’t like her, and if Ruckert don’t like her, then neither do I.”
Rose tsked. “I don’t feel it’s right to judge a person just ‘cause they seem a little different, but if Ruckert has another opinion, he’ll have to speak for himself.”
Ruckert had to admit. Ma had him there.
After closing some distance between them, his mother made another shocking observation. “Oh … oh my glory. That poor child. She’s blind.”
Compassion filled Ruckert to bursting. Small, round, blackened spectacles covered Miss McCoy’s eyes. He could see them plainly now.
“Hey, Ruckert,” Wylie called, “in all your experience, have you ever come across any sort of little black animal to make a yackety-yak-yak noise like that? Why it don’t hardly even stop to take a breath. What d’you reckon it is?”
“D-d-damned if I know.”
“Looks like a tumbleweed with legs,” Wylie declared. “Or one of them furs ladies stick their hands in to keep them warm. Or something the cat coughed up … with a head.”
“We can see that, Wylie,” their mother said. “We’re not the one who’s blind.”
As though to test the point, she smiled in welcome at the girl, reaching up to wave. The girl waved back.
“Nope.” Ma heaved a sigh of relief. “I reckon not.”
When they got to within speaking distance of their visitor, she picked up the black furry animal and clutched it to her bosom. It was then Ruckert recognized it to be some sort of pedigreed dog, but as interesting a creature as it might appear, his attention was drawn to Miss McCoy. Her light reddish-blond hair was silky and windblown and ended with a flip along her jaw line. She removed
the dark spectacles and tucked her hair behind one ear.
She peered up at him with a pair of narrow, mysterious eyes. Eyes the deep, intense blue of the larkspur that dotted the plains. At their corners, Ruckert noticed a few, faint character lines, and from there her cheeks became two creamy planes set in a face that leaned toward the slender side. With those beguiling eyes she assessed him openly, letting him know she was a woman and no schoolgirl.
Ruckert felt his manly parts stir.
Despite his personal circumstances, he’d been raised a gentleman and regarded women as precious things to be cared for and cherished. This one here might present herself in a manner that defied convention by cropping her hair and dressing like some fellow, then having the temerity to paint her lips like a common dance-hall queen and pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary about it, but for a fact, Miss McCoy had to be the most unconventional, fascinatingly beautiful and peculiar woman he’d ever met in twenty-nine years of life.
He tipped his black Stetson to the back of his head so she’d have a full view of his smile. Leaning over the saddle horn with wrists crossed, Ruckert set aside his concerns and greeted, “G’morning, m…a’am.”
For a moment his lips remained frozen on the “m” before he could force them on to the next sound. All the familiar sensations associated with his stuttering arose to torment him—the body tension, accelerated heartbeat, a sense of suffocation in his chest—and he feared he wouldn’t be able to utter another coherent sound. What other men performed as easily as breathing proved a futile struggle for him.
To him it was a thing of terror to behold such beauty and feel himself so inadequate. Rage and shame filled him, along with the realization that no woman would want a man who couldn’t talk straight, and he promised himself that was the last time he’d ever attempt to speak to Miss Shelby McCoy.
“Hi!”
Shelby grinned up at the cowboy with lust and fascination. Wow, who was this guy, smiling down at her with a face handsomer than any she’d seen outside a movie screen? With a thick, black mustache and straight white teeth, he sat loose and limber in the saddle, looking as glorious as something from an old Sam Elliott western.
His long legs suggested exceptional height. Across his broad shoulders he wore an unbuttoned wool vest and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. A black neckerchief sagged around his neck. Buckskin leather gloves covered his hands. His faded jeans were a soft blue, tight around his knees and tucked inside a pair of scarred, heeled boots, dust in their creases, spur chains tight beneath their insteps.
Initially, she’d been taken aback and a little frightened upon seeing a wagon and this mounted man heading towards her. They seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, but then the woman driving the wagon waved, and now this beautiful smile… .
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. His face was burned to a golden bronze right up to the place where the brim of his hat had rested on his brow. Blue-black hair curled around its edges and a five o’clock shadow hugged the hard edge of his jaw. He stared back at her with thickly-lashed, sage green eyes, eyes that were both gentle and strong, honest and fearsome.
His drawl had been devastatingly deep and sinfully rich, even if he had gotten a little choked up. As for Shelby, her heart was beating so fast, she almost forgot to breathe, which caused this sort of suffocation feeling in her chest. It took a moment to find her voice. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you all. My car has a flat.”
“Howdy, Miss McCoy.”
This came from the teenage boy in the wagon and immediately she turned. The boy climbed down, politely removing his hat as he approached. He was lanky and tall, almost as tall as Shelby’s five foot nine, with spindly legs and an angular face. His mink brown hair fell pin straight, rather longish and slicked down the middle in an old-fashioned, geeky sort of way.
“You know my name?”
“We’ve been expecting you.” The woman driver wrapped the lines around the brake handle, then jumped off with an agility Shelby envied, considering the prairie-length skirt she wore. She offered a hand in greeting and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Shelby McCoy. I’m Rose St. Cloud of the Flying Eagle, and these here are two of my boys—Ruckert and Wylie.”
Shelby looked over the group, then burst into laughter as everything finally fell into place. Rose St. Cloud was the woman in partnership with Caitlin and Michael for ownership of the guest ranch. Relieved, she embraced her hostess’s gloved hand. “I’ll bet Caitlin put you all up to this, huh? Michael is such a practical joker, and my sister knows everything there is to know about Western history and costuming. She’s certainly rolled out the ‘welcome wagon,’ hasn’t she?”
“I don’t know who you’re referring to, Miss McCoy,” Rose said, pulling something from the pocket of her skirt, “but I got this letter from your grandmother, and that’s why we’re so surprised to find you making your way to the ranch on foot. We were excepting you to arrive in Laramie City by train.”
Shelby gaped at the folded piece of stationery.
“Train? Huh? Ah, no … my car’s stuck. The arrangement was to meet Cat at the ranch, but I got a flat on the highway back there and… .”
She trailed off, fighting a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something very strange was going on here. First the landscape of the highway had changed beneath her feet, then this trio of characters dressed in nineteenth-century garb appeared, and now they were gawking at her as though they had no idea what she was talking about.
Shelby appealed to her cowboy for assistance, but he pulled down his high-crowned Stetson until its sloping brim shaded his eyes.
So much for the welcoming smile. Ruckert St. Cloud had just shut her out.